92003

HIST 101

Europe from 1350-1815

Alice Stroup

T Th 10:10 am-11:30 am

OLIN 204

HIST

Who made "Europe?" How did power, wealth, and literacy spread north- and westward from the ancient near eastern and Mediterranean worlds? How did two new religions, Christianity and Islam, become established politically? How did ideology and power play out in medieval and early modern times? How did Jews, Christians, and Muslims reconcile monotheism to ancient philosophy? How, despite recurring famines and epidemics, did the "Little Ice Age" (1300-1815) yield the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment? What is the connection between the Atlantic Slave Trade (1500-1800) and the Industrial Revolution? We will read historians and historical sources to debate answers to these questions. Class size: 22

92014

HIST 110

Colonial Latin America Since Conquest

Miles Rodriguez

T Th 10:10 am-11:30 am

OLINLC 120

D+J

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Latin American & Iberian Studies This is an introductory survey of the history of Colonial Latin America since Conquest. It traces the complex processes of conquest, empire building, and the creation of many diverse, complex, and dynamic communities, societies, and cultures from the convergence of Native, European, African, and Asian peoples. The course considers peoples in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of North and South America in three centuries, from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth century, starting with the first native settlements and indigenous societies. Focusing primarily on the Conquest of Mexico, empire and indigenous society in Mesoamerica, and African slavery in Brazil, the class is based mainly on original sources like codices, native language writings, and documents on the history of Brazilian slavery. It will reflect on the peoples, places, events, as well as beliefs, cultures, and conflicts of a world different from our own to understand the historical legacies of the colonial period in contemporary Latin America. LAIS Core Course. Class size: 22

92009

HIST / JS 120

Jewishness Beyond Religion

Cecile Kuznitz

M W 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 204

D+J

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Historical Studies In the pre-modern world Jewish identity was centered on religion but expressed as well in how one made a living, what clothes one wore, and what language one spoke. In modern times Jewish culture became more voluntary and more fractured. While some focused on Judaism as (only) a religion, both the most radical and the most typical way in which Jewishness was redefined was in secular terms. In this course we will explore the intellectual, social, and political movements that led to new secular definitions of Jewish culture and identity, focusing on examples from Western and Eastern Europe and the United States. Topics will include the origins of Jewish secularization, haskalah (Jewish enlightenment) and Reform, acculturation and assimilation, modern Jewish political movements including Zionism, and Jews and the arts. In addition to secondary historical texts we will pay special attention to a wide variety of primary source documents. The class will also incorporate materials drawn from literature, film, and music. Class size: 22

92397

HIST 121

THE UNITED STATES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Holger Droessler

T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

HDR 101A

D+J

HIST

Cross-listed: American Studies; Global & International Studies Four decades into the twentieth century, LIFE magazine editor Henry Luce declared it the “American Century.” In this survey course, we will explore the different meanings Americans and people elsewhere have ascribed to Luce’s term. Over the last century, the United States has changed in dramatic ways (global power, demographics, economics), while continuing longer-standing trajectories (sense of mission, racialized citizenship, socioeconomic inequality). Our course themes include the Gilded Age, imperialism, world wars, women’s rights, the New Deal, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the expansion of the federal government, and American popular culture. On our journey through the 20^th century, we will put particular emphasis on social, cultural, and global history. Class size: 22

92000

HIST 127

IntroDUCTION TO Modern Japanese History

Robert Culp

M W 11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 205

D+J

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Asian Studies; Global & International Studies Japan in the mid-19^th century was beleaguered by British and American imperialism and rocked by domestic turmoil. How, then, did it become an emerging world power by the early 20^th century? Why did Japan’s transformations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries lead to the total war of the 1930s and 1940s? And why did the horrible destruction experienced after World War II ultimately result in rapid economic growth and renewed global importance for Japan after the 1950s? These questions provide the framework for our study of modern Japanese history. Throughout the course we will focus special attention on Japan’s distinctive urban culture, the changing role of women in Japanese society, the re-invention of Japan’s imperial institution, the domestic and international effects of Japanese imperialism, and the question of the United States’ role in Japan’s post-war reconstruction. Readings of drama, fiction, satire, and memoir will contribute to our exploration of these and other topics. No prior study of Japan is necessary; first-year students are welcome. Class size: 22

