- First-Year Seminars and Tutorials (102-199)
- 111: Topics in Asian-American History
- Introductory Survey Courses (202-299)
- 201: From Cold War to New World Order
- 203: The Early Middle Ages
- 204: The Later Middle Ages
- 207X: A Century of Revolutions: Europe in the Nineteenth Century
- 211: Puerto Ricans in the US
- 213: The European Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century
- 214: The Rise of American Conservatism
- 215: Introduction to the History of the Modern Middle East, 1798-1998
- 227X: Comparative American Immigration
- 228X: The Middle East Collides with Modernity
- 230X: Britain, 1714-1848
- 238: Germany in the Twentieth Century
- Junior Seminars (301A-301G)
- 301EX: The Rise of the West in the Early-Modern Period
- 301FX: Faith and Reason: Critical Explorations in American Religious History
- Advanced Electives (302-399)
- 322X: Vietnam
- 325X: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe
- 326: Rise and Fall of the Mexican Revolution
- 330: Orthodoxy, State and Society in Modern Russia
- 336: Magic and Science in the Middle Ages
- 337: Medieval European Mysticism
- 339: Nations and Nationalism: The Middle East and the Balkans
- 350T: History, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Collective Memory
- 354T: The Anglo-American World in the Eighteenth Century: War, Society, and Politics, 1700-1775
- 367: Natural Disaster in Modern History: Ideas and Responses
- 385T: Inventing Gender: America 1600-1850
- Advanced Seminars (402-479)
- 469: Notions of Race and Ethnicity in American Culture
- Advanced Tutorials (480-492)
* Denotes courses that meet the college Peoples & Cultures requirement.
(W) Denotes courses that are considered "writing intensive".
X Denotes courses that have been replaced by a new description with the same number.
HIST 111 Topics in Asian-American History (Same as American Studies 111)*
This course will introduce four major topics in the study of Asian-American history: (1) the early Chinese immigrant experience, (2) the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, (3) post-1965 Asian immigration and adaptation as seen among Korean and Southeast-Asian Americans, and (4) contemporary issues in Asian-American society. Readings will include some of the major works in the field, novels, and recent journalist accounts of the Asian-American experience.
Students will be evaluated on class discussion, three short papers, and an oral presentation.
Enrollment limited. Preference to first-year students.
HIST 201 From Cold War to New World Order
A mere three years after the end of World War II, the United States government identified that it was in a "struggle for power, or 'cold war'" with the Soviet Union--a struggle "from which we cannot withdraw short of eventual national suicide." The Cold War developed with remarkable rapidity, and we will focus our initial efforts in this course to understand how and why the United States established all the structures of the national security state by 1950, examining as well the counterparts to these structures in the Soviet Union. From this foundation we will then explore the myriad ways that the Cold War shaped domestic and international politics in the succeeding decades, particularly in the Third World, and the forces that led to the Cold War's end. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, expectations ran high on both sides of the "iron curtain" that democracy and a free market might well flourish in the former Eastern bloc and eventually in the Soviet Union. But while there have been some successes on both of these fronts, the end of the Cold War has also produced a profound reshuffling of international politics. This instability has forced many reassessments of the Cold War era, with which we will conclude the course.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, short response papers, one essay (5-7 pages), and a final exam.
Group A. Concentrations 13, 15
HIST 203 The Early Middle Ages (Same as Religion 217)
An introduction to the history of Western Europe from the "fall" of Rome (ca. 300) through the First Crusade (ca. 1100). We will explore such subjects as the survival of Roman culture and institutions; the growth and consolidation of the Christian Church; the conversion of Europe; the tensions between church and state; the nature and function of feudalism; the rise of towns; and the relationship between Europe, Byzantium, and Islam.
Classes will consist of a short lecture/reading and discussion format.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, two short papers, and a final essay exam. Syllabus
Groups B and D. Concentration 4
Professor Klepper
HIST 204 The Later Middle Ages (Same as Religion 218)
An introduction to the history of Western Europe from the beginning of the twelfth century through the fifteenth century. Subjects covered will include the social order; the rise of urban economy and culture; the rise of universities; the development of centralized secular and papal monarchies; critique and reform of the Church, the evolution of Christian and national identities and the definition and persecution of marginal groups; and, finally, the widespread social and economic upheaval that marked "the autumn of the Middle Ages" and the transition to early modern Europe.
