Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Upper Division courses - Spring 2009

This page last updated: Friday, 29-May-2009 14:55:31 PDT

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Course descriptions and schedules will be added periodically, so please check back for updated information.
100.001 - History and Theory	Klein
TuTh 11-12:30 156 Dwinelle
Updated December 8, 2008
Description now available!
"History" is not just so many dead presidents, and in this seminar we will be exploring different ways of imagining, writing, filming, commemorating, and even escaping history. This seminar begins with canonical works in the philosophy of history, surveys developments in theory and criticism from structuralism to structuralism, and concludes with recent debates about history and memory in museum and pop culture. We will be discussing the history of theory and the theories of history to learn how each tale we tell about our past depends on a theory of history, however simple or abstract. Different theories of history create different senses of what the world is like and what we should do about it. Theory and history, we will learn, shape the ways we imagine ourselves and live our daily lives.
100.002 - The United States and America	Candida-Smith
TuTh 3:30-5 110 Wheeler
In the 1920s, the poet William Carlos Williams wrote, "I am a United Stateser. I do not want to call myself a United Stateser but what else am I?" The son of immigrants from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Williams was well aware that anybody who lived in any of the forty-plus countries of the "New World" was American. He worried that citizens of the U.S. had lost track of who they really were, or could become, by confusing their nation with the whole of America. In this class, we will examine the history of the United States relationship with the rest of America from the revolutionary wars to the present. We will cover how United States growth shaped its relationships with Canada, Mexico, and the nations of the Caribbean; the development of trade and investment ties and their role in Pan-Americanism; patterns in inter-American labor migration and the historical contexts underlying the growth of Latino, Haitian, and other American communities throughout the United States; the history of interventions by the US government and private organizations worked in the internal affairs of other nations in the western hemisphere. The course will also examine how United States journalists, writers, film makers, and artists of various sorts have presented other American nations to their readers and audiences, as well as the image of the United States that has developed in the rest of the Americas over the last two centuries. We will question what U.S. society shares with other American nations, what institutions and practices may be uniquely "United Stateser." By the end of the course, students should have a more detailed understanding of what it means to be both American and from the U.S. and deeper insight into the historical contexts for contemporary debates about border security, immigration, free trade, globalization, the blockade of Cuba, and the future of inter-American relations.
100.003 - Jews and Muslims	Gottreich
MW 4-5:30 106 Stanley
Also listed as ME Studies 130.001
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.
100.004 - Environmental Histories of France	Sahlins
TuTh 2-3:30 206 Dwinelle
Updated January 22, 2009
Note New Room.
Last class meeting in 156 Dwinelle is on Jan. 22. Move to the new room on Jan. 27. New description available! ----------------------------- Professor Sahlins has published books about boundaries, forests, foreigners, and the problem of national identity in early modern France. He is currently working on animals and the law in the pre-modern (and post-modern) world.
This millennial history of "early modern France" from the Central Middle Ages to the mid-nineteenth century explores a variety of topics of environmental history from climate change to the historical geography of land use patterns, and from water and forest management practices to the symbolic representations of space, landscape, and the environment. These topics will be folded into the long and complex story of the history the French state and nation in their medieval and early modern elaborations. Focusing on key periods (the 13th and the 18th centuries), resources (forests, waters), and issues (struggles over access and control), we'll consider the environmental frameworks and dimensions of this history, focusing on the construction of French identities local, regional, and national with and in relation to ideas and practices about the environment. Readings include secondary sources, maps and visual culture, and a range of primary documents in translation (legislation, descriptions, literary works).
100.005 - Crime, Punishment, and Power in American History, 1607 – present	McLennan
TuTh 12:30-2 160 Dwinelle
This lecture course explores some of the key themes of American crime and punishment history, from the early colonial period; through the industrial age, Westward expansion, and antebellum slavery; to our own, globalizing age of zero tolerance policing and mass incarceration. Themes include the transformation of the criminal trial and its place in American culture; changing conceptions of sin and crime; chattel slavery's impact on criminal law; the birth of the prison; Jim Crow criminal justice; and the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on policing, trials, and punishment. In the last two weeks of the semester we will address the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and the rise of neo-conservative "law and order" politics. Course requirements include a midterm exam, final exam, and at least one short essay.
