Graduate Course Descriptions
Fall 2005
This page last updated: Saturday, 19-Apr-2008 10:35:36 PDT
Course Schedules and Locations are subject to change! Please check this site often for updated information.
Africa |
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| 280H.001 - Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries | Kanogo | |
| Th 10-12 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39541 | |
| This seminar will examine major themes and historiographic debates in the history of Africa since 1800. Topics will include discussions of political, social and economic institutions of 19th century Africa; European scramble for colonies and the partition of Africa; Practices of colonial administration: Indirect rule and French Assimilation approaches; African negotiation of the colonial encounter; redefinitions of institutions and practices: religion, gender, work, culture, identity; health and medicine; colonial economies, apartheid; nationalism; the legacy of colonialism and reflections on post-colonial Africa. Course requirements include a book review, one oral presentation, and a research essay. Xerox material will be placed at 2337 Dwinelle Hall (History Department Library). | ||
| 285H.001 - Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries | Kanogo | |
| Th 10-12 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39574 | |
| This seminar will examine major themes and historiographic debates in the history of Africa since 1800. Topics will include discussions of political, social and economic institutions of 19th century Africa; European scramble for colonies and the partition of Africa; Practices of colonial administration: Indirect rule and French Assimilation approaches; African negotiation of the colonial encounter; redefinitions of institutions and practices: religion, gender, work, culture, identity; health and medicine; colonial economies, apartheid; nationalism; the legacy of colonialism and reflections on post-colonial Africa. Course requirements include a book review, one oral presentation, and a research essay. Xerox material will be placed at 2337 Dwinelle Hall (History Department Library). | ||
Ancient |
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| 280A.001 - Divisions and Convergences: Ancient Jewish External and Internal Boundaries | Gruen & Hendel | |
| Tu 2-6 2227 Dwinelle | CCN: 39481 | |
| This seminar will explore the themes of perceived and constructed borders between Jews and "others" on the one hand and internal (sectarian) borders on the other. The topic encompasses not only the boundaries conceived within and outside Jewish communities but the crossing of those boundaries that blurred and complicated distinctions. We will read biblical and post-biblical texts that bear on Jewish relations with (or understanding of) other peoples of Palestine, Greeks, and Romans - - and the reception of those texts in subsequent literature. The reading will include selections from Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, the books of Ruth, Jonah, Amos, and Esther, apocalyptic works like Daniel and the Sibylline Oracles, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Josephus. A reading knowledge of Hebrew or Greek is expected. | ||
Asia |
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| 275F.001 - Readings in Premodern Japanese History | Berry | |
| Tu 2-4 201 Wheeler | CCN: 39469 | |
| A survey of the monographic literature concerning classical, medieval, and early modern history. Attention to majors themes (such as monarchical rule, classical urbanism, medieval law and judicature, war and violence, the early modern state and nation) and subjects vital to individual seminar participants. Occasion for comparative work. Students from all specialties welcome. | ||
| 280F.001 - Readings in the Social History of the Early Modern and Modern Middle East | Doumani | |
| W 4-6 2231 Dwinelle | CCN: 39528 | |
| Updated August 31, 2005 | ||
| New Room! Revised description available. | ||
| This reading course will interrogate the theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches and sources used in key classic and new works that have influenced the field of Middle East Studies. The assigned books span the period from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and have several things in common. First, they are original and deeply researched case studies of specific social groups, times periods, places, and institutions. Second, they rely heavily on locally produced archives and attempt to recover silenced histories. Third, they are primarily concerned with social and cultural history, especially the relationship between gender, law, and property. Finally, there is a special emphasis on rethinking the colonial encounter from a perspective that is critical of the modernization paradigm, yet not oblivious to issues of political economy and class. We begin with and remain focused throughout on the political economy and underlying ideological assumptions that govern the production of knowledge in the field of ME studies. | ||
| 280G.002 - | Yeh | |
| F 10-12 2231 Dwinelle | CCN: 39540 | |
| 285F.001 - | Zinoman | |
| M 2-4 115 Barrows | CCN: 39565 | |
| 285F.002 - The Russo-Japanese War: Causes, Course, Consequences | Barshay | |
