Course Descriptions

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  This entry-level course aims to teach historical thinking as well as historical content, to impart a basic grasp of the premodern past as well as to stimulate the development of large-scale frameworks for historical analysis.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%.

Course Description
Geographically, linguistically, ethnically, and economically, China today is a land of diversity, characterized by striking regional variations. Yet underlying this diversity is a shared cultural heritage: a unifying set of historical, literary, and artistic traditions, philosophical and religious ideas, political institutions, and a common writing system. This course introduces the study of Chinese society and culture through an examination of the cultural unities and diversities, continuities and discontinuities that comprise the historical development of Chinese civilization. Topics include philosophy and religion; cosmology and the life cycle; literature and arts; science, technology and medicine; power and authority; gender, ethnicity, and cultural identity. This course provides a foundation for continued study of Chinese history and society for students who plan to go on to more specialized, upper-division courses including Chinese anthropology, history, literature, sociology, economics, law, policy, international business, art history, architecture, environmental science, and philosophy.

Course Goals
The primary learning goal for this course is to acquire a broad understanding of the historical development of civilization in China. This course adopts a "hands on" approach by asking students to consider primary historical evidence of both a textual and visual nature. Therefore, a second goal of this course is to develop one's ability to interpret texts and images as historical evidence by considering such material within its particular cultural, social, and political context. The ultimate goal of the course is to acquire a richer understanding of Chinese civilization and to develop research skills that will facilitate continued study of and coursework on China and East Asia.

Textbook
Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 2nd edition (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010) supplemented by a range of short primary source documents available electronically.

Grading
Class participation: 10%
Quiz: 5%
3 tests: 60% (20% each)
Final exam: 25%

Course Description and Goals

This course surveys the history of the Middle East from the rise of Islam to the end of the fifteenth century. Students will be introduced to basic aspects of the political, social, and cultural dimensions of Islamic civilization from Spain to Iran as they changed over time. In the midst of mapping this broad view, we will focus our attention on how specific historical figures and events contributed to definitions of Islamic identity, community, and authority. Central themes include the emergence of Sunni and Shi`I identities, the relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims, and the unique material and intellectual contributions of Islamic civilization to world history and other societies.

An overarching goal of this course is to focus attention on the history of the Middle East in this formative phase as a fascinating, complicated, and enriching study in its own right. In order to do this, students will be expected to master key terms and concepts of the period. The intent of all essay exams is to hone analytical skills and written expression.

Course Rules

It will be my pleasure to meet with you throughout the semester, whether you have a question about the course or simply to make your acquaintance and facilitate your learning experience at this University.

I am available during office hours and by appointment. Teaching assistants will also hold office hours. You may not reproduce verbatim notes or tapes of my lectures anywhere, in any form.

I will attempt to make this an informative and enjoyable class, but your participation is essential to complete your own intellectual development. I will not require your attendance in class (freewill in adults is a beautiful thing), but unexcused absences will not result in the recapitulation of a lecture by the instructor or teaching assistants.

*Religious observances are always understood as excused absences.

*Students with disabilities should consult me at the beginning of the semester.

*Class handouts and assignment sheets due to any absence will always be supplied. Attendance will be taken at exams.

*Do not breach the University's Honor Code; re-read it.

In order to succeed in this class, you will need to learn all the reading material assigned on the syllabus, delivered in lectures, and discussed in class. All exams and other written assignments are due on the dates stipulated on the syllabus.

There will be no make-up exams without consent of the instructor. (Only medical emergencies or catastrophic events will warrant consideration.) Emails simply alerting me to your absence without discussion or documentation are not acceptable.

Course Requirements:

4 exams @ 25% each = 100%.

Required Books and Readings:

To be determined.

Part One:

Religion and Politics

I.  Course Objectives and the Middle East before Islam

II. The Advent of Islam

III. The Prophet

IV. The Caliphs: Succession and Conquest

V. The First Islamic Empire: The Umayyad Dynasty at Damascus

Part Two:

Social Change and the Rise of Islamic Culture

VI. Cosmopolitan Islam and Conversion: The Abbasid Empire at Baghdad

VII. The Separation of Mosque and State

VIII. Philosophy and Mysticism

IX. Buyid Shi`I and Saljuk Sunni Dynasties at Baghdad

X.  Shi`ism in Egypt and the Impact of the Crusades

XI. The Mongol Invasion

Part Three:

New Empires and Contacts with the West

XII.  Islamic Spain [***Third Exam]

XIII. The Conversion of Iran to Shi`ism

XIV. The Sunni Ottoman Empire

XV. Islam in 18th- Century Western Thought [Fourth Exam (in-class)]

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:This course presents the major themes of North African history from the sixteenth century to today. North African history intersects several fields of study (European, African, and Middle Eastern studies) and Muslims, Christians, and Jews have made their homes here, marking the region with multi-religious and multi-linguistic traditions. Looking in particular at that part of North Africa known in Arabic as the Maghrib (today’s Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), the course begins in the early modern Mediterranean period.  At this time, merchants and privateers linked Europe and the Middle East from the Maghreb’s ports, and in the interior, caravans of scholars and slaves linked the region to sub-Saharan Africa. Our attention then moves into to the period of European ascendency, when France in particular established itself as the preeminent power in North Africa, beginning with the invasion of Algeria in 1830 and culminating in the 1912 French protectorate in Morocco.  The period of European colonial rule came to an end in the decades after the Second World War, and the course concludes with the challenges faced by post-colonial states during the Cold War and the rise of Islamist political opposition movements in the 1990s.

This course will concentrate on the themes and methodologies necessary to thinking about the history of the planet, roughly 1500-present.  It will not provide a synthetic, chronological overview of everything that has happened on this planet in the last 500 years.  Rather, it will concentrate on the movements of technology, ideas, and persons that have made possible something like a globalized, interconnected – albeit differentiated – world.  Attention will be given to the interplay between universalizing forces and local specificities, to shifting conceptions of the universal and of difference, and to instabilities of boundaries and borders – geographical, political, and conceptual – that result from and regulate the tensions between broadly planetary and locally differentiated developments.  In the course we will devote as much time to the concepts and methodologies of global history as we will to the content of empirical historical developments. 

Grading

Midterm: 25%

Midterm: 30%

Final Exam: 30%

Weekly Quizzes and Participation: 15%

Texts (subject to change)

Robert Strayer, Ways of the World: A Brief Global History, Vol. 2 (Boston and New York:  Bedford/St. Martin’s (2009).

Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies (New York: New York Review Books, 1969).

Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu (New York: Vintage, 1989).

Course Description 

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of Latin America.  With 20 nations and a total population of over 500 million, Latin America is an area of fascinating cultural diversity as well as troubling socioeconomic inequality.  The course aims to acquaint students with the richness, complexity and diversity of historical experiences and cultural practices in Latin America through an array of source materials that include historical monographs, ethnography, testimonial literature, fiction, music, film, and documentaries.   Through a sample of case studies culled from throughout the region, the course will shed light on the processes, structures, and forces that have shaped Latin America.  Topics include:  pre-Columbian civilizations, Iberian expansionism and the Conquest of Latin America; Church in colonial Latin America;  sugar plantations in Brazil and the trans-Atlantic slave trade; Independence movements; agro-export economies; U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean Basin; populism, urbanization , and import-substitution industrialization; popular culture, art, literature and music; revolutionary alternatives; the Cold War in Latin America and state-sponsored violence; transnational flows of capital and labor.

Course Overview: In this course, we examine the central cultural characteristics of the Western heritage after the Reformation and discuss their transformation up to the present. A chronological narrative of the history in question will be provided by the lecturer and the textbook, but the most significant portion of our time together will be devoted to the examination of a number of central questions within western society since the Reformation. We will attempt to formulate an understanding of “western civilization” and its central concerns and transformations, with a particular attention paid to economy and politics in their relationships to culture and freedom. We will discuss such issues as the construction of political authority and its relationship to emerging conceptions of political liberty, revolution, popular sovereignty, and political economy. We will examine and explain the emergence of the central characteristics of modern Western society, including mass society, democracy, colonialism, secularism, political sovereignty, and the nation-state. Focus in the course is away from memorization of factual information about European history and toward reading, discussion, interpretation and criticism of texts that exemplify certain moments in the western tradition. By reading, discussing, analyzing and criticizing these sources, students will receive an introduction to the tasks involved in “thinking like a historian.”

Prerequisites:  Students taking this course are assumed to be capable of an informed, critical stance toward the claims of the lecturer. No previous knowledge of the subject matter is assumed.

Possible Texts:

Mark Kishlansky et al., Civilization in the West, vol. 2

Jean Calvin, Golden Book of the True Christian Life

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (selections)

Émile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise

Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel

J. M. Keynes, The End of Laissez-Faire / Economic Consequences of the Peace (selections)

Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (selections)

Additional readings will be distributed in class or are available on the Internet

Assignments & Grading:

Compliance with syllabus policy 0%

Compliance with attendance policy 0%

Paper 1 @ 15%

Paper 2 @ 25%

Final paper @ 30%

Average of regular quizzes @ 30% each (I will drop your two lowest scores)

This an introduction to the many ways Mexican Americans are a central part of American history. 

