The Boundaries of Freedom: A History of the United States, 1865-2024

 

Professor:

Daniel Wortel-London

 

Course Number:

HIST 113

CRN Number:

10198

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 204

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Human Rights

To understand what freedom means today and how to achieve it, we need to learn how it was defined and contested in the past. In this class we will examine American history from the Reconstruction to the Present, with a particular focus on how understandings of "Freedom" have changed in light of new circumstances, new conceptions of justice, and new understandings of difference. We’ll examine primary sources by groups ranging from civil rights activists to union organizers. We’ll conduct multidisciplinary inquiries into controversial questions over what freedom means in an unequal society. And we’ll apply our insights into historically-informed arguments on how freedom can best be defined and pursued today.

 

The Ottomans and the Last Islamic Empire

 

Professor:

. TBA

 

Course Number:

HIST 134

CRN Number:

10204

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 204

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

In the aftermath of World War I, the Ottoman Empire disappeared from the world scene. In its place arose numerous states, which today make up the Middle East and significant parts of Eastern Europe. In all of these “post-Ottoman” states, the memory of the Ottoman Empire is well and alive. For example, it is in relation to the Ottoman legacy that modern Middle Eastern and East European national identities were constructed and claims to national borders settled (or not). This course is a general historical survey of Ottoman history from the founding of the empire around 1300 until its collapse in the aftermath of World War I. The course covers major topics in Ottoman history, including the empire’s origins, its Islamic and European identities, everyday life under the Ottomans, inter-communal relations, the challenge of separatist movements (Balkan, Greek, Arab) and the emergence of modern Turkish nationalism. This course fulfills the moderation requirements for Middle Eastern Studies.

 

Unveiling the Global Middle Ages

 

Professor:

Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Valentina Grasso

 

Course Number:

HIST 140

CRN Number:

10200

Class cap:

44

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 103

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Medieval Studies; Middle Eastern Studies

This course will examine c.300–1500 CE across Europe, Asia, and Africa, exploring major changes in religious practice and belief, warfare and conquest, the rise of new empires, thickening webs of commerce and consumption, as well as changing roles of men and women, peasants and aristocrats, merchants, priests, scholars and mystics across the globe. Students will confront the diversity of the Global Middle Ages, encountering traders on the Silk Road, sages in Persia, forgotten societies of the Red Sea, Norse warriors and explorers, and fervent crusaders across Eurasia. The course will center not on a single narrative, but will focus on the mobility of commodities, ideas, and practices throughout an increasingly connected world. Through diverse literary, material, and artistic evidence, students will encounter the experiences of people from vastly different regions and will learn to identify new connections through this dynamic period.

 

A Haunted Union: Germany and the Unifications of Europe

 

Professor:

Gregory Moynahan

 

Course Number:

HIST 141

CRN Number:

10206

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 201

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: German Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights

The development of the German nation-state has been at the center of nearly every dystopian reality and utopian aspiration of modern continental Europe. This course will examine the history of the German-speaking lands from Napoleon's dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 through the development of the German state in 1871, the cataclysmic initiation by this state of the two twentieth-century World Wars, and the creation of the new political entity of the European Union. Attention will placed throughout on the dialog of Germany and Europe in relation to regional structural issues, particularly state form and Realpolitik, capitalism and communism, the 'second-industrial revolution' and institutional development, and state control or surveillance and systems of rights. Using an array of primary documents, we will examine Germany's pivotal place in the ideological divisions, political catastrophes, and -- more optimistically -- theoretical, political, and scientific innovations of modern Europe. As a guiding theme, we will use the paradox that even as Germany is chronologically perhaps the most 'modern' of European states, its definition - and with it the identity of its citizens - has been haunted since inception by its heterogeneous past. Topics of particular importance will include: the multiple 'unifications' of Germany (as a culture, a state, a racist 'greater' Germany, a reunified power within the European Union), the role of 'German' and 'European' identity in colonial expansion and Nazi propaganda, 'scientific' racism and the Holocaust, the development of the DDR and BRD, the consolidation of the European Union since 1951, and the student protests of 1968.

 

Africa Before 1800

 

Professor:

Lloyd Hazvineyi

 

Course Number:

HIST 147

CRN Number:

10201

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Global & International Studies

This course is a survey of the history of Africa from the precolonial times through 1800. It takes a chronological survey approach and focuses on pre-colonial civilizations, Africa’s connections with the outside world, as well as societal developments. Whilst there is a general tendency to view the gap between ‘underdeveloped pre-colonial’ and “developing” colonial as clear-cut and straightforward, this course will show how complex Africa was in ways that challenge existing discourses.

