History
The Department of History engages its students through a study of the past. We are committed to the idea that the most compelling stories are often the most revealing ones. In addition to teaching students the particular skills of historical inquiry, we provide them with tools that serve them beyond their majors and beyond the university.
The discipline of history poses challenging questions about the ways that human beings have made the worlds they live in. There are many approaches to history. Some historians study politics, whether that means political parties or the ways that people who never held public office nonetheless act to shape public life. Others study the lived experience of everyday Americans or the popular culture that reflects how people understand the world around them. Still others are especially interested in the kinds of stories about the past that we tell ourselves, for those stories reveal a great deal about our own society as well as that of a different time. Although it is not true that history repeats itself, it is true that, without knowledge of the past, we are unable to understand the present.
The Department of History at Washington University offers history majors and minors the opportunity to develop a coherent and challenging program of study. We also encourage all undergraduates to incorporate the discipline of historical thinking into their liberal arts education. In all courses, students are taught the kinds of skills that will help them succeed both in classes at Washington University and in their postgraduate careers. History students learn to read carefully, think critically, research honestly, and present information and ideas clearly and concisely, both verbally and in writing.
The Department of History offers a wide variety of courses, ranging from the ancient world to the present and spanning across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. There are many opportunities for small-group learning and discussion in first-year seminars, sophomore honors colloquia, writing-intensive seminars, and advanced seminars. The history major is structured to be flexible and to encourage students both to pursue established interests and to explore topics, time periods, and locales that may be less familiar.
The Department of History prides itself on the individual attention that faculty mentors provide to students. Graduates express great satisfaction with their experiences in the major, specifically mentioning the faculty's knowledge of the subject matter, dynamic teaching styles, and respect for students.
Some history majors go on to pursue graduate work in the field and become professional historians, but most find that the knowledge and skills they build through history courses prepare them for a wide range of careers. Our graduates have attended law and medical schools and have pursued careers in government, education, research, business, communications, international agencies, publishing, museums and archives, public advocacy, and many other fields.
Contact Info
Phone: | 314-935-5450 |
Email: | history@wustl.edu |
Website: | http://history.wustl.edu |
Chair
Corinna Treitel
William Eliot Smith Professor of History
PhD, Harvard University
Modern European History
Director of Graduate Studies
Steve Hindle
Derek Hirst Endowed Professor of Early Modern British History
PhD, University of Cambridge
Early Modern European History
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Peter J. Kastor
Samuel K. Eddy Professor
PhD, University of Virginia
U.S. History
Department Faculty
Cassie Adcock
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Chicago
Modern South Asian History
Iver Bernstein
Professor
PhD, Yale University
U.S. History and the Civil War
Daniel Bornstein
Stella K. Darrow Professor of Catholic Studies
PhD, University of Chicago
Early Modern European History
Flora Cassen
Associate Professor
PhD, New York University
Jewish History, Early Modern Europe
Shefali Chandra
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Modern South Asian History
Douglas Flowe
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Rochester
U.S. History
Christine R. Johnson
Associate Professor
PhD, Johns Hopkins University
Early Modern European History
Jonathan Judaken
Gloria M. Goldstein Endowed Chair in Jewish History & Thought
PhD, University of California, Irvine
Jewish History, Racism, Existentialism
Krister Knapp
Teaching Professor
PhD, Boston University
U.S. Intellectual History
Uluǧ Kuzuoǧlu
Assistant Professor
PhD, Columbia University
Modern Chinese History
Kenneth Ludmerer
Mabel Dorn Reeder Distinguished Professor in the History of Medicine
PhD, MD, Johns Hopkins University
Medical History
Steven B. Miles
Professor
PhD, University of Washington
Chinese History
Diana J. Montaño
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Arizona
Latin American History
Sowandé Mustakeem
Associate Professor
PhD, Michigan State University
Atlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage
Tim Parsons
Professor
PhD, Johns Hopkins University
African History
Mark Pegg
Professor
PhD, Princeton University
Medieval European History
Christina Ramos
Associate Professor
PhD, Harvard University
Latin American History, History of Medicine
Nancy Y. Reynolds
Associate Professor
PhD, Stanford University
Middle Eastern History
Anne Schult
Assistant Professor
PhD, New York University
Modern European History
Dalen Wakeley-Smith
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of Michigan
U.S. History
Anika Walke
Associate Professor
PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz
Modern European History
Marjan Wardaki
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of California
History of Science
Lori Watt
Associate Professor
PhD, Columbia University
Japanese History
Affiliated Faculty
William Bubelis
Associate Professor of Classics
PhD, University of Chicago
Classics
Joanna Dee Das
Associate Professor of Dance
PhD, Columbia University
Adrienne D. Davis
William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law
JD, Yale University School of Law
Martin Jacobs
Professor of Rabbinic Studies
PhD and Habilitation, Free University of Berlin
Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies
Zhao Ma
Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History and Culture
PhD, Johns Hopkins University
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp
Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor
PhD, Yale University
Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
Rebecca Messbarger
Professor of Italian and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
PhD, University of Chicago
Romance Languages and Literatures
Eric P. Mumford
Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture
PhD, Princeton University
Architecture
Michelle Purdy
Associate Professor of Education
PhD, Emory University
Leigh E. Schmidt
Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor
PhD, Princeton University
Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
Claudia Swan
The Inaugural Mark Steinberg Weil Professor of Art History
PhD, Columbia University
Mark Valeri
Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics
PhD, Princeton University
Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
Hayrettin Yücesoy
Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies
PhD, University of Chicago
Steven Zwicker
Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities
PhD, Brown University
English
Professors Emeriti
Jean Allman
J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities
PhD, Northwestern University
African and African-American Studies
Andrea S. Friedman
PhD, University of Wisconsin
U.S. Women's History
Steven Hause
PhD, Washington University
Derek M. Hirst
William Eliot Smith Professor Emeritus of History
PhD, Cambridge University
Gerald N. Izenberg
PhD, Harvard University
Hillel J. Kieval
Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought
PhD, Harvard University
Jewish History
David T. Konig
PhD, Harvard University
Linda J. Nicholson
Susan E. and William P. Stiritz Distinguished Professor Emerita of Women's Studies
PhD, Brandeis University
Max J. Okenfuss
PhD, Harvard University
Laurence Schneider
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Richard J. Walter
PhD, Stanford University
Courses include the following:
History
Visit online course listings to view semester offerings for L22 History.
L22 History 101C Western Civilization
This course is a history of Western civilization from 3500 BC to AD 1600. Western civilization may be characterized as one long debate on the holy. In no other civilization did this debate about the limits of the sacred and the profane -- this constant effort at trying to grasp the divine through word and deed -- last continuously for more than 5000 years. To argue over the holy is to argue over the very nature of how to live a life, from the most mundane daily activity to the most sublime act of the imagination. It is to argue over how politics, economics, art, philosophy, literature, and religion are realized in a society. Apart from many types of polytheism, we study the three great world monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We study the ancient cultures of northern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, the empires of Alexander the Great and imperial Rome, the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the rise of Islam, the early medieval world in the North Sea and the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople, the formation of Latin Christendom and the papal monarchy, the Crusades and the reaction of the Islamic lands, concepts of individuality, the persecution of Jews and heretics, chivalry and peasant servitude, the Mongol Empire, the Black Death and the devastation of the 14th century, the Renaissance in Italy and the Protestant reformation, the hunt for witches and the scientific revolution, and the medieval origins of the African diaspora and the European conquest of the Americas. What defined being human -- and so a man, a woman, or a child -- over five millennia? Fundamental questions of this course include the following: What is "Western civilization"? When do the characteristics defined as "Western" come together as a coherent phenomenon? What, then, is historical truth? This course (through lectures, reading primary sources, discussion sections, and essay writing) gives the student a learned background in almost 5000 years of history. This is an introductory course for the history major and minor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 1021 An Ancient Murder Mystery: The Death of Jesus from the Gospels to Mel Gibson
When Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" was released in 2004, it provoked a tremendous amount of public debate and divided Christians (Catholics and Protestants of all sorts) and Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, Liberal and Reform) in every possible combination. Although the virulence of the discussions may have given us the impression that this was a new issue, in reality the question of the Jews' role and involvement in Jesus' death has been disputed for almost two thousand years. The claim that the Jews are responsible for Christ's death is the subject of this class and we will study its history from the gospels to today using textual sources (historical, religious and literary works) and the visual arts (paintings and movies). But this class is not about who did or did not kill Jesus, nor is it about judging people's positions on the issue. Rather it is about the power of a story to travel through time and space, to being told and retold in different versions and with different purposes, and to affect the real lives of men and women. First-Year Seminar; Course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 102D Introduction to Modern European History
The history of Europe since 1500 is a remarkable array of contradictions: freedom and fascism; democracy and imperialism; industrialization and Romanticism; international capitalism and fervent nationalism; social change and scientific racism. What produced these developments in European social, economic, and political spheres and how did these different currents diverge and converge? How did European developments affect global actors and vice versa? What are the consequences for our own time of these contradictory aspects of Europe's modernization? Class assignments include textbook and primary source reading (c. 75 pages/week), discussion participation, 2 short analytical papers, 3 in-class exams, and a final cumulative take-home essay. This course satisfies the Introductory Survey requirement for the history major and minor. DISCUSSION SECTION IS REQUIRED.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 1119 First-Year Seminar: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America: Myths, Realities and Identities
This course examines the history of racial thinking and the experience of race in Latin America. Topics covered include: concepts of "blood purity" in early modern Spain; the casta system in colonial Spanish America; indigenous and African identities; race, citizenship, and nation-building; whitening projects; discourses of mestizaje or "race mixture"; and the intersection of race, gender, and class. While the focus of the course will be on the complexities of race in Latin America, a place of enormous ethnic and cultural diversity, we'll also be looking to draw comparisons to the history of race in the U.S.
Credit 3 units. BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 1130 Introduction to Race
This course serves as an introduction to the analytic category race. Students will be exposed to major theories concepts, processes, frameworks, and scholars of race. They will develop the skills and language to critically examine and discuss race, with emphasis on how conceptions of race and collective identity have deep historical roots and have changed over time. This course takes the position that race-like gender, class and sexuality-is socially constructed. That said, while race is socially constructed, this course also emphasizes that racialization and racial categories have social, political, and economic consequences in people's everyday lives. Meaning the socially and historically constructed category of race has real implications for people and communities. Ultimately, the purpose of the course is to teach students to read, think and write critically about one of today's most contentious topics-race-by exposing them to readings and other course materials that consider race and the process of racialization in specific contexts and time periods throughout the world.
Same as L90 AFAS 1130
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 1150 First-Year Seminar: The Presidency 101: From Washington to Trump
Is this your first presidential election, or are you a policy wonk? Regardless of your political experience, this course provides an opportunity for students to learn about the American presidency as a contemporary political institution with deep roots in American history. This first-year seminar introduces undergraduates to the presidency by considering the institution in its political and cultural contexts. Using the 2020 election as a point of departure, this course will explore how the current president as well as the aspiring candidates reveal broader trends and new developments in American political history. In addition to introducing students to the study of the presidency, this course will also introduce students to diverse means of studying culture, with assignments that range from political speeches to policy documents to popular media.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: SSC BU: BA, HUM EN: S
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L22 History 1500 Silver, Slaves and the State: Globalization in the 18th Century
In this course, students will look at how silver, and also porcelain, tobacco and salt, shaped the early modern world. The course will look at how merchants and adventurers, as well as pilgrims, pirates, migrants, and captives, encountered very different facets of that world, and tried to make sense of it. Students will also study how these attempts at exchange, how that process of "making sense," transformed how men and women of the 18th century, around the globe, saw their territories and their fellow humans. This is a world history class.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 154 First-Year Seminar: Saints and Society
The topic of this course is saints and society in medieval and early modern Europe. It will explore the complex relationships between exceptional holy men and women, the historical settings in which they lived, and the religious and cultural traditions on which they drew. It will consider saints as both embodiments of the highest ideals of their societies and radical challenges to ordinary patterns of social existence.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 156 First-Year Seminar: England in the Age of Shakespeare
This course will examine certain themes central to our understanding of Shakespeare's England, such as monarchy, order, power and the limits on action, national identity, gender and family. Students will read and discuss modern historical scholarship, a range of contemporary sources, and Shakespeare's plays, and the relationship between them.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 163 Freedom, Citizenship and the Making of American Life
This course offers a broad survey of American history from the era before European settlement of North America to the late twentieth century. The course explores the emergence and geographic expansion of the United States and addresses changes in what it meant to be an American during the nation's history. Tracing major changes in the nation's economic structures, politics, social order and culture, the course chronicles, among other issues, changes in the meanings of freedom, citizenship, and American identity. Introductory course to the major and minor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: CPSC, HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 164 Introduction to World History: The Second World War in World History
This course introduction to World History uses World War II as a lens to examine the methodologies, approaches and sources historians employ to understand and analyze historical periods. The class will explore the global connections and interactions which characterize World History. The emphasis of this course will be on digging into topics traditionally neglected: the impact of the war on race, gender, family and children; daily life; and daily ethical decision making.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 1640 Health and Disease in World History
Health and disease are universal human experiences, yet vary profoundly across time and place. Extending from ancient times to the present, this course surveys that variety from a global perspective. We will explore medical traditions from around the world, then examine how these responded to major epidemic diseases such as the Black Death. We will study the globalization of disease and the emergence of scientific medicine after 1450, then turn to the interrelated histories of health and disease in the modern era. Throughout, we will attend carefully to how the biological aspects of health and disease have shaped world history, while at the same time exploring the powerful mediating role of social, cultural, economic, and political factors--from religious beliefs and dietary practices to inequality, poverty, empire, and war--in determining the myriad ways in which health and disease have been experienced and understood. Introductory course to the major and minor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 180 First-Year Seminar in Religious Studies: Miracles
This course is for freshman only. The topic varies from semester to semester. Recent topics include Miracles; Sexuality in Early Christianity; and The Self in Chinese Thought.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM
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L22 History 192 First-Year Seminar: African Experiences in the Second World War
Most conventional histories of the Second World War pay scant attention to Africa, thereby creating the misconception that the war had little impact on the peoples of the African continent. This introductory seminar restores the experiences of ordinary African women and men to the larger historical narratives of both Africa and World War II. Combining personal memoirs with official primary sources reveals not only how the global conflict influenced African history but also how Africans helped shape the final outcome and consequences of the war. This course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 193 First-Year Seminar: Silk Roads and Empires
Did the Silk Road even exist? Coined by a German geographer in the late 19th century, the term "Silk Road" has long been a metaphor for global connectivity. Evoking the image of camels and traders, diplomats and warriors, and missionaries and artists roaming across Eurasia from Chinese cities to Mediterranean shores, the so-called Silk Road has captivated the imagination of historians, novelists, and film makers for decades. This course investigates the fact and fiction of the Silk Road. Over the course of the semester, we will encounter people, texts, and objects that weaved a world wide web before the age of the internet. We will examine Buddhist monks, Muslim scholars, and Mongol rulers who connected disparate regions of the globe before the age of globalization, and we will discuss whether the concept and history of the Silk Road may offer anything novel for us in the 21st century. This course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 200 Doctors and Terrorists: The Fictions of South Asian America
South Asians have always played an integral role in the culture, history and politics of the United States. However, for complex reasons, their presence has either been concealed, or dismissed through dangerous stereotypes, or just as inaccurately, excessively celebrated for proving the generosity of American liberalism and multiculturalism. Racially misrecognized, this large and heterogeneous group has nonetheless shaped American categories of race, sexuality, and citizenship in intriguing and powerful ways. South Asian Americans have reached to fiction, music and popular culture to craft deeply intimate and original assessments of mainstream desires. In doing so they have sought to resist the dictates of whiteness, to question US imperialism, to garner acceptance and mobility, to build solidarity with other US minorities. In this course we learn about the complex history and cultural productions of South Asians in America. How did "South Asia" become a category of identification, and who benefitted from that designation? What role have South Asians played in the economic, cultural and global ascendancy of the United States? How do South Asians connect with, and control, their countries of origin? Why do discourses of sex and intimacy rise to the surface in this history, and what is the significance of story-telling in building the archive and questioning the fiction of South Asian America? Course enrollment is limited to first-year and sophomore students.
Same as L98 AMCS 2002
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2006 "Reading" Culture: Visualizing the American City
See Section Description. Topic changes semester to semester.
Same as L98 AMCS 206
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: CPSC, HUM, VC BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2052 Historical Fiction & Fictional Histories
The relationship between history and fiction has always been contentious and sometimes turbulent, not least because the two genres have traditionally been seen as mutually exclusive. However, new hybrid forms of writing-from historical fiction, to docudramas, to fictionalized biographies-have led to the blurring of the boundary and encouraged the claim that history itself is just another form of fiction. At the same time, historical novelists have placed increasing emphasis on the authenticity, sometimes even the accuracy, of their narratives and characterizations. And further still, contemporary writers are challenging dominant historical narratives by creating plausible fictions from the perspectives of the subordinated, the marginalized and the disenfranchised: plebeians, women, and indigenous, enslaved, and diasporic peoples. As historical novels become ever more popular, the distinction between history and fiction appears to be collapsing before our eyes. Through reading and discussing some outstanding examples of the genre of historical fiction published between the early nineteenth and the early twenty-first century (from Walter Scott to Charles Dickens, from Toni Morrison to Amitav Ghosh, from Graham Swift to Hilary Mantel), this course will investigate whether history is 'factual' or just another form of fiction; whether the appeal of historical fiction should lie in its authenticity; whether the recent success of historical novels should be viewed as a new development, or rather, as a revival of an older literary tradition; and whether novelists and dramatists are more adept than historians at interrogating issues of memory, identity, and change.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2061 Sophomore Seminar
This course is a sophomore seminar in history; topics vary per semester. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2062 Sophomore Seminar
This course is a sophomore seminar in history; topics vary per semester. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2070 Crossing Borders: An Introduction to Institutions and Concepts in Global Studies
This course provides an overview of the emergence of international governing institutions, the ideologies that shaped them, and concepts helpful for understanding them. Identifying the systems that have emerged to govern modern human societies at the national and international levels provides the means to consider how human beings are categorized within those systems, as citizens, subjects, asylum seekers, refugees, and the stateless. We engage a few classic works -- including "The Communist Manifesto," "Imagined Communities," and "Orientalism" -- and consider how they have transformed knowledge. The goal is for students to gain an empirical grasp of world institutions and a critical vocabulary that will provide the means for an informed engagement with international issues across different world regions and academic approaches.
Same as L97 GS 207
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC, SC Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: IS EN: S
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L22 History 2081 Introduction to Jewish Civilization: History and Identity
The anthropologist Clifford Geertz once famously invoked Max Weber in writing that "man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs." The main goal of this course-designed as an introduction to Jewish history, culture, and society-will be to investigate the "webs of significance" produced by Jewish societies and individuals, in a select number of historical periods, both as responses to historical circumstances and as expressions of Jewish identity. Over the course of the semester we will focus on the following historical settings: 7th century BCE Judah and the Babylonian exile; pre-Islamic Palestine and Babylonia (the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud); Europe in the period of the Crusades; Islamic and Christian Spain; Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries; North America in the 20th century; and the modern State of Israel. For each period we will investigate the social and political conditions of Jewish life; identify the major texts that Jews possessed, studied, and produced; determine the non-Jewish influences on their attitudes and aspirations; and the explore the efforts that Jews made to define what it meant to be part of a Jewish collective.
Same as L75 JIMES 208F
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2091 First-Year Seminar: The City in Early Modern Europe
From the city-states of Renaissance Italy to the eighteenth-century boomtowns of London and Paris, cities functioned as political, economic, and cultural centers, creating unique opportunities and challenges for their diverse inhabitants. Using a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, this course will examine how men and women, rich and poor, established citizens and marginal groups, tried to understand and manage life in the city. Their conflicting experiences and expectations created not only social and economic unrest, but also a resilient social infrastructure, a tradition of popular participation in politics, and a rich legacy of cultural accomplishment. Topics studied include: urban political and economic organization; the creation and use of public spaces; religion as a source of community and conflict; and urban crime and public punishment.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 2118 First-Year Seminar: Angels, Prostitutes and Chicas Modernas: Women in Latin American History
Women have been active players in the construction of Latin American nations. In the last two decades, leading scholars in the field have taken up the challenge of documenting women's participation. This research explosion has produced fruitful results to allow for the development of specialized courses. This course looks at the nation building process through the lens of Latin American women. Students will examine the expectations, responsibilities and limitations women confronted in their varied roles from the Wars of Independence to the social revolutions and dictatorial regimes of the twentieth century. Besides looking at their political and economic lives, students will explore the changing gender roles and relations within marriage and the family, as well as the changing sexual and maternal mores.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2119 First-Year Seminar: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America: Myths, Realities and Identities
What does it mean to identify as mestizo, moreno, or mulato? How have Latin American nations dealt with their mixed racial populations and their rich African and indigenous heritages? What does it mean to be black in nations where the official discourse is one of racial hybridity or color blindness? This course examines the history of racial thinking and the experience of race in Latin America. While the focus of the course will be on the complexities of race in Latin America, a place of enormous ethnic and cultural diversity, we will also draw comparisons to the history of race in the U.S.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 214C Introduction to Islamic Civilization
A historical survey of Islamic civilization in global perspective. Chronological coverage of social, political, economic and cultural history will be balanced with focused attention to special topics, which will include: aspects of Islam as religion; science, medicine and technology in Islamic societies; art and architecture; philosophy and theology; interaction between Islamdom and Christendom; Islamic history in the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia as well as Africa; European colonialism; globalization of Islam and contemporary Islam.
Same as L75 JIMES 210C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2152 The Theory and Practice of Justice: The American Historical Experience
This introductory course uses historical case studies combined with readings in law, literature, and philosophy to illuminate key episodes where definitions of justice were contested in 19th and 20th century America. Some of the conflicts to be explored include: Cherokee Removal, Civil War era debates over southern secession; whether reparation should be offered to freed people to redress the injustices of racial slavery; the denial of voting rights to women as a case of "taxation without representation"; 20th century controversies over legal bans on racial intermarriage; free speech versus hate speech in the 1960s and 70s; and recent debates over affirmative action and gay marriage. Attendance Required.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Art: HUM BU: ETH, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2157 First-Year Seminar: The Meaning of Pakistan: History, Culture, Art
Pakistan is the second largest Muslim nation and the sixth most populous country in the world. First imagined as an anti-majoritarian and anti-imperial idea, the nation came to be split between East and West Pakistan, with a hostile Indian nation dividing the country. The subsequent emergence of Bangladesh, from within, exposed the complexities of US imperial and Indian power, colonialism, identity, ethnicity, race, nationalism and repression. More recently, the War on Terror has once again exploited the ethnic and cultural conflicts produced by world histories of power and resistance. The events of the past two hundred years have undoubtedly and violently exacerbated the politicization of social and cultural identities. This course situates Pakistan in the context of pre-colonial social formations, British colonialism, internal colonialism, US imperialism, the Cold War, Soviet interests, Indian regional hegemony and then turns to the powerful and diverse struggles launched by its own citizens against these external forces. How did successive empires construct and politicize social identities, and how did people contest and adapt these? How did caste, gender, race and religion shape empire and anti-imperial histories? Our sources will be historical, ethnographic, and literary. We will cover topics such as colonial fantasies, decolonization, the political uses of social categories of tribe, caste, language and gender, the political economy of militarism, terrorism, 'development', activism, diasporic formations, poetry, music and art. The course will deepen our collective understanding of a critical series of developments in world history. Just as crucially, we will build a framework within which to address the stereotypes about Pakistan that dominate popular and media discourses today.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2158 First Year Seminar: Outcasts and Outlaws: The History of Othering in Modern Europe
Villainous figures such as pirates, bandits, rebels, and terrorists have easily jumped from the historical record into the broader cultural imaginary. But what, beyond their disdain for the law, do they have in common, and why do they keep resurfacing in accounts of contemporary politics? This course will survey several outsider archetypes across 19th- and 20th-century Europe and its empires. We will ask: what does it mean to be "outside" of the community, and which mechanisms and spaces have historically produced and maintained this exclusion? With particular attention to the history of European imperialism, this course will analyze how images of outcasts and outlaws have been shaped by perceptions of gender, race, and class, and how they have produced distinct forms of management and policing. The class will also highlight the central role that mobility has played for this type of othering. Putting archetypes from the European underworld into conversation with one another and investigating their reconfigurations across time, we will systematically work out what function they perform for past and present society and what, if any, forms of resistance they afford.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2251 Religion and Politics in American History
In a famous 2004 article, historian Jon Butler once remarked that US history textbooks and survey courses tend to pay significant attention to religion during the Colonial Era and early Republic, yet after the Civil War "religion more often appears as a jack-in-the-box" that pops up in historical accounts somewhat randomly and without much elaboration or analysis. To address the gaps in historical understandings that these absences may create, this course will provide a survey of the ways theological ideas and religiously-motivated social movements have shaped US politics and civic life from the Civil War to the present. With a particular emphasis placed on how religion intersects with other social categories such as race, gender, and class, it will examine the complex role that religious beliefs, practices, and identities have played in major political events and debates from the 1860s to today. In doing so, it will also inquire into what it means to study religion as a historical phenomenon, the theoretical and methodological tools that best assist in this work, and the historiographic implications of better attending to religion in historical analyses. No prior coursework in US history or religious studies is required.