| W 12-2 225 Dwinelle | CCN: 39568 | |
| Updated August 2, 2005 | ||
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The Russo-Japanese conflict of 1904-05 has been described as the first "world war." This clash of late-developing empires was fateful for both of the belligerents and for the "old order" in East Asia generally. Its effects on Japan itself--on social and political life, on literature, art, even religion--were profound. This research seminar will begin with a reading of two very recent, and accessible, examples of scholarship on the war: a new narrative synthesis by Yokote Shinji, Nichiro sensôshi (Chûkô Shinsho, 2005), and a wide-ranging and thematic study by Yamamuro Shin'ichi, Nichiro sensô no seiki (Iwanami Shinsho, 2005). Following these weeks of collective reading and discussion (and inspired, it is hoped, by them), students in the seminar will identify a topic for their own individual research, and produce a finished essay for presentation by the end of the term. Built into the course will also be an orientation to web-based research on Japanese historical texts. Participants in the seminar should be able to read Japanese comfortably. Students working on modern Japanese history, culture, and politics are welcome to enroll. Interested students should contact Andrew Barshay (abars@berkeley.edu) prior to the first class meeting. |
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| 285F.003 - The Classical Historians | Nylan | |
| TBA 108 Wheeler | CCN: 39571 | |
| Updated September 12, 2005 | ||
| Room now assigned. Previously listed as 280F.003 and 280G.001 | ||
| This course is organized around the early histories of classical China, which will be discussed in relation to the following questions: (1) how did historians see themselves? (2) how does the history of textual transmission differ from the history of social practices? (3) what are the proper subjects of history? and (4) what topics are omitted from consideration in the histories, and why? Comparative readings drawn from classical Greek and Latin sources will facilitate the precise formulation of answers to these questions. | ||
Britain |
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| 280C.001 - Twentieth Century Britain | Vernon | |
| Mon 10-12 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39511 | |
| This course will explore some of the classic historiographical questions and debates through which twentieth century British history has been understood. It will then address issues such as the experience of war, the expansion of the state, the achievement of a mass democratic politics, economic decline, secularisation, decolonisation, migration, and the reshaping of class. The course will also assess the ways in which some of these processes have been revisited and reconceptualised in more recent cultural historical work. | ||
| 285C.001 - Histories of death and of the dead among the living | Laqueur | |
| Th 12-2 233 Dwinelle | CCN: 39558 | |
| Also listed as 285U.001 | ||
| This research seminar will be a workshop for students who want to work on the history of death and of the dead among the living. It will, after reading some essential anthropological texts and a superb new book about the dead in post communist Hungary, concentrate on Great Britain and continental western Europe from the eighteenth entury to the present. Students with other geographical or temporal interests are, however, welcome. A detailed discussion of the seminar will be posted on my web site in early May. | ||
Comparative |
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| 280U.001 - French Colonialism | Stovall | |
| Tu 10-12 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39546 | |
| Updated July 22, 2005 | ||
| This fall, History 280U will focus upon the colonial history of France. Starting with French views of the Other and racial difference, we will then consider France's first great colonial empire, focusing on the establishment of the colonial plantation economy in the West Indies. After discussing the revolution in Haiti, we will then move on to looking at new imperial expansion in North Africa, subsaharan Africa, Indochina, and the Pacific. We will look at themes like colonial culture, French settlement overseas, and the impact of French rule upon the colonized. The course will end by studying the collapse of formal empire, especially the Algerian war, and the rise of postcolonial society in France | ||
| 285U.001 - Histories of death and of the dead among the living | Laqueur | |
| Th 12-2 233 Dwinelle | CCN: 39580 | |
| This research seminar will be a workshop for students who want to work on the history of death and of the dead among the living. It will, after reading some essential anthropological texts and a superb new book about the dead in post communist Hungary, concentrate on Great Britain and continental western Europe from the eighteenth entury to the present. Students with other geographical or temporal interests are, however, welcome. A detailed discussion of the seminar will be posted on my web siote in early May. | ||
Europe |
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| 275B.001 - | Koziol | |
| Updated June 30, 2005 | ||
| This course has been cancelled. | ||
| 275B.002 - Early Modern Europe | Sahlins | |
