Blood,Sugar,Sex,Mgc:Trnstn Cptlsm-QHonors Only (HIS 244)

Term: 2025-2026 Academic Year Spring

Faculty

Zachary DowdleShow MyInfo popup for Zachary Dowdle

zachary.dowdle@williamwoods.edu

Schedule

Tue-Thu, 9:25 AM - 10:40 AM (1/12/2026 - 5/1/2026) Location: MAIN KEMP 206

Description

Today, conversations around race and gender typically include the idea that these are socially constructed concepts. This course will explore the construction of these concepts through an examination of the creation of difference in Europe and its colonies during the transition to capitalism the beginning in the 15th century. The title of the class draws on important concepts that relate to the development of race, class, and gender during the early modern period of Europe and the Americans as one cannot separate the institutions of slavery and the multiple sustained attacks on women that take place in the early modern period and culminate with a series of witch hunts both in Europe and in the American colonies period.
It turns out, extreme violence, chattel slavery, and witch hunts facilitated the rise of capitalism in early modern Europe and its American colonies. Aside from the elite learned classes, every day European peasants and artisans maintained a deep belief in magic. Magic