Same as L57 RelPol 225
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 2255 First-Year Seminar: The Caribbean and the World
For many, the Caribbean evokes images of an exotic place with beautiful beaches, friendly, happy "natives" and unbridled hedonism. Yet, much more than a distant vacation destination for "first world" consumption, the Caribbean has long been closely intertwined with major events in World History. This course explores the ways in which the Caribbean has been a part of the making of World History, beginning in the 14th century and ending in the contemporary period. Themes covered will include: capitalism and slavery; the Haitian Revolution and its global reverberations; U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean; the impact of Caribbean migration on British culture; Caribbean sports; music and food in a global context; and the contributions of Caribbean thinkers to anti-colonial and anti-imperialist thought and action.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 2358 First-Year Seminar: Travel and Travelers in the Second British Empire
Empires were, most fundamentally, networks of communication, commerce, governance, and travel held together by force. They are difficult to understand and define because different sorts of people experienced imperial rule differently. This seminar offers a new perspective on the Second British Empire by examining it through the eyes of the people who traveled throughout it as politicians, administrators, soldiers, merchants, missionaries, journalists, artists, and settlers. The course work and assignments involve reading and writing conventional travel accounts, memoirs, and police reports.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 2443 First-Year Seminar: The Nuremberg Trials and International Justice
This course is an exercise in understanding how professional historians and the general public discover and use the past. The main goals of this course are to understand the many different methods and standards applied to the past; to understand how and why each generation changes the past as it seeks to make it "usable"; and to develop the skills of exposition and argumentation necessary to describe and analyze complex historical issues and to express critical ideas effectively. The subject of this inquiry will be the Nuremberg trials - the innovations and critiques around the law and politics of the trials themselves, as well as the trials' legacies for ideas about international justice in postwar America and the world. Course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYS A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 245 Topics in National Security History
This purpose of this course is to introduce first year students in an intimate setting to major topics in national security policy. For that reason, enrollments will be kept small. The goal is to provide insights for students considering a major in history and perhaps even a career in policy. The course structure will rotate topics (intelligence, war, world orders, etc.) each time it is taught.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2561 Urban America
The city is a crucial frame for understanding the nation's cultural, economic, social, political and ecological concerns. This course discusses its importance in shaping American society and consider urban environments as living, breathing, contracting and expanding regions in the landscape. Questions of race, class and gender will be explored in an attempt to understand the current configuration of American cities, and to allow students to engage meaningfully with the continual transformation of urban space. Attention will be paid to the role played by popular imagination in the formation of public policy, civic spatial arrangement, suburban development and urban historical geography.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 2674 Sophomore Seminar: Slavery and Memory in American Popular Culture
Sophomores receive priority registration. The history of slavery has long created a sense of unease within the consciousness of many Americans. Recognizing this continued reality, this seminar examines how slavery is both remembered and silenced within contemporary popular culture. Although slavery scholarship continues to expand, how do everyday Americans gain access to the history of bondage? Taking an interdisciplinary approach to these intriguing queries, we will examine a range of sources: literature, public history, art/poetry, visual culture, movies and documentaries, as well as contemporary music including reggae and hip hop. The centerpiece of this course covers North American society, however, in order to offer a critical point of contrast students will be challenged to explore the varied ways slavery is commemorated in others parts of the African Diaspora.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 270 Globalization and its Discontents
Today, the heady promises of globalization appear to have failed us. The notion of global markets and global citizens seems to have remained at best, an ideal. Meanwhile the world's majority has witnessed a staggering decline in education, nutrition, health and even physical mobility. Nowhere have these developments passed unquestioned: from the rise of the so-called Maoist insurgency in India to the Occupy movement in the US, people and especially the youth have expressed their outrage in creative and unconventional ways. This course plots the long and necessarily violent history of forging global interconnections. The lens for our analysis will be India, South Asia and their relationship with the United States. We will approach a range of novels, films and popular cultural artifacts as we build our own understanding of the nature, critique and promise of globalization.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2700 Sophomore Seminar: U.S.-China Relations: Perceptions and Realities
The United States and China are the two most important global powers today, and the bilateral relationship is one of the most comprehensive, complex, consequential, and competitive major-power relations in the world. The course aims to examine the attitudes, ideas, and values that have shaped the relationship, from the era of colonial expansion in the 1800s to the rise of China as a major political and economic power in the 21st century. Drawing upon visual images, literature, films, policy statements, and other materials, the course will analyze the patterns of perceptions that have informed and shaped the understanding of realities. This course, which uses an interdisciplinary approach, will include discussions and debates from both American and Chinese perspectives. Prerequisite: sophomore level only.
Same as L04 Chinese 270
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 270A Sophomore Seminar: Globalization and its Descendents
The metanarrative of globalization and global inter-connections privileges the story of markets, growth, and mobility. That story is relentlessly optimistic, and simultaneously, devoid of an understanding of gender, sexual difference or race. In this course, we take a different approach. We discard the more conventional "metrics" of globalization by focusing instead on another equally global story: the manner by which human beings have been gendered and racialized over time. Doing so allows us to revisit globalization through its own deceptions, its interconnected secrets. We confront a different set of questions: how has intimacy shaped global mobility, what is the relationship between caste and MAMAA, between custom and the movement of capital, between "slums" and scale, between outsourcing and incarceration, how does the normative family propel global racial regimes? Most crucially, how and why is the emotional and intimate story of globalization concealed? The seminar class utilizes a wide array of sources, historical documents, scholarly critiques, novels and film and largely considers the longer, global history of India as the case study. Our specific focus will be on the secretive interconnections of slavery, seclusion, settlers, servitude, surrogacy, and scholarship, as we take a deep dive into the disguises, and the more hidden aspects, of globalization.
Same as L77 WGSS 270A
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2721 Ampersand: Rethinking WashU's Relation to Enslavement: Past, Present and Future
Explore Washington University's entanglement with the institution of slavery over its 168-year history. This full-year course guides students into independent research that engages the distortions, erasures, and silences of the "slavery archive," especially as they pertain to Black lives in St. Louis whose stories shape the University's long and important tradition. Use textual and digital methods in an endeavor to understand this past, learn how it shapes our present, and consider how it ought to shape our institutional future. This class is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Same as L61 FYP 2721
Credit 3 units. A&S: AMP A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 2750 Sophomore Seminar: Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City
This course examines recent English-language scholarship on Beijing's history and culture. From the early modern period to the contemporary era, Beijing has served as the capital for imperial, early Republican, and revolutionary and post-socialist China. The city thus has been virtually synonymous with governmental power and elite politics. However, recent scholarship has shifted focus from the political perspective to uncovering the social and cultural changes at the grassroots. Notable scholarly works have demonstrated that the modernization impulse and the move to industrialization served to create the city's modern face. Administrative reforms gave rise to new conceptions and a host of institutions to manage social relief, public services, and legal and punitive institutions. The rise, fall, and subsequent revival of the consumer marketplace impacted cultural production and consumption. Mass (de)mobilization closed old venues while opening new possibilities for residents to understand and participate in politics. The recent English-language scholarship not only delineates forces that shaped the lives of millions of residents of Beijing but also situates their experience in the national and global context of modernization and revolution.
Same as L04 Chinese 275
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 2802 Sophomore Seminar: The Public Servant and Other Heroes: A History of Japan through Film
This course is an examination of key turning points in Japan from the mid-19th century to the present. It focuses on the important role that bureaucracies, staffed by public servants, have played in shaping the political and social life on the archipelago and in the region. We will engage representations of political and social life in Japan by making use of its rich visual culture by viewing and discussing Japanese films. The assigned films, which will be screened in Japanese with English subtitles, will likely include "The Twilight Samurai," "To Live," and "Shin Godzilla," among others. These films provide representations of how people in Japan have responded to crises, including revolution, war, and natural disasters. Through written and visual materials, students will gain a better understanding of history in Japan, public service, and the utility of film for engaging the past. Film screenings are mandatory.
Same as L97 GS 280
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 2910 Racism and Antiracism
When President Obama was elected, it ignited a debate about whether America had finally become "post-racial." This assertion was belied by an entrenched underclass of Blacks and others from immigrant backgrounds; by the regular killing of innocent, young Black men alongside their mass incarceration, along with a whole series of other social indicators; by the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents and Islamophobia globally; and most evidently by the discourse used during the Trump era that weaponized white Christian nationalism. At the end of four years of the Trump presidency defined by racist discourse and policies, it culminated in an insurgent riot on the Capitol designed to block the peaceful transfer of power, the basis of American democracy. This course provides the long view to understanding this recent period in American and global history. We begin by defining key terms in the discussion around racism today, including what we mean by racism and what unites anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism and Islamophobia, but also notions like privilege, cultural appropriation, and microaggressions. We then move on to the long history of the category of race. We start with a unit on race and religion and then move on to the role of the discovery of the "New World" and the development of the Atlantic slave system, and its impact on the Enlightenment, which was the incubator for the concept of race. From there, we consider how fundamental race was to European and American colonial dominance by the end of the nineteenth-century and the role it played in racial states like Nazi Germany and South Africa. The last portion of the class will focus on struggles to dismantle racism over the the last century, considering the anti-colonial and Civil Rights movement, and the anti-apartheid struggle. Along the way, we will have addressed the overlaps and disconnects between anti-Black, anti-Jewish, and anti-Islamic racism and read a number of key thinkers and activists who can help us in the fight against racism.
Same as L75 JIMES 2910
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC
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L22 History 299 Undergraduate Internship in History
Students receive credit for a faculty-directed and approved internship. Registration requires completion of the Learning Agreement which the student obtains from the Career Center and which must be filled out and signed by the Career Center and the faculty sponsor prior to beginning internship work. Credit should correspond to actual time spent in work activities, e.g., 8-10 hours a week for 13 or 14 weeks to receive 3 units of credit; 1 or 2 credits for fewer hours. Students may not receive credit for work done for pay but are encouraged to obtain written evaluations about such work for the student's academic adviser and career placement file.
Credit variable, maximum 3 units.
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L22 History 3002 Independent Work
Permission of the instructor is required.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 3011 Biblical Law and the Origins of Western Justice
This course will explore how law developed from the earliest periods of human history and how religious ideas and social institutions shaped law. The course will also illuminate how biblical law was influenced by earlier cultures and how the ancient Israelites reshaped the law they inherited. It will further analyze the impact of biblical law on Western culture and will investigate how the law dealt with those of different social classes and ethnic groups, and we will probe how women were treated by the law.
Same as L75 JIMES 3012
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: ETH, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 301A Historical Methods
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to history majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 301C Historical Methods-Caribbean History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 301E Historical Methods-East Asian History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 301F Historical Methods-African History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 301L Historical Methods-Latin American History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 301M Historical Methods-Middle Eastern History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 301N Historical Methods-Microhistories: Scale and Narrative in Historical Research and Writing
Historical Methods (Transregional): How much can we learn about the past through the story of a single person, place, object, or event? Since the 1970s, historians have attempted to show that 'microhistories' can powerfully illuminate the grand sweep of history. By narrowing their focus to magnify the small, the particular, and the local, 'microhistorians' have argued that studies of apparently inconsequential subjects can have a major impact on our understanding of the past. This course is based on the intensive reading and discussion of several outstanding examples of the 'micro-historical' study of individuals, families, communities, events, and social interactions. These will be primarily drawn from the literature on early modern Europe, which has a long and continuing tradition of work of this kind. Some, however, are taken from the historiography of Early America and recent approaches to 'Global' history. Particular attention will be paid to questions of evidence and of its potential in the hands of imaginative historians; and to the deployment of particular analytical and narrative techniques in the construction of history. We will often be less concerned with whether the historians we study are 'right' in their arguments than with how they develop and present them.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 301R Historical Methods-European History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HEU, HSM
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L22 History 301S Historical Methods-South Asian History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 301T Historical Methods-Transregional History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 301U Historical Methods-United States History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3023 Politics, Religion, and Society in Early Modern Britain, 1485-1714
This lecture course is intended to provide an introduction to the political, religious and economic development of English society between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. Particular issues addressed in the lectures will include: changing social structure; households; local communities; gender roles; economic development; urbanization; religious change from the Reformation to the Act of Toleration; the Tudor and Stuart monarchies; rebellion, popular protest and civil war; witchcraft; education, literacy and print culture; crime and the law; poverty and social welfare; the changing structures and dynamics of political participation; the emergence of parliamentary government; and the early development of imperial ambitions.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3034 Jews in French History and Culture
This course will explore the rich history of the representations of Jews within French culture and contributions to French history. The class will consider how French Jews served as incubators of cultural modernity. France was the first country in Europe to emancipate Jews from their ghettos, offering them civil rights and civic equality. But at the same time, France was a crucible for the development of modern anti-Semitism. Jews appear as characters in novels, hosts of intellectual salons, as actors on the French stage, as icons of financial capitalism, as examples of the limits and possibilities of immigration, integration, and even assimilation, as authors and intellectuals, as quintessentially French and Other to France. We will navigate these tensions through literature, art, film, theater, and in their diverse historical contexts.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC EN: H
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L22 History 3035 Antisemitism: History, Causes, Consequences
Why do people hate other people? Why have religion, race, gender, ethnicity and so on led to sectarian violence with terrifying regularity throughout history? Focused on antisemitism from Biblical times to today, this class will grapple with those questions. Please note: L75 5035 is intended for graduate students only.
Same as L75 JIMES 3035
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3044 Humors, Pox and Plague: Medieval and Early Modern Medicine
This course examines how people thought about, experienced, and managed disease in the medieval and early modern periods. Students will consider developments in learned medicine alongside the activities of a diverse range of practitioners-e.g. surgeons, empirics, quacks, midwives, saints, and local healers-involved in the business of curing a wide range of ailments. Significant attention will be paid to the experiences of patients and the social and cultural significance of disease. Major topics include: the rise and fall of humoral medicine; religious explanations of illness; diseases such as leprosy, syphilis, and plague; the rise of anatomy; herbs and pharmaceuticals; the experience of childbirth; and the emergence of identifiably "modern" institutions such as hospitals, the medical profession, and public health. The focus will be on Western Europe but we'll also consider developments in the Islamic world and the Americas.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3045 Hot Peace: U.S.-Russia Relations Since the Cold War
This course is an historical analysis of U.S.-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War. Focusing on "reset" diplomacy during the terms of five American and three Russian presidents since 1990, it reveals a familiar historical pattern that begins with high hopes, dialogue, and optimism only to be followed by vast disappointment, standoffs, and pessimism. Despite this dynamic, the course shows how and why the two countries have been able to cooperate at times to make substantial headway on critical issues such as arms control, nonproliferation of WMD, NATO expansion, counterterrorism, and economic and energy development, whereas at other times they have run afoul of major obstacles such as further NATO expansion, missile defense, and democracy and human rights in Russia. The course also examines how many political events created substantial challenges to U.S.-Russia relations, including the Balkan Wars; U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Russia's wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine/Crimea; the "Color Revolutions"; the Arab Spring and subsequent civil wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya; the fight against ISIS and other militant Islamists; the threats posed by Iran and North Korea; the rise of China; espionage crises; hybrid wars; cyberattacks; and disinformation campaigns. Two vital questions frame the analysis: (1) Why has it been so difficult for these two great powers to develop a mutually beneficial relationship? (2) What would be required to move beyond the limited partnership to something more productive and sustaining? The course concludes by evaluating "reset" diplomacy and the ongoing attempts to move U.S.-Russia relations beyond a Hot Peace.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3056 Material Culture in Modern China
In this course, we will explore change and continuity from late imperial to postsocialist China through an analysis of everyday material culture. Drawing upon material objects, historical texts, ethnographic studies, and films, we will investigate values, beliefs and attitudes towards the material world in modern Chinese life. Readings, lectures, and discussions will focus on how political, ethnic, regional, religious, and gender identities have been constructed and shaped by the use and production of material artifacts ranging from household goods and tomb objects to built forms and bodily dispositions. Case studies include foot-binding, opium use, fashion, tea culture, fast food consumption, sports and nation building, contemporary art markets, the privatization of housing, and worker discipline in transnational factories.
Same as L48 Anthro 3056
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC Arch: SSC Art: SSC EN: S
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L22 History 3066 The American City in the 19th and 20th Centuries
This course will explore the cultural, political, and economic history of U.S. cities in the 19th and 20th centuries. The course will focus on New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, although other cities may be included. Students will conduct significant primary research on sections of St. Louis, developing a detailed history of one of the city's neighborhoods. Much of the course readings address broad themes such as immigration, industrialization, deindustrialization, and race and gender relations in American cities.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Art: HUM BU: HUM
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L22 History 3067 Topics in the History of Medicine: History of Madness
Mental health -- its diagnosis, social implications, and experience -- is a central and increasingly visible part of the practice of medicine. This course explores "madness." How have different societies explained and responded to states of mind, behavior, and emotion judged to be unreasonable? What role has medicine played in framing understandings about mental disorders and their management? During this course we will engage these questions, charting the shifting experience of mental illness roughly from the Middle Ages to the present. Themes covered include: religious models of madness; humoral medicine and disorders such as melancholy; the pre-modern madhouse and the emergence of the modern asylum; the history of psychiatry; the insanity defense in the courtroom; patient autobiography; gender, race, and mental health.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L22 History 3073 The Global War on Terrorism
This course presents an historical assessment of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) from the perspective of its major participants: militant Sunni Islamist jihadists, especially the Al-Qaeda network, and the nation states that oppose them, particularly the United States and its allies. The course then concludes by analyzing the current state and future of Islamist jihad and the GWOT.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3074 Hinduism & the Hindu Right
We are witnessing a global rise in rightwing politics, and India is no exception. In May 2019, Narendra Modi and his "Hindu Nationalist" party were elected to power for a second term. Observers in the United States and Europe may be stunned by what seems to be a new development, but observers in India have been following the rise of the Hindu Right since the early 1990s. In its wake, the Hindu Right has brought violence against minorities; curbs on free speech; and moves toward second-class citizenship for Indian Muslims. This course will track the history of the Hindu Right in India from its 19th-century roots to the present. The struggle to come to grips with the Hindu Right is of immediate political relevance. It also raises big questions about the history of religion and the politics of secularism.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3082 City on a Hill: The Concept and Culture of American Exceptionalism
This course examines the concept, history, and culture of American exceptionalism-the idea that America has been specially chosen, or has a special mission to the world. First, we examine the Puritan sermon that politicians quote when they describe America as a "city on a hill." This sermon has been called the "ur-text" of American literature, the foundational document of American culture; learning and drawing from multiple literary methodologies, we will re-investigate what that sermon means and how it came to tell a story about the Puritan origins of American culture-a thesis our class will reassess with the help of modern critics. In the second part of this class, we will broaden our discussion to consider the wider (and newer) meanings of American exceptionalism, theorizing the concept while looking at the way it has been revitalized, redefined and redeployed in recent years. Finally, the course ends with a careful study of American exceptionalism in modern political rhetoric, starting with JFK and proceeding through Reagan to the current day, ending with an analysis of Donald Trump and the rise of "America First." In the end, students will gain a firm grasp of the long history and continuing significance-the pervasive impact-of this concept in American culture.
Same as L98 AMCS 3081
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3091 Poverty and Social Reform in American History
This course explores the history of dominant ideas about the causes of and solutions to poverty in American society. We will investigate changing economic, cultural, and political conditions that gave rise to new populations of impoverished Americans and to the expansion or contraction of poverty rates at various times in American history. However, we will focus primarily on how various social commentators, political activists, and reformers defined poverty, explained its causes, and struggled to ameliorate its effects. The course aims to highlight changes in theories and ideas about the relationship between dependence and independence, personal responsibility and social obligation, and the state and the citizen.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 30CC The American School
In this course we analyze the development of American schooling within the context of American social history. Our focus is on three general themes: the differing conceptions of schooling held by some American political, social, and cultural thinkers; the changing relationships among schools and other educational institutions such as the church and the family; and the policy issues and arguments that have shaped the development of schooling in America. We spend considerable time studying the history of schooling in relation to the enduring challenges and dilemmas of marginalized groups including but not limited to systemic racial inequalities, access to schooling and inequitable schooling experiences. Undergraduate students must enroll in Educ. 301C, while graduate students must enroll in Educ. 5001.
Same as L12 Educ 301C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 30GS "I Know It When I See It": A History of Obscenity & Pornography in the United States
When Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to describe his test for obscenity in 1964, he responded: "I know it when I see it." But do we? What is pornography and how has it changed over the last two and a half centuries? What role does pornography play in our society and how is our society reflected in its contents? This course seeks to explore these questions and more and actively engages in the debate and controversies inherent to discussions of pornography in America. In this course we will engage with primary sources to track the changing nature of pornographic material- written, physical, and visual- and to recognize the way pornography reflects changes in the wider social milieu, as well as secondary and theoretical sources to contextualize and provoke our understanding of patterns of pornography use and regulation. It is likely that our definition of pornography will change over the semester- our initial definition is broadly bounded by material considered pornographic by its contemporaries and that which is created with the intent of erotic simulation.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3113 Seminar: Perceptions of Time and Place in Early Modern England
This seminar analyses perceptions of time and place in England, c.1500-1800, and their relationship to both personal and social identity. These issues will be explored using appropriate theoretical and substantive readings and both visual and textual primary sources. Particular attention will be given to the use of visual images as historical evidence. Specific issues addressed include the development of cartography, chorography and antiquarianism; conventions of time reckoning and the dating of events; perceptions of the life course; the creation of social memory and historical narratives; representations of social place; agrarian change and the transformation of the landscape; the impact of the Reformation on the calendar, the landscape, and senses of the past; and representations of previously unknown places and peoples. Primary sources for discussion include maps and prospects; chorographical surveys; illustrated antiquarian writings; almanacs; pictorial representations of notable events; engravings; paintings (portraits; 'country house portraits'; landscapes; 'conversation pieces'; history painting and 'documentary' works); memorials; family histories; extracts from court records.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3117 Capitalism, Socialism and Labor: The Political Economy of 20th Century Africa
This course surveys the integration of African individuals and communities into the global economy. We will, however, pay equal attention to their efforts to resist integration, or at least have a greater say in how it would take place. This social history of the political economy of sub-Saharan Africa in the "long" 20th century critiques theories of imperialism, capitalism, socialism, development and under-development from the perspective of ordinary people. The essay-based course work is focused on making original arguments using primary historical sources as evidence.
Same as L90 AFAS 3117
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 313C Islamic History: 600-1200
The cultural, intellectual, and political history of the Islamic Middle East, beginning with the prophetic mission of Muhammad and concluding with the Mongol conquests. Topics covered include: the life of Muhammad; the early Muslim conquests; the institution of the caliphate; the translation movement from Greek into Arabic and the emergence of Arabic as a language of learning and artistic expression; the development of new educational, legal and pietistic institutions; changes in agriculture, crafts, commerce and the growth of urban culture; multiculturalism and inter-confessional interaction; and large-scale movements of nomadic peoples.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3149 The Late Ottoman Middle East
This course surveys the Middle East in the late Ottoman period (essentially the 18th and 19th centuries, up to the First World War). It examines the central Ottoman state and the Ottoman provinces as they were incorporated into the world economy, and how they responded to their peripheralization in that process. Students will focus on how everyday people's lived experiences were affected by the increased monetarization of social and economic relations; changes in patterns of land tenure and agriculture; the rise of colonialism; state efforts at modernization and reform; shifts in gender relations; and debates over the relationship of religion to community and political identity.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 314C Islamic History: 1200-1800
An introduction to Islamic polities and societies from the Mongol conquests to the thirteenth century to the collapse and weakening of the colossal "gunpowder" empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals in the early eighteenth century. Broadly speaking, this course covers the Middle Period (1000-1800) of Islamic history, sandwiched between the Early and High Caliphal Periods (600-100) on the one hand and the Modern Period (1800-Present) on the other hand. Familiarity with the Early and High Caliphal periods is not assumed. The course will not be a "survey" of this period but a series of "windows" that will allow you to develop both an in-depth understanding of some key features of Islamic societies and a clear appreciation of the challenges (as well as the rewards!) that await historians of the Middle Period. Particular attention is given to the Mamluk and Ottoman Middle East, Safavid Iran and Mughal India.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 3150 The Middle East in the 20th Century
This course surveys the history of the Middle East since World War I. Major analytical themes include: colonialism; Orientalism; the formation of the regional nation-state system; the formation and political mobilization of new social classes; changing gender relations; the development of new forms of appropriation of economic surplus (oil, urban industry) in the new global economy; the role of religion; the Middle East as an arena of the Cold War; conflict in Israel/Palestine; and new conceptions of identity associated with these developments (Arabism, local patriotism, Islamism).
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3153 Sex and Gender in Greco Roman Antiquity
In this course, we will explore how ancient Greeks and Romans thought about gender and sexuality. We will consider questions such as: which traits and behaviors did the Greeks and the Romans associate with masculinity and with femininity? What can we tell from our sources about those who did not fit neatly into this binary? How did ancient Greeks and Romans think about male and female anatomy and psychology? How did the Greeks and the Romans construct sexuality and how did they approach homosexual and heterosexual relationships? How did they think about erotic desire? How did ancient laws and institutions circumscribe the lives of men and women, and how did they contribute to the construction of gender and sexuality? How did class, ethnicity, and age intersect with ideas about gender and sexuality in antiquity? We will read an array of ancient texts in translation, we will consider various theoretical viewpoints, and we will move toward a better understanding of how gender and sexuality were constructed in antiquity. Ultimately, we will reflect on how our exploration of ancient ideas about these issues can help us understand better how we think about them today.
Same as L08 Classics 3152
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3162 Early Modern China
This course examines political, socio-economic, and intellectual-cultural developments in Chinese society from the middle of the fourteenth century to 1800. This chronological focus largely corresponds to the last two imperial dynasties, the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911). Thematically, the course emphasizes such early modern indigenous developments as increasing commercialization, social mobility, and questioning of received cultural values.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3163 Historical Landscape and National Identity in Modern China
This course attempts to ground the history of modern China in physical space such as imperial palaces, monuments and memorials, campus, homes and residential neighborhoods, recreational facilities, streets, prisons, factories, gardens, and churches. Using methods of historical and cultural anthropological analysis, the course invests the places where we see with historical meaning. Through exploring the ritual, political, and historical significance of historical landmarks, the course investigates the forces that have transformed physical spaces into symbols of national, local, and personal identity. The historical events and processes we examine along the way through the sites include the changing notion of rulership, national identity, state-building, colonialism and imperialism, global capitalism and international tourism. Acknowledging and understanding the fact that these meanings and significances are fluid, multiple, contradictory, and changing over time are an important concern of this course.
