HISTORY

Spring 2009 Course Listing

 

HSTY 112 Introduction to American History—Williams
MWF 11:30AM-12:20 PM   

History of the United States from the first settlements to the present. Emphasis on themes such as political and social revolution, slavery and race relations, industrialism, and national cultures.

 

HSTY 113 Introduction to Modern World History—Ledford
MWF 10:30-11:20 AM   

The history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in global context. Emphasis on the forces that have created or shaped the modern world: industrialization and technological change; political ideas and movements such as nationalism; European imperialism and decolonization; and the interplay of cultural values.

 

HSTY 117 Introduction to American Studies—Sentilles
TR 10:00-11:15 AM

This course is designed to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies while also empowering them to use the tools and perspectives of several disciplines, such as history, literature, art history, and anthropology.  This course aims to introduce students to the various disciplines that constitute American Studies while paying special attention to the ways in which these disciplines can work together to illuminate the study of American cultures, past and present.  Students will combine different methodologies in the process of completing assignments designed to make use of a variety of University Circle institutions.  For the purposes of this course, biography is treated as a constructed genre that comes in a variety of forms, including autobiography, biographical novels, oral histories, and film. The class will discuss how certain biographies have created archetypal American identities, and how gender/race/class/historical context, etc. have affected the writing and reading of biography and restructured notions of identity.
Offered as AMST 117 and HSTY 117.

 

HSTY 152 Technology in America—Palmer
TR 2:45-4:00 PM   

Origins and significance of technological developments in American history, from the first settlements to the present. Emphasis on the social, cultural, political, and economic significance of technology in American history.

 

HSTY 163 Modern Britain and Its Empire—Broich
MW 12:30-1:45 PM   

This lecture and discussion course covers the history of Britain at the height of its political and industrial power and the history of the expanding and contracting British Empire.  Britain was a nation of great technological, economic, and military power, but it also experienced extraordinary stresses.  Industrialization meant material prosperity for some, but hardship and dehumanization for others.  Many questioned how overwhelming poverty and ignorance could be allowed to stand beside such vast affluence.  And subjects of the British in India, Ireland, and elsewhere struggled for independence from an empire that claimed to bring freedom, reason, and equality.  The British learned to their cost, too, that decolonization often meant being caught in the crossfire of ethnic rivals.  This course will explore the many paradoxes of the history of the British at their most dominant.

 

HSTY 202 Science in Western Thought II—Rocke
MW 12:35-1:45 PM

The development of Western thinking about the natural world and our relation to it, as part of culture, from Newton to the modern age. HSTY 201 is not a prerequisite.

 

HSTY 211 Medieval World, 300-1500—Todd
MWF 10:30-11:20 AM

Medieval history and civilization from the fall of the Roman Empire to the age of the Renaissance. Interactions between medieval Europe and other Mediterranean and Eurasian cultures.

 

HSTY 218 Jews in Early Modern Europe—Weiss
TR 2:45-4:00 PM

This course surveys the history of Jews in Europe and the wider world from the Spanish expulsion through the French Revolution.  Tracking peregrinations out of the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles, France, Holland, Italy, Germany, Poland-Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire and the American colonies, it examines the diverse ways Jews organized their communities, interacted with their non-Jewish neighbors and negotiated their social, economic and legal status within different states and empires.  What role did Jews play and what symbolic place did they occupy during a period of European expansion, technological innovation, artistic experimentation, and religious and political turmoil?  What internal and external dynamics affected Jewish experiences in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?  Through a selection of inquisitorial transcripts, government records, memoirs and historical literature, we will explore topics such as persecution, conversion, messiaen, toleration, emancipation and assimilation.
Offered as HSTY 218 and JDST 218, ETHS 218.

 

HSTY 234 France and Islam—Weiss
M 4:00-6:30 PM   

This seminar examines French encounters with the Muslim world from the Middle Ages to the present. Over the last millennium, France has viewed Saracens, Moriscos, Turks, Berbers, and Arabs with admiration and fear, disdain and incomprehension. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, French soldiers battled in the Holy Land; for several hundred years after that, France and the Ottoman Empire exchanged diplomats, traders and slaves. The colonial occupation of Algeria that began in 1830 ended violently in 1962. By then, the empire that struck back had also come home through large waves of immigration. Today, the social and economic status, religious affiliation, political significance and cultural impact of French citizens of North African descent are the subject of burning national debate. Taking a long view on Franco-Muslim relations, the course will explore such topics as the Crusades, Mediterranean piracy and captivity, Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, the Algerian War of Independence, the "veil affair," riots in the suburbs of Paris and World Cup soccer.
Offered as ETHS 234, HSTY 234.