This introductory course in American Studies presents an interdisciplinary survey of American culture and society with a particular emphasis on understanding United States citizenship.

Primarily a lecture course, we will pay attention to the constructions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class that occur in and around practices of citizenship both normative and legal. Throughout we will analyze historical moments and social institutions using a variety of primary—including but not limited to literature, film, art and music—and secondary sources. Given that notions of citizenship are continually contested and reshaped, our goal will be to understand how the intersection of various political and cultural discourses around citizenship has shifted from the colonial era to the present day.

Course Objectives:

1.  Grasp the broad history of the United States and key theoretical concepts of importance to the field of American Studies

2.  Understand the ways in which intersecting with political, legal, economic and cultural concerns constructs and contextualizes practices of American citizenship

3.  Examine the creation, reproduction, and contestation of American citizenship with particular emphasis on race, class, and gender.

4.  Think critically about the above topics and consider ways to analyze these interaction                 

Requirements

Attendance and participation                  15%

Midterm #1                 25%

Midterm #2                 25%

Final Exam                  35%

Students are expected to complete the assigned reading before class and come prepared to engage with the text

Possible Texts

Burgett and Hendler, eds., Keywords in American Cultural Studies

Course Reader

Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History. 

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

This class introduces students to the field of American Studies. The guiding objective of the class is to use interdisciplinary lenses – such as music, dance, material culture, and urban studies – to develop a more complex understanding of American culture. In this class, we will investigate select aspects of American culture using various methodological approaches. The course outline follows a semi-linear pattern in history, but is hardly comprehensive. We will look broadly at the tensions between individual identity formation and the many social constructions that operate in American culture. The class is loosely tied around the connection, or disconnection, of individuals with mass culture (music, in particular, but also cars, corporations, television, and even fashion).

This class is organized into three sections, starting with swing culture in the 1930s and 40s, shifting to the dynamics of popular music and culture from the 1950s to the 1980s (think girl groups, salsa, disco, and rap), and finally, looking at the politics of consumerism and globalization in our everyday lives. We will use these three modules to think critically about the relationship between the past and present, to examine the relationship between individual identity formation and the larger cultural zeitgeist, and to develop an understanding of how social inequalities, particularly guised through race, class, gender, and sexuality, infiltrate all areas of American life.

While mass culture often provides a context for making sense of the world, it also simplifies and negates a variety of more complex issues. Thus, if there is an overriding theme to the class, it is the concept of visibility versus invisibility. Who becomes the representative American? What is un-American? Who feels displaced, or invisible? How do ideologies of race, class, gender, and sexuality penetrate popular culture? And how have individuals responded? The goals of the course are to develop a more nuanced understanding of American culture and American Studies, to build critical thinking skills, and to generate new paradigms for looking at the world.                   

Requirements

Midterm Exam:                               25%

Final Exam:                                    30%

Reading Response Papers:               10%

Discography:                                  20%

Attendance and Participation:           15%

Possible Texts

Course Reader

Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

AMS 310 is designed to introduce you to some of the major themes and ideas in American history and culture, as well as to familiarize you with some of the methods and materials that are used in the interdisciplinary study of American society. As a way to focus our discussion, this section of AMS 310 examines the twin concepts of place and region as they impinge on the historical development of American culture and society. Utilizing both historical and contemporary perspectives, and drawing from a wide range of approaches, we will take as our central motif the escalating importance of regional and local identity in a world of globalization and modernization.  Specific themes will include: the historical development of American regional diversity; the role of place image and representation in the social construction of region; the relationship of regional culture to national culture; the way in which perceptions and conflicting communities influence the creation of regions; the importance of the regional concept in contemporary urban planning and landscape design; and the role of art, literature, and poetry in regional renewal.

Possible Texts

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil’s Highway: A True Story

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic

“The Unforeseen”

“Smoke Signals”

Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Survey of United States history from the colonial period through the Civil War. 

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Survey of United States history from the colonial period through the Civil War. 

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Course Description:  Lectures, readings, videos, maps and other graphics are used to provide students with a survey of US history from before the European encounter through the Civil War.  Students will study significant aspects of the nation’s political, economic, and cultural history and will be challenged to understand the why, how, and so what of this history.  You begin with learning about what happened and then proceed to questions of causality and consequences.

Required Reading:

            Toni Morrison, A Mercy

         Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers:  The Revolutionary Generation

Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood:  Woman’s Sphere in New England,

       1780-1835  

         Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Exams:

    Two, in-class, 50 minute exams, each worth 30 points

     One final exam worth 40 points

The course will cover all aspects of American history to the end of the Civil War. The basic themes of the course will be the emergence of an American identity, the evolution of American self-government, and the expansion of American territory.

Required text: H. W. Brands et al., American Stories, 1st ed., vol. 1, with My History Lab.

Tests: There will be three tests, each worth one sixth of the semester grade and consisting of identifications and short essays. Each test will cover one third of the course material. There will be no comprehensive final exam.

Papers: There will be three papers of 500 words each, and each worth one sixth of the semester grade. Each paper will analyze one of the assigned documents, placing it in historical context and assessing its argument or description.

Grading: A = 90 to 100. B = 80 to 89. C = 70 to 79. D = 60 to 69. F = 0 to 59. No plus/minus.

This course partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Survey of United States history from the colonial period through the Civil War. 

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Survey of United States history since the Civil War.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Survey of United States history since the Civil War.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Course Overview:

This course is designed to introduce you to some of the important broad changes the United States has experienced from the aftermath of the Civil War through our own time.  During this period, the United States underwent a transition from a largely agrarian, rural society to a modern urbanized, industrial and technological nation; saw numerous waves of reform and reaction, and the concurrent rise of a strong central government; ascended from a fractured country trying to heal from civil war to the dominant world power; witnessed the emergence of youth cultures and a mass consumer culture; endured a half-century of Cold War that had a tremendous impact on domestic life; and was transformed by the ongoing struggles of immigrants, minorities, women, gays and lesbians and all varieties of Americans to claim full citizenship.  We will explore these themes through lectures, readings, and class discussions, with an emphasis on trying to understand how Americans of times past made sense of their lives and their world in the face of these profound changes.

Course objectives:

At the end the semester, you will have not only been offered a broad overview of the major social, cultural, political and economic developments in the U.S. since the Civil War, but you should also have gained some sense of how this history has been debated over the last century, and why it remains relevant today.  You will hopefully recognize that history is an ongoing drama in which you yourself are intimately involved.  After all, none of the major events that have influenced (or will soon influence) your lives—from occurrences like the 9/11 attacks, the election of the nation’s first black president, or the current economic crisis to broader developments like the rise of the Internet, our high divorce rates, and the intense quarrels over issues like abortion, immigration and taxes—“just happened,” but rather have roots that in many cases go back centuries.  Understanding these roots will help lead you to a better grasp of your own lives and the world you live in, as well as offer you the perspective, intellectual maturity, and wisdom to play a relevant role in creating the future.

Course Description:  Lectures, readings, videos, maps, and photos are used to provide students with a survey of US history from Reconstruction to 2000.  As such, students will study significant aspects of the nation's political, economic, cultural, and diplomatic history and will be challenged to understand the why, how, and so what of this history.  Students begin with learning about what happened and then proceed to questions of causality and consequence.

     In addition, this course carries the Ethics and Leadership flag.  This means that as students learn about modern US history, they will also be introduced to concepts of ethical reasoning.  This is not about a particular ethical or moral system.  Rather, ethical reasoning has to do with how one makes decision within one’s own value-system.

Assigned Reading: a concise edition textbook, one novel, two collections of primary sources, and 1 other book.

• America:  A Concise History, vol. 2, 4th edition by James Henretta, et. al.
• Voices of Freedom:  A Documentary History, vol. 2, 3rd edition,  Eric Foner, ed.
• The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945, by Richard Polenberg
• The Seventies by Bruce Schulman.
• Course Packet

Grades and Assignments:

• Two mid-term exams—each worth 25% of course grade [Both exams will include one question that asks student to consider ethical dimensions of particular decisions or issues.  33% of test grade or 8% of course grade].
• Two one-page essays, written in class, that identify the ethical issues of a particular episode in US history—10% course grade, each.
• Final Exam, 30% of course grade.

Survey of United States history since the Civil War.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Course Description

This class will look at the history of the political, economic and cultural relations between the United States and Africa from the early origins of the slave trade to the present. It explores the role of the US in historical global contexts. The class is intended to elucidate historical developments both in the US and on the African continent, and should satisfy students with a strong interest in US history as well as those interested in the place of the US in the African Diaspora.  The semester is divided into four parts, each covering a major theme.

Course Objectives

To develop a base of African and US history and increase the level of awareness of the African Diaspora in the US.  

To obtain a well-rounded approach to the political, economic, and cultural connections between the United States and Africa.

