The Early Modern Center
Department of English, UCSB
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English Department


Girl Aged 4   —Oliver, Isaac 
T

he Early Modern Center at UCSB mobilizes the English department's strength in sixteenth- through eighteenth-century studies, which is maintained by eleven faculty in the field. The Center provides a specially-constructed space (consisting of a seminar area, resource library, and networked computers) that promotes collaborative research and teaching. State-of-the-art computing equipment is supported by the latest databases in the field, including the Early English Books Online (EEBO), consisting of all extant books published in England from 1475-1700, and the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), 1701-1800. The Center creates courses around innovative annual themes; supervises the department's undergraduate specialization in Early Modern Studies; organizes colloquia and conferences; produces an online gallery of images and archive of internet resources; maintains a bookshelf of rare books in its library and critical reviews on its website; and offers a graduate student assistantship each year.

The EMC is proud to announce that it has won a 2nd National Endowment for the Humanities Grant of $350,000 for 2008-2010 to expand its online English Broadside Ballads Archive to include the Roxburghe Ballads held by the British Library. EBBA is currently nearing completion of its digitization of the Pepys Ballads held by Magdalene College, Cambridge, which was also funded by an NEH grant (for 2006-2008). Congratulations ballad team! For the award proposals, see NEH1: Reference Materials Grant Proposal and NEH2: Collections and Resources Grant Proposal.

2007-2008 Annual Theme:
Science and Technology

The 2007-2008 EMC Theme, "Science & Technology," will provide a forum to explore these two terms as interrelated and mutually constitutive fields of inquiry in the early modern period. We conceive of science and technology as a broad range of social and cultural practices, cultural and historical formations, and epistemological perspectives. Fields of study that might fall under such a broad definition of science and technology include: horticulture, botany, engineering, automata, stage machinery, navigation, cartography, anatomy, medicine, alchemy, the occult, taxonomy, archiving, printing, and information science. Across these and other fields, we want to ask questions such as: How and why were systems of knowledge created and proliferated? What particular scientific developments participated in the exploration of the body, the mind, time, and space? How were individuals, communities, and nations impacted by new systems of knowledge, particular objects or hardware, or advanced procedures to accomplish tasks?

Each year the Early Modern Center and its affiliates organize a number of exciting courses and events around the yearly theme. Several early modern graduate and undergraduate courses will be in dialogue with the year’s theme. The EMC will host a Winter conference on "Science & Technology, 1500-1800" as well a Spring undergraduate conference showcasing students’ work from participating courses throughout the year.

Other than in previous years, this year's Fall Colloquium will be on a theme separate from the annual theme, and will instead commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade.

EMC Gallery

The Early Modern Center Gallery is a featured resource of the center, containing reproductions of many important period images in thumbnail, browser, and large high-quality sizes. A random image from the Gallery is sampled below.

Arden of Faversham 1592 Frontispiece.  ,  1592.
The Early Modern Center
University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of English, South Hall 2510
Director: Patricia Fumerton ~ Graduate Fellow: Sören Hammerschmidt
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