Introduction

Courses for Spring 2010
    100 level
    200 level
    300 level
    First Year Seminars

History courses taught at Wake Forest
  

History Courses for Spring 2010

100 Level Courses

History 101A & 101B. Western Civilization to 1700 (3h). TR 8-9:15 & 9:30-10:45. B117. Williams. At light speed (in one class period) we will traverse the prehistory of our species and then set about a more intensive review of the next 5200 years (3500 B.C.E to 1700 C.E). Our journey will carry us from Sumeria and the appearance of that form of culture historians call civilization to the eve of industrialization and political revolution in Western Europe.  While examining the the communal structures, achievements, tribulations, and transformations of peoples who, for the most part, spoke Indo-European languages and who, from their origins somewhere north of the Caucasus, came to control not only Europe, but the Americas and the whole of northern Asia, we will try to determine what sense it makes to speak of the tangible and intangible worlds they made as a single civilization and on what bases we might distinguish this civilization from others that appeared elsewhere.

History 102A & 102B. Europe & World in Modern Era (3h). MWF 9-9:50 & 2-2:50. A103. White. This course will explore the social, cultural and political transformation of Europe, along with Europe's transformation of the globe, from the 18th through the 20th centuries. From the Glorious Revolution, to the French Revolution, to the Industrial Revolution, to the Russian Revolution to the "Velvet" Revolution - this was an era of profound and often rapid change. We will closely examine how this change impacted the lives of all Europeans, from the lowliest farmer to the haughtiest king. Beyond this, we will also examine how and why Europeans came to dominate the majority of the globe during these centuries, and how this global dominance impacted the lives native peoples throughout the world. This course will also examine in greater detail the role of violence in the shaping of the modern world through close examination of such topics as war, revolt and imperialism. Special topics we will explore in greater detail include the long-term impact of the French Revolution, the impact of European colonization on the peoples of the Congo, the impact of the German "final solution to the Jewish question" and the impact of the process of decolonization in former European colonies.

History 103A & 103B. World Civilizations to 1500 (3h). MWF 10-10:50 & 12-12:50 A208. Zhang. This course provides a selective overview of human history from the very beginning to 1500 CE. Within a roughly chronological framework, it seeks to highlight the broad patterns of development among major human communities, especially those on the Eurasian continent, with respect to their political and social institutions, economic life, cultural values, intellectual traditions and religious beliefs. The goal of this course is to help the students to (1) better understand the distinct characteristics and common patterns of development of major world civilizations; (2) better recognize and appreciate the profound connections and interactions among diverse human communities and cultures throughout the pre-modern world and the extent to which all of them shaped the material and cultural world we now live in; and (3) better understand and practice the historian’s craft, in particular, the skill to analyze a wide variety of primary sources and to develop and/or evaluate a historical argument.

History 105A & 105B. Africa in World History (3h). MWF 11-11:50 & 12-12:50. A102. Plageman. This course examines African history and its importance to the wider world.  Today, popular imagination suggests that the African continent has been (and remains) isolated from historical events of modern significance.  Throughout the semester we will challenge this notion by exploring the ways in which Africans have been central to global developments in Europe and the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the expanding Atlantic World.  Themes include the emergence and interrelations of early civilizations, the spread of Christianity and Islam, expanding networks of economic exchange, migrations (forced and voluntary) in and out of the African continent, understandings of race and racial consciousness, and connections throughout the African Diaspora.  Correspondingly, we will examine how Africans and peoples of African descent experienced and shaped the historical currents of the twentieth century, including colonial rule, national independence, and possibilities for the post-colonial period.

History 106A & 106B. Medieval World Civilizations (3h). TR 9:30-10:45 & 12-1:15. A208. Raley. This course provides a comparative, thematic overview of world civilizations during the period generally understood as “medieval,” namely, that era spanning from the end of Classical Antiquity to the dawn of the early modern era (from ca. 300 C.E.. – ca. 1450 C.E.). One of the tasks of this course, therefore, will be to examine global cultures and societies in Asia, India, Africa, and Mesoamerica, as well as Europe, during this period in order to ascertain whether or not one can truly speak of “medieval” world history.  Some of the themes that we shall explore include: law codes and societies; literacy and oral culture; the marginalization of “Others”; climate change, ecology, and demographics; agricultural, commercial, and scientific innovations; intellectual thought; communication and migration patterns; geographic exploration and world trade; art and music as mirrors of cultures; religion and gender; and conflicting loyalties and translocal/transregional identities. Above all, this course offers students the opportunity (and challenges them) to develop a better understanding of the origins, cultural heritages, historical responses, and degrees of interaction and cross-cultural fertilization among the world’s principal civilizations during this critical, formative period of history. The ultimate goals, thereby, are to understand better the roots of modern society and to foster a greater awareness and appreciation for cultural diversity in our world today.

