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
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
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.