Graduate Course Descriptions
Fall 2011
This page last updated:
2012-01-31 16:25:24
Course Schedules and Locations are subject to change! Please check this site often for updated information.
Africa |
||
| 280H - Colonialism in African History | Zimmerman | |
| M 3-5P 2231 DWINELLE | CCN: 39777 | |
| Updated August 5, 2011 | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
| Sarah Zimmerman recently completed her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in West African and French colonial history, and has a growing interest in African women and migration. | ||
| This seminar will use weekly meetings to analyze recently published monographs and articles that broadly engage nineteenth- and twentieth-century African history. Each meeting will examine a particular theme or event in African history by situating recent publications in relevant historical debates. General topics we will address, but are not limited to, are: religion, colonial laboratories, urbanization, nationalism, decolonization, gender, slavery, historical sources and methods, intermediaries, tradition, globalization, and race. Students should leave this class with a better sense of the core debates of African history, as well as the transformations that have occurred in the discipline over the past fifty years. | ||
Ancient |
||
| 280/285A - TBA | Norena | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
Asia |
||
| 275F - Foundational Texts of Modern Chinese History | Cook | |
| M 10-12P 3104 DWINELLE | CCN: 39690 | |
| Updated August 19, 2011 | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
| 280/285F - WAR AND DEFEAT IN JAPANESE HISTORY AND MEMORY | Stalker | |
| F 2-4P 2303 DWINELLE | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| Nancy Kinue Stalker is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Asian Studies and History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her scholarship on twentieth century Japanese material and popular culture investigates the intersection of practices and beliefs considered "traditional" with larger constructs of historical modernity, including nationalism, imperialism, capitalism and feminism. Her first book is entitled Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan (Hawaii, 2008) and her current project, Budding Fortunes, examines ikebana (flower arrangement) as cultural industry and cultural diplomacy in the twentieth century. | ||
| Contemporary Japanese national and international identities are often constructed with reference to the experience of War, Defeat and Occupation (1937-1952). Japanese postwar society struggled to rebuild and understand its war loss and the accompanying trauma, yet at the same time, forces within society sought to suppress memories of loss, devastation and shocking violence. Over fifty years have passed since these events, but questions remain over issues such as war responsibility, reparations for victims like the comfort women, subordination to the U.S. and lingering social prejudices towards Asians from the former colonial empire. In this course we will read recent monographs that address the relationship between history and memory and reveal conflicting interpretations of these events. Key themes include the roles of gender and race in war and occupation, literary and cultural representations of war and occupation, the emergence of a prevalent identification as victim vs. aggressor, and postwar activism in peace and reparations movements. Historiography and other aspects of the evolution of the discipline will be discussed throughout. Students will be required to submit a brief (1 – 2) page critique of works read each week, along with a historiographical essay at the end of the semester. | ||
| 280F/285F - Regional Cultures in Early China | Nylan | |
| Tu 3-6P 241 Starr East Asian Library | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 280F.002 CCN 39759 285F.002 CCN 39816 | ||
| 280G - Classics and Debates in Modern Chinese History | Cook | |
| M 10-12P 3104 DWINELLE | CCN: 39774 | |
| This course has been CANCELLED. | ||
| 285F - Provincial Life in Imperial Domains | Doumani | |
| W 12-2P 129 BARROWS | CCN: 39813 | |
| What happens to time and space, to the economy and law, to gender and the body, to politics and ideology when one steps outside of Istanbul, Cairo, London, or Paris? This research seminar explores the theoretical approaches, methodolgies, and sources available to those interested in the social and cultural histories of provincial towns and their hinterlands in Euroasia from early modern times to the end of the British and French Empires. | ||
Comparative |
||
| 280/285U - Advanced Studies/Research Seminar in Comparative History Topic TBA | deVries & Peterson | |
| W 10-12 201 WHEELER | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| CCN for 280U: 39831 CCN for 285U: 39927 | ||
| 280/285U - Advanced Studies/Research Seminar in Comparative History Topic TBA | deVries & Peterson | |
| W 10-12 201 WHEELER | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 280U - Borderlands | DeLay | |
| Tu 2-4P 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39783 | |
| Updated June 24, 2011 | ||
