Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Upper Division courses - Spring 2006
This page last updated: Sunday, 08-Jul-2007 17:25:37 PDT
| 100.001 - Paris: the City and its Fictions | Barrows & Stovall | |
| TuTh 9:30-11 156 Dwinelle | ||
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The class will explore the history of Paris across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through the prisms of historians, contemporary writers, art historians, novelists and filmmakers. We will examine the emergence of Paris as the quintessential capital of the nineteenth century, its dramatic physical transformation in the Second Empire, and its centrality in nineteenth-century and twentieth-century revolutions, both political and cultural. Readings will range from primary sources on such topics as prostitution, the Paris Commune of 1871, and the boulevard, to fictional works by Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, and Zola, and to more recent analyses by historians on such subjects as prostitution, sewers, department stores, mass culture, exiles, immigrants, and the like. A reading knowledge of French is not required, but a willingness to read fiction is. The format of the course is intentionally varied, a combination of thematic lectures and student led class discussions. All students in the course will sign up to share the leadership of at least one discussion. Other requirements for the course will include two essays, based on class readings, lectures, and discussions, and a final examination. |
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| 100.002 - Latin American Women | Chowning | |
| TuTh 11-12:30 170 Barrows | ||
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This course will work on two tracks. First, we will survey the experiences and impact of women in Latin America from the pre-conquest period to the present. Some themes that will be addressed are: how did women’s social and legal status change as a result of the conquest? What was the role of African American women in Latin American slave societies? How did race and class affect women’s status over time? How did women operate within the patriarchal family? Did the convent offer women another life option besides marriage? Did the impact of nineteenth-century liberalism “liberate” women or depreciate their role in society? How did the ideal of the Christian woman change over time? Have Latin American women played a conservative political role in the twentieth century? Why was the vote for women so late coming? Second, we will use gender as a tool of historical analysis. In other words, we will not just discuss women’s experiences, but also (for example) the discursive feminization of the Church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the ways that idealized family roles brought by U.S. managers to Latin American countries in the twentieth century affected family life, how gendered language and gendered themes have been used to manipulate political discourses. |
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| 100.003 - The Creation and Destruction of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933 | Feldman | |
| TuTh 11-12:30 223 Dwinelle | ||
| This course will be devoted to an analysis of the political, economic, social, and cultural history of the short-lived Weimar Republic. The central focus of the course will be on the vulnerabilities of democratic institutions and practices arising from the First World War and its aftermath, although considerable attention will be paid to the legacy of the Imperial period and its “political culture.” Special attention will be paid to the Revolution of 1918-1919, the Hyperinflation of 1922-1923, and the Great Depression and political crisis of the Republic in 1930-1933. Classes will mix lectures and discussion. In addition to secondary readings, course participants will be asked to analyze primary documents in class discussions as well as in the midterm and final examinations. | ||
| 100.004 - Slavery in American Life | Einhorn & Henkin | |
| TuTh 12:30-2 | ||
| Updated January 17, 2006 | ||
| This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement. | ||
| This course is now listed as History 100AC.002 This course is now approved for AC credit. | ||
| Description listed under History 100AC.002 | ||
| 100.005 - Crime and Punishment in American History, 1776 - present | McLennan | |
| MW 4-5:30 156 Dwinelle | ||
| This lecture course explores the social, political, and cultural history of crime, criminal law, policing, and punishment in the United States of America, from the Revolution to the present. We will consider the key problems of American criminal justice history, including the historical transformation of the legal and cultural meanings of crime and criminality; the rise and consolidation of a prison-based criminal justice system; social conflict over the means and ends of imprisonment; the relationship between legal and ?extra-legal? forms of policing and punishment (such as lynching) in the South and West; and the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the American criminal justice system. We will also explore the demise of 1960s' "decarceration" policies and the impact of neo-conservative "law and order" politics on policing and penal practice in the 1970s and 1980s. | ||
| 100.005 - Post-War Japan | ||
| 100.006 - Power and the Holy in Medieval Europe | Miller | |
| TuTh 8-9:30 156 Dwinelle | ||
| This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major. | ||
| This course explores the emergence of a potent model of sacred kingship in western Europe over the early Middle Ages and the challenges it faced in subsequent centuries. It will focus particularly upon the epic clashes between secular and religious leaders sometimes called the “crisis of church and state”: the battle over lay investiture between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV, Thomas Becket’s struggle with King Henry II of England, and Pope Boniface VIII’s confrontation with King Philip the Fair of France. What conditions fostered the development of divine right monarchy? What developments and ideas eroded belief in the sacredness of kings? | ||
| 100.007 - The Chinese Body: Medicine and Health, Sex and Gender | ||
| TuTh 2-3:30 182 Dwinelle | ||
| Instructor for this course is Professor Nylan. | ||