Classes will consist of short lectures/readings and discussion.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, two short papers, and a final essay exam. Syllabus
Groups B and D. Concentration 4
Professor Klepper
HIST 207X A Century of Revolutions: Europe in the Nineteenth Century
HIST 211 Puerto Ricans in the US
Professor Pagán
HIST 213 The European Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century
The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was a broad movement of ideas, both critical and constructive, aimed at reforming the prevailing order of European life in a direction of greater tolerance, individual freedom and improvement in the material conditions of human life. The Enlightenment transformed the way governments governed and the way their subjects expected to be treated, leaving a legacy of political principles and social expectations that has profoundly affected modern history. The movement was spearheaded by two generations of thinkers who came to be known as "philosophes," writers who thought of themselves more as social critics and reformers than disinterested seekers of truth, and who believed they were in a position to apply lessons distilled from two millennia of recorded history to the problems of contemporary life. Although this movement dominated much of the intellectual life of the eighteenth century, it was opposed by formidable forces, not the least of them rival intellectuals with more favorable views of authority and traditional religion. This course will explore the Enlightenment movement and its critics in the context of eighteenth-century life through readings of exemplary texts by such authors as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Burke, Mandeville, Beccaria and Condorcet. We will focus on new conceptions of liberty, ideas of natural sociability, the critique of Christianity and the Church, theories of progress, reform of criminal justice system, and other themes.
Evaluation will be based on two short papers, a midterm exam and a final exam.
Professor Beilin
HIST 214 The Rise of American Conservatism
In our own time it may be hard to imagine the American political landscape without conservatism, and yet like its counterpart--liberalism--conservatism is a creature of history. In the forms that we recognize today, conservatism had its origins in reactions to the New Deal; from the 1950s, when Dwight D. Eisenhower called for a "dynamic conservatism," it went through momentous transformations in the late 1960s and 1970s. And while the Reagan presidency was indeed experienced as a political "revolution," it remains unclear what legacy of conservative principles his administration established. This course will chart that trajectory, using primary documents, secondary analyses, and political biographies, and will explore in particular what issues conservatives have embraced in different periods; what issues have created conflict among conservative ranks; and how they have mobilized political power at different historical junctures.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, two essays (5-7 pages), and a final paper (15-20 pages) that involves original research and analysis.
HIST 215 Introduction to the History of the Modern Middle East, 1798-1998*
Starting with Napoleon Bonaparte's brief occupation of Egypt, this course follows the radical transformation of the Middle East during the last two hundred years. Incorporating films, novels, memoirs, primary material and secondary texts, the class will attempt to understand how the Middle East changed from a region dominated by two large empires to one divided into more than a dozen nation-states. The course will trace the growing power of Europeans and European ideas like nationalism and feminism in the area, as well as the impact of oil, the creation of the State of Israel, the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will conclude with a close look at the Iranian Revolution, radical Islam, the Gulf Wars, and the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process.
Evaluation will be based on two book/film reviews, in-class midterm exam, and a take-home final exam.
Group C. Concentration 13
Professor Watenpaugh
HIST 227X Comparative American Immigration
HIST 228X The Middle East Collides with Modernity
Professor Watenpaugh
HIST 238 Germany in the Twentieth Century
Written documents, literature, film, and the writings of historians will be used in surveying the history of Germany since 1890. Topics to be considered include: Wilhelmian Germany and the role played by domestic and foreign policy in the decision of the imperial government to opt for war in 1914; the impact of war and defeat on German society; the relation of the cultural flowering that occurred in Germany during the 1920s to the political and social instability of the Weimar Republic; Hitler and the collapse of democratic Germany; the Third Reich; World War II and the Holocaust; the reconstruction of Germany after 1945; Germany in the context of the Cold War (the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic); and united-Germany after the wall. A central theme of the course will be the attempt of Germans during the twentieth century to decide what Germany is and how it fits into the rest of Europe, and to determine the nature of their state and society.
