Pirates, Captives, and Renegades: Encounters in the Early Modern Mediterranean World

In this course, we will study how mobile subjects, such as (barbary) pirates, slaves, captives, renegades, merchants, and dragomans shaped the history of the early modern Mediterranean. By studying a range of primary sources, including official documents, chronicles, travel accounts, autobiographical texts, objects, and visual materials, we will analyze how people living on the Mediterranean's European, Asian, and African littorals experienced and influenced interactions between regional powers, such as the Italian city states, Spain, Portugal, France, Morocco, and the Ottoman Empire. In order to analyze these accounts, we will employ various historical methods and evaluate what is at stake in understanding cross-cultural/religious encounters and exchanges in the Mediterranean world during the early modern period.