This seminar addresses the emergence and recent transformation of the early modern Mediterranean as an historical object. It will offer an overview of the historiography of the early modern Mediterranean from Braudel to his most recent critics, and situate this historiography within the broader field of contemporary scholarship and politics. In particular, it will explore the methodological and epistemological implications of post-colonial critiques of Orientalism and Occidentalism on the one hand and of the ongoing conversations between historians and anthropologists of the Mediterranean on the other. Among topics covered will be the emergence of Europe, borderlands and frontiers, varieties of colonial and territorial states, early modern ethnography and travel writing, kinship, merchant "nations" and diasporas, and cultural interaction between the Ottoman Empire and its neighbours. Students will be expected to write weekly response papers, a book review, an annotated bibliography, and a final paper.