Spring 2004 Course Guide | Department of History

100 Level

100 GLOBAL HISTORY (A. Burton)

History 100 covers 700 years across the globe in 15 weeks. The course follows a basic chronological narrative from the 13th century up to the present. Our approach will combine the global and the local, emphasizing comparison and difference between times and places. Our major themes will be political systems, trade and commodities, cultural encounters, the role of women and gender, and the rise and fall of empires -- all in the context of a global framework.

110WW WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM ANTIQUITY TO 1660 (ADVANCED COMPOSITION) (Crowston)

Please see course description for 111LEC.

111LEC WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM ANTIQUITY TO 1660 (Crowston)

Spanning nearly three thousand years of human endeavor, this course surveys the major developments, crises, events, and movements that shaped societies from antiquity to the seventeenth century. Students will learn to analyze the key problems and processes that shaped the modern world and to better understand its institutions, ideologies, and cultures. In particular, we will examine how relations with "outsiders" - such as Jews, Muslims, the New World, and women - contributed essential new ideas to Western Europeans and helped them to define their own identity. In the process, students will gain a new understanding of the divisions and cultural fusions that continue to define our world. Lectures will be supplemented by in-depth consideration of primary sources materials produced by the people of this fascinating epoch. Students will be required to read carefully, to engage in class discussions and to complete all written assignments.

112LC1 WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM 1660 TO THE PRESENT (Tousey)

This course examines the extraordinary political, economic, and social changes that occurred over the last 3 1/2 centuries, and their relationships to accompanying intellectual and cultuaditionral fermentation. The focus is on Europe and Western civilization but in recognition of increasing globalization we will occasionally stray from our home turf: Throughout the course we will have occasion to consider the issues of why nations have gone to war and what (if anything) constitutes appropriate justification.

Historians seek to explain why events take place and their impact, as well as why changes in government and society arise. Students will have the opportunity in this course to examine evidence, think critically and draw conclusions in the manner of professional historians.

112LC2 WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM 1660 TO THE PRESENT (Ramsbottom)

The history of modern Western Civilization demonstrates the power of ideas to unite and to divide, to liberate and to enslave. During the period between the French Revolution and the Cold War, ideologies like liberalism, imperialism, communism and fascism spread outward from their source in Europe to affect the lives of people around the world. Both Western nations and native societies in Asia and Africa were unsettled by political and economic upheaval, culminating in the most destructive warfare ever witnessed. Readings will consist of assignments in a textbook, two additional books, and a collection of original sources. A midterm, final exam, two short papers, and participation in discussion are required.

112LEC WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM 1660 TO THE PRESENT (Fritzsche)

The political and economic revolutions which changed fundamentally the Western world will be the focus of this course. How do historians account for the tremendous industrial power assembled in a few short decades by European societies, or the dramatic sequence of rebellion and revolution? We will explore the impact of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution on ordinary workers, peasants, and also on the world at large. The course will examine the great burst of intellectual activity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and discuss nationalism, liberalism and socialism. The twentieth century, on the other hand, saw unprecedented destruction and horror. For this reason, we will look closely at the world wars, and at life and society in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. And Europe today? The postwar division of the continent, the "dirty wars" of decolonization, the rise of a consumer society, and the revolutions of 1968 and 1989 provide the course with its final themes. Throughout the course, we will look at the politics of war and revolution, and the accomplishments of philosophers and statesmen, but also pay attention to the lives and beliefs of ordinary people.

There will be one midterm and one final, as well as short papers assigned by section leaders.

113WW WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM 1660 TO THE PRESENT (ADVANCED COMPOSITION) (Fritzsche)

Please see course description for 112LEC.

120 A HISTORY OF JUDAISM (Porton)

Same As RELST 120

The course covers the development of Judaism from its biblical origins until the modern era. The course focuses on developments in Jewish thought and religion and the historical and social contexts within which these developments occurred. The course uses two books: Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought and Judith Baskin, Jewish Women in Historical Perspective. This is also a course reader. The course requires three short papers, a book review, a student diary, and worksheets on each chapter in Seltzer. The course is taught in a lecture-discussion format.

150WW HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TO 1877 (ADVANCED COMPOSITION) (Ratner)

Please see course description for 151LEC.

151LEC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TO 1877 (Ratner)

This survey of American History to 1877 will focus on the search for answers to a number of key questions. Among those questions are: Why did Europeans settle in the Americas? Why did English settlements take the shape they did? How did changes in European life influence American life? Why and to what extent did Americans imagine themselves to be one community? What were the key features of that community? Why were Americans pre-occupied with the defense of that community? Why, in 1861, did the American community divide and how once restored had it changed?

152LEC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 1877 TO THE PRESENT (Jaher)

Explores the varied ways that Americans perceived and responded to the massive economic, political, and social changes confronting them in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The twice-weekly lectures thus try to place the standard chronicle of Presidential accomplishments, industrial progress, and expanding world influence in a broader context of the competing visions and divisions that still shape the American experience. Discussion sections also meet twice weekly to examine the issues raised by the core textbook and several supplementary readings.

153WW HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 1877 TO THE PRESENT (ADVANCED COMPOSITION) (Jaher)

Please see course description for 152LEC.

170 EAST-ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS: CHINA, JAPAN, KOREA (Fu)

Same As EALC 170

This is a survey of the history of mainly Chinese and Japanese civilizations from 2000 B.C. to the present. In this survey we try to understand the life and values of two Asian countries and, by way of this, also of ourselves. We will look at how different cultural and political forces shaping Chinese civilization, which in turn, shaped many major civilizations in the region, including Japan and Korea. In modern times, with the decline of China as a dominant power in the face of imperialist, we will explore the commonality and differences between China and Japan, and to some extent Korea, in their struggle toward modernization. We will also look at the meaning of the concept Asiaitself. Reading includes novels and memoirs.

176 MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICA (Jacobsen)

This course will draw out some threads in the dramatic and conflictive development of Latin American nations between the Wars of Independence and the present. What happened to black slaves and Indians after the overthrow of colonialism? How can we explain the many revolutions and military dictators? Did export agriculture and dependence from industrialized nations impoverish Latin America? Did “Uncle Sam” help or hinder development and democracy among his southern neighbors? What are the origins for the huge cities that dominate most Latin American nations today and how do people cope with them? Have Latin American men become less “machista” over the past two centuries, and how precisely has this affected women? What is the role of the Catholic church and popular religiosity, and will Latin America “turn protestant” any time soon?

These and other issues will be explored through lectures and discussions in this class

199&TH UNDERGRADUATE OPEN SEMINAR (Michalove & Lynn)

For Honor Thesis Writers Only.

200 Level

200A TOPICS IN FILM AND HISTORY (Jaher & Shafer)

Same as CINE 200

Topic: Hollywood Musicals as Social Commentary Since 1945.

By the end of World War II, the Hollywood musical had become one of the most popular, inventive, and enduring genres in all of American film. This highly successful type of movie had attracted audiences trying to cope with economic and social crises, and even with war, since the introduction of sound in the late 1920s. By 1945, American musicals were one of the most identifiable products of the major Hollywood studios, and they had developed a slick professionalism and even a self-referential quality that resulted in some of the most memorable productions to emerge from the studios during a so-called "Golden Age of Musicals" that lasted into the 1970s. During those years after World War II into the early 1980s, film musicals, often taking their cue from Broadway, began to consider, however superficially, other social and political issues like the problems of returning veterans, racism, the Cold War, fascism and communism, juvenile delinquency and alienation, labor issues, feminism and women's rights, violence, immigration and the acculturation of ethnic groups to American society, and the anti war movement and the youth culture of the Vietnam era.

But while the subject matter of these musicals has been transformed over the last sixty years, the musical genre from Hollywood has fallen on hard times. Until recently, sporadic efforts to transform the musical into a more relevant form of entertainment have not been entirely successful, perhaps because of the inherently artificial nature of the musical. At the same time, other forms of musical film, most notably the videos that accompanied popular music, emerged to replace the more traditional Hollywood song and dance feature. But during the last few years, and particularly with the immense popularity of the film version of Chicago, the musical as a genre may be making a comeback.

