HIST 6195 - Identity Politics in the Ibero-Atlantic

(crosslisted) JWST 6195

Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Co-meets with HIST 4195/JWST 4195.

M. Juni.

This seminar explores the politics of identity-making by analyzing the social, cultural, and political developments that shaped the Ibero-Atlantic. Our primary focus will be on the interplay between pre-formed identities circulating in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and the construction of a politics of empire that engendered new forms of identity across Spanish and Portuguese realms from the fifteenth century onward. Weekly readings and discussions will draw on recent scholarly debates on the interplay of race, ethnicity, slavery, class, gender, sexuality, religion, law and cultural performance, to trace how political institutions and individuals confronted these layers of a complex and multi-faceted social landscape. And we will reflect on how the identity politics developed by these historical actors gave shape to the early modern Atlantic World and have had long-lasting reverberations into the era of the modern nations state.