Spring 2020 Courses

100 Level Courses

HI 104 Early Modern Europe

Alexandra Thomas | 3 credits

This course is a survey of the major events and developments in the pre-industrial European history. It takes students from the age of the Crusades to the eve of the French Revolution, a period of tremendous transformation which set the stage for modernity. Principle topics include the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, the emergence of modern science, colonies and commerce, changes in political and military structures, and the Enlightenment. To help us understand the evolution ideas and institutions throughout European history, we will focus on primary sources and explore how historical narratives are constructed. We will explore how Europeans forged a common culture and could survive fractious religious and political divisions, and consider how interactions with the rest of the world shapes Europe's own history.

Note(s): Fulfills Social Sciences requirement.

HI 125 American Colonial History

Eric Morser | 3 credits

An exploration of the complex and contested history of colonization in North America. Students will focus on contact and conflict among different peoples, the ongoing struggle among European and indigenous powers for domination of the continent, the critical importance of slavery in crafting the North American colonial experience, the rich cultural diversity that defined colonial life, and the trans-Atlantic events that paved the way for the American Revolution.

Note(s): Fulfills Social Sciences requirment.

HI 144 East Asian Civilization

Jenny Day | 3 credits

An introductory survey of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) from its earliest history to the end of the Mongol Empire in the 1300s. Students will explore the formation of Confucianism as an ideology, the changes in social and political institutions across East Asia, ideas and practives concerning gender and the family, religion and beliefs of elites and ordinary peple, and intercultural exchanges and conflicts within East Asia.

Note(s): Fulfills Non-Western Culture and Social Sciences requirements.

HI 145 Making of the Modern Middle East

Murat C. Yildiz | 3 credits

An exploration of the political, economic, social, and cultural history of the modern Middle East in a global and comparative historical context. Students will examine the reorganization of state-society relations, the creation of modern governmental institutions, the construction of new social and political conceptualizations, and the state's growing involvement in the politics of population management in the Ottoman Emprie and Qajar Iran. Students will also explore the processes and practices that were central to the production of the Middle East as both a physical space as well as a discursive concept.

Note(s): Fulfills the Non-Western Culture and Social Sciences requirements.

HI 151 The Cold War

MatthewHockenos | 3 credits

Ths course examines the U.S.-Soviet rivalry after 1945 – known as the Cold War – from a European and global perspective. In addition to addressing the nuclear arms race and the ideological struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States, attention will be given to how the Cold War ignited deadly conflicts in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Our starting point will be the division of Europe at the end of the Second World War and the formation of the Eastern and the Western Blocs under Soviet and American hegemony. In the European context we examine the occupation and division of Germany; the Marshall Plan; everyday life behind the Iron Curtain; the Prague Spring; and the revolutions across Eastern Europe that brought down the communist regimes. In the global context we examin the Korean War; the Cuban Missle Crisis; the Vietnam War, and the emergence of China as a superpower. We end the course by examining the explosion of nationalism in Yugoslav states after the fall of communism and the ethnic cleansing and genocide that takes place there in the 1990s.

200 Level Courses

HI 203 Fall of Athens

Michael Arnush | 3 credits

A study of Greece with a focus on Athens from the Mycenaean age to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Students examine the heroic age, the development of the city-state, the origins of democracy, the nature of imperialism, intellectual and cultural achievements, economic conditions, and family life. Special emphasis is given to the study of the ancient sources: literary, historiographic, archaeological, and numismatic.

Note(s): Fulfills Social Sciences requirement.

HI 211 Deconstructing Britain

Tillman Nechtman | 3 credits

Explores the history of Britain from the 16^th century to the present, exploring new ways of approaching the historical narrative of the British nation. Beginning with early English engagements with the wider world and tracing the rise of Britain as one of the world's foremost imperial powers in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, students will examine Britain's self-assred sense of global power through many different sets of eyes, thus investigatng how Britain looked to those who lived under its shadow – including Indian travelers, African sailors, and Native American traders. Readings will explore the ways in which the British nation, and indeed British history, have been driven by British imperialism around the globe. Ends by asking questions about the post-imperial history for citizens of a nation that was once predicated on its imperial identity.

Note(s): Fulfills Cultural Diversity and Social Sciences requirements.

HI 223P U.S. Foreign Policy

Jennifer Delton | 4 credits

An examination of the development of the United States from its peripheral position in world affairs to its role as an international superpower. What has motivated American foreign policy? What has defined America's international and national interests? Can we discern a continuity to Amercian foreign policy over time, or is it defined by contingency and reaction? How have American's defined themselves through their foreign policy? How has American foreign policy betrayed American ideals? How has it fulfilled those ideals? How has September 11 changed our views of America's role in the world?

