COURSES
Spring 2014 Course Descriptions: 200-400 Level
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! Always check the University online schedule for the latest changes.
HIS 206-01 - Topics in Premodern World History I: "Global Developments to 1500"
10040 MWF 11:00-11:50
Stephen Ruzicka
This course surveys premodern history (through about 1500) on a global basis. While looking at the origins and histories of distinctive societies and cultural traditions in Africa, Eurasia, China, South Asia, the Near East and the Western Hemisphere, it pays particular attention to developments of world historical scope - population movements, economic activities, trade, and cultural exchange - which constitute the common premodern human experience. Students should gain a broad and balanced understanding of the major social, political, and cultural developments of human societies up to the eve of the modern age.
The lecture portion of this class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11-11:50. Smaller discussion groups meet on Fridays at 11:00-11:50.
206R-01 - F 11:00-11:50
206R-02 - F 11:00-11:50
HIS 206-02 - Topics in Premodern World History I: "Exploration in the Atlantic World 1400 to 1750"
15962 M 6:00-8:50 p.m.
Monica Ward
This class will explore the creation of the Atlantic World through advancements in sea travel and trade from 1400 to 1750. Students will analyze the spread and exchange of different religions, commodities, and culture from Europe and Asia to the "New World" (the Americas) over a broad span of time by focusing on specific explorers and first contact scenarios. A particular emphasis on the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, the Columbian Exchange, and first contact between Europeans and Indians of the Americas will also be included. Primary and secondary sources will be used in this class.
HIS 207-01 - Topics in Premodern World History II: "Globalization, 1400-1700"
10041 TR 12:30-1:45 Linda Rupert
Hundreds of years before the Internet, cell phones, and GPS, the rise of European overseas empires linked peoples around the world through conquest, trade, and migrations. This course provides an overview of European expansion from the end of the Middle Ages up to the eighteenth century. We will discuss the creation of imperial spheres, the development of colonial societies, and the impact on peoples and cultures worldwide.
HIS 207-02 - Topics in Premodern World History II: "Encountering the Sacred: Religious Transformation in the Early Modern World, 1400-1750"
10042 R 6:00-8:50 p.m.
Steven Peach
This course investigates religious transformation in Mesoamerica, Europe, Africa, South Asia, and East Asia in the early modern era. As adherents of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Mexica spirituality came into increasing contact with one another in the fifteenth century, they forged new understandings of the sacred. Four themes shaped the restructuring of world religions: cross-cultural encounters, religion and the state, debates about divine and human nature, and ideas about duty and faith. The Mughal emperor Akbar, who is seated in the corresponding image, captures the themes of this course. He enjoyed debating religion with foreign missionaries, promoted religious toleration, and in 1582, created the "Divine Faith" from the elements of several religions. This course also has an important skills-building component. You will evaluate primary and secondary sources and craft a historical argument that will culminate in a case study essay.
HIS 209-01 - Topics in Modern World History II: "Introduction to Islamic History and Civilization, 1200 C.E. - present"
10049 MWF 12:00-12:50
Asa Eger
By the tenth and eleventh centuries, Islamic civilization from Spain to Central Asia had reached its peak with a system of elaborate cities, expansive trade networks, and profound achievements in arts and architecture, science, literature, law, political and religious thought. However, by the twelfth century, contact with western European world with the onset of the Crusades and with the eastern world with the advent of Turkic nomads fundamentally transformed the course of Islamic civilization. In this course we will examine how these changes reverberated through medieval and modern Islamic history in two parts. The first part will familiarize students with the dynamic history and changes in Islamic cultural process from time of the Crusaders through the legacy of the Mongols. The second part will explore the transition of the medieval to modern Islamic world, focusing on the formation of the "gunpowder" Ottoman, Safavid, and Moghul Indian empires and the effects of nationalism in shaping the modern Middle East. Throughout the course we will focus on themes of tradition and change in Islamic society with the assimilation, influence, and conflict of non-Arab and non-Muslim cultures. Our approach will be interdisciplinary. We will look at the history, art and architecture, archaeology, environment, literature, and religion of Islamic civilization.
