HIST 101D United States History, 1492-1865

Credit: 0.5

This course is a thematic survey of United States history from European conquest through the Civil War. Through lectures, discussions, and readings, students will examine the nation's colonial origin, the impact of European conquest on the native peoples, the struggle for national independence, and the formation of a national government. The second half of the course will focus on the making of a modern democratic nation. Topics will include the expansion of the market economy, chattel slavery, and the factory system. The course will also examine early urbanization, the rise of egalitarianism, westward expansion, the Second Great Awakening, the first women's movements, and the abolition of slavery. The course concludes with an account of the Civil War and the Lincoln administration. No prerequisites. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirement. This course is the same as AMST 101D, listed in the American Studies Program.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 102D United States History, 1865-Present

Credit: 0.5

This course is a thematic survey of the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. Students will examine the transformation of the United States from a rural, largely Protestant society into a powerful and culturally diverse, urban/industrial nation. Topics will include constitutional developments, the formation of a national economy, urbanization, and immigration. The course will also discuss political changes, the secularization of the public culture, the formation of the welfare state, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War as well as suburbanization, the civil rights movement, women's and gay rights, and the late twentieth-century conservative-politics movement and religious revival. No prerequisites. This course is the same as AMST 102D, listed in the American Studies Program.

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 120 Early Latin America

Credit: 0.5

This course is an introduction to the history of Latin America's colonial period. The course begins with an overview of the century before the first encounters between European and indigenous peoples in the New World, and traces major political and economic developments in the Americas and the Atlantic world that contributed to the shaping of specific social formations in South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean Basin from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The course will consider not only the establishment and evolution of dominant institutions such as the colonial state and church, but also racial and gender relations that characterized the colonial societies of Brazil and Spanish America. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Suarez-Potts

HIST 121 Modern Latin America

Credit: 0.5

This course, through lectures and discussions, will begin by examining the long process of the breakdown of Iberian colonial authority (contrasting Brazil's evolution to that of the Spanish-American republics). It will then shift to studying Latin America's further economic integration into the Atlantic world economy in the late nineteenth century, and the ensuing political, cultural, and social changes that occurred throughout the twentieth century, as regional economies continued to evolve. Social and economic inequality, political authoritarianism, and revolutionary and cultural change will be discussed from a historical perspective.

Instructor: Suarez-Potts

HIST 126 History of the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 300-1100

Credit: 0.5

This course surveys the history of the early Middle Ages. Relying mainly on primary sources, it traces the broad contours of 800 years of European and Mediterranean history. The course covers the gradual merging of Roman and Germanic cultures, the persistence of Roman ideas during the Middle Ages, the slow Christianization of Europe, monasticism, the rise of Islam, and Norse society. Readings include Augustine's Confessions, a scandalous account of the reign of the Emperor Justinian, the Rule of St. Benedict, a translation of the Koran, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 127 The Later Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 1100-1500

Credit: 0.5

This course surveys the history of the later Middle Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean. Relying mainly on primary sources, the course covers the renaissance of the twelfth century, mendicant and monastic spiritualities, scholasticism, the rise of universities, and the devastation of the Black Death. Readings include Christian, Jewish, and Muslim accounts of several crusades; a saga about a hard-drinking, poetry-loving Norseman; and letters written by two ill-fated twelfth-century lovers. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 131 Early Modern Europe

Credit: 0.5

Through lectures and discussions, this course will introduce the student to early modern Europe, with special attention to Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia. It will treat such topics as the Reformation, the emergence of the French challenge to the European equilibrium, Britain's eccentric constitutional course, the pattern of European contacts with the non-European world, the character of daily life in premodern Europe, the Enlightenment, the appearance of Russia on the European scene, and the origins of German dualism, as well as the impact of the French Revolution on Europe. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Maguire

HIST 132 Modern Europe

Credit: 0.5

The European continent is incredibly diverse: geographically, culturally, economically, ethnically, and politically (to name only the most obvious factors). Throughout the semester we will explore this diversity of experiences since the end of the eighteenth century. We will look at issues of race, class, and gender, as well as violence, poverty, faith, nationalism, technology, and art. We will read novels and memoirs, watch films, and listen to music as we hone our historical knowledge and sensibilities regarding modern Europe, its peoples, and its governments. We will examine the fates of a variety of nations, using examples from across the continent.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 145 Early Africa

Credit: 0.5

This course is a survey of major events and social changes that occurred on the continent of Africa before 1800, with an emphasis on those that took place after 500. As the continent encompasses hundreds of different societies, each with its own history, this survey is necessarily far from comprehensive, instead focusing on select cases in various regions that illustrate larger trends and issues. Among the main topics are smaller-scale societies, kingdoms that arose in different parts of Africa, the spread of Islam, the arrival of European traders, and the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Recurring themes in the course will include state formation, religion, geographic diversity, cultural exchange, and the role of archaeology, linguistics, and oral histories in the reconstruction of Africa's early history. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 146 Modern Africa

Credit: 0.5

This course examines the history of Africa from 1800 to the present. It employs a range of books, articles, novels, and videos to explore nineteenth-century transformations in Africa, European conquest of the continent, the impact of colonialism, the coming of independence, and recent challenges and achievements in Africa. The influence of Europe on Africa is a dominant theme, but the course emphasizes African perspectives and actions in that troubled relationship. Throughout, we will consider issues of resistance, identity, and cultural change, paying particular attention to the recent roots of current situations in Africa, such as the democratization of some nations and endemic violence in others.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 156 History of India

Credit: 0.5

India is the world's largest democracy. It has a middle-class population larger than the population of France, and a third to a half of the world's computer software is developed and produced there. Not only does India defy simple categorization, but the stereotypes and cliches readily placed on it are grossly misleading. This course is an introduction to both the study of India and the study of history using India as a rich example. The readings and class discussions trace some of the following themes: Muslim rule in India, women in the medieval period, the diversity of cultures in South Asia, religious reform movements, European participation in trade in the Indian Ocean, the British empire, social movements, nationalism, the partition of India and Pakistan, and modern nation states. The course will examine India through a range of sources, particularly sources from South Asia. There are no prerequisites, and the course assumes no prior knowledge about India.

Instructor: Singer

HIST 160 Modern East Asia

Credit: 0.5

This course examines the core institutions and patterns of change arising out of them in Japan, Korea, and China (with passing reference to Vietnam), focusing mainly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the late eighteenth century, the expanding presence of European traders and travelers in the waters off the coasts of China and Japan interacted with local developments to transform the history of East Asia, itself key to the ongoing transformation of the rest of the world. The course looks comparatively at the struggles of these peoples to preserve or regain independence, refashion their national identities, and articulate needs in a rapidly changing world. Discussion of readings and of films comprises an important component of the weekly classroom experience.

Instructor: Dunnell

HIST 161 East Asia to 1850

Credit: 0.5

This course focuses on China, Korea, and Japan before the rise of European maritime dominance. East Asia emerges as a coherent cultural area in the first millennia CE. Those centuries saw the introduction and spread of Buddhism throughout the region, a religion whose faith and associated practices dominated people's world view and profoundly shaped the physical and human landscape. Significant shifts in the twelfth to eighteenth centuries, in particular in the practices of the mature "family-state" (family, gender, politics, and kingship), highlight the Confucianization of East Asia during these later centuries. The Mongol and Manchu conquests of the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries mark key transition points in this process. Readings includes memoirs, philosophical and ethical texts, documents, fiction, and interpretative articles.

