Dear History Majors,

Note:  HIST 200/200W is a prerequisite for your capstone course. Please enroll in this course at your earliest convenience.

Spring 2010 HIST 200W courses:
Hist 200W 01, Sutto, topic line: Revolutionary America: Historiography and Methods
Hist 200W 02, Castilho, topic line:  Memory, Nation and Methods: Latin American Historiography as a Case Study
Hist 200W 03, Stephens, topic line: History: An Art of Interpretation, Argument, and Debate
Hist 200W 04, Sheikh, topic line: Imagining India

Below find the Spring 2010 dual listings, new course listings, and descriptions of seminars and capstones.  As always, please meet with your adviser with any questions. Link here to the faculty listing.

LINK TO SCHEDULE OF COURSES TO SEE COURSE TITLES, DATES AND TIMES.

DUAL LISTINGS – Spring 2010
AADS 102 Making of the African Diaspora, now counts toward Middle East/Africa area of concentration.
AADS 221 History and Mythology of Black Women, counts toward the U.S. area of concentration.
AADS 265 20th Century African American Biography, counts toward the U.S. area of concentration.
CLAS 209 Greece and the Near East from Alexander to Theodosius, counts toward European area of concentration.
CLAS 213 History of the Roman Empire, counts toward European area of concentration.
ECON 226 counts toward the Economics/history interdisciplinary major.
ECON 262 counts toward the Economics/history interdisciplinary major.
EUS 215W Europe on Trial counts toward European area of concentration.
JS 120 Islam and the Jews, counts toward Middle East/Africa area of concentration.
JS 157 Modern Jewish History, counts toward the European and U.S. areas of concentrations.
JS 158 World Jewish Communities in the New Millennium, counts toward European area of concentration.
JS 234 Reading Across Boundaries: Jewish and Non-Jewish Texts, counts toward the European and Middle East/Africa areas of concentration.
RLST 216 Christianity in the Reformation Era, counts toward the European area of concentration.

If you are an English/History Interdisciplinary major please see the WORSHOP IN ENGLISH HISTORY description at the bottom of this page.

**NEW COURSES**
115F Section No. 18 The Life, Science and Times of Albert Einstein.
The name Einstein has become synonymous with “genius.”  His image remains among those commonly found on college dormitory walls.  On the last day of 1999, Time Magazine named Albert Einstein the “Person of the Century.”  Their runners-up were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Gandhi, and Hitler.  Why Einstein? While Time cited his role in relativity theory, quantum mechanics, the atomic bomb, and the big bang, his interventions in philosophy, politics, international pacifism, and Zionism clearly added nearly as much to his “galvanizing effect on the popular imagination.”  This course will look at Einstein’s personal biography, popular writings, and scientific works, as well as contemporaneous public discussions of his work and life to understand the broad imprint he left on the on the science, culture, and politics of the twentieth century. SPRING. [3] Molvig. (P)
Credits: elective, US, Europe areas of concentration.

150. History of the Modern Sciences and Society.
The end of the Scientific Revolution to the present. Sciences arising from the fields of Natural Philosophy (physics, astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry) and natural History (geology and the life sciences).  The clockwork universe, atomism and the chemical Revolution; evolutionary theory (physical, geological, and biological); thermodynamics; and quantum theory. Colonial empires, industry, professional specialization, cultural modernism, and nuclear fear. SPRING. [3] Molvig. (P)
Credits: elective, US, Europe areas of concentration.

212a. India and the Indian Ocean.
Cultures along the Indian Ocean coastline from Roman times to 1800, especially South Asia.  Coastal societies and politics, Islam, pilgrimage and trade, economic zones and cultural ties.  Pirates, seafarers and merchants; diasporas and genealogies.  The entry of European trading companies and debates on trade and empire. SPRING. [3] Sheikh. (INT)
Credits: elective, Asia areas of concentration. Offered for graduate credit.

217. Islam and the Crusades.
Ideology; successes and failures; history and character of Crusader enterprises in Holy Land and elsewhere. Muslim religious, political, ideological and social reactions. Islamic culture and the West; relations between Crusaders and Muslims and Jews. SPRING. [3] Wasserstein. (P)
Credits: elective, Middle East/Africa and Europe areas of concentration. Offered for graduate credit.

284b. Health and African American Experience.
Disparities in the health care of African Americans, the training of black professionals, the role of black medical institutions. The intersection between black civic involvement and health care delivery; the disproportionate impact of disease and epidemics within the African American population. SPRING. [3] Dickerson. (US)
Credits: elective, US area of concentration. Offered for graduate credit.

285a. Human Biological Enhancement
Debates over human trait modification through recent advances in pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetics. Long-term social, cultural, and moral consequences. SPRING. [3] Bess. (P)
Credits: elective, US area of concentration. Offered for graduate credit.

287g. Making of Modern Paris.
The social and cultural history of Paris from the old regime to the present.  Paris versus French provinces; revolutionary upheavals; challenges of rapid urbanization; Paris as literary, artistic, and consumer capital; the changing physical landscape. Immigration and the globalization of Paris. SPRING. [3] Clay. (INT)
Credits: elective, Europe area of concentration. Offered for graduate credit.

