2021-2022 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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HIST 259 - Special Topics in European History
Content & topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeatable for credit.
THE TITLE OF THIS SEMINAR FOR SPRING 2021 (SEC. 01) IS: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: 1450-1800
Studying what actions were criminalized and how such crimes were punished can tell us a great deal about the early modern world, from its values, to the reach of church and state, to the gap between official ideals and those of the people. This course will look at crime and punishment across Europe and its colonies from 1450 to 1800. We will examine legal and carceral systems established by both church and state as they changed over this period and focus on crimes such as murder, witchcraft, rape, infanticide, and rebellion, as well as shifting ideas about those who committed them. Finally, where possible, we will consider the ways in which judicial systems then, as now, treated different populations differently by social status, race, religion, sex, and gender.
Prerequisites:
Corequisites:
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year
Placement Guidelines
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HIST 261 - Borderlands: Violence and Coexistence
A border is a line separating two sovereign entities-crossing a border means switching into a different state. At the same time, borders and borderlands are spaces of interaction. They are characterized by diversity, malleable identities, and-at times-violence. This course explores the modern history of borderland regions, including case studies in: (1) Central and East Central Europe; (2) the Middle East; (3) South Asia; and (4) the US-Mexico border. Through readings of important scholarship, literature, and film, we will consider how populations in these regions coexist, as well as the processes that transform groups in the borderlands into perpetrators and objects of intense violence.
Course Designation/Attribute: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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 not only became one of the most important legal, social and political terms, but also one of the important inter-disciplinary fields in the Social Sciences. The usage or non-usage of the term for certain macro crimes in recent years has become one of the important political problems of our time. Darfur and Rohingya (Myanmar) are only two recent examples.
We will start with the history of the emergence, definition and meaning of the term genocide. We will look especially at the development of the concept of genocide in International Law and how the term was created by Lemkin. Lemkin’s original concept of Genocide and its difference with U.N. Definition is one of the central topics of the course.
We will discuss different (sociological, psychological etc.) concepts of the genocide. Different theories to explain Genocide and mass atrocities is another central topic of the course.
We will especially dwell on the topics such as colonialism-settler colonialism and genocide. Holocaust, Native American, Australian and Israel-Palestine are the cases that we are going to discuss. The concept of modernity and its relation to genocide; gender and genocide; genocide denial; prevention of genocide, and the question why societies should deal with their past and the meaning of facing history (the different forms of dealing with past -amnesia, retributive justice, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation committees) are other topics that we are going to deal with.
This course will be a 14-week seminar, in which each student will choose a topic and lead the class in an in-depth exploration of its implications.
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 269 - The History and Culture of Business in East Asia
Sony, Samsung, Xiaomi, Alibaba: Where did these giants of industry come from, and where are the economies of East Asia headed? This course will approach the successes of business in East Asia from a historical viewpoint. In it, we will approach “business” not as a single game with universal set of rules, but rather as commercial activities that is the result of specific historical and cultural processes that precede this century and our own lifetimes. We will first look at how business was conceptualized and regulated in Confucian society, and then examine contemporary questions or issues concerning the practice of business in East Asia. In the final phase of the course, participants will form teams that will collaborate in research, reviewing the history of a specific trade, and finally pitching business plans to the class.
Prerequisites: Sophmores, Juniors and Seniors only.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP and DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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HIST 273 - From Black Power to Black Lives Matter: Contemporary African American History
This course explores the history of African American activism, beginning with the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s up until the emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2012. As a contemporary history course, students will consider how recent effort to challenge racist violence, policies and practices, that some believed only made racial inequality worse. While the course looks at individuals, such as Angela Davis and Audre Lorde, it looks at the efforts of organizations such as the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, TransAfrica who were instrumental in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the US, and Critical Resistance, which helped spawn a Prison Abolition movement in the late 1990s. The final part of the course will compare and contrast the BLM with the Black Power Movement, paying close attention to the role of art, mass media, and iconography as tools activist used in the history of the struggle for racial justice.
Course Designation/Attribute: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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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 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 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.
Course Designation/Attribute: POP
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
Content & topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeated for credit (2 times).