To reevaluate perceptions of Africa, to recognize the vibrant nature of African culture, and to apply new knowledge to the different cultural agents active in US popular culture, such as music, dance, literature, business and science.

To help students understand present-day politics in Africa at a deeper level and to obtain a better understanding of racial conditions in the US.

To learn how to assess historical materials -- their relevance to a given interpretative problem, their reliability and their importance -- and to determine the biases present within particular scholarship. These include historical documents, literature and films.

Required Materials

**It is a course requirement to have all the books.

1. Joseph E. Holloway, ed., Africanisms in American Culture  (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005 second edition).

2. Curtis A. Keim, Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (Westview Press, 1999).

3. Alusine Jalloh, ed., The United States and West Africa (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2008).

4. Kevin Roberts, ed., The Atlantic World 1450-2000 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

Internet Resources

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue

Evaluation and Points--100% (there is no extra credit, and the course is not graded on curve)

** The weight is distributed to ensure success for all students, balancing the various needs to participate, interact, engage, think critically, and write well. Not all students seek an A or B grade, but those who do should expect to do the maximum required.

i. Public Lecture Review                                      10%                    

ii. First  Examination                                           25%                     

     (Two essay questions, at least three pages on each)

iii. Book Review,                                                 20%                    

iv.   Book Review                                                20%                    

v. Second Examination                                       25%                     

        (Two essay questions, at least three pages on each)

Alternative Option to  the Second Examination

8 page research paper on a topic approved by the TA                     

This course partially fulfills the legislative requirement for American history.

Course Description:

This survey course will examine the history of Native American societies in North America from the earliest records to the present. We will explore the diverse ways in which Indian societies were structured, the different ways that indigenous peoples have responded colonization, and the complex history of European/Indian relations. Attention will be paid to political, social, economic and cultural transformation of Native American societies over time. We will cover, among other things, the following topics: disease, religion, trade, captivity narratives, warfare, diplomacy, removal, assimilation, education, self-determination, gaming, as well as race and gender relations.

The Black Power movement was a distinct period from the late 1960s and early 1970s that emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests and advance black values, and secure black autonomy. The range of black power ideology ranged from the desire to create an all-black nation-state to the promotion of black economic power. This course will look at the major organizations, key figures, and ideologies of the black power movement.

Required Books

Negroes with Guns by Robert F. Williams  (read: weeks 1-2)

Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam by Tate (weeks 3-5)

Die, Nigger, Die by H. Rap Brown (weeks 6-8)

Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur (weeks 9-11)

Carl Stokes and the Rise of Black Political Power by Leonard Moore (weeks 12-14)

Under the Influence by Erin Patton (week 15)

Grading

Exams will be given approximately every five weeks and the group project is due at the end of the semester.

Exam 1: 25%

Exam 2: 25%

Exam 3: 25%Group Project: 25%

This course partially fulfills the legislative requirement for American history.

This introductory course exposes students to ancient Africa, it’s peoples, cultures, and landscapes. Often students wonder, is Timbuktu a real place? Is Africa north of the Sahara part of Africa? When did the changes happen such that the two parts of Africa are conceptualized as separate entities inhabiting the same landmass? These and other everyday and/or not so everyday questions will be the subjects of our course in the study of the Civilizations of Africa to 1800.  The major objective is to facilitate your learning about early Africa so you can speak intelligently about that often maligned continent.  The study of the ancient civilizations of Africa also aims to sharpen students’ analytical and critical thinking skills so students are equipped to be engaged citizens in our increasingly diverse society and globalized world.   Due to the enormity of Africa, and the vastness of the time period under study, we will not cover everything in the course of a semester, or an academic year for that matter!  However, through the use of particular case studies, the course is designed to explore – among other issues – change over time in the political, social, economic, and cultural history of the African continent. The course offers a historical framework for understanding the continent’s past; it also offers the opportunity to study the ways in which historians of Africa combine different types of sources to write the history of particular societies on the continent.  

• Class attendance and participation (20)
• Two (2), reflections papers (3-4 pages max) (20%)
• Four (4) in class map quizzes (20%)
• Five random in class readings-based quizzes (25%)
• Final Take Home Exam (15%)

Required Texts will include some or all of the following:

• Christopher Ehret, The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1880
• Toyin Falola, ed., Africa: Volume 2: African Cultures and Societies before 1885
• Joyce Tyldesley, Daughters of Isis
• D.T. Niane, Sundiata an Epic of Old Mali
• John Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony

"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%)

The course will survey change and continuity in the history of Texas within the context of U.S. history. Special attention will be given to politics and social relationships (class, race and gender relations) between 1900 and 1950. We will also examine themes such as socio-economic change, labor, transborder relations and electoral politics. Three semester hours of Texas history may be substituted for half of the legislative requirement for American history.

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)

The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century produced a series of fundamental shifts in the way people have viewed the natural world and their own place in it. In this course we will examine the roots and course of this revolution and trace the main outlines of the new world it helped to create.

Texts:

Galileo Galilei, The Essential Galileo (ed. Maurice Finocchiaro),

Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences (2nd edition, 2009),

James Gleick, Isaac Newton,

John Henry, Knowledge is Power,

Michael R. Matthews (ed.), The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy.

Grades:

Grades will be based on three essay exams (25% each) and a short paper on a topic to be assigned (25%).

This course analyzes major developments from the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s until the rise of Big Science in the 20th century. It begins with astronomy and the famous trial of Galileo by the Catholic Inquisition. It includes discussions of major historical events in relation to science, including the Great Plague of 1665, the Eugenics movement, and World War II. Scientific developments covered include Newton?s contributions to physics and their influence, alchemy, the origins and rise of Darwin's theory of evolution, the Scopes Monkey Trial, the origins of Einstein's theories of relativity, and sociobiology.

This course introduces the history of American foreign relations from the First World War to the present.  During this period, the United States fully joined the ranks of the great powers and then, following a period of hesitation, surpassed all its rivals in exercising influence around the world.  We will explore the course and causes of this rise to power and seek to understand current dilemmas and debates within their historical context. 

The class aims for both breadth and depth.  Some lectures and readings are aimed at providing a wide view of the political, economic, and ideological currents that fed into the making of foreign policy.  Other lectures and readings focus on particular topics – the debate over the League of Nations, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War, the American interventions in Central America during the 1980s, and the American response to the September 11 attacks, among others.

Required texts will likely include Emily Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream; James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans; Melvin Leffler, The Specter of Communism; Mark Danner, Massacre at El Mozote; and Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe.

Students will be evaluated on the basis of a midterm (30 percent of term grade), paper (30 percent), and final (40 percent).

The Revolutionary transformation of America between 1763 and 1800.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Description: Despite the many calamities it caused and experienced in the twentieth century, the German state has persisted into our present as a leader in European politics, economy and society and an important international actor. To understand why this would be the case, this course treats the history of Germany in the “long” twentieth century, that is, from the intermediate background of WWI and the establishment of a unified German Empire (1871) to the present. Class time will alternate between lecture and discussion of primary source readings. Topics to be covered include: German economy, geography, and demography; national unification; German colonialism; Wilhelmine society and culture; the social and political status of German Jewry; the background, causes, and experience of WWI; the failed Communist Revolution of 1919; the emergence and decline of the Weimar state; the economic crisis of the interwar years; Weimar culture; National Socialism and the Third Reich; the experience and effects of WWII; the Holocaust; the constitution of East and West German states, societies, and cultures; the “economic miracle”; the Cold War in Germany; 1968 and its social effects; the revolutions of 1989; reunification; the experience of non-Germans in Germany since 1945; and Germany in the European Union. Where possible we will consider these themes in global context. Throughout, emphasis will fall on the reading and interpretation of primary sources in English translation, including text, film, photographs, and music.

Possible readings (selections – please consult the instructor for the final reading list before purchasing any items):

Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday; Ernst Jünger, Storms of Steel; Erich Maria Remarque, The Road Back; Fritz Stern, Five Germanys I Have Known; Kaes et al., The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (selections); Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Peter Fritzsche,Germans into Nazis; Arthur Koestler, The God that Failed; J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace; Filip Müller,Eyewitness Auschwitz; Jana Hensel, After the Wall.

Probable grading scheme:

Map quiz=5%; Midterm 25%; Final exam 25%; Short paper 30%; other quizzes 15%.

Same as Asian Studies 341K. This course examines Japan’s early modern age, from the end of the warring-states period in the 1500s to the stirrings of the industrial revolution in the mid 1800s.  The main focus is on the period of government by the Tokugawa shoguns (1600–1867), the final era of samurai rule.  Topics include social and economic change, national isolation and national opening, the Meiji revolution, and the origins of modern nationalism, imperialism, and democracy.   We pay special attention to the subjective experiences of Japanese women and men who lived and created Japan’s distinctive path to modernity.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

Texts:

Conrad TOTMAN, Early Modern Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

KATSU Kokichi, Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai, trans. Teruko CRAIG, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991.

YAMAKAWA Kikue, Women of the Mito Domain, trans. Kate Wildman NAKAI (Stanford University Press, 2001).And others TBA.

