COURSES
Spring 2023 Course Descriptions: 500-700 Level
Please check Genie for updates and your email for updates from your instructors. Changes to the schedule continue to be possible as our world changes.
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! Always check the University online schedule for the latest changes.
HIS 520: "The South in the First Person"
10804 W 4:00-6:50
Watson Jennison
This course will examine southern U. S. history from colonial times to the present day through the prism of memoirs and other first-person accounts of the past. We will read primary sources written by indentured servants, Indians, slaves, slaveholders, civil rights workers, and segregationists, among others, to explore the experiences of the people themselves. Through these writings, southerners did not just narrate their lives. They created legacies as well, using their writings to both emphasize and obscure in order to present specific versions of the southern past. Cross-listed with HIS 420.
!['Major [John] Pitcairn at the head of the Regular Grenadiers,' detail from The Battle of Lexington, April 19th. 1775. Plate I, by Amos Doolittle, 1775. (New York Public Library)](../images/courses/430OBrien.jpg)
HIS 534: The American Revolution
10807 TR 2:00-3:15
Greg O'Brien
Using primary documents, works by historians, and other sources, students will learn why the American Revolution happened when it did, how the war was won, and what the impacts were. While attention to the leaders of these actions is necessary, we will also examine the experiences of groups such as Loyalists, women, African Americans, and American Indians, whose roles challenge conventional interpretations of the Revolution. Finally, the course will examine how the Revolution gave birth to a new nation and new type of government under the Articles of Confederation and U.S. Constitution.
Crosslisted with HIS 434.
HIS 542: "Civil War and 'Rebellion' in Europe, 1100-1700
10809 MW 2:00-3:15
Richard Barton
This course studies conflicts between centralized authorities and their subjects across medieval and early modern Europe. We will consider both the ways in which contemporaries categorized such conflicts – whether as wars, rebellions, revolts, or civil wars – and the larger political implications of the act of categorization. After all, the period from 1100-1700 witnessed the emergence and consolidation of the State (what John Locke called 'Leviathan'), with the accompanying belief that the State possessed a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence and the right to define any actions that opposed itself as illegitimate. While we will not attempt to decide whether any individual conflict was 'truly' a revolt, a war, or a rebellion, we will want to consider the ways in which contemporary sources, incipient state power, and modern historians have all shaped the interpretation of a series conflicts. Among the conflicts we may examine include the wars fought by English kings against their barons in the 1130s, 1170s, 1210s, and 1250s; peasant and urban revolts of the 14th century; the internal wars encompassed by the Hundred Years War; the English Wars of the Roses; the French wars of religion; the Fronde, the English Civil War, and selected 'rebellions' in Early America. Crosslisted with HIS 442.
HIS 564: "War, Gender, and Crime in the Victorian News"
10812 TR 12:30-1:45
Jill Bender
What are reliable sources? How can the news be manipulated, and why? The role of the press in society has been a hotly debated topic in recent years, but not all of the questions asked are new. This course examines the role of newspapers in Victorian society, from the birth of war journalism in the 1850s to the sensationalist news of the late-nineteenth century. Students will analyze varying reports on several historical events — including the Crimean War, the 1857 Indian Uprising, the scandalous case of the "Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon," and the crimes of "Jack the Ripper" — for insight into Victorian-era Britain and its empire. Crosslisted with HIS 464.
All 600-700 level History courses are for admitted graduate students only. Prerequisite: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or written permission of instructor if you are a graduate student in another department.
HIS 626 - The Practice of Public History
10813 W 5:30-8:20
Torren Gatson
This course introduces students to the various ways people work and thrive within public history institutions. The course revolves around the theories and practices involved in building relationships with colleagues, audiences, and community partners. Students learn how to write a mission statement, draft a budget, and apply for grants. At the same time, the class engages with the broader issues that underpin these decisions, such as institutional purpose, infrastructural dynamics and sources of financial support. The course culminates in a collaborative class project to conceive of and plan for a public history project to go up in Fall 2023. (Same as IAR 626.)
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 702 - Colloquium in American History
Issues of historical interpretation from Reconstruction to the present.
10815 702-01 W 2:00-4:50
Thomas Jackson
10816 702-02 R 5:30-8:20
David Wight
HIS 704 - Seminar in History
Individual Graduate Faculty
Research and writing on selected topics in history. M.A. students.
HIS 709-01 - Introductory Research Seminar
10817 M 2:00-4:50
Lisa Tolbert
This course is designed as an advanced introduction to professional research practice. You will develop your own research project based on your individual interests. But this course will not operate as if you were pursuing a set of unrelated independent studies. Though your topics will differ widely, you will all be facing similar research and writing problems: finding primary sources, understanding what your evidence means, presenting your findings in an interesting and compelling interpretation. Thus the subject of this course is not based on any particular historical period or topic, rather it is the historical method—the process of historical investigation, and particularly the role of writing in the research process. We will follow the approach of Booth, Colomb, and Williams, who explained in The Craft of Research that "writing is not just the last stage of a research project but from its beginning a guide to critical thinking." Your primary goal in this course is to write a compelling original research paper. You will develop the project in stages to analyze primary sources and explain the historiographical significance of the project.
HIS 710 - Atlantic World Colloquium
10819 R 2:00-4:50
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 716 - Graduate Colloquium in World History
10820 M 5:00-7:50 p.m. TIME CHANGE
Denisa Jashari, Teresa Walch, Richard Barton, Linda Rupert
Introduction to World history, the historiography of World studies, and comparative, cross-cultural approaches to historical research.
HIS 721 - Public History Capstone II
10823 M 2:00-4:50
Anne Parsons
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 this semester, students complete detailed development and produce and publicly present their projects. Restricted to graduate students who have completed HIS 720.
HIS 723 - 19th Century U.S. Women's History
10819 T 5:30-8:50
Mandy Cooper
This graduate reading seminar asks a fundamental question: how did women in the nineteenth-century United States lay claim to and exercise power in all of its many facets? Power, of course, came in many forms: from economic and political power; to resistance, claims to citizenship and other forms of identity; to fights for rights and much more. The course focuses on several key themes, including: freedom/unfreedom, business/credit, race/ethnicity, religion, politics/citizenship, identity, and reproduction. Throughout the semester, students will examine how scholars of women in the nineteenth-century have addressed these themes in their work.
100-400 Undergraduate Level Courses | History Major Advising Center | University Catalog | Courses