SPRING 2019 Topic: AMERICA CONFRONTS RADICAL ISLAM 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 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
Students receive variable credit for advanced research and readings in the honors program. Co-requisite, students are required to also register for HIST 290, Honors Forum.
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 US History
Content varies with the interest of the instructor.
THE TITLE OF THIS SEMINAR FOR SPRING 2021 (SEC. 1) IS: DECIPHERING THE DEAD
Explores the challenges and rewards of writing American political biography through case studies including Frederick Douglass, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Students will undertake a “mini-biography” of their favorite political figure.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 306 - Africans in the Americas, 1500-1888
The European enslavement of Africans in the early modern period was closely connected to the colonization of the New World. Although slavery was their condition, this course presents Africans as more than just bonded workers. The transformations of their identities, ethnicities, religions and gender roles are key to understand the lives of African-Americans. The African experience will be studied in a hemispheric framework that routinely compares structures and events throughout the Americas. The focus will be on African agency, from the African impact on the transatlantic slave trade, via the cultural practices that slaves transferred from their homelands, to African assertiveness in the New World as expressed in protest and marronage.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 307 - Exploring Public History through Old Sturbridge Village
This seminar will use Old Sturbridge Village as a case-study to discover the variety of ways history museums can engage and teach the public. Students will not only gain an understanding of the museum and the time period that it seeks to recreate, but a larger conception of public history, history museums, and methods for teaching the public. A major component of the course will be hands-on work with primary source documents and objects from the museum’s collection. Every class will be held at Old Sturbridge Village, which will allow us to utilize the museum and members of its staff to further our discussions of the topics covered each week.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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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 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 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 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 325 - Blacks & Reds: African Americans, Socialists, and Communists in the 20th Century
This course examines the Socialist and Communist Party’s influence on the African American freedom struggle during the twentieth century. While scholars continue to debate the role of communism and socialism in the black protest tradition, this course seeks to place black involvement in these two parallel movements within a historic framework. This will allow students to contextualize debates over the meaning of “freedom,” both domestically and abroad, with attention to the growth and decline of the “Old Left.” Key questions will include: *How did black activists utilize communism and socialism to further their own ends? *In what ways did the CPUSA and the Socialist party shape debates over how best to challenge racist public policy and private practice? *Why did well-known black writers and intellectuals join the Socialist Party and Communist Party even though they were well aware of the aggressive federal and state efforts to destroy these two political organizations? *Why did many of those same African Americans who affiliated with communists and socialists ultimately reject both the Socialist Party and Communist Party by the end of the 1950s?
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered bi-annually
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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 Genocide in Comparative Perspective
In this course will review a wide range of topics that have crystallized over decades of genocide research. Should we consider the environmental catastrophes and pandemic as new versions of genocide? We will start the course with a debate around the need for a paradigm shift in genocide research. We will also compare different genocides around different examples and try to understand the similarities and differences between them. The central issues we will discuss include the following: the question of Great Power policies and genocides; gender and genocide, especially policies towards women and children during different genocides; resistance to genocide; the experience of concentration camps; the legal process of economic plunder and confiscation of properties during genocides; and, lastly, we will discuss the question of denialism. We will discuss each of these topics from a comparative perspective. For example, we will compare the Ottoman-Armenian case with Rwanda and discuss Germany and France’s role, respectively.
Regarding concentration camps, we will look at Spain-Cuba, British-Boer, and German South-West experiences and compare them with the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. We will compare the perpetrators of different genocides. Regarding denialist policies, we will take a look at the views of some leading thinkers such as Noam Chomsky in the Left and their denialism around genocide in the Serbian and Rwandan cases.
