Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Upper Division courses - Spring 2008

This page last updated: Friday, 11-Apr-2008 16:17:35 PDT

100.001 - Religion and Violence in Early Modern Europe	Sheehan
MW 4-5:30 88 Dwinelle
Jonathan Sheehan joins the History faculty this January after teaching at the University of Michigan. His areas of interest include: early modern European history, the history of Christianity and religion more generally, as well as the development of secular society and culture.
Religious wars, apocalyptic and messianic sects, official inquisitions, religiously justified slavery, moral discipline and legal violence: these varied forms of violence are inseparable from religious history. We do not need to look far in today's world to see that the link between religion and violence is still alive and well. This course will concentrate on one particular period--Early Modern Europe (ca. 1500-1800)--and will investigate the connection between violence, religion, and the emergence of our modern nation state. Beginning with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the conquest of the New World, we will trace Europe's religious history as it manifested itself in its most extreme forms. Internal conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, attempts to suppress and repress religious heresy, efforts to impose Christianity on New World peoples: these bloody battles--we will discover--were key to the development of the economic, military, and political institutions of modern governments. At the same time, under these extreme pressures, peoples across Europe developed tools and techniques for accommodation, working out both in both practice and theory ways to live in a religiously diverse culture. By understanding these dynamics, we will seek to understand the complexities of our modern world.
100.002 - European Cultures and Societies in the Age of Enlightenment	Elm-V
MW 4-5:30 174 Barrows
Updated November 18, 2007
Title and description now available! Veit Elm is interested in the role of religion in modern European culture. His principal area of research is the Enlightenment, which he has studied from the perspective of its heroes and of their enemies in the Christian Churches. He received his doctorate from the Free University Berlin and has held teaching positions at the Free University and Princeton University.
The Enlightenment's appeal to reason, science and universal moral values was a turning point in world history. A closer look reveals that Enlightenment thought inherited most of its key elements - natural law, secular utopias, modern science and radical critique of positive religion - from previous centuries. The history of ideas has for a long time focused on the filiations of 18th century concepts of nature, man and society with 17th century rationalism and renaissance humanism. As scholarship turned from the study of ideas and their relation to the social dynamics to the ways in which ideas were spread and used, the 18th century's major innovation appeared to be the new ways, in which scientific culture was popularized and made politically relevant. The lecture will present 18th century English, French, Italian and German culture in a comprehensive, yet slightly different way. It will try to show that the problem these societies had to cope with was that, as science and reason were established as supreme values, the appeal to both produced a wealth of imaginary worlds, which proved to be radically incompatible. Although Montesquieu, Voltaire, Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant all appealed to nature, reason and science, they produced "social sciences" which were very much in contradiction with each other. As a result 18th century thought was as much engaged in furthering scientific progress, as it was critical of science and reason. It was as much about critique of religion as it was about founding new religions. It did not only appeal to modernity and the model of "modern" societies like England. It also invented anti-modern classicism and idealized archaic societies like Sparta. One part of the lecture will be dedicated to tracing the adventurous course of 18th century economic, political, historical and literary thought and its different social contexts. Another will address the transformations of public discourse, which made it possible for even the most radical alternative to the Ancien Regime to be publicly discussed. Besides the rise of "public opinion" and its political implications, we will address how the choice of media like encyclopedias, dramas, novels or pictures affected the message. We will use the French Revolution to study the political impact both of Enlightenment thought and of the media in which it was diffused.
100.003 - Jews and Muslims	Gottreich
MW 4-5:30 106 Stanley
Also listed as ME Studies 130.002 Emily Gottreich (History and International and Area Studies Teaching Program; Vice Chair Center for Middle Eastern Studies) A specialist in both Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish History, Professor Gottreich's interests combine elements of Islamic Urban Studies, Sephardic Studies, and North African history. While her past research has focused on Moroccan Jewish history, she is currently working on a book project that will attempt to historicize the concept of "Arab Jews" in a variety of settings.
