COURSES
Fall 2019 Course Descriptions
500-700 Level
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! Always check the University online schedule for the latest changes.
HIS 510 - Historiography
80681 R 3:30-6:20
Richard Barton
This course explores some of the main trends in historical writing since the professionalization of the field in the middle years of the 19th century. Each week is devoted to a different approach, method, or school of historical writing. After some initial (and broad) discussion of the philosophy of history, we will move in a basically chronological direction, examining the development of new approaches and theories as they emerged from c.1875 to the present. Among the approaches (or schools, or methods) we will examine include the Annales movement, Marxism, history from below and radical history, the influence of cultural anthropology, gender, material culture, nationalism, constructions of the other, trans-nationalism, and post-structuralism.
HIS 514 - World History Topics: "Oral Traditions and Oral History"
80688 W 4:00-6:50
Colleen Kriger
This course is an introduction to 'orality' - oral primary sources in and for history, the nature of those sources, and how they are to be gathered, analyzed, and interpreted for historical research. Hence this course is about historical methods and historical methodology and is not restricted to any particular geographical area or time period. Students will be engaged in the very practical matters of research design and procedures, as well as the theoretical implications and issues raised when using oral primary courses of various kinds. Along the way, we will develop a greater awareness of and appreciation for the history of history itself. We will also be examining literacy more critically. Why do we tend to believe what is written, even if it is speculation or
hearsay? Why are we oftentimes 'graphocentric' - valuing written over oral communication? Why would a society prefer to remain oral and reject literacy?
Crosslisted with HIS 414.
HIS 524 - U.S. 20th Century Topics: "U.S. - Middle East Relations"
80459 TR 3:30-4:45
David Wight
This course is centered on two key questions: how did relations between the United States and the Middle East, which were largely peripheral to each other's interests and concerns at the end of the 18th century, change to become so important and intertwined in the present, and what have been the consequences of this process of interaction and change? While the questions are simple, the answers are rich and complex, involving issues that include military and geopolitical power, economic interests, culture, religion, ideology, transnational communities, and historical memory.
Cross-listed with HIS 424.
HIS 543 - Historic Preservation: Principles and Practices
80821 W 9:00-11:50
Jo Leimenstoll (Interior Architecture)
Restricted to graduate students in HIS or IAR.
This seminar is designed to provide students with an overview of how historic preservation philosophy has evolved since the nineteenth century and to encourage Interior Architecture and History students (and those in related disciplines) to develop well-informed personal philosophies and approaches to making decisions about the historic built environment within the broad context of historic preservation. To achieve this purpose, students participate in a series of discussions based on assigned weekly readings. Further, each student selects a relevant topic to investigate and develop as a research project throughout the semester. The individual research projects will be developed into polished, illustrated papers formatted in Adobe InDesign software. Outstanding briefs will be included in the Historic Dimension Series (a student online publication series).
Cross-listed with HIS 443.
HIS 544 - Early Modern Europe: "Cities and Their Dwellers, 1400-1700: From Paupers to Patricians (and Everyone In-Between)"
80461 MW 3:30-4:45
Jodi Bilinkoff
The period following the end of the Middle Ages was an age of demographic growth, economic expansion, and cultural flourishing throughout western Europe, especially in its urban centers. Indeed, it is hard to think of Shakespeare apart from his London, or Michelangelo without Florence. Scholars have identified the cities of early modern Europe as the sites of innovations as varied and significant as the invention of the printing press, the administration of overseas empires, the Protestant Reformation, the emergence of modern banking, and the Scientific Revolution. In this course we will explore these and other aspects of urban life in Europe between roughly 1400 and 1700. In the process we will encounter some famous political and religious leaders, intellectuals, and artists, as well as the ordinary men and women who constructed the walls and buildings, prepared food, kept legal records, raised children, policed crime, and delivered the goods and services of every sort that kept cities functioning. We will inquire, as well, whether all social groups benefitted equally from the urban experience. In addition to readings in common, each student will choose a city to research for written and oral reports due at the end of the semester.
Cross-listed with HIS 444.
HIS 551-01 - Gender and History: "Women and Politics in U.S. History"
84668 MW 5:00-6:15 p.m.
Mandy Cooper
This course examines the history of women's involvement in politics in the United States from the founding to the present. Women of all ethnicities, races, classes, and sexualities have always been involved in politics through a wide range of political activities - as citizens, voters, activists. This course will examine women's historical role in the political process, the different ways that women have engaged as political actors (even when disenfranchised), and the issues that became defined as women's issues.
Field: United States.
Cross-listed with HIS 451.
Prerequisite for all 600- 700 level History courses: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or special permission of instructor.
HIS 627 - Museum and Historic Site Interpretation: Principles and Practice
81991 M 3:30-6:20
Torren Gatson
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 628 - Museum Education
80824 R 6:30-9:20
Edith Brady
This course surveys the basic principles and practices of museum education, emphasizing facilitated experiences. Through reading works by researchers and practitioners in the field, students will explore the kinds of learning that occur in museums and how that learning takes place. As well, students themselves will practice the skills and techniques utilized by museum educators. Restricted to graduate students admitted to the history museum studies program.
HIS 633 - Community History Practicum
80825 T 3:30-6:20
Joey Fink
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
Faculty permission is required to register for these courses.
HIS 701 - Colloquium in American History
80826 701-01 T 3:30-6:20
Greg O'Brien
80827 701-02 W 6:30-9:20
Warren Milteer
Issues of historical interpretation from the colonial era through the Civil War.
HIS 713 - African Americans after Slavery
80828 W 3:30-6:20
Watson Jennison
African American history during the Civil War, Reconstruction, the era of Jim Crow, the civil rights and post-civil rights eras.
HIS 714 - Varieties of Teaching
80828 R 2:00-4:50
Lisa Tolbert
This course takes a big picture approach to epistemological issues of teaching and learning history in the twenty-first century. Why is history essential for the twenty-first century undergraduate curriculum? What distinctive challenges do students face in learning history compared to learning other subjects in the college curriculum? As Stéphane Lévesque asks in his analysis of historical thinking, if history is about critical inquiry, "what are the concepts and knowledge of the past that students should learn and master in order to think historically? What abilities do they need to practice history?" (Lévesque, p. 15) Coming to grips with these kinds of critical conceptual issues is essential for designing meaningful learning experiences for students. Rather than focusing on the content of history (what information do you want your history course to cover?), our focus will be on the learner. What do you want students (who are unlikely to become professional historians) to know and be able to DO with the content they encounter in any history courses you might teach? How do you know they have achieved the objectives you intended? You will encounter plenty of practical examples of how college teachers have operationalized disciplinary thinking in the classroom. This literature will also introduce you to research and publication opportunities offered by the scholarship of teaching and learning, with particular attention to research that illuminates the disciplinary role of history as an essential subject in the undergraduate curriculum.
HIS 715 - Atlantic World Topics: "Empires and Colonies of the Atlantic World (and Beyond)"
80842 M 4:00-6:50
Linda Rupert
This course surveys a range of approaches and themes related to the rise and consolidation of European overseas empires in the early modern period (roughly 1400-1800). We will discuss major trends in the historiography, with particular attention to changing perspectives on the relationship between, and relative importance of, imperial structures, trans-imperial connections, and the agency of various colonial actors.
HIS 720 - Public History Capstone I
80843 R 3:30-6:20
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.
100-400 Courses | University Catalog | Courses