92471

HIST 185

The Making of the Modern Middle East

Ugur Pece

M W 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

RKC 103

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies In this survey course, we will discuss major transformations that the Middle East witnessed from the late 18^th century to the present. Topics include reform movements in the Ottoman Empire, European imperialism, nationalist movements (including the Arab-Israeli conflict), political Islam, military intervention, and the Arab Spring (and its aftermath). The course emphasizes the interaction between society, culture, and politics. Therefore, in addressing each of these broad themes, we will pay particular attention to their social and cultural aspects such as gender, labor, popular culture, and forms of protest. In addition to exploring modern Middle Eastern history, students will acquire critical thinking skills through examining primary documents and reflecting on the uses of history in contemporary contexts.

Class size: 22

92012

HIST 192

Topics in European History

Gregory Moynahan

T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 301

HIST

Cross-listed: Global & International Studies This course will present a thematic survey of European history in the modern period. Each week we will illuminate pivotal transformations in the era using different methodologies and forms of history, ranging from demographic and gender history to diplomatic and military history. The class will thus offer an in-depth presentation of key aspects of modernity and a survey of contemporary historiography. Issues discussed will include: the relation of the agricultural and industrial revolutions to long-term ecological and demographic change; the intensification of capitalism as the basis of social organization; the coextensive development of competing ideologies of conservatism, anarchism, socialism, communism and liberalism; the role of Europe in the global economic system, “scientific racism,” and neo-colonialism; the creation of new institutions of technological research, patent, and communication; the wars of the twentieth century, systematic genocide, and the development of a military-industrial technocracy; the transformation of the state system through the European Union; and the effect of mass media on definitions of the public sphere and political action. A rudimentary grasp of modern European history is assumed, but supplemental reading will provide a broad narrative base for students with no background in the field. This course satisfies the Historical Studies Program's historiography requirement. Class size: 20

91725

HIST / CLAS 201

Alexander the Great

James Romm

M W 11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 202

HIST

Cross-listed: Classical Studies Alexander the Great changed the world more completely than any other human being, but did he change it for the better? How should Alexander be understood -- as a tyrant of Hitlerian proportions, or as a philosopher-king seeking to save the Greek world from self-destruction, or as an utterly deluded madman? Such questions remain very much unresolved among modern historians. In this course we will attempt to find our own answers (or lack of them) after reading the ancient sources concerning Alexander and examining as much primary evidence as can be gathered. Students will attain insight not only into a cataclysmic period of history but into the moral and ideological complexities that surround the assessment of historical personality, whether in antiquity or in the modern world. No prerequisite, but students will be greatly helped by some familiarity with Greek history or civilization. Class size: 22

92006

HIST 209

Gutenberg 2.0: Making Books for Everyday Life and Ordinary People

Tabetha Ewing

T Th 4:40 pm-6:00 pm

OLINLC 118

HIST

Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities; French Studies; Science, Technology Society This course takes on the study of “the history of the book” examining authorship, readership, circulation, print technology, and the culture of print that papered bureaucracies and news media in the early-modern period. This field also entails broader histories of piracy, censorship, and the making of modern subjectivities. To understand the relationships of a technology to its social contexts and consequences, we will study: 1) how books were made in the early age of moveable type; and 2) how books were used to teach people how to do things in the world. With respect to the former, the course will include hands-on workshops in letterpress printing and digital book-making. Toward the latter, we will read from the how-to manuals that abounded in the period, including free-standing books and pamphlets on such diverse subjects as agriculture, conversation, cookery, fishing, medicinals, handwriting, spiritual exercises, housewifery, domestic service, fencing, witch-hunting, weaponry, shoe-making, and navigation. We will focus on the instructional articles in the first great encyclopedia project, Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres. In the spirit of this revolutionary publication, each student will re-write and re-publish a DIY encyclopedia article for the 21st-century reader, reflecting on historical changes around the book and also the connections among reading, learning, and doing. We will test how learning and using digital technologies inform our understanding of early-modern techniques for everyday life. The course includes two mandatory trips to New York City. (French language skills are welcome; they are not required). Class size: 18

