Graduate Course Descriptions
Spring 2012
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 |
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| 280/285H - Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries | Kanogo | |
| Th 10-12 104 GPB | ||
| Updated January 17, 2012 | ||
| This course has been CANCELLED. | ||
| CCN for 280H: 39816 CCN for 285H: 39918 Note change of topic. | ||
| 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. | ||
Ancient |
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| 280A - Ancient Greek Law | Mackil | |
| Tu 10-1 7205 Dwinelle | CCN: 39744 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
| What role did the establishment of laws play in the development of the polis in the Archaic period? What was the political impact of the Greeks' practice of writing down laws? How did the process and substance of legislation change over time in relation to shifting internal and external political circumstances? How did the substantive laws of the Greek poleis affect social, economic, and political behavior? How did the politically fragmented Greek world face the problem of settling disputes between states, and between individual citizens of different states? We will address these and other questions through a careful study of the ancient (especially but not exclusively epigraphic) evidence and recent scholarship on it, as well as through some recent theoretical work that seeks to articulate the relationship between law and society more broadly. We will share five or six meetings with a seminar on Greek Law being taught by Professor Josiah Ober at Stanford in their winter and spring quarters. Students should be prepared to make a maximum of three trips to Stanford for this purpose; carpooling will be arranged. | ||
Asia |
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| 275F - Asia | Berry | |
| W 2-4 3303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39732 | |
| Updated November 14, 2011 | ||
| We shall read and discuss genuinely excellent English-language monographs on Japanese history from the classical period to the present. The canon, as it were. The top hits, old and new, that deserve (and reward) careful attention. All welcome (auditors, visitors, old and new friends), as long as you read the work resourcefully and are ready for searching conversation. Selective attendance by auditors is fine. | ||
| 280/285F.1 - Asia | Zinoman | |
| M 10-12P 214 Haviland | CCN: 39798 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 280F.002 - The New Cultural History of Late Imperial and Modern China | Jessup | |
| CCN: 39801 | ||
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| A major and enduring trend in the historiography of late imperial and modern China has been the turn to cultural history. The focus on culture has not excluded attention to the state, economy, warfare or social classes, but rather provided new lenses through which to view them. New attention to material, commercial, print, religious, and physical culture has shifted, and in some cases fundamentally altered, our understanding of the last few centuries of Chinese history. In this course we will engage recent influential scholarship on these and other areas of cultural history, and ask how these applications of the cultural lens has changed the field. A main concern of the course will be preparation for qualifying exams. Requirements: class presentations, two short papers, and one term paper involvingsecondary source research. | ||
| 280G - Writing History in Japan | Barshay | |
| W 12-2 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39813 | |
| This seminar will be concerned with the writing of history in Japan, and (mainly) of Japan, from the late Tokugawa era onward. Readings will be chiefly in Japanese. They will consist of essays or extracts from longer works that have played a role in setting the course of Japanese historiography in their own time and since, supplemented by selected secondary materials. In addition to reading and discussing these works on a weekly basis, students will be asked to prepare short annotated translations of selected materials. For their final papers, students may write an essay comparing different styles of Japanese historiography or prepare a full, annotated translation of one of the course readings. | ||
Britain |
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| 280C - The English Revolution | Shagan | |
| Th 2-4 104 GPB | CCN: 39771 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| The English Revolution (1640-1660) was an epochal event in British history and European history more broadly. It marked the first time in the western tradition that a representative assembly asserted sovereignty against its monarch and the first time that a European monarchy was overthrown and replaced with a republic. It was also the high-water mark of the European Reformations as for the first and only time a major territorial state was taken over by radical Protestants who sought to push beyond Calvinism. Out of this ferment arose great works of political thought (e.g. Hobbes's Leviathan) great works of literature (e.g. Milton's Paradise Lost), and great religious movements (e.g. Quakerism). Yet for all its importance, historians cannot even agree what to call this event (English Revolution? Civil War? Puritan Revolution? British Revolutions? British Civil Wars? Wars of the Three Kingdoms?) much less agree about its causes and consequences. This graduate seminar explores the critical historiography of the English Revolution (as I prefer to call it!) as well as engaging with many key primary sources in order to help graduate students to understand and investigate this critical historical period. Open to graduate students only, but graduate students from English Literature, Political Science, and other related fields are encouraged to enroll. | ||
