history 383 | spring 2018

Prof. Chad Black

Email: cblack6-at-utk.edu

Phone: 974-9871

Office: 2627 Dunford Hall, 6th Floor

Office Hours: Tuesday, 4:00-5:00, Wednesday, 3:00-4:00

The Spanish Inquisition lives on in the popular imagination more than five hundred years after it was established in 1478. Monty Python taught us no one expected it. Mel Brooks turned it into a song. This dark humor worked to de-fang an institution associated with the worst impulses of religious intolerance and persecution. This course will look at the long history of the Spanish Inquisition on the Iberian peninsula and in the Americas to go beyond secret trails, torture, and autos-da-fe to understand why the Inquisition was established, its institutional role was in Spanish rule, and its legacies for the modern world.

required readings

The following books are required for this class:

• John. F. Chuchiak IV, ed. and trans. The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536-1820: A Documentary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

• Lu Ann Homza, ed. and trans. The Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources. New York: Hackett Publishing, 2006.

• Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. 4th Ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.

• James A. Wadsworth. Agents of Orthodoxy: Honor, Status, and the Inquisition in Colonial Pernambuco, Brazil. Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.

policies

Qualified students with disabilities needing appropriate academic adjustments should contact me as soon as possible to ensure that your needs are met in a timely manner with appropriate documentation.

Attendance: Attendance at all class sessions is mandatory. If you will not be able to attend class, please contact me ahead of time.

Deadlines: Assignments must be turned to the instructor no later than the end of class on the day they are due, or at some other specified time established by the professor. Late papers will not be accepted for any reason without prior arrangement. This includes technology problems.

Cell Phones and Laptops: Please silence our cell phones prior to class. Please do not text during class. Laptops are allowed only for tasks related to this class. Distracting use of technology (social media, surfing, etc.) causes problems not only for your own learning, but for those around you. Research shows that analog notetaking improves learning. Consider having paper with you. Based on the prevailing literature, hand note-taking– both while reading and in class– leads to substantially better educational outcomes. You are not required to have a laptop in class, so feel free to leave it at home. If, however, you have compelling reasons to use your laptop for notetaking, I won’t stop you from doing so.

Office Hours: Students are strongly encouraged to speak with me outside of class. The advantages of talking with me include: extra help on an assignment or preparation for an exam; clarification of materials covered in lecture, discussion of my comments on your work; discussion of this or related courses. I am available during office hours on a first-come, first-served basis; if you cannot come by during office hours, please contact me via email or phone and I will be happy to set up an appointment with you.

Changes: I reserve the write to change this syllabus as the semester progresses. This is not a contract, but rather a document to guide expectations and clearly communicate weekly assignments. Please bring the syllabus with you to our class meetings. Or, keep up with it on the course website.