Catalogue 2015-2016 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
History Department
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Chair: Maria Höhn;
Professors: Nancy Bisahaa, Robert K. Brigham, Sumita Choudhury, Miriam Cohen, Rebecca Edwards, Maria Höhn, James Merrell, Lydia Murdochab, Ismail O. D. Rashid;
Associate Professors: Quincy T. Mills, Leslie Scott Offutt, Michaela Pohlb, Joshua Schreier;
Assistant Professor: Julie E. Hughesb;
Post Doctoral Fellow: Nianshen Song.
a On leave 2015/16, first semester
b On leave 2015/16, second semester
ab On leave 2015/16
Advisers: The department.
Major
Correlate Sequence in History
History: I. Introductory
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HIST 101 - Martin Luther King Jr. Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 101 ) This course examines the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. We immediately rethink the image of King who liberals and conservatives construct as a dreamer of better race relations. We engage the complexities of an individual, who articulated a moral compass of the nation, to explore racial justice in post-World War II America. This course gives special attention to King’s post-1965 radicalism when he called for a reordering of American society, an end to the war in Vietnam, and supported sanitation workers striking for better wages and working conditions. Topics include King’s notion of the “beloved community”, the Social Gospel, liberalism, “socially conscious democracy”, militancy, the politics of martyrdom, poverty and racial justice, and compensatory treatment. Primary sources form the core of our readings.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 103 - Indo-Islamic Kingdoms/Cultures Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 103 ) We study iconic events including Mahmud of Ghazni’s raid on a famous Hindu temple in western India in 1026, the tumultuous rise and fall of the Delhi Sultanate, the establishment of the Mughal Empire in 1526, the coronation of the rebellious folk-hero Shivaji in 1674, and the death of his foe, the last of the Great Mughals, in 1707. We read courtly epics written for kings, devotional poetry, travelogues, the memoirs of Mughal emperors, and excerpts from select foundational texts of Islamic and Hindu civilization. Ms. Hughes.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 108 - International Human Rights Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 108 ) Human rights have become the dominant moral language of our time. Rights are used to help build civil society, to establish international law, to give the oppressed hope, and even to justify foreign military intervention. When we speak of rights, then, we speak of a ubiquitous presence in our world. How did this come to be? This course examines the historical development of international human rights from their definition by the United Nations in 1948 to the present day. Our main questions will be how a powerful discourse of human rights has developed, who has spoken on its behalf, and how human rights claims have intersected with existing political, institutional, and legal structures. Mr. Brigham.
Open only to freshmen; satisfies the college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 116 - The Dark Ages Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as MRST 116 ) Was early medieval Europe really Dark? In reality, this was a period of tremendous vitality and ferment, witnessing the transformation of late classical society, the growth of Germanic kingdoms, the high point of Byzantium, the rise of the papacy and monasticism, and the birth of Islam. This course examines a rich variety of sources that illuminate the first centuries of Christianity, the fall of the Roman Empire, and early medieval culture showing moments of both conflict and synthesis that redefined Europe and the Mediterranean. Ms. Bisaha.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 117 - High Middle Ages, 950-1300 Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course examines medieval Europe at both its cultural and political height. Topics of study include: the first universities; government from feudal lordships to national monarchies; courtly and popular culture; manorial life and town life; the rise of papal monarchy; new religious orders and spirituality among the laity. Relations with religious outsiders are explored in topics on European Jewry, heretics, and the Crusades. Ms. Bisaha.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 121 - Readings in Modern European History
1 unit(s)
This course explores key developments in European history from the French Revolution in 1789 to the collapse of communism two centuries later. While roughly chronological, the class is not a survey. Readings explore the impact of the French and Industrial revolutions, the rise of nation states, World War I and the Russian revolution, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and Europe’s Cold War division and continuing, contested integration. Ms. Pohl.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 122 - Encounters in Modern East Asia Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 122 ) This course introduces the modern history of East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea) through various “encounters,” not only with each other but also with the world beyond. Employing regional and global perspectives, we explore how East Asia entered a historical phase generally known as “modern” by examining topics such as inter-state relations, trade network, the Jesuit missionary, philosophical inquiries, science and technology, colonialism, imperialism and nationalism. The course begins in the seventeenth-century with challenges against the dynastic regime of each country, traces how modern East Asia emerges through war, commerce, cultural exchange, and imperial expansion and considers some global issues facing the region today. Mr. Song.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 123 - Europe at the Crossroads, 1500-1789