Note(s): Fulfills Social Sciences requirement.

HI 242P China in War and Revolution

Jenny Day | 3 credits

The emergence of modern China – its turbulent and violent transition from an imperial dynasty to a Communist nation-state. Students will study how internal and external crises precipitated reforms and revolutions, how people shed their old identities and took on new ones, how political leaders engineered campaigns and movements – often with disastroous effects – and how this history has been remembered, reflected upon, and remolded by the Chinese themselves.

Note(s): Fulfills Non-Western Culture and Social Sciences requirements.

HI 243 Leisure and Fun in the Middle East

Murat C. Yildiz | 3 credits

The 19^th and 20^th centuries were periods in which men and women in the Middle East developed new notions of time, carved out larger space for themselves in the expanding public sphere, created novel activitites, and experimented with different mood – and mind – molding substances. Through close readings of secondary and primary sources (including photographs, films, novels, and memoirs), we will examine a number of urban transformations related to leisure and pleasure, including: drugs, tobacco, coffee houses, reading rooms, alcohol, prostitution, public transportation, vernacular photographs, and sports. By creating new narratives about leisure activities, pleasure, and fun, students are able to cultivate a more textured and multidimensional understanding of the making of modernity in the Middle East.

HI 251C 001 Early Modern Political Thought

Alexandra Thomas | 3 credits

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment encompass some of the most widely read texts in the intellectual history of Europe, works that are often considered part of the foundation of modern Western political thought. This course will engage with those texts, situating them in their specific contexts and analyzing how historical events informed political and philosophical treatises, from Machiavelli's The Prince to Olympe de Gouge's Declaration of the Right of Women and the Female Citizen. We will grapple with the limitations of these texts' ideals, and consider the historical repercussions of those limits.

Note(s): Fulfills Social Sciences requirement.

HI 251C 002 King Arthur in the Twenty-First Century

Angela Ellis | 3 credits

King Arthur has captured the Western imagination, despite possibly never having existed at all. According to legend, Arthur emerged from the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the late 5^th early 6^th century to lead the British defense against Germanic invaders, only to die (or maybe not!) in the noble but doomed endeavor. He appears in no written records until the early 9^th century. From that point on, however, this once and future kind features prominently in Western culture. According to Arthurian mythology, he will return in our hour of greatest need, but in a way, he never left. In this course, we will consider why his image has proven so durable and endlessly adaptable, right into the 21^st century, particularly in the contexts of television, movies, and the British tourist industry.

HI 251C 003 Gender in Early Modern Europe

Angela Allis | 3 credits

This course iss a lower-division exploration of the creation, operation, and interaction of masculinities and femininities (in the plural), and beyond, in Europe between roughly 1500 and 1789. We will read both primary and secondary works on the topic, along with viewing moder film interpretations. In particular, we will focus on the themes of crossdressing and transgender identity; witchcraft; and interracial and -ethnic sex and reproduction. "Gender history" is not simply another way of saying "women's history." Instead, we also will employ gender as a lens through which to consider the experiences of both men and women (and those of individuals who did not fit neatly into either category) during the period.

HI 258 European Fascism

MatthewHockenos | 4 credits

What is facism? What is the appeal of an ideology that advocates intolerance, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and war? What were the roots of facism and how did facism manifest itself in Europe in the middle of the 20^th century? The current popularity of far-right populist parties and politicians in Europe and elsewhere makes these questions all the more urgent today. This course examines the origins, nature, and history of facism in Europe between the two world wars and its recent reappearance across Europe.

HI275 Introduction to the History Major

Jennifer Delton | 1 credit

An introduction to the aims of the history major.

Note(s): A prerequisite for the Colloquium. Required for all majors and interdepartmental majors, to be taken in the sophomore or junior years. Open to non-majors with permission of instructor.

300 level courses

HI 317R British Legal History

Tillman Nechtman | 4 credits

An exploration of the history of English Common Law. Begins with a close investigation of the early history of Common Law, focusing on such isssues as the origins of the jury trial, the legacy of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rightss, and the structures of the early English legal system, includinig primary source readings from trial law and important cases in British legal history. Continues with an exploration of the impact of the Common Law throughout the British Empire, which proved to be a contested space in which English legal traditions were faced with indigenous customs. investigates the hybrid legal structures that were born of this legal cross-fertilization and the lasting legal legacies of Britain's imperial history both within colonized communities and Britain itself.