This course will endeavor to examine some of these musicals as primary source materials for a consideration of this period in recent American history. As such, the course will consider a variety of questions. Were these features merely examples of escapism, or did they address and reflect contemporary social, political, and economic preoccupations and concerns? Do these films tell us anything about how Americans in the latter part of the Twentieth Century dealt with questions concerning such matters? The course will examine these questions by doing in-depth studies of some of the most memorable musicals released by Hollywood since World War II. Among the films to be viewed in the weekly showings will be movies displaying the dancing of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, John Travolta, Betty Grable, Donald O' Connor, and Michael Jackson, the music of Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Kern, Frederic Loewe, and others, the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Alan J. Lerner, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and others, the singing talents of Julie Andrews, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Ethel Merman, Elvis Presley, Liza Minnelli, Olivia Newton-John, Diana Ross, Bernadette Peters, Barbra Streisand, Madonna, and many others, and the directorial skills of Stanley Donen, Vincente Minnelli, Robert Wise, Rouben Mamoulian among others. Among the possible films to be considered for showing (in whole or in part) are such features as On the Town, Ziegfeld Follies, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Silk Stockings, Flower Drum Song, Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris, The Pajama Game, Funny Face, It's Always Fair Weather, Call Me Madam, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Glenn Miller Story, The Blues Brothers, All that Jazz, Lady Sings the Blues, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pennies from Heaven, Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Fame, Grease, Hair, Evita, Man of La Mancha, Saturday Night Fever, South Pacific, The King and I, Jailhouse Rock, and Chicago. Various historical, theoretical, and critical approaches will be considered in the assigned readings for the course and in the weekly lecture-discussions, and the class also will consider the historical antecedents and contexts of these films. Students will be asked to write three short papers (based on questions from weekly study guides) as well as a final exam. Also a substantial term paper requiring primary source materials and a prospectus will be required. The prerequisite is either a course in history or a course in cinema studies, though it is highly advisable for students to have completed the Composition I requirement. 3 hours.

201A INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION (Crummey)

Topic: The Era of the Photograph: A Global History 1860s-1950s

Photography is central to how we see the century, which began in the 1860s. Photographs raise important methodological and theoretical issues for the study of history: How do we see the past? How does the photograph shape our perception? For what are photographs primary documents: for the reality, which they purport to represent, or the values of the photographer? Is it possible that pictures tell lies? Starting with Matthew Brady and the US Civil War we will explore the extent to which photographs can be used to construct a global history. Euro-American photographers documented the peoples, which Euro-American imperialism was subjugating: but Africans, Asians and Latin Americans themselves soon began taking photographs. In what ways do these photographic traditions differ? Photographs are the principal material for this course. Students will be expected to submit 3 papers, which address one of the theoretical issues raised in class and which use photographs as primary material.

201B INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION (Martinez)

Topic: Race and Citizenship in US History

Race has been key in defining citizenship since the founding of the United States of America. From the earliest treaties with Indians to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Jones Act, and contemporary police brutality, race has outweighed citizenship in determining the rights of individuals in this country. In this course we will use primary and secondary sources to analyze how race and citizenship have functioned for populations of color in the United States. We will examine events in U.S. history (e.g., men of color in U.S. wars or sterilization of women of color) and consider how citizenship impacts the histories of various groups as well as the writing of their histories.

201C INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION (Michalove)

Topic: Medieval Travelers: Cultural Contact and Conflict

People have always traveled. The reasons vary from desire for conquest, to religious devotion, trade, education, and just plain curiosity. Tourism is not an invention of the modern world. This course will look at the principles of the discipline of history through the lens of medieval travelers. We will look at travelers from different cultures, discuss historical controversy using Marco Polo as our example, and explore cultural exchange and conflict, which have been important in shaping modern relationships between cultures. The readings will be both primary and secondary sources as well as work with maps, which are essential in linking history to its geography.

203 THE AGE OF LOCALISM: THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (McLaughlin)

Same As MDVL 203

The title of this course has not yet been officially changed to match its new contents. History 203 no longer focuses just on the early middle ages, but rather serves as an introduction to the whole history of the middle ages. We will be talking about invasions and conversions, kings and popes, plows and cannons, troubadour poetry and mystical visions, and many other aspects of life in Europe between the fifth and the fifteenth century. Requirements include two short (5-8 page) essays, class participation, and a final exam.

219 SURVEY OF RUSSIAN HISTORY FROM EARLY TIMES TO THE PRESENT (Randolph)

This course will examine the fundamental periods, questions, and debates in Russian history, 800-1999. In sketching this big picture, we will focus on the clash between the ideal and the real in the making of Russia, exploring both the imagined world (of rulers, subjects, outsiders) and the experienced one. Although this course is a survey, throughout the course we will pause to discuss major works of Russian art, fiction, or film in historical context. Assignments will include a textbook, specialist articles on the major debates of Russian history, and classic 'texts' of Russian culture including fiction and film.

224 CHINESE THOUGHT FROM CONFUCIUS TO MAO (Chow)

Same As EALC 224, RELST 224

This course takes a cultural approach to Chinese thought. It is implicitly a comparative course in thought for comparison with European and other non-European ideas will be made. We will begin with those who belong to the major schools of thought in ancient China: Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism. These intellectual and religious traditions will be examined in terms of their genealogy in their respective historical contexts, paying special attention to their relationship with power in its various forms: social, political, symbolic, and institutional. Contrary to stereotypical accounts, Chinese thought has never ceased to evolve in response to both internal as well as external challenges. Over its long history, Chinese thought often engaged in dialogue with alien cultures. Through complex processes of integration, negotiation, and resistance, Chinese thought, like other aspects of Chinese culture, has continued to expand its horizon. Attention will be given to the impact of foreign relations and intellectual currents on Chinese thought from Buddhism and Christianity in the traditional period to science, individualism, liberalism, democratic theories and Marxism in modern times.

232 THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1688 (Ramsbottom)

In this survey course we will be concerned with major events and trends in British history since the Glorious Revolution. Particular attention will be given to the Industrial Revolution, the Irish potato famine, and the impact of the First World War. We will also seek answers to broader questions: What factors shaped the development of the British constitution? Was the British Empire created and maintained by military force alone? How do social class and cultural diversity affect the people’s sense of a shared British identity? Tests will be based mostly but not exclusively on chapters in the textbook, four other paperbacks, and relevant primary sources. In addition to a midterm and a final exam, there will be occasional quizzes and two assigned papers (totaling about 15 pages).

245 TECHNOLOGY IN WESTERN SOCIETY (Hoddeson)

This course explores technology as a transforming force in modern society. We will examine a number of technologies -- including the stirrup, heavy plow, iron stove, telephone, bomber plane, telephone, radio, television, transistor, computer, and atomic bomb -- that opened new realms of human possibility, while closing others. We will analyze how such innovations, as part of technological systems, affected society and culture, restructuring economic and political life and realigning values. The later part of the course will focus on America's transformation from wilderness to metropolis and take a critical look at the popular myth of "technological progress" in the age of nuclear power and electronic information.

Besides mid-term and final exams, students will write a term paper on a particular technology of importance to them.

259 ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY (Espiritu)

Same As AAS 259

“Asian Americans” today are a dizzyingly diverse group. Most “Asian Americans” do not even see or label themselves as such. How then do we study and write “Asian American history”? What issues arise in trying to incorporate this heterogeneity into one historical narrative, one story? In this course, we will attempt to grapple with these problems. We will relate them to the larger paradoxes of capitalism and democracy, unity and difference that have plagued American history writ large. We will use as the basis of our investigation the acclaimed history, Strangers from a Different Shore, by the respected Asian American scholar, Ronald Takaki. Takaki will help us survey the reasons why men and women of the Asian continent migrated to what is today the United States, the ways they established communities and related across generational divides, the challenges they faced, and the ways they responded to their new conditions. We will then explore alternative views of Asian American history that go beyond these themes using autobiography and film as our windows into larger historical events. One of the important themes of the course is how international developments, such as capitalism and the nation-state, have played an integral role in the lives, the discourses, and the consciousness of Asian Americans, and how in turn they have influenced these larger structures to create their own destinies.

262U1 THE UNITED STATES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Schneider)

269 SPIRITUALITY AND EXPERIENCE IN THE ARTS OF THE MIDDDLE AGES (Hedeman & McLaughlin)

Same As ARTHI 269, C LIT 270, MDVL 269, RELST 269

This course explores the religious aspects of life experiences (for example, birth, marriage, and death) in the middle ages, using medieval art, literature, and music as guides. The final project for this course will be an interdisciplinary research paper on a subject of the student's choice related to the topic of the course.

