Professors Cole, Hirai (on leave, 2002-2003), Grafflin (on leave winter semester and Short Term), Jones, Hochstadt, Chair, Tobin, and Creighton; Associate Professors Carignan and Jensen; Visiting Associate Professor Koshiro; Assistant Professors Guerra and Hall; Mr. Beam and Ms. Lexow

History has been defined as the collective memory of things said and done, arranged in a meaningful pattern. Such knowledge of the past supplies context, perspective, and clarity in a diverse and changing world. The members of the history department offer widely different views of the history of a broad variety of peoples, yet they agree that the study of the past provides meaning in the present and informed choices for the future.

The study of history teaches an appreciation of both change and continuity, the critical examination of evidence, the construction of arguments, and the articulation of conclusions. In addition to teaching and to graduate studies in history and law, majors find careers in related fields, such as work in museums and archives, public service, indeed any profession requiring skills of research, analysis, and expression.

Courses in the history department are designed to be taken in sequence: first, introductory survey courses (100-level), then more specialized intermediate courses (200- and 300-level), and ultimately advanced seminars (390). While nonmajors are welcomed in any history course, all students are encouraged to begin their study of history with 100-level courses.

Cross-listed Courses. Note that unless otherwise specified, when a department/program references a course or unit in the department/program, it includes courses and units cross-listed with the department/program.

Major Requirements. Majors must complete at least nine courses and the mandatory Short Term unit or eight courses, the mandatory Short Term unit, and one other Short Term unit. Majors choose a primary concentration from one of the following five fields: East Asia, Latin America, Europe, the United States, and premodern history. The primary concentration includes six courses in the chosen field: one 100-level course; three more specific courses in that field, which may include 200- or 300-level courses, a Short Term unit, or a First-Year Seminar; one 390 seminar; and a senior thesis (History 457 or 458).

Majors must take two courses from either of the two following fields: East Asia or Latin America. Students whose primary concentration is in one of these two fields must take two courses in any other field. Courses that are listed in two fields may be counted in either field, but not in both.

Mandatory Short Term Unit. All history majors must complete History s40, Introduction to Historical Methods, which focuses on critical analysis, research skills, and historiography. Students are strongly advised to do so no later than the end of their sophomore year, and must do so by the end of their junior year. This requirement is a prerequisite for registering for the senior thesis. Majors must present to the department chair an acceptable plan for completing this requirement before being approved for study abroad in their junior year.

Senior Thesis. All senior history majors write a thesis in the fall or winter semester (History 457 or 458). Thesis writing develops the skills learned in earlier courses and demonstrates the ability to work independently as a historian. To ensure that students have adequate background knowledge of their topic, the department recommends that a senior thesis grow out of an existing paper. The student should bring this paper to the thesis advisor when initially discussing the subject of the thesis. This works best when the paper has been written for a Junior-Senior Seminar (History 390), but students may also use papers written for 200-level courses. A major planning a fall thesis must consult with a thesis advisor in the previous spring; those planning winter theses must consult with thesis advisors in the fall of the senior year.

Pass/Fail Grading Option. Pass/fail grading may be elected for courses applied toward the major except for the following courses: any History 390 course, History 457, History 458, and History s40.

Departmental Honors. The honors program in history focuses on a major research project written during both semesters of the senior year (History 457 and 458), allowing more time for the maturation of a satisfying project. This also helps to indicate the competence, discipline, and independence sought by graduate schools and potential employers. The candidate presents the two-semester, double-credit thesis to a panel of professional readers. This increases the required number of history courses and units for an honors major to eleven. For honors students, there is also a foreign language requirement of competence at the intermediate level (most commonly met by satisfactorily completing the fourth semester of college language). This level of study should be regarded as the bare minimum for students considering graduate work in history.

Successful completion of an honors major requires imagination, critical judgment, and good writing. Therefore the history department invites majors with exceptional academic records to consider the honors program. Invitees are informed toward the end of their junior year. Any invitee who intends to pursue an honors thesis should discuss his or her proposed topic with an advisor by 1 September of the senior year.

External Credits. Majors must take a minimum of six history courses and units from Bates faculty members. This means that students may use a maximum of four credits taken elsewhere (transfer or off-campus study courses) toward the major requirements. Advanced Placement credits, awarded for a score of four or five on the relevant examination, may count toward overall college graduation requirements, but do not count toward the history major.

Students considering graduate study in history should achieve at least a two-year proficiency in a foreign language, and should take some work in American and modern European history prior to taking the Graduate Record Examination.

Secondary Concentration. The secondary concentration in history consists of at least six courses or units. The history department's offerings cover an enormous range in space and time. Like history majors, secondary concentrators should focus their studies in one of the department's areas of specialization and also sample at least one other area outside of the modern U.S. or European experience. Secondary concentrators should also take at least one course at the highest level, the 390 seminars. The six courses and/or units must consist of: 1) At least three courses and/or units in one of the history department's areas of concentration: United States, Europe, Latin America, East Asia, or premodern. Of these three, one must be at the 100 level and one must be a 390 seminar. 2) At least one course must be in Latin American or East Asian history, or if the focus is in one of these areas, at least one course must be in any other area of concentration.

