Workshop:

012 The Atlantic World Empires, Slavery, and Early Modern Globalization

 

Prerequisites

High school students are interested in learning about history. This is also an excellent course to prepare for college writing and the kinds of literary analyses performed in college classrooms. 

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Description

Starting in 1492, an incredible process was set into motion. That year marked the beginning of the invasion of European empires into the Americas—a region teeming with Native Americans that was previously unknown to Europeans. These events forever changed the world. This course investigates the people, events, empires, and processes that were part of this coming together of four continents in the Atlantic world: Europe, North America, South America, and Africa. Between 1492 and 1800, the modern west was born in these formative years. Trade, commerce, and European expansion, yes, but usually built on the backs of enslaved Africans and Indians and on the actual land that Natives formerly possessed. Therefore, this course considers not just the events and peoples themselves, but also the meaning of these events, and their legacies over time, as understood by the various groups involved (as demonstrated by the later independence movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, the recent calls for reparations, and the ways that racism and economic inequities continue into the present).

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Sample Research Topics

• The Roots and Representations of the Spanish Racialized Thinking from the 1500s to 1600s

• The influence of Portuguese slavery on itself and its colonies

• A Study of how Tibetan Culture and Tibetan Architecture are Interconnected

• PAWNSHIP, COMMERCIALIZATION, AND SLAVERY IN WEST AFRICA

• Creolization and Creole People in Early Modern Caribbean Colonial Societies

• The role that religion played during King Philip’s war

• Three Effects of Single-Whip Reformation in 17th Century China

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Past Student Research Projects