| Tu 4-6 202 Wheeler | CCN: 39454 | |
| More a sampler than a survey, this course is a selective look at historical problems and historiographic trends of the early modern European world from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. We will read landmark studies, both recent and older, that explore the major events and historical transformations of the early modern world, including: problems of periodization, the ideas and practices of the Renaissance, religious reformations, empires and cultural contact, the crisis of the seventeenth century and the decline of Spain, absolutism and constitutionalism, popular struggles, science and society, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Methodologically, the seminar will consider how historians have taken inspiration and borrowed methods from a variety of disciplines -- geography, demography, economy, political science, anthropology, literary studies. Geographically, the course will be comparative in approach, continuously raising questions in particular about the centrality of France -- and French historiography -- in this period. Logistically, the course will be run according to Australian Rules,requiring continuous, collective writing and response. | ||
| 275B.003 - The Long Nineteenth Century | Barrows | |
| Tu 12-2 233 Dwinelle | CCN: 39457 | |
| This course is designed to introduce students to some of the main themes of European history from the French Revolution through the First World War. Students will be asked to use Eric Hobsbawm’s trilogy (The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, the Age of Empire) as the texts of reference; successive weeks will address the revolutions of 1789 and 1848, the emergence of class conflict and consciousness, socialism, nationalism, imperialism, the fin de siècle, popular religion, prostitution, the changing nature of political cultures, violence, and the First World War. Readings will include both important secondary sources such as E.P.Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class and Schorske’s Fin de Siècle Vienna, and selected primary sources such as Hobson’s Imperialism and Karl Marx on 1848. Written assignments will include 2 five page papers and a longer review essay on a pertinent subject of the student’s choosing. | ||
| 280B.001 - The Historiography of Medieval Italy | Miller | |
| M 2-5 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39484 | |
| This seminar will give an overview of the key themes and debates in the history of Italy from 300 to 1400. Topics include the end of antiquity in Italy, the impact of the Lombards and the ethnic composition of early medieval Italy, the phenomenon of incastellamento, the origins of the communes, the rise of the Popolo, and the Norman & Angevin kingdoms in the south. Readings will be in English, Italian, and French. | ||
| 280B.002 - Introduction to Soviet Historiography | Slezkine | |
| W 4-6 211 Dwinelle | CCN: 39487 | |
| The landmarks of Soviet historiography from Leon Trotsky to the latest academic fad, in loose chronological order. Weekly book reviews, no papers. | ||
| 280B.003 - Transcendence & Immanence in History Thought | Brady | |
| W 2-4 2227 Dwinelle | CCN: 39490 | |
| The Western debate over the meaning of history, four stages: 1) the providential idea of history (St. Augustine, Venerable Bede, Otto of Freising); 2) immanental repetition (Machiavelli); immanental evolution (Giambattista Vico, Adam Ferguson); 3) immanentalization of transcendence (G.W.F. Hegel, Leopold von Ranke, Karl Marx); 4) freedom, and contigency (Jacob Burckhardt, Friedrich Nietzsche); 5) reason transcending history (Max Weber). The readings may be changed, depending on student interests. Assignments: two or three papers. | ||
| 285B.001 - Topics in the History of Twentieth Century Europe | Feldman | |
| M 4-6 2231 Dwinelle | CCN: 39550 | |
| I am best equipped to guide research in political, social, economic, and diplomatic history. Participants will be asked to produce a 35-40 page paper based on original research. The projects chosen and structure of the seminar will depend on the interests of the students, and they should consult with me by e-mail or in my office hours about what they might like to do. | ||
Latin America |
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| 280E.001 - Chile and Argentina in the Twentieth Century | Healey | |
| W 12-2 211 Dwinelle | CCN: 39523 | |
| This seminar focuses on key themes in the recent historiography of Chile and Argentina. Our central interest will be in citizenship, nationalism, and state formation, viewed as both state projects and important spaces of contestation. Our core readings range across the century, but cluster particularly around the post-WW II period. Indeed, the conceptual starting point of the class is the political juncture of the mid-1970s: our attempt to understand the parallel experiences of mobilization and repression in those years will draw us back into the history of the century. We will begin with a series of excellent monographs on Chile that share a common concern with class, citizenship and gender, then turn to a more eclectic series of monographs on modern Argentina. All our readings on Chile will be, in a sense, in the shadow of Allende, as attempts to understand the emergence, radicalization and collapse of the Chilean welfare state, while our readings on Argentina will be, similarly, in the shadow of Perón, and the transformations wrought by the national-popular movement he founded. For Argentina, however, our monographs will examine a broader cultural terrain, looking at the regional articulation of the nation-state, indigenous communities and industrialization, psychiatry, and prisons. Finally, we will return to the repression of the 1970s at the end of the semester for a close reading of recent work on memory. Two short 3-5 page critical reviews on weekly readings and a 15-20 page final paper will be required. | ||