1 unit(s)
Between 1492 and 1789, Europe faced a series of profound challenges and hard choices. Which was more important: individual conscience or religious unity, local or national allegiance, individual enrichment or the welfare of the community? This course explores the way the people of Europe, both rulers and ruled, men and women, responded to the extraordinary changes and challenges of their times. Topics include Spanish unification and the Inquisition, European encounters with the Americas, the Protestant Reformation, the rise of absolutism and republicanism, and the discovery of a new relationship between the earth and the heavens. Ms. Choudhury.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 124 - Europe 1945 Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
On May 8, 1945 the Second World War ended in Europe. After six years of fighting, millions of soldiers and civilians had been killed. The Nazi genocide had led to the brutal murder of millions of Jews and other minorities. Some of Europe’s most magnificent cities lay in ruins, while some twenty million refugees, expellees, or displaced persons wandered the highways in search of shelter and security. Readings explore the roots of the war, and how European countries dealt with the destruction, the questions of guilt, collaboration and resistance, and the challenge to create a peaceful Europe in the emerging Cold War order. Ms. Hoehn.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 125 - Infamy on Trial: Famous Trials in Early Modern Europe Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course examines several of the most famous trials of Europe’s early modern period (1500-1700). Each trial allows us to explore how communities and individuals responded to the changing nature of European society during this period of upheaval. Through cases involving all sorts of people—men and women, peasants and kings, we have access to conflicting understandings of authority, family, religion, and gender. The trial of Galileo challenged contemporary understandings of what it meant to be a Christian while the execution of King Charles I raised questions about kingship. By studying criminal cases, we engage with a rich selection of primary sources, such as trial records, contemporary accounts, and private papers. Through these readings, the class investigates how early modern people interpreted crime and justice during moments of crisis. Ms. Choudhury.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 126 - Terrorism in Russia and Eurasia
1 unit(s)
Terror is a tactic as old as warfare, and it creates many dangers in the present. Sectarians and revolutionaries, powerful states and small regimes, guerillas and jihadists all have carried out bloody attacks and assassinations in the name of religion, liberation, politics, identity, and empowerment. This course explores the use and legacies of terror starting in 1789. We investigate nihilism, Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia, the anti-Nazi resistance and guerilla movements, anti-Soviet Afghanistan, Shamil Basaev and Chechnya, Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and contemporary global suicide terrorism, taking care to elicit historical connections and breaks between them. We encounter leaders and ordinary people engaged in acts of violence, as well as their victims; we discuss scholarship on the invention of modern terror and state terror, and using their own texts and acts as evidence, we investigate how violent practitioners represent themselves and make claims of transcendence and social transformation. How have they been perceived? What happens when such movements come to power? How do violent campaigns end? Ms. Pohl.
Not offered in 2015/16.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 128 - Europe 1945 - Rethinking History
0.5 unit(s)
On May 8, 1945 the Second World War ended in Europe. After six years of fighting, millions of soldiers and civilians had been killed. The Nazi genocide had led to the brutal murder of millions of Jews, and other minorities. Some of Europe’s most magnificent cities lay in ruins, while some twenty million refugees, expellees, or displaced persons wandered the highways in search of shelter and security. Readings for this class explore how European countries dealt with the aftermath of the war, as well as the questions of guilt, collaboration, and resistance. In particular, readings and discussions focus on the tension between history and memory as Europeans tried to come to terms with the war. Ms. Hoehn.
Second six-week course.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour meeting. -
HIST 132 - Globalization in Historical Perspective, 1850 to the Present
1 unit(s)
Commentators tell us that we live in “a global age,” but dramatic increases in worldwide contacts—economic and social, political and cultural—are not unique to our time. In the late nineteenth century, for example, steamships, telegraphs, railroads, and even movies fostered an increase of interaction across national boundaries and across oceans that was every bit as remarkable as today’s. Using such sources as novels, maps, and picture postcards from the Aran Islands to Senegal, this course explores the modern roots and historical development of globalization.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 141 - Tradition, History and the African Experience
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 141 ) From ancient stone tools and monuments to oral narratives and colonial documents, the course examines how the African past has been recorded, preserved, and transmitted over the generations. It looks at the challenges faced by the historian in Africa and the multi-disciplinary techniques used to reconstruct and interpret African history. Various texts, artifacts, and oral narratives from ancient times to the present are analyzed to see how conceptions and interpretations of African past have changed over time. Mr. Rashid.
