2017-2018 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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HIST 234 - History of Racism in Modern Europe
The category of “race” has been used since about 1500–when Europe’s Renaissance met with the exploration of “other” human beings in different continents–to naturalize inequality among groups of people based on certain ideas of their bodies. The seminar focuses on the scientific foundation of modern racism in the Enlightenment, the origins of the cult of health and beauty at about 1900, and the globalization of western body ideals until now.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 235 - The Atlantic World
A course that deliberately moves away from the traditional focus on nation-states and continents, concentrating instead on the Atlantic world that was created in the wake of the Portuguese explorations and Columbus’ voyages. The emphasis will be on the flow of people, commodities, germs, and ideas between the Old World (Europe and Africa) and the New.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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HIST 236 - Gender, War and Genocide in 20th Century
Boys become real men through military service and by participation in war, by killing and dying for the fatherland, while giving birth to and raising children-motherhood–serves as central marker of womanhood. Gender stereotypes such as these were questioned but also reinforced throughout the wars of the 20th century. These wars mobilized men as well as women, and they increasingly blurred the boundaries between men and women. On all fronts and sites, however, concepts of masculinities and femininities structured propaganda and emotions, fighting morals and antiwar movement, the preparation of minds for mass violence, and its remembrance. We will discuss the impact of gender on mass violence and vice versa from World War I to World War II, from the Holocaust to the genocidal wars in former Yugoslavia, and from America’s “Good War” to Americans’ twisted coping with the Vietnam War to the rise of a ‘gender-neutral’ army. Focusing on European and American wars, the course includes comparative views on other regions of the world and puts emphasis on regional differences and peculiarities, such as transformation of a deeply gendered war culture in Europe into a peace culture after 1945. Special attention will be paid to various approaches to gender history, such as the analysis of discourses and images, or the analysis of gender practices. We will do this by critically analyzing scholarly work, written testimonies, literature, films, and propaganda materials.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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HIST 237 - The Holocaust Perpetrators
This course explores the main parts of the German and Central European society that committed the Holocaust, that is the desktop perpetrators like Adolf Eichmann, the physicians who carried used Jews for medical experiments, the concentration-camps guards, and the killing units as the hard core of the SS elite, but also “ordinary” Germans and soldiers who served in police battalions or in the drafted army, on women who served as guards or as part of the occupational regime, and not least on non-German collaborators or volunteers. The course focuses on the interrelation of individual and biographical backgrounds, mental and ideological orientations, and social and institutional arrangements: What are the reasons that made “normal” human becoming mass murderers?
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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HIST 238 - America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1917-1991
This course will focus on the Russian-American rivalry at the center of world politics from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Major topics include the escalating nuclear arms race, recurrent crises in Vietnam, Cuba and other parts of the Third World, and important personalities from Harry Truman and Josef Stalin to Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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HIST 239 - Special Topics Course in Global History
The content of this course will vary by instructor.
In Spring 2017, the title will be Global Africa.
This upper level course examines the diverse histories of Africa and its people – from ancient to modern times. The course explores the extent to which interaction between cultures throughout Africa and with other continents has shaped our understanding of African past and present. The early part of the class will introduce intellectual tools to students for them to intelligently explore key events in African and African descendant’s histories. The remaining time in the course will be divided into four broadly chronological segments: (1) Antiquity; (2) Middle Ages; (3) Early Modern Era; and (4) Colonial and Post-Colonial Era. Through brief surveys of these periods, the course thematically focuses on challenging preconceived notions of race but also ethnicity, gender, and religion in Africa and the African diaspora. In further emphasizing this theme, the course problematizes the concept of race and its use to connect multiple histories of Africa and the African diaspora. Overall, there will be an effort to put different texts – especially secondary and primary sources – in conversation with each other to explore the challenges and possibilities in the articulations of African and African diaspora histories.
May be repeated for credit (2 times).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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HIST 243 - American Antiquarian Society Seminar in American Studies
Given at the American Antiquarian Society (about two miles from Clark); students conduct original research in the society’s unique holdings. Students apply in the spring through Professor McCoy, History Dept.
Anticipated Terms Offered: na
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HIST 245 - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East Since 1945
This course explores America’s stormy relationship with the Middle East from World War II through 9/11 and the war in Iraq, with special emphasis on oil, the Cold War, and the rise of radical Islam. Among the key topics will be the Arab-Israeli conflict, the battle for control of the Persian Gulf, and the impact of the Middle East on American popular culture.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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HIST 251 - Russian Literature and Philosophy
Dostoevsky. Tolstoy. Chekhov. These names instantly evoke the golden age of Russian belles-lettres. But the masters of nineteenth-century Russian prose were not only great stylists and enthralling storytellers; they were also profound thinkers. Their work bears the imprint of an original approach to the deep-rooted contradictions that continue to bedevil the human experience: reason and faith, personal happiness and collective well-being, justice and mercy, passion and renunciation. In this seminar, we will read some of the classical treatments of these “accursed questions,” which both tormented and inspired the authors of those big Russian books that continue to challenge readers world-wide. Focusing on close readings of key texts, we will interrogate the relationship between thematic concerns and problems of style, in order to understand why and how Russian philosophy took the form of imaginative literature and to gain a deeper appreciation of the Russian contribution to European intellectual history. No background in Russian history is required; but be aware that the readings are substantial. This course may be your only opportunity to read War and Peace!
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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HIST 252 - The Holocaust Through Diaries and Letters
The aim of this course is to engage in a bifocal understanding of history: from the perspective of those who experienced events as they unfolded, and from our vantage point today. Our goal is to recognize anew the potentiality of an unfolding present when many options are available, and to analyze the factors that conduced to the decisions and choices we now know were taken.
What did people know, and when did they know it? What role did denial and silence play? What, if any, patterns of daily life choices emerge? Do specific human traits or values loom large when life is lived in extremis?
Prerequisites: Any HGS course
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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HIST 253 - Beauty, Gender, and Power around the World, 1800 to the Present
This course examines changing and multifaceted beauty standards around the world (Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania) with the aim of deconstructing them in order to understand the power dynamics embedded in ideal appearances. Positioning beauty at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality, we will examine its construction through political and cultured readings on the meanings of body parts and body languages (i.e. hair, face, teeth, skin, smile, and feet). This course encourages students to problematize contemporary beauty templates in various countries and cultures. We will also use our examination of beauty as a way to further develop student’s skills in historical research, reasoning, and writing.