In discussions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or other Middle Eastern conflagrations, one often hears the claim that such struggles arise from (and indeed are inevitable because of) "ancient hatreds" endemic to a region in which religious war is simply the norm. The overarching goal of this course is to evaluate such statements through the close study of Jewish life and Jewish-Muslim relations as they developed in the Middle East and North Africa from the rise of Islam in the seventh century to the present day. The course will begin with consideration of traditional attitudes toward the "other" in the region and how they have influenced ethnic and religious identities. We will then turn to the early history of Islam and its development of an institutional framework for dealing with non-Muslim minorities, attempting to understand not only how Muhammad and the early Muslims understood Jews and Judaism, but also how historians helped shape the subsequent discourse around this important topic. The middle part of the course will address the gap between the canonical stipulations of both religions and the reality of lived experience in a series of geographical and chronological settings, including Muslim Spain, the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, Iraq, and Iran. In each of these contexts, special attention will be paid to what defines local Jewish cultural and religious practice, typically termed "Sephardic" but which in reality has great variation and nuance. The last part of the course will deal with the question of Jewish-Muslim relations in the colonial and post-colonial eras. What choices did Middle Eastern and North African Jews make as European encroachment transformed long-held conceptions of faith, nation, and community in the region? What impact did those choices have on Jews' self-perception, and on the perception of them by Muslims, as empires crumbled and independent states emerged in their places? Finally, with reference to the contemporary genres of film and memoir, we will ask how the memory of shared cultural heritage is being preserved, and used, today.
100AC.001 - E Pluribus Unum: Nation Building in the Early American Republic	Foletta
MWF 1-2 101 Moffitt
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
Marshall Foletta has been a lecturer in the history department since 2001. His research focuses on the literary, religious, and cultural developments of the early nineteenth century. His publications include Coming to Terms with Democracy: Federalist Intellectuals and the Shaping of an American Culture (2001).
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.
106B - The Roman Empire	Pafford
MWF 1-2 10 Evans
Updated January 29, 2008
NOTE NEW ROOM! Last class meeting in 277 Cory is Jan. 30. This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major.
A history of Rome from Augustus to Constantine. The course surveys the struggles between the Roman emperors and the senatorial class, the relationship between civil and military government, the emergence of Christianity, and Roman literature as a reflection of social and intellectual life.
109C - The Middle East from the 18th Century to the Present	Tamari
TuTh 3:30-5 106 Stanley
Updated January 29, 2008
NOTE NEW ROOM! Last class meeting in 50 Birge is Jan. 31. Salim Tamari currently serves as Director of Institute of Jerusalem Studies and Professor of Sociology at Birzeit University. Author of several works on urban culture, political sociology, biography and social history, and the social history of the Eastern Mediterranean, current projects include a collection of essays on the "Contested Modernity of Palestine" that will be published by the University of California Press in 2008 and Ihsan's War: The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Soldier due to be published later this year.
What are US troops doing in Iraq and how is that related to the Islamic Revolution in Iran? What are the origins of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and how have they impacted other developments in the region? This course focuses on these and other issues fundamental to understanding the modern Middle East from the age of Empires in the 19th century to the era of Pax-Americana. Some familiarity with the general history of this region as covered in lower-division survey courses, such as History 12, is helpful but not a pre-requisite.
116A - Early China	Giele
MW 4-5:30 100 Wheeler
This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major.
This lecture course is designed (1) to introduce a framework for grasping pre-historical and early historical developments of the human societies in China from the birth of civilization to the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220); to identify the political, social, economical, and ideological driving forces behind these developments; (3) to give an overview of the main archaeological and historical sources available for that period; (4) to assess the benefits, costs, as well as the characteristics of early Chinese forms of social and political organization as well as belief systems; and (5) to sketch the role the Early China played in later periods of Chinese history.
118C - Empire and Alienation: the 20th Century in Japan	Barshay
TuTh 2-3:30 180 Tan
The general theme of this course is Japan's emergence as a world power in its two phases, military and economic. Our chief concern will be with the experience within Japan of that emergence and its consequences: the impact on farming villages (including colonial villages sending labor migrants to Japan) of "late" industrialization; the emergence of a conflict, played out in actual lives, between notions of individuality vs. collective identity (based on class, nationality, and gender) and between different collective identities; the horror of total war; the transformation of values that came with defeat and occupation; the nature of postwar democracy and relation of society to state; the changing way(s) in which Japanese view and participate in the world outside Japan.