273 WOMEN, MEN AND GENDER IN AMERICAN SOCIETY SINCE 1877 (Pleck)

Same as W S 273

The central premise of this course is that gender matters in history and that to understand women's history, one must appreciate the differences among women's historical experiences. The course will introduce students to the history of women's work, sexual definitions, and political lives in industrializing and modern America. Readings in primary sources and those written by women's historians will emphasize changes in women's life experiences in relation to larger historical changes in the U.S., such as economic change, race relations, and social movements. A major goal of the course is to show that women's history is a central part of American social history and a unique subject of historical investigation. Although the title of this course refers to women and men, most of the lecture and reading will concern the history of women.

282 WAR, MILITARY INSTITUTIONS, AND SOCIETY SINCE 1815 (Lynn)

Same As GLBL 282

History 282 picks up where history 281 left off, although 281 is not a prerequisite. History 282 discusses military technology, theory, organization, and practice in the industrial age. Topics to be covered include the following: 19th century weapons development, the influence of Clausewitz, the American Civil War, the creation of the general staff, the rise of Japan as a modern military power, the battleship era, World War I, the emergence of armor and air power, World War II, the impact of nuclear weapons, the Korean War, insurgency and counter-insurgency, the Vietnam conflict, the Arab-Israeli wars, and Terrorism. Who can doubt that war has shaped the last century, from World Wars to Terrorism? Learn more about this inescapable, though regrettable, side of human experience. In addition to two hourly examinations and a final, students will write a paper on a subject of their choosing.

288 AMERICAN INDIANS OF ILLINOIS (Hoxie & Farnell)

Same as ANTH 288.

This course provides an introduction to American Indian peoples of the Illinois region, present and past, from the perspectives of sociocultural anthropology, history and archaeology. We ask how do these disciplines document and construct the Native American experience in the Illinois region? The class includes archaeological field site and museum visits, plus guest lectures by Native American scholars and community members.

292&C HISTORIOGRAPHY AND METHODOLOGY: A PRO-SEMINAR FOR HONOR STUDENTS (Koslofsky)

How should a student prepare to write an honors thesis? Answering this question requires a look "behind the scenes" of historical research. In this seminar we will examine the basic three components of historical research: topics and questions, primary sources, and secondary literature. How do these three components work together when scholars write history today? Discussions and assignments will combine practical questions (i.e. how does one find book reviews?) with abstract issues: how have historians structured their dialogue with the past? When we ask questions about the past, what makes some answers better than others? We will discuss these (and many other) questions, based on case studies of historical research. In History 292 students will learn how to move from being consumers of history to become producers of their own historical scholarship.

295&HL HONORS COLLOQUIUM (Liebersohn)

Topic: History of Travel

Our multi-cultural, globalized society is the outcome of centuries of travel. In this course we will look at different kinds of travelers and the way they responded to foreign cultures and brought new ideas, images and knowledge back to Europe. One focus of the course will be the round-the-world voyages of Captain Cook, but we will also look at Robinson Crusoe and at recent novelists' renditions of contemporary travel. Topics will include the drama of life at sea, the ambitions of politicians at home, and the challenges to travelers' earlier beliefs.

Students will be able to explore their own interests in several short papers. Our library is rich in travel accounts and we will make special trips to the library and its Rare Books Room to familiarize class members with its resources.

295&ML HONORS COLLOQUIUM (Leff)

Topic: Crises of Civil Liberties in Modern America

At various points in the 20th century, a psychological state of siege has dominated American political life, subjecting claimed subversives to police surveillance, detention, mobbings, and restrictions upon First Amendment freedoms. The post-9/11 "war on terrorism" brings into urgent focus issues of citizenship, subversion, civil liberties, and the imperatives of imposed political orthodoxy. This Campus Honors Program seminar investigates these issues by contextualizing the current civil liberties atmosphere through an intensive analysis of a series of historical case studies: images of the American "enemy"; the Red Scare after World War I, the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II; McCarthyism; and the resentments generated by 1960s protest movements. Conversely, contemporary events will be used to help frame historians' opposing interpretations of past "witch hunts" and a range of related primary sources, including a photocopied documents collection of public opinion polls, internal government memoranda, propaganda posters, Congressional hearings and speeches and magazine articles. In addition to exploring these sources, members of the seminar will complete a number of short and medium-length reviews and essays staking out their positions on major issues of the course

295&MM HONORS COLLOQUIUM (Micale)

Topic: Madness and Society in the Modern World

What is madness? How do we define the normal and the pathological in our mental lives? Who in society is best suited to determine psychological health and sickness? Can the human mind know itself, and how? At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the sciences of the mind--including clinical psychiatry, psychoanalysis, neuropsychiatry, psychopharmacology, and the cognitive neurosciences--claim great scientific authority and exert enormous cultural influence in our society. Yet, these are some of the basic questions in psychological medicine that remain controversial, if not unanswered, today.

This course seeks to explore these and related themes historically. Specifically, we will study the social, intellectual, cultural, and institutional history of psychiatry in Britain, Continental Europe, and the United States from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Topics include the origins of psychiatric humanitarianism; the nature of the "moral treatment"; psychiatric professionalization; the rise of the asylum; degeneration theory in mental medicine; psychiatric autobiography; "the birth of the neuroses;" the advent of medical sexology; the rise of legal psychiatry; early psychoanalysis; and war and psychiatry. Course readings and discussions will be accompanied by a weekly showing of relevant films.

296JR RUSSIAN THINKERS: THE HISTORY OF INTELLECTUALS AND THOUGHT IN RUSSIA, 1700-2000 (Randolph)

For nearly two centuries, modern Russia was a land of poets and prophets, where notions of culture were defined in part by successive cults of charismatic thinkers: Catherine the Great, Pushkin, Tolstoy, 'the People', Stalin, Akhmatova, and others. This course attempts to understand the activity and fame of each of these thinkers (and more) against the backdrop of their time. Not a survey of Russian history, nor even a history of ideas in Russia, this course will try to examine the relationship between intellectual and cultural history in the making of modern Russia. How did Pushkin become a famous writer, in an era of strict censorship? How was Stalin presented as a world-historical genius, when his actual intellectual accomplishments seem to have been quite modest? What did it mean to be a thinker--who could be a thinker--in Russia, at various points in time, and how did this cultural context affect the genesis, circulation, and reception of ideas? Though the reading assignments will not be huge, this course is for students who like to read closely, and think about ideas in context. The course will be taught in a discussion-based format, with lectures only as necessary to set the scene. Background in Russian history is not required, although supplementary textbook reading will be recommended. Coursework will consist of short essays culminating in an independent research project. Primary reading assignments will be classic texts of Russian literature and politics (mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries) rather than philosophy.

296LH SPECIAL TOPICS (Hoddeson)

Topic: Memory and the Construction of Identity and Culture

Memory is fundamental to the creation of identity, indeed of culture itself. Without memory, knowledge cannot extend over generations, or even minutes. Both the work of history and human memory involve constructing past events in the present based on traces that remain, whether in the brain or in archives and other cultural resources. This course offers an opportunity to study and compare a variety of memory constructions. Its topics include memory distortions, forgetting, autobiographical memory, extraordinary memory, flashbulb memories, false memories, memory and the self, performance memory, personal and cultural amnesia, archives, museums, monuments, collective memory, oral history, oral traditions, nostalgia, computer memory, and the biology of memory. Students will explore private and public reconstructions of traumatic events, such as Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and September 11th. With organizing themes that cut across disciplines, this course will be a meeting ground of memory studies in both the sciences and the liberal arts.

Class visits are planned from faculty in different disciplines concerned with memory. Students will write a midterm and final exam as well as a short essay and more substantial term paper.

296ME THE COLONIAL CARIBBEAN (Edelson)

The popular legacy of the early Caribbean, so wrapped up in the exotic violence of piracy, slavery, and imperial warfare, only begins to reveal this region’s importance to the early modern Atlantic world. Because Britain’s Caribbean colonies did not join the mainland colonies in a War for Independence, the “West Indies” has been excluded from the story of the formation of the United States. To those who lived and worked in early North America, however, the Caribbean was never a peripheral place. By far the most economically valuable and strategically important American possessions of European powers, Caribbean islands were at the center of America’s colonial history. From Columbus’s first encounters with island peoples in the late fifteenth century to the great forgotten democratic revolution in Haiti at the end of the eighteenth, the Caribbean was a place of conflict, influence, and exchange among competing cultures. This course explores early settlement, environmental adaptation, European-Native American encounters, the transatlantic slave trade, the sugar “revolution,” the birth of African American culture, the Atlantic economy, and the rise of the plantation complex.