Instructor: Dunnell

HIST 166 History of the Islamicate World

Credit: 0.5

This course surveys the history of the Islamic(ate) world from the rise of Islam in the sixth century to the rise of post-Monol-Muslim empires--the Ottomans, the safavids, the Mughuls--in the sixteenth century. The course will especially focus on the formation and expansion of Islam as a global civilization and the historical development of the social, cultural, religious, and commercial networks and institutions that connected the Islamicate world during these centuries. Among the topics to be covered are the life and career of the Prophet Muhammad and the emergence of Islam, the expansion of Islamicate world through conquests, conversions and commercial networks, the formation of various Islamic polities and empires, such as the Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Seljuks, and the Mamluks, and the issues of authority, power, and legitimacy that confronted these polties. It will also examine the historical development of Islamic institutions such as Sufism and religious law. Fulfills Asia and the history major premodern requirement.

Instructor: Kilic-Schubel

HIST 175 Early Black History

Credit: 0.5

In August 1619, "twenty and odd negars" were traded for food by the crew of a Dutch sailing vessel. That commercial transaction represented the first recorded incident of a permanent African presence in America. Over the next 146 years, this population of Africans would grow to create an African-American population of over four million. The overwhelming majority of this population was enslaved. This course will be an examination of those enslaved millions and their free black fellows--who they were, how they lived, and how the nation was transformed by their presence and experience. Particular attention will be paid to the varieties of African-American experience and how slavery and the presence of peoples of African descent shaped American social, political, intellectual, and economic systems. Students will be presented with a variety of primary and secondary source materials; timely and careful reading of these sources will prepare students for class discussions. Students will be confronted with conflicting bodies of evidence and challenged to analyze these issues and arrive at conclusions for themselves. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

HIST 176 Contemporary Black History

Credit: 0.5

This is an introductory lecture and discussion course in the history of African Americans in the United States. Beginning with Emancipation, the course traces the evolution of black culture and identity and the continuing struggle for freedom and equality. Topics will include the tragedies and triumphs of Reconstruction, interracial violence, black political and institutional responses to racism and violence, the Harlem Renaissance, jazz, blues, and the civil rights and black power movements.

HIST 190 The Making of the Contemporary World, 1945-1990

Credit: 0.5

From the Cold War to the fall of the Berlin Wall, for more than forty years the potential of vast annihilation colored international and even local history. As Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, said at an international conference in 1955, "Today in the world, not only because of the presence of these two colossuses [the United States and the Soviet Union] but also because of the coming of the atomic and hydrogen-bomb age, the whole concept of war, of peace, of politics, has changed." This course explores those changes: the tensions between U.S. and U.S.S.R., the creation of nation-states out of former colonized lands, a shift in world power from Western Europe to the United States, and the way people adjusted to these changes through their art, culture, politics, and economies of everyday life. This is the history that most recently has shaped the world to which you--this generation of college students--will have to respond as you move forward. The two seminar sections will meet jointly once a week for lectures or films, and separately once a week for discussion of primary-source readings. In addition to the rich historical material that the course addresses, students will begin to learn the basic skills of the historian: asking questions, finding and analyzing relevant documents or primary sources, and identifying different kinds of interpretations of those sources. Open to first-year students only.

Instructors: Coulibaly, Dunnell

HIST 205 U.S. Political History: the Great Depression and World War Two

Credit: 0.5

Hoover, F.D.R., farmers, city people, agrarian conservatives, labor, the unemployed, politicians, demagogues, the silver screen, free market vs. national planning, and much more. Among other themes, this course will analyze the development of modern liberalism, the modern party system, and the modern presidency. Additionally, it will assess social, cultural, and intellectual currents of the Great Depression era. Course materials will include biographies, novels, film, and historical studies. Prerequisite: at least sophomore standing and two semesters of American history or political science, or permission of instructor. Can be taken for either political science (PSCI 309) or history credit.

Instructor: Wortman

HIST 208 U.S. Women's History

Credit: 0.5

The course will analyze the diverse experiences and social roles of women from settlement in the seventeenth century to the present day. We will examine the broad themes that have shaped the lives of women, paying close attention to specific experiences. The course will analyze the ways in which notions of gender have changed over time and how a wide variety of women have created and responded to changing cultural, political, and economic environments.

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 209 Native American History through History, Autobiography, Literature, and Film

Credit: 0.5

This class analyzes themes of change and continuity in post-contact North American indigenous history through classics in American and Canadian history, autobiography, literature, and film. Those classics reveal individual life stories while simultaneously connecting to major themes in the development of the Native experience that reveal both similarities and differences in tribal and national experience. Among themes assessed are the impact of and response to colonization and settlement; the impact and tensions of the missionary experience; the world of traditional values and the complexities of change Native peoples make in their own lives through religious conversion; the pivotal significance of family; governmental policy; the intrusion and complexity of notions of progress; and autobiography as a genre.

Instructor: Wortman

HIST 210 History of the South, 1607-Present

Credit: 0.5

The course will examine the American South from Jamestown to the present. Lectures and discussions will focus on the South's distinctive development within the American nation, the region's biracial character, and the formation of a shared African/European culture. Students will look at the political events that shaped the region, its economy, the regional differences within the South, and changes that have taken place over the course of the last four centuries.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 218 History of Mexico

Credit: 0.5

In this introductory seminar we shall address the formation of Mexico from its pre-Columbian origins, noting aspects of its history as a Spanish colony and an independent republic. The seminar will consider issues associated with Mexico's evolving, complex identity and study how the inhabitants of the region have expressed different sentiments and perceptions about their communities, state, and nation. We shall thus explore questions raised by relations between indigenous peoples and various, predominantly Hispanic, ruling groups, as well as questions about class and gender. It will also be possible in the seminar to compare the evolution of Mexico with that of other Latin American regions.

Instructor: Suarez-Potts

HIST 226 The British Empire

Credit: 0.5

Painting in broad strokes on a massive canvas, this course will examine the history of the British Empire from its inception in the sixteenth century through its dissolution in the twentieth. The British Empire, whose beginnings were modest, would by the close of the nineteenth century encompass almost thirteen million square miles and a population of nearly four hundred million. Well before the end of the twentieth century, this empire, the largest the world had ever seen, virtually ceased to exist. Its story, from inception to extinction, is a remarkable one. Internal imperatives, global imperial rivalries, and developments on the periphery impelled the empire forward and ultimately brought about its demise. This course will investigate the evolving characteristics of the British imperial experience and the dynamics responsible for the rise and fall of the British Empire.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 227 British History, 1485-2000

Credit: 0.5

This course will survey British history from the accession of the Tudors until the present day. Topics to be considered include the Reformation, the unification of Britain, the civil wars, the rise of parliament, the origins of empire, the industrial revolution, the political response to urbanization, Britain as a great power, the secularization of Britain, and the end of empire.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 230 History of the Reformation: 1500-1648

Credit: 0.5

The course will explore the Reformation era in continental Europe from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648. This revolutionary period provides important insights into the development of modern Western society. It was a period of dramatic developments in the intellectual, political, economic, and social structures of a civilization. The medieval intellectual and political traditions were fired in the crucible of economic, religious, and social upheaval. The emergence of clearly defined territorial states, modern capitalism, royal absolutism, the Enlightenment, economic and ethnic social stratification, and Christian confessionalism became a fixed part of the landscape of Western culture. The course will cover both the traditionally understood Protestant reformation and Catholic reformation, the late medieval intellectual traditions, urban and rural conflicts, the struggle of empire and kingdoms, religious conflicts and confrontations, capitalism's role in social and political revolution, and the emergence of a new social order.

