HISTORY
CRN |
10113 |
Distribution |
C/D |
Course No. |
HIST 102 | ||
Title |
Europe from 1815 to the Present | ||
Professor |
Gennady Shkliarevsky | ||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 202 |
The course has two goals: to provide a general introduction to European History in the period from 1815 to 1990 and at the same time to examine a number of especially important developments in greater depth. The first half of the course will range in time from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The following issues will be emphasized: the rise of conservative, liberal and socialist thought; the establishment of parliamentary democracy in Great Britain; the revolutions of 1848; Bismarck and the Unification of Germany; European imperialism; and the origins of World War I. The second half of the course will stress the following problems: World War I; the Russian Revolution and the emergence of Soviet Russia; the Versailles Treaty; the Great Depression; the rise of fascism, especially Nazism; the Holocaust; the emergence of a new Europe with the "European Community"; the Cold War; the fall of communism in Eastern Europe; and the reunification of Germany.
CRN |
10115 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 115B | ||
Title |
African-American Experience II | ||
Professor |
Myra Armstead | ||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 8:30 am - 9:50 am OLIN 203 |
This course covers the history of black Americans from the Civil War period to the present, including the initial gains made by blacks during the Civil War and Reconstruction, late nineteenth-century reaction against blacks, the emergence of various protest strategies, urbanization and northward migration, and work, education, and class.
CRN |
10112 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 129 | ||
Title |
Confucianism | ||
Professor |
Robert Culp | ||
Schedule |
Mon Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 205 |
This course will explore different aspects of the Confucian tradition and its impact on thought, society, and politics in East Asia. We will ground our study with close analysis of foundational texts attributed to Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, and the Han Confucians. These texts will provide the basis for further discussion of Chinese Confucianism, focusing on the uses and abuses of Confucian theory by Chinese dynasts and social elites, the rise of the synthetic philosophy of Neo-Confucianism, the role of Confucian ideology in the interplay between the state cult and popular religion, and the development of schools stressing philology and statecraft in China's late imperial period. We will also explore the impact of Confucian thought on other East Asian cultures, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. We will conclude by considering the modern legacy of the Confucian tradition, particularly its influence on Chinese Communist ideology, different forms of modern neo-traditionalism, and its use by authoritarian states in East and Southeast Asia.
CRN |
10350 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 137 | ||
Title |
Gay American History | ||
Professor |
John Fout | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm OLIN 202 |
This course will examine the experiences of lesbian women and gay men in the United States in the twentieth century. A host of
primary (including literary) sources will be read to enable students to examine the thinking and experiences of gay people. And, the secondary literature will focus especially on the emergence of gay subcultures in cities across the country, as well as the history of the gay rights movement in the period after World War II. The course will also examine the experiences of lesbian women and gay men in war and discuss the controversy over gays in the military from an historical perspective.
CRN |
10117 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 175 | ||
Title |
The American Civil War | ||
Professor |
Mark Lytle | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 202 |
Mark Twain once observed that the Civil War "uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." For Americans, whether white or black, the war was a revolutionary experience. Much about the war remains unsettled in our nation's history. Why was it fought? Was the war about union? States' rights? Slavery? Why did the North win? The South lose? Historians and Civil War buffs still hotly debate all those questions. Our emphasis will be more on the war as a revolutionary national experience and less on the war as a military event.
CRN |
10351 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 202 | ||
Title |
The Weimar Republic: A Failed Democracy | ||
Professor |
John Fout | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 202 |
The Weimar Republic began with high hopes but ended sadly in the Nazi seizure of power and the establishment of a totalitarian regime. Despite its many problems, the Weimar era was an exciting moment in German political history and a remarkable period in German cultural and social history. Berlin especially experienced a variety of fascinating developments from street violence to incredible artistic creativity--city life will be examined. With the depression, of course, came the rapid growth of a communist movement on the left and Nazism on the right and the government was destabilized. These issues and a host of others will be examined in this course.
CRN |
10337 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 2033 | ||
Title |
Crucible of Jewishness: The Jews of Modern Europe 1789-1939 | ||
Professor |
Joel Perlmann | ||
Schedule |
Tu 4:00 pm - 5:20 pm OLIN 204
Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm OLIN 202 |
All the social and cultural patterns of modern Jews in the West, and in Israel, (indeed the state of Israel itself), are historical outgrowths of the Jews in Europe (including eastern Europe) from the French Revolution to the eve of the Holocaust. Napoleon asked an assembly of Jewish leaders whether - when they said they would be good citizens of an enlightened, modern state - they meant they would welcome intermarriage with non-Jews; from then every European state and every country's Jewry struggled with what Jewish participation and Jewish apartness could mean. This course explores the evolution of that struggle, a major theme in the evolution of modern Europe generally. Topics include the struggle for 'emancipation' (citizenship and equal rights for Jews existed nowhere in 1750); assimilation; the evolving Jewish religion; Jews in European urban, economic, intellectual and political life (especially left-wing politics); anti-Semitism, and Zionism. This year David Vital's A People Apart: the Jews of Europe, 1789-1939 appeared as the latest volume in the Oxford History of Modern Europe. A close reading of this monumental volume, with various background readings on the European context generally, will be our main means of access. A prior course in Modern European history would be an advantage, but is not a prerequisite. Major writing assignments will be on the readings, plus a term paper based on a particular topic of the student's choice.
