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Majors must take two seminars (or their equivalent) in two different geographic areas: Asia, Europe, Latin America, Russia, or the U.S. Seminars with a broader geographic focus, such as HIS 328, can be sorted into one of these categories based on the focus of your research paper.
FALL 2003:
History 315.01. "The United States and Vietnam."
This course examines the historical context of United States intervention in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975, with an emphasis on the social, economic, and political turmoil within Southeast Asia as well as the Cold War concerns that led American leaders to wage a full?scale war against an elusive and ill?defined "enemy" during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. The course will also consider the ongoing legacy of the United States loss in Vietnam and its impact upon recent American history. Sources utilized in the seminar present a wide array of perspectives and experiences, including policy documents from leaders in Vietnam and the United States, memoirs by soldiers, reminiscences by reporters, and accounts by others who witnessed the war. Students will be expected to initiate and carry the class discussions, define a major research project, produce an original paper, and present an oral report on their topic. The class will first focus on common readings and discussions, then shift to individual research and
class reports. Prerequisites: History 112 and additional course work in history at the 200level. 4 credits. Mr. Hietala.
History 33x: "The Religious Experience of Medieval Women"
Although women were for the most part excluded from positions of ecclesiastical authority in Medieval Europe, surviving texts by and about female saints, mystics and heretics reveal a dynamic and diverse religious life. This seminar will look broadly at the range of female religious experience and consider what this it teaches us about both power and the very conception of religiosity in pre-modern Europe. We will pay special attention to the prominence of mysticism and affective spirituality in women's religious writings as well as the search for alternatives to gendered clerical, sacramental, and textual authority. Among the figures to be discussed are Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Marguerite Porete and Margery Kempe. Secondary readings will provide background and insight into how historians recently have been using these sources to enhance our understanding of medieval life in general. In the second half of the course students will work independently, under supervision of
the instructor, to produce a sizeable research paper based on primary sources. There will be opportunities for interested students to conduct research in Latin, French, German or Middle English. Prerequisites: History 233 or Religious Studies 223. In addition, students who have taken GWS 111 or Humanities 140 will be admitted with consent of the instructor.
History 337.01. "The Great War and Social Change."
To some historians, the First World War marked the most important turning point in modem European history and unleashed the most powerful forces to bedevil and inspire the world for the next century. Other historians argue that it did no more than mildly accelerate a number of long?term historical trends. In this seminar students will be asked to explore together some of the most noteworthy efforts to analyze the impact of the First World War on European diplomatic, social, economic, military, and cultural history, and then to undertake a substantial individual research project. Topics will include the causes of the First World War, the reasons why prewar military planning proved unrealistic, the psychological impact of the combat experience, the changing role of women on the "home front," the transformation of the economic role of government, the radicalization of the labor movement, the impact of the war on literature and the arts, and the achievements and failures of the peacemakers of 1919. Prerequisite:
History 236, 237, 238, or 239. 4 credits. Mr. Patch
History 341. "Remembering Russia's Past: The Memoir in Russian History."
This seminar will begin with a careful reading and analysis of a handful of memoirs from imperial and Soviet Russia, from women and men, from noble and worker. In reading these personal histories, we will consider the virtues and limitations of memoirs, and the extent to which they conform to a "genre," and thereby either illumine or obstruct our sense of the past. The major project for each seminar participant will be a detailed analysis of one important memoir of the student's choosing, drawing upon our common readings and discussions in order to appraise the usefulness to the historian of that particular account. Students who have completed either HIS 241 or 242 will find that background beneficial, but any upper-division history student may enroll with the instructor's permission. 4 credits. Mr. Kaiser.
SPRING 2004:
History 322.01: Daughters of Zion: Women, Power, and American Religions, 1815-1915.
This seminar will draw on the recent explosion in historical literature on Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish women in order to examine the ways in which organized religion was a site for patriarchal control of women as well as a place for female empowerment and even feminist expression. Beginning with the Second Great Awakening and the abolition movement and proceeding up through the Social Gospel movement, this seminar will offer students an opportunity to consider the complex and unique ways in which the church and the synagogue both elevated and subordinated its female members. It will also offer a venue in which students can explore the work and words of male and female clergy and male and female laity as they struggled over questions of women's nature, women's place, and women's power in American society between 1815 and 1915. PREREQUISITES: HIS 111 or 112, and HIS 222. 4 credits. Ms. Brown
History 326.01. "History of Nineteenth?Century American Popular Culture."
Students in this seminar will examine the creation and expansion of American popular culture in the nineteenth century as they focus on diverse cultural forms: dime novels, newspapers, music, sports, cartoons, material culture, theater, minstrel shows, magazines, etc. The seminar will focus particularly on how ideas and structures of race, class, and gender were changed and reinforced by American popular culture. Research papers will analyze popular culture in an historical context to consider how popular culture created or changed power dynamics in American society. Prerequisite: History 111 Plus any 200-level American History course or permission of instructor. 4 credits. Ms. Purcell
History 329.01. "Latin America and the United States."
As the saying goes, Latin America lies too far from God and too close to the United States. This proximity has affected Latin American economics, demographics, culture, and politics. The seminar will begin with an overview of US?Latin American relations from the Monroe Doctrine to the Bay of Pigs. We will then concentrate on the crucial period between World war I and World War 11 when the United States and Latin America redefined their relationship. Students will then write a research paper using primary documents available here at Grinnell. These papers could focus on any one of a number of issues that were central to US?Latin American relations in the interwar period such as hemispheric security, economic affairs, fascism, and socialism. A reading knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is helpful but not required. Prerequisite: a 200?level history course on Latin America or the United States. 4 credits. Mr. Silva
History 375.01. "The East?Asian Discovery of Europe, 1520-1830."
This course will examine the first series of full contacts between Europe and East Asia during the three centuries following the Chinese purchase of a cannon from the Portuguese in 1520. It will focus on the patterns of cultural penetration of the Europeans as well as on the East?Asian responses to Christianity, military technology, and international trade. Readings will include first?hand accounts of mutual perceptions of the European and the East?Asian peoples. Prerequisite: History 275, 276, 277, or 278. 4 credits. Mr. Hsieh.
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