History 107A & 107B. The Middle East and the World (3h) MWF 1-1:50 & 2-2:50. A102. Poyraz.

History 108A. The Americas and the World (3h). MWF 12-12:50. A103. Wakild. This course is an introductory survey of civilizations in the Americas.  North and South America share a common name, yet because of the vast disparities that exist today we rarely think of the history of the Americas as a continental phenomenon.  Such ahistorical thinking obscures the many paths that might have unfolded in the past. Today’s differences implore us to ask how and why did peoples, cultures, and societies, diverge?  In what ways do similar processes—of civilization, colonialism, piracy, slavery, revolution, industrialization, development, and more—unfold differently and why?  In this course, we will consider the ways that North America, South America, Anglo America, Latin America, Native America, Spanish America, Portuguese America, African America, British America, and more share an intertwined and interrelated history.  In three vibrant periods of change, that of disparate cultures, competing colonies, and developing nations, we will examine the place of the Americas in the World.

History 108B & 108G. The Americas and the World (3h). MWF 1-1:50 & 11-11:50. A208. Hayes. This course explores major developments in the history of the Americas, with consistent attention to the changing global context. Through memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, monographs, and films, we will seek to put a human face on such familiar abstractions as colonialism, slavery, republics, industrialization, and globalization. Class sessions will mix lecture, discussion, film, debate, and source interpretation to uncover the human aspirations, ideals, and struggles of the past five centuries.

History 108C. The Americas and the World (3h). TR 9:30-10:45. A102. Ventura. This course explores major developments in the history of the Americas and globalization. Beginning with the “Columbian exchange,” we will ask how interactions between indigenous Americans, Europeans, and Africans created new identities, cultures, and polities as we explore the role of the Americas in the formation of a modern global economy. Moving into the period of liberal revolutions and independence movements, we will investigate the proliferation of nation-states in the late 18th and 19th century, the persistence of and challenges to un-free labor, and the place of politics, trade, and the environment in the growing divergence between North and South America. We will next consider the role of Latin America in the rise of the United States to global power in the 20th century. Through memoir, film, and visual material, in addition to scholarly works, we will ask how ordinary people experienced and influenced world events as we seek to understand the relationship between local places and global processes.

History 108D & 108F. The Americas and the World (3h). TR 12-1:15 & 3-4:15. B117. McGraw. This course provides an introduction to the global patterns that have shaped the Americas since the late fifteenth century.  We will explore the enduring impact of contact between Native American, European, and African peoples in the crafting of new identities, cultures, and polities.  Next, the era of revolutions offers an occasion to question why emancipation and independence both aligned and conflicted in the Americas.  The global circulation of ideas, people, and products furnish the backdrop for this examination.  Capitalist development, nationalism, and new imperial rivalries join civil conflicts and the final wars for independence as important topics in our discussion of the diverging American societies of the nineteenth century.  Finally, our class will assess critically the so-called “U.S. century,” as the United States attained first Great Power and then Superpower status.  African American freedom struggles and the Cuban Revolution will be placed in the context of Cold War politics and decolonization in Africa and Asia.  Although our lens will encompass much of the hemisphere – and, indeed, the world – the weight this course attaches to slavery, emancipation, and the structure of racial inequality will place special emphasis on the places where economic and political development were most firmly rooted in human bondage, including Brazil, Cuba, and the United States.

History 108E. The Americas and the World (3h). TR 1:30-2:45. A103. Blee.This course examines how the histories of the Americas developed in conversation with the larger world from 1500 to the present. Course readings will highlight studies of particular commodities, such as sugar, tobacco, horses, bananas, and brand-named shoes.  Lectures and discussion will focus on commodity chains and trade systems along with personal memoir and testimony through hemispheric eras of contact, slavery, colonialism, revolution, nationalism, and globalization.  Although the course will cover historical trends that affected the hemisphere as a whole, it will center most heavily upon peoples and commodity studies in Central and North America.

