History 508: Revolutionary France, 1750-1815

Miller; MAX:12

Content: This course is designed to give an overview of the significant historiographical approaches to the French Revolution.  The debates about many aspects of the Revolution -- its origins, the Terror, and its legacy to name only a few--continue to fascinate historians. The most recent work brings models drawn from gender studies and literary theory to explain the Revolution’s trajectory and impact. Those issues and polemics make the Revolution a vital area for graduate seminars.  We will be approaching the Revolution, then, not only to understand the "events" that constitute it, but especially to explore the models and methods that scholars have used to explain the Revolution and its course.

Texts: Readings include: Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution; William Doyle, Venality: The Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France; Sarah Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France; The Rise and Fall of the French Revolution.  T. C. W. Blanning, ed.; Lynn Hunt, Family Romance of the French Revolution; François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution.

Particulars: Short papers; longer historiographical essay; class discussion and oral presentations.

History 509P: Family, Sex, & Gender in Early Modern Europe

Strocchia; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 509 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 510P: 20 th Century Europe: Problems of Historical Generations

Amdur; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 510 – Written permission of instructor required.

540P: The English Colonies in America

Juricek; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 540 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 560: Topics in Colonial Latin America

Socolow; MAX:12

Content: This seminar concentrates on the major themes in colonial Latin American history including, among other topics, the colonial economy, gender, reform and the coming of Independence. Weekly readings present contrasting approaches to each topic. In addition special attention will be paid to both historiography and critical thinking.

 Texts: This is a reading intensive seminar in which we will read at least two books per week. In addition some articles in Spanish and/or Portuguese may be assigned.

History 562P: Themes and Approaches in Latin American History:Old Trends New Paradigms

Lesser; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 562 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 566P: African Historiography

Crais; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 566 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 567P: Research Methods in African History

Mann; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 567 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 582P: Soc. Sci & Quantitative Techniques

Socolow; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 582 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 583P: Introduction to Advanced Historical Study

Pandey/Crespino; MAX:12

Paper-writing section taken after History 583 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 585-000: Special Topics in History: Modern Empire & Its Dissolutions (Same as AFS 585)

Crais; MAX:12

Content: This course will examine debates and research problems relating especially to the dissolution of empire in modern world history. The seminar makes no attempt at being comprehensive. Rather, the major challenges will be to: think about the making and unmaking of empires; the colonial and post-colonial state; and problems of violence and identity.

Texts: Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society; P. Duara, Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then; Wm. Roger Louis, Ends of British Imperialism; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities; Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire

Particulars: Class discussion, response papers, research essay.

History 585-001: Special Topics in History: African American History to 1877

Harris; MAX:12

Content: The course provides participants with a broad sense of the research issues in early African-American history, from the transatlantic slave trade to the U.S. Reconstruction era.

Texts: May include Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone; Michael Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks; Leslie Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery; Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul; Dylan Penningroth, Claims of Kinfolk; Leslie Schwalm, A Hard Fight For We; plus essays.

Particulars: Three 750-900 word critical essays on single books; at least two presentations; final project: historiographical essay and research plan of 10-15 pages; engagement in class discussion each week.

History 585-002: Special Topics in History: Race & Politics in 20 th Century America

Crespino/Lewis; MAX:12

Content: This seminar examines how struggles over racial equality and citizenship have shaped American politics in the twentieth century. Students will examine a variety of topics that include but are not limited to the origins of southern segregation, immigration and citizenship, ethnicity and assimilation, migration, race and world war, race and the metropolis, civil rights in the south and the north, racial militancy and racial blacklash.

