Take me to the Fall Time Schedule
100-Level Courses are Survey Courses and Introductory Courses for First- and Second-Year Students
110. Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation
Europe. (4). (SS).
The first half of the European history survey course covers a sweeping period
of over a millennium. The course is designed to expose students to general
outlines and chronology of European history and to encourage critical, skeptical
analytical thinking. To anchor our flying coverage of this long and varied
time, we will focus on developments in culture (art, architecture, literature),
social organization (family, community, gender relations), and in political
organization and theory. Readings will include a textbook, primary sources,
challenging interpretive essays. Lecture time will be punctuated by small-group
discussions, and active participation is strongly encouraged. Slides will
frequently accompany lectures. Cost:3
WL:1 (Squatriti)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
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 (Buoye)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
132/AAPTIS 100/ACABS 100/HJCS 100. Peoples
of the Middle East. (4). (HU).
See AAPTIS 100. (Babayan)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
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)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
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)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
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 (Fitzpatrick)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
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
requirement. Each section will enroll a maximum of twenty students.
Section 001 - Wake-Up! Modern China's Master Metaphor. In the 1990s, hardly a year goes by without the publication of a new book heralding the awakening of China. Despite its current popularity, the metaphor of Chinas awakening dates back at least as far as Napoleon, who is rumored to have said: "Behold the Chinese Empire. Let it sleep, for when this dragon wakes the world will tremble." Generations of writers, both Chinese and Western, have expanded on this metaphor: first missionaries tried to awaken China to Christianity; then revolutionaries tried to awaken China to national consciousness and to the threat posed by the Japanese invasion; most recently, journalists tried to awaken China to a market economy. In this class we will trace the historical development of the awakening metaphor as a way of understanding the transformation of modern China. We will read brief accounts written by missionaries, revolutionaries, novelists, journalists and historians, and watch two films which address the subject. Students will write a number of brief papers analyzing the readings. They will also learn vital research and writing skills through the composition of a longer paper which examines other key metaphors in modern Chinese history. (Harter)
Section 002 - Aftermath: Europe Society Faces Total Wars, 1918 and 1945. "War," as the old adage goes, "casts a long shadow." It is the shadows cast across Europe by the end of WWI and by the end of WWII that will organize the course and will permit a unique exploration into the effects of total war on European society. What happened when the guns stopped firing and the soldiers came home? How did women and men attempt to rebuild their bombed-out homes and lives? How did political and social systems function or fail in the aftermath of total war, in the aftermath of total devastation? Specifically, the course will be organized around five themes: (1) the social and political transformation of war on society; (2) the political stability and/or instability of European countries at the end of the wars; (3) the redefinition of gender and gender roles as a result of male and female experiences; (4) the wartime experience's effect on cultural and artistic traditions and expressions; and (5) condition(s) of the human spirit - grieving, remembering, and forgetting. Each of the above units will be examined and studied through classroom discussion and presentations, various media sources, secondary and primary readings, and through a variety of writing projects. (Kaiser)
Section 003 - Plague, Pestilence and Morality: Conceptions of the Body in Early Modern Europe. This course will examine images and perceptions of the human body in the period from 1200-1600. We will seek to understand how what counted for disease, health, and healing was very different from conceptions of sickness and health in the modern western world. Through a consideration of relics and saints' lives, we will examine how the body, flesh, and physical affliction were central to late medieval religious practice. Looking at Europe's numerous bouts with the plague, we will explore how sick, contaminated bodies were tied to anxieties about sex, homosexuality, divine punishment, and otherness. We will look at the healing techniques of doctors, priests, and witches, paying special attention to the developing science of anatomy. We will question why certain medical practices were considered legitimate and correct, while others threatened social order and were coded as ineffective. The course will close considering the 16th-century rituals established for eating, health and cleanliness. We shall see how Renaissance culture exalted and idealized the closed, clean, controlled body in comparison to the porous, tormented, saintly body of the late Middle Ages. Course requirements will entail roughly 200 pages of reading a week, active participation in class discussions, several short reaction papers, and a longer term paper to be handed in at the end of the course. (Horodowich)
Section 004 - From High-Priestess to Princess: Perceptions and Experiences of Jewish Women in the Modern Era Whether historians have described them as mothers or matchmakers, political activists or preservers of Judaism, Jewish women in history have had to assume a secondary place in the history of the Jewish people. This course will try to correct that gap; to do so, we will examine the experiences of Jewish women in Germany and the United States between 1850 and the present. Our course will have three parts. We will begin with an exploration of the recent growth of Jewish women's history and the Jewish feminist movement. The next part of the course will evaluate Jewish women's experiences in Germany by examining the German Jewish family, women's roles in the shaping of Judaism, and women's religious, social, and philanthropic organizations. The third part of the course will analyze women's experiences in the United States, paying close attention to the lives of Jewish female immigrants and their children, as well as contemporary perceptions of Jewish women (like the Jewish American Princess or the Neurotic Jewish Mother). Our readings will not be limited to works of historical scholarship. Instead, as we read the articles and books assigned for the course, we also will analyze cookbooks, short stories, poems, and cartoons. Our exercises will be supplemented by silent Yiddish films, recent movies, and contemporary media sources concerned with Jewish women. You not only will be responsible for reading memoirs, but you also will learn how to record an oral history. (Judd)
Section 006 - "Tribe" and "Tradition" in 20th
Century Africa. Our class will introduce students to a variety of perspectives
and issues relating to two fundamental topics in modern sub-Saharan African
history: "tribe" and "tradition". A principal goal
of our class will be to investigate the prevailinig "common wisdom"
about these two issues in Africa. We will approach these issues from a
number of different perspectives: colonization, attempts at colonial rule
and control, African rebellion, economic change, social changes, and urbanization.