HIST 231 Habsburg Empire

Credit: 0.5

As a political entity, the aggregation of central European lands ruled from Vienna for almost four centuries constitutes the strangest major power on the European scene in the past five hundred years. Alone among the great states of Europe, the Habsburg realm accepted cultural heterogeneity and actively sought to avoid war. This course will assess the Habsburg experiment in political and cultural multiculturalism, seeking finally to account for the empire's inability to survive the tensions of the twentieth century. Among the subjects to be considered are: Vienna as the cultural capital of Europe, the role of language in politics, the creative rivalry between Prague and Vienna, the emergence and character of nationalism, the postwar successor states, and the concept of Central Europe. The course will involve lectures and discussions. No knowledge of German is required.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 232 Modern European Women's History

Credit: 0.5

In lectures and discussions, we will cover European women's history from the Reformation and Enlightenment up through the late twentieth century and the questions raised by the end of the Soviet system. We will look at women's participation in the work force and in revolutionary movements, their fight for political emancipation and equality, and their relationship to war and racism, as well as study the changing ideas of womanhood, gender, and family throughout modern European history.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 233 Russian Empire and Soviet Union: Histories, Peoples, Cultures

Credit: 0.5

This survey of the history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in the modern era will introduce students to the region, familiarize them with the major periods of modern Russian history, and help them to understand some of the important historical issues and debates. Students should develop an appreciation for the ethnic, social, and cultural diversity of both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as well as for the ways in which political events shaped the personal lives of the country's population. Though focusing on twentieth-century history, this course will begin with an introduction to the social structures, ethnic composition, and political problems of the late Russian Empire. We will cover the Russian Revolution and early Soviet history, then turn our attention to Stalinism, collectivization, terror, and the Second World War. In the postwar era, we will examine the failure of the Khrushchev reforms and the period of stagnation under Brezhnev, before turning to Gorbachev and the reforms of perestroika. At the end of the semester, we will approach the end of the Soviet Union and its legacy for the many successor states (not only Russia). Although organized along the lines of political periodization, the class will emphasize the perspectives of social and ethnic diversity as well as culture and gender. We will look at art, literature, and music, and we will attend film screenings outside of class. Historical background in modern European history is recommended. Russian and other regional language skills are welcomed.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 235 Modern France

Credit: 0.5

This course will present a survey of French history from the eighteenth century to the present. Emphasis will be placed upon the political/cultural life of France, particularly, attempts to secure an elusive stability within a long trajectory of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary tumult. The French Revolution, the cultural ferment of the fin de siècle, and the French experience of the crisis years 1914-1945 will receive special attention. The course will also explore the various ways (manifest through art, politics, and social life) in which France conceived of itself as an exemplary nation, or as a practitioner of an exemplary modernity to the rest of the world. No prerequisites.

Instructor: Maguire

HIST 236 Gender, Race, and Class in Modern Germany

Credit: 0.5

Modern German history is often seen as a tension between the land of the "poets and thinkers" (Dichter und Denker) and the "land of the murderers and executioners" (Mörder und Henker). In this class, we will use the perspectives of gender, race and class to explore and illuminate the main themes and topics in modern German history, beginning with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, up to Reunification and European Union membership in the present. German language is welcome but not required. No prerequisite, but 1 unit in history, English, or modern languages is recommended.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 237 History of Spain: Pliny to the Guggenheim

Credit: 0.5

This course surveys two thousand years in the history of the Iberian peninsula, paying close attention to the intimate and always-shifting relations (political, economic, and cultural) between the peninsula and other parts of the world (Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Americas). We move from Spain's important place in the Roman Empire to the1997 opening of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Along the way, we examine the Visigothic kingdom; the interaction of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle Ages; Spanish and Portuguese colonialism in the Americas, Africa, and Asia; the art of El Greco, Goya, and Velázquez; Catalan and Basque separatism; the Spanish Civil War, and the films of Pedro Almodóvar. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 242 Americans in Africa

Credit: 0.5

This class examines various ways that people and ideas from the United States have influenced Africa during the past two centuries and how Africans have responded to that involvement. Although much interaction has been at the institutional level of governments and organizations, we will focus primarily on the history of U.S.-African relations at the personal and local level within Africa, studying specific examples of trans-Atlantic cultural, economic, and political influence that changed over time and varied between different parts of Africa. Among the cases to be considered will be several involving African Americans, such as the founding of Liberia and the development of Pan-Africanism. Other topics will include Christian missionaries, explorers, the Cold War, and recent U.S. political, economic, and humanitarian interest in Africa. There are no prerequisites.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 258 Ottoman Empire

Credit: 0.5

This course introduces the history of one of the great empires of the premodern period. Founded in the late thirteenth century and lasting until the 1920s, the Ottoman Empire was one of the longest-lasting and most successful polities in history. Although founded and ruled by Muslim Turks, the Ottoman Empire was in reality a multiethnic, multicultural religious entity, which at its height contained territories in the Balkans, "the Middle East," and North Africa. It left a significant political and cultural legacy, which continues up to our time. In this course we will examine the entire span of Ottoman history, from the formation of the empire until its dissolution in the aftermath of World War I. Topics to be covered will include: the rise of the Ottoman state in the thirteenth century and how it became an empire, the role of Islam in Ottoman cultural and political life, the problems of governing a religiously and ethnically pluralist empire, the changing nature of Ottoman politics and administration, some aspects of Ottoman cultural and social life, women and gender in the Ottoman empire, Ottoman relations with Europe, Ottoman responses to modernity, the rise of nationalism, and the events leading up to the eventual creation of the modern Turkish republic in the Ottoman heartland. No prerequisites. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Kilic-Schubel

HIST 260 Medieval Islamic Empires

Credit: 0.5

This course covers the history of the Islamic world from the rise of the Mongols in the thirteenth century to the beginning of the modern era. During this period major Islamic empires such as the Timurids, the Safavids, the Ottomans, the Timurid-Mughals and the Shibanid-Uzbeks were founded by Turco-Mongol Muslims. It was a period that saw the rise of diverse new political institutions, profound transformations of religious thought and practice, and the creation of remarkable literary, artistic, and technological achievements. Among the themes we will cover are the role of Turco-Mongol nomads in the formation of these empires, the interaction between Islam and local cultural traditions and practices, the nature of economic and social relations, the construction of gender relations and identity, and the varieties of cultural and literary expression associated with the medieval Muslim world. A central focus of the course will be an examination of cultural, religious, and artistic connections and exchange among different regions of Islamic world. This course will help students acquire an understanding of the diverse and cosmopolitan nature of premodern Islamicate society. There are no prerequisites for this course. Fulfills history major premodern requirement.