HIS 211-01 - United States History to 1865
10051 MW 10:00-10:50 and F 10:00-10:50 or 11:00-11:50
Watson Jennison
General survey of American history from colonization through the Civil War. All sections are Writing Intensive.
The lecture portion of this class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10-10:50. Smaller discussion groups meet on Fridays at either 10:00-10:50 or 11:00-11:50.
15990 211R-01 - F 10:00-10:50
15991 211R-02 - F 10:00-10:50
15993 211R-04 - F 11:00-11:50
15994 211R-05 - F 11:00-11:50
HIS 212 - United States History since 1865
General survey of American history from Reconstruction to the present.
10053 212-01 TR 9:30-10:45 Brian Lee
10054 212-02 T 6:00-8:50 p.m. Jason Stroud
10055 212-03 ONLINE Donna Ward
HIS 216-01 - Civilizations of Asia
15996 TR 12:30-1:45
Jamie Anderson
How is Modern East Asia "modern"? What do we mean by this term? Can we understand the recent history of the region, if we focus exclusively on the Asian response to the arrival of Western powers in the region? This course will examine political change, specifically the emergence of anti-colonial nationalist and communist movements, as well as related intellectual and social developments in East Asia since ca. 1800.
HIS 217 - The World of the Twentieth Century (1900-1945)
10059 217-01 ONLINE Mark Moser
16932 217-02 ONLINE Christopher Graham
Political, social, and economic forces affecting Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. 1900-1945.
HIS 218 - The World of the Twentieth Century, since 1945
This class will examine global issues in the contemporary world, focusing mainly on the post-World War II period, from the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, to the complex, high-tech, evolving world of today. We will examine some of the important political, economic, social, and cultural changes of the second half of the twentieth century and how these changes have shaped the world we live in today.
10066 218-01 MWF 10:00-10:50 Jeff Jones
The lecture portion of HIS 218-01 meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10-10:50. Smaller discussion groups meet on Fridays at 10:00-10:50.
218R-01 - F 10:00-10:50
218R-02 - F 10:00-10:50
16112 218-03 ONLINE Mark Moser
HIS 221-01 - Medieval Legacy
10069 TR 9:30-10:45 Caitlin Saraphis
Survey of Western European history from the end of the Roman Empire to the fifteenth century exploring such varied aspects of the medieval experience as pilgrimage, crusade, peasant life, the emergence of national states, and the rise of the university.
HIS 223 - Modern Europe
10072 MW 11:00-11:50 and F 11:00-11:50 or 12:00-12:50
Emily Levine
A survey of the political, social and cultural history of Europe from the time of the French Revolution to the present. Emphasis will be placed on the political culture and the emergence of the great ideological systems of the West (e.g., liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, nationalism, and fascism).
The lecture portion of this class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11-11:50. Smaller discussion groups meet on Fridays at either 11:00-11:50 or 12:00-12:50.
15997 223R-01 - F 11:00-11:50
15999 223R-03 - F 12:00-12:50
HIS 240 - Modern Latin America
10073 TR 9:30-10:45
Peter Villella
This course is an introductory survey of the diverse peoples and nations of Latin America, from the mid-eighteenth century to today. Topics covered will include: independence from Spain and Portugal, race relations and the abolition of slavery, experiences with liberalism and dictatorship, intervention by foreign powers, economic progress and underdevelopment, revolution and social transformation, the relationship of native peoples to the nation-state, the Cold War, and modern regimes of free trade and globalization.
HIS 302 - Race and Segregation
10452 MW 2:00-3:15
Watson Jennison
Race and segregation in the United States since the Civil War, including the origins of the Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, black urbanization, the Harlem Renaissance, black nationalism, and the African American experience in America.