| This reading seminar will introduce students to important historical work on borderlands regions, defined as zones of interaction between independent polities. About half of the readings will explore the U.S.-Mexican borderlands (from the early colonial era to the present). The other half will concern borderlands in other world regions including western and central Europe, Russia, sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Indonesia, Australia, and China. Throughout we will be mindful of conceptual issues surrounding the study of borderlands -- definitions, processes, borderland typologies and comparative frameworks that might illuminate the study of places with multiple and contending political and legal traditions. In addition to regular attendance and informed, energetic participation, students will be required to submit three brief papers on the readings and a 15-20 page historiographic essay at the end of the term. | ||
| 280U/285U - Workshop in Cultural History | Laqueur | |
| W 9-12P 3104 DWINELLE | ||
| 280.002 CCN 39785 285.002 CCN 39833 | ||
| This seminar will allow students from to pursue any research topic that engages methodological and theoretical problems that we all encounter in the practice of writing cultural history broadly conceived. It will begin with several weeks of common readings. We then move into workshop mode. I offer step-by- step guidance through the process of identifying, researching, and presenting a manageable research project. The aim is to produce the kernel of a publishable paper and the seminar will constitute itself as a editorial collective that will read rough drafts and suggest revisions aimed at making the paper acceptable to our imaginary “journal.” For those topics on which I can offer no expertise we will rely, as I have in the past in my 285s, on the expertise of colleagues in this and other departments. Given my own research interests I invite especially topics that examine (a) the history of humanitarianism and the ethical subject (b) histories of the institutional and structural infrastructure for the making, transformation, and exchange of knowledge, the arts, technology, or ethical norms-- printing and publishing; education; translation; travel; museums and concert halls; law and intellectual property, for example, and (c) histories of death and memory histories. That said, all topics are welcome. Small grants-in-aid for research material will be available as needed. | ||
| 280U/285U - Histories of the British Empire | Vernon | |
| W 2-4P 2303 DWINELLE | ||
| 280.003 CCN 39975 285.003 CCN 39978 | ||
| This course will explore the historical development and nature of the modern British empire. At its height in 1919 that empire stretched over a quarter of the globe and included almost a third of its population with a staggering 458 million people spread across 13m square miles. We will ask how this was achieved, what made this empire modern, and whether conceptualizing the empire as one big thing - an economic system, a political ideology, a structuring culture organized around hierarchies of difference, or a set of mobile technologies of rule - can do justice to the immense varieties and contingencies of rule. Particular attention will be paid to questions of the political economy of empire, the nature of the imperial state, the rise of nationalist and internationalist critiques of empire and the process of decolonization. | ||
| 280U.001 - Studies in Comparative History- Topic TBA | deVries & Peterson | |
| T 10-12A | CCN: 39831 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 280U.002 - Studies in Comparative History- Topic TBA | Sargent | |
| Th 2-4P | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
Europe |
||
| 275B.001 - Early Modern Europe | Dandelet | |
| Tu 10-12P 2231 DWINELLE | CCN: 39666 | |
| Note New Room. | ||
|
History 275B is the foundational course in the history of early modern Europe from roughly 1400 to 1800, or from the Renaissance through the French Revolution. Its multiple purposes include the following: to examine the major themes, trajectories, and methods of the discipline as they have evolved since the nineteenth century; to read and analyze some of the major classics and current texts in the fields; and to develop the skills of historical criticism, writing, and collaborative work. The course is open to majors and minors in early modern Europe and to graduate students in other fields of history and other disciplines as space allows. It cannot be audited. This is a required course for EME students and highly recommended for students taking EME as a second field. |
||
| 280A/285A - Topics in Ancient History: Of human and divine bondage | Elm | |
| Tu 12-3P 3104 DWINELLE | ||
| 280A.001 CCN 39699 285A.001 CCN 39789 | ||
| This seminar will examine the social, philosophical, and metaphorical themes of bondage and constraint in the later Roman Empire. How does this language of slavery, indebtedness, or bondage function economically and socially? How does ownership or manumission by a god work as a metaphor within social realities? How does fatalism work within political and religious discourse? Why does it function and to what ends? We will read a variety of primary texts as well as images from the second to the fifth century, and address a number of | ||
| 280B - Habermas: Critical Debates | Jay | |
| F 10-12P 3104 DWINELLE | CCN: 39705 | |