Pass/Fail Grading Option. Courses for a secondary concentration in history can be taken pass/fail except for History s40 and any 390 seminar.

General Education. Any one history Short Term unit may serve as an option for the fifth humanities course. Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or A-Level credit awarded by the department/program may not be used towards fulfillment of any general education requirements.

Courses

CM/HI 100. Introduction to the Ancient World. This course introduces the Greco-Roman world, and serves as a useful basis for 200- and 300-level courses in classical civilization. Within a general chronological framework students consider the ancient world under a series of headings: religion, philosophy, art, education, literature, social life, politics, and law. The survey begins with Bronze Age Crete and Mycenae and ends with the first century B.C.E., as Rome makes its presence felt in the Mediterranean and moves toward empire. Not open to students who have received credit for Classics 100, Classical and Medieval Studies 100, or History 100. (Premodern.) Normally offered every other year. D. O'Higgins.

CM/HI 102. Medieval Europe. Far from being an "enormous hiccup" in human progress, the medieval centuries (circa 350-1350) marked the full emergence of Islamic, Byzantine, and West European civilizations. These powerful medieval cultures shape our present. The central theme of this introductory survey course is the genesis and development of a distinct Western European medieval civilization including its social, economic, political, and cultural aspects. Important topics include the devolution of the Roman Empire; the Christianization of the West; the origins of the Byzantine world; the rise of Islam; and the history of medieval women. Not open to students who have received credit for History 102. (Premodern.) Normally offered every year. M. Jones.

HIST 104. Europe, 1789 to the Present. An introduction to modern European history. The course analyzes major events, such as the French Revolution, the development of capitalism, and the two world wars. It also introduces students to the uses of evidence by historians. Materials include primary documents, secondary texts, novels, and film. Themes that run throughout the course are class conflict, gender relations, and the developing relationship between the state and the individual. Normally offered every year. S. Hochstadt.

CM/HI 106. Greek Civilization. This course considers: 1) the archaic civilization of Homer, a poet celebrating the heroes of an aristocratic and personal world; 2) the classical civilization of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Phidias, the dramatists and sculptor of a democratic and political Athens; 3) the synthesis of Plato, celebrating the hero Socrates and attempting to preserve and promote aristocratic values in a political world. Not open to students who have received credit for History 201. (Premodern.) Normally offered every year. J. Cole.

CM/HI 107. Roman Civilization. In this course students explore Roman civilization at the end of the Republic, examining first the places of Roman life and analyzing how the Romans built their walls, temples, markets, and stadiums and why they chose to. Students also explore the people and the nature of the activities they engaged in at these locations, seeking answers to questions like: What did the Romans eat for breakfast? Recommended background: Classical and Medieval Studies/History 100, Classical and Medieval Studies 101, History 201. Not open to students who have received credit for Classical and Medieval Studies 206. (Premodern.) Normally offered every other year. M. Imber.

HIST 140. Origins of the New Nation, 1500-1820. The first course in a three-course sequence that presents the American experience from a deliberately interpretive point of view. The current theme is the continuous redefinition of liberty through the various stages of American development. The course employs primary and secondary sources, lectures, and discussion to examine political, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of change and continuity and contrasts between ideals and reality. Normally offered every year. J. Hall.

HIST 141. America in the Nineteenth Century. The second course in a three-course sequence that presents the American experience from a deliberately interpretive point of view. This course examines American development from the 1820s to the twentieth century. Sectional conflict, civil war, immigration, and western expansion are highlighted. Normally offered every other year. M. Creighton.

HIST 142. America in the Twentieth Century. This course surveys the American experience in the twentieth century from a deliberately interpretive point of view, examining political, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of life in the United States. Special attention is directed to the impact of war, corporate globalism, and movements for change upon the development of an increasingly complex, variegated modern society confronting the paradox of simultaneous social segmentation—by race, class, gender, ethnicity—and cultural homogenization. Students consider the disjunction between Americans' democratic ideals and their administered reality and what can be done to heal the split. Normally offered every year. H. Jensen.

HIST 144. The Social History of the Civil War. This course examines the causes and course of the American Civil War. The course considers military campaigns, but it focuses on the ways that different social groups, including African Americans, women, and Southern and Northern whites, defined the war, carried it out, and remembered it. Normally offered every other year. M. Creighton.

HIST 171. China and Its Culture. An overview of Chinese civilization from the god-kings of the second millennium and the emergence of the Confucian familial state in the first millennium B.C.E., through the expansion of the hybrid Sino-foreign empires, to the revolutionary transformation of Chinese society by internal and external pressures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (East Asian; premodern.) Normally offered every year. D. Grafflin.

HIST 172. Japan: Myths, Stereotypes and Realities. This course surveys the development of Japanese culture and society from earliest times to the mid-nineteenth century and discusses myths, stereotypes, and realities about Japan's so-called traditions and characteristics. Topics to examine include: the emperor's institution, samurai (warrior) culture, women's place in society, feudalism versus anti-authoritarian tradition, cosmopolitanism versus isolationism, and towns and villages, all in a comparative framework of world history. In addition to reading primary sources in English, class participants regularly watch taped segments on relevant topics from Japanese TV programs today, thus achieving a balanced sense of a living past in today's Japan. (East Asian; premodern.) Normally offered every year. A. Hirai. New title and description beginning Winter 2003.