Requirements include: three short papers and a number of pop quizzes.
HIST 301EX The Rise of the West in the Early-Modern Period
The purpose of history is to recreate in the mind of the historian the full range of individual and collective human experience in the past. Historians employ a number of different approaches in the process of recreation. But their overall goal is to understand people in the past in a manner which, while comprehensible to the present, remains as faithful as possible to the past. This course examines the history of Europe and Europeans during the Early-Modern Period. We will explore the different ways people in that period made their present and the different ways historians have attempted to recreate their past and ours. This course pays special attention to one of the central preoccupations of early-modern European scholarship, namely what were the causes for the expansion of Europe, the conquest of the Americas, and the triumph of modernism in the early modern era. Topics include the Protestant Reformation, the rise of individualism, the military and agrarian revolutions and the English Revolution.
Evaluation will be based upon a midterm, a final exam, one or two short papers, and class participation.
Restricted to junior History majors.
HIST 301FX Faith and Reason: Critical Explorations in American Religious History
This Junior Seminar will explore the complicated relationship between proof and persuasion, and history and belief, through a focused exploration of the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) during the Second Great Awakening. A close study of Mormonism's complicated past will allow us to explore larger questions about epistemology and ontology, questions that cut to the heart of what historians do. How, for example, can students of the past discern the reliability of historical documents? Who decides what is credible historical evidence? What place is there in the study of history for faith claims about divine causation? Indeed, how much of the study of history is itself a leap of faith and how much is grounded in empirical certainty, if such a thing even exists?
Evaluation will be based on active class participation, an oral report on supplementary readings, two 8- to 10-page position papers, and one final paper of 18-20 pages. Syllabus
Restricted to junior History majors.
Professor Pagán
Professor Frost
HIST 325X Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe (Same as Religion 214)*
The relationship between Jews and Christians in medieval Europe was extremely complex and marked by many contradictions. Though they comprised distinct communities with distinct cultures, to a great extent Jews and Christians lived side-by-side in relative harmony through the twelfth century. After that point, conditions for Jews eteriorated; restrictions on Jewish economic activities and social interaction, ritual murder charges, the trial and burning of the Talmud, and forced sermons and disputations culminated in the expulsion of Jews from much of Western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But even during that precarious time, the two communities continued to influence each other. This class will explore positive as well as negative encounters between Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages and wrestle with the difficult question of why Latin Christendom ceased to tolerate the Jewish community in its midst. Subjects will include social relations, economic ties, intellectual and cultural exchanges and influences, the Crusades, the influence of converts/apostates, the attack on the Talmud, changing images of The Other, Christian missionizing, and the expulsion from Western lands.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, two short papers, a midterm and a final exam. Syllabus
Groups B and D. Concentrations 4, 12
Professor Klepper
HIST 326 Rise and Fall of the Mexican Revolution*
The first great revolution in the twentieth-century world, the Mexican Revolution was as epic a struggle as later episodes in Russia, China, and Cuba. This course will examine the social, economic, and political forces that exploded in more than a decade of violence and produced the peculiar, relatively stable "institutional revolutionary" government that continues to rule in Mexico. Themes will include the construction of capitalism in the late-nineteenth century; the creation of an authoritarian Liberal political tradition; and the legacy of revolutionary culture, art, and politics that emerged from the violent phase. By taking up such phenomena and their effects on peasants, workers, women, middle-class professionals, and the wealthy, we will try to assess the extent to which this was a social revolution and to what extent merely a reshuffling of those who had been ruling the country. Toward the end of the course we will analyze recent events such as the outbreak of a peasant revolt in Chiapas and the series of scandals and assassinations that have bloodied the corridors of political power in the 1990s. Students will then debate a final topic: Is the Mexican Revolution dead, or is its promise just now to be fulfilled?