Same as L04 Chinese 3163
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3165 Chinese Diasporas
Five hundred years ago, the Chinese population was concentrated in core areas of China proper. Beginning in the 16th century, significant numbers of Chinese people moved to the frontiers of an expanding China and across its borders: to Japan and Southeast Asia, to the Americas and Australia, and to Africa and Europe. Although Chinese migration certainly existed beforehand, the period from the 16th century to the present day is marked by the emergence of sustained movement of non-state actors and the development of institutions -- ranging from native-place associations to tourist agents' websites -- that supported this vast circulation of people. Likewise, in many emigrant communities and host societies, Chinese diasporic families adapted to migration as a way of life. This course traces this worldwide circulation of Chinese people over these five centuries.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3166 A History of Modern China
This course explores the 19th- and 20th-century history of China. Its purpose is to provide students with a historical foundation to understand the momentous changes the country underwent during its traumatic transition from an empire to a nation-state. We start the course at the height of the empire's power in the late 18th century, when the Qing dynasty (1637-1912) conquered vast swathes of lands and people in Inner Asia. We then move on to the Qing's troubled relationship with Western capitalism and imperialism in the 19th century, which challenged the economic, social, and ideological structures of the imperial regime, culminating in the emergence of "China" as a nation-state. By situating China's national history within a global context, the course outlines in detail the transformations that took place in the 20th century, from the rise of communism and fascism to the Second World War to Maoism and cultural revolution. We end the semester with yet another major change that took place in the 1980s, when a revolutionary Maoist ideology was replaced with a technocratic regime, the legacies of which are still with us today.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3167 Economic History of China: From the Silver Age to Reform and Opening, 1500-1990
This seminar explores the economic history of China from the 16th to the 20th century; this time period is the half a millennium during which China became part of the world economy and defined its development in major ways. Over the course of the semester, students will be exposed to the main debates in the field of Chinese economic history while acquiring a strong grasp of the nuts and bolts of how economy functioned and changed from the imperial to the modern times. Situating China within a comparative perspective, we will examine a multitude of debates ranging from the global silver age of the 16th century to the birth of capitalism, the socialist economy, and the PRC's recent involvement in Africa. We will in particular discuss the contradictions that arose out of China's integration into the world economy and the different kinds of economic regimes that existed and continue to exist within China. While this course assumes a basic familiarity with Asian history, students with backgrounds in other world histories and/or social science disciplines should feel comfortable with the course material.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3168 History of Global Capitalism: From Slavery to Neoliberalism
This course introduces the methods, issues, and debates that shape our understanding of economic change and development from the Industrial Revolution to the post-industrial age. Engaging economic theorists from Marx to Smith to Weber and Wallerstein, this course problematizes the notion of rational economic actors and interrogates notions of free trade in an attempt to understand the impact of capitalism on the world. We start the course with a discussion of the "exceptionalism" of Great Britain as the first industrial nation and reconsider the impact of new trade, production, property and monetary/financial regimes that resulted in the so-called "Great Divergence" between China and the West. We then turn to the "late industrializers" of China, Japan, and Mexico in order to investigate the varieties of development, specifically focusing on monetary integration, legal integration and the global impact of the great depression. Continuing into the Bretton Woods Conference and the post-war international monetary systems, we bring the course to a close with the advent of the "post-industrial age." This course is designed both for students specializing in economic history and students in all disciplines interested in historical approaches to political/economic development.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3169 Cyborgs in History: From Cybernetics to Artificial Intelligence
Who coined the word "cyborg," and why? How did cyborgs become so integral to our imaginative worlds and daily existence? In this course, we will contemplate the intersection between technologies and societies through the lens of cyborgs, a term that is shorthand for "cybernetic organisms." Defying the separation between humans and machines, cyborgs have been critical to sciences, humanities, pop culture, feminism, afrofuturism, and queer studies, among many other fields of inquiry. This course will take a deep dive into the worlds of scientists, scholars, artists, and ordinary people to discover the cultural meanings of cyborgs across time and space. Along the way, we will meet Norbert Wiener, who coined the term "cybernetics"; Donna Haraway, for whom the cyborgs were a revolutionary species; and John C. Lilly, who thought he could speak with dolphins. We will also travel to the USSR to read about a failed internet; to Chile, where cybernetics was a socialist project; and to Japan, to learn about gender and technology in non-Western spaces. By the end of the course, students will have a strong theoretical and historical grasp on the social worlds of cybernetic technologies.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 316C Modern China: 1890s to the Present
A survey of China's history from the clash with Western powers in the 1800s to the present day economic revolution. This course examines the background to the 1911 revolution that destroyed the old political order. Then it follows the great cultural and political movements that lead to the Communist victory in 1949. The development of the People's Republic will be examined in detail, from Mao to the global economy.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3171 American Unbelief from the Enlightenment to the Present
This course examines American secularism, humanism, freethought, and atheism from the Enlightenment forward to the present. Topics to be explored include: the tensions between secular and Christian conceptions of the nation's founding, blasphemy and irreligious cartoons, the civil liberties of atheists and nontheists, the battles over religion in the public schools, atheism and gender politics, the culture wars over secular humanism, and the contemporary growth of the religiously disaffiliated or "nones." The course considers not only the intellectual dimensions of skeptical critiques of religion, but also the underlying politics of secularism (and anti-secularism) in a nation routinely imagined as "under God."
Same as L57 RelPol 3160
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM
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L22 History 3172 Queer Histories
Queer history is a profoundly political project. Scholars and activists use queer histories to assert theories of identity formation, build communities, and advance a vision of the meanings of sexuality in modern life and the place of queer people in national communities. This history of alternative sexual identities is narrated in a variety of settings-the internet as well as the academy, art and film as well as the streets-and draws upon numerous disciplines, including anthropology, geography, sociology, oral history, fiction and memoir, as well as history. This discussion-based course will examine the sites and genres of queer history, with particular attention to moments of contestation and debate about its contours and meanings.
Same as L77 WGSS 3172
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HT BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3173 Service Learning: Documenting the Queer Past in St. Louis
Around the United States and the world, grassroots LGBTQ history projects investigate the queer past as a means of honoring the courage of those who have come before, creating a sense of community today as well aas building an understanding of the exclusions and divisions that shaped these communities and that continue to limit them. In this course, we participate in this national project of history-making by helping to excavate the queer past in the greater St. Louis region. Course readings will focus on the ways that sexual identities and communities in the United States have been shaped by urban settings since the late 19th century, with particular attention to the ways that race, class, and gender have structured queer spaces and communities. In their community service project, students will work with local LGBTQ groups, including the St. Louis LGBT History Project, to research St. Louis's queer past. Each student will also conduct an oral history interview with an LGBTQ community member. Note: This is a community-engaged learning class, which means that it combines classroom learning with outside work at a community organization. In addition to regular class time, there is a service requirement, which necessitates an additional three to five hours per week. Before beginning the community service component, students must complete required training. Prerequisite: Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Introduction to Queer Studies; or permission of instructor.
Same as L77 WGSS 3173
Credit 4 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3176 Chinese Economy in World History
From the Belt and Road Initiative to high-tech surveillance, China is at the center of contemporary discussions about the future of the global economy. This course will expose students to a historical understanding of how China not only became part of the world economy, but in fact defined its development in major ways. Over the course of the semester, students will explore a variety of subjects, from the Great Divergence between Europe and China in the eighteenth century to the rise of Maoist socialism in mid-twentieth century, to China's transition to capitalism and involvement in Africa in the twenty-first century. Examining the past two hundred fifty years of Chinese and global economic history, the students will gain a deep understanding of how China became the world's second largest economy, and what that means for the future.
Same as L97 GS 3176
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3183 The Jews of North Africa
This course examines the colonial and postcolonial experiences of Jews living in North Africa (mainly Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) in the context of the region's connections with and relationships to the European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will focus on how the intrusion of foreign powers disrupted and shifted long-standing relationships between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, particularly the Muslim populations. We will also explore changes that occurred within the Jewish community as Jews negotiated their place within the new European Imperial system and its subsequent dismantling. Students will have the opportunity to engage with European ideas of "regenerating" North African Jews living under Ottoman Rule, the changing political and social statuses of Jews throughout the French and British regions, the changing relationship between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, the rupture caused by both World Wars, and how Jews coped with and responded to the dismantling of European empires and the birth of nation-states in the region, including Israel.
Same as L75 JIMES 3183
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3192 Modern South Asia
This course will cover the history of the Indian sub-continent in the 19th and 20th centuries. We shall look closely at a number of issues including colonialism in India; anti-colonial movements; the experiences of women; the interplay between religion and national identity; and popular culture in modern India. Political and social history will be emphasized equally.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3193 Engaging the City: The Material World of Modern Segregation: St. Louis in the Long Era of Ferguson.
See course listings for current offering.
Same as L98 AMCS 3190
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SC, SD Art: CPSC BU: HUM EN: S
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L22 History 3194 Environment and Empire
In this course we study British imperialism from the ground up. At bottom, the British empire was about extracting the wealth contained in the labour and the natural resources of the colonized. How did imperial efforts to maximize productivity and profits impact the ecological balance of forests, pastures, and farm lands, rivers and rainfall, animals and humans? We'll ask, with environmental historians of the U.S., how colonialism marked a watershed of radical ecological change. The course will cover examples from Asia to Africa, with a focus on the "jewel in the crown" of the British empire: the Indian subcontinent. We'll learn how the colonized contributed to the science of environmentalism, and how they forged a distinctive politics of environmentalism built upon local resistance and global vision, inspired by religious traditions and formative thinkers, not least Mahatma Gandhi.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3195 Empire and Ethnicity: Qing Legacies in China and Inner Asia, 1600 to Today
Eschewing traditional narratives of a "closed" Chinese civilization, this course explores the cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity of China and its dynamic interactions with Inner Asia during the early modern period. It questions the myth of a monolithic Chinese culture and uncovers the region's multiple and ethnically entangled past through an in-depth look at the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1644-1912). This was the last non-Han dynasty of the Imperial Era, and it gave the People's Republic of China its vast Inner Asian territories: Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet. In rethinking the Qing Empire, this course particularly focuses on Tibetan Buddhism and Islam as religious ideologies that linked China with Tibetan, Mongolian, and Turkic-Muslim regions of Inner Asia through the imperial center at Beijing. Specific topics will range from food culture (Halal) to the Qing's expansion into and later colonization of Xinjiang, the reverberations of which persist even today under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 320C Japan Since 1868
For some, the word Japan evokes Hello Kitty, animated films, cartoons, and sushi. For others, it makes them think of the Nanjing Atrocity, "comfort women," the Bataan Death March, and problematic textbooks. Still others will think of woodblock prints, tea ceremonies, and cherry blossoms or perhaps of Sony Walkmans and Toyota automobiles. At the same time, still others may have no image of Japan at all. Tracing the story of Japan's transformations - from a preindustrial peasant society managed by samurai-bureaucrats into an expansionist nation-state and then into its current paradoxical guise of a peaceful nation of culture led by conservative nationalists - provides the means for deepening our understandings of historical change in one region and grappling with the methods and aims of the discipline of history.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 321C Introduction to Colonial Latin America until 1825
This course surveys the history of Latin America from the pre-Columbian civilizations through the Iberian exploration and conquest of the Americas until the Wars of Independence (roughly 1400-1815). Stressing the experiences and cultural contributions of Americans, Europeans, and Africans, we consider the following topics through primary written documents, first-hand accounts, and excellent secondary scholarship, as well as through art, music, and architecture: Aztec, Maya, Inca, and Iberian civilizations; models of conquest in comparative perspective (Spanish, Portuguese, and Amerindian); environmental histories; consolidation of colonialism in labor, tributary, and judicial systems; race, ethnicity, slavery, caste, and class; religion and the Catholic Church and Inquisition; sugar and mining industries, trade, and global economies; urban and rural life; the roles of women, gender, and sexuality in the colonies. Geographically, we will cover Mexico, the Andes, and to a lesser extent, Brazil, the Southwest, Cuba, and the Southern Cone. Pre-modern, Latin America.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3220 Modern Mexico: Land, Politics and Development
This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the political, social, economic and cultural history of Mexico from the era of Independence (roughly 1810) to the present. Lectures will outline basic theoretical models for analyzing historical trends and then present a basic chronological historical narrative.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 322C Modern Latin America
This course aims to present a survey of Latin American history from Independence to the present. Topics to be covered include the Wars of Independence; caudillismo; nationalism; liberalism; slavery and indigenous peoples; urbanization, industrialization and populism; ideas of race & ethnicity; the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions; US intervention; modernity, modernism and modernization; motherhood and citizenship; the Cold War; terror and violence under military dictatorships and popular resistance movements. While the course aims to provide students with an understanding of the region, it will focus primarily on the experiences of Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina and Central America.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3262 The Early Medieval World: 200-1000
This course begins with the crisis of the Roman Empire in the third century and the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312. We will study the so-called "barbarian invasions" of the fourth and fifth centuries and the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. The Roman Empire in the East (and commonly known as the Byzantine Empire after the seventh century) survived intact, developing a very different style of Christianity than in the lands of the former western empire. Apart from examining Christianization in the deserts of Egypt or the chilly North Sea, we will discuss the phenomenon of Islam in the seventh century (especially after the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632) and the Arab conquests of the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa. In the post-Roman world of the West we will read about the Anglo-Saxons, the Carolingians, and the Vikings. In exploring these topics we will have to think about the relationship of kings to popes, Emperors to patriarchs, of missionaries to pagans, of cities to villages, of the sacred to the profane. Our attention will be directed to things as various as different forms of monasticism, the establishment of frontier communities, the culture of the Arabian peninsula, magic, paganism, military tactics, Romanesque churches, sea travel, manuscript illumination, the architecture of mosques, early medieval philosophy, the changing imagery of Christ, holiness, and violence as a redemptive act.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3263 The High Middle Ages: 1000-1500
This course begins with Latin Christendom in the first millennium and ends with the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. We will study, amongst other topics, the relationship of popes to kings, cities to villages, Jews to Christians, vernacular literature to Latin, knights to peasants, the sacred to the profane, as well as different forms of religious life, farming, heresy, the shift from a penitential culture to a confessional one, the crusades and Islam, troubadour poetry, love, universities, leprosy, the inquisition, Gothic art, the devil, chivalry, manuscript illumination, the Mongol Empire, shoes, definitions of feudalism, environment, trade, scholastic philosophy, female spirituality, witchcraft, sex, the Black Death, food, the Hundred Years War, the formation of "Europe," the renaissance in Italy, enslaved Africans in the Iberian peninsula, and the conquest of the Mexica.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3266 Scholarship and the Screen: Medieval History and Modern Film
Historical films are suprisingly accurate reflections of modern historiographical trends in the study of the Middle Ages. This course uses films on the Middle Ages, medieval documentary evidence, scholarship from the time the film was released, and current scholarship. It will explore the shifts in historical interpretation of the Middle Ages over the last century and engage in debates over what evoking the past means for the scholar and the filmmaker.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3307 The Politics of Black Criminality and Popular Protest
This course will explore the meanings and perceptions of Black criminality in modern American culture. It will consider issues of rioting and racial violence; movements ranging from hip-hop to Black power; the crucial matter of police brutality; and cultural associations between criminality and Black masculinity. Our work will be informed by an awareness of the historical interactions between African Americans and legal and other systems of authority: in particular, the ambiguous boundaries of legality under slavery, post-emancipation convict leasing, Jim Crow laws, Black gangs, and the functions of illegal acts in the lives of Black citizens. The course will give special attention to the ways that popular thought, imagination, and culture -- and particularly Black thought and culture -- have addressed crime. How does criminality connect to popular forms of protest, resistance, and discussions about inequality and identity?
Same as L98 AMCS 3304
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM
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L22 History 330C Culture & Identity
This course topic changes; see semester listing for current course offering.
Same as L98 AMCS 330C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Arch: HUM Art: CPSC, HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 331 19th-Century China: Violence and Transformation
This course traces the history of China over the course of the 19th century, with an emphasis on social and cultural history. This was one of the most tumultuous centuries in Chinese history, during which China faced threats from abroad in the form of Western and Japanese imperialism as well as from within in the form of environmental degradation and rebellions resulting in an unprecedented loss of human life. The 19th century has thus often been portrayed as a period of sharp decline for China. At the same time, we will explore the ways in which the origins of the dynamic society and economy found in China today -- as well as the worldwide influence of overseas Chinese -- can be traced to this century of turmoil.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 333 The Holocaust: History and Memory of the Nazi Genocide
Origins, causes, and significance of the Nazi attempt to destroy European Jewry within the context of European and Jewish history. Related themes: the Holocaust in literature; the psychology of murderers and victims, bystanders and survivors; contemporary implications of the Holocaust for theology and politics.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Art: HUM BU: ETH, HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 334C Crusade, Conflict, and Coexistence: Jews in Christian Europe
This course will investigate some of the major themes in the history of the Jews in Europe, from the Middle Ages to the eve of the French Revolution. Jews constituted a classic, nearly continuous minority in the premodern Christian world-a world that was not known for tolerating dissent. Or was it? One of the main purposes of the course is to investigate the phenomenon of majority/minority relations, to examine the ways in which the Jewish community interacted with and experienced European societies, cultures, and politics. We will look at the dynamics of boundary formation and cultural distinctiveness; the limits of religious and social tolerance; the periodic eruption of persecution in its social, political, and religious contexts; and the prospects for Jewish integration into various European societies during the course of the Enlightenment era.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD BU: ETH, HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3350 Out of the Shtetl: Jewish Life in Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries
"Out of the Shtetl" is a course about tradition and transformation; small towns and urban centers; ethnicity and citizenship; and nations, states, and empires. At its core, this course asks the following questions: What did it mean for the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe to emerge from small market towns and villages to confront modern ethnicities, nations, and empires? What lasting impact did the shtetl experience have on Jewish life in a rapidly changing environment? The focus is on the Jewish historical experience in the countries that make up Central and Eastern Europe (mainly the Bohemian lands, Hungary, Poland, and Russia) from the late 18th century to the fall of the Soviet Union. Among the topics that we will cover are Jews and the nobility in Poland-Lithuania; the multicultural imperial state; Hasidism and its opponents; absolutism and reform in imperial settings; the emergence of modern European nationalisms and their impact on Jewish identity; antisemitism and popular violence; nationalist and radical movements among Jews; war, revolution, and genocide; and the transition from Soviet dominion to democratic states.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3352 China's Urban Experience: Shanghai and Beyond
The course studies the history of Chinese cities from the mid-19th century to the late 20th century. It situates the investigation of urban transformation in two contexts: the domestic context of modern China's reform and revolution and the global context of the international flow of people, products, capitals, and ideas. It chooses a local narrative approach and situates the investigation in one of China's largest, complex, and most dynamic and globalized cities - Shanghai. The experience of the city and its people reveals the creative and controversial ways people redefined, reconfigured, and reshaped forces such as imperialism, nationalism, consumerism, authoritarianism, liberalism, communism, and capitalism. The course also seeks to go beyond the "Shanghai model" by comparing Shanghai with other Chinese cities. It presents a range of the urban experience in modern China.
Same as L04 Chinese 3352
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3354 Vienna, Prague, Budapest: Politics, Culture and Identity in Central Europe
The term Central Europe evokes the names of Freud and Mahler; Kafka and Kundera; Herzl, Lukács, and Konrád. In politics, it evokes images of revolution and counter-revolution, ethnic nationalism, fascism, and communism. Both culture and politics, in fact, were deeply embedded in the structures of empire (in our case, the Habsburg Monarchy)--structures which both balanced and exacerbated ethnic, religious, and social struggles--in modern state formation, and in the emergence of creative and dynamic urban centers, of which Vienna, Budapest, and Prague were the most visible. This course seeks to put all of these elements into play--empire, nation, urban space, religion, and ethnicity--in order to illustrate what it has meant to be modern, creative, European, nationalist, or cosmopolitan since the 19th century. It engages current debates on nationalism and national identity; the viability of empires as supra-national constructs; urbanism and modern culture; the place of Jews in the social and cultural fabric of Central Europe; migration; and authoritarian and violent responses to modernity.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 335C Becoming "Modern": Emancipation, Antisemitism and Nationalism in Modern Jewish History
This course offers a survey of the Jewish experience in the modern world by asking, at the outset, what it means to be-or to become-modern. To answer this question, we look at two broad trends that took shape toward the end of the eighteenth century-the Enlightenment and the formation of the modern state-and we track changes and developments in Jewish life down to the close of the twentieth century with analyses of the (very different) American and Israeli settings. The cultural, social, and political lives of Jews have undergone major transformations and dislocations over this time-from innovation to revolution, exclusion to integration, calamity to triumphs. The themes that we will be exploring in depth include the campaigns for and against Jewish "emancipation;" acculturation and religious reform; traditionalism and modernism in Eastern Europe; the rise of political and racial antisemitism; mass migration and the formation of American Jewry; varieties of Jewish national politics; Jewish-Gentile relations between the World Wars; the destruction of European Jewry; the emergence of a Jewish nation-state; and Jewish culture and identity since 1945.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HEU, HSM
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L22 History 3363 Topics in American Culture Studies
The topic of this course varies from semester to semester. Please refer to the Course Listings for a description of the current offering.
Same as L98 AMCS 3360
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA, IS EN: S
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L22 History 336C History of the Jews in Islamic Lands
This course is a survey of Jewish communities in the Islamic world, their social, cultural, and intellectual life from the rise of Islam to the Imperial Age.Topics include: Muhammad, the Qur'an and the Jews; the legal status of Jews under Islam; the spread of Rabbinic Judaism in the Abbasid empire; the development of new Jewish identities under Islam (Karaites); Jewish traders and scholars in Fatimid Egypt; the flourishing of Jewish civilization in Muslim Spain (al-Andalus); and Sephardi (Spanish) Jews in the Ottoman empire. On this background, we will look closely at some of the major Jewish philosophical and poetical works originating in Islamic lands. Another important source to be studied will be documents from the Cairo Genizah, reflecting social history, the status of women, and other aspects of daily life.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3404 The Creation of Capitalism
Capitalism is now the dominant form of economic organization around the world. This course traces the rise of capitalism from its beginnings in late medieval Europe, through its development in the global trade connecting Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Americas, to its formative role in the Industrial Revolution of the early nineteenth century. How and why did capitalism emerge and expand to a position of such importance? Who profited from it and who resisted it? And how did numerous elites become convinced that capitalism was necessary and moral? Students will engage these questions through lectures and class discussions based on primary source readings such as merchant letters, economic legislation, and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, as well as key works of historical scholarship on topics such as piracy, the Dutch tulipmania, and the Atlantic plantation economy. Assignments include weekly readings, short response assignments, open-note exams, and researching and developing a time-appropriate business plan.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3407 Renaissance to Revolutions: Crisis & Continuity in Early Modern Europe
This course surveys the history of Europe from the end of the Middle Ages to Napoleon. Topics will include the Renaissance, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the Wars of Religion, the emergence of the State, the creation of transatlantic empires, Absolutism, the Enlightenment, and Napoleon.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 3414 The World is Not Enough: Europe's Global Empires, 1400-1750
"Non sufficit orbis" (the world is not enough) became the motto for King Philip II of Spain, whose empire touched nearly every part of the globe. Europe's expansion to Africa, Asia, and the Americas was a transforming event for world history and for its willing and unwilling participants. This course examines the religious, political, and economic forces driving the overseas expansion of Europe, compares the experience of European sailors, soldiers, and merchants in different parts of the world, and analyzes the effect of empire on the colonizers, the colonized, and the balance of world power. Topics covered include: Portuguese and Spanish conquests in the East and West Indies, religious conversion and resistance, trade routes and rivalries, colonial practices and indigenous influence, the establishment of Atlantic slavery, and the rise of the Dutch and English empires.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3416 War, Genocide and Gender in Modern Europe
This course explores the way in which gender and gender relations shaped and were shaped by war and genocide in 20th century Europe. The course approaches the subject from various vantage points, including economic, social and cultural history, and draws on comparisons between different regions. Topics covered will include: new wartime tasks for women; soldier's treatment of civilians under occupation, including sexual violence; how combatants dealt with fear, injury and the loss of comrades; masculilne attributes of soldiers and officers of different nations and in different wartime roles; survival strategies and the relation to expectations with regard to people's (perceived) gender identity; the meanings of patriotism for women and men during war; and gender specific experiences of genocide.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 341C Ancient History: The Roman Republic
Rome from its legendary foundation until the assassination of Julius Caesar. Topics include: the establishment, development, and collapse of Rome's Republican government; imperial expansion; Roman culture in a Mediterranean context; and the dramatic political and military events associated with figures like the Carthaginian general Hannibal, the Thracian rebel Spartacus, and the Roman statesman Cicero.
Same as L08 Classics 341C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3420 Americans and Their Presidents
How have Americans understood what it means to be President of the United States? This seminar uses that question as a point of departure for a multidisciplinary cultural approach to the presidency in the United States, examining the shifting roles of the chief executive from George Washington through Barack Obama. In addition to a consideration of the President's political and policymaking roles, this course examines how the lived experiences of presidents have informed the ways Americans have conceived of public and private life within a broader political culture. In the process, this course uses the presidency as a means to explore topics ranging from electioneering to gender, foreign policy to popular media. Readings are drawn from a broad range of fields.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3424 Childhood, Culture, and Religion in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean World
From child saints to child scholars and from child crusaders to child casualties, the experience of childhood varied widely throughout the European Middle Ages. This course will explore how medieval Jews, Christians, and Muslims developed some parallel and some very much divergent concepts of childhood, childrearing, and the proper cultural roles for children in their respective societies. Our readings will combine primary and secondary sources from multiple perspectives and multiple regions of Europe and the Mediterranean World, including a few weeks on the history and cultural legacy of the so-called Children's Crusade of 1312. We will conclude with a brief survey of medieval childhood and its stereotypes as seen through contemporary children's books and TV shows. This course fulfills the Language & Cultural Diversity requirement for Arts & Sciences.
