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Professor Emeritus of History

 

 

 

M.A. Yale University, 1953
Ph.D. Yale University, 1960

Research Interests

Professor Headley’s interest in reform, reform programs, their reception and distortion, in the period of the Renaissance and Reformation has expanded into a focussing on claims to universal monarchy in the early modern period with specific attention to Spain’s performance in constructing a global empire. The Columbus Quincentennial alerted him to exploring the latest frontier in the profession—World History. Insofar as it is possible from the sixteenth-century European perspective upon the new global dimension to historical experience, he seeks to study the awakening of European consciousness to the new dimension of global realities and how ecclesiastical, Spanish, and European universalisms relate to the complexities and diversity of the early modern world. More specifically, he is currently trying to resituate the cartographic and geographic breakthroughs in the culture and politics of the age, the late Renaissance, while exploring the new geography both for its impact upon contemporary European consciousness as well as for our own understanding of the Renaissance as a more comprehensive, total reality. His publications and the devising of a new course on the graduate level, entitled European Expansion and Global Interactions, 15001800 reflect this interest. He continues to pursue a broad range of problems and issues concerning Europe in the Renaissance, Reformation, and seventeenth century.

If you wish to contact John Headley, please send mail to:

CB #3195, Hamilton Hall
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3195