| 280E.002 - Popular Culture in Latin America | Lewin | |
| W 4-6 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39526 | |
| What is popular culture? In Latin America? How can popular culture best be studied from a historical perspective? What are the important questions to be asked? What are the best sources for the historian to use in studying popular culture? And what are their limitations as well as their advantages? How does history draw creatively on complementary disciplines for both theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of popular culture? This seminar will attempt to answer these questions by considering broad areas of popular culture in Latin America, spanning the colonial period through the twentieth century: popular religion, oral tradition, carnival & national dance-song, art, and film. Thematically, discussions will focus on authorship, audience, and the construction of national identity. Readings will emphasize Mexico and Brazil, with secondary attention to Cuba and Argentina. Reading knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is useful but not required. | ||
Methodology |
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| 283.001 - What is Cultural History? | Henkin | |
| M 12-3 2227 Dwinelle | CCN: 39547 | |
| Critics and practitioners speak confidently (if not always approvingly) of a turn in recent decades toward cultural history, but it remains unclear what exactly the term designates. Is cultural history a field, a subject matter, a scholarly methodology, a theory about the world, an interpretive stance toward texts and images, a rhetorical posture, a set of aesthetic preferences? Is it comparable to and neatly distinguishable from social history and intellectual history? This reading seminar explores some of the antecedents, foundations, and varieties of what is labeled cultural in contemporary historical scholarship in North America and Western Europe. Assigned readings include an eclectic array of classic works from earlier periods (Herodotus, Vico, Tocqueville, Pater, Burckhardt) and from the twentieth century (E.P. Thompson, M. Foucault, N. Elias, C. Geertz, M. de Certeau), and will focus on leading figures identified with different branches or models of cultural history (P. Burke, R. Chartier, P. Gay, C. Ginzburg, J. Agnew, and others). We will also attend to the work of current and former members of the Berkeley History Department (M.E. Berry, P. Brown, N.Z. Davis, P. Fass, L. Hunt, T. Laqueur, L. Levine, M. Ryan, P. Sahlins, J. Vernon, and several others). | ||
| 283.002 - Introduction to History and Theory | Klein | |
| Th 4-6 180 Barrows | CCN: 39549 | |
| This seminar is an introduction to a broad array of issues in history and theory. Instead of casting "theory" and "history" as separate. antagonistic discourses, it hopes to encourage students to theorize history and historicize theory. For a few hours each week, we are going to think carefully about "history" as an idea and a practice. At the same time, we will explore the various ways in which "theory," even at it’s most deliberately anti-historical, projects it’s own histories. We will begin with canonical works in philosophy of history, survey developments in theory and criticism from structuralism to postcolonialism, and conclude with recent debates about history and memory in museum and popular cultures. And while the bulk of our reading comes from the canon, we will pay special attention to the margins since History is defined by its boundaries. The course centers on weekly discussions of the texts. We have no outside readings. There will be three brief papers, one due in class week five, another due in class week ten, and the last one due in class week fifteen. All readings will be on reserve. | ||
Science |
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| 275S.001 - Introduction to the History of Science | Hahn | |
| W 2-4 125 Dwinelle | CCN: 39478 | |
| The course calls for intensive readings of secondary sources in the history of Western natural philosophy, from the Greeks through Newton. It is especially useful for students preparing for the graduate examination in this field. | ||
| 280S.001 - American Science | Carson | |
| W 10-12 108 Wheeler | CCN: 39544 | |
| Also listed as History 280D.004 | ||