Instructor: Kilic-Schubel

HIST 261 The Mongol Empire in World History

Credit: 0.5

The Turko-Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century left a remarkable imprint on the subsequent history of Eurasia and the world. Why and how did Mongolian and Turkic nomads join together to conquer much of the Eurasian world in the early thirteenth century? What impact did their conquests have on the civilizations they encountered and ruled, from southern Russia to Persia, central Asia, and China? This course looks first at what it meant to be a nomad and how (and why) nomadic societies organized states and interacted with sedentary, agrarian civilizations. From the career of Chinggis Khan to the new empires founded by his descendants, the course explores the role of religion, commerce, and cultural exchange in setting new paradigms of political and cultural expression in areas conquered by the Mongols and their Turkic allies. Students will read extensively in the vast primary-source materials both textual and visual--chronicles, folklore, travelers' accounts, documents, art and artifacts--as well as analyze arguments made by modern scholars on the basis of these materials. Fulfills Asia and history major and minor premodern requirement.

HIST 262 Japan to 1850

Credit: 0.5

This course traces the important socioeconomic, political, and cultural developments that gave birth to a state and climaxed centuries later in the unification of the Japanese islands under the Tokugawa shoguns in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Tokugawa "Peace" (ca. 1615-1868) laid the stage for Japan's remarkable transformation in the modern era. We will read and discuss a variety of primary and secondary sources, watch some films, and become familiar with early Japanese views of their society and with modern interpretations of its development. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Dunnell

HIST 263 Imperial China

Credit: 0.5

This course surveys the development of society and state in China from the origins of empire at the turn of the first millennium to the eighteenth century, focusing on the later centuries. It explores (1) the Confucianization of Chinese society and the tensions between ethical ideals and social realities; (2) the economic, technological, and demographic expansion which brought China increasingly into global exchange networks, and stimulated efforts to channel or contain that growth as the state and society defined visions of the proper world order; and (3) how these changes shaped relationships between individuals, state, and society. Along with core institutions such as the imperial state (throne and bureaucracy), the agrarian economy (farmer, artisan, merchant), and the family-ancestral lineage, we examine other social and cultural forms that flourished in a changing political and ecological environment. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Dunnell

HIST 264 History of Modern Middle East

Credit: 0.5

This course will examine the social, economic, and political transformation people have experienced in the Middle East, with a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics will include: the impact of the changing world economy and European imperialism, the emergence of nation-states, gender relations, and the role of religion in political and cultural life. The geographical focuses of the course will include Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and the central Arab lands. No prerequisite. Offered every one or two years.

Instructor: Kilic-Schubel

HIST 271 Development of International Society

Credit: 0.5

This course will explore the development of the modern international society of nation states, from its beginnings in Western Europe in the sixteenth century, through the two major waves of European colonization of other areas of the world, to the decolonization following the Second World War. Students will examine the roles of economic change, the spread of individualist ideas and attitudes, and power politics in promoting the expansion of the state system, capitalism, and aspects of Western culture from Europe to the rest of the world. The political and cultural resistance of colonized peoples to European expansion and the incorporation of colonial economies into the world economy will also be examined. Chronologically, topics to be considered include the rivalry between emerging European empires and Islamic empires at the beginning of Western expansion; the conquest of the New World; nineteenth century imperialism--explanations for the new wave of imperialism and consequences of it; and the rapid growth of independent states due to decolonization in the postwar period. Finally, the political, economic, and cultural/religious consequences of imperialism and decolonization will be explored. Students may take this course for credit in either history or international studies (INST 201).

HIST 275 World War II

Credit: 0.5

This course will examine the circumstances and factors leading to World War II and to the U.S. entry into the war. The course will focus on the disruption of the world order through the rise of German, Japanese, and Italian imperialism. The course will analyze the effect of the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s. Other topics include the military strategies and conduct of the war, its impact on the home front, and its long-term effects on U.S. foreign policy.

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 305 American Presidents

Credit: 0.5

The seminar will look at the American presidency through the lives and administrations of select presidents, including Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. In addition to seminar participation and assigned readings, each student will undertake an independent research project on either the presidency or a particular president. Students will present their findings to the seminar as well as complete a research paper.

HIST 307 Great African American Migration: 1900-1970

Credit: 0.5

This course is an historical examination of the twentieth-century migration of African Americans out of the rural South into American cities, especially cities outside the South. The seminar will look at the historical causes of migration, how the migration changed through time, and the importance of the route taken. The class will read the seminal scholarship, works written or created by the migrants, and engage in their own research. Students should have taken a college-level course that covered twentieth-century United States history, but it is not required. Offered every two or three years.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 309 Radical Movements in American History: The Old Left

Credit: 0.5

The seminar analyzes the origins, development, and demise of the "Old Left"--anarchism, socialism, and communism in its various forms, political and to a lesser extent cultural, from the 1870s through the 1950s. Depending on availability of paperbacks, the class will include the assessment of the phenomenon of political conversion from radical left movements to conservatism through such figures as John Dos Passos and Whittaker Chambers.

Instructor: Wortman

HIST 310 The Civil War

Credit: 0.5

The Civil War is perhaps the defining moment in the history of the United States. When the war ended, slavery had been abolished, four million African Americans had been freed, the South had been laid waste, and the power of the federal government had been significantly expanded. The war set in motion forces that would change the nature of citizenship and alter the nature of American society, politics, and culture forever. This course will focus on the causes of the war, its military campaigns, and its social, political, and cultural consequences for black and white northerners and southerners. The course concludes with an examination of the war's continuing hold on the national imagination. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.

Instructor: McNair

HIST 311 Immigrant Experience in the United States

Credit: 0.5

We will examine how successive waves of immigrants, from the eve of the Civil War to the present, have shaped cities, markets, suburbs, and rural areas, while altering education, labor, politics, and foreign policy. The course will address such questions as: Why do people leave their homelands? Where do they settle in America and why? What kinds of economic activities do they engage in? How do the children adapt? How does assimilation work? What are the effects of immigration on those born in America?

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 312 Blacks in the Age of Jim Crow

Credit: 0.5

One historian has described the years between 1880 and 1920 as the "nadir of black life." During this period, African Americans were politically disfranchised, forced into debt peonage, excluded from social life through Jim Crow segregation, and subjected to historically unprecedented levels of extralegal violence. This course will examine how African America was affected by these efforts at racial subjugation and how the community responded socially, politically, economically, intellectually, and culturally. Topics will include the rise of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois as political leaders, the founding of the NAACP, the birth of jazz and the blues, the impact of the Great Migration, racial ideologies, lynching, and class, gender, and political relations within the African-American community.

HIST 313 Black Intellectuals

Credit: 0.5

This course will examine the emergence of black intellectual life in the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. The course will focus on the changing role of black intellectuals as individual figures, and political and social leaders. The course will also focus on how slavery, racism, and gender discrimination have affected black thought. Works of fiction and films will be used extensively.