AS/HI 173. Korea and Its Culture. The course examines the distinctive evolution of Korean civilization within the East Asian cultural sphere, from its myths of origin through its struggles to survive amidst powerful neighbors, to the twentieth-century challenges of colonial domination and its poisonous legacies of civil war and division, and the puzzles of redefining a hierarchical Neo-Confucian state in the context of global capitalism. Not open to students who have received credit for Asian Studies 173 or History 173. (East Asian; premodern.) Normally offered every other year. M. Wender, D. Grafflin.

HIST 181. Latin American History: From the Conquest to the Present. This course explores the history of Latin America as a process of cultural transformation, political struggle, and drastic economic change. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and primary source materials, this course analyzes the evolution of colonialism, the reasons for its collapse, and the complex challenges that its legacies have posed to emerging nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In particular, students consider how the social construction of identities (in terms of race, class, gender, and culture) relate to systems of control, strategies of resistance, and ideological change over time. (Latin American.) Normally offered every year. L. Guerra.

CM/HI 203. Great Wars of Greek Antiquity. Much of the perennial appeal of the history of the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War lies in storied confrontations of East and West, empire and freedom, rise and fall, folly and intelligence, war and peace, victory and defeat. More of the interest for the reflective student lies in the critical use of the classical sources, especially Herodotus and Thucydides, and in the necessary qualification of those too-simple polarities, East/West, empire/freedom, rise/fall, folly/intelligence, war/peace, victory/defeat, and, of course, good/bad. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for History 202. (Premodern.) Normally offered every other year. J. Cole.

CM/HI 207. The Roman World and Roman Britain. The Roman Empire is famous for its decline and fall. Stretching from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, however, this remarkable multiethnic empire persisted for five hundred years. Its story is a fascinating example of what Theodore Mommsen tagged the moral problem of "the struggle of necessity and liberty." This course is a study of the unifying and fragmenting forces at work on the social, economic, and political structures of the Roman imperial world. Key themes include the western provinces and Roman Britain, the effects of Romanization on conquered peoples, and the rise of Christianity. The survey begins with the reign of Augustus and concludes with the barbarian invasions of the fifth century. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for History 207. (Premodern.) Normally offered every other year. M. Jones.

CM/HI 209. Vikings. The Vikings were the most feared and perhaps misunderstood people of their day. Savage raiders branded as the Antichrist by their Christian victims, the Vikings were also the most successful traders and explorers of the early Middle Ages. The Viking Age lasted for almost three centuries (800-1100 C.E.), and the Vikings' world stretched from Russia to North America. Study of the myth and reality of Viking culture involves materials drawn from history, archeology, mythology, and literature. Prerequisite(s): History 102. Not open to students who have received credit for Classical and Medieval Studies 209 or History 209. (Premodern.) Offered with varying frequency. M. Jones.

HI/WS 210. Technology in U. S. History. A survey of the development, distribution, and use of technology in the United States from colonial roadways to microelectronics, using primary and secondary source material. Subjects treated include the emergence of the factory system; the rise of new forms of power, transportation, and communication; sexual and racial divisions of labor; and the advent of corporate-sponsored scientific research. Enrollment limited to 40. Not open to students who have received credit for Women and Gender Studies 210 or History 210. Normally offered every other year. R. Herzig.

HIST 215. The Jewish Diaspora of Latin America. This course explores the causes, culture, and experience of Jewish immigration in Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, and the Dutch colony of Curaçao. It uses the diverse minority experiences of Jews to illustrate common historical patterns in the development of these societies. Topics include the obsession of Latin America's ruling elites with "whitening" their countries as a step toward modernization; the rise of the urban labor movement; revolutions in Europe and their connections to radical anti-imperialist and leftist politics in Latin America; and the reliance of Latin American states on terror to repress calls for social change during the last two decades of the Cold War. Recommended background: Latin American, Jewish, Holocaust history; courses dealing with race and identity, immigration and nationalism. (Latin American.) Normally offered every other year. L. Guerra.

HIST 221. History of Russia, 1762-1917. Despite a backward political and social structure, Russia has been a world power since the eighteenth century. This course considers how Russia's rulers from Catherine the Great to Nicholas II tried to prevent the forces of Western ideas and industrialization from weakening their power, causing radical intellectuals, peasants, and workers to join together in a unique revolutionary movement. The course ends with a study of the successful overthrow of the government in 1917 and the creation of a Bolshevik state. Recommended background: History 104. Offered with varying frequency. S. Hochstadt.

HIST 222. History of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. The history of the Soviet Union has turned out differently from the hopes of the revolutionaries in 1917. Beginning with an analysis of the Revolution and its aftermath, this course studies the growth of the Bolshevik-Communist government under Lenin, the attempts to create a workers' state and culture in the 1920s, the transformation of state and society under Stalin, the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower after 1945, and the dissolution of the USSR in the 1990s. Gender and class are used as important categories of analysis. Recommended background: History 104. Offered with varying frequency. S. Hochstadt.