Prerequisites: Course open to junior and senior students only.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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HIST 254 - The Age of Atlantic Revolutions
The half-century after 1776 was a period marked by the violent pursuit of political liberty and economic opportunity on both sides of the Atlantic. In North America, the Thirteen Colonies were transformed into the United States of America informed by an Enlightenment ideology of rationalism, secularism and democracy, which had long been cultivated in Europe. Tapping the same sources, the French rebels soon saw their revolution degenerate into a bloody spectacle. Another consequence of the French Revolution was the rebellion in the Caribbean colony of St. Domingue, in the course of which slavery was abolished and independence achieved.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 256 - The British Empire
By the early 20th century, one in five people in the world lived in the British Empire, a vast territory that covered a quarter of the globe. This class will examine the evolution of this empire from the very first colonies to the present day. We will explore India and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, Canada–and, of course, the origins of the United States. In doing so, we will consider issues of immigration, emigration, settlement, race, religion, politics, revolution, violence, war, culture, literature, and just what it means to be an empire.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 260 - Rescue and Resistance During the Holocaust
Investigates rescue and resistance activities during the second World War. Our aim will be to come to a critical understanding of what we mean by “rescue” and “resistance,” and to analyze how these undertakings were organized, who participated in them and why people felt compelled to do so. Looks at the role and function (if any) of age, gender, degree of religious observance, political affiliation and social class in our attempts to understand not only what activities were undertaken, but the motivation for such actions.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 262 - Genocide, Denial, Facing History and Reconciliation
After the term “Genocide” was coined for macro crimes in 1948 by the United Nations, the word became not only one of the most important legal, social and political terms, but also an important inter-disciplinary field in the Social Sciences. History, sociology, political science, international law, and psychology, among others, have developed their own fields of genocide specialization. The usage or non-usage of the term for certain macro crimes in recent years has become an important political problem of our time. Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur are only some examples. This course considers the emergence, definition and meaning of the term genocide - particularly the development of the concept of genocide in International Law and how was the term created by Raphael Lemkin. Special place is given to the discussions in the UN leading to the final adoption and definition of the UN Convention in 1948 and the problems arising from the 1948 definitions. In addition to legal concepts, the course concentrates on the different sociological concepts of genocide, taking a closer look at theoretical explanations of genocide. Other topics include: question of premeditation in decision-making process, genocide denial, prevention of genocide, and problems of the comparative approach to case studies. Finally, the course examines why societies should deal with atrocities in their past, the meaning of facing history, and the different forms of dealing with past (amnesia, retributive justice, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation committees, etc.).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 264 - Modern European History through the Novel
Introduces the intellectual and political history of Europe through the novel. Reading the masterworks of European fiction, students will explore some of the most contentious issues in modern European thought, and develop aunique perspective on imaginative literature as an indispensable source of our knowledge about the past. Course approaches the modern novel as a sensitive register of a culture’s moral and social climate, and the locus of the modern struggle to reconcile public responsibility and personal desire.
Former title: European Mind: History and Theory
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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HIST 266 - Refugees
The aim of this course will be to investigate and analyze the history of the “Refugee Question” in Europe and America, and to explore the impact of these international and national debates on the lives of the asylum seekers.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 268 - Special Topics
Content & topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeated for credit (2 times)
Advanced Special Topic Fall 2017: Christianity, Violence and Genocide in the Modern World
This course explores the complex role of Christianity (and religion more broadly) in cases of genocide and extreme violence in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through a series of case studies we will discuss broader themes such as the role of church institutions, religion and war, religious buildings as sites of violence, religious identity and nationalism, spiritual resistance, solidarity and rescue, reconciliation, Christianity’s role in coming to terms with past atrocities. Topics may vary but could include: aboriginal peoples in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand (19th and 20th centuries); the Herero-Nama Genocide in German Southwest Africa (1900s); the Armenian Genocide (1910s); the Holocaust (1940s); Cambodia (1970s); Guatemala (1980s); Rwanda (1990s); and the former Yugoslavia (1990s).
We will study the subject matter with an interdisciplinary approach, primarily using the tools of the historian, but also considering those of theology, psychology, and the sociology of religion. This course deals with some of the most powerful, painful, and controversial aspects of human life. Please be prepared to encounter disturbing and sometimes graphic material in the readings and films. We should probably also all expect to be challenged, surprised, and sometimes distressed by what is said in discussions. In crafting the course, I have tried to be sensitive, respectful, and inclusive without turning away from difficult realities in the past and present. I ask you to do the same in the way you engage the subject matter and one another.
Anticipated Terms Offered: N/A
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HIST 270 - Modern Jewish Thought
This course explores the intellectual impact of modernity on Jewish ideas about God and peoplehood. Through a rigorous analysis of primary sources in philosophy, political theory, theology and ethics, we will explore how Jewish thinkers transformed the meaning of Jewish experience and self-expression in light of cataclysmic historical changes such as the coming of print culture and the scientific revolution, the rise of the modern democratic state, the spread of capitalism and the explosion of radical ideologies. The principal focus of the course will be on the roots of the contemporary tension between the conception of Judaism as a religion that entails personal commitment and the contrary claim that Jews collectively constitute a national community. Authors covered will include Baruch Spinoza, Karl Marx, Franz Kafka, Hermann Cohen, Joseph Soloveitchik and Theodor Herzl.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: VP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 271 - Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Europe, 1100-1900
European Christians, Jews, and Muslims have lived alongside each other, in tension and in tolerance, for well over a millennium. Modern conflicts between these monotheistic religions dominate the European news cycle and political imagination. The recent history of the relationship between European Christians, Jews and Muslims is well-known and much discussed, both in academic and popular analyses. But what exactly are the roots of these conflicts and confluences? This class will examine the relationship between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Europe from 1100-1900. It will explore economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and political developments during this period. In doing so, it will examine alliance and antagonism; toleration and expulsion; assimilation and separation; and the long history of contemporary issues.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Regularly
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HIST 276 - Collective Memory and Mass Violence
There is no present and no future without the past. This is true not least when it comes to mass violence: the way societies decide about whether to engage in war or even genocide depends on their collective experiences with events of mass violence in the past, and on which lessons they have drawn from these experiences. This seminar examines how societies, nations, and political movements fabricate, transmit, and consume collective memory of war, genocide, and terror. It will inquire into different theories of, and approaches to, the concept of collective memory and apply them to major events of mass violence and political terror in the 20th century, such as World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, Apartheid, and the recent wars and the genocide in former Yugoslavia. The course will explore a broad range of different dimensions, issues, and mediums of collective memory, such as war trials, traumas, memoirs and testimonies, fictional literature and popular culture, memorials and museums and other representations of collective memory. Particular attention will be paid to how national identities shape and rely on the memory of mass violence. Fulfills the historical perspective.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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HIST 277 - America’s Founding Fathers: Memory and Meaning
Using the Founding Fathers as a focus, this course explores the transmission of Revolutionary values across generations in American history, with emphasis on the early decades of the nineteenth century. Students in this proseminar will explore the world of the Founders themselves, with emphasis on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, before placing them and their families in wider social and cultural contexts, including their visible presence, individually and collectively, in the lives of later generations of Americans.