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This course brings a thematic approach to the critical analysis of the "Chinese body", as constructed before 1911, culminating with focus in the final week of classes on comparison and contrast of pre-modern and modern understandings. As the course title indicates, the course is designed to help students gain a clearer picture of how the body was viewed from four main perspectives, those of (1) gender; (2) sexual activity; (3) health; and (4) medicine. Contrary to the stereotypes of "unchanging China," notions of the body and the person changed dramatically over the course of two thousand years from the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) to the Qing (1644-1911), and contemporary qi gong ("breath work") like contemporary fengshui has little in common with older practices. The course begins with the conception of health in pre-modern China, and the important distinction (generally ignored in modern American medicine) between "healing" and "curing." Students will be introduced to the general outline of Yin/yang, Five Phases theory, to standard definitions of "Nature," and to the major microcosm-macrocosm analogies. Readings drawn from classic medical texts, classic novels and letters, and from recently excavated legal texts will demonstrate that diet, acupuncture, moxibustion, and meditation, rather than surgery, became the main treatments because of these holistic views of the body. Since a great many of the standard metaphors for good or ill health in pre-modern China refer to sexuality, this course consequently considers "ideal sexuality" (and deviations therefrom). It also considers the precise conditions under which "anti-female rhetoric" was invoked and the practical effects -- legal, financial, and imaginative -- of that rhetoric on the lives of ordinary and elite women and their male counterparts, including the limitations of that rhetoric. The course does not presuppose knowledge of China, of the Chinese language, or of the history of science. It is essential that you attend regularly, do the reading before lectures, and send questions and comments to the instructor. Selected readings will draw from such works as Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature; Judith Farquhar, Knowing Practice: the clinical encounter in Chinese medicine; and The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine, Shigehisa Kuriyama, The Expressiveness of the Body; Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine; Ruth Rogawski, Hygienic Modernity; Douglas Wile, The Sexual Arts of the Bedchamber; Li Ju-chen, Flowers in the Mirror (China's counterpart to Gulliver's Travels); Nathan Sivin, "Body, State, and Cosmos in China in the last three centuries B.C"; and Raoul Birnbaum; The Healing Buddha. Assigned readings will not exceed 100 pages per week. The final weeks of the course will discuss three books -- Judith Farquhar on The Chinese Hospital, Nathan Sivin on Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China, and Caroline de la Pena, The Body Electric so that students may better relate what they have learned about pre-modern concepts with what they might find today in San Francisco Chinatown, in Taiwan, or in the People's Republic of China. |
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| 100.008 - America and Vietnam at War | Frydl & Zinoman | |
| TuTh 9:30-11 20 Wheeler | ||
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Team taught by a scholar of twentieth-century U.S. history and a scholar of modern Vietnamese history, this course explores the causes, dynamics and consequences of the Vietnam War from the perspectives of both American and Vietnamese history. The US narrative will privilege moments of the exercise of international power, Americans' changing ideas about the world and the US position in it--and, especially, the domestic sources, costs and consequences of America's evolving foreign engagements. The Vietnamese dimension of the conflict will be situated in relation to earlier histories of regional and political division and in regard to Vietnamese society's encounter with French colonialism, Japanese occupation and global communism. Core sections of the course will highlight a broad range of military, political, social, economic and cultural dimensions of the War as well as the significance of various turning points in the conflict and the relative persuasiveness of competing schools of historical interpretation. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on the contingent character of the war's major developments rather than on their historical inevitability. |
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| 100.009 - The Cold War: Events and Issues | Wolff | |
| MW 4-5:30 2320 Tolman | ||
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The Cold War was the central theme of world politics for nearly five decades. Communist archival doctrine mirrored Leninist conspiratorial practice to mask half the story. The secrecy of Western national security organizations kept the public, including historians, insufficiently and selectively informed about the other half. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, much has emerged from declassified archives on all sides of the Cold War. This course will provide a chronological overview of key Cold War events as well as a discussion of origins and contemporary consequences, structures and processes, technological achievements and socio-cultural legacies. The emphasis will be on recent discoveries about the recent past. On the basis of this empirical material, we will address larger issues of decolonization, globalization, mass destruction, nationalism, and the stakes of contemporary history, mainly but not exclusively within the context of Soviet American relations. Course requirements: Term Paper, Oral Presentation, Final Exam. Open to all students, including non-majors. |
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| 100.010 - Christianity and Violence in the Medieval West | Gabriele | |
| TuTh 3:30-5 101 Wurster | ||
| Updated January 24, 2006 | ||
| New Room! Last meeting scheduled for 182 Dwinelle is 1/24. This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major. | ||
