COURSE DESCRIPTION: 
What is Globalization? Why does it matter? By examining world history from toughly roughly 1500-present, this course offers some preliminary answers. While cognizant of the general course of World History, our goal is to concentrate on five themes that have shaped that history: (1) economic developments (rise of capitalism and its discontents); (2) migration of humans, ideas, technologies; (3) imperialism and decolonization; (4) modern forms of political and social order; and (5) environmental transformations.  Students will learn about the processes that have created both the interconnected world we have today and the related global destitution in resources, political and economic power, and cultural influence.

Books for purchase:

Robert Tignor, et al., Worlds Together, Worlds Apart:  From 1000 CE to Present, Concise Edition (New York:  Norton, 2014).  ISBN:  039391848

Jůrgen Osterhammel and Niels Petersson, Globalization:  A Short History  (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 2009).  ISBN:  0691133956

A collection of primary sources that we post through Canvas

GRADING:

Midterm:  30%

Final Exam: 40%

Quizzes and Assignments:  20%

Participation and Attendance:  10%

This course introduces the study of Chinese history, society, and culture through an examination of the cultural unities and diversities, continuities and discontinuities that comprise the historical development of Chinese civilization. Topics include philosophy and religion; population and economy; power and authority; gender, ethnicity, and cultural identity.  This course provides a foundation for continued study of Chinese history and society for students who plan to go on to more specialized, upper-division courses including Chinese anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, economics, law, policy, international business, art history, architecture, environmental science, and philosophy.

In Fall 2017 we observed the quincentennial of the beginning of the Protestant Reform initiated by Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) 95 theses. Luther was one of the seminal figures of the second millennium whose impact is felt today. We will examine his writings and his activities, the conditions that lead to his rise, and the impact he had on the world after him. Just as importantly, we will study the historical, cultural, and social context in which he lived and whose product he was.

In a broader sense, this course focuses on the transformation of European culture (with special emphasis on Germany) from the late Middle Ages to the early modern age (1450-1600), roughly during Luther’s life time. Humanism and the Protestant Reformation will be the main focus of this course, but we will also discuss political, social, economic, scientific, and philosophical developments as well as architecture, art, music, and literature of the time period. At the end, students will have a good understanding of German and European culture at this particular crossroads.

We will break down the course into the following themes:

*          What is Humanism? Renaissance?

*          The printing press and the first information revolution

*          A new urban culture (literature, architecture, music)

*          Political power and social order

*          Heliocentrism and discoveries: America, Cape of Good Hope

*          Trade networks: the first age of Globalization

*          The Catholic church and monastic life before Luther

*          Luther’s life

*          Luther’s theology: his writings

*          The Protestant Reform: Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others

*          Catholic responses

*          Social and political impact of the Reformation

*          How Luther changed the world

Grading:

Attendance, Participation                             10%

Quizzes                                                           10%

Oral presentation                                          10%

Two short writing assignments                   20%

Two examinations                                         50%

This is an introductory class to the history of the Middle East in the 20^th century. The main question for consideration is which forces and what sort of developments transformed this region from a relatively peaceful region to a radicalized environment and a source for opposition against the “West.” By exploring critical political, social, intellectual and economic themes such as colonialism, Arab nationalism, secular modernism, the impact of Zionism and military conflict, the rise of political Islam, the status of women and the oil revolution, we would identify the main internal and external forces, as well as the critical processes, that shaped the region during the last century.

• James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East; A History (Oxford: Oxford 

                 University Press, 2004).

• James Gelvin, The Israel-Palestine Conflict : One Hundred Years of War

                  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

This course will use violence as an analytic category to study the last 500 years of history.  Historians typically explain the rise of the state, capitalism, modernity, or even the “rise of the West” in this period. Instead, this course deploys this block of time to understand violence, examining how its practices and norms have changed over time.  Violence can be difficult to describe and locate, and this course will not propose a closed definition of violence. Instead it uses an interrogative and open-ended approach, one that begins with a tentative understanding of violence as a practice inherent to certain social formations.  In this way we approach racism, anti-Semitism, class and gender violence.  It will also pay attention to the modern state and its monopolization of violence through the police and law, which reduced violence such as crime.  At the same, the modern state unleashed historically unprecedented killing in the world wars and genocides of the twentieth century. The course will also seek to understand violence outside of its physical forms, such as that existing in language and gender norms, as well as the “slow violence” of poverty and environmental degradation.  Ultimately, the course seeks to better locate the relationship between violence and power as it reveals itself in history.  Thus, political violence, the violence of war, civil wars, revolutions, and revolts will be of particular concern. 

REQUIRED TEXTS:

• Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France,” Past and Present 59 (May 1973), 51-59.
• Pierre Clastres, Archeology of Violence (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2010). (selections)
• Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000 [1939]). (selections)
• Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford University Press, 1985). (selections)
• Ed Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014). (selections)
• Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino famines and the Making of the Third World (London and New York: Verso, 2001). (selections)
• Enzo Traverso, Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914-1945 (London: Verso, 2016). (selections)
• Michel Foucault, “Right of Death and Power over Life,” from The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction (New York: Pantheon, 1978), 135-59.
• Joanna Bourke, Rape: Sex, Violence, History (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2007). (selections)

Grades:

Midterm                     30%               

Final Exam                30%

Writing                       30%

Participation             10%

Plus/Minus grading will be used for all grading in this course.  The grade scale is as follows:

100-94% = A; 93-90% = A- ; 89-87% = B+ ; 86-84% = B ; 83-80% = B- ; 79-77% = C+ ; 76-74% = C ; 73-70% = C- ; 69-67% = D+ ; 66-64% = D ; 63-60% = D- ; below 60% = F.

Description

In today’s world, a functional knowledge of Islam– in terms of religion, history, and culture – is crucial. Muslims comprise approximately ¼ of the world’s population, with an estimated global population of 1.9 billion. Islam is the majority religion of 51 countries in the world; in 33 of these countries, Muslims make up 90% or more of the population. And while many people associate Middle Eastern languages such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish with Islam, millions of Muslims also speak a range of other languages as their native tongues: Urdu-Hindi, Bengali, Indonesian/Malay, Pashto, Hausa, French, and many others. Over the course of its long history and geographical spread, Islam has branched into a spectrum of theological sects, schools of law, mystical orders, and ideological movements.  At the same time, Muslims are bound together by a shared tradition anchored in the scripture of the Qur’an, the exemplary practice of the Prophet Muhammad, and a 1400-year-old historical experience.

This lower-division course aims to give students a foundational understanding of Islam as a religion, with attention to beliefs (cosmology, theology, mysticism), practices (ritual, rites of passage), and morality (ethics, moral doctrines). It also introduces students to key moments in Islamic historyas well as key aspects of Muslimsocieties and cultures, both past and present.  Finally, this course will develop skills in news analysis and content knowledge is current affairs pertaining to Muslims. This course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of Islam and has no prerequisites.

Textbooks (available at the Co-Op)

William Shepard, Introducing Islam, 2nd edition

Todd Green, The Fear of Islam, 2nd edition

Other materials available on Canvas or online.

Grading Rubric

Attendance                                                        13%
7 biweekly Current Affairs Synopses (3% each)    21%         
12 weekly Homework Quizzes (3% each)             36%        
Final Exam                                                        30%

This is the second half of a two-semester survey of Jewish civilization. It begins with a brief discussion of Jewish history from earliest times, but focuses on the period from Spain’s Expulsion of the Jews in 1492 to the present. We will examine the major movements of Jews within an expanding diaspora, the impact of the Reformation, the changing attitudes to Jews, the breakdown of traditional authority in Jewish communities and the trend toward secularization. It will deal with the following transformative events: the rise of eastern European Jewry, the spread of kabbalah (a form of mysticism), the entry of Jews into a capitalist economy, Hassidism, Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), emancipation, modern antisemitism, Zionism, Jews in the Muslim world, the rise American Jewry, the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The thematic core of the course will be the concepts of exile and return – their various meanings and interpretations over time, in a variety of historical contexts.

Texts:

Eli Barnavi, A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People: From the Time of the Patriarchs to the Present. 

Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History.

Grading:

Two quizzes (20%), first mid-term (20%), second mid-term (20%), final exam (40%).

This course focuses on the history of medieval Europe primarily through the lens of material culture. In addition to manuscripts, we will explore the significance of several categories of historical artifacts including: art, textiles, reliquaries, architecture, pottery, crowns, and jewelry. We will discuss what we can discover about the production, circulation, reception, historic and geographic context, and the meaning attributed to the materials from which these objects were created. This class explores what these objects reveal about the religious, political, economic, cultural, and intellectual history of medieval Europe, beyond what we can learn from medieval texts and how these objects may have been experienced in a pre-modern world.

Required texts and sources:

Course Packet available at University Co-op

(Includes primary sources:  Abbot Suger,  “On the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its Art Treasures”, Paulinus of Nola, "Poem 27", Theophilus, "An Essay on Diverse Arts" and selected readings by Gregory the Great, Augustine and Isidore of Seville. )

Grading:

Map quiz: 5%

Quizzes (cumulative): 20%

Mid-semester exam (cumulative): 20%

Presentation: 15%

Last exam (cumulative): 20%

Attendance: 10%

Class Participation and Presentation Feedback: 10%

This course surveys the long history of the Indian subcontinent. Its goals are to enable students to:
•    Identify important historical personalities and key phases in Indian history
•    Understand the relationship between inequality, civilization and the rise and fall of empires.
•    Situate the Indian sub-continent in its complete global context, from ancient times to the end of the British Empire there.
Since the course surveys five thousand years, it will be directed to identifying lasting patterns and institutions rather than individuals and events. Class discussions will however, especially focus on key personalities and important texts that have left historic legacies or offer insight into their times. The format will be a mix of lectures with discussion, as well as discussion meetings devoted to specific readings.

The course is designed to accommodate students with no previous knowledge of Asia. It does require students to attend regularly, contribute to a collective learning process, keep up with weekly readings and participate constructively in discussions. Discussions will usually focus on primary sources. A primary source is something that historians use as a valid record of the past. All good historical narrative is constructed on the basis of evidence from primary sources. Reading and discussing these will enable you reason from evidence, just as historians do.


Required Texts:
Thomas R. Trautmann India: Brief History of a Civilization Second Edition, Publication Date 2015
ISBN: 9780190202491
All other readings will be available on the course website or free download..
Grading: 4 reading responses/1 geographical understanding test 40% ; mid-term and final exam – total 20 + 30%; Participation and attendance 10%.

Regular attendance is expected. A student may only be absent or late five times without penalty. Make-up for absences will only be permitted if a documented and satisfactory explanation is provided.

Grading policy:
Students may opt to take the class Credit/No Credit as and when permitted by UT OR for a grade
Grades will be assigned as follows:
A = 94-100                 A- = 90-93
B+ = 86-89                   B= 82-85          B- = 78-81
C+ = 74-77                   C=70-73           C- =66-69
D+ = 62-65                   D= 58-61          D-=57-54
53 and lower are F.

This course will use violence as an analytic category to study the last 500 years of history.  Historians typically explain the rise of the state, capitalism, modernity, or even the “rise of the West” in this period. Instead, this course deploys this block of time to understand violence, examining how its practices and norms have changed over time.  Violence can be difficult to describe and locate, and this course will not propose a closed definition of violence. Instead it uses an interrogative and open-ended approach, one that begins with a tentative understanding of violence as a practice inherent to certain social formations.  In this way we approach racism, anti-Semitism, class and gender violence.  It will also pay attention to the modern state and its monopolization of violence through the police and law, which reduced violence such as crime.  At the same, the modern state unleashed historically unprecedented killing in the world wars and genocides of the twentieth century. The course will also seek to understand violence outside of its physical forms, such as that existing in language and gender norms, as well as the “slow violence” of poverty and environmental degradation.  Ultimately, the course seeks to better locate the relationship between violence and power as it reveals itself in history.  Thus, political violence, the violence of war, civil wars, revolutions, and revolts will be of particular concern.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Selected readings in this course will be distributed electronically

GRADES:

Midterm                     30%              

Final Exam                 30%

Writing                       30%

Participation              10%

This course introduces students to the history of Africa since 1800 to the present. The course is divided into four parts: Part I – an overview of African life before 1800. Part II – an overview of the partition of Africa and the upheavals to economic, political, cultural, and social institutions. Part III – an over view of colonial histories, the struggles for freedom, and the euphoria of independence. Part IV – an overview of the legacies and disappointments of colonialism, and the post-colonialism. Because the continent is so vast, its history complex, and the time period so wide, each part will have a case study to illuminate each section of the course more concretely, giving students both depth and breadth in a subject for which they have little or no prior knowledge. The readings augment the lectures and allow students to follow their interests from the topics covered. This is a great course to take before “that trip to Africa!” The class will also utilize feature films and documentaries to illustrate the historical issues more vividly. Karibu! Welcome!

One goal of this course is to introduce students to selected topics in modern Latin American history and culture through film, readings, documentaries, class discussion and lectures.  Another aim is for students to develop their analytical capabilities to utilize both visual and written materials as they engage in discussion and write analytical outlines and essays. Topics include but are not limited to: The Mexican Revolution; Borders between Central America, Mexico, The US; The Argentine Dirty War, The Cuban Revolution.

Assigned Readings: on Canvas

Grades:   3 ESSAYS, 6/10; 3 OUTLINES, 2/10, DISCUSSION, 2/10

This course carefully examines the history of ethnic Mexicans from the Mesoamerican period to the twentiethfirst century. By beginning with 1491, we consider the origins of indigeneity and how it continues to be pivotal to the Mexican American experience today. We also rethink how contact, conquest, and colonization drastically changed the social worlds of Native Mexicans and its present-day implications for Mexican Americans. We further will study the lives of (me)Xican@/xs, Chican@/xs, xicanindi@/xs, mestiz@/xs, indigenous peoples, and brown individuals through their roles, participation, occupations, and images within the U.S., and along the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. Last, we will explore how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, language, migration, labor, and citizenship defined their diverse experiences, and how the (re)writing of this history is crucial to understanding Mexican American survival, resistance, and rebellion within Greater Mexico and the United States overall.


Readings (Selections):
Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. 8th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2015.
García, Alma M. Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Ruiz, Vicki. From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998. Reprint 2008.
Vargas, Zaragosa. Major Problems in Mexican American History: Documents and Essays. Belmont, CA: Cengage
Learning, 2011.

Grading:
• Attendance and Participation 10%
• Weekly Class Comments 15%
• Critical Essay 20%
• Co-curricular Event Reflection 15%
• Class Panel Presentation 20%
• Final Project 20%

This course studies the multicultural history of the thirteen colonies and the United States from the 1600s (with the first European efforts to explore and settle in an already populated North America) to the end of the American Civil War in 1865.

The following books will probably be assigned:

Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

Christopher Collier and James L. Collier, Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787

Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

Classes will usually consist of both a lecture and discussion. Unless authorized by SSD, no laptop computers or similar devices may be used or open during class. The use--any use--of phones in class is not permitted.

There will be three exams. The first and second exams will each count 25% of the course grade. The third exam will count 30% of the course grade. These exams will consist of short-answer and essay questions on the material from the classes and reading assignments. Exams will not be given ahead of schedule, nor will any make-ups be given, for any reason. In addition to the three exams, unannounced short, objective-question quizzes will be given frequently at the beginning of class, testing mastery of  recent course material. These quizzes will constitute 20% of a student’s course grade.

Survey of United States history from the colonial period through the Civil War.

Partially fulfills legislative requirement for American history.

The two books required for the class are available for purchase at the University Co-op or online via Amazon, et. al.. One copy is also on three-hour reserve at the PCL.

Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Volume One, Fourth (Seagull) Edition, (Norton, 2013).

Robert Olwell, ed., The Presence of the Past: Documents in American History, 1492-1865, Second Edition, Kendall-Hunt, 2013).

Grading:

There will be a mid-term exam in this course and a final exam. The mid-term will address materials covered in the preceding half of the semester. The final will cover the materials from the last half of the course as well as ask students to answer a comprehensive essay drawing upon themes developed throughout. Each exam will also include a list of ten terms drawn from the lectures and readings and you will have to briefly identify and describe the significance of five of those terms. A make-up for the mid-term will be given the Friday of the week following the regularly scheduled exam. There will be no make-up for the final exam.