Prerequisites: Juniors or Seniors, or permission of the instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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HIST 279 - Massacres, Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention: Western Powers in the Balkans and the Middle East
Course begins with a general introduction to the subject of Humanitarian Intervention and will examine the Western powers’ policy towards the Balkans and the Middle East with the establishment of the Concernt of Europe in 1815. The different case studies will be: Ottoman Greeks in 1821-33; Lebanon and Syria (1860-61); Crete (1866-69), Serbia and Bulgaria (1875-78) and Macedonia (1903-08) and analyze the different types of intervention and non-intervention policies of the Great Powers. Seminar
Prerequisites: The student should have taken at least one course in Holocaust and Genocide Studies Concentration.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring annually
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HIST 280 - Women in Chinese History, 1000 CE to Present
This course examines the history of women in China from 1000 CE to the present, with a dual emphasis on probing changes and continuities in women’s roles as defined by the ideologies of successive regimes and exploring their life experiences through ethnography, film, short stories, and women’s writings. To what extent have Chinese women conformed to their prescribed roles throughout the period under study? In what ways did they challenge these conventions? What strategies have they pursued to enhance their agency and expand their influence in the family, community, and society at large?
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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HIST 281 - China since 1949: State, Economy and Family in the People’s Republic
This course explores China’s historical development from the founding of the People’s Republic (PRC) in 1949 through the early years of the 21st century. Rather than attempting to cover all aspects of PRC history, the course focuses on three interconnected themes: the nature of the modern state, the shift from a socialist to post-socialist economy, and the changing dynamics of family life. Topics include agrarian revolution and land reform in the 1950s, the impact of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the economic reform program of the 1980s and 1990s, political protest, family change, and the role of migrant labor in China’s growing economy. We shall investigate these issues through a variety of sources: scholarly monographs, primary documents, fiction, ethnography, memoir, feature film, and documentaries. While there are no formal prerequisites, some background in Asian studies and/or 20th century history is highly recommended.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 284 - Voices From American Slavery in History and the Imagination
This course explores the relationship between historical interpretations of slavery and films, novels, plays that place slavery in the center of the narrative. Each week, we will explore topics and themes, such as slave rebellion, the transatlantic and transcontinental slave trade, and African cultural retentions on American plantations. By the end of the course, students will be able to analyze the creative efforts of filmmakers, artists, and writers who have sought to bring the voices of slavery to life. How accurate are popular depictions of slavery? How have the content of films and novels about slavery changed over time? Through our interdisciplinary examination of slavery we will explore the voices of African descended people enslaved in the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Seminar
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered bi-annually
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HIST 286 - The Vietnam War
Explores the Vietnam War, emphasizing American involvement in Vietnam in the decade 1965 to 1975. Includes a survey of the history and culture of Vietnam, French experience in Vietnam, and American involvement with Vietnam from World War II to the present.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 288 - Sem: Public History
The content of this Public History course can vary each time it is offered. May be repeated for credit (taken a max of 2 times).
In Spring 2017 the topic will be Public History: Race, Photography and Community. This course is devoted to research and preparation for the photography exhibition, “William Bullard: Reimagining an American Community of Color, 1897-1917,” which will be open at the Worcester Art Museum in October 2017. The exhibition will feature 80 photographs of people of color taken in Worcester. In addition to gaining hands-on experience by preparing wall text for the exhibition and contributing to an accompanying website, students will learn about the larger contexts of African American history and people of color in Worcester at the turn of the twentieth century; about nineteenth century portraiture; the use of photography by black Americans for both personal and political purposes; and the many challenges of interpreting and presenting these images to the public. Taught with Nancy Burns, Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Worcester Art Museum.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 289 - Dying for God: Martyrdom in Early Judaism & Christianity
This course examines the beginnings of martyrdom in the ancient Mediterranean, the cradle of Judaism and Christianity. Looking closely at the historical context - the intellectual, social and political developments - that gave rise to the iconic figure of the martyr in the world of late antiquity, we will explore how men and women came to embrace the opportunity of “dying for God,” and why the cult of martyrdom became a public institution. Ancient people viewed the spectacle of martyrdom with an equal measure of admiration and alarm; looking closely at evidence of their ambivalence, we will gain some perspective on our own mixed feelings about this deeply disconcerting phenomenon/
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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HIST 291 - Advanced Topics in International Relations
Special Topics Course - content varies.
Spring 2018: Age of Reagan - This course will explore the life and times of Ronald Reagan, whom many Americans regard as the greatest U.S. president of all time. We will begin by examining Reagan’s rise from his small-town beginnings in the Midwest to his B-Movie career in Hollywood and then on to his life in politics, first in Sacramento, California and then in Washington, D.C. Then we will examine Reagan’s domestic policies during the 1980s before turning to his foreign policies, with special emphasis on the Soviet Union and the Third World. Students will be expected to write a 20-page research paper on a topic of their choice.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 293 - African American Social and Political Movements
This course will examine the African American struggle against social and political oppression in America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, students in this course will explore black American involvement in the Antislavery Movement, the Women’s Club movement, the Harlem Renaissance, Anti-colonial activities, and the rise and fall of the Black Power and Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. By the end of the course, students will understand how black-led organizational efforts helped to transform America’s social and political landscape.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered bi-annually.
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HIST 295 - Dangerous Women
This course will explore the history of dangerous women from Bible through the present, concentrating most heavily on early modern Europe. We will focus primarily on England, France and Germany (though occasionally we will draw on scholarship about the U.S. and other regions). We will examine discourses of dangerous women developed in religious writings, myth, literature and fairy tales, medicine, crime reporting, social science and legal texts in order to interrogate the very concept of the dangerous woman and ask why certain women at certain times were considered dangerous. We will also look at the experiences and treatment of women labeled dangerous specifically examining saints, heretics, prostitutes, witches, step-mothers, queens, lesbians, criminals, mentally-ill women and women’s rights activists.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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HIST 297 - Honors Thesis Research
Students receive variable credit for advanced research and readings in the honors program.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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HIST 298 - Internship
An Academic internship is a practical work experience with an academic component that enables a student to gain knowledge and skills within an organization, industry, or functional area that reflects the student’s academic and professional interests while earning credit. Maybe repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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HIST 299 - Directed Study
Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor.
