Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Upper Division courses - Fall 2005

This page last updated: Saturday, 19-Apr-2008 10:35:36 PDT

100.001 - The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia	Alexander & Connelly
MWF 10-11 20 Barrows		CCN: 39097
This course is also listed as Slavic 158.
This course will consider the emergence and decline of the Yugoslav state (1918 - 1991) from two different but closely related standpoints � that of history and politics, and that of language, literature and culture. Throughout Eastern Europe, but especially in the former Yugoslavia, these two aspects have been so interconnected that it is not possible to understand one without some comprehension of the other. Literature and other artistic expression take as their primary topics historical or current politically charged events, major political actions are often precipitated by or at least closely connected with literary events or figures, and conceptions of national identity are so closely entwined with the idea of language as to be inseparable. Students are required to attend lectures, see two (of three) films, write two short (3-5 pp.) papers, and take a map quiz and final examination.
100.002 - World History: Europe, the Americas, and the Globe, 1400-2005	Gillis
MWF 1-2 160 Kroeber		CCN: 39100
Books are available through Cody's.
Now that we live in a global era, it is time to turn our attention to world history. We can no longer afford the illusion that each nation has its own unique formation, independent of all others. Instead, we need to examine the complex interactions that produced our current condition. A good place to start is 1400, when the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas had only minimal contact with one another. From that point we will follow the intensification of interactions across the Atlantic and Pacific which would result in commercial and then industrial revolutions, culminating in the rise of modern empires and nation states. The course will examine how the long history of global interaction has affected various world areas, creating commonalites but also radical differences. It will provide an understanding of both the emergence of new forms of wealth and the degradation of the human and natural environment. And it will explore the origins of class, ethnic, and gender systems that continue to produce inequalities within and between the world�s nations. By viewing the world as one interactive system, we can grasp dimensions of our own lives that are impossible to comprehend from provincial national perspectives.
100.004 - Colonialism and Nationalism in Africa	Kanogo
TuTh 12:30-2 141 Giannini		CCN: 39106
The conquest and colonization of the bulk of Africa started in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This course will examine the process of European colonization of Africa and explore the effects of colonization on African societies. As well as examining the diverse ways in which Africans negotiated the colonial encounter, the course will also focus on the decolonization process, nationalist movements, and the attainment of independence from colonial rule. Rather than dwell on the minutiae of the period, the course will focus on broad themes and case studies including: colonial conquest and practices of administration; African responses to the imposition of colonial rule; colonial economies; labor migration; introduction and impact of Christianity and western education; women and the colonial state; social change: urbanization, leisure, and social mobility; Africans and the Two World Wars; nationalism and post-1945 politics; case studies of guerrilla liberation movements; women in liberation movements; the colonial legacy. Our inquiry will be guided by secondary and primary sources, novels, media presentations (viewing of documentaries), lectures and discussions. There will be one midterm, a final examination, and a research paper.
108 - Introduction to Byzantine civilization	Staff

This course has been cancelled.
The social, cultural, and religious history of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean from late antiquity through the early middle ages. The survival of the Roman Empire in Byzantium, the Sassanian Empire in Iran, and the rise of Islam are the topics covered.
110 - The Ottoman Empire 1400-1750	Peirce
TuTh 2-3:30 88 Dwinelle		CCN: 39291
Updated August 16, 2005
New Room! Also listed as Near Eastern Studies 190D. Previously listed as History 100.003. Please see the online schedule of classes for discussion section listings.
This introduction to the Ottoman empire studies both the evolution of the imperial state and the experiences of ordinary peoples populating the empire. After an overview of the empire�s expansion into Europe, Asia, and Africa, we examine the multiple influences on its formation (Roman/Byzantine, Islamic, Mongol, Turkic), and the images and discourses of imperial power as they evolved over 350 years. We then examine the social and religious aspects of everyday life, with emphasis on the polyglot mix of peoples (Christians, Jews, and Muslims; Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Slavs, and others); forms of religious identity (orthodoxies, mysticisms, heresies); material life; and modes of artistic expression (folktales, poetry, history-writing, architecture, artisan craftsmanship). Requirements include a map quiz, mid-term, final, two short papers, and participation in discussion sections.