The goal of this class is to introduce students to the complexities of understanding the past and to the diverse ethnic and racial groups and political and religious ideals that shaped the United States from 1492-1865. In this class, we’ll assess the development of the U.S. from a colonial backwater to independent nation. We’ll explore the various kinds of people who contributed to the growth of the United States, and discuss how many of those groups fought to be included in the freedom promised by the American Revolution. Finally, we’ll examine the events, ideas, and beliefs that finally pushed the nation into the Civil War.

The chronology of the course is divided into three major eras: the Colonial Era (1492-1700); The Revolutionary and Early National Era (1700-1820); and the Antebellum and Civil War Era (1820-1865). It is organized around 3 central themes: competing notions of religious and political freedom; changing ideas around gender and sex roles; and the development of race-based slavery, leading to sectional conflict. Students can expect to see essay questions related to these themes, as well as to the economic and political development of the US, in all course units.

Readings:

*James L. Roark et al, The American Promise: A History of the United States, 7th Edition, Value edition, Vol. 1 (Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, Macmillan Learning, 2017).

*Primary Sources posted to Canvas.

The goal of this class is to introduce students to the complexities of understanding the past and to the diverse ethnic and racial groups and political and religious ideals that shaped the United States from 1492-1865. In this class, we’ll assess the development of the U.S. from a colonial backwater to independent nation. We’ll explore the various kinds of people who contributed to the growth of the United States, and discuss how many of those groups fought to be included in the freedom promised by the American Revolution. Finally, we’ll examine the events, ideas, and beliefs that finally pushed the nation into the Civil War.

The chronology of the course is divided into three major eras: the Colonial Era (1492-1700); The Revolutionary and Early National Era (1700-1820); and the Antebellum and Civil War Era (1820-1865). It is organized around 3 central themes: competing notions of religious and political freedom; changing ideas around gender and sex roles; and the development of race-based slavery, leading to sectional conflict. Students can expect to see essay questions related to these themes, as well as to the economic and political development of the US, in all course units.

Readings:

*James L. Roark et al, The American Promise: A History of the United States, 7th Edition, Value edition, Vol. 1 (Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, Macmillan Learning, 2017).

*Primary Sources posted to Canvas.

This online interactive course is designed to provide students with a grounding in some of the most controversial, enduring, and relevant topics in the history of the United States, broadly defined.Students will read a wide range of monographs and primary source materials. Lectures anddiscussions will encourage students to compare and contrast various points of view, and interrogate broad historical transformations since the Civil War. The course will emphasize intensive reading,analytical writing, and critical thinking. The instructor and teaching assistants will, at all times,encourage students to articulate different points of view. Our central purpose is to stimulate informed, thoughtful, and intelligent perspectives on the American experience. This includes close attention to politics, society, culture, economy, diplomacy, and military affairs. It also includes an international and transnational understanding of how Americans have interacted historically with those defined as non-Americans. Instead of comprehensiveness and textbook detail, this will be a course about big ideas, big transformations, and big debates – that continue into the twenty-first century. We will not strive for consensus or agreement in this course; we will nurture learned discussion and collective engagement with the complexities of our society’s history.

Course meets online during scheduled class times and includes a live-streaming video component. Students are encouraged to visit http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tower/online/courses/ to test their computer and network connection and learn about the course structure.

Students will be required to attend several sessions in person in the on-campus studio.

Texts:

Brinkley, Alan. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Foner, Eric. Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Volume 2, Fourth Edition

(New York: W.W. Norton, 2014).

Hahn, Steven. A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South

from Slavery to the Great Migration (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 2005).

Leffler, Melvyn P. The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994).

McGerr, Michael. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

McPherson, James M. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012).

Suri, Jeremi. Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005).

Grading:

Weekly Response Essays: 20%

Document Analysis: 20%

Examination #1: 20%

Examination #2: 30%

Lecture Attendance: 10%

The course covers American history from the end of the Civil War to the present. The basic themes are (1) the struggle to define the boundary between the public sector and the private sector in American life, or between democracy and capitalism; and (2) the striking fact that a nation that professes to love peace has so often gone to war.

Course objectives

The course has two primary objectives: (1) to make students more familiar with the major events and developments of American history since the Civil War, and (2) to help students learn to think like historians: that is, to imagine how the world looked to people in the past, to try to understand why they did what they did, to formulate historical explanations and test them using historical evidence.

Texts:

Required materials

- Pearson online text and quizzes. Access can be purchased online or at the UT Coop 

- The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield, paperback book. At UT Co-op.




Grading:

Weekly online quizzes: Total to 35 percent of course grade 

Essays: Two, on topics to be assigned. 30 percent total

Book report: On The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield. 15 percent

Attendance and daily quizzes: 20 percent

The purpose of the course is to acquaint students with US history from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the 21st century, time permitting. The course follows discrete themes, breaking into five thematic sections arranged chronologically: the search for order in an age of transformation; the rise of the Regulatory State; the rise of Semi-Welfare State; the rise of the National Security State; and the triumph of conservatism. In the first third of the semester, we will focus on American society and politics and the economy at the grassroots. During the last two-thirds of the semester we will examine the most important development of the 20thand 21st centuries—the growth of federal power and authority at home and abroad.

Texts:

James W. Davidson, et. al., US: A Narrative History, Vol. II (8th edition)

William L. Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (Bedford Books edition, edited by Terrence J. McDonald)

Richard Wright, Black Boy

Michael B. Stoff et al., eds., The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age

Grading:

    There will be two one-hour examinations, each worth 25 percent of your semester grade, and one final examination, worth 45 percent of your semester grade. The examinations will be largely essay in format with a short objective section. The final exam may be given added weight in determining your course grade should you show steady improvement.

    The date of the hour exams are subject to change depending on the amount of material we cover in each lecture. Any changes will be announced in advance.

    No make-up examinations will be given. You may be excused from one of the hour examinations only if you have a certified medical excuse or an official university obligation.

    There will be one short paper (1000 words) based on The Manhattan Project (see reading list). It is worth 30 percent of yourfinal examination grade. It will be due in class at the last class meeting.

    No audio or video recorders are permitted in class.

    All cell phones and Wi-Fi connections must be turned off in class.

    You will be assigned a teaching assistant who will be responsible for grading your examinations and for helping you with any problems related to the course (see below for TA offices and office hours).

    For those students with learning and other special needs, please contact Services For Students with Disabilities at <http://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/ssd/index.php> for assistance.

    While the reading assignments are fixed and followed carefully, the list of lectures may change depending on the amount of material covered in each lecture.

    This course will have a Supplemental Teaching Assistant who will run voluntary discussion sections. The room and meeting times will be announced in class.

    Academic dishonesty is strictly prohibited and will be dealt with according to the rules of the university. For a careful explanation, see http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acint_student.php.

    Attendance is mandatory and will be taken for every session beginning 10 minutes before class. Attendance will form 5 percent of the final grade. Entering class after the bell will be counted as 1?2 attendance for that session. If you are late, please sit in the back of the room and alert the Teaching Assistant to your presence after class. At random, three times during the semester attendance will also be taken at the end of class to avoid signing in and leaving.

This course partially fulfills the legislative requirement for American history.

This course will look at roughly 100 years of building in American society from 1867-1980. It will focus on the ways in which politicians, architects, engineers, urban planners, construction workers, naturalists, environmentalists, novelists, filmmakers and the American populous approached the relationship between large-scale infrastructure projects and social development. This course will pay special attention to  the design of specific dams, highways, and urban areas and will place them in larger historical perspective by evaluating key locations before and after they were built or expanded. Hoover Dam, for instance, would provide a key case study in this class. Hoover Dam does more than hold water and generate electricity. It dramatically changed (and continues to change) the relationship that people had with technology, the surrounding area, and with each other. The closest urban area, Las Vegas, will also be evaluated when discussing Hoover Dam, but so too will Southern California. Special attention will also be paid to the engineering innovations that changed construction techniques used in large scale projects.

Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America by Henry Petroski (Oct 29, 1996)

To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design by Henry Petroski (Mar 31, 1992)

Seely, Bruce Edsall. Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers. Technology and Urban Growth. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.

Snyder, Logan Thomas. “The Creation of America’s Interstate Highway System.” American History 41, no. 2 (June 2006): 32–39.

Moudry, Roberta, ed. The American Skyscraper: Cultural Histories. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

McCullough, David G. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Introduction to Engineering Nature: Water, Development, and the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise, by Jessica Tiesch, (UNC Press, 2011). 

We will be reading short articles about specific building projects: Hoover Dam, Glen Canyon Dam, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Sears House, the Woolworth Building, etc.

Possible readings may include:

Schweitzer, Robert. America’s Favorite Homes: Mail-order Catalogues as a Guide to Popular Early 20th-century Houses. Great Lakes Books. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.

Cooke, Amanda, and Avi Friedman. “Ahead of Their Time: The Sears Catalogue Prefabricated Houses.” Journal of Design History 14, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 53–70. 

Midterm: 100 points

Paper: 50 points

Final exam: 100 points

Book Review: 25 points

Reading quizzes: 10 points each

In class participation: 25 points.

This course examines the chief characteristics of Anglo-American culture from the initial permanent English settlement of British North America in the early seventeenth century to the emergence of provincial societies in the mid-eighteenth century.  Its theme is the settlement and unsettlement of North America as migrants from Europe and Africa mingled with aboriginals already in the New World.  We will look comparatively at different colonizing experiments in North America and the Caribbean, in order to comprehend the varied and often international context within which colonial history took place. At he same time, we will look for the values that shaped early American institutions and social norms and examine them against alternatives both that other contemporary societies offered and that the circumstances of colonial life suggested.  In doing so we will attempt to understand how environment and experience shaped distinctive new world cultures.

This course may be used to fulfill three hours of the U.S. History component of the university core curriculum and addresses the following four core objectives established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: communication skills, critical thinking skills, personal responsibility, and social responsibility. It also carries two distribution flags: Cultural Diversity and Writing.

This course carries the flag for Cultural Diversity in the United States. Cultural Diversity courses are designed to increase your familiarity with the variety and richness of the American cultural experience. A substantial portion of your grade will come from assignments covering the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one U.S. cultural group that has experienced persistent marginalization.

This course also carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and you may be asked to read and discuss your peers’ work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work.

Readings:

The following books are available at the Bookstore.

Richard Middleton and Anne Lombard, Colonial America. A History, 1565-1776,

4^th edition (Oxford, 2011).

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography. Various editions. Louis P. Masur ed. (Boston, 2016)]

John Woolman,  Journal.  Various editions. [Phillips P. Moulton, The Journal and Major Essays, (Richmond, IN 1971, 2007)]

Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World, (Cambridge, MA, 1999.)

Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora, (Cambridge, MA, 2007).

Alternative pairs of books for essay #3

Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York, 1998).

James Merrell, Into the Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (New York, 2000).

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale:  the Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary, 1785-1812 (New York, 1990).

Woody Holton, Abigail Adams: A Life (New York, 2009).

Course Requirements

All students will attend weekly lectures and discussions that take place in the third class hour.  Discussions will focus on the assigned readings and students will be expected to participate actively. Participation marks will be based on attendance and the instructor’s evaluation of student contributions to discussion. Students are responsible for lecture material along with that contained in the required readings and for any changes to the syllabus that are announced in class.  Although there is some overlap between texts and lectures, lectures do not simply repeat material in the readings. I do not provide copies of lectures and attendees are prohibited from recording lectures and discussions.  A schedule of the required readings is attached.

Written Work:  Students will hand in three short essays.  The first will be a 5-page paper comparing the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and John Woolman. This essay is due on Sept. 18 for peer review, final version due Sept. 25.  The second is a comparison of Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves and Anthony Parent, Foul Means, due on Oct.16 for peer review, final version due Oct. 23. The third is a comparison of EITHER Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale and Woody Holton, Abigail Adams: A Life (New York, 2009), OR Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeny, Captors and Captives and Ian Steele, Warpaths: Invasions of North America, due on Nov. 13 for peer review, final version due Nov. 27. The second and third papers will be a maximum of 6 pages.

You may choose to hand in ONE of these papers up to a week late. Essays later than one week will be credited as work completed but will receive a mark of zero.

You also may choose to submit a re-written version of paper one.

Examination:  The final examination will cover all material addressed in class and all readings assigned for essays or for consideration in the classroom.  We will discuss the nature of the examinations and essays in class.

Marking Scheme:

Essay on assigned primary sources (5 pages) – 15%

Comparative essay on Dunn and Parent (7 pages) – 25%

Comparative essay on either Ulrich and Holton or Anderson and Haefeli & Sweeney

(7 pages) – 25%

Class discussion participation - 10%

End-of-Term Examination – 25%

Final marks will include a plus and minus range.

            The purpose of this course is to provide students with a thorough introduction to what is best described as the foundations of American History.  “Establishing America” covers the two centuries of English/British colonization ventures in North America and the ensuing, crucial four decades from the Declaration of Independence in 1775 through the aftermath of the War of 1812.  No later period of United States History compares with these two and a half centuries in contributions to the fundamental shape and character of American society.

            Too often American History courses merely gesture toward a slender list of perspectives on the extremely varied, North American colonial experiences before focusing heavily on the “origins” of the American nation in the Revolution and through the adoption and early implementation of the U. S. Constitution.  What this approach fails to acknowledge properly is that most members of the founding generation grew up in, and were deeply influenced by the colonial/provincial societies their parents and grandparents consciously constructed and adapted to, and that the Revolutionaries inherited. Pre-Revolution experiences and the structures of the various provincial British-American societies mattered in all that ensued. Building on these experiences late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Americans undertook a variety of experiments in politics, economics, social relations and international affairs that – just as the colonial past had done – posed profound questions about ethics and leadership in the nascent American society.

            The establishment of America over the first two decades of Euro-American habitation of North America constitutes a continuum of ethical considerations and choices, which spring from a variety of themes: immigration, both voluntary and forced; the commerce of the Atlantic, both in goods and people; traditional English rights and their metamorphosis in American hands; British and American constitutionalism; experiments with sovereignty, federalism, and the language of rights; the meanings and institutionalization of religious liberty and freedom of speech; claiming, expropriating, and establishing title to land; slavery and various other forms of unfree labor; the role of the slave trade and slavery in the Atlantic economies; native American/Euro-American contact, trade, conflict and demographics; various theatres and experiences of violence and warfare; ethnic and racial distinctions; institutional, cultural, and economic Anglicization and Americanization; patriarchy and equality; family structures and gender roles; imperialism, provincialism, nationalism and exceptionalism; monarchy and subjecthood; republicanism and citizenship.  While these topics will inform weekly lectures, readings and discussion, they will be structured around four basic themes; occupation of the land; slavery; loyalty in the Revolutionary struggle; and the meanings of rights and equality in the new republic. These will require students to reflect on and appreciate perspectives that will enrich their capacity for present-day civic mindedness and engagement.

Geographical literacy. This class will participate in a new History Department initiative to improve student geographical literacy using a digital history tool called Cerego. Along with other conceptual dimensions, geographical literacy helps us deepen our understanding of the complex processes of human interaction. You will be required to complete a series of map exercises this semester that are intended to reinforce your grasp of geographical knowledge. These exercises are accessible through Canvas.

This course may be used to fulfill three hours of the U.S. history component of the university core curriculum and addresses the following four core objectives established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: communication skills, critical thinking skills, personal responsibility, and social responsibility.

This course also carries the flag for Ethics and Leadership. Courses carrying the Ethics and Leadership Flag equip you with the tools necessary for making ethical decisions in your adult and professional life. Courses carrying this flag expose you to ethical issues and to the process of applying ethical reasoning in real-life situations.

For background and some perspectives on American History students might refer to the UT History Department’s website NOT EVEN PAST  (https://notevenpast.org/teaching-us-history-with-not-even-past/).

Readings:

The following books are available at the Co-op Bookstore:

Eric G. Nellis, An Empire of Regions: A Brief History of Colonial British America, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.

Eric G, Nellis, The Long Road to Change: America’s Revolution, 1750-1820, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World, revised edition, New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.

Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 

David Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution:  From Revolution to Ratification, New York: Hill and Wang, 2009.

Book of Primary Sources.

Course Requirements

All students are expected to attend Monday and Wednesday lectures and to have read the assignments listed for that date in advance of each class. Students are responsible for lecture material along with that contained in the assigned readings and for any changes to the syllabus announced in class.  Although there is some overlap between texts and lectures, lectures do not simply repeat material in the readings. A schedule of the required readings is attached.

I do not provide copies of lectures and attendees are prohibited from recording lectures. No cell phones, tablets, e-readers, iPods, iPads, laptop computers, etc. This is an electronics free classroom.  All laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices must be turned off at the beginning of class.

Written Work:  Students will hand in one short essay on Nov. 5.  This will be a 5-page paper comparing the analyses in Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World, revised edition, New York: Hill and Wang, 2001, and Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.  Student’s should read the following article as they think about how to compare these two monographs. John Keown, “ America’s War for Independence: Just or Unjust”, Journal of Catholic Social Thought 6(2009), 277-304.

We will discuss how to structure such written comparisons in class. Late papers will be penalized by one full grade per day.

Attendance: Students are expected to attend all classes. After two absences students will be penalized one half mark for each missed class from the assigned total of 5 marks for full attendance.

Test and Examination:  There will be a test made up of multiple choice questions, short answer questions and one longer essay question in the second class period of Week 8 – Mar. 7. There will be a final examination in this course during the end of term examination period.

Marking Scheme:

Map Quiz 5%

Attendance 5%

Test 20%

Comparative essay on Gross and Jasanoff – 30%

End-of-Term Examination – 40%

Final marks will include a plus and minus range.

This class explores how religious people and communities in the United States affirm their faith, understand the ethical life, engage in ritual acts, and organize their communal relations. It looks at how religious practice has developed in the United States through a historically organized survey of religious groups. To organize our study of this vast subject, we will focus particularly on the themes of colonization and immigration, two phenomena that have impacted the American religious landscape.

We begin with the continent’s original diversity in its hundreds of Native American traditions. Moving to the colonial era and continuing through the contemporary moment, we explore colonizing and immigrating movements that have brought European Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, along with practitioners of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism from Asia and Africa to North America. We also investigate communities birthed in the United States, including Mormonism, Pentecostalism, and the Nation of Islam. Through this survey, we consider a variety of religious traditions, the changing state of the population’s religious composition, as well as how Americans have navigated those shifts using concepts such as disestablishment, diversity, and pluralism.

Description:  Widely considered a wellspring for U.S. greatness, immigration has also been an abiding site of our deepest conflicts.  The republican foundations of the United States with its promises of democracy and equality for all seem to strain against ever increasing numbers of immigrants from parts of the world barely conceived of by the Founding Fathers, much less as sources of new citizens.  What is the breaking point for the assimilating powers of U.S. democracy and how much does national vitality rely upon continued influxes of a diversity of immigrants with their strenuous ambitions and resourcefulness?  Today we remain embattled by such competing beliefs about how immigration shapes our nation’s well-being and to what ends we should constrain whom we admit and in what numbers. 

This seminar emphasizes the following themes:  the changing population of the United States from colonial times; ethnic cultures, communities, and cuisines; ideologies concerning eligibility for citizenship and for restricting immigration; the development of immigration law as an aspect of sovereign authority; the entwining of immigration policy with international relations; and the evolution of institutions for immigration enforcement.  

This course may be used to fulfill three hours of the U.S. history component of the university core curriculum and addresses the following four core objectives established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: communication skills, critical thinking skills, personal responsibility, and social responsibility. 

This course also carries the flag for Cultural Diversity in the United States. Cultural Diversity courses are designed to increase your familiarity with the variety and richness of American cultural experiences. A substantial portion of your grade stems from assignments concerning the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one U.S. cultural group that has experienced persistent marginalization. 

Texts/Readings: *main texts are on 2-hour reserve at PCL

*Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (Harper Perennial, 2002 edition)

Supplemental readings are available on Canvas

Grade Distribution: Final grades will be allocated as follows: A 93-100; A- 90-92; B+ 88-89; B 83-87; B- 80-82; C+ 78-79; C 73-77; C- 70-72 and so forth 

            Family Immigration Narrative:  10%; 2-page essay

            Midterm: 20% bluebook exam; short essay IDs

Final: 30% bluebook exam; short essay IDs and long essay

            Attendance and class participation: 15%

            Primary document analysis: 25% research and 4-5 page essay

This course introduces students to the histories of people of Asian descent in the United States, from the late sixteenth century to the present. Through historical works, literature, films, primary sources, and popular culture, students will explore the making of Asian America as a dynamic site of identity construction, political protest, community formation, social movement building, and a vibrant field of intellectual and historical inquiry. The course will focus on four broad themes: 1) the causes and effects of migration and settlement in the development of Asian American communities; 2) the role that Asian Americans have played in shaping U.S. social, political, and cultural institutions; 3) the diverse individuals and groups which make up this broad category of people we designate as Asian Americans, and their unique and sometimes shared experiences of oppression, marginalization, racism, and political empowerment; and 4) the ways in which the experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class have intersected with other marginalized groups in U.S. society. Throughout the course, we will explore these themes within global and transnational contexts to identify shared connections across borders—physical, imagined, and otherwise.

Required course materials:

Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History

Additional reading assignments will be available for download on Canvas.

Grading breakdown:

20% Exam 1

20% Exam 2

20% Exam 3

20% Group project

20% Attendance and participation

This course will look at the history of urban economic development within the United States and South Africa, with a special focus on the growth, development, and neglect of low-income racially homogenous communities. Both countries share a racial past and both countries are still trying to find ways to bring its low-income residents into the economic mainstream. Within the United States inner-city communities are now becoming prime business locations because of its close access to downtown and the city’s financial and business markets. Further, emerging entrepreneurs are not only choosing to locate their firms in the ‘hood but they are also using local residents who were previously unemployed or underemployed. The goal of these efforts is to create jobs and income for inner-city residents, instead of relying upon charity and goodwill. A similar market-led approach is taking place in South Africa as well as entrepreneurs and developers are finding ways to bring economic development efforts to the countries notorious townships. 

While these efforts have only recently received widespread media attention, this course will show that the drive for vibrant communities is nothing new. Within the townships of South Africa there has been a sustained drive for economically competitive communities and likewise within inner-city America. This course will look at these efforts within the historical context of apartheid and the post colonial era within South Africa; and in the historical context of post-war and post-civil rights America.

Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the U.S. and South Africa, Fredrickson

After Mandela: The Struggle for Freedom in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Foster

American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, Self

Khayelitsha: uMlungu in a Township, Otter

The Business of Black Power: Community Development, Capitalism, and Corporate Responsibility in Postwar America, Hill and Rabig

The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville, Hyra

Grades will be based upon the following:

• Two critical book reviews
• Weekly blogging
• Two exams
• Oral History Project
• A fifteen page historical paper that compares and contrasts inner-city economic development efforts in the United States with similar efforts in Khayelitsha. Your oral history project should form the basis for the South African portion of the paper.
• Internship
• Class participation

Grade Breakdown

• Two critical book reviews (20%)
• Weekly Blogging (10%)
• Internship (10%)
• Class Participation (10%)
• Mid-Term exam (20%)
• Oral history Project and Final Paper (30%)

With global expansion from the spread of warfare, commerce and credit, exploration, New World Colonization, technological innovation, and religious reformation and counter-reformation, the seventeenth century saw the spread of knowledge and experience of the world through human interaction in the form of conflict, economic exchange, and cultural creativity. Extensions of human geography and puzzling encounters with strange people, gods, material culture, and flora and fauna in exotic places, also formed the basis of a remarkable convergence of science, art and culture between east and west during this period. The purpose of this lecture course is to begin to map just a few of the major patterns in this enormous global process as they touch upon the various regions of Spanish, British, and French North America during the earliest period of settlement.

Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country (Electronic Resource on UTCAT); Franklin W. Knight, ed., Andrew Hurley translator, Bartolome de las Casas, An Account, Much Abbreviated , of the Destruction of the Indies;   David Cressy, Coming Over (pdf available on blackboard);   Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire;   April Lee Hatfield, Atlantic Virginia;   John Demos, Unredeemed Captive; Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492-1640 (Electronic Resource on UTCAT);  Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade;   James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins.

Midterm and Final Essay Examinations, one 2-page book review, one quiz.  Grading percentages are not written in stone but may be calculated roughly as follows:  midterm (30%), final (40%), book review (20%), and quiz (10%). Please note:  while there are no explicit percentages for class participation listed in this framework, enthusiastic engagement with the readings during discussions is expected and will be rewarded in the final grade.  As a result, those of you who do not participate will suffer by comparison.

This course focuses on the basic history of Texas from roughly 1810 to 1920.  Emphasis will be given to how and why Texas and Texans changed over time.  Among the goals and objectives are for all students to understand how and why Texas was and was not like the regions and countries on its borders, what caused change or the absence of change, and what influenced the particular path to the 20th century of all Texans.  I expect you to attend class, do the readings, and move beyond a simple mastery of factual information.  It is my hope that by the end of the semester you will think and act like an historian by engaging in the debate about the past and by using primary source material, the ideas and insights of trained professional historians, and your own critical thinking skills to place your understanding of the Texas past on a firm foundation.  The readings and assignments in this course are designed to help you achieve these objectives by building skills as well as knowledge, and you will be graded not only on your mastery of basic factual information but on your ability to effectively organize and utilize that information. 

In 2017, Texan journalist Lawrence Wright claimed, “America’s Future is Texas.”1 He emphasized not only the outsized role that Texas has played in national politics recently—with several 20th- and 21st-century presidents coming from Texas and with Texas’ significant role in the creation of the far right conservative movement—but also Texas’ economic and cultural leadership. Lawrence noted, however, that despite with the radical growth that Texas has experienced in recent decades, its society is often sharply divided over issues of race, religion, immigration, access to healthcare, government intervention, and so on—issues divisive around the U.S. today. Is it true that, as Gail Collins wrote in 2012, As Goes Texas, so goes the nation?2 If so, how did we arrive at this Texan Present? How does Texas’ past play a role in defining “America’s Future”?

This course will examine the history of Texas in the 20th century with an eye toward its political, economic, and socio-cultural development. This class is divided into two units that cover, roughly, Texas from Reconstruction to World War II (1865-1945) and Texas from World War II to the Present (1945-2018). As this course comes with a Cultural Diversity flag and is cross- listed with Mexican American Studies, we will especially emphasize the experiences of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, African Americans, and women in the state. By the end of the course, students should have a clear conception of the development of racial and ethnic relations and conflict, political shifts and realignments, and major economic and urban developments in Texas—and hopefully be better prepared to understand how they, as citizens of Texas can influence the direction of a powerful state within the United States.

Class readings may include:

* de la Teja, Jesus F., et al. Texas: Crossroads of North America, 2nd Ed. Boston: Cengage, 2016. (ISBN: 978-1133947387)

* Ladino, Robyn Duff. Desegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.

* Zamora, Emilio. Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican workers and Job Politics during World War II. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009.

* Study materials; workshop materials; primary sources; and (brief) lecture outlines will be posted to Canvas throughout the semester. [No purchase required.]

Grading based on:

Primary Source Responses 100 points [2 papers @ 50 points each]

In-Class Exams 100 points [2 exams @ 50 points each]

Book Analysis Paper 100 points [1 paper @ 100 points]

Quizzes Only given on an as-needed basis; total points possible raised accordingly

Extra Points Up to five points added to total; awarded in class with Exit Tickets

Your final grade will be determined by taking your total points earned and then by dividing it by the total points possible [300 points]. Grades will be awarded on a plus/minus scale (e.g. 87-89 is a B+; 83-86 is a B; 80-82 is a B-). I will “round up” (e.g. 89.5-89.9 will become an A-).

Historians use a range of analytical skills and our discipline, like the rest of the world, is entering the age of big data. In this class we will explore changes in American society using a massive data source, the hundreds of millions of names in the Social Security database. We will treat changes in baby names as evidence of broader political, social, and cultural change. When and why did the name Adolph drop in popularity? That should be obvious, but which name dropped in popularity the fastest: Adolph, Benito, or Hillary? Which name switched genders the fastest: Ashleigh, Kerry, or Jackie? Have personal names in the US become more or less diverse? Do the answers to these questions vary by state or region? Is Texas more “name diverse” than Wisconsin? Through these questions, we will explore the intersection of history with the interdisciplinary field of data science.

So that we can analyze name trends, this course will introduce the computer language R and review some basic algebra. Math and coding-related questions will include how to measure name diversity and how to calculate it by state and year. We will also explore more conventional historical sources and methods: newspapers, magazines, fiction and non-fiction books, and archival materials. Which politicians, celebrities, or fictional characters might have changed the popularity of a name? Was the name Marion, for example, already trending female when Marion Robert Morrison chose the screen name John Wayne? Did Cassius Clay spark a trend toward Islamic and Afro-centric names when he became Muhammed Ali? How do biographies, autobiographies, and other sources explain trends in names? How do those explanation match our quantitative evidence?

You do not need any special background in mathematics or computer science, just curiosity and a lack of “math anxiety.” If you have a strong math, stats, or coding background, you will learn to apply those skills to real world data. If not, this is a great introduction to data science. For all students, by combining humanistic critical thinking with computational analysis, this course will give you skills applicable to a range of careers.

Course Description:  In this entry-level seminar for History Majors and friends, you’ll work collaboratively on reading, thinking, and writing as student historians. The course balances attention to skills and content by breaking the semester into four parts, each three weeks long, plus a final research assignment. We’ll concentrate on a range of skill-sets, as well as different historical contexts, research methods, types of evidence, and categories of analysis. You and your group will practice distinguishing and evaluating both primary and secondary sources, posing historical questions, and designing research projects to answer those questions.
 
This course carries a Writing Flag, which means that we will assess your learning together largely through writing assignments. Some of the writing will be short: we’ll use Hypothesis to write and share marginal comments, for example, and you’ll fill out four reading response forms. In addition, you’ll write three short papers, all to go through peer review and substantive revision. You’ll have one group research project; and you’ll conclude the semester by constructing your own research framework for poster presentation. For this final project you choose your campus archive: the Briscoe Center for American History, The LBJ Presidential Library, the Harry Ransom Center, the Benson Latin American Library, etc.

Thinking Like a Historian is a lower division seminar for History majors/potential majors/interested students of history. Students learn to read, write and think like historians, that is to understand history as an academic discipline in terms of research methods, evidence, and analysis. We use case studies about early modern Europe (France and London), Jefferson’s America and 19th-century Texas. Students read primary sources and examine how different historians have competing interpretations of particular topics.

Students will write three short papers, several very brief responses to readings, complete two group research projects and develop a research paper framework.  Students use on line sources for the group projects and campus archives of their choice (The Briscoe Center for American History, The LBJ Presidential Library, the Harry Ransom Center etc) for research frameworks.
Readings:

Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Harvard University Press, 1984)

Denise Spellberg, Thomas Jefferson’s Qu’ran: Islam and the Founders  (Vintage, 2013)

James E. Crisp, Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett’s Last Stand and Other Mysteries of

the Texas Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2005)

Plus articles available on line
Grading:

Three short papers 30% (10% each)

Two group projects 30% (15% each)

Research project framework 25%

Preparation and Engagement 15%

This class will cover the story of the Roman empire from the death of Caesar to the fall of Rome in A.D. 476.  After working our way through the narrative of this period (about half the semester), we will examine a number of topics that cut across time.  The course will touch on politics, law, war, the economy, social classes, gender, material culture, and archaeology.

This course carries the Global Cultures flag.

This course fulfills the Cultural Expression, Human Experience, & Thought Course area requirement.

This course will survey the development of modern science from the early 18th century to the present. We will examine the growth of scientific ideas and institutions and seek to understand the changing place science has held in modern life and thought.

Texts:

Thomas L. Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment,

Charles Darwin, Evolutionary Writings (ed. James A. Secord),

Bruce J. Hunt, Pursuing Power and Light: Technology and Physics from James Watt to Albert Einstein,

James D. Watson, The Double Helix (Norton Critical Edition, ed. Gunther S. Stent),

plus additional readings to be posted on Canvas.