100.006 - History of Technology	Mazzotti
MWF 2-3 223 Dwinelle
Updated November 23, 2008
Description now available! -- Students interested in teaching elementary or secondary school science and math and who plan to take this course as part of the Cal Teach program will be attending a supplemental section (Mon 10-11:30am). This section will focus on the techniques, skills, and perspectives necessary to apply the history of science in the juvenile and adolescent science classroom. For more information about Cal Teach, go to http://calteach.berkeley.edu/. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Massimo Mazzotti joins Berkeley's History Department this semester. He received his Ph.D in science studies from the University of Edinburgh, and his main areas of interest are the history of mathematics and the history of technology. He has published in several international journals and is the author of Maria Gaetana Agnesi , Mathematician of God (2007), and the editor of Knowledge as Social Order (2008).
How do technology and society interact? What drives technological change? How does technology transfer across different cultures? These and other related questions are examined using historical case studies of productive, military, domestic, information, and biomedical technologies from 1700 to the present. We shall discuss the evolution of artifacts and technological systems such as industrial machinery, weaponry, home appliances, computers, and contraceptives. The aim of the course is for you to learn about how technology affects social change and, especially, how technological change is invariably shaped by historical and social circumstances. At the end of the course you will be able to think historically about technology, and thus engage effectively with questions of technological change -- or lack thereof.
100.007 - The Life Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, 1800-2000	Barker
MWF 1-2 88 Dwinelle
Students interested in teaching elementary or secondary school science and math and who plan to take this course as part of the Cal Teach program will be attending a supplement section (Mon 10-11:30am). This section will focus on the techniques, skills, and perspectives necessary to apply the history of science in the juvenile and adolescent science classroom. For more information about Cal Teach, go to http://calteach.berkeley.edu/. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crispin Barker has a Ph.D. in the history of science and medicine from Yale and completed his dissertation on the history of the molecular biology of aging and telomere biology. He is presently investigating the influence of radiation genetics and medical physics on early molecular biologists and the role of laboratories at Berkeley, Colorado, Yale, Harvard, and similar institutions in elucidating the synthesis and significance of DNA termini.
Since the Scientific Revolution, Western physicians and scientists have progressively dealt with the human body as a collection of simple machines that follow physical laws instead of as a microcosm reflecting imbalances in the natural universe. In the early nineteenth century, this perspective was advanced dramatically by discoveries in engineering, the medical sciences, and the material sciences that led to a sudden increase in the quality and number of devices for diagnosing, healing, regulating, and replacing the limbs and organs of the human body. Beginning with the invention of the "iatrophysical body," this course examines how discoveries in biomedical engineering and the life sciences transformed Western medicine and civilization between 1800 and the late twentieth century, and the ethical, industrial, military, epidemiological, and cultural forces abetting this change. The technologies discussed include x-rays and medical imaging, breast implants and other cosmetic prostheses, sanitary engineering, the artificial heart, mechanical limbs, the iron lung, vibrators, and genetic engineering.
100.008 - Early Modern Russian Culture	Zhivov
TuTh 3:30-5 215 Dwinelle
This course is also listed as Slavic 148.001 L&S Breadth: Historical Studies OR Arts & Literature
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 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. Simon Dixon, The Modernization of Russia, 1675-1825, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999 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]
100.009 - History of Modern China	Standaert
TuTh 3:30-5 182 Dwinelle
This course was previously listed as 116C in the online schedule for the Sp09 term.
Purpose: This class will give an overview of the history of China from 1600 till 2000. The main question is whether China has become 'modern' in the course of this history. Content: The course will take as its basis: Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, New York/London, Norton, 1999 (2nd edition). Students are required to read two chapters per week. No anticipated knowledge of Chinese history or language is required.