Fulfills the Freshman Writing Seminar Requirement.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 143 - Russia, Ukraine, and the Steppe Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course introduces students to the history of the Russians and their neighbors on the Eurasian Steppe, a vast region that stretches from Ukraine to Kazakhstan. Topics include the relations between Russians and Ukrainians and nomadic and semi-nomadic people (Tatars, Kazakhs, Cossacks), the great steppe empires, the imposition of serfdom, the uprisings of the steppe (1660s and 1916), and the complex mix of violence and development that was unleashed in the Soviet period, including famines, forced cultural change, and industrialization. We will also consider the connections between the cultural and political history of this region and current events, such as the creation of a new Eurasian Union. Course materials include history texts, memoirs, fiction, newspapers, Soviet and post-Soviet films, and maps. Course participants practice writing regularly, with an emphasis on discussing and constructing arguments, finding and using evidence, and comparing perspectives and points of view (American, Russian, Ukrainian, Central Asian). Ms. Pohl.
Open only to freshmen; satisfies the college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 151 - British History: James I (1603) to the Great War
1 unit(s)
This course explores the central developments in Britain from the age of Shakespeare to the age of total war. We study the political and scientific revolutions of the seventeenth century, the eighteenth-century rise of commercial society and the “British” nation, and the effects of industrialization on Britain’s landscape, society, and politics. The course concludes by exploring how the First World War transformed British society. Ms. Murdoch.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 160 - American Moments: Rediscovering U.S. History Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
This is not your parents’—or your high school teacher’s—American history course. No textbook: Instead we read memoirs, novels, newspaper articles, letters, speeches, photographs, and films composed by a colorful, diverse cast of characters—famous and forgotten, slaves and masters, workers and bosses. No survey: Instead we pause to look at several illuminating “moments” from the colonial era through the Civil War to civil rights and the Cold War. Traveling from the Great Awakening to the “awakening” that was the 1960s, from an anticolonial rebellion that Americans won (1776) to another that they lost (Vietnam), the course challenges assumptions about America’s past—and perhaps also a few about America’s present and future. The department.
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HIST 161 - From Gold Rush to Dust Bowl: Writing the American Frontier
1 unit(s)
This course considers episodes in the history of the United States and its Western frontiers from the California Gold Rush through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Themes include economic risk-taking and cycles of boom and bust; racial and interpersonal violence; forced removal of native peoples and their responses; frontier myth-making; and the emergence of a wilderness ethos. As students investigate different strategies for telling about the past, readings include eyewitness accounts, historical narratives, and works of fiction. Ms. Edwards.
Open only to Freshmen; satisfies college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.
Not offered in 2015/16.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 162 - Envisioning Latin America Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
How have people come to see Latin America since it first entered the European consciousness at the end of the fifteenth century? How have the people of Latin America themselves deflected and recast the “imperial eye”? This course explores Latin America ca. 1500-ca. 2010s through the writings of outside observers–explorers, bureaucrats, Enlightenment scientists, traders and investors, ethnographers—to uncover the process of producing an exoticized vision of a region open to economic expansion and empire. We also explore Latin American self-representations, drawing on colonial-era indigenous and creole letters and reports, post-colonial poetry and novels, government-sponsored pavilions at international expositions, and official tourist campaigns. Along the way, we address several central themes in Latin American history—race and ethnicity, gender, nation building (as both a political and a cultural project)—considered within the conceptual frame of transculturation. Ms. Offutt.
Not offered in 2015/16.
Two 75-minute periods. -
HIST 164 - Latin American History ‘through the lens’ Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 164 ) Film can be a source of entertainment, a propaganda tool, a medium of artistic expression, and a shaper and reflector of national identity. This course explores the history of specific moments and themes in twentieth-century Latin America-US perceptions of Latin America; revolution; “Dirty Wars”; the transition from authoritarianism to democracy; and Liberation Theology-that have defined the region’s recent history and been the subject of domestic film production and foreign consumption. Course readings include historical studies of the specific themes and primary materials that illuminate critical aspects of each theme. Ms. Offutt.