296BE WEB DUBOIS (B. Edwards)

Meets with Afro 298FF

No figure in Black history wields more influence than W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most noted American intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among his many roles as a political commentator/activist and a literary figure, Du Bois was at first a "scientist" who tackled the biological conception of race. While much attention is always given to his most famous statement, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line," not enough critical focus has been given to the research that led Du Bois to this assessment. In this course, we will focus on the formative years of Du Bois's "intellectual" history, focusing on how his ideas about the color line were formulated.

296JM FREEDOM, A THING SO DESIRED: SLAVERY AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (Millward)

Meets with AFRO 298JM

In 1808, a member of the African Society in Boston printed an essay titled "Essay on Freedom with observations on the Origin of Slavery." The author wrote, "Freedom, a thing so desirable to most men, and so hard to be obtained by many..." In the piece, the author espoused upon one of the greatest contradictions in United States history--the existence of slavery in a nation dedicated to ideas of liberty and freedom. In this class we will investigate some of these historic arguments about slavery and the American Revolution. We will also learn about slave life during the Revolutionary era by reading the biographies, political pamphlets and personal letters of former slaves, Revolutionaries and everyday men and women. This course is designed for students who have taken other History or Afro-American studies courses, though, anyone who has an interest in the course material is welcome to enroll.

296ESM IN SOCIAL: BLACK SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ACTIVISM DURING THE 20TH CENTURY (McDuffie)

Meets with AFRO 298ESM

What is a Black social movement? How have famous activists as well as everyday women and men of African descent changed the US and colonial and postcolonial African and Caribbean societies during the 20th century? How do social movements change its participants? Using a transnational, interdisciplinary approach, this class will examine how Black activists in the Garvey movement, American Communist Party, and Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the US and anticolonial and postcolonial struggles in Africa and other parts of the Diaspora have collectively struggled against racism, gender oppression, violence, exploitation, and dehumanization and have envisioned new, democratic societies. We will use biographies, novels, film, and music to explore these issues. This course is designed for students who have taken other History or African American Studies courses; however, anyone who has an interest in the course is welcome to enroll.

298A PLUTARCH (Buckler)

Topic: Plutarch, Biography, and Great Figures of Antiquity

The aim of this course is to understand the greatest biographer of antiquity. Plutarch of Chaironeia, and the figures about whom he wrote. The course will explore not only the lives and times of famous leaders, but also how Plutarch, whose work influenced Shakespeare, fashioned his biographies. In addition to biographies of Plutarch, various outside readings will be assigned and a paper required.

298B PLAYING AMERICA'S GAME: BASEBALL, HISTORY, AND RACE (Burgos)

Baseball has enjoyed a unique status in American culture due to the sociological and historical roles attributed to the game. Since the formation of the National League in 1876, professional baseball has operated symbolically within the U.S. national imagination as a space where hard work, desire, and discipline are rewarded. The significance attached to baseball in the U.S. and abroad historically underscores how it has often been deliberately employed as an allegory of America. This research seminar engages readings that illuminate the manner that action on the field serve as a window into what was transpiring in wider society. Readings will examine the codification of race, class, gender, and nation in the national pastime. Requirements include regular attendance and participation in seminar sessions, several response papers (3-5 pages) and a final research paper (20-25 pages). In order to achieve this task, we will become more familiar with analytical tools such as hegemony, agency, social construction, discourse, identity formation, transnationalism, and the production of history, among others. Participants will apply these analytical tools in original research dealing with primary sources in a topic that examines issues of race, culture, gender and labor (or any intersection thereof) chosen in consultation with the professor.

298D INVENTED TRADITIONS: CONTESTED MODERNITIES (Chandra)

Analysing the role of tradition in the emergence of non – western modernities, this seminar course will study the identification, deployment and performance of caste, gender, language and religion in nineteenth and twentieth century India. Scholarly and administrative identification of apparently traditional categories certainly buttressed colonial power in British India. But these categories were rapidly adopted by 'indigenous social groups, creating new forms of cultural and institutional power. Far from remaining colonial impositions, the elements of caste, gender, language and religion have supported new enactments of tradition and modernity, and have reinforced one another in generating social change. Our aim will be to understand why these particular identities came to be naturalised through history and to explore the method by which they sustained other, polarised identities. We will question the importance of the body as providing the site for the elaboration of these politics, and explore the potential for resistance to this history. Historicising the power of these apparently timeless categories, this seminar will also question the new permanence claimed by these identities in allegations of the incomplete and failed modernity of India.

298E DEVIANCE, ORDER AND VIOLENCE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE (J. Edwards)

The maintenance of order is achieved by expelling the disorderly from the community--but what, exactly, demarcates the deviant from the orderly? In this course we will examine the categories of marginality that medieval cultures constructed in attempts to order their world. As the construction of identities is a violent process, and since the labels attached to so-called deviants resulted in violence committed against them, we will also investigate the place of violence in the history of disorder in medieval Europe. We begin with an examination of social ills--crime, poverty, violence--supposedly "real" problems which generally threaten social communities. We move, then, into a study of the cultural issues that particularly plagued the medieval mind. We investigate ways in which the Jew, the Sodomite, the Prostitute, the Witch, and the Leper were all constructed as deviant, fearsome 'monsters' who threatened Christian medieval society, even as their marginality served to define the boundaries and identities of 'orderly' spaces. We will focus on people, investigating the perspectives of medieval 'deviants' as well as those who had the authority to mark the boundaries between order and deviance. Students will develop an original research paper based on primary and secondary sources. All readings and sources will be in English.

298F ISLAM: PROTEST AND ACCOMODATION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AFRICA (Stewart)

During the 20th century Africa has been the site of arguably the most rapidly expanding frontier of the Islamic world. Today, roughly one-half of the population of the continent professes Islam. Two characteristics of this advance have been Islam as a rallying point for protest against alien occupation and cultural imperialism from Europe and the seemingly contradictory accommodation of Islam to the colonial project and local, post-independence, national needs. We will attempt to understand these contradictions in the expansion of Islamic Africa and study specific examples through contemporary documents. An annotated bibliography and a term paper focusing on one movement or Islamic NGO or national culture will form the basis of assessment for this course.

298G CULTURAL LANDSCAPES: FOREST, SAVANNAS, AND DESERTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS (Radding)

This undergraduate seminar will address major problems of environmental history and current concerns, using a comparative approach centered on North and South America. The readings chosen integrate narratives of environmental change with themes of colonial conquest, frontier societies, and transculturation in comparative regions and time periods. These historical narratives will be juxtaposed to contemporary problems; v.g., deforestation, declining aquifers, habitat modification, urban and rural ecologies. Students will learn to distinguish among the conceptual frameworks of landscapes, environmental history, and environmentalism and explore how they relate to one another. Instructional methods will emphasize discussion and student participation; reading primary sources; library research in periodicals and critical use of texts, films, and online sources; exploration of data bases for students’ research at UIUC through the State Natural History and Water Surveys and a field trip, possibly to the Missouri Botanical Garden, with its library and herbarium, or Allerton Park, with forest and prairie preserves.

298H AMERICAN EMPIRE: THE OTHER VIEW (Espiritu)

Meets with AAS 390

There seems little debate today that America is an “empire,” although of a very different order than the empires of old, which depended upon slavery, tribute, colonial military occupation, or actual possession of territory. Rather, America is regarded as an informal empire that depends upon its enormous resources to direct the world towards its self-interests open markets, liberal democracy, and human rights. The question that is rarely ever posed is how America has become an empire. In what sense, especially, does empire constitute not only the perspectives of the victors but also the views of the vanquished and those of the others who have evaded, resisted, or found themselves caught up in the American Juggernaut. What new perspectives, patterns, and possibilities might we learn about American Empire when examining these often submerged voices of history? That is the question that we will attempt to answer in this course. We will read novels, autobiographical writings, and primary documents, examine representations of empire in film, and explore new critical examinations of various facets of American imperial history. Students will also have the opportunity to contribute new knowledge to this relatively unexplored area through their research papers and class presentations.

298I KITCHEN CULTURES, HIPPIES AND MUSHROOM CLOUDS: EVERYDAY LIFE DURING THE COLD WAR (Varga-Harris)

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the most remarkable events in the history of the twentieth century. It signified the beginning of the end of a “cold” war that had divided the northern hemisphere into two ideological camps Capitalism versus Communism. Now more than ten years later, the former Soviet “satellite” countries exhibit Ostalgie a nostalgia for the “East” as they attempt to adopt representative systems of government and market capitalism, and to cope with such problems as ethnic tension. These persistent challenges elicit a reexamination of the Cold War with an emphasis on daily life. This includes not only quotidian experience, but also the mentalities and cultures that shaped the great transformations in the countries of the former East Bloc, and continue to influence change.