| Updated August 19, 2011 | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
|
No intellectual of our time has generated as many productive controversies as the leading figure of the second generation of the Frankfurt School, Jurgen Habermas. Embodying in his own practice the principles of communicative rationality he so avidly defends on the level of theory, Habermas has responded to an extraordinary number of interlocutors, and in so doing raised the level of intellectual discourse in several different contexts. This course will combine readings of several of his own seminal texts with an examination of the rebuttals and counter-rebuttals they have engendered. Readings: Matthew Specter, Habermas: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge, 978-0-521-73831) Martin Beck Matustik, Jurgen Habermas: A Philosophical-Political Profile (Rowman and Littlefield, 0-7425-0797-1) Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (MIT; 0-262-58108-6) Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (MIT: 0-262-08163-6) Jurgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Beacon: 0-8070-1513-x) Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Beacon: 0-8070-1521-0) Jurgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking (MIT 0-262-08209-8) Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (MIT: 0-262-53114-3) Lasse Thomassen, ed., The Derrida-Habermas Reader (Chicago, 0-226-79684-1) John Thompson and David Held, Habermas: Critical Debates (MIT: 0-262-70023-9) Richard Bernstein, ed., Habermas and Modernity (MIT 0-262-52102-4) Axel Honneth and Hans Joas, eds. Communicative Action (Polity: 0-7456-055540) Peter Dews, ed., Habermas: Autonomy and Solidarity (Verso, 0-86091 8521) |
||
| 280B - Advanced Studies on the History of Europe | Staff | |
| Th 10-12P 2231 DWINELLE | CCN: 39708 | |
| This course has been CANCELLED. | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 285B - Research Seminar in European History Topic TBA | Hoffmann | |
| Tu 2-5P 15 BARROWS | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 285B - Research Seminar on European History | Slezkine | |
| Th 4-6P 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39795 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
Latin America |
||
| 280E - Advanced Studies on the History of Latin America | Carr | |
| W 10-12P 2231 Dwinelle | CCN: 39747 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
Medieval |
||
| 275B.002 - Survey of the History of Europe | Koziol | |
| F 12-2P 3104 DWINELLE | CCN: 39669 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| An introduction to the historiography of medieval Europe, emphasizing breadth of coverage and targeted to basic frames of knowledge. Readings include works on early and later medieval Christianity, Christianization, monasticism, and heresy; social and economic history; political and institutional history (Merovingians, Carolingians, France, England); literacy and popular culture. Special attention is also given to ways one can read books and take notes productively. Requirements: 1) two assignments on individual readings; 2) one or two broadly analytic, formal essays (of the sort one would find on a written qualifying exam); 3) a longer essay applying supplementary readings to the core readings. | ||
| 285B - The Long Tenth Century | Miller | |
| M 10-12P 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39792 | |
|
This research seminar invites students to reconsider a rather maligned portion of the medieval past, roughly from the mid-ninth to the mid-eleventh centuries or what we might call the “long tenth century.” In general narratives of medieval history, it’s the period of invasions (Vikings, Magyars, Arabs) and disorder between Charlemagne’s empire and the rebirth of the central Middle Ages. In several key areas of inquiry, however, new research has raised big questions about how we understand this period. An abbreviated list might include, - if the revival of long-distance trade usually thought to have begun in the eleventh century really started in the late eighth (McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 2001), how should we understand the movements of peoples (Vikings, Magyars, Arabs) usually characterized as “invasions”? Recent work, especially McCormick’s, demands reconsideration of the role of slavery in medieval societies and economies. - if many of the issues seen as central to the “Gregorian” reforms of the late eleventh century were already being addressed by Carolingian reforms in the ninth century, was the tenth century really a wasteland of ecclesiastical corruption demanding radical change in church and state in the late eleventh century? Were the monastic reform movements of the tenth century isolated from parochial conditions and the state of the secular clergy? - did Carolingian institutions provide lasting structures of power in the tenth and eleventh centuries, or did their collapse provoke a “feudal revolution” (Thomas N. Bisson in Past & Present 1994 and The Crisis of the Twelfth Century 2009) that constitutes the origins of medieval monarchies and western states? The seminar will begin with 3-4 weeks of collective reading and discussion to orient participants in a few key debates. During this time, members will also meet individually with the instructor and work independently to formulate a research project based on primary sources. Through most of the term, participants will conduct their research independently and seminar meetings will be devoted to progress reports, collective problem solving, discussion of interpretive options, and mutual encouragement. The goal is to produce a roughly 30-50-page essay – essentially a journal article or dissertation chapter. Requirements include 1) attendance at seminar and active participation in discussion; 2) preliminary bibliography and 1-2 page summary and critique of work on your topic (due c. 10/1); 3) outline and draft thesis statement (due c. 11/1); 4) complete rough draft (due c. 12/1); and 5) revised and polished final essay due 12/14. |