Comparative |
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| 280U.001 - Economic History and Economic Culture of the Early Modern Atlantic World, c. 1500-1800 | deVries & Peterson | |
| Tu 10-12P 205 WHEELER | CCN: 39831 | |
| his course explores the development of European economies and the creation of new Atlantic economic systems during the era of European contact with and expansion into the "new worlds" of sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. In doing so, it also attends to distinctive features of economic life emerging in this era - new theories of political economy, experiments in monetary systems and credit networks, radical new forms of slavery and labor commodification, the rise of cultures of consumption - that helped to create the modern world. It is intended for graduate students in history and related disciplines, working in any relevant geographical areas, whose interests pertain to this subject. | ||
| 280U.002 - Global Environmental History | Klein | |
| T 4-6 2302 Dwinelle | CCN: 39834 | |
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| Note New Room. | ||
| This is a reading seminar designed to introduce students to current problems and methods in environmental history. For quite some time, environmental history meant primarily the study of environmentalism and conservation in the United States. More recent work has expanded the field to include questions about colonialism, built landscape, and other topics that seem quite distant to matters of parks and game preserves. And although the bulk of the historiography remains concentrated in North America, we will select some of the best new (and old) works from Europe and Asia to provide some comparative context and to sample the increasingly "global" aims of new projects. | ||
| 280U.003 - Writing the History of Human Rights | Hoffmann | |
| M 12-2pm 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39837 | |
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In this course, we will survey the new historiography of human rights and identify some of its main problems, in particular its relations to other fields of historical inquiry (the histories of empire, citizenship, humanitarianism, genocide, international law, decolonization, and the end of the Cold War, among others). What kind of historical narratives are emerging if familiar histories are retold in the new idiom of human rights? The course is comparative in scope and chronologically broad, ranging from early modern natural rights theories to the present concern with humanitarian interventions. Readings include: Christopher Brown, Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. Roland Burke, Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights. Dan Edelstein, The Terror of Natural Rights. Didier Fassin, Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (ed.), Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights. Akira Iriye et al. (eds.), The Human Rights Revolution. Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law. Paul Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights. Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations. Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Jeffrey Wasserstrom et. al. (eds.), Human Rights and Revolutions [2nd., revised edition]. |
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Europe |
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| 275B - Europe in the Twentieth Century | Connelly | |
| M 2-4P 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39714 | |
| Updated November 21, 2011 | ||
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This course is not meant to cover the history of 20th century Europe. Its goal rather is to stimulate conversation on a series of provocative questions relating to the history of the continent in this period. Course readings touch upon following issues: Revolutionary era: 1917 and beyond Enemies of democracy and their programs Leninist and fascist "civilizations." Submersion of the world wars in European collective memory collaboration: "Victims" as collaborators. Collaborators as "democrats." Intellectuals and the Cold War The dialectics of German unity in a divided Europe Revolutionary era: 1989 and beyond Europe unified and divided: the Bosnian crisis Throughout the emphasis is on readability and new questions, rather than on panoramic view or systematic geographic and thematic coverage. Students will write one twenty page paper on a subject of their choice, as well as a number of short reviews. |
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| 280/285B.4 - The Jewish Body | Efron | |
| W 4-7 89 DWINELLE | ||
| CCN for 280B.004: 39756 CCN for 285B.004: 39864 | ||
| In this course we will study the modern history of German Jews through an examination of the perceived physical and psychological nature of their Jewishness. In other words, we will study the Jewish body, as both Jews and non-Jews represented it. What is special about Germany in this regard was the unparalleled access to medical knowledge the Jews enjoyed there. Beginning in the eighteenth century, Jews used medicine to engage with the entire universe of assumptions, both positive and negative that characterized the discourse on the corporeal nature of Jewishness. Beyond this medicine was used by Jews as a tool to fashion modern Jewish ideologies and promote social change. As such, the Jewish body can be used as a meaningful lens through which to observe the German-Jewish encounter with modernity. | ||