Course requirements:

•    two midterm exams (worth 22.5% each)

•    two essays on class readings (15% each)

•    final essay (20%)

•    active class participation (5%)

Our stereotypical image of an early modern woman is a witch - for some good reasons because thousands of witch trials took place. In this course, we will look beyond that perspective to explore the complex of material, political, and cultural factors that shaped experiences of gender and family and that shaped attitudes about gender and power in early modern Europe. The early modern centuries between about 1500 and 1800 were years of tremendous change in many ways - religious reformations, European governments became more powerful at home and established colonies world wide, economic transformation as people became consumers and production expanded exponentially. Some features were slower to change, however, especially with regard to family life. In this class, we will explore how women's experiences of these patterns compared to men's - whether as workers, consumers, criminals, political subjects and political actors, peasants or nobles, spouses or parents. Along the way, we will explore why some of these dynamics fed into a proliferation of "witches."

OVERVIEW

This course investigates the political, constitutional, economic, and social causes of disunion and the American Civil War.  It seeks to provide students with an understanding of how the stability of the Union was affected by key developments of the period 1829-1861, including the growth of slavery, the rise of abolitionism, the development of modern political parties, economic modernization, immigration, and territorial expansion.

BOOKS. [Note: this is list is subject to change in 2011.]  The following paperbacks should be purchased:

James M. McPherson, Ordeal By Fire.  Volume I:  The Coming of War

William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (second edition, edited by Blight)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War

CLASSES.  Each class will consist of a lecture of 50-60 minutes, followed by discussion among those students who wish to stay.  You may record the classes if you wish, but no laptop computers may be used or open during the lecture portion of the class.  The use of phones, including texting, in class is not permitted.

EXAMINATIONS AND GRADING.  In addition to the final examination (which will be comprehensive) there will be two midterm exams.  Each of the midterms will count 25% of the course grade.  The final examination will count 50% of the course grade.  The exams will consist of short-answer and essay questions on the material from the readings (including any handouts that may come your way from the instructor) and lectures.  Enrollment in this course constitutes a commitment on your part to be present at all of these examinations.  Exams will not be given ahead of schedule, nor will any make-ups be given for any reason.

This course explores the history of Latin America from the eve of the wars of independence of the early nineteenth century to the present. Major issues to be covered include the breakdown of Spanish and Portuguese Empires, the struggle to form independent nation-states, the re-integration of the region into the world economy, the emergence of national politics and mass culture, Cold War cycles of revolution and counterrevolution, the promise of democracy in the region, and implications of immigration from the region to the United States. In addition to highlighting the political history of the past two centuries, the course readings and lectures will examine the importance of ethnicity, class, nationality, and gender in understanding the changing characteristics of Latin American societies. A combination of primary sources and scholarly works will shed light on the historical development of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, among other countries. 

Over the semester, students will consider the following broad questions: How have different ideas of progress and modernization been applied over time in Latin America and what impacts have they had in practice? What factors explain the contradiction between Latin America’s incredibly rich resources and its extreme levels of social inequality, among the highest in the world? Why have hierarchical social orders proved so durable in Latin America? What have been the motors of reform, revolution, and counter-revolution in the region? What are the factors that have created “Latin America” as a particular kind of place in the world, and in our imaginations, and what alternate criteria might be used to think about the meaning of “Latin America”? 

Through weekly discussions, essays, group work, presentations, and examinations, students will hone their talents for historical interpretation, including their critical thinking and writing skills. In addition, the course provides tools for understanding present-day problems in the Americas from a broader historical perspective.

This course will deal with the history, art and architecture, and religions of India during the period of Muslim rule, from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries. We will look at the émigré culture of the Sultanate period (ca. 1000-1500), and the composite culture of the Mughal empire (ca. 1500-1800), paying particular attention to the interaction of Islam with Indian religions, the development of distinctive architectural and artistic forms of expression, and the ideology and form of political institutions. Towards the end of the course, we will also look at the earliest contacts between Europe and India from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

Requirements include two short papers, 2 map assignments, a mid-term, a slide quiz, and a final. An optional research paper may substitute for the final exam. Percentages for the grade: papers 20, 25 %, mid-term 20%, slide quiz 10%, final 25%. Grading will be on the new system with pluses and minuses. Textbooks (subject to change):Ainslie Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. IBlair & Bloom, The Art & Architecture of Islam (1250-1800)         Asher & Talbot, India Before EuropeSelected travel accounts for book reportsPossibly a packet of readings Blackboard

THE CUBAN REVOLUTION AND THE UNITED STATES

            Students in this course will investigate why the Cuban Revolution of 1959 had an impact beyond its shores, essentially transforming both Inter-American and East-West relations.  At the outset, students then will survey the history of Cuban-U.S. relations from the so-called Spanish American War to the Great Depression.  We will then analyze the populist period in Cuba that ended up in the dictatorship of General Fulgencio Batista and how an essentially middle-class rebellion forced him from power on January 1, 1959.  Then we will take a long look at the process by which Fidel Castro consolidated political power, mobilized the popular classes for revolutionary reforms, and turned to an alliance with the Soviet Union.  World War III nearly began over the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  We pay special attention to the revolution's influence on social organization, gender relations, and education.  The students must also understand the relationship between popular demands, political consolidation, and Cuba's external relations.  Finally, the class will assess how the Cuban Revolution affected U.S.-Latin American relations and why Castro choose to support other revolutions in Latin America and Africa. 

            Student requirements and preparations for the course include reading three paperback books and a packet of three articles, viewing video documentaries, participating in class discussions, and attending lectures.  In addition, each student will turn in a map assignment and a 6-page book essay based on a book selected from the bibliography of our readings.

            One's final grade will consist of the following graded exercises:

                        -A map assignment worth 5 % of the final grade or 50 points.

                        -A mid-term exam worth 20 % of the final grade or 200 points.

                        -A written book essay worth 35 % of the final grade or 350 points.

                        -A final exam worth 40 % of the final grade or 400 points.

The accumulation of points at the end of the semester will determine the student's final grade: i.e., 900 points or more for an A, 800 or more for a B, and so forth. 

REQUIRED TEXTS (all paperback)

            Sebastian Balfour, Castro

            Samuel Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution

            Lois M. Smith, Sex and Revolution

            Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War

This course explores the ways that state sponsored schemes to improve nature have simultaneously transformed environments and human communities. These schemes include mega-projects like canals and huge dams as well as scientific forestry, plant breeding, and even national parks. We will read exemplary historical studies of national, imperial, international, and “traditional” development programs, paying close attention to metaphors of war and to literal connections with national security; to the ways the conquest of nature has reinforced or altered power relations between and within countries; and to the unintended consequences, both tragic and fortuitous, of planned changes to the land. The first half of the course introduces the key themes and the second half focuses on case studies of state-sponsored attempts to develop water resources. Students will research and teach the class about a particular large-scale development project of their choice.

This is a Writing Flag course. The emphasis will be on writing, discussion of assigned readings, and an independent research project.

Grading:

Grades will be based on four one-page written responses to the readings, participation in discussions, and an independent research project that will result in a substantial essay and presentation.

Texts:

Readings will be mixture of secondary and primary sources. Secondary sources will include selections from:

Adas, Micahel.  Dominance By Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission (2006). 

Blackbourn, David. The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany (2006).

Cronon, William. “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative,” Journal of American History (1992).

Drayton, Richard. Nature’s Government: Science, Imperialism, and the ‘Improvement’ of the World (2000).

Fairhead, James and Melissa Leach. Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest Savanna (1996).

Ferguson, James. The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development,’ Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (1990).

Jacobs, Nancy. Environment, Power, and Injustice: A South African History (2003).

Khagram, Sanjeev. Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for War and Power (2004).

Lansing, J. Stephen. Perfect Order: Recognizing Complexity in Bali (2006).

Perkins, John H. Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War (1997).

Scott, James.  Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998).

Wittfogel, Karl August. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (1957).

Since the late 1980s, the African film industry has undergone radical changes that reflect an increasingly globalized economy and the impact of structural adjustment policies. This revolution is characterized by the low-budget, direct to video films commonly referred to as Nollywood.  While these films have come under criticism for their low production values and popularization of negative cultural stereotypes, the Nigerian video industry has risen to colossal proportions, sweeping across the continent and throughout the global diaspora.  The purpose of this course is to examine the rise of Nollywood and the genesis of a popular African art form.  Through a combination of films and readings, students will explore how Nollywood, in comparison with the established FESPACO film industry and Hollywood, depicts the society and culture of Nigeria, and Africa as a whole.  Additionally, this course seeks to engage students in a debate about how popular films affect historical imaginations and memory.  While these images have previously been the product of Hollywood and Francophone films, this course will introduce Nollywood as an alternative to how Nigerians and Africa as a whole understand their history.  

READING LIST:

Haynes, Jonathan, ed. Nigerian Video Films. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000. 

Rosenstone, Robert A. Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Saul, Mahir and Ralph A. Austen, eds. Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century:

Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.