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 314 U.S. Foreign Policy, 1898 to the Present

Credit: 0.5

This course shall focus on the major trends of U.S. foreign policy from the Spanish-American War to the present. This seminar will examine the actors that have shaped U.S. foreign policy, as well as how such policies are connected to the larger historical forces both at home and abroad. The course will emphasize, in particular, the origins of U.S. foreign policy and its evolution through various time periods and administrations. The course will explore themes such as: What is foreign policy? Does the U.S. need a foreign policy? What is the relationship between race and foreign policy? How do conceptions of manhood and of womanhood affect foreign policy? What are the economic and cultural aspects of foreign policy and their effects? Offered every two to three years.

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 316 Jazz Age: 1900-1930

Credit: 0.5

The Jazz Age seminar will examine the emergence of modern America in the first third of the twentieth century. The seminar will discuss the Progressive political movement, popular culture, feminism, African-American migration to northern cities and its impact, World War I, mass-communication, and the formation of a youth culture.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 317 Gilded Age America: 1877-1900

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will examine the formation of a multiracial, urban America following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Topics addressed will be urbanization, economic integration, immigration, the conquest of the West, the New South, late Victorian culture, and the Spanish-American War. Fulfills history major and minor advanced seminar and premodern requirements. Fulfills the history major advanced seminar, Americas/Europe, and modern requirements. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 320 The Caribbean

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will concern itself with the Anglophone, Francophone, and Spanish- and Dutch-speaking islands of the Caribbean, as well as such mainland Caribbean nations as Belize, Guyana, and Surinam. Among the topics to be explored are the Indian heritage, European imperialist rivalry, the African traditions in the Caribbean, the quest for independence, and superpower rivalry in the area. Offered every year.

HIST 321 The Mexican Revolution: Origins, Struggles, and Significance

Credit: 0.5

This seminar introduces students to the subject of the Mexican Revolution. It is a period in the early twentieth century (1910-1920) that defies easy description. The course will examine the major social and political struggles of the revolution, their origins, and their implications as the country emerged from civil war in the 1920s and then underwent substantial reform in the 1930s. Further, the seminar will consider the meaning(s) of the revolution, and how it has been conceived and re-imagined in cultural and ideological terms. The seminar will examine primary sources in class, but the assignments and reading will focus on the historiography concerning the revolution and on the interpretation of its political, social, and cultural significance. Students should have some historical knowledge of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and be prepared to gain quickly an overview of the main events of modern Mexican history. Fulfills the history major advanced seminar, Americas/Europe, and modern requirements. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.

Instructor: Suarez-Potts

HIST 322 Human Rights in Latin America

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will examine how human rights have been articulated in distinct historical contexts in Latin America. We shall first review early notions of human rights and natural law as expressed during the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean and the Americas. Second, the seminar will identify the main tenets of human-rights law and discourse, as comprehended in general terms since the establishment of the United Nations. Then we shall study how major concepts of human rights have been asserted in recent years in different countries across Latin America. Fulfills the history major advanced seminar, Americas/Europe, and modern requirements. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.

Instructor: Suarez-Potts

HIST 328 The Crusades: Religion, Violence, and Growth in Medieval Europe

Credit: 0.5

In the late eleventh century, Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade by calling on European knights to reconquer the city of Jerusalem. The objectives of the first crusaders may have been fairly circumscribed, but for the next four centuries the crusading movement had complex and varied consequences for the inhabitants of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. In this course, we will examine (1) the confluence of religious, political, and economic motivations that inspired crusaders, (2) the extension of the notion of crusade to Islamic Spain and parts of northern Europe, and (3) the manifold interreligious and cross-cultural exchanges (peaceful and violent) that resulted from the crusades. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 330 Crusaders, Pilgrims, Merchants, and Conquistadors: Medieval Travelers and Their Tales

Credit: 0.5

In 1325, twenty-one-year-old Ibn Battuta left Tangiers for a pilgrimage to Mecca. This pilgrimage became twenty-eight years of ceaseless travel through sub-Saharan Africa, China, and India. A careful observer, Battuta left a valuable record of his travels, his disappointments, his enthusiasms, and his perplexity at the things he witnessed. This course looks at medieval people who, like Ibn Battuta, undertook ambitious journeys and recorded their experiences. It asks about the motivations (religious, military, economic, scholarly) for such costly and dangerous travel and pays particular attention to how medieval travelers perceived the cultures they encountered. Understanding their experiences is not a simple task, since their reports, like those of all travelers,are admixtures of astute observation, fallible memory, and fantastic embellishment. In addition to Ibn Battuta's travels, we will read the letters of spice merchants in India; the observations of a cultivated twelfth-century Jew as he traveled from Spain throughout the Mediterranean; Marco Polo's descriptions of the courts of China, India, and Japan; and the report of a tenth-century ambassador to Constantinople, where he met the Byzantine emperor: 'a monstrosity of a man, a dwarf, fatheaded and with tiny mole's eyes.' Fulfills portion of history major and minor premodern seminar requirements .

HIST 331 Europe Between the World Wars

Credit: 0.5

This course covers the major political, social, and cultural developments in Europe during the period of the two world wars. This time period saw the collapse of empires and the creation of new national states and witnessed the first socialist revolutions and the creation of a new state organized on Marxist principles in the Soviet Union. During this era, liberal democracy and capitalism failed, authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships proliferated, and, ultimately, political violence and warfare overtook the European continent. At the same time, the first half of the twentieth century saw an explosion of creativity, technological expansion, and utopian social and cultural projects. Interpretations of "inter-war" Europe have ranged from nostalgia for a golden age before the horrors of the Second World War to focus on the constant political and military conflict of a "second Thirty Years War." In order to analyze these varying interpretations of the era, we will focus on themes such as political ideology, class conflict, racism, gender, the persecution of "internal enemies" and social outsiders, violence, and the general crisis of modernity. No prerequisites, but students without Modern Europe (HIST 132) should talk to the instructor about their preparedness.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 333 Freud's Vienna: Culture, Politics, and Art in the Fin-de-Siecle Habsburg Monarchy

Credit: 0.5

This upper-level seminar will examine the explosion of creativity and radicalism in late Hapsburg society, focusing on the capital city Vienna. In the years before and after 1900, Vienna was a vibrant city, home to many of the most important creators of early twentieth-century modern culture, among them not only Freud but also such figures as: Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Wagner, Karl Kraus, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Robert Musil, Theodore Herzl, Otto Bauer, Karl Lueger, Gustav Maher, and Arnold Schoenberg, to name only a few. Taking the multi-lingual/-religious/-ethnic Habsburg monarchy as our base, we will follow developments in the fields of psychology, medicine, literature, architecture, art, and music, putting them into the context of important political and social movements like socialism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, and liberalism. This seminar is designed for junior and senior history majors with a background in European history. However, non-majors with knowledge of or interest in music, art history, or German literature are strongly encouraged to join.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 336 Theory and Action in the Politics of Locke, Burke, and Mill