Same as L66 ChSt 342
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L22 History 342C Ancient History: The Roman Empire
An introduction to the political, military, and social history of Rome from the first emperor Augustus to the time of Constantine. Topics include: Rome's place as the center of a vast and diverse empire; religious movements, such as Jewish revolts and the rise of Christianity; and the stability of the state in the face of economic crises, military coups, and scandals and intrigues among Rome's imperial elite.
Same as L08 Classics 342C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 343C Europe in the Age of Reformation
How should people act towards each other, towards political authorities and towards their God? Who decided what was the "right" faith: the individual? the family? the state? Could a community survive religious division? What should states do about individuals or communities who refused to conform in matters of religion? With Martin Luther's challenge to the Roman Catholic Church, the debates over these questions transformed European theology, society, and politics. In this class we will examine the development of Protestant and Radical theology, the Reformers relations' with established political authorities, the response of the Catholic Church, the development of new social and cultural expectations, the control of marginalized religious groups such as Jews, Muslims, and Anabaptists, and the experiment of the New World.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 3450 Modern Germany
This course surveys the political, social, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped German history since 1800. After examining the multiplicity of German states that existed in 1800, we will identify the key factors that resulted in unification in 1871. We then turn to a study of modern Germany in its various forms, from the Empire through the Weimar Republic and Third Reich, to post-war division and reunification. A major focus will be the continuities and discontinuities of German history, particularly with regard to the historical roots of Nazism and attempts to "break with the past" after 1945.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3455 Cultural Encounters: China and Eurasia Since the Middle Ages
Eschewing traditional narratives of Chinese civilization, which imply a society closed to the outside world, this course follows current scholarship in situating Chinese history within a broader spatial context. In particular, this course explores cultural encounters between China and other subregions of the Eurasian continent to the north and west of China, from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the present. The course begins by analyzing the relationship between nomadic societies on the steppe (and, more generally, "non-state spaces") and settled agricultural societies such as China. We then turn to the influence of two religions imported from central Eurasia: Buddhism and Islam. A related theme is the relationship, in the early modern era, between trade, which tended to erode boundaries, and states, which sought to create boundaries. We will then trace the changing dynamics among commerce, religion, and nation-states in the 20th century. Finally, we return to the role of Buddhism and Islam in the contemporary relationship between China and the various peoples and states across its western frontier.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3456 Greek History: The Dawn of Democracy
From the so-called Dark Ages to the death of Socrates, a survey of the political, social, economic, and military development of early Greece, with emphasis upon citizenship and political structure, religion and culture, and the complex relationships between Greeks and neighboring peoples.
Same as L08 Classics 345C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 346C Greek History: The Age of Alexander
From the death of Socrates until the foundation of the Roman Empire, Greece and the Ancient Near East underwent profound changes that still resonate today. This course surveys the political, social, economic, and military developments of this period, especially Alexander the Great's legacy.
Same as L08 Classics 346C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3473 Race, Rights, and Humanity in European History
This course explores discourses of human rights as natural rights in Europe from the Enlightenment to the present. While Europe -- and particularly France -- has been quick to declare itself the birthplace of human rights, a closer look reveals a broad continuum of conceptions of political, social, and economic rights. The course functions as a kind of survey of Modern European history, touching on the Age of Revolutions, the rise of European overseas empires, international anti-slavery movements, totalitarianism, and postwar development. It focuses on how political, social, and economic rights have always been articulated incompletely, to the benefit of some and to the detriment of others.
Same as L93 IPH 3473
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 3481 Revolutionize It!: Second-Wave Feminism and the Struggle for a Radical Movement
In this discussion-based course, we explore the complex, contradictory and profoundly multiracial history of the so-called "second wave" of the feminist movement (1960s-1980s). We will focus on those activists who understood themselves to be radicals and revolutionaries -- women's liberationists, women of color (or third-world) feminists, and lesbian-feminists -- as they collaborated and collided with each other. Among the questions we will ask are the following: What happens to our understanding of the second wave when we center the activism of African-American, Latinx, indigenous and anti-capitalist feminists? What were the promises and the pitfalls of a politics of "sisterhood"? How did sexual desire and sexual conflict shape both notions of identity and the movement on the ground? We will also consider the legacy of second-wave feminism for the politics of our time, including #MeToo, reproductive freedom, and the struggle for trans liberation. Prerequisite: L77 100B or permission of instructor.
Same as L77 WGSS 348
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3503 U.S.-China Relations from 1949 to the Present
The United States and China are the two most important global powers today, and the relationship between them is one of the most comprehensive, complex, and consequential major-power relations in the world. The tangled relationship is at times turbulent, and its future remains uncertain. This course studies the bilateral relationship from the Chinese Civil War to the rise of China as a major political and economic power in the 21st century. It invites students to explore the following questions: What have China and the U.S. done to confront or accommodate each other in global politics? How has foreign policy in both countries balanced the often competing goals of state security, economic stability, domestic political order, and international influence? What are the impacts of a rising China on geopolitics in the Asia-Pacific region and on the U.S.'s global leadership in the 21st century? By drawing on scholarship in political and social history and area studies, this course helps students better understand both the historical context and current developments of U.S.-China relations. Fulfills modern elective for EALC major.
Same as L04 Chinese 350
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, IS EN: H
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L22 History 351 England Under the Tudors
The late medieval collapse of order and the Tudor reaction, with the assertion of a strong personal monarchy. Analysis of the nature of protest (noble, parliamentary, peasant) and its limitations, to establish how the Crown was able to consolidate its authority; the impact of religious change (the Reformation, Puritanism). Prerequisite: sophomore standing, or permission of instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3514 Race, Ethnicity, and Migration: A Transatlantic History
This course interrogates the making and re-making of racial and ethnic categories in the long history of transatlantic migration from the 1850s to the present. We will examine how the steady movement of people and ideas between Europe and the United States have shaped the discourses and policies of immigration, social reform, and globalization on both sides of the mighty Atlantic. Students will be exposed to historical processes and discourses which not only affected the racialization of different groups in various nations but also the ways in which those processes and discourses were influenced by events unfolding across vast spaces. Rather than simply working in a comparative modality, students will think relationally and transnationally to explore the material and representational consequences of racial and ethnic politics.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3548 Gender, Sexuality and Communism in 20th-Century Europe
This upper-division course examines the role of gender and sexuality for the establishment of communist societies in Europe in 20th century. We will explore to what extent societies built on the communist model succeeded with the achievement of gender equality and allowed for sexual relations liberated from religious or economic constraints. Class materials examine how state socialism shaped gender roles and women's and men's lives differently as well as how gays and lesbians struggled against social taboo and state repression. Students analyze the impact of modernization, industrialization, war and other conflicts on concepts of femininity and masculinity as well as on the regulation of sexuality and family relations in several Eastern European countries. We will place these dynamics within the context of broader political and cultural developments, ending with an analysis of the breakdown of socialism in the early 1990s and its impact on gender relations and the freedom of expression. The course provides students with a basic knowledge of the history of Eastern Europe and of left-wing movements active in the area, emphasizing the effects of communist ideas on women, gender equality, and non-normative sexual orientations.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3559 Socialist and Secular? A Social History of the Soviet Union
This class explores daily life and cultural developments in the Soviet Union, 1917 to 1999. Focusing on the everyday experience of Soviet citizens during these years, students learn about the effects of large-scale social and political transformation on the private lives of people. To explore daily life in the Soviet Union, this class uses a variety of sources and media, including scholarly analysis, contemporaneous portrayals, literary representations, and films. Students will receive a foundation in Soviet political, social, and cultural history with deeper insights into select aspects of life in Soviet society.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3561 Andean History: Culture and Politics
Since pre-Columbian times, the central Andean mountain system, combining highlands, coastal and jungle areas, has been the locus of multiethnic polities. Within this highly variegated geographical and cultural-historical space, emerged the Inca Empire, the Viceroyalty of Peru - Spain's core South American colony, and the central Andean republics of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, this course will examine pre-Columbian Andean societies, Inca rule, Andean transformations under Spanish colonialism, post-independence nation-state formation, state-Indian relations, reform and revolutionary movements, and neoliberal policies and the rise of new social movements and ethnic politics. This course focuses primarily on the development of popular and elite political cultures, and the nature and complexity of local, regional, and national power relations.
Same as L97 GS 356
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: IS EN: S
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L22 History 3563 Ancient Sport and Spectacle
Ancient sport and spectacle seem both familiar and foreign to us today. We share the Greek obsession with athletic success, and we have revived their Olympic games-and yet the Greeks competed nude and covered in oil and included in their celebration a sacrifice of 100 oxen to Zeus. So too do we recognize the familiar form of the Roman arena, but recoil from the bloody spectacles that it housed. In this class we will examine the world of ancient Greco-Roman sport and spectacle, seeking to better understand both ancient culture and our own. We will consider Greek athletic competition, Roman gladiatorial combat, chariot racing, and other public performances. We will set these competitions in their social and historical context, considering both their evolution and their remarkable staying power.
Same as L08 Classics 3563
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 357 All Measures Short of War
This course focuses on the return of great power competition in the 21st century. In particular, it examines the security challenges facing the United States in the form of strategic competition from revisionist states (Russia and China) and hostile threats from rogue regimes (Iran and North Korea). Through a consideration of the strategic, military, political, economic, and intelligence dynamics germane to foreign policy and national security, it will examine the hypothesis that the United States is not likely to go to hot war with any of these four nations but instead resort to what President Roosevelt in another context and time famously called "all measures short of war" -- in other words, engaging one another through new technologies such as cyber, artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, hypersonics, biotechnology, and other means that have come to demarcate a hybrid battlefield in an age of hostile competition. As such, the course will assess the recent past, current state, and likely future of American power in the new global security environment.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 359 Topics in European History: Modern European Women
This course examines the radical transformation in the position and perspective of European women since the eighteenth century. The primary geographical focus is on Britain, France, and Germany. Topics include: changing relations between the sexes; the emergence of mass feminist movements; the rise of the 'new woman;' women and war; and the cultural construction and social organization of gender. We will look at the lives of women as nurses, prostitutes, artists, mothers, hysterics, political activists, consumers, and factory hands.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3593 The Wheels of Commerce: From the Industrial Revolution to Global Capitalism
This course introduces the methods, issues, and debates that shape our understanding of economic change and development from the Industrial Revolution to the post-industrial age. Engaging economic theorists from Marx to Smith, to Weber and Wallerstein, this course problematizes the notion of rational economic actors and interrogates notions of free trade in an attempt to understand the impact of capitalism on the world. We start the course with a discussion of the "exceptionalism" of Great Britain as the first industrial nation and reconsider the impact of new trade, production, property and monetary/financial regimes that resulted in the so-called "Great Divergence" between China and the West. We then turn to the "late industrializers" of China, Japan, and Mexico in order to investigate the varieties of development, specifically focusing on monetary integration, legal integration and the global impact of the great depression. Continuing into the Bretton Woods Conference and the post-war international monetary systems, we bring the course to a close with the advent of the "post-industrial age." This course is designed both for students specializing in economic history and students in all disciplines interested in historical approaches to political/economic development.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3598 The First World War and the Making of Modern Europe
The First World War ushered our age into existence. Its memories still haunt us and its aftershocks shaped the course of the twentieth century. The Russian Revolution, the emergence of new national states, Fascism, Nazism, the Second World War, and the Cold War are all its products. Today, many of the ethnic and national conflicts that triggered war in 1914 have resurfaced. Understanding the First World War, in short, is crucial to understanding our own era.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3599 Travelers, Tricksters, and Storytellers: Jewish Travel Narratives and Autobiographies
Jewish literature includes highly fascinating travel accounts and autobiographies that are still awaiting their discovery by a broader readership. In this course, we will explore a broad range of texts originating from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. They were written by both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews hailing from countries as diverse as Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire. Among the authors were pilgrims, rabbis, merchants, and one savvy businesswoman. We will read their works as responses to historical circumstances and as expressions of Jewish identity, in its changing relationship to the Christian or Muslim environment in which the writers lived or traveled. Specifically, we will ask questions such as: How do travel accounts and autobiographies enable their authors and readers to reflect on issues of identity and difference? How do the writers produce representations of an "other," against which and through which they define a particular sense of self? This course is open to students of varying interests, including Jewish, Islamic, or Religious Studies, medieval and early modern history, European or Near Eastern literatures. All texts will be read in English translation. Please note: L75 559 is intended for graduate students only.
Same as L75 JIMES 359
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 35SM Hands on the Past: History, Murder and the Archive
The future depends on the past. This course taps into that understanding by offering an alternative hands-on methods class to encourage undergraduate student engagement with history and archives, both on and off line. In this particular class, students will be nurtured to more deeply interact with the historical past by exploring gender, race, violence and sexuality through three central questions explored throughout the course: What and how is African American history conducted? How do we best document the past with students fully at the intellectual table of production and preservation? How do we make history with history? These exciting and diverse interests will be pursued through in class discussions and course assigned readings, but especially by taking a spring break research project trip across Missouri to various local repositories and the State archives, to activate and fuel the idea of putting hands on the past.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SD BU: BA, HUM EN: S
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L22 History 3600 Beyond Sea, Sunshine and Soca: A History of the Caribbean
This course examines major themes in the history of the Caribbean from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. The first half of the course will focus on the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, exploring issues such as indigenous societies, European encounter and conquest, plantation slavery, the resistance of enslaved Africans and emancipation. The remainder of the course focuses on aspects of the cultural, economic, political and social experiences of Caribbean peoples during the twentieth century. Major areas of inquiry include the labor rebellions of the 1930s, decolonization, diasporic alliances, Black Power, identity construction and the politics of tourism. While the English-speaking Caribbean constitutes the main focus, references will be made to other areas such as Cuba and Haiti.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3603 Renaissance Italy
This course examines the social, cultural, intellectual, and political history of late medieval and Renaissance Italy: civic life and urban culture; the crisis of the fourteenth century; the city-states of Renaissance Italy; the revival of classical antiquity; art and humanism of the Renaissance; culture, poliics, and society; Machiavelli and Renaissance political thought; the wars of Italy; religious crisis and religious reaction in the sixteenth century.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HEU, HSP
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L22 History 3608 Science and Society Since 1800
This course surveys selected topics and themes in the history of modern science from 1800 to the present. Emphasis will be on the life sciences, with some attention to the physical sciences.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3609 Jamaica: A Political History
This course examines the political history of Jamaica from the colonial period to the 1970s. Students will use primary documents (speeches, policy documents, etc.), secondary sources (historical monographs, political biographies, etc.), and film to engage the evolution of Jamaica's government. The course begins by exploring the colonial governmental apparatus with a view to grasping the impact of the British system on the island's current political apparatus. This will allow students to engage important debates concerning the transition from colony to postcolony. Additionally, students will discuss the relationship between the governmental structure and the ever-evolving socio-cultural realities in Jamaica, especially as it pertains to race, class, gender, culture, clientelism, patronage, and national identity.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HSM, HTR
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L22 History 361 Topics in History and Technology
The history of computing from mechanical calculating devices to electronic digital computers. This course will examine technical systems in terms of the nexus between technologies and the humans who operate them. Emphasis will be placed on the interconnections between technological and cultural change.
Credit 3 units. BU: HUM
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L22 History 3613 Women and Social Movements: Gender and Sexuality in U.S. Social Movements with History
This course examines the history of grassroots activism and political engagement of women in the United States. Looking at social movements organized by women or around issues of gender and sexuality, class texts interrogate women's participation in, and exclusion from, political life. Key movements organizing the course units include, among others: the Temperance Movement, Abolitionist Movements, the Women's Suffrage Movements, Women's Labor Movements, Women's Global Peace Movements, and Recent Immigration Movements. Readings and discussion will pay particular attention to the movements of women of color, as well as the critiques of women of color of dominant women's movements. Course materials will analyze how methods of organizing reflect traditional forms of "doing politics," and we will also examine strategies and tactics for defining problems and posing solutions particular to women. Prerequisites: any 100- or 200-level Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course or permission from the instructor.
Same as L77 WGSS 361
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3614 Artificial Intelligence: The Mind and The Machine
At once bewildered and terrified, here we enter the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Can this new technology be the solution to all problems plaguing our societies? Or will it be the Pandora's Box? As heated discussions around AI take place around the world, this course will examine the deeper history of mechanizing the human mind. Students will explore the first attempts to build calculating machines, the origins of the information age that started much earlier than the invention of computers, the cybernetic revolution that transformed the meaning of the human, and the politics that drove the desire to invent the first artificial intelligence. We will collectively ponder the past of AI to see what the future holds.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3620 Aliens and Undesirables: The Making of American Immigrants
What makes the "right kind of immigrant?" This question has been on the minds of Americans for generations, yet we still are often left without an answer. This course explores that question by proposing another set of questions: "what is an immigrant?" "How are certain people included or excluded from this category?", and "why is immigration still a concern in the 21st century?" We will explore these questions by examining cultural materials such as film, music, photographs, and ephemera alongside the social, legal, and political discourses which framed immigration throughout the long 20th century. We will learn about refugees from Europe, migrants from Latin America, and those deemed "undesirable" from around the world as they travelled to our own fine city of Saint Louis. Starting in the late 19th century this course will untangle the legislative, cultural, and political actions that impact the discussions around immigration and migration today. A large component of the course will explore the cultural productions which overlapped with the social and political discourses and ensured the longevity and spread of those ideas far beyond the homes and halls of the powerful and into the streets and theaters of the nation. Examining the cultural artifacts that individuals and groups produced for the public allows us to practice historical thinking, material cultural analysis, and draw connections between different time periods and emergent concerns. Throughout the course students will have the opportunity to examine primary source material alongside selected texts which explore the various immigration issues related to concerns around mobility including race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and progressive and liberal politics. In the end students will walk away from this course with an understanding of the historical forces which have shaped American immigration from the calls of Benjamin Franklin to exclude Germans to the cries of "Build the Wall" in the 21st century.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM
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L22 History 3622 Topics in Islam
Selected themes in the study of Islam and Islamic culture in social, historical, and political context. The specific area of emphasis will be determined by the instructor. Please note: L75 5622 is intended for graduate students only.
Same as L75 JIMES 3622
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H UColl: CD
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L22 History 3630 Mapping the World of Black Criminality
Ideas concerning the evolution of violence, crime, and criminal behavior have been framed around many different groups. Yet, what does a typical criminal look like? How does race - more specifically blackness - alter these conversations, inscribing greater fears about criminal behaviors? This course taps into this reality examining the varied ways people of African descent have been and continue to be particularly imagined as a distinctly criminal population. Taking a dual approach, students will consider the historical roots of the policing of black bodies alongside the social history of black crime while also foregrounding where and how black females fit into these critical conversations of crime and vice. Employing a panoramic approach, students will examine historical narratives, movies and documentaries, literature, popular culture through poetry and contemporary music, as well as the prison industrial complex system. The prerequisite for the course is L90 3880(Terror and Violence in the Black Atlantic) and/or permission from the instructor, which will be determined based on a student´s past experience in courses that explore factors of race and identity. For AFAS majors, this course counts as Area Requirement 2.
Same as L90 AFAS 363
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 365 The Birth Crisis of Democracy: The New United States of America, 1776-1850
"Go get yourself some democracy!" Americans have so often preached to other nations, but just how did Americans themselves go about creating the world's largest and most successful democratic republic? How democratic was this violent new nation that reeled from one crisis to another and ultimately to the brink of collapse in its first 75 years? This survey of American history from the creation of the Republic to the eve of the Civil War explores the Revolution and its ambiguous legacies, the starkly paradoxical "marriage" of slavery and freedom, and the creation of much of the America that we know; mass political parties; a powerful presidency; sustained capitalist growth; individualistic creeds; formalized and folkloric racism; heteronormative patriarchal family life; technological innovation; literary experimentation; distinctively American legal, scientific and religious cultures; and the modern movements of labor, feminism, and African-American empowerment. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. Modern, U.S.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HSP, HUS
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L22 History 366 The Living American Civil War
This course focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction as the central drama of American life in the 19th century, and also, the central event of American history itself, to the present day. How do we begin to understand the significance of the killing fields of the American Civil War, its three quarters of a million dead? The bloody conflict, and its causes and consequences, are explored from multiple perspectives: those of individuals such as Lincoln, McClellan, Davis, Grant, Longstreet and Lee, Dix and Tubman, Douglas and Douglass, who made momentous choices of the era; of groups such as the African American freedpeople and the Radical Republicans, whose struggles for freedom and power helped shape the actions of individuals; and of the historians, novelists, filmmakers and social movements that have fought to define the war's legacy for modern America. How is the Civil War both long ended and, at the same time, very much alive and still contested in contemporary America? Modern, U.S. PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3662 Experts, Administrators and Soldiers: Governance and Development in Post-Colonial Africa
Between 1957 and 1975, one African territory after another made the transition from European colony to independent nation state. Widespread optimism that these "transfers of power" would bring a new era of prosperity and dignity dissipated quickly as the new nations struggled with political instability, military coups, social unrest, and persistent poverty. Consequently many western observers and development specialists are certain that they have become "failed states" requiring foreign assistance to develop properly. This course challenges these assumptions by tracing the origins of African governance and economic development from their imperial origins into the independence era. By exploring nation-building, economic planning, and public administration from the perspective of political elites, foreign experts, and ordinary people the class takes an intimate look at how colonies became nation states. These new perspectives offer students a historical grounding in international public administration and development by exploring how imperial ideas and concepts continue to influence contemporary social planning and development policy in both Africa and the wider world.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3663 Caste: Globalization, Sexuality and Race
Be it sati or enforced widowhood, arranged or love marriage, the rise of national leaders like Indira Gandhi and Kamala Harris, or the obsession with "fair" skin, caste shapes possibilities and perceptions for billions. In this class we combine a historical understanding of the social caste structure with the insights made by those who have worked to annihilate caste. We will re-visit history with the analytic tools provided by the concepts of compulsory endogamy, "surplus woman," and "brahmanical patriarchy," and we will build an understanding of the enduring yet invisible "sexual-caste" complex. As we will see, caste has always relied on sexual difference, its ever-mutating power enabled by the intersectionalities of race, gender and class. We'll learn how caste adapts to every twist in world history, increasingly taking root outside India and South Asia. We will delve into film and memoir, sources that document the incessant injustices of caste and how they have compounded under globalization. The class will research the exchange of concepts between anti-race and anti-caste activists: how caste has shaped the work of prominent anti-racist intellectuals and activists in the United States such as W.E.B. DuBois and Isabel Wilkerson and in turn, the agenda and creativity of groups such as the Dalit Panthers. Finally, the course will build a practical guide to engaging with and interrupting caste in the context of the contemporary global world today. Waitlists controlled by Department; priority given to WGSS majors. Enrollment cap 15.