*There will also be several journal articles assigned throughout the semester.  These will be available through the university library’s online databases and posted to the course documents section of the class Blackboard page.

ASSSIGNMENTS:

Assignment             Due                         Points

Attendance             Every class session 50

Book/Film Review  Week 6             100

Conference Report Week 10             50

Final Paper             Week 15             200

Discussion Posts   See syllabus for deadlines 100

This upper-division seminar samples some influential ideas of global history considered in the context of contemporary globalization. We will consider what is new about contemporary globalization and what isn’t by examining the 19th-century origins of contemporary globalization and considering its antecedents in Renaissance and Early-Modern times.Globalization is defined here in an inclusive sense that highlights global circuits of people, information, products, culture, and capital.This course follows a mixed seminar and lecture format.  Active discussion work is required.Prerequisites: Upper-division standing.

Required readings:

Available at University Coop.

1. Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System, A.D. 1250–1350(Oxford University Press, 1991). ISBN: 0195067746

2. Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World(Verso, 2001). ISBN: 1859843824

3. Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, ed. Diana Wright (Chelsea Green, 2008). ISBN: 1603580557

4. Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, [newest edition]). ISBN: 0199552266

5. Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (Norton, 2003). ISBN: 0393324397

6. Handouts and online readings as specified over the course of the semester.

Course requirements and grading:

1. Participation in class discussion:  one overall grade, worth 20% of the course grade.

2. 9 papers of 1 to 1.5 pages each on weekly readings (altogether, 40% of the course grade).

3. Midterm essay (10% of course grade).

4. Final essay (partial revision of midterm essay; 20%).

5. Final examination (10%).

Southern Africa is one of the continent's rich and varied regions, a region that holds cradle of humanity, historical sites as well as thriving modern cities and everything in-between. Designed to both introduce students to the history of the region and give an in-depth understanding of particular countries as case studies, the course is both challenging and rewarding in the readings and writing assignments expected of students. Each year, the country case studies may change, and this year, 2011-12, the case countries will be Namibia and Botswana. We will particularly focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, analyzing how historical events and figures from that time- period inform what is going in those countries and that region of Africa today.

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 Spanish Inquisition operated for three and a half centuries, and became one of the most notorious institutions in history. It is popularly known for its secret trials, autos-da-fe, and burnings at the stake. But why was it established? Why did it survive even when heresy seemed virtually eliminated? What purposes did it serve that allowed it to survive for so long? These are some of the issues we will explore in this course. Each student will carry out a project “tracing” one (fictitious) personality through the various phases of the inquisitorial process, from the time of arrest (or re-arrest) to the day of the sentencing. By discussing one another’s projects we will get a sense of the great diversity - in time and space, and in motives and aims - of this institution. 

Required books:

Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision

Lu Ann Homza, The Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1614

Grading:

Attendance and participation (20%), project proposal (20%), draft of project (20%). Final project (40%).

This course analyzes the transformation of the European urban landscape and European urban life from the nineteenth-century explosion of urbanization and industrialization to the present day. We will concentrate on London, Paris, and Berlin, with special emphasis on culture and trade. Writing is central to this course; be prepared to write often. Several themes will frame the course: the modernization of European cities, the impact of modernization upon culture and economies, and conceptions of urban identities.

Grading:

1. Discussion (20%) 

2. Essays (60%)

3. Paper (20%) 

Texts and Readings 

Tentative Reading List: Selections only

Colin Jones, Paris: The Biography of a City (New York: Penguin Books, 2004) 

Emile Zola, The Belly of Paris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999

Karen Till, The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) 

Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1984), 90-110 

Francis Sheppard, London: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 205-260 

Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: Penguin Books, 

1987, orig. 1845

Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993, orig. 1963), 

Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization: Culture, Innovation and Urban Order (London: Weidenfeld & Nelson, 1998)

Judith Walkowitz, “Jack the Ripper and the Myth of Male Violence,” Feminist Studies 8 

(3)(1982)

Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965, orig. 1902)

T.C. Horsfall, The Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People: The Example of Germany (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1901), 1-34 

Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (Boston; Charles T. Branford Company, 1955

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (Le Corbusier), The Radiant City (London: Faber and Faber, 1964, orig. 1933) 1992.

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis: Cinematic Visions of 

Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany, 1918-1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968)

Description:

This course will focus on the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), particularly his conflict with Church authorities and his condemnation in 1633. We will also put Galileo’s work in several broader contexts: the development of science in the 16th and 17th centuries; court life and patronage in early modern Italy; and the history of relations between science and religion.

This is a Writing Flag course. We will emphasize research, writing, and class discussion.

Texts:

Richard Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible,

Maurice Finocchiaro (ed.), The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History,

Maurice Finocchiaro (ed.), The Essential Galileo,

Dava Sobel, Galileo’s Daughter,

plus a packet of readings.

Grades:

Each student will co-lead a class discussion during the semester, and will write:

— a short paper (3–4 pages) on a related topic;

— a longer research paper (16–20 pages), a draft version of which the student will circulate to the class for discussion;

— a formal critique (2–3 pages) of another student’s draft paper.

Grades will be based on the class presentation (10%), the short paper (10%),  the presentation of the draft of the longer paper (10%), the final version of the longer paper (45%), the critique (10%), and participa­tion in class discussions (15%).

This course will study a selection of key issues in the history of European expansion overseas, beginning with the mercantilist empires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, continuing through the era of 'free trade imperialism, and culminating in the so-called 'new imperialism' of the late nineteenth century. The themes to be considered include: the 'world system' of the period, the nature of mercantilism, revisionist views of the chartered companies, the controversy over the acquisition of India in the eighteenth century, the loss of the mainland colonies, the debate over the slave trade and abolition, the rise of free trade, the long-running argument about informal empire, and the nature of 'new' imperialism. 

The ultimate aim of the course is to assist students to understand the evolution of the modern world order as seen through from the perspectives of the major powers of the day, principally Britain, but also other European countries and the United States. The course complements Course 350L offered in the Spring semester (2005), but can be studied independently.

Grading Policy

85% written (3,000 word long essay + three 500 word reports); 15% seminar contribution

Texts

Detailed reading will be provided at the beginning of the semester. Relevant studies containing full references to recent scholarship include: the OXFORD HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE (Vols.1 and 2, 1998, and 3 and 5, 1999), and P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, BRITISH IMPERIALISM, 1688-2000 (2001).

            This undergraduate seminar focuses on India's epics, including the classical Mahabharata and the Ramayana.  Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding the epic characters in relation to the heroic traditions of premodern India, as well as in relation to the religious traditions of both past and present.  Although the Sanskrit epics will be treated at greatest length, we will also explore regional-language versions of the classical epics and to read an oral folk epic, the Epic of Pabuji.  In the first part of the course, the class format will vary between lectures by the instructor and group discussion. Toward the end of the semester, students will be engaged largely in research on a topic of their choice. 

Requirements and Grading

            Since the course is an undergraduate seminar with a writing flag, a considerable amount of reading and writing is required.  In the first part of the semester, there will be two short essays (4-6 pp. each) based on the readings and films covered jointly by the class.  Students will prepare two drafts of the first essay, based on instructor feedback.  Subsequently, students will embark on individual research on a specific region and time period, resulting in two drafts of a research paper (8-12 pp.).  Each paper must be based on at least five books and/or articles --bibliographic assistance will be provided by the instructor. 

            The success of the course will depend heavily on student participation.  For that reason, your attendance will be noted and constitute a component in the final grade.  Students are expected to have completed reading assignments and be prepared for discussion on the specified dates.  In the second half of the semester, each student will make an oral presentation to the class, reporting on progress made in his/her research project.  Students will also be required to participate in anonymous critiques of papers submitted by their classmates. 

             Various aspects of student performance will be weighted as listed below in determining the final grade for the course:

                         Two short essays (4-6 pp. each)             = 30%
                         Research paper project (8-12 pp.)          = 40%
                         Participation                                 = 30%

Required Texts (tentative):

1)  Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, The Mahabharata
2)  R. K. Narayan, The Ramayana
3)  John D. Smith, The Epic of Pabuji
4)  numerous articles or book chapters available on Blackboard or in a coursepack

Course Description

This course provides uses documentaries, film, lectures and readings to provide an overview of caribbean history from 1492 to the present.  The prominent theme will be to explore how the dynamic among differing conquerors, natives, and slaves forged the distinctive caribbean nations of the present with their spanish, british, french, dutch, danish and united states cultural heritages.  The focus throughout will be to measure the extent to which these distinctive cultural and colonial heritages shaped historical development.  Topical themes include: contact between european and native cultures, piracy, the impact of sugar and slavery, colonialism, de-colonization, the impact of the U.S. as a caribbean power (puerto rico, virgin islands), caribbean revolutions (cuba, grenada), the caribbean in the twenty-first century.

Grading Policy

Essays          9/15

Discussion  3/15

Mini-assignments  1/15

Individual project 2/15

Texts.

Each week 50-100 pp of primary and secondary source readings will be posted on blackboard.