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Medieval Europe is often remembered as a time of great faith and of great violence. That?s true, sort of. By looking at primary source material from the periods under consideration, we will try to understand medieval Christianity?s inconsistent attitude towards fighting ? whether it be demons, pagans, Muslims, Jews, or other Christians. Topics covered in lecture will include (but are not limited to) early Christian attitudes towards Rome, the Carolingians, monasticism, the cult of the saints, apocalypticism, crusading, the military religious orders, and violence against minorities. Requirements will include (very) brief weekly assignments, a midterm, a short paper, and a final exam. Contact: gabriele@berkeley.edu |
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| 100.011 - Topics in Russian Cultural History: Early Modern Russian Culture | Zhivov | |
| TuTh 9:30-11 100 Wheeler | ||
| This course is also listed as Slavic 148.002 L&S Breadth: Historical Studies OR Arts & Literature | ||
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The course presents an introduction to the Early Modern Russian culture; it encompasses the period from the Time of Troubles (beginning of the seventeenth century) to the reign of Catherine the Great (1762 – 1796). The formation of the particular Russian version of modernity will be traced from the crisis of medieval world-view in the virulent years of impostors, foreign adventurers, and civil disorder through later developments: the efforts to reform the Orthodoxy that resulted in the Great Schism; violent reign of Peter I the Great who tried to rebuild Russia along western European lines by force and terror; imperial grandeur of Catherine the Great’s autocracy. We will pay close attention to religious theories, political consciousness, progress in arts and architecture as well as literature. Lectures and readings (of historical summaries, interpretations, and primary sources) will be in English. Relevant films will be viewed. There will be one midterm paper of 4-6 pages, based on one of the topics discussed in the class (or another topic chosen by the students in consultation with the instructor), and one final examination. The final grade will be determined according to the following distribution: midterm paper 33%, class participation 17%, final examination 50%. Books required: 1. Course reader 2. Paul Dukes, The Making of Russian Absolutism 1613 – 1801, Second edition, London and New York: Longman, 1990 [Longman History of Russia, ISBN 0-582-00324-5] Prerequisites: None |
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| 100.012 - Changing History: Women at Berkeley | Rubens | |
| MW 4-5:30 242 Dwinelle | ||
| This course is also listed as Gender and Women's Studies 111.3 | ||
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Why did more women attended and teach at UC in l915 proportionately than in l970? How did the perception and role of women change in the l960s? How did women become politicized? Who were the pioneering women scholars [many!] whose work took on national and international importance and continues to shape the study of women, gender, sexuality, mathematics, sociology, history, education...among other topics. Using feminist theory and considering the intersection of race, class and gender, students will learn about the implicit and pervasive gender system at the University as a lens to look at broader social issues nationally and globally. Students are encouraged to conduct individual interviews of women who studied, taught, administered and worked at UC; who were active in major social movements that changed history [such as the Free Speech Movement, the Third World Strike, The Occupation of Alcatraz, the Anti-War Movement, the fight for sex equity in pay and tenure promotion, the creation of child-care and family friendly policies], and particularly to interview women scholars and those who created Women's Studies [not only women]. You can contribute to history. Special emphasis on oral history as a research methodology. No final exam; term paper based on interviews: outline of paper required as mid term] Lisa Rubens is a PhD historian who has written about women in California and directs the UC Women's Oral History Project at the Regional and Oral History Office at Berkeley. |
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| 100.013 - African American Legal History | Hall | |
| MWF 12-1 156 Dwinelle | ||
| This course is also listed as Law 266.8 | ||
| This course explores how central law and legal history is to the understanding of African American history. At the same time it explores how our legal system and its attendant mechanisms of social control are formed by race. This course is designed to make legal sources more accessible to the history student and to historically contextualize legal scholarship for the law student. The study of African American legal history will shed light on how racism and race itself is created and maintained. We will also examine African American resistance to dominant legal frameworks and movements for civil rights, as well as creations of alternatives outside of the system. | ||
| 100.014 - History of Palestine, the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli Conflict | Doumani | |
| TuTh 3:30-5 156 Dwinelle | ||
| This lecture course introduces students to new scholarship published since the 1980s on the history of Palestine, the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Based on painstaking archival research by scholars critical of nationalist narratives of the past, this new literature aims to humanize the conflict and to debunk pervasive myths about what happened and why. It does so by taking seriously the internal differences within each party to the conflict, by demonstrating how seemingly natural identities are actually recently constructed, and by going beyond the dramas of war and politics into the social and cultural dimensions of everyday life. The issues and debates raised by this new scholarship pose fundamental questions about the very practice of historical research and writing. The overall pedagogical aim of the course is to acquaint students with the skills necessary for critical readings of texts, for constructive debate, and for writing succinct and insightful essays. There are no official pre-requisites, but this is an upper-division course that assumes familiarity with history courses in general, and knowledge of modern Middle Eastern history in particular. | ||
| 100AC.001 - E Pluribus Unum: Nation Building in the Early American Republic | Foletta | |