HIST 223. The French Enlightenment. Eighteenth-century men of letters broke radically from traditional and previously authoritative ideas, values, and beliefs. Simplifying outrageously, they challenged the sovereignty of the Christian faith, preaching instead varieties of rationalism, liberalism, and utilitarianism. For their opponents, now as then, this is to risk making a god of the dear self. For sympathizers, it marks the beginning of modernity. The course centers on five great figures: Descartes, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, whose works are read in translation. Research projects can be designed to serve French majors. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for French 353. Normally offered every other year. J. Cole.

HIST 224. The French Revolution. This course considers three periods and related problems: 1) the pre-Revolutionary Old Regime and its defining political, religious, and social structures; 2) the "more moderate" Revolution of 1789-1791, which destroyed the old order of throne and altar, nobles and nobodies, in order to construct a new order of liberty and equality; 3) the "more radical" Revolution of 1792-1794, which defended this new order and its principles by acknowledged terror, while giving political voice to numbers of ordinary French men and women and formally emancipating rebellious slaves in the Caribbean colonies. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. J. Cole.

HIST 227. Germany in the Era of the Two World Wars. Between 1914 and 1945, Germany's diplomacy and territorial ambitions precipitated two world wars, with terrible consequences for soldiers and civilians; during the same period Germany experienced one socialist revolution, an experiment in democracy, and a racist dictatorship. Between the wars, German dramatic and visual artists were among the most exciting in Europe. This course examines Germany during this period of extraordinary cultural and political ferment, seeking to understand its causes and its legacy for us today. Recommended background: one history course. Offered with varying frequency. E. Tobin.

HIST 228. Inventing Equalities, Experiencing Inequalities. This course studies the lives and works of four great figures who, having experienced real inequalities, produced classics contrarily advocating—even inventing—ideal equalities. The four are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frederick Douglass, and Karl Marx, and the respective equalities/inequalities are those of order, gender, race, and class. The course collectively pays particular attention to the historical settings of these persons, while encouraging students individually to relate their democratic ideas to the realities of our contemporary world. Open to first-year students. Offered with varying frequency. J. Cole.

HIST 229. The Holocaust in History. No event has shocked Western sensibility as much as the mass murder of European Jews and others by Nazis and their collaborators. How could Europeans, who considered themselves highly civilized people, have engaged in premeditated genocide? This course begins by contrasting the rich culture of European Jews around 1900 with the rise of modern anti-Semitism. The focus of the course is the gradual escalation of Nazi persecution, culminating in concentration camps and mass murder. The varied reactions of Jews and non-Jews in Europe and America are a central subject. Recommended background: History 104 or 227. Enrollment limited to 130. Normally offered every other year. S. Hochstadt.

CM/HI 231. Litigation in Classical Athens. This course studies the practice of law in ancient Athens. About 100 speeches survive from the fourth century B.C.E. in which Athenians contested everything from wills and property disputes to the worthiness of political candidates for office and the proper conduct of domestic and international affairs. Study of these speeches illuminates not merely the procedural organization of law in the Athenian democracy, but also the nature of political, social, and cultural structures in Athens. Consequently, the course concentrates as much on the various methodological approaches scholars have applied to the orations as on learning the mechanics of Athenian legal procedure. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for Classical and Medieval Studies 231 or History 231. (Premodern.) Offered with varying frequency. M. Imber.

EC/HI 232. Britain's Prime and Decline, 1870-2000. In the late Victorian period, Britain was In the late Victorian period, Britain was not only the "workshop of the world", it it was also the world's banker and leading trading nation. However, the rise of Continental powers, followed by the United States, challenged Britain's leadership of the international economy. By 1929 the British economy was beset by depression, foreign economic competition, and the prospect of industrial and financial stagnation. This course examines why decline occurred and how British governments struggled to prevent it. The changing fortunes of the British economy are examined, together with the increasingly determined efforts of governments to dictate economic progress. Prerequisite(s): Economics 101 or 103. Enrollment is limited to 22. M. Oliver. Formerly Economics 232. New cross-listing beginning Winter 2003.

HIST 240. Colonial New England, 1660-1763. This one-hundred-year period in New England's history is filled with crises: a new imperial system, the Glorious Revolution in England, accompanied by rebellions in the colonies, wars against the Indians, the French, and—in Massachusetts—against the Devil. Less dramatic but equally traumatic were economic and social changes that struck at the heart of Puritan self-confidence. By the end of this era, however, New England had regained a new self-image and revived sense of "mission" as a chosen people. Recommended background: History 140. (Premodern.) Offered with varying frequency. Staff.

HIST 241. The Age of the American Revolution, 1763-1789. A study of the Revolution from its origins as a protest movement to one seeking independence from Britain. The course examines differences among Americans over the meaning of the Revolution and over the nature of society in the new republic. The debates over state and national constitutions help to illustrate these differences. The course considers the significance of the Revolution for Americans and for Europeans as well. Recommended background: History 140. Offered with varying frequency. Staff.