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HIST 301 - Era of the American Revolution
Studies the origins, character and consequences of the American Revolution, from the erosion of imperial authority in the 1760s and 1770s to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Emphasizes relation of ideology and political ideas to social development.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 302 - The Early American Republic
Studies formation and testing of the early United States from the adoption of the Constitution through the Jacksonian era. Emphasizes ideology, public policy and the problem of national integration during an age of extraordinary territorial and economic expansion.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 304 - Special Topics in American History
Content varies with the interest of the instructor. This course explores the way that race and ethnicity was “made” and “unmade” over the course of the nineteenth century and the consequences of those constructions. This seminar aims to expose you to the variety of ways that historians have approached this topic.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor is required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 305 - Renaissance and Reformation
Charts the course of European history from ca.1300 to 1600. Reviews the devastation caused by the plague and examines the rise of the city-states in Italy. Deals with successful reformers (Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin), as well as the more short-lived radical currents such as the Anabaptists of Munster, who declared property to be in common, outlawed the use of money, and made polygamy compulsory. The course will also introduce the Spanish Inquisition and discuss everyday violence between Calvinists and Catholics in France.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 308 - The Idea of History
This graduate seminar provides an advanced introduction to the development of modern historiography and its methods. Focusing on the evolution of historical writing and its contribution to the pursuit of human knowledge, the course addresses the following topics: 1) the professionalization of historical research; 2) the relationship between historical understanding and the formation of critical consciousness; 3) differences in approaches to representing the past and the attendant debate about the value of historical scholarship; 4) the impact of globalization and interdisciplinary on the subject of history; and 5) the implications of the “historical turn” in the humanities and social sciences. Students will be expected to analyze the connection between works of history and their contemporary social, political and philosophical context and to demonstrate an ability to discern and articulate the principal themes, problems and controversies which inform the field of historical study.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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HIST 310 - Research Seminar
Spring 2013 Topic: American Cultural History
This course invites students to undertake the study of American cultural history by designing individual research projects on a specific topic in the field. The emphasis of the course will be on that individual work within a classroom community with considerable attention paid to the research process and the fostering of productive and respectful critique. Students are free to choose topics from any time period in US history, but must approach their inquiry from the vantage point of cultural history. Shared readings in cultural history will help frame this approach.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 311 - American Consumer Culture
Investigates the nature and meaning of the consumer experience in American history. Draws upon studies of advertising, domestic life and urban institutions, and examines the varied ways in which historians have defined and interpreted the importance of consumption within American life. Introduces students to the process of primary historical research.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 312 - History of Sexuality: 1750 to the Present
Covers the history of sexuality from the Enlightenment to the present focusing on Western Europe. Students will examine how different societies in different times determined what was licit and what was illicit sexual behavior. Considers the efforts of governments, religious bodies, moralists, the medical profession and interest groups to regulate, repress or indeed encourage certain behaviors and attitudes. Specific topics include marriage, prostitution, birth control, the emergence of homosexual subcultures, and sexuality as identity.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 313 - Gender and the American City
This course considers how the experiences and spaces of nineteenth-century urban life were shaped by and, in turn, shaped gendered assumptions about men and women. How did men and women experience the city differently? What aspects of urban life defined or reinforced gender differences? Did city life create opportunities to transform gender roles? How did city dwellers use their gendered values and concerns to shape the city through reform, leisure, or work? Specific topics for discussion will include: gendered spaces in the city, the symbolic role of gender in the urban landscape, the interaction of sexual and racial identities with the city’s gendered terrain, and the place of gender in urban leisure and cultural institutions.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 314 - The American Civil War
Examines events and trends precipitating the single greatest crisis in American history, the Civil War of 1861-65. Includes consideration of the behavior and experience of Americans during the war itself.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 315 - The Age of Lincoln
This seminar will focus on an extraordinary individual and his times. In terms of his personal character, his public vision, and his influence on American history, Abraham Lincoln deserves our closest scrutiny. Put simply, had he never lived and acted as he did, our world today would surely be quite different. As we attempt to take the measure of this man and his lasting significance, we will place appropriate emphasis on biography, and on the relationship between the private and the public in Lincoln’s life and career.
Our attention will hardly be limited to this single individual, however, since any informed assessment of Lincoln must place him firmly in a number of relevant and precise historical contexts. To this extent we will also be using our focus on Lincoln as a vehicle for understanding better the distinctive shape and character-and hence the central problems and concerns–of American society, culture, and politics from approximately 1815 through the Civil War. Given Lincoln’s significance to the single greatest crisis in American national history, our ultimate focus will be on the legacy of the Founding Fathers, the crisis of the Union, and the ensuing war for American nationality. And given the timeless moral issues at stake in that national project, we will surely want to engage even larger concerns and questions. What is the relationship between private character and public leadership? Can politics and morality, especially in the context of war, be effectively conjoined? What constitutes responsible leadership in a democracy? Can Lincoln’s leadership enlighten and even inspire Americans (and others) in the twenty-first century as we confront our own challenges and crises?
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 316 - Special Topics: African-American Internationalism
Content and topics vary with instructor’s interests. FALL 2017 Topic is African-American Internationalism.
This course explores the history of African American activism within an international context. Moreover, it attempts to explain how black Americans approached their struggle for equality from a transnational perspective by linking their activism within the United States with the global struggle against modern race-based inequality rooted in human bondage, land confiscation, and colonialism. Without force of arms, political power, or financial means, African American activists, intellectuals, and spokespersons agitated for national and international governments to live up to enlightenment ideals woven into the fabric of national creeds and national identities. May be repeatable for credit.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor is required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 317 - Reconstruction: America after the Civil War, 1865-1877
Examines American history in the post-Civil War period, from 1865 to 1877, a period of national redefinition and political and social experimentation. Explores how Americans struggled with the consequences of the Civil War and emancipation. Grounds students in the historical literature of the Reconstruction era while emphasizing original student research in local sources.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 318 - London and Paris: the Making of the Modern City
London and Paris are two of the great cities of the world. This class will explore the foundation and development of these capitals as they grew from small medieval centers to the vast metropolises that they are today. Along the way we will consider major events (the Black Death, the Reformation, the French Revolution, the World Wars); the development of urban culture and politics; and the everyday life of ordinary Londoners and Parisians. You will hear from writers from Geoffrey Chaucer to Gertrude Stein; you will see works of art from Abbot Suger to Banksy; you will hear music from Gregorian chant to the Clash. From the London Bridge to the Eiffel Tower, from Notre Dame to the London Eye, we will explore the making of the modern city through the stories and perspectives of these great cities.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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HIST 319 - History of American Women
This course moves through the chronology of American history to examine the broad themes that have shaped women’s lives in the United States from the colonial period to the present. While tracing larger trends and identifying common experiences, we will also pay close attention to the specific experiences of individual women in order to shed light on the differences and divisions among them. Throughout, we will investigate the ways in which notions of gender difference have changed over time and how a wide variety of women both created and responded to shifting and contested cultural, political, and social roles.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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HIST 322 - History of the American South
Explores the history of the South from the colonial period to the present, focusing on how the South developed as a distinctive region of the United States. Examines development of slavery; impact of slavery on the economy, politics and culture of the South; race, class and gender in the Old and New South; myth and reality of the New South; the South in the 20th century.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 323 - The Civil Rights Movement
Examines roots and evolution of the civil-rights movement from the 1930s to the present. Includes civil rights as a grassroots movement; the New Deal, World War II and civil rights; emergence of Martin Luther King; women and the civil-rights movement; black power; the disintegration of the movement; the meaning of civil rights today.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 324 - Russian Visual Culture
Eisenstein, Malevich, Chagall. Every movie buff and every student of modern art is familiar with these Russian names and their contribution to the great twentieth-century upheaval in visual culture that transformed the way we look at images today. How did Russia–which had no tradition of painting comparable to Italy and France–come to be associated with radical innovation in painting, photography, film, book illustration, and lithography? This course examines the history of Russian visual culture against the background of Russian history. We will discuss the role that images play in Russian Orthodoxy; the impact of Western regimes of representation on the native tradition of image making; the secularization of painting in the nineteenth century and the search for authenticity in pictorial styles; the role of revolutionary politics and Bolshevik ideology in the creation of still and moving images; the connection between the avant-garde theory of world creation and totalitarian art; and, finally, the emergence of non-conformist art in late Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, and its relationship to post-modernism.