 

Byzantium: Empire, Faith, and the Rise of a New Rome

 

Professor:

Nathanael Aschenbrenner

 

Course Number:

HIST 150

CRN Number:

10202

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    8:30 AM - 9:50 AM Olin 201

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Medieval Studies; Middle Eastern Studies

This course introduces you to the vibrant history of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire and its legacy from the foundation of Constantinople as a new capital for the Roman Empire in the 4th century CE, to the conquest of that city by the Ottomans in the 15th century CE. This course presents Byzantium instead as model of vitality and creative evolution, one that developed a distinctive blend of Roman political culture with Greek literary and religious traditions. We will explore Byzantium as one of the cosmopolitan states deeply connected to both the medieval West and the Islamic Near East. Throughout, we will trace the tensions and collaborations between the Byzantine world and other Mediterranean societies in order to understand how the Mediterranean world changed from antiquity to early modernity. Along the way, we will examine the military, economy, religion, gender, rural and urban life, peasantry, and learned culture. By the end of the course, you will have gained familiarity with the paradigmatic medieval empire that bridged the gap between the ancient and the early modern world.

 

The Making of the Modern Middle East

 

Professor:

. TBA

 

Course Number:

HIST 185

CRN Number:

10205

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Hegeman 204

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies

In this survey course, we will discuss the major processes that contributed to the rise of the modern Middle East, and trace the history of the modern institutions in the region. Topics including the making of modern armies, political institutions, nation-states, economies, and families, as well as examining reform movements in the Ottoman Empire, European imperialism, nationalist movements (including the Arab-Israeli conflict), political Islam, and the Arab Spring (and its aftermath). 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. This course fulfills the moderation requirements for Middle Eastern Studies.

 

Finnegans Wake and the Politics of Historical Time

 

Professor:

Gregory Moynahan

 

Course Number:

HIST 196

CRN Number:

10199

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 205

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Irish and Celtic Studies

This course will use James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to examine the politics of historical memory and historical writing in the modern era using three temporal transitions: the archaic/ classical, medieval/early modern, and the modern/ avante-garde. We will begin by exploring the theme of archaic or prehistoric time, examining the initial contact of the Roman and then Christian World with Pagan Ireland through primary texts and in Finnegans Wake' core narrative. In doing so, we will address the opposition of written and oral cultures (which contributes to the text's perplexing style), empire and subjects, as well as elite and folk culture. As Umberto Eco first argued, Finnegans Wake is based primarily on medieval and early modern conflicts over the relation of knowledge to the world, notably between the "closed world" of medieval Aristotelianism and the "infinite universe" of the new worlds of Bruno and Copernicus. Joyce borrowed heavily from Giambattista Vico's New Science (1726) to argue that we already have a poetic sense of such earlier transitions, and that by reliving the process of building a world from the comic narrative form of the book we reconstruct a coherent -- or at least semi-coherent -- world from forgotten "mute" histories of the past. By turns confusing, hilarious, and profound, Joyce's "vicociclometer" forms a still resonant response in the modern period to the use and abuse of the deep past and history in nationalism, the Celtic Revival, and fascism. Initially interpreted largely through Joyce's own milieu in relation to modernist figures such as Apollinaire, Ball, and Jarry, the work is now seen as engaging in a longer game. Written in the wake of the Irish Civil War and during the rise of totalitarianism, it aimed to transform Irish and European cultures by posing a problem, or set of problems, that stood before any nostalgic or facile use of the deep past, and to create an interpretative community intended to endure for decades. In this regard it is one of the first works to engage with the politics of commemoration and memory culture that became a dominant theme in the final decades of the twentieth century. The course will focus on excerpts from Finnegans Wake and the "New Science" as well as a variety of primary texts. There are no prerequisites for this class other than an ability to read long-form fiction; preference will be given to first- and second- year students.

 

Wars of Religion

 

Professor:

Tabetha Ewing

 

Course Number:

HIST 2035

CRN Number:

10210

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Olin 204

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

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 żroyal 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.

 

Unsustainable?: An Environmental History of the United States

 

Professor:

Daniel Wortel-London

 

Course Number:

HIST 207

CRN Number:

10207

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 205

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental Studies; Politics

The crises in global warming, pollution, and biodiversity loss that face our planet are not new. For centuries, Americans have tried to imagine ways of living that could preserve or enhance well-being for future generations. And for centuries, these visions have been attacked, contested, and occasionally implemented - and often with unforeseen consequences. This course provides an environmental history of the United States, focusing on the diverse ways “sustainability” has been defined and pursued over time. We will examine movements for conservation and environmental justice from the Colonial era to the Present. We will conduct multidisciplinary investigations into the origins and consequences of past environmental policies like the Clean Water Act. And we will conduct our own original research into how insights drawn from past environmental struggles can inform current day struggles to secure a sustainable future for people and planet alike.

