Course Descriptions

This one-semester course will explore the long history of  Spain from its beginnings in the stone age through the great social and economic upheavals of the twentieth century.  Beginning with an introduction to its geography and language, we shall touch on such topics as paleolithic settlement and art, the arrival of new groups (Celts, Greeks, Phoenicians), the Roman imperium, the Visigothic domination, the Islamic conquest and Christian reconquest (Reconquista), medieval kingdoms and their unification, the separate way of Portugal, the birth and death of  religious toleration, the rise and fall of Spain in the European state system, Hapsburg and Bourbon kings, the troubled nineteenth century and even more troubled twentieth, and finally, the emergence of one of Europe’s most democratic societies.   Wherever possible, the course will attempt to place Spain into the larger context of European and Mediterranean society.  Basic information will be conferred primarily through lectures by the professor.

Course Goals:

(1)  To provide students with a firm understanding of the history and culture of the Iberian Peninsula, in particular of  what we today call Spain.  (There will also be some treatment of that part of Spain that maintained its independence in the unifying process and is today the nation of Portugal.)

(2)  To provide some understanding of the various types of evidence available to scholars when they  undertakes to reconstruct the Spanish past

(3)  (Hopefully) To inspire in the student a further interest in the study of Spain, its people, and its history and encourage travel to an ancient and fascinating land

Required Reading:

Simon Barton, A History of Spain (Palgrave MacMillan, 2004).

This is the best general text on Spanish history currently available in English.  Even though it is rather "light" on periods before roughly 1000, read in conjunction with the lectures, it should supply the student with an adequate knowledge of Spain's ancient past.

If the student finds it necessary to supplement the Barton text, he/she may have access to a now out-of-print textbook written by one of the finest historians of modern Spain and available FOR FREE  on the web through LIBRO:  The Library of Iberian Resources on Line.  See:  Stanley Payne, A History of Spain and Portugal at URL:  http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/spainport1.htm

Olivia Remie Constable, Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).

An excellent collection of sources from medieval Spain, taken from the three great religions that co-existed there as nowhere else in Europe.  (The book is dedicated to John Boswell, the man who saved my academic career.)

There are two other books on the list, both dealing with Spain in what historians designate "the modern period" (c. 1500-the present).  Depending upon where your interests lie, you may choose to read one or the other.  (Of course, I am not seeking to discourage you from reading both if you so desire!)

John Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469-1715. 

This classic work, written by one of the foremost historians of the twentieth century (still going strong in the twenty-first)  is still the best one volume account that covers the period from Spanish unification under the Catholic Monarchs to the end of the Hapsburg dynasty.

Richard Herr, An Historical Essay on Modern Spain. 

Written by a leading scholar of Spain since the Enlightenment, this work carries Spain from the establishment of the Bourbon dynasty, established at the beginning of the eighteenth century through the end of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACROSS THE CURRICULUM INITIATIVE FOR HISTORY STUDENTS 

 THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY IS PLEASED TO OFFER FOR THE FIRST TIME AN **OPTIONAL** ADDITIONAL ONE-HOUR CLASS FOR CREDIT IN SPANISH ATTACHED TO HISTORY 306N: INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY AND CULTURE OF SPAIN. 

Students with intermediate Spanish language skills enrolled in HIS 306N, Intro to History and Culture of Spain, may, if they choose, sign up for a supplemental one-hour class in Spanish, SPN 130D (unique 46555). Students who take this additional course will receive an additional hour's credit in Spanish from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.  This is a unique opportunity to develop language skills in the context of historical reading. The Department of History encourages interested students to take advantage of this unique opportunity. Time and Place for SPN 130D will be determined according to student availability.

Course Description:

 “Premodern World” is a lower-division, lecture course that provides an overview of global development from roughly 30,000 BCE to 1500 CE.  It introduces students to the main political, social, and cultural trends in a variety of societies while at the same time stressing the global perspective.  Considerable emphasis is thus paid to comparative history and the study of cross-cultural encounters.  This entry-level course aims to teach historical thinking as well as historical content, to impart a basic grasp of the premodern past as well as to stimulate the development of large-scale frameworks for historical analysis. Although this course has no prerequisites and assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, students are presumed to be capable of critical reflection upon both lectures and readings.

Readings (tentative):

-- R. Strayer, Ways of the World, A Brief Global History with Sources vol. 1

-- Neil McGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects

-- British Museum, A History of the World in 100 Objects website

-- extracts of original sources in translation (provided on Blackboard)

Requirements (tentative):

There will be three non-cumulative exams, consisting of both short answer and essay questions. Several short, factual, multiple-choice quizzes based on the assigned textbook readings will be administered on Mondays.  A series of reading worksheets will accompany our non-textbook sources.  Attendance and participation is another component of the final grade. The various aspects of student performance are weighted:

exams (3 x 20% each) = 60%; quizzes = 15%; reading worksheets = 20%; attendance & participation = 5%.