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HIST 326 - Comparative Colonialism
Seeks to examine the ways in which Spanish, Dutch and English societies evolved in the New World from 1492 to 1824. Topics include the motives and backgrounds of settlers, encounters with natives, syncretism, the search for crops and precious metals, contacts with the mother countries, the contributions of Africans, and the revolutions that made an end to the mainland empires.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 328 - Early Modern Britain
This course will cover the major political, economic, cultural, social, religious and intellectual developments in Britain from rise of the Tudor dynasty in the fifteenth century through the eighteenth century, at which time the British Empire dominated world politics. We will pay particular attention to the emergence of modern monarchy, the Protestant Reformations, the English Civil War, the Financial Revolution, and the beginnings of empire. We will examine how the four nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland came to be Britain and how a British identity emerged. We will also examine the relationships between major events and shifts in English society and culture, including the changing roles of women, the increasing dominance of the middle class and its affect on elite society and culture.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 330 - The Topics in Armenian Genocide
The course will discuss some of the distinctive features of the Armenian Genocide and compare it with other genocides. Some of the topics will be reviewed are the following: the origin of the Armenian “question”; Armenian reform attempts in 1894-96 and 1909 and its relation to genocide of 1915-7; Great Power policies during the Genocide - concentrating especially on German and American policies; question of humanitarian intervention and humanitarian relief efforts during Genocide; the experience of concentration camps during the Armenian genocide in comparison with other cases; Armenian Revolutionary Movements - their importance during the genocidal process; gender and the Armenian Genocide (especially the policies towards women and children and the question of orphans); resistance and the genocide; the legal process of economic plunder and confiscation of Armenian properties; the American response to Armenian Genocide in the post-genocidal period and finally the denial of genocide by successive Turkish governments and society and the question of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation are some of these topics that we will finish off the course with. Each case will be discussed in a comparative perspective. Throughout the course we also cover some of the current debates in the field such as the debate around “Captain Torossian” (an Armenian soldier in the Ottoman Army and his memoirs).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 331 - Origins of Modern America, 1877-1914 (formerly America in the Gilded Age)
Focuses on a especially volatile era, encompassing Gilded Age excess and Progressive Era reforms, that gave birth to modern America. Among the many topics explored are the nation’s emergence as a world power, the rise of industrial capitalism, immigration, urbanization, Populism, popular culture, and trans-Atlantic reform movements.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 332 - Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism: Intellectual History of China
Explores the three major intellectual traditions of China, with special emphasis on the ethical values of each tradition and their historical and contemporary relevance. Fulfills the Values Perspective.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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HIST 334 - History of Racism in Modern Europe
The category of “race” has been used since about 1500–when Europe’s Renaissance met with the exploration of “other” human beings in different continents–to naturalize inequality among groups of people based on certain ideas of their bodies. The seminar focuses on the scientific foundation of modern racism in the Enlightenment, the origins of the cult of health and beauty at about 1900, and the globalization of western body ideals until now.
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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HIST 335 - The Atlantic World
A course that deliberately moves away from the traditional focus on nation-states and continents, concentrating instead on the Atlantic world that was created in the wake of the Portuguese explorations and Columbus’ voyages. The emphasis will be on the flow of people, commodities, germs, and ideas between the Old World (Europe and Africa) and the New.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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HIST 336 - Gender, War and Genocide in 20th Century
Boys become real men through military service and by participation in war, by killing and dying for the fatherland, while giving birth to and raising children-motherhood–serves as central marker of womanhood. Gender stereotypes such as these were questioned but also reinforced throughout the wars of the 20th century. These wars mobilized men as well as women, and they increasingly blurred the boundaries between men and women. On all fronts and sites, however, concepts of masculinities and femininities structured propaganda and emotions, fighting morals and antiwar movement, the preparation of minds for mass violence, and its remembrance. We will discuss the impact of gender on mass violence and vice versa from World War I to World War II, from the Holocaust to the genocidal wars in former Yugoslavia, and from America’s “Good War” to Americans’ twisted coping with the Vietnam War to the rise of a ‘gender-neutral’ army. Focusing on European and American wars, the course includes comparative views on other regions of the world and puts emphasis on regional differences and peculiarities, such as transformation of a deeply gendered war culture in Europe into a peace culture after 1945. Special attention will be paid to various approaches to gender history, such as the analysis of discourses and images, or the analysis of gender practices. We will do this by critically analyzing scholarly work, written testimonies, literature, films, and propaganda materials.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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HIST 337 - The Holocaust Perpetrators
This course explores the main parts of the German and Central European society that committed the Holocaust, that is the desktop perpetrators like Adolf Eichmann, the physicians who carried used Jews for medical experiments, the concentration-camps guards, and the killing units as the hard core of the SS elite, but also “ordinary” Germans and soldiers who served in police battalions or in the drafted army, on women who served as guards or as part of the occupational regime, and not least on non-German collaborators or volunteers. The course focuses on the interrelation of individual and biographical backgrounds, mental and ideological orientations, and social and institutional arrangements: What are the reasons that made “normal” human becoming mass murderers?