123 - The Civil War and Reconstruction	Einhorn
MWF 10-11 106 Stanley
NOTE NEW ROOM!
This lecture course will take a broad view of the political, social, economic, and cultural history of the United States in the mid-19th century in order to explore both the causes of the Civil War and its effects on American development. Major topics will include slavery and race relations (north and south), class relations and industrialization, the organization of party politics, and changing ideas about and uses of government power.
124B - The United States from World War II to the Vietnam Era	Postel
TuTh 9:30-11 F295 Haas
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
NOTE NEW ROOM!
Immediately prior to World War II, the US military ranked 17th in the world, most African-Americans lived in the rural south and were barred from voting, culture and basic science in the United States enjoyed no world-wide recognition, most married women did not work for wages, and the census did not classify most Americans as middle-class or higher. By 1973, all this had changed. This course will explore these and other transformations, all part of the making of modern America. We will take care to analyze the events, significance and costs of US ascendancy to world power in an international and domestic context. Topics addressed include: World War II; the Cold War; McCarthyism; changes in organized labor; suburbia, white-collar employment and deindustrialization; race in urban America; "first" and "second-wave" feminism; conservative intellectuals and conservative populists; the Great Society; and the Vietnam War. Course requirements include an eight-page research paper, and a mid-term and a final exam.
134A - Age of the City	Henkin
TuTh 12:30-2 4 LeConte
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
NOTE NEW ROOM! This course has officially received AC approval. Also listed as American Studies 101.002
For most of human history, urban living has been the experience of a distinct minority. Only in the past two hundred years have the physical spaces, social relations, and lifestyles associated with large cities entered the mainstream. This course examines the long century of urban growth between 1825 and 1933, when big cities came into being in the United States. Focusing on large metropolitan centers (especially on New York, Chicago, and San Francisco), we will study the way urban spaces provided sites and sources of new modes of personal interaction, popular entertainment, social conflict, and political expression. By exploring the origins and evolutions of race riots, elevated railroads, boxing matches, department stores, peep shows, parades, strikes, fire companies, boosters, slums, skyscrapers, sensational journalism, amusement parks, gas-lit promenades, neon billboards, personal ads, nickelodeons, and numerous other artifacts, engines, and symbols of a promiscuous urban life, we can both appreciate a pivotal moment in the history of the city and take stock of a world we have come to take for granted. Requirements include two mid-terms, two short essays (2--3 pp.), and a comprehensive final examination.
135 - American Indian History: Precontact to the Present	Spear
TuTh 11-12:30 182 Dwinelle
The purpose of this course is to provide an introductory interpretation of the varied historical experiences of many nations native to North America from the first migrations of peoples into the continent until the present. Among the specific topics that will be covered are: origins and cultural development; the impact of European contact and conquest; assimilation, acculturation, and adaptation; the development and implementation of U.S. federal policies towards Indian peoples; native resistance and activism; definitions and practices of sovereignty; and cultural attitudes towards Indians in American society. We will seek to assess both the impact of colonialism and its consequences upon Indian peoples as well as their responses. That is, we will treat Native Americans not as victims but as historical, political, economic, and cultural actors who resourcefully adjusted, resisted, and accommodated to the changing realities of life in North America during the last five hundred years.
136 - Gender, Culture and Society in 20th Century America	Rosen
TuTh 3:30-5 160 Dwinelle
Ruth Rosen received her Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley and is a Professor Emerita of History at the U.C. Davis where she taught American history, women's history, immigration history and public policy for over two decades. The recipient of the University of California at Davis Distinguished Teaching Award and many other national research fellowships, she has taught and lectured all over the world. She is the editor of the The Maimie Papers, and the author of The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1982; and The World Split Open: How The Modern Women's Movement Changed America 2001. An award-winning journalist, she has also worked as a columnist for both the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
In this course we will explore topics in the social, economic and cultural history of women and gender during the twentieth century in the United Sates. We will emphasize how ideas about and experiences of family life, gender and sexual attitudes changed as American society became increasingly industrialized, urbanized and its culture dominated by mass culture, consumer culture, rapid technological advances and the transformation to a post-industrial, post-modern global economy.