92005

HIST 2110

Early Middle Ages

Alice Stroup

T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 203

HIST

Cross-listed: Classical Studies, Medieval Studies The European "middle ages" – originally so called as a term of derision – are more complex and heterogeneous than is commonly thought. This course surveys eight centuries, focused around the formation and spread of Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean, European, and Nordic worlds. Topics include religions and polities; roles of Jews and Judaism; monuments (a temple, churches, and mosques) and their meanings; and the transformations of the Mediterranean, the Near East, northern Atlantic, and Europe, 200-1000 CE. Readings include Boethius's early 6th-century Consolation of Philosophy plus modern analyses by David Abulafia, Peter Brown, David Levering Lewis, Jerrilyn Dodds, Jessica Coope, Maria Rosa Menocal, and other scholars. Class size: 22

92398

HIST 216

North America & Empire I (1600-1900)

Holger Droessler

M W 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLINLC 115

D+J

HIST

Cross-listed: American Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights In three turbulent centuries, a small British outpost in a world of indigenous peoples grew into the most powerful polity in North America. The emergence of the United States as a global power, stretching from the Atlantic across a vast continent to the Pacific, had momentous consequences for millions of people far beyond its borders. This course explores the imperial history of North America from the beginning of the 17^th to the end of the 19^th century. Among the course’s major themes are indigenous politics, cultural mixing, Atlantic slavery, capitalism, migration, and imperialism in the Pacific. Class size: 22

92015

HIST / LAIS 220

Mexican History & Culture

Miles Rodriguez

T Th 11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 203

D+J

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Latin American & Iberian Studies; Global & International Studies There is no abstract or timeless Mexican culture. Nor does Mexican history happen independently of its changing cultural contexts. This course explores the complex relationship between history and culture from Mexico’s pre-conquest indigenous origins to the Mexican Revolution and the contemporary nation-state. The course begins with Mexico’s most durable foundational myths, visions, and symbols, such as the image of an eagle grasping a serpent on a cactus on the Mexican flag and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Using primary sources like codices and native language writings as well as anthropological, historical, literary, and poetic texts, it traces the major cultural continuities and revolutions to the present. The goal of the course is to understand the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country, its vibrant history and culture, and its critical relations with the US. Special topics include the Mexican Revolution, religious devotions and wars, indigenous cultures and rights, Mexican death culture, and the Drug War. LAIS Core Course. Class size: 22

92399

HIST 223

FROM WASTELANDS TO WALMART: U. S. LABOR HISTORY IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Holger Droessler

T Th 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

RKC 103

D+J

HIST

Cross-listed: American Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights People did not discover America, they made it. This course introduces students to the history of working people in North America and beyond. We will begin with labor systems among Native American societies prior to European contact and will conclude with current debates about the future of work and capitalism in the United States and elsewhere. Topics to be discussed include theories of labor and capital, settler colonialism, indentured servitude, slavery, industrialization, socialism, the New Deal, the service economy, and global inequality. In addition to seminar readings, students will directly engage with the rich materials on labor available at Bard.

Class size: 22

92010

HIST 228

Turkey and Europe

Sean McMeekin

M W 11:50 am-1:10 pm

RKC 102

HIST

Cross-listed: Global & International Studies; Political Studies In this course, we will examine the “Eastern Question” from the Napoleonic era to the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, which fixed (most) of the post-Ottoman borders in the Middle East, at least until the rise of Islamic State. While our main focus will be on Great Power and Ottoman diplomacy, we will also pay close attention to internal developments in the Ottoman Empire, especially those brought about by (or in opposition to) European influence. We will closely examine the Ottoman role in origins and conclusion of the First World War, with an eye towards understanding the contemporary Middle Eastern predicament. In our final weeks, we will examine recent and current relations between Turkey and the European Union, including the Syrian refugee crisis. Class size: 22