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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HIST 338 - America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1917-1991
This course will focus on the Russian-American rivalry at the center of world politics from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Major topics include the escalating nuclear arms race, recurrent crises in Vietnam, Cuba and other parts of the Third World, and important personalities from Harry Truman and Josef Stalin to Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
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HIST 339 - Special Topics Course in Global History
The content of this course will vary by instructor.
In Spring 2017, the title is Global Africa.
This upper level course examines the diverse histories of Africa and its people – from ancient to modern times. The course explores the extent to which interaction between cultures throughout Africa and with other continents has shaped our understanding of African past and present. The early part of the class will introduce intellectual tools to students for them to intelligently explore key events in African and African descendant’s histories. The remaining time in the course will be divided into four broadly chronological segments: (1) Antiquity; (2) Middle Ages; (3) Early Modern Era; and (4) Colonial and Post Colonial Era. Through brief surveys of these periods, the course thematically focuses on challenging preconceived notions of race but also ethnicity, gender, and religion in Africa and the African diaspora. In further emphasizing this theme, the course problematizes the concept of race and its use to connect multiple histories of Africa and the African diaspora. Overall, there will be an effort to put different texts – especially secondary and primary sources – in conversation with each other to explore the challenges and possibilities in the articulations of African and African diaspora histories.
Anticipated Terms Offered: very other year
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HIST 343 - American Antiquarian Society Seminar in American Studies
Given at the American Antiquarian Society (about two miles from Clark); students conduct original research in the society’s unique holdings. Students apply in the spring through Professor Neuman, English Dept.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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HIST 345 - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East Since 1945
This course explores America’s stormy relationship with the Middle East from World War II through 9/11 and the war in Iraq, with special emphasis on oil, the Cold War, and the rise of radical Islam. Among the key topics will be the Arab-Israeli conflict, the battle for control of the Persian Gulf, and the impact of the Middle East on American popular culture.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year.
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HIST 352 - The Holocaust Through Letters and Diaries
The aim of this course is to engage in a bifocal understanding of history: from the perspective of those who experienced events as they unfolded, and from our vantage point today. Our goal is to recognize anew the potentiality of an unfolding present when many options are available, and to analyze the factors that conduced to the decisions and choices we now know were taken. What did people know, and when did they know it? What role did denial and silence play? What, if any, patterns of daily life choices emerge? Do specific human traits or values loom large when life is lived in extremis? To explore these questions we will read a range of diaries and letter collections. These may include Hidden Letters by the seventeen-year-old (in 1940) Flip Slier from a forced labor camp in the Netherlands and Letters to Sala, a girl of about the same age in a forced labor camp in Poland written by her sister in the Sosnowiec ghetto. We shall look too at the letters passed between family members separated by an ocean, one side caught in the Nazi trap, the other side safe in America. (Inter alia: Every Day lasts a Year; One Family’s Letters from Prague) Diaries provide a different lens. We will scrutinize the perspectives they offer, each from its own place and time: Mihail Sebastian (Diaries, 1935-1944) at home in Bucharest; Lena Jedwab (Girl With Two Landscapes), a Polish girl who found refuge in the Soviet Union; Etty Hillesum (An Interrupted Life) about the same age, living in Amsterdam and sent to the Westerbork transit camp; and Abraham Lewin (A Cup of Tears), a husband and father in Warsaw ghetto.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 353 - Beauty, Gender, and Power around the World, 1800 to the Present
The costs of beauty are enormous. We alter our physical appearance to be perceived beautiful. We invest considerable resources to acquire objects and services that make us feel beautiful, often harming ourselves to reach unattainable ideals. And, undoubtedly, we suffer emotionally from these desires and efforts. Yet, we seldom ask ourselves how beauty norms and practices are constructed or why we chose to sacrifice so much to achieve them.
This course examines changing and multifaceted beauty standards around the world (Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and Oceania) with the aim of deconstructing them in order to understand the power dynamics embedded in ideal appearances. Positioning beauty at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality, we will examine its construction through political and cultured readings on the meanings of body parts and body languages (i.e. hair, face, teeth, skin, smile, and feet). This course encourages students to problematize contemporary beauty templates in various countries and cultures. We will also use our examination of beauty as a way to further develop student’s skills in historical research, reasoning, and writing.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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HIST 354 - Age of Atlantic Revolution
The half-century after 1776 was a period marked by the violent pursuit of political liberty and economic opportunity on both sides of the Atlantic. In North America, the Thirteen Colonies were transformed into the United States of America informed by an Enlightenment ideology of rationalism, secularism and democracy, which had long been cultivated in Europe. Tapping the same sources, the French rebels soon saw their revolution degenerate into a bloody spectacle. Another consequence of the French Revolution was the rebellion in the Caribbean colony of St. Domingue, in the course of which slavery was abolished and independence achieved.
Anticipated Terms Offered: N/A
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HIST 356 - The British Empire
By the early 20th century, one in five people in the world lived in the British Empire, a vast territory that covered a quarter of the globe. This class will examine the evolution of this empire from the very first colonies to the present day. We will explore India and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, Canada–and, of course, the origins of the United States. In doing so, we will consider issues of immigration, emigration, settlement, race, religion, politics, revolution, violence, war, culture, literature, and just what it means to be an empire.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 359 - Special Topics in European History
The content of this course will vary with the instructor. For Fall 2014, the title of the course is From Miners to Monarchs: the British Class System.
This course will examine the issue of class in Britain from the early modern period to the present day. It will explore the economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and political impacts and influences of class and the social order. Defining the social order has been a central feature of British politics, literature, and daily life for hundreds of years. Changing understandings of this social order have inspired the greatest British thinkers and artists; formed the boundaries of citizenship and political powers; built cities and communities; and fundamentally shaped the everyday lives of the British people.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every other year
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HIST 360 - Rescue and Resistance During the Holocaust
Investigates rescue and resistance activities during the second World War. Our aim will be to come to a critical understanding of what we mean by “rescue” and “resistance,” and to analyze how these undertakings were organized, who participated in them and why people felt compelled to do so. Looks at the role and function (if any) of age, gender, degree of religious observance, political affiliation and social class in our attempts to understand not only what activities were undertaken, but the motivation for such actions.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 362 - Genocide, Denial, Facing History and Reconciliation
After the term “Genocide” was coined for macro crimes in 1948 by the United Nations, the word became not only one of the most important legal, social and political terms, but also an important inter-disciplinary field in the Social Sciences. History, sociology, political science, international law, and psychology, among others, have developed their own fields of genocide specialization. The usage or non-usage of the term for certain macro crimes in recent years has become an important political problem of our time. Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur are only some examples. This course considers the emergence, definition and meaning of the term genocide - particularly the development of the concept of genocide in International Law and how was the term created by Raphael Lemkin. Special place is given to the discussions in the UN leading to the final adoption and definition of the UN Convention in 1948 and the problems arising from the 1948 definitions. In addition to legal concepts, the course concentrates on the different sociological concepts of genocide, taking a closer look at theoretical explanations of genocide. Other topics include: question of premeditation in decision-making process, genocide denial, prevention of genocide, and problems of the comparative approach to case studies. Finally, the course examines why societies should deal with atrocities in their past, the meaning of facing history, and the different forms of dealing with past (amnesia, retributive justice, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation committees, etc.).