History 109A. Asia and the World (3h). MWF 11-11:50. A103. Hellyer. This course explores how East Asia, chiefly China, Japan and Korea, have interacted with the outside world from 1500 to the present. It considers East Asian views of Europe and the US, the nature of early modern commercial and diplomatic relations, the adoption of new technologies and Christianity in East Asia, East Asian “modernization” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, WWII in East Asia, communism and socialism, and rapid economic development in the region since WWII.

History 109B & 109C. Asia and the World (3h). TR 12-1:15 & 3-4:15. A103 & A102. Rahman. This class will take a thematic approach to the history of Asia and its connections with global history. In this course, we will discuss South, Southeast, and East Asia in order to obtain a rather comprehensive and comparative understanding of the Asian continent. The aim of this course is to appreciate the diversity within Asia and understand the history of this continent as linked with world history. Although we will cover different time periods, our focus will largely be the last five centuries. What are the different societies and traditions within Asia? What have been their contributions to the world? What historical incidents have linked Asia to the rest of the world? Such questions will be considered to explore the political, economic, social, and cultural history of Asia and its interactions with the outside world. Specific topics will include different religious traditions, imperialism, global trade and commerce, the Indian Ocean, cross-cultural interactions, modernization, nationalism, and decolonization movements.

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 210. Colloquium in Historical Diversity (3h). TR 9:30-10:45. A104. McGraw. This course explores the dominant narratives of women’s history, African American history, and gay and lesbian history as represented in U.S. popular culture and public commemoration.  Particular emphasis will be placed on broad narratives of progress and on recent products of popular culture that claim to represent a break from past inequality and intolerance.  Although we will consider a wide range of cultural artifacts and forms of remembrance, Hollywood movies and internet sites will receive special scrutiny. The web offers a particularly rich resource for student inquiry, since it has held the possibility of creating a more inclusive, participatory peoples’ history. We will explore the extent to which any such vision has been realized, or whether the supposed democratization of communication technology has disguised the perpetuation of inequality.  Students will explore the relevance of feminist theory, critical whiteness studies, and queer theory to the analysis of popular culture and public history.  Throughout the semester, students will engage the political projects that underwrite the popular memory of progress, and they will assess the ways in which historical narratives of change facilitate and/or limit the achievement of a genuinely multicultural society in the present.

History 222. The Renaissance and Reformation (3h). TR 1:30-2:45. A208. Raley. This course examines the complex period of early modern history between 1300 and 1648, when Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages and as Renaissance humanists looked back to the glory of Classical Greece and Rome for their intellectual inspiration. This was also the period when the unity of the Catholic faith and the political-ecclesiastical domination of the Catholic Church throughout western Europe were shattered and a multitude of new “Protestant” religious sects arose and developed into formal religious denominations. Our study, therefore, will include a review of late medieval calls for the reform of the existing practices and doctrines of the Catholic Church. We shall also examine the theology and criticisms put forth by the various Protestant leaders, contextualized within their social, cultural, geographical, and political frameworks. Our approach shall be at once both interdisciplinary and transnational, employing the methodologies of social, cultural, legal, and intellectual historians to consider not only the arguments of theologians, but also the understandings of rural peasants. We shall study as well the political upheaval, iconoclasm, and wars of religion that came about as a result of the challenges posed to the status quo by the new religious sects. Through such examinations we shall trace the transformation of education as well as novel family and gender issues that emerged in the wake of the new Protestant theologies; the conflicting tensions between the confessions of the new religious faiths; calls for liberty of conscience and pleas for religious tolerance; and above all, the transformation of early modern European society and politics that emerged and evolved during the Reformation era to presage modernity.

History 224. Great Britain since 1750 (3h). MWF 12-12:50. B117. White. This course will explore Britain's emergence and decline as a global power over the course of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. We will also explore the course of domestic politics during this period, with special attention paid to the development of Britain's tradition of moderate and measured reform. Among the special topics we will explore in closer detail include the formation of British national identity in the 18th century, the lives and conditions of the working class, the female suffrage movement, the Irish question, and the imperial and post-imperial eras. Along with exploring Britain's role in the wider world, we will also explore the internal relationship between the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, with special attention paid to the social, cultural and political transformations of the "Atlantic Archipelago" during this period.