HIST 243. African American History. Blacks in this country have been described as both "omni-Americans" and a distinctive cultural "nation within a nation." The course explores this apparent paradox using primary and interpretive sources, including oral and written biography, music, fiction, and social history. It examines key issues, recurrent themes, conflicting strategies, and influential personalities in African Americans' quest for freedom and security. It surveys black American history from seventeenth-century African roots to present problems remaining in building an egalitarian, multiracial society for the future. Recommended background: one of the following: History 140, 141, or 142. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every other year. H. Jensen.

HIST 244. Native American History: Contact to Removal. In this course, students consider how scholars study groups of people who had no formal written language, and what happens when different civilizations meet. How did Europeans and Indians affect one another? The course focuses on the fifteenth through the middle of the nineteenth centuries, from pre-contact native groups through the early national period and the effort of the new American nation to remove Indians from the eastern part of the country. Students examine both Native American voices and European voices to explore the meanings of the encounters for both of these groups. They also consider the lasting effects of these interactions. Recommended background: History 140 or 141. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every other year. J. Hall.

HIST 249. Colonial North America. This course seeks to rectify the common misconception that American colonial history consists only of the thirteen British colonies of the Atlantic seaboard. Instead, students examine the colonial period from a continental perspective, examining a number of societies that Europeans, Americans, and Africans created in North America before 1800. Combining historical readings with primary sources such as documents, paintings, and architecture, students can appreciate the wide variety of American colonial experiences and some of the ways these societies were connected. Open to first-year students. J. Hall. New course beginning Winter 2003.

HI/WS 252. A Woman's Place: Region and Gender in the United States, 1800-1950. We often take the northeast as a given perspective in American history, thereby marginalizing people and events of other places. This course undermines the northeastern standard in women's history, by considering not only the social construction of region and gender, but by giving attention to the histories of diversely "placed" women. Using a case study approach, this course looks at women from the early 1800s through to the present and the way they shape, traverse, and contest the American geographies they inhabit or are assigned, whether public or private, rural or urban, temporary or lifelong. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. Offered with varying frequency. M. Creighton.

HIST 261. American Protest in the Twentieth Century. This course examines the persistent and uniquely American impetus toward individual liberty, equality, and collective moral reform by studying a variety of protest movements and representative dissenters from Emma Goldman to the Ruckus Society of 1999 Seattle. It consequently investigates the development and interplay of American variants of anarchism, socialism, pacifism, syndicalism, racial egalitarianism, counter-culture feminism, radical environmentalism, sexual freedom, and the new anti-corporatism along with their influences—intended and fortuitous—upon the larger society. Recommended background: History 142. Normally offered every other year. H. Jensen.

HIST 265. Wartime Dissent in Modern America. Periods of war—whatever their justifications—have proven to be dangerous times for American civil liberties. The price of patriotic unity is often paid directly by American dissenters targeted—by political or racial profiling and repressive legislation—for government surveillance, harassment, prosecution, detention, internment, imprisonment, and deportation. This course explores whether such costs are ever defensible, why dissenters risk such sanctions, and what the long-term consequences of even short-term curtailments of freedom portend for the future of American democracy. Conflicts from World War I through the contemporary "War on Terror" are examined. Open to first-year students. Offered with varying frequency. H. Jensen.

HI/WS 267. Blood, Genes, and American Culture. The course places recent popular and scientific discussions of human heredity and genetics in social, political, and historical context. Topics include racial categories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, eugenics, the "gay gene," cloning, reproductive rights, the patenting and commercialization of genetic material, The Bell Curve, and the Human Genome Project. Recommended background: course work in biology. Enrollment limited to 40. Not open to students who have received credit for History 267 or Women and Gender Studies 267. Offered with varying frequency. R. Herzig.

HIST 271. The United States in Vietnam, 1945-1975. This course examines United States military and political intervention in Vietnam, which became a dominant—and divisive—issue in the post-World War II era. Topics explored include the origins and development of Vietnamese anticolonial resistance movements, the Cold War and the evolution of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, the U.S. decision to intervene and later withdraw, domestic opposition to the war, and the impact of the conflict on Americans and Vietnamese. The objective of the course is to develop a coherent historical understanding of what became one of the costliest conflicts in U.S. history. Enrollment limited to 50. (East Asian) Normally offered every year. C. Beam.

HIST 274. China in Revolution. Modern China's century of revolutions, from the disintegration of the traditional empire in the late nineteenth century, through the twentieth-century attempts at reconstruction, to the tenuous stability of the post-Maoist regime. Recommended background: History 171. (East Asian.) Normally offered every year. D. Grafflin.

HIST 275. Japan in the Age of Imperialism. A course on Japan's modern transformation necessitated by the global expansion of the West's imperialism and colonialism in the nineteenth century. In the spirit that "imitation is the best defense," Japan adopted many Western institutions and technologies in government, law, defense, industry, and foreign affairs. Along with them came cultural and social changes. But not all was well with this Westernization as modernization. This course examines the nature of nineteenth-century imperialism, Japan's adaptation to it, and the vast majority of Japanese who bore the burden: peasants, industrial workers, women, and children. Recommended background: History 172. (East Asian.) Normally offered every other year. A. Hirai.

