One of the modules I am teaching for finalists is quite a challenge from the point of view of delivering it. ‘Renaissance luxuries’ takes, in a way, it’s inspiration both from Richard Goldthwaite’s work on Wealth and the Demand for Art in Renaissance Italy, and AD Fraser Jenkins’ musings on magnificence. In the course of a semester, I range quite widely across a range of genres and materials, and look at what constituted a luxury item in the Renaissance and what their possession and consumption meant for their owner. So, you could argue that the Third theoretical plank for this module is Stephen Greenblatt’s concept of self- fashioning; as a concept, it certainly helps with thinking through some of the issues.
A tight theoretical framework is certainly a necessity for this particular module, as the focus on case studies shifts on a weekly basis, so while we might be looking…