100.010 - Gender, Culture, and Korean Society	Kim
MWF 12-1 156 Dwinelle
Updated December 7, 2008
NEW COURSE! ----- Sonja Kim received her Ph.D. from UCLA in East Asian Languages and Cultures. Her dissertation examines new medical interventions and their implications for early twentieth century Korea through the site of reproduction. She hopes to pursue future research projects on public health and welfare programs, disease and sickness, and contemporary constructions of race in Korea.
This course will examine various topics in social, cultural, and political history of women and gender in Korea from premodern times to the present. We will look in particular at images and identities of women, and the changing roles and status of women in relation to political, economic, and cultural changes in the modern period. Shifts in notions of womanhood and politics of gender over time and space will be explored through comparisons with East Asia and the world. Constructions of femininity as well as masculinity will be addressed as well.
106A - Introduction to Roman History: The Roman Republic	Norena
MWF 10-11 390 Hearst Mining
This course satisfies the pre-modern requirement for the History Major.
This course offers an introduction to the history of the Roman Republic, from the foundation of the city in the 8th century BC to the cataclysmic civil wars that destroyed the Republic in the 1st century BC. The central theme of the course is Rome’s imperial expansion, first within Italy and then throughout the Mediterranean, with special attention to the political, economic, social, and cultural impact of Roman imperialism, both on conquered territories and on Rome itself. Lectures will provide an essential historical narrative and interpretations of central problems in Roman Republican history, and primary-source readings will give students an opportunity to engage with key texts and documents from the period. Requirements: map quiz, midterm, paper (8-10 pp.), final.
C111B - Modern Southeast Asia	Maxim
MWF 10-11 106 Moffitt
Updated December 4, 2008
Revised description available. Also listed as Southeast Asian C141B.001. -----------------------------Sarah Maxim has a particular research interest in the urban history of Southeast Asia during the 19th century, specifically concerning the establishment of colonial rule and the planning of colonial cities in British Burma and Malaya. Her other research interests are focused on the emergence of nationalist consciousness in the 1920s and '30s in Southeast Asia, with specific attention to the experience of Indonesia. She is the Vice Chair of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at UC Berkeley and Consulting Editor of the "Journal of Vietnamese Studies".
This course presents an introduction to the history of modern Southeast Asia. It explores key historical themes within modern Southeast Asia as a whole while also looking more specifically at the histories of some of the region's larger countries, namely Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Burma. Particular attention is paid to exploring and answering these main questions, 1) How and why did colonial rule come to Southeast Asia, what forms did it take and what was its impact?, and 2) What prompted the emergence of nationalist, anti-colonial movements in the region, and how did nationalism lead to the emergence of independent states after World War II? The course will also provide an opportunity for students to read key historiographical texts more deeply, to develop skills in presenting their opinions or perspectives and to write a research paper concerning history in the modern day. Readings include secondary source histories, primary source materials and in-depth journal articles. This mixture of readings, combined with the structure and focus of written assignments, is intended to promote a more nuanced understanding of the tools used in the writing of history and to help students develop their own skills in constructing written arguments to explore historical questions. Required texts: Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, "State and Society in the Philippines"; Graham Greene, "The Quiet American"; Thant Myint-U, "The Making of Modern Burma"; Merle Ricklefs, "A History of Modern Indonesia" Recommended texts: James Scott, "The Moral Economy of the Peasant"; Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, "A History of Thailand"; John A. Nagl, "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife"
113B - Modern Korea	Wells
MW 4-5:30 219 Dwinelle