111B - Southeast Asia	Zinoman
TuTh 11-12:30 223 Dwinelle		CCN: 39294
Updated August 18, 2005
New Room!
This introductory course surveys major themes of modern Southeast Asian history. Lectures will be organized topically and chronologically with an emphasis on cross-country comparisons. Starting with a consideration of pre-colonial political and economic legacies, we will examine local responses to imperial conquest and colonial state formation, the impact of capitalist penetration, the transformation of indigenous elites, the growth of "plural societies," anti-colonial resistance and the development of nationalism, war and Japanese occupation, decolonization and the erection of post-colonial regimes. Emphasis will be placed on the region's largest and most populous countries: Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Requirements include class attendance, participation in discussion sections, several short essays, a mid-term and a final.
113B - Modern Korean History	Kim
MWF 1-2 126 Barrows		CCN: 39296
This course begins with a short overview of pre-modern Korean history, then focuses on critical events in modern Korea, from its opening to the world in the late 19th century to the present. A survey includes the decline of the Chosun dynasty to the status of a Japanese colony, division into South and North Koreas, the Korean war, industrialization, and political democratization in recent decades. Special emphasis will be given to the transformation of Korea from an agrarian society to an industrial one.
114A - Medieval and Early Modern India	Irschick
MW 2-3 215 Dwinelle		CCN: 39297
We will have two projects in this course. The first of these is to understand, in so far as the sources permit, the nature of state structure in the Indian area between 1000 and 1800 CE. The second of these is to look at the way in which historians have described the history and the society of this period to understand the way in which the Indian state and its society has been constructed. This will involve reading in both substantive texts and theoretical works. Students will have an opportunity to use their writing skills to write short papers on these subjects. There will also be both a mid-term and a final examination. I look forward to seeing you in the class. My email address is irschick@socrates.berkeley.edu.
116D - 20th Century China: Wealth, Power and Discontent	Yeh
TuTh 2-3:30 159 Mulford		CCN: 39298
Updated August 16, 2005
New Description!
This course offers a narrative of the history of China from the first Sino-Japanese War (1894) to the present. Presentations will be organized around seven units: the fall of the Qing, the May Fourth Movement, the Nationalists, wars, Mao Zedong, Mao�s China, Shanghai modernizations and the new Chinese world order. Each unit will include lectures, reading materials, and classroom discussions. Students are expected to complete the required readings (about two hundred pages each week) on schedule. Course assignments consist of an hour-long mid-term, three response papers based on the assigned readings and a final examination. With the consent of the instructor students may elect, by the end of the 5th week of instruction, to do a term project in lieu of taking the final examination. Final course grade will be assigned on the basis of 20% for the mid-term, 15% for each paper (3-5 pages) and 35% for the final examination or term project.
118A - Courtiers, Samurai, Peasants, and Priests: Power and Culture in PreModern Japan	Berry
TuTh 9:30-11 210 Wheeler		CCN: 39301
An exploration of society and ecology from the period of earliest settlement until the construction of the Tokugawa shogunate c. 1600. Includes the development of the classical imperial state, the formation of the medieval warrior governments, and the experience of mass civil war during the 16th century. We are concerned with the complex sources of power-land and food control, violence, family and class structures, literacy and knowledge, social contracts. We are also concerned with the complex expression of culture-in buildings and material objects, Shinto and Buddhist belief, myth and historical writing, poetry and fiction, drama and popular storytelling. The course draws on a rich variety of original texts (such as Tales of the Heike and The Tale of Genji) and includes extensive visual evidence. Two very short essays, one longer essay, a mid-term and a final examination. No prerequisites, all welcome.
118C - Japan: Late Nineteenth Century to the Present	Barshay
TuTh 11-12:30 182 Dwinelle		CCN: 39304
Updated August 23, 2005
New Room!
Japan's experience of the twentieth century, beginning with the development of capitalism and the acquisition of an empire; tracing the achievements and tragedy that came with Japan's emergence as a world power. Emphasis on social and intellectual history, and on how Japan has understood itself and the world in this century.