Credit: 0.5

Major figures in the history of political thought, John Locke, Edmund Burke, and J.S. Mill were also deeply engaged with the turbulent political events of their time. The political crisis that gave rise to the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 is fundamental to understanding the composition and publication of Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Burke, a member of Parliament and leading Whig politician, responded vigorously and memorably to the coming of both the American and French revolutions. Mill, mid-Victorian England's most influential political theorist, was also an active member of Parliament during a time when issues central to the emergence of mass politics pressed hard upon the existing order. This seminar will closely examine the intersections of text and context, thought and action, in the political undertakings of these three distinguished thinkers. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or permission of the instructor.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 337 Socialism at the Movies

Credit: 0.5

This class will look at the history of the Soviet Union and the post-1945 German and East European socialist states with a concentration on films made in these countries, as well as films made elsewhere or later about life under state socialism. We will focus on a few key eras and topics, such as World War II films, Stalinism/socialist realism, the Thaw, the position of women in socialist society, and generational conflict. Students will be required to attend a weekly film screening as well as participate in class discussion. During the semester, each student may pick a topic for an in-depth research project. Previous coursework in European history preferred. See instructor for questions about prerequisites. Russian, German, or eastern European language skills are welcomed.

Instructor: Ablovatski

HIST 338 Middle East

Credit: 0.5

This seminar offers an interpretive survey of the history of the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire until the present.

Instructor: Schoenhals

HIST 340 Tudor and Stuart Britain

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will examine the tumultuous age of the Tudors and Stuarts. It will investigate the Henrician Reformation, the remarkable reign of Elizabeth I, the struggles between Court and Country associated with the early Stuarts, and the events leading to the so-called "Glorious Revolution." Although political developments will be prominently featured, attention will also be paid to social, economic, and cultural continuity and change. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 341 African Women in Film and Fiction

Credit: 0.5

In this seminar, we will explore social changes that have taken place in Africa during the past century as portrayed in novels and films by and about African women. A variety of works from throughout the continent will be considered, but the general focus will be on the impact of colonization, urbanization, and other recent social changes. Among the topics addressed will be polygyny, motherhood, education, religion, employment, political activism, and the recent AIDS epidemic. In each case, the emphasis will not be on victimization or cultural decline, but rather, as expressed in their works of art, the resilience and adaptability of African women.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 345 History of the Indian Ocean

Credit: 0.5

Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean, peoples residing along the shores of the Indian Ocean had already established an extensive maritime network that linked the civilizations of India, China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. For centuries, the volume and wealth of the trade that crossed the Indian Ocean exceeded that of any other region, and it was in hopes of gaining access to that commercial zone that Europeans embarked on their voyages of "discovery." This seminar explores the historical development of the Indian Ocean as a scene of wide-ranging cultural and economic exchange, passing through stages of regional, Muslim, and European dominance that culminated in its decline in the nineteenth century. In focusing more on long-distance trade and interaction than on land-based states, the class will venture beyond the scope of many historical studies and investigate issues such as the nature of premodern globalization and the difficulty of studying people and places that are regarded as between, on the edge of, or alone on the high seas. The seminar will conclude with students writing a research paper on a topic of their choosing. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 349 Contemporary West African History through Fiction and Film

Credit: 0.5

Novels and films are powerful tools of historical projection in modern societies, and Africa is no exception. The sub-Saharan African novel is a recent phenomenon, dating back, for the most part, to the early twentieth century. The African film is of even more recent vintage and to a large extent remains a marginal form of expression for most of sub-Saharan Africa. However small a group they remain, sub-Saharan novelists and filmmakers have had a considerable impact on the societies that produced them. We will examine the influence of African novelists and filmmakers on the political and social realms of their societies and attempt to determine the relationship between novels, films, and the historical reality of sub-Saharan Africa from the 1940s to the present. We shall also focus on how novels and films have in turn been shaped by the historical forces they have attempted to transcend. Finally, we will analyze the vision Africans have of their past and their judgment of that vision.

Instructor: Coulibaly

HIST 350 Race, Resistance, and Revolution in South Africa

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will explore major social and political changes that have taken place in South Africa since 1900 up to the present and examine different ways that those changes have been experienced and studied. From the time of European colonial conquest, through the rise and fall of the apartheid state, a variety of competing groups emerged that eventually combined to form the nation of South Africa. That process was accompanied by recurring conflict, but with the end of enforced racial segregation in the 1990s and the introduction of democracy, South Africans have been re-examining their past in search of new narratives that might transcend the legacy of historic divisions. Through study of scholarly works, primary documents, literature, and film, this seminar will explore the roots of modern South African society and the variable perceptions of that history.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 353 Tibet between China and the West

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will explore the modern history of Tibet through the eyes of travelers and scholars (Western and Chinese/Asian) as well as Tibetans themselves, through memoirs, accounts by historians, field studies of anthropologists, and other materials. We will assess the myths that have emerged about Tibet through readings and films, exploring questions including: Why do these myths exert such enduring fascination in Europe and America? How have they changed? How have they taken root in China? How have Tibetans found new uses for them? We will also study the changes that have taken place in Tibet over the twentieth century. Students will engage in independent research projects and share their research with the seminar.

HIST 356 Vietnam

Credit: 0.5

Vietnam is a region, a country, a nation, a society, and a war, or a series of wars. This seminar explores the place and its people during the twentieth century, with special attention to the era from 1945 to 1975. The French and American wars will be situated in the context of the Vietnamese experience of colonialism and nationalism. Through fiction, field studies, memoirs, reportage, official documents, critical essays, and films we will consider the issues of memory, race, and ideology in the construction of history. Students will pursue independent research projects and share their research with the class.

Instructor: Dunnell

HIST 358 Imagined Inda: Film and Fiction

Credit: 0.5

People make sense of their past by telling stories about it. This course focuses on the rich and exciting traditions of literature in India as a way of studying its past, and as a way of studying history itself. Some Indian writers, such as Salman Rushdie, Arundati Roy, and Anita Desai, have, in fact, brought India's history to the world through their fiction. But what different visions of India do they choose to portray? This course will examine their work, but also the work of lesser-known Indian writers and filmmakers, as a way of seeing how Indian intellectuals themselves have defined and described India, on the one hand, and "history," on the other. How have these images changed over time? Among the recent films we may see are Earth, Train to Pakistan, East is East, and Hyderabad Blues. Each challenges viewers' notions of the past as its characters confront it. This course requires some previous knowledge of South Asia or permission of instructor.

HIST 365 Middle East through Film and Fiction

Credit: 0.5

Both film and fiction have played significant roles in the so-called "Modern Middle East" as means of interpreting the past as well as constructing present realities and issues. This seminar will use novels and film as lenses to explore major historical dynamics and trends in the history of this region in the twentieth century. We will examine works created by artists from a number of different countries, including Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Algeria, as well as examples of Western imaginings of the region. Themes to be explored will include "Orientalism" and representations of the "Middle East," colonialism, nationalism and resistance, responses to development and globalization, understandings of ethnicity and identity, images of gender relations, and the changing roles of religion. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.

