Rather than seeing the Mediterranean solely as a physical space, Robert Clines will discuss the Mediterranean as an intellectual space in which historical actors negotiated challenges to traditional notions of religion, politics, and culture, which resulted in an early modern Mediterranean world in crisis: the shifting commercial and geopolitical landscape of the Mediterranean; cross-cultural exchanges and conflicts; reconciling new forms of learning with past traditions in an attempt to unpack the complexities of the present. The talk will cover past projects as well as ongoing and future ones.

Robert Clines is the Jesse Howard Jr./Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellow in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the American Academy in Rome and assistant professor in the History Department at Western Carolina University in North Carolina.

The shoptalk will be held in English.