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 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 344 - Jewish Masculinities
This course investigates social and cultural constructions of Jewish masculinities in historical perspective. We will examine masculinity both as a capacious, highly contingent, and socially constructed concept that has varied dramatically over time and space. At the same time, we will explore masculinity as an idea that has produced systems of power that have marginalized gender identities and expressions of gender that fall beyond a narrower construction of hegemonic masculinity. We will consider how Jewish masculinities have replicated and modified these power structures within the Jewish community and how Jewish masculinity has been framed as a foil or archetypal “other” against hegemonic masculinity. We will assess how both Jewish and non-Jewish ideas about Jewish masculinity have shaped debates about nationalism, citizenship, aesthetics, sexuality, and the family, and have intersected with race, ethnicity, class, and religion. We will also question how both scholarly and societal frameworks for understanding masculinity might be challenged or transformed by studying these questions from a Jewish historical perspective.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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 346 - The French Revolution, Napoleon, and the Foundations of Modernity
The quarter century separating the storming of the Bastille (1789) and Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo (1815) constitutes one of the main watersheds in history. During these years, the French ended a regime based on privilege, abolished the monarchy, introduced human rights, and experimented with a political process based on frequent elections. On the other hand, new leaders introduced novel forms of antidemocratic policies, invaded numerous countries, and were involved in a bloody civil war. At once liberating and exploitative, the French revolution and Napoleon’s regime era had a profound influence on all of Europe and beyond.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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
This course addresses current or timely topics, that are in a pilot phase or that are known to be one time offerings. Content & topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeatable for credit.
THE TITLE OF THIS SEMINAR FOR SPRING 2021 (SEC. 01) IS: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: 1450-1800
Studying what actions were criminalized and how such crimes were punished can tell us a great deal about the early modern world, from its values, to the reach of church and state, to the gap between official ideals and those of the people. This course will look at crime and punishment across Europe and its colonies from 1450 to 1800. We will examine legal and carceral systems established by both church and state as they changed over this period and focus on crimes such as murder, witchcraft, rape, infanticide, and rebellion, as well as shifting ideas about those who committed them. Finally, where possible, we will consider the ways in which judicial systems then, as now, treated different populations differently by social status, race, religion, sex, and gender.
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 361 - Borderlands: Violence and Coexistence
A border is a line separating two sovereign entities-crossing a border means switching into a different state. At the same time, borders and borderlands are spaces of interaction. They are characterized by diversity, malleable identities, and-at times-violence. This course explores the modern history of borderland regions, including case studies in: (1) Central and East Central Europe; (2) the Middle East; (3) South Asia; and (4) the US-Mexico border. Through readings of important scholarship, literature, and film, we will consider how populations in these regions coexist, as well as the processes that transform groups in the borderlands into perpetrators and objects of intense violence.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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 not only became one of the most important legal, social and political terms, but also one of the important inter-disciplinary fields in the Social Sciences. The usage or non-usage of the term for certain macro crimes in recent years has become one of the important political problems of our time. Darfur and Rohingya (Myanmar) are only two recent examples.
We will start with the history of the emergence, definition and meaning of the term genocide. We will look especially at the development of the concept of genocide in International Law and how the term was created by Lemkin. Lemkin’s original concept of Genocide and its difference with U.N. Definition is one of the central topics of the course.
We will discuss different (sociological, psychological etc.) concepts of the genocide. Different theories to explain Genocide and mass atrocities is another central topic of the course.
We will especially dwell on the topics such as colonialism-settler colonialism and genocide. Holocaust, Native American, Australian and Israel-Palestine are the cases that we are going to discuss. The concept of modernity and its relation to genocide; gender and genocide; genocide denial; prevention of genocide, and the question why societies should deal with their past and the meaning of facing history (the different forms of dealing with past -amnesia, retributive justice, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation committees) are other topics that we are going to deal with.
This course will be a 14-week seminar, in which each student will choose a topic and lead the class in an in-depth exploration of its implications.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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HIST 368 - Special Topics:
Content & topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeated for credit (2 times)
SPRING 2020 Topic: BORDERLANDS: VIOLENCE AND COEXISTENCE
A border is a line separating two sovereign entities-crossing a border means switching into a different state. But borderlands are also spaces of interaction. They are characterized by diversity, malleable identities, and-at times-violence. This course explores the modern history of borderland regions, including case studies in Central and East Central Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the US-Mexico border. Looking at these examples we will consider how populations in these regions coexist, as well as the processes that transform groups in the borderlands into perpetrators and objects of intense violence.