Instructor: Kilic-Schubel

HIST 370 Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will examine women's history and the cultural constructions of gender in the so-called "Middle East" in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Examining a rich variety of historical sources--religious texts, literary writings, women's personal writings, films, and images--we will explore women's lives in a variety of cultural and historical contexts. The course addresses a variety of topics, including the role of religion in the construction of discourse concerning women, the impact of colonialism and nationalism on gender politics, and the nature of women's movements. This course will also discuss the rise and impact of transnational feminism, particularly in the context of current conflicts in the region.

Instructor: Kilic-Schubel

HIST 380 Black History through Fiction and Film

Credit: 0.5

Novels and movies have had a powerful effect on history, both as media for the transmission of historical information to modern audiences and as reflections of the values and concerns of their creators and audiences over time. This seminar will examine a variety of films and novels created in the twentieth century in order to understand African-American history from the antebellum period to the present. The goal of this examination will be to discern how writers and filmmakers have understood and presented the history and images of African Americans to contemporary audiences, and how these representations have reflected and changed understandings of African-American history and notions of race.

HIST 387 Practice and Theory of History

Credit: 0.5

This course, open to history majors (and a limited number of INST majors) of sophomore and junior standing, focuses on the conceptual frameworks used by historians and on debates within the profession about the nature of the past and the best way to write about it. The seminar prepares students of history to be productive researchers, insightful readers, and effective writers. The seminar is required for history majors and should be completed before the senior year. Fulfills history major practice and theory requirement.

HIST 397 Junior Honors: Practice and Theory of History

Credit: 0.5

See the course description for HIST 387.

HIST 400 American Revolution

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will look at the formation of the American republic. It will look at the prerevolutionary causes of the conflict, the revolution itself, the establishment of a new nation, and the writing and ratification of the federal Constitution. The course will focus on political and constitutional issues, but will also address social change, Native Americans, women, and slavery. Prerequisite: sophomore standing. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 411 The Civil Rights Era

Credit: 0.5

The years between 1954 and 1975 have been variously described by historians as a Second Reconstruction and the "fulfillment of the promise of the American Revolution." These years, which constitute the civil rights era, witnessed African Americans and their allies transforming the nation by overturning Jim Crow segregation, challenging racism, and expanding the idea and reality of freedom in America. While this period was one in which most African Americans fought for greater inclusion in American society, it was also one which saw the rise of militant nationalist organizations like the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party that sought to separate themselves from an America they saw as hopelessly depraved and racist. This seminar will be an intense exploration of this revolutionary period and its personalities through close examination of a variety of primary and secondary sources, documentaries, and motion pictures.

Instructor: McNair

HIST 412 Race, Politics, and Public Policy

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will examine the impact of race on politics, political parties, and public policy in the United States from the 1930s to the present. Race has been a defining feature of American political culture from the country's founding and has had a profound impact on society and culture over the past seven decades. Government action has contributed significantly to the development of the post-World War II middleclass, the rise of the suburbs, and American economic prosperity, but it has also created the modern ghetto, maintained and increased segregation, hindered black wealth creation, and led to the ascendancy of political conservatism, all while putatively pursuing an agenda of racial and social justice. This course will explore the evolution of these social, political, and economic developments. Topics will include federal housing policy, urban renewal, the construction of the highway system, the civil rights and Black Power movements, the rise of the Republican Party, busing, affirmative action, congressional redistricting, and the War on Drugs. Offered every two years.

HIST 426 Culture Clash in North America, 1492-1763

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will examine interactions among the three cultural groups that inhabited Atlantic North America from the days of Columbus's first voyage at the end of the fifteenth century until the British conquest of the region in the middle of the eighteenth century. The three groups were Native Americans, French and British settlers, and Africans. We will look at the power differentials among the three groups, the patterns of cooperation or non-cooperation they adopted, the sources of various cultural misunderstandings, and the strategies for coping that they adopted. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Scott

HIST 427 Rise of British Power

Credit: 0.5

This course will examine the rise of British power from the late seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. Between 1688 and 1815, few years passed when Britain was not doing one of the following: preparing for war; engaging in war; recuperating from war. By 1815 she had emerged as the preeminent power in the world, albeit one whose geopolitical influence was subject to certain notable limitations. The nineteenth century was the age of Pax Britannica. We will seek to understand the sources of British power--cultural, financial, commercial, industrial, maritime, political--as well as its ends and means. If much will be said of strength and victory, this will not be to the exclusion of weakness and defeat. Inasmuch as British power can be comprehended only in relation to the power of other states, a comparative perspective will necessarily inform our investigation. Fulfills the history major and minor premodern requirement.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 431 Victorian Culture and Society

Credit: 0.5

"When one reflects on all the bitterness that has been expended both in defending and attacking the Victorians, one cannot but regret that Queen Victoria was so long-lived. Had the great Victorians lived under three or four sovereigns, they would be judged on their own merits instead of being regarded as embodiments of an epoch which owes the illusion of its spiritual unity to the longevity of a single person" (Hugh Kingsmill, 1932). Not all "Victorians" were "great Victorians," and this course will take into account the not-so-great as well as the more eminent representatives of the age. Be it called "Victorian" or not, nineteenth-century England did constitute an "age," one of unprecedented change--demographic, social, economic, technological, cultural, and political. Yet a number of continuities played an indispensable role in allowing this society to sustain a notable measure of stability despite the dramatic impact of forces laden with transformative power. We will seek to come to grips with both the change and the continuity. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or permission of the instructor.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 434 History of Ireland

Credit: 0.5

This seminar will introduce students to the history of Ireland since 1600. Through readings, reports, and discussions, the seminar will examine major topics and themes in modern Irish history.

Instructor: Kinzer

HIST 437 Late Antiquity: The Mediterranean World from Augustus to Muhammad

Credit: 0.5

This course examines the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. We concentrate on life and thought on the shores of the Mediterranean between the Pax Romana and the rise of Islam (roughly 0 CE to 700 CE). This period witnessed dramatic transformations in the social, political, intellectual, and spiritual life of those who lived near the Mediterranean. We will explore the gradual metamorphosis of Roman institutions, divisions between east and west as well as Roman and Greek, city life, early Christian communities, gladiatorial games, the cult of martyrs, and the swift spread of Islam in the seventh century. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 438 The Medieval Spains: Antiquity to the New World

Credit: 0.5

This seminar explores the history of the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages. The history of medieval Spain differed dramatically from the rest of Europe. For over 700 years, the peninsula was divided between Muslim and Christian rule. During different periods, many Christians lived under Islamic rule, and many Muslims under Christian rule. Most major cities also had long-established Jewish communities. As a result of multiple superimposed migrations and invasions, Spain was the most ethnically and religiously diverse part of Europe. The interactions among these different groups ranged from fruitful cooperation and tolerance, on the one hand, to virulent persecution, on the other. This course explores the rich, but volatile, relations between different ethnic and religious groups while placing Spain's history in the context of its relations with other regions. To understand the dynamic, and sometimes, violent societies of medieval Spain, one must appreciate the shifting patterns of economic, political, and cultural ties which linked the peninsula to Europe, north Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Americas. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 439 Thinking about God in Modern Europe

Credit: 0.5

Is God dead? If so, why do so many modern people, Christian and Jewish, continue to think about, with, and under God in modern European history? How have different faiths and religious thinkers addressed the challenges of secular modernity since the Enlightenment and the crises (political, intellectual, cultural, spiritual) that have accompanied this modernity in Europe? This seminar will ask these questions through a rigorous study of religious thought in various historical contexts. It begins with the years immediately preceding the French Revolution and subsequently turns to debates about faith and historicism in nineteenth-century thought. In the twentieth century, special attention will be paid to the theological efflorescence in Europe during the cataclysms of 1914-45, with some concluding discussion of religion in contemporary Europe. The course includes readings by Mendelsohn, Simone Weil, Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, Martin Buber, Rosenzweig, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edith Stein, and Levinas, among others. Prerequisites: one course in one of the following categories: modern European history, Western religion, or modern philosophy.

