Jennifer McNabb

Consider the influence of Christianity as it became the dominant religion of Europe and why many sexual taboos can be traced back to "Original Sin" as told in the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

Continue exploring daily life during the Renaissance by turning to issues of personal crisis - and their consequences. In studying crime, deviance, and Renaissance attitudes toward honor and shame, you'll discover how early modern communities and authorities sought to order the world and project their morality.

Dig into issues of status and gender as you consider forbidden liaisons and sexual violence. Look at divides of class, gender, and religion and consider how power dynamics complicated everything.

How did Portugal and Spain set out to build overseas empires? Examine the first round of European expansion in the Americas and the Indian Ocean basin in the broader contexts of the Renaissance. Along the way, follow the journeys and discoveries of explorers like Christopher Columbus and Francisco Pizarro.

Learn how Renaissance architects and city planners - including Donato Bramante, Sebastian Serlio, and Andrea Palladio - imbued sculpture and architecture with tremendous ideological and practical power. Then, discover how Renaissance musicians helped move music out of the religious sphere and into the princely courts.

Witness a number of factors you've examined in other lectures collide in a fascinating (if also, destructive and costly) way during the Dutch Revolt. You'll also see a glimmer of the new demands of early modern warfare and the role of print in presenting a platform for action.

Return to the critical question that started this entire course: Have we reached the end of the Renaissance? Professor McNabb uses this concluding lecture to reflect on the meaning of the Renaissance for its contemporaries, for subsequent historians like Jacob Burckhardt, and for us in the 21st century.

Take a closer look at the ways in which European political authorities dealt with matters of faith in their drive to enhance authority. You'll learn about English theologian John Wyclif's challenges to traditional Christian authority, the persecution of European Jews, and the birth of the Inquisition.

In the first of several lectures on the interaction among the states of early modern Europe, learn how diplomacy operated in a Europe increasingly characterized by religious dissention and violence. Central to this subject is the important role of permanent ambassadors and other diplomatic figures.

Marriage during the Renaissance was a major component of the "good life" during the period. It was also a complicated affair shaped by the intersection of private desires with more practical considerations. Delve into the ways Renaissance societies constructed marriage, and how marriage customs differed depending on geographic location.