In a class that will be entirely discussion based, students will explore how history can be viewed as well as interpreted from astoundingly different and often contradictory perspectives. Above all, students must come to grips with the challenge of "context." In studying the history of the Shawnee, for example, how do we assess their use of torture?
"A Grass-Roots Movement": Students will focus on the history and historiography of the civil Rights Movement from 1955-1065. This is primarily a discussion and writing class that will provide us an opportunity to explore the methods of Doing History.
"Piracy": We will examine piracy with a comparative perspective throughout world history, looking at particular themes such as the rise and fall of pirate states, captivity narratives, the mythology of piracy, piracy and war, the economics of piracy, piracy and sexuality, etc. Students will be expected to engage in class readings and discussion, and to research a specific region or theme and produce a significant paper using primary sources.
This course will examine some of the major issues associated with the study of history. Who controls history? Those at the "top" or those at the "bottom?" How and why do historical interpretations change over time? Is there "truth" in historical analysis? We will also examine issues related to the use of historical sources. What sources do historians use? What are primary and secondary sources? What are some of the benefits and drawbacks associated with these various types of sources? What are some of the historiographical issues related to secondary sources? Finally, this knowledge will put into action as you research and write a substantial, original paper consisting of primary and secondary sources on a topic related to Antebellum America.
"The Great War": This will be a two-part course: Part 1: Postmodernism and the Question of Truth in History; Part 2: World War I -- Political, Cultural, Social, and Military aspects of the Great War.
"The History of Chicago": Students will be asked to write a 15-20 page essay using primary and secondary sources. In addition students will also write reviews for three books dealing with the history of Chicago.
"Exploring Environmental History": from farming to fishing, pollution to wilderness preservation, dramatic natural disasters to everyday occurrences like eating or throwing away trash, students in this seminar may research and write on any aspect of environmental history -- the history of human landscapes and human interaction with the nonhuman world.
"Historical Memory": This course will examine how historical events are recorded and memorialized. We will read works by historians, artists, museum critics, and archeologists that examine how and why historic events are recorded for posterity.
"The Cold War, 1945-1968": Students can write on any aspect of the Cold War, including cultural issues, although course discussions and readings will focus on the political and military interaction between the United States and the Soviet Union.
"Popular Entertainment and History": The theme of this seminar is popular entertainment and history, with an emphasis on the histories of movies and movie-going. We will be placing the things people do for fun and pleasure at the center of historical inquiry. Doing so assumes that pleasure is rarely arbitrary or idiosyncratic; rather, it is deeply social, as various societies and groups have found pleasure in different things at different points in time.
"Conservatism in the United States": Students will research and write a paper on any aspect of U.S. conservatism in the twentieth century. The readings will focus on the rise of modern conservatism since World War II -- the rise of the "New Right" -- arguable the first coherent conservative movement in U.S. history. Possible research topics will include aspects of the Christian Right such as Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, the neocons and their influence in foreign policy, culture war battles such as over the National History Standards, conservative political leaders such as Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, conservative intellectuals such as National Review founder William F. Buckley, and conservative media voices such as Rush Limbaugh or Fox News.
"Greek and Roman Women": The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the sources, methodologies, and the current debates focusing on ancient women in the Greek and Roman world. We will explore the representations of women in ancient Greek and Roman culture. By analyzing textual, visual and archaeological evidence, we will also investigate the legal and social status of women in the ancient world with particular attention to issues of class and ethnicity.
"Society and Daily Life in the East Bloc": This course examines Eastern Europe from the conclusion of the Second World War through the 1990s. Emphasis will be placed on daily experience within the context of the socialist. Emphasis will be placed on daily experience within the context of the socialist ideological, political and economic systems established in the region after 1945. One objective of this course is to examine how everyday life influenced high politics, as much as socialist states influenced the societies they controlled. Topics to be explored include postwar reconstruction, Stalinism, gender, youth culture, consumerism, reform Communism and intellectual currents and activism leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Throughout, attention will be devoted to the position of the East bloc between the Soviet Union and "the West."
"Early Modern European Military History": Offered for the first time, this course will examine the role warfare played in the eveolution of Early Modern European society. It will cover the comparative military histories of the European center (Habsburg/French core) and periphery (British Isles, Scandinavia, Poland-Lithuania, Muscovy, and the Ottoman empire), as well as the principal military conflicts fought by Europeans in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, during the general period of 1450-1800. In addition to examining major campaigns, it will emphasize several themes, including: the ideas of war (theories and ethics), the mechanics of war (moving, supplying, training, and controlling armies, as well as the evolution and impact of fortifications), the technology and organization of force (tactics and strategy), the intersection of war and society, the economics of war, war and the nation-state, war and religion, and the historiographic debate over the military revolution.
"History of Sexuality in the United States": In recent decades the study of sexuality in American history has grown substantially and historians are increasingly exploring ways in which issues of sexuality shape the larger, more familiar narrative of American history. The course includes a survey of the history of sexuality from the colonial period to the present with an analysis of relative historiography and primary sources. Some of the topics include birth control, reproduction, and family life; courship and marriage; sexual violence; homosexuality and intimacy; prostitution; obscenity and sex censorship; sexual revolutions; and public health. The course culminates in a paper and presentation examining the historiography and related primary sources of a specific topic.
"American Suburban History": In this class we'll study the history of American suburbs, from the nineteenth century through the suburban "golden age" of the 1950s to the present. We'll consider what the popularity of suburbia can tell us about American attitudes toward nature, technology, gender, family, class, religion, race, "progress," politics, patriotism, and more. And we'll consider the surprisingly powerful ways suburban history has influenced U.S. history more broadly.
"United States Religious History II": Beginning with the end of the Civil War, we will explore the rise of the Fundamentalist/Liberal divide within American Christianity as it merged out of the Evangelical United Front of the pre-Civil War era. The impact of Darwin's theories of the evolution and natural selection as well as of the "historical Biblical criticism" looms large in these developments, which culminate in the "Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925." We will also examine the continuing course of African American religion in the North as well as the rise of independent Black denominations in teh South. The white South will have its own response and will examine the battle over civil rights as a battle over religion as well. We will also explore the rise of immigrant Jewish and Catholic Religion in America before and after WWII. We will trace the relationship of church and Politics from the Protestant establishment of a century ago, through the era of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish consensus, a secular establishment, and finally to the rise of the religious right and the reassertion of evangelical dominance at the end of the 20th century. This dominance will be challenged by a new multiculturalism as an array of other immigrant religions enter American life and rise to prominence after 1965.
"The History of Medicine, Public Health, and Suffering in Comparative Perspective": The experiences of suffering, care, and healing are universal -- yet they vary widely depending on time period, social class, gender, race/ethnicity, and policy environments. Through assigned readings and research activities, this course introduces students to the histories of Western medicine, public health, and what scholars have dubbed the "patient's view." It also facilitates comparison of U.S., British, and continental European health care environments, systems, and policies.