Same as L77 WGSS 366
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 367 America in the Age of Inequality: The Gilded Age & the Progressive Era, 1877-1919
This course will explore dramatic changes in American society during the half-century from the Civil War to the end of WWI. We will discuss industrialization; mass immigration from Europe, Asia and Latin America; the vast movement of rural people to cities; the fall of Reconstruction and rise of Jim Crow; the expansion of organized labor; birth of American Socialism; and the rise of the American empire in the Caribbean and the Philippines. The course will, in addition, analyze the many and varied social reform efforts of the turn of the twentieth century, from women's suffrage to anti-lynching campaigns; from trust-busting and anti-immigrant crusades to the settlement house movement.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3670 The Long Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement is known as a southern movement, led by church leaders and college students, fought through sit-ins and marches, dealing primarily with non-economic objectives, framed by a black and white paradigm, and limited to a single tumultuous decade. This course seeks to broaden our understanding of the movement geographically, chronologically, and thematically. It pays special attention to struggles fought in the North, West and Southwest; it seeks to question binaries constructed around "confrontational" and "accommodationist" leaders; it reveals how Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans impacted and were impacted by the movement; and it seeks to link the public memory of this movement with contemporary racial politics.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3672 Medicine, Healing and Experimentation in the Contours of Black History
Conversations regarding the history of medicine continue to undergo considerable transformation within academia and the general public. The infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment serves as a marker in the historical consciousness regarding African Americans and the medical profession. This course taps into this particular evolution, prompting students to broaden their gaze to explore the often delicate relationship of people of African descent within the realm of medicine and healing. Tracing the social nature of these medical interactions from the period of enslavement through the 20th century, this course examines the changing patterns of disease and illness, social responses to physical and psychological ailments, and the experimental and exploitative use of black bodies in the field of medicine. As a history course, the focus will be extended towards the underpinnings of race and gender in the medical treatment allocated across time and space--the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America--to give further insight into the roots of contemporary practice of medicine.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3680 The Cold War, 1945-1991
This course presents an assessment of the Cold War from the perspective of its major participants. Topics include: the origins of the Cold War in Europe and Asia; the Korean War; the Stalin regime; McCarthyism and the Red Scare; the nuclear arms race; the conflict over Berlin; Cold War film and literature; superpower rivalry in Guatemala, Cuba, Vietnam, Africa, and the Middle East; the rise and fall of detente; the Reagan years and the impact of Gorbechev; the East European Revolutions; and the end of the Cold War.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3681 The U.S. War in Iraq, 2003-2011
This course presents a historical assessment of the United States' eight year war in Iraq from its inception on March 20, 2003, to the withdrawal of all combat troops on December 15, 2011. Topics to be covered include: the Bush Administration's decision to make Iraq part of the "War on Terror" and the subsequent plan of attack; the combat operations; losing the victory; sectarian violence; torture; the insurgency; battling Al-Qaeda in Iraq; reassessment; the surge; the drawdown; and the end of the war. The course will conclude with an assessment of the war's effectiveness regarding the Global War on Terrorism and U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 36CA Heroes and Saints in India: Religion, Myth, History
This course provides an introduction to the history of modern India and Pakistan through the voices of the Indian subcontinent's major thinkers. We will spend time in the company of saints, from the "great-souled" Mahatma Gandhi to the Sufi scholar Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi, and we will travel alongside the heroes of peasant politics, women's rights, and struggles for national and social freedom and equality. We will immerse ourselves in the rich narrative heritage of India -- as it has been challenged, reworked, and harnessed for present and future needs -- from the 19th century through the present. Lecture and discussion format; prior knowledge of India or Pakistan not required.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: ETH, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3714 What a Way to Make a Living: Work, Politics, & Culture in the 20th Century United States
This course explores the lives, labors, and leisure of working people in the twentieth century United States. Students will focus on the seismic transformations and bitter conflicts that went into making a mass production, mass consumption society. How did working people experience and fight to exert control over jobs increasingly dictated by the unyielding pace of vast assembly lines? What happened when manufacturing jobs disappeared? Who left? Who got left behind? How were households and neighborhoods made and remade by huge movements of people from the countryside into cities, and then from urban centers to suburban sprawl? How have working people narrated their own stories from below, and, in turn, how has working life was narrated and (re)packaged from above? To answer these questions, and many more, we will pay close attention to how the organization of work under 20th century capitalism (re)defined social hierarchies, the meaning of citizenship, and racial, gendered, and sexual identity.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3715 Unruly Populations: Biopolitics in 20th-Century Europe
While modern European history is usually told as a rapid succession of political revolutions, social reforms, and expanding civil rights, this course centers demographics as the driving force of change and presents Europe's turbulent 20th century as a struggle for population control. Beginning at the turn of the century, the course critically examines what it meant to understand and govern society as a population and interrogates the state tools used to record and stratify populations by attributes of race, ethnicity, sex, and age. It then considers how the tenet of biopolitics has influenced policies towards health care, schooling, social security, the food economy, urban development, and migration in Europe and across its overseas empires. The course also explores how individual historical actors, including colonial subjects, refugees, and women's rights activists, have challenged and evaded this pervasive government of life.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3722 The American South: Histories, Cultures, and Representatives Beyond a Region
In 1995 Atlanta based hip hop group Goodie Mob released their debut album entitled Soul Food. On the record is a song called "Dirty South." The track talks about life in the South highlighting the war on drugs, racism, and stereotypes that people thought about Black southerners. That same year another Southern hip hop group, Outkast, won the best new hip hop award and brought widespread attention to the rap and hip-hop scene which had been dominated by East Coast and West Coast artists. A new generation of Southern music would quickly become the dominant form of hip hop we hear today. In the early albums you hear lines which ask what it means to be Southern, questions where the South is, and speaks of Southern culture. We will attempt to answer some of those questions that Goodie Mob, Outkast, and more recently Beyoncé posed through a historical exploration of a region steeped in mystery and mystique. The South has fascinated generations of Americans, often represented as a deeply divided and troubled area of backward peoples and histories which continue to shock the nation. At the same time, the South is home to more diverse peoples, businesses, foodstuffs, and geography than most of the United States. The South often defies expectations and surprises the most seasoned social scientist. This course will introduce students to the history of a place that is both familiar and strange while exploring difficult issues of race, ethnicity, and identity. Students will be exposed to a variety of sources including music, film, and art produced by and/or about Southerners. Students will walk away from this course with a deeper understanding of the diversity of cultures and histories of the South and question what makes the South exceptional.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3729 The United States in the 20th Century
This course will explore the dramatic changes that transformed American society from the 1890s to the 1980s. Covering the main themes of twentieth century U.S. history, students will connect domestic policies and developments to international events, and study how Americans of diverse backgrounds thought about, experienced, and defined democracy and citizenship in the United States.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 373 History of United States Foreign Relations to 1914
This course explores the major diplomatic, political, legal, and economic issues shaping U.S. Foreign Relations in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, up until the U.S. entry into the First World War.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3743 History of U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1920
This course explores the major diplomatic, political, legal, and economic issues shaping U.S. relations with the wider world from the 1920s through the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HSM, HUS
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L22 History 3744 Law and History: Colonial Era to Reconstruction
This course analyzes the development of American law and the constitutional system from the colonial era through the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, beginning with a general theoretical background on the study of legal history. The course concludes with an analysis of the role of law in controversies around the commemoration of the Civil War era.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3748 Of Dishes, Taste, and Class: History of Food in the Middle East
This course will cover the history of food and drink in the Middle East to help us understand our complex relation with food and look at our lives from perspectives we intuitively feel or by implication know, but rarely critically and explicitly reflect on. Food plays a fundamental role in how humans organize themselves in societies, differentiate socially, culturally, and economically, establish values and norms for religious, cultural, and communal practices, and define identities of race, gender, and class. This course does not intend to spoil, so to speak, this undeniably one of the most pleasurable human needs and activities, but rather to make you aware of the social meaning of food and reflect on how food shapes who we are as individuals and societies. We will study the history of food and drink in the Middle East across the centuries until the present time, but be selective in choosing themes, geographic regions, and historical periods to focus on. Please consult the instructor if you have not taken any course in the humanities. Enrollment priority given to seniors and juniors.
Same as L75 JIMES 374
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H UColl: CD
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L22 History 3751 Women, Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America
We will explore the history of the United States since 1945 by focusing on the ways that gender and sexuality have shaped the lives of Americans, particularly the diverse group of women who make up more than half the nation's population. Topics will include: domesticity and the culture of the 1950s; gendering the cold war; the gender politics of racial liberation; the sexual revolution; second-wave feminism and the transformation of American culture; the new right's gender politics; and the impact of new conceptions of sexual and gender identity at century's end. Course texts will include scholarly literature, memoirs, novels and film.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3770 History of Slavery in the Middle East
This course examines slavery and its abolition in the Middle East and North Africa from 600 C.E. to the 20th Century. It addresses slavery as a discourse and a question of political economy. We begin with an overview of slavery in late antiquity to contextualize the evolution of this practice after the rise of Islam in the region. We then examine how it was practiced, imagined, and studied under major empires, such as the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and the Safavids. In addition to examining the Qur'anic discourse and early Islamic practices of slavery, to monitor change over time we address various forms of household, field, and military slavery as well as the remarkable phenomenon of "slave dynasties" following a chronological order. We discuss, through primary sources, theoretical, religious, and moral debates and positions on slavery, including religious scriptures, prophetic traditions, religious law, and a plethora of narratives from a range of genres. We highlight a distinct theme each week to focus on until we conclude our discussion with the abolition of slavery in the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics of discussion include various forms of male and female slavery, Qur'anic and prophetic discourse on slavery, legal and moral views on slavery, slavery as represented in religious literature, political, military, and economic structures of slavery, issues of race and gender as well as slave writings to reflect on the experiences of slavery from within. The goal is to enable students to understand the histories of slavery in the Middle East and eventually compare it to that of other regions and cultures, such as European and Atlantic slavery. No second language required.
Same as L75 JIMES 377
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3785 The Second British Empire in World History
Throughout most of the nineteenth century it appeared that the British Empire was winding down. Most of British North America was now the United States of America, and the remaining West Indian colonies were less valuable after the abolition of slavery. The Indian mutiny and the demise of the Imperial British East India Company raised similar doubts about the worth of Britain's Asian possessions. Yet by 1900 Britain ruled 400 million people and one quarter of the habitable globe, and most Britons were confident that this new "second" British Empire would rival the Roman Empire by lasting for centuries. This course surveys the sudden rise and equally unexpected collapse of the twentieth century British Empire from the perspective of its subjects.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3803 Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine
This course introduces students to the practice and theory of medicine in the ancient Mediterranean, beginning in Egypt and continuing through Greece and Rome. It ends in the Middle Ages. Greco-Roman medicine will be our focus. How was disease understood by practitioners and, as far as can be reconstructed, by laypeople? What form did surgical, pharmacological, and dietitic treatment take? What were the intellectual origins of Greek medicine? The social status of medical practitioners? How was medicine written and in what terms did its practitioners conceive it?"
Same as L08 Classics 3801
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3809 Furies and Die-Hards: Women in Rebellion and War
Furies and Die-Hards: Women in Rebellion and War juxtaposes contemporary social science perspectives on women and war with the history and testimonies of Irish women during the Irish revolutionary period (1898-1922), the Irish Civil War (1922-1923), and the Free State. Under English rule from the 12th-century Norman invasions to the establishment of the Irish Free State and the partition of Northern Ireland in 1922, Ireland presents a compelling historical laboratory to deliberate on the relationship between gender and political conflict. Intentionally transdisciplinary, the course draws from across disciplinary discourses and highlights perspectives across race, gender, class, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. Topics include political organizing, nationalism, rebellion, radicalization, militarism, terrorism, pacifism, and peacebuilding. Rooted in Cynthia Enloe's enduring question of "Where are the women?" and drawing on sociologist Louise Ryan's landmark essay by the same name, we inquire how and why Irish nationalist women, who were integral to building the revolutionary movement, became "Furies" and "Die-hards" in the eyes of their compatriots when the Free State was established (Bishop Doorley, 1925; President Cosgrave, 1923). Taking advantage of the plethora of archival resources now available through the Irish Decade of Centenaries program, the course incorporates the voices of Irish women through their diaries, military records, letters, interviews, speeches, newspapers, and memoirs.
Same as L97 GS 389
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3810 Between Sand and Sea: History, Environment, and Politics in the Arabian Peninsula
Although it is today primarily associated with oil, the Arabian peninsula was for most of its history defined by water: its surrounding seas, its monsoon-driven winds, and its lack of water in its vast and forbidding interior deserts. As home to the major holy cities of Islam and a key source of global oil, the region has played an important role in the Western European and North American imagination. Despite being relatively sparsely populated, the peninsula hosts millions of believers each year on the annual Muslim pilgrimage, and it has been the site of major wars and military occupations by European, American, and other Middle Eastern countries for much of the 20th and 21st centuries. It has been an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, a center of British colonialism and (at Aden) an axis of its global empire, the location of Egypt's "Vietnam" (its long war in Yemen in the 1960s), the Gulf Wars I and II, and the recent wars in Yemen, to name just a few of the major conflicts. Often depicted as unchanging until caught up by the influx of massive oil wealth, this region is frequently characterized as a place of contradictions: home to some of the world's largest skyscrapers and also the most inhospitable and largest sand desert in the world, known as "the Empty Quarter"; the location of crucial American allies and the home of al-Qa'eda founder `Usama Bin Laden. In this course, we will examine the development of the peninsula historically to understand these contradictory images. We will investigate changes in the following arenas: environment and society; colonial occupation; newly independent states; the demise and development of key economic sectors (pearling; shipping; agriculture; oil; finance; piracy); political regimes; resources such as water, oil, and date palms; the growth of oil extraction infrastructure and its effects on the political regimes and societies in the region; the emergence of new Gulf cities; Islamic law; women's rights; human rights debates; and religious and ethnic minorities.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 3831 Magicians, Healers, and Holy Men
Magic is perhaps not one of the first words one associates with Greco-Roman antiquity. Yet for most individuals living in the ancient Mediterranean, including philosophers, businessmen, and politicians, magic was a part of everyday life. Casting spells, fashioning voodoo dolls, wearing amulets, ingesting potions, and reading the stars are just some of the activities performed by individuals at every level of society. This course examines Greco-Roman, early Christian, and Judaic "magical" practices. Students read spell-books which teach how to read the stars, make people fall in love, bring harm to enemies, lock up success in business, and win fame and the respect of peers. Students also look at what is said, both in antiquity and in contemporary scholarship, about magic and the people who practiced it, which helps illuminate the fascinating relationship between magic, medicine, and religion.
Same as L08 Classics 3831
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3840 Migration and Modernity in Russia and the (Former) Soviet Union
This course introduces students to a broad history of 19th- and 20th-century Russia and the Soviet Union alongside problems of migration. In this course, students will be introduced to the historical, social, and political dimensions of migration within, to, and from the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and its successor states. We will look at the intersection of the movement of people with long-term economic, social and political transformations, but we will also pay attention to crucial events and phenomena of Soviet history that set large-scale migrations in motion. Course materials will, for instance, address mass movements related to modernization and internal colonization, analyze the role of revolutionary change and warfare for forced displacement, and study the implications of geopolitical changes in the aftermath of the breakdown of the USSR for human rights discourses. Alongside this historically grounded overview, the course explores concepts of citizenship, diaspora, nationality policy, gender-specific experiences of migration, and the ethics and political economy of migration politics, thereby highlighting how current trends in Russian society are indicative of broader discourses on difference and social transformation.
Same as L97 GS 384
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD EN: H
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L22 History 3843 Filming the Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis
This inter-disciplinary course introduces students to the history of the Black freedom struggle in St. Louis and to the complex and multiple ways historic narratives are constructed. We will explore the political, economic and cultural history of St. Louisans who challenged racial segregation in housing and work, fought white mobs in city streets, and battled the destruction of Black communities by federal urban renewal and public housing policies. Students, working with a historian and a filmmaker, will research and make a documentary film on a piece of St. Louis' crucial contribution to the Black Freedom Struggle in America. We bring together documentary filmmaking and history research to draw attention to the multiple narratives (many long-neglected) of African American and urban history, and to the multiple approaches to presenting history.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Art: CPSC, HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3848 1984: One Weird Year
This course examines one year as a way to make sense of recent American culture. Looking at points around the country but always returning to the experience of WashU in 1984, this course experiences the past as Americans did, through the simultaneous overlap of daily life and politics, movies and music, the books they were assigned in school and the very different books they chose to read. In addition to tackling the challenge of understanding one year, students will develop a variety of the collaborative and communication skills that are so important both in college and beyond.
Same as L98 AMCS 3841
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 385 Topics in American History: The Urban Crisis: Historical Perspectives on Modern American Cities.
Since World War II, American cities have undergone enormous changes. Industrial decline, rumbling neighborhoods, rigid segregation, racial trauma, and suburban sprawl have all contributed to a troubled urban world. This course will equip students with an historical perspective on the urban crisis. Rather than simply identifying urban problems, we will use the tools of historical inquiry to grapple with the underlying causes of these problems. Students will learn the value of history as a method for illuminating the social, cultural, political, and economic forces that underlie the current urban crisis. Students will also apply their historical understandings toward the creation of an informed position on metropolitan policy and planning issues.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH
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L22 History 3856 The Sephardic World: 1492 to the Present
In the public perception, modern Jews divide into two subethnic groups: Ashkenazi and Sephardi, or European and Middle Eastern Jews. However, this is an oversimplification that does not do justice to the diversity and complex history of Jewish identities, which are often multilayered. Strictly speaking, Sephardi Jews trace their ancestral lines or cultural heritage to the medieval Iberian Peninsula, present-day Spain and Portugal. That said, according to some scholars, Sephardi Judaism did not even exist before the general expulsion of Spanish Jewry in 1492 and is the result of their subsequent migrations within the Mediterranean and transatlantic worlds. We will start with an introduction into the history of Spanish Jews prior to 1492, asking to what extent memories of pre-expulsion Iberia are at the heart of Sephardi identity. We will then follow the migratory path of Sephardi exiles to North Africa, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and the Americas. The questions we will explore include: in what sense did Sephardim form a transnational community? How did they transmit and transform aspects of Spanish culture in form of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language and literature? How did they become intermediaries between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire? What was their role in Europe's transatlantic expansion and the slave trade? How did Ottoman and North African Jews respond to European cultural trends in the nineteenth century and create their own forms of modernity? How did the Holocaust impact Sephardi Jews?
Same as L75 JIMES 366
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 3860 Empire in East Asia: Theory and History (WI)
An introduction to how historians and anthropologists incorporate theoretical insights into their work, this course first "reverse engineers" the main arguments in several insightful books and articles on empire in Asia, arguments which are informed by a range of theorists. Retaining our theoretical knowledge, we then focus on the more empirical aspects of the Japanese empire in Asia, including settler colonialism, the colonial economy, representations of colonialism and the long-term ramifications of empire. We conclude with a general assessment of the history of empire. In these ways, this course seeks to equip students with a knowledge of empire in East Asia in the late 19th and 20th centuries while simultaneously investigating the nature of that knowledge.
Same as L97 GS 386
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, WI BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3865 Topics in Jewish History
Consult Course Listings for current topics. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Same as L75 JIMES 386
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 3870 Topics in Jewish Studies: Ansky to Kafka, Scholem to Schulz: Creating Modern Jewish Culture
Consult Course Listings for current topics. Please note: L75 587 is intended for graduate students only.
Same as L75 JIMES 387
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3875 The Second British Empire in World History
Throughout most of the nineteenth century it appeared that the British Empire was winding down. Most of British North America was now the United States of America, and the remaining West Indian colonies were less valuable after the abolition of slavery. The Indian mutiny and the demise of the Imperial British East India Company raised similar doubts about the worth of Britain's Asia possessions. Yet by 1900, Britain ruled 400 million people and one quarter of the habitable globe, and most Britons were confident that this new "second" British Empire would rival the Roman Empire by lasting for centuries. This course surveys the sudden rise and equally unexpected collapse of the twentieth century British Empire from the perspective of its subjects.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 388C How Free is Free?: African American History Since Emancipation
The events that unfolded in Ferguson this past fall revealed the contradictions of a national government that is led by a black president yet also sanctions the susceptibility of its black citizens to police brutality. What has freedom really meant for African Americans since emancipation? This course addresses key events and movements that shaped African Americans' definition and pursuit of freedom and citizenship, emphasizing various strategies, successes, failures, and legacies developed as a result. Key developments will include the Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and mass incarceration.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Art: HUM
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L22 History 3891 East Asia Since 1945: From Empire to Cold War
This course examines the historical forces behind the transformation of East Asia from war-torn territory under Japanese military and colonial control into distinct nations ordered by Cold War politics. We begin with the 1945 dismantling of the Japanese empire and continue with the emergence of the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the two Koreas, and Vietnam, all of which resulted from major conflicts in "post-war" Asia. We will conclude with a look at East Asia in the post-Cold War era.
Credit 3 units. EN: H
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L22 History 38B9 Understanding Lincoln: Writing-Intensive Seminar
This course explores the life, art (political and literary) and historical significance of Abraham Lincoln. It focuses first on how he understood himself and foregrounds his inspired conception of his own world-historical role in the Civil War. The course also traces how the larger world furnished the contexts of Lincoln's career, how his consciousness, speeches and writings, and presidential decisions can be understood against the backdrop of the revolutionary national democratic upheavals of the 19th century. Finally the course will investigate how the sixteenth president, so controversial in his day, has remained a site of cultural contestation, with historians, novelists, poets, cartoonists, filmmakers, advertisers, and politicians struggling over his memory and meaning, to the present.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 38C8 Religion and Politics in South Asia: Writing-Intensive Seminar
The relationship between religion, community, and nation is a topic of central concern and contestation in the study of South Asian history. This course will explore alternative positions and debates on such topics as: changing religious identities; understandings of the proper relationship between religion, community, and nation in India and Pakistan; and the violence of Partition (the division of India and Pakistan in 1947). The course will treat India, Pakistan and other South Asian regions in the colonial and post-colonial periods.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, WI BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 3900 Mormon History in Global Context
The focus of this seminar is Mormonism, meaning, primarily, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the largest Mormon body. Mormons in the United States have gone from being one of the most intensely persecuted religious groups in the country's history to the fourth largest religious body in the U.S., with a reputation for patriotism and conservative family values. Because of its vigorous missionary program, the LDS Church now has more members outside the U.S. than inside. This seminar will introduce the basic practices and beliefs, and explore issues regarding economics, race, gender, and sexuality within the faith. These issues include: How did conflicts over Mormonism during the 19th century, especially the conflict over polygamy, help define the limits of religious tolerance in this country? How have LDS teachings about gender and race, or controversies about whether or not Mormons are Christian, positioned and repositioned Mormons within U.S. society? What does the LDS faith look like in other parts of the world, and how does its identification with U.S. prosperity and politics shape its growth in other places?
Same as L57 RelPol 390
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L22 History 3904 Existentialist Thought
Existentialism "begins with a disoriented individual facing a confused world that s/he cannot accept" (Robert Solomon). Existentialists seek to make meaning of the brokenness (Marcel), dislocation (Merleau-Ponty), and ambiguity (de Beauvoir) of modern life. While its origins go back to the nineteenth-century (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche), with even older antecedents, as a specific moment in the history of ideas existentialism was created in response to the "age of anxiety" from the end of World War I through the 1960s. It continues to ripple through to the present. We will explore the richness and depth of the canonic figures of existentialism. But we will also consider how that canon was itself shaped and what this entailed for how these thinkers have been understood. We will consider existentialist giants such as Sartre and Heidegger. But we will also spend time with less totemic thinkers. One key thematic strand will focus on is race and existentialism. In short, we will explore why existentialism continues to speak to the Millennial generation's concerns about the meaning and purpose of human existence.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC EN: H
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L22 History 3921 Secular & Religious: A Global History
Recent years have seen a dramatic rethinking of the past in nearly every corner of the world as scholars revisit fundamental questions about the importance of religion for individuals, societies and politics. Is religion as a personal orientation in decline? Is Europe becoming more secular? Is secularism a European invention? Many scholars now argue that "religion" is a European term that doesn't apply in Asian societies. This course brings together cutting-edge historical scholarship on Europe and Asia in pursuit of a truly global understanding. Countries covered will vary, but may include Britain, France, Turkey, China, Japan, India and Pakistan.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 393 Medieval Christianity
This course surveys the historical development of Christian doctrine, ecclesiastical organization, and religious practice between the 5th century and the 15th, with an emphasis on the interaction of religion, culture, politics, and society. Topics covered include: the Christianization of Europe; monasticism; the liturgy; sacramental theology and practice; the Gregorian reform; religious architecture; the mendicant orders and the attack on heresy; lay devotions; the papal monarchy; schism and conciliarism; and the reform movements of the 15th century.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD
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L22 History 394C African Civilization to 1800
Beginning with an introduction to the methodological and theoretical approaches to African history, this course surveys African civilization and culture from the Neolithic age until 1800 AD. Topics include African geography and environmental history, migration and cross-cultural exchange, the development of Swahili culture, the western Sudanese states, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the historical roots of apartheid. For AFAS majors, this course counts as Area Requirement 4.
Same as L90 AFAS 321C
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 395C African Civilization: 1800 to the Present
Beginning with social and economic changes in 19th Century Africa, this course is an in-depth investigation of the intellectual and material culture of colonialism. It is also concerned with the survival of pre-colonial values and institutions, and examines the process of African resistance and adaptation to social change. The survey concludes with the consequences of decolonization and an exploration of the roots of the major problems facing modern Africa.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H UColl: HAF, HSM
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L22 History 3977 The Making of the Modern Catholic Church
This course examines the work of three church councils that put their stamp on the Catholic Church at key moments in its history, making it what it is today. The first section is dedicated to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which defined the high medieval church as an all-encompassing papal monarchy with broad powers over the lives of all Europeans, Christian and non-Christian alike. In the second section we turn our attention to the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which responded to the threat posed by the Protestant Reformation by reforming the Catholic church, tightening ecclesiastical discipline, improving clerical education, and defining and defending Catholic doctrine. We conclude with a consideration of the largest church council ever, Vatican II (1962-1965), which reformed the liturgy and redefined the church to meet the challenges of the modern, multicultural, post-colonial world.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD
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L22 History 399 Senior Honors Thesis and Colloquium: Writing-Intensive Seminar
PREREQUISITES: Satisfactory standing as a candidate for Senior Honors and permission of thesis director.
Credit variable, maximum 4 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI EN: H
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L22 History 39F8 Gender and Sexuality in 1950s America: Writing-Intensive Seminar
Historians have recently begun to reconsider the dominant view of the 1950s as an era characterized by complacency and conformity. In this writing intensive seminar we will use the prism of gender history to gain a more complex understanding of the intricate relationship between conformity and crisis, domesticity and dissent that characterized the 1950s for both women and men.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD, WI BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 39J8 Mapping the Early Modern World: Writing-Intensive Seminar
Societies use maps not just to see the world, but also to assign meaning and order to space: both nearby spaces and spaces on the other side of the world. In this seminar, we will study how maps were created, circulated, and interpreted between the sixteenth and eighteenth century, when Europeans came into contact with new regions throughout the world and reshaped their own backyards through the rise of the modern state and the development of national identity.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 39SC Imperialism and Sexuality: India, South Asia and the World: Writing-Intensive Seminar
What is the connection between the appropriation of other people's resources and the obsession with sex? Why is 'race' essential to the sexual imperatives of imperialism? How has the nexus between 'race,' sexuality, and imperial entitlement reproduced itself despite the end of formal colonialism? By studying a variety of colonial documents, memoirs produced by colonized subjects, novels, films and scholarship on imperialism, we will seek to understand the history of imperialism's sexual desires, and its continuation in our world today.
