History Courses for Fall 2005

100 Level Courses

History 101A& 101C. Western Civilization to 1700 (3h). TR 8:00-9:15 & 9:30-10:45. B117. Williams. A survey of ancient, medieval, and early modern Western history to 1700. We will be exploring the analytical tools at our disposal for comprehending human communities and explaining the transformations that occur within them.

History 101B. Western Civilization to 1700 (3h). MWF 11-11:50. A102. Barefield. A survey of ancient, medieval, and early modern history to 1700. Focus varies with instructor.

History 102A. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). MWF 9-9:50. B117. Caron. This course examines the political, social, economic, and cultural experiences of Europeans since 1700. We will analyze the growing importance of nationalism and the expansion of liberalism. We will look at how Europeans interacted with each other and with non-European cultures. The class will end with an analysis of recent important events, such as the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the Gulf War, and the ongoing Arab-Israeli negotiations. The format of the class is a combination of lecture and discussion.

History 102B. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). MWF 10-10:50. B117. Rupp. This course provides a survey of European history in the modern era. Broad themes addressed in the course include the following: differing forms of government and the principles upon which they have been based; the role of ideas in influencing historical change; the impact of social structures and struggles on forms of political power; the rights and powers of the individual and how these have been defined relative to the community and the state.

History 102C. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). MWF 12-12:50. A102. Barefield. A survey of modern Europe from 1700 to the present. Focus varies with instructor.

History 102D. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). TR 1:30-2:45. A103. Sinclair. A survey of modern Europe from 1700 to the present. Focus varies with instructor.

History 102E. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). TR 3:00-4:15. A102. Smith. A survey of modern Europe from 1700 to the present. Focus varies with instructor.

History 102F & 102G. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). TR 11-11:50 & 10-10:50. A208. Fitzgibbon. In this course we will focus on the intersection of personal and public life--on the ways in which individuals' desires and perceptions have shaped politics, religion, knowledge, the economy, public discourse, urban life, and international relationships during past 400 years, and vice versa.   In addition to the textbook, students will read four novels that illuminate changes in moral values and social relationships during the past two centuries.  Written assignments will include 2 midterms, a paper on a classic European film, 2 papers on the supplementary reading, and a final exam.

History 102H & 102I. Europe and the World in the Modern Era (3h). MWF 12-12:50 & 1-1:50. A103. Bobroff. A survey of modern Europe from 1700 to the present. Focus varies with instructor.

History 103A. Western Civilizations to 1500 (3h). TR 9:30-10:45. A102. O'Connell. A survey of the ancient, classical and medieval civilizations of Eurasia with a brief look at American and sub-Saharan societies. Focus varies with instructor.

History 103B & 103C & 103D . Western Civilizations to 1500 (3h). MWF 11-11:50 &12-12:50 & 1-1:50. A103. Howard. This course examines the cultural dynamics of a selection of world civilizations dating from 3500 B.C. to A.D. 1500.  Eurasia, along with northern Africa, will receive foremost attention, with overviews of Mesopotamia, China, India, Persia, and Europe. We will study other civilizations as time permits. Students will study the human experience of persons across a broad geographical spectrum by reading and analyzing contemporary texts to discover what the writings indicate about religion/morality, authority/empire, economics, and gender/sexuality. As far as possible the class will work to determine similarities and differences among the civilizations and try to understand the causes for the characteristics of each region.    

History 104A & 104C. World Civilizations since 1500 (3h). MWF 8-8:50 & 10-10:50. B117 & A103. McConnell. A survey ofthe major civilizations of the world in the modern and contemporary periods.

History 104D. World Civilizations since 1500 (3h). TR 1:30-2:45. B117. Meyers. This course provides an overview of the increasing interconnectedness and continuing divergence of the major regions of the world over the last five hundred years. While we will pay attention to economic developments, we will also focus on the importance of ideas and on the ways in which individuals both react to and shape political, economic, social, and cultural changes. We will try to put our own study of history in context by asking how different ways of thinking about the past have affected the desires, choices, and actions of individuals and groups.

History 104I. World Civilizations since 1500 (3h). MW 2-3:15. B117. Hellyer. A survey of the major civilizations of the world in the modern and contemporary periods.

Credit cannot be received for both 101 and 103 or 102 and 104.
All classes held in Tribble Hall unless otherwise noted.

