CRN

14103

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 201

Related interest: Russian and Eurasian Studies, Victorian Studies

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

14128

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 104

Title

American Bedrock

Professor

Myra Armstead

Schedule

Tu Th            8:30 am -  9:50 am       OLIN 202

Cross-listed:  AADS, American Studies

Related Interest:  SRE

This is a foundational course in the history of the United States from the start of the colonial period beginning in 1607 to the Gilded Age, roughly 1890.  We will focus on the following themes:  the emergence of a national idea and tensions within it, industrialization and the emergence of the middle class, the reform/perfectionist impulse in American life, the evolution of ethnicity and race as socio-economic categories, and developing American imperatives in foreign relations.

 

CRN

14137

Distribution

C

Course No.

REL 130

Title

History of Islamic Society

Professor

Nerina Rustomji

Schedule

Mon Wed       11:30 am - 12:50 pm     OLIN 308

Cross‑listed: Human Rights, Medieval Studies

The rise of Islam in Arabia affected dramatically the historical landscape of territories stretching from Spain to the Indus Valley, from Central Asia to Yemen. This course surveys the political, social, religious, and cultural developments of these Islamic worlds from the seventh to sixteenth centuries AD. We examine each region’s initial encounter with Muslims, investigate the process by which it transformed into an “Islamic” society, and determine how its particular cultural and dynastic forms evolved and eventually influenced the idea of the “Islamic World.” The course addresses topics such as the process of conversion, the relationship between Muslim rulers and their Muslim and non‑Muslim subjects, the maturation of Islamic theology and sciences, the formation of Islamic art, and the growth of political and religious institutions. Readings from the course include historical monographs, biographical traditions, poems, epic tales, mirrors for princes, political and religious manuals, and philosophical treatises. Religion program category: Historical

 

CRN

14203

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST / AADS 148

Title

African Encounters I: Culture, History, and Politics

Professor

Jesse Shipley

Schedule

Mon Wed       11:30 am - 12:50 pm     OLIN 305

Cross-listed:  Anthropology, Human Rights, SRE

This course offers a historical survey of sub-Saharan Africa from 1800 to the present.  Because the scope of the course is so broad and because African history is such a vast and complex subject, we will inevitably leave a great deal unexplored.  However, a primary aim of the course is to provide you with a foundation of knowledge upon which you can continue to build long after the semester has ended. To this end, the course has been designed to introduce the outlines of African history and to cultivate an appreciation of Africa, its peoples, cultures, expressions, and experiences.  Major themes include slavery in Africa; the decline of the trans-Atlantic slave trade; trade; African state formation; the Islamic revolutions of the 19th century; Mfecane: colonial rule; nationalism; and contemporary issues in Africa. Within the context of each of these themes, we will consider the importance of factoring gender into historical analysis.

 

 

CRN

14108

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 170

Title

The French Revolution

Professor

Alice Stroup

Schedule

Tu Th            11:30 am - 12:50 pm     OLIN 308

Cross-listed:  French Studies

Related Interest:  Human Rights

Was the French Revolution a bloodbath or an affirmation of human rights?  Who led it, who benefited from it, and why did it evolve as it did?  Using Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety for narrative, we will examine the documents left by eye-witnesses, participants, partisans, and opponents.

 

