With Spring 2018 registration beginning soon, here are some History classes to consider. And, check out our full Spring 2018 schedule of classes.
History 9: Introduction to Historical Methods– Hiroshima in History and Memory
MWF 2:00-2:50pm, GIRV 2108. Professor Kate McDonald.
How has the atomic bombing of Hiroshima been remembered and commemorated in the United States and Japan? This course examines the history and memory of the bombing through film, literature, and photography, as well as academic and public history writing, with particular attention to problems of evidence, interpretation, and narrative. The final project asks students to produce their own public history of the bombing and to analyze how and why they chose to remember the event in that particular way.
History 112A: Roman Imperialism
TR 9:30-10:45am, GIRV 2115. Professor Beth Digeser.
At its height in the 100s AD/CE, the Roman Empire embraced parts of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. Direct Roman power lasted in some of these regions for six hundred years. In the Balkans and Anatolia, Roman rule endured for nearly another millennium after that. What motivated Roman expansion? Why were the Romans able to control these regions as long as they did? To what extent did Roman imperialism shape later ideas of “empire,” from the Umayyad caliphate through the U.S. concept of “Manifest Destiny”? These are key questions we will pursue in this class.
History 121C/French 154C: History of France, 1515-1715
TR 2:00-3:15pm, ARTS 1353. Professor Hilary Bernstein.
Early Modern France was large, populous, and important. From the reign of King François I (r. 1515-1547) to that of Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715), it grew in cultural influence and played an important role in the Renaissance, Reformation, Catholic Reformation, Scientific Revolution, in European colonization in the Americas, and in the development of European monarchy. This course focuses on major changes in French politics, religion, society, and culture of the period, and seeks to understand the relationships between these areas. What did the development of rival versions of Christianity mean for a society that saw political authority as resting in divine approval? Was the religious violence of the French Wars of Religion inevitable or did it arise from specific choices made by those in positions of power? How did the French approach colonization efforts in “New France,” and how did they interact with the Native peoples in that region? How did French monarchs adapt their styles of rule and did these choices reflect or affect broader evolutions in society and culture? How “absolute” was Louis XIV, and did his reign really presage the rise of the modern state? As we grapple with our own conceptions of the relationship between politics, religion, and social choices, it is instructive to understand the ways that these values were both mutually reinforcing and at odds in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France.
History 164C: The Civil War and Reconstruction
TR 3:30-4:45pm, LSB 1001. Professor Giuliana Perrone.
The Civil War is often called America’s second revolution. This course examines the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction in order to identify the central problems of the period and the ways those issues continue to shape American history, and to explore important historiography in the field. During the course, students will examine what it means to call this era “revolutionary” and will assess varying historical interpretations of the period. Course readings give an overview of major issues of the period and present the problems of its historiography (how historical treatment of the subject has changed over time). Central course themes: (1) From Slave to Citizen: the ways in which African Americans, both slave and free, participated in and contributed to the war and subsequent Reconstruction. (2) From Radical to Redeemer: The politics and political development of America’s “second revolution.” (3) From Dred Scott to Plessy v. Ferguson: The role of law and the judicial system(s) in the transformation of America from a slave to free nation.
GRADUATE COURSES
History 201E: Memory and its Practices in Europe, c. 1400-1700
F 9:00-11:50am. Professor Hilary Bernstein.
This course is dedicated to the dual goal of understanding how memory was theorized and understood in Europe in the late medieval and early modern periods and of examining the range of genres and practices that were employed to create and preserve specific, privileged memories during that time. The course thus begins with an initial focus on medieval and Renaissance theories of memory and then considers how textual practices helped contemporaries to remember and preserve access to the ever-increasing amount information available to them. It then turns to several memory genres: first memory genres focused on the self, including memoirs, journals, biographies, and genealogies; then genres with significant points to make about religious communities, including hagiographies, martyrologies, and processions. The course will then turn to a couple of examples of intense memorialization in the early modern period, including the French Wars of Religion, and possibly the Dutch Revolt. The course will then turn to the processes of codification and collection, including the relationship between law and memory, the development of archival practices, and the enthusiasm for cabinets of curiosities, antiquities, and museums. Finally, the changes to the theories of memory ushered in by changing understandings of the human body by the late-17th century will be examined