Graduate Courses - Spring 2021
It should be noted that while 6000 courses also include undergraduate students (4000 level), a distinct set of reading, writing, and grading expectations is maintained for graduate students.
Spring On Campus (Face to Face) Courses
HIST 7320/8320 Studies in Ancient History - Dr. Peter Brand
R 2:30pm-5:30pm
In this course we will be reading several important historical hieroglyphic texts
in the original language, focusing on monumental texts from the New Kingdom. The aim
of this course is to gain an understanding of how Egyptologists derive and interpret
historical data from Egyptian inscriptions. By examining the literary style, the nuance
of specific terms and phrases as well as the rhetorical devices used by the Egyptians,
students will be better prepared to critique both the original sources and modern
translations of the same by scholars. Students are welcome, even encouraged, to consult
modern translations of these texts where available, but I expect you to produce your
own original translations reflecting your own interpretation of the grammatical structure
and lexicography of the texts.
Prerequisites: Students should have at least one year of Middle Egyptian and must
obtain the instructor's permission to sign up.
Spring Remote Courses
Remote classes will have some synchronous elements (discussion, lecture, etc.) Please read the course description carefully so you are prepared.
HIST 6050 Archaeology and History – Dr. Suzanne Onstine
REM TR 2:40pm - 4:05pm
History and Archaeology in general ask the same kinds of questions about humanity
but use different methods to answer those questions. This class will introduce students
of history to the practice of archaeology and the importance of material culture as
primary sources. Additionally, archaeology is one of the primary ways textual source
material is discovered and brought to the attention of historians, yet the study of
the material culture context of texts is often lacking. An interdisciplinary approach,
or at the very least an awareness of material culture investigations and its possibilities
will help students find new ways to approach historical issues. This course will require
streaming internet (i.e. zoom) for course discussions.
HIST 6051 The Global Early Modern Coffee Trade: Research Methods -- Tyler Kynn
REM TR 11:20am - 12:45pm
This upper level research seminar (4000/6000 level) teaches students the skills needed
to research early modern English archival documents, form research questions from
primary sources, and present their research dataset through data visualization and/or
through ArcGIS mapping. Students do not need a background in the discipline of History,
digital humanities, or Islamic World history to take this course. This course is meant
to introduce students to all these topics and no prior background knowledge is required.
The research skills and methods introduced to students in this course will be grounded
in the history of the coffee trade in the early modern Red Sea and Indian Ocean world.
Students will work with 17th and 18th-century archival records from the East India
Company's trading post in the Yemeni port city of Mocha, paired with English narrative
sources and select records from the East India Company's major port of Surat. While
working to read these primary sources together as a class, students will be reading
published primary and secondary material related to the early modern coffee trade
in the Ottoman Empire, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean World. During the second
half of the course, students will work in groups to produce a excel database of historical
information collected from the archival material and turn that into either an ArcGIS
map of the coffee trade [6000 level] or work towards visualizing the data (graphs,
tables, or charts) collected from the documents [4000 level]. Students need to be
able to stream lectures as this course will be provided synchronous over Zoom.
HIST 6680: Emergence of Modern America, 1877-1914 – Dr. Caroline Peyton
REM MW 12:40pm - 2:05pm
This course examines two periods of immense importance in American history: the Gilded
Age and the Progressive era. In less than forty years, American society, culture,
and its economy experienced changes that were nothing short of revolutionary. With
great rapidity, American society from the 1870s to the 1910s featured an epic clash
between Victorian ideals and modern culture. Electrification, wireless communication,
and the dawn of the automobile age created new possibilities and new problems. Americans
sought relief from the pressures and constraints of modern life with an array of leisure
activities—professional sports, cycling, motion pictures, and amusement parks. Even
as modern technology transformed American lives, this same period galvanized an emerging
environmental movement, who sought to preserve and conserve the nation's natural resources
and its wilderness spaces. The debates from this period continue to resonate even
today. Ranging from the distribution of wealth; to labor, civil rights, and immigration;
to the many reform movements of the time, Americans viewed these issues from many
different perspective, which this course explores. To understand contemporary American
society, the emergence of the modern United States is an essential starting point.
The course will meet in-person, with a hybrid format if needed, but I will also offer a remote option for students who would like to take the class remotely.
HIST 6880 Slavery, Freedom, and Segregation - Dr. Beverly Bond
REM TR 11:20am - 12:45pm
African Americans from 1820s to early 1900s; social, political, economic developments;
antebellum slavery and freedom; impact of westward expansion; Civil War emancipation
and post-war construction of freedom; development and impact of legal and extra-legal
segregation; black nationalism and PanAmericanism; Progressivism through beginnings
of Great Migration.