HIST 276. Japan since 1945 through Film and Literature. A course on Japan since World War II. A brief survey of Japan's prewar history is followed by a detailed analysis of postwar developments. The focus is cultural and social history, but these aspects of postwar Japan are examined in their political, economic, and international context. Study materials combine great works of literature and film with scholarly writings on related subjects. Kurosawa's Rashomon is viewed in conjunction with a book on the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Kobo Abe's novels and their film renditions are coupled with excerpts from Marx's treatises on alienation in capitalist society. Open to first-year students. (East Asian.) Normally offered every other year. A. Hirai.

HIST 278. Taiwan. On 20 May 2000, with the inauguration of a president from the opposition, Taiwan added political democracy to the list of Chinese historical achievements. This course surveys the history of the island from seventeenth-century piracy to the emergence of the world's twelfth-largest trading power. Open to first-year students. (East Asian.) Normally offered every other year. D. Grafflin.

HIST 280. Revolution and Conflict in the Caribbean and Central America. This course focuses on the Caribbean and Central America, a region whose internal struggles for national sovereignty and social change have been shaped by the interests and interventionist policies of the United States. Specifically, it seeks to explain the origins, development, and dialectical relationship between United States imperialism and the emergence of nationalisms in Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Haiti. By understanding the conditions under which certain groups were included and excluded from power in these national states, students explore ideologies of modernity and civilization, the growth of corporate capital, labor struggles, and the impact of the Cold War. Open to first-year students. (Latin American.) Not open to students who have received credit for History 390H. Normally offered every other year. L. Guerra.

HIST 288. Environment, Development, and Power in Latin America. This course traces how models of development, discourses of nation, and images of the environment became linked to national and international systems of unequal power in Latin America. Covering the nineteenth century through the present, students consider such topics as the rise of coffee, the Amazonian rubber boom, myths of modernity, the evolving struggles of indigenous peoples for control of natural resources, the politics of conservation, and the commodification of environmentalism itself. Case studies include Brazil, Argentina, and Costa Rica. Recommended background: History 181, 280, and/or related study. Open to first-year students. (Latin American.) Normally offered every other year. L. Guerra.

HIST 290. Gender and the Civil War. This course uses gender analysis to study the causes, course, and repercussions of the American Civil War. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for History 390C. Offered with varying frequency. M. Creighton.

HIST 360. Independent Study. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester. Normally offered every semester. Staff.

HIST 365. Special Topics. A course or seminar offered from time to time and reserved for a special topic selected by the department. Staff.

HIST 374. Understanding Chinese Thought. Reading (in translation) the three greatest books ever written in Chinese, as a way of understanding the foundations of East Asian culture. The works are the philosophical/religious anthologies known as the Analects (attributed to Confucius), the Chuang-tzu (commonly labeled Taoist), and the Buddhist scripture, Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (as translated in 406 from a source now unknown). Willingness to engage in the close reading and discussion of a wide variety of philosophical materials is required, but no background in Asian studies is assumed. (East Asian; premodern.) Offered with varying frequency. D. Grafflin.

HIST 390. Junior-Senior Seminars. These seminars provide opportunities for concentrated work on a particular theme, national experience, or methodology for advanced majors and nonmajors alike. Junior and senior majors are encouraged to use these seminars to generate thesis topics.

HIST 390A. Japan's War Against the United States. This seminar examines Japan's war against the United States within a larger context of the Sino-Japanese War and World War II in Europe and attempts to debunk myths about Japan's fanaticism in executing a holy war. After surveying Japan's geopolitical, strategic, and diplomatic intrigues, roles of culture and ideology and, above all, comprehensive war goals, seminar participants write a research paper that best explains how a trans-Pacific war of vengeance resulted in a creation of far more complex new Asia. Participants learn to analyze Japanese archival materials, pamphlets, memoirs, and other publications. Enrollment limited to 15. (East Asian.) Normally offered every other year. A. Hirai. New title and description beginning Winter 2003.

CM/HI 390D. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon's classic Decline and Fall is the most famous work of history written in English. This course uses it as an introduction to the problem of the collapse of complex, premodern societies and specifically the end of the Roman West. Changing historical explanations for the fall of Rome are a microcosm of Western historiography. Students also explore basic questions on the nature of history and historians. Enrollment limited to 15. Not open to students who have received credit for History 390D. (Premodern.) Offered with varying frequency. M. Jones.

AA/HI 390E. African Slavery in the Americas. African Slavery in the Americas. Of the millions of immigrants who arrived in North and South America during the colonial period, the majority came not from Europe but from Africa, human property facing a lifetime of bondage for themselves and their offspring. Far from being the "peculiar institution" that whites in the North American South called it, slavery existed throughout the Americas before its abolition in the nineteenth century. By reading contemporary scholarship and examining primary sources like music, letters, autobiographies, and material artifacts, students gain a sense of the ways Africans and African Americans survived and influenced an institution that sought to deny their humanity. Enrollment is limited to 15. J. Hall. New course beginning Winter 2003.