 100 level  |  200 level  |  300 level  |  FYS

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200 Level Courses

History 211A. 20th Century Eastern Europe (3h). Staff. to be announced.

History 211A. Europe & Native Rel./New World (3h). MWF 12-12:50. A104. McConnell.

History 211E. 20th Century Eastern Europe (3h) MWF 12-12:50. B117. Rupp.

History 232. European Historical Novels (1.5h). W 2-4:30. Barefield. The class will meet the professor’s house which is inside the gates of WFU. The books to be used are War and Peace, The Leopard and The Name of the Rose.

History 251. United States before 1865 (3h). TR 9-10:45. A103. Hendricks. Political, Social, economic, and intellectual aspects.

History 287. Honors in History I: Demokratia (3h). T 1:30-3. A104. Lerner. The seminar will explore the institution of Greek democracy from its origins in the archaic period to its blossoming in classical Athens.  Students will be introduced and encouraged to investigate in translation ancient texts and contemporary scholarship in order to glean insight about a variety of topics regarding ancient forms of democratic government. All honors students must take History 287. POI.

 100 level  |  200 level  |  300 level  |  FYS

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300 Level Courses

History 306& 606. Early Middle Ages, "The Birth of Europe, 400-1200" (3h). TR 1:30-2:45. A102. O'Connell. This course will investigate the political, cultural, religious, and material history of Europe from the later Roman Empire to the intellectual revitalization and expansion of European culture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  Once dismissed as the “Dark Ages,” scholars now point to this as an era when some of the key cultural, political, and artistic foundations of later European history were forged.  Indeed, these centuries saw the “birth” of a distinctive Western European civilization that arose from the ashes of ancient Greece and Rome.  Major themes will include the rise of Christianity and contests over its institutions, the division of the old Roman Empire into Western Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic world, the emergence of the Carolingian and Ottonian Empires, Viking invasions and the Crusades, and changes in gender roles across the period.

History 310A & 610A. Seminar: Medieval Memory, Time, Space (3h). T 1:30-4. A305. Villagomez.

History 310B& 610B. Seminar: War, Revol &Indiv Exper (3h). R 3-5:30. A104. Williams. If war and revolution can alter the structure or function of governments, reorder what we call economies and societies, and overturn the international distribution of power, what changes do they effect in the lives of individuals? How, and to what extent, do they deflect the course of individuals’ lives and transform their experience? What meaning, if any, do individuals manage to find in the course of these tumultuous public events? These are the questions we will address in this seminar. To answer them we will rely on a particular kind of historical source—the various forms of first person expression (e.g., diaries, journals, memoirs, letters)—with its own possibilities and problems, which it will also be our business to explore.

History 310C&D & 610C&D. Seminar: Race, Class & Gender (3h). F&M 2-4:30. A104. Caron. This seminar will examine race, class and gender in American history since the Colonial era, with special emphasis on the early national period to the present.  As a research seminar, all students will be required to complete a twenty-five to thirty page research paper based on primary and relevant secondary sources.  The first seven weeks of the class will entail intensive reading and discussion of secondary materials to familiarize students with the background necessary to write the research paper.

History 316 & 616. Rome: Republic and Empire (3h). TR 9:30-10:45. A208. Lerner. History 316/616 considers the history of Rome, a city-state, which constructed one of the most durable empires the Mediterranean Basin has ever known.  The course will survey the peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean during the first millennium BCE: the growth of Roman power in Italy and then, beginning in the second century BCE, throughout the Mediterranean; changes in Mediterranean life under Roman domination; and the breakdown of Roman power during the first millennium CE.  The main themes emphasized throughout the course include: Roman conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean; the internal political struggle and the evolution of the Republican state; the fall of the Republic and the growth of autocracy; Roman adjustments in attempting to hold the empire together; and finally, the culture of the peoples subject to Roman rule.

History 333& 633. European Diplomatic History, 1848-1914 (3h). MWF 10-10:50. A102. Bobroff. This course examines the history of European international relations from the revolutions of 1848 to the start of the First World War. This period of European diplomacy is crucial to an understanding of the politics and diplomacy of the nineteenth and twentieth century, not only through 1914, but also through to the end of the century. We study in part the Great Powers and the men and women leading them as well as the broader social, cultural, ideological, religious and economic contexts that inform and limit the choices left to the direct players. We also interrogate the roles nationalism and imperialism played in the development of this history.