120AC - American Environmental and Cultural History.	Staff
MWF 10-11 101 LSA		CCN: 39307
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
Also listed as Environ Science, Policy, and Management C160.
History of the American environment and the ways in which different cultural groups have perceived, used, managed, and conserved it from colonial times to the present. Cultures include American Indians and European and African Americans. Natural resources development includes gathering-hunting-fishing; farming, mining, ranching, forestry, and urbanization. Changes in attitudes and behaviors toward nature and past and present conservation and environmental movements are also examined.
121A - American History (The Colonial Period): The Peoples & Cultures of Early America	Spear
TuTh 12:30-2 110 Barrows		CCN: 39328
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
America has always been a multicultural society and perhaps at no time was this truer than in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This course will explore how encounters, conflicts, and compromises made among Native, African-, and European-American peoples shaped the cultures and societies of North America. Seeking to understand them on their own terms as well as how cultures and peoples were shaped through interactions with each other, we will analyze the experiences of Native, African-, and European-Americans from about the sixteenth-century through 1763 within the framework of early modern colonization, focusing upon their conflicting and changing gender, religious, social, cultural, economic, and political systems.
121B - The American Revolution	Staff

Updated June 23, 2005
This course has been cancelled.

123 - Civil War and Reconstruction	Staff

This course has been cancelled.

124A - The United States from the Late 19th Century to the Eve of World War II.	McLennan
TuTh 3:30-5 101 Morgan		CCN: 39331
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
During the first half-century before World War II, the United States became an industrialized, urban society with national markets and communication media. This class will explore in depth some of the most important changes and how they were connected. We will also examine what did not change, and how state and local priorities persisted in many arenas. Among the topics addressed: population movements and efforts to control immigration; the growth of corporations and trade unions; the campaign for women's suffrage; Prohibition; an end to child labor; the institution of the Jim Crow system; and the reshaping of higher education.
127AC - California and the West	Klein
TuTh 2-3:30 155 Dwinelle		CCN: 39337
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
This course traces the history of California from the Paleo-Indian past to the postindustrial present. What, though, is California? Bumperstickers tell us "California is a State of Mind." Is California a collective hallucination? Is it just so many lines on a map? A simple collection of whatever lunatics are here at the moment? Or is California greater than the sum of its parts? We will use such questions to help us understand California as both place and process. The course will consist of two papers, each six to eight pages in length, and a comprehensive final examination. The readings should be completed prior to the week for which they are assigned.
130B - War and Peace in the 20th Century	Clemens
TuTh 2-3:30 20 Barrows		CCN: 39340
In the last 107 years (1898-2005) the United States has waged three wars in Asia (including WW2-Japan), three in the Middle East, fought in two great World Wars, and sustained a Cold War posture against its rival super-power, the now dismantled Soviet-Union, which spanned five decades (1946-1991). In intervals of comparative peace (1904-1917, 1918-1941, and 1991-2001), the United States either reinforced its stance as a global power or, as in the 1920's and 1930's assumed a policy of isolation from world affairs with ultimately disastrous and war-provoking results. We will focus on major episodes of United States international history beginning with Wilson and WW I through the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. However our texts will allow course members to explore and research the diverse and complex events of the last quarter century, to reflect how those years may have led to the present exigency precipitated by the terrorist attacks on US soil and the World Trade Towers, September 11, 2001 and the consequent mobilization of the country and military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Course coverage is entry into World War I, the Treaty of Versailles; Isolationism, President Franklin Roosevelt and the coming of World War II, World War II itself and the Summit Conferences, the early Cold War, Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Both the emergence of the US as an imperial power in the 20th century and the World Wars as well as the road to the Vietnam "quagmire" offer a template and some striking parallels to current actions and political debates. Lecture presentations will incorporate the ample audio-visual records available for this modern era, 1914-1975.
131B - Social History of the United States: 1865-Present	Fass
TuTh 11-12:30 277 Cory		CCN: 39343
This course examines the transformation of American society since the Civil War. The lectures and readings give special attention to the emergence of city culture and its possibilities for a pluralistic society; the experience and effect of immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the revolution in communications and industry; changes in family dynamics, the emergence of modern childhood, schooling, and youth culture; changes in gender relations and sexuality; the problematics of race and the changing nature of class relationships in a consumer society; the triumph of psychological and therapeutic concepts of the self.