 

China's Last Emperors: Late Imperial Chinese History

 

Professor:

Robert Culp

 

Course Number:

HIST 2143

CRN Number:

10211

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 203

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Asian Studies; Global & International Studies

Modern China is in many ways the product of its imperial past. The dynamic commercial economy, vibrant cities, rich intellectual culture, expansive territory, and rapidly growing population of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynastic periods have provided resources that continue to shape Chinese life today. At the same time, the collapse of the imperial state caused by internal rebellion and foreign imperialism in the 19th century sparked a crisis that generated China’s modern revolutions in the 20th century. This course explores the complex dynamics and legacies of Ming and Qing China, with special attention to state formation, domestic and international commerce, urbanization, consumerism, print culture, intellectual trends of idealism, empiricism, and statecraft, colonial expansion, ethnic politics, imperial autocracy, ritualization, rebellion, and reconstruction. The course culminates in an exploration of why the fall of the Qing dynasty meant the end of empire and how post-war reconstruction led to radical revolution. No prior study of China is required; first-year students are welcome.

 

Herstory: Women in African History

 

Professor:

Lloyd Hazvineyi

 

Course Number:

HIST 215

CRN Number:

10208

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 305

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Global & International Studies

The history of Africa has largely been told through the lens of the rise and fall of empires and states as well as the exploits of big men such as kings and emperors. This course adds to existing knowledge by taking a deliberate bias towards the contributions of women in the areas of, for example, health and healing, food systems, economies, environmental conservation, and military organizations. Focusing on the period from the precolonial through the present, the course will take a thematic survey approach and will be taught using a combination of primary sources, films, and published material.

 

Migrants and Refugees in the Americas

 

Professor:

Miles Rodriguez

 

Course Number:

HIST 225

CRN Number:

10203

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 305

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Global & International Studies; Human Rights; Latin American/Iberian Studies

The Border. The Ban. The Wall. Raids. Deportations. Separation of Families. Immigrant Rights. Sanctuary. Refugee Resettlement. These words - usually confined to policy, enforcement, and activism related to migrants and refugees - have recently exploded into the public view and entered into constant use. The current political administration made migratory and refugee enforcement, and of migration more generally, a centerpiece of its electoral campaign and the subject of its first executive orders, generating broad public controversy. Most migration to the US is from Latin America, by far the largest single migrant population is from Mexico, and the rise of Central American migration has proved enduring. Focusing on south-north migration from these Latin American regions, this class argues that it is impossible to understand the current political situation in the US without studying the relatively lesser-known history of migrant and refugee human rights over the last three decades, including massive protests, movements for sanctuary, and attempts at reform and enforcement. The class takes into account shifting global demographics, changing reasons for migration, rapid legal and political changes, complex enforcement  policies and practices, and powerful community movements for reform, which are often forgotten  with the opening and closing of a given news cycle. The class also argues that migrant and refugee voices matter and are critical to understanding migration as an historical and current problem. The course includes migrant, refugee, and activist narratives, and an array of historical, legal, political, and other primary sources. Its goal is to create a more complete historical understanding of Latin American-origin migration in the contemporary US context. This course is part of the Liberal Arts Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education initiative. This course is part of the Racial Justice Initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration among students and faculty to further the understanding of racial inequality and injustice in the United States and beyond.

 

China's Environment

 

Professor:

Robert Culp

 

Course Number:

HIST 2308

CRN Number:

10212

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Reem Kayden Center 103

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Asian Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies

The fate of the global environment in the 21st century depends in large part on how China handles its current environmental challenges. Its massive coal consumption is the single largest contributor to global climate change. Domestic environmental problems like desertification, catastrophic air pollution, and a rapidly degrading water supply threaten to undermine its unprecedented economic growth and political stability. In this course we explore the economic, social, cultural, and political dynamics that have generated this environmental crisis. We also analyze how and why the PRC government has dramatically shifted its approach during the past two decades, from avoiding confronting domestic environmental issues and resisting international pressure regarding climate change to vigorously pursuing environmental protection strategies while emerging as a global leader in climate change mitigation. The course will mobilize a range of disciplinary approaches, drawing on anthropology, history, sociology, economics, and political science.