HIST 330 Orthodoxy, State and Society in Modern Russia (Same as Religion 220)
It has often been claimed that Russia's distinctiveness, however defined and evaluated, owes much to the imprint of Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Church. Yet, curiously, both are largely absent from the historiography of modern Russia, except to be caricatured as either the handmaiden or the victim of a repressive state. This course seeks to reach a fuller understanding of the impact of Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Church on the history and culture of modern Russia, and of the ability of the Church in turn to adapt to conditions of modernity, by examining the responses of the Church to a series of profound challenges that have confronted it since the early-eighteenth century. Topics to be explored include the relationship of the Orthodox Church to both the Imperial Russian and the Soviet state; the response of the Church to internal dissent and demands for reform; the relationship between the Church and other religions; and the response of the Church to secularizing critics, popular religious movements, the feminization of monasticism, social and economic change, and revolutionary upheaval. The uses of Orthodoxy by artists, intellectuals, and political movements also will be examined.
Discussion course.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, several short essays based on class readings, and a final self-scheduled exam. An alternative set of readings will be available for students with a reading knowledge of Russian.
Group B
HIST 336 Magic and Science in the Middle Ages (Same as History of Science 336)
This course will examine the ways magic was viewed and practiced in medieval Europe, particularly in regards to its relationship to science. While in our twentieth-century-American world magic and science are largely viewed as opposing systems, in the medieval world they were intimately connected. Subjects will include the reception and transformation of Greek and Arabic knowledge, astrology and astral magic, alchemy, medicine and healing, the use of magical objects, and the cult of secrecy and books on secrets.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, two short papers and a research paper. Syllabus
Groups B and D. Concentrations 4, 8
Professor Klepper
HIST 337 Medieval European Mysticism (Same as Religion 215)
A rich mystical tradition flourished in medieval Europe in both the Christian and Jewish realms. Most of the mystical texts created in this period can be characterized by one or more of the following three approaches to mystical union with God: disciplined attention to the divine through contemplation, theological speculation about the relationship between the soul and God, and the use of erotic imagery to experience the mystical relationship as a spiritual love affair. In this course we will examine some of the classic mystical texts of the period--both Orthodox and heretical in the case of Christian texts--following a topical organization. In addition to decoding the difficult language of this writing and placing it in its secular and religious historical context, we will consider particularly the role of gender in the mystical experience and the very different circumstances under which Christian and Jewish mystics operated. Class format: reading and discussion.
Evaluation will be based on class participation, three short analytical papers, and a final exam. Syllabus
Groups B and D. Concentrations 4, 12
Professor Klepper
HIST 339 Nations and Nationalism: The Middle East and the Balkans*
No idea has had a greater impact on the modern Middle East and the Balkans than nationalism. This seminar will examine the origins and spread of nationalism by using these two regions as case studies. We will follow the introduction of this Western ideology to the area during the nineteenth century, examine the debates about the origins of various "isms" like Arabism, Zionism, and Pan-Slavism, and compare and contrast liberal nationalism with its more populist cousins. Special attention will be paid to the creation of various cults of personality: Ataturk in Turkey, Reza Shah in Iran, Nasser in Egypt, Assad in Syria and Saddam in Iraq.
Evaluation will be based on a mini-project, create your own nation, a major project, and an 18- to 25-page paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor.
Professor Watenpaugh
HIST 350T History, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Collective Memory
HIST 354T The Anglo-American World in the Eighteenth Century: War, Society, and Politics, 1700-1775
This tutorial will focus on the complex and constantly changing relationship between Great Britain and its North-American colonies in the decades culminating in the American Revolution. Central to that relationship was a series of global wars, which in the New World manifested itself as an increasingly successful attempt by the British to expand the boundaries of their North-American empire. With the Seven Years War, that effort brought all of French Canada into Britain's orbit, much to the delight of Americans throughout the thirteen colonies. Yet within a dozen years of the end of the war those same colonies were on the verge of declaring their independence. Among the subjects to be considered will be: the nature and structure of society and government on both sides of the Atlantic in the era of the imperial wars; the differing ways in which the British and Americans mobilized for, fought, and experienced warfare in the New World; and the various consequences of the wars in the mother country and the colonies, including the growing rift between them that followed the coming of peace in 1763. In exploring these subjects we will cover topics as diverse as the role of Native Americans in the imperial wars, the life of the common colonial soldier, the rise of George Washington, the military career of Colonel Ephraim Williams, and the Tory sympathies of the large and powerful clan of which he was a member.
