110. Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Europe.
(4). (SS).
121/Asian Studies 121. Great Traditions of East Asia. (4). (HU).
This is an introduction to the civilizations of China, Japan, Korea, and Inner Asia. It aims to provide an overview of changing traditions from ancient to early modern times (ca. 1660 AD) by outlining broad trends which not only transformed each society, economy, and culture but also led to the development of this region into distinctly different modern nations. The development of state Confucianism, the spread of Buddhism, the functions of the scholar and the warrior, the impact of the military empires of Inner Asia, and the superiority of pre-modern Asian science and technology are some of the topics we will cover. In addition to the required textbooks, we will read contemporary accounts and view slides and films to acquire intimate appreciation of these cultures. Course requirements include successful completion of: quizzes given in sections; four major tests given in class; one report/project (5 pp. plus bibliography and notes). Cost:2 WL:3 (Forage)
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132/APTIS 100/ACABS 100/HJCS 100. Peoples of the Middle East. (4). (HU).
See Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic Studies 100. (Babayan)
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151/Asian Studies 111. South Asian Civilization. (4). (HU).
This course is an introduction to the civilization of India, that is, the region of South Asia consisting of the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. We will begin with the first Indian civilization, that of the Indus Valley, and go on to the Vedic age, the formation of empires and the classical civilization of India, its social organization, arts, and sciences. We will then examine the encounter of India with Islamic and European civilization, and the formation of the independent nation-states of today. Course requirements include short papers, midterm, and final exam. (Trautmann)
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160. United States to 1865. (4). (SS).
This lecture/discussion course will examine central issues and events in the history of the territories that became the United States, and the peoples who lived there, from the late 16th to the middle of the 19th centuries. Among the topics that will be considered are the territorial expansions of Europeans into the Americas; the creation of Anglo-American colonies; the social, political, and cultural orders of British North America; the creation of an independent American republic in the Revolution; and the destruction of that first republic in the War Between the States. The required readings will include both primary and secondary sources, and will be examined in weekly discussion sections. There will be both a midterm and a final examination, and active class participation will be expected in the sections. (Vinovskis)
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161. United States, 1865 to the Present. (4). (SS).
This course is an undergraduate survey of U.S. history from 1865 to the present. We will examine major social, cultural, political, and economic events that shaped the United States after the Civil War. We will focus particularly on: Reconstruction, Westward Movement, Industrialization, Progressivism, World War I, Depression, the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sixties, and Reagan Republicanism. This survey introduces the students to urban, labor, ethnic, and women's history of the time period through extensive use of primary sources. The students will be examined in weekly discussion sections over their readings of both primary and secondary sources. There will be a midterm and a final. Active class participation will be expected in the sections. Cost:3 WL:1 (Montoya)
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195. The Writing of History. (4). (Introductory Composition). This course may not be included in a history concentration.
"The Writing of History" courses offer students the opportunity to learn writing through the study of historical texts, debates, and events. Each "Writing of History" section will study a different era, region, and topic in the past, for the common purpose of learning how history is written and how to write about it. Students will read the work of modern historians as well as documents and other source materials from the past, such as historical novels, letters, diaries, or memoirs. In each case the goal will be to learn how to construct effective arguments, and how to write college-level analytic papers. History 195 satisfies the first-year writing requirements. Each section will enroll a maximum of twenty students.
Section 001 - Women Travelers in the Balkans, 18th Century to the Present. In this course, students will read and discuss travel narratives of Southeastern Europe from the eighteenth century to the present. These works, mostly by British and American women, include memoirs, letters, photographic essays, newspaper correspondence, drawings, film, and fiction. Through a series of short interpretive papers with revisions, students will be introduced to the techniques of historical analysis and the process of writing. A longer paper will permit students to investigate further some of the larger questions of politics, gender, and ethnicity raised in the course. We will explore how foreign travelers have presented the political, social, and international events in the Balkans to Western audiences for the past two hundred years, and how these travelers' observations have influenced Western European and American perceptions of the region. We will conclude the course by examining the ways contemporary travelers and correspondents have shaped Western interpretations of the recent war in Bosnia. (Hays)
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Section 002 - America's Cold War at Home and Abroad, 1945 to the Present. The significance of America's Cold War with the Soviet Union extends far beyond international affairs. In addition to providing an organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy, it influenced domestic politics, popular culture, and even family relations. In this course, we will explore the fifty-year relationship between U.S. Cold War foreign policy and American national life. Students will examine memoirs, documents, fiction, works of history, and popular media (e.g., films, television) in order to consider the history of America's Cold War and how cultural representations and historical interpretations of the Cold War have changed over time. Assignments: Students will write three short papers evaluating in-class readings. The final assignment, a somewhat longer paper, will ask students to discuss a historical question of their choosing. Texts will include: Whitfield, Culture of the Cold War; May, Homeward Bound; Cohen, America in the Age of Soviet Power. (Gonzalez)
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Section 004 - The Chinese Communist Revolution in History and Memory. The course will explore the history of American reactions to the Chinese communist revolution, including the journalistic accounts of the 1930s, heavily politicized accounts of the 1950s, and more recent, synthetic accounts from anthropologists, historians, and film-makers. Independent student projects will explore subsequent events such as the cultural revolution and the Tiananmen massacre. Reading assignments will be short but demand careful analysis and response. Class time will emphasize the analysis and critique of readings and student papers. (Chittick)
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Section 005 - Women, War, and Revolution in Modern Europe. This course explores the relationship between women, war, and revolution in Europe between 1789 and 1945. During these periods of immense social upheaval, gender roles were dramatically reinterpreted and redefined as women actively participated on the revolutionary, home, or war fronts. Students will look at the ways that war and revolution were experienced differently by men and women, as well as by national culture, class, race, or other identities, through assigned readings. This class will also examine differing representations of women during periods of war and revolution in novels, poems, artwork, posters, and films. The class begins with the French Revolution and continues through the revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and the two World Wars. Women in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany will also be considered. This course is designed as a writing course and a series of writing assignments, including an historical research paper, will be required. (Comisky)
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Section 006 - Defining Society: Heresy, Deviance, and Difference in the Middle Ages. How do some people get labeled "losers" by the societies they live in? This course will explore the heresies of the Middle Ages to understand how societies can form perceptions of "otherness" and come to define deviant behavior within their ranks. From the earliest controversies within Christianity concerning issues of bravery, honesty and martyrdom, to some of the most famous later-medieval movements of violence against heretics, Jews, "witches," homosexuals and lepers, we will trace how tradition, economics, theology, and politics combine in complex processes to define certain groups as unacceptable, undesirable, or dangerous to the normal "order" of society. (Brophy)
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197. Freshman Seminar. (3). (HU).