First and second six-week course.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings. -
HIST 174 - The Emergence of the Modern Middle East Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
An exploration of the Middle East over the past three centuries. Beginning with economic and social transformations in the eighteenth century, we follow the transformation of various Ottoman provinces such as Egypt, Syria/Lebanon, and Algeria into modern states, paying careful attention to how European colonialism shaped their development. We then look at independence movements and the post-colonial societies that have emerged since the middle of the twentieth century, concluding with study of colonialism’s lingering power—and the movements that confront it. Mr. Schreier.
Open only to freshmen; satisfies the college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.
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HIST 175 - Mandela: Race, Resistance and Renaissance in South Africa
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 175 ) This course critically explores the history and politics of South Africa in the twentieth century through the prism of the life, politics, and experiences of one of its most iconic figures, Nelson Mandela. After almost three decades of incarceration for resisting Apartheid, Mandela became the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa in 1994. It was an inspirational moment in the global movement and the internal struggle to dismantle Apartheid and to transform South Africa into a democratic, non-racial, and just society. Using Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, as our point of departure, the course discusses some of the complex ideas, people, and developments that shaped South Africa and Mandela’s life in the twentieth century, including: indigenous culture, religion, and institutions; colonialism, race, and ethnicity; nationalism, mass resistance, and freedom; and human rights, social justice, and post-conflict reconstruction. Mr. Rashid.
Not offered in 2015/16.
Two 75-minute periods.
History: II. Intermediate
The prerequisite for courses at the 200-level is ordinarily 1 unit in history. History: III. Advanced
Prerequisite for advanced courses is ordinarily 2 units of 200-level work in history, or by permission of the instructor. Specific prerequisites assume the general prerequisite. -
HIST 300 - Thesis Preparation: Sources, Methods, and Interpretations Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
As a yearlong independent research project, a senior history thesis can be an exhilarating but also challenging experience. Many questions must be considered: How do I clearly define my research question? How do I locate my work within the existing scholarship in my field? Where are the most relevant sources? How do I organize and interpret the information that I have uncovered? This seminar provides the opportunity for students to grapple with these questions and to prepare for writing their senior history thesis. Through a common set of readings and workshops, students develop clear research ideas and questions, locate necessary sources, become acquainted with different historical methods, and discuss strategies for different stages of the process. The seminar also provides a community in which students share their experiences, approaches, and ideas about researching and writing their theses.
Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
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HIST 301 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This 1-unit course, which builds on the work done in HIST 300 , culminates in the completion and submission of a thesis that is approximately 10,000 words long. The department.
Yearlong course HIST 300 -301.
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HIST 302 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This 1-unit course, which builds on the work done in HIST 300 , culminates in the completion and submission of a thesis that is approximately 10,000 words long. The department.
Same as HIST 301 , for students who are completing the thesis out of cycle. Please note that 302 cannot be taken simultaneously with HIST 300 .
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HIST 304 - Approaching the Taj Mahal
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 304 ) What lies behind the legendary beauty and romance of the Taj Mahal? To understand the monument from its 17th century construction through modern times, we look beyond the building to its wider historical and historiographical contexts. In addition to the key primary sources, we critique scholarly and popular literature inspired by the Taj. Throughout, we ask how these sources have influenced what people see when they look at the Taj Mahal. Ms. Hughes.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 305 - People and Other Animals in India
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 305 and ENST 305 ) How have Indians defined the proper relationship between themselves and the animals around them? What challenges and opportunities have animals and people met with as a result? How have our ideas changed animals’ lives and the environments we both live in, and how have animals affected human lives and histories? We read excerpts from foundational ancient and classical texts, alongside British and Indian texts on war horses and elephants. We delve into the primary sources on Cow Protection and royal sport. We read children’s literature and make extensive use of non-textual sources including miniature paintings, photography, and taxidermy. To provide a framework for our studies, we consult scholarship in the emerging field of human-animal history. Ms. Hughes.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 308 - Humanitarian Intervention
1 unit(s)