Each student will write and present orally an essay of approximately 7 pages every other week on the assigned readings for that week. Students not presenting an essay will be responsible for offering a critique of the work of their colleague. Evaluation will be based on students' written work, on their analyses of their colleague's work, and on a final written exercise.
Enrollment limited.
Groups A, B, and D
HIST 367 Natural Disaster in Modern History: Ideas and Responses
The regular course of human life is interrupted all too often by natural calamities: earthquakes, floods, famines and epidemic disease sometimes take the lives of many thousands of persons in a short period, leaving others bewildered and in search of explanations and consolations. In premodern times, Western people viewed nature as an enchanted realm filled with signs of divine pleasure and wrath; calamitous or unusual events were often interpreted as lessons or punishments for human behavior. Since the rise of modern science, however, a perspective on nature has emerged which refutes this "superstitious" approach and emphasizes the capacity of humankind to predict and prepare for natural disasters. Indeed, extraordinary progress has been made in the prevention of damage caused by these events. But nature has not lost any of its power to terrify and to destroy, often surpassing the ability of individuals and societies to cope. This course will examine the many faces of the human response to natural disaster. We will begin with a consideration of the medieval conception of apocalypse and millenarian expectation in the early-modern world. We will then consider the attack on superstition which occurred during the period of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, pausing to consider the birth of such progressive techniques for disaster preparedness as casualty insurance. The course will then turn to a synoptic examination of several modern disasters such as the outbreak of plague in 1722, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and the Irish Famine of 1845-49. We will examine several facets of response to these calamities: political, economic, social and cultural; and the consequences of the events in national history.
Students will do an independent research project on a disaster not studied in class, write a paper on it, and present a summary of their findings to the seminar.
Evaluation will be based on participation in class discussions, the oral presentation, and the research paper.
Enrollment limited.
Groups B and D. Concentrations 5, 8, 17
Professor Beilin
HIST 385T Inventing Gender: America 1600-1850
This tutorial will use American history as a case study of the Euro-American development, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, of the modern concept of gender, the set of personality traits and behaviors expected to differentiate males and females. Until the sixteenth century in Western culture, scant attention was paid to theorizing the characteristics of masculinity and femininity; in early modern society, and increasingly with the development of capitalism and liberal political theory, appropriate qualities of adulthood and citizenship came to be articulated to a bipolar concept of sexuality and its associated character. We shall read a series of works&endash;&endash;modern monographs and articles and selected primary source documents&endash;&endash;which represent or analyze this development from different perspectives and with very different conclusions. Students will engage with this material on two levels of the historian's craft: one, developing their own arguments about the significance of evolving ideologies of gender and the way that they fit with economic, political, and religious changes in American society (with periodic attention to parallel European developments); and two, enhancing their understanding of the way that changes in the historiography about gender illustrate both an evolving sense of what is worth knowing-indeed, what even can be known-about "private" life in the past and the larger-scale shifts in scholars' sense of what is meaningful about the past.
Each student will be paired with another for weekly one-hour meetings; at each session, one student will present orally a written essay of 7-10 pages, on assigned reading, and the other will offer a critique. Students will be evaluated on their written work, oral presentations, ability to answer questions about their interpretations and to frame insightful critiques of their partner's work, and a final written essay that will address the themes developed through the semester.
Enrollment limited.
Groups A and D
Professor Tracy
HIST 469 Notions of Race and Ethnicity in American Culture (Same as American Studies 403)*
While "race" and "ethnicity" have always played fundamental roles in shaping the course of American history and the image of American society, our understanding of the concepts of race and ethnicity has often been less than clear. Our goal in this course is to determine and examine how Americans have defined race and ethnicity at various points in our history and how these notions have been acted out in policy, practice, and theory. Examples of the social and legal construction of race and ethnicity and their expression in American culture will include white-Native American relations, slavery and its legacy, the "Yellow Peril," science and race, and contemporary race relations.
Students will be evaluated on class participation and three written assignments: an annotated bibliography, an historiographical essay, and a final research paper.
Enrollment limited. Priority given to American Studies senior majors and then to History majors.
Group A