COURSES
Fall 2018 Course Descriptions
500-700 Level
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! Always check the University online schedule for the latest changes.
HIS 502 - African American History Selected Topics:"From Blaxploitation to the Birth of the B-Boy: Black Popular Culture in the 1970s"
81977 T 3:30-6:20
Watson Jennison
The 1970s witnessed an explosion of black popular culture unseen since the Harlem Renaissance of a half century before. A product of the economic, political, and social transformations that shaped black life in this critical decade, black art, both high and low, represented the voice of a people articulating their distinctive vision of American identity. This course will examine the history of black popular culture as well as the context and controversies connected to its creation. In addition to the rise of black artists in music, television, and film, this course will explore other topics such as Afrofuturism, black theater and literature, and the birth of hip hop.
Marker: .ADS. Field: United States
HIS 510 - Historiography: "Writing History From Above and Below"
81979 W 3:30-6:20
Emily Levine
What constitutes an appropriate historical method? What sources are valid and why? What justifies who and what gets included and the topics that are ignored? This course focuses on how the answers to these questions have changed over time. It offers an introduction to the themes and approaches that have been influential in the historical profession from the late 19th century through to today. It is intended for advanced undergraduates who are planning to teach history or enter into the historical profession, essential for graduate students who wish to be literate in the field, and open to anyone who is interested in rigorously interrogating texts for their presentations of argument, objectivity, perspective, and narrative. Selected readings by such philosophers and practicing historians as Bloch, Ranke, Marx, Braudel, Thompson, Foucault, Scott, and Said. Pr. Admission to a graduate program in history, or permission of instructor.
HIS 514 - World History Topics: "Freedom and Equality in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions"
81983 M 3:30-6:20
Linda Rupert
For fifty years, beginning with the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, revolutionary fervor swept around the Atlantic world. The French stormed the Bastille, executed the King, and proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Slaves rose up in Haiti and created the world's first free black republic. Waves of independence movements broke up the Spanish empire. From Europe to the Americas, people debated liberty, wrote impassioned pamphlets, and took up arms. Thousands died. Who rose up? Who didn't? Who was successful? Who wasn't? Half of Britain's colonies in the Americas did not seek independence. European empires strengthened their presence in Africa. Of the dozens of slave rebellions, only one was successful - and independence did not end slavery. In this course we will study how freedom and equality played out in rhetoric and in practice during what historians call the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Honors students and graduate students are welcome.
Field: Wider World. (Note: By default, this course meets the wider world field requirement for history majors. Students may instead receive credit for US or European history, after writing a final paper with the appropriate focus. Register for the course as is, and we will make the necessary credit adjustments during the semester.)
HIS 515 - American Diplomatic History 20th Century
81984 W 3:30-6:20
David Wight
Since 1898, the United States has played an outsized role in international relations, playing a pivotal role in two world wars, the Cold War, the development of modern global systems, and the affairs of virtually every other country on Earth. Indeed, over the course of the twentieth century, the United States progressed from being a great power to the world's sole superpower. Yet the United States has likewise been profoundly shaped by its interactions with the larger world, and Americans have periodically discovered that their power, while great, is not unlimited. This course explores the trajectory of US foreign relations since 1898 with a focus on three main themes: globalization, empire, and the constructs of race and gender.
Field: United States.
HIS 542 - Middle Ages Selected Topics: "Violence in the Middle Ages"
81986 TR 2:00-3:15
Richard Barton
This course examines the meaning and consequences of violence during the Middle Ages. We will move topically through a selection of primary sources (Gregory of Tours, Galbert of Bruges, Saga of Njall, Raoul of Cambrai, etc) and scholarly analyses of war and peace, feuding, dispute resolution, chivalry, and lordship. As we do so we shall attempt to grapple with some fundamental questions: how did medieval people define 'violence', if they did so at all? How did violence differ from 'force'? Did medieval people consider violent acts to be necessarily bad? If so, under what circumstances? Were certain social orders and/or institutions more or less associated with violence? That is, was violence a component of lordship? To what degree was violence a subjective category imposed by authors, and to what degree was it universal? This course will investigate these and many other questions pertaining to medieval representations of force, violence, and social norms.
Field: Europe
HIS 543 - Historic Preservation: Principles and Practices
84811 W 9:00-11:50
Jo Leimenstoll (Interior Architecture)
Restricted to graduate students in HIS or IAR.
