All Course Descriptions for History Courses

Revised: Fall 2007

KEY:	E European	P Pre-Modern
	US United States	Non Non-Western

P	101 / Ancient Warfare (Timothy Howe) This seminar examines the social and political role of warfare in ancient Greek and Roman history. Students investigate the concepts of war and peace by considering the role of the soldier within society, details of tactics and logistics, and the impact of warfare on both combatants and non-combatants alike. The seminar uses primary sources to examine these themes. Offered periodically.
E P	111 / Viking and Medieval Scandinavia (Todd Nichol) A survey of Nordic history from the time of the Viking expansion to the period of the Kalmar Union. Topics include Viking expansion and conquest; Nordic cultural and religious life; the coming of Christianity; the sagas and other literary sources; later medieval developments. Offered most years.
E P	115 / Courtly Love in the Middle Ages (Laurel Carrington) The idea of courtly love typically evokes images of brave knights and fair ladies vowing eternal devotion in elegant language. How such a concept took hold in the early 12th century, and what the consequences have been for people of that time to the present, is the subject of our inquiry. This course explores the ideal of courtly love, its social function, its role in literature, the arts, and music, its ambiguous relationship to Christianity and to the feudal system, and finally, its critics, through interpretive reading of texts from the period supplemented by background lectures and readings from secondary sources. Offered most years.
E	121 / The Making of Modern Russia (Anna Kuxhausen) This course explores the origins of the modern Russian empire. Using primary sources including chronicles, folktales, legal codes, letters, and religious icons, students consider Russia’s development from a loose collection of princedoms into a powerful, multi-ethnic empire spanning 11 time zones. Topics include the impact of geography and climate, the Orthodox religion, Mongol rule, gender roles, the rise of autocracy, and social rebellion.
E	122 / Europe and the Great War (Dolores Peters) This course looks beyond the traditional diplomatic and military history of World War I to consider the social, cultural, and intellectual contexts that made it the "Great War" to contemporaries. We analyze poems, novels, films, memoirs, official documents, newspapers, posters, and scholarly works to answer the following questions: How did ideas from the late nineteenth century influence the way Europeans thought about the war that began in August 1914? What was life like in the trenches and on the home front, and how did these realities change the way in which Europeans understood modern war? What differences did class and gender make in an individual's experience of the war? How did these different experiences influence postwar expectations? What is the larger significance of the Great War for modern society?

Non P	125 / The Maya: Colonial Times to the Present (Jeane DeLaney) This course examines the history of the Maya peoples from the colonial to the present. Drawing upon missionary accounts, archeological sources, and historical and anthropological works, students explore how the Maya – despite the multiple traumas of conquest, demographic collapse, and state repression – have managed to survive as a people. Specific topics include: Maya religious beliefs, the impact of Spanish conquest, changing sources of ethnic identity, and the emerging Pan-Maya movement of recent years. Offered periodically.
Non	135 / Vietnam (Robert Entenmann) This seminar places the American experience in Vietnam in the Vietnamese historical context. By examining and interpreting primary sources, students examine the heritage of Vietnamese culture and society, French colonial rule, nationalism and the struggle for independence, Communism and the Cold War, the causes and consequences of the American role in Vietnam, and the effect of the war on Laos and Cambodia. Emphasis on interpreting primary sources. Offered periodically.
Non P	150 / Life History of African Women ( ) This course offers an introduction to personal narrative as a form of historical expression. Reading includes several published life histories of African women, along with examples of African women’s auto-biography. Students learn about the lives of African women through their own stories, and they examine the process through which these stories are made available to us.
US P	161 / Race and Culture in Early North America (Steven Hahn) This seminar examines the interaction of Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans in early America from first encounters through the Seven Years War (1500-1763). Topics include race war and Native American resistance, the origins of American slavery, the transformation of European culture, and the development of colonial societies. Students work with primary documents and secondary sources that demonstrate a variety of methods and approaches. Offered periodically.
US P	162 / American Revolution (Steven Hahn) This course focuses upon the American Revolution as a crucible of cultural change. Students work with primary documents and secondary sources that address significant topics: social change in 18th-century North America; the politics of resistance and revolution; war and American culture; the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; the emergence of American democracy; and “outsiders” such as loyalists, Native Americans, women, and African-Americans. Offered periodically.
US P	165 / Slavery in the Americas (Michael Fitzgerald) This seminar, using only eyewitness accounts, examines African slavery in the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Typical readings include the narrative of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, and the writings of slave-holders like Mary Chesnut. Topics include the slave trade, the origins of African-American culture, women and slavery, and the origins of the Civil War. The course concludes with an examination of the process of emancipation. Offered periodically.