| 280/285B.1 - The Reformation as Modern Event | Brady | |
| Tu 2-5 211 DWINELLE | CCN: 39855 | |
| Updated October 13, 2011 | ||
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"We have lost the Reformation," says the Berlin historian Heinz Schilling. This seminar/colloquium presupposes that, if "the Reformation" has been lost, its counterparts will be found elsewhere and -when. The course responds to the rising interest in the impact of religion on the histories of society, politics, and culture. It is designed for graduate students majoring in the early modern or late modern Europe, US history, or history-related disciplines. There are two principal themes: Part I, the history of interpretations of the Protestant and Catholic reformations; and Part II, the current arguments about the relationships of the reformations to the modern age. In Part I the weight of readings and discussions ranges from the late 18th to the mid-20th century (early modernists may well choose earlier subjects). Possible common readings include texts from the German idealists (Fichte, Hegel, Ranke); American and British romantics (Parkman, Bancroft, Carlyle); continental Roman Catholics (Mohler, Dollinger); liberal Protestants (Macaulay, Ritschl, Weber, Troeltsch, Holl); and Marxists (Engels, Kautsky, Ernst Bloch, Tawney). In Part II the readings will be drawn from leading works written within the past half-century, especially those which deal with the pluralization of "reformation" as a historical concept, the convergence of the Protestant and Catholic reformation, and the formulation and critique sociological and anthropological interpretations. Each student will choose a theme for a seminar paper and report on the subject to the seminar during the late weeks of the semester. Students who seek seminar credit (285B) must work in primary sources in the original language(s); other students will receive colloquium credit (280B). Research topics should reflect the students' interests and, where appropriate, be designed to explore possible dissertation themes. The common readings will be available in English, though students are encouraged to read in other languages, and some texts will be distributed in the digital format or hard copy. |
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| 280B.002 - Espionage as a Historical Field: The Cold War | Astourian | |
| W 12-2 210 DWINELLE | CCN: 39750 | |
| Updated November 14, 2011 | ||
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This seminar is an introduction to espionage as a field of historical inquiry. Most of our readings will deal with the years of the Cold War and with significant U.S. and Soviet operations. This course will approach the field of espionage broadly, covering such issues as the operational training of spies and the psychology of espionage; CIA studies on various aspects of espionage; the role of intelligence in the elaboration of statecraft; various espionage and counter-espionage operations documented by primary or archival sources; memoirs from prominent U.S., East European, and Soviet agents; and the literary and cinematographic representation of spying. We will reflect on what knowledge of espionage tells us about twentieth-century politics, diplomacy, freedom of information, disinformation, and even state sovereignty. This seminar should be relevant to students majoring in history (U.S., Soviet, and European, in particular) and in political science. The following give a sense of the readings: Christopher Andrew and Vassili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. Angelo Codevilla, Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century. Oleg Kalugin, Spymaster: My Thristy-Two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West. Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. Kermit Roosevelt, Counter-Coup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. H. Bradford Westerfield, Inside CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency's Internal Journal, 1955-1992. Markus Wolf, Man Without a Face. Requirements include a five-page analytic essay and a twenty-page paper on a topic of interest to the student. |
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| 285B - Research Seminars on Europe, Topic TBA | Hoffmann | |
| M 10-12P 2303 DWINELLE | CCN: 39861 | |
| Updated November 1, 2011 | ||
| This course has been CANCELLED. | ||
| Professor Hoffmann will instead teach a History 280U on Human Rights that is listed under the comparative heading. | ||
| 285B.002 - Habermas: Critical Debates | Jay | |
| F 2-5 201 WHEELER | CCN: 39858 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| 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. | ||
Latin America |
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| 285E - Latin America | Chowning | |
| Th 12-2P | CCN: 39897 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
Methodology |
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| 283 - Historical Methods | deVries | |
| Th 12-2 180 BARROWS | CCN: 39843 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