HIST 390F. The American West. Focusing in particular on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this course considers the changing cultural, economic, and social landscapes of the American West. Class discussion and readings pay special attention to the way that the West as an imaginary construct intersected with the West as an experienced reality, and to the history of contact between Native Americans and Euro-Americans. After completing an intensive overview of the subject, participants produce a carefully researched paper. Enrollment limited to 15. Offered with varying frequency. M. Creighton.

CM/HI 390I. Anglo-Saxon England. This seminar concentrates on Dark Age Britain (circa 400-800 C.E.). This period is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Ignorance and obscurity offer one advantage to students: the sources are so few that they may be explored in a single semester. The course is designed to present typical kinds of early medieval evidence (saints' lives, chronicles, annals, charters, poetry, genealogy, archeology), introduce students to their potentials and difficulties, and then set a series of problems that requires application of these materials to gain an answer. Enrollment limited to 15. Not open to students who have received credit for History 390I. (Premodern.) Offered with varying frequency. M. Jones.

HIST 390J. Laboring Classes, Dangerous Classes. The increase in the numbers of industrial workers in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alarmed politicians, the wealthy, and academics. Some reformers and revolutionaries acclaimed workers as the agents of a better world. Were workers dangerous to the status quo? This course considers how historians and others in the past have perceived workers, explained patterns of accommodation and resistance to employers and the government, and analyzed the role of gender in workers' labor and politics. Students use this background to construct their own understandings of whether laboring classes were always dangerous classes. Enrollment limited to 15. Normally offered every other year. E. Tobin.

HIST 390K. Modern American Intellectual History: From Cultural Pluralism to Multiculturalism and Beyond. Conflicting definitions of an American intellectual "tradition" and its significance to the development and maintenance of a strong multicultural democratic community have been at the heart of our civic conversation for most of the last century. Armed with that insight, students explore a variety of influential primary sources—social theory, historiography, biography, and literature—by Americans who have thought deeply and critically about the nation's most pressing problems without regard to disciplinary bounds or personal consequences. The course balances close textual reading with analysis of the individual quirks, social origins, and temporal contexts of representative thinkers from 1917 to the present. Enrollment limited to 15. Offered with varying frequency. H. Jensen.

HIST 390L. Shanghai, 1927-1937. The Nationalist government of the Republic of China had a single decade in power before full-scale Japanese invasion threw it on the defensive. One spot in particular where it had to prove its ability to govern a modern society and economy was the special Shanghai municipal zone. Scholarly attention in recent years has focused on the surviving archives of the British-controlled police force in the International Settlement. Students have the opportunity to evaluate recent scholarship and pursue their own projects in the microfilm edition of the archives. Recommended background: History 171 and 274. Enrollment limited to 15. (East Asian.) Offered with varying frequency. D. Grafflin.

HIST 390M. Holocaust Memoirs: Gender and Memory. In this course students use close textual readings, gender analysis, and scholarship on memory to think about Holocaust memoirs as sources of our knowledge about camp inmates' experiences. Students look both at women's and men's experiences in the camps and at the ways each has chosen to write about them. Did the different kinds of socialization women received at home mean they behaved differently from men in the camps? To what extent do male and female survivors describe similar experiences differently? How should historians regard texts written from memory? Recommended background: course work in German history, Holocaust studies, or gender analysis. Enrollment limited to 15. Normally offered every other year. E. Tobin.

HIST 390P. Prelude to the Civil Rights Movement. This course explores the forgotten years of the civil rights movement, the seedtime of black protest and insurgency, from the New York Riot of 1900 to the Supreme Court's landmark desegregation decision in 1954. Emphasis is placed upon the development of protest techniques, conflicting organizational strategies of advance, leadership struggles, and the flowering of distinct and innovative cultural forms. Harlem, the cultural capital of black America, is examined as a paradigmatic case study of the effects of northern migration, urbanization, and proletarianization on America's bellwether minority. Enrollment limited to 15. Normally offered every other year. H. Jensen.

HIST 390T. Men and Women in Japanese History. The seminar examines women and men in Japanese history from ancient to modern times. Study materials are taken from various sources: myths, government documents, literary works, scholarly writings, and films. Some of the personalities portrayed in these sources are historical figures, others are fictive. Together they enable students to follow the evolution of the relationship between the sexes as well as their respective lives in history. The course attempts to identify religious, economic, political, biographical, and other variables that best explain gender roles and relations. It also introduces perspectives comparing Japanese experiences and ideas with those in other parts of the world. Enrollment limited to 15. (East Asian.) Normally offered every other year. A. Hirai.

HIST 390U. Colony, Nation, and Diaspora: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. This seminar explores the cultural and political dimensions of national struggles for liberation and their connections to the U.S. Latino experience. Using scholarly texts as well as novels, poetry, and plays, students engage the historical dynamics between U.S. imperialism and Caribbean nationalisms in the twentieth century. In particular, they study the cases of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic and their exile/migrant communities in the United States. Recommended background: History 181, 280, and/or relevant study in related fields. Enrollment limited to 15. (Latin American.) Offered with varying frequency. L. Guerra.