The principle that troops should sometimes be sent to prevent the slaughter of innocent foreigners is anything but new. With deep roots in the 19th century, humanitarian intervention has been a relatively familiar practice in international affairs. This seminar examines the history of that practice and principle to the present day. We explore the transnational activists who campaigned against bloodshed abroad, the debates over the efficacy of military intervention in the name of human rights, the theoretical underpinnings of the concept of humanitarianism, specific case studies (Greece, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, Libya, and Syria to name a few), and the U.N. Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Mr. Brigham.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 316 - Constantinople/Istanbul: 1453 Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 316 ) This seminar examines a turning point in history-the end of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The focus is the siege of Constantinople as seen in primary accounts and modem studies. The course also looks closely at culture and society in late Byzantium and the early Ottoman Empire. Specific topics include the post-1453 Greek refugee community, the transformation of Constantinople into Istanbul, and the role of Western European powers and the papacy as allies and antagonists of both empires. Ms. Bisaha.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 326 - Machiavelli: Power and Politics
1 unit(s)
This course examines the life and writings of one of the most fascinating and misunderstood thinkers of the early modern era. By situating Machiavelli (1469-1527) against the backdrop of his times, we gain insight into the Florentine Republic, Medici rule, the papacy, and devastating invasions of Italy by French, Spanish, and German armies. We also explore cultural movements like the study of antiquity by humanists and the rise of vernacular writing and bold new forms of popular expression and political discourse. Several of Machiavelli’s works are read, including his letters and plays, The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, and The Florentine Histories, as well as some of the major modern interpretations of Machiavelli in historiography and political thought. Ms. Bisaha.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 332 - Dangerous Ideas: Challenging Authority in Eighteenth-Century France Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
In the years leading up to the French Revolution, authorities were obsessed with the spread of dangerous ideas that threatened church, state and traditional social values. Seeking to overhaul society completely, a diverse group of thinkers commonly associated with the Enlightenment examined all aspects of human existence, from religion, politics, and science to crime, sex, and art. This course emphasizes primary sources, ranging from The Social Contract to Dangerous Liaisons. We consider the impact of ideas and words by examining the spaces for discussion, the dissemination of books, and reader response. Ultimately, we ask the following: What was the legacy of the various critiques for the French Revolution and, more generally, the modern era? Ms. Choudhury.
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HIST 337 - The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany
1 unit(s)
This course explores the Third Reich by locating it within the peculiar nature of German political culture resulting from late unification and rapid industrialization. Readings explore how and why the Nazis emerged as a mass party during the troubled Weimar years. The years between 1933 and 1945 are treated by focusing on Nazi domestic, foreign, and racial policies. Ms. Höhn.
Prerequisite: HIST 236 or HIST 237 ; or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 338 - German-American Encounters since WW I Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 338 ) This seminar explores the many ways in which Germans envisioned, feared, and embraced America in the course of the twentieth century. We start our readings with WWI and its aftermath, when German society was confronted and, as some feared, overwhelmed, by an influx of American soldiers, expatriates, industry, and popular culture. The Nazi Regime promised to overcome Weimar modernity and the alleged Americanization of German society, but embraced nonetheless aspects of American modernity in its quest to dominate Europe militarily and economically. For the period after WWII, we study in depth the U.S. military occupation (1945-1955), the almost seventy-year lasting military presence in West Germany, and the political, social and cultural implications of this transatlantic relationship. Ms. Höhn.
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HIST 342 - Stalinism Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This seminar explores the transformation of the USSR and its borderlands under Stalin, with special emphasis on the impact of terror, dislocations, and compressed economic change on specific national groups (Russians, Ukraine, Central Asia). Topics include Stalin’s ideology and vision of the Soviet people, the impact of Stalinism on politics in Europe, collectivization and industrialization, the experiences of the “enemies of the people,” resistance and dissent, and achievements and legacies. The course concludes with an examination of post-Soviet public memory and discussions of the Stalinist past. Ms. Pohl.
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HIST 343 - Youth in Russia, 1880-Present
1 unit(s)
This seminar explores the history of youth culture in Russia. We examine how youth and teenagers were “discovered” and defined as an age group through ethnographies, sociological accounts, and memoirs, and explore the youth experience as depicted in films and documentaries. Topics include experiences of youth during periods of reform, youth legislation, youth institutions, youth and Stalinism, and the experience of girls. The course concludes with an exploration of contemporary Russian teen culture, focusing on music and its role in the 1980s and 1990s. Ms. Pohl.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 351 - Problems in U.S. Foreign Policy Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Using historical case studies, this seminar examines some of the major foreign affairs dilemmas U.S. policy makers have faced since 1945. Major topics include: containment; modernization; nation building; limited war; détente; human rights and humanitarian intervention; and democracy promotion. Mr. Brigham.
