Brian Sandberg

Current Research

My research focuses on religion, violence and political culture in Early Modern Europe and the Mediterranean World. I have worked extensively on the French Wars of Religion (1559-1629) and the broader European Wars of Religion (1520s-1640s). I have authored a monograph entitled Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). I have held fellowships from the Institut d'Etudes Avancées (IMéRA) de l'Université d'Aix-Marseille, the Institut d'Études Avancées de Paris, the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Institute for Research in the Humanities (University of Wisconsin-Madison), the National Endowment for the Humanities (at the Medici Archive Project) and the European University Institute. I have published an interpretive essay War and Conflict in the Early Modern World, 1500-1700 (Polity Press, 2016) and a collective volume The Grand Ducal Medici and their Archive (1537-1743), edited by Alessio Assonitis and Brian Sandberg (Brepols, 2016). I am currently working on several research projects, including a monograph on A Virile Courage: Gender and Violence in the French Wars of Religion 1562-1629 and a study of Crusading Culture and Informal Empire in the Mediterranean World.

Publications

Major

• War and Conflict in the Early Modern World, 1500-1700 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016)
• The Grand Ducal Medici and their Archive (1537-1743), edited by Alessio Assonitis and Brian Sandberg (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016)
• Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflict in Early Modern France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) [paperback edition, 2017]

Recent

• "'Moors Must Not be Taken for Black': Race and Cultural Translation across the Early Modern French Mediterranean," Mediterranean Studies 29, no. 2 (2021): 182–212
• "'Avarice Never Made Him Unsheathe a Mercenary Sword': Military Contractors in the French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629," in Die Kapitalisierung des Krieges: Kriegsunternehmer in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. M. Meinhardt and Markus Meumann (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2021), 85-104
• "Ravages and Depredations: Raiding War and Globalization in the Early Modern World," in A Global History of Early Modern Violence, ed. Erica Charters, Marie Houllemare and Peter H. Wilson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 88-102
• "Digital Renaissance Studies: Student Research via the Medici Archive Project's Online Platform," Sixteenth Century Journal 51, no. S1 (2020)
• "Reflecting on the European Wars of Religion in an Age of Religious Violence," Sixteenth Century Journal 50: 1 (Spring 2019): 176-182
• "Guerre et Religion," in Mondes en Guerre, ed. Hervé Drévillon (Paris: Belin, 2019)
• "Peace, War and Gender," in Cultural History of Peace: The Renaissance, ed. Isabella Lazzarini (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 49-65
• "'Mes hydres et monstres cruels rendront hommage'. L'imaginaire de la domination mondiale et le discours de l'empire à l'aube de l'empire français, c. 1600," in La domination comme expérience européenne et américaine (XVIe – XVIIe siècles), David Chaunu and Sévérin Duc (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2019), 35-50
• "'The Enterprises and Surprises that They Would Like to Perform': Fear, Urban Identities and Siege Culture during the French Wars of Religion," in The World of the Siege: Representations of Early Modern Positional Warfare, Anke Fischer-Kattner and Jamel Ostwald (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 265-287

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 societies, 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, Italy and the Mediterranean. 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 110 History of the Western World I
• HIST 311 Early Modern France, 1500-1789
• HIST 384 History of War since 1500
• HIST 390 Film and History: War in Film
• HIST 399 Honors Seminar on Civil Conflict
• HIST 399 Honors Seminar on Montaigne and the Wars of Religion
• 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 610 Reading Seminar on Religion in Early Modern History
• HIST 610 Reading Seminar on Religious Violence in Comparative Perspective
• HIST 610 Reading Seminar on European Wars of Religion, 1560s-1640s
• HIST 710 Research Seminar on Civil Conflict
• HIST 710 Research Seminar on Early Globalization
• HIST 710 Research Seminar on Gender and Violence
• HIST 710 Research Seminar on Religious Politics and Sectarian Violence

Interdisciplinary Affiliations

• Women's Studies Program

Honors Faculty Fellow (2021-2022 and 2023-2024)

As an Honors Faculty Fellow, Professor Sandberg taught a seminar on Communal Strife: Civil Wars in a Comparative Perspective in fall 2021 in the University Honors Program. The Honors Faculty Fellowship program identifies faculty eager to teach innovative, exciting seminars of interest to highly motivated students from across the university.

As an Honors Faculty Fellow, Professor Sandberg has taught Honors seminars on Montaigne and the Wars of Religion (spring 2024) and Communal Strife: Civil Wars in a Comparative Perspective (fall 2021) in the University Honors Program. The Honors Faculty Fellowship program identifies faculty eager to teach innovative, exciting seminars of interest to highly motivated students from across the university.