Spring 2011 Course Descriptions
500-700 Level
500-level courses are for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Prerequisite for ALL 500-level courses: either the completion of six semester hours of 300-level History courses or the permission of the instructor.
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! Always check the University online schedule for the latest changes.
HIS 502 - African American History: Selected Topics
11055 M 6:30-9:20
Loren Schweninger
Examining America's great paradox--slavery in a land of liberty--the course examines important issues involving race and slavery in American history. Beginning with West Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade, it will consider slavery during the colonial and national periods, emphasizing the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War. The course will ask, among other questions, how and why the "peculiar institution," as it was called, endured for nearly two-and-a-half centuries.
HIS 511A - Seminar in Historical Research and Writing: "Reverberations of the 'Rights Revolution,' 1941-1981"
11056 W 3:30-6:20
Tom Jackson
Writing and Speaking Intensive. Prerequisite of one 300-level Research Intensive (RI) history course.
Between the battles for equal rights fought during World War II and the rise of conservatism in the 1980s, a broad "rights revolution" brought popular movements, political parties, and policy elites into dynamic tension. These conflicts left every corner of American society changed and influenced reactionary movements that fed into "America's right turn" in the 1980s. They also helped define broad and still unfulfilled political agendas and popular freedom dreams that remain enormously controversial and are very much on the table in our still divided multiracial society. Some researchable student projects: popular movements for "fair employment" during World War II; integration of the military during the Korean War; the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the impact of Brown v. Board of Education on black movements and white resistance; the wave of student led sit-ins and freedom rides that broke over the nation 1960-1962; the extent and limits of desegregation in Greensboro; the impact of the mid-1960s civil rights debate and coalition on immigration reform, the war on poverty, and the women's movement; labor and civil rights; prisoners rights movements, "victims rights" movements, and the language of rights in movements opposed to liberalism.
HIS 511B - Seminar in Historical Research and Writing: "The Twelfth Century in Medieval Europe"
11057 W 3:30-6:20
Anne Barton
Writing and Speaking Intensive. Prerequisite of one 300-level Research Intensive (RI) history course.
The twelfth century in medieval Europe has been variously described as a period of renaissance in arts and culture, a period of persecution by centralized bureaucracies, and a period of "discovery of the self." During this period, whether one�s view of it is positive or negative, western European society transformed itself into something quite different than what it had been before. It is possible to look at this transformation from a variety of perspectives: economic, religious, social, cultural, and political. Possible topics which illuminate one or more of these perspectives include heresy (the Cathars), popular religion (Franciscans and Dominicans), scholastic thought (Anselm or Abelard), chivalry (courtly literature), crusades (to the Holy Land or in Europe itself) and growth of kingship (especially in England and France.)
In order that students may choose their topics with some knowledge of the period, we will begin the semester by reading a variety of primary and secondary sources together. Students will complete written analyses of these sources and use them to discover an appropriate topic to research. By the end of the semester, each of the students will have written and revised a 15-25 page research paper on his or her topic of choice.
HIS 511C - Seminar in Historical Research and Writing: "The Transatlantic Slave Trade"
11058 T 3:30-6:20
Linda Rupert
Writing and Speaking Intensive. Prerequisite of one 300-level Research Intensive (RI) history course.
The transatlantic slave trade lasted for over four hundred years and was one of the largest and most disrupting movements of people in human history. This course introduces students to the broad economic, political, social, and cultural impact of the slave trade in Africa, the Americas, and Europe (the basic historical narrative); a range of documents and evidence which historians use to study the trade (primary sources); and a variety of ways in which historians have interpreted its significance (historiography).
Students will conceptualize, research, and write a major paper about a specific aspect of the slave trade in a particular time and place. The paper will based on the student's own careful reading of a selected collection of primary sources, as well as analysis of an appropriate sample of relevant historiography. All students are encouraged to choose a research topic which fits in with their wider historical interests.
HIS 520 - Southern History: "Memoir in Southern History"
12425 T 3:30-6:20
Watson Jennison
This course will examine southern U. S. history from colonial times to the present through the prism of memoir. We will read the memoirs of indentured servants, Indians, slaves, slaveholders, civil rights workers, and segregationists, among others, to examine the experiences of the people themselves. Through their memoirs, southerners did not just narrate their lives. They chronicled their legacies as well. We will examine southerners' use of their memoirs to both illuminate and obscure aspects of the southern past.