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 366 - Refugees
The aim of this course will be to investigate and analyze the history of the “Refugee Question” in Europe and America, and to explore the impact of these international and national debates on the lives of the asylum seekers.
Prerequisites: Graduate course - undergraduates welcome with permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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HIST 368 - Special Topics: Christianity, Violence, and Genocide in the Modern World
Content varies by instructor.
Advanced Special Topic for Fall 2017: Christianity, Violence, and Genocide in the Modern World
This course explores the complex role of Christianity (and religion more broadly) in cases of genocide and extreme violence in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through a series of case studies we will discuss broader themes such as the role of church institutions, religion and war, religious buildings as sites of violence, religious identity and nationalism, spiritual resistance, solidarity and rescue, reconciliation, Christianity’s role in coming to terms with past atrocities. Topics may vary but could include: aboriginal peoples in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand (19th and 20th centuries); the Herero-Nama Genocide in German Southwest Africa (1900s); the Armenian Genocide (1910s); the Holocaust (1940s); Cambodia (1970s); Guatemala (1980s); Rwanda (1990s); and the former Yugoslavia (1990s).
We will study the subject matter with an interdisciplinary approach, primarily using the tools of the historian, but also considering those of theology, psychology, and the sociology of religion. This course deals with some of the most powerful, painful, and controversial aspects of human life. Please be prepared to encounter disturbing and sometimes graphic material in the readings and films. We should probably also all expect to be challenged, surprised, and sometimes distressed by what is said in discussions. In crafting the course, I have tried to be sensitive, respectful, and inclusive without turning away from difficult realities in the past and present. I ask you to do the same in the way you engage the subject matter and one another.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
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HIST 371 - Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Europe, 1100-1900
European Christians, Jews, and Muslims have lived alongside each other, in tension and in tolerance, for well over a millennium. Modern conflicts between these monotheistic religions dominate the European news cycle and political imagination. The recent history of the relationship between European Christians, Jews and Muslims is well-known and much-discussed, both in academic and popular analyses. But what exactly are the roots of these conflicts and confluences? This class will examine the relationship between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Europe from 1100-1900. It will explore economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and political developments during this period. In doing so, it will examine alliance and antagonism; toleration and expulsion; assimilation and separation; and the long history of contemporary issues.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Regularly
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HIST 376 - Collective Memory and Mass Violence
There is no present and no future without the past. This is true not least when it comes to mass violence: the way societies decide about whether to engage in war or even genocide depends on their collective experiences with events of mass violence in the past, and on which lessons they have drawn from these experiences. This seminar examines how societies, nations, and political movements fabricate, transmit, and consume collective memory of war, genocide, and terror. It will inquire into different theories of, and approaches to, the concept of collective memory and apply them to major events of mass violence and political terror in the 20th century, such as World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, Apartheid, and the recent wars and the genocide in former Yugoslavia. The course will explore a broad range of different dimensions, issues, and mediums of collective memory, such as war trials, traumas, memoirs and testimonies, fictional literature and popular culture, memorials and museums and other representations of collective memory. Particular attention will be paid to how national identities shape and rely on the memory of mass violence. Fulfills the historical perspective.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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HIST 377 - America’s Founding Fathers: Memory and Meaning
Using the Founding Fathers as a focus, this course explores the transmission of Revolutionary values across generations in American history, with emphasis on the early decades of the nineteenth century. Students in this proseminar will explore the world of the Founders themselves, with emphasis on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, before placing them and their families in wider social and cultural contexts, including their visible presence, individually and collectively, in the lives of later generations of Americans.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
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HIST 379 - Massacres, Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention: Western Powers in the Balkans and the Middle East
Course begins with a general introduction to the subject of Humanitarian Intervention and will examine the Western powers’ policy towards the Balkans and the Middle East with the establishment of the Concert of Europe in 1815. The different case studies will be: Ottoman Greeks in 1821-33; Lebanon and Syria (1860-61); Crete (1866-69), Serbia and Bulgaria (1875-78) and Macedonia (1903-08) and analyze the different types of intervention and non-intervention policies of the Great Powers. Seminar
Prerequisites: The student should have taken at least one course in Holocaust Concentration.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall or Spring Annually
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HIST 381 - China since 1949: State, Economy and Family in the People’s Republic
This course explores China’s historical development from the founding of the People’s Republic (PRC) in 1949 through the early years of the 21st century. Rather than attempting to cover all aspects of PRC history, the course focuses on three interconnected themes: the nature of the modern state, the shift from a socialist to post-socialist economy, and the changing dynamics of family life. Topics include agrarian revolution and land reform in the 1950s, the impact of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the economic reform program of the 1980s and 1990s, political protest, family change, and the role of migrant labor in China’s growing economy. We shall investigate these issues through a variety of sources: scholarly monographs, primary documents, fiction, ethnography, memoir, feature film, and documentaries. While there are no formal prerequisites, some background in Asian studies and/or 20th century history is highly recommended.
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HIST 385 - Proposal Writing
Offered for Variable credit for History PhD students who are writing their proposal.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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HIST 386 - The Vietnam War
Explores the Vietnam War, emphasizing American involvement in Vietnam in the decade 1965 to 1975. Includes a survey of the history and culture of Vietnam, French experience in Vietnam, and American involvement with Vietnam from World War II to the present.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 388 - Sem: Public History
The topic of this course may vary each time it is offered. May be repeated for credit (taken a max of 2 times).
The title for Spring 2017 is Public History: Race, Community, and Photography. This course is devoted to research and preparation for the photography exhibition, “William Bullard: Reimagining an American Community of Color, 1897-1917,” which will be open at the Worcester Art Museum in October 2017. The exhibition will feature 80 photographs of people of color taken in Worcester. In addition to gaining hands-on experience by preparing wall text for the exhibition and contributing to an accompanying website, students will learn about the larger contexts of African American history and people of color in Worcester at the turn of the twentieth century; about nineteenth century portraiture; the use of photography by black Americans for both personal and political purposes; and the many challenges of interpreting and presenting these images to the public. Taught with Nancy Burns, Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Worcester Art Museum.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 391 - Advanced Topics
Special Topics Course - content varies.