FALL 2019 Topic: HOLOCAUST MEMORY
This seminar will examine the development of Holocaust memory after 1945, with a special emphasis on communist and post-communist Europe and the role Holocaust memory has played in European integration. Together we will explore the relationship between Holocaust memory as individual experience, family history, national project, and a transnational discourse of European identity and human rights. How have individual and family memories challenged, shaped, or conformed to national, European, or global representations of the Holocaust? Students will think about how the memory of the Holocaust is framed, mediated, and performed through readings of important secondary scholarship, eyewitness reports, postwar testimonies, memoirs, and relevant works of fiction and film. Students with an interest in the memory of genocide and violence in other geographical regions and chronologies are encouraged to attend and bring their different perspectives to the discussion.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied
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HIST 369 - The History and Culture of Business in East Asia
Sony, Samsung, Xiaomi, Alibaba: Where did these giants of industry come from, and where are the economies of East Asia headed? This course will approach the successes of business in East Asia from a historical viewpoint. In it, we will approach “business” not as a single game with universal set of rules, but rather as commercial activities that is the result of specific historical and cultural processes that precede this century and our own lifetimes. We will first look at how business was conceptualized and regulated in Confucian society, and then examine contemporary questions or issues concerning the practice of business in East Asia. In the final phase of the course, participants will form teams that will collaborate in research, reviewing the history of a specific trade, and finally pitching business plans to the class.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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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 373 - From Black Power to Black Lives Matter: Contemporary African American History
This course explores the history of African American activism, beginning with the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s up until the emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2012. As a contemporary history course, students will consider how recent effort to challenge racist violence, policies and practices, that some believed only made racial inequality worse. While the course looks at individuals, such as Angela Davis and Audre Lorde, it looks at the efforts of organizations such as the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, TransAfrica who were instrumental in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the US, and Critical Resistance, which helped spawn a Prison Abolition movement in the late 1990s. The final part of the course will compare and contrast the BLM with the Black Power Movement, paying close attention to the role of art, mass media, and iconography as tools activist used in the history of the struggle for racial justice.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually
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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 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
This course addresses current or timely topics, that are in a pilot phase or that are known to be one time offerings. Content & topics vary by semester and instructor. May be repeated for credit (2 times).
SPRING 2019 Topic: AMERICA CONFRONTS RADICAL ISLAM 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 1200 - American History Through Film
SUMMER 2018: American History Through Film 1870-1985
The history of the United States has long been a canvas upon which filmmakers have painted an ever evolving picture of the American experience. This course will use films about the American past as a jumping off point to discuss the ways in which American history has been portrayed on the silver screen, as well as exploring themes and important moments in American history more broadly speaking. One note that needs to be made at the beginning: this is not a film course in the traditional sense. The technical aspects of film making and the finer points of the cinematic craft will not be the main thrust of the course discussions (though it may come up from time to time).
May be repeatable for credit once for a maximum of two units of credit.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: summer
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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.
Course Designation/Attribute: 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.
Course Designation/Attribute: 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.
Course Designation/Attribute: 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.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 2210 - Rise, Fall and Rebirth: Germany in the 20th Century
Germany has stood at the center of world events throughout the twentieth century; its crises have profoundly impacted Europe and the United States for over the past hundred years. Germans helping plunge Europe into Worl War I, were responsible for the Second World War, and perpetrated the Holocaust. Beginning with the transformation of 19th century Germany into an industrial world power with a thriving, liberal middle-class, we will examine Germans’ role in World War One, the Weimar Republic, and during National Socialism and the Holocaust. 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. After 1945, West Germany, a NATO memeber, 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.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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HIST 2230 - The Rise and Fall of Modern China: 1839-1949
Considers the essential themes and events in China from the beginnings of the 19th century in late Imperial China to the origins of the People’s Republic of China. We will examine the social and political structures of the late imperial state, the effects of foreign imperialism and peasant rebellion in the nineteenth century and the sources and development of modern revolution in the twentieth century. Topics considered include Western Imperialism and domestic rebellion, the Opium War, the Taiping Revolution, the dynastic revival and the Self-Strengthening Movement, the Boxer Rebellion, the Republic Revolution in 1911 and Warlordism, the May 4th Movement, the rise of the Guomindang and the Civil War. Emphasis will be placed on the political, social and cultural transformation of China in the twentieth century. Serves as an introduction to major personalities and conflicts in Modern Chinese history and attempts to analyze the degree of continuity and change in China in such areas as politics, economics, social organization, foreign relations and intellectual and cultural developments.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HIST 2240 - People’s Republic of China:1949-Present
A general survey of the People’s Republic of China from the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 and the emergence of the Chinese Civil War and the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949 to the present. Involves a detailed chronological overview of the historical events and causes leading up to the 1949 Revolution, the origins of the Chinese Communist ideology known as Maoism, the struggle of the Chinese Communist Party in the early years to collectivize agriculture and to industrialize, the Great Leap Forward, the Five Year Plans and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We will attempt to penetrate the Chinese village in order to understand traditional rural culture and the nature of peasant society. In addition, we will emphasize the historical and ideological evolution of the CCP with special emphasis on Mao and the post-Mao era.
