Modern Europe (1453-1914)

Rather than marching through five centuries chronologically, this course interrogates how Europe became "modern" — treating Renaissance, Reformation, Absolutism, and Enlightenment less as settled chapters than as contested historiographical categories you learn to read against the grain. You'll work through dense theoretical texts (Blumenberg, Skinner, Bayly), write reports, and present seminar-style on themes ranging from the Thirty Years' War to Bismarck's Reich. It's a writing- and reading-heavy upper-level seminar that pairs well with political thought and intellectual history courses, useful preparation for thesis work where you need to engage with secondary literature rather than just summarize it.