History 243. The Middle East Since 1500 (3h). MWF 9-9:50. A208. Poyraz

History 247. Japan Since 1800 (3h). MWF 1-1:50. A103. Hellyer. This course provides an overview of early modern and modern Japan. It examines the last feudal age (the Edo Period), the profound changes after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the development of the Japanese nation-state, the building of the Japanese empire, victory and defeat in WW II, and postwar economic growth. The course concludes with an analysis of the political and economic changes that have occurred in Japan since 1990.

300 Level Courses

History 311AA. Special Topics: US and the World 1898 to the Present (3h). TR 1:30-2:45. A102. Ventura.

History 311AB. Special Topics: Race and the Courts(3h). TR 1:30-2:45. B117. Hopkins.This course will use the historical method to examine the impact of state and federal court cases upon the evolution of race relations in this country.  Beginning with Dred Scott, the historical context of each case will be placed in juxtaposition to the social and political realities for the given periods. Case law, scholarly articles, as well the Supreme Court Digest will provide a foundation for analyzing government intervention, inaction, and creative interpretation.
Topics for consideration will include the impact of Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson upon social relations in the United States; the Civil War Amendments and the Slaughter House cases and their consequences; Reconstruction, lynchings, and the emergence of the KKK; the analysis of civil rights during the Great Depression and the New Deal; separate but equal applications in American life; voting rights issues; school desegregation before and after Brown with a particular emphasis on the Michigan college desegregation case and ending with the landmark case regarding racial balance in the public school system Parents v. Seattle. Further, other subject areas will be devoted to race and the military, race and sports, and the rights of immigrants.  The goal of the course is to demonstrate the historical evolution of race relations in the United States which are predicated upon the judicial interpretation of the rights of its citizens.

History 311AC. Special Topics: US West from 1850 (3h). TR 3-4:15. A103. Blee. This course covers the American period of settlement in the West from 1850, and will explore several major issues in the development of the U.S. West: boom-and-bust labor cycles, immigration and migration, Indian wars and reservations, natural resource and environmental issues, government contracts and regional politics, and tourism. The course will be organized around related themes: relationships between land and people; cultural and racial diversity; political struggles over resources; the evolution of categories of gender, religion, race, and national identity; and the emergence of frontier myths and what they tell us about American culture.

History 311E. Special Topics: The History of European Jewry from the Middle Ages to the Present (3h). TR 12-1:15. A102. Rupp.This course will provide a survey of the Jewish historical experience in Europe from the ghettoization and expulsion of Jews in the medieval period to the Holocaust and its aftermath.  The course will include a consideration of social, cultural, economic and political history, and will place the particular experience of Jews within the context of changes occurring in Europe from the medieval to the modern period.

History 318. Weimar Germany (3h). MWF 12-12:50. Greene 340. Hughes. This course is an exploration of the arts in Central Europe, 1905-1937, in historical context.  We will read novels, stories, and poems; view some of the best of the early films; listen to challenging and stimulating music; and look at vibrant and provocative paintings, etchings, woodprints, and sculptures.  All along we will be seeking to understand how these works of art, which speak to us still, are nonetheless rooted in a particular time and place, in the cultural, economic, social, and political institutions and developments of their day.  The course is team taught by Prof. Hughes of History and Prof. Thomas of German.  This semester, the Theater Dept. will be staging one of the plays we’ll read, Three Penny Opera, by Bertolt Brecht.

History 328 & 628. History of the English Common Law (3h). TR 3-4:15. Greene 312. Zick. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his classic treatise, The Common Law, that, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience...The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. In order to know what it is, we must know what it has become." (Holmes, 5). Common law history is a study of the experiences that have formed English constitutional history as well as common law institutions and principles. The "common law" can be defined simply as the system of law developed in England and transferred to most of the English-speaking world. It is a study of the concepts, doctrines, and rules which have been used to keep order in society. It frequently represents the struggles of competing persons, groups, and interests, as reflected in cases and legislation, to adjust their differences. To the extent possible these struggles can be examined and interpreted in light of the particular times and circumstances which shaped them. But although changing social and economic conditions may occasionally provide an appropriate context within which to study the law's development, the thinking of lawyers, judges, and legal scholars more frequently has been the principal source for change. In this sense the study of legal history is the study of ideas about the law as expressed in the resolution of legal disputes as these ideas evolved to reflect the "felt necessities" of the times.

