Early Modern Studies brings together some of Cornell’s foremost scholars working on a generalized crisis of European civilization that arose in a long historical period (1550-1700) with particular repercussions in Spain, France and Italy. Working across cultures and disciplines our faculty analyzes the various responses—political, social, economic and aesthetic—that attempted to deal with this crisis. The Early Modern period, as studied in our department, is seen to usher in new ways of configuring the place of the human subject in a radically changing symbolic system—a system that eventuates in reformulating those parameters of subjectivity that we now define as our own.
Related people
Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Romance Studies
Professor of French
Professor of Spanish and Medieval Studies