92001

HIST 2302

Shanghai and Hong Kong: China’s Global cities

Robert Culp

M W 10:10 am-11:30 am

ALBEE 106

HIST

Cross-listed: Asian Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights The towering glass high-rise office buildings of Hong Kong island face the stately, colonial-era Peninsula Hotel across Victoria Harbor, and Shanghai’s new wealthy middle-class elite choose between coffee at Starbucks or cocktails on the verandas of Jazz-era villas. Shanghai and Hong Kong, as international industrial and business centers, and the main conduits for overseas direct investment, are China’s global cities, but they are cities with long, cosmopolitan pasts. This course explores the history of Hong Kong’s and Shanghai’s current economic, social, and cultural dynamism, and in doing so probes the historical roots of globalization. It analyzes how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonialism and semi-colonialism both drove and conditioned, in somewhat different ways, the development of these two cities. It also asks how this earlier phase of integration into global networks of commerce and culture relates to the patterns of the present. Through diverse sources such as fiction, film, drama, advertisements, photography, memoirs, and comics, we will delve into how economic and cultural flows have affected politics, economics, and the culture of everyday life over the past century and a half. Central points of focus will include these cities’ spatial organization, infrastructure, and architecture, social organization and class relations, changing economic foundations, and patterns of consumer culture. No prior study of urban history or Chinese studies is required; first-year students are welcome. Class size: 22

92538

HIST 235

OUT OF PLACE: MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Ugur Pece

M W 10:10 am-11:30 am

HDR 106

HIST

Cross-listed: Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies The current humanitarian disasters in the Middle East and North Africa have brought the plight of refugees in the region to the fore. Taking a long-term historical perspective, this course explores the centrality of migrants and refugees to the formation of the modern Middle East. Drawing on multiple cases of mass displacement from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, we will investigate historical processes that resulted in the uprooting of diverse populations throughout the broader Middle East (including the Balkans and Iran). Topics include war (inter-state and civil), population transfers and exchanges, voluntary and forced migration, assimilation and integration, and exile and memory. In addition to secondary historical texts, we will explore the course theme through diverse primary sources such as fiction, poetry, memoirs, photography, and film. Class size: 22

91975

HIST 282

Civil War & Reconstruction

Myra Armstead

T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLIN 204

HIST

Cross-listed: American Studies; Africana Studies This course explores the connections between the American Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction project in the former Confederate states, and the life of its own acquired by that project after the war’s end. It will examine competing understandings of the war’s goals by contemporaries; the beginnings of Reconstruction during the war itself; Lincoln’s, Jackson’s and Congress’s differing approaches to Reconstruction; the experiences of various participants in Reconstruction (northerners, emancipated slaves, southern whites) ; political and extra-political opposition to Reconstruction; ; the institutional and constitutional legacy of the project; and the memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction among various American publics. Class size: 22

92007

HIST 297

Beyond Witches, Abbesses, and Queens: A History of European Women, 1500-1800

Tabetha Ewing

T Th 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 101

HIST

Cross-listed: Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights Women make history – as historical actors and as historians. In this course, we will read about the “woman question” in the medical, legal, religious, and political discourses of the early modern period through processes such as the centralization of European states, Protestant and Catholic reformations, explorations, and colonial settlement. Many of our readings examine how social, economic, and other material circumstances shaped the history of working and bourgeois women. However, where possible, we will focus on women’s cultural production – literary, musical, and artistic. The course will also serve as an opportunity to reflect upon the history of women’s studies, both as a field of inquiry and as an academic institution. Class size: 18

92017

HIST 3133

Resistance & Collaboration

Cecile Kuznitz

W 10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 107

D+J

HIST

Cross-listed: German Studies; Human Rights; Jewish Studies This course will consider the concepts of resistance and collaboration, in particular as they apply to the actions of victims and bystanders during the Holocaust. We will examine patterns of reaction variously termed passive, armed, cultural and spiritual resistance. We will also look at the range of behaviors among bystander groups including collaboration, inaction, and rescue. By reading a number of scholars with widely varying views, including Hannah Arendt, Yehuda Bauer, and Isaiah Trunk, we will grapple with the issues raised on several levels: Theoretically, what are the most useful definitions of these terms? Empirically, how can we assess the extent of resistance and collaboration that took place historically? Ethically, what types of behavior are “reasonable” or morally justified in such extreme circumstances? This course is designated as a Major Conference for students in Historical Studies. All students are required to write a substantial research paper considering these questions as they apply to a particular event or group during the Holocaust or another historical case study. Class size: 15

