Early Modern Times is a blog that will seek to enlighten and entertain you with news, events, and general insight into the inner workings of the Early Modern Studies Program, or to choose an apposite metaphor, the internal mechanism which makes EMSP’s clock tick.
Early Modern Times is written by Dr. Simon Kow, Associate Professor in the Early Modern Studies Program.
Dear readers, Recently, the Guardian Weekly reported on a controversial project to construct houses, shops, a hotel, and conference centre in Cape Town, South Africa--depicted above in a 1726 print. This has been resisted by some Indigenous communities, who regard this capitalist venture as 'history repeating'--displacement by yet another wealthy corporation, as was the case…
Dear readers, The New York Times recently published findings from its Haiti 'ransom' project, about the Caribbean island's indemnity to France from the early 19th to the mid 20th centuries, and which crippled the country's economy. Haiti is currently the poorest nation in the Americas, but the French government has refused to acknowledge its historic…
Dear readers, This recent Guardian article details the growing numbers of converts to Judaism in Nigeria, though these Jews are currently not recognised as such by the state of Israel. It notes the history of accounts comparing the Biblical Hebrews with the Igbo people of what is now Nigeria, including The Interesting Narrative of the…
Dear readers, The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool is currently featuring the story of John Blanke, a royal trumpeter pictured above in a 1511 depiction of a tournament celebrating the birth of a son to King Henry VIII of England. How did a man of African descent come to acquire this position at the royal…
Dear readers, On this Saint George's Day, those in England may want to check out the current exhibition on 'Japan: Courts and Culture' at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace. The website states that the 'exhibition includes rare pieces of porcelain and lacquer, samurai armour, embroidered screens and diplomatic gifts from the reigns of James…
Dear readers, Welcome to the 150th issue of Early Modern Times! Let's celebrate with an armchair trip to Venice. The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich UK has just opened the exhibit 'Canaletto's Venice Revisited', featuring all 24 views of Venice commissioned from the artist Canaletto in the 1730s. They are in the same style and…
Dear readers, In this recent CBC First Person article, Alia Ceniza Rasul writes about her pride in her Tausug heritage. The Tausug ('people of the current') are a predominantly Muslim people living in Sulu, now a province of the Philippines. The Tausug have been branded as 'pirates' for their historical resistance to Spanish colonisers and…
Dear readers, As the residents of Kyiv brace for Russia's invasion of the Ukrainian capital (whose Great Gate is depicted above in a 1651 print by Abraham Evertsz. van Westerveld), let us examine Russian imperial ambitions toward and perceptions of the Ukraine in the early modern period. What were some of the early modern antecedents…
Dear readers, Do pop stars make for good novelists? Select examples from the 1960s to the present are a mixed bag of masterpieces and duds. Let us consider the case of Charles Dibden (1745-1814), dubbed in this recent article 'the first ever pop star'. The article lauds the 'trail of innovation' which he blazed, but…
