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Home > Graduate Studies > Areas of Graduate Study : Early Modern European History

Early Modern European History

David Norton: The University of Minnesota possesses the rare combination of top-ranked faculty members, superior research facilities, and a cadre of supportive and field-defining graduate students. Minnesota provides a challenging yet non-combative intellectual environment. Remarkable faculty members drew me to the University of Minnesota, but the level of support from my colleagues convinced me to stay. For me, the University of Minnesota provides an ivy-league education without the ivy-league stress.

For this era in the history of western and central Europe, the focus used to be on the dawn of modernity.  The imprecise term "Early Modern" conveys that the focus has shifted to institutions, behaviors, and patterns of thought that persist from the time of the Black Death to the era of the French and Industrial Revolutions, and cannot clearly be categorized as medieval or modern. Seminars offered by faculty in this field are often comparative, or emphasize themes common to different centuries and countries.

Participating Faculty

  • Anna Clark is a historian of Britain with interests in gender, sexuality, and labor. She wrote a prize-winning book on gender relations in British working-class history.
  • Carla Rahn Phillips' work has centered on Spanish economic and social history, but she is also interested in the comparative history of the early modern world. She has published award-winning books (with William D, Phillips) on Spanish shipbuilding and on the Spanish wool industry from the fifteenth into the nineteenth centuries.
  • William D. Phillips works in both the medieval and early modern periods, Spain in particular. He has also published books on Christopher Columbus (with Carla Rahn Phillips) and the history of slavery.
  • J. B. Shank is a historian of early modern France with interests especially in the history of science and of political thought.
  • James Tracy began his career as an intellectual historian and published major works on Erasmus. More recently, he has written on the finances and politics of the Hapsburg Netherlands.

Graduate Features

Graduate Studies
Rachel Ayers
1130 Heller Hall
271 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Phone: 612-624-5840
Email: histdgs@umn.edu

  • 'Best Dissertation' Arts and Humanities

    Congratulations to Nicole Phelps for winning this year's 'Best Dissertation" Award in the Arts and Humanities for her dissertation, "Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the New Liberal Order: US-Habsburg Relations and the Transformation of International Politics, 1880-1924."

    Nicole will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and a special certificate. She will also be honored during a luncheon and ceremony at the Campus Club in early June.

     May 14th, 2008

  • 2007-08 Fulbright Scholarships

    Tovah Bender (Italy), Aeleah Soine (Germany), and Elizabeth Swedo (Iceland) were awarded Fulbright scholarships to support their dissertation research abroad during this academic year. Congratulations!

    To read more, visit the Graduate School Announcement.

     January 25th, 2008

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