Transfer Student Courses in History (Division 390)

Fall Term, 1999 (September 8 - December 22, 1999)

To see what Transfer Student courses have been added or changed in History this week go to What's New This Week.

History 121/Asian Studies 121. Great Traditions of East Asia.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Holcombe

No Description Provided

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Section 001.

Instructor(s): Victor Lieberman (eurasia@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS).

Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Southeast Asia is one of the world's most culturally diverse regions, home to Buddhist, Muslim, Confucian, and Christian civilizations. It boasts ancient monuments of surpassing grandeur and symbolic complexity. It was the scene of the bloodiest conflict since 1945, the Vietnam War. Until recently it had the world's fastest growing regional economy, and it remains an area of great importance to Japan as well as the United States. This course offers an introduction (and thus assumes no prior knowledge) to Southeast Asian history from the earliest civilizations, through the colonial conquest, the indigenous political reaction – of which Vietnamese Communism and the Vietnam Wars were one expression – and the contemporary economic scene. The course seeks to define Southeast Asia's uniqueness as well as its evolving ties to the rest of the world. Midterm, final, and optional paper. Two lectures, one discussion section per week.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Sarah Humphreys

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU).

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course presents a survey of history from human beginnings through Alexander the Great. Primary emphasis is on the development of civilization in its Near Eastern and Greek phases. Students need no special background except an ability to think in broad terms and concepts. In view of the extent of historical time covered in the course, a general textbook is used to provide factual material. There are two hour examinations plus a final examination. Discussion sections are integrated with lectures and reading.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Michael MacDonald (mmacdon@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS).

Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course introduces students to the sweep of English history from Roman times until the Glorious Revolution. The first half of it is devoted to the Middle Ages and focuses on the formation of the English monarchy, the role of the church in politics and culture, and basic social and economic structures. The second half treats the early modern period (c.1450-1700) and concentrates on the growth of the state, the Protestant Reformation, the English Revolution, and the social and economic changes that followed the Black Death and played themselves out during the reigns of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs. No prior knowledge of English history is assumed in this course, and it is intended to serve as the basis for more advanced work in British history and to provide background and comparisons for courses in English literature and European and American history.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Chung-shu Chang

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course consists of a survey of early Chinese history, with special emphasis on the origins and development of the political, social, and economic institutions and their intellectual foundations. Special features include class participation in performing a series of short dramas recreating critical issues and moments in Chinese history, slides especially prepared for the lectures, new views on race and gender in the making of China, intellectual and scientific revolutions in the seventeenth century, and literature and society in premodern China.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Michele Mitchell (mmitch@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (SS).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is designed as a survey of African-American people, politics, and culture since emancipation. From Reconstruction to migration, from world wars to mass social protest, we will assess how large-scale demographic and political phenomena shaped the daily lives of Black women, men, and children. As much as we shall focus upon the ways in which a unified Afro-American experience has been forged through ongoing forms of oppression, we will also consider how various factors – including class, region, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ideology – contributed to substantial diversity within Black communities by the mid-twentieth century. Moreover, a major goal of the course is to complicate “race”: at the same time we explore the rigid yet arbitrary practices of racial segregation (“Jim Crow”) we shall also endeavor to discuss racial dynamics in the United States beyond binary notions of Black and white.

Throughout the term we shall work with the artifacts and crafting of history as well. Not only will we read primary documents and analyze cultural expressions, then, we are also going to spend time thinking about how scholars have written African-American history. Whereas this course is not a theory seminar, it is nonetheless concerned with theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding the past. Students who take this course should be somewhat familiar with the contours of African-American and/or U.S. history but prior work in either field is not a prerequisite. Furthermore, it is not necessary to have taken African-American History I in order to enroll in African-American History II.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Brian Porter (baporter@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS).

Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~baporter/syl31899.html

In 1945 Europe lay in ruins. Entire cities had been leveled by the destructive powers of modern warfare, and the cultural, political, and social norms of the pre-war world had been shattered. What made such violence possible, and how did ordinary men and women experience it? History 318 will explore the ideological, political, economic, social, and cultural forces that both caused and were destroyed by the savagery of the early 20th century. We will not only study the origins and consequences of World Wars I and II, but also the ways in which everyday life was transformed during this turbulent era. We will look at Europe from the inside (by studying relations of class, gender, and nationality), and from the outside (by tracing the ideology and practice of imperialism). Grading will be based on a midterm and a final exam, on active participation in a discussion section, and on two take-home essay assignments.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Carol Karlsen (ckarlsen@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is an introduction to the history of American women – as a group, as individuals, and as members of different classes, and racial, regional and ethnic communities. Using work, politics, and sexuality as organizing concepts, it focuses particularly on the significance of gender in determining women's experiences from the early seventeenth century to 1870. Special attention is paid to initial and continuing encounters of Native Americans, Euro-Americans, and African-Americans; to evolving constructions of "womanhood" and their significance for different groups of women; to the meaning of religious movements, wars, economic transformations, and demographic shifts for women's individual and collective efforts to determine the course of their own histories.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Stefanie Siegmund (siegmund@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will survey major historic developments in medieval Jewish society under both Islam and western Christendom. Broadly, the course will look at the divergence of Judaism and Christianity, the rise of the Babylonian geonim, the social and cultural history of Jews in the Arab Mediterranean world, the emergence of Jewish communities in Medieval Ashkenaz, and the impact on Jewish society of the Crusades, the Reconquista, the emergence of the mendicant orders, and the Black Death. The course will examine the interaction of Jews with the majority culture, political structure, and economy, as well as changing cultural trends within Jewish society. The distinctive religious climate of the medieval period will serve as a unifying theme throughout. We will study primary sources as well as recent historical scholarship, and our focus will include the history of women as well as that of men. Class is conducted as lecture and discussion of texts with an occasional film or slide lecture. Requirements for the course: several short written and oral assignments, tests, and final examination. Prerequisites: None. History 110 and some familiarity with Judaism or Jewish civilization (Religion 201, Judaic Studies 379/HJCS 379, or similar) is recommended background.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Todd Endelman (endelman@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course surveys Jewish history in Europe, America, and the Middle East from the mid-seventeenth century to the 1870s. It begins with the emergence of West European Jews from cultural and social isolation, discusses their political emancipation, and traces their efforts to modernize Jewish ritual and belief. The focus then shifts to Eastern Europe, where the world of tradition persisted much longer. The lectures on Eastern Europe will focus on the religious and social character of Jewish life in Poland and Russia, the development of Hasidism, and the first glimmerings of enlightenment in the mid-nineteenth century. The course will conclude with a look at the Jewish communities of North Africa and the Middle East. There will be an essay-type midterm, a 10-12 page paper, and a comprehensive final.

Prerequisites & Distribution: Open only to history concentrators by written permission of instructor. Only 12 credits of History 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, and 399 may be counted toward a concentration plan in history. (1-4). (Excl). (INDEPENDENT). May be repeated for credit only with permission of the Associate Chairman.

Credits: (1-4; 1-3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Individual reading program under the direction of a staff member.

Section 001 – Democracy in Classical Athens: Anything to do with Modern Democracy?.

Instructor(s): Beate Dignas

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course will treat origins, developments, and facets of Greek democracy. We will look at constitutional, administrative, and social factors that shaped Athenian society in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Topics will include the role of political leadership, religion, women, law and courts, and slavery. A central aim of the course will be to explore the evidence. How do ancient philosophers and historians, how do inscriptions, art, and architecture reflect and explain the workings of ancient democracy? How do we interpret these pieces of information? Towards the end of the semester the focus will be on comparison and retrospective. Where do we place ancient democracy with regard to modern political thought and moral values? Does classical Athens enhance our understanding of politics today?

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Diane Hughes (dohughes@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

How did a medieval city of bankers and cloth merchants become, in the fifteenth century, the center of an original humanist culture that offered Europeans new ways of seeing and portraying themselves and their society – from artistic perspective to the writing of history? The course will trace the history of renaissance Florence not only as a chronicle of its development but also as the process by which it self-consciously constituted itself as a society and a history. Among the topics taken up will be the reshaping of the city, both physically and constitutionally; the transformation of the Medici from bankers to humanist rulers; the development of humanism into an enabling code for civil life; the new valuation of wealth and the civic use of magnificence (from palaces to wedding and funeral processions); social organization and changing attitudes toward the disempowered (slaves, Jews, the poor, women); and forms of religious expression, from confronternal devotions and processions to the fire and brimstone of prophetic preachers (e.g., Savonarola). Considerable use will be made of original sources (historical, literary, and visual). This is designed as a lecture course, but there will be ample time allotted for discussion.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): John Fine

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

A general survey of the Balkans (including Medieval Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and the relations of these states with Byzantium and Hungary) from the arrival of the Slavs in the 6th and 7th century through the Turkish period to the 19th century independence struggle and state creation of the Serbs and Greeks. The reading list consists of monographs, articles, and a few translated sources. The reading list can be altered (with permission of the instructor) and to accommodate special interests. There will be an hour exam, a paper (topic to be chosen by student with permission of the instructor) of about 15 pages, and a final exam. Students who prefer to write a major paper (ca. 25 pages) can skip the hour exam.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Brian Porter (baporter@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~baporter/syl43899.html

This course will survey the history of Eastern Europe up to 1900, concentrating on the lands now included within Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. We will explore the development and collapse of a political and social system marked by both unparalleled liberties for the nobility and crushing oppression for the peasantry. East European history has been shaped by the interactions of two great religions – Christianity and Judaism – and we will discover some of the rich diversity within each tradition. In this course we will see how the cultural and ethnic divisions of the region took shape over the centuries, and how the sometimes violent, sometimes creative force of nationalism assumed its modern form. By looking at a region which always sat precariously on the boundaries of that elusive concept called "Europe," we will critically examine the questions of economic and social underdevelopment which remain so important in our own day.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Michael Bonner (mbonner@umich.edu) , Rudi Lindner (rpl@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: Junior standing. (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Reserves/F99/HS442/