294 01. Race and Representation in the Transatlantic world.
SPRING [3] Jones. (No AXLE designation)
Credits: elective, U.S., European, MiddleEast/Africa areas of concentration.
Description: This course examines the history of the representation of ideas about “race” and “difference” within the transatlantic world from ancient times to the present.  It attempts to make sense of the various ways that the peoples of this geographically vast region attempted to rationalize, and then, to reconcile the cultural and physical differences they perceived among each other through their encounter experiences in the early modern period.   Particular emphasis will be placed on the continued course of these ideas and imagery throughout the representational history of African Americans in the United States.  In turn, we will look at blacks’ response to these developments through their efforts at self-representation.   Students will utilize visual texts and other primary sources to understand how to make sense of the past through their informed use of imagery emanating from both high art and popular culture.

CAPSTONE ALTERNATIVE COURSES
A junior or senior history major who has completed HIST 200/200W may elect to take HIST 284b, 285a, 287c, 287g, 287e as the Capstone toward the history major. 

Steps to make this happen:

• Enroll as usual for the course.
• Sign the contract on the first day of class stating you will complete an extra research paper.
• Have the instructor, or yourself, bring the contract to Heidi Welch, Benson Hall, room 227.
• Fulfill the work specified in the contract.
• If you don’t complete the extra course work this course will only NOT count as a capstone.

HISTORY DEPARTMENT 295 CAPSTONE SEMINAR FOR HISTORY MAJORS
Note: In order to enroll in a 295 course you must be a junior or senior history major who has completed HIST 200/200W. You will be bumped from the course if you have not already completed HIST 200/200W.

295 DESCRIPTIONS FOR SPRING 2010

Fall 2009, HIST 295 01 Nationalism and Nation Building
Taught by: Moses Ochonu
Area of Concentration counts toward: Middle East/Africa.  No AXLE credit.
Description: This course looks at the multiple ways in which Africans have defined themselves, constructed, asserted, and policed their identities and how they have expressed their sense of self in relation to those they see as outsiders and interlocutors. We will examine the many ways that Africans have acted out their national, ethnic, regional, and pan-African sensibilities, solidarities, as well as how they have sought to protect their economic, political, and social interests and their territorial and cultural autonomy in the face of European colonialism and post-colonial modernism and globalization. We will unpack the many varieties of protest politics that have evolved on the continent, examining the responses to them by colonial and post-colonial regimes. The course will examine the changing supra-national notions of panAfricanism, African integration, black pride and racial solidarity.

Fall 2009, HIST 295 02 Revolutions in Comparative Perspective
Taught by: Bill Bulman
Area of Concentration counts toward: elective, U.S., Europe, Asia, Middle East/Africa. No AXLE credit.
Description: In this seminar we will try to determine the nature, causes, and consequences of some of the great social upheavals of the modern era.  We will focus on the revolutionary struggles that rocked Britain, America, France, Russia, and Iran between the 17th and 20th centuries.  These great events have been the subject of intense debate among historians, politicians, and journalists since the moment they occurred.  They therefore offer excellent opportunities for exploring the argumentative, interpretive, and theoretical techniques that underpin all sound accounts of the past.  We will examine the interplay of ideas and material forces in each particular revolution.  Then we will use these findings to determine what characteristics (if any) revolutions have in common, and to explore the extent to which these revolutions imitated one another.  Our main task, however, will be to make our own attempts at original historical research and writing.  Each of us will either write about one particular revolution, or conduct a comparative analysis of two or more.  Topics are not limited to those mentioned above: any major modern revolution (Haitian, Mexican, Turkish, Chinese, Cuban, etc.) is fair game.

Fall 2009, HIST 295 03 Work and Servitude in Americas, 1450-1900
Taught by: Antoinette Sutto
Area of Concentration counts toward: elective, Latin America and U.S.. No AXLE credit.
Description:  Europeans in the Americas often bemoaned the lack of available labor. Some of the formative institutions of the Americas turned on securing labor and workers – e.g. slavery, indentured servitude, encomienda. This course will examine ideas about work in both North America and Latin America from the age of first contact between the Americas, Africa and Europe through the nineteenth century. Topics include the definition of work, work and leisure, the value of labor, who performed what sort of work and why, gender and work, work and social class, race and slavery, the institution of indentured servitude, attitudes toward labor shortages and labor surpluses, and the political and religious meanings of work.

Fall 2009, HIST 295 04 Death in Europe, 1350-1850
Taught by: Antoinette Sutto
Area of Concentration counts toward: elective, Europe. No AXLE credit.
Description: Death is the great human universal. Attitudes toward death, however, and the customs that surround it, vary greatly across cultures and over time. This course will look at death in Europe from the late middle ages into the modern period. Topics include the Black Death, changing religious beliefs about death and the afterlife, ghosts, executions, the idea of a “good death”, violent deaths, funeral and mourning customs, developing medical definitions of death and, ultimately, views about the meaning of human life.

WORKSHOP  in ENGLISH and HISTORY
HIST 291. (Also listed as English 280) (formerly 244)
A requirement for the English/History Interdisciplinary majors.
Spring 2010: Workshop in History and English: Pestilence and Poetry—The 14th Century
Team Taught by William Caferro (History) and John Plummer (English) TR 1:10-2:25

The course will examine literature and society in fourteenth century Europe. It will look specifically at how the events of the “troubled” fourteenth century (e.g., the Black Death, the 100 Years’ War, the Peasants’ Uprising) affected literature and vice versa. The format will be lecture and discussion.  Readings will include primary historical texts as well as literature, including selections from Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Langland. There will be two papers, a midterm, a final and an in-class presentation.

Any questions about the undergraduate major may be directed to the History Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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