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Courses
Most courses that follow have been renumbered for the 1996-97 academic
year. History courses numbered 100-299 are designed primarily for College
students. Some 200-level courses have 300-level equivalents if they are
also open to graduate students. Courses numbered 400-499 are primarily intended
for graduate students, but are open to advanced College students. Courses
numbered above 500 are open to qualified College students with the consent
of the instructor. Courses rarely open to College students are not listed
in this catalog. Information about many course offerings was not available
at the time this publication went to press. More current information can
be obtained from College advisers or in the undergraduate secretary's office
(SS 225).
131-132-133. History of Western Civilization I, II, III. PQ: Courses
must be taken in sequence. This course sequence fulfills the Common Core
requirement in civilizational studies. The purpose of this course is
threefold: (1) to introduce students to the principles of historical thought,
(2) to acquaint them with some of the more important epochs in the development
of Western civilization since the sixth century B.C., and (3) to assist
them in discovering connections between the various epochs. The purpose
of the course is not to present a general survey of Western history. Instruction
consists of intensive investigation of a selection of original documents
bearing on a number of separate topics, usually two or three each quarter,
occasionally supplemented by the work of a modern historian. The treatment
of the various topics varies from section to section. The sequence is currently
offered twice a year: in the autumn-winter-spring quarter sequence and in
the summer quarter (three quarters in one). Staff. Summer, Autumn, Winter,
Spring.
135-136-137. America in Western Civilization I, II, III. This course
sequence fulfills the Common Core requirement in civilizational studies.
This course sequence uses the American historical experience, set within
the context of Western civilization, to (1) introduce students to the principles
of historical thought, (2) probe the ways political and social theory emerge
within specific historical contexts, and (3) explore some of the major issues
and trends in American historical development. The course is not a general
survey of American history. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
135. The first quarter examines the establishment of
the new American society in the colonial and early national periods, focusing
on the experience of social change and cultural interaction. Subunits examine
the basic order of early colonial society; the social, political, and intellectual
forces for a rethinking of that order; and the experiences of Revolution
and of making a new polity.
136. The second quarter focuses on the creation of the American nation
in the nineteenth century. Subunits focus on the impact of economic individualism
on the discourse on democracy and community; on pressures to expand the
definition of nationhood to include racial minorities, immigrants, and women;
on the crisis over slavery and sectionalism; and on class tensions and the
polity.
137. The third quarter takes the society and nation thus created and
focuses on the transformations produced by immigration, industrial reorganization,
and the expansion of state power. Subunits focus on the definitions of Americanism
and social order in a multicultural society; Taylorism and social engineering;
culture in the shadow of war; the politics of race, ethnicity, and gender;
and the rise of new social movements.
151-152-153. Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia I, II, III (=EALC
108-109-110, SocSci 235-236-237). PQ: Must be taken in sequence. This
course sequence fulfills the Common Core requirement in civilizational studies.
This is a three-quarter sequence on the civilizations of China, Japan,
and Korea, with emphasis on major transformation in these cultures and societies
from the Middle Ages to the present. This year's sequence focuses on Japan
from 1600 to the present, China from the eighteenth to the twentieth century,
and Korea from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. G. Alitto, Autumn;
Staff, Winter; A. Schmid, Spring.
161-162-163. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I, II, III (=Anthro
307-1,-2,-3, LatAm 345-346-347, SocSci 261-262-263). This sequence
fulfills the Common Core requirement in civilizational studies. May be taken
in sequence or individually. This three-quarter course sequence introduces
students to the history and cultures of Latin America, including Mexico,
Central and South America, and the Caribbean islands. The autumn quarter
examines the origins of civilizations in Latin America with a focus on the
political, social, and cultural features of the major pre-Columbian civilizations
of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec. The quarter concludes with consideration of
the Spanish and Portuguese conquest and the construction of colonial societies
in Latin America. The winter quarter addresses the evolution of colonial
societies, the wars of independence, and the emergence of Latin American
nation-states in the changing international context of the nineteenth century.
The spring quarter focuses on the twentieth century, with a special emphasis
on the challenges of economic, political, and social development in the
region. A. Kolata, Autumn; C. Lomnitz, Winter; F. Katz, Spring.