HIS 544 - Early Modern Europe: "The Reformation"
11059 W 3:30-6:20
Jodi Bilinkoff
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 three hundred years Europeans would struggle with a dizzying array of issues relating to faith, power, education, gender roles, work, art, and strategies of survival in a multi-confessional society. In this course we will first briefly trace the history of Protestantism and the manifold Catholic responses. We will then look at the ways that scholars have interpreted major questions of the period between roughly 1450 and 1700, including the acceptance of--or resistance to Protestantism in urban and rural settings, the role of printing and literacy, the impact of reform ideologies on women and the family, the intersections between religion and state-building, and the transmission of Christianity across the Atlantic.
HIS 547 - History Museum Curatorship: Collections Management
11061 R 6:30-9:20
Jon Zachman
Professional practices in the care and management of historic site and history museum collections, including priniciples of collection development, object registration, cataloging, and preservation. Same as IAR 547. Prerequisite: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or written permission of instructor.
HIS 548 - Architectural Conservation
13939 R 2:00-4:50
Jo Leimenstoll
Overview of contemporary architectural conservation principles, practice and technology. A series of field exercises, group projects and investigation of an individual research topic expand upon lectures and readings. Same as IAR 548. Prerequisite: IAR 301, IAR 332, or written permission of instructor.
HIS 588 - Asian History: "The "Radio State": Readings on Trade and Political Expression in Southeast Asian History"
11062 M 3:30-6:20
Jamie Anderson
Most interested students in the West may only be familiar with the nations of contemporary Southeast Asia (Brunei Darussalam, Burma or Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) in the context of the modern trade opportunities or against the backdrop of the various wars and episodes of political violence that plagued Southeast Asia throughout the twentieth century. However, these countries are, in fact, heirs to long histories of cultural brilliance and diversity. This region has also sustained rich natural environments, on which much of the world has long depended. In this class we will explore the social and political conditions, particularly during the Age of Imperialism, from which the individual modern Southeast Asian nations emerged. Specifically, we will consider how a shared history of commodity exchange in this region has shaped the collective political character of these nation-states. This class begins with the premise that history is guided by interdependent influences of population, environment, economics, and culture. Following these themes, we will distinguish human enterprise from the natural history of Southeast Asia, and so gain some understanding of the manner with which political or economic change will occur in this region in the future.
HIS 589 - Experimental Course: "Borders and Frontiers in the Classical and Medieval Mediterranean World"
13695 R 3:30-6:20
Asa Eger
The world today is a sharply divided and sharply contested landscape of borders and frontiers, delimiting not only nations and political space but ethnicities and religions, languages and cultures. However, current events have equally shown us that these borders and frontiers can often impose arbitrary division where none has existed before (such as Kurdistan) or contribute to the creation of new identities and societies (such as Islamic Spain). We will analyze the concept of the frontier and frontier societies focusing on its development in scholarship, how it has been characterized, and how frontier theory contributes to new understandings of world history. We will introduce the frontier from its beginnings in academic discourse with the seminal work of Frederick Jackson Turner and his "frontier as wilderness" model as well as other theories of frontiers as borderlines. We will progressively examine the various ways in which frontiers have been characterized subsequently, as zones of periphery, zones of contact and exchange, and frontiers of language, religion, and ethnicity between two or more groups. Recent works will be evaluated that add complexity to the idea of frontiers and frontier societies including topics of assimilation, acculturation, cross-cultural contact, cultural ambiguity, and ethnogenesis or the creation of new societies). Geographically, we will focus on the tumultuous world of shifting states and empires in classical and medieval Mediterranean and Europe from the Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire. Since the idea of frontiers is interdisciplinary we will incorporate historical, archaeological, ethnohistorical, environmental, and anthropological research. Contrary to the assumption that the central place typifies culture, it is perhaps the frontier which visibly manifests interconnectedness of societies and the process of social change.
Prerequisite for all 600- 700 level History courses: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or written permission of instructor.
HIS 625 - Preservation, Planning, and Law
11063 W 3:00-5:50
Autumn Michael
An examination and analysis of the relationship of government programs and policies, community and regional planning strategies, and legal case precedents to the field of historic preservation. Same as IAR 625.
HIS 626 - The Practice of Public History
12426
T 3:30-6:20
Benjamin Filene
This course is an introduction to what it is like to work to within a public history institution and what it takes to thrive in one. The course is structured around the theory and practice involved in building relationships with audiences, community partners, and colleagues. Throughout, the course links practical skill-- writing a mission statement, creating a marketing plan, writing a budget--with discussion of the broader purposes these tools are intended to accomplish. The course culminates in a collaborative class project that involves conceiving, planning, and writing a grant application for a local public history initiative. (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
11069 702-01 Lisa Levenstein M 3:30-6:20
11070 702-02 Mark Elliott R 6:30-9:20
Issues of historical interpretation from Reconstruction to the present.