Section 002 - European Intellectual History, from the French Revolution to the First World War. This course will consider major ideas and intellectual movements, principally in Western Europe, from the French Revolution to the outbreak of the First World War. The topics will include: Nationalism; Liberalism; Romanticism; Darwinism; the Rise of Industrialization and Technology; Militarism; Utopian Socialism; Marxism; and Democratic Political Movements. There will also be a consideration of the rise of modern psychological and sociological thought. The method to be employed will include both lecture and class discussion. The student will be required to do a series of written reports on the various topics to be covered in this class. Readings will include both original texts and documents, as well as a general narrative history textbook treating leading historical events. WL:3 (Becker)
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Section 003 - Gender, Race, and Class, in American History. In this seminar students will be introduced to the techniques of historical analysis as we try to unravel how gender, race, and class have functioned in American history. We will also explore how historians have identified, analyzed, and written about these subjects and how those approaches have changed over time. Students will be introduced to the concept of cultural construction - the idea that categories of race, gender and even class status are not fixed, universal, biological entities, but are shaped and determined by cultural values, time, and place. Students will also be urged to think about how these categories intersect, for example, the ways in which race structures class or class influences concepts of masculinity and femininity. Throughout the term students will be required to maintain a journal and record questions, thoughts, and comments about their reading. Two thought papers will also be assigned, intended to stimulate students to grapple with the issues discussed in class. Cost:2 WL:4 (Morantz-Sanchez)
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Section 004 - Consuming the World and the World of Consumption. This course will examine consumerism in the U.S. and Europe in the 20th century. It shall cover a range of issues from the commercial dynamics of popular culture (flappers to "mall rats") to global warming. Topics under scrutiny will include fashion and the body as commodity, pop and ethnic music as modes of protest against and integration with "high" culture, the automobile as liberator and oppressor, censorship and prohibition as means of advertisement, and the rise of throwaway culture. We shall use approaches that embrace cultural studies, economic analysis, ecological sensitivity, and the politics of difference. The key question shall be how consumerism arose historically as the defining essence of "Americanism" (even in Europe!) and whether it has rendered authenticity impossible or allowed new, more genuine voices to be heard. Exercise will include activities such as decoding mail-order catalogs and analyzing Cosmopolitan and Details. (Frost)
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Section 006 - History and Legacy of the Salem Witchcraft Trials. This multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural seminar will be open to incoming first-year students only. During the first third of the course, we will consider various historical analyses of the events at and around Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, during which "witchcraft" accusations were lodged against hundreds of people, many of whom were put on trial for "witchcraft" and over twenty of whom were eventually executed for the crime of being a "witch." The middle third of the course will explore the history of European "witchcraft" accusations and trials between the 15th and 18th centuries, focusing on the relationships between that history and the events in the New England colonies. During the final third of the course, we will examine modern American popular culture representations of "witches" and related images of powerful and/or dangerous women, focusing on the multiple uses of these images from the late 19th century to current times. This exploration will consider sources as varied as advertising, film, fiction, cartoons, music, political campaigns, and feminist neo-pagan (Wicca) materials. Issues of gender, sexuality, race, class, and age will guide our inquiries throughout the term. This will be a reading-intensive class. Students will be expected to write three 3-5 page analyses of the class materials and a 5-8 page end-of-term research paper. While there may be quizzes, there will be no final exam. (DuPuis)
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Section 007 - English Law, Insanity, and the Criminal Self.(Rabin)
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274/CAAS 230. Survey of Afro-American History I. (3). (SS).
See Afroamerican and African Studies 230. (J. Scott)
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286/Rel. 286. A History of Eastern Christianity from the 4th to the 18th Century. (3). (HU).
This course traces Eastern Christianity from the 4th through the 18th century. A broad survey course aimed at undergraduates of all concentrations, there are no prerequisites; the course focuses on both Church history and theology. It begins with Constantine's conversion and traces the growth of the Church, the rise of monasticism, the creation of the creed (the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon), and the secession of the Eastern churches (Coptic and Syriac), the role of religious pictures and the iconoclast dispute and relations with the West (Rome) which were frequently strained before the official break in the 11th century. We cover the conversion of the Slavs and the eventual formation of independent Slavic national churches. We treat the fall of the Byzantine and Medieval Slavic states to the Turks and the position of the Orthodox under the Turks. Attention is also given to the Russian Church from the 9th century to the Old Believer schism and Church reforms of Peter the Great. Readings are varied. There is no textbook. A relevant paper of the student's choice, an hour exam, and a final are required. (J. Fine)
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