See Arabic, Armenian, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic Studies 461.001.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Juan Cole (jrcole@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/syls.htm

This lecture course surveys the emergence of the modern Middle East from the three great Muslim empires of the early modern period, the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal. It discusses both indigenous developments and the Western impact in the nineteenth century, looking at reform bureaucracy and millenarian movements as responses to these changes. We then examine the rise of nationalism and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire during and after WW I, and these phenomena are seen as the context for the beginnings of the Palestine issue. Attention is paid to the interwar efforts at building strong states in the region, whether in the Turkey of Ataturk, the Iran of Reza Shah, or Wafdist Egypt. The last part of the course looks at the rise of socialist and pan-Arab ideologies, as well as of opposing ideologies such as Islamic activism after WW II. The impact of petroleum, the Palestinian issue, the turn toward bourgeois liberalism, and Shi'ite movements such as the Iranian Revolution and the Hizbullah phenomenon in Lebanon, and the Gulf War of 1991, will all be addressed in this section. Students will take a midterm and a final examination, and will write a ten-page term paper on a subject of their choosing. Reading in this course comes to about 150 pages per week.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Mamadou Diouf

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (SS).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The course is an introduction to the peoples and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa. It begins with a survey of the origins of man and early African civilizations and concludes with the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Uno

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

In this course we will explore the history of Japan from the dissolution of a semi-feudal system in the 18th and early 19th centuries to Japan’s rise as a world economic power in the latter half of the 20th century. We will address both the major historical themes during these two centuries of radical transformation and the issues at stake in historical interpretation. The course covers:

1. the decline of official power during the Tokugawa era and the rise of a new plebeian public sphere;
2. Japan’s coerced entry into the world market;
3. the consolidation of a modern nation-state, industrialization, and the beginnings of Japanese imperialism in Asia;
4. the rise of social protest and mass culture;
5. political reaction and militarism;
6. defeat in the Pacific War and the U.S. Occupation;
7. postwar recovery and the contested emergence of a conservative hegemony;
8. myths and realities of Japan’s new affluent “information society.”

Class sessions will combine lecture, discussion and audio-visual. Assignments: brief critical summaries of readings, discussion panels, in-class midterm, final paper.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Rudolf Mrázek (rdlf@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

The major theme of this course is "emancipation" of Southeast Asia, a historical confrontation between the societies of the region and the imagined global community of "developed" nations. Geographic coverage will include the principal countries of the mainland (Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and the island world (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines). Lectures and reading assume no prior knowledge of the region. There will be a midterm, a final, and a term paper.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Thomas Trautmann (ttraut@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/humin/TT/course.html

This course is about the beginnings of Indian civilization, from about 2500 BC when it first appeared in the Indus valley to the start of the Gupta empire in which it reaches its classic form. It is a lecture survey, which will deal with all aspects of Indian civilization in its formative phase. It presumes no prior study of India on the part of any of its participants (except the professor). Both undergraduate and graduate students are welcome. (The subsequent history of classical India and the coming of Islam will be dealt with in History 455, to be offered next year, but each course is self-contained and you need not elect the other.)

Section 001.

Instructor(s): David Frye (dfrye@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (SS).

Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dfrye/

See Cultural Anthropology 416.001.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Ernest Young (epyoung@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~epyoung/ModChina.html

In this course we will treat a selected set of major aspects of Chinese history from the 18th century to the present. A central task will be to sort out the roots, processes, and consequences of the Chinese revolution. We shall examine the testimony of conservatives as well as revolutionaries, of Confucians as well as Marxists. Among the topics will be: secret societies and religious cults; trends in Confucian thought and the role of popular culture; Christian missions and imperialism; nationalism and ethnicity; women's liberation; cultural iconoclasm and neotraditionalism; Marxism and the Chinese peasant, Maoism and its debunking. Previous familiarity with the broad outline of events will be useful but is not required. Readings will be drawn from analytical literature and translated documents. Participants will be asked to write two papers and take a final exam.

Section 001 – China and Early East Asia: Han to Tang.

Instructor(s): Charles Holcombe

Prerequisites & Distribution: Upper-class standing. (3). (Excl). May be elected for credit twice.

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Reserves/F99/HS592/

This course will explore East Asian history during the period of crisis following the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220. While China was torn apart by war and nomadic invasions, and struggling towards eventual reintegration under the Sui and Tang dynasties (581-907), the first independent native states began to coalesce in Korea and Japan through a process of dynamic interaction with the Chinese model--and what we think of as East Asia was born.

Course format: lectures interlaced with discussions of selected short readings. Assigned readings are available on Reserve at the Library.

Grading Criteria: two hour long examinations (30 points each); one 5-10 page original paper (30 points); class participation (10 points).