 

HSTY 256 American Political History—Hazirjian
TR 1:15-2:30 PM

 

HSTY 291 Asia Pacific War—Butler
W 5:00-7:30 PM

How did a seventeen year old Indonesian perceive the Japanese occupation in World War II? How did that experience differ for a Thai college student? In this course, we will investigate the societies of occupied East and Southeast Asia from the perspective of those who experienced it directly. We will use memoirs, oral histories, fiction, visual material, and military reports to understand the perceptions, motivations, and emotions that drove individual action, and situate that action within the framework of violence. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the cultures involved in the Asia Pacific War, and develop critical skills through analysis of specific issues in class discussion and written exercises and essays. History and Asian Studies credit.

 

HSTY 307 Development of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering—Rocke
TR 10:00-11:15 AM   

The development of chemical ideas; theories of matter, composition, structure, and reaction; the application of chemistry and chemical theory from antiquity to the 20th century; all considered in social context.

 

HSTY 309 Reformation Europe, 1500-1650—Todd
MW 12:30-1:45 PM

Origins and development of Protestantism, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the interaction between secular power and religious identity in Christian Europe.
Offered as HSTY 309 and RLGN 374.

 

HSTY 311 Modern American Historiography—Hammack
T 4:30-7:00 PM   

This seminar examines the approaches that professional historians of the United States have taken to the writing of American history in the past fifty years, with emphasis on changes in historical concerns, master debates among historians, and contemporary interests.  Topics covered include national politics and government, economic development, social history, the history of ethnicity, race, and gender, and foreign policy and international relations.  Each student will read widely and will prepare a series of reports on selected books and authors.
Offered as HSTY 311 and HSTY 411.

 

HSTY 318 History of Black Women in the US—Haiderali
M 2:00-4:30 PM

This course explores the history of Black Women in America from the late nineteenth century to the present. Although History 318 begins after slavery's demise and moves chronologically through women's negotiations of “freedom” in America , this course also explores the ways that raced, classed and gendered assumptions about Black women remain rooted in slavery. While policy and formal politics cannot be ignored, History 318 underscores the heterogeneity of “Black Women” by highlighting social and cultural understandings of this history. It examines Black Women's history through visual and filmic representations; autobiography, fiction, and other creative expressions; women's activism and feminism; the politics of the body, beauty and complexion; interracial, hetero-and same-sex sexualities; intraracial class relations, and the politics of identity.
Offered as ETHS 318, HSTY 318, and WGST 318.

 

HSTY 336 Struggle for Justice in Latin America—Lasso
TR 4:30-5:45 PM

This course looks at how indigenous peoples, women, students, workers, peasants, and Afro-Latin Americans struggled for justice in Latin America. It will study how notions of justice have changed from colonial times to the present. It will also examine how different sectors of Latin American society understood the meaning of justice and how that understanding evolved through time. This class seeks to familiarize students with the history of the idea of justice in Latin America. At the end of this course students will understand the complex intellectual and political differences behind Latin America's apparent chaotic and tumultuous political history. Second, it seeks to develop students' critical thinking by examining how an abstract term, such as justice, changes across time and space.
Offered as ETHS 336 and HSTY 336.

 

HSTY 338 History of the American West—Wlasiuk
TR 4:30-5:45 PM

The US West has meant many things throughout American history—early explorers called it the Great American Desert, railroad boosters lured settlers to it by promising to make the arid land bloom into an agricultural Eden, urban immigrants looked to its limitless stretches of land as an escape from industrial labor, children read dime novels that glorified its heroes, and millions of tourists celebrate its raw beauty by visiting Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon. The West has also been home diverse native societies for thousands of years, Asian immigrants who viewed it as an eastern frontier, women who struggled to feed their children in an arid land, and Latin Americans, whose ancestors often preceded the entry of White Americans. This course introduces students to the themes, questions, and debates central to the study of the American West by drawing in primary source material and scholarly interpretations. The goal of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the human history of the American West and the ability to express that history in clear, passionate writing and in-class discussion.

 

HSTY 342 Water—Broich
W 2:00-4:30 PM

Seminar participants will explore the history of the meaning of water— that is, the social, cultural, and political significance placed on water by individuals and governments in different times and places.