Instructor: Maguire

HIST 444 Faith and Power in Africa

Credit: 0.5

Throughout Africa's history, religion and government have been inseparably linked as fundamental elements of society. Authority and achievement, in all spheres of life, are generally based on certain assumptions about the operation of unseen forces and the submission of individuals to a higher power, whether human or divine. This seminar examines leading cases of religiously-inspired politics--or politically-motivated religion--from different places and times in Africa, studying key aspects of the relationship between faith and power and seeking greater understanding of regional variation and historical change in that relationship. A recurring theme is the role of indigenous African beliefs and their interaction with Islamic, Christian, and modern understandings of power. Among the cases considered will be Kongo's eighteenth-century "Joan of Arc," spirit mediums in African wars for independence, revolutionary Pentecostal preachers, and recent Islamist politics. The seminar will culminate with individual research papers by students on topics of particular interest to them. Prerequisite: HIST 145 or HIST 146, or permission of the instructor.

Instructor: Volz

HIST 450 Topics in Chinese History

Credit: 0.5

This seminar explores topics in the history of China primarily from the eleventh to the twentieth centuries. Past seminars have studied the relationship between religion and rebellion or resistance to state authority; the Cultural Revolution; Qing China (in comparison to Tokugawa Japan); and the Song era (tenth to twelfth centuries). See the current online course catalog for availability and topic.

HIST 452 Women, Gender, and State in China

Credit: 0.5

This seminar explores family and marriage practices, gender roles, legends and stereotypes, and the relationship of these things to the state in East Asia (primarily China, variously also Japan and Korea) over the past two millennia, focusing on the tenth to twentieth centuries. Marriage and family practices reveal much about the economic and political underpinnings of a society, its social and cultural norms, and evolving gender roles. Readings range across philosophical and ritual treatises, family instructions, private letters, anecdotal writings, memoirs and biographies, fiction and poetry, and modern scholarly essays. Images and artifacts (paintings, films) provide other important sources for studying visual representations of and by East Asian women and men throughout this period. See the current online course catalog for availability and specific focus. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Dunnell

HIST 454 Asians in Diaspora

Credit: 0.5

There are so many Tibetans in Dharamsala, India, that people call it Little Lhasa. Ramayana celebrations based on the Hindu epic in Southeast Asia reflect more ancient migrations of Indians, who carried their languages and cultures with them as they migrated. Chinese communities thrive throughout Asia, where Chinese traders once settled in the course of commercial enterprise. This course will examine old and new patterns of Asian migration and the diaspora of various Asian ethnic communities. We will use a lot of cultural artifacts and products of popular culture that reflect the transit of people from one part of Asia to another. There are also, however, some important theoretical questions we have to tackle. What is the relationship between diaspora and assimilation? What does it mean for a community to settle in a place and make it home? The converse of this question is: Who is indigenous? What effect does colonialism have on the changing meanings of migration and diaspora? The transmission of cultures and religions across Asia raises other complicated questions. For example, the "spread of Buddhism" from India eastward is usually seen through the transmission of texts and ideas. What about people? We are more apt to consider the importance of people in the spread of Islam. But surely in India, if not Malaysia, too, most Muslims within a few centuries were converts, not immigrants. So how do we separate the diaspora of people from the diaspora of ideas? This course is the senior seminar for the Asian Studies Concentration (ASIA 490). It is also a history course. Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Singer

HIST 481 Feast, Fast, Famine

Credit: 0.5

The course explores the cultural, economic, and ecological significance of food in premodern societies. Food serves as a shuttle between the concrete (what do you need to grow an olive?) and the symbolic (what does the Eucharist mean?). Caroline Bynum's work on the religious significance of food to medieval women is one example of the sort of reading that will be included. We will also explore the ways in which the great famine of the fourteenth century altered European social and political structures, how the increased cultivation of legumes fueled economic and demographic expansions (European crusaders were quite literally full of beans), and how leaders used feasting as a political tool. Dietary practices were also markers of religious and ethnic identity. The earliest Christians were, for example, unsure of whether they were still bound by Jewish dietary laws. When Romans disparaged their northern neighbors, one of the most effective ways to express their contempt was to describe how barbarians used animal fat (rather than olive oil) and drank ale (rather than wine). Fulfills history major and minor premodern requirements.

Instructor: Bowman

HIST 490 Senior Seminar

Credit: 0.5

The goal of this course is to give each history major the experience of a sustained, independent research project, including: formulating a historical question, considering methods, devising a research strategy, locating and critically evaluating primary and secondary sources, placing evidence in context, shaping an interpretation, and presenting documented results. Research topics will be selected by students in consultation with the instructor. Classes will involve student presentations on various stages of their work and mutual critiques, as well as discussions of issues of common interest, such as methods and bibliography. This seminar is open only to senior history majors.Pre-requisite: HISt 387. Fulfills history major senior research seminar requirement.

HIST 493 Individual Study

Credit: 0.25-0.5

Individual study is available to students who want to pursue a course of reading or complete a focused research project on a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum. This option is restricted to history majors and cannot normally be used to fulfill distribution requirements within the major. To qualify, a student must prepare a proposal in consultation with a member of the history faculty who has suitable expertise and is willing to work with the student over the course of a semester. The two- to three-page proposal should include: a statement of the questions to be explored, a preliminary bibliography, a schedule of assignments, a schedule of meetings with the supervising faculty member, and a description of grading criteria. The student should also briefly describe prior coursework that particularly qualifies him or her to pursue the project independently. The department chair must approve the proposal. The student should meet regularly with the instructor for at least the equivalent of one hour per week. At a minimum, the amount of work submitted for a grade should approximate that required, on average, in 300- or 400-level history courses. Individual projects will vary, but students should probably plan to read 200 pages or more a week and to write at least thirty pages over the course of the semester. Students are urged to begin discussion of their proposals with the supervising faculty member and the department chair the semester before they hope to undertake the project. The department chair must receive proposals by the third day of classes.

HIST 497Y Senior Honors Seminar

Credit: 0.5

The honors candidates enrolled in this course will devote their time to the research and writing of their honors theses under the direct supervision of a history faculty member. Prerequisite: HIST 387 or 397 and permission of instructor. Fulfills history major senior research seminar requirement.

HIST 498Y Senior Honors Seminar

Credit: 0.5

See the course description for HIST 497Y.