The content of this course will span the years 1945 to 1989 and will focus on Russia and East Central Europe. At the same time, it will incorporate readings on the United States and Western Europe; this will broaden our perspectives and enable us to explore methodologies employed in fields in which the historiography of the Cold War is more fully developed. Based on the premise that the general desire for a return to normalcy on the homefront was as important as political ideology, and was evident across the East-West divide, this course will also explore how people living in countries governed by very different political and economic systems experienced daily life in surprisingly similar ways they shared the hopes and anxieties of globalizing societies that continue to resonate today.

Objectives:

One objective of this course is to examine how everyday experience influenced high politics as much as State influenced Society, and how tensions within the dominant ideologies of the time were manifested in daily life. This course will therefore address such themes as gender and sexuality, youth culture and dissent, and technology and consumerism, with two purposes in mind. Firstly, it is intended to complement a general understanding of the history of the Cold War (including the diplomatic, foreign policy and international security issues of the period). At the same time, it should impart an appreciation of the value of studying the history of daily life not simply for its own sake (i.e., compensatory history), but in order to construct a more nuanced view of social, political and economic issues. The larger aim of the course therefore is to inspire students to apply the methodologies and themes broached here, in their explorations of other historical times and places. Finally, discussion of the weekly readings, which include memoirs and novels, and such visual sources as films, posters and advertisements (in addition to monographs and articles by historians), will incorporate evaluations of the sources read. Throughout the course then, students will learn how to critique, analyze and employ a variety of source materials as they work toward their main assignment a 20-page research paper based on primary sources.

298J MAKING MODERN AMERICA: GENDER AND RACE AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Wynn)

The decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century have often been thought of as the period in which the modern United States was born. The rapid growth of immigration, industrialization, and urbanization demanded a reorganization of the nation’s cultural and social relationships. At the center of these changes, race and gender functioned as organizing principles, categories of discrimination, and symbols for change or the maintenance of the status quo. Ideas about race and gender have not always existed in the same forms. At the turn of the twentieth century, scientists, politicians, reformers, and others argued about what race and gender were and what their importance would be in the making of modern America. This class will explore definitions of race and gender, how the two were connected, and the ways in which they impacted the social and cultural life of the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.

298K THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (R. Mathisen)

One of the great unsolved mysteries of history is the reason why the western part of the Roman Empire, one of the most successful political systems that the world has ever known, was replaced in the fifth century by several barbarian kingdoms. Many historians have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to explain why the empire fell. Edward Gibbon, for example, saw the decline and fall of the Empire as a reflection of "the triumph of barbarism and Christianity." This course will look at the fall of the Roman Empire in both its ancient and modern contexts. What kinds of social, religious, economic, religious, and military conditions permitted barbarian peoples to occupy the western Empire? Why did the west fall, but the east survive as the "Byzantine" Empire? What does the fall of the Roman Empire have to tell us about our own times?

300 Level

301 EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS HISTORY: 1750 TO THE PRESENT (Koenker)

Same As L I R 301, SOC 301

The everyday life of workers and their families at work, home, and in public constitutes the focus of this class, which considers the experiences of workers and the working class in Europe from the Industrial Revolution to the mid-twentieth century. The central theme of class formation will help in studying the rise of workers as a class, the ways in which gender structured class experience and class consciousness, changes in living standards, the development of unique cultural worlds, stratification by skill, ethnicity, and religion, workplace autonomy and control, collective action and labor organization, the role played by workers in socialist movements and European politics, and the experience of workers under Soviet communism and under fascism. Most readings, lectures, and discussion will concern Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Italy; the readings will include memoirs and fiction as well as historical and sociological texts. Evaluation will be based on class participation and discussion, two essays based on assigned readings, and one research paper. No exams.

311 EUROPEAN HISTORY FROM 1815 TO 1871 (Liebersohn)

Europe after 1815 was a period when old and new ways of life jostled, when Europeans yearned for the comforts of a vanished, traditional past and at the same time explored new freedoms. In this course we will focus on liberalism and Romanticism as cultural movements that defined the new freedoms of the nineteenth century. We will also study industry at home, global forces of trade and travel, and nation-building that organized Europeans into new, modern communities.

323 THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Cuno)

Why can’t the Palestinians and Israelis settle their conflict? What difference has oil made in the modern history and politics of the Persian Gulf region? What is behind Islamic fundamentalism? And how did the U.S. get involved in all of this anyway? This course will help you answer these questions and more. We will examine the post-WWI history of Egypt, Arabia, the Fertile Crescent (including Israel), Iran, and Turkey, a group of countries representing a diversity of societies, political systems, and histories, and which have experienced colonization and decolonization, the rise of nationalist movements and other secularisms, plus religious-reformist and militant religio-political movements. We will explore these issues against the background of the region's modern social and economic transformation. Grades will be based on written work, including a term paper. You have to read to understand this stuff, and so a fair amount of reading is assigned, including some fiction.

324 EUROPE IN THE WORLD SINCE 1750 (Prochaska)

In this course we focus on the colonial encounter between European colonizers and nonwestern colonized. The aim of the course is not to study the history of European imperialism in terms of European diplomacy, doctrine, and policy, but rather to elucidate the actual experience of both colonizers and colonized, comparing and contrasting the perspectives of both. Our focus will be the dialectics of culture and power. Thus, we shall tack back and forth between what anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff term "the colonization of consciousness and the consciousness of colonization." Always keeping in mind the basis of colonialism in preponderant European power, we shall nonetheless endeavor to understand the culture of colonialism created together by both protagonists in what literary critic Mary Louise Pratt calls the "contact zone," the realm of colonial encounters. One theme of the course will be the contrasting experiences of colonial India, the foremost British colony, and colonial Algeria, the foremost French colony. The course will emphasize colonial visual representations.

Students will be expected to actively participate in class discussions. Course requirements include substantial written work and relatively difficult required reading assignments. Prerequisite: History 201A or History 211 or History 212 or History 298 or consent of the instructor.

329 SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE SINCE 1700 (Todorova)

This course covers the history of the creation and development of the independent Balkan states (Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and later Yugoslavia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and partly Turkey) during the 18th -- 20th centuries. This process, whose obverse side was the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, can be approached as a case study of the larger and general process of dissolution of multinational empires into nation states that dominated much of Europe's experience in this period. Special attention is given to Balkan nationalism, its roots, evolution and various manifestations. The modernization of the rural societies of the Balkans, their state and nation building are major problems of comparative analysis. Other topics cover ethnic conflict and/or accommodation, inter-Balkan relations, and the role of the great powers in the region. Finally, a close look will be taken on contemporary developments in the Balkans, especially the Yugoslav crisis. Books for discussion are assigned on a weekly basis. A film will be shown and discussed during the semester. Additional texts, maps and other materials will be provided by the professor.

332 MEDIEVAL ENGLAND (Hibbard)

Same As MDVL 332

England was the first European country to be united in pretty much its modern outline; but despite this precocity, its relations with neighboring Wales, Scotland and Ireland were often troubled, and it was not able to dominate all these areas. Why this was the case is one of the questions we will consider in this course, which covers the social and cultural as well as the political history of England from the fifth through the fifteenth century. We will also look at England's relations with the rest of Europe, and with the Mediterranean in the age of Crusades. Students will learn how historians use various sources to create a picture of English medieval life: art, architecture, literary and documentary evidence. In addition to the textbook, we will read and discuss some primary sources, including a medieval life of Alfred the Great, and several historians' works on both the nobility and the common people. Student participation in class debate and discussion is welcomed, and indeed expected. Grading is based on participation, a comparative book review, a midterm exam and a final exam; all exams are primarily in essay format.

336 FRANCE, 1815-1920 (Micale)

Topic: FIN-DE-SIECLE FRANCE

This is an upper-level undergraduate course about the political, social, and cultural history of France during the exceptionally rich years of 1870-1914. Topics include: the growth of French parliamentary democracy; the Franco-German rivalry; workers and strikes; the Dreyfus Affair; socialism, anarchism, and feminism; the world of the cafes; crime and disease; and the advent of World War One, as well as such purely cultural topics as the building of modern Paris; Impressionism in music and painting; the decadent movement in literature; the struggles of the artistic avant garde; and the beginnings of French cinema.