Spring 2014: This course will explore America’s uneasy encounter with the Muslim world from the late 18th century to the present, with special emphasis on the Cold War and the post-Cold War era. Among the issues to be addressed are the rise of Arab nationalism, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the emergence of Islamic radicalism. We will examine not only well publicized topics such as the Iranian Revolution and civil wars in Afghanistan but also lower profile matters such as the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah. Here is the overarching question that will preoccupy us this spring: “Is the clash between America and the Muslim world the product of fundamental ideological, strategic, and economic disagreements, or is it the result of cultural misunderstanding and mutual misperception?”
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
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HIST 393 - African American Social and Political Movements
This course will examine the African American struggle against social and political oppression in America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, students in this course will explore black American involvement in the Antislavery Movement, the Women’s Club movement, the Harlem Renaissance, Anti-colonial activities, and the rise and fall of the Black Power and Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. By the end of the course, students will understand how black-led organizational efforts helped to transform America’s social and political landscape.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered bi-annually.
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HIST 394 - Dissertation Writing
This is a variable unit, graduate course for students engaged in writing a Ph.D. Dissertation.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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HIST 395 - Dangerous Women
This course will explore the history of dangerous women from Bible through the present, concentrating most heavily on early modern Europe. We will focus primarily on England, France and Germany (though occasionally we will draw on scholarship about the U.S. and other regions). We will examine discourses of dangerous women developed in religious writings, myth, literature and fairy tales, medicine, crime reporting, social science and legal texts in order to interrogate the very concept of the dangerous woman and ask why certain women at certain times were considered dangerous. We will also look at the experiences and treatment of women labeled dangerous specifically examining saints, heretics, prostitutes, witches, step-mothers, queens, lesbians, criminals, mentally-ill women and women’s rights activists.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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HIST 397 - Master’s Thesis
Universitywide course number reserved for work on the Master’s thesis. Variable Credit.
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HIST 399 - Graduate Readings
Graduate students construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit.
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HIST 1000 - Modern Germany
Germany has stood at the center of world events throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; its crises have profoundly impacted Europe and the United States for the past 150 years. German unification in 1871 profoundly upset the balance of power in Europe. Germans helped plunge Europe into World War I, were responsible for the Second World War, and perpetrated the Holocaust. After 1945, West Germany, a NATO member, developed into one of the strongest economies in the world, while East Germany, part of the Warsaw Pact, became one of the most repressive regimes in Europe. Today, Germany’s stability is at the heart of a new post-Cold War Europe and the driving force behind the European Union.
The unifying theme of this course will be the search for a stable national identity in times of great upheaval. As we explore the creation of modern Germany out of a hodgepodge of states in which people often spoke mutually unintelligible dialects, we will ask what it meant to be German and what Germans chose to remember and forget about their history. Beginning with the transformation of 19th century Germany into an industrial world power with a thriving, liberal middle-class, we will examine Germans’ role on the European stage up to 1914, in World War One, the Weimar Republic, during National Socialism, the Holocaust, and the European Union. We will pay particular attention to the “catastrophe” that was German history from 1914-1945, asking whether Germany developed along a special path (Sonderweg), what made possible the rise of Hitler, yet remaining open to the possibilities of the Weimar Republic. We will then explore the division of communist East and capitalist West Germany and the fall of the Iron Curtain, and ask how Germans successfully transitioned from autocracy to democracy after 1945.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 1560 - A History of Russia: to 1861
A study of Russia from the Kievan period to the emancipation of 1861 with special attention to such topics as the Byzantine influence, Westernization, technological development, art and literature, and the Russian revolutionary tradition. Emphasis is on societal and cultural evolution, as well as essential political problems.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: n/a
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HIST 1570 - Twentieth Century Russia: 1861 to Present
This interdisciplinary survey course focuses on the major political, intellectual, ideological, social and cultural forces that shaped Soviet Russia during the pre- and post-revolutionary movement and the politics of the autocracy to the Brezhnev regime in the 1970s. Themes include the Russian autocracy, the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, the origins of the Cold War, the rise of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev, de-Stalinization and Soviet foreign policy. Students also examine a series of more contemporary topics of the Commonwealth in transition.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 2040 - World War I: The Great War in Society, Literature, and Culture: 1914-1919
Described as the axis on which the 20th century has revolved, World War I stands out in history as the cataclysmic backdrop to the beginnings of the modern age. We will consider the origins of the war in the industrial and imperial expansionism of the previous half-century and the determinism of diplomatic alliances that locked countries into a conflict perceived as unavoidable.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 2070 - Twentieth Century Europe: Versailles to European Union
In 1900 Europe was made up of the most dominant industrial and politically powerful states in the world. No other region could compare with Europe in military power and political influence. Only the United States compared with Europe in terms of wealth and productivity. We will investigate the cataclysmic events in Europe from the conclusion of World War I to the rise of a united Europe and the European union formed at Maastricht in 1993.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 2080 - The Rise Of Modern Europe: Renaissance to World War I
Investigates the emergence of early modern Europe from the Christ-centric Middle ages, the secularity of the Southern Renaissance, the emergence of Christian humanism in northern Europe, the rise of the modern nation-state, the Glorious Revolution in England, the Enlightenment and French Revolution, the industrial revolution and rise of modern nationalism, the revolution of 1848, the rise of realpolitik and the modern nation state, Imperialism and the causes of World War I. In addition, the course will study the rise of urbanization and the middle classes, the emergence of political parties and mass movements and the rise of modern ideologies such as nationalism, socialism and Marxism. Great figures such as Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Voltaire, Cromwell, Robespierre, Bismarck and Napoleon will be studied.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 2110 - Warfare and Society in Modern Europe
Modern European history cannot be understood without also studying the history of war. Nor can military developments in Europe be viewed in isolation, without considering the broader social, political, cultural, economic, and technological context within which Europeans fought their wars. This course explores the military history of Europe and those portions of the world in which European military institutions and practices dominated from the French Revolution through the present. We will situate the European imagination and practice of war within the larger fabric of European “state-making” and society and relate military strategy and operations to the pursuit of global power and empire. Examining European practices of machine warfare, military exterminism, and genocidal war, we will pay special attention to languages, conceptions, and experiences of war and the use of military force across the civil-military divide. This is not a course devoted to tactics and military operations. Although we will not ignore the development of strategies within which to apply organized, socially sanctioned armed violence, our goal is to to integrate the study of warfare in Europe with social, political, economic, and gender history in order to better understand the all-encompassing activity that war has become.
Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) Designation: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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