The Spirit in Motion: Desire in Early Modern Europe

Catalog description

How did people experience and express desire -- for objects, for ideas, or for each other -- in the early modern period? From lusting after a beautiful woman to frantically seeking gold in the farthest corners of the earth, early modern individuals and societies were shaped by the many things they craved. This course will use desire as a lens to better understand its impacts on daily life and culture, and to explore what it meant to want in early modern Europe.