This intermediate-level course integrates German language learning with developing a deeper understanding of cultural production in German-speaking societies. Exploring the spatial and human diversity of German-speaking Europe, students study familiar and essential topics from German perspectives and make cross-cultural comparisons about topics such as cities, travel and the self, consumption and consumerism, historical transformations, the environment, and visions of the future.
From soup chefs and grammarians to zombies and supervillains, Nazis are ubiquitous in pop culture, most frequently serving as representations of pure evil. This course introduces students to key ideas/concepts of National Socialist ideology and examines the use and misuse of National Socialism across the 20th and 21st centuries. Through an analysis of depictions of Nazis within cultural and historical contexts, the course considers the reasons for, and the impact of compartmentalizing and oversimplifying Nazis and National Socialism, and investigates what these pop culture representations obscure. This course is taught in English.
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.
Selected plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are read.
History
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.
Sacred to three religions, the contested future capital of two nations, a place of longing for millions, Jerusalem is one of the world's great cities. This course looks at the history, geography, and religious significance of the Holy City, while also considering its place as a city of the imagination. In investigating the city's place in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, its historic importance for Muslim and European imperialists, its long status as a tourist and pilgrimage destination, and its significance in Israeli and Palestinian nationalism, the course asks whether the myriad understandings of the city can co-exist or is Jerusalem destined to always be "a golden bowl filled with scorpions."
Collecting, naming, and organizing local knowledge(s) were important activities to scientific practitioners in the past. This course takes a close look at natural history collecting and its entanglements with colonizing projects, policies and enterprises since c. 1500. Using special collections materials, deliberative pedagogical approaches and engagement with regional natural history collections, it considers the legacies of historical links between collecting, appropriation, displacement and more. The course will also introduce students to ongoing efforts to respond to these legacies by the curators of scientific collections and scholars today.
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 European history from 1400 to 1750. Topics include rural and urban communities, the Renaissance, humanism, education and literacy, women and gender, the Protestant and Counter Reformations, confessional violence, absolutism, witch-hunts, poverty and deviance, colonialism, science and empire, nationalism, religious pluralism and Enlightenment.
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 examines why and how Protestantisms of differing type replaced Roman Catholicism as the official church in England, Scotland, and Ireland; how people throughout each society sought to encourage or oppose these changes; and how religious developments in these three nations from 1500 to 1750 diverged so sharply, yet remained so closely intertwined.
This course explores the social, political, and cultural history of the French Revolution from its origins in the eighteenth century to the fall of Napoleon's Empire. It highlights revolutionary debates over how to constitutionally and practically realize the Enlightenment principles of human rights, individual liberty, and social equality in the context of France and the French Empire. Topics include radical republicanism, popular violence and the Terror, the Haitian Revolution, women's revolutionary roles, gender and the reconfigured family, counterrevolution and the Church, the citizens' army, and the Napoleonic Empire. Not open for credit to students who have received credit for HIST 308.
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.
This first offering in a two-course sequence introduces students to the history of the Middle East. Surveying the region's history prior to the eighteenth century, it considers the emergence of the world's earliest civilizations; the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the spread of Arab, Turkish, and Persian Empires. Emphasis is placed on the Middles East's place in global trade networks and imperial conflicts.