Same as L77 WGSS 39SC
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 39SM Women and Crime in the Evolution of American History
Crime happens. Property is damaged and stolen, lives are lost, and law, order, and justice evolves. This course taps into that ongoing reality by centering the herstorical evolution of female crime, highlighting women and girls of many kinds across time and spaces of America. It moves across centuries (through to the contemporary period) probing within and far beyond icons to unveil the gendered nature of crime and moreover to empower students to see and trace everyday female criminality that ignited across racial, ethnic, as well as lines of age in the winding path of American history. While men and boys dominate public and even scholarly expectations of crime and carceral conversations for many, students will leave this course with a far more rigorous understanding of the herstories gained by taking serious the types of crimes that women and girls acted out by exploring: robbery, assault, infanticide, larceny, murder, arson, prostitution, serial killers, and drug-related crimes. As well as going further to probe state and federal power through carceral medicine - showing the interior world of female prisoners, physicians, the movement of females into "asylums'' and mental state hospitals, incarceration based on "insanity" while going further to examine births, illnesses, and death of women and teens in jails and prisons. Students will be likewise pushed to engage America's timeline of race, gender, and executions that includes women and girls. Racialized and gendered criminality, law enforcement violence, healthcare and deathcare in prisons are critical public health issues that students can better understand the complicated evolutions by deeply probing the herstorical lives of women, girls, and crime through this course. Students will read, learn, dig up the past, and write to ensure a future of herstory and remembrance.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L22 History 39UK Mao and the World
Was Mao Zedong an uncompromising tyrant who caused the death of millions, or was he a revolutionary leader who was daring enough to imagine an alternative existence? This course is a close investigation of Mao and his world through a global perspective. The students will be exposed to primary sources written by Mao himself, and they will situate Mao within the turbulent decades of China's engagement with Western colonialism, imperialism, and revolutionary thought in the 20th century. Putting Maoism at the center of world history, students will learn the intimate links between China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and North America, and they will examine in detail how Maoism shaped a variety of political and infrastructural transformations around the world, from the Black Panthers to Tanzanian railroads. By the end of the course, students will have a strong grasp of the contradictions that Mao himself faced throughout his life -- contradictions that changed nothing less than the world itself.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4009 Slavery and Public History
Public history, or applied history, encompasses the many and diverse ways in which history is put to work in the world and applied to real-world issues. This course teaches public history practice with particular emphasis on engaging in the public history of slavery through research and interpretation on the regional histories of enslavement within St. Louis and at Washington University. Students will learn by engaging critical scholarship on public history, debates about how public history is practiced, and learning core tenets of public history interpretation, museum best practices, oral history, preservation, and material culture and their particular application to public history interpreting slavery. This includes grappling with the politics of memory and heritage that shape, limit, and empower public history practice on slavery, and how white supremacy has shaped what histories we absorb in the public.
Same as L90 AFAS 4008
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4010 Capstone Seminar: Antisemitism and Islamophobia: A Comparative Perspective
The capstone course for Jewish, Islamic, & Near Eastern Studies majors, Arabic majors, and Hebrew majors. The course content is subject to change.
Same as L75 JIMES 4001
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4040 Senior Seminar: Convivencia or Reconquista? Muslims, Jews, and Christians in Medieval Iberia
This seminar will explore various facets of the coexistence (convivencia) of Muslims, Jews, and Christians in medieval Spain. Its horizon stretches from the Muslim conquest of Iberia (al-Andalus) up to the turn of the 16th century when Spanish Jews and Muslims were equally faced with the choice between exile and conversion to Christianity. Until about 1100, Muslims dominated most of the Iberian Peninsula; from then onward, Christians ruled much and eventually all of what would become modern Spain and Portugal. Through a process known as reconquista (reconquest), Catholic kingdoms acquired large Muslim enclaves. As borders moved, Jewish communities found themselves under varying Muslim or Christian dominion. Interactions between the three religious communities occurred throughout, some characterized by shared creativity and mutual respect, others by rivalry and strife. The course focuses on these cultural encounters, placing them in various historical contexts. It will explore the ambiguities of religious conversion, and the interplay of persecution and toleration. Last not least, the course will address the question of how the memory of medieval Spain's diversity reverberates-and is utilized-in modern popular and academic discourse. All sources will be read in English translation; however, students are encouraged to make use of their linguistic and cultural expertise acquired in previous classes. This course serves as the capstone seminar for Jewish, Islamic & Near Eastern Studies majors, Arabic majors, and Hebrew majors. Graduate students, minors, and other interested undergrads are likewise welcome.
Same as L75 JIMES 4060
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4051 Diaspora in Jewish and Islamic Experience
Tensions between center and periphery; migration and rest; power and powerlessness; and exile, home, and return are easily found in the historical record of both Jews and Muslims. For Muslims, it can be said that it was the very success of Islam as a world culture and the establishment of Muslim societies in in all corners of the globe that lay at the root of this unease. However, the disruptions of the post-colonial era, the emergence of minority Muslim communities in Europe and North America, and the recent tragic flow of refugees following the Arab Spring have created a heightened sense of displacement and yearning for many. Of course, the very term "diaspora" -- from the ancient Greek, meaning "dispersion" or "scattering" -- has most often been used to describe the Jewish condition in the world. The themes of exile and return and of catastrophe and redemption are already woven into the Hebrew Bible, and they continued to be central motifs in Rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. This occurred despite the fact that more Jews lived outside the borders of Judea than within the country many years before the destruction of Jewish sovereignty at the hands of the Romans. In the 20th century, European imperialism, nationalisms of various types, revolution, and war -- including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- have done much to underscore the continuing dilemmas of diaspora and home in both Jewish and Islamic identity. The goal of this course is to offer a comparative historical perspective on the themes of migration and displacement, center and periphery, home and residence, and exile and return and to give students the opportunity to examine in depth some aspect of the experience of diaspora. Note: This course fulfills the capstone requirement for Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies. The course also counts as an Advanced Seminar for history. (Students wishing to receive history Advanced Seminar credit should also enroll in L22 491R section 19 for 1 unit.) The course is open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Same as L75 JIMES 405
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4154 Decolonization to Globalization: How to End an Empire
The conventional markers of the twentieth century - imperialism, decolonization and globalization - are acutely compromised if we mobilize gender and sexuality as modes of analysis. In this course we bring questions of sexual difference and gender to the wider stories of colonialism, nationalism, decolonization, neocolonialism, US imperialism, neoliberalism, globalization, WoT, and majoritarianism. We "engender" the contradiction between enormous turning points and the lived experiences of billions. We probe how the non-profit industrial complex, development aid, and the normative family have shaped and given shape to the very idea of gender. Finally, we examine the capacious power of gender to interrupt the power of the state and to reorganize extractive relations of race and caste.
Same as L77 WGSS 4154
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4203 Nature, Technology and Medicine in Korea
This course examines the cultural history of modern Korea with a focus on science, technology, and medicine. From about 1500 to the present, a number of hugely consequential things happened in Korea that have been called revolutionary-or what historians dub "early modern" and "modern." Confucian kings planned large-scale projects that changed nature, rustic scholars made inventories of flora and fauna, colonial Koreans became biologists, nurses, and "Edisons," and in North and South Korea, new professionals created distinctive-and in some cases, globally-competitive-regimes of knowing, making, and healing. Students will interrogate these developments as an opportunity to revisit the history of modernity, which has been told predominantly from the perspective of the West. What does it mean to be "modern" in Korea? How did that modernity intersect with Korean science, technology, and medicine? Students will find and articulate their own answers by writing the final research paper. Recommended to have taken Korean Civilization or equivalent course that provides basic working knowledge of Korean history. Course also counts as an EALC capstone course. Prerequisite: junior level or above or permission of instructor.
Same as L81 EALC 420
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L22 History 4234 The Reception of Egypt in the Graeco-Roman World
Ancient Greeks and Romans found Egypt to be an exceptionally enthralling world, in terms not only of its physical features but also of its people, monuments, and traditions. This course will explore how different views of Egypt emerged in the Graeco-Roman world; it will also investigate the possible reasons for the remarkable popularity and allure of Egypt and things Egyptian as reflected in the writings of Greek and Roman authors as well as in the art and architecture of the Mediterranean world in Classical antiquity. In this seminar, we will read primary literary sources (in translation) that focus on the reception of ancient Egypt and, more specifically, its history, religion, and customs. Several of these sources also offer a privileged viewpoint to investigate how the perception of notable Egyptian figures -- chiefly Cleopatra -- was shaped by Rome to suit a specific agenda. In addition to the written sources, we will look at the artistic and archaeological evidence that best showcases the impact of Egypt's legacy on Graeco-Roman traditions. The readings assigned for each class will also provide a broad sample of secondary sources, consisting of some of the most significant scholarship on the image of Egypt in Classical antiquity.
Same as L08 Classics 4230
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 4242 Culture and Politics in the People's Republic of China: New Approaches
This course inquires into the political, ideological, and social frameworks that shaped the cultural production and consumption in the People's Republic of China (PRC). In the realm of literature, film, architecture, and material culture and everyday life, this course pays a close attention to the contestation and negotiation between policy makers, cultural producers, censors, and consumers. Understanding the specific contour of how this process unfolded in China allows us to trace the interplay between culture and politics in the formative years of revolutionary China (1949-1966), high socialism (1966-1978), the reform era (1978-1992), and post-socialist China (1992 to present). The course examines new scholarship in fields of social and cultural history, literary studies, and gender studies; and it explores the ways in which new empirical sources, theoretical frameworks, and research methods reinvestigate and challenge conventional knowledge of the PRC that have been shaped by the rise and fall of Cold War politics, the development of area studies in the U.S., and the evolving U.S.-China relations. Graduate students should be proficient in scholarly Chinese, as they are expected to read scholarly publications and primary materials in Chinese. Prerequisite: Undergraduate students must have taken L04 227C; junior level or above or permission of instructor.
Same as L04 Chinese 4242
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4264 Memory for the Future
The year-long Studiolab "Memory for the Future" (M4F) will create spaces and practices of humanities education, practical public history, and collaboration in the spirit of "multidirectional memory." This concept tries to address the interlinked histories and legacies of the Holocaust, slavery, apartheid, and colonialism and create opportunities for dialogue between communities impacted by and implicated in these forms of violence. Our principal aims are to explore, enrich, and sustain the global and local focus of "reparative memorial practices" in St. Louis. Focusing on commemorative efforts through public memorials, monuments and especially museums, M4F will engage survivors, activists, institutional leaders, and scholars (students and faculty) in the development of educational materials, artistic representations, exhibitions, and other approaches to bringing the past into the present. We strive to support the efforts of local and regional initiatives and venues to end racism, antisemitism, and homophobia and their related violence through innovative and inclusive memory work. Alongside classroom-based instruction focusing on discussing scholarship and acquiring practical, curatorial, and pedagogical skills, students will work with area institutions and initiatives to apply their study of multidirectional memory. This practicum is an integral part of the course and requires students to leave campus and regularly work with one of our partners (The Griot Museum of Black History, George B. Vashon Museum, St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Reparative Justice Coalition of St. Louis, St. Louis Community Remembrance Project). Participants of the Studiolab are expected to attend regular weekly meetings and engage in self-directed and collaborative project work. We are also preparing study trips to regional sites of memory and education. The M4F Studiolab will convene at the Lewis Collaborative, a living-learning-commercial space at the west end of the Delmar Loop. All A&S graduate students and advanced undergraduates are invited to participate. Undergraduate enrollment by permission of the instructors. For History majors, this course fulfills the capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar. As a year-long course, students are expected to enroll in both the fall and spring sections. For more information, please consult https://www.m4f.community/
Same as L56 CFH 426
Credit 4 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: CPSC, HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4274 Palestine, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
This course examines the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Topics include: Palestine in the late Ottoman period; the development of modern Zionism; British colonialism and the establishment of the Palestine Mandate; Arab-Jewish relations during the Mandate; the growth of Palestinian nationalism and resistance; the establishment of the state of Israel and the dispersion of the Palestinians in 1948; the Arab-Israeli wars; both Palestinian uprisings; and the peace process.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4288 Higher Education in American Culture
This course will examine the historical and philosophical development of higher education from colonial to contemporary periods including the histories of minoritized individuals and campus types. Throughout the semester, we will learn how history continues to impact the way we run and organize our campuses today. This course concludes with an exploration of current social, political, and economic challenges in higher education and current public debates regarding contentious topics in higher education. Prerequisite: Completion of any 1000, 2000, or 3000-level Education course, graduate standing, or permission of instructor. Enrollment note: Enrollment limited to juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Undergraduate students must enroll in Educ. 4288 and graduate students must enroll in Educ. 5288
Same as L12 Educ 4288
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4364 Topics in Ancient Studies
Study of one or more themes recurring in the traditions of Greek and Roman literature, history, and culture. Topic will vary each semester.
Same as L08 Classics 4361
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4415 Technology, Empire, and Science in China
How did technology, science, and empire intersect in early modern and modern Chinese history? Was there a unique "Chinese" way of studying nature? How did non-Chinese scientists and engineers contribute to China's knowledge of the world? This course offers a historical and historiographical survey of science and technology studies in China, from the 13th to the 20th century. It particularly examines the global circulation of scientific knowledge in the late imperial period, the place of technology in the empire building of the Qing dynasty (1637-1912), and the violent epistemic encounters between the West and China from the 19th century onward. Throughout the semester, we will explore Confucian scientists as well as Muslim geographers, Jesuit engineers, Manchu anatomies, and Chinese barefoot doctors. Positioning China within a global order, the students will question the premises of modern scientific discourses and try to respond to a seemingly simple question: What does science and technology even mean in a Chinese context?
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 4442 The Jewish Experience in Eastern Europe
A study of Jewish culture, society, and politics in Poland-Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech lands, Russia, Romania, and the Ukraine, from the 16th century through the 20th century. Among the topics to be covered are: economic, social, and political relations in Poland-Lithuania; varieties of Jewish religious culture; Russian and Habsburg imperial policies toward the Jews; nationality struggles and antisemitism; Jewish national and revolutionary responses; Jewish experience in war and revolution; the mass destruction of East European Jewish life; and the transition from Cold War to democratic revolution.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 4444 The Mystical Tradition in Judaism
What is Jewish "mysticism"? What is its relationship to the category of "religion"? Is Jewish mysticism just one form of a general phenomenon common to a variety of religious traditions or is it a specific interpretation of biblical, rabbinic, and other Jewish traditions? Taking the above questions as a starting point, this course aims at a systematic and historically contextualized analysis of a broad range of Jewish texts that are commonly classified as "mystical". (All primary texts are read in translation.) At the same time, we explore such overarching themes as: the interplay of esoteric exegesis of the Bible and visionary experiences; the place of traditional Jewish law (halakhah) within mystical thought and practice; the role of gender, sexuality, and the body in Jewish mystical speculation and prayer; the relationship between mysticism and messianism; Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions and their mutual impact on Jewish mysticism; the "absence of women" from Jewish mystical movements; esoteric traditions of an elite vs. mysticism as a communal endeavor; and the tension between innovation and (the claim to) tradition in the history of Jewish mysticism.
Same as L23 Re St 444
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4450 Topics in Islam: History of Political Thought
This course aims to study political thought and practice in Islamic history through a close reading of a selection of primary sources in translation (and in their original language, if language proficiency is satisfactory). Particular attention will be given to the historical contexts in which thoughts are espoused and texts written. We plan to examine the development of political concepts and themes as articulated in diverse literary genres (e.g., legal, theological, political) from the eighth through the 13th centuries. We hope to engage various theoretical models to analyze the relationship between politics and religion and to tease out the role of power in determining sociopolitical relations, distinctions, and structures. We hope to have a better grasp on the historicity of ideas presented in timeless categories in political discourse. Advanced knowledge of Arabic preferred but not required.
Same as L75 JIMES 445
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 4451 Religion and the State: Global Mission, Global Empire
This course explores the complex intersections among U.S. political power on a global stage, and religious institutions and identities. Readings and discussions are organized around two very broad questions. First: how has this nation's history been shaped by religious "others" both inside and outside its borders? Second: How have perceptions of those others in turn affected U.S. responses to circumstances of global consequence--including, for example, foreign policy and diplomacy, missionary activity, and economic practices?
Same as L57 RelPol 495
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4461 History of Political Thought in the Middle East
This course aims to study political thought and practice in Islamic history through a close reading of a selection of primary sources in translation (and in their original language, if language proficiency is satisfactory). Particular attention will be given to historical contexts in which thoughts are espoused and texts written. We plan to examine the development of political concepts and themes as articulated in diverse literary genres (e.g., legal, theological, political) from the eighth through 13th centuries. We hope to engage various theoretical models to analyze the relationship between politics and religion and to tease out the role of power in determining sociopolitical relations, distinctions, and structures. We hope to have a better grasp on the historicity of ideas presented in timeless categories in political discourse. Advanced knowledge of Arabic preferred but not required.
Same as L75 JIMES 446
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC BU: HUM, IS
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L22 History 4491 American Unbelief from the Enlightenment to the New Atheism
This seminar examines American secularism, humanism, and atheism from the Enlightenment forward to the present. Topics to be explored include: the tensions between secular and Christian conceptions of the republic, the civil liberties of atheists and nontheists, the battles over religion in the public schools, the culture wars over secular humanism and science, and the contemporary growth of the religiously disaffiliated or religious "nones." The course considers not only the intellectual dimensions of skeptical critiques of religion, but also the underlying politics of secularism (and anti-secularism) in a nation routinely imagined as "under God."
Same as L57 RelPol 4491
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: SSP Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 450C Interdisciplinary Topics in the Humanities
Same as L93 IPH 450
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4511 Urban Culture in Modern China
The narrative of rural crisis and peasant revolution has dominated China's modern history for decades. But there has been a growing interest in China's urban past and present with the increased prominence of cities in China's breathtaking economic development and the opening of municipal archives in post-Mao era. The course aims to introduce students to "conventional wisdoms," new directions, and major debates in the urban history field. Topics include: the urban political economy, the cultural dynamics of modernity, the reconstruction of traditions in the making of modernity, the cultural production and consumption, colonialism and imperialism in the urban setting, nationalism, and reform and revolution. Acknowledging and understanding the nuance and difference in views and interpretations in historical writings (historiography) are essential. The course seeks to develop students' research and analytical skills, such as locating secondary sources, incorporating scholarly interpretations, and developing and sustaining a thesis based on secondary and primary sources in student research. This is an interdisciplinary seminar designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Prerequisite: Undergraduate students must have taken L04 227C; junior level or above or permission of instructor.
Same as L04 Chinese 4510
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 4564 American Pragmatism
This course examines the history of American pragmatism through three of its primary founders, the philosophers Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. It considers pragmatism as a response to the experience of uncertainty brought on my modernity, and contextualizes it amidst late nineteenth and early twentieth century thought and politics, namely, scientific methodology, evolutionary theory, the probabilistic revolution, Transcendentalism, the rise of secularism, slavery, Abolitionism, and the Civil War. Major essays by each thinker will be read as well as three intellectual biographies and one critical survey.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4610 Latin American Populism and Neo-Populism
Over the past 100 years populism, in its diverse forms, has dominated Latin American politics. This course examines case studies of classical populism (Aprismo, Cardenismo, Peronismo, Varguismo, etc.) and neopopulism (Fujimorismo, Chavismo, Moralesismo, neo-Peronismo). In doing so, it explores new theories of populism and analyzes populist discourses, leadership styles, gender and racial politics, mobilizational tactics, transnational networks, and foreign policies.
Same as L97 GS 4611
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4633 Twentieth Century Latin American Revolutions
Latin America has been described as one of the most "revolutionary" regions of the world in the twentieth century. It experienced four major social revolutions and gave rise to many consequential guerrilla movements. This course uses theories of revolution and a social science historical approach to elucidate the causes, processes, outcomes, and implications of revolutions in Mexico (1910), Bolivia (1952), Cuba (1959), and Nicaragua (1979). It also analyzes late 20th century revolutionary guerrilla movements in El Salvador and Peru. Why peasants, university students, and women formed key social bases of support for revolutionary movements and how revolutions were institutionalized and consolidated will receive special attention.
Same as L97 GS 4633
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC, SC, SD Arch: SSC Art: SSC EN: S
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L22 History 4675 Beyond the Harem: Women, Gender, and Revolution
This course examines the history and current situations of women in Middle Eastern societies. The first half of the course is devoted to studying historical changes in factors structuring women's status and their sociopolitical roles. The second half of the course will focus on several case studies of women's participation in broad anticolonial social revolutions and how these revolutions affected the position of women in those societies.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4681 Topics in Literature and History: The Age of Lincoln -- America in the 1850s
This seminar is an interdisciplinary examination of the culture and politics of America in the critical watershed decade before the Civil War. The course explores how a range of writers -- some avowedly "literary," others more decidedly "political" -- advanced their versions of America in the larger culture at a time when all things American -- democracy, religious destiny, and nationality itself -- were becoming profoundly problematic.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 4689 American Intellectual History to 1865
This course presents an overview of American intellectual history from the early seventeenth century and the founding of the first English settlements in North America to the mid-nineteenth century and the American Civil War. We will investigate how different thinkers responded to and helped shape key events and processes in colonial and early American history, concentrating in particular on developments in religious, political, social, scientific, and educational thought. We will cover major topics such as: Puritanism; the Enlightenment; Evangelicalism; Romanticism; and the inner Civil War. We will address concepts central to the formation of the nation's identity including those of the covenant; republicanism; citizenship; equality; freedom; liberty; natural law; transcendentalism; order; reason; progress; and democracy.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 469 American Intellectual History Since 1865
This course concentrates on social, cultural, philosophical and political thought since the end of the Civil War, and investigates how American thinkers have responded to the challenge of modernity. After an examination of the end of the old religious order and the revolt against Victorianism, it analyzes the subsequent rise of pragmatism, progressivism, literary modernism, radical liberalism, political realism, protest movements and the New Left, neo-conservatism and the New Right, and the current state of intellectuals in post-911 America.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4741 Frankenstein: Origins and Afterlives
Same as L14 E Lit 474
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4742 Americans and Their Presidents
How have Americans understood what it means to be President of the United States? This seminar uses that question as a point of departure for a multidisciplinary cultural approach to the presidency in the United States, examining the shifting roles of the chief executive from George Washington through George W. Bush. In addition to a consideration of the President's political and policymaking roles, this course examines how the lived experiences of presidents have informed the ways Americans have conceived of public and private life within a broader political culture. In the process, this course uses the presidency as a means to explore topics ranging from electioneering to gender, foreign policy to popular media. Readings are drawn from a broad range of fields.
Same as L98 AMCS 474
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4754 Advanced African History Seminar
This seminar allows students who have completed basic African history course work to explore advanced topics in the field. Selected topics include: African geography and environmental history, the classical kingdoms of the Sahel, the development of Swahili culture, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the historical roots of Apartheid, the intellectual and material culture of colonialism, African resistance and adaptation to social change during the colonial era, decolonization, and roots of some of the major problems facing modern Africa.
Same as L90 AFAS 475
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD BU: ETH EN: H
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L22 History 4761 Money, Exchange and Power: Economy and Society In the Ancient Mediterranean World
From seaborne trade and banking to slavery and the impact of new technology, the economy of the ancient Mediterranean world constitutes a particularly dynamic field of study. To examine a society's underlying economics is to gain critical insight into those historical phenomena that are themselves the product of multiple, overlapping dimensions of human action and thought. This course engages directly with a fascinating array of primary evidence for economic behaviors, beliefs, structures, and institutions among the Romans, Greeks, and their neighbors. We will also explore the methodological challenges and implications of that evidence as well as a variety of modern theoretical approaches. This year our focus is mainly upon developments among the Greeks, ranging from the transformative invention of coinage to the rise of commercial networks centered around religious sanctuaries like Delos.PREREQ: CLA 341C OR 342C OR 345C OR 346C OR PERMISSION OF INSTRUCTOR.
Same as L08 Classics 476
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4763 Olympian Shadows: Macedon and Its Neighbors in Antiquity
The home of both Alexander the Great and Aristotle, Macedon was pivotal to the course of ancient Greek and Roman history and yet stood apart as a culturally and politically distinct region. Macedonian dynasts dominated the Hellenistic world and deeply shaped Roman reception of Greek culture, while others profoundly affected the intellectual life of antiquity. We will explore topics ranging from ethnicity, religion, and the nature of kingship to urbanization and Macedon's emergence as a great power until its subsequent transformation at the hands of the conquering Romans. We will pay special attention to Macedon's neighbors, especially Thrace and Illyria, as well as to Macedon's relationships with the Persian Empire and the Greek coastal colonies. PREREQUISITES: AT LEAST ONE SEMESTER OF CLASSICS 341C, 342C, 345C, OR 346C, OR INSTRUCTOR'S PERMISSION.
Same as L08 Classics 4763
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4803 Advanced Seminar: Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
The division of India and Pakistan at the time of Independence from British colonial rule was a major event that has left its mark on the lives, memories, and politics of contemporary South Asians. Why did British India break apart along apparently religious lines? Was sectarian or "communal" violence inevitable, or endemic in South Asian society? How was Partition - a time of violence, mistrust, dispossession, displacement, and mass migration -- experienced by ordinary people? How is the traumatic memory of this event borne by individual women, children, by families? How does its legacy persist, and how is it being remembered, and reckoned with, today? In this course, we will not find final answers to these difficult questions, but we will learn how to explore them responsibly, using literature, film, and other archival sources. This course provides students with a forum to discuss and explore topics of their own choosing.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 481W History of Education in the United States
Examines education within the context of American social and intellectual history. Using a broad conception of education in the United States and a variety of readings in American culture and social history, the course focuses on such themes as the variety of institutions involved with education, including family, church, community, work place, and cultural agency; the ways relationships among those institutions have changed over time; the means individuals have used to acquire an education; and the values, ideas, and practices that have shaped American educational policy in different periods of our history. Prerequisite: Completion of any 1000, 2000, or 3000-level Education course, graduate standing, or permission of instructor. Enrollment Note: All students will be enrolled onto the waitlist. Because this is a writing intensive course, enrollment will most likely be 12-15 students. Enrollment preference will be given to students who are majoring/minoring in Educational Studies, Teacher Education, History, American Culture Studies, and Children's Studies and to students needing to complete their Writing Intensive requirement. Instructor will e-mail students about enrollment. Undergraduate students must enroll in Educ. 481W, and graduate students must enroll in Educ. 5810.