 

The Fugitive's Asylum

 

Professor:

Tabetha Ewing

 

Course Number:

HIST 3107

CRN Number:

10214

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

  Wed     5:10 PM - 7:30 PM Olin 305

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: French Studies; Human Rights

This picaresque history studies letters that exile, flights of fugitives, asylum, and rendition. It covers the period from the rise of European states (when rulers effectively kidnapped their subjects from foreign territories) to the birth of the modern extradition system. Lone individuals, caught up in the competition between states, contributed unwittingly to the invention of national borders, international policing, and modern international law. The primordial freedom of the individual confronts sovereign jurisdiction—on foreign ground. Thus, extradition is always an encroachment on some body’s sovereignty. Runaway wives, fugitive slaves, dissident pamphleteers, and an anti-imperial revolutionary are among the cases we study. Prerequisites: European history, Theories of Justice, International Relations, or History of Punishment.

 

Total Recall: Memory-Studies Seminar

 

Professor:

Victor Apryshchenko

 

Course Number:

HIST 385

CRN Number:

10213

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 303

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Human Rights

The objectives of Memory-studies seminar are to introduce students to research methods in collective memory studies that they can apply to their own storytelling capacities and their research practice. MSS explores qualitative methodologies practiced by various disciplines including history, anthropology, social and political sciences to research mechanisms of reproducing narratives of the past. Course readings will incorporate the theoretical works about collective memory by Maurice Halbwachs about collective frames of memory; Pierre Nora on lieu de memoir; Jeffrey C. Alexander about collective/cultural traumas; Aleida Assmann on transformations of the Modern Time regime as well as works on decolonizing history through new methods of memory-studies by Jill Lepore, Gabriela De Lima Grecco and Sven Schuster; essays on using photography narratives in contemporary war-studies by Jeremy Adelman; and miscellaneous case-studies on using of oral history methods in contemporary humanities and social science. This is an OSUN Network Collaborative Course.

 

Economic Thought and Policy in Modern American History: A Seminar

 

Professor:

Daniel Wortel-London

 

Course Number:

HIST 396

CRN Number:

10366

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Hegeman 300

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Economics; Politics

In this seminar we will learn how to "read" the American economy with a historical lens: that is, as a malleable product of past theories, public policies, and political struggles. We will begin by drawing from diverse theoretical frameworks in order to answer two broad framing questions: what is the economy, and how should we go about studying it historically? We will then read primary texts from 1865 to the present, ranging from canonical articles by economists like Milton Friedman, speeches by political figures like Franklin Roosevelt, and texts by marginalized and radical groups like CIO organizers and Black Power advocates. After reading these texts alongside secondary works by historians and other scholars, we will unpack and contextualize them through lively in-class discussions. Topic we will cover will include the history of cooperatives and industrial unions, the New Deal, military Keynesianism, the Great Society social programs, urban economies, and modern neoliberalism. Finally, we will conduct multidisciplinary inquiries into how past economic theories, policies, and political struggles can inform current campaigns for economic justice.

 

Cross-listed Courses:

 

Cultural Politics of Empire: the case of British India

 

Professor:

Laura Kunreuther

 

Course Number:

ANTH 207

CRN Number:

10175

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 306

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Asian Studies; Global & International Studies; Historical Studies; Human Rights

 

Introduction to American Studies

 

Professor:

Peter L'Official

 

Course Number:

AS 101

CRN Number:

10170

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Historical Studies; Literature

 

Introduction to Indigenous Research Methodologies: Theory and Practice

 

Professor:

Luis Chavez

 

Course Number:

AS 202

CRN Number:

10171

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 101

 

Distributional Area:

MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; Anthropology; Historical Studies; Human Rights; Literature; Study of Religions

 

The Roman World: An Introduction

 

Professor:

Jasmine Akiyama-Kim

 

Course Number:

CLAS 122

CRN Number:

10128

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 102

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Historical Studies

 

Alexander the Great

 

Professor:

James Romm

 

Course Number:

CLAS 201

CRN Number:

10129

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 305

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Historical Studies

 

Human Rights to Civil Rights

 

Professor:

Kwame Holmes

 

Course Number:

HR 189

CRN Number:

10215

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 309

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis D+J Difference and Justice

 

Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies; Historical Studies

 

Sociology's Historical Imagination

 

Professor:

Karen Barkey

 

Course Number:

SOC 358

CRN Number:

10283

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 107

 

Distributional Area:

SA Social Analysis  

 

Crosslists: Historical Studies