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HIST 355 - Childhood and Children in Nineteenth-Century Britain
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 355 ) This course examines both the social constructions of childhood and the experiences of children in Britain during the nineteenth century, a period of immense industrial and social change. We analyze the various understandings of childhood at the beginning of the century (including utilitarian, Romantic, and evangelical approaches to childhood) and explore how, by the end of the century, all social classes shared similar expectations of what it meant to be a child. Main topics include the relationships between children and parents, child labor, sexuality, education, health and welfare, abuse, delinquency, and children as imperial subjects. Ms. Murdoch.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 357 - The First World War
1 unit(s)
For many, the First World War marks the beginning of the modern age. After examining the debate about the conflict’s causes, this seminar takes the social and cultural history of the war as its subject. Topics include the methods of mechanized trench warfare, the soldiers’ experience, the effects of total war on the home front, and the memory of the Great War in film and literature. The primary focus is on European combatants, but we also explore the role of colonial troops and the impact of the war on European empires. Ms. Murdoch.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 360 - Black Business and Social Movements in the Twentieth Century
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 360 ) From movies to music, bleaching cream to baseball, black entrepreneurs and consumers have historically negotiated the profits and pleasures of a “black economy” to achieve economic independence as a meaning of freedom. This seminar examines the duality of black businesses as economic and social institutions alongside black consumers’ ideas of economic freedom to offer new perspectives on social and political movements in the twentieth-century. We explore black business activity and consumer activism as historical processes of community formation and economic resistance, paying particular attention to black capitalism, consumer boycotts, and the economy of black culture in the age of segregation. Topics include the development of the black beauty industry; black urban film culture; the Negro Baseball League; Motown and the protest music of the 1960s and 1970s; the underground economy; and federal legislation affecting black entrepreneurship. Mr. Mills.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 361 - Varieties of the Latin American Indian Experience
1 unit(s)
This course treats the Indian world of Latin America as it responded to increased European penetration in the post-1500 period. Focusing primarily on Mesoamerica and the Andean region, it examines the variety of ways indigenous peoples dealt with cultural dislocation associated with the imposition of colonial systems and the introduction of the modern state. The course treats as well the Indian policies of the state, and how those policies reflected assumptions about the role of indigenous peoples in the larger society. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the process of negotiation of identity—what it meant to be Indian in an increasingly European society, and how the interpenetration of the two worlds, and the response of one to the other, reshaped each world. Ms. Offutt.
Prerequisite: 200-level Latin American history.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 362 - The Cuban Revolutions Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Questions of sovereignty and issues of inequality have roiled the surface of the Cuban Republic since its founding in 1902; during the past century there were two major upheavals, the revolutions of 1933 and 1959. This course examines the context out of which those revolutions emerged and the manner in which post-revolutionary governments addressed (or failed to address) the concerns that prompted Cubans to choose the “revolutionary option.” We pay particular attention to the relationship between Cuba and the United States, the legacies of slavery and racism, and the shaping of Cuban society after 1959. Ms. Offutt.
Prerequisite: HIST 264 .
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HIST 363 - Revolution and Conflict in Twentieth-Century Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as LALS 363 ) Revolution has been a dominant theme in the history of Latin America since 1910. This course examines the revolutionary experiences of three nations—Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. It examines theories of revolution, then assesses the revolutions themselves—the conditions out of which each revolution developed, the conflicting ideologies at play, the nature of the struggles, and the postrevolutionary societies that emerged from the struggles. Ms. Offutt.
Prerequisite: HIST 264 or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 365 - Race and the History of Jim Crow Segregation Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 365 ) This seminar examines the rise of racial segregation sanctioned by law and racial custom from 1865 to 1965. Equally important, we explore the multiple ways African Americans negotiated and resisted segregation in the private and public spheres. This course aims toward an understanding of the work that race does, with or without laws, to order society based on the intersection of race, class and gender. Topics include: disfranchisement, labor and domesticity, urbanization, public space, education, housing, history and memory, and the lasting effects of sanctioned segregation. We focus on historical methods of studying larger questions of politics, resistance, privilege and oppression. We also explore interdisciplinary methods of studying race and segregation, such as critical race theory. Music and film supplement classroom discussions. Mr. Mills.