The twentieth century has been a time of massive, far-reaching change on a global scale. It has been a century of transitions from dynastic realms to ever multiplying nation-states, from agricultural to secondary industries, from elite to mass education, politics and culture. It has been a time of rapid and momentous advances in knowledge and technology. But it has also been a century of crises and of extremes, of disruption of traditions, of widespread social dislocation and increasingly large gaps of understanding between generations. Across the globe whole populations have been cut off from the past by seismic shifts in the crust of their civilisations. At such critical times, people affected by them and in particular the educated among them reflect on history in order to gain self-understanding and retrieve some sense of stability and confidence in the present. Korea is certainly no exception. The past one hundred and fifty years is a story of crisis after crisis, from internal rebellions to foreign domination, to the division into two states, North and South, and the recent economic woes. The small Korean peninsula has experienced in concentrated form almost every feature of this century and a half of change: collapse of the Old Order, colonialism and post-colonial dilemmas, the force of nationalism, the ideological antagonisms of the Cold War, rapid industrialization and urbanization, and the rise of global economics and culture. In terms of the speed and depth of the transformation, and in the density of its recent history, very few countries can rival Korea. Accordingly, the Korean people have become masters at handling crises and wresting from them achievements that surprise the rest of the world. They have risen high above numerous challenges to produce a fascinating and vibrant culture, from which there is much to learn and still more to expect. This course introduces students to the history of modern Korea, with a focus on cultural history. The course is divided into three periods, the Late Han (1860-1910), the Colonial Period (1905-1945), and the Era of Division (1945 to the present), and examines the chief internal and external forces, which shaped the Korean nation up to the late 1990s. The course examines the ferment in education, religion, and political and economic ideologies, as the nation falls under Japanese colonial rule and then splits into two states as a result of World War II and the subsequent Cold War. Particular attention is paid to the making of capitalism, development of consumer culture, and the transformation of gender roles. There is now a small selection of good general texts available on Modern Korea, in addition to which a good number of books and articles dealing with aspects of modern Korea will be placed on reserve. Required text: Carter Eckert (ed), Korea Old & New: A History Recommended: Michael E Robinson, Korea’s Twentieth-century Odyssey
114B - Modern South Asia	Nair
MWF 1-2 155 Kroeber
Updated December 18, 2008
Note New Room.
Janaki Nair is a historian whose has worked on the political, social and cultural history of modern Karnataka (India). She also has a strong interest in feminist and cultural studies. Her books include Women and Law in Colonial India (1996, 2000) Miners and Millhands : Work Cutlrue and Politics in Princely Mysore (1998) and The Promise of the Metropolis: Bangalore's Twentieth Century (2005).
How does the history of the South Asian city in the 19th and 20th centuries reconceptualise the meaning of citizenship, particularly for the poor and marginalized? Why is this history so critical in making sense of issues concerning the urban poor of contemporary South Asian cities? This course will explore the legacies of colonialism, nationalism and communal or ethnic conflict in modern South Asia. The discussion will revolve around five themes. 1. The beginnings of colonialism: What are some of the enduring consequences of the South Asian "divided city", where race and ethnicity were spatialised to produce two distinct models of planning that reflected class divisions and hierarchies? 2. What are the histories of planning since the mid 19th century and how did concerns about political order or public health, especially after 1857, shape city form with important consequences for the labouring poor? 3. In the 20th century, the South Asian City was the site of many new kinds of political movements which defined a sphere for the participation of elites and subaltern alike, through organized strikes, mass nationalist protests or riots. What new solidarities or cleavages were forged between urban groups fighting for space within the emerging city? 4. What were the opportunities provided by the introduction of new technologies and processes to the poor and which kinds of groups were marginalized? 5. The last segment of the course will take up the contemporary South Asian City, a space of new and unprecedented opportunities and yet increased violence and tension. What is the fate of urban planning, of the informal sector and of the concept of "rights" in a city-space divided on lines of caste, ethnicity, class and gender? Course Texts and Materials: (subject to change) 1 General History: Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A history of Modern India (Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2004) 2 Chitra Joshi, Lost Worlds: Indian Labour and its forgotten histories (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003) 3 Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between the Empires (Delhi: OUP, 1981) 4 Jim Masselos, The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power (Delhi: OUP, 2007) 5 Course Pack 6 Select documentary films: I Live in Behrampada; Jari Mari
116C - History of Modern China	Standaert

Updated November 4, 2008
This course is being offered as History 100.009 for the Sp09 term. Description and course details are posted under that listing.

