The Group for Early Modern Studies
The University of Arizona

 
Membership
Lecture Series
Awards & Travel Grants
Graduate Certificate Research & Affiliations

 

Unique in the nation, the interdisciplinary Group for Early Modern Studies (GEMS) brings together University of Arizona faculty, librarians, and graduate students who pursue research in the early modern period (roughly 1400-1800). GEMS members come from seventeen departments in five colleges across campus, from art, history, literature, music, science, and theater. GEMS offers opportunities for professional development, exposure to new developments in research, invigorating academic exchange, and membership in a community of scholars. GEMS offers an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Early Modern Studies and supports faculty and graduate student research in the period through travel grants, awards, an annual lecture series, innovative graduate courses, and opportunities for informal exchange. GEMS belongs to the Consortium of the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, giving GEMS members privileges at both the Newberry Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library. (See below for information about these archives as well as other national and local resources for early modern scholars.) To become a member of GEMS, contact the Director, Kari Boyd McBride.

The GEMS Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate Program is open to students who have been accepted into any University of Arizona graduate program as well as to individuals holding graduate degrees (such as public school teachers) who wish to pursue interdisciplinary study in the early modern period. GEMS Certificate students are uniformly enthusiastic about the opportunity they have to pursue such research and to claim exertise in more than a single field. They find that their scholarship and teaching are inevitably enhanced and altered through study outisde their home disciplines and that their work becomes truly interdisciplinary in the process. On a more practical note, the ability to do interdisciplinary work is increasingly expected of graduates in all fields. In a competitive job market, the GEMS Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Early Modern Studies can set candidates apart from the mass of applicants seeking a shrinking number of jobs.

GEMS is supported by the Departments and Schools of Architecture, Art History, Atmospheric Sciences, English, History, Judaic Studies, Music, Spanish and Portuguese, Theatre, and Women's Studies; by the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies, UAMARRC (the University of Arizona Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Committee), and the Alliance Française of Tucson; by Dean Charles Tatum of the College of Humanities, Dean Ed Donnerstein of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Dean Maurice Sevigny of the College of Fine Arts; and by the Graduate College and the Learning Technologies Center.