173-174-175. Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization I, II,
III. This course sequence fulfills the Common Core requirement in
civilizational studies. This is a three-quarter sequence focusing on
the origins and development of science in the West. The aim of the course
is to trace the evolution of the biological, psychological, natural, and
mathematical sciences as they emerge from the cultural and social matrix
of their periods and, in turn, affect cultural and social events. Each quarter
may be taken independently of the others, although it is suggested that
students take the entire sequence in order.
173. The first quarter examines the sources of Greek science
in the diverse modes of ancient thought and its advance through the first
centuries of our era. We look at the technical refinement of science, its
connections to political and philosophical movements of fifth- and fourth-century
Athens, and its growth in Alexandria. R. Richards. Autumn.
174. The second quarter is concerned with the period of the scientific
revolution, the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The principal subjects
are the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Vesalius, Harvey, Descartes,
and Newton. N. Swerdlow. Winter.
175. The third quarter examines through seminal primary texts how science
has redefined European and American society since about 1660. Topics include
science and religion, the emergence of the scientific intellectual, the
history of experiment and observation, revolutionary science in the late
eighteenth century, the new physics of the nineteenth century, evolutionary
theory and its imitators, and the rise of the social sciences. M. Jackson.
Spring.
180-181. Problems in Gender Studies (=Eng 102-103, GS Hum 228-229, Hum 228-229,
SocSci 282-283; Eng 103=ArtH 171, Philos 217). PQ: Second- or third-year
standing and completion of a Common Core social science or humanities course
or the equivalent. This two-quarter interdisciplinary sequence is designed
as an introduction to theories and critical practices in the study of feminism,
gender, and sexuality. Both classic texts and recent reconceptualizations
of these contested fields are examined. Problems and cases from a variety
of cultures and historical periods are considered, and the course pursues
their differing implications for local, national, and global politics. Topics
might include the politics of reproduction; gender and postcolonialism;
women, sexual scandal, and the law; race and sexual paranoia; and sexual
subcultures. E. Alexander, L. Berlant, Staff, Autumn; P. Rogers, C. Vogler,
Staff, Winter.
200/300. The African Diaspora III: The Slave Trade as Experience, Construct,
and Imaginary (=AfAfAm 203, Eng 250, GS Hum 215). This is an interdisciplinary
course organized by the Committee on African and African-American Studies.
We deal with the Atlantic slave trade through the study of literary works,
films, ideological debates, and analysis of "hard" economic, linguistic,
and social data. R. Austen, K. Warren. Spring.
211/311. Victorian England. This survey of British and Irish history
from 1832 to 1914 includes the transition from essentially aristocratic
to democratic government, the development of the world economy with Britain
at its center, the relative decline of Britain as a world power just before
World War I, and the rise of the new imperialism. E. Larkin. Autumn.
222. Justinian's Institutes. This course is an introduction to
the elements of Roman law by close reading of the part of the Corpus
Juris designed as the basic text. Some background on the history of
Roman law and on the age of Justinian is given, but the main focus is on
reading through the Institutes, with an interest in fundamental legal
concepts as much as in the specific principles of the Roman system. C.
Gray. Winter.
225. Politics and Society in Nineteenth-Century France. A series of
lectures and discussions on France between the fall of Napoleon and World
War I focus on the problems of political instability (the Revolutions of
1830 and 1848; the resurgence of Bonapartism; the Paris Commune; the weakness
of the early Third Republic), social change under the impact of industrialization,
and the relationship between the two. Readings include a number of the realist
novels of the period, which so brilliantly convey its social and political
texture. J. Goldstein. Spring.
228. The Discourses of Machiavelli (=Fndmtl 251). This course
consists of a close reading of the Discourses of Machiavelli. H.
Gray. Winter.
229. The Italian Renaissance. This course concentrates on the political
environment of Italy in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries
and on the evolution of humanism--its ways of thought and its related institutions--during
that age. Primary texts are emphasized. H. Gray. Winter.
230. Northern Renaissance and Reformation. In surveying the history
of this period, attention is devoted to the relationships between the movements
of Renaissance and Reformation in northern Europe from the late fifteenth
to the mid-sixteenth centuries. Primary texts are emphasized. H. Gray.
Spring.