History 342 & 642. Middle Eastern Before 1500 (3h). TR 9:30-10:45. A305. Villagomez. A survey of Middle Eastern history from the rise of Islam to the emergence of the last great Muslim unitary states. The course provides an overview of political history with more in-depth emphasis on the development of Islamic cu lture and society in the pre-modern era.

History 343 & 643. Imperial China(3h). TR 12-1:15. A103. Sinclair. A study of traditional China to 1850, with emphasis on social, cultural, and political institutions.

History 346 & 646. Japan before 1800 (3h). MWF 11-11:50. B117. Hellyer. A survey of Japan from earliest times to the coming of Western imperialism, with emphasis on regional ecologies, economic institutions, cultural practice, military organization, political ideology, and foreign relations.

History 350A&B & 650A&B. Global Economic History (3h). TR 12-1:15 & 1:30-2:15. A208. Watts. An overview of the growth and development of the world economy from precapitalist organizations to the present system of developed and underdeveloped states.

History 356 & 656. Jacksonian America 1815-1850 (3h). MWF 1-1:50. A208. Fitzgibbon. Andrew Jackson polarized American voters as few presidents have.  Were voters simply reacting to Jackson's populist political style?  Were rival politicians merely exploiting people's need to vent their frustration during times of great change and uncertainty?  Or were citizens engaged in a meaningful conflict over who should govern America and what kind of nation the United States should become?  To what extent did the parties mediate and resolve conflict?  To what extent did they exacerbate the sense of political and economic disenfranchisement which the reforms of the 1820s and the 1830s were intended to resolve?
To answer these questions, we will examine not only the early history of the United States' two-party system, but also the structure of American society during the early 19^th century and the institutions that aroused the American public's passions:  banks, courts, elite-dominated legislatures, missionary societies, trade unions, marriage, slavery, the Catholic Church, the Church of Latter Day Saints, tribal ownership of land.

History 357& 657. Civil War & Reconstruction(3h). MWF 9-9:50. A103. Escott. This course focuses on America’s most destructive war, the changes it produced, and their meaning for national values and freedom. The scope of the course is broad, embracing political, social, economic and military history. The questions with which it deals have been and remain central to American values and government.

History 359 & 659. US from WWI through WWII (3h). TR 12-1:15. A102. Smith. The course covers United States development through the transitions from World War I, the Roaring Twenties with Flappers and Fundamentalism, the Crash, the GREAT Depression of the 30’s, and the cultural emergence of World War II. It was a period full of major changes—rural to urban, pristine national isolation to international primacy, Cincinnatus to standing army, Harlem Renaissance to “To Secure These Rights,” free market to corporate society, and Woodrow Wilson to Harry Truman.

History 362 & 662. American Constitutional History (3h). TR 3-4:15. GRNE 145. Zick. Origins of the Constitution, the controversies involving the nature of the Union, and constitutional readjustments to meet the new American industrialism.

History 363 & 663. The Old South (3h). TR 12-1:30. B117. Gillespie. This course provides a social, cultural, and political history of the American South, from the first encounters between Native Americans, Europeans and African slaves through the Civil War, Emancipation, and the beginnings of Reconstruction. It examines the development of slavery, the plantation economy, proslavery thought, southern nationalism, secession politics, the construction of a master class, gender and sexuality, and the rise of a distinctive regional identity in the South between 1600 and 1865. It explores the personal and political dynamics between social groups, especially between white and black southerners, and how and why these dynamics changed over time. It relies on an interpretive approach to highlight new developments in scholarship, and stresses the major themes that give coherence and meaning to the study of this region and its relationship to the nation and the world across three centuries of time. This course is reading intensive and built around discussion.

History 371 & 671. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (3h). T 7-9:30pm. B117. Hendricks. A history of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County area using techniques of local history including archives, museums, and oral history. Lectures, readings, and class projects.

History 374 & 674. Protest & Rebellion in Latin America (3h). TR 3-4:15. B117. Meyers
This course examines protest and rebellion in Latin America from the colonial period to the present. While we will spend a significant amount of time on some of the largest movements of armed revolt, including the Andean Great Rebellion of 1780-81, the wars of independence, and the Mexican Revolution, we will consider the resort to violence as one end of a spectrum of possible forms of negotiation with and about power. Major themes will include the legitimation of protest and rebellion, with its corollary in the sources of legitimate authority; the interaction between local and supralocal actors and ideologies; and the reasons why individuals choose to engage in acts of protest and rebellion. We will conclude with a historically-informed look at some of the guerrilla movements and movements of political protest active in Latin America today.

