LHIST6218 Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Early Modern World Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course covers the experience of cross-cultural encounters in the early modern period, and the complex ways that cultural and racial differences were negotiated. 

The course explores the Spanish encounters with the Mexíca and the Maya: the motivations of the conquistadors, native American accounts, and the efforts of missionaries, the English in North America, travel writing about the ‘Orient’, and the attempts to trade, convert, and colonise in Asia. 

The course explores the challenges of using historical evidence – e.g. the slippery nature of the texts, the use of rhetoric, contradictory narratives, and unreliable narration, and encourages students to recognize the importance of human misunderstanding, limiting beliefs, and fear in the shaping of world events.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures/seminars 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR 

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

OR

Directed study 

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

Summative Assessments

In the written coursework students will assemble data and analyse it using understanding of the societal and cultural context. In the exam, students will answer questions utilising their understanding of the societal and cultural context.

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Bentley, J.H. (1993) Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in PreModern Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• Clendinnen, I. (1993) Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty: Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico. In S. Greenblatt ed. New World Encounters. Berkeley: University of California Press. 
• Matar Nabil. (1998) Islam in Britain, 1558-1685. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Parker, C.H. (2010) Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• The conquest of the Aztecs 
• Missionaries and Conversion in South America 
• English Report of Early Modern America 
• Frontier Encounters, Native Peoples, and Captivity Narratives 
• Early modern travel writing and the “orient”
• The Jesuit missions to Japan 
• Islam and the Europeans