231. European Integration. This course explores the process of European
integration between 1945 and 1995. It provides a thorough introduction to
key issues of the integration process, and explores the advantages and limits
of integration. Attention is paid to economic, social, military, and political
processes involved in integration, such as the European Community, NATO,
and the Western European Union. Various expansion schemes are discussed,
including possible expansion into eastern Europe. In view of the current
crisis of integration, the course aims at an overall evaluation: Who wants
European integration? Who needs it? Who has it? M. Geyer. Spring.
232/332. Europe from 1930 to 1990. This course is primarily designed
for upper-level undergraduates. The course covers both Western and Eastern
Europe. At its center are the origins and the nature of postwar European
stabilization and what happened to it in the 1980s and 1990s. We discuss
the regime of mass-production and consumption as well as the politics of
national and transnational integration in the context of East-West confrontation.
We also look at processes of regional and social marginalization and pay
particular attention to questions of immigration and citizenship. M.
Geyer. Spring.
236. History and the Russian Novel (=SocSci 290). Monday lectures present
the historical, intellectual, and literary setting of each work. On Fridays
the class discusses the novel of the week in the context of the Monday lectures.
Depending upon availability, ten novels are chosen from Radishchev, Journey;
Gogol, Dead Souls; Turgenev, Fathers and Sons; Dostoevskii,
Crime and Punishment; Tolstoi, Anna Karenina; Belyi, Petersburg;
Gladkov, Cement; Fadeev, The Rout; Sholokhov, Virgin
Soil Upturned; Erenburg, The Thaw; Solzhenitsyn, The First
Circle; and Rybakov, Children of the Arbat. R. Hellie. Spring.
237. Russian/Soviet History since 1917. This course provides a survey
of Russian history in the Soviet period (1917-91) that aims to assess the
structure of Soviet history in the light of the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991. It covers Lenin and the Bolshevik revolution; the "golden
age" of the 1920s; Stalinism, especially collectivization, the Great
Purges, World War II; the post-Stalin era of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and the
Cold War; and Gorbachev's perestroika. S. Fitzpatrick. Winter.
240. The Russian Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649 (=Fndmtl 254, LL/Soc
254, SocSci 264). Consisting of 967 articles grouped into twenty-five
chapters, the Ulozhenie of 1649 is probably the most important single
text to survive from Russia prior to 1800. Its laws are of Byzantine, Lithuanian,
and Muscovite origin. The codification reflected Russian political, economic,
social, and legal realities of the time and served as the basis of Russian
law for the next 180 years. This course entails a close reading of the text
(in the Hellie English translation) and examination of its context. R.
Hellie. Spring.
241/341. Early Modern Japan: 1800-1900 (=EALC 360). This course covers
the late feudal period through the industrial revolution and the establishment
of the modern state. T. Najita. Autumn.
242/342. Twentieth-Century Japan: 1910-Present (=EALC 405). Staff.
Winter.
249. Science from the Early Modern Period to the Enlightenment.
This course offers a sociocultural history of science from the early modern
period through the Enlightenment. Topics covered include Copernicus; Brahe;
Kepler; Galileo and the Church; Bacon, Boyle, Newton, and the rise of English
experimental natural philosophy; Descartes's mechanical philosophy; Lavoisier
and the Chemical Revolution; Franklin and electricity; the rise of natural
history; and scientific societies during the Enlightenment. M. Jackson.
Winter.
267/367. Diasporas: Asian Migration in the Modern World (=Anthro
228, SoAsia 282). The United States is known as the land of immigrants.
Yet today immigration policy is a controversial issue as established immigrant
groups seek to limit who is entitled to citizenship and who is entitled
to work. This lecture/discussion course seeks to explore the thorny problems
of migration, citizenship and multiculturalism through the lens of Asians
in the new face of America. The focus is on the formation of subcultures
and subnationalities and on the discourses of freedom that connect India,
South Africa, the Caribbean and the United States. Materials for this course
focus both on the conditions of migration and its experience and include
historical writing, novels, film, and the popular media. C. Breckenridge.
Autumn.
270/370. American Landscapes I: 1850-1904 (=ArtH 263/363, Geog 410).
PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or ArtDes course, or consent of instructor. This
course treats changes in the natural and human-made environment, focusing
on the settings American designers, builders, architects, and their clients
developed for work, housing, education, recreation, worship, and travel.