| MWF 11-12 110 Barrows | ||
| Updated January 5, 2006 | ||
| This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement. | ||
| New Room! | ||
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Historians often treat the ratification of the Constitution as the final chapter in America?s creative moment. Yet, in reality, the task of nation building in the early republic was far from complete. The machinery of government had yet to be tested, new international relationship had to be constructed, the public domain had to be defined, and new economic and cultural institutions had to be built. The history that surrounds all this is often told as a story of great men?the ?founding fathers? who guided the nation through its early domestic and international crises, developed America?s governmental institutions, and laid the foundation for a national identity. There is a certain value to this narrative, and therefore in the first several weeks of the course we will explore these ?fathers? and their contributions. But there are also severe limitations to this approach. Therefore following this introduction we will explore the importance of replacing this narrative with a more complex story that emphasizes the interaction between these ?fathers? and the more diverse American populace with a particular emphasis on the influence of African slaves, Native Americans, and the increasingly assertive population of common farmers and urban workers. Through an exploration of the major events and controversies of the period--slavery, Hamilton?s economic plan, the French Revolution, Jefferson?s election, the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, Indian removal, and the War of 1812?as well as the broader social, economic, and political forces that contributed to the process of nation building, we hope to build a more complex and more rich understanding of the early national period. |
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| 100AC.002 - Slavery in American Life | ||
| TuTh 12:30-2 219 Dwinelle | ||
| This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement. | ||
| This course was previously listed as History 100.004 The instructors for this course Professors Henkin and Einhorn. | ||
| For the first four score and seven years of U.S. history, slavery was a crucial institution in American life, as it also had been for at least a century before the American Revolution. The existence and expansion of chattel slavery from the Revolution to the Civil War shaped the economy, society, and culture of the United States in innumerable ways -- not just in the South, but everywhere. This course considers the multifarious impact of slavery on life in the United States and on the development of its most basic institutions. While we will pay close attention to slavery's effects on African Americans (and their responses to it), this course is based on the premise that a complete understanding of any aspect of U.S. history in this era requires us to acknowledge and explore the broader impact of slavery. Specific topics will include electoral politics, popular culture, art, literature, social relations, economic organization, and racial identity. Requirements include regular attendance, midterm and final examinations, one oral presentation, and one writing assignment. Students will also have the option of a research project in lieu of the class final and the oral presentation. | ||
| 106B - Ancient Rome: The Empire | Norena | |
| MWF 3-4 159 Mulford | ||
| This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major. | ||
| This course offers an introduction to the history of the Roman empire, from the reign of the first emperor, Augustus (31 BC–AD 14), to the end of the 4th century AD. Major themes include the changing configurations of power in the Roman empire (institutional, personal, social, religious), the unity and diversity of Roman imperial culture, the relationship between state and society, the political economy of the Roman empire, and the geography of the Mediterranean world. Lectures will provide an essential historical narrative and interpretations of central problems in Roman imperial history, and readings will give students an opportunity to engage with key texts from or about the Roman empire, from Tacitus to Gibbon. Requirements: midterm, paper (6-8 pp.), final. | ||
| 109A - The Rise of Islamic Civilization, 600-1200 | Peirce | |
| MWF 2-3 166 Barrows | ||
| New Room Assigned. This course is also listed as Near Eastern Studies 147. This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major. | ||
| This course surveys the history of the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean from the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. We first examine the rapid development of an Islamic empire and its effects on conquered societies, as well as the effects of the empire's fracturing in the 9th and 10th centuries. The relationship between religious and political authority is a central focus here. Of equal interest is the achievement of one of world history's greatest civilizational moments; we explore aspects of the learning and scholarship of the medieval Middle East, noting the contributions of Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Christians and Jews as well as Muslims. We also examine aspects of material culture, from the luxury goods traded internationally to the palaces and monumental religious complexes buit by elites. Throughout, the course aims to situate the evolution of Islamic civilization in a global context of influences, contacts, and conflicts. | ||
| 109C - History of the Modern Middle East | Nassar | |
| MWF 12-1 60 Evans | ||
| Updated November 28, 2005 | ||
| Detailed description now available! | ||
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This course is a survey of the history of the modern Middle East from the eighteenth century to the present. Students will be introduced to various themes in the social, cultural and political histories of the region, particularly those that relate to the formation of the modern geo-political map. The following themes are among the various subjects that the students will encounter: the legacy of the gunpowder empires; colonialism and de-colonization; reform, modernity and national identities; Zionism and the question of Palestine; and Islam, Muslims and Islamism in the contemporary regional and global contexts. (Quiz, Midterm and Final Exams) Required textbooks: William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 2004) and James L. Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). |