In doing so, we will examine how ethnic identity and affiliation can alter
depending on changing events and circumstances, and how this affects our
interpretation of African history and current events. We will also have
lessons on writing techniques, on analyzing texts and on formulating and
supporting an historical argument. (J. Shapiro)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
196. First-Year Seminar. Only
first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register
for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3).
(SS).
Section 001 - Court Narratives: Gender
and Justice in the United States. This seminar will focus on a series
of trials and other matters of law that illuminate the history of women
and gender relations in the United States. Beginning with prosecutions involving
slander, rape, infanticide, illicit sex, heresy, and witchcraft in 17th-century
British and Spanish colonies and ending with 20th-century legal battles
over employment discrimination, reproductive rights, sexual harassment,
and surrogate mothering, our approach will be to examine judicial proceedings
as sites of competing "stories in the law" told about gender,
race, class, and ethnicity. A primary concern will be how these stories
have been narrated in and beyond the courtroom. We will also ask what they
tell us about continuities and changes in constructions of womanhood and
manhood, in the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and in the relations
of power within families and among different groups of men and women. (Karlsen)
Section 002 - Gender, Race, and Class. Students will use the techniques of historical analysis to unravel how gender, race, and class have functioned in American History. We will also explore the historiography of these subjects - how historians have identified, analyzed, and written about them and how approaches have changed over time. Students will be introduced to the concept of social construction - the idea that race, gender, and class structures are not fixed, universal biological entities, but are shaped and determined by cultural values, time, and place. They will also be urged to think about how these categories intersect. This seminar is intended to be a small reading and discussion class, so regular attendance and participation are mandatory. There is a strong writing component. Cost:2 (Morantz-Sanchez)
Section 003 - Nationality and the Soviet Union. Beginning with the question, what is a nation?, this seminar will examine nationality in the Soviet Union and will consider the three interrelated topics of national identity, nationality policy, and nationalism. Particular attention will be given to the approaches and policies of Lenin and Stalin, their consequences, and to the experience of nationalities in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. As a case study, we will examine in detail the origins, evolution, and outcome of a movement in support of national self-determination in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic between 1988 and 1990. Topics to be explored in depth include the movement in the context of Gorbachev's reforms; the movement in comparison with other national movements in the Soviet Union; and the role of historical memory in nationalisms of the period. The relationship between nationalism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union also will be considered. Readings will include primary and secondary sources. Class presentations and papers will be required. (Platz)
Section 004 - Making the Future. One of the enduring myths about the United States is that it is a country that has no past, only a present and a future. This freshman seminar will explore elements of that myth by examining various ways in which the future has been imagined and produced, from the Puritans' city on a hill to the 1939 New York World's Fair to the Microserfs' global cybernetic village. Using a range of kinds of sources - including diaries, literature, politics, art, science, technology, and film - drawn from various moments in the nation's past, we will investigate how Americans have sought to make and remake American culture and society. A particular interest will be in analyzing whether Americans have been at all successful in escaping the past, or whether it is precisely various experiences of the past that have helped to shape imaginings of the future. (Carson)
Section 005 – Politics and Culture
of Race in Post-1945 United States. For Fall Term, 1998, this section
is offered jointly with American Culture
102.001. (Countryman)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
197. First-Year Seminar. Only
first-year students, including those with sophomore standing, may pre-register
for First-Year Seminars. All others need permission of instructor. (3).
(HU).
Section 001- 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)
Section 002 - Introduction to Maritime History. Students in this seminar will consider various perspectives on the history of maritime activity in the early modern world - with special attention to issues of race, class, and gender. Texts for the course will include monographs on sailors, navigation, and exploration; community and cultural studies; and fiction. (J. Scott)
Section 003 - Coming of Age in 20th-Century
Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. Explores the transformation of specific
African social groups during the transition from agricultural-based rural
life to new forms of living in major urban areas, such as Lagos, Accra,
and Harare. The primary questions examined include the following: how are
older cultural practices designed to socialize young men and women transformed
by the changes in lifestyles and the new forms of economic, religious, and
social organization?; what are the major challenges to inter-generational
relationships?; and how have young people managed to confront the heavy
burdens of both cultural expectations and the demands of urban life? The
course requires the writing and rewriting of a series of papers. (Scarnecchia)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability
274/CAAS 230. Survey of Afro-American
History I. >(3). (SS).
See CAAS 230. (Scott)
Check
Times, Location, and Availability