HIS 312 - The Crusades
16001 TR 9:30-10:45
Richard Barton
This course offers an introduction to the social, political, intellectual, military and religious movement that is known as the crusades. It focuses on the "classic era" of crusading, namely the century and a half between the call to the first crusade at Clermont (1095) and the failure of the last serious crusade in Egypt (1250). Although close attention will be paid to the actions and achievements of the European crusaders in carving out European states in the Middle East, the course it not limited to, nor even particularly oriented around, military history. Rather, it attempts to place the crusading movement and its outcomes into a proper historical and cultural context. As a result, the class will focus intensely on the social and economic conditions that gave rise to the crusades, on the motives and ideologies of the crusaders, and on the structure of the society that they attempted to construct in the East. The course also assumes that any understanding of the crusading movement must also begin with an understanding of Islam; we will spend some time looking at Muslim society in the Near East, at Islamic notions of Jihad, at the reactions of Muslims to the crusades, and at the impact of the crusades on Muslim political, social and religious affairs. While recent events of the 21 st century lend the crusading period a natural interest, and while we will be concerned to address some of the modern concerns raised by crusading ideologies, the course will insist that analysis and interpretation of motives, causes, and impacts of the crusades respect the historical and cultural uniqueness of the Christian and Islamic civilizations of the Middle Ages.
HIS 314 - Modern British Empire, 1750-Present
10897 TR 11:00-12:15
Jill Bender
This course examines the British Empire from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. Themes include: the changing nature of imperial expansion, methods of colonial rule, decolonization, and legacies of Empire.
HIS 315 - Witchcraft and Magic in European History
10453 TR 2:00-3:15
Jodi Bilinkoff
Examination of witchcraft beliefs and persecution as a way of studying the social history of Europe before industrialization. Emphasizes the "Witch Craze" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
HIS 321 - Latin America and the United States
10454 TR 2:00-3:15
Peter Villella
A history of inter-American relations from the Monroe Doctrine to the Caribbean Basin Initiative. An examination of traditional interpretations and contemporary arguments and the Latin American context and perspective.
HIS 324 - The Frontier in American Culture
16002 TR 3:30-4:45
Sarah McCartney
This course explores the ways that ideas about the frontier and the lived experience of the frontier have shaped American culture from the earliest days of settlement through the mid-twentieth century. Though there will be a good deal of information about the politics of western expansion and the specific settlement history of the West, the course is designed primarily to explore the variety of meanings the frontier has held for different generations of Americans. Thus, in addition to settlers, politicians, and all manner of Indians, you will encounter artists, writers, filmmakers, and an assortment of pop culture heroes and villains.
HIS 329 - U.S. Women's History Since 1865
16003 ONLINE
Lisa Levenstein
This course explores the dramatic changes in women's experiences in the U.S. from 1865 to the present. We will explore these transformations from multiple perspectives. Questions that we will address include: How did women's experiences differ along race and class lines? How did ideologies of gender, race, and sexuality change over time? To what extent did women shape their own history? How does women's history change our understanding of United States history?
HIS 330 - American Popular Music and Social Change Since 1900
16004 TR 11:00-12:15
Benjamin Filene
Can music change the world? This course explores the relationship between American music and resistance, reform, and rebellion. We will consider key 20th-century moments when change was in the air - the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement, and on to the present day - and will examine popular music linked to these pivot points, including blues, jazz, folk music, rock 'n' roll, soul, punk, and hip hop. Throughout, we will trace the shifting sounds, the historical context from which they emerged, and their social impact. Key subjects include how music has reshaped the culture and politics of race, class, and gender.
In charting links between music and rebellion, this class tells stories of how people reimagined their world and found ways to express their visions. In doing so, the course invites students to consider who makes change in American society and how.
HIS 332 - Civil Rights and Black Freedom 1940-1980
16005 MW 3:30-4:45
Deborah Russell
This class will situate the black freedom struggle within the broader context of twentieth-century history, including national and Southern politics. While the course will examine the traditional narrative of the African American freedom movement from the mid-1950s through the late 1960s, it will also approach the black freedom struggle as the "long civil rights movement," exploring both its roots and its reach. We will consider national as well as grassroots leadership and explore the many strategies African Americans and their supporters have employed in efforts to claim full citizenship and civil rights. Prominent themes will include responses to Jim Crow, military service, political participation, religion, education, cultural developments, community and coalition building, white resistance, and protest. The course will draw on scholarship, but will also examine primary sources: memoirs, oral histories, letters, speeches, interviews and news coverage.
