Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

Description

The Program in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (REMS) encourages students to pursue interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to the study of Europe and its relation with the Americas and Asia in the early modern period. Students focus on the late fourteenth through the late eighteenth centuries—a time marked by scientific and agricultural revolutions, the Reformation, the development of capitalism, and the rise of cultural forms such as the novel, opera, Grub Street journalism and the art market. Concentrators examine the development of new cultural and political forms through the imitation and reworking of those of classical antiquity, the restructuring of patriarchal society, and the emergence of the sovereign nation state. Students take courses in more than a dozen departments affiliated with REMS. 

Student Goals

Students in this concentration will:

• Understand the thought and social practices that distinguish pre-modern from contemporary societies
• Develop an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the West between 1350-1800 CE
• Demonstrate reading knowledge of a non-English language relevant to one’s area of focus
• Complete a senior project in consultation with the concentration’s faculty advisors

Requirements

Click here for a list of the Renaissance and Early Modern Studies concentration requirements. For more information about this concentration, please visit the department's website.

Honors and Capstones

The senior project constitutes the capstone for all concentrators. Examples of possible senior projects are: a senior thesis (roughly equivalent to a senior seminar paper), the staging of an early modern play, the performance of early modern music, or an exhibition. The final project will be developed in consultation with two REMS faculty advisors who work closely with the student. Credit is granted through registration for Independent Study in the department for which the topic of research lies. 

Liberal Learning

This concentration allows you to address the following Liberal Learning goals:

• Enhance your aesthetic sensibility
• Expand your reading skills
• Collaborate fully
• Understand differences among cultures
• Develop a facility with symbolic languages
• Learn what it means to study the past
• Work on your speaking and writing

Download the full statement on Liberal Learning at Brown

Affiliated Departments

• Archaeology
• Classics
• Comparative Literature
• English
• French Studies
• History
• History of Art and Architecture
• Italian Studies
• Music

Advisors

• Evelyn Lincoln
• Maria Sokolova

Graduating Class