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| 114B - Modern South Asia | Staff | |
| This course has been cancelled. | ||
| 116C - Late Imperial China | Wakeman | |
| MWF 2-3 101 Morgan | ||
| Although this is an upper division course, the instructor does not assume prior knowledge of Chinese history. The lectures open with an overview of Chinese society during the 16th and 17th centuries, and then move on to discuss the fall of the Ming (1368-1644) and the rise of the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. We will focus our attention on, first, the interplay between inner Asian "barbarian" peoples and the Central Kingdom; and, second, on the economic and political flourishing of the eighteenth century before turning to the turmoil of the Opium War era between 1839 and 1860. The latter half of the course will be devoted to the rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the imperial government's successful suppression of this enormous peasant rebellion (partly owing to the throne's decision to permit regional Chinese rather than Manchu viceroys to carry out "self-strengthening" to protect the country), and the failure of those efforts to restore Chinese grandeur in the face of Western and Japanese imperialism at the end of the nineteenth century. We end with the last-ditch attempts of the dynasty to save itself against coalitions of revolutionaries both from within China and from overseas Chinese communities abroad. The 1911 Revolution succeeded in toppling the Manchu dynasty from the throne, but the question remained: was this merely the end of the dynastic system or the beginning of a new revolutionary age? And how, through all of this, would China recover the sense it had of its own supremacy during the High Qing when all the known world paid it the obeisance it believed it deserved as the heart of civilization? | ||
| 118B - Meiji Japan | Scheiner | |
| TuTh 11-12:30 110 Wheeler | ||
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The intellectual, social, and political history of Japan from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th. My emphasis will be on the underside of Japanese history. We will look at rebellion and conflict, intellectual debates and political collisions. We will put this in the context of Japan's remarkable economic success and adaptation to the challenge of the modern Western world. Undergraduate students will have one mid-term and a final exam. Graduate students will be able to write a paper (after discussion with the instructor) in lieu of the mid-term. |
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| 123 - The Civil War and Reconstruction | Adams | |
| MWF 12-1 166 Barrows | ||
| No event has shaped American history more than the Civil War. Its consequences resonate with us still, while its origin speaks to some of the most divisive issues of the Early National period. Within the confines of this course, we will consider the Civil War's many dimensions, from the military to the social and cultural, as well as the era of Reconstruction. As a very focused examination of the era stretching from approximately 1850 to mid 1870s, a survey knowledge of American history is less important here than in other history courses. Grading requirements: Four short papers between 4 and 6 pages (15% each); cumulative final (40%). | ||
| 124B - The United States Since 1940 | Abrams | |
| TuTh 9:30-11 2060 Valley LSB | ||
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There are no formal prerequisites for this course, but all students should understand that this is an advanced course that presumes a survey knowledge of 20th Century U.S. history. Culture, race and gender relations, foreign policy, politics, business, literature, and constitutional issues are among the subjects we will be concerned with. Also, sex. There will two midterms and one final exam, both in class. There will be no take-home writing assignments. Exams will require careful attention to lectures as well as to the required readings. |
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| 125B - The History of Black People and Race Relations | Martin | |
| TuTh 11-12:30 155 Kroeber | ||
| Updated January 30, 2006 | ||
| New Room! Last meeting in 219 Dwinelle is 1/31. | ||
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This course will examine the history of African Americans and racial/ethnic relations from the Civil War and Emancipation (1861-1865) to the modern African American Freedom Struggle (1954-1972). Social, cultural, and political developments will be emphasized. Topics to be covered include: Black Reconstruction; Labor in the New South; Leadership; Class; Gender; Jim Crow; Migration; Urbanization; War and Social Change; the Harlem Renaissance; Civil Rights; and Black Power. Possible texts: W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk. Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery; Jacqueline Royster, Ida B. Wells, James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man ; Waldo Martin, Brown v. Board of Education; The Autobiography of Malcolm X. There will probably be two exams -- a mid-term and a final -- and one research essay. |
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| 126B - The American West Since 1845 | Brilliant | |
| MWF 10-11 102 Moffitt | ||
| This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement. | ||
| This course surveys the history of the American West since 1845. We will pay particular heed to the history and historiography surrounding those aspects of the West that are typically associated with the region's distinctiveness as both a shifting region on the national map and a potent metaphor in the national imagination. These include: a cultural history propagated in films and literature in which the region occupies center stage in the drama of America's development as a democratic society; an ethnoracial history that consists of a complex, multiracial (as opposed to biracial) pattern of race relations; an environmental history shaped by a scarcity of water amidst an abundance of extractive resources; an urban history characterized by the nation's highest concentration of urbanization by 1970 and an approach to metropolitan development that shaped that of the rest of the nation; and a political history as a national bellwether for both liberal action and conservative reaction. Throughout the course, we will reflect on whether claims about the West's distinctiveness are in fact regionally and analytically distinctive, or whether its time, as some historians have recently declared, to abandon the history of the American West as an historical sub-field. | ||
