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The Center for Early Modern History promotes scholarly inquiry into the interchange of peoples, goods, and ideas that marks the first era of global contacts, ca. 1300-1800. Since its founding, the Center has drawn on the talents of faculty and students from a variety of disciplines, with interests in many parts of the world, for a vibrant program of intellectual exchange.

About Us: History and Mission

The Center for Early Modern History had its origins in the early 1980s when faculty in the History Department at the University of Minnesota began organizing a series of workshops and conferences. From this initiative emerged the first Center in the country to encompass a global and comparative approach to studying the early modern period. The intellectual energy of faculty and graduate students was further strengthened by the wide range of early modern resources available at the University of Minnesota.

CEMH has particularly close ties with the University’s renowned James Ford Bell Library, one of the nation’s largest collections of rare books, maps, and manuscripts from the early modern period. The Center also benefits from collaboration with many other affiliates such as institutions, centers, and departments both at the University and within the greater Twin Cities area.

Thanks to a generous endowment from the Union Pacific Corporation, the Center began hosting activities on a more permanent basis. Over the years, CEMH has hosted visiting scholars from dozens of academic institutions, and has regularly held conferences on a variety of early modern topics. Selected papers from these conferences have been published in the past by Cambridge University Press and currently as part of the series Minnesota Studies in Early Modern History.

The Center has also made funding available to graduate students in early modern history through a variety of short-term fellowships to help defray the costs of travel and duplication during archival research.

As the Center approaches its 25th anniversary, we have embarked on a new campaign to strengthen CEMH’s interdisciplinary facets. While retaining its commitment to early modern history, the Center is placing new emphasis on being a central node for the study of the early modern from multiple perspectives.

To this end, our current Advisory Board includes faculty from departments beyond History, and we are also administrative home to an interdisciplinary graduate minor in Early Modern Studies, which is open to all graduate students at the University of Minnesota.

Our goal to expand outreach requires additional resources. We invite you to contribute to our plans through designated gifts to the University of Minnesota Foundation.

Contact Information

Center for Early Modern History
1030 Heller Hall
271 - 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612.625.6303
Fax: 612.624.9813
Email: cemh@umn.edu

Mail Delivery

1110 Heller Hall
Code: 7062

Staff

Sarah Chambers
Director
612.624.6813
chambers@umn.edu

Edward (Ted) L. Farmer
Director of Publications
612.624.7301
efarmer@umn.edu

Sinem Arcak
Assistant to the DGS
612.625.6303
emsdgs@umn.edu

Sharon Fischlowitz
Events Coordinator
612.625.6303
cemhconf@umn.edu

Jeff Hartman
Administrator
612.626.1491
cemh@umn.edu