History 335 & 635. Intellectual History of Modern South Asia (3h). TR 9:30-10:45. A103. Rahman. This course explores the history of ideas and intellectual history of South Asia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will examine ideas, concepts, institutions, personalities, and movements related to Hindu and other Indic traditions such as Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, and, to a lesser extent, Islamic. The themes covered in this class will include social and religious reforms, lower caste movements, religious conversion, status of women, Indian nationalism, Hindu nationalism and right wing movements, political participation, democracy, and the question of identity. This course will thus examine a range of issues cutting across regions, religions, gender, caste, and the periods of colonial and postcolonial South Asia.

History 336 & 636. Gender in African History (3h). MW 3-4:15. A102. Plageman. This course centers gender as an indispensable subject of analysis within the confines of the broader African past.  In other words, it focuses on the ways in which gendered forms and relationships have been constructed, reproduced, and altered at various points in time.  Major topics for the course include theories of gender, gender in Africa and its historiography, the importance of gender in pre-colonial African societies, the gendered impacts of the colonial period, the gendered nature of nationalism and independence, and the impact of capitalism and economic change.

History 341 & 641. Africans in the Atlantic World, 1750-1815 (3h). R 3-5:30. A208. Parent. This course investigates the African experience on both sides of the Atlantic from 1750 to 1815, when Africans made up eighty percent of the immigrants to the Americas. Using histories and primary sources, this course examines the Africans’ encounters with American Indians and Europeans in the colonies and their adjustment to slave traders in West Africa. A question raised in this course is: how did Africans and African-descended people in Europe and its colonies, respond to changes in European policy? Although Britain carried more slaves into its colonies and benefited more than any other European power, Britain began to reverse its position on the progressive effects of enslavement, promoting instead abolition and emancipation. Other topics include: their identity as Africans, Afro-Europeans, and African Americans; African royal status and its implications for enslavement; reactions to loss, captivity, and enslavement; yearnings for liberation, both spiritual and corporeal; the Africans’ role in abolitionism and revolution; and their return to Africa as missionaries and colonists. The course will also examine white patronage of African art and representations of Africans in art and print.
Majors receive credit for Africa, Asia, Latin America distribution.

History 353 & 653. Ten Years of Madness: The History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 (3h). MWF 2-2:50. B117. Zhang. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 has been officially recognized as the darkest era in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The nationwide chaos, terror, and ultra-leftist frenzy brought the Chinese society, economy, and even the natural environment to the brink of collapse; tens of millions of ordinary citizens had their lives turned upside down and their psyche deeply scarred. What exactly transpired during the Cultural Revolution? How was it started and why was it able to persist for so long? How do the Chinese people come to terms with their historical memories from that era, and in light of the direction China has been taking since the late 1970s, how should we assess the legacies of the Cultural Revolution, and indeed, the Chinese Communist Revolution as a whole? This course invites the students to explore these and other questions by critically examining a wide variety of primary sources, including official documents, personal memoirs, oral histories, literary and artistic works, and material artifacts.

History 357 & 657. The Civil War and Reconstruction (3h). MWF 9-9:50. A102. 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
Assigned reading includes the following:
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
William Gienapp, ed., This Fiery Trial: The Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
Emory Thomas, The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience
Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt
and documents found or posted in our course shell, Blackboard.

History 360 & 660.US History since the New Deal (3h). MWF 10-10:50. A102. Caron.This course will examine the institution of the New Deal as FDR’s response to the depression; wars at home and abroad, including World War II, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq I & II; the rise and fall of unionism; various movements from civil rights, women’s rights, welfare rights, Native American rights, to student rights; countercultures from the 1950s through the 1980s; government regulation of the environment; mainstream and new religions; science and technology; the growth of the Imperial Presidency; Watergate and beyond; and liberalism and conservatism.