||
Methodology |
||
| 283 - Historical Method and Theory | Candida-Smith | |
| F 12-2P 321 HAVILAND | CCN: 39786 | |
| Updated August 19, 2011 | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
Science |
||
| 280S - Science and Late-Modern Empires | Saraiva | |
| W 12-2P 2231 DWINELLE | CCN: 39780 | |
| Updated August 5, 2011 | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
| Tiago Saraiva is a research scholar at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. His research focuses on science and fascism (Italy, Germany, Portugal), Science and agribusiness, science and environment in contemporary history, science and the city (Lisbon, Madrid, Los Angeles), industrialized organisms and food, model organisms and genetics research. | ||
| This seminar delves into the entanglements of science and late modern imperialism by drawing on recent literature in the field of history of science. The challenge is to explore simultaneously the role of imperial undertakings in the shaping of modern science and the relevance of history of science narratives for understanding the general history of late modern empires. The British Empire and its American, African, and Asian possessions will show up prominently in our discussions, but the set of proposed readings has a true global scope and includes texts dedicated to less known contexts such as the Portuguese colony of East Timor, French Senegal, or German Togo. Sessions are organized around very concrete things - plants, animals, skulls, standards- and do not follow either a chronological or geographical order. The seminar tries instead to grasp the material culture of late modern imperialism through an array of scientific things produced by geneticists, physicists, or anthropologists. It takes scientific artifacts as good things to think with in historical discussions of colonial societies and colonial political economies. | ||
United States |
||
| 275D.001 - Introduction to American Historiography | Peterson | |
| Th 2-4P 3104 DWINELLE | CCN: 39678 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| History 275D, Introduction to American Historiography, is a course intended for first-year graduate students in American History. The course is designed to introduce beginning graduate students to major works of scholarship, both old and new, in American history, ranging from the colonial period to the present. It is also meant to introduce students to Berkeley's American history faculty, as various members of the department will visit the course to preside over discussions of texts within their field of specialization. The course meets weekly for a two-hour discussion of assigned readings; writing assignments will focus on review essays based on the assigned reading. | ||
| 280D.004 - Advanced Studies in US History | Sargent | |
| Th 2-4P TBA | CCN: 39739 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 285D.001 - American Modernity Revisited: Law, Culture, and Politics | McLennan | |
| TH 6-8P 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39804 | |
| Updated August 31, 2011 | ||
| This research seminar explores the making and unmaking of American modernity, with particular emphasis on law, culture, and politics. Students will be guided through the process of framing, researching, and writing an article-length essay on a topic of their choice (to be developed in consultation with the instructor). In the first few weeks of the semester we will orient ourselves in the article genre, chiefly by reading and critiquing some innovative and influential article-length scholarship in the fields of legal, cultural, and political history. The rest of the semester (approximately twelve weeks) will be organized as a workshop. Students will frame and develop research topics in consultation with the instructor and in conversation with the class; write a prospectus, draft, and final paper; and "workshop" written work with the rest of the class. You will also be required to attend a number of one-on-one meetings with the instructor. | ||
Related Interest |
||
| UCSF 201A - Disease and the Social Order from the Black Death to SARS | ||
| Wed 10-12 3333 California St., S.F. -Room 485 | ||
| Fall Term Courses at UCSF begin week of September 22 and end on December 2, 2011, the last day of Exams. For information on these UCSF History courses, contact the Director of Graduate Studies, Professor Elizabeth Watkins, at watkinse@dahsm.ucsf.edu Interested graduate students can receive credit for these UCSF courses by completing an Intercampus Exchange Program Application. Go to http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/programs/exchange.shtml for detailed instructions. | ||