CRN

14107

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 2035

Title

The Wars of Religion

Professor

Tabetha Ewing

Schedule

Tu      7:00 pm –  8:20 pm       HDRANX 106

Fri    11:30 am – 12:50 pm      LC 208

Cross-listed: Human Rights

Religion and revolution have formed an unholy alliance at several distinct moments in history. This course is a journey across the motley religious landscape of early modern Europe in which the ideas and practices of heretics, infidels, and unbelievers nestled in the spaces where orthodox Catholicism held sway. Periodically, heads of state or household sought to bring order to it; and people –royal subjects, wives, children, servants-- resisted. The 16th and 17th centuries were a time in which religious revolution and new ways of ordering spiritual life exploded in a fashion that no one could have anticipated. In the period we now term "the Reformations" Europe would reinvent itself at home and discover itself in the New World. Also, the power of women as a source of threat and of sectarian strength emerges as a primary site for reformation processes. From the expulsion of Iberian Jews and Muslims to European contact with "cannabalism," from Luther in Germany to Carmelites nuns in Canada, from witchcraft to the cult of Mary, from incantation to exorcism, students will trace the personal stories of real people through Inquisition records, diaries and conversion tales, early pamphlets, and accounts of uprisings. We will look at how radical religious ideologies sustained themselves in the face of official repression and, more challenging still, official approval. OPEN TO FIRST YEAR STUDENTS.

 

CRN

14098

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 205

Title

Dissent and Reform: Utopian Writers In The Age Of Discovery 

Professor

Alice Stroup

Schedule

Tu Th            10:00 am - 11:20 am     OLIN 308

Related interest:  French Studies, Human Rights

In an authoritarian society, how do dissenters find a voice?  Fiction in the guise of travelers' tales was a favorite ploy of discontented European writers between 1550 and 1750.  We will examine the writings of Rabelais, More, Bacon, Campanella, Foigny, and others, exploring their views about human nature and society, seeing how travel literature influenced them, and comparing their solutions to the social and political problems. 

 

CRN

14106

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 2112

Title

The Invention of Politics

Professor

Tabetha Ewing

Schedule

Tu Th            4:30 pm -  5:50 pm       OLIN 201

Cross-listed: Human Rights

Individuals and groups spoke, wrote, and fought to make their claims to public power in the period between 1500 and 1800 in ways that forced a reimagining of political relationships.  The greatest institutions in place, particularly monarchies and the papacy, used their arsenals of words, documents, symbols, and ritual to maintain their legitimacy in the face of subtle or uproarous resistance.  The tension between or, more accurately, among groups created new political vocabularies to which we, in our present, have claimed historical ownership or explicitly rejected.

 

CRN

14416

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 2118

Title

Contending with the Modern: Russia, the Soviet Union and the United States, 1915-1940

Professor

Mark Lytle

Schedule

Tu           10:00 am – 11:20 am  LC 208

Th           10:00 am – 11:20 am  HDR

Cross-listed: American Studies, Russian Studies

Until the end of the cold war in 1989, the United States and Soviet Union represented themselves as two antipodal societies, one socialist the other capitalist.  Yet, in the period between 1910 and 1940 these societies faced common challenges associated with urbanization, transition from largely rural agricultural and resource extractive economies to industrial ones, and the emergence of mass political mobilization. During this period American and Russian society viewed their own developments in the mirror of the other,  and produced differing accounts of similarities and differences of their responses to modernity. At the end of this period the US and Soviet Union emerged as major contenders for world domination and presented different influential models for becoming modern. War, revolution, and depression disrupted the modernization processes by which they shifted from largely rural agricultural and resource extractive economies to urban and industrial ones. In this course we hope to challenge our students to address some simple questions that may prove difficult to answer.  Were the Soviet and American experiences with modernization more different or alike? Can one speak of modernity in the singular or may there  be different paths for socio-economic change and sustained growth of modern societies? How can one understand human suffering in the process of transition to modern mass and technological society? What images did Soviet people have of America,  and Americans of the Soviet Union? How were those images formed? That forces us to ask students a more complicated question--how would they go about addressing such questions, much less answer them? This course is being offered under the auspices of the Bard-Smolny Virtual Campus Project. Students will use innovative technologies, including live videoconferencing, to establish a direct exchange with students taking the same course concurrently at Smolny College in St. Petersburg, Russia. Learning to use the technology will be part of the course; no prior experience required. Taught in English.

 

CRN

14152

Distribution

B/C

Course No.