HIS 335 - American Colonial Period, 1607-1763
16006 MWF 12:00-12:50
Eric Oakley
This course investigates the "New World" and "America" as a joint creation of Native American, African, and European peoples, during a period ranging from Precolumbian times until the Eighteenth Century. Crucially, students will discover Colonial America beyond the traditional focus of British America, including New Spain, New France, Iroquoia, the Great Plains, and the Pacific Slope. Discussion will address major themes such as transculturation, systems of knowledge, globalization, ecology, conflicts and negotiation. Moreover, students will engage in a variety of historical simulations, including the Valladolid Debate, Atlantic Piracy, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Pueblo Revolt. Finally, this course challenges students to synthesize a number of primary and secondary sources for purposes of developing historical research skills.
HIS 337 - Age of Jefferson and Jackson, 1789-1848
16007 W 6:00-8:50 p.m.
Ian Michie
This course will evaluate major events of the early American Republic from 1789 through the end of the Mexican War in 1848. Topics include: political debates between Federalists and Democratic Republicans, the Louisiana Purchase, the Monroe Doctrine, The War of 1812, the market revolution, Indian removal, slavery and rebellion, the Second Great Awakening, urban social reform, and transcendentalism. The course will pay particular attention to the Republic's emergence as a new nation in Atlantic and world economies.
HIS 347 - History of North Carolina
10459 347-01 TR 9:30-10:45 Laurinda de Beck
10460 347-02 MWF 11:00-11:50 Speaking Intensive Section Christine Flood
This is a survey course. It spans more than 400 years of state history - from colonization to the present. It is American history with the spotlight on North Carolina. Objectives of the course include an examination of:
- when, how, and why North Carolina developed as it did.
- How its actions and reactions were similar or different from the other states.
- How the development of its economic, social, and political structure determines present-day North Carolina with special emphasis on such topics as: a) the economy b) politics c) race relations.
HIS 349 - The World at War 1939-1945
10461 MWF 11:00-11:50
Paul Mazgaj
This course will begin with an examination of the causes of the war, which include the failure of the Peace of Paris, the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler's Third Reich, and the successive diplomatic crises of the late 1930s. Next we will focus on the narrative history of the war. This section will include the great battles that punctuate the war as well as the mobilization of the material and human resources of the home front needed to fight a war on this scale. We will also consider the attempt by Hitler to construct his "New Order," an "order" which included the forced labor of millions and the mass murder of millions more, including six million Jews. Finally, we will attempt to evaluate the impact of the war.
HIS 351 - History of Greece, 2000 BC - 31 BC
16008 MWF 9:00-9:50
Stephen Ruzicka
Mycenaean society, Greek "dark ages," colonization and tyranny, Athens and Sparta, flowering in the fifth and fourth centuries, conquests of Alexander, Hellenistic empires, and the diffusion of Greek civilization.
HIS 380 - Topics in the Near and Middle East: "Introduction to Islamic Archaeology"
10709 MW 2:00-3:15
Asa Eger
Islamic history has long been considered a textual one, rich with a written tradition which has come down to us today preserved in many sources on the history, law, religion, science, and economy of the periods. However in the last thirty years, the field of Islamic archaeology has grown significantly, incorporating material culture to examine social processes ranging from artistic traditions and technological innovations to urban and rural economies and trade. Additionally, interest in ethnographic applications to archaeology and the study of environmental changes in the landscape have expanded the field in new directions. Historical assumptions, such as the "destruction" of the classical Middle East in the 7th century Islamic conquests, have been radically revised through important contributions from archaeological evidence. This course will survey the monuments, material culture, and settlements left behind of the Islamic world from Morocco to the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia. We will start our journey from the very inception of Islam in the 7th century in the wake of the former Roman Byzantine and Persian Sasanian Empires and continue through the Late Antique and Medieval periods, through to the Early Modern 16-18th century period of the Ottoman Empire. Beyond understanding Islamic history through its physical past, we will closely examine the relationship between archaeological and historical practice, observing how archaeological evidence complements or diverges from what we consider as "history," and how, as archaeologists and historians, we can broaden our perspectives and utilize other categories of evidence as tools to learning history.