Change in historic preservation theory and practice since the 1800s with emphasis on preservation of built environment and development of philosophical approach for designers to contemporary preservation projects. (Same as IAR 543)
HIS 547 - History Museum Curatorship: Collections Management
81988 W 6:30-9:20
Diana Bell-Kite
This course will explore the legal, ethical, and practical issues associated with the development, management, and care of museum collections. Students will investigate and analyze contemporary issues and debates within the field of history curatorship and learn what it means to be physically and intellectually responsible for museum collections. Through readings, discussions, expert presentations, site visits, a daylong cataloging workshop, and a semester-long real-world collecting project, students will learn about best practices in curatorship and collections management. Prerequisite: Admission to a graduate program in history or written permission of instructor. Same as IAR 547.
HIS 581 - African History: "Perspectives on the Rwandan Genocide"
81989 W 3:30-6:20
Colleen Kriger
What did the American mainstream media coverage of the Rwandan genocide reveal about western views and stereotypes of Africa? What can a study of the Rwandan genocide teach us about the social and economic history of Africa? This seminar begins with a viewing of the film Hotel Rwanda and selected readings from newspaper coverage of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. We will then explore the deeper pre-colonial history of peoples and societies in the region, the more recent economic conditions and events that sparked the genocide, and the very difficult social and judicial problems that mark its aftermath.
Field: Wider World. Markers: .ADS.IGS
Prerequisite for all 600- 700 level History courses: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or written permission of instructor.
HIS 627 - Museum and Historic Site Interpretation: Principles and Practice
81991 T 3:30-6:20
Anne Parsons
Who makes history and how? This seminar seeks to answer this question by exploring the relationship between history and the public, and the tools that public historians use to interpret the past. The class focuses on the theory and practice of telling stories through museums and historic sites, while examining issues of ownership and power in interpretation and community collaboration. Students will also study contemporary models of engaging with audiences and projects that make history more meaningful to people. Finally, the class will merge theory and practice with the creation of a local history project, produced by the students for a public venue. Same as IAR 627.
HIS 633 - Community History Practicum
81993 M 3:30-6:20
Anne Parsons
Prerequisite: HIS/IAR 626
In this hands-on course, students work collaboratively and engage community partners as they research, design, and complete public projects - previously planned in HIS/IAR 626 - that engage audiences in local/regional history. These projects involve original research and draw on a range of sources that drive public history work, including public records, oral interviews, images, and artifacts. Final products may involve exhibitions, web-based products, public programs, curricula, or other formats that engage public audiences in issues emerging from the past around us.
This course is restricted to graduate students in History and Interior Architecture who have completed HIS/IAR 626 (The Practice of Public History) unless permission is granted by instructor.
See the M.A. FAQ for more information about the following:
HIS 690 - Internship
HIS 692 - Advanced Topics
HIS 697 - Independent Study
HIS 699 - Thesis
Written permission is required to register for these courses.
HIS 701 - Colloquium in American History
81994 701-01 R 3:30-6:20
Greg O'Brien
81995 701-02 M 6:30-9:20
Warren Milteer
Issues of historical interpretation from the Revolution through the Civil War.
HIS 703 - Research and Writing in History
Time/location arranged with student's mentor
Research and writing on selected topics in history.
HIS 705 - Colloquium in European History before 1789
81997 R 3:30-6:20
Richard Barton
Topics in European social, economic, political and intellectual history from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Methodology and the diversity of historical approaches.
HIS 710 - Colloquium in the Atlantic World
81999 W 3:30-6:20
Linda Rupert
This course introduces students to the variety of approaches and themes that comprise one of the most dynamic fields in our discipline. The Atlantic World provides a useful conceptual and methodological framework in which to analyze the development of European overseas empires; the creation of colonial societies; and the flow of people, commodities, and ideas between the Americas, Europe, and Africa in the early modern period (roughly 1400-1800). We will read a selection of major works that have defined the field, identify different perspectives and approaches, and trace the development of the historiography. We will also consider the challenges involved in comparative, cross-cultural historical research; the limits of an Atlantic approach; and its relationship to regional and world history approaches.
HIS 720 - Public History Capstone I
82001 R 6:30-9:20
Torren Gatson
This course is part of a two-semester sequence in which students design and execute original, research-driven, independent-study history projects for public audiences, usually with a community or institutional partner. In the first half of the course sequence, students solidify the goals and contours of the project, complete project research, and finish preliminary development. Restricted to graduate students in the history department's Museum Studies program who have completed at least 15 hours of graduate-level course work.
HIS 724 - 20th Century U.S. Topics: "The United States and the World"
81998 M 3:30-6:20
David Wight
What is the historiography behind the evolution of "diplomatic history" to "the United States and the World"? How does bringing in the World change our understanding of US history? How does a focus on the United States change our understanding of World history? How might an international, transnational, or global approach inform your own scholarship and teaching? Explore the answers to these and many other questions while engaging with some of the defining works of this subfield of history.
200-400 Courses | Advising Center | Undergraduate Bulletin | Courses