HIST 2191

Title

Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World

Professor

Carolyn DeWald

Schedule

Tu Th            4:30 pm -  5:50 pm       ASP 302

Cross-listed: Classical Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies

An investigation of the gendered relations of men and women from archaic Greece (c. 800 BCE) to the Roman Empire in the third century CE.  Using literary, historical, legal, and archaeological sources, the course provides both an introduction to the social history of ancient sexuality, and an interpretation of some of the most compelling literary presentations of it from Greek and Roman antiquity.  Primary sources will explore both the institutional and ideological structures by which people live and interact, and the affective meanings of those structures.  Topics include: early Greek sources; women's lives in classical Athens; Greek homo-erotic relationships; sexuality as part of Greek drama, religion and mythology; women in Roman myth, literature, and history; differences in Greek and Roman sexual/social bonds.

 

CRN

14353

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 2304

Title

The Making of Modern China

Professor

Kristin Bayer

Schedule

Tu Th            10:00 am - 11:20 am     OLIN 205

Cross-listed: Asian Studies

This course is a survey of Chinese history spanning Late Imperial China until the end of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), which ushered in the modern era.  Our main concern will be to understand how patterns of social, political, and economic change begun during the Qing interacted with outside models of modernity that were introduced to China through European and American imperialism.  The major themes of this course are ethnicity and rulership, inter-Asian warfare and diplomacy, global interactions and conflict, and social change.  We will analyze these themes through the lens of a variety of sources including fiction, memoir literature, historians' writings, film and art.

 

CRN

14104

Distribution

C/D

Course No.

HIST 242

Title

20th Century Russia: From Communism to Nationalism

Professor

Gennady Shkliarevsky

Schedule

Tu Th            1:30 pm -  2:50 pm       OLIN 303

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Russian and Eurasian Studies, SRE

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

14214

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 2500

Title

From Sun-Tzu To Suicide Bombing: The Evolution and Practice of Military Strategy, Tactics, and Ethics from Ancient Times to the Present

Professor

Caleb Carr

Schedule

Mon Wed      7:00 pm – 8:20 pm   OLIN 202

Cross-listed: Human Rights

From Sun-Tzu's China and Caesar's Rome to Cromwell's England and Frederick the Great's Prussia, through the rise of "popular" or "total" war that began with the French Revolution, and on into the unprecedented destruction of global war in the twentieth century, these and related questions have persisted: What constitutes a professional army, as opposed to a band of well-armed criminals?  When if ever should civilians be considered legitimate targets and players in war?  What military means can the international community, or even a single nation seeking the status of legitimate power, reasonably and ethically employ in the face of vital threats? Have professional soldiers advanced or retarded the cause of reforming global conflict? Should their views be given special priority and influence? Can certain tactics in war be labeled "aberrant"? Should their authors be punished by non-participatory organizations and nations?  Is the proliferation of advanced weapons to cultures that have not yet developed them ever a permissible or ethical practice?  Indeed, the roots of the fundamental military debate of the modern era - how to confront the problem and the underlying ethics of international terrorism - can be traced back to the ancient era in every part of the world. Certain times have produced leaders who have met the problem of reforming and controlling war with greater success than others: why? And why has our own ostensibly advanced modern age experienced so little success in this area?

 

CRN

14105

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 2702

Title

Liberty, National Rights, and Human Rights: The Origins and Implications of Human Rights Law, Institutions, and Policy in the Modern Period

