Christian Albrechts Universität zu Kiel – Englisches Seminar Minting, Printing, Counterfeiting – Cultural Technologies of the Renaissance WS 2016, Wed 4 – 6 pm, Room LS6-R.22/23 Kathrin Bethke Minting, Printing, Counterfeiting – Cultural Technologies of the Renaissance Course Description The period of the Renaissance in England is characterized by massive economic and social changes: The development of world trade and the emergence of early capitalism transformed the stratification of English society. This constellation brought to the fore a number of cultural technologies that also had a considerable influence on the literary production of the time, namely practices related to money as a medium of exchange (such as usury, counterfeiting, bills of exchange), practices related to the cultural techniques of printing and writing (such as double- entry bookkeeping and new modes of computation that depended on the written calculus rather than the mechanics of the abacus), and finally practices mediated by the body (such as ‘counterfeiting’ and dissimulating affective states in social situations). These technologies are nothing less than mere practical innovations that come to organize the early modern market economy, they shape social relationships and identities: Shylock’s ‘person’ is famously inseparable from his ‘purse’; similarly practices of itemizing and calculating a person’s qualities frequently determine love relationships in early modern city comedies. In this seminar we are going to read dramatic texts by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries (Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Ford) as well as excerpts from popular treatises on usury, trade, and arithmetic (Thomas Wilson, John Mellis), finally on court culture and the passions (Arthur Warren, Thomas Wright) and discuss how economic and technological developments of this highly prolific epistemological constellation are reflected in the literature and theatrical practice of the time. All class materials are going to be made online; however, students are encouraged to purchase critical editions of The Merchant of Venice (Norton) and Cymbeline (New Cambridge Shakespeare) in advance. Assigments • Each student will be asked to participate in at least one oral presentation of a historical source or research article from the course’s reading list. Ideally these oral presentations will be VERY short (5-10 minutes max.) summaries of a text and should provide questions or interesting discussion points for the respective session. • The formal requirement of this course module is a take-home of 7-8 pages. However, students are encouraged to find their own focus or topic for this paper and will have the opportunity to present and discuss their ideas in the finals session of the seminar. Office Hours and Availability Office Hours: Tue 3-4 pm LS10 R.224 – please sign up via email or message me for an individual appointment: bethke@anglistik.uni-kiel.de.