Topics in the French Middle Ages and Renaissance: Montaigne's Cannibals

This course explores the first century of encounters between France and the Americas. Taking Montaigne's landmark essay "On Cannibals" as our guide, we weigh the devastating impact of European conquest on indigenous American peoples and cultures; we consider how the apparent "discovery" of a "new world" shook the foundations of European knowledge; and we ask what new ethical demands and political possibilities emerge as the legacy of this encounter. We read early modern travel narratives and political philosophy alongside contemporary decolonial theory, and we examine the afterlife Montaigne's "cannibals" in works by Shakespeare and Césaire.