Attention: This schedule is subject to change. Before registering for classes, check the on-line schedule of classes to confirm course numbers, times, and availability. Prerequisite requirements are strictly enforced. Please take note that many upper-level history courses have prerequisites. If you have not met the prerequisite, you may be dropped from the course.
History Department Course List Main Page
Hist 219Y: Special Topics in History: What’s the Story? Artistic Research and the Tools of Narration
MTuWThF 9-12 Lerman
This course will meet in Kogod Theatre. On Friday, January 23, 2009, this course will meet twice from 9am-12pm and 4pm-6pm. Under the direction of choreographer Liz Lerman and using the stories of historical figures from the beginning of nuclear age, explore how various means of expression guide, shape, and inform the research and presentation of content. Students will participate in movement-based methods and structures, but no dance experience/ aptitude is required.
Hist 319D: Special Topics in History: America in the Movies: Major Themes in Twentieth Century American History
MTuWThF 9-12:15 Malka
This course uses Hollywood films to explore some of the major themes and events in 20th century American history. Movies have played a pivotal role as one of the most influential and popular instruments of mass culture. We will view a range of movies and evaluate how they reveal, support, mold and challenge American values and beliefs. We will start with the Great Depression of the 1930s and then follow Americans as they emerged from World War II and then plunged into the Cold War. This course focuses on the second half of the twentieth century and explores, for example, the major transformations in American life with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the New Left and the second wave of feminism. We will examine the strengths and limitations of films as they contribute to our understanding of 20th century America.
Hist 329J: Special Topics in History: African American History Through Film and Photography
MTuWThF 1-4 Barkley Brown
This course uses the mediums of film and photography to explore the history of African Americans in the 20th century U.S. In the early 20th century film was important in creating images of African American inferiority which became justification for segregation, disfranchisement, and other forms of inequality. But film and photography also became major instruments of civil rights activists who understood that redefining the image of African Americans was central to changing their legal and political status. We will view a range of films from early 20th century silent movies, to black independent films, to late 20th century Hollywood blockbusters.
Hist 329K: Special Topics in History: History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1950-2000
MTuWThF 1-4 Kellett
This course will trace the development of American rock ‘n’ roll and other forms of popular music from the post-Second World War period through the end of the twentieth century. Popular music will be studied both as a cultural product (How is it made? What does it sound like?) and as a social text (What can it tell us about the individuals who made it, and the society in which it was made?). Special attention will be paid to the role of African-American cultural influences in the development of predominantly white rock music, as well as the ways in which European (especially British) performers have made contributions to the genre over the years. The course will consist of lectures, class discussions and listening exercises.
Hist 329L: Special Topics in History: The Two Germanies and the Cold War
MTuWThF 9-12 Scala
This course will examine how the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) developed competing models of socio-political organization in an attempt to find a sustainable solution to the challenges presented by modern industrial society in the wake of the total defeat and discrediting of the Nazis' extreme nationalist and genocidal reign of terror. Political, social, and cultural developments in each country will be treated as closely interrelated with one another within the broader context of the Cold War conflict between socialist East and capitalist West, which set the framework for the rivalry between the two Germanys and ultimately determined its outcome. Class meetings will consist in lecture, discussion, and analysis of audio-visual material. Students will engage with a range of primary and secondary sources and will be expected to participate actively in class discussions.
Hist 329M: Special Topics in History: The British Conquest of India
MTuWThF 1-4 Soracoe
Our course will trace the development and evolution of the British presence in India during the 18th and 19th centuries from a series of scattered trading enclaves into a unified military empire that spanned the subcontinent. In addition to chronology and political history, we will discuss the economic, cultural, and social transformations brought about through extended contact between Europeans and Indians. Important topics covered in the course will include the breakdown of Mughal authority, Clive’s revolutionary reorganization of the East India Company, the creation of the Governor-Generalship and a new “imperial” style of rule, the reform debate between orientalists and anglicizers, and Indian reactions to growing British dominance, culminating in the great 1857 Mutiny. By the end of the course, students should be able to give a nuanced answer to our key question: how was it ever possible for so few Britons to rule so many Indians for almost two centuries?
Hist 332: Europe During the Renaissance and Reformation I
TBA (Web Online) Soergel
Intellectual developments in Italy and Northern Europe from 1300 to 1550 and their influence on the arts and religion; social and economics trends, including the rise of the commercial economy in cities; the family and the role of women in society; expansion of Europe overseas; emergence of the state and consequent changes in political theory. Prerequisite: History 111 or 112 or a similar course with permission of the instructor.
Hist 419G: Special Topics in History: Iraq: From the Origins of the Modern State to the Current Crisis
MTuWThF 9-12 Wien
This course provides an introduction to political, cultural and social developments and transformations that shaped Iraqi history from the beginning of the 20th century until the current problems of state formation in the post Saddam Hussein period. From the 2003 US-led invasion to the current crisis, Iraq's image in the West has changed significantly. Under Saddam Hussein, the dictator’s rule of terror and his hazardous foreign policy overshadowed the complex nature of state and society in the perception of many outside observers. Today, the far too simplistic scheme of sectarian divisions is instead applied to explain the turmoil since Hussein’s fall. The course will offer a more differentiated assessment of the dynamics of Iraqi society.
Hist 429N: Special Topics in History: Women in Early Modern Britain and America, 1450-1800
MTuWThF 9-12 Baron