US P	167 / Trail of Tears (Steven Hahn) This course examines the origin and lasting effects of the Indian Removals of the 1830s. Topics covered include the culture and history of the Native peoples of the Eastern woodlands, U.S.-Indian policy, frontier life in the early U.S. Republic, and the life and personal involvement of Andrew Jackson. Students read from a wide variety of secondary literature and primary source material, and have the opportunity to conduct their own research. Offered periodically.
US	168 / RØlvaag’s America (Todd Nichol) On the basis of selected works of O.E. Rølvaag, including Giants in the Earth, this course considers the literature and history of Norwegian America in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. For the sake of comparison students also read selections from other Norwegian and Norwegian-American authors. Topics for consideration include ecology, family, gender, agriculture, economics, technology, urbanization, religion, immigration, ethnicity, and American pluralism. Offered periodically.
US	169 / The Norweigan-American Experience (Todd Nichol) Students examine Norwegians in the U.S., 1820s to the 1990s, focusing upon the interplay of a transplanted set of values and cultural expressions with the demands of American life. Topics include mass emigration, adaptation to the new land, geographic patterns of settlement, political participation, religious life, education, the press, and literature. Comparisons are drawn to other ethnic groups in the U.S. Offered during Interim.
US	175 / American Consumer Culture (James Farrell) The Mall of America is the result of more than 150 years of American history. This seminar traces the history of American consumer culture from Victorianism to Victoria’s Secret. Students explore the histories of advertising, work and play, individualism and changing conceptions of the self, the economy, gender roles and changing sexual mores, and developing representations of class and race to see how they affect the buying and selling of goods and conceptions of the good life in places like the Mall of America. Offered periodically.
US	176 / U.S. Culture. Ethnicity and Immigration ( ) The immigration of people from around the globe has been central to the making of the United States. The course examines how this experience has shaped ethnic and racial identities, neighborhoods and cities, workplaces, politics, and culture. Students focus especially on the dawn of the 20th and 21st centuries, as the immigrants’ point of origin has shifted increasingly from Europe to Latin America and Asia. Offered periodically.
US	181 / Civil Rights Revolution (Michael Fitzgerald) Students examine the overthrow of American segregation through several decades of agitation for civil rights. This seminar focuses primarily on the South, though students also discuss northern race relations. Primary accounts from the era constitute the assigned readings. Among the topics covered are the segregated South, Martin Luther King and his critics, the Black Power movement, and the rise of white backlash politics. Offered periodically.

US	182 / America since World War II (Judy Kutulas) This Seminar examines American Society since 1945, with particular emphasis on the years between 1945 and 1975. The main focus is social history. Topics include the impact of the Cold War, migration to the suburbs, post-industrial society, the culture of the 1950’s, civil rights, the Vietnam War, the student movement, the sexual revolution, and Watergate. Sources include novels, essays, magazine stories, films, and documentaries. Offered most years.
US	183 / Cynicism and Hope in Modern America (Eric Fure-Slocum) Cynicism has shaped American politics and society in the last decades of the 20th century. Concerns about public distrust, alienation, and civic decline reflect long-standing anxieties about American democracy. This course examines the history of cynicism and democratic hope, exploring how politics, public life, and citizenship have been understood, practiced, and contested in the 19th and 20th centuries. Offered periodically.
US	188 A/ Environmental Discourse (Brett Werner) This course focuses on developments in American environmental discourse during the 19th and 20th centuries, including institutional histories (policy, environmental organizations, political speech), intellectual histories (ecology, climatology, Romanticism), and the history of creative expression (nature writing) in America. Students will consider key issues in federal environmental protection, the narratives of apocalyptic/crisis rhetoric, trends toward environmental health and justice discourse, and the role of storytelling in public discourse. Throughout the course, students will examine primary sources (speeches, essays, legislation), and with the help of diverse secondary sources, students will work to contextualize, complexify, and understand the larger meaning of environmental discourse.
E P	188 B & C / Jihad and Crusade (Timothy Smit) S2008 This course will examine the origins and development of the concepts of Christian and Islamic Holy War in the Middle Ages, focusing on the Central Middle Ages (roughly 1000-1300). During this period, Western Christians attacked and colonized lands formerly under Islamic control (Spain, Sicily, and the eastern Mediterranean) following (and continuously redefining) the precepts of Crusade, the ultimate medieval expression of Christian Holy War. Muslims, in turn, redefined their understanding of the traditions of Jihad during their counter-attack in Spain and the Levant and their ultimate re-conquest of Jerusalem and the Crusader states. We will discuss both the correlations and distinct elements between the two traditions, look at their disparate origins, and then examine the influence each had on the other as the Christian and Muslim worlds came into conflict. Although focusing on the defining medieval centuries, the chronology of the course will extend from the origins of Christianity and Islam to the siege of Vienna in 1683. Beyond learning the specifics of the subject, we will also work on learning how to do historical research, analyze primary documents, and then write about them in both formal and informal writing.
E P	190 / Europe from the Ancients to the Renaissance (multiple faculty) This course surveys Western history and culture from its origins in the Ancient Near East to the Italian Renaissance. Topics include the ancient world, the beginnings of Christianity, the emergence and disintegration of Rome as a unifying power, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Through original texts and historical studies, students explore relationships among religions, states, and societies and views of natural environments, family life, and gender roles. Offered most years.

E P

191 / Europe from the Reformation to Modern Times (Gary DeKrey) This course surveys European history and culture since the Renaissance. Topics include the impact of Protestantism, the development of nation-states, the Enlightenment, revolutionary ideas and experiences, the Napoleonic era, imperialism, mass political movements, and global warfare. Through original texts, historical studies, and literature, students explore relations among religions, states, and societies, and understandings of liberty and reason, natural environments, family life, and gender roles. GE: HWC.

Non P

194 / Global Histories from Ancient Times to 1500 ( ) Students use original texts, historical studies, and literature to examine, comparatively and chronologically, the evolution of selected cultures and societies before 1500. They explore topics such as political, cultural, and economic exchange, religious practices, human interaction with the environment, forms of political authority, family life, and gender roles. Offered most years.