HIST 390W. The Civil Rights Movement. Between 1954 and 1968, the civil rights movement rearranged the terrain and composition of American social relations, altered the domestic agenda of American politics, created a hopeful climate for change, unleashed hidden turbulences of racial nationalism and gender division, and broached still unanswered questions about the nation's uneven distribution of wealth. It enunciated the moral vocabulary of a generation. By critically examining primary documents, film, audio records, social history, and participant testimony, this course seeks to deflate the mythology surrounding this subject and comprehend it as "living history" infused with new meaning for the present. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every year. H. Jensen.

HIST 390X. French Diseases, English Cures. Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1690) and Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) established opposition traditions that still largely define political choices: liberalism and conservatism. Yet both books supported the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent Settlement in England, and each author reacted against contemporaneous French thought and practice. This seminar considers the thinkers, their books, and the French ideals and realities against which they reacted, "the French disease" of monarchical absolutism associated with Louis XIV and the Revolutionary fevers of the National Assembly and rioting crowds in 1789. Enrollment limited to 15. Not open to students who have received credit for History 225. Normally offered every other year. J. Cole.

HIST 390Z. American Migration Myths. Alexis de Tocqueville once observed, “In the United States a man builds a house in which to spend his old age, and he sells it before the roof is on." Americans seemed perpetually to be seeking to improve themselves by leaving home. The transformative power of migration appears not just in the Frenchman’s rendition of the archetypal “frontier myth," but also in the migration legends of many Native American peoples, the accounts of slaves and their descendants, and the contemporary experiences of Maine’s immigrant communities. This course explores the forces that shape (and the stories that explain) migrations, using these experiences to understand how people use acts of uprooting and resettlement to define themselves. Enrollment limited to 15. J. Hall. New course beginning Winter 2004.

HIST 457, 458. Senior Thesis. The research and writing of an extended essay in history, following the established practices of the discipline, under the guidance of a departmental supervisor. Students register for History 457 in the fall semester and for History 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both History 457 and 458. Normally offered every year. Staff.

Short Term Units

HIST s12. Film, Food, and Baseball in Cuba. This unit explores the social and political codes embedded in the cultural rituals and practices of sport and leisure in Cuba. In the unit, hands-on cooking lessons mesh with intellectual debates over the cultural implications of socialist food rationing and the nationalist underpinnings of Cubans' love of baseball. In addition to completing readings on the politics of sport, students view and analyze how Cuban films illuminate themes of state power and the changing meanings of social justice from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Recommended background: Study of Latin America. Enrollment limited to 20. (Latin American.) Offered with varying frequency. L. Guerra.

HIST s15. Pacifism in Twentieth-Century Japan. An uninterrupted pacifist tradition has thrived among Japanese people since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 that continued through World War II and beyond. Those pacifists were women, students laborers, political activists, adherents of various religious beliefs, or just ordinary people who did not want war. By examining their letters, diaries, pamphlets, and other publications (all in English translation), seminar participants understand their goal and desire and also their influence inside and outside Japan and evaluate limits and potentials for their successes, not to mention their overall contributions. Y. Koshiro. New unit beginning Short Term 2003.

HIST s16. Leadership Studies. Students review recent theories of leadership as presented by Gardner, Heifitz, and Burns. The unit emphasizes different perspectives on the nature of leadership drawn from other historical epochs, distinctive cultures, and different disciplines. Students spend three days each week associated with a leader in a local organization studying leadership and engaging in leadership activities and issues. Enrollment limited to 12. Offered with varying frequency. J. Carignan.

HIST s30. Food in Japanese History. This unit examines the food and dietary practices of the Japanese from prehistoric times to the present. Of particular concern is the connection between food and religious rites and beliefs. Students consider what people ate and avoided on which occasions of life and for what reasons. They also inquire into the dietary habits of the deities and the dead. Students visit local eateries as well as practice their own culinary skills to sample Japanese food. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. (East Asian.) Offered with varying frequency. A. Hirai.

HIST s33. The Development and Legacies of Slavery in Cuba. Based in the old colonial town of Trinidad, Cuba, this unit examines the experience and long-term impact of slavery as the central axis of Cuba's cultural, economic, and political life for over three hundred years. Study combines reading and discussion of classic works in the history of Cuban slavery with excursions to eighteenth-century sugar plantations, walking tours of Trinidad, Havana, and Cienfuegos as well as visits to historical museums, art galleries, and lessons in Afro-Cuban dance. Students spend a total of three weeks in Trinidad and one week in Havana. Prerequisite(s): History 181, 215, 280, 288, or 390U and good Spanish language proficiency. Enrollment limited to 10. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. L. Guerra.

HIST s40. Introduction to Historical Methods. This unit provides an intensive introduction to research skills, historical literature, and the principles and methods of historical critical analysis (historiography). The unit is team-taught to acquaint students with a variety of historical assumptions and methodologies ranging from the perception of history as fiction to the belief that history is the accumulation of objective data about an ascertainable past. This unit provides important preparation for the senior thesis. Recommended background: a college-level course in history. Required of all majors. Open to first-year students. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every year. Staff.

HIST s50. Independent Study. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term. Normally offered every year. Staff.

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