138 - History of Science in the U.S.	Groppi
MWF 12-1 160 Dwinelle
NOTE NEW ROOM!
The course covers the history of science in the U.S. from the colonial period up to the present. We will be focusing on the unique situation of the sciences within the changing U.S. context, emphasizing debates over the place of science in intellectual, cultural, religious, and political life. As we examine the mutual shaping of national experience and scientific developments, we will also trace the emergence of institutions for the pursuit of scientific knowledge, with special attention to the relationships between science and technology and between science and the state. We will explore a large number of local examples (California geology, Ernest Lawrence, Silicon Valley, and lots on UC Berkeley). The course is aimed at students of all majors; no scientific knowledge is presupposed. Basic familiarity with U.S. history will be helpful, as the course is as much about U.S. history as about the history of science.
C139B - The American Immigrant Experience	Mason
MWF 3-4 110 Barrows
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
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.
146 - Latin American Women	Chowning
TuTh 3:30-5 210 Wheeler
NOTE NEW ROOM!
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.
151A - Reformation to Revolution, Island to Empire: England 1485-1688	Shagan
MWF 11-12 170 Barrows
In 1485 at the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses, England was a small and impotent European nation whose government had virtually collapsed and whose intellectual, cultural, and political institutions were insignificant and outdated by broader European standards. Two centuries later, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, England was an emerging superpower with a global empire, it was one of the thriving intellectual and cultural centers of Europe, and it had developed new political ideas and institutions which would soon sweep the world. History 151a is at heart an attempt to understand this remarkable transformation, a process which will take us through such topics as the Protestant Reformation and the rise of puritanism; the English Revolution and the development of Republicanism; and the growth of English Imperialism from Ireland to North America and the development of the slave trade. It will also take us, along the way, through sex scandals at the royal court, early modern communism, the conundrum of Queen Elizabeth's gender, and Sir Francis Drake's astonishment at the freezing cold of San Francisco Bay.
151C - The Peculiar Modernity of Britain, 1848-2000	Vernon
TuTh 11-12:30 180 Tan
For many years Britain was seen as the crucible of the modern world. This small, cold and wet island was thought to have been the first to develop representative democracy, an industrial economy, rapid transport, mass cities, mass communication and mass culture and, of course, an empire upon which the sun famously never set. And yet, despite this precocious modernity, imperial Britain remained a deeply traditional society unable to rid itself of ancient institutions like the monarchy, the aristocracy and the established church. In surveying the history of Britain over the past century and a half this course will examine this paradox. It will ask whether this peculiar combination of the modern and the traditional was what enabled Britain to avoid many of the social and political instabilities that plagued other Western countries in the transition to modernity. For surely it was Britain's precocious and peaceable modernity that made many (from its own nineteenth century imperialists to modernization theorists in the cold war US academy) consider it the exemplary historical model all should follow. The focus of the course is on how this combination of the old and the new produced a broadly 'liberal' set of mentalities through which Britons came to understand and manage the great transformations of modern life, both at home and across the empire. This provokes a series of questions: If Britons thought of themselves as an essentially liberal people, bringing 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 violence and 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 live in a culturally dynamic, multi-racial and multi-faith society? How is Britain's sense of itself still informed by its imperial history, or its relationships to America and Europe? So if you want to understand Britain's peculiar version of modernity or just want to understand why the best music and comedy still comes from there you might enjoy this course. Readings will consist of primary web resources and secondary reading through set texts. You will be expected to have read all the primary web resources before each lecture: a paragraph writing assignment will be due on them each week. Assessment will be based on these assignments (20%), a mid-term (30%) and a final examination (50%). Students will also have the option of writing a short research paper (10 pages) in place of the final exam.
152A - Modern Ireland	Brady
MWF 11-12 156 Dwinelle
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 emancipation 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, troubles and terror; Ireland and Europe. Assignments: three short papers and a final exam.