C132B - Intellectual History of the United States Since 1865	Candida-Smith
TuTh 3:30-5 219 Dwinelle		CCN: 39346
Updated August 4, 2005
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
New Room! Also listed as American Studies C132B.
In this course we will be discussing key developments in U.S. thought since the middle of the nineteenth century, roughly beginning with the reception of Darwin. The broader story told in the class weaves together the history of science and engineering, the arts and popular culture, philosophy, and education. Our goal is to trace how ideas, whether they are dominant, challenging, or look back, have affected the ways in which Americans live together. Sometimes the ideas we will examine will seem specialized. Nevertheless, fields like geology, genetics, psychoanalysis, or quantum physics have affected how Americans have looked at the world at large and have influenced the course of public policy. The sciences and the arts have provided raw material for a continual reconstruction of how to understand the world. They have inspired efforts to legislate a new society. As we look at this process over the past century and a half, we will look at how intellectual life has empowered and expanded the capacity of Americans to understand their world and achieve goals more effectively. We will also consider how intellectual theories have contributed to inequality and injustice. The first part of the class will examine the emergence of a modern, secular society. We will discuss the influence of positivism and natural selection on American life; the relation of science, religion, and the arts in promoting ideas of progress and moral reform; the rise of the social sciences, their relation to social planning, and their influence on how Americans understood social difference and the limits of equal citizenship. This section will conclude with the rise of pragmatism and pluralism. These new developments were the fruit of American intellectuals working to understand the complexity and diversity of the modern world. We will examine how American intellectuals responded to the challenge that fascism and communism presented to liberal democracy after World War I. While some were impressed by the apparent successes of dictatorial regimes abroad, others worked to strengthen American core democratic values and build political movements for broader civil rights and civil liberties. In the final section of the course, we will look at factors contributing to the cultural and political conflicts characterizing American life since World War II. We will discuss the role of psychology in establishing new understandings of personal development, as well as linguistics and cybernetics in advancing new conceptions of what knowledge is. We will look at the relation of these and other postwar scientific developments to the ongoing contest of liberal, radical, and conservative social movements to define the nature of American society.
137AC - The Repeopling of America	Gjerde
MWF 9-10 101 Morgan		CCN: 39352
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
The United States has been termed a "nation of immigrants." And indeed, following the massive depopulation of the native populations, people from five continents over four centuries have moved to America. This course will provide an overview of that migration beginning with the colonial migration which brought the free and unfree to a less developed colonial region. It will follow the migration as the United States became a source of agricultural livelihoods and later an industrial power which exploited the labor of millions of industrial migrants in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Finally, the course will conclude with the "post-industrial" migrations which have recently brought refugees and service workers to the United States. In the course, we will focus on questions of antagonism and conflict between "Americans" and immigrants and between immigrant groups, the process of acculturation and "Americanization," and the strategies used by immigrants to cope with a strange new world. The course readings will include novels and historical monographs of the immigrant experience.
139C - Civil Rights and Social Movements in U.S. History	Brilliant & Martin
TuTh 11-12:30 159 Mulford		CCN: 39355
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
This course is also listed as American Studies 101.001
Beginning with the onset of World War II, the United States witnessed the emergence of a variety of contemporaneous civil rights and their related social movements (as opposed to a single, unitary Civil Rights Movement, as is typically portrayed in standard textbook accounts). These movements, moreover, did not follow a tidy chronological-geographic trajectory from South to North to West, nor were their participants merely black and white. Instead, from their inception, America's civil rights and social movements unfolded both beyond the South and beyond black and white. "Civil Rights and Social Movements in U.S. History" will offer students a top-down (political and legal history), bottom-up (social and cultural history), and comparative (by race and ethnicity as well as region) view of America's struggles for racial equality from roughly World War II until the present. In doing so, the course will endeavor to equip students with a greater appreciation for the complexity of America's civil rights and social movements history than a black / white or nonwhite / white framework provides.