Same as L12 Educ 481W
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4823 Senior Seminar in Religious Studies:
The topic for this seminar differs every year. Previous topics include Religion and Violence; Governing Religion; Saints and Society; and Religion and the Secular: Struggles over Modernity. The seminar is offered every spring semester and is required of all Religious Studies majors, with the exception of those writing an honors thesis. The class is also open, with the permission of the instructor, to other advanced undergraduates with previous coursework in Religious Studies.
Same as L23 Re St 479
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L22 History 4842 The Japanese Empire in Asia, 1874-1945
This course examines the expansion of the Japanese Empire in Asia from 1874-1945, focusing on Japan's acquisition of neighboring territory and the subsequent building of colonies in Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. The course will explore the concepts of imperialism and colonialism, how they functioned in East Asia, and how they intersect with other major developments in Asia, including ideas of civilization and race, the formation of the nation, and the growth of capitalism.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 4844 Women and Confucian Culture
This course explores the lives of women in East Asia during a period when both local elites and central states sought to Confucianize society. The course will focus on Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) China, but will also examine these issues in two other early modern East Asian societies: Yi/Choson (1392-1910) Korea and Tokugawa (1600-1868) Japan. Course readings are designed to expose students both to a variety of theoretical approaches and to a wide range of topics, including: women's property rights; the medical construction of gender; technology, power and gender; and state regulations on sexuality.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 4854 Advanced Seminar: The United States in Afghanistan Since 1979
This course offers a historical examination and analysis of America's involvement in Afghanistan from the Cold War through the present, focusing in particular on the U.S. War in Afghanistan from 2001 onward. Special attention will be given to political, military, diplomatic, and economic dynamics as well as to international relationships, the experience of war, and the subsequent developments upon both American and Afghani societies. Major topics covered include U.S. covert operations against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s; revolution, civil war, and the rise of the Taliban during the 1990s; 9/11 and the War on Terror; national building and stability measures during the early 2000s and subsequent security threats in the forms of insurgency, warlords, drug gangs, criminal networks, and the al-Qaeda alliance of terrorist organizations; the key roles played by Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, China, and Central Asian states; the Obama surge and counterinsurgency operations, starting in 2009; the soldier's experience, special forces, and covert operations; prisoners, torture, and human rights abuses; and the end of NATO's mission in 2014 and subsequent developments: the Ghani government, the return of the Taliban, the arrival of ISIS, the peace process, the U.S. drawdown, and the elusive quest for peace and stability in Afghanistan. This is a capstone course open to history majors only.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD
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L22 History 487 Topics in American History: Race and Drugs in American History
This course explores the racial construction of the use of legal and illegal substances in American history from the mid-19th century to the present. We will spend time engaging in a historical analysis of the social, economic, and racial dynamics that defined drug addiction in popular imagination, and examine how these factors contributed to discussions about legality, access to substances, one's ability to be rehabilitated, and criminal status. Regarding criminality we will particularly explore sociological and theoretical perspectives of labeling, habitual and occasional offenders, and moral panic in order to understand how racial minority groups were targeted for different rhetorical, legislative, and economic purposes. One major goal of the course will be to outline the early 20th century beginnings of the war on drugs and connect it to the century long growth of a militarized police system and prison industrial complex. We will secondly work to understand the role of local and national political actors, law enforcement, and the media in manufacturing and maintaining connections between race, crime and drugs. Ultimately, we will use our study of drugs to contextualize 21st century issues of police violence, increases in homicide in minority communities, mass incarceration, poverty, segregation, and mass movements of protest.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4872 Colonial Cities and the Making of Modernity
Massive urban growth has been a central result of the incorporation of many areas--both central and peripheral--into the global economy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Scholars have long theorized urbanization as a key component of modernity, but they have usually done so by looking at urbanization and modernization from the perspective of the West. This course will investigate the character of cities in the colony and then use these empirical and analytical entry points to examine critically some theories of modernity. The geographical focus of the course will be primarily on cities in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4876 Advanced Seminar: Mexican Agriculture: Land, Politics and Development
Access to and ownership of land has been a major issue in Mexican history. Land tenure in economic development has been a constant source of tension and debate since the 18th century. Paradoxically, land tenure has been put forth as both the obstacle and the solution to the country's modernization. Given its centrality in the construction of the modern period, this course examines liberalism, agrarian revolts, the revolution, the green revolution and neoliberalism through the lens of land issues. This course will also explore how these have shaped and have been shaped by indigenous peoples and peasants, from land disentailment to the fight against GMO maize. Students will evaluate agrarian reforms, agricultural modernization programs, concepts of and transformations of natural resources, food production/consumption and social policies.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4881 Advanced Seminar: Mad: Mental Illness, Power and Resistance in Africa and the Caribbean
This seminar explores the history of mental illness in Africa and the Caribbean during the colonial and post-colonial periods. We will be guided by the following questions: What is mental illness? How do social, cultural and political realities affect how mental illness is defined? Should mental illness always be analyzed within a specific cultural context? How did psychiatry factor into the efforts of European colonizers to maintain social order in their colonies? How have colonized people resisted colonial notions of madness? What is the place of religion in these histories? How did mental institutions change after the end of colonial rule and how was post-colonial Caribbean and African psychiatry harnessed in service of decolonization? The course will pay special attention to how European colonial powers employed similar understandings of blackness across regions as they formulated ideas concerning the black populations they deemed "mad" across Africa and the Caribbean.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 4884 Advance Seminar: The Roots of the American Working Classes: Myths, Realities, Histories
The diverse realities of American labor and working-class experience have long been submerged under layers of politics and ideology. How should we study the lives of working people? What questions should we ask? Where do we go to answer them? This research seminar engages the lived experiences of the American working classes, in all their complexity, over the long 19th- and 20th-centuries, to the present. The course has the double project of (1) exploring the roots of mythologies about American working people that have the effect of distorting or erasing their experiences, efforts and accomplishments, and struggles for organization, visibility, citizenship, and power, with special attention to mythologies about American workers who are non-white, non-male, and non-U.S.-born who did/do not fit conventional tropes of "American labor" or "the white worker"; and (2) exploring the roots of working people's experiences, as shaped by forces of technology, class, race, gender and sexuality, religion, nationalism, and violence : what are the challenges, conceptual and archival, of studying the people, in their working and familial/community lives, as producers and consumers, in their organizing efforts, and in their civic and political capacities? How did the transformation of work, technology, culture, and society over this long era from Enslavement to Artificial Intelligence, from Blackface Minstrelsy to Hip Hop, shape working people's lives and struggles? How did working people survive cataclysmic crises, from the Civil War to Covid, and mold the evolution of American citizenship and democracy? Each student will produce a 12-15 page original research paper related to the course material, based on an analysis of primary sources, in consultation with the instructor, and due at the end of the semester; the course is designed to closely mentor students in this project.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC EN: H
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L22 History 4885 Advanced Seminar: Medicine, Disease and Empire
This course examines the history of medicine in connection to the politics of colonialism and empire-building, spanning the sixteenth century through the twentieth century. Topics covered include: epidemic disease outbreaks (e.g. smallpox, cholera, malaria); the role of science and medicine in endorsing the "civilizing missions" of empires; tropical climates and tropical diseases as western constructs; tensions between western medicine and indigenous healing practices and beliefs; ideas of race and racism in science and medicine; modern advancements in sanitation and public health and their implementation overseas; and the historical roots of the modern global health movement.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4887 Advanced Seminar: DIgital Frontiers in History
Can digital technologies offer new ways to rethink historical narratives? Is DH the future of the humanities and of history as a profession? Can DH and critical inquiry be brought together? This course explores the history, present, and future of digital humanities (DH) to seek responses to these questions. From its origins in the Cold War to its rise to fame in the 1990s, the digital turn in the humanities has garnered excitement and support as well as critique and even disavowal from historians. In this course, we will examine the debates in the field of DH and learn about new ways in which historians are using digital tools for academic research as well as public outreach and activism. The course will be divided into two parts. The first half of the course will be devoted to understanding the historical growth and the present status of the field. In the second half, students will be learning basic digital tools to conduct research. The purpose of the course is not to turn historians into coders; it is to understand what codes can do for historians.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4894 Advanced Seminar: The U.S. in Vietnam: Origins, Developments, and Consequences
This course will focus on America's involvement in Vietnam from the era of French colonialism through the collapse of United States intervention. Special attention will be given to political, military, economic, and cultural aspects, as well as to international relationships, and the significance of the experience and subsequent developments upon both American and Vietnamese societies.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 489A Advanced Seminar: Hinduism and the Hindu Right
This course fulfills the history major capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 48IB Advanced Seminar: New York, New York: The Empire City from Stuyvesant to Trump
This research seminar engages the long history of greater New York City: from the place Native Americans called Manna-hata to the largest city in the United States and the world political, financial, and cultural capital that it is today. The course explores New York City's ambivalent relationship with America, with the world, and with itself. It focuses on matters of power - how, in different moments of the city's history, it was defined, who held it, and how various groups managed to contest for it; matters of exchange and extraction - political, cultural, and economic; and matters of belonging - whether a city of immigrants, exiles and refugees succeeded in becoming a home for the homeless. It pays close attention to both the micro - the street corner and the political ward; the bridge and the tunnel; the gentrifying neighborhood; the mosaic of the city's foodways; the theater, financial, slaughterhouse, brothel, and other districts - and the macro - the banks and the stock exchange; the port and transit authorities; the instrumentalities of knowledge and cultural production in the city's universities, print media, clubs, and salons; the sports empires; and the political machines, organized crime, grassroots labor and political movements, insurgencies, and undergrounds. Above all, the course will foreground the city's massive and unbearable contradictions, as a city of skyscrapers and of basement dives, lures, and snares; as a symbol of the future and freedom bound to traumatic, slave, and unfree pasts; as a symbol of modern independence bound to modern interdependence; and as a place of renaissances and ruinations, where the world either comes together or spectacularly falls apart. Sites of potential investigation, in a list that is suggestive rather than exhaustive, range from the African Burial Ground to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, from Hamilton to Hamilton, from Boss Tweed to Robert Moses, from the Five Points to Chinatown, from Delmonico's to Sylvia's, from Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum to Hart Island Potter's Field, from the African Free School to Ocean Hill-Brownsville, from Marcus Garvey to Amadou Diallo, from Billie Holiday to Andy Warhol, from James Baldwin's Harlem to Stonewall, from George Steinbrenner to Jerry Seinfeld, from the Gowanus Canal to Estée Lauder, and, in the spirit of the course title, from Stuyvesant to Trump. Students will engage with the history of New York City via two three-page book reviews, a three-page site analysis, and two five-minute oral reports on assigned readings before conducting their own original research in consultation with the instructor that will culminate in a 15-page final essay. Attendance at all classes and participation in class discussions required. This course fulfills the history major capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4914 Advanced Seminar: Japan in World War II-History and Memory
This course examines the history of World War II in Asia and how it has been remembered in the postwar era. We will trace the war, from the first Japanese military attack on China in 1931 through the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. We will also examine several postwar controversies concerning how the war has been forgotten and remembered in Japan, in the rest of Asia, and in the United States. Goals include grasping the empirical history of the war as a step to becoming familiar with the theories and methods of Memory Studies in History.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 4918 Advanced Seminar: Sexuality in the United States
Does sex have a history, and if so, how can we study it? This seminar examines important themes in the history of sexuality: the relationship between sexual ideologies and practices; racial hierarchy and sexuality; the policing of sexuality; construction of sexual identities and communities; and sexual politics at the end of the century. Students will also spend time discussing theoretical approaches to the history of sexuality, as well as methodological issues, including problems of source and interpretation.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4941 Advanced Seminar: The Inquisition in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, 1200-1700
This seminar will study the history of the Inquisition from its beginnings in southern France in the first half of the 13th century up to the investigations undertaken by Dominicans and Franciscans in 17th century Mexico and Peru. Along the way the seminar will focus upon other inquisitions in Europe (especially those made in Italy, Spain, and Germany), and the hunt for heresy in Goa and the Phillipines. This course will read inquisitional manuals (books on how to conduct an inquisition), and original inquisitional documents (the records of the trials and interrogations). Consequently, the history of heresy and witchcraft, as understood by people in the past and historians in the present, will be discussed.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Art: HUM
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L22 History 4965 Advanced Seminar: Magic, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Medieval World, 350-1550
This seminar will study the history of magic, heresy, and witchcraft in the medieval world. It will begin in the fourth century after the conversion of Constantine the Great and end with the great witchcraft trials of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The seminar will read magical treatises, ecclesiastical polemics against vulgar belief, inquisitorial trials, chronicles, and histories, in our attempt to define what was considered the ordinary and the extraordinary, the natural and the supernatural, good and evil, the boundaries of heaven and earth. How do modern historians use medieval documents to evoke the lives of men, women, and children who believed in magic or were accused of heresy? Can this only be done through a form of historical anthropology? What methods do historians use in trying to understand past ideas and practices? What is historical truth then? What is the relationship of supposedly heterodox belief and behavior with religious orthodoxy? How do we define religion? A theme throughout this seminar will be the definition of evil and the powers of the devil. Students will write a short historiographic essay and a long research essay. Pre-modern, Europe. PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4976 Advanced Seminar: The American Trauma: Representing the Civil War in Art, Literature, and Politics
This seminar is an interdisciplinary examination of how Americans represented the Civil War during and after the titanic conflict, with special attention given to the period between 1865 and 1915. The course explores how painters, novelists, photographers, sculptors, essayists, journalists, philosophers, historians, and filmmakers engaged the problems of constructing narrative and reconstructing national and individual identity out of the physical and psychological wreckage of a war which demanded horrific sacrifice and the destruction of an enemy that could not be readily dissociated from the self.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 497A Global Asias
This course engages a new methodological approach to Asia that expands beyond the spatial concept of the region as a set of political entities occupying a specific part of the world. Global Asias seeks to open up avenues of inquiry to accommodate the study of flows of people, ideas, and practices across Asia and throughout the world. It provides the opportunity to consider Asian communities as they manifest themselves in different places and different ways. We begin with a survey of past attempts to define, understand, and manage Asia, which resulted in an area studies approach. We then engage transnational and interdisciplinary efforts, and conclude by considering the possibility that Global Asias can challenge and perhaps unseat the reigning epistemologies that exist today.
Same as L97 GS 4976
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 4981 Advanced Seminar: Historical Perspectives on Human Rights
This course offers a historical perspective on the modern international human rights regime, using materials drawn from diplomatic, legal, political, and cultural studies. Successful completion of this seminar involves designing, researching, and writing a 25-30 page paper on a historically-oriented, human-rights-related topic of your choice.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4982 Advanced Seminar: Women and Confucian Culture in Early Modern East Asia
This course explores the lives of women in East Asia during a period when both local elites and central states sought to Confucianize society. We will focus on Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) China, but will also examine these issues in two other early modern East Asian societies: Yi/Choson (1329-1910) Korea and Tokugawa (1600-1868) Japan.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 4983 Advanced Seminar: Renaissance Florence and Venice
Venice was the most famously stable city-state in Renaissance Italy, Florence the most notoriously unstable one. This course explores how those contrasting political environments and experiences shaped social relations and cultural production (and vice versa) in those two cities.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4984 Advanced Seminar: The Problem of Freedom: The Age of Democratic Revolution in the Americas
Ever since the improbable alliance of the English pirate and slave trader Sir Francis Drake and the fugitive slave Cimarrons on the Atlantic coast of Panama many centuries ago, the history of freedom in the New World has unfolded in unlikely fits and starts. The course will explore two related conjectures: first, that maroon politics (the often short-lived alliances between slaves, quasi-free blacks and white allies), slave rebellion, provincial secession and civil war were the widespread and normative conditions of post-colonial regimes throughout the New World; and second, that the problem of freedom was especially challenging in a New World environment in which freedom was fleeting and tended to decompose. Special attention will be given to antislavery insurgencies, interracial politics and alliances in the Unites States and the perspectives on freedom they produced, but the readings will also include materials on debates over freedom in the Caribbean and South America over the course of the long age of democratic revolution, 1760-1888.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD EN: H
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L22 History 4990 Advanced Seminar: History of the Body
Do bodies have a history? Recent research suggests that they do. Historians have tapped a wide variety of sources - including vital statistics, paintings and photographs, hospital records, and sex manuals - to reconstruct changes in how humans have conceptualized and experienced their own bodies. We will pay particular attention to the intersection of European cultural history and history of medicine since 1500. This course fulfills the History major capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4993 Advanced Seminar: Women and Religion in Medieval Europe
This course explores the religious experience of women in medieval Europe and attempts a gendered analysis of the Christian Middle Ages. In it, we will examine the religious experience of women in a variety of settings - from household to convent. In particular, we will try to understand how and why women came to assume public roles of unprecedented prominence in European religious culture between the twelfth century and the sixteenth, even though the institutional church barred them from the priesthood and religious precepts remained a principal source of the ideology of female inferiority.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 4998 Advanced Seminar: The Crusades
This seminar will study the phenomenon of crusading in medieval Latin Christendom, from the First Crusade proclaimed by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the late crusades of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. We will particularly focus on crusading in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the ideas and practices of being a martial pilgrim were developed and formalized by the Church. The concept of holy war in Latin Christianity and Islam will be examined. We will analyze the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204. We will investigate the Albigensian Crusade (1208-1229) into what is now southern France, when Christians were promised salvation for killing other Christians and whether "genocidal moments" occurred during this holy war against heretics. Topics to be discussed are the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader colonies in the Levant, women on crusade, the poetry of crusading, chivalry, military orders like the Knights Templars and the Hospitallers, and violence as a redemptive act. One historiographic paper and a research essay are required.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 49CA Advanced Seminar: Religion and the Secular: Struggles over Modernity
A generation ago, scholars and observers around the world felt assured that modernization would bring the quiet retreat of religion from public life. But the theory of secularization now stands debunked by world events, and a host of questions has been reopened. This course provides students with a forum to think through these issues as they prepare research papers on topics of their own choosing.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 49DB Advanced Seminar: Women in Renaissance Italy
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L22 History 49DM Advanced Seminar: Meet me in St. Louis
This seminar uses the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis as a lens to explore the intersection of exhibitionary culture, nation building and history. In the second half of the 19th century, world's fairs became a fact of life in many parts of the world. By the end of the century, American historian and cultural critic Henry Adams argued there was indeed a "religion of world's fairs." These international expositions, as sites of pilgrimages not only informed people's perception of the world but also were ideal stages for young countries to showcase their achievements, to attract investors and to craft a national identity. Students will examine the rise of exhibitionary culture and the construction of patriotic histories and national symbols, the manufacturing of racial ideologies and otherness, and how these were all embedded in debates on civilization, modernity and progress.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 49IR Independent Research for Capstone
This course is to be taken in addition to any Advanced Seminar for which a student registers. Course is 1 unit.
Credit 1 unit. EN: H
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L22 History 49JK Advanced Seminar: Blood & Sacred Bodies: Ritual Murder & Host Desecration Accusations
This seminar follows the history of the Ritual Murder and Host Desecration accusations from the origins in 12th and 13th century Europe to the 20th century. It pays close attention to the social and political functions of the narratives; their symbolic importance in Christianity's salviric drama; attacks on such beliefs from both within and outside the community of the faithful; the suppression and decline of the ritual murder accusation; the integration of Jews into European societies in the 19th century; and the reappearance of the blood libel in the aftermath of emancipation.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 49KK Advanced Seminar: The U.S. in Afghanistan: Origins, Developments, Consequences
This course offers a historical examination and analysis of America's involvement in Afghanistan from the Cold War through the present, focusing in particular on the US War in Afghanistan from 2001 onward. Special attention will be given to political, military, diplomatic and economic dynamics as well as to international relationships, the experience of war and the subsequent developments upon both American and Afghani societies. Major topics covered include US covert operations against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s; revolution, civil war and the rise of the Taliban during the 1990s; 9/11 and the War on Terror; national building and stability measures during the early 2000s and subsequent security threats in the form of an insurgency, warlords, drug gangs, criminal networks and the al-Qaeda alliance of terrorist organizations; the key roles played by Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, China and Central Asian states; the Obama surge and counterinsurgency operations starting in 2009; the soldier's experience, special forces, and covert operations; prisoners, torture and human rights abuses; the end of NATO's mission in 2014 and subsequent developments: the Ghani government, the return of the Taliban, the arrival of ISIS, the peace process, the U.S. drawdown and the elusive quest for peace and stability in Afghanistan. This is a capstone course open to history majors only. This course fulfills the History major capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 49MB Advanced Seminar: Women and Gender in Modern Caribbean History
This course will highlight women in the "making" of Caribbean history, and it will consider how "men" and "women" were made in the English-speaking Caribbean from emancipation (1838) to the present. We will explore women and gender issues within the context of significant political shifts including the transition from slavery to wage and indentured labor, the labor rebellions of the 1930s, the rise of labor unions and political parties, anti-colonial activism, decolonization and nationalism. The course will also situate the Caribbean within an international context, paying attention to migration, black internationalism and the Third World movement.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD BU: IS EN: H
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L22 History 49MG Advanced Seminar: Planning Global Cities
This team-taught advanced seminar will address the history and theory of a variety of metropolitan environments from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Readings will move from the nineteenth century state-centered urbanism of Paris of Vienna, through the colonial remaking of cities like Manila or Caracas and their connections to urban reform and the City Beautiful movement in the U.S., then through the rise of planning, zoning, auto-centered cities, federal interventions like urban renewal, the emergence of the preservation movement and new urbanisnm.
Credit 3 units.
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L22 History 49NR Advanced Seminar: Egypt and the Arab Spring: Middle Eastern Revolution in Historical Perspective
The uprisings of the "Arab Spring" of 2011 captivated global media and observers. The movements brought down established regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Egypt. The focus of this course will be to understand the historical background and primary contemporary issues that have shaped Egypt's Arab Spring, and to examine the huge popular effort to document Egypt's revolution. Each student will design, research, and write a 25-page paper on a topic of his/her choice related to the Arab Spring.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 49PK Advanced Seminar: The Founding Fathers' Government in an Electronic Age
This is a research seminar that examines how Americans sought to translate their notions of government into a realistic set of priorities and a functioning set of public institutions. Extending from 1789 through the 1820s, this course investigates how the federal government came into being, what it did, and who populated the civilian and military rank of American officialdom. This is also a course in digital history. Students will create new knowledge through their own contributions to an ongoing digital project that seeks to reconstitute the early federal workforce. In the process, students will learn a variety of digital techniques, ranging from encoding languages to electronic systems to software packages.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H
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L22 History 49SA Advanced Seminar: Slavery in America: The Politics of Knowledge Production
TThis course focuses on the long history of chattel slavery in North America, from origins through emancipation, encompassing Black and Indigenous enslavement. The course foregrounds the struggles over power, over life and death, that were at the heart of slavery's traumatic and grotesquely violent two-hundred-fifty-year career in North America, with attention to hemispheric context. At the same time, it highlights the fiercely contested historical battleground where scholars have argued about how to define American slavery--as a system or site of labor, production, and reproduction; law, property, and dispossession; racial and gender domination; sexual violation, rape, and incest; psychological terror and social death; containment and marooning; selfhood and nationality; agency and resistance; anti-colonial and revolutionary liberation and millennial redemption. Finally, it engages the "politics of knowledge production" that have produced the slavery "archive," replete with its annihilating silences, repressions, and erasures, and overdetermined "presences." In the end, the course's overarching question is how the politics of slavery, of its material experiences, interpretations, and archives, have shaped the lives and afterlives of slavery and race, to the present day. Students will conduct original research on topics related to North American slavery in consultation with the instructor that will culminate in a 12-15-page final essay. The course includes attention to the role of slavery in the founding and development of Washington University, and research projects that engage the University's slavery "archive" and questions related to enslavement in the history of the University and/or the history of St. Louis are welcome and will be supported by Olin Library Special Collections and other resources. Modern, U.S. PREREQUISITE: SEE HISTORY HEADNOTE.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD BU: BA, ETH, HUM EN: H
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L22 History 49SC Advanced Seminar: Inventing India
From Christopher Columbus' misguided search for a mythical notion of India, to the Incredible India branding campaign launched by the Indian State's Department of Tourism, to the allure of yoga and true love, the notion of "India" has its own history. In this Advanced Seminar we trace the invention of India - as a concept - over time. We'll learn how the fabrication of India has proceeded through the centuries, and how the many meanings of "India" coalesce, nimbly side-stepping any popular or professional narrative of Indian history. Mobilizing an array of interdisciplinary tools, we will plot how the fetishization of "India" has itself become a flexible industry, how the management of Indian exceptionalism drives caste expansion. We'll study how the process renders certain subject positions and hierarchies as neutral and hegemonic while violently discarding others; how "India" is a product collectively manufactured, circulated, and consumed by a range of people around the world; the very real work of translation in bringing "India" into our everyday lives and imaginaries. This course fulfills the History major capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L22 History 49TP Advanced Seminar: Whose Nairobi? Opportunity and Inequality in a Twentieth Century African City
Visitors to East Africa often hear the cautionary refrain, "Nairobi is not Kenya." But over the past century, Kenya's largest city has meant distinctly different things to distinctly different people. Starting as a simple railway camp in the late nineteenth century, and shaped by decades of colonial racial and ethnic segregation, it has grown into a global "mega-city," where Kenyans from every background and every corner of the country interact with an equally diverse cast of foreigners. Focusing on the realities of the day-to-day, this research seminar deploys a wide variety of historical evidence to better understand how ordinary people experienced, and were shaped by, Nairobi during the long and turbulent twentieth century. This seminar's centerpiece is an extensive and original research paper that offers students the opportunity to work a wide variety of primary sources including archives, city planning reports, maps, images of the built environment, music, material culture, memoirs and narrative fiction.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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Medical Humanities
Visit online course listings to view semester offerings for L85 MedH.