History 364 & 664. The American South Since the Civil War (3h). MW 3-4:15. A103. Hayes. This course uses memoirs, biographies, monographs, films, speeches, songs, and other media to explore the rich, complicated history of the U.S. South from the end of the Civil War to the present. We will see how, in some very basic ways, the story of the region in the past 145 years differs from that of the larger nation, and we will seek to understand both the nature of and reasons for those differences. In the process, we will discover a number of surprises about seemingly-familiar regional phenomena—race relations, political competition, rural poverty, cultural creativity, and Protestant religion.

History 369 & 669. Modern Military History (3h). MWF 10-10:50. B117. Hughes. After the Vietnam War, where the US won all the battles but lost the war, the Department of Defense and others began asking how that could have happened.  This course is designed to help Americans answer that question by putting military experience in a broader political, economic, cultural, and social context.  We will talk about military technology, tactics, and strategy and about battles and wars, but we will always place them within the larger historical context.  We can’t understand how the narrowly military elements developed and how and why they were successfully—or unsuccessfully—deployed unless we recognize the complex range of factors that influence both military choices and ultimate outcomes.

History 378 & 678. Reconciling Race (3h). T 4-6:30. WING 209. Parent. Explores the collective memory and identity of American-Indian and African-American communities and their response to historical trauma in their cultural imagination, spirituality, and political and social activism. Also listed as REL 348.

History 390A & 690A. Research Seminar: US from 1877 to 1921 (3h). T 3-5:30. A104. Watts. Using the historical milieu of the U.S. in the years variously called the Gilded Age, the Progressive era, or Victorian America, students choose a research topic based on an identifiable corpus of readily available primary sources and produce a bibliographic literature review of secondary sources as well as book/article/website reviews pertinent to the research topic . By the end of the semester, each student will present a coherent, well-crafted and well-argued research paper based on primary sources and grounded effectively in the relevant secondary literature. Researchers will also demonstrate proficiency in evaluating and using history websites.

History 390B & 690B. Research Seminar:War Revolution, and Individual Experience (3h). W 3-5:30. B117. Williams.

History 390C & 690C. Research Seminar: Alexander the Great (3h). W 2-4:30. Greene 311. Lerner. The seminar follows the career of Alexander III, whose conquests fused the destinies of the Greek World and those of Asia and Africa.  Even after the kingdoms of his successors yielded to the conquests of the Romans and Parthians, the composite Hellenistic Civilization, or imitations of it, prevailed for several generations in the lands between the Ganges River and Cornwall, and between Gilbraltar and the Aral Sea.  Students will examine Alexander’s conquests until his death in 323 BCE.

History 390D & 690D. Research Seminar: European Social and Political History, 1848-1989 (3h). W 3-5:30. A104. Hughes.

History 391 & 691. Honors Seminar(3h). W 2-4:30. B116. Escott. Required for majors who are seeking departmental honors, this seminar examines the enterprise of writing history through analysis of the work of some fine historians.  Assigned readings will focus on important studies of slavery and racism in the US past, and frequent papers will supplement class discussions.

History 392 & 692. Individual Research (3h).

 100 level  |  200 level  |  300 level  |  FYS

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First Year Seminars

FYS 100. Herodotus: Father of History, Father of Lies(3h). T 2-4:30. WING 306. Lerner. The seminar focuses on Herodotus’ Histories, a sweeping ethnographic investigation of the conflict between Greece and Persia in the fifth century. This was a confrontation between the massive, wealthy, multi-ethnic empire of Persia and the fractious Greeks which had immeasurable impact on the history of the Greeks themselves and continues to inspire modern discussions of freedom, nationalism, and identity.  The Histories will also provide a lens through which to explore the nature of history itself: what are the inherent difficulties of making sense of conflicting perspectives and biased evidence, and how does Herodotus inform us about the nature of writing history?  Can history convey deeper meanings and broader truths, or is it by nature confined to expressing particulars? Should history present the ‘warts and all’ truth, or commemorate and memorialize? Where lies the border between history and fiction?

FYS 100. Global Capitalism (3h). W 3-5:30. A208. Watts.This course conceptualizes the historical origin and development over the last 500 years of modern capitalism in a world-historical context, its novelty and dynamics, the global structural transformations that produced it, and the interests and institutions that drove it. The emphasis is on comparing European and East-Asian capitalisms.

 100 level  |  200 level  |  300 level  |  FYS

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