139D - Liberal Superpower: Reform and Political Economy in Postwar U.S. History	Frydl
MWF 2-3 219 Dwinelle		CCN: 39358
How did the United States reconcile the Cold War Leviathan with its admiration for traditional liberalism�natural rights to liberty and property protected by a legitimate but limited government�and its more contemporaneous redefinition�a measure of public obligation to maintain and promote the welfare of the people? Certainly, the broad sweep and projection of especially military power abroad affected more than just Americans� awareness of geography; the military, ideological, and cultural competition engaged in by the United States and with the Soviet Union transformed the context in which other issues were placed and understood. This course will examine the fate of previously important political ideals and distinctive institutional configurations under the restructuring regime of the Cold War, in a sense asking ourselves whether it is a paradox in need of unraveling or an artfully constructed falsehood to describe the postwar United States as a "liberal superpower."
140B - Modern Mexico	Chowning
TuTh 3:30-5 159 Mulford		CCN: 39361
Updated August 18, 2005
New Room!
This course surveys Mexican history from the late colonial period (ca. 1780) to the present. Although previous exposure to Latin American history and/or things Mexican is useful, it is not required. Each year I emphasize a different aspect of Mexican history, and this year the emphasis in the readings, the paper, and to a certain extent the lectures will be on popular culture. The paper will ask you to relate the readings (on Mexican food, rock music, Cantinflas, Posada prints, etc.) to the broad political-social-economic narrative that will be presented in lecture. One in-class midterm, one short (6-8 pages) paper, and a final.
143 - History of Brazil	Lewin
TuTh 2-3:30 106 Moffitt		CCN: 39364
Brazilian history will be surveyed in terms of the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society, with readings and lectures organized around key themes in social history. After briefly addressing the colonial legacy (1500-1822), we will begin with the plantation society that characterized Brazil�s late nineteenth-century Empire (1822-1889), paying special attention to the aftermath of the abolition of slavery and the arrival of a republic. Brazil�s early republican era (1889-1930) will be treated in terms of the coffee economy, urbanization in Rio de Janeiro, immigration, and racial ideology. The second half of the course will focus on the impact of the Great Depression and the Vargas Era in a post-1930 context. Against the backdrop of the "Vargas Revolution" and the Populism (1930-1964), the major themes to be covered are the emergence of the middle classes, nationalism, industrialization, and race relations. We will conclude the course by paying special attention to the Amazon region as a means of exploring national changes during and after military rule (1964-1990s). Readings range widely in history, anthropology, sociology, fiction, and autobiography.
149B - Italy in the Age of Dante (1000-1350)	Miller
MWF 10-11 130 Wheeler		CCN: 39367
Also listed as Italian 160.
The history of medieval Italy is one of vivid contrasts: of beauty and brutality, freedom and tyranny, piety and blasphemy. The great poet of the Inferno summons us to consider such contrasts in nearly every canto: how can such stunningly beautiful language conjure images of such horrendous violence? This course explores the world that produced Dante, Giotto, and Saint Francis. It first traces the emergence of independent city-states in northern and central Italy after the millennium, emphasizing the particular conditions and experiences that created this distinctive medieval civilization. We will then focus on the culture of these vibrant urban centers using the artifacts they produced to discover the economic, social, religious, and political tensions underpinning them. Were the divisions and inequities of this society central to its creativity? Requirements include a final examination and several short essays based on primary sources.
151C - Britain 1848-1997	Vernon
TuTh 12:30-2 102 Moffitt		CCN: 39373
Updated September 8, 2005
New Room! Class meets in 210 Wheeler on 9/8 then moves to new room on 9/13.