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American science is a Johnny-come-lately. Historically, it was long in a position of backwardness. Historiographically, it has remained relatively unself-conscious. And yet the American way of doing science has become a global model. Its historians may not have kept up. This seminar serves as both an introduction to the field and a consciousness-raising exercise. It looks for ways in which historians of U.S. science have contributed innovatively to the writing of history of science in general (e.g., "Big Science," science and race), as well as approaches that have been revitalized by developments in related fields (colonial science, environmental history). It hopes to highlight prospects for future innovative study. The seminar's compass includes studies that take their lead from "regular" U.S. history and from science studies. The instructor is a specialist in German science who regularly teaches on the U.S. The seminar is meant to be relevant to students interested in the present. Toward the end of the semester there will be space for students to suggest readings. Along with reading and class discussion, requirements include book reviews and a historiographic paper. |
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| 290.001 - Historical Colloquium: History of Science | Staff | |
| M 4-6 140 Barrows | CCN: 39583 | |
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1 unit, graded S/U. Meets together with the UCB-UCSF Colloquium in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. For details see http://ohst.berkeley.edu/ohst_events.html. |
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United States |
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| 275D.001 - Introduction to the Literature of U.S. History | Einhorn | |
| W 2-4 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39463 | |
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This course is an introduction to the literature of U.S. history (or the history of what would become the U.S.) from the beginning of European settlement to the Civil War. It is also an introduction to the study of history at the graduate level, which will focus on teaching you the particular reading and analytical skills that distinguish a professional approach to the historical literature from other ways of reading history books. We will cover basic factual information, but we will emphasize the characteristic interpretive frameworks through which American history literatures have developed. Major topics include (but are not limited to): the process of colonization, Native American history, slavery, the development of political institutions, industrialization, and the causes of the Civil War. The requirements are consistent attendance and preparation, active participation in the seminar sessions, a couple of short essays over the course of the semester, and a final paper at the end. |
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| 280D.001 - | Abrams | |
| Updated August 16, 2005 | ||
| This course has been cancelled. | ||
| 280D.002 - Vietnam War Perspectives | Clemens | |
| W 2-4 2231 Dwinelle | CCN: 39517 | |
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This seminar will examine the Vietnam War from a variety of perspectives. We will use Marilyn Young's, The Vietnam Wars, to provide an overall continuity from 1945 to 1990, Eric Bergerud's Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning : The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam to examine oral histories and their nature as they cover one unit in the American escalation and intervention, Fredrik Logevall's Choosing War: The Last Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam to experience research in depth covering the national and transnational diplomacy of President Lyndon Johnson during the criticalyears, 1963-65, and the recent Inside the Pentagon Papers(edited by John Prados and Margaret Pratt Porter) to look at one of the most sensational, significant, and enduring episodes within the US relating to the Vietnam War. On line resources (for example Richard Jensen's excellent site at http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/vietnam.html) and specified volumes on the graduate reserve will help strengthen and diversify seminar reports and papers. Course requirements will consist of discussion of texts and inclass verbal reports. A total of approximately 25 pages of written work may be satisfied by a course term paper, or by shorter written reports such as book/article reviews and/or via research with on-line materials. |
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| 280D.003 - Readings in Racism, Racial Formation, and Racial Liberalism | Brilliant & Spear | |
| W 12-2 123 Dwinelle | CCN: 39520 | |
| This seminar will examine leading works on racism, racial formation, and racial liberalism in American history from the 17th century through the 20th century. We will consider how race has intersected with other social categories such as gender, class, and ethnicity, as well as how it has been embedded in the discourses and experiences of law, labor, immigration, the social sciences, political liberalism, etc. | ||
| 280D.004 - American Science | Carson | |
| W 10-12 108 Wheeler | CCN: 39522 | |
| Also listed as History 280S.001 | ||