345 HISTORY OF JEWS IN THE DIASPORA (Dean Bell)

Same As RELST 345

Topic: Memory, Ethnicity and Belief: Forms of Jewish Identity in Early Modern Europe

Nestled somewhere between the darkness of the Middle Ages and the ambiguity of modernity, people of the "early modern world," crafted complex,

sophisticated and dynamic lives and societies. How did Jews of this period understand themselves within the context of external developments such as

the renaissance, reformation, global expansion and scientific revolution, and internal conditions such as wide geographical dispersion, social polarization and wide-ranging customs, traditions and languages? Utilizing three central themes, this course explores the ways that early modern Jews identified themselves and their communities. The themes examined are: memory and narrative of the past; ethnicity; and, questions of belief and tolerated dissent.

349 WAR AND SOCIETY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE, 1450-1815 (Lynn)

This course will focus on technology, tactics, operations, and strategy 1610-1794, with a French emphasis. Books and selected articles will be on an advanced level. Since students are expected to take an active part in classroom discussion, the number of students admitted will be restricted. In addition to readings and discussion, there will be a midterm, final, and class project. Prerequisites include History 281, 282, 306, 309, or 310 or consent of the instructor. Check with professor Lynn before registering.

355 FEDERALISTS, JEFFERSONIANS, AND THE ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS (Ratner)

"This course focuses on the search for answers to some of the important questions about the history of the American republic from its founding through its early developmental period. Among the questions posed are how, having rejected the authority of government, could governmental authority be re-asserted after the Revolution? Could people accept a nationalist concept of America when for so long they defined themselves by their locality? Why did the American republic become a democracy and how did democracy change the republic? Could republican principles survive in a market-driven society? How did Americans live with the paradox of believing their society was the best ever devised and, at the same time, worried that it would destroy itself?

In our search for answers to these and other questions we will examine among other things: the conflict over whether to ratify the Constitution; the development of American politics; the role of war in shaping an American identity; the American pre-occupation with the moral right and wrong of their new society; and the relationship between religion and politics in a society founded on the principle of separation of church and state."

362 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1932 (Leff)

This course follows American responses to domestic and foreign changes from the Depression crises of the 1930s to post-WWII conceptions of an American Century to post-9/11 efforts to shape a new world order through a war on terrorism. It interprets the major challenges of the past seven decades through the social movements (such as the Civil Rights movement) that sought to bring change and the presidential leadership strategies (from Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt through George W. Bush) that sought to direct and/or control it. Along the way we will consider changing roles and distributions of power in American society, the effects of anti-communist crusades at home (McCarthyism) and abroad (origins, evolution, and end of the Cold War), the long-term impact of the New Deal welfare state and cultures of consumption, and more recent divisions over race, ethnicity, feminism, and the culture war legacies of the 1960s. Assessment will be based primarily on a midterm, a final, participation in class discussion and a website discussion board, and a 10-page argumentative research paper, each asking students to stake out their own positions on the historical issues threaded through the course.

365 AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH POLICY (Melhado)

Public health and health policy in America since the mid-19th century. Emergence of modern public-health institutions; relation of public health to conceptions of disease, social order, and the role of government; emergence and development of public policy issues in public health and medical care, of the environment for the formulation of policy, and the relation of policy to broader issues of social development, incidence of disease, and assumptions about the proper distribution of public and private responsibility. Class discussion, research paper (done in stages), and final exam required.

372 AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY SINCE 1859 (Oberdeck)

Same As RELST 382

This lecture/discussion course surveys the development of modern American culture since the mid-nineteenth century. It focuses on the construction of a national culture out of class, ethnic, gender and regional diversity; the impact of Darwinian ideas on Protestant religious traditions; the texture of popular and mass culture and the rise of cultural "experts"; the influence of social and political reform movements; and the meaning of "modernism" and "postmodernism". Course materials include primary written documents from American intellectual and cultural life as well as videos from American film and TV history and images from the popular and fine arts. There will be two papers, one in-class midterm and an in-class final exam. Class attendance and participation are required and encouraged.

374 HISTORY OF THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT, 1955-PRESENT (Cha-Jua)

Same As AFRO 374

HISTORY OF THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT covers the years 1940 to the present, but primarily explores the turbulent 1960s (1955-1975). During the "high tide" of the Black Freedom Movement (BFM) social activists in its civil rights and Black power stages heroically confronted the United States system of racial oppression, challenging structural oppression and racist representations. This courses focuses on the activities of Civil Rights and Black Power movement activists. HISTORY OF THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT explores the strategies, tactics, and discourses used by different factions of the BFM, particularly the differences between the organizing and mobilizing traditions. A major part of this course explores unites and fractures across class, generational, color, gender, and ideological lines among African American activists and between them their allies as they challenged corporate and local, state, and federal governmental policies and practices. BFM activists succeeded in dismantling the constitutional scaffolding supporting segregation, transforming blackness from a pejorative into a positive identity, and in partially incorporating middle class African Americans into the political and economic mainstream. They also built alternative autonomous institutions, revived nationalist and radical Black politics and culture, and constructed multiracial, pan-African, and international coalitions. Nevertheless, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements' victories were incomplete. Although the prevailing racial formation, the Plantation Economy, and its segregationist system of racial oppression was abolished by movement activists, the system of black racial oppression was destroyed, but transmuted into a new racial formation and perhaps more insidious system of racial oppression

376 CLASSICAL CHINESE THOUGHT (Chow)

Same As C LIT 378, EALC 376

If the intellectual cultures of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Christian religion have given shape to what is known as the European civilization, the various classical traditions of ancient China played a similar role in laying the cultural foundations of China. This course will examine in depth the major intellectual and religious traditions of ancient China from the twelfth century B.C. (the Shang dynasty) through the third century when the Han dynasty collapsed. We will study the major thinkers of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism, etc. In addition to the study of the peculiar and common issues, and the shared concerns of the major thinkers, we will examine issues that concern us today. For example, we will analyze texts for issues that bear upon gender relations, cultural identities, and the relationships between self, family, and society. We will also address specific questions regarding difference factor in Chinese culture. For example, did ancient Chinese develop logical methods of thinking? What is the impact of the characteristics of the peculiar writing system on Chinese thinking? This is a lecture course. Students are required to read translations of the original texts. Participation in discussion sections is essential. Students who have taken a 100 or 200 level course in Chinese culture or history are eligible to enroll. There will be a mid-term, one 5-6 page paper, one 15 page term-paper, and a final.

378 HISTORY OF MEXICO, 1519 TO THE PRESENT (Radding)

Mexico, the heartland of Mesoamerican civilizations, became the cornerstone of Spain's empire in North America and today ranks among the first Latin American countries in territory, population, and economy. Throughout its history, Mexico presents striking contrasts between urbanism and a rural hinterland, strong authoritarian rule and regional autonomy, European cultural imports and enduring indigenous traditions. Mexico's political history marks a counterpoint between consensus and popular mobilization, as is observed in the electoral cycle of 2000, the political importance of Mexicans living in the United States, and the ethnic movements of Chiapas. Its economy juxtaposes technological progress with deepening levels of poverty for rural peasants and urban working classes.

History 378 will explore the major themes of Mexican history from late pre-Hispanic times to the present, with special emphasis on the continuity of the indigenous presence in the formation of Mexican society and on the rich diversity of Mexico's political culture. Course materials will include books, journal articles, films, websites, and current news releases from Mexico. The two class sessions each week will combine lecture and discussion. Student evaluation will be based on attendance and participation, two in-class exams, short written reviews of the assigned readings, and one long paper. This course is intended for juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Freshmen and sophomores with a strong background in history or Latin American studies are encouraged to enroll in the course, but should consult with the instructor.

382 ALEXANDER AND HIS SUCCESSORS (Buckler)

Topic: The Fourth Century and Alexander the Great

This course examines the age of Alexander the Great. It starts with the world that shaped Alexander, and it follows him across the map of the Near East to India. Both Alexander the man and Alexander the myth are treated. The course also deals with the world that Alexander created. Topics covered include the spread of Hellenism, the meeting of the East and the West, the way in which philosophy and political theory coped with new and very different circumstances, and with new trends in literature.

Course requirements include one paper (approximately 10 pages) and a final exam. Readings include L.A. Tritle, ed., The Greek World in the Fourth Century; A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire; and P. Harding, From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Ipsus.

384 THE ROMAN EMPIRE (R. Mathisen)

The course will examine the political, social, economic, institutional, religious, and cultural development of the Roman Empire from the reign of

Augustus (27 BC - AD 14) until the fall of the Empire in the West, ca. AD 480. Particular attention will be given to how the emperor and population responded

to change and stress.