HIS 704 - Seminar in American History
11071 Graduate Faculty
Research and writing on selected topics in American history.
HIS 706 - Colloquium in European History since 1789
11072 R 3:30-6:20
Jeff Jones
Interpretations of selected historical problems from the French Revolution to the present.
HIS 708 - Seminar in European History
11073 Graduate Faculty
Research and writing on selected topics in European history.
HIS 709 - Introductory Research Seminar
11074 709-01 Phyllis Hunter W 6:30-9:20 (American)
RIOTS AND REVELS IN EARLY AMERICA, 1600-1860
Public gatherings and group rituals provide an important window into social relations and construction of unity or division within communities. In this research seminar, we will examine how other historians have explicated crowd actions, political protests, parades, and celebrations from 1630 to 1860. Students will use extensive primary sources and secondary texts to learn how to gather and process evidence, develop interpretations, and produce a finished piece of work that contributes to the field. Designed for graduate students, the course offers an opportunity to further develop the research and writing skills necessary for advanced work in history. Each student will produce a substantial final paper based on primary sources. Students will be encouraged to select a paper topic related to the theme of riots or revels in a group or community. Ideally the paper you complete for this course may be the beginning of a published article.
HIS 713 - African Americans After Slavery
11075 R 3:30-6:20
Watson Jennison
This course will explore the African American experience from 1865 to the present. Drawing upon a mixture of classic and recent historical literature, students will examine the key transformations that affected black life in the decades since the end of slavery as well as the major historiographical debates within the field of black history.
HIS 715 - Atlantic World Selected Topics: "Africa in Atlantic History"
11076 W 3:30-6:20
Colleen Kriger
To paraphrase Ralph Ellison, "America is unimaginable without Africa." But why and by whom is this continent seen as a whole and called "Africa"? And how have peoples in "Africa" seen and defined themselves? This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the roles and place of Africa and Africans in the inter-continental history of the Atlantic basin.
HIS 722 - Early America: "Beyond the Atlantic World"
11077 T 6:30-9:20
Phyllis Hunter
In this readings course we will move beyond the framework of the Atlantic World and explore early American connections to the wider world. From the fantasy of Eastern riches engendered by the travels of Marco Polo that inspired the European exploration of the New World to Russian plans for dominating the Pacific and the West Coast of America in the early nineteenth century, Americans and their history have always been implicated in a world-wide circulation of people. Often these connections developed not only through the movement of peoples but also through commerce in goods and ideas. In this seminar we will explore both primary and secondary sources that illuminate America's global origins and connections in a variety of times and places.
HIS 724 - Selected Topics in 20th Century US History: "The Twentieth-Century South"
11078 M 6:30-9:20
Charles Bolton
This course will explore the South's social, economic, political, and cultural development in the twentieth century. Among the topics that will be addressed are the changing status of African Americans in the region; political developments during the period (from one-party rule by the Democratic party in the early twentieth century to the re-emergence of the Republican party during the second half of the twentieth century); and the transformation of the South from an overwhelmingly agricultural, rural society to a region identified in the years following World War II with the phenomena of Sunbelt urbanization and industrialization.
Since the time of the Civil War, various Southerners and non-Southerners have proclaimed the coming of a New South--one in which the defeated Confederacy would rejoin and ultimately resemble the rest of the nation. Thus, this course will also attempt to answer the following questions: When, if ever, did a New South develop? What factors made the South distinctive from other American regions in the twentieth century? When did these unique characteristics disappear, or are they still present today? In addition to looking at how historians have interpreted this century of change in the South, this course will also examine how Southerners themselves have explained these changes through the rich tradition of southern autobiography.
HIS 740 - Selected Topics in European History: "Exiled in Paradise: German Intellectuals in America"
11079 T 3:30-6:20
Emily Levine
According to the historian H. Stuart Hughes, the influx of German émigrés to the United States during and following World War II led to the "deprovincialization of the American mind." This graduate seminar examines the cultural and intellectual impact that German émigrés had on the United States across multiple fields in the humanities and in the fine arts, architecture, and film. Themes include transnational intellectual history, transatlantic exchange, and German-Jewish relations.
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