Lectures relate specific physical changes to social values, aesthetic theories,
technological skills, and social structure. N. Harris. Autumn.
272/372. African-American History to 1877. May be taken in sequence
with Hist 273 or individually. This survey course explores in
a comparative framework the historical forces that shaped the work, culture,
and political struggles of African-American people in the United States
from the advent of the Atlantic slave trade through the American Civil War
and Reconstruction. J. Saville. Autumn.
273/373. African-American History since 1865. May be taken in sequence
with Hist 272 or individually. This course examines the experiences
of black Americans from the Civil War through the 1960s. The course focuses
mainly on social and political history with emphasis on such issues as racial
ideology, discrimination, black political thought and protest movements,
the impact of urbanization, the relationship between race and class relations,
and the changing social and political roles that black Americans have occupied
in the United States. T. Holt. Winter.
274. Race and Racism in America. People of color in America have a common
history of dispossession, discrimination, and oppression. However, there
are also striking differences in their experiences, especially in the twentieth
century. This course explores possible reasons for both the commonalties
and the differences. It tests both scholarly theories and popular notions
about racism against the comparative histories of three major "racial"
groups: Asians, blacks, and Chicanos. For comparative purposes some attention
is given to Native Americans as well. T. Holt. Spring.
282. America in the Nineteenth Century. This course explores America
during the nineteenth century, focusing on the cultural, political, and
economic transformations brought about by the rise of industrial capitalism,
immigration and westward expansion, slavery and emancipation, urbanization,
and movements for radical social reformation. A. Stanley. Winter.
283-284/383-384. United States Legal History I, II (=LL/Soc 257-258). This
two-quarter sequence explores the role of law in history, and of history
in law, through a survey of American legal developments from the colonial
era to the present. It treats law not as an autonomous process or science,
but as a social phenomenon inextricably intertwined with other historical
forces. Through lectures and discussions, this course examines the impact
of law on significant events and institutions in American history while
tracing historical changes within the law itself. Attention is paid to developments
in private law, public law, jurisprudence, the judiciary, and the interrelationships
of law, society, economy, and polity. W. Novak. Winter, Spring.
292. The Holocaust and the Uses of History. In this colloquium, which
is primarily for College students, we discuss not the Holocaust itself (except
incidentally), but rather how the Holocaust has been used: issues and controversies
about how it has been understood, its representation, and its deployment
in political discussion. Among the topics to be discussed are the notion
of "historical memory," German efforts to "master the past,"
and the role of the Holocaust in Israeli and American "civil religion."
We also take up controversies concerning the behavior of "bystanders,"
films such as Claude Lanzmann's Shoah and Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's
List, and the phenomenon of "Holocaust denial." P. Novick.
Winter.
293/393. Global Issues in Health and Environment (=Anthro 311, EnvStd 255,
SoAsia 311). The twenty-first century will inherit global threats of
infection, disease, and environmental degradation. In this course, we examine
issues on health and the environment. How might minority rights and democratic
forms conflict with the interests of the state and transnational corporations?
How might debates on health address the environmental reach of global capital?
When does environmental criticism affect matters of race, sexuality, and
gender? What constitutes "public" regulation of health and community
in the era of globalization? How do environmental and health activists press
us to reconstitute categories for understanding justice, agency, and power?
We seek to understand global changes in historical as well as contemporary
perspectives. C. Breckenridge. Spring.
297. Junior Colloquium. PQ: Priority given to students needing Hist
297 to meet history concentration requirements. The purpose of the junior
colloquia is to introduce students to historical practice, how historians
have conceived the past as an object of study, and the various methods they
have employed to reconstruct it. This is accomplished principally by reading
and writing on exemplary historical texts, narratives, and works dealing
with the question of history and discussing the different issues and approaches
that have guided historians in the effort to grasp a moment or event in
the past. The colloquia are intended to show students how historians make
history, not how to do research on their B.A. essay, which is the purpose
of the senior seminar.
The following thematic sections of Hist 297 will be offered in 1996-97:
Chicago and the Civil War. This course aims to use the Chicago
area's Civil War experience to explore the assumptions and processes of
historical interpretation. Thus it focuses on understanding not only the
Civil War crisis itself, but also on how and why historiography changes;
how historians claim meaning for their work; on the varying approaches of
political, military, intellectual, social, and cultural history; and on
how historians frame questions, design research, and write convincing interpretations.