They will also examine how humans have acted upon water, and how it has acted upon humans, with great consequences for human life. This seminar focuses on the history of water in the context of science, technology and society; public health; political science; and environmental history. Case studies will be drawn from a wide chronological and geographical range; from the ancient world to Renaissance Italy, nineteenth century India , modern Britain , Egypt , and the U.S. . The course provides a wide perspective on the themes of the history of human-water interactions, but will also focus closely on some critical cases. Seminar participants will write a sophisticated research paper on the topic of their choice in the environmental history of water.
Offered as: HSTY 342, HSTY 442, POSC 342, POSC 442.

 

HSTY 355 America during the Civil War—Grabowski
TR 1:15-2:30 PM

This course examines the causes and consequences of the Civil War, focusing on the rise of sectionalism, the dynamics of conflict, and reconstruction.  Heavy emphasis is placed on archival research in relevant first person accounts from the period.

 

HSTY 361 Crime and Culture in Early America—Cohen
W 2:00-4:30 PM

This course explores the intersection of crime, punishment, and popular culture in colonial British America and the early United States through 1860 by closely examining a series of popular crime genres, including execution sermons, criminal conversion narratives, criminal autobiographies, and trial reports. Readings in modern scholarship--drawing on several disciplines--will shed light on the popular literature and on underlying patterns of crime and punishment, while students will critically evaluate modern scholarly interpretations in light of the early crime publications.  Types of crimes explored in the readings include witchcraft, piracy, burglary, robbery, and various types of murder, such as infanticide, familicide (cases of men murdering their wives and children), and sexual homicide.  Each student will write several short analytical papers drawn from the shared readings and, at the end of the semester, produce an independent research paper.
Offered as HSTY 361 and HSTY 461.

 

HSTY 376 Ritual and Magic in China—Butler
MW 12:30-1:45 PM

While the modern West approaches “magic” and the occult as categories separate from that of religion, these traditions in China intertwined with each other, ultimately leading to “scientific” invention far in advance of the West. This course investigates the concepts of ritual, magic and the occult in China by analyzing cross-cultural definitions, and then examining the Chinese content of their origins and syntheses through history. How did contemporaneous Chinese commentators regard sorcerers, for instance? Who called upon shamans and what exactly do shamans do? We begin with Chinese cosmologies and the nature of the soul, move into the traditions that these engendered—alchemy, divination, sorcery, exorcism and shamanism—then explore these themes as found in Daoism, Buddhism and popular practices. The course thus encourages the interpretation of such traditions from various perspectives: their originators, their commentators and the modern-day analyst. Sophomore standing. No background in Chinese history required. History, Asian Studies, and Religious Studies credit.

 

HSTY 378 Environmental History of North America—Shulman
TR 1:15-2:30 PM

Explores the way nature has shaped history as well as the ecological consequences of development.  Focus is on the relationship between the natural and the cultural with special attention to such topics as economic growth, wilderness, disease, environmental justice, and the conquest of the American West.

 

HSTY 387 Growing Up in America—Sentilles
TR 2:45-4:00 PM

Children have been growing up in the United States since it was declared independent, in 1776, but how adults conceive of (and therefore legislate and interpret) children and childhood constantly changes to fit current circumstances.  The experiences of children themselves have varied not only in terms of race, class, gender, and religion but also depending on specific events (ie, coming of age during the Civil War versus the Civil Rights movement) or geography (ie, growing up in rural Hawaii vs. urban New Jersey).  We cannot cover all of those histories in one course, so this seminar course instead focuses on exploring the interplay of ideas about children and the expressed or historical experiences of children.  When the puritans and plantations members (slave, bonded and free) came to the Atlantic shore, they brought with them particular ideas about what is meant to be a child, and to experience childhood.  They encountered already established residents who also had ideas about childhood.  How did those concepts adjust/meld/contrast over time, and how do we see those ideas reflected or reshaped by actual experiences?  This course engages particular lines of inquiry:  How and why do understanding about what is "natural" for children change over time?  How do variables like race, class, gender, etc., uphold effects the manifesting of such concepts?  What is the role of the state in children's lives and how has that changed over time?  What is the impact of mass culture on modern childhood?

 

HSTY 397 Independent Study—Weiss
TBA

Individual instruction with members of the history faculty. Recommended preparation: 12 hours of History.

 

For further information, contact Director of Undergraduate Studies and Undergraduate Advisor Prof. Renée Sentilles at 216-368-5413 or renee.sentilles@case.edu.

Individual course descriptions are also available in the rack opposite the Department Office, Mather House Room 106.