This course focuses on the changing interpretations and representations of North America by early modern Europeans, including humanist scholars, Jesuit missionaries, Puritan propagandists, naturalists, cartographers, political theorists, poets, and artists. The course includes writings about (and images of) New Spain, the British colonies in North America & the Caribbean, the Dutch New Netherland, and New France (Canada and the lower Mississippi). Readings: Columbus, Cortes, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Defoe, and Buffon.