Course Description:

In a self-proclaimed “nation of immigrants” such as the United States, our narratives of migration, race, and ethnicity emphasize themes of acculturation and assimilation symbolized by the metaphor of the “melting pot.”  In this class, we will explore experiences of migration, adaptation, and settlement from the perspective of a sending society--China--which possesses one of the longest and most diverse histories of sending merchants, workers, artisans, diplomats, missionaries, and so forth, overseas.  Over the last millennia, Chinese have migrated around the world and made homes under a great range of adversity and opportunity, producing many fascinating stories of encounters with difference and the building of common ground. Drawing upon this rich set of narratives, some questions that we will consider include the following.  As ethnic Chinese have moved and settled in so many places among such diverse societies, what is Chinese about the Chinese diaspora? What kinds of skills and attributes have helped Chinese to become arguably one of the most successful migrant groups? What do Chinese share in common with other migrant groups? How do Chinese adapt their identities and cultures to different circumstances?  What can Chinese experiences of migration contribute to contemporary debates and conceptions of migration?

In 1846, Archibald McMillin a North Carolina planter wrote to his wife during one of his many sojourns in the domestic slave trade. He informed her that he “could not sell in Darlington or Sumpter, [South Carolina,]” but that he was going to spend the day” in Charleston looking at sales at auction.”  Perhaps Charleston would prove a better market then the other cities, but if not, he would probably go further into the Deep South. Like the invention of the cotton gin was to the expansion of slavery into western territories, the domestic slave trade represented “the lifeblood of the southern slave system” according to historian Steven Deyle.  More than one million African Americans entered the domestic market and found themselves in coffles traveling by foot to various markets or were placed on boats and taken down the Mississippi River. Some traveled by ship along the Atlantic seaboard to port cities with large markets such as Savannah. 

This course will explore the inner-workings of the domestic slave trade from the perspectives of slaveholders, speculators, and the enslaved.  Students will have the opportunity to analyze maps, letters, diaries, newspaper advertisements, and legislation relating to the domestic slave trade. 

Grading Scale:

Attendance and Participation 10%

Response Papers 10%

Mapping and Historical Marker Project 10%

Primary Document Analysis 10%

Oral Presentation 20%

Research Proposal and Bibliography 5%

Rough Draft of Final Paper 10%

Final Paper 25%

Required Readings:

Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. New York:

 Harvard University Press, 2001.

Johnson, Walter, ed. The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas. New

 Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Obadele-Starks, Ernest.  Freebooters and Smugglers: The Foreign Slave Trade in the United       States After 1808. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2007.

Shermerhorn, Calvin. Money Over Mastery Family Over Freedom: Slavery in the

 Antebellum Upper South. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.

Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South.           Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.

Recommended Readings:

Bancroft, Frederic. Slave Trading in the Old South. 1931. Reprint, Columbia: University of

South Carolina Press, 1996.

Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers. Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press,

 1970.

Catterall, Helen Tunncliff, ed. Judicial Cases Concern American Slavery and the Negro, 5

vols.  Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926-37.

Deyle, Steven. Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2005.

Gudmestad, Robert. A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave

Trade. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.

Hadden, Sally. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. New York:

 Harvard University Press, 2001.

Martin, Jonathan. Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South. New York:

Harvard University Press, 2004.

Rothman, Adam. Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South.

 New York: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Electronic readings will be distributed, placed on Blackboard

HIS350R Enterprise & Society: Historical Perspectives

Sally Clarke

Department of History

Fall 2012

            Rather than treat business as isolated from society or as simply acting on society, this course examines the mutual influences of business on society and society on business.  Potential topics include enterprise and the environment; the problem of failure; entrepreneurs’ philanthropy; the rise of conservative politics; discrimination; and social reform.  Readings will focus on the history of the United States since the nineteenth century.

            Students will write four or five essays.  The written assignments will count for approximately 75 percent of a student’s final grade.  Class discussion will count for roughly 25 percent of a student’s final grade. 

Possible readings include:

Scott Sandage, Born Losers

Richard White, Railroaded

Douglas Sackman, Orange Empire

Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands

Shane Hamilton, Trucking Country

David Nasaw, Andrew Carnegie

This upper-division seminar class will investigate various aspects and/or movements of feminism in the United States.  Although we will look at issues of women’s equality in the colonial period, we will spend most of our time studying 19th and 20th century feminist or female advocacy activity including women in the anti-slavery movement, mid-19th century women’s rights advocates, the 19th and early 20th century woman suffrage movement, late 19th century women’s advocacy groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, post World War II women’s rights activism and the Women’s Liberation Movement, as well as what is being tentatively called “Third Wave Feminism.” 

        Students will be expected to read several book length publications over the course of the semester, and students will be expected to participate in weekly class discussion.

Description:

For more than a century, the presidency has occupied the center of American politics. Yet the modern presidency bears faint resemblance to the institution the Founders framed in the 1780s. This course will examine the presidency and the individuals who have held it, with an eye toward discovering trends of historical and contemporary interest. Topics will include the presidency as conceived by the framers of the Constitution, the emergence of political parties, the role of the president as diplomat-in-chief, the presidency and the sectional crisis, the president at war, the emergence of the United States as a world power, the president as a celebrity, the family lives of presidents, and the president and the evolving media.

Readings:

H. W. Brands, A Brief History of the Presidency (in progress)

Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power

David McCullough, John Adams

Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg

John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest

Robert A. Divine, Roosevelt and World War II

Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries

Assignments:

Students will write two book reviews (500 words each) and one research paper (5000 words). The reviews will cover books from the common reading list. The paper will examine one president in detail.

Grading

Class preparation and participation: 25%

Book reviews: 25%

Research paper: 50%

This upper-division undergraduate seminar is a writing- and reading-intensive course centered around the question “How do people shape themselves through popular media?”  It is almost a truism that we live in a highly mediated world.  We are inundated everyday by mass produced messages, music, and images.  How do the images and messages circulated through the US media shape people’s senses of themselves, their options and opportunities, and their relationships with others?  We will examine the history of the US media as both a successful corporate product and as an important tool for the formation of personal and community identity.  People use the media—be it television, newspapers, film, or music—to create identities for themselves, build social and political coalitions, and sometimes challenge the very institutions that deliver the media to their doorsteps.  We will examine the media through a number of theoretical or methodological lenses, including cultural theory, business history, and political history. 

Tentative Booklist

Carl Wilson, Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste

Susan Douglass, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

Thomas Frank, Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism

Fred Turner, From Counter Culture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, The Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism

James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy

S. Craig Watkins, The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future

Tentative Assignments:

Class participation: 20%

TWO 1-2 page reaction papers to weekly readings: 10%

Critical essay I (5 pages): 15%

            Peer Review assignment: 5%

Critical essay II (5-7 pages):  20%

Final essay (10-12 pages):  30%

Description

In 1682, the first American bestseller was published. Audiences in the American colonies and in England devoured Mary Rowlandson’s breathless account of her harrowing experiences as a captive of the Narragansett and Nipmunk Indians during King Philip’s War in The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.  Taking a long, historical view, this course explores the evolution of American popular culture and its relationship to national consolidation (and at times, disunion) over the last 330 years. Starting with oral, religious, print, and live performance traditions during the colonial, early national, and antebellum periods, this course will consider the cultural impact of new technologies such as steam power, the railroad, photography, recorded sound, celluloid, the electronic transmission of moving images (i.e. television), and the internet.  Throughout the semester, we will stress the centrality of race, gender, and class in shaping the production and content of popular culture, modes of popular representation, the composition of popular audiences, and types of reception.

Requirements

Creative Think Piece:                                     10%

5 Short Papers (1-2 pages each):                   20%

First Draft of Final Paper (10-15 pgs):             5%

In-Class Presentation of Final Project:             10%

Final Paper (10-15 pages):                             35%

Discussion:                                                    20%

Possible Texts

Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola, ed., Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives 

P.T. Barnum, The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself

Ken Emerson, Doo-dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

Paula Marantz Cohen, Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth

Tiny Kline, Circus Queen and Tinker Bell: The Life of Tiny Kline

Susan Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination

Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday

Aniko Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion

Upper-division standing required. Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.  Students may not enroll in more than two AMS 370 courses in one semester.

Flag(s): Writing, Cultural Diversity

This course examines Mexico's Revolution through both its armed and post-revolutionary phases, from 1910-40. We will focus on several key questions. What kind of revolution (agrarian, political, social, cultural) was the Mexican Revolution? What caused it? How "revolutionary" was it? Did many Mexicos simply produce many revolutions, or can broader narratives be discerned? What were the main contours of Mexico's post-revolutionary regime, and how different were they compared to those of the old regime? How was Mexico different in 1940 compared to 1910?

The course will cover central topics such as the dictatorship of the Porfiriato, 1876-1911; the maderista revolution of 1910-13; the rise and fall of popular movements (zapatismo, villismo); the Constitutionalist successes of 1916-17; and the construction of post-revolutionary Mexico by Sonoran and later cardenista state-builders, agrarians, and anticlericals (1920-40). The course will consist of lectures, discussions of set readings, and occasional viewings of documentary or theater films made during (or about) the revolutionary years.