"Ancient Mediterranean World" surveys the major civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Italy from the dawn of the city around 3000 BC through the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 400s AD. Beyond providing a basic historical framework, the course explores the surprising ways in which the various civilizations of the area influenced one another culturally. We will examine interactions between Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, Hebrews, Persians, Greeks and Romans, among others. Students will also learn about the different types of evidence, both literary and archaeological, on which knowledge of the ancient world is based. There are two lectures and one discussion section per week.

Textbook:

R.W. Mathisen: Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations. Oxford, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-0195378382.

Grading:

mid-term (30%)

final exam (40%)

short papers (20%)

participation in discussion section (10%)

Covers the period from Rome's foundation through Caesar's murder in 44 B.C.  The emphasis placed on the last two centuries of the Republic when problems accumulated and solutions did not.  All the factors contributing to the Republic's fall will discussed:  political, military, social, economic, religious, etc..

 Grading:

2 quizzes (each 25%) requiring essay answers

Final exam (50%) requiring essay answers

Texts:

M. Cary & H.H. Scullar, A History of Rome (3rd ed.)

Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Republic (Penguin)

Sallust, Jugarthine War & The Conspiracy of Catiline (Penguin)

 Optional:

Appian, Civil Wars (Penguin)

This course covers essential developments in Greek history during the Archaic and Early Classical Periods (ca. 800-400 B.C.). Emphasis will be divided between political/military history and ancient Greek society and culture (e.g. gender and class, religion, economy, performance). The course will consist of two hours of lecture per week plus a required one-hour discussion section. Particular attention will be paid to the interpretation of ancient sources, both written works and the archaeological remains. 

This course carries a Global Cultures flag; it may also be counted as an elective.

Grades will be based on:

35%    2 midterm examinations

30%    final examination

35%    discussion section (short quizzes, 8 short writing assignments, active and informed participation in discussion)

There are no prerequisites.

 Required Texts:

1. Ian Morris and Barry B. Powell, The Greeks. History, Culture, and Society. Prentice Hall

2. Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Herodotus. Simon and Schuster

3. Robert B. Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides. Simon and Schuster

4. Charles W. Fornara (ed.), Translated Documents of Greece & Rome 1. Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War. Cambridge UP

Mystics and visionaries claim  to have a particular encounter with the divine that transcends ordinary human experience.  In this course, we examine particular mystical and visionary experiences within the context of medieval European Christianity.   We will read writings both by and about figures such as Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux, Catherine of Siena, Margarete Porete, and Meister Eckhard, and we will investigate the interpretative questions these writings raise for historians and scholars of religion.   We will explore the tensions between individual experience  and communal or institutional religion; the kinds of authority and challenges to authority that these experiences created;  the relationship between experiences of the spirit and practices of the body; and the problem of expressing what is unexpressible.  Finally, we will examine the ways in which scholars have studied these types of religious experiences. This course will have a writing flag, and thus students are expected to write frequently, substantially, and with peer input.  Students will write 5 response papers to the weekly readings, and will work through the stages of writing a research paper.   While the course readings will focus on medieval Christian mystics and visionaries, students are welcome to write research papers on figures from other religious traditions or to examine mystics or visions from the early modern or modern period.

Books will include:

Hanson, Ron.  Mariette in Ecstasy. 

Kroll, Jerome, and Bernard Bachrach,  The Mystic Mind:  The Psychology of Medieval Mystics and Ascetics

Fanning, Steven.  Mystics of the Christian Tradition

McGinn, Bernard.  Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism.

Selected Writings of Hildegard of Bingen.

In addition, a set of  articles and primary source readings will be placed on Blackboard.

Grading

5 1-2 page papers:    3% each  =  15%

research project prospectus   =  10%

research paper (10-15 pages)  draft  = 15%

peer responses  = 10%

final research paper  = 25%

class participation  = 25%

The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are the products of oral song traditions that extend back as far as 1500 BCE.  The texts contain important information about what we now call the palatial period of the Greek Bronze Age and Greek culture prior to the age of the introduction of alphabetic writing inin the 8th century BCE.

We are now able to form a fuller picture of the stages of social, economic, cultural and political development that preceded Greek polis culture in the historical period (800 BCE onward).  We do this using the clay tablet records found at Mycenaean sites (Linear B, deciphered in 1952 and studied intensively for the last 60 years) combined with archaeological, anthropological and historical investigations and theories.

This course will focus on the translated primary sources (Linear B texts) and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to explore the long-standing question of Homer's historicity, first by getting a  definitive view of  what we do know about Mycenaean Greek society and culture and then by trying to figure out the cultural importance of the epics in the 8th-5th centuries BCE.

Texts:

John Chadwick The Mycenaean World (1976)

Stanley Lombardo The Iliad (1997) and The Odyssey (2000)

We will also read selections from sources such as:

Shear, Ione Mylonas. Tales of Heroes: The Origins of the Homeric Texts (2000)

Oxford Handbook of the Aegean Bronze Age (2010)

Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age (2008)

A New Companion to Homer (1997)

The Cambridge Companion to Homer (2004) 

A Companion to Linear B, vols. 1 and 2 (2008 and 2011)

Grade based on in-class report, two papers in the course of the semester and a final brief 'oral examination with fact sheet'.