Professor

Gregory Moynahan

Schedule

Tu Th            8:30 am -  9:50 am       OLIN 201

Cross-listed: Human Rights

The history of ‘human rights’ can formally be said to come into existence only with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the successor conventions that ultimately formed the International Bill of Human Rights.  Both the declaration and its later instantiations were created in reaction to the problems of genocide and mass population transfers (and consequent loss of citizenship) during the Second World War.  This course will begin by examining the fatal gaps in the previous system of nationally instantiated ‘universal’ rights as they were initially developed in Europe and selectively applied to or adopted by its colonies.  Beginning with the pursuit of liberties in peasant communes and early modern law, we will examine the creation of national rights from the treaty of Westphalia through the British, American, and French revolutions, and the relation of these rights to colonial administration.  The post-war institutions of human rights provided a new justification for a universal and ‘open’ standard of laws and fealty (often compared to imperial Rome) and ultimately provided new legitimation for the selective intervention of stronger powers in the affairs of weaker political or legal entities.  By focusing on case studies, particularly those from the contrasting cases of the European Union and United States, the relation of human rights to hegemonic power will be examined in detail.  The course will also examine the relation of politics to the infrastructures that made both widespread human rights infractions and their curtailment possible.  The role of media (telegraph, radio, etc.), systems of organization (passports, criminal archives) and police (secret police, international monitors) will be considered as modern transnational phenomenon that are intimately connected with the development and fate of enforcing human rights norms.  The final section of the course will look at the role of international NGO’s in both monitoring human rights and criticizing the state of existing human rights law, particularly in their criticism of human rights as a product of a particular north Atlantic perspective and set of biases.

 

CRN

14155

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 280B

Title

American Environmental History II: The Age of Ecology

Professor

Mark Lytle

Schedule

Wed Fr          10:00 am - 11:20 am     OLIN 204

Cross-listed: American Studies, ES

The Modern Era began with one of the three worst disasters in environmental history: the Dust Bowl.   Ever since, a debate has raged between the apostles of growth and the prophets of ecological doom.  The publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring gave voice to the contemporary environmental movement. The crisis to which Carson responded had its origins in industrial and agricultural technologies adopted during and after World War II.  Its deeper roots lay in the widely held Western assumption that “humans can improve on nature.”  That assumption has had its epiphany in Disney World. It has been opposed by the environmental movement Carson inspired. Ecology, “the subversive science” has provided the substantive basis for the environmentalist agenda.  This course will examine the on-going debate over the environment and its impact on public policy.

 

CRN

14452

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 3101

Title

Modern Israeli and Palestinian Societies: A Research Seminar

Professor

Joel Perlmann

Schedule

Tu    4:30 pm – 6:50 pm          OLIN 204

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Jewish Studies

This course gives students the opportunity to explore a topic of their choosing (in consultation with the instructor) in the form of an extended term paper. The course will serve especially well for students with some background in the subject area, for example from the recent Bard course offerings on the history of the Arab-Israel conflict and on the sociology of modern Israel. However, students without this background may be admitted with the consent of the instructor; they may be asked to complete some background reading before the spring semester. Topics on Jewish and/or Arab life can cover any dimension of (post-1920) historical or contemporary developments – including, but not restricted to, aspects of the conflict between the two groups. Students should be prepared to discuss their ongoing work with each other and with the instructor throughout. Enrollment limited to 15. Students wishing to have the course count as a 300-level course in sociology may be able to do so by special arrangement with the instructor and with the program.

 

CRN

14097

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 3113

Title

Making of the Atlantic World, 1500-1800

Professor

Alice Stroup

Schedule

Mon               1:30 pm -  3:50 pm       OLIN 308

Related interest:  AADS, American Studies

In seeking a short route to the Indies, Europeans unwittingly transformed the Atlantic from barrier to basin.  To understand why and how these voyages of discovery and conquest occurred, we will examine plague, dissent, technology, and commerce in Europe.  To grasp the consequences, we will read Crosby on biological imperialism, Thornton on Africans in the making of the Atlantic Basin, and Williams on slavery and capitalism.