CRN |
10428 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 2271 | ||
Title |
Black Thought: Contemporary Essays on Race and Culture | ||
Professor |
Tabetha Ewing | ||
Schedule |
Mon 10:30 am - 11:30 am Stevenson Library
Wed 10:30 am - 12:30 pm OLIN 304 |
In this survey of contemporary African-American intellectuals on such subjects as cultural representation, black feminism, black neo-conservatism, aesthetics, nationalism, colonialism, and American legal discourse, we will read essays by Toni Morrison, Cornel West, Kimberle Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Patricia Williams, and Bell Hooks. They are at once scholars and polemicists in the contemporary liberal press. Students will be required to read regularly such publications as The Nation, New Republic, and the New York Times in order to engage critically and cogently in current debates. We will look back at the Hill-Thomas hearings and the plethora of essays published in response and at the new affirmative action debates. As an introduction to contemporary black thought, this course will begin with canonical essays written from 1890 to 1980 on the subject of race, and more specifically of blackness, métissage, and gender.
CRN |
10327 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 2304 | ||
Title |
Making Modern China | ||
Professor |
Robert Culp | ||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 201 |
This course is a survey of China's modern historical path, from a flourishing empire in 1700 to the world's largest socialist state in 1950. The course will be organized around three stages of the Chinese encounter with modernity. During the first part of the course we will reconstruct the commercial explosion during the early Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and the rise of imperial absolutism, trends which together made China the envy of eighteenth-century Europe. During the second part of the course we will focus on how a Euro-American conception of modernity was forced on Qing China by Great Power imperialism during the nineteenth century. In the final part of the semester we will concentrate on how Chinese visions of modernity generated the revolutionary movements of the first half of this century. The underlying question driving all our analysis will be why the patterns of change set in motion during the early Qing dynasty and the Chinese reaction to foreign imperialism found resolution in the Chinese Communist Party's victory in 1949.
CRN |
10122 |
Distribution |
C/D |
Course No. |
HIST 242 | ||
Title |
20th Century Russia: Communism-Nationalism | ||
Professor |
Gennady Shkliarevsky | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 306 |
There has hardly been a period in Russian history which would be more abundant in upheavals and paradoxes than the country's evolution in the 20th century. In its search for an elusive balance between modernity and tradition, Russian society has experienced many radical transformations that will be the subject of this introductory survey. In addition to the discussion and analysis of the main internal and external political developments in the region, the course will also include extensive examination of different aspects of the rapidly modernizing society, such as the Soviet command economy; the construction of national identity, ethnic relations and nationalism; family, gender relations, and sexuality; the arts, etc. Course materials will include scholarly texts, original documents, works of fiction and films.
CRN |
10118 |
Distribution |
C/D |
Course No. |
HIST 287 | ||
Title |
Senators, Plebeians, Priests, and Slaves | ||
Professor |
Eric Orlin | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 101 |
This course offers an introduction to the world of the Romans during the years of their rise to world empire, from 753 to 31 BCE. At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain to North Africa and from Persia to Spain. The Romans were a people of intense contradictions. Although they built the largest empire in the Mediterranean world, they did not view themselves as expansionist. Although their society was very hierarchical with the upper classes holding the power, revolutionary movements originated from those same upper classes. Although they were fiercely conservative, they readily adopted foreign influences and new ideas. Although they were extremely religious, they were accustomed to read the will of the gods in the entrails of animals and the flight of birds. This course will attempt to understand the nature of Roman society and the changes that affected it by a close reading of primary texts - histories, drams, philosophical texts, and letters written by the Romans - and through an analysis of the archaeological remains of the ancient Roman world.
CRN |
10349 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 288 | ||
Title |
American Environmental History: The Age of Ecology | ||
Professor |
Mark Lytle | ||
Schedule |
Wed Fri 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 202 |
In the 1930s the United States experienced both the most devastating economic collapse in its history and, in the Dust Bowl, one of the world's worst environmental disasters. What Americans learned and failed to learn from the Dust Bowl disaster has had an enormous impact on environmental policy ever since. In 1962, when Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, she forced Americans to recognize the bankruptcy of some of their most deeply held assumptions about nature and material progress. With Silent Spring the modern environmental movement began. Ecology emerged as the "subversive science." This course will examine the ongoing battle between those who would reconnect Americans to nature and those who continue to see nature as a storehouse of wealth to be tapped for exclusively human purposes.