Grades will be based on three essay exams (25% each) and a short paper on a topic to be assigned (25%).

This course explores interesting episodes in the history of science, focusing on questions about what aspects of human behavior are essentially determined by biological factors rather than by experiences and society. Changing beliefs about what is natural have affected how some people are treated, so we will discuss the social consequences of such notions. The course will include the following topics: theories of race, Darwin’s works, evolution in schools and U.S. courts, American eugenics and Nazi science, differences between women and men, IQ testing, the controversy about DNA and Rosalind Franklin, studies of twins separated at birth, genetic engineering, ethical issues on cloning animals and humans, biotechnology, the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks, designer babies, biology in forensic science. This is a lecture course, with participation encouraged.

This course fulfills a College of Liberal Arts Science Component: Alternative Science & Technology course.

Some readings are in the Course Packet, required, which will be available at Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2518 Guadalupe St. There are no readings at the Libraries, on reserve, instead, all other readings will be available online through the UT Libraries website or on Blackboard: https://courses.utexas.edu/

Some of the readings: Francis Galton, "Comparative Worth of Races," in Hereditary Genius (1869). Charles Darwin, Descent of Man (1871), "On the Races of Man," and “Sexual Differences." Cesare Lombroso, Criminal Man (1st ed. 1876). Lombroso, The Female Offender (1895). Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1748). Francis Galton, "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims" (1904). Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (1976).

First exam 20%, Midterm Exam 20%, Final Exam 30%, Quizzes 20%, Attendance 10

This course will explore the diverse variety of genetic and eugenic practices that began to emerge early in the 20th century and which remain, in contemporary reprogenetic practice, of vital importance today. While the most famous examples of eugenic policy remain those implemented in Nazi Germany and the infamous sterilization laws in the US and elsewhere during the inter-war years, in reality eugenic science influenced research, law, and social policy on every continent throughout the 20th century. Its legacy is often to be seen in today’s genetic research. The course will trace the radical changes in the field of genetics since the early the 20th century and consider the debate over the relationship between eugenics and modern genetics.

The course will range across a wide geographical area, looking at eugenic and genetic practice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as Europe and North America.

Core Text
Philippa Levine, Eugenics: A Very Short Introduction (2017)

Brazil, the largest nation and economy in Latin America, is a country marked by geographic diversity, cultural complexity, and social inequality. This course examines modern Brazilian history with a focus on political movements and socioeconomic change.  It looks at how various social actors in Brazil--elites, peasants, slaves, workers, women, the military, and indigenous people--have contributed to and been affected by the process of nation-building since Independence.  Through a variety of texts (historic, ethnographic, literary, musical, and sociological) and visual material (film, documentaries, video clips) the course explores key issues in modern Brazilian history: the transition to Independence; slavery and emancipation; export agriculture and oligarchic rule;  social banditry and folk Catholicism; urbanization and marginality; regional disparities and rural poverty; racial discourse and inequality; frontier expansion, colonization and indigenous policy; popular culture and music; military dictatorship and repression; the foreign debt crisis of the 1980s and the turn to neoliberalism in the 1990s; the rise and fall of the Workers Party; and contemporary politics.

Perspectives on Science and Math explores the intellectual, social, and cultural history of science and mathematics, focusing on the 17th century to the present. This is an upper-division history course designed for students in UTeach Natural Sciences. This course has four interlocking goals: to give you an overview of the history of science and math in order to broaden your understanding of subjects you will teach in the future; to enable you to put this broader history and context to work in science and math pedagogy; to improve your ability to research, analyze, and evaluate information; and to improve your writing and communication skills.

This is a Writing Flag course. It is designed to give you experience writing within an academic discipline––in this case, history. You can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback to help you revise your writing. You will also have the opportunity to read and discuss your peers’ work. For more information about the benefits and expectations of Writing Flag courses, see http://www.utexas.edu/ugs/core/flags/writing.

Texts:

Ede, Andrew, and Lesley B. Cormack. A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility. Third ed. University of Toronto Press, 2016.

Additional required primary and secondary source readings online.

Grading:

Participation and Attendance 10%

Reading Comprehension/Reflection Questions 25%

Essays 25%

5E Lesson Plan Project 40%

Perspectives on Science and Math explores the intellectual, social, and cultural history of science and mathematics, focusing on the 17th century to the present. This is an upper-division history course designed for students in UTeach Natural Sciences. This course has four interlocking goals: to give you an overview of the history of science and math in order to broaden your understanding of subjects you will teach in the future; to enable you to put this broader history and context to work in science and math pedagogy; to improve your ability to research, analyze, and evaluate information; and to improve your writing and communication skills.

This is a Writing Flag course. It is designed to give you experience writing within an academic discipline––in this case, history. You can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback to help you revise your writing. You will also have the opportunity to read and discuss your peers’ work. For more information about the benefits and expectations of Writing Flag courses, see http://www.utexas.edu/ugs/core/flags/writing.

Texts:

Ede, Andrew, and Lesley B. Cormack. A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility. Third ed. University of Toronto Press, 2016.

Additional required primary and secondary source readings online.

Grading:

Participation and Attendance 10%

Reading Comprehension/Reflection Questions 25%

Essays 25%

5E Lesson Plan Project 40%

This course will examine major political, economic, social, and cultural issues that shaped Iran since the nineteenth century. We will be asking a number of interrelated questions throughout the semester. How did Iran’s social structure change in the last two centuries? How did gender relations change during the same period? How did the discovery of oil impact Iranian economy and society? Why did the 1979 Islamic Revolution happen? What role did ordinary people play in these historical processes? Why did they act in the way they did? Thinking about these questions requires us to study many kinds of primary texts and other cultural artifacts, including government documents, newspaper articles, short stories, films, songs, cartoons, posters, and so forth. By using these sources, we aim to explore how diverse groups of people experienced Iran’s rapid transformation since 1800 and how domestic, regional, and global factors affected the processes of transformation. More generally, our aim is to learn to think of ourselves as citizens of a larger world by gaining the ability to comprehend how people remote from ourselves both chronologically and geographically understand, experience, and imagine their lives.

The Cultural Outsider: Memoirs and Travelogues of East Asia*

*cross-listed with HIS 340U

Course carries Global Cultures and Writing Flags

The focus of the capstone seminar is on the cultural outsider’s perceptions of East Asia as addressed in greater literature originally written in English (with a few exceptions), in the genres of memoirs and travelogues dating from the 19^th century to works published in contemporary America. Works selected for the seminar are to be read and discussed within the broad context of “travel literature” written by a broad expanse of visitors to greater East Asia: China (including Hong Kong and Tibet), Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. These pieces of “travel literature” are written by a diverse group of “cultural outsiders” that includes missionaries, journalists, POW’s, scholars, English teachers, students, and tourists.

Some major concepts and themes that emerge from these works concern Asian stereotypes, self-discovery and cultural identity formation, and exoticization of Asia and all things Asian (or “Oriental”). We will pose open-ended questions about these perceptions of Asia not as literary critics, but rather more as readers, or as fellow “participant observer” travelers to Asia. In particular, we will discuss and analyze a cultural outsider’s approach to memoir writing through the lenses of “layered memory” and “gossip.”

Same as Asian Studies 341K. This course focuses on Japan over roughly 150 years, from the 1850s to the early 21st century.  Topics include a brief survey of traditional Japanese society and politics; the fall of the shogunate and the Meiji Restoration of 1868; industrialization and economic development; the rise of consumer culture and mass politics in the 1910s and 1920s; 1930s militarism and World War II; the American occupation and postwar recovery; the rise of Japan Inc. and the long postwar economic boom of the 1960s and 1970s, the “bubble economy” of the 1980s and Japan’s “lost decade(s)” since the 1990s. Although the emphasis will be on major political events and institutional developments, we will trace social and cultural currents through literature, including dramas, novels, and movies.
Required texts:
·      Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, ISBN-13: 978-0199930159
·      Tanizaki Junichirō, Naomi, ISBN-13: 978-0375724749
·      Cook and Cook ed, Japan at War: An Oral History, ISBN-13: 978-1565840393
·      Handouts, reserves, and on-line readings.
Course requirements and grading:
·      two in-class midterm exams (20% each)
·      two take-home mid-term exams (20% each)
·      active in-class discussion work (10%)
·      short final essay (film or novel response) (10%)

The advent of Protestantism at the beginning of the sixteenth century is popularly associated with the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of “Modernity.” Martin Luther’s publication of his 95 Theses in 1517 began a series of ideas and events that changed religion, politics, and daily life as they spread. Yet the rise of the merchant class, the advent of the printing press, and the discovery of the New World, as well as a number of the theological ideas now associated with Luther all belong to the achievements of the so-called “Dark Ages.” What, then, do we make of Luther’s reputation as “the last medieval man and the first modern one?” What of his contemporary, the Swiss reformer John Calvin (as anti-Luther as he was anti-Catholic), whose theology undergirds so much American Evangelicalism? This upper-division, undergraduate course examines major and lesser-known works by these and other Reformation theologians in order to answer the question: What did the Reformation change and how did it change it?

HIS 343R - Revolutionary Russia 343R
Spring 2020                                                                                                       Charters S Wynn, Associate Professor

Description: The Russian Revolution was one of the greatest events of the twentieth century.  Focusing on the breakdown of the Old Regime, the revolutionary turmoil of the 1917 Revolutions, the Civil War the Communists’ seizure of power triggered, and the establishment of Soviet Power allow us to examine in depth the political, social, economic, and cultural dynamics at work in early twentieth-century Russia.  Students should gain a sense of the meaning of revolution, the causes of the upheavals in Russia, the nature of the society and politics that resulted from those upheavals, and the implications of that experience for later Soviet history and for Russia today.

Written Assignments: During the course of the semester students will write three critical reviews of assigned reading, five-six pages in length each.  Be sure to heed my writing tips.  In addition, by 12:30 each Tuesday and Thursday (except for the three class days when essays are due) students will e-mail me three questions addressing the assigned reading for the day.


Textbooks: Some of the readings will analyze the revolutionary process and historiographic debates.  Others will convey the excitement and suffering in the streets.  In addition, short documents may be distributed in class.
    Lincoln, Bruce, In War’s Dark Shadow.
    Pipes, Richard, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution.
    Figes, Orlando, A People’s Tragedy.
    Read, Christopher, From Tsar to Soviets.
    *Course Packet: Available from Paradigm Books

Grading: The final grade is based on the essays (65%), weekly questions (10%), and classroom participation (25%).  Plus/minus grades will be assigned for the final grade.  Each student is expected to participate fully in class discussions and will be graded on the extent and quality of participation.

Our stereotypical image of an early modern woman is a witch - for some good reasons because thousands of witch trials took place.  In this course, we will look beyond that perspective to explore the complex of material, political, and cultural factors that shaped experiences of gender and family and that shaped attitudes about gender and power in early modern Europe.  The early modern centuries between about 1500 and 1800 were years of tremendous change in many ways – including religious reformations, more powerful governments, global colonial empires and the domestic impacts of colonialism that included growing populations of free and enslaved people of color, and the economic transformation we call the transition to capitalism.  Some features were slower to change, however, especially with regard to family life. We will explore how women's experiences compared to men's - whether as workers, consumers, criminals, political subjects and political actors, peasants or nobles, members of racial, ethnic and religious minorities, spouses or parents.  Along the way, we will explore why some of these dynamics fed into a proliferation of "witches."

Discussion of the assigned readings (see below) will be an important element of this class: you will learn more effectively when you take an active part in the analysis of the material to be covered. Consequently you must expect to read every reading assignment very carefully and thoughtfully. You should come to each class ready to ask questions and contribute observations.

You will need to demonstrate mastery of the readings to do well on the exams.

Warning: absence from class will inevitably have a serious impact on your grade because you cannot participate if you are not present. Each of you may be absent twice with no penalty. For every absence after that, three points will be deducted from your participation grade for each absence not justified by a written explanation. Please note, however, that attendance is the only the first prerequisite for participation, so that perfect attendance and complete silence will result in a grade that reflects only partial fulfillment of participation.

Daily class readings are available on Canvas or online through the Library Catalogue. (Deleted last section here.)

Grading:

Midterm 25%

Final 35%

Reading grids 20%

Witchcraft group projects 10%

Preparation and engagement 10%

This course investigates the political, constitutional, economic, and social causes of disunion and the American Civil War. It seeks to provide students with an understanding of how the stability of the Union was affected by key developments of the period 1829-1861, including the growth of slavery, the rise of abolitionism, the development of modern political parties, economic modernization, immigration, and territorial expansion.

The following books will probably be assigned:

William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy 

in South Carolina, 1816-1836

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (second edition, edited

by Blight)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War

Classes will usually consist of both a lecture and discussion. Unless authorized by SSD, no laptop computers or similar devices may be used or open during class. The use--any use--of phones in class is not permitted. 

There will be three exams. The first and second exams will each count 25% of the course grade. The third exam will count 30% of the course grade. These exams will consist of short-answer and essay questions on the material from the classes and reading assignments. Exams will not be given ahead of schedule, nor will any make-ups be given, for any reason. In addition to the three exams, unannounced short, objective-question quizzes will be given frequently at the beginning of class, testing mastery of  recent course material. These quizzes will constitute 20% of a student’s course grade.

Objects (furniture, textiles, tools, maps, books, guns, kitchen ware, buildings, settlements, monuments, ships, tombs ) often shed more light about past societies than text themselves. This course explores the past of the colonials Americas (from north to south) by paying attention to the objects these societies left behind. We’ll gain new insights on the history of slavery, education, travel, technology, science, architecture, urbanism  in the Americas.

Texts:

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich  et al. Tangible Things: Making History through Objects

Grading:

3 object analysis (25% each) (three (5) five page essays on three different colonial objects that have to be approved by instructor beforehand)

Participation and class attendance (25%)

This course surveys the history of colonial Spanish America from first encounters to independence. An underlying focus will be to explore the dynamics of scholarly analysis, tracing how and why historians and social scientists have revisited and provided alternative (revisionist) interpretations of key themes. These include: the arrival of humans in the Americas, alternations in the pre and post contact indigenous (Maya, Aztec, Inca) and Iberian worlds, processes of conquest and early colonization, ecological and demographic trends, the consolidation of imperial power (governmental, economic, religious and social institutions), changing dynamics of gender, race and class; the Bourbon Reforms; and precipitating variables for independence.
Students must pass a map quiz to receive a grade in the course. There will be a midterm and a final examination. Study sheets will be handed out a week prior to each examination and there will be a review in class of the materials to be covered. Students should be prepared to discuss the assigned readings in class as well as show their comprehension of the material in examinations and essays. Additionally students will write one (4-5) page essay based on the Boyer readings. A sheet will be handed out suggesting possible topics or students may develop their own topic with the approval of the professor.

Readings:

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain (Penguin 1963)
Richard Boyer, Colonial Lives: Documents in Latin American History 1550-1850 (Oxford University Press 2000).
Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico (University of New Mexico Press 2006)

Grade: 1/3 midterm, 1/3 final, 1/3 paper

This course traces the history of the politics of religion, and of the religion of politics, in modern Latin America, with special emphasis placed on the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the region. Chronologically, the course covers begins with a brief survey of the colonial period and then gives special attention to the national period running from independence (circa 1820) up to the Cuban Revolution (circa 1960), after which Church and state entered significantly new and distinctive phases (e.g. Liberation Theology). Thematically, we will examine the various causes of Church-state tension in the aftermath of Latin American independence, and the Church’s multifaceted response sto the gradual rise of political liberalism, nationalism, and secularism. In the second half of the course, we will emphasize significant national cases (e.g. Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Guatemala), allowing the course to branch out in a more comparative sense as we proceed. As the focus on questions of devotion as well as power implies, we will not just be looking at the way in which the Church responded to changing political circumstances after the demise of the colonial regime, but at changes in religious practice and meaning, and how these were experienced by ordinary people.

