Course Descriptions for Spring 2017
Department of History
METHODS
HIST 201 – Doing History: Human Migrations (Dr. Fabian)
Recent events in Syria and North Africa have impacted much of the world on account of the
migration of millions of human refugees from those regions. While this is not a lecture course
about the history of human migrations, it uses this subject as a means to provide an introduction
to the methods and skills of historical analysis. Students will have flexibility to study a particular
aspect of the history of human migrations based on their own historical interests, although their
choices may be curtailed based on accessible primary sources. Students might examine what
provokes people to leave their homes and migrate, or they might study the challenges that migrants
face in adapting to their adopted home. We will explore various types of historical sources, the
approaches used by historians, and the tools of historical research and analysis. You will learn
how to do basic historical research; how to assess and interpret historical evidence; how to read a
scholarly article; understand the meaning of historiography; and how to organize and present
historical information using analytical writing. This course will also fulfill part of your GenEd
Basic Oral Communications requirement.
HIST 495 – Capstone: Impact of World War I in the United States (Dr. Litwicki)
Although the U.S. only had a brief role in the fighting, WWI had a tremendous impact on American
society and culture. In addition to expanding the role of the U.S. as a global power, the war
contributed to the passage of the 18th & 19th Amendments (Prohibition & Women’s Suffrage) as
well as immigration restriction laws; brought the beginnings of IQ testing; amplified the New
Negro movement as well as the first Great Migration; spurred large scale labor strikes, a Red Scare,
and bloody race riots; produced a condition called “shell shock” (now known as PTSD) in many
veterans; and, of course, brought the deadly influenza pandemic. In this senior seminar we will
focus on the impact of WWI rather than the actual war, and students will choose research topics
accordingly.
UPPER LEVEL COURSES
*HIST 305 – Renaissance Europe (Dr. Arnold)
The course introduces the student to the concept of “Renaissance” as it emerges and coalesces in
numerous contexts from the fourteenth through the early sixteenth centuries. We understand the
Renaissance not as a discrete historical period but rather as a cultural movement that appeared
during the Late Middle Ages. During the first half of the semester we explore the advent of this
intellectual movement against the social, cultural, and economic background of the fourteenth
* denotes a course that contributes towards the major requirement of taking at least 6 credits above the
100 level in courses that focus on the period prior to 1800.
century. There follows a tour of Italy with an overview of the political, cultural, and economic
currents of the wealthy Italian city-states. The second half of the course charts the reception and
adaptation of Italian ideas in northern Europe, primarily in royal courts and urban areas. Core
themes include humanism, republican political theory, art and architecture, self-presentation and
gender, and new forms of technology.
HIST 316 – Twentieth Century Russia (Dr. Staples)
This course focuses on the great Soviet social, economic, and political experiment. It examines a
system of government that relied upon violent coercion to gain the obedience of its population,
and it explores the human costs of that system. The course begins with a look at the Tsarist
antecedents of the Soviet Union, and concludes with the post-Soviet consequences.
HIST 334 – African American History Since 1877 (Dr. Hildebrand)
This course will provide students with a chance to analyze the historical concerns, interests, and
problems confronting African Americans from Reconstruction through the modern age. We will
also study the impact African Americans have had on the nature and direction of American life
and culture during the 20th century. Among other topics, we will focus our attention on the African
American community, stressing heritage and history, and discussing their search and struggle for
equality, human rights, and identity in the United States. This class is very important for anyone
who wishes to understand American History. America is a made up of diverse cultures; anyone
who wishes to understand American History must be thoroughly grounded in the contributions of
all those who make up our culture.
HIST 342 - The American Century (Dr. Kinkela)
In 1941, magazine magnet, Henry Luce, wrote and published his influential essay, “The American
Century.” In it, Luce called on Americans to look beyond U.S. borders to tackle the problems of
the world, including the threats of fascism in Europe and Asia. Yet aside from the military
intervention of World War Two, Luce also believed that the U.S should “bring forth a vision of
America as a world power which is authentically American and which can inspire us to live and
work and fight with vigor and enthusiasm.” Using Luce’s essay as a framework, this class will
examine the U.S role in the world throughout the twentieth century. We will examine how U.S.
foreign policy changed over time and will consider the domestic and international impact of
America’s interaction with the global community.
* denotes a course that contributes towards the major requirement of taking at least 6 credits above the
100 level in courses that focus on the period prior to 1800.
HIST 359 – Ethnicity and Race (Dr. Aarim)
This course examines race and ethnic relations in the United States and in other contemporary
multiethnic/multiracial societies, including South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and France. The course
is divided into three units. First, we study some basic concepts, such as ethnicity and race, racism
and ethnicism, racial and ethnic stratification, prejudice and discrimination, and the theoretical
models of race relations. Then the course moves to an examination of the role of ethnicity and race
in shaping collective and personal identities in the United States. Finally, we consider patterns of
race and ethnic relations in other societies while adopting a comparative perspective--vis-à-vis the
American (U.S.) case. Our global approach will emphasize the prevalence of intergroup conflict
in the modern world.
*HIST 386 – Global Studies (Dr. Vink)
History 386 deals with the topic of cross-cultural contacts or encounters between representatives
of different cultures and societies from the early sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Following
a brief historical background section, the course focuses, in a rough chronological order, on four
case studies of cross-cultural interaction from Africa, the Americas, and Eurasia. These “cases”
include the Aztecs and Spaniards in Central Mexico during the "Conquest" (1519-1521); the
Mughals and Dutch in Northern India during the reign of Emperor Jahangir (1605-1627); Zulus
and British in Southern Africa during the Mfecane or "Time of Trouble" (1816-1840); and
Chippewas or Ojibway and Euro-Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States after
the War of 1812 to the Treaty of La Pointe (1815-1854).
*HIST 397 – Themes in European History: History of Christianity II (Dr. Lyon)
This course provides a survey of the history of Christianity from the Reformation to the present
day in the context of broader political and social developments. The course is divided into five
parts. The first part provides an introduction to the academic study of religion and foundational
texts and concepts in the study of Christianity. The other four parts take up the major themes of
the course. The first theme relates to the clarification of doctrine in the Protestant and Catholic
Reformations of the sixteenth century. The second theme is the rise of rationalism and contested
notions of authority in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The third theme of
the course is missions and inculturation. This part of the course explores not only missionary
expansion into “new” parts of the world from the sixteenth century onwards but also Christianity’s
confrontation with modernity. This created a new mission for the churches in Europe and other
industrialized parts of the world. The final part of the course, “Twentieth-Century Voices,”
considers several themes that emerge most strikingly in the last century: liberalism,
fundamentalism, neo-orthodoxy, Christian existentialism, ecumenism, charismatic and pentecostal
movements, liberation theology and feminism.
* denotes a course that contributes towards the major requirement of taking at least 6 credits above the
100 level in courses that focus on the period prior to 1800.
*HIST 398 – Themes in World History: Colonial Latin America (Dr. Rivera Vaca)
This course explores the colonial history of Mesoamerica, South America and the Caribbean from
XV to XVIII Century from a Latin American perspective —which means from the voices of those
who saw it happen— through oral tradition and texts. It emphasizes the way indigenous, African
descent, mestizos and creoles expressed their own cultural features in written texts and in the
baroque art as a form of resistance and syncretism. Therefore, the course includes the study of
works of painting, architecture, festivals, and music of that period.
* denotes a course that contributes towards the major requirement of taking at least 6 credits above the
100 level in courses that focus on the period prior to 1800.