Course Designation/Attribute: HP (summer only)
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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HS 012 - Mindful Choices
What holds my attention, and calls for me to explore it further? What do I enjoy, and what do I care most about? Where do I find a sense of meaning and purpose?
How do my interests and concerns relate to the choices I am making in my education? Do I listen well to what my intuition is telling me about my life choices? How do I visualize myself participating in our society and world when I graduate?
Students are invited to explore and reflect on these questions in an art-making course called Mindful Choices. This guided experience will offer students a chance to engage in creative practice and reflection as they consider paths of study at this important juncture of their undergraduate career, and encourage a more conscious commitment to the direction of their education. The process of exploration and discernment will be supported through artistic practice in the visual arts, music or creative writing.
Students will receive a half-credit for the course, which is pass/fail.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall and Spring
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HS 100 - Symposium Seminar
Students will explore the Higgins School’s symposium theme in-depth through event attendance, readings and screenings, in-class discussions, and short written assignments. While the symposium program is interdisciplinary by nature, the section instructor will draw particularly from their areas of specialization. This half-unit course may be added to a standard four-course load without fifth course approval, is offered on a “pass/fail” grading basis, and may be repeatable for credit. As with other Higgins School courses, this class is designed to help students to strengthen and enhance their college experience and to forge connections across and beyond conventional coursework.
SPRING 2022 TOPIC - FAIR GAME(S): SOCIAL CHANGE & JUSTICE ON THE DIGITAL PLAYGROUND
Video games are now a dominant medium. Whether for entertainment and relaxation or education and research, gaming is increasingly integral to our individual lives and communities. Gaming serves as a forum for staging, processing, and testing experience, and as such, it is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression. Many video games - and the industry that creates them - too frequently perpetuate injustice and mirror the inequities and violence that permeate society as a whole. But, they do more than merely represent or simulate reality. Many games already serve as an experimental form to help us reconsider and create resistance to problematic spaces and practices, and in doing so, alter the conditions of our everyday lives. To better understand these potentials, the Higgins seminar in Spring 2022 will explore the culture of games and gaming and the power and potential of video games to foster engagement and become a catalyst for social change and justice through user, practitioner, academic & industry perspectives.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most semesters
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HS 110 - Engaging the Arts
Students will explore a range of visual and performing arts through programming at Clark and in the larger Worcester community while developing aesthetic understanding, critical judgment, and appreciation for creative process and the challenges of public presentation. While Clark Arts and related Higgins School programming in music, visual arts, and theater provide the core opportunities for event attendance, students are encouraged to seek out additional opportunities on campus and beyond. Weekly class discussions foster a deeper understanding of the history, aesthetics, politics, practicalities, and processes of creative work and its presentation. In-class readings, screenings, and listening sessions as well as creative exploration across a range of media will allow students to develop their own ideas for practice-based projects, such as creative work, criticism, advocacy, education, and outreach. This half-unit course may be added to a standard four-course load without fifth course approval, is offered on a “pass/fail” grading basis, and is not repeatable for credit. As with other Higgins School courses, this class is designed to help students to strengthen and enhance their college experience and to forge connections across and beyond conventional coursework.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Most semesters, beginning Spring 18
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HS 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. May be repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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ID 106 - Healthy Cities
What makes a city a healthy place to live, work, and go to school? How does the health of a “place” affect the health of the individuals who live there? Who is responsible for the health of a city’s residents? The goal of this course is to introduce students to key challenges in urban public health and to Worcester, MA as a city determined to be the “the healthiest city in New England by 2020” in Worcester, MA. Students in the course will acquire an understanding of the key concepts and methodologies from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and public health, and how they employ those tools to examine urban health problems.