Texts:

John Schwaller, The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America: from Conquest to Revolution and Beyond

Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

Austin Ivereigh (ed.) The Politics of Religion in an Age of Revival 

Edward Wright Rios, Revolutions in Mexican Catholicism: Reform and Revelation in Oaxaca, 1887-1934

Shorter readings (supplied)

Grading:

Reading responses, 60%

Final essay, 40%

SEMINAR IN HISTORIOGRAPHY: HONORS PROGRAM

Open only to students admitted to the History Honors program.

This seminar introduces students to a range of historical methods, topics, and sources, with no claim to being comprehensive. We will consider how “history” has changed along with other forms of knowledge. We will read different kinds of history (social, intellectual, cultural, and so on). We emphasize research with primary sources that students will be able to use in their theses.

Faculty from the Department of History will lead discussions about their areas of expertise, giving the class examples of documents and sources that historians use, or showing how they generate questions for research. By the end of the semester, each student will have come up with an advisor and a prospectus for the senior thesis she or he will write next year.

This is a reading- and writing-intensive course, and it moves quickly from introductory to advanced work.

REQUIREMENTS:

1) Preparation for and participation in each weekly seminar, including short writing assignments. Reading is about 200 pages a week. (10%)

2) Students will focus and find a topic for their senior thesis and write a draft and final version of the historiography of their subject in the first half of the course (40%).

They will then draft and revise a 10-12 page research prospectus as described below. (40%) The preliminary stages of research entail reading at least 15-20 books, review essays, and articles. They will present this prospectus orally to the class for discussion. (10%)

You will meet with me individually to consult on your topic a little over halfway through the semester. Short topic statements and bibliography are due a week later. We will spend the last three weeks of class in editorial session: discussing the structure, prose, style, and subject of each prospectus. By the time students leave, they will have found a professor in the History Department to advise their Honors thesis work in the senior year.

PROSPECTUS

A prospectus is a “description in advance of a proposed undertaking.” It sets out your topic based on preliminary research. It should identify the problem or event that will be investigated, explain why it is important, survey the historical literature on the subject, describe the primary sources you will use, and discuss how you intend to carry out the work.

The prospectus is not binding; you will certainly change your topic in some way during your senior year, and you may change it entirely. It is nonetheless very important preparation. It also requires substantial background work. I expect you to have looked at and read in at least 10 books, articles, and review essays.

The prospectus should also include a bibliography of secondary and primary sources. You may discuss the usefulness of the sources in either the text of the prospectus or in notes attached to the copies of the sources.

This course examines histories of Africa and travel through eyewitness accounts. Course participants will study journeys Africans have made within and from the continent alongside accounts of travelers visiting Africa from elsewhere. These travelers included migrant laborers, market women, Peace Corps volunteers, enslaved individuals, soldiers, political activists, adopted children, and religious evangelists since the 18th century.

 The course readings and films focus on different groups of travelers in a number of time periods.

 Some of the guiding questions we will consider:

    How did people experience the movement of their bodies from one location to another?

    How has ‘Africa’ taken on different meanings for our travelers?

    What do their narratives indicate about changing conceptions of ethnicity, migration, tourism, citizenship, and the environment in different time periods?

    And how did shifts in medical, transportation, and communication technologies shape their journeys?

The Cold War involved the whole world.  It began in 1945 when the victorious Allies of World War II broke up into ideological enemy camps that divided the East (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Eastern Europe, and China) and the West (Western Europe, and the United States).  Whether a country should follow the capitalist West or the socialist East also split many developing nations of Asia, Latin America, and Africa.  Moreover, the proliferation of nuclear weapons complicated the tensions between and within these ideological struggles. 

            While the grim prospects for mutual nuclear annihilation forced the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to maintain an uneasy peace between them, many armed conflicts did arise at the margins of the great powers.  The Chinese Revolution of 1949 eventually led to serious but limited wars on the Korean Peninsula as well as in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos).  Africa also became involved, as fighters in the “wars of national liberation” engaged with ideological struggle between West and East.  Latin America joined the Cold War struggle when the Cuban Revolution of 1959 sought to eliminate traditional U.S. domination with a military and commercial alliance to the Soviet Union.  In fact, the emergence of socialism in the Western Hemisphere led the East and West to the brink of nuclear warfare. 

            Needless to say, the Cold War did not treat democracy kindly.  In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, the emergence of new nations from colonial rule usually resulted in dictatorships rather than electoral governments.  In Latin America, the threat of the spread of Cuban Communism doomed most democracies to long-term military rule.  In the Eastern Bloc countries, communist totalitarianism predominated—not socialist democracy.  Only the United States and the countries of Western Europe preserved democracy throughout the Cold War period.  Nevertheless, the Cold War did come to a definitive end.  China and the United States came to an agreement, and Soviet Union collapsed.  The world today may be no safer than it was during the Cold War, because the legacy of the “New World Order” resulted neither in order nor in a new world liberated from the burdens of the past.

Texts:

Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006, 10^th ed

Chen Jian, Mao’s China & the Cold War

-Three essays based on the above texts, 600 points or 60 percent

Essay 1 (4-5 pages) 100 points (may be revised for extra points)

Essay 2 (5-6 pages) 200 points

Essay 3 (6-7 pages) 300 points

-Three multiple-choice, true-false exams, 400 points or 40 percent.

The British Empire at the end of World War II still extended over one fourth of the world and represented a complex, worldwide system.  The seminar will focus on the era of decolonization.   

This seminar is designed as a reading and research course in modern British history—and in the history of Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.  It is also a class in professional writing.  It includes a cartographical component in which students are required to master the geography of the British Empire.        
 
The main requirement of the course is a research paper focusing on one of the three components of British decolonization: the decisions made in Britain itself; the international influence of the United States and the United Nations in the context of the Cold War; and the initiatives by nationalists in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.  The paper in its final form will be about 6,000 words or 20 double-spaced pages including notes.  

The writing component will be fulfilled in three ways.  First, critiques of books, approximately one a week (or comparable assignments), each less than 350 words or one page.  Second, a draft of the research paper.  The critiques and draft will be circulated to all members of the class who will make annotations on style as well as substance.  The third stage is for each writer to take note of the comments offered by others and to rewrite the research paper for final submission.

The principal primary source on which the papers will be based is the extraordinary archival collection in British Documents on the End of Empire (BDEEP).  The class sessions will be enriched by a film series produced by Granada Television entitled ‘End of Empire’.

In a general way, the seminar upholds the principles of the Modern History Faculty at Oxford—to enhance (1) intellectual curiosity; (2) conceptual clarity; (3) intellectual flexibility; (4) accuracy and attention to detail; (5) critical engagement; (6) capacity for hard work; (7) enthusiasm for history, literature, and politics; and (8) historical imagination and understanding, that is, the possession of appropriate historical knowledge and the capacity to deploy it.

Required Reading — John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation; W. David McIntyre,  Decolonization, 1946-1997; Geoffrey Best, Churchill; Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Oh! Jerusalem; David Carlton, Suez Crisis; and Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning.    

Grades are determined by attendance and participation in discussion (25%); weekly critiques (25%) and the quality of the final research paper (50%).  Final grades include plusses and minuses. This course carries the flags for Writing, Global Cultures, and Independent Inquiry.

This seminar will analyze the effects of Hitler’s dictatorship upon German society, politics, economy and culture. It will explore the consequences of defeat, occupation, the Cold War and the political division of Germany after 1945. It will also compare and contrast the history and development of East and West Germany in the years between 1949 and 1989. Finally, the course will examine some of the consequences and prospects created by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the unification of East and West Germany in 1990.

REQUIRED READINGS:

(Books marked with * are available as electronic resources from the UT-Library system at no charge with your UT-EID. Please feel free to read these materials on-line if you prefer.)

*Doris Bergen, War and Genocide, A Concise History of the Holocaust(Rowman and Littlefield,2016-third edition)

*Edith Sheffer, Burned Bridge.How East and West Germany Made the Iron Curtain(Oxford, 2012)

Hanna Schissler,editor, The Miracle Years. A Cultural History of West Germany 1949-1968(Princeton,2001)

Peter  Schneider, The Wall Jumper. A Berlin Story (Chicago,1983)

We will also be working intensively with documents and images on this Website

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/home.cfm

COURSE REQUIREMENTS/GRADING

All written assignments for this course are evidence based and must be footnoted according to Chicago Manual of Style guidelines

The assignment are:

(1)You will be required to write one longer analytical essay(6-8 pages).To complete this assignment you will need to respond to the prompt by using the relevant primary source materials from the Website, “German History in Documents and Images” http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ as well as those assigned readings that you consider relevant to the particular prompt you have chosen. This assignment is worth 30% of your final grade (Due date=TBA)

(2)In addition, you are each required to give two in-class reports(details to follow) on images I will select from the Websites of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/ and  from “German History in Documents and Images”

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/home.  To complete these assignments you will need to do research on the provenance, historical context and use of each image.

Each in-class presentation should be sent to me as an essay (2-3 pages in length)no later than one week after you present in class. (These assignments are each worth 15 % of your final grade)

(3)the final assignment for this class is to construct a Power Point(or alternative program) presentation on a specific theme or period  covered by this course using relevant documents and images you have selected from the Website, “German History in Documents and Images” http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ (20% of your final grade/details to be discussed in class). Due no later than the end of the day in May on which a final exam would be scheduled for this course.

Class attendance and participation count for 20 per cent of your final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades

This course explores the vital role of commodities in Asian history with a particular focus on East and Southeast Asia.  It examines a range of key commodities from silver to deerskins to soybeans that were exchanged across Asia and which came to transform the political, economic and social contours of the region while underpinning the construction of empire.  The focus is on how the spread of commodities created a global economy while reshaping both sites of production and consumption.  By weaving together the stories of different commodities, this course aims to present a different way to understand the history of early modern and modern Asia and the development of global capitalism.

Pomeranz, Kenneth, and Steven Topik. The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1999)

Rose, Sarah. For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History (Penguin Books, 2011)

Weekly Readings

Flynn, Dennis. O and Arturo Giraldez. “Born with a ‘Silver Spoon’: The Origin of World Trade in 1571.” Journal of World History 6.2 (1995): 201-21.

Flynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez. 1994a. “China and the Manila Galleons.” In Japanese Industrialization and the Asian Economy, ed. A. J. H. Latham and H. Kawakatsu. London.

Excerpts from Von Glahn, Richard. Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996)

Flynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez, “Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid- Eighteenth Century,” Journal of World History 13.2 (2002): 391-427.

Hochstrasser, Julie Berger, “The Conquest of Spice and the Dutch Colonial Imaginary. Seen and Unseen in the Visual Culture of Trade,” pp. 169-186, in Schiebinger, Londa and Claudia Swan (eds.), Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics (Pennsylvania University Press, 2005)

1. L. van Zanden, The Rise and Decline of Holland's Economy. Merchant. Capitalism and the Labor Market (Manchester: Manchester University. Press, 1993), 67-81

Excerpts from Adam Clulow, Amboina, 1623: Conspiracy and Fear on the Edge of Empire (Columbia University Press, 2019)

Koo, Hui-wen, “Deer Hunting and Preserving the Commons in Dutch Colonial Taiwan,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 42.2 (2011): 185-203.

Laver, Michael, “Skins in the Game: The Dutch East India Company, Deerskins, and the Japan Trade,” World History Bulletin 28:2. Fall (2012): 13-16.


Walker, Brett, The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800 (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2001).

Gerritsen, Anne. “Fragments of a Global Past: Ceramics Manufacture in Song-Yuan- Ming Jingdezhen,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 52 (2009), pp. 117-152.

Gerritsen, Anne and Stephen McDowall, 'Material Culture and the Other: European Encounters with Chinese Porcelain 1650-1800', Journal of World History, 23, 2012, pp. 87-113.

Gerritsen, Anne ‘Chinese Porcelain Local and Global Context: the Imperial Connection’, Luxury in Global Perspective: Commodities and Practices, c. 1600-2000, Bernd-Stefan Grewe (Universität Konstanz) and Karin Hofmeester (IISH Amsterdam), eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Dillon, Michael, Transport and Marketing in the Development of the Jingdezhen Porcelain Industry During the Ming and Qing Dynasties,” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 35 (1992), 278-90.

Carol Benedict, “Between State Power and Popular desire: tobacco in Pre-Conquest Manchuria, 1600–1644.” Late Imperial China 32 (1):13–48.

Mathee, Rudi, “Exotic Substances: The Introduction and Global Spread of Tobacco, Coffee, Cocoa, Tea, and Distilled Liquor, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Roy Porter and Mikulás Teich, eds. Drugs and Narcotics in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Screech, Timon. “Tobacco in Edo Period Japan.” In Smoke: A Global History of

Smoking, eds. Sander L. Gilman and Zhou Xun, 92–99 (London: Reaktion Books, 2004)

Excerpts from Shelagh Vainker, Chinese Silk: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004)

Excerpts from Xing Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620-1720 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Chan Ying-Kit, “The Founding of Singapore and the Chinese Kongsis of West Borneo,”

Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia, 7 (2016),  99-121

Tagliacozzo, Eric.  “A Necklace of Fins: Marine Goods Trading in Maritime Southeast Asia, 1780–1860.” International Journal of Asian Studies 1, no. 1 (2004), 23–48.

Tagliacozzo, Eric. 2011. “A Sino-Southeast Asian Circuit: Ethnohistories of the

Marine Goods Trade.” In Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and

Networks in Southeast Asia, edited by Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-Chin Chang,

454. 432-454. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Excerpts from Trocki, Carl A. Opium, empire and the global political economy: A study of the Asian opium trade, 1750 –1950, Asia’s transformations (London and New York: Routledge, 1999)

Carl A. Trocki. Opium as a Commodity in the Chinese Nanyang Trade, in Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia, Edited by  Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-chin Chang (Duke University Press, 2011)

James Hevia, “Opium, Empire, and Modern History”. China Review International  10.2 (2003): 307–326

Excerpts from Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007)

Wiley, Peter Booth. Yankees in the Land of the Gods: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990)

1. H. Drabble, Rubber in Malaya 1876–1922: The Genesis of the Industry (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, 1973)

Hagan, J. & Wells, A. D. 'The British and rubber in Malaya, c1890-1940', in G. Patmore, J. Shields & N. Balnave (eds), The Past is Before Us: Proceedings of the Ninth National Labour History Conference, ASSLH, Business & Labour History Group, University of Sydney, Australia (2005), pp. 143-150.

Excerpts from Louise Young. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (University of California Press, 1998)

Ines Prodöhl, "A Miracle Bean". How Soy Conquered the West, 1909-1950 · Bulletin of the GHI Washington, Issue 45 (Fall 2009)

Grading:

Attendance, Preparation and Participation- 10%

Assignment 1: Amboina Trial Group Exercise - 15%

Assignment 2: Commodity History Book Review - 20%

Assignment 3: Commodity Portfolio, poster presentation and reflective

paper – 30%

Final Exam: 25%

There is something intrinsically mysterious about money. Throughout history, how does money become created? What problems arise from the processes and power to create money? This course will investigate how financial crises have arisen in the past and to what extent they transpired because of wrongdoing. We will study the origins of the Great Depression and of the financial crisis of 2008. We will also study the development of the recent financial crises in Iceland, Greece, and Puerto Rico.

In the Renaissance, it was illegal to create gold in England. The British government still believed that it might be possible to create precious metals through alchemical experiments, and if so, anyone with such a power might generate enough wealth to constitute a danger. Nowadays, we no longer worry about alchemists, yet money has been detached from precious metals, collateral, and even paper. Money consists essentially of digital numbers in bank accounts. What is the historical process by which money became abstract numbers that can be created as loans? We will study how loans and the creation of money “out of nothing” have led to hyperinflation in countries such as Germany, Argentina, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

This is a writing seminar. Students will write and revise two Essays. Each student will also propose a research topic, to be approved by the Instructor, to prepare a longer Research Paper.

Texts:

•  John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (New York: Penguin/Plume, 2006).
•  Michael Hudson, Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy (ISLET-Verlag, 2015).
•  Mervyn King, The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy (New York: Norton, 2015).
•  David Stockman, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America (New York: Public Affairs, 2013).

Grading:

Class Participation 20%

Essays and Quizzes 20%

Research Paper 30%

Final Exam 30%

minus absences  –1 course point per unexcused absence.

