Prof. Michael North from the University of Greifswald, Germany, will be joining our department for a year of research and teaching.
Update 10/12/10: Prof. North’s UCSB email is: mnorth@history.ucsb.edu.
Professor North, whose home institution is the University of Greifswald in Germany, is a distinguished historian of early modern and modern Europe. His research and teaching interests are quite broad, and include the Holy Roman Empire, the growth of consumer culture in early modern Europe, the development of German nationalism, and the conceptualization of the Baltic region as a borderland.
Selected Publications
- Art and Commerce in the Dutch Golden Age. New Haven-London (Yale University Press) 1997.
- From the North Sea to the Baltic: Essays in Commercial, Monetary and Agricultural History, 1500-1800. Aldershot (Ashgate) 1996.
- Art Markets in Europe, 1400-1800. Aldershot (Ashgate) 1998 (ed. together
with David Ormrod).
- Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Ein Jahrtausend im Überblick. München (C.H. Beck) 2000 (ed.) (2nd edition, Munich 2005).
- Material Delight and the Joy of Living: Cultural Consumption in Germany in the Age of Enlightenment. Aldershot (Ashgate Publishing Limited) 2008.
Fall 2010 Courses
Professor North will offer several courses while he is here, including the following in Fall quarter:
Hist 102MN: The Holy Roman Empire (1495-1806)
TR 11:00-12:15 HSSB 4041
This lecture class will provide a broad outline of the Holy Roman Empire that dominated central European history from the late middle ages up to the eighteenth century. It will acquaint students with recent research on the federal development in German history and give an alternative view to the traditional concept of a German “special path (Sonderweg) from Bismarck to Hitler.”
Literature:
Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire 1495-1806 (Studies in European History), New York 1999;
T. C. W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660-1789, Oxford 2002;
Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2009.
Hist 201E: Advanced Historical Literature: Europe/Cultural History of Eighteenth-Century Germany
W 10:00-12:50 HSSB 4041
The eighteenth century has generally been considered the age of Enlightenment. According to this view, the inroads that reason made into the various areas of life and, with this, the advancement of education and scholarship in many European countries made the epoch what it was. Our reading seminar puts the focus on eighteenth-century German culture and broadens the traditional view by including representation, luxury, fashion and sociability as well as the new markets for cultural consumption (art, books, music, theater etc.).
Literature:
James van Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe, Cambridge 2001;
Michael North, Material Delight and the Joy of Living: Cultural Consumption in Germany in the Age of Enlightenment, Aldershot 2008;
T. C. W. Blanning,, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660, Cambridge 2003.
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The link at bottom is an English-language press release about Prof. North’s research; you can also visit his German-language faculty homepage, which has a summary in English at the bottom.
hm 1/16/10, 9/3/10, 9/6, 10/12