The revolution of 1789-1815 became one of the defining points of modern history. For centuries historians have debated what it meant, why it took the course it did, how it changed Europe and the world, and its place in the longer histories of radicalism and conservativism, the state, warfare, and human rights. Writers and artists, too, have been captivated by the human drama of this tumultuous decade and a half. How did ordinary people survive? How were extraordinary careers made – or lost?

We have three aims. The first is to help you master the major events of the revolution itself. The second is to introduce issues of interpretation and historical methods; studying the revolution has produced new theories of history and new approaches to the past. The required readings represent some of those approaches. Third, we hope you will learn to think concretely about the larger questions the revolution poses: Why does a regime collapse? How is a new state built? Are revolutions necessarily protracted and violent?

The majority of the course concerns the Old Regime, Enlightenment, and the revolution itself. We will only spend two weeks on Napoleonic France and Europe.

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 FRENCH ATTACHED TO HISTORY 353: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEON.
 
Students with intermediate French language skills enrolled in HIS 353, The French Revolution and Napoleon, may, if they choose, sign up for a supplemental one-hour class in French, FR 130D (unique 36790). Students who take this additional course will receive an additional hour's credit in French from the Department of French & Italian.  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 FR 130D will be determined according to student availability.

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

Description

In recent years, we Americans have increasingly defined ourselves in terms of our actions and reactions in particular moments of crisis.  Events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina have provoked debates about the substance of our national identity and character and have revealed deep fault lines in the bedrock of our society.  This interdisciplinary course examines a range of cultural and social transformations in what we now call the United States of America from the colonial period until the end of the Civil War.  Each week we will take as our starting point a particular moment of crisis, paying attention to the political, social and cultural forces that gave rise to the crisis as well as the dispersal, transformation and/or entrenchment of these forces in its aftermath.  The critical moments we will focus on will include the Salem Witch Trials; the Election of 1800; the “American Renaissance”; and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry among others.  Our semester will culminate, of course, in the crisis of the Civil War.

We will examine the British, (and to a lesser extent the Spanish and French) colonial legacies in the United States and social formations among the diverse groups of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans both within and on the borders of these colonies.  We will watch these colonies declare independence, fighting and writing the United States into being.  We will explore the attempts of both ordinary and extraordinary Americans as they continued to debate and articulate the meanings of, exceptions to, and shortcomings in the American creed. 

In this course, we will consider many dimensions of American national identity: What is the proper relationship among the nation, the states, and individuals?  How have Americans negotiated the tension between republicanism and democracy or between religious and secular world views?  What would it mean to recognize slavery as one of the founding institutions of the United States?  We will study the formation of American identity around differences of race, class, gender, religion, and region.  We will study these developing identities through literature, political documents, painting, music, newspapers and other media.

Requirements

2 in-class exams:                  30% each

In-class final:                        40%

Possible Texts

Mary Rowlandson, Sovereignty and Goodness of God

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer 

James Fennimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

And a course packet of shorter readings

Upper-division standing required. Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

Stretching chronologically from the Civil War to the contemporary anxieties of postmodern America, this course will touch upon a wide variety of questions: What is the American dream? What keeps us from achieving it? What is the nature of dissent? What are our responsibilities to one another? Underneath all of these concerns is a basic question: What should America be? We will delve into this by exploring the ways in which writers, artists, politicians, and intellectuals have provided both confident visions and devastating critiques of American society, in the form of artful essays, bold manifestos, innovative fiction, and powerful cinema. By focusing on social thought broadly defined, I hope to share with you the challenge and excitement of thinking critically about what American democracy has been as well as what it could be. As we move from the utopian novels of the late 19th century to the contemporary “war on terror,” I hope you will gain a sense not only of the historic struggle over the soul of America, but also a sense of how that struggle continues today, indelibly marked by the rhetoric and reality of the past.                  

Requirements

Students are expected to attend class regularly, participate in classroom discussion in a civil and constructive manner, and complete assigned readings in a timely fashion. In addition to unannounced quizzes on the readings to ensure that we are all keeping up with the readings, there will be three major exams.

Possible Texts

David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper, The American Intellectual Tradition: Vol. II, 5th edition

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward

James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem

Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

Upper-division standing required. Partially fulfills legislative requirement in American History.

Flag(s): Cultural Diversity

A half century after the high point of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., most American students learn about the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1957 Little Rock conflict over school desegregation, the 1963 March on Washington, and the fire hoses in Birmingham. Far fewer encounter the less-televised moments of civil rights history, the meanings of freedom that included but went beyond desegregation, and the breadth of participation by local people. It is even less common to consider other movements that paralleled the black freedom movement among, for example, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. Taking a comparative perspective, this upper division lecture course explores these aspects of the civil rights era. It also examines their larger historical context within American culture from the Second World War to the present. Finally, we consider questions about the writing of history: What does it mean to look back at such historic events with the benefit of hindsight?  How did they come about?  What changed?  What did not?  

Course requirements and grading structure:

Three reading handouts  (5% each, 15% total)

Three in-class exams  (20% each, 60% total)

Five-page essay  (25%)

Regular class attendance (5%)

Students are also responsible for completing assigned readings.

This course WILL use + and – letter grades.

Possible required readings:

Coursepack of primary documents and articles

Cone, James H . Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare            :

Crow Dog, Mary.  Lakota Woman

Glisson, Susan M., ed., The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement

Martin, Waldo E.  Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents

Oropeza, Lorena, ¡Raza Si! ¡Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era

Sellers, Cleveland.  The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC           

Takaki, Ronald.  Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II

PURPOSE OF COURSE

This upper division course examines the history of Blacks in the United States from the West African Heritage to the Civil War and provides a critical examination on central issues under scholarly debate in the reconstruction of the Black experience in America. The course thus engages the debate on the evolution of African-American slavery as a social, economic and political institution, with a special focus on antebellum slavery, including plantation slavery, industrial slavery, and urban slavery in addition to slave culture.

Also, the course assesses the institutional development of the free black community, during the age of slavery, with emphasis on free black protest activities, organizations, and leaders. Equally important, information is provided on the business and entrepreneurial activities of both slave and free blacks before the Civil War to underscore the long historic tradition of black economic self-help. Invariably, those slaves who purchased their freedom were slaves involved in various business enterprises. Also emphasized in the course are the various ways in which slave and free black women responded to slavery and racism before the Civil War, giving consideration to gender issues within the intersection of the dynamics of race, class, and sex.

The course format is primarily lecture, with informal class discussion, utilizing in part the Socratic method of teaching/pedagogy (especially useful for students who are pre-law), as we examine topics that broaden historical consciousness and critical thinking skills, such as: the role Africans played in the Atlantic slave trade; the historical forces that contributed to the origin of racism in Colonial America; the anomaly of black plantation slave owners in a race-based slave society; how white economic disparities and hegemonic masculinities were played out in class subordination and racial oppression; why race takes precedence over class in assessing the black historical experience; the extent to which judicial cases provide a pragmatic assessment of the realities of slave life; the extent to which American law supported the racial subordination of slave and free blacks; whether or not the economic and political imperatives that prompted antebellum African American settlement in West Africa can be considered colonialist in design and intent.

These and other questions will bring to the forefront the central issue of the agency of African Americans in their attempts to survive racism and slavery in attempts forge their own political and economic liberation. This course, consequently, emphasizes both the deconstruction of prevailing assessments and interpretations of the African American experience as well as provides information for a new reconstruction of the Black Experience from slavery to freedom. In each instance, emphasis will be on exploring different historical interpretations of the Black Experience.

African American slaves did not lead a monolithic slave experience. They shared life-time, hereditary, involuntary servitude, racial oppression and subordination. But many manipulated the institution and slave codes in attempts to mitigate that oppression. Others, such as Nat Turner and Dred Scott used other means to bring about an end to their servitude, while free blacks also fought to end slavery as well as improve their economic, societal and legal status.

The primary purposes of this course, then, are 1) to develop an understanding of the nature of historical inquiry and 2). to heighten historical consciousness 3), encourage critical thinking and analysis of historical material and 4) to recognizing the difference between what might have happened and what actually happened to blacks, both slave and free blacks during the age of slavery to the Civil War.

REQUIRED BOOKS

Franklin, John H. and Alfred Moss, FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM, 9th ed

Holt, T. and Barkley-Brown, E. MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY, vol 1

Owens, Leslie, THIS SPECIES OF PROPERTY: SLAVE LIFE AND CULTURE IN THE OLD SOUTH

Tyler, Ron and Lawrence, R. Murphy, The Slave Narratives of Texas

Walker, Juliet E. K., FREE FRANK: A BLACK PIONEER ON THE ANTEBELLUM FRONTIER

Walker, Juliet E. K., THE HISTORY OF BLACK BUSINESS IN AMERICA: CAPITALISM, RACE,    ENTREPRENEURSHIP

White, Deborah G.  AREN’T I A WOMAN:  FEMALE SLAVES PLANTATION SOUTH

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

MID-TERM EXAM                            35%

RESEARCH PAPER                           30%

EXAM 2 (TAKE-HOME)                  35%

This course partially fulfills the legislative requirement for American history. 