Students in this course will explore and engage in a wide range of topics related to healthy cities. This is an entry course to the newly established collaboration between Clark and the Worcester Division of Public Health. Students who enroll in this class will get in-depth exposure to issues related to healthy cities, rights to the city, and environmental and urban issues that can potentially impact (positively or negatively) the health of its residents. Health, here, of course will be considered as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO 1948). Students will have to critically reflect on reading material, but will also be introduced to interpreting basic health data and relating it to the urban environment in which they live. They will also get the opportunity to interact with public health professionals from the Department of Public Health, and apply through field trips what they learn in class to the real world.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Piloted Fall 2014
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ID 108 - What is Public Health?
What is public health? What is the role of public health in preventing disease and responding to different kinds of health challenges? Who are the key players in public health, and what are their roles and responsibilities? In this course students will be introduced to the field of public health as a mode of inquiry that focuses on population health and as a government institution that is designed to protect the public’s wellbeing. With a growing recognition in the United States that every citizen deserves health care, informed and engaged citizens must understand the role that public health plays in maintaining a healthy populace. This course will examine the many intricacies of public health in the United States by focusing on the history of public health and the responsibilities and functions of public health and health care agencies. Much of this inquiry will employ classic case studies in public health, from seat belt laws to the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
Anticipated Terms Offered: bi-annually
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ID 120 - Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology
From Cannibals to Corporations: Humanity in Context. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a rich anthropological understanding of culture. What does it mean to be human across our many differences and similarities? How do people give meaning to their lives across time and space? How are some of the most intimate features of our lives socially patterned? Students will learn to see the familiar in the strange and the strange in the familiar-in other words to appreciate something about other cultures and, through this mirror, to learn something new about their own. The class also provides an introduction to anthropological history, ethnographic method, and social theory. From the U.S. suburbs to hunter-gatherers in the Amazon, students will explore the diversity of human societies around the world through the lens of critical issues such as development, power, identity, war, globalization, inequality, and cultural survival in the twenty-first century. Through class assignments, students will also have the opportunity to use tools of anthropological observation and problem-solving. Throughout the semester, we will discuss the politics and practicality of applying anthropological knowledge for a more just world.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: -
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ID 121 - Culture, Health, and Development: What Makes Us Sick?
Why are there so many different approaches to health and healing worldwide? How are the experiences of illness and suffering fundamental to human lives and societies? What are the major health challenges of the 21st century and how will we resolve them? This course introduces students to the intersection of medical anthropology with international development and global health. The course explores theoretical and methodological approaches in medical anthropology and how anthropological tools can be used to study health and disease. We will explore how different societies cope with illnesses from epilepsy to HIV/AIDS and how medical anthropology offers a unique way of addressing health problems in domestic and international settings.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP & DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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ID 125 - Tales from the Far Side: Contemporary Dilemmas in Development
Discussions of geopolitics invariably refer to the problems of Third World or ‘under’ development. What is so compelling about the idea of development? Why does it ail much of the so-called Third World? What are some of the solutions to development dilemmas: neoliberal market reforms or social justice programming attention to women, ethnic groups and/or the environment? Is the development enterprise fundamentally flawed as some postcolonial scholars claim? This course introduces students to key histories, concepts and debates in international development through critical and analytical engagements with fiction, films and theoretical literature on the subject.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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ID 131 - Local Action/Global Change: The Urban Context
In this seminar, undergraduate students at Clark, along with a selected number of activists and practitioners who are based in Worcester, elsewhere in the United States, or in the Global South will interrogate the ‘local’, the ‘global’, and explore the meanings and strategies to achieve social change and transformation. Students will do so by reflecting critically on specific human rights, social justice and sustainable development issues or causes.
Through examining selected readings from the interdisciplinary field of development studies, and from political science, sociology, anthropology, international human rights law, gender studies, literature, art, and film; and through specific case studies, the students will learn about ways theorists, activists, civil society organizations, social movements and networks have conceptualized actions and strategies for change.
Students will supplement learning in class and from course readings, with practical community and global engagement with selected organizations and networks (especially youth networks and organizations) in Worcester, elsewhere in the United States, and globally. Students will utilize the Internet (including email, Skype, Facebook and Twitter) for communication and action.
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