159A - European Economic History	deVries

COURSE HAS BEEN CANCELLED
Survey of the economic and social developments of Europe up to the eve of industrialization. Including the transformation of peasant-based, agrarian economies, capitalist organization, colonial expansion, and international trade. This course is equivalent to Economics 111A; students will not receive credit for both courses.
162A - Europe and the World: Wars, Empires, Nations, 1648-1914	Adamthwaite
TuTh 12:30-2 105 North Gate
NOTE NEW ROOM!
This upper division course looks at the rise and fall of the European great powers from the Peace of Westphalia, traditionally perceived as the beginning of the modern states system, to the coming of the First World War, an era of state and empire building. Economic and technological trends are naturally part of the story as well as cultural, social and political forces. At the same time, the course highlights the decisive influence of the shakers and movers-kings, emperors and generals. As well as the two main texts, Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Norman Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 1814-1914, we will read some novels and memoirs: Guiseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands Requirements No prerequisites. Lectures, assigned reading, midterm (25%), 7-10 page term paper (25%), final examination (50%).
163A - European Intellectual History from the Enlightenment to 1870	Jay
TuTh 12:30-2 106 Stanley
NOTE NEW ROOM!
Reading primary texts, we will examine the major figures and themes in the intellectual development of Europe from Rousseau to Wagner. Included in the topics of the course will be German Idealism, Romanticism, Utopian Socialism, Marxism, Realism, Feminism and Nationalism. We will read works by Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Marx, Flaubert, Wollstonecraft, Kierkegard and others. We will also listen to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. The intellectual and artistic currents of the period will be set against the background of European history as a whole.
166B - Culture, Society and Politics in France from Louis XIV to the Revolution	Elm-V
TuTh 3:30-5 30 Wheeler
Updated November 18, 2007
New course title! Description now available!
The age of Louis XIV. was not just a French event. It inaugurated an era in which the elites of continental Europe made French language, literature, fashion and philosophy their own. The cultural models France supplied were not only those of an absolutist catholic monarchy. In the course of the 18th century France also produced the countercultures which provided the enlightened monarchs, the rising bourgeoisies and, not at last, the victims of modernization in Europe with new ideologies. The aim of the lecture is to make you acquainted with 17th and 18th century French political, religious and economic thought and its articulations in drama and literature. It will also try to explain how the French king’s monopoly on politics created the conditions, in which the imaginary worlds produced in the name of reason, sensibility and social science could gain enough momentum to bring the continent under France’s spell and, at the end of the 18th century, turn a budgetary crisis into a social experiment which, within fifteen years, created the models which shape European and world politics to the present day.
171C - The Soviet Union, 1917 to the Present	Slezkine
TuTh 11-12:30 100 GPB
NOTE NEW ROOM!
An introductory survey of Soviet history from the revolutions of 1917 to the present. Marxism-Leninism, War Communism, and Real Socialism; the Great Transformation and the Great Terror; family and nationality; state and society; Russia versus Soviet; Gorbachev versus the past. A midterm and a final; no term paper.
177B - Armenia	Astourian
TuTh 2-3:30 103 Wheeler
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.
181B - Modern Physics	Carson
MWF 2-3 3 LeConte
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 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 9:30-11 390 Hearst Mining
Updated January 29, 2008
NOTE NEW ROOM! Last meeting in 3 LeConte is Jan. 31. This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major.
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.
200X - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context"	Koch
F 1-5 Off Campus
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.
Medieval Studies - 150 - Black Death: Disease, Society, and Culture in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe
TuTh 9:30-11
Professor Samuel Kline Cohn, Jr., Visiting Distinguished Professor of Medieval Studies. Please see the online schedule for the most up to date information.
The course will begin by briefly examining disease and history globally from the primordial soup of distant prehistory to the present as a prelude for understanding the Black Death of 1348 and its recurrences through the later Middle Ages. Attention then will be devoted to the characteristics of this disease and debates now swirling over what it may have been, and after that, to the plague's importance in shaping late medieval and Renaissance European society, politics, and culture. Lectures and student participation will rely on chronicles, imaginary literature, works of art. Where possible, the course will concentrate on primary sources in translation.

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Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Upper Division courses - Spring 2008