CRN |
10314 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 293 | ||
Title |
Medieval & Renaissance Families | ||
Professor |
Alice Stroup | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 11:30 am -12:50 pm OLIN 204 |
CRN |
10316 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 294 | ||
Title |
The European State System, 1815 - 1914 | ||
Professor |
Hsi-Huey Liang | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 203 |
CRN |
10119 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 296 | ||
Title |
Race, Ethnicity and Identity in the Ancient World | ||
Professor |
Eric Orlin | ||
Schedule |
Tu Th 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 305 |
Both the Greeks and the Romans encountered peoples and cultures they regarded as different from themselves. The Greek historian Herodotus writes about Egyptians, Persians, Scythians, and others; the Roman historian Tacitus describes Germans, while his 4th-century counterpart Ammianus Marcellinus describes Huns and Goths. In mythology, Greek and Roman heroes encounter Amazons, while historically Roman military superiority confronted Greek cultural superiority. If we accept the current wisdom that identities, past and present, are largely contingent, and that culture, language, and politics continually mediate socially constructed and subjectively perceived identities, we confront the Herculean task of deciphering how to sort out these relationships. If the Greeks and Romans identified certain peoples and cultures as other than themselves, how did they define themselves? What did it mean to be a "Greek" or a "Roman"? What was a "barbarian"? Did Greeks and Romans have a concept of race and ethnicity? Did they engage in racial/ethnic stereotyping? Did they exchange racial slurs? What is the relationship between current theories of race and ethnicity and the theories and practices of the Greeks and Romans? To discuss these questions, we will rely on a variety of information including primary evidence (written and visual), interpretations of that evidence, and ancient and modern theoretical discussions of race and ethnicity. This course is open to all; prior knowledge of the ancient world is helpful but not required.
CRN |
10126 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 303 | ||
Title |
The Crisis | ||
Professor |
Myra Armstead | ||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 203 |
From 1910 through 1934, W. E. B. DuBois served as editor of CRISIS magazine, the official organ of the NAACP. The publication called attention to the "great problem of interracial relations and especially those" affecting African Americans through journalistic reports, opinion pieces, and literature. In editing the "Crisis," DuBois therefore necessarily indexed and responded to competing contemporary strategies for "race advocacy." While the NAACP remained committed to an integrationist strategy, alternative approaches for race activists during the 24 years of DuBois' association with the organization included accommodationism, separatism (cultural nationalism), self-help, Pan-Africanism, and socialism. In this upper-level research seminar, we will consider the various political paths pursued by the "race men" [and women] of the period. Students will be expected to produce a major paper, making use of the "Crisis" archives available at the Bard library on microfilm. Open only to moderated students or upon the consent of the
instructor.
CRN |
10125 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 340 Upper College Seminar | ||
Title |
The Politics of History | ||
Professor |
Robert Culp | ||
Schedule |
Th 4:00 pm - 6:20 pm OLIN 307 |
What are the origins of history as a modern discipline? How have particular modes of history contributed to and been produced by nationalism, imperialism, and the development 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 different perspectives on the role of narrative in history, the historian's relation to sources, and the construction of historiographical discourses. Other readings will critically assess the powerful role that historical narrative has 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, Roger Chartier, Michel Foucault, Joan Wallach Scott, and theorists active in the Subaltern Studies movement. In addition to our common readings, students will write a research paper that analyzes a historical text or a historiographical debate using one of the critical perspectives we have discussed during the semester. Students who have moderated in history are particularly welcome.
CRN |
10386 |
Distribution |
C |
Course No. |
HIST 344 Upper College Seminar | ||
Title |
Researching the Holocaust | ||
Professor |
John Fout | ||
Schedule |
Mon 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm OLIN 303 |
This is a research seminar and students will be expected to write a twenty-five (25) page research paper--there will be no exams. The first part of the course will be devoted to reading a variety of interpretations and debates about the Holocaust and students will pick a research topic. In the last third of the course, students will make presentations on their research. Generally the research papers will either be concerned with the debates over the Holocaust or students will use the International and/or the American Nüremberg trial documents on war criminals as sources for their papers. (Open to upper college students--or possibly sophomores interested in the Holocaust--who have had some twentieth-century European history and/or a course on the Holocaust).
CRN |
10127 |
Distribution |
C/D |
Course No. |
HIST 365 Upper College Seminar | ||
Title |
Russian Intellectual History | ||
Professor |
Gennady Shkliarevsky | ||
Schedule |
Tu 4:00 pm - 6:20 pm OLIN 307 |
Russian nineteenth-century secular thought is the subject of this seminar. Following a brief introduction dealing with the modernization of Russia and the origin of Russian secular thought and of the intelligentsia, the class will focus on the major trends and personalities in nineteenth-century Russian thought. Topics include continuity and change in Russian culture, debates between Westernizers and Slavophiles, revolutionary populism, and socialism. Extensive readings are the basis of weekly discussions and include works by Chaadaev, Gogol, Herzen, Tolstoy, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, and Lenin and contemporary studies of the Russian intellectual tradition.