TOPICS in MICROHISTORY

In the 1970s and 1980s a group of young Italian historians transformed the methods of historical inquiry and narrative. This class explores the origins, the diffusion, as well as the debate around Italian Microhistory across Europe and the United States. In particular, we will focus on “cultural” and “social” Microhistory and its evolution in Italy, France, and the US. We will read masterpieces such as Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms, as well as Nathalie Zemon Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerrre. Also, we will analyze the current application of microhistorical methods to contemporary global history and the genre of biography. Topics include pre-modern popular culture and literacy, minority and marginality, the Inquisition, individual and collective identities, and the relation between the pre-modern Mediterranean, Europe and the world. In Italian.