Course information:

http://webspace.webring.com/people/ca/avillalon/c-ww1-index.html

Topics in European History.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

From French bread riots to the Irish potato famine, the history of food offers new ways to understand change in modern Europe. In this new course, you will learn how national cuisines reflect politics, economics, identity, and culture. Topics in this course will include the ways foodways intersect with famine, war, national politics, geography, cultures and imperial trade. You will learn how the industrialization of Europe shaped food technologies, transport, and consumer behavior. Far from just learning about the history of cheese, you will delve into the ways food reflected changes in technology, national boundaries, and war time strategies. This course will offer an opportunity to think more critically about the development of the global networks that brought food to tables throughout Europe.

Selected Readings: (Subject to Change) Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Near a Thousand Tables Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Accounting for Taste, The Triumph of French Cuisine Suzanne Freidberg, French Beans and Food Scares Reay, Tannahill, Food in History Jean-Louis Flandrin, Massimo Montanari, Food: A Culinary History James Vernon, Hunger, A Modern History Roger Scola, Feeding the Victorian City John Dickie, Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and Their Food Additional readings will be distributed in class or are available on the Internet

Grading: Participation: 20% Short essays, revisions: 20% Final Paper (Approx. 3,000 words): 40%

This course will examine the complex relationship between the Western Church and the Jews over two millenia. How did theological ideas about the Jews crystallize in the early centuries? How were they expressed in legal and social terms in the centuries that followed? How did economic and social realities dovetail with theology to produce the extreme persecutions of the Jews in the late medieval period? What led to the striking changes in Christian attitudes to Jews in from the post-Reformation period to the present? We will analyze relevant documents and images, emphasizing how theological positions both created and responded to the socio-economic roles of Jews.

Required to purchase:

Revised Standard Version of the Bible (any edition)

The course will make used of a website designed specifically for it by the instructor. The website includes many of the readings. Other assigned readings will be posted on Blackboard.

Grading:

Class attendance and participation (10%), participation on Discussion Board (20%), two 1-3 pp. assignments (20%), mid-term exam (20%), final exam (30%).

This course will allow students to deepen their knowledge of the history of US-Latin American relations from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first.  Readings and lectures will allow students to consider and debate the political, economic, cultural, racial, and scientific dimensions of these relationships.  These discussions will allow students to begin to think of themselves as cultural citizens of the Americas more broadly. Ultimately, this course encourages students to use what they learn as background for a potential experience in the region through study abroad, community engagement, or internship.

Course description
This course examines the critical role of writing in one of the world's oldest literate civilizations. Beginning with the origin of Chinese characters in the Bronze Age, we examine the crucial role of writing in staking claims of political, social, and religious authority in ancient and early Imperial China (ca. 1200 BCE-200 CE). Aiming to situate writing within the cultural practices in which it was generated, we explore a diverse array of textual artifacts, including inscriptions on bone, bronze, and stone and manuscripts on bamboo and silk, in addition to texts in the received literary tradition. Topics include the magico-religious dimensions of writing, the sociology of writing and textual production, and the role of cannon and commentary in articulating and challenging imperial claims of legitimacy.

Course texts
Christopher Leigh Connery, The Empire of the Text: Writing And Authority in Early Imperial China (1998).
Martin Kern, ed., Text and Ritual in Early China (2005).
Mark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (1999).
Edward L. Shaughnessy, Rewriting Early Chinese Texts (2006).

Additional required readings available electronically.

Grading
class participation: 20%
informal writing: 15%
short paper: 20%
midterm exam: 20%
final paper: 25%

This course will examine the history of American empire, and the migrations and immigrations produced by that history, from a comparative and transnational perspective.  The course will pay particular attention to the expansion of American influence in Asia, as well as Asian migration to and from the United States, and the issues of race, gender, class and national identity that arose as a result of those movements.  We will also examine how the history of empire have changed and challenged notions of citizenship and belonging, often expressed in racialized and gendered terms.

“American Capitalism, 1865-2000: A History of Innovation and Economic Rights”

Tracing the history of the American economy from 1865 to 2000, I have organized this course around three themes: 1) innovation; 2) economic rights; and 3) the role of the state.  Students will examine sources of innovation in terms of the role played by entrepreneurs, efforts the state has made to foster innovation, and the role of corporate institutions.  Economic rights concern problems of union recognition and discrimination in the job market.  But the topic of economic rights also includes rights of companies in the marketplace and in negotiations with workers.  Both the topic of innovation and economic rights leads you to the study of the role of the state.  Scholars and the public at large have strikingly varied views about the proper role of the state in the economy.  In this course, students will evaluate past experiences in order to arrive at their own assessment of the state’s impact on innovation and economic rights.

Grading: Three papers will count 75% of your final grade; class discussion will count 25% of your final grade.  The three essays will each be four to five pages in length.

Readings:  Possible readings include the following selections:

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

William Cronon,  Nature’s Metropolis

David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire that Changed America

Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal

Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis

AnnaLee Saxenian, Regional Advantage

Why have Jews been hated and mistrusted for so long? How, if at all, does judeophobia differ from other types of xenophobia or racism?  In which societies have we historically seen intense hatred or mistrust of Jews? Where do we see it today? And where do we see the opposite phenomenon: philosemitism?

In this upper-level undergraduate course, we tackle these and related questions. We identify distinct types of judeophobia/antisemitism over 2,500 years, identifying when and where new and discrete layers of antisemitic ideas developed and flourished. Although our primary focus is on antisemitism in contemporary and historical Christian and Muslim societies, we begin in the antisemitic bedrock—Ancient Greece and Rome. We also look at antisemitism in peripheral societies which have had few Jews, if any (e.g., Japan). Finally, we consider judeophobia among Jews themselves—that is, the enduring phenomenon in which some Jews have not only internalized antisemitic discourse but have become “self-hating.”

Throughout the course, we use antisemitism to explore more general ideas in social theory, including habitus, globalization, and the nature of conflict related to race, ethnicity, class, and ideology. Perhaps most surprising and disturbing—this being a university—we look at the repeated role of intellectual elites in generating and justifying new forms of judeophobia, and in so doing, perpetuating this ancient hatred.

Grading

To be provided by instructor. 

This seminar is designed as a reading course in history, literature, and politics, and as a class in professional writing. Its scope will include not only the literature, history, and politics of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, but also the interaction of British and other societies throughout the world. One point of emphasis will be the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth in its Asian and African as well as early American dimensions. Another point will be a focus on historical, literary, and auto-biography (Disreali, Woolf, Lawrence, Orwell, Gandhi, etc.).

In a general way, the seminar upholds the principles of the Modern History Faculty at Oxford-to enhance (1) intellectual curiosity, (2) conceptual clarity; (3) flexibility, that is, the capacity to engage with alternative perspectives and new information; (4) accuracy and attention to detail; (5) critical engagement; (6) capacity for hard work (7) enthusiasm for history, literature, and politics; and (8) historical imagination and understanding, that is the ability to speculate and compare, alongside the possession of appropriate historical knowledge and the capacity to deploy it.

Texts

Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians is required, then a choice of five other books from the list below plus six others to be decided upon in consultation with the instructor:

      Robert Blake, Disraeli

      Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey 

      Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf

      T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

      Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life

      Judith M. Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope

About the Professor:

His teaching fields are the British Empire and Commonwealth and the comparative history of colonialism, Belgian, French, Dutch, German, and Portuguese; and the history, literature, and politics of nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain.

Professor Louis has recently published Ends of British Imperialism: the Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization (2006). He has written or edited more than thirty books including Imperialism at Bay (1977) and The British Empire in the Middle East (1984). His edited publications include The End of the Palestine Mandate (1986), The Transfers of Power in Africa (1988), Suez 1956 (1989), The Iraqi Revolution (1991), and Churchill (1993).

He is the past President of the American Historical Association and the present Director of the AHA's National History Center.  He is Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire, and the former Chairman of the Historical Advisory Committee, U.S. Department of State (resigned on principle, 2008).

Awards/Honors

Selected by the 50,000 students at UT as Professor of the Year, 2009

Kluge Chair for the Library of Congress in 2010

Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011

Description: This lecture course explores the most significant political, religious, social, economic and cultural developments in seventeenth-century England. The unifying theme of the course is the problem of revolution, and the lectures investigate the causes, nature and development of the two revolutions of the seventeenth century--the Puritan Revolution of the 1640s and the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. The lectures are topical and therefore do not follow a strict chronological order. All of the lectures are slide-illustrated.

Prerequisites: Upper-division standing

Reading:

R. Lockyer, Tudor and Stuart Britain

        C. Herrup, A House in Gross Disorder

        L. Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy

        M. Gaskill, Witchfinders

        B. Coward, Oliver Cromwell

        J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government

        W. Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries

Assignments: Three exams (75%) and one final essay or term paper (25%)