L85 MedH 130 The Art of Medicine
This interdisciplinary, cross-school course at the intersection of history, visual culture and the visual arts includes a roster of notable speakers and offers students a singular encounter with western medicine from ancient times to the present day. In tandem with the history of medicine, the course examines the capacity of the arts to frame medical practice and to raise questions and influence perceptions, both positively and negatively, of medical advancements. This course is for first-year (non-transfer) students only.
Same as I60 BEYOND 130
Credit 3 units. A&S: FYBB A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 1640 Health and Disease in World History
Health and disease are universal human experiences, yet vary profoundly across time and place. Extending from ancient times to the present, this course surveys that variety from a global perspective. We will explore medical traditions from around the world, then examine how these responded to major epidemic diseases such as the Black Death. We will study the globalization of disease and the emergence of scientific medicine after 1450, then turn to the interrelated histories of health and disease in the modern era. Throughout, we will attend carefully to how the biological aspects of health and disease have shaped world history, while at the same time exploring the powerful mediating role of social, cultural, economic, and political factors--from religious beliefs and dietary practices to inequality, poverty, empire, and war--in determining the myriad ways in which health and disease have been experienced and understood. Introductory course to the major and minor.
Same as L22 History 1640
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L85 MedH 214 Medical French
In this introductory course to the "Français Professionnel de la Santé" track (French for Medical Professionals), students will be exposed to medical terminology and practices as well as to health-related issues in France and the Francophone world (Quebec, Haiti, West and North Africa). Using an interactive approach based on real life situations, students will learn to perform various medical tasks such as writing a prescription, advising a patient, or presenting a humanitarian project to potential donors. Medical vocabulary and pre-professional oral and written expression will be enhanced throughout the course. Students will acquire the necessary tools to perform their tasks, preparing them for further coursework in the FPS track, the Diplôme de français professionnel de la santé, and the France for the Pre-Med study abroad program in Nice. Prereq: Fr 203D or equivalent (this class can replace Fr 204D).
Same as L34 French 214
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, LS Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 233F Biomedical Ethics
A critical examination, in the light of contemporary moral disagreements and traditional ethical theories, of some of the moral issues arising out of medical practice and experimentation in our society. Issues that might be discussed include euthanasia, genetic engineering, organ transplants, medical malpractice, the allocation of medical resources, and the rights of the patient.
Same as L30 Phil 233F
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 248 Religion, Health, and Wellness in Modern America
Religion, Health, and Wellness in Modern America will examine changing conceptions of health and wellness in America from the late nineteenth-century to the present. With media, artifacts, and literature drawn from the histories of medicine, religion, and capitalism, this class will cover the proliferation of alternative health regimens, the rise of the medical establishment, claims of divine healing, and the impact of market forces on wellness cultures. Course topics include the raced and gendered dynamics of care, socioeconomic status, technological innovation and media, the role of nature, health activism and radical self-care, and New Age spirituality and mental health. Special attention will be paid to how the politics of the body and its regulation intersect with religious and consumer practices in the modern wellness industry
Same as L57 RelPol 248
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 3001 Philosophy of Medicine
Philosophy of Medicine is an investigation into what doctors know and how they know it. This course will investigate the following questions: What is disease? What is health? How do we classify disease? What counts as good evidence and good evidential reasoning in medicine? Is medicine a science? If so, what makes it distinctive as a science? What kinds of evidential roles do case studies play in medicine? How should we measure and compare outcomes in clinical trials and in systematic reviews? What is the appropriate relationship between medicine and the basic sciences or between medicine and the public health sciences (e.g., epidemiology, biostatistics, economics, behavioral science)? What role, if any, should private industry (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurance industry) play in shaping the practice of medicine? How should we define and measure "effectiveness" in medicine? Do values inform decision making about health policy, and, if so, how? The overall goal of the course is to develop a reasoned, reflective approach to research and practice in medicine through the critical analysis of texts and case studies in the history of medicine. Students do not need a background in philosophy to take this course. This course is intended to be of special interest to pre-health professionals and to philosophy and science majors. For graduate students in philosophy, this course satisfies the seminar requirement. Extra assignments will be provided to satisfy graduate course work; students should consult the instructor for details.
Same as L30 Phil 3001
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 301R Historical Methods - European History
This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Same as L22 History 301R
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HEU, HSM
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L85 MedH 3033 Religion and Healing
This course explores the relationship between religion and healing through historical and comparative study of Christian, Jewish and other religious traditions. We will examine how specific religious worldviews influence conceptions of the body and associated healing practices, how states of health and disease are identified and invested with religious significance, and how religious thought contributed to and coexisted alongside the growth of modern Western medicine. While much of the course will draw on specific case studies, students will be encouraged to pursue their own interests in the area of religion and healing through final projects.
Same as L23 Re St 3033
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 3041 Making Sex and Gender: Understanding the History of the Body
This course provides an overview of history of the body in Europe and the United States from medieval to modern times using feminist and queer theoretical frameworks. We explore the shifting authority in defining a "normal" body as the fields of medicine and science become professionalized, the cultural interaction with science and medicine in the modern era, and how aesthetics and popular perception of science inform the notion of ideal body, gender, race, sex, and sexuality in the modern era. Prerequisite: Any -100 or -200 level Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course or permission of instructor.
Same as L77 WGSS 3041
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 3044 Humors, Pox, and Plague: Medieval and Early Modern Medicine
This course examines how people thought about, experienced, and managed disease in the medieval and early modern periods. Students will consider developments in learned medicine alongside the activities of a diverse range of practitioners-e.g. surgeons, empirics, quacks, midwives, saints, and local healers-involved in the business of curing a wide range of ailments. Significant attention will be paid to the experiences of patients and the social and cultural significance of disease. Major topics include: the rise and fall of humoral medicine; religious explanations of illness; diseases such as leprosy, syphilis, and plague; the rise of anatomy; herbs and pharmaceuticals; the experience of childbirth; and the emergence of identifiably "modern" institutions such as hospitals, the medical profession, and public health. The focus will be on Western Europe but we'll also consider developments in the Islamic world and the Americas.
Same as L22 History 3044
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 3067 Current Topics in the History of Medicine
Mental health -- its diagnosis, social implications, and experience -- is a central and increasingly visible part of the practice of medicine. This course explores "madness." How have different societies explained and responded to states of mind, behavior, and emotion judged to be unreasonable? What role has medicine played in framing understandings about mental disorders and their management? During this course we will engage these questions, charting the shifting experience of mental illness roughly from the Middle Ages to the present. Themes covered include: religious models of madness; humoral medicine and disorders such as melancholy; the pre-modern madhouse and the emergence of the modern asylum; the history of psychiatry; the insanity defense in the courtroom; patient autobiography; gender, race, and mental health.
Same as L22 History 3067
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 307 Writing and Medicine
Same as L13 Writing 307
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 310 From Hysteria to Hysterectomy: Women's Health Care in America
This course examines issues surrounding women's health care in America. While the scope is broad, the major emphasis will be on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through an examination of popular writing, scientific/medical writing, letters, diaries, and fiction, we will look at the changing perceptions and conceptions of women's bodies and health in America.
Same as L77 WGSS 310
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SC Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S
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L85 MedH 3141 The Racial and Sexual Politics of Public Health
Race and sexuality have long been concerns of public health. From hygienic campaigns against Mexican immigrants in early-1900s California to the 1991 quarantine of Haitian refugees with HIV at Guantanamo Bay, race and sexuality have proven crucial to how society identifies health and, by extension, determines who is fit to be a citizen. This interdisciplinary course interrogates the intersections of race, sexuality, and medicine, discussing how each domain has been constitutive of the other in the American context. Via feminist and queer theorizing, we will examine the political and economic factors under which diseases, illnesses, and health campaigns have impacted racial and sexual minorities over the last two centuries. An orienting question for the course is the following: How has the state wielded public health as a regulatory site to legitimatize perceived racial differences and to regulate ostensible sexual deviations? Through primary and secondary sources, we will likewise explore the various forms of "health activism" undertaken by these very same targeted populations. Themes to be addressed will include the medicalization of racial and sexual difference; activism both in and against health institutions; and the roles of race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability in contemporary health issues. Case studies include the Tuskegee syphilis experiment; the sterilization of black, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Native American women; the medicalization of homosexuality during the Cold War; and the role of mass incarceration in the diffusion of HIV. At a moment in time when access to health continues to be shaped by categories of social difference, understanding the role of public health in the normalization and subversion of racial and sexual hierarchies in the West is more pertinent than ever.
Same as L77 WGSS 3141
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SC Arch: SEM, SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S
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L85 MedH 316 Gender and Health
In this class, we will identify and study a broad range of health issues and experiences within the context of gender and sexuality. The course will focus both on the health care system and lived, lay experiences of health and wellbeing. Topics will include discussions on mental health, reproductive issues, caregiving, and survivorship, as well as the politics of health and gender, the role of health and care in activism, gender differences in health status, and the impact of race and socioeconomic status on health. Prerequisties: any 100- or 200-level Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course or permission from the instructor. If you have taken L77 316 Contemporary Women's Health, you may not register for this course. Waitlists controlled by Department; priority given to WGSS majors. Enrollment capped at 20.
Same as L77 WGSS 316
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SC, SD Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S
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L85 MedH 323 Topics II: In-Perspective: Phobias
Focusing on topics of cultural and social importance, this course offer students the opportunity to learn about defining moments in the French tradition. The specific topic of the course will vary from semester to semester, and may include works from different disciplines, such as art, film, gender studies, history, literature, music, philosophy, politics, science.Prereq: Fr 307D.
Same as L34 French 322
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, LS BU: ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 353 Medical Spanish
Designed for future medical professionals, this course will provide students with a complete vocabulary and cultural sensitivity necessary for treating Spanish-speaking patients. While the main focus is oral/aural, written exams, varied reading and some research are required. Volunteer work recommended for enrolled students. Advanced students will be given priority. Prereq: Span 307D or 302.
Same as L38 Span 353
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 360 Trans Studies
This course surveys the interdisciplinary field of trans studies by emphasizing how trans identities, activism, and scholarship are intertwined with broader histories of gender, sexuality, race, disability, and class. Students will explore the vibrant intellectual, political, and cultural productions of trans people. The primary geographic focus for the course is the United States, but we will situate U.S. trans studies within broader conversations about gender variance transnationally. While attention will be paid to understanding how transphobia operates, the course emphasizes thinking through the possibilities afforded by trans histories of resistance and refusal.
Same as L77 WGSS 360
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L85 MedH 366 Art and the Mind-Brain
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the bearing of cognitive science on the perception and understanding of art. This interest has roots in tradition: historically, art, aesthetics, and vision science have often been linked. But the growth of knowledge in cognitive science has opened up new opportunities for understanding art and addressing philosophical questions. The converse is also true. The production, perception, and understanding of art are human capacities that can shed light on the workings of the mind and brain. This course considers questions such as: What is art? How do pictures represent? Does art express emotion? Why does art have a history? Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 100 or 200-level, or permission of the instructor. Priority given to majors in Philosophy & PNP.
Same as L30 Phil 366
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 3672 Medicine, Healing and Experimentation in the Contours of Black History
Conversations regarding the history of medicine continue to undergo considerable transformation within academia and the general public. The infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment serves as a marker in the historical consciousness regarding African Americans and the medical profession. This course taps into this particular evolution, prompting students to broaden their gaze to explore the often delicate relationship of people of African descent within the realm of medicine and healing. Tracing the social nature of these medical interactions from the period of enslavement through the 20th century, this course examines the changing patterns of disease and illness, social responses to physical and psychological ailments, and the experimental and exploitative use of black bodies in the field of medicine. As a history course, the focus will be extended towards the underpinnings of race and gender in the medical treatment allocated across time and space--the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America--to give further insight into the roots of contemporary practice of medicine.
Same as L22 History 3672
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 3801 Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine
This course introduces students to the practice and theory of medicine in the ancient Mediterranean, beginning in Egypt and continuing through Greece and Rome. It ends in the Middle Ages. Greco-Roman medicine will be our focus. How was disease understood by practitioners and, as far as can be reconstructed, by laypeople? What form did surgical, pharmacological, and dietitic treatment take? What were the intellectual origins of Greek medicine? The social status of medical practitioners? How was medicine written and in what terms did its practitioners conceive it?"
Same as L08 Classics 3801
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L85 MedH 385 What is Medical Humanities?
What is medical humanities? What are its core questions and methods? When and how did the field emerge? To whom does it matter and why? These questions will ground our exploration of recent work in medical humanities. We begin with readings chosen by the instructor to illuminate various humanistic methods (e.g., historical, literary, philosophical) and their approach to recurrent topics and problems in the field (e.g., the doctor-patient relationship, illness as experience, the social construction of disease, health inequality, medicalization). In the second part of the course, students will be guided in co-writing and co-teaching the rest of the syllabus. Students will finish the class able to provide their own definition of medical humanities and to explain the field's origins and concerns as well as why and to whom the field matters. Enrollment preference will be given to students who have already declared the minor in medical humanities.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 391W Literature and Medicine
Same as L14 E Lit 391W
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 399 Independent Work in Medical Humanities
This designation can be used for independent studies and reading courses in medical humanities. It requires prior approval from the director of the medical humanities minor.
Credit variable, maximum 3 units.
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L85 MedH 39SM Women and Crime in the Evolution of American History
Crime happens. Property is damaged and stolen, lives are lost, and law, order, and justice evolves. This course taps into that ongoing reality by centering the herstorical evolution of female crime, highlighting women and girls of many kinds across time and spaces of America. It moves across centuries (through to the contemporary period) probing within and far beyond icons to unveil the gendered nature of crime and moreover to empower students to see and trace everyday female criminality that ignited across racial, ethnic, as well as lines of age in the winding path of American history. While men and boys dominate public and even scholarly expectations of crime and carceral conversations for many, students will leave this course with a far more rigorous understanding of the herstories gained by taking serious the types of crimes that women and girls acted out by exploring: robbery, assault, infanticide, larceny, murder, arson, prostitution, serial killers, and drug-related crimes. As well as going further to probe state and federal power through carceral medicine - showing the interior world of female prisoners, physicians, the movement of females into "asylums'' and mental state hospitals, incarceration based on "insanity" while going further to examine births, illnesses, and death of women and teens in jails and prisons. Students will be likewise pushed to engage America's timeline of race, gender, and executions that includes women and girls. Racialized and gendered criminality, law enforcement violence, healthcare and deathcare in prisons are critical public health issues that students can better understand the complicated evolutions by deeply probing the herstorical lives of women, girls, and crime through this course. Students will read, learn, dig up the past, and write to ensure a future of herstory and remembrance.
Same as L22 History 39SM
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H
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L85 MedH 408 Disease, Madness, and Death Italian Style
Italian literary history teems with representations of illness, insanity, and death. From the ghastly 1348 plague that frames Boccaccio's Decameron to the midday madness of errant Renaissance knights, from 16th-century tales of poisoning and 19th-century Pirandellian madmen to the contemporary scourge of mafia killings, disease, madness and death are dominant facts of reality, points of view, symbols, and cultural characteristics of Italian poetry and prose. This course undertakes a pathology of these tropes in Italian literary history and seeks to understand their meaning for the changing Italian cultural identity across time and the Italian peninsula. We will read primary literary texts and view excerpts from films alongside articles focused on the cultural history of medicine, religion, and criminal justice. Taught in English. No Final.
Same as L36 Ital 408
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, LS Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, IS EN: H
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L85 MedH 414 Gender, Religion, Medicine, and Science
Have you ever wondered why some topics are argued using religion as a guide, while others may approach the topic from what is perceived as a strictly scientific point of view? This course explores how and why gender and sexuality tend to be at the center of debates that pit Medicine and Science against Religion. Using feminist and queer scholarship, this course explores five hundred years of rhetorical strategies related to defining, or regulating, gender and sexuality. We will consider how much debates have changed from sixteenth-century Europe to 21st century United States by asking when, why and how either Medicine & Science or Religion influenced social thought and laws. Finally, we will consider how, and if, contemporary debates on vaccines are either part of the long history of debating bodily autonomy (as is the case with the other topics addressed in class), or if the conflict between religion, medicine and science in the modern era is new and distinctly different from past rhetorical strategies. Prerequisite: Introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Same as L77 WGSS 414
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H
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L85 MedH 418 Sexuality and Gender in East Asian Religions
In this course we will explore the role of women in the religious traditions of China, Japan and Korea, with a focus on Buddhism, Daoism, Shamanism, Shinto and the so-called "New Religions." We will begin by considering the images of women (whether mythical or historical) in traditional religious scriptures and historical or literary texts. We will then focus on what we know of the actual experience and practice of various types of religious women - nuns and abbesses, shamans and mediums, hermits and recluses, and ordinary laywomen - both historically and in more recent times. Class materials will include literary and religious texts, historical and ethnological studies, biographies and memoirs, and occasional videos and films. Prerequisites: This class will be conducted as a seminar, with minimal lectures, substantial reading and writing, and lots of class discussion. For this reason, students who are not either upper-level undergraduates or graduate students, or who have little or no background in East Asian religion or culture, will need to obtain the instructor's permission before enrolling.
Same as L23 Re St 418
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 420 Nature, Technology, and Medicine in Korea
This course examines the cultural history of modern Korea with a focus on science, technology, and medicine. From about 1500 to the present, a number of hugely consequential things happened in Korea that have been called revolutionary-or what historians dub "early modern" and "modern." Confucian kings planned large-scale projects that changed nature, rustic scholars made inventories of flora and fauna, colonial Koreans became biologists, nurses, and "Edisons," and in North and South Korea, new professionals created distinctive-and in some cases, globally-competitive-regimes of knowing, making, and healing. Students will interrogate these developments as an opportunity to revisit the history of modernity, which has been told predominantly from the perspective of the West. What does it mean to be "modern" in Korea? How did that modernity intersect with Korean science, technology, and medicine? Students will find and articulate their own answers by writing the final research paper. Recommended to have taken Korean Civilization or equivalent course that provides basic working knowledge of Korean history. Course also counts as an EALC capstone course. Prerequisite: junior level or above or permission of instructor.
Same as L81 EALC 420
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H
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L85 MedH 4601 Historical Racial Violence: Legacies & Reckonings
There is growing awareness of the legacies of historical racial violence in the United States and a related increase in reckoning efforts. Area histories of enslavement, lynching, and other racial terror and dispossession relate to inequality, conflict, and violence in the same places today. These 'haunting legacies' include heart disease and other health disparity, homicide rates, white supremacist mobilization, and corporal punishment in schools. Meanwhile, many communities and institutions are moving to acknowledge and address legacies of historical racial violence in various ways. This course combines seminar-style readings and writing on legacies of racial violence with a practicum component, where individual students or groups of students will conceptualize and develop interventions intended to clarify and disrupt legacies of racial violence, facilitating contemporary reckoning. The practicum will explore and support a broad range of interventive efforts, including public policy measures, original research projects, archival development, commemorative efforts, and a related array of mediums, including visual art, design, film, digital projects, and other creative approaches.
Same as L90 AFAS 4601
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC, SC, SD Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S
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L85 MedH 4647 Ancient Madness
In this course we will ask what madness meant in Greek and Roman culture. We will find reading strategies that are sensitive both to ancient evidence and to the ethical demands of talking about, evaluating, and categorizing people treated as mad. While we will concentrate on literary (particularly tragic and epic), philosophical, and medical texts, we will also look at visual representations and evidence from ritual and cult. An important part of our project will involve tracing the afterlife of classical ideas: the history of melancholia will ground this aspect of the course. Finally, we will consider how antiquity informs psychoanalysis (Oedipus, Antigone, Narcissus), and how ancient madness might partake in a critique of contemporary understandings of mental illness.
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L85 MedH 4700 Ancient Greek and Roman Gynecology
This course examines gynecological theory and practice in ancient Greece and Rome, from about the 5th century BCE to the 3rd century CE. The task is complicated by the nature of our evidence. Our surviving textual sources are authored exclusively by men, mainly physicians. They have a pronounced tendency to conceptualize the health and disease in terms of a single body, which was male by default. They distinguished female bodies from male primarily in reproductive aspects. How exactly did these physicians understand diseases of women and, as far as can be recovered, to what extent were their views represented among laypeople? What form did treatment take and what was the social status of practitioners, both that of our extant sources and female practitioners whose voices have largely been silenced by the textual tradition? We will approach the study of Greek and Roman gynecology, first from the perspective of Greco-Roman medical views, then from the point of view of contemporary Western biomedicine. The limited nature of our sources will allow students to read the majority of surviving material. These primary readings will be accompanied by current secondary scholarship that explores these fascinating and often frustrating questions about the female body in ancient medical thought. All primary materials will be available in English translation. There will be an option for students with a background in Greek or Latin to form a satellite reading group. The course does not assume familiarity with Greek and Roman medicine more broadly.
Same as L08 Classics 4700
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 471 Galen's "On Prognosis": A Social History of Medicine in Second-Century Rome
Galen of Pergamum was a Greek physician, philosopher, and intellectual active throughout most of the second century CE. He was also a voracious reader and writer of Greek literature; his surviving work far exceeds the extant output of any other Greek author before the third century CE. In this course, we will be reading Galen's treatise "On Prognosis," in which he recounts his career in the city of Rome, from his arrival in the early 160s through his tenure as an imperial physician to at least the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. While ostensibly a medical account, "On Prognosis" has little to say on technical medical issues. Rather, Galen's story is a carefully constructed professional autobiography that pivots from searing denouncements of Roman life to tense public performances of medical expertise and finally to intimate case histories of Rome's rich and powerful. The text presents us a fascinating window through which to examine not only the social practice of elite medicine in Rome of the second century but also the complicated experience of a Greek intellectual navigating the corridors of the Imperial court. Course goals include improving accuracy and speed in reading Greek prose, acquiring greater familiarity with intellectual discourse of the Imperial Period, and training in methods of research and writing.
Same as L09 Greek 471
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, LS BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L85 MedH 4881 Advanced Seminar: Mad: Mental Illness, Power and Resistance in Africa and the Caribbean
This seminar explores the history of mental illness in Africa and the Caribbean during the colonial and post-colonial periods. We will be guided by the following questions: What is mental illness? How do social, cultural and political realities affect how mental illness is defined? Should mental illness always be analyzed within a specific cultural context? How did psychiatry factor into the efforts of European colonizers to maintain social order in their colonies? How have colonized people resisted colonial notions of madness? What is the place of religion in these histories? How did mental institutions change after the end of colonial rule and how was post-colonial Caribbean and African psychiatry harnessed in service of decolonization? The course will pay special attention to how European colonial powers employed similar understandings of blackness across regions as they formulated ideas concerning the black populations they deemed "mad" across Africa and the Caribbean.
Same as L22 History 4881
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD EN: H
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L85 MedH 4885 Advanced Seminar: Medicine, Disease, and Empire
This course examines the history of medicine in connection to the politics of colonialism and empire-building, spanning the sixteenth century through the twentieth century. Topics covered include: epidemic disease outbreaks (e.g. smallpox, cholera, malaria); the role of science and medicine in endorsing the "civilizing missions" of empires; tropical climates and tropical diseases as western constructs; tensions between western medicine and indigenous healing practices and beliefs; ideas of race and racism in science and medicine; modern advancements in sanitation and public health and their implementation overseas; and the historical roots of the modern global health movement.
Same as L22 History 4885
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H
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L85 MedH 491 Staging Illness
"Suddenly some force struck him in the chest and side, making it still harder to breathe, and he fell through the hole and there at the bottom was a light." This quotation, from Tolstoi's story "The Death of Ivan Ilych," offers an example of how artists have employed serious or life-threatening diseases as a means of illuminating both physical suffering and spiritual rebirth. Even as it invades the body and isolates us from our fellow man, illness may offer opportunities for spiritual growth and renewal, serving as an apt metaphor for human survival in times of extremis. In her brilliant essay, "Illness as Metaphor" (1978), Susan Sontag takes issue with how illnesses like tuberculosis were misunderstood or even romanticized during the 19th century in works like Dumas's "Camille" and Puccini's "La Boheme." During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, American artists -- particularly theatre artists, whose communities were decimated by the disease -- were forced to consider how this global pandemic impacted their lives, especially at a time when the term AIDS was not even mentioned by the President of the United States. In conjunction with the Performing Arts Department's 25th anniversary production of Tony Kushner's extraordinary play, "Angels in America, Part 1, Millennium Approaches," this new course examines how disease has been a focal point of artistic inquiry over the course of centuries. By examining works that are focused on illness throughout history, the seminar offers both a deeper understanding of and context for Kushner's masterpiece and the AIDS crisis, and it considers how illness has always been an important subject for the investigation of what it means to be fully human.
Same as L15 Drama 491
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: CPSC, HUM BU: HUM EN: H
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L85 MedH 495 PNP Seminar
Subject varies per semester. Not always offered as writing intensive, refer to individual semester listing. Prerequisite: A 300 level Philosophy course (Phil/PNP 315 is recommended); and PNP Major standing or approval of Instructor.
Same as L64 PNP 495
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: SSC Arch: SSC Art: SSC EN: S
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L85 MedH 4990 Advanced Seminar: History of the Body
Do bodies have a history? Recent research suggests that they do. Historians have tapped a wide variety of sources - including vital statistics, paintings and photographs, hospital records, and sex manuals - to reconstruct changes in how humans have conceptualized and experienced their own bodies. We will pay particular attention to the intersection of European cultural history and history of medicine since 1500. This course fulfills the History major capstone requirement as an Advanced Seminar.
Same as L22 History 4990
Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H
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