117D - The Chinese Body: Medicine and Health, Sex and Gender	Nylan
TuTh 2-3:30 170 Barrows
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.
118C - Empire and Alienation: the 20th Century in Japan	Barshay
TuTh 12:30-2 2 LeConte
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.
121B - The American Revolution	Peterson
MWF 9-10 101 LSA
In this course we will explore the history of eastern North America in the second half of the 18th century, in order to determine what was "revolutionary" about this history, as well as what was not. We will, of course, examine the causes and consequences of the rebellion staged by thirteen of Britain's American colonies in the 1770s, but we will also investigate the broader Atlantic context in which these events occurred, and consider their reverberations throughout the Atlantic world as well. The course will offer an intensive writing option for interested undergraduates.
124B - The United States from World War II to the Vietnam Era	Frydl
MW 4-5:30 145 Dwinelle
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
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. Films, a part of the history under review, will also be part of the course assignments, as will other primary texts. This lecture course will require attendance to a discussion section, where readings, important themes, and assignments will be discussed. A mid-term, final, two 5-page papers, and a discussion evaluation from your GSI are the graded components of the class.
125B - SOUL POWER: AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY 1861-1980	Martin
TuTh 9:30-11 2 LeConte
This course will examine the history of African Americans and ethno-racial relations from the Civil War and Emancipation (1861-1865) to the modern African American Freedom Struggle (1954-1972). Social, cultural, economic, and political developments will be emphasized. Topics to be covered include: Black Reconstruction; Black Life and 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; Assata Shakur, Assata. There will be two exams -- a mid-term and a final -- and perhaps one research essay.
130B - The United States and the World Since 1919	Sargent
MWF 11-12 160 Kroeber
Fulfills the University's American History requirement.
This course will explore the history of U.S. relations with the external world during what Henry Luce famously called the "American Century." It will emphasize the reciprocal nature of the American Republic's international relations, asking both how the external world has affected the historical development of the United States and how the U.S. has impacted the course of larger global events. This course will encompass the political and military interactions that have traditionally constituted diplomatic history, but it will also engage intellectual, cultural, social, and economic exchanges between Americans and non-Americans in the twentieth century. The course will cover the United States' rise to great power status; its embroilment in European politics after 1917, including participation in the First and Second World Wars; its role in the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union and the consequences of this competition for American society; and the United States' search for an effective foreign policy after the Cold War world, including 9/11 and the Iraq War. Students will be encouraged to consider how knowledge of the history of U.S. interactions with the world might inform the conduct of foreign policy in the future.
136 - Gender Matters in 20th Century America	Rosen
TuTh 3:30-5 100 Wheeler
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.
Gender Matters explores the social, political, cultural and economic history of women and men's lives, as well as changing sexual attitudes toward gender, the family and sexuality. Against the tapestry of twentieth American history, we will analyze how two significant changes—women's dramatic entry into the paid labor force and their new control over their reproductive lives---gave rise to our contemporary cultural wars. Students will also explore how women from different classes and diverse minority and immigrant populations helped shape public policy and social movements during the 20th century. Finally, the course will explore how consumer and popular culture, rapid technological advances, and social movements for gender equality, gave rise to new debates about the role of the family, gender roles and the attempt to regulate sexuality and reproduction.
C139B - The American Immigrant Experience	Mason
MWF 3-4 101 Barker
Updated January 22, 2009
This course satisfies the American Cultures Requirement.
Note New Room.
Last class meeting in 9 Lewis is on Jan. 23. Move to the new room on Jan. 26.
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.
140B - Modern Mexico	Chowning
TuTh 12:30-2 3 LeConte
This course begins with the independence of Mexico and ends with the election of Felipe Calderon in 2006. Many angles of the Mexican past will be considered, including the struggle to find and define an independent nation, the political and economic instability of the nineteenth century, the costs and benefits of early modernization, the long shadow cast by the United States, the legacy of single-party politics in the twentieth century, and the opening of democracy since the 1990s. Students will focus on the Porfiriato, the Mexican Revolution, and the history of Mexican immigration to the American Southwest. We will consider when and how multiple Mexican identities were created by examining the role of indigenous, the elite, and Mexicoís rich history of rural revolt. This class ends where it began, with a cycle of modernization and struggle, suggesting the constant dialogue between past and present.