History 585-003: Special Topics in History: Coerced Labor in the Atlantic World

Eltis; MAX:12

Content: The focus of History 585 is the rise and fall of forms of coerced labour in the Atlantic World, and their implications for Atlantic societies. The early part of the course reviews the intellectual, political, economic and epidemiological origins of the European, and especially the English drive to extract labour from other Europeans, Indians and Africans, and the explanations for the different forms taken by this coercion. Major attention is given to the emergence of slavery and the plantation system, but both the slave trade and slave systems will be examined against the backdrop of transatlantic migration and the Atlantic world as a whole. The geographic concentration is genuinely Atlantic. The main learning objective is an understanding of the role of slavery and servitude in the Atlantic world. Slavery is assessed as part of a continuum of labour regimes most of which involved elements of coercion. Topics include the origins of servitude and slavery, the European master-servant, and state-prisoner relationship in the early modern period, the origin and impact of the slave trade on four continents including the process of industrialization, the conditions of plantation life, slave resistance, the paradox of slavery and the ideology of freedom emerging simultaneously particularly in the United States, as well as the origins of racism. The final section of the course will explore the origins and consequences of attempts to eradicate the slave systems of the Atlantic basin.

History 585-004: Special Topics in History: History of Modern Israel (Same as JS 730)

Stein; MAX:5

Content: This upper level course traces the origins and development of modern Zionism and the evolution and growth of modern Israel. From biblical connections of the Jewish people to the land of Israel until the present, the course looks at the themes, causes, ideologies, diplomacy, neighbors, and leaders that shaped the contemporary Jewish state. Five periods of study are addressed: to the 1840s, from then until 1922, the Palestine Mandate or Yishuv until after statehood, and 1949 to the present.

 Texts: Laqueur, Walter, A History of Zionism; Dowty, Alan, The Jewish State: A Century Later; Hertzberg, Arthur, The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader; Stein, Kenneth W., Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin, and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace; Sternhell, Zev, The Founding Myths of Israel; Stein, Kenneth W. Documentary Reader of Modern Israel (to be purchased from the instructor)

Particulars: There will be a one hour examination and a final examination. Students are expected to write a research paper of no more than 25 pages, using primarily library and archival sources. Graduate students will write an additional ten page paper about a Zionist or Israeli leader. All students will be expected to engage in regular class discussions. Additional readings will be provided on library reserve.

History 585-005: Special Topics in History: History of Israeli Foreign Policy

Tal; MAX:4

Content: This course will concentrate on Israel's diplomatic history. It will discuss Israel international orientation in the 1950s', the role of the diplomats in the pursuit of security alliance with a great power, first with France and later with the United States; the search for peace and the diplomats role in the preparation to war, before and after the 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars; and the role of diplomacy throughout the Israeli- Palestinian rapprochement and conflict.

History 585-006: Special Topics in History: Heresy as a Historical Problem (JS 730)

Rustow; MAX:6

Content: From the Cathars, against whom the church launched the great Inquisition of the thirteenth century, to the sixty percent of world Jewry in the seventeenth century who believed Sabbatai Sevi was the messiah, historians usually portray heresy as a kind of disease, with periods of outbreak and latency. Others, in an attempt to sound more neutral, claim that heresy is an expression of intellectual vitality or social protest. But what if we were to see heresy the way most surviving suggest we do—as a product of the authorities who tried to extirpate it? This course will focus not merely on the doctrinal features of religious heresy but on the communities of Jews, Christians, and Muslims for whom heresy became a central problem and on the systems of power and authority with which they came into contact. Issues will include how religions without centralized institutional structures regulate orthodoxy; how those with such structures attempt to implement it; the interpretive problems posed by texts created by the pursuit of heresy; how historians have used polemical treatises and inquisitorial dossiers to reconstruct the lives of heretics; and the problem of comparison between supposedly doctrine-centered and law-centered religions traditions.

Texts: In addition to selected articles and primary sources, books may include: Miriam Bodian, Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World; Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam; Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism; Elisheva Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies; Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500–1750; Lucien Febvre, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais; Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller; R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society; Mark Pegg, The Corruption of Angels: The Great Inquisition of 1245–46; Pegg, A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom; Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Ṣevi: The Mystical Messiah; Devin Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System.