Students gain practical skills by posing a research problem of their own
derived from the colloquium topic, conducting brief research in readily
available primary sources, and developing a ten-page written argument. K.
Conzen. Autumn.
American History in the Culture Wars. In this section, we discuss
various issues in the ongoing "Culture Wars" that have involved
historical representation. We consider charges that historians have abandoned
their traditional patriotic allegiance in favor of leftist, feminist, multiculturalist,
and other ideologies repugnant to the American "mainstream." Several
meetings are devoted to particular controversies about how American history
is represented, including (provisionally) the Smithsonian exhibition on
the bombing of Hiroshima, the dispute over National History Standards, and
the representation of Columbus on the five-hundredth anniversary of 1492.
Students write a short paper on a topic drawn from one of the class sessions.
P. Novick. Winter.
"Orientalism" and the History of the Other. This course focuses
on Western writings on the history of non-European cultures, the questions
of ethnocentric bias in the writing of history, and other issues raised
by the writing of history across cultures. R. Khalidi. Winter.
Historiography. H. Gray. Spring.
299. B.A. Essay Seminar. Required of students writing history B.A.
essays. This seminar meets weekly and provides students with a forum
within which research problems are addressed, conceptual frameworks are
refined, and drafts of the B.A. essay are formally presented and critiqued.
Staff. Autumn, Winter.
430. Austrian History: 1740-1955. PQ: Third- or fourth-year standing.
This course is an introduction to selected issues in the political,
social, economic, and cultural history of the Hapsburg Empire from 1740
to 1918 and of the Austrian Republic from 1919 to 1955. It presumes a general
knowledge of major political and constitutional events in modern European
history between 1648 and the present. Both third- and fourth-year College
students, as well as graduate students, are welcome. J. Boyer. Spring.
436. Russia to Peter the Great. This thirty-hour lecture course commences
with a review of the East European Plain ethnic situation in the second
half of the first millennium A.D. The Kievan period is presented with discussions
of the formation of the Kievan Russian state, the political and social structures
of Kievan Rus', and the introduction of Christianity. Lectures on the Mongol
period discuss the impact of the Mongol invasion, the political fragmentation
of the era, and the condition of the economy, especially agriculture. For
the Muscovite period, topics discussed include the rise of Moscow, the development
and consolidation of the autocracy, Ivan the Terrible and his Oprichnina,
serfdom and the development of a stratified society, institutions such
as the Assembly of the Land and the chancellery system, provincial administration,
the Time of Troubles, and other civil disorders, foreign relations and military
developments, and Westernization. R. Hellie. Autumn.
437. Imperial Russia. This lecture course covers the following topics:
Peter the Great and "Westernization"; the eighteenth-century empresses
and the "era of palace revolutions"; the entrenchment and unraveling
of serfdom; Russia as a European great power and military change; the development
of the opposition intelligentsia from Radishchev and the Decembrists to
the Westernizers, Slavophiles, Populists, and Marxists; the Crimean War
and the Great Reforms of Alexander II; the "counter reforms" of
Alexander III; industrialization and modernization; from social estates
to social classes and the development of professions; the Revolutions of
1905 and 1917. R. Hellie. Winter.
448. Readings in Literary Chinese I: Qing Documents (=Chin 316). PQ:
Chin 213 or equivalent. This reading/discussion course covers nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century historical political documents, including such
forms as memorials, decrees, local gazetteers, diplomatic communications,
and essays. G. Alitto. Autumn.
451. History of German Science. This course offers an in-depth analysis
of the history of German science from Kant to World War II. Topics include
Romanticism and science, German optics and glass-making, materialism and
biology, the cell state, precision technology, science during World War
I and World War II, and Einstein and quantum mechanics. M. Jackson. Winter.
452. History of Science since Kuhn. M. Jackson. Autumn.
545. Autobiography I: Rousseau (=Fndmtl 204, SocTh 552). A close reading
of Rousseau's Confessions that investigates the conception of personality.
K. Weintraub. Winter.
546. Autobiography II: Goethe (=Fndmtl 205, SocTh 553). A close reading
of Goethe's From My Life (Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit) that
investigates the conception of personality. K. Weintraub. Spring.
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