This undergraduate seminar focuses on South Asia during the era of the Mughal empire. Much of the Indian subcontinent came under the control of the Mughal dynasty, ushering in a period of peace and prosperity during which long-lasting economic and cultural linkages were formed between the various regions of the subcontinent. Aside from its cultural splendor, political might, and booming economy, Mughal India is also important for the many ways in which it shaped South Asia's development in subsequent centuries. We will therefore look not only at Mughal India at the height of imperial power between approximately 1550 to 1750, but also at the continuing legacies and symbolic relevance of the Mughal dynasty in British India and in India today. 

The basic political history of the period will be covered in the course, through occasional lectures by the instructor and readings drawn from recent secondary scholarship on the Mughal empire. However, the emphasis will be on exposing students first-hand to original sources from the Mughal period such as court chronicles and European travel accounts, as well as material from more recent eras such as films and historical novels. Considerable class time will also be spent on the painting and architecture of the era, as well as on the religious patronage and social composition of the court elites. By the end of the semester, students should be familiar with the main developments of the Mughal era and have a sense of how the Mughal dynasty has been remembered by later generations.

Texts:

1) Catherine B. Asher & Cynthia Talbot, India Before Europe

2) Andre Wink, Akbar (Makers of the Muslim World series)

3) Audrey Truschke, Aurangzeb

4) numerous other excerpts from primary sources (on Canvas)

Gradings:

5 reading responses (400-500 words each)                               25%

comparing emperors paper, 2 drafts (1500 words)                   25%

primary source analysis paper (2500 words)                              30%

performance as discussion leader                                      5%

attendance & participation                                                 20%

One historian has described Poland during the Second World War as “the devil’s playground.” During the war, 1 in 5 Pole died, hundreds of thousands were displaced, entire cities, regions, and communities destroyed. The Germans murdered almost all of Poland’s Jews and made the country the staging ground for the Holocaust. This course examines the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union and the ways in which this dual occupation impacted people and their communities. We will explore topics such as the social and racial experiments undertaken by German and Soviet authorities; mass displacement and interethnic relations; collaboration and resistance; genocide and ethnic cleansing, as well as the ways in which the memory of the Second World War in Poland has evolved.

• Wesley Adamczyk, When God Looked the Other Way: An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption (The University of Chicago Press, 2004)
• Jerzy Andrzejewski, Holy Week: A Novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1945)
• The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto (originally published 1945)
• Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community of Jedwabne, Poland (Penguin, 2000).
• Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World (Georgetown University Press, reprint edition, 2013)
• Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (Harvard University Press, 2012)
• Course reader

Attendance and Participation                                            30%

Book Essay I                                                                        15%

Book Essay II                                                                        15%

Group Project (Presentation)                                            40%

Brief Course Description: This is a Global Classroom course, meaning we will meet with students in Queens University in Belfast for at least 1 hour every other week. The idea for this course grew out of the Radical Hope Syllabus project, which Dr. Barry (Queens University) and Dr. Erika Bsumek, who is teaching this course,  spearheaded. This course will address the history of global environmental issues by using a customized version of the syllabus to introduce students to a cross-disciplinary study of global environmental issues ranging the polluted air that hinders healthy living to the construction of mega-dams in the American Southwest to meditations on poetry and contemporary governance to efforts to rebuild communities in Nepal after the devasting earthquake that hit there in 2015.

By and large, each section of the syllabus was designed by a scholar, activist, or artist who conducted original research or had first-hand experiences on the issues they address. Students will read and analyze material from each section, engage in cross-classroom discussions with their peers in Belfast, write papers, blog posts, and create a “radical hope” timeline using ClioVis.org (digital timeline software developed here at UT) and come up with their own assessment of how the concept of Radical Hope can better help us understand global environmental history and the future of sustainability.

This course is designed around a key question: What is “radical hope” and how is it related to the environment, climate change, or the anthropocene?  Students will take a examine perspectives from variety of continents and disciplines to explore and exchange ideas on that renewable and essential resource: hope. A resource that is often sadly and noticeably lacking in academic and popular conversations on the dominant framing of the Anthropocene in terms of overwhelming ecological crises, pragmatic pessimism, cognitive dissonance, climate denialism and scientific realism on the one hand.  And, on the other, soothing narratives of “techno-optimism” and an idea that a slight “greening” of “business as usual” -- overseen by various experts and elites -- will somehow see us through.  Optimism is not the same as hope after all.We are interested in pushing students to determine how the concept of hope can help us reframe contemporary discussions, and influence sustainability transformations.

This course explores the “conquest” of Mexico and the social, cultural, political, and economic processes which were set in motion by the Spanish invasion of Mexico. We will examine primary accounts of conquest (textual and visual) and the recent historical literature that interrogates the complexities of conquest and conquest society. How do we account for the Spanish military victory and for the consolidation of Spanish power in Mexico? What roles do the Catholic Church, Spanish settlers, and indigenous elites play in the consolidation of conquest society? What kind of society did the Spanish intend to establish in Mexico in the sixteenth century? In what ways is indigenous society (political structures and power relationships, gender relations, economic organization, religious practices and beliefs, etc.) affected by conquest? Conversely, how does indigenous society affect colonial policies and practices? How do we explain regional variations in indigenous insurrection in Mexico in the aftermath of conquest? The conquest of Mexico had global repercussions, not only in economic terms but also in cultural and intellectual terms. How did Spanish encounters with previously unknown peoples and places affect thinking about humanity and the world? How is the conquest currently represented in contemporary expressions and what do those interpretations tell us about resistant stereotypes of Spanish conquest?

Texts:
• Matthew Restall When Moctezuma Met Cortes
• Daniel Castro The Other Face of Empire
• Ross Hassig Mexico and the Spanish Conquest
• Camilla Townsend Malintzin’s Choices
• Diana Magaloni Kerpel, The Colors of the New World

• Miguel León Portilla,  Bernardino de Sahagún. First Anthropologist 

Grading:
• Informal response papers 10%
• Analysis of primary sources 15%
• Critical reviews 35%
• Analytical essay Draft 10%
• Analytical essay 20%
• Class Participation and attendance 10%

Violence, famine, and epidemic disease took more than fifty million Soviet lives between 1914 and 1953.  Over half of these deaths occurred between 1941 and 1945, when the Soviet Union fought the most savage and immense war in history.  No other nation ever endured anything like it.  The Soviets defeated the invading Axis powers despite the purge of its military leadership in 1937, horrible mistakes at the outset of the war, and widespread hostility within the country to the Stalinist regime.  We will focus on the impact of the Stalinist state’s brutal revolution from above, popular and elite fears and beliefs during the Great Terror, the death and destruction during the German occupation, as well as the courage and barbarism in the fight to the death on the Eastern Front, especially during the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin.  Evaluating the role of Stalin (or “Uncle Joe” as the American and British public knew him) and his inner circle, as well as what the Stalinist Revolution and “Great Patriotic War” meant for ordinary Soviets, will be of particular concern.

Texts:

Norman Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides.

John Scott, Behind the Urals.

Lydia Chukovskaya, Sofia Petrovna.

            Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon.

Richard Overy, Russia’s War.

Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War.

Geoffrey Roberts, Victory at Stalingrad.

Other Readings will be in the Course Packet or available online from the library.

Grading: This course contains a substantial writing component.  During the course of the semester students will write three critical analyses of assigned reading, five-six pages in length each.  In addition, by 11:00 a.m. on most class days, students will e-mail me three questions dealing with that day’s reading.  The final grade is based on both the written assignments (60% essays; 10% questions) and classroom participation (30%).

Most of America’s earliest settlements were coastal communities.  Indeed, in human terms, bodies of water: oceans, lakes, rivers, bays, sounds, tidal pools, ponds, and streams helped define both the extent and limits of local, regional, and ultimately global history and culture.  Water simultaneously connected and separated through the movements of highly mobile populations which communicated through exploration, war, commerce, migration, and travel along routes sometimes millennia old during a time when travel by boat was far simpler than overland travel.  Hence, American history can be understood within the broad, transoceanic web of human geography called Atlantic history and culture.  The purpose of this course is to explore the social and cultural history of American coastal communities from an interactive perspective.  Ultimately, then, we are concerned with water and water-mediated culture as fundamental modes of contact and communication in the pre-industrial world.

Selected readings will include: H. Magnusson and H. Palsson, The Vinland Sagas (on the Vikings); M. Kurlansky, Cod, N. Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whale Ship Essex; and Marcus Rediker’s book on pirates, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.  

This course meets substantial writing requirements.  Students will read about a book a week or substantial articles from a multidisciplinary list.  One film will be shown.  Attendance is mandatory.  Students must contribute regularly to class discussion and turn in brief (2 page maximum) weekly writing assignments analyzing the reading for that week.  These readings should not be considered standard book reviews; rather, they take the form of focused essays about problems, issues, and questions that the student wants to ask in the seminar, so they are intended to help facilitate discussion.  A 5-page final essay will propose an article to be included in a (fictitious) collection of essays about the major themes to emerge from this course.  Grades: weekly papers (50%); discussion (30%); final essay (20%). 

Description

This upper division writing intensive seminar offers students who already have some familiarity with the history of civil rights movements in the U.S. the opportunity to more deeply explore themes in African American and Mexican American struggles for justice in the mid-20th century, some of which are still relevant today. Using a comparative approach makes it possible to develop unique insights that are unlikely in courses focused solely on one of these movements. It encourages new questions about places like Texas, where these struggles had distinct roots and yet did not take place in isolation from each other. In Austin, for example, attorneys for African American and Mexican American organizations filed suit against school segregation on the same day. We also explore how cultural understandings of race, national identity, gender and class impacted these movements.

The University of Texas’s own history forms the basis for the main writing projects. Using historical documents, newspapers, and oral histories, students write historical essays and blogs about themes such as desegregation, Black and Chicano studies, and student activism. A central goal is to help students learn to articulate strong original arguments based on their own research.

Activities

This course includes both classroom discussion seminars and research workshops in campus archives. In the first weeks, students complete assigned readings and reading responses, visit archives, and take part in an activity about the 1950 Sweatt v. Painter Supreme Court decision, about desegregation of UT Law School. In the remaining weeks, class members conduct research individually or in teams, and complete writing projects based on this research and class readings. There is no final exam, but the last of these papers is due during finals week, by the date the exam would have been scheduled.

Readings:

Will include articles and sections of books. Possible books include:

Biondi, Martha. The Black Revolution on Campus

Goldstone, Dwonna. Integrating the 40 Acres: The 50-Year Struggle for Racial Equality at the University of Texas

Oropeza, Lorena. ¡Raza Si! ¡Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism during the Viet Nam War Era

Montejano, David. Quixote’s Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966-1981   

Theoharis, Jeanne. A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

Evaluation

Attendance, preparation, participation

350-word reading responses (3 total, submission grade)

Sweatt v. Painter project (completion of information forms)

7-page essays or blogs, (3 total)

In 1846, Archibald McMillin a North Carolina planter wrote to his wife during one of his many sojourns in the domestic slave trade. He informed her that he “could not sell in Darlington or Sumpter, [South Carolina,]” but that he was going to spend the day” in Charleston looking at sales at auction.”  Perhaps Charleston would prove a better market then the other cities, but if not, he would probably go further into the Deep South. Like the invention of the cotton gin was to the expansion of slavery into western territories, the domestic slave trade represented “the lifeblood of the southern slave system” according to historian Steven Deyle.  More than one million African Americans entered the domestic market and found themselves in coffles traveling by foot to various markets or were placed on boats and taken down the Mississippi River. Some traveled by ship along the Atlantic seaboard to port cities with large markets such as Savannah. 

This course will explore the inner-workings of the domestic slave trade from the perspectives of slaveholders, speculators, and the enslaved.  Students will have the opportunity to analyze maps, letters, diaries, newspaper advertisements, and legislation relating to the domestic slave trade. 

Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. New York:

 Harvard University Press, 2001.

Johnson, Walter, ed. The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas. New

 Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Shermerhorn, Calvin. Money Over Mastery Family Over Freedom: Slavery in the

 Antebellum Upper South. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.

Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South.       Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.

Recommended Readings:

Bancroft, Frederic. Slave Trading in the Old South. 1931. Reprint, Columbia: University of

South Carolina Press, 1996.

Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers. Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press,

 1970.

Catterall, Helen Tunncliff, ed. Judicial Cases Concern American Slavery and the Negro, 5

vols.  Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926-37.

Deyle, Steven. Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2005.

Gudmestad, Robert. A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave

Trade. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.

Hadden, Sally. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. New York:

 Harvard University Press, 2001.

Martin, Jonathan. Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South. New York:

Harvard University Press, 2004.

Rothman, Adam. Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South.

 New York: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Electronic readings will be distributed or placed on Blackboard

Attendance and Participation 10%

Response Papers 10%

Mapping and Historical Marker Project 10%

Primary Document Analysis 10%

Oral Presentation 20%

Research Proposal and Bibliography 5%

Rough Draft of Final Paper 10%

Final Paper 25%

Within the construct of African American Business history, race, contemporary American popular culture and global capitalism, this course will focus on an important aspect in the contemporary political economy of black Americans. Specifically, the commodification (sale) of black culture provides the conceptual frame for an examination of the phenomenon of both the superstar black athlete as an entrepreneur and the Hip Hop Superstar as an entrepreneur in post-Civil Rights America. The emphasis in this course, then, is to critically examine and analyze the impact of a multiplicity of societal, cultural and economic factors in the post-modern information age, propelled by new technologies in the New Economy of Global Capitalism.  Also, consideration will be given to the new diversity as it impacts on the political economy of African Americans.

Proceeding from an interdisciplinary perspective, the course considers both the financial successes of superstar black athletes and hip hop entrepreneurs as well as their emergence as cultural icons, contrasted with the comparatively overall poor performance of Black Business not only within the intersection of race, gender, class, but also within the context of transnationalism in the globalization sale of African American Culture in post-Civil Rights America. But who profits?

Most important, why is it that business receipts for African Americans, who comprise almost thirteen percent of this nation's population, amounted in 2007 to only .5%, that is, less than one (1) percent of the nation's total business receipts? In addition, why is it that among the various occupational categories in which blacks participate in the nation's economy, especially as businesspeople, that black entertainers and sports figures are the highest paid? What does this say about race, class, gender and hegemonic masculinities in America at the turn of the new century?

Anderson, Maggie, Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy

Jones, Marvin D. Fear of a Hip Hop Planet: America’s New  Dilemma

Marable, Manning, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems Race, Political Economy, and  Society  

Rhoden, William C. Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete

Smith-Shomade, Beretta,   Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy: Selling Black Entertainment Television

Stoute, Steve, The Tanning of America:  How Hip Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of a  New Economy

Walker, Juliet E. K. “History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship”            

      Course Packet chapters 6-11 from The History of Black Business in America:  Capitalism, Race,

                      Entrepreneurship (New York/London:  Macmillan/Prentice Hall International, 1998) 

Critical Book Review Analysis                           25%

    (5 reviews, 2-3 pages 5 points each)

Class Discussion/participation                             25%

Oral Summary of Research Paper                         5%

Seminar Research Paper (15 pages)                    45%

Alexander and the Hellenistic World

This course covers Greek history from the subordination of Greece to Philip II, king of Macedonia, and his heir and successor Alexander the Great, in 338 BCE through the Hellenistic world's loss of independence to Rome some 300 years later. This era is defined by the charismatic figure of Alexander the Great and by his military campaigns, which led to the conquest of all the eastern Mediterranean and made possible the spread of Greek culture all over Anatolia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. After Alexander's death, his empire was divided into the three Hellenistic kingdoms of Egypt, Syria, and Macedonia until Rome's progressive absorption of them in the 2nd and 1st c. BCE.

The course will devote roughly equal time to covering major events and personalities, exploring key developments in culture and society, and examining the various types of evidence available for the era (literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and archeological sources). There will be two hours of lecture and one hour of discussion each week. The two lectures will combine historical outline with the exploration of specific themes and problems, such as systems of government, social structures, economy, culture, religion, and war, while the discussion sections will be focused on how to analyze, interpret, and use ancient sources.

This course carries the Global Cultures and Writing flags.