| 130A - The Rising American Empire: from Principle to Spanish-American War | Clemens | |
| TuTh 2-3:30 219 Dwinelle | ||
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This course begins with the original development of diplomatic conventions and assumptions that formed the context for power relationships in the European and American worlds. We look at the foundations for United States conduct in foreign relationship (and its debt to the earlier periods and precedents) and the experience of the American Revolution and the structuring of the Constitution. The course follows the overland and maritime expansion of 19th century United States: Louisiana Purchase, War of 1812, acquisition of the Floridas, Mexican War and Oregon territory, establishment of Caribbean and Pacific interests, and the subsequent emergence at the end of the century, with the Spanish American War and Philippine conquest, of the United States as a global power. We end at 1904 with a United States fully involved in Asia (Open Door Policy) and having acquired an overseas empire based on Spanish possessions from the original Columbian-era outthrusts (Caribbean and Philippines). A continuous element of the Anglo-American and later US power-relation experience was interaction with indigenous peoples encountered in the original outreach and subsequent expansion across continents and seas. Diplomacy, war, conquest, removal, extirpation and concentration vis a vis Native Americans are a constant in American history. The United States wages wars and perceives its opponents in terms significantly shaped by this centuries long involvement with Native Americans. For that reason a portion of the Paterson reader and other presentations will focus on this process. TEXTS: Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, ed. Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Vol I: To 1920: Documents and Essays, (5th ed), Boston: D.C. Heath, 2000. Thomas Paterson, J. Garry Clifford, Kenneth J. Hagan, eds., American Foreign Policy: A History--to 1920, (5th ed), Boston: D.C. Heath, 2000. Felix Gilbert, To the Farewell Address, Princeton, N.J., Princeton U Press, 1961. Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire, New York: W.W. Norton, 1960 Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860- |
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| 135 - American Indian | Spear | |
| This course has been cancelled | ||
| The purpose of this course is to provide an introductory interpretation of the historical experiences of the native peoples of North AMerica from the first migration into the continent until the present, focusing on the variety and diversity of Indian cultures and experiences; native resistance to colonialism, expansion, and U.S. federal policies; and the survival and continuity of native cultures and peoples through more than four centuries of contact, colonization, and change. | ||
| 136 - Women's Lives: The 20th Century | Barbas | |
| MWF 1-2 123 Wheeler | ||
| This course focuses on major themes in women's history and gender history in the twentieth century. Lectures will discuss major historiographical debates; transformations in politics, sexuality, work, technology and media, the familly, and the structures of gender; feminism and feminist movements; and the diverse experiences of women from a variety of races, classes, ethnicities, and generations. | ||
| C139B - The American Immigrant Experience | Gjerde | |
| TuTh 9:30-11 20 Barrows | ||
| This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement. | ||
| Also listed as Demography 145AC. | ||
| This course examines the social, economic, and demographic history of the migration of four major groups: Asian Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries, African Americans from the South to the North in the 20th century, and Hispanics (or Latinos) in this century. The course will examine the migration experience and the context of life in the new environment, explicitly attempting to set these experiences in a comparative perspective. The course uses computer technology, geographical information systems (GIS) and Internet technology to explore historical, statistical, and documentary sources. No prior computing experience is necessary. This course satisfies the American Cultures requirement. | ||
| 141B - Social History of Latin America | Lewin | |
| TuTh 2-3:30 109 Dwinelle | ||
| This course examines three case studies of social change in Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba, from the 1880s to the 1980s, using the contrasting historical contexts of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary societies. Case studies pay central attention to the impact of the national state on issues of race, gender, and class. Readings draw on history, anthropology, ecology, and fiction. Mexico’s agrarian revolution, as the first case study, is examined in terms of Lázaro Cárdenas' policies, indígenismo, the “green revolution” that accompanied the "miracle of Mexican growth," and, finally, to changing patterns of world trade that by the 1990s underlay the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas. The second case study considers twentieth-century urban Brazil, by focusing on two populations historically denied citizenship, slaves and women, and examines the efforts of both to gain civil rights, legal emancipation, and the vote in the Vargas years (1930-1954). Contrasting case studies, taken from São Paulo and Bahia, reveal historical patterns of inequality based on color. The third case study, Cuba, focuses on the social forces that emerged in the independence struggle with Spain and generated expectations of racial equality, legal emancipation for women, and a trade union movement. Central attention will be paid to those long-term goals of social equality and the radical legacy of three generations of Cubans that eventually resulted in the 1959 Cuban Revolution. | ||