Particulars : Class participation and presentations; a mid-term paper (10 pages) reviewing and comparing two books on the syllabus; a final research paper (20–30 pages).

History 585-007: Special Topics in History: Rise of Islam in the Near East (MESAS 507R)

Newby; MAX:5

History 585-008: Special Topics in History: Nietzsche & His Readers (Same as ILA 790)

Goodstein; MAX:4

History 585-009: Special Topics in History: Desiring History in Irish Literature (Same as ENG 789R)

Higgins; MAX:

Content: Irish literature is profoundly concerned with historical events and frequently reflects upon its own role as the interventionist interrogator of History. Similarly, historical events are strongly influenced not only by writers and their works but also by the imagined identities formed by literary texts. Desiring History examines the use of fictional histories and historical fictions in contemporary Irish literature and film in order to investigate the relationship between art and the historical event. We will examine how literary narratives dislodge other versions of history and seep into the popular consciousness, shaping the way in which cultures remember.

The question of historical accuracy is one that informs the burden of representation borne by the texts under consideration as underlined by Brian Friel’s remark, “You don’t go to Macbeth for history.” Historian Roy Foster, in his 2004 book, The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it Up in Ireland, calls attention to the Irish tendency to narrate history, to tell the Story of Ireland from various (biased) points of view. A central question for our discussions will be: how do alternative histories contribute to the formation of new, often disruptive cultural memories that reshape our collective understanding of the past.

Texts: Writers and critics may include Eavan Boland, In a Time of Violence; Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary; Terry Eagleton, Heathcliff and the Great Hunger; Roy Foster, The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it Up in Ireland; Brian Friel, Freedom of the City and Making History; Seamus Heaney, North; Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland; Deirdre Madden, One by One in the Darkness; Paul Muldoon, Meeting the British; Ian McBride, History and Memory in Modern Ireland; Joseph O’Connor Star of the Sea and W.B. Yeats, “Easter, 1916.”

Particulars: Short weekly presentations, bibliographical essay, final paper.

History 585-00P: Special Topics in History: Approaches in Medieval Studies (Same as HART 739)

PERMISSION OF INSTRUCTOR REQUIRED

White/Pastan; MAX:6

Content: How might one study visual arts, chronicles and legal documents, and literary works concurrently to understand a period as different from our own as the European Middle Ages? In this course we explore this question through specific case studies concerning such topics as: the Bayeux Tapestry, conflict and concord in Vézelay, the promotion of the cult of Sante Foy of Conques, and the uses of different pictorial and textual representations of Charlemagne. Readings from ‘classic’ literature as well as very recent interdisciplinary scholarship will be paired so as to allow for a thorough consideration of Medieval Studies as a field.

Texts: TBA and select e-reserves.

Particulars: Evaluation will be based partly on the student’s contributions to the weekly discussions, including response-papers and in-class presentations, and partly on two shorter papers, 5-7 pp. and 8-10 pp.

History 585P-00P:  Seminar Papers

Faculty

Paper-writing section taken after History 585 – Written permission of instructor required.

History 596R: Special Studies

Faculty

Written Permission of Instructor Required

Content: Attendance in an undergraduate course with satisfactory completion of those course requirements as well as additional graduate-level assignments as required by instructor.

History 597R: Directed Reading

Faculty

Written Permission of Instructor Required

History 599R: Research

Faculty

MUST BE TAKEN S/U

Content: Variable credit.  For M.A.-level students.

History 786B: Introduction to College Teaching

Faculty

Written permission of instructor required; MUST BE TAKEN S/U

Content: The student works with a member of the department in conducting a course, including giving an occasional lecture or leading a discussion group. This course must be taken S/U.

History 799R: Advanced Research

Faculty

MUST BE TAKEN S/U

Content: Variable credit (1 to 12 hours).  Designed to give doctoral students opportunity for individual research on their dissertation subjects.  Credit for this course will normally be given only after completion of 32 hours of work in 500-level courses in the doctoral program.