This lecture course will provide a survey of British history over the last 150 years. We will ask how Britain became the first modern, industrial nation and how it acquired the largest empire? What lessons does its history have for America in the twentieth first century? Did the rapidity with which Britain assembled the modern world - with representative elections, industries, colonies, cities, rapid transport, mass communication and popular culture - sow the seeds of its later demise? How do we reconcile Britain's precocious modernity with the persistent influence of its ancient traditions, its monarchy and its aristocracy? The focus of the course will be on the broadly 'liberal' mentalities and mechanisms of government with which Britons came to manage and understand the great transformations of modern life, both at home and across the empire. If Britons thought of themselves as an essentially liberal people, bringing free trade, prosperity, democracy and civilization to the rest of the world how did they also come to be associated with tradition, immense poverty, and imperial exploitation? How do the liberal solutions invented for managing modern life during the nineteenth century still shape the lives of people in Britain (and in many other parts of the world)? Is decline a sufficient way of understanding what has happened to Britain during the twentieth century given that its people are better off than ever before and now live in a multi-racial and mulit-faith society? How is Britain's sense of itself still informed by its imperial history, or its relationships to America and Europe? Readings will consist of primary web resources and secondary reading through set texts. Assessment will be by attendance (10%), mid-term (40%) and a final examination (50%). Students will also have the option of writing a paper and presenting it to the rest of the class.
152A - Modern Ireland	Brady
TuTh 9:30-11 88 Dwinelle		CCN: 39376
Irish history from the completion of the English conquest (1691) to the present. Topics: the formation of the British colony; the French Revolution and the beginnings of the nationalist tradition; Catholic emanicipation and the origins of Home Rule; the Great Famine and the struggle of rural Ireland to the Land League; the transformation of the Catholic Church; Gaelic Ireland and the Gaelic Literary Renaissance; the Irish Party to the death of Parnell; nationalism, unionism, and the Great War; the Irish Revolution; the two Irelands, 1921-1967; Northern Ireland and the troubles; Ireland and Europe. Assignments: three short papers and a final exam.
154 - Canada: 1604 to the Present	Barnes
TuTh 9:30-11 219 Dwinelle		CCN: 39378
A survey of Canadian history from exploration-first settlement to the present. Principal emphases will be upon Canadian political and constitutional development, the emergence of two distinct linguistic societies, immigration and demographic forces, and the Southward Warp (US influence on Canada). Particular attention will be paid to the rare phenomenon among modern nation-states of a fully developed and advanced nation that came into being absent revolution against an external imperial power or against an internal "old regime," which has not required armed conflict, either internecine or with invaders, to forge sentiments of nationhood (such as they are) and to maintain national unity (such as it is). The course can serve to compare/contrast with the American experience which has had much conflict, including revolution and civil war, in the course of its development.
C157 - The Renaissance and the Reformation	Dandelet
TuTh 2-3:30 160 Kroeber		CCN: 39380
Updated August 16, 2005
New Room! This course is also listed as Religious Studies C124.
European history from the fourteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. Political, social, and economic developments during this transitional period will be examined, together with the rise of Renaissance culture, and the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century.
158A - Old Regime and Revolutionary Europe, 1715-1815	Sahlins
TuTh 11-12:30 88 Dwinelle		CCN: 39787
Updated September 19, 2005
New Room!
The eighteenth century in Europe witnessed a series of "revolutions" -- intellectual, political, and to a lesser extent, social and economic -- that together constitute the birth rites of modern European society and culture. But the history of the eighteenth century is complex, requiring sustained attention to the social groups, ideas, and institutions that promoted and that resisted change in this period. Historians collectively agree that the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the European expansion of Napoleonic France were events of world-historical significance, yet the causes and precise meaning of these events are the subjects of substantial disagreement. We will study the transformations of the eighteenth century that announced our modern world and, in this upper division course, we will also try to make sense of the different ways that historians disagree about the meaning of what happened. It may well be, as the textbooks would have it, that the "Age of Kings"simply gave way to the "Age of Peoples," but we will make every effort to study historically how this happened, relying in particular on the careful study of primary (historical) documents.
158B - Modern Europe: 1815-1914	Staff

This course has been cancelled.

159B - The World Economy, 1750�1914	Pearson
MWF 1-2 1 LeConte		CCN: 39790
This course surveys major trends in economic history from the Industrial Revolution up to the eve of World War I. Besides the Industrial Revolution itself, topics will include the spread of modern industry to continental Europe, North America, and Japan; early "globalization"; the gold standard; and the economic impact of imperialism. Basic knowledge of world history and economic theory is helpful, but there are no prerequisites.
162A - The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1763-1914	Wetzel
MWF 11-12 182 Dwinelle		CCN: 39387
Updated September 6, 2005
New Room!
