This course centers on key topics and concepts in the field of German Studies. Through readings of primary and secondary materials, the course develops students' critical and research skills. Each student completes a senior research project, which results in a substantial essay written in German. Topics may include an exploration of literary concepts, periods, and authors, or focus on cultural issues.
Global Citizenship
Students reflect on the study away experience, use storytelling techniques to consider and express the personal impact of study away, and undertake a project that puts into action the awareness, skills, and attitudes of global citizenship. Through topics including culture shock, identity development, and readjustment to social life in the US, students work to integrate their study away experience with their academic and co-curricular work at Sewanee and beyond.
Students reflect on the study away experience, use storytelling techniques to consider and express the personal impact of study away, and undertake a project that puts into action the awareness, skills, and attitudes of global citizenship. Through topics including culture shock, identity development, and readjustment to social life in the US, students work to integrate their study away experience with their academic and co-curricular work at Sewanee and beyond.
Greek
An intensive, introductory course in classical and koine Greek emphasizing forms and syntax and with extensive readings. Four class hours per week.
A continuation of the study of grammar with readings from a variety of classical authors. Four class hours per week.
History
Two principles central to modern American culture are "separation of church and state" and individual freedom of religious choice. For most of Western history, however, these principles would have been largely incomprehensible. This course examines the close relationship between religion and "the state" in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and medieval Europe, analyzing the ways in which they reinforced each other as well as instances in which they came into conflict. More broadly, the course examines ways in which religion reinforced or challenged social norms relating to gender, hierarchy, and the identification of "insiders" and marginalized groups.
The course delves into the intellectual, social and cultural aspects of the Native American/European encounter in what came to be called Latin America in the first century after the arrival of Columbus. It examines such facets as the underlying religious and political legitimation of the Iberian conquests, indigenous responses, and the issue of "othering" and mutual perceptions. It also scrutinizes material and institutional factors such as Spanish imperial and Indian policy, forms of surplus extraction established by the Spanish, and political arrangements embracing native peoples and Europeans.
This course examines the period after 1500 when the people of the British Isles began to explore the world beyond their shores, to encounter unfamiliar cultures and peoples, and to exploit resources and peoples in Africa and the Americas. It considers the understandings and agendas the British brought to these encounters and how interactions with distant lands and peoples altered the way the British saw themselves and their own culture before and after the political crisis of 1776 that ruptured the empire they created.
This course focuses on Race, Class, and Identity in American history since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to the present, emphasizing specific political, social, and economic developments. It examines such topics as expansion, Populist and Progressive movements, the Great Depression, the World Wars, reform and dissent in the 1960s and the Vietnam conflict.
This course will examine the colonial legacies of museums while investigating current museum practices. Through critically engaging with the display and representation of Indigenous and African diasporic arts and history in the colonial, modern, and contemporary eras, students will address issues of interpretation, deaccessioning, and repatriation. The central questions considered in this course will include: How have the dual histories of settler colonialism and slavery influenced collection and exhibition practices? What are the future directions in contemporary museum practice? How have people resisted and shaped museum exhibitions connected to their history and culture?
A general survey of the political, constitutional, economic, and social history of the United States.
A general survey of the political, constitutional, economic, and social history of Britain and Ireland from pre-history to the Revolution of 1688.
A survey of urban life in the early modern world between 1400 and 1750. This course examines the dynamic contours of early modern cities in a variety of cultural contexts, considering how the period's emerging networks of exchange, as well as colonial ambitions, generated new links between decidedly urban spaces across the globe. How did residents experience and use the space of the city to regulate relationships among members of disparate social and cultural groups? Students also assess the status of early modern cities as key sites for the transfer and production of knowledge. The course ends with an introduction to cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth century.
This course encompasses both the established history of the southern African region c. 1500-2004 and recent historiographical developments. As a result of this dual focus, the course highlights the production of southern African history, considering how, for whom, and why that history has been written. Topics include: the environment in history; the creation and interactions of racial groups; the mineral revolution and capitalist development; white domination, segregation, and apartheid; and political and popular resistance to these oppressive racial regimes. The course ends with the transition to majority rule, the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the democratic future of South Africa.
A study of the mixture of Indian and Spanish civilizations. Concentration on sixteenth-century culture of Aztecs and Incas, the evolution of Spanish colonial empire, the historical background to strongman government, the art and architecture of the colonies, and the Independence Period 1810-25.
This course introduces the history, theory, and practice of public history, examining the ideas and questions that shape and are shaped by public engagements with the past. It engages and evaluates historical works aimed primarily at public audiences in order to determine why and how public investments in the historical past develop and change.
In 1791, enslaved Africans in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue rose up in a coordinated attack against their colonial masters. In so doing, they directly challenged the plantation regime and the system of racial hierarchy that prevailed throughout the Atlantic world. By 1804, the Haitians declared their independence from France and constructed the first “Black Republic” in world history. Exploring primary sources ranging from the Code Noir to slave narratives, accounts by revolutionary black leaders, and worldwide reactions to the insurrection, the course examines some of the major themes and debates surrounding the Haitian Revolution and its immediate aftermath.
Hip-hop emerged from the local scenes of New York City to become the most popular and lucrative art form in the world. This course offers a historical analysis of Hip-Hop and an exploration of its regional contributions, social and political implications, musicality, and presence on social media platforms, namely Instagram and Tik-Tok. This course will also examine Hip-Hop themes related to race, gender, and class. Overall, this course will help explain how an obscure art form emerged from urban communities to become the global musical language for the seemingly dispossessed—and now a staple of mainstream pop culture.
This course introduces students to the experience of thinking historically and doing historical work. Students will learn about historiographical debates, lenses or approaches to history, how to locate and to interpret primary sources such as letters, journals, images, and maps. They will also have opportunities to engage with historical sites, monuments, special collections materials and to work with digital tools. Students examine how historians formulate questions or lines of inquiry, how to conduct library and archival research and practice organizing and presenting research in oral and written form. Required of all history majors and minors.
An examination of the events, people, movements, and themes of the region's past, from earliest known human habitation to the present. The course explores contrasting ways of life expressed by native and European peoples; implications of incorporating the area into the United States; the agricultural, industrial, and transportation revolutions of the nineteenth century; popular culture within and about Appalachia; contemporary issues of regional development and preservation; and ways the unique environment of these mountains has shaped and frustrated notions of regional identity.