|
Instructor: Dorothy Porter The course explores the comparative impact of disease upon European and North American societies. It will concentrate on the historical junctures at which diseases occurred; unravel the various levels of meaning which surrounded them in terms of their social, moral, and political interpretations; and analyze the patterns of response to them and discuss their historical consequences. |
||
| UCSF 200A - Introduction to History of Health Sciences I | ||
| T 10-12 3333 California St., S.F. - Room 485 | ||
| Fall Term Courses at UCSF begin week of September 22 and end on December 2, 2011, the last day of Exams. For information on these UCSF History courses, contact the Director of Graduate Studies, Professor Elizabeth Watkins, at watkinse@dahsm.ucsf.edu Interested graduate students can receive credit for these UCSF courses by completing an Intercampus Exchange Program Application. Go to http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/programs/exchange.shtml for detailed instructions. | ||
|
Instructor: B. Dolan General survey chronologically arranged from ancient times to 1800, with the primary focus on the Western world. This course presents the broad conceptual developments that in each period influenced the evolution of medical knowledge, the promotion of professional activities, and the experiences of illness and health. |
||
| 200X.001 - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context" | Ferriss | |
| W 1-5P 375 Bancroft Library | CCN: 39657 | |
| A one-semester, two-unit course open to both graduate and undergraduate students. There are no prerequisites but enrollment is limited to six and by consent of the instructor. Two sections are offered, Wednesday and Friday. Interested students should contact Les Ferriss at lesferriss@earthlink.net. Under the guidance of the instructor, students will examine and discuss original printed books from the Bancroft collections, ranging from 15th century to the present. The class will also hand-set and print a small book on the Bancroft’s iron handpresses. The texts are drawn from the Bancroft’s manuscript collections. | ||
| 200X.002 - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context" | Ferriss | |
| F 1-5P 375 Bancroft Library | CCN: 39660 | |
| A one-semester, two-unit course open to both graduate and undergraduate students. There are no prerequisites but enrollment is limited to six and by consent of the instructor. Two sections are offered, Wednesday and Friday. Interested students should contact Les Ferriss at lesferriss@earthlink.net. Under the guidance of the instructor, students will examine and discuss original printed books from the Bancroft collections, ranging from 15th century to the present. The class will also hand-set and print a small book on the Bancroft’s iron handpresses. The texts are drawn from the Bancroft’s manuscript collections. | ||
Research and Teaching Credit |
||
| 290 - Historical Colloquium: History of Science | Mazzotti | |
| Th 4-6P 470 STEPHENS | CCN: 39834 | |
| This is a 1-credit S/U graduate course in history of science, accompanying the history of science colloquium and the brownbag series. It meets every Thursday, 4-6 pm. Meetings consist of: invited lecture on a special topics, followed by an extended session of questions and answers; informal discussions over the work of affiliated scholars; and roundtable sessions on broader methodological issues in the history of science and technology. The course brings you up to the research front in these topics, interacting with historians on subjects that currently engage their scholarship. Attendance is compulsory. | ||
| 296 - Dissertation Research and Writing | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 39846 | |
| 298 - Employment Credits | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 39849 | |
| 299 - Directed Reading | ||
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | ||
| Please see the graduate advisor in room 3310 Dwinelle to obtain the course entry code. | ||
| 300 - Teaching History at the University | Shagan | |
| M 2-4P 250 DWINELLE | CCN: 39957 | |
| This course, required of first time GSIs and open to all History GSIs, introduces graduate students to a variety of pedagogical theories and techniques used in teaching history at the university level. It will examine readings dealing with a range of classroom situations, opportunities, and challenges, with the goal of enabling future college teachers of history to understand the learning process of their students and to develop and improve their own teaching skills. The course will have two primary goals: (1) to train graduate students to work more effectively as graduate student instructors in history classes at Berkeley; and (2) to introduce students to techniques of designing and running their own classes that they will use when they become independent instructors and, ultimately, professors of history in their own right. | ||
| 601 - Individual Study for Master's Students | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 39960 | |
| 602 - Individual Study for Doctoral Students | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 39963 | |