 

CRN

14129

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 3114

Title

Making National Citizens: U. S. History,

 1790-1820

Professor

Myra Armstead

Schedule

Wed               8:30 am - 10:50 am      OLIN 310

Cross-listed: American Studies, Human Rights

This course will provide an opportunity for students concerned with present global challenges to that 19th century creation – the nation-state and the national citizen—to consider the United States as a pertinent historical case study. The adoption of the U.S. Constitution reflected the hope, confidence, and perhaps even bravado of the document’s architects and supporters towards what was, in fact, a political experiment. To them, the long-term viability of republic democracy was questionable and federalism was an untested form of government. The former colonists who had fought to bring about federal, republican and democratic governance were wary of reproducing the kind of overbearing, centralized, and institutionalized power which they had equated with England. Yet within a generation, the people of the new United States of America came to identify less with regional, state, and/or local cultures and more with an emergent national one. A national citizen emerged. How and why did such a transformation take place? This course will attempt to answer this question by investigating such factors as national economic changes, transportation innovations, the impact of the War of 1812, the development of the presidential office, the creation of a national capital, the invention of democratic political practices, democratic political rhetoric, nationalist literature, and the invention of republican motherhood. This is an upper-level research seminar or major conference.

 

CRN

14454

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 3115

Title

Japan: From Feudal Isolation To Modern Democracy

Professor

Ian Buruma

Schedule

Mon   4:00 pm – 6:20 pm  OLIN 205

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies

This course will take Japan as an example of modernization in the non-Western world. The main question to be explored is to what extent modernization means Westernization, or democratization. This would contribute to the discussion today about the possibility of building liberal democratic institutions in the Middle East, and other parts of the non-Western world. Starting with the arrival of Commodore Perry's "black ships" in 1854, and ending with the state of Japanese democracy today, we will look at various stages of the Japanese confrontation with a dominant West. This will take in the establishment of Japan's Asian Empire - following European examples; the wars with Russia and China; the civil rights movements of the late 19th century; the budding democracy of the 1920s; the Japanese varieties of fascism, the war with the West, and the US occupation. Japan, given different Western models to follow, often opted for the least liberal ones, as was true in other countries. But this was not inevitable.  Post-war Japanese democracy was largely home-grown and not an American imposition. Throughout the course, we will look at Japan in comparison with other parts of the non-Western world, including South Asia and the Middle-East. Course material will include history, as well as novels, films, and further examples from popular culture.

 

CRN

14212

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 3120

Title

Imperialism in Asia

Professor

Kristin Bayer

Schedule

Wed               10:30 am - 12:50 pm     OLIN 107

Cross-listed:  Asian Studies, Human Rights

This course uses the writings of anti-imperial/anti-colonial activists such as Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh and the Indonesian writer/activist Pramoedya Ananta Toer to analyze the issue of imperialism in Asia.  While we will be approaching imperialism and resistance throughout the course we will also consider its relationship to colonialism and the rise of nationalism. The resistance movements in Asia not only responded to imperialism but also critiqued their own society, culture and identity. Countries within Asia redefined their geographic relationships, and informed one another's

experience in combating foreign encroachment.

 

CRN

14012

Distribution

C

Course No.

HIST 3141

Title

The City and Modernity in 20th Century Central Europe

Professor

Gregory Moynahan

Schedule

Tu                 1:30 pm -  3:50 pm       OLIN 107

Cross-Listed with: German Studies

Focusing principally on Vienna, Berlin, and Prague, this research course will use the topic of the metropolis as a means to investigate the central European experience of modernity.  Basic themes will include: the cultural reaction to mechanization and bureaucratization of modern urban life; the metropolis as a new political arena to contest traditional (particularly aristocratic) political and social roles; the role of the city in the development of new sociological and philosophical theories; the place of the city in conflicts of historical memory and modernization; and the new forms of communication, association, and political action in the metropolis.  Although the course will concentrate on the early twentieth century, in some cases we will trace the evolution of topics through the century (e.g., for a study of memory and modernity).  In addition to secondary sources on the relation of modernity to urban life, a number of primary sources will be used including films from the period and the writings of figures such as Benjamin, Capek, Döblin, Freud, Kafka, Kracauer, Krauss, Musil, and Simmel.  Where possible, the extensive resources of the World Wide Web will be used to reconstruct urban histories.  Students are expected to develop an original research paper of approximately thirty-five pages in length using primary sources.