Course Number:

Credit Hours:

4

Course Title:

Belief in Magic and Science in Europe

Course Description:

Explores some of the main ways of ordering ideas in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. The cosmos of early modern people was very different from the modern Western world-view. Religion, magic, and science were not competing and clearly delineated systems. Instead, they were often practiced simultaneously. Studies how early modern people understood their world, and the ways in which the modern distinctions between these belief systems arose. Topics include social domination, changes in religious structures, witchcraft, the roles of women, and the development of modernity.