History 380 & 680. America at Work (3h). W 2-4:30. A305. Gillespie. This course will look at the people who built America from the 18 th century to the present. It will emphasize the experiences and perspectives of Americans whose labor and politics shaped this nation and made it prosper through their actions, voices, and writings, and through scholars’ critical perceptions of their importance for understanding the American past, as well as contemporary attitudes toward American workers. Themes will include free labor versus slave labor, the impact of industrialization, the racial and gendered dimensions of work, and the growth of organized labor and its political repercussions. We will visit a labor union, talk with a corporate lawyer who does labor law, and apply our understanding of the history of American work to local workers and their concerns.

History 398 & 698. Individual Study (1-3h). Staff. To be announced.

History 399 & 699. Directed Reading (1-3h). Staff. To be announced.

 100 level  |  200 level  |  300 level  |  FYS

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First Year Seminars

FYS 100. The Two Reconstructions (3h) Escott. Our seminar will examine and compare two periods in which the rights of African-Americans were at the top of the nation’s agenda: reconstruction after the Civil War, and the modern civil rights movement.  What made this issue so salient at those times?  What caused progress in those periods?  Why did progress stop?  Together we will search for patterns, similarities and differences, and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of racial progress in America.

FYS 100. Thomas Jefferson and His World (3h). Gillespie. Why, at the start of the twenty-first century, do we remain so drawn to Thomas Jefferson? Intellectual, founding father and third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson has come to embody the moral and intellectual heart of the American experience for many people around the world. Yet Jefferson ’s ideas and actions taken as a whole represent a bundle of contradictions. Despite his commitment to liberty and equality, he led a privileged life as a Virginia planter who owned 175 slaves. But in his writings and speeches, he adamantly opposed aristocracy and slavery. Moreover, Jefferson apparently engaged in a long-term relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, and fathered five children with her, freeing the latter upon their adulthood. Given these conflicting “truths” and others does Jefferson embody the epitome of the American ideal after all? Although hundreds of studies have attempted to explain one of America’s most significant national heroes and his impact on American society and politics, the Virginia slaveholder and so-called architect of American democracy remains elusive. Who was this man and how did he make sense of his world? This course explores Thomas Jefferson in all his complexity as political thinker, public figure and private man. We will work together to understand Jefferson and his contradictory ideas and actions as constructions of his eighteenth-century world. At the same time, we will try to determine, through our critical reading and thinking, as well as extensive discussion and debate, what we believe to be Jefferson’s significance today.

FYS 100. Herodotus: Father of History, Father of Lies (3h). Lerner. The seminar will focus on the Histories by the 5th century B.C.E. Greek historian Herodotus and will thereby introduce the students to the major personalities, places and events of the ancient Near East and Greece with special emphasis on the 6th - early 5th century B.C.E.  It is within this context that the fundamental themes of the class occur: what does “history” mean to Herodotus?  What is Herodotus’ point of view?  What evidence does he cite -- written as opposed to oral -- and how does he use it?  What roles do morality, tragedy, religion, and cause-and-effect play in his composition?  The course is designed to teach students to think critically by emphasizing how to read efficiently for information in order to glean the criteria necessary to evaluate the significance of a historical source and to create an interpretation on which a cogent argument can be extracted and defended.  To actualize the critical thinking process, the students will be required to develop and argue both through oral and written expression a personal understanding of a given topic based on a synthesis of historical fact and inference, while also commenting thoughtfully on other students’ ideas and insights.

FYS 100. Global Wealth and Poverty (3h). Watts. This course provides a brief history of globalization, one which addresses the disparities of wealth and poverty within and between nations and which analyzes the processes and events leading to the current modern world system. Our primary goal is to understand why, with so much global productivity and wealth-creation, do the gaps between rich and poor states widen at an ever increasing rate? We will learn the conceptual categories of meaning through which one “thinks” the world using methods of analysis from a broad range of disciplines including economic geography, urban sociology, international political economy, development economics, and postcolonial anthropology.