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American science is a Johnny-come-lately. Historically, it was long in a position of backwardness. Historiographically, it has remained relatively unself-conscious. And yet the American way of doing science has become a global model. Its historians may not have kept up. This seminar serves as both an introduction to the field and a consciousness-raising exercise. It looks for ways in which historians of U.S. science have contributed innovatively to the writing of history of science in general (e.g., "Big Science," science and race), as well as approaches that have been revitalized by developments in related fields (colonial science, environmental history). It hopes to highlight prospects for future innovative study. The seminar's compass includes studies that take their lead from "regular" U.S. history and from science studies. The instructor is a specialist in German science who regularly teaches on the U.S. The seminar is meant to be relevant to students interested in the present. Toward the end of the semester there will be space for students to suggest readings. Along with reading and class discussion, requirements include book reviews and a historiographic paper. |
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| 285D.001 - Mid-20th Century U.S. Intellectual History | Hollinger | |
| Tu 2-4 202 Wheeler | CCN: 39559 | |
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This graduate research seminar is devoted to the study of the United States during the quarter-century running from the end of the 1930s through the beginning of the 1960s. Although the instructor will try to accommodate students whose interests run more in the direction of political than intellectual history, the seminar's intended concentration will be on intellectual activity, especially as taking place in one or more of the following closely related matrices: 1) the engagement with societies and cultures outside the North Atlantic West prompted by World War II, by the geo-political rivalry with Soviet power, and by the decline of the European colonial empires; 2) liberal Protestantism as a half-way house between Christian orthodoxy and secular world-views; 3) the tension between the cognitive authority of science and the political authority of governmental institutions; 4) the transformation of Jewish intellectuals from an institutionally excluded identity group to one demographically overrepresented in American academia; 5) the initiatives and counter-initiatives surrounding Catholicism in relation to fascism, democracy, pluralism, and anti-communism; and 6) the military experience of World War II, producing one of the only two generations of American intellectuals -- the other being that of the Civil War veterans -- with significant military experience. Students may select topics outside these matrices if they choose, but will be encouraged to work within the seminar's chronological frame (roughly 1938 to 1963). |
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Related Interest |
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| 200X - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context" | Ferriss | |
| F 1-5 256E Bancroft Library | ||
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A one-semester, two-unit course open to both graduate and undergraduate students. There are no prerequisites but enrollment is by consent of the instructor and is limited to six students because of the small press room space. Interested students may email the instructor: lesferriss@earthlink.net and should attend the first class meeting. The Bancroft Library is undergoing renovation, and the class will meet in the Press Room in the Bancroft's temporary quarters on Allston Way, between Oxford and Shattuck. Under the guidance of the instructor, students examine and discuss original printed books from the Bancroft collections ranging in date from the 15th century to the present. Approximately one half of the class time is devoted to a study of the design and production of books from the hand press period. The course also presents a historical perspective on the various technologies involved in the production of printed books: type founding, paper making, binding, illustrations, and the evolution of the printing press itself. Students will also learn to set type by hand, design and lay out a substantial pamphlet, and print and bind at least 35 copies by the last class meeting. The texts for these pamphlets are selected from the manuscript collections of The Bancroft Library with input from class members. In some cases, editorial work is required. By combining actual printing with a historical overview, students gain a practical as well as theoretical appreciation of the art and technology that has dominated communication in the western world for over five centuries. The class also points out the limitations and problems inherent in hand printing. The instructors, Lester Ferriss and Peter Koch, teach in alternate semesters. Both are professional printers with a strong interest in the history of books and printing. |
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| 300.001 - | Fass | |
| Fri 1:30-3:30 3104 Dwinelle | CCN: 39751 | |
| Updated August 18, 2005 | ||
| New Time! | ||
Research and Teaching Credit |
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| 296.001 - Dissertation and Research Writing | ||
| CCN: 39595 | ||
| 298.001 - Employment Credits | ||
| CCN: 39598 | ||
| 601.001 - M.A. Preparation | ||
| CCN: 39754 | ||
| 602.001 - Ph.D. Orals Preparation | ||
| CCN: 39757 | ||