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What does, and what can, history as an academic discipline claim to do? The seminar will examine these questions by examining the contemporary practice of historians (historiographical, methodological) and pondering the claims made by historians (epistemological, philosophical). The scope for these investigations will be limited, in the main, to developments in history and related disciplines in the past 60 years. Among the themes to be addressed are: epistemology and memory, causation and narrative, objectivity, historical example and analogy, counterfactual history, global history, and the advantages and drawbacks of historical fragmentation. |
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Science |
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| 280S - Drugs in World History | Osseo-Asare | |
| Th 10-12 202 WHEELER | CCN: 39822 | |
| Updated November 28, 2011 | ||
| This course has been CANCELLED. | ||
| The field of drug history allows us to learn about societies through their shifting relationships to pharmacological substances. In this seminar, we will focus on the multiple histories of major drugs including: Opium, Cocaine, Oral Contraceptives, Khat, Kola, and Viagra. We will trace stories of each substance across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas using articles, historical texts, novels and films. Seminar participants will gain a comparative perspective on how societies regulate, discover, test, and market legal and illegal drugs over time, and how these multiple approaches overlap and inform one another. We will emphasize new research in history of medicine, anthropology, film studies, and public policy that suggests a theoretical framework for further investigations. For more details, see: http://osseo.berkeley.edu/drugs.html | ||
| 290 - Historical Colloquium | Carson | |
| Th 4-6 470 STEPHENS | CCN: 39930 | |
| Updated January 20, 2012 | ||
| 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. | ||
United States |
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| 280D.001 - United States. | Klein | |
| CCN: 39777 | ||
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| 280D.005 - Advanced Studies: Sources/General Literature of U.S. History, Topic TBA | Sargent | |
| Tu 2-4 201 WHEELER | CCN: 39783 | |
| Updated December 16, 2011 | ||
| This course is a reading seminar, intended for graduate students in History who are preparing to take an oral examination in the history of the United States and the World at the end of the Spring 2012 semester. This course focuses, for the most part, on the twentieth century. | ||
| 285D.001 - Nineteenth-Century America | Henkin | |
| W 2-4 211 DWINELLE | CCN: 39882 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back. | ||
| This writing and research workshop is designed for graduate students interested in producing elegant, article-length scholarly papers based on original historical research within the time frame of single semester. All topics and methodologies in the study of nineteenth-century U.S. history are welcome. | ||
Related Interest |
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| UCSF 217 - INTERDISCIPLINARY READINGS: ANTHROPOLOGY, HISTORY, SOCIOLOGY | Dolan | |
| Tu 1-3pm Laurel Heights Room 485 | ||
| Winter Term Courses at UCSF begin week of January 1st and end on March 16, 2012, 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://grad.berkeley.edu/policies/guides/ggp-full.html#exchange for detailed instructions. | ||
| This course examines different theories and research methods developed in anthropology, history and sociology to demonstrate how particular conceptual paradigms are adapted for use by different disciplines. Through comparative readings, this course traces the intellectual foundations of medical anthropology, history and sociology. Offered alternate years. | ||
| UCSF 200B - Introduction to the History of the Health Sciences | Watkins | |
| Tu 10-12P Laurel Heights Room 485 E. Watkins | ||
| Winter Term Courses at UCSF begin week of January 1st and end on March 16, 2012, 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://grad.berkeley.edu/policies/guides/ggp-full.html#exchange for detailed instructions. | ||
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Continuation of 200A. This course presents a general survey from 1800 to the present, with the primary focus on Europe and the US. Topics include: the rise of scientific medicine; the significance of germ theory; the development of medical therapeutics and technologies; the growth of health care institutions; the evolution and specialization of the medical profession. |
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| 200X.001 - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context" | Ferriss | |
| W 1-5 375 Bancroft Library | CCN: 39699 | |
| 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 1-5 375 Bancroft Library | CCN: 39702 | |
| 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 |
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| 296 - Directed Dissertation Research. | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 39936 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| 298 - Employment Credits | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 39939 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| 601 - Individual Study for Master | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 40035 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||
| 602 - Individual Study for Doctoral Students | Miller | |
| UNSCHED NO FACILITY | CCN: 40038 | |
| Updated October 10, 2011 | ||