The French revolution is one of the most famous events in global history. We have still not resolved the fundamental questions it raises. Why does a regime collapse? How is a new state built? Why are some revolutions peaceful while others become protracted and violent? The human drama of this tumultuous decade and a half is irresistible. How were extraordinary careers made and then lost? How did people take sides? How did ordinary people survive?We will use the French revolution to think about all these questions concretely.

We have three aims. The first is to master the major developments of the revolution itself. The second is to understand how those events have produced classic political arguments about the conditions for democracy, the sources of rights, and the process of historical change.  Third, we consider how the revolution has shaped the world, and how it compares with other revolutions, including ones going on right now.

Texts:

Rousseau, The Social Contract

William Doyle, The French Revolution: A Very Short History

Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight

Timothy Tackett, The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution or R.R. Palmer, 12 Who Ruled.

David Bell, Napoleon, A Biography

Requirements:

• 2 4-5 page take home papers (25% each) (total 50% of grade**)
• 1 comprehensive test (25%)
• group political club assignments (25%).

Normandy Scholars Program. This course focuses on three critical conflicts in twentieth-century France: the bloody victory of World War One and its impossible aftermath; defeat, collaboration, and resistance during World War Two; and the protracted violence of colonial repression and Algerian revolution.

Description

A half century after the high point of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., most American students learn about the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1957 Little Rock conflict over school desegregation, the 1963 March on Washington, and the fire hoses in Birmingham. Far fewer encounter the less-televised moments of civil rights history, the meanings of freedom that included but went beyond desegregation, and the breadth of participation by local people. It is even less common to consider other movements that paralleled the black freedom movement among, for example, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. Taking a comparative perspective, this upper division lecture course explores these aspects of the civil rights era. It also examines their larger historical context within American culture from the Second World War to the present. This course is also intended to encourage students to consider questions about the writing of this history: How have civil rights scholars approached this history? What are their central arguments and how do we assess them? What has received the most attention, and what has received almost no attention? What kinds of sources have they used, and what are the benefits and/or drawbacks of these choices?

Possible texts

Jones, William P. The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights

Martin, Waldo E.  Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents

Sellers, Cleveland. River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant & the Life & Death of SNCC    

Strum, Philippa. Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican American Rights

Takaki, Ronald. Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II

Theoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Evaluation

Attendance

Short Assignments, submission grade (3)

In-class unit exams (3)

Graded Group Projects (3)

Assessments of the historic experience of African Americans from the Civil War and Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Era and the Second Reconstruction, i.e., the post-Civil Rights Era from the 1970s through 2014, provide the focus of this course.  Emphasis will be placed on the political, economic, including the business activities, as well as social and cultural activities of African Americans. The course begins with assessing the Black American experience during the Civil War and Reconstruction.  In the immediate first post-Reconstruction, the Exodus of 1879 is considered along with the founding and building of Black Towns. Also, legal and extralegal means, including violence, disfranchisement and segregation of Blacks, that is, the rise of Jim Crow, at the turn of the century and the Great Migration of the WWI era are examined. Ideologies of black leaders during that period, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells and Marcus Garvey are compared.

The rise of the black urban ghetto and impact of African American working class as it relates to African American culture provide the focus for examining the twentieth century Black Experience. The Harlem Renaissance and the conditions of blacks in the Great Depression and WWII to the 1954 Brown decision provide an introduction to the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960s. Assessments are made of the riots in the 1960s, ideologies of Black leaders and black organizations, CORE, SNCC, and Black Panthers. Agendas of post-Civil rights era black social, political and business leaders are examined, such as Houston’s Case Lawal, hip hop entrepreneurs and the first two black billionaires, Robert Johnson (BET) and Oprah Winfrey..

Significantly, the course begins with a Civil War, marking an end of slavery and the beginning of black political participation. It ends with the historical phenomenon of the election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States. What does this say about race/racism in America? What about Katrina and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans in 2009 as well as “the $40 Million Dollar slave” 149 years after the 13^th Amendment? The course ends with commentaries on retrenchment in affirmative action, commodification of African American culture, and assessments of America’s changing racial demographics on African Americans in the 21^st century.

Texts:

Franklin, John H. and Evelyn Higginbotham,  From Slavery to Freedom,9th ed, paper

Henry, Charles P, Allen, R , and Chrisma, R. The Obama Phenomenon: Toward a Multiracial Democracy

Holt Thomas and Barkley-Brown, E., Major Problems, African American History vol 2 

Rhoden, William C., Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall,  Redemption of the Black Athlete

Smith-Shomade, Beretta,   Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy: Selling Black Entertainment Television

Walker, Juliet E. K. The History of Black Business in America -course packet

Grading:

Exam 1  (Take home)                    30

History Research Paper                 30

Student Panel Presentation           10

Exam  2(Take Home)                  30

The main objective of the course is to understand the role of maps in the creation of Latin America as a specific sort of place.  As such, the course itself will allow students to become familiar with a broad overview of Latin American history from Pre-Columbian civilizations to the modern period.

This course is a history of Roman Africa with emphasis on what is now Tunisia and northern Algeria. Our focus is on the 2nd-5th centuries CE when competing brands of Christianity were taking root and Africa gave birth to what is now called “Catholic” theology. However, we begin with the Phoenician colonization of the African coast in the 9th century BCE and move from there through the fall of Carthage and the rise of the Kingdom of Numidia to the complete provincialization of Africa by Rome. We study the amalgamation of various ethnic groups over time, including Libyans (Berbers?), Punics, and Romans. Ancient Africa was arguably the greatest melting pot the Mediterranean had ever seen. Our study connects North Africa to Sub-Saharan Africa via Berbers and Ethiopians, Asia via Phoenicians, Medes, and Persians, and Europe via Italians, Iberians, and Vandals.

Most ancient histories written about Africa were colonialist and Roman. These histories have informed modern Eurocentric narratives that, like their ancient predecessors, cast Africa as barbaric yet claim African intellectual products as their own. This course looks through these narratives to uncover the reality of life in Roman Africa. We examine African identities in contrast to colonial mythologies and explore the ways this rich history has been received in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. To this end, we study ethnography, colonialism, post-colonialism, racialization, immigration, and emigration, among other topics, both in antiquity and today.

Your grade is determined by two written exams (20% each x 2 = 40%), regular quizzes (30%), a presentation on an historical topic (10%), a report on a topic of modern reception (10%), participation (10%), and attendance.

Among the ancient authors we read are Vergil, Livy, Polybius, Sallust, Pseudo-Caesar, Tertullian, Cyprian, various African martyr narratives, Augustine, and Procopius. The course concludes with Fawzi Mellah’s Elissa, a creative and distinctly Maghribi take on the ancient myth of Dido. Along the way, the course also exposes you to the literature of Assia Djerbar, Frantz Fanon, Abdelaziz Ferrah, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Albert Memmi, and other modern North African authors.

Description: In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Great Britain was the world’s dominant power and chief proponent of a liberal international order.  By the middle of the twentieth century, a badly weakened Britain was mostly replaced by the United States in those roles.  But British thinking about diplomatic and military affairs exerted a strong influence on American strategy, and the two nations formed what became known as the “Special Relationship.”  This course, to be held in London as a Maymester, will explore the diplomatic and military history of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and especially how the two nations have interacted and shaped each other’s national security policies and visions of global order.  Classroom sessions will include faculty guest instructors from the renowned War Studies Department of Kings College London, and the course will be supplemented with regular field visits to historic sites in London and throughout the United Kingdom.  The group will also make a visit to the battlefields of Normandy. 

Possible readings include:

Alan P. Dobson and Steve Marsh, editors, Anglo-American Relations:  Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge, 2013).

Walter Russell Mead, God and Gold:  Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (Vintage, 2008). 

David Reynolds, From World War to Cold War:  Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Mark A. Stoler, Allies and Adversaries:  The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

Active participation in seminar (40 percent of course grade); daily reading response papers (20 percent); journal of approximately 20 pages due at the end of the program (40 percent). 

This survey course is an introduction to the study of Africa's past through the story of urbanization. It begins with an overview of African cities around 1500—a time of increasing human migration and global trade. It considers the diversity of early African politics, religion, and family life through regional case studies. Special attention is afforded the social upheaval that came in the wake of the intercontinental slave trade and related growth of African city states.

The second half of the course addresses African cities in the modern period, focusing on the advent of European colonialism in the 1800s and its aftermath. Major themes include: everyday life under imperial rule, healing and religion, African nationalism, and development theories. The course concludes with historical dilemmas in contemporary Africa including immigration, the AIDS crisis, and transitions to democratic rule. Students will select an African city to study through independent research projects. Open to non-majors. This course satisfies History department pre-1800 requirement for history majors.

Readings chosen from:

1)        “The Epic of Sara,” narrated by Sira Mori Jabaté and “The Epic of Askia-Mohammed,” narrated by Nouhou Malio (1997) from Oral Epics from Africa: Vibrant Voices from a Vast Continent , edited by Johnson, Hale and Belcher (Indiana University Press)

2)        O. M. Dalton (1903), “Note on an Unusually Fine Bronze Figure from Benin,” Man Nos. 104-05

3)        Kate Ezra (1992), excerpts from Royal Art of Benin (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

4)        Robert Farris Thompson and Joseph Cornet (1981), excerpts from The Four Moments of the Sun: Kongo Art in Two Worlds (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

5)        Ibn Battuta (1931), “The East African Coast”  reprinted in Ibn Battatuta in Black Africa (Princeton: Mark Wiener Publishers, 1998)

6)        Mark Dummet (2006), “India: Africans Absorbed,” BBC Focus on Africa Magazine, Oct-Dec

7)        Apolo Kagwa (1971), excerpts from The Kings of Buganda (Nairobi: East African Publishing House)

8)        Richard N. Hall (1905), “The Great Zimbabwe and Other Ancient Ruins in Rhodesia,” Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 4, No. 15

9)        Peter Garlake (1982), from Great Zimbabwe Described and Explained (Harare, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Publishing House)

10)      Andrew B. Smith (1993), from The Khoikhoi at the Cape of Good Hope: Seventeenth-century Drawings in the South Afrian Library (Cape Town: South African Library)

11)      David Livingstone (1912), from Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London: John Murray)

12)      Hilaire Belloc (1898), from The Modern Traveller (London)

13)      E. D. Morel (1919), from Red Rubber; the Story of the Rubber Slave Trade which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 1890–1910 (Manchester, UK: National Labour Press)

14)      Adam Hochschild (1998), “The Wood that Weeps” from King Leopold's Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (NY: Mariner Books)

15)      Albert Schweitzer (1933), from Out of My Life and Thought, an Autobiography (NY: Henry Holt and Company)

16)      Nancy Rose Hunt (1999), “Dining and Surgery”, from A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization and Mobility in the Congo (Duke University Press)

17)      Jomo Kenyatta (1938), “The Gikuyu System of Land Tenure” from Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (London: Secker and Warburg)

18)      Wambi Waiyaki Otieno (1998), “Early Days in the Mau Mau Movement” from Mau Mau’s Daughter: A Life History (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers)

19)      Caroline Elkins (2005), “Britain’s Assault on Mau Mau” from Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britian’s Gulag in Kenya (NY: Henry Holt and Co.)

20)      Excerpts from Safari: The Tourist Magazine for East Africa Jan/Feb 1973, vol. 3 no.10.

21)      Henry Kyemba (1977), from A State of Blood: the Inside Story of Idi Amin  (NY: Ace Books)

22)      Newspaper articles (1972) from Ugandan Asian Expulsion: 90 Days and Beyond through the Eyes of the International Press, compiled by Z. Lalani (Expulsion Publications)

23)      Marie Béatrice Umutesi (2004), “Descent into Hell,” in Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire (Univ. of Wisconsin Press)

24)      Julie Flint and Alex de Waal (2005), “The Janjawiid” from Darfur: A Short History of a Long War (London, NY, Cape Town: Zed Books)

25)      (1978) “Africa: Family Planning Acceptable for Spacing, Not to End Childbearing,” International Family Planning Perspectives and Digest, Vol. 4, No. 3

26)      R.T. Ravenholdt (1968), “The A.I.D. Population and Family Planning Program—Goals, Scope, and Progress,” Demography Vol. 5, No. 2

27)      Sam Mhlongo (2001), “Aids and poverty,” New African

28)      Andrew M. Ivaska (2004), “ ’Anti-mini Militants Meet Modern Misses’: Urban Style, Gender, and the Politics of ‘National Culture’ in 1960s Dar es Salaam, Tanzania” from Fashioning Africa: Power and Politics of Dress (Indiana Univ Press)

29)      Fela Kuti (1982), “The Birth of Kalakuta Republic;” “The Reunion;” “My Second Marriage;” “My Mother’s Death: ‘Coffin for Head of State;’ ” from Fela Fela: this bitch of a life (London: Alison & Busby)

Course Requirements:

Writing Exercise #1                                         (15 points)

Writing Exercise #2                                         (15 points)

Writing Exercise #3 + Presentation                (20 points)

Map Quiz                                                        (5 points)

Exam                                                              (25 points)

Description:

This course focuses on the environmental history of Russia and equips students with a well-rounded

perspective on how the state, nature and humans have been negotiating their relationships since the

conquest of Siberia. The program takes students to the city of Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia,

which is located two hours away from the World Heritage site – Lake Baikal. Participants enjoy a range

of local excursions, day trips to the lake and surrounding areas, and attend talks with local experts and

leaders of environmental organizations. Along with gaining local perspective on environmental issues

raised in the course, students also have the opportunity to master survival Russian language and delve

into cultural aspects of life in a vibrant Siberian city.

The program aims to familiarize students with environmental problems and solutions in Russia and,

more specifically, Siberia; to encourage intercultural learning and dialogue; and to provide participants

with unique experiences in a part of the world that few have the opportunity to visit.

Grading

1. Pre-departure meetings and lectures (X14)
2. International Travel Safety Training (X1)
3. Course Readings (X12)
4. In-country Course Lectures/Discussions (TBA)
5. Russian Language Class (X16)
6. Cultural Excursions
7. Weekly Field Journal (X4)
8. Final Research Paper & Presentation

Examines attempts to find a measure of justice after the Holocaust, with themes of human rights and international law. How did Jews and non-Jews pursue reconstruction, restitution, and restorative justice after genocide? Focuses on the restitution of property looted by the Nazis, cultural reconstruction around the world, and continuing efforts to garner reparations for Holocaust survivors and search for looted artwork. Ultimately, we will think about the Holocaust and questions of restitution and justice within a wide comparative frame, considering attempts at transitional and restorative justice for other twentieth-century genocides and changing approaches to looted property and reparations.

Classical Zionism declared the Jewish people a nation in need of a state, “a people without a land for a land without a people.” Today, some claim that Jewish nationhood was a fiction created with political goals in mind. This course considers the nature of nations: Are they real or imagined, “organic” or invented? Examines how history has been used and abused for political purposes in the history of Zionism, Israel/Palestine, and beyond.

The heart of this course will be a close reading of key sections of Newton's Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis. The publication of Newton's Principia in 1687 marks a seminal moment in the history of science. In this course, not only will we follow step-by-step the extraordinary course of Newton's "central argument;" we will throughout the semester discuss such philosophical and historical questions as: the nature of motion, the fundamental differences between ancient and modern mathematics, the changing meaning of "physics" from Aristotle to Galileo to Newton, the mathematical uses of infinity and infinitesimals, the ideas of "laws of nature," "hypotheses," "causes," "rules of philosophizing," the concepts of space, force, inertia, instantaneous velocity, etc., and the problem of action at a distance. By the end of this course you will have mastered the fundamental ideas and methods of one of the greatest minds in the history of Western thought.

Founded in 988 in Kievan Rus’ with the semi-mythical conversion and baptism of Prince Volodimir, the Russian Orthodox Church (or the Moscow Patriarchate as it is now officially known) has grown to be the largest of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, and accounts for over half of the world’s more than 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), along with its primate, is preceded only by the four ancient Patriarchates (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) in order of precedence. Moreover, as Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’, the Primate of the ROC claims exclusive spiritual jurisdiction not only over Russia, but over all of the former Soviet Republics excluding only Georgia and Armenia. Throughout its thousand-year history, the Russian Orthodox Church has been a powerful cultural force shaping the art, architecture, literature, and even the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet as well as the moral, philosophical, and political realities of those who live within its sphere of influence.