386 THE HORN OF AFRICA: NATIONALISM AND REVOLUATION (Crummey)

The Horn of Africa contains diverse peoples and cultural traditions. More prominent among them are the peoples who make up Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a long national tradition, which has been continually re-shaped through its interactions with the other peoples of the region. The earliest states in the Horn were city states and they date to the first millennium BC. The Empire of Aksum succeeded them and dominated from the White Nile to South Arabia until the rise of Islam. It then refocused its attention on the rich agricultural lands which lay to its south. In 1270 a new dynasty claiming descent from Salomon and Sheba seized the Ethiopian throne, created a large indigenous empire, and patronized a remarkable flowering of the arts. This dynasty and empire survived many changes into the late nineteenth century when today's Ethiopia took definitive shape. The course will examine the main stages of the history of the Horn, paying particular attention to the Ethiopian state. It will emphasize developments in the later twentieth century when revolution abolished the monarchy, famine called in question inherited modes of livelihood, and a variety of forms of nationalism challenged boundaries throughout the region and the internal composition of its states. Course requirements include two hourly exams, a research paper, and a final.

391 EARLY MODERN JAPAN: THE MAKING OF NATIONAL CULTURE (Toby)

Same as EALC 391

Japan, reunified in 1600, after more than a century of civil war and overseas adventurism, and began an era of unprecedented internal and external peace, of cultural and economic development. In the first century of the "Great Peace," population doubled, creating an advanced urban society, with five of the world's largest cities: Edo (now Tokyo) was the world's only city of over 1,000,000 inhabitants.

Peace, urbanization, and population growth, brought commercialization—an early form of capitalism, some would say—and a remarkable outburst of cultural production, in literature, drama, and the arts, that for the first time joined all regions and social classes in a common national culture. Indeed, it is in the early-modern age that Japan began to become a nation in the modern sense.

Yet 250 years of peace came at a price, and it was not shared equally across society: Restricted social mobility, rural and urban oppression, and new forms of economic exploitation. Internationally, foreign military adventurism, and European Christian evangelism at home, were ended with new restrictions on international intercourse. But was this a "world within walls," as it has been called, a "closed country" nation with its head in the sand for 200 years, until "opened" by Commodore M.C. Perry? Or had Japan found new ways to control foreign threats, establishing a "new world order" of its own, a sort of "controlled openness," as recent scholarship seems to suggest? Japanese intellectuals, and the people at large, were intensely conscious of, and interested in, the world around them.

This was also an age of great cultural ferment in Japan, as Buddhist paradigms were largely set aside for Confucian ones (both originally foreign ideas) only to discover through Confucianism new, nativist visions, and a new sense of national identity. It was also an age in which philosophers were what we might today call "popular culture" heroes: A 1685 tour-guide to Kyoto offered something like a Mansions-of-the-Stars guide to philosophers’ houses, and the grave of one scholar appeared on every tourist map of Edo, like Elvis's Graceland.

This course examines the evolution of that unified national cultural and socioeconomic Japan, from the end of the civil wars in the late 16th century, to the demise of the early-modern order in the 19th. We will combine lectures and discussions with readings of materials written by contemporary Japanese, and pay particular attention to the rich and varied visual record of the age.

Course requirements include lectures, class discussions and readings. All readings are in English. There will be a midterm, a term paper, and a final examination.

399 ADVANCED STUDIES IN HISTORY OF WAR, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE (Lynn)

History 399 this spring semester will be a videoconference course taught from Ohio State Univesrity by Prof. John F. Guilmartin, Jr. His subject will be the U.S./Vietnam War. Not only has Prof. Guilmartin written on this war, but he was a participant, flying rescue helicopters and earning two silver stars. The time of the course will meet once a week at a time to be arranged. Class size must be limited to fifteen students admitted by permission of Prof. Lynn.

400 Level

410EM CORE SEMINAR IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION, AND MEDICINE STUDIES

Same As SOC 410

No description available.

423A SEMINAR IN ENGLISH HISTORY TO 1688 (Hibbard)

Same As MDVL 423

Meets with Hist 476 and 479.

Please see course description for Hist 479A.

425A SEMINAR IN ENGLISH AND BRITISH EMPIRE HISTORY SINCE 1688 (A. Burton)

In this course students present 10 pages of original primary source research-in-progress every other week for discussion and revision by the class as a whole. The long-term goal is a 20-25 page paper which will, ideally, serve as the basis for a dissertation project. We offer feedback on empirical questions, methodological issues and historiographical conundra. Opportunities for independent library work, for the development of writing skills and for critically constructive feedback are the chief features of the seminar experience. Knowledge of English/British history is preferable though not required (after consultation with instructor).

427A SEMINAR IN RUSSIAN HISTORY (Koenker)

This is a research seminar, designed to give formal training and practical experience in research and writing in Russian history. Attention will be paid to the study of primary sources (istochnikovedenie), to methodological problems of research in Russian and Soviet history, and to the craft of historical writing. Substantive readings in Russian history will relate to the paper topics chosen by the seminar members. The major activity is the design, completion, and defense of an article-length paper based on research in primary sources. The topic may be in any area and period of Russian and Soviet history, and will be chosen by the student in consultation with the instructor. Ability to conduct this work in Russian or the foreign language relevant to the paper topic is strongly advised.

453A SEMINAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1789 (Roediger)

Meets with Hist 487B.

Please see course description for Hist 487B.

453B REVISIONING U.S. POLITICAL HISTORY (Leff)

How far political history has fallen from Edward Freeman's dictum that "History is past Politics and Politics present History." From being considered synonymous with U.S. history itself, it became a backwater in the latter decades of the 20th century--displaced by the explosion of interest in race, class, gender, cultural consciousness, and history from the bottom up. But political history is making a comeback, partly by absorbing its critics. As Lawrence Levine points out, "We need to constantly remember that everyday life always intrudes on politics, always intermeshes with it, always constitutes the background for it." Political history now encompasses James Scott's and Robin Kelley's "infrapolitics," Theda Skocpol's "Bringing the State Back In," feminists theorizing the political, notions of public space as a contested terrain. This seminar is designed to allow students from a range of fields to research and write an article-length paper that will further this process of constructing and reconstructing U.S. political history.

476A PROBLEMS IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY (Hibbard)

Same As MDVL 476

Meets with Hist 423 and 479.

Please see course description for Hist 479A.

479A PROBLEMS IN ENGLISH HISTORY BEFORE 1688 (Hibbard)

Same As MDVL 479

Meets with Hist 423 and 476.

Topic: Material Culture/Book Culture: Court and Capital 1450-1650

The core of the course will be weekly readings and discussions around related themes, with several short papers. We will be looking at aspects of the court and London in the period during which England became Britain, and developed from a small, relatively inward-facing economy to one about to embark on the first British Empire; the most important consumption center shifted from the royal household and court to the metropolitan London area; and the book culture developed out of a flourishing manuscript trade into explosions of print whenever censorship was lifted. Topics will include: court festivities; printing in the Reformation (1550s-1570s); the court and the luxury trades; printing in the Civil War and Interregnum (1640-1660). The course may be taken for research seminar credit by advanced students; or for credit as a “late medieval” course as 476. Graduate students from allied fields are welcome. Non-English material may be added according to the interests of the participants.

481A PROBLEMS IN RUSSIAN HISTORY (Steinberg)

Topic: Late Imperial Russia

Major themes in the history and historiography of Russia from the early 19th century through the revolution of 1917. The course focuses on the exercise and justifications of authority, intellectual and cultural trends, and social life. Central to the course are questions of historical methodology and theory as well as of the interpretation of the Russian past. The emphasis is on examining new work in the field. Themes to be explored include the imperial autocracy, empire and nation, self and collectivity, political ideology, reform and revolution, rural society, industrialization and urban life, cultural innovation, popular cultures, religion, social conflict and cohesion, and family and gender.

483A PROBLEMS IN CHINESE HISTORY (Fu)

Same As EALC 483

This is an interdisciplinary course exploring the politics of cultural production, everyday culture and urban cultural formation, discourses surrounding modernity and nationalism, and the history of transnationality in twentieth-century China. China here means not only the bounded territory of China, but also Hong Kong, Taiwan , and overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and North America. Focusing on cinema and popular fiction, we discuss the modern Chinese urban experiences in a cultural-historical framework as well as the interweaving of gender, representational politics, colonialism, diasporic history in the formation of modern Chinese popular culture.

