 |
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 2004
History 316.01 "The Civil Rights Crusade: Its Achievements, Limitations, and Historical Legacy." This seminar will examine the emergence, development, and demise of the civil rights movement from the founding of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942 to the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 and its aftermath. The texts, documents, documentaries, and Hollywood films will focus on leaders such as James Farmer, Jo Ann Robinson, King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and Fred Shuttlesworth, but they will also explore the civil rights crusade as a mass movement that mobilized unprecedented numbers of black Americans at the local, regional, state, and national levels. The emphasis in the course will be on the movement itself and the perceptions and agitation of African Americans, but the national climate of opinion, the legacy of racial prejudice, and the response of the federal government to the movement will also receive attention. Besides looking at the mainstream movement and leaders,
students will be encouraged to examine the lives and times of previously neglected or secondary figures in the racial revolution of the 1950s and 1960s--Jackie Robinson, Lena Home, Harry Belafonte, Maya Angelou, Sidney Poitier, Muhammad Ali, Shirley Chisholm, and Dick Gregory. Each student will lead at least one class discussion and will prepare a research paper based mainly on primary source research. The class will first focus on common readings and discussions, then shift to individual research and class reports. Prerequisite: History 112, 227, or permission of the instructor. 4 credits. Mr. Hietala
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, and students will consider the questions from a variety of theoretical approaches. Research papers will analyze popular culture in a historical context to consider how popular culture created or changed power dynamics in American society. Prerequisites: History 111 and any 200-level American History course or permission of instructor. 4 credits. Ms. Purcell
History 330.01 "Religious Toleration and Violence in Europe, 1450-1800." This seminar will focus on relations between religious groups from the late middle ages to the Enlightenment. Europe has always been religiously divided between Christians, Jews and Muslims. After the Reformation, Christianity also became divided into disputing, often openly warring groups. A few people supported toleration and religious freedom, although religious violence continues today. The common readings will discuss the patterns of religious violence and toleration, the meaning of toleration for early modern Europeans, the obstacles for peaceful coexistence and the various strategies that people adopted to solve these problems. The first part of the course will examine the Spanish Inquisition, the Wars of Religion in France, the situation for Jews in central Europe, as well as Enlightenment solutions to the problems of religious conflict. Two short essays will be assigned in the first part of the course. Students will also
select a research topic of their own that explaining religious violence or the legal, political, philosophical and social preconditions for tolerance. They will also give an oral presentation of their research. Prerequisites: Either HIS 233, HIS 234, HUM 140 or permission from the instructor. 4 credits. Mr. Spohnholz
History 339.01 "Dictatorship and Democracy in Modern Germany." Our common readings will investigate the failure of Germany's first experiment with democracy in the Weimar Republic, the mentality of the founders of the Nazi Party, the reasons for that party's rise to popularity, the governing institutions of the Third Reich, the Nazis' campaign to transform German society and gender roles, the experience of the Second World War and the Holocaust, and the reasons why democracy succeeded so much better in Germany after the Second World War than after the First. Students will then choose one of these topics for investigation in a substantial term paper that relates debates between historians to a body of primary sources. A reading knowledge of German is useful but not required, since many primary sources on Nazism and the Third Reich have been translated into English. Prerequisite: History 238 or 239; if you have taken only History 101, please consult with Professor Patch about whether you would be
well prepared for this seminar. 4 credits. Mr. Patch
HIS 342.01 "Stalinism." This seminar will concentrate upon the major historiographical divide over Stalinist Russia and evaluate the evidentiary bases that sustain these interpretations. Traditional historiography of this era has concentrated upon the "totalitarian" model, and has depended upon official documents, as well as the memoirs and public statements of major figures and émigrés. More recent interpretations have sought to complicate the story, and give voice to more ordinary historical actors-as preserved in the archives of the secret police, in private diaries, and in the collections of unprinted denunciations and letters to the editors of Soviet publications and Soviet leaders. Through scrupulous reading of some major representatives of these views, as well as through careful consideration of representative examples of the various sources, participants in the seminar will develop a better understanding of the historiographical issues and the way that these issues inform historical research.
The first part of the seminar will depend upon our common reading, but students will also select a project of their own on which to work the entire semester, culminating in a written paper and oral presentation to the seminar. Prerequisite: History 242 or its equivalent. 4 credits. Mr. Kaiser
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
SPRING 2005
History 323.01 "The Art of Biography." This seminar will explore the complex blend of objective and subjective elements which necessarily comprise the writing of biography. Using American biographies as our texts, we will examine problems related to sources, including the use of interviews, correspondence, diaries, the popular press, legal records, and, of course, autobiographies. In addition, we will trace trends in the theoretical literature, considering how shifts from psychoanalytic theory to post-structuralist and feminist theory have influenced both writers' and readers' approaches to biography. Students in this seminar will be asked to consider questions of ethics and literary style, as well as questions of logic and veracity, as they examine both the theory and the practice of biography. There will be an opportunity to experiment with the writing of biography. There will also be the opportunity to employ current theories of biography in writing a historiographical critique of the existing
biographical literature on selected American subjects. Prerequisites: History 112 and one 200-level course in American history. 4 credits. Ms. Brown
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 common readings. This year those common readings will focus on US attempts-both official and unoffical-to democratize and modernize the region. Students will then write a research paper using primary documents. These papers could focus on any one of a number of issues that were central to US-Latin American relations such as hemispheric security, economic affairs, democracy, and socialism. A reading knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is helpful but not required. Prerequisite: History 201, 202, or 204. 4 credits. Mr. Silva
History 333.01 "The Civilizing Mission and Its Discontents". One of the hallmarks of nineteenth-century Britain was the unprecedented number of programs for moral and social improvement that grew out of middle-class values of progress and civilization. Victorians believed they could elevate the human condition through individual and collective reform; yet ironically, these lofty ideals often replicated the very social divisions and hierarchies they sought to transform and alienated the beneficiaries they sought to save. This seminar will examine the development of the "civilizing mission" through various arenas at home and abroad, including imperialism, missionary work, charity organizations, and public health programs. We will treat philanthropy as a cultural encounter that encompassed conflicting ideas of race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and empire, since benevolence movements carried the potential for both empowerment and subjugation, we will also consider how marginalized groups responded
to this growing imperative to civilized Britain and the world. The shared readings will facilitate students' development of a research project later in the course, and will focus on primary sources such as novels, travel narratives, newspapers, missionary and charity propaganda, and self-improvement manuals, in addition to current scholarship. Prerequisite: History 105 or 236. 4 credits. Ms. Prevost
|
|