Drawing from a broad range of primary sources and secondary scholarship, this course examines the role and force of the Orthodox Church in Russian history from the Christianization of the pagan Slavs beginning in the 10^th century, through the 1551 Stoglav Council under Ivan “the Terrible” (as a result of which, the ROC’s communion with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches was noticeably strained), through the Russian Revolution into the Soviet era (when a number of its priests and at least one patriarch were KGB!), and up to the present including Pussy Riot’s guerilla performance of “Punk Prayer” at Christ the Savior Cathedral and an icon-kissing Vladimir Putin. Throughout the course students develop theirs skill at the critical reading of secondary scholarship by regularly and methodically retracing select scholars’ arguments against other historical surveys and (translated) primary sources in staged collaborative class assignments. For example, we turn from the prescriptive tenets of the Orthodox faith (religion) to descriptive experiences of life within and under Russian Orthodoxy (religiosity), comparing the ROC’s moral ideals with its sometimes-immoral associations as well as its expectations of the faithful with a level of religion they are willing to accept as we follow the arguments of scholars who have tried to define “Orthodox Rus’.” The tension revealed by these comparisons serves, in turn, as context for our discussion of religious groups that broke with the ROC such as the Old Believers (starovery), the Spirit Wrestlers (dukhobory), and the “Milk Drinkers” (molokany) as well as with the scholarship that has argued for and against understandings of the schism that birthed these movements as an “Orthodox Reformation.” Our investigation of Russian Orthodox religion and culture draws on everything from mystical theology and holy icons, Old Church Slavonic chants of monastery choirs and ascetic practices of prophetic hermits, to the celebration – both in and out of church – of the yearly cycle of religious holidays, the ROC’s complex relationship with the unofficial practices of Russian folk religion, and the literature and film in which all these things are reflected.

Basis for evaluation:

• 14 online unit quizzes – 25%
• 14 discussion questions – 10%
• 5 short précis – 50%
• 1 final online exam – 15%

World War I has been described as a “total war,” one in which civilian as well as military populations were expected to participate. However, the war was not just between European nation-states, but also between imperial powers, who drew on the natural and human resources of their colonial holdings for the war effort. British Egypt, Ottoman Syria, and German East and Southwest Africa saw military action in their own territories, while Indians and Indochinese were utilized as sources of both laborers for the front and fighting men by Britain and France in both colony and metropole.

This course will examine the impact of the total war on the colonies and colonial subjects. From the ways that resource provisioning triggered starvation and famine in the countries of the Mediterranean, the recruiting methods used by imperial powers to rally support for the war cause in the colonies, to the challenges of colonial concepts of race posed by Vietnamese soldiers in the streets of Paris, we’ll explore the global nature of World War I in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.

We’ll end with a discussion of the so-called “Wilsonian moment,” and the tensions that resulted when promised nationalist aspirations were dashed at Versailles in 1919—tensions that would remain unresolved until after the Second World War and the beginning of decolonization. What had these nations-in-waiting expected to happen at Versailles, and why?

This class is appropriate for upper division undergraduates in history, area studies, and related fields; graduate students seeking to do a "bump-up" are welcome.

This course fulfills part of the requirements for the Normandy Scholars Program as well as part of the American history requirement for the University.  It explores American involvement in the Second World War.  Among the topics covered are: American isolationism; the controversy over Pearl Harbor and American entry into the war; the rise of air power and strategic bombing; the conduct of war and diplomacy; everyday life and politics on the home front; the experience of battle; the use of the atomic bomb; the seeds of the Cold War; and conflicting visions of the postwar world. 

No course can be encyclopedic.  This one will divide its time between events in Europe and the Pacific without trying to cover either theater in all its detail.  Two events, one in each theater, will serve as case studies for in-depth analysis: 1) the D-Day invasion and the opening of the “Second Front” in Europe; and 2) the atomic bombs and the surrender of Japan in the Pacific.

David Kennedy, The American People in World War II

1. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed

John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War

Michael B. Stoff et al., eds., The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction

to the Atomic Age

Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day

John Hersey, A Bell for Adano

Class work consists of lectures and discussions of weekly reading assignments, lectures, and films.  Discussions constitute 20 percent of the course grade.  Five in-class quizzes based on lectures and readings make up another 20 percent of the grade.  A research paper, done in three stages, serves as the written portion of the workload and is worth 50 percent of the course grade.  Each student will also present his or her work orally.  The oral presentation is worth 10 percent of the grade.

How was an obscure, unemployed Austrian, who never rose above the rank of corporal in the German army, able to become the leader of a mass political movement which overthrew the most democratic political system Germany had ever known? Why did Germany begin the most devastating and brutal war in world history just two decades after having lost the First World War? Why did the Nazi state systematically murder 6 million Jews? How did the implementation of Nazi plans for a “racial empire” affect the lives of millions of Europeans during the Second World War? And what is the legacy of the Third Reich, for Germany today? These are the primary questions addressed by this course.

Required Readings:

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

David F. Crew, Hitler and the Nazis. A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)[also available on-line at the PCL as an e-book]

1. Noakes and G. Pridham(editors), Nazism. A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919-1945 (University of Exeter Press Edition: Volumes 2 &3)

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

We are also going to be working with the images at these two web-sites: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/

A distinctive feature of this course is the fact that we will be working extensively with original documents, in translation. This will give you a more direct and immediate connection to the past, will allow you to experience, at first hand, the language and ideas of the period. It will also allow you to engage directly in the process of interpretation. Rather than simply ingesting the arguments of historians who write about the Nazi period, you will have the opportunity to analyze the "raw materials" with which historians themselves work.

Your general participation in class discussions (i.e. attendance + involvement) counts for 20% of the overall grade. There will be a take-home mid-term document essay (5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade).There is no final exam per se but you will have a Power Point assignment based upon the documents we have read and discussed in class(5-6 pages, 20% of the final grade). You will also be asked to write one short essay on any one of the books by Remarque or Levi (4-5 pages, 20% of final grade). Finally, you will be asked to write two brief (2-3 page) analyses of the visual evidence(photographs, propaganda, election posters, etc.) discussed in class and/or those that are available on the web-sites listed above. Each of these two assignments is worth 10% of the final grade. I will be using the full range of +/- grades. 

“Henry David Thoreau and His World, 1837-1862

Henry David Thoreau is best known today for his 1854 book: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, which describes the two years he spent living in a one room cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, near the village of Concord, Massachusetts. But Thoreau was a prolific writer, who wrote three other books, numerous articles and essays (the most famous of which, “Civil Disobedience,” inspired both Ghandi and Martin Luther King), thousands of letters, and perhaps most impressive of all,  a daily journal that he kept from age twenty to almost the end of his life in the pages of which his mind (and pencil) ranges freely from detailing mundane everyday activities to nature observations and philosophical musings. Thoreau’s corpus, all of which is now accessible online, will be the basic foundation of this course. The primary objective is to enable students to design, research, and write a c. 4000 word original analytical essay based on some aspect of Thoreau’s life and or interests, and in which Thoreau’s own words are used as a major source. Narrowing our collective research focus to one man and “his world,” allows us to broaden the possible research topics that students can choose to write upon while still all having something (Thoreau) in common to talk about. Thoreau’s interests and writings encompass a wide variety of subjects including (but by no means limited to): nature and ecology, Native Americans, religion and spirituality, economics and ideas of the self, politics and non-violent resistance, and the women’s rights and anti-slavery movements of the age. Moreover, the time period of the course, spanning the twenty-five years from Thoreau’s graduation from Harvard (and the start of his journal) to his death at the start of the American Civil War, was a very turbulent one in American history during which these topics were hotly debated and contested. For the first half of the semester, the class will collectively read and discuss Thoreau’s writings and writings about Thoreau to examine different aspects of his life and the era in which he lived. (As part of this effort, students will virtually become Thoreau and live for a few weeks in his cabin at Walden pond - keeping their own journals - via an online, first person, roleplaying game that has been developed by the University of Southern California.)  In the second half of the course, students will undertake their individual research projects, conducted in several stages and culminating in a significant and original work of historical writing that will be submitted to me and shared with the rest of the class.  As in all HIS 378W seminars, the objective of this course is mastery of the essential skills of the discipline of History: a critical evaluation of primary sources, active engagement with secondary sources, and the articulation of a cogent argument situated within the existing scholarship.

Collective reading: Approximately one thousand pages drawn from four or five short monographs, ten or twelve articles about Thoreau (to be purchased or accessed via J-Stor and/or Canvas)  and selected extracts from Thoreau’s writings (accessible online).

Grading: Attendance and participation (20%); short papers/presentations made in the first half of the course (30%); research project including initial research proposal, first and final drafts of research paper, and class presentation (50%).

We’ll explore recent literature on early-modern Atlantic history, particularly literature that emphasize trans-regional and trans-imperial connections. We’ll identify different models and approaches.

The goal of the seminar is to provide students with the skills to identify the structure and scaffolding of scholarly arguments: how historians build articles and books. The ultimate purpose of this exercise is for students to develop the skills to frame their own arguments as competitive research proposals.

This seminar is designed as a reading course in the history, literature, and politics of the nonwestern world as well as the British Empire, and as a class in professional writing. The theme is the Cold War in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In addition to the required reading, each student draws up an individual reading list in consultation with the professor.  Books may be chosen in Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, and Farsi as well as English.           

The subject has literary, political, and historical dimensions with an emphasis on professional writing, not only assessments that might appear in such newspapers as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal but also especially in policy papers and critical evaluations that are made in government agencies and businesses as well as academic journals. I use my own experience as a former Chairman of the State Department’s Committee on Publication of Historical Records (The Foreign Relations of the United States) to give students guidance on technical as well as analytical methods. 

Literature is a prominent theme along with history and politics.  One book to be read in common is Graham Greene, The Quiet American (Greene’s anti-American novel set in Indochina). Others include: on India, Sarvapalli Gopal’s biography, Jawaharlal Nehru; and Paul Scott, The Raj Quartet (on the partition of India and the beginning of the Cold War in Asia); on the Middle East, Mark Gasiorowski, The 1953 Coup in Iran (for the toppling of the Iranian Prime Minister in 1953 by the British and American secret services); and, for Africa, Crawford Young, Politics in the Congo (for radical leadership and decolonization in Africa in the Cold War era).

On the Cold War itself, students have the opportunity to pursue reading on such themes as the Soviet Union’s attempt to expel the Western powers from Berlin, leaving the world on the edge of nuclear conflagration; the Soviet shipping of nuclear weapons to Cuba; and President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

The main requirements of the course are met by students reading a book or its equivalent each week and by submitting a one-page weekly critique of the reading. (Students are reminded of President Eisenhower’s dictum: ‘Get it on one page or I will not read it.’) Each of the weekly critiques is circulated to other members of the class who make annotations on style as well as substance.  In this way the class emphasizes succinct professional writing as one of the key skills to be acquired in graduate school.

Grades are determined by attendance and participation in seminar discussion (25%) and quality of the weekly critiques (75%).

Reading List—The following works are required: Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians; Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf; Norman Davies, The Isles

Grades are determined by attendance and participation in seminar discussion (25%) and quality of the weekly critiques (75%).

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 – and the US hostility to it – introduced a new and relentless phase of Cold War confrontation to the Western Hemisphere.  American military forces seldom engaged the “Communist threat” directly – with the notable exceptions of the 1962 Missile Crisis and the invasions of the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama. Even the CIA’s Bay of Pigs assault of 1961 had been fought by Cuban exiles without any US combat support.

This seminar also touches on the lesser-known “secret war” in which both Cuba and the United States utilized surrogates against each other.  Tactics of the secret war included paramilitary incursions, sabotage, hit-and-run attacks, and subversion.  The Cubans trained their Latin American allies in guerrilla warfare and the Americans taught counterinsurgency tactics to theirs, a process that brought left and right-wing extremists of other nations into the struggle.  In this manner, Cuba’s revolution and its counterrevolution spilled over to other countries of the hemisphere.

This course seeks to unravel two paradoxes of inter-American relations during the Cold War. 1.  Try as it might to defeat the Cuban Revolution, the United States could not have been more accommodating in assuring its longevity.  Everything American policymakers did to combat communism reinforced Fidel Castro’s rule and undermined his domestic enemies.  2.  For their part, the Cuban revolutionaries sought to eliminate the few remaining dictators and extend their socialist revolution to the rest of the hemisphere.  Instead, they provoked the spread of long-term military rule over millions of Latin Americans.  In this course, we will analyze why the revolutionary struggle within Cuba became internationalized.  But the story has an additional dimension: we might hypothesize that the secret war made the revolution in Cuba more radical and the counterrevolution abroad more reactionary.

Most of all, students in this seminar will connect the Cuban revolution of 1959 with the military counterrevolutions in South America that dominated the 1970s and 1980s. The one led to the others.  Cuba’s revolutionary example added one element of international tension. The policy of anti-communism projected all across the hemisphere by American diplomats from 1946 onward provided the other essential linkage. US policymakers treated every country as vulnerable to the revolutionary contagion.

Required Readings:

Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope

Renata Keller, Mexico’s Cold War

Tanya Harmer, Allende’s Chile

Hal Brands, The Cold War in Latin America

Michael Grow, US Presidents and Latin American Interventions

Jonathan C. Brown, Cuba’s Revolutionary World

One's grade is based upon the student’s contributions to seminar discussions, a 6-page essay on the Cuban Revolution, a 7-page essay on Counterrevolution in Latin America, and an 8-page essay on an individual research project.

This course examines the historical Civil Rights Movement and how its impact on race, democracy, and public policy transformed national race relations, ideas of citizenship, and helped to redefine American democracy.

We will examine the interactions between ordinary people and democratic institutions, social movement leaders and presidents, community activists and policy makers in trying to reimagine notions of equality, citizenship, freedom, and democracy.  Some questions we will ask: What was the Civil Rights Movement and who were the major players, actors, and organizations that shaped this movement? How did grassroots activists shape the movement for racial, economic, and gender justice during this era? What role did presidents and political leaders play in shaping the movement’s national policy aspirations? The course will examine the historic CRM as a vehicle to discuss contemporary social justice debates, especially voting rights and criminal justice reform.

The course will take a panoramic view of the civil rights period, beginning during the New Deal and concluding with a discussion of Black Lives Matter.  Along the way, we will discuss the CRM’s heroic period, including the roles played by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lyndon Johnson, while also paying careful attention to the way in which community activists at the grassroots level shaped a movement we still too often think of solely in national terms. Finally, we will explore contemporary policy debates over voting rights, mass incarceration, and racial segregation and see how (and if) past policy debates inform current ones.

The U. S. South in Global Perspective

This graduate readings seminar challenges the conventional notion that for much of its history, the U. S. South was distinctive in its isolation from the rest of the country and the rest of the world.  The readings for the course will show that in fact, from the beginning, southern history has been marked by all sorts of “conversations” between Southerners and non-Southerners.  These multi-layered “encounters” have taken the form of voluntary immigration and coerced migration, trade relations, exchanges related to scientific knowledge and culture, comparisons between slave and plantation-management systems, the interests of foreign entities in the American Civil War, dialogues between New South planters and European colonial powers in Africa, the exploitation of foreign white workers, southern expatriates adjusting to life in Europe, and outsiders’ perceptions of Southerners and the region they inhabited.

Readings include a mix of monographs, edited volumes, and articles in scholarly journals.

This historiography seminar is designed for history graduate students with a U.S. concentration who have not yet taken their comprehensive exams, especially those in their first or second year of study. It serves as both an introduction to the field and a basis for preparing for exams.

The collective task of the seminar will be to compile a reading list for doctoral students in American history. Students will be divided into groups to survey the literature in the many subfields of American history, to select representative works, and to justify the selections.

Students will write reviews, present oral summaries and assessments of the books, and write historiographical essays on particular portions of the final reading list.

This course will use a variety of exercises to help graduate students learn how do three things: to teach well; to apply their skills to the pursuit of a wide range of careers; and to navigate the process of searching for an academic job.