Venice and the Making of the Modern World

June 20, 2009

Please note: This seminar has sold out. Although this seminar is sold out, we urge you to sign up for the waiting list. If there is a significant demand, we will repeat the seminar in the future and you will have the opportunity to register first. To be placed on a waiting list for a sold out seminar, please send an email with your name(s), address, and daytime phone number to human@unc.edu or contact us by phone at (919) 962-1544.

Saint Mark's Basilica

For centuries, Venice dominated the spice trade between East and West, creating and preserving a republican form of government. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, with its thriving printing press, Venice became a major center of intellectual and artistic activity. In a series of lectures, Duke University historian John Jeffries Martin explores the originality of Venice as a generator of a unique form of capitalism and republicanism. We will also examine Venice’s contributions to fields as diverse as anatomy, architecture, and astronomy. As Martin argues, it is possible to see modernity itself take shape on this small island in the Adriatic ­-- a modernity with which we are still grappling several hundred years later.

Topics

The Merchants of Venice in the Making of a Capitalist Republic
 
Palladio’s House and Vesalius’s Body: Modern Structures of Identity

Film Viewing: Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
 
Galileo’s Starry Messenger and the Birth of Modern Astronomy

Time and Cost

9:15 a.m. – 4:15 p.m., Saturday, June 20, 2009.  The tuition is $120 ($105 by May 27). The optional lunch is $15. Tuition for teachers is $60 ($52.50 by May 27). 10 contact hours for 1 unit of renewal credit.

For information about lodging click here.

Co-Sponsored by the General Alumni Association.
For information about GAA discounts and other scholarships available to Humanities Program participants, click here.

Register for this seminar.