This upper division course surveys the rise and fall of the European Powers in the period of war and revolution preceding the downfall of Napoleon to the outbreak of World War I. Its major topics: Congress of Vienna (1814-1815); the Vienna system (1815-48); the revolutions of 1848; the Crimean War (1853-56); the war of Italian unification waged by Cavour and Garibaldi (1859-61); the wars of German unification waged by Bismarck (1862-71); the Bismarckian system in operation, 1871-90; Imperialism (1890-1907); and the crises that led to the First World War. The course will argue that, with exception that a series of wars and upheavals at mid-century, much of the struggle that took place between the Powers during this period was contained, benign, even- paradoxical as it may sound- peaceful. It will therefore seek to explain peace as much as it explains war. Peace is artificial and demands more explanation. Wars sometimes just happen; peace is always caused. Moreover, understanding why the period following the destruction of Napoleon in 1815 was more peaceful than any predecessor in European history helps explain why it ended in a war greater than any before. The explanation of this remarkable record and its disastrous end is the course�s overriding theme. Mid-term, final, short paper.
167C - Germany in the 20th Century	vonHodenberg
TuTh 3:30-5 20 Wheeler		CCN: 39397
Updated August 18, 2005
New Room!
The story of Germany in the twentieth century is a dramatic one, comprising two world wars, genocide, Allied occupation, a division into two states on opposing sides of the Cold War, and most recently an unexpected unification. This course aims at a systematic account of German history in the 20th century, surveying the political, social, cultural and economic developments. We will pay special attention to World War I and its aftermath; the National Socialist regime and the Holocaust; the Westernization of the German Federal Republic and the Sovietization of East Germany; the unfinished process of unification; and Germany's role in the European Union. Class readings include historical research and original sources as well as some literary texts and films. Grades will be based on a midterm, a final, and a paper.
171B - Imperial Russia: Peter the Great	Frede
MWF 11-12 130 Wheeler		CCN: 39403
Updated August 23, 2005
Detailed description now available!
In 1721 Peter the Great chose the title of Emperor for himself, and declared that Russia would be an Empire. The empire lasted until the revolutions of 1917, but was never entirely stable. The Romanovs believed that autocracy was the key to good governance. Yet, the reigns of almost all the Romanov Emperors were marked by coups d��tat, peasant rebellions, and, later, assassination attempts. Russia�s expanding boundaries and growing population made it even more difficult to rule. This course will focus heavily on political history and political thought. Given the many factors that were tearing Peter�s Empire apart, it will ask, what held it together for so many years? Students will submit two papers as well as taking a midterm and a final.
C175A - The Jews of Early Modern Europe	Efron
TuTh 3:30-5 210 Wheeler		CCN: 39408
Updated August 18, 2005
New Room! This course is also listed as Religious Studies C134 and UGIS C154.
This course examines Jewish culture and society in the formative period from the Spanish Expulsion in 1492 to legal emancipation in 1791. During this time, the Jewish people began to make the enormously complex transition from medievalism to modernity. Topics to be surveyed include the expulsion from Spain, the religious, intellectual, and socioeconomic dimensions of Sephardic dispersion, the impact of the Reformation, Messianism, resettlement in the West, women's lives, anti-Judaism, the rise of Polish Jewry, Hasidism, Enlightenment and Emancipation.
C176 - Multicultural Europe	Holub
TuTh 2-3:30 101 LSA		CCN: 39412
Also listed as Geography C152, Interdisciplinary Studies C145, and International and Area Studies C145.
In this course, we will trace some of the substantive changes and transformations taking place in contemporary Europe in the areas of culture, society, and politics. In particular, we will look at the effects of massive migration flows--due to globalization processes--on the national culture of the core countries and examine the ways in which particular national cultures react to the increasing multiculturalization of Europe. The goal of the course is, first of all, to familiarize students with a variety of cultural, social, and political innovations that accompany the formation of multicultural Europe. This involves (1) an examination of the traditional concepts of nationhood and citizenship, and (2) a study of the Europeanization of culture.
177B - Armenia	Astourian
TuTh 12:30-2 182 Dwinelle		CCN: 39418
This survey course will cover the period from the incorporation of most of the Armenian plateau into the Ottoman Empire to the resignation of President Levon Ter-Petrossian in February 1998.
