HSY3025 - Beyond Machiavelli: Crisis and Renewal in Early Modern Italy

Leader: Carolyn James

Offered

Clayton First semester 2007 (Day)

Synopsis

As for HSY2025

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

1. Engage in critical discussion about the most important social, cultural and religious changes which occurred in Italy during the period.
2. Understand the various political systems in Italy in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century.
3. Identify different genres of texts circulating in the period.
4. Engage in critical discussion of texts in relation to the urban context of early modern Italy and to speculate about the relationship between particular political systems and cultural production.
5. Analyse the processes which underpinned the construction of particular texts.
6. Suggest ways in which literary texts and works of art can be used as historical evidence.
7. Formulate and develop an independent research project focused on the critical analysis of a relevant primary text (either in Italian or English translation).

Assessment

Individual or group oral presentation (equivalent to 1,000 words): 15%
Research essay (2,500 words): 50%
Exam (1 hour, equivalent to 1,000 words): 35%
Students who take the unit at level 3 will be expected to formulate their own research topics and to engage critically with several original texts (either in Italian or an English translation).

Prerequisites

A first year sequence in history (or with permission) or first year Italian

Prohibitions

HSY2025