92013

HIST 318

European Intellectual History Since 1890: Central Debates of

the 20th Century

Gregory Moynahan

M 1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLINLC 208

HIST

This course will outline the central suppositions and conflicts through which twentieth-century European thought developed, using as its central theme the “great debates" of this period and their consequences. We will use these debates in turn to demonstrate recent methodologies in intellectual history. The debates include: the critique of positivism at the turn of the century, the quarrel of the new "activist" wave of Marxism (Sorel, Lucas, Gramsci) with the

dogmatics of the Second International, the critique of neo-Kantianism by the German thinkers of existentialist orientation (Schmitt, Heidegger), the debate within critical theory on the essence and value of mass culture and the new media (Benjamin, Adorno), the conflict of psychoanalysis and historicism, the existentialist debate on feminism and racism (DeBeauvoir, Fanon), the conflict of liberalism with state control, and the critique of technocracy and systems theory in the post-war period (Luhmann, Habermas). A pre-requisite for the course is HIST 2136 European Intellectual History, but substitutes will work as

long as they suggest a basic overview of early modern political theory and philosophy. This course is part of the “Difficult Questions” cluster of courses; students will be expected to attend parts of the Hannah Arendt Center Conference “Real Talk: Difficult Questions about Race, Sex, and Religion”

on October 20-21. Class size: 15

92004

HIST 323

Vikings

Alice Stroup

M 1:30 pm-3:50 pm

OLIN 308

HIST

Cross-listed: Medieval Studies Who were the Vikings? When and how did they stop being Vikings? What was their impact on the medieval world? To answer these questions, we will examine archaeological evidence, documents, and modern scholarship. This is an Upper College Seminar for 15 moderated students.

92002

HIST 340

The Politics of History

Robert Culp

Th 10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 306

D+J

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Anthropology; Human Rights; Global & Int’l Studies What are the origins of history as a modern discipline? How have particular modes of history developed in relation to nationalism, imperialism, and the emergence of the modern state? How have modern historical techniques served to produce ideology? Moreover, how has history provided a tool for unmasking and challenging different forms of domination and the ideologies that help to perpetuate them? This course will address these questions through theoretical readings that offer diverse perspectives on the place of narrative in history, the historian's relation to the past, the construction of historiographical discourses, and the practice of historical commemoration. Other readings will critically assess the powerful roles that historical narrative, commemoration, and institutions like the museum have played in the processes of imperialism and nation building, as well as in class and gender politics. Some of the writers to be discussed will be Hayden White, Dominick LaCapra, Michel Foucault, G.W.F. Hegel, Walter Benjamin, Joan Wallach Scott, and theorists active in the Subaltern Studies movement. In addition to our common readings, students will write a research paper that builds on the critical perspectives we have discussed during the semester. Students who have moderated in history are particularly welcome. This course satisfies the Historical Studies Program's historiography requirement. Class size: 15

92016

HIST 341

Education in Colonial Africa: theory, memoir, fiction

Wendy Urban-Mead

Th 4:40 pm-7:00 pm

OLIN 101

D+J

HIST

DIFF

Cross-listed: Africana Studies What might provide a vivid window into the multiple layers of consciousness, types of identities, and the fractured and unpredictable loyalties of Africans under colonial rule? Schools anywhere are sites bristling with these variegated exercises of power and shaping of consciousness --all the more so for schooling in colonial Africa. This advanced seminar engages key texts on theories of empire together with African-authored memoirs and works of fiction that prominently feature the experience of education. Some additional reading from a selection of analytical monographs will help students to place and contextualize the memoirs and novels. Class size: 15

Cross-listed in Historical Studies:

92145

PS 378

The American Presidency

William Dixon

M 10:10 am-12:30 pm

OLIN 306

SSCI