178 - History of the Holocaust	Efron
TuTh 12:30-2 2040 Valley LSB		CCN: 39421
Updated September 19, 2005
New Room!
This course will survey the historical events and intellectual developments leading up to and surrounding the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. By reading a mixture of primary and secondary sources we will examine the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Holocaust) against the backdrop of modern Jewish and modern German history. The course is divided into two main parts: (1) the historical background up to 1939; and (2) the destruction of European Jewry, 1939-1945.
180 - The Life Sciences Since 1750	Lesch
MWF 11-12 88 Dwinelle		CCN: 39424
This course will survey the development of the sciences of living nature from the mid-18th to the mid-20th century. Topics include scientific and popular natural history, exploration and discovery, Darwin and evolution, cell theory, the organizational transformation of science, physiology and experimentalism, classical and molecular genetics, and the biomedical-industrial complex. Emphasis is on the formation of fundamental concepts and methods, long-term trends toward specialization, institutionalization, and professionalization, and the place of the life sciences in modern societies. Many lectures are illustrated by slides. Voluntary discussion section. Two midterms and a final examination. A paper may be substituted for part of the final examination.
181B - Modern Physics	Carson
MWF 2-3 3 LeConte		CCN: 39429
The course examines the establishment of the ideas and institutions of modern physics over the last century and a half. We begin with the nineteenth-century organization of the discipline and the debates over the classical world picture (mechanics, electromagnetism and optics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics). We then follow the dramatic changes that undid the classical picture, from the discovery of radioactivity through Einstein's theories of relativity on to the the creation of quantum mechanics and the accompanying philosophical disputes. Alongside these conceptual upheavals we will look at the evolving structure of the discipline, its links with industry and government, and the massive transformations of the Second World War, culminating in the atomic bomb. In the postwar period we will deal with the conceptual consolidation of the modern physical worldview and the emergence of "big science" in alliance with the state. This course fulfills the L&S breadth requirement in physical sciences. A decent high-school level course in physics or chemistry will be adequate preparation, but all students should expect to learn a good deal of science. If you have questions, please contact the instructor or visit the course website
185A - History of Christianity	Elm
TuTh 9:30-11 166 Barrows		CCN: 39430
Updated September 19, 2005
New Room Again!
The course deals with the origins of Christianity and the first eleven centuries of its expansion into a major institutional, social, and intellectual force shaping Western Europe. The central themes are the mechanisms and conditions shaping this expansion, rather than a chronological account, in order to present this process as a model of institutionalization of religious movements. The emphasis will be on patterns of crisis and reform; i.e., on conflicts arising within the church itself and as a result of its dealings with the "outside" world, and how these crises were resolved. The course is based on the study of primary sources and will include problems of historical method. Requirements, beyond a basic familiarity with Roman and Medieval history, are one midterm, one final, and a book review.
C191 - Death and Dying, Yesterday and Today	Laqueur & Micco
TuTh 9:30-11 126 Barrows		CCN: 39435
Updated September 6, 2005
New Room! Also listed as HMEDSCI C133 and UGIS C133.
This course is jointly offered by a physician and a historian. We will discuss contemporary questions of policy and practice: medical definitions of death; the �right to die;� how we die and how we say we want to die; the role of the hospital and the hospice; the functions of the State in mediating between various views about the end of life; the role of doctors, family, and others at the end of life, for example. We will also consider questions in the social and cultural history of death: how and in what numbers people have died before and after the demographic revolution; whether some cultures were more successful in assuaging the pain of death than others, whether there really has been a secularization of death; where bodies have gone and how they have been remembered; what the relationship is between the history of life and of death. One of the instructors, Guy Micco, MD, was chair of the Alta Bates ethics committee for many years, regularly teaches medical humanities as well as clinical courses in the Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, and is a consultant in palliative care. The other instructor, Thomas Laqueur, has taught about the history of the body in various contexts and is completing a book on the history of death called The Dead Among the Living.
200X - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context"	Ferriss
F 1-5 256E Bancroft Library
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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Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Upper Division courses - Fall 2005