| 158C - Europe 1914-Present | Adamthwaite | |
| TuTh 2-3:30 2060 Valley LSB | ||
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A survey of the main trends and forces in the history of Europe from 1914 to the present. The course stresses the interaction of political, economic and socio-cultural changes and explores the relationship between domestic and international politics. Topics discussed include the two world wars, the rise and fall of fascism and communism, imperialism, European integration, the cultural revolution of the 1960s. As well as reading the assigned texts we will explore some twentieth century novels and movies. Assigned reading Harold James, Europe Reborn, Longman Paper Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Harper Paper Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Harvest books Robert Graves, Goodbye to all that, Anchor books Hanif Kureishi, My son the fanatic,faber and faber paper George Orwell, Burmese Days, Harvest paper Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern, Vintage paper Janine di Giovanni, Madness Visible, Vintage paper Movies: (reserved Moffitt media resources) Black Skin, White Mask video/c:4459 Triumph of the Will, video/c: 5429 A Self-Made Hero, video/c:999:3451 Hitler and Stalin: Twin Tyrants |
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| 160 - Modern International Economy | Pearson | |
| Updated October 11, 2005 | ||
| This course has been cancelled. | ||
| The course analyzes the patterns of development and crisis of the advanced economies with particular emphasis on economic relations with each other and with less developed countries. Among the topics covered are the economic impact of war, the gold standard, the rise of big business, the Great Depression, the rise of the welfare state, the contemporary problems facing the international economy. | ||
| 167B - The Rise and Fall of the Second Reich: 1770-1918 | Anderson | |
| TuTh 12:30-2 200 Wheeler | ||
| This course provides the essential foundation for understanding the catastrophic history of Germany in the 20th Century, as well as some of its successes. A central theme is the struggle to define and impose a single national identity on socially, culturally, and religiously diverse peoples in an age of Great Power conflict. Although the region now known as Germany will be the focus of our investigation, considerable attention will also be paid to the Hapsburg Empire, for until 1866 Austria was officially a part of "Germany" and remained, for nearly a century thereafter, culturally and in popular consciousness a part of a "Greater Germany." Some of the topics discussed will be: the Prussia of the Soldier-King, Frederick the Great; the culture in the Enlightenment and Romantic eras; the revolutions of 1848; Bismarck's wars and state-building; religious and ethnic conflict (especially anti-Catholicism and antisemitism); cultural effervescence and political crisis in fin de siècle Vienna; the rise of radical nationalism and of the most powerful Socialist movement in Europe; and the origins and course of the First World War--which brought the defeat of both Empires. Readings include biography, memoirs, short stories, as well as political, military, and diplomatic analyses. We will also spend some time analyzing painting and architecture. In addition to a mid-term and final, two short papers on the assigned reading and participation in discussions is required. | ||
| 169A - Renaissance and Baroque Italy 1350-1800 | Dandelet | |
| TuTh 12:30-2 122 Wheeler | ||
| Updated January 17, 2006 | ||
| New Room! Also listed as Italian 160 | ||
| This course will focus on the history of Italy during a period when it was the leading center of European artistic and cultural production and the driving force in the revival of classical learning and literary ideals. This was the Italy of Raphael and Michelangelo, Ariosto and Alberti, Brunelleschi and Botticelli. At the same time, Italy was also a political battleground through most of this period, both in the realm of ideas and theory but also in a literal sense. It was in Italy that "the art of war," as Machiavelli called it, took center stage as the peninsula became one of the major theaters of war between the great powers of the age, France and Spain. The course will combine a study of the artistic, intellectual, religious, and political history of Italy in this period both as it developed internally and as it was related to the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean world. Requirements will include a midterm, a final, and an optional final paper. | ||
| 170C - Topics in Russian/East European/Eurasian Cultures: Poles and Others: The Making of Modern Poland | Frick | |
| TuTh 2-3:30 205 Dwinelle | ||
| This course is also listed as Slavic 158. L&S Breadth: Historical Studies OR Social and Behavioral Sciences | ||
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This course will focus on the development of national identities in the twentieth century within the confines of the old Polish-Lithuanian state. We will use Timothy Snyder’s provocative The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569–1999 as a starting point for our discussions. This work exams how several modern peoples and states laid claims to a part of, or sometimes most of, the patrimony of an old multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious Commonwealth. The remainder of the readings will be novels, short stories, and memoirs from the last hundred years. We will examine them for evidence of Polish, Belarusan, German, Jewish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian reflections of the development of modern identities in belletristic writings stemming from heirs to the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Class meetings will be a mixture of lectures on historical background, discussion of the readings, and short films. Texts: Works by Timothy Snyder, Czeslaw Milosz, Witold Gombrowicz, Andrzej Szczypiorski, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Tadeusz Konwicki, Pawel Huelle, Jerzy Pilch, Yuri Andrukhovych, Ricardas Gavelis, Jurgis Kuncinas, Romualdas Granauskas, Algirdas Landsbergis, Jurga Ivanauskaite, Günter Grass, and others. Course requirements: readings; attendance in class and participation in discussion, two midterm exams and a final exam. Option for graduate students: instead of the midterm and finals, a research paper (ca. 15 pages) on a topic to be discussed with the professor. |
