Brian Sandberg

Associate Professor

Fields of Study: Early Modern Europe, Mediterranean World, Religion, Violence

E-mail: bsandberg@niu.edu
Office: Zulauf 706
Phone: 815-753-0131 

Education: Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001

Current Research: My current research focuses on intersections of religion, violence, and political culture in early modern history, especially during the European Wars of Religion. My first book, Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France, analyzes provincial nobles’ orchestration of civil warfare in southern France based on extensive manuscript research in French archives. I served as a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Medici Archive Project, and held a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute. I have published several articles on religious violence, gender, and noble culture during the French Wars of Religion, and am currently revising a monograph entitled, Heroic Souls: French Nobles and Religious Conflict after the Edict of Nantes, 1598-1629.  I have also begun researching a new book project on A Virile Courage: Gender and Violence in the French Wars of Religion 1562-1629.

Major/Recent Publications:

• Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
• "'The Magazine of All Their Pillaging': Armies as Sites of Second-Hand Exchanges during the French Wars of Religion," in Alternative Exchanges: Second-Hand Circulations From the Sixteenth Century To The Present, ed.  Laurence Fontaine (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), 76-96
• "'To Deliver a Greatly Persecuted Church': Resituating the Edict of Nantes Within the History of Laïcite," Storica 38 (2007): 33-64
• "Beyond Encounters: Religion, Ethnicity, and Violence in the Early Modern Atlantic World, 1450-1700,” Journal of World History 17 (March 2006): 1-25.
• "Generous Amazons Came to the Breach’: Besieged Women in the French Wars of Religion,” Gender and History 16 (November 2004): 654-688.
• “The Infection of Heresy: Religious Conquest and Confessional Violence in Early Modern France,” in (Re)Constructing Cultures of Violence and Peace, ed. Richard Jackson (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), 17-30.
• “Financing the Counterreformation: Noble Credit and Construction Projects in Southern France during the Early Seventeenth Century,” in L'edilizia prima della rivoluzione industriale secc. XIII-XVIII: Atti della "Trentaseiesima Settimana di studi", 26-30 aprile 2004, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Prato: Le Monnier, 2004).
• “‘The Furious Persecutions that God’s Churches Suffer in This Region’: Religious Violence and Coercion in Early Seventeenth-Century France,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History 29 (2003): 42-52.

Teaching Interests: My teaching interests revolve around issues of violence, religion, gender, and culture in early modern European and Mediterranean societies. I teach a range of courses on Renaissance humanism, Reformation movements, European Wars of Religion, European state development, and early modern cultural history. Much of my teaching relates directly to my research on religious violence, gender, and noble culture in early modern France and Tuscany. I am also interested in the comparative thematic study of religious violence, civil conflict, state development, Mediterranean history, and globalization. I previously taught European and global history at Simpson College and Millikin University.

Courses Taught:

• HIST 111 Western Civilization, 1500-1815
• HIST 311 Early Modern France, 1500-1789
• HIST 390 Film and History: War in Film
• HIST 414 European Wars of Religion, 1520-1660
• HIST 420 The Renaissance
• HIST 421 The Catholic and Protestant Reformations
• HIST 422 Early Modern Europe
• HIST 423 French Revolution and Napoleon
• HIST 458 Mediterranean World, 1450-1750
• HIST 495 Introduction to Historical Research
• HIST 640 Reading Seminar on Religion in Early Modern History
• HIST 640 Reading Seminar on Religious Violence in Comparative Perspective
• HIST 740 Research Seminar on Early Globalization

Interdisciplinary Affiliations:

• Women’s Studies Program

Current Graduate Advisees:

• Greg Bereiter, Early Modern France (Ph.D. candidate)
• Bob Fulton, Early Modern France (Ph.D. candidate)
• Aaron Koykkari, European History (M.A. candidate)
• Nick Stefanski, European History (M.A. candidate)

Former Graduate Advisees:

• Bethany Aidroos, European History (M.A. in History)

Link to CV | Link to personal webpage