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HIST 366 - American Encounters: Natives, Newcomers, and the Contest for a Continent Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Moving past today’s fixation on Pocahontas and John Smith, Squanto and the Pilgrims, this course will examine the Native response to the invasion of North America, focusing on peoples living east of the Mississippi River before the early 19th century, the era of ‘Removal’ that marked the beginning of the end of Indian Country. Confronting the challenges in the way of understanding the Native experience (lack of evidence, modern stereotypes, loaded language), we will combine scholarly works with Native writings, explorers’ accounts, treaty texts, captivity narratives, and films to consider the central arenas where Indians engaged foreigners from beyond the eastern horizon, from trade and missions through war and diplomacy to ideas of “race” and notions of gender. Mr. Merrell.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 367 - Peoples and Environments in the American West
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENST 367 ) This course explores the history of the trans-Mississippi West in the nineteenth century and its legacies in modern America. Themes include cultural conflict and accommodation; federal power and Western politics; and humans’ negotiations with their environments. The course considers the history of the frontier as a process; the Western U.S. as a geographic place; and the legendary West and its functions in American mythology. Ms. Edwards.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 368 - American Portrait: The United States c. 1830
1 unit(s)
The election of Andrew Jackson and the “age of the common man”; the deaths of the last Founding Fathers and the beginning of the first railroad; Cherokee Indian Removal and Nat Turner’s slave rebellion; Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous visit and the first magazine edited by a woman; radical abolition and the invention of Davy Crockett—the confluence of these and other events around 1830 makes that historical moment an important American watershed. This course examines the currents and cross-currents of that era. Ranging widely across the country and visiting some of its many inhabitants, we explore the paradoxes of this pivotal era, trying to make sense of how people then, and historians since, tried to understand its character. Mr. Merrell.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 369 - Social Citizenship in an Urban Age Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as URBS 369 ) During a 1936 campaign speech President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that in “1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy.” Since then “the age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production and mass distribution—all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem … . For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality.” Therefore, the President concluded, government must do something to “protect the citizen’s right to work and right to live.” This course looks at how Americans during the twentieth century fought to expand the meaning of citizenship to include social rights. We study efforts on behalf of labor laws, unemployment and old age insurance, and aid to poor mothers and their children. How did these programs affect Americans of different social, racial, and ethnic backgrounds? How did gender shape the ways that people experienced these programs? Because many Americans believed that widening educational opportunities was essential for addressing the problems associated with the “new civilization” that Roosevelt described, we ask to what extent Americans came to believe that access to a good education is a right of citizenship. These issues and the struggles surrounding them are not only, as they say, “history.” To help us understand our times, we look at the backlash, in the closing decades of the twentieth century, against campaigns to enlarge the definition of citizenship. Ms. Cohen.
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HIST 373 - Slavery and Abolition in Africa
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 373 ) The Trans-Saharan and the Atlantic slave trade transformed African communities, social structures, and cultures. The seminar explores the development, abolition, and impact of slavery in Africa from the earliest times to the twentieth century. The major conceptual and historiographical themes include indigenous servitude, female enslavement, family strategies, slave resistance, abolition, and culture. The seminar uses specific case studies as well as a comparative framework to understand slavery in Africa. Mr. Rashid.
Prerequisite: standard department prerequisites or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 374 - The African Diaspora Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 374 ) This seminar investigates the social origins, philosophical and cultural ideas, and the political forms of Pan-Africanism from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It explores how disaffection and resistance against slavery, racism and colonial domination in the Americas, Caribbean, Europe, and Africa led to the development of a global movement for the emancipation of peoples of African descent from 1900 onwards. The seminar examines the different ideological, cultural, and organizational manifestations of Pan-Africanism as well as the scholarly debates on development of the movement. Readings include the ideas and works of Edward Blyden, Alexander Crummell, W. E. B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Garvey, C.L.R. James, and Kwame Nkmmah. Mr. Rashid.
Prerequisite: permission of the instrcutor.