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| 172 - Topics in Russian Cultural History: "Russian Intellectual History" | Paperno | |
| TuTh 3:30-5 123 Wheeler | ||
| This course is also listed as Slavic 148.001. L&S Breadth: Historical Studies OR Arts & Literature | ||
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This course explores the history of Russian thought by tracing several themes: national identity, class consciousness, religious/atheistic beliefs, and the meaning of love and sexuality. Organized thematically, the course will focus on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century, extending from romantic philosophy of history in the 1830s ("Russians are outcasts in the world"; "Does Russia belong to the West?") through realism and nihilism of the 1860s ("if there is no God...") to the turn-of-the-century search for modernity (the idea of the revolution and the "sexual anarchy"). Readings will be drawn from various genres (essays, fiction, and personal documents) and include works by Chaadaev, Kireevsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Vladimir Soloviev, Nicholas Berdyaev. Requirements: short writing and research assignments, a take-home midterm (essay), and an in-class final examination (including questions on factual information, a brief essay, and explications of texts). All lectures and readings in English. Students with knowledge of Russian are encouraged to read in the original. No prerequisites. |
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| 177A - Armenia | Astourian | |
| TuTh 12:30-2 235 Dwinelle | ||
| This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major. | ||
| This survey course will cover close to three millenia of Armenian history, from the process of ethnogenesis to the almost complete destruction of the Armenian "fuedal" system by the end of the fifteenth century. Much as this course is based on the broad framework of Armenian political history and institutions (kingship, nakharar system, the church, etc.), it also emphasizes economic development, social change, and cultural transformations. Requirements: the final grade will be based on a midterm examination (30%) a ten-page paper (30%) and a final examination (40%). | ||
| 181A - Astronomy, Astrology, and Cartography in Medieval and Early Modern Europe | Heilbron | |
| MWF 10-11 385 LeConte | ||
| The enduring medieval classics, Dante’s Divina Comedia and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, are full of astronomy. Chaucer wrote a brief treatise on the most elaborate astronomical instrument of his day, the astrolabe, for the instruction of his twelve-year old son. Similar demands on readers’ knowledge were, and are, made by Camões Os lusídas and Cervantes’ Don Quixote. We begin with some passages from these works and unravel their meaning with the help of world systems taught in philosophy (“physics”) and astronomy (“mathematics”) courses in medieval and early modern universities. Physics and astronomy played the leading roles in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. Our course outlines the revolution and its principal consequences through the Enlightenment. To facilitate understanding of the astronomical concepts involved, each student will make an astrolabe of the sort that Chaucer drew for his son. Full instructions for making and using the instrument will be provided. There will be a problem set or two, a midterm, and a final. The lectures will be illustrated. | ||
| 185B - History of Christianity Since 1250 | Brady | |
| MWF 11-12 182 Dwinelle | ||
| This course follows History 185A as the second of two semesters on the History of Christianity. It treats the history of (principally Western) Christianity between the High Middle Ages and the present in Europe and in the rest of the world. The course’s main theme is Christianity and the encounter of cultures. Its core readings range from Thomas à Kempis, Martin Luther, and St. Teresa of Avila to Simone Weil and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, representative works by whom will be discussed and will form the bases for the three papers. The lectures will treat social, cultural, and intellectual topics, such as ecclesiastical authority institutions, forms of piety, revivalism, evangelization, theological speculation, Biblical scholarship, and philosophical arguments for and against religion. This introductory course presupposes no previous study of the subject, though almost any previous study of history or religion should be helpful. | ||
| 199.002 - The Cultural Legacy of the Jews | ||
| MW 1-2 123 Dwinelle | ||
| This is a required course for all Jewish Studies minors. For more information on the Jewish Studies minor, please visit jewishstudies.berkeley.edu or contact the Program Administrator, Sandy Richmond, at (510) 643-2995 | ||
| This course is intended to give Jewish Studies minors a general introduction to the field through a survey of eight major phases of Jewish cultural experiences. Considered in chronological order and embracing several different relevant disciplines (history, literature, language, popular culture) covering major themes, phases, or periods, the course offers subject matter from the Bible to the modern period. The course will meet twice weekly. One meeting will be formatted as lecture with a member of the Jewish Studies faculty and the other will be a discussion section led by a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI). There will be one 6-8 page paper, one midterm, and one three-hour final examination required for the course. Participation and attendance at section meetings will count towards the final grade. | ||
| 200X - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context" | Koch | |
| F 1-5 256E Bancroft Library | ||
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A one-semester, two-unit course open to both graduate and undergraduate students. There are no prerequisites but enrollment is by consent of the instructor and is limited to six students because of the small press room space. Interested students may email the instructor at pkoch@library.berkeley.edu and should attend the first class meeting. 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. |
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