149B - Italy in the Age of Dante (1000-1350)	Miller
MWF 10-11 156 Dwinelle
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? We will explore with particular intensity the relationship between religion and society. Special emphasis will also be placed on analyzing material and visual sources: do they tell a different story than the written sources? Requirements include midterm and final examinations in addition to several short essays based on primary sources.
151A - Reformation to Revolution, Island to Empire: England 1485-1688	Shagan
MWF 11-12 3 LeConte
Note New Room.
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 was 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 - A Peculiar Modernity: Imperial 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 politics, an industrial economy, rapid transport, mass cities, 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. Was this peculiar combination of the modern and the traditional 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 world historical model all should follow. The focus of the course is on how this combination of the old and the new produced a supposedly unique liberal version of modernity which combined free markets with the rule of law and a developing democratic system. 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 did this liberalism lay the foundations for the enormous growth of Britain's welfare and security state in the twentieth century. 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 modern history or just understand why it still produces the best music and comedy you might enjoy this course. Readings will consist of primary web resources, a novel 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.
154 - Canada: Forging a Nation	Behiels
MW 4-5:30 234 Dwinelle
This course will focus on the big questions of Canadian history: including the origins of Canada, the construction of a modern nation-state prior to the Great War, the Great Depression, World War II and the social service state, and the challenges of cultural and linguistic diversity and province building in the late 20th century.
159B - European Economic History: The World Economy, 1750-1913	Pearson
TuTh 12:30-2 141 McCone
Updated November 24, 2008
A complete description is forthcoming. Please check back.
NOTE New Instructor!
The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the European economy to world dominance in the 19th century, emphasizing the diffusion of the industrial system and its consequences, the world trading system, the rise of modern imperialism. This course is equivalent to Economics 111B; students will not receive credit for both courses.
163B - European Intellectual History, 1870 to the Present	Jay
TuTh 2-3:30 220 Wheeler
The focus of the course will be on the social and political thought primarily in Germany and France, with peripheral attention paid to England and Italy. Related philosophical and cultural trends will also be discussed. The readings will consist largely of selected texts which are representative of the major currents of the period
168A - Spain and Portugal in the Golden Age: 1450-1700	Dandelet
TuTh 9:30-11 20 Barrows
This course will focus on the rise and development of early modern Europe's most powerful empires. Rising from the unlikely setting of a weak and fragmented Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth century, the Spanish and Portuguese Empires went on to become the world's first truly global powers. As such, they had a tremendous impact on the political, economic, cultural, and religious life of not only Iberia, but on significant parts of Europe and the New World. These were the empires of Henry the Navigator, Cervantes, Quevedo, Velasquez, and Vittoria. At the same time, they were also the powers that produced the conquistadors, the Inquisition, and Machiavelli's model prince, Ferdinand. The course will combine a chronological and thematic approach. While the lectures will focus on the dramatic narrative of the political and economic rise, expansion and decline of the empires from the later half of the fifteenth century through the seventeenth century, our readings and precepts will focus on the literary, artistic, social, and religious texts and themes that combined to create the sense that this was Spain and Portugal's Golden Age.
171C - The Soviet Union, 1917 to the Present	Slezkine
TuTh 12:30-2 105 North Gate
An introductory survey of Russian 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; Russian versus Soviet; Gorbachev versus the past. A midterm and a final; no term paper.