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HIST 375 - Years of Disunion: The U.S. Civil War Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
This course considers the Civil War as a political, military, social, and cultural watershed in American history. Topics covered include the secession crisis and the political transformation wrought by the Republican Party; events on the battlefield and on the Union and Confederate home fronts; the gradual unfolding of Emancipation as a Union war aim, and its results; human responses to the war’s grim toll of death and destruction; and the conflict’s long-term legacies. Readings include recent works of scholarship as well as eyewitness accounts and works of fiction. Ms. Edwards.
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HIST 381 - Love and Death in Tokugawa Japan, 1603-1868
1 unit(s)
We reconstruct life in early modern Japan by engaging primary sources in translation, including memoirs, autobiographies, thanatologues, satire, novels, plays, and treatises. Various social group—the samurai (the warrior elite), commoners, intellectuals, and women—are examined. We look at Japan’s past as “lived experience” by focusing on everyday social practices and personal lives. This seminar does not presuppose familiarity with Japanese history but requires a keen and active historical mind.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 382 - Marie-Antoinette
1 unit(s)
(Same as WMST 382 ) More than 200 years after her death, Marie-Antoinette continues to be an object of fascination because of her supposed excesses and her death at the guillotine. For her contemporaries, Marie-Antoinette often symbolized all that was wrong in French body politic. Through the life of Marie-Antoinette, we investigate the changing political and cultural landscape of eighteenth-century France including the French Revolution. Topics include women and power, political scandal and public opinion, fashion and self-representation, motherhood and domesticity, and revolution and gender iconography. Throughout the course, we explore the changing nature of the biographical narrative. The course also considers the legacy of Marie Antoinette as martyr and fetish object in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and her continuing relevance today. Ms. Choudhury.
Not offered in 2015/16.
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HIST 385 - Colonialism, Resistance, and Knowledge in Modern Middle Eastern History Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course examines the historiography of the modern Middle East. We begin with a number of older, foundational texts in an effort to understand and contextualize Orientalism as it emerged in the nineteenth-century, as well as its intellectual legacy in the United States. The course then turns to the substance and impact of post-colonialist interventions since the 1960s that have thrown many “givens” of the discipline into doubt. The bulk of the course focuses on recent scholarship, allowing us to explore how (or whether) historians of Islam and the Middle East have benefited from the new scholarly perspectives that emerged in the wake of anti-colonialist struggles. The meaning of “modernity” serves as a principal organizing question of the class. Mr. Schreier.
Prerequisite: HIST 174 or HIST 214 or HIST 255 ; or permission of the instructor.
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HIST 386 - Central Asia and the Caucasus: Nation Building and Human Rights
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 386 ) The Muslim regions between Russia and China are becoming more populated, prosperous, and connected. The Caspian Sea region is booming with new oil and gas wealth. A wave of democracy movements swept newly independent states but oligarchs and long-term autocratic presidents dominate politics and business. An Islamic revival after the fall of communism has brought a crisis of political Islam, including problems like terrorism, re-veiling campaigns, and bride-kidnappings. Chechnya and the North Caucasus became magnets for violence, while Tatarstan has seen a quiet renaissance of liberal Russian Islam. This cross-listed seminar explores nation building, human rights, and spiritual life in Central Asia and the Caucasus from a historical perspective. Topics include the legacies of Mongol and Tatar power verticals, the impact of communism on Central Asia, the war in Chechnya and its effect on human rights in the region, the history of Kazakhstan’s new capital, Astana, and daily life and politics since independence in 1991. Ms. Pohl.
Not offered in 2015/16.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 389 - Constructing China from Beyond Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 389 ) This course examines China from the perspective of its engagement with the non-Chinese world, in both the pre-modern and modern period. Roughly in chronological order, the course will cover China’s interactions with others in three geographical scales: the frontier regimes in Inner Asia, the land and maritime neighbors in East and Southeast Asia, and regional/global powers in a broader scope. The main questions of inquiry include (but are not limited to): how does one draw a boundary around the subject called “China” in terms of geography, ethnicity, nation, culture, and civilization? To what extent has China’s views of the external world shifted in the modern period? Was/is there a general Chinese mode in dealing with outsiders? Though mainly a study of history, the course also introduces works from other disciplines like sociology and international relations. Many important issues in contemporary China studies, such as domestic challenges in ethnic frontier areas and diplomatic disputes with other countries, are no doubt embedded in our concerns from the very beginning. Mr. Song.
One 2-hour period. -
HIST 399 - Senior Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Permission required.
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