This course takes a sociological and comparative historiographical approach to persecutions of religious minorities (Jews, Muslims, and so-called heretics) a in the emergence of modern Western nation-states. Beginning with the early Crusades and concluding with the Wars of Religion and the Inquisition, students will: study how anti-minority persecution helped lay the foundations of the Medieval kingdoms of Sicily, England and France ; reconstruct the dynamic of mass expulsions and mass murder in German cites during the Bubonic Plague; and investigate the politics of ghettoization of Jews and Muslims in early modern Italy, among other topics. In addition to course readings, class presentations, and general discussion, seminar participants will devote a research paper to a case study on the relationship between historic religious persecution and political institutions, identity, and social movements.