172 - Topics in Russian Cultural History: "Russian Intellectual History"	Frede
TuTh 11-12:30 234 Dwinelle
L&S Breadth: Historical Studies OR Arts & Literature
This course introduces students to Russian intellectual history from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, covering aspects of political, social, and religious thought. We will observe Russian thinkers elaborate conceptions of nationalism in a multi-ethnic empire, trying to resolve the eternal question of Russia's national identity: whether it belongs to the East or West? Next, we will move on to social thought, including debates on serfdom, populism, the "women question," the nature of progress, and the rise of Marxism. Finally, we will study debates on religion: the pertinence of Orthodox Christian faith in social and philosophical thought, including early twentieth century religious rebuttals to Marxism. Readings will include works by Radishchev, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Herzen, Zasulich, Dostoevsky, Solov'ev, Tolstoy, Berdyaev, and Lenin. Students are required to attend class regularly and participate in discussions. They will take a midterm and a final exam, as well as handing in one short writing assignment and one longer essay of 7-8 pages.
173C - History of Eastern Europe: From 1900 to the Present	Connelly
MWF 3-4 106 Moffitt
This course will examine the history of 20th-century Eastern Europe, understood as the band of countries and peoples stretching from the Baltics to the Balkans. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, however, will receive special attention. Topics of study will include foundation of the national states, Eastern European fascism, Nazi occupation, constructing Stalinist socialism, the fate of reform communism, reconstitution of "civil society," and the emergence of a new Eastern Europe. Given the paucity of historical writings on the region, the course will make extensive use of cinematic and literary portrayals of Eastern Europe.
177B - Armenia	Astourian

This course has been CANCELLED.
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

This course has been CANCELLED.
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.
185A - History of Christianity	Elm
TuTh 11-12:30 3 LeConte
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.
185B - Christianity in the Modern World	Shaw
TuTh 3:30-5 88 Dwinelle
Jane Shaw is a visiting professor from Oxford, where she is Dean of Divinity at New College, and teaches in the history and theology departments in the University. Her research and teaching interests include: modern British history; gender history; history of Christianity in the modern world; history of sexuality and religion; and collective biography and life-writing. Her most recent publication is Miracles in Enlightenment England (Yale UP 2006).
This course might also be called 'From Martin Luther to Richard Dawkins', but its story will not be one of religion's steady decline, from the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation to the atheistic twenty-first century. Nor is it a course just about men. Rather, we will trace the lively history of Christianity from the religious debates and wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through the intellectual shifts of the Enlightenment, the challenge of science in the 19th century and the decline in churchgoing in the 20th century, to show how it has nevertheless remained an active force, shaping people's beliefs and practices, to the present day. We will look at 'lived religion' as well as religious belief; the importance of women to the life of the churches despite the persistent prohibition on their taking leadership roles; the underside of the Enlightenment in the form of the slave trade, and the role of the churches in abolishing that trade; the place of prophecy in challenging the institutional churches; the ways in which the nation state shaped religious identity; the rise of new religious movements in the nineteenth century, many of them 'unorthodox'; the increased engagement with other religions and the globalisation of Christianity through travel, missionary movements and immigration patterns; and finally the extraordinary vehemence of the 'new atheists' of our own day, pointing to the re-emergence of religion as a political and cultural force. Our focus will be Britain and Europe, though we will from time to time look at other parts of the world when our stories and sources lead us to do so. Readings will include both primary and secondary sources.
C192 - History of Information	Staff
TuTh 9:30-11 180 Tan
Instructor: Paul Duguid Also listed as Info C103, and Cognitive Science C103
This course explores the history of information and associated technologies, uncovering why we think of ours as "the information age." We will select moments in the evolution of production, recording, and storage from the earliest writing systems to the world of Short Message Service (SMS) and blogs. In every instance, we'll be concerned with both what and when and how and why, and we will keep returning to the question of technological determinism: how do technological developments affect society and vice versa?
200X - The Bancroft Library Press Room Course: "The Hand Printed Book in its Historical Context"	Ferriss & Koch
Mon 12-4 Fri 1-5 Off Campus
Updated November 4, 2008
There are two offerings of this course: one taught by Peter Koch on Mon 12-4, and the other taught by Les Ferriss on Fri 1-5.
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 instructors (Peter Koch at pkoch@library.berkeley.edu and Les Ferriss at lesferriss@earthlink.net) 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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Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Upper Division courses - Spring 2009