Graduate Courses Fall 2007
Fall 2007 Courses
Course Numbers
HIST 83000: The Historian's Craft
HIST 83002; The Historical Profession
HIST 83200: Introduction to Medieval Studies I
HIST 83202: Prosem: high Middle Ages
HIST 83603: Colloquium: The US in the Nineteenth Century
HIST 93350: Topics in Reformation History
HIST 93408: Modern Germany
HIST 93615: Interpreting American Religious History
HIST 93909: Latin America, the United States, and the Atlantic World
Course Descriptions
The Historian’s Craft
MacCormack
HIST 83000 CRN # 10290
W 1:30 – 4:00
The course has four sections. After an introductory meeting about Marc Bloch, from one of whose books, by long established tradition in our department, this course derives its title, we turn to the historiographical legacies of Greece and Rome. The voices of Herodotus, Thucydides and Tacitus, whether we read them or not, remain alive in the themes and preoccupations of historians writing today. While considering them, we also look at more recent historical work, most especially Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall. The second section, moving on in time, focuses on the impact of Christianity after Rome's fall as seen by the Venerable Bede, whose influence extends as far as early modern Latin America. Next, we turn to historiographical traditions in Islam. The earliest Muslim historians developed categories of enquiry and methods of establishing historical veracity that bore little resemblance to those current in the Mediterranean world that came under Muslim control in the seventh century. But in due course, in Islam also, Greek ideas surfaced once more, but in a new guise and in pursuit of different arguments. The fourth section contends with modernity, focusing on intellectual and social history. Social historians work in archives. Thucydides also consulted documents, and we can ask whether his purposes were the same as or different from those of archival researchers of our own time. Finally, we will read about near contemporary and contemporary history.
The Historical Profession
Kselman
HIST 83002 CRN # 11613
R 8:00 – 10:30
This seminar serves as an introduction to balancing the range of professional commitments pursuant to a career as an academic historian. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, classroom and student problems, conduct, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. All second-year graduate students in history are required to pass this course in the fall semester as they become teaching assistants. Attendance, preparation, and participation are required.
Introduction to Medieval Studies I
Noble
HIST 83200 CRN # 15105
M 5:00 – 5:50
1 credit course
Led by Thomas Noble, and members of the medieval studies faculty, HIST 83200/MI 60001 is a systematic introduction to the sources, research tools, and methodologies for medieval studies in the widest possible sense of the term. The course if offered on a non-graded basis but active participation in the hour-long weekly sessions is expected.
Prosem: High Middle Ages
Van Engen
HIST 83202 CRN # 17596
T 6:30 – 9:00
This course is designed to introduce students to major topics under discussion in the history of the high and later middle ages, roughly the years 1100-1400. Among the topics to be treated, with the historians now at work on them, are: law, government and literacy; the church as an institutional and cultural force; social class and mobility as economic realities and cultural images; the university in society and culture; and the cultivation of the human person in literary sensibility and religious devotion. Most of the course will consist of intensive secondary readings, with regular written reports, occasional primary readings, and a major bibliographical paper at the end.
Colloquium: The US in the Nineteenth Century
Przybyszewski
HIST 83603 CRN # 17597
W 5:00 – 7:30
History 83603 is a colloquium designed to acquaint graduate students with United States history and historiography from roughly 1815 to 1900. The course will revolve around discussion of common assigned readings. Essays, based on these readings, will also be required. The course is required of doctoral students in American history, who will normally take it in their first or second year of graduate study.
Topics in Reformation History
Gregory
History 93350 CRN # 15003
R 6:00 – 8:30
A colloquium that will both acquaint students with recent scholarship on select issues in the history of early modern Christianity, and devote attention to the intensive reading of select primary sources in their original languages (Latin, German, or French, besides English). Students whose language skills are less than proficient may use English translations of primary sources together with the original texts. Students will lead discussions of scholarly books and articles as well as primary texts, and write either a substantial historiographical essay or a research paper.
Modern Germany
Spicer
HIST 93408 CRN # 17851
M 3:00 – 5:3O
Readings in the history of modern Germany from 1815 to the present day. The course will consider topics such as the 1848 revolution, the 1871 unification under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, German colonization, WWI, the culture of Weimar Germany, National Socialism, WWII, and post-war Europe. Class discussion and three critical essays.
Interpreting American Religious History
Noll & Marsden
HIST 93615 CRN # 17599
T 2:00 – 4:3O
This course features careful reading and critical analysis of many of the “greatest hits” in American religious history. A “greatest hit” is defined as a book that offers unusual illumination for its subject, showcases an innovative historical approach, or pioneers in exploring a previously understudied group. (The emphasis will lie on books not dealing with evangelical or fundamentalist topics.) Weekly class discussion will be based on assigned reading on which students are to prepare brief reviews. Students will be required to write two historiographical papers each critically surveying the history of how a topic has been interpreted. (As an alternative to this last assignment, students may elect to prepare one full-orbed, longer historiographical paper aimed at publication.)
Latin America, the United States, and the Atlantic World
Beatty
HIST 93909 CRN # 17598
M 6:30 – 9:00
This course examines problems in the social and economic development of Latin America and the Atlantic world with a particular focus on the long nineteenth century (ca. 1750-1950). Topics vary, but may include colonialism, slavery and free labor, peasant production, nation building, rural estates, technological change, trade, dependency/ies, protectionism, growth vs. development, and unionism. Advanced undergraduates with an interest in Latin American history are welcome to apply.
Archive
Fall 2006 Courses (.pdf)
Spring 2006 Courses (.pdf)