HIS 382C - Experimental Course: East Asian History through Film
16871TR 3:30-5:45
Jamie Anderson
How is Modern East Asia "modern" and how is modernity in this region represented in film? This course will examine the history of Japan, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam through significant feature films produced in these modern nation-states. The course will also explore the cultural and cinematic concerns of artists involved in the production of films depicting the modern transformation of East Asia with reference to the emergence of anti-colonial nationalist and communist movements, as well as related intellectual and social developments since the late imperial era. Crosslisted with MST 327.
HIS 390 - History Internship
10711
Benjamin Filene
Field learning experience in public or applied history. Academic supervision provided by job supervisor. Assigned reading and written reports. May be repeated. Prerequisite: Consent of Director of Public History. Written permission needed to register. Contact Benjamin Filene for information.
HIS 391 - Historical Skills and Methods
10712 TR 11:00-12:15
Jodi Bilinkoff
Research Intensive. Restricted to history majors.
This is a required course for all history majors (except social studies concentration candidates who complete HIS 430 for research methods). It serves as a prerequisite for the capstone course in the major. Students in the course address a variety of research problems in history using different sources and methods in preparation for HIS 511. Formal goals include: analyzing varieties of primary and secondary source materials; designing a project focus; finding and evaluating appropriate sources; learning citation methods; understanding how historiography can guide us to significant questions and methods.
When a German monk named Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses against the sale of indulgences in 1517 he set off a chain of events that would shatter a unified Christendom. Over the next two hundred years Europeans would struggle with a dizzying array of issues related to faith, power, education, gender roles, work, artistic expression, and individual and group identities in a multi-confessional society. In this course we will first briefly trace the history of the Protestant Reformation and the manifold Catholic responses. Then students will take on projects focusing on aspects of the Age of Reformations in Europe and its colonies in the period between 1500 and 1700. Over the course of the semester they will learn skills critical to carrying out historical research and writing, including ways of analyzing primary and secondary sources, how to design a project and develop a thesis, citation methods for notes and bibliographies, and strategies for composing clear and compelling prose.
HIS 396 - Honors Seminar in World History: "The Atlantic World"
16010 M 3:30-6:20
Linda Rupert
Honors Program and Written Permission Required
Writing and Speaking Intensive
This advanced seminar, required for the honors distinction in history, introduces students to important historiographic approaches and perspectives, in a forum that promotes collegiality and discussion. This year"s theme focuses on the Atlantic World, one of the newest and fastest-growing fields in our discipline. The course introduces a transnational approach to history and provides an overview of the basic narrative of Atlantic history, the development of European empires, the creation of American colonies, and the emergence of trans-imperial networks, in the early modern period (roughly 1400-1800). We will also discuss variety of approaches and themes which historians have employed, and considers some of the challenges involved in a comparative, cross-cultural approach.
HIS 430 - Historical Methods for Social Studies Teachers
12052 TR 2:00-3:15
Lisa Tolbert
Writing and Research Intensive. Pr. Middle Grades or Secondary Social Studies Licensure candidates who have completed HIS 308, 316, and one other 300-level History elective for a total of 9 s.h., or permission of instructor
HIS 430 is an introduction to historical thinking and the research process designed to address these historical methods content standards for all social studies licensure candidates. The state of North Carolina requires that teacher candidates must demonstrate depth of content knowledge in "the process of critical inquiry in history and the social sciences used to examine change over time and develop historical perspectives," including: identifying and framing a problem, using primary and secondary resources, evaluating the credibility of sources, putting sources into historical context, investigating, interpreting, and analyzing multiple viewpoints, clearly and effectively articulating conclusions. The ultimate goal of the course is to understand the creative process of research within the discipline of history.
HIS 440 - Principles and Practices of Teaching History
10774 TR 3:30-4:45
Lisa Tolbert
Writing Intensive. Pr. Middle Grades or Secondary Social Studies Licensure candidates who have completed HIS 308, 316, and one other 300-level History elective for a total of 9 s.h., or permission of instructor.
This course is especially designed for students who are concentrating in social studies and plan to engage in teaching as a career. As an aspiring educator, how will you instill in your students a sense of the value and relevance of thinking historically in the 21st century? How do people learn history? Is there something distinctive about learning history compared to learning other academic subjects? This course will introduce you to the growing scholarship that addresses the distinctive challenges of teaching and learning history as both a subject and a discipline.