486A PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY TO 1830 (Edelson)

Topic: Material Culture

Over the past decade, path-breaking studies of colonial British America have initiated a search for cultural meaning within specific material and environmental contexts. Encounters among Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans were shaped pervasively by the commercial objectives of transatlantic exchange, the ecological demands of New World agriculture, and the construction of urban spaces and rural landscapes. This seminar explores this recent literature that reconstructs the material foundations of cultural experience in Britain’s American colonies. Readings will examine the major regions of early America (the English Caribbean, Chesapeake, New England, Mid-Atlantic, Lower South, and Backcountry) as well as the inter-imperial borderlands that Britain shared with Spain, France, and Indian nations. Important themes include disease epidemics, early scientific constructions of race, the “poetics” of vernacular architecture, material refinement, the economic cultures of slave societies, the idea of a transnational “middle ground,” the archaeology of African America, merchant networks in the Atlantic world, and the gendered politics of consumption in the era of the American Revolution.

487A PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1815 (Burgos)

Topic: Latinos and Cities: Culture, Race, and Community

The U.S. Census figures released in the past year have sparked much debate about the significance of Latinos assuming the position of majority-minority. Discussions have focused on the impact of the demographic shift in terms of national political landscape, racial politics, and American identity. Despite the recent attention, most remain unfamiliar with the process wherein Latinos became fellow Americans and the particular history of Latino and cities. This course examines this history through its focus on the formation and development of U.S. Latino urban communities during the long 20th century. In so doing, the course interrogates the institutional infrastructure, internal social relationships (class, gender, color, and generational), and cultural expressions of urban Latino communities. Assigned materials explore the theories and paradigms, past and present, by which scholars have interpreted urban Latino experiences, and explores the particular articulations of racism, sexism, and capitalism that establish the context and contours of Latino self-transformation and self-development in specific urban areas.

487B PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1815 (Roediger)

Meets with Hist 453A

Topic: Slavery, Expansion and Race in Antebellum U.S.

This course, taught in a seminar format, centers on the reading and discussion of ten books and several articles. The readings open onto broad questions regarding the ways in which ideas about race, and racist practices, developed out of the experience of settler colonialism as well as out of racial slavery. With exceptions drawn from the writings of Herman Melville, the books are historical, albeit interdisciplinary, in their approaches. Students will report on one book not read by classmates and will lead discussion (with a partner) once during the semester. Short (2-3 pp.) writing assignments accompany those tasks. A longer (12-15 pp.) final paper puts a primary source (or sources) of the student’s choosing into dialogue with the historians’ works. For that reason the course may also be taken as a research seminar.

487C PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1815 (Reagan)

Meets with Hist 492E.

Topic: Disease, Bodies, and Society

Disease has been an essential component of the processes of categorization, division, and unification of various populations by nations, by the state, and by “the sick” and “the healthy” themselves. By using the history of disease as an organizing principle for the course, students will not only gain knowledge of the history of medicine, public health, and patients, but will also analyze power, politics, and society. For instance, we will analyze how health and disease have historically been part of immigration policies and the definitions of “foreign,” “citizen,” “native,” “criminal,” or “degenerate.” Discussion will include thinking about disease as socially constructed, culturally understood, and historically changing, as a "metaphor" for society. We will discuss how the understanding of disease causation has changed and the implications for public policy. Does biology create diseases or does society or do individuals? Who is responsible for spreading disease and for caring for the sick? How is disease defined and when and why are some diseases noticed and others ignored? How have gender, race, class, religion, and sexuality shaped and defined disease and a society’s responses to the sick? We will discuss how the state has responded to different diseases over time and when the interests of public health and individual civil liberties have come into conflict. This course will also provide an opportunity to think about the body and how it is seen and understood over time. How have the body’s abilities and disabilities defined, divided, and been sources of power and oppression? Selections from the new literature in disability studies will be part of our conversation.

Students will be expected to write historiographic or small research papers, selected from a broad range of topics with the guidance of the professor. Along with in-depth reading in history, readings from other disciplines such as anthropology and communications will be included. Readings are comparative, although the emphasis will be on the U.S. through the twentieth century. Articles and books from Europe and the Non-West will be included.

Readings are likely to include Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic; Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor; Barbara Duden, The Woman Beneath the Skin; Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years and/or Katherine Kudlick, Cholera in Post-Revolutionary France; Joan Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease; Gerald Geison and Nancy Tomes on Louis Pasteur and the “Gospel of Germs;” Allan Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the U.S.; Susan Reverby, ed., Tuskegee’s Truths; Keith Wailoo, Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health; Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s China Town; Barron Lerner, The Breast Cancer Wars; David Arnold, Megan Vaughan, Warwick Anderson, and Michelle Moran on Disease and Empire in India, Africa, Asia, and the U.S.; Paula Treichler, Paul Farmer, Cynthia Patton, on global AIDS, and more!

489A PROBLEMS IN AFRICAN HISTORY (Allman)

Same As AFRST 489

Meets with AFRST 422

Topic: African History at the Disciplinary Crossroads

Perhaps more than many areas of historical research, the history of Africa has always been profoundly interdisciplinary. In methodological approaches, in the generation of evidence, in modes of analysis, and in theoretical groundings, historians of Africa have consistently pressed against, if not transcended, the traditional boundaries of their discipline. This course focuses on the most recent and exciting scholarship in the interdisciplinary study of Africa's past. We will read not simply for substance and argument, but for method, positionality, audience and theory. In some senses, we begin at square one. During the first three weeks, we will think critically about the development of African Studies, the invention of African history as a discipline within that area studies paradigm, and their uneasy relationship with (if not contested origins in) colonial ethnography. The remaining weeks are thematically focused and are intended to bring into sharp relief the methods, theories and analyses of interdisciplinary scholars of Africa's past. Course requirements include participation in seminar discussion, two long essays, a book review and short weekly reaction papers.

490A HISTORY AND SOCIAL THEORY (Oberdeck)

A readings course in classic and contemporary social and cultural theory for history graduate students. Will include readings of classic "modern" theorists of social structure and process (Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel), twentieth century approaches to culture and society (Frankfurt School, Habermas, Gramsci, Geertz) and recent theories of social construction and fragmentation (postmodernism; Foucault; post-colonialism; theories of gender, race, and identity; and theories of transnationality and spatial relations). Class participation and three 10-12 page papers required--two on course readings, one on student's choice of historiographical examples applying theoretical approaches discussed in class.

492A PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY (Fritzsche)

Topic: Cities

Berlin, Chicago, London, New York, Paris, Los Angeles, LAX

Neighborhood, Core, Periphery, Underground

System, Reinvention, Labyrinth, Transience

Architecture, Cinema, Gender, Class

Mumford, Simmel, Benjamin, Doblin, Baudrillard

492B PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY (Love)

Topic: World Economy and Demography after 1945

Treats postwar economic history at world and regional levels, including the gap between developed and Third-World countries. Also examines population growth and stasis (in developed Europe) and international migration flows, with some attention to diasporas. In the second half of the course, students may examine economic growth and demographic shifts in particular world regions.

492C PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY (Todorova)

Topic: Travel and Travelogues

This seminar offers an introduction to the ways scholars are thinking about the phenomenon of travel in a historical perspective. It will survey the ars apodemica, or "art of travel" in antiquity, the medieval and early modern period, and will focus on the rationale and mechanisms of travel from the Enlightenment to the present. Key topics to consider are the delineation of types of travel in different periods according to a variety of characteristics: motives, provenance, social class, duration, means of transport, etc., in a word, the sociology of travel. Other topics include aspects of the role of travel as a method of research, i.e. the accumulation and systematization of descriptive and evaluative knowledge through travel for the formation of new disciplines and genres in the humanities: anthropology, sociology, political science, comparative history, literature, etc. We shall explore different regions of "discovery"--Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Southern and Eastern Europe, finally Europe as a whole and North America itself, and will deal with questions of identity and representation. Special attention will be devoted to the problem of women travelers and their work. Throughout, our central objective will be to attempt to evaluate travelogues as historical sources, their genres and reception.

492D PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY (B. Edwards)

Topic: Race and Science

Many historians have characterized the mid- to late-nineteenth century as the period in which science constructed “race.” Is this the story? This seminar introduces students to the study of the race concept through a comparative focus on historiographies and conceptual issues around race, focusing particularly on how race theories have developed over the last three centuries in the West. This is a reading seminar intended to examine the development of race in theories of science and the role of science in theories of race, focusing specifically on the histories of modern biology, anthropology and American politics. Our main goal in this seminar is to explore how the ideas and methods associated with the design of race, from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century, have informed various histories. We will examine the relationship between scientific and social conceptions—that is, focusing more on the invention of race than on racism.

492E PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY (Reagan)

Meets with Hist 487C.

Please see course description for Hist 487C.