HIST 7882/8882 20th Century African American Historiography - Dr. Brian Kwoba
REM M 2:30pm - 5:30pm
This course will engage with a series of themes relating to the African American historiography
of the 20th century. In particular, we will pay attention to exploring the role of
race, class, and gender by engaging with some of the most recent as well as standard
works of scholarship in the field. Through an engagement with a range of different
scholars, historical figures, and social movements, we will critically assess the
utility of various interpretive lenses for understanding the history of African-American
lived experience. The course will be taught remotely, with synchronous elements that
require streaming video (i.e. zoom).
HIST 7101/8101 Studies in Global History: Science, Empire, and Responses - Dr. Beverly
Tsacoyianis
REM T 2:30pm - 5:30pm
This graduate seminar surveys topics in early modern and modern global, world, and
comparative history. Each week there will be one book and one or more articles on
important themes in science and empire: technologies of rule, global implications
of cross-cultural contact (including trade, migration, and conquest,) responses to
imperialism, anti-colonial movements, and history and memory. Students will write
two book reviews, participate in class discussions, make two presentations on course
readings, review world history textbooks or build a sample syllabus, and write a comparative
paper and final review essay on significant research in a particular field of global
history. This seminar will be of interest to students of all historical fields and
related academic disciplines seeking to develop comparative historical models in their
own areas of research. While a one-semester course cannot fully cover such a large
field, our material will introduce students to a number of major themes and approaches
in global history with most of our case studies focused on areas of Europe, Africa,
and Asia. The framing question of the course is: how have studies of science and empire
framed analysis of the past in global history? Through small group work, lecture,
student presentations, and assignments, students will hone skills in reading, writing,
public speaking, and critical thinking. For Spring 2021 this course is remote synchronous,
but the synchronous part will be only on Tuesdays from 4pm to 5:30pm on Zoom. The
Zoom meetings will be recorded and posted to our eCourseware weekly Content. The rest
of our week will be asynchronous in eCourseware with required weekly discussion board
posts by students and instructor-posted audio, video, and pdf files in our eCourseware
Content.
Spring Online Courses
Online courses are fully online and completely asynchronous.
HIST 6321 Greek Experience – Dr. Chrystal Goudsouzian
WEB-Online Asynchronous
This course surveys the history of the Greek peninsula and the greater Aegean from
the Bronze Age c. 3000 BCE to the death of Alexander the Great 323 BCE. It traces
the political, social, and intellectual developments of the ancient Greeks through
literature, art, architecture, philosophy, and material culture. This course pays
special attention to Greek daily life and social dynamics. The course will be online
and asynchronous; students will need to be able to stream video lectures and/or documentaries
each week to complete course requirements.
HIST 6361 Byzantine Empire - Dr. Whitney Kennon
WEB-Online Asynchronous
Byzantine or East Roman Empire from 330 to 1453 and its influence on Slavic, Turkic,
and Islamic peoples.
HIST 6461 Europe in the Age of Total War, 1914-1945 -- Dr. Dan Unowsky
WEB-Online Asynchronous
These volatile and violent decades transformed Europe and the world. The Great War,
unprecedented in its brutality, swept away the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg empires
and gave rise to new (and reborn) "nation-states". The interwar years witnessed some
diplomatic, economic, and political successes; however, these short-lived triumphs
did not prevent the outbreak of war in 1939. The horrors of World War II and the population
transfers and massacres that followed set the stage for the Cold War.
We begin by exploring the causes of the First World War, the experience of war on the battlefield and at the home front, and the Bolshevik Revolution. We will then turn to consider interwar Europe: the Stalinization of the Soviet Union; the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany; economic and political crisis in East Central Europe; politics and society in Great Britain and France; European imperialism; art and culture. The final section of the course focuses on World War II and the Holocaust.
HIST 6831 US Family History – Dr. Sarah Potter
WEB-Online Asynchronous
This course will interrogate the history of diverse American families from the Colonial
era to the present, paying particular attention to the roles of gender, race, and
class in shaping family life. We will examine changing structures of power and authority
within families, and the changing relationship between the family and the state. We
will also consider how the emotional meaning ascribed to family relationships has
changed over the course of American history. The course will involve reading primary
and secondary historical sources, viewing a variety of documentaries and other streaming
media, weekly quizzes on the course materials, and weekly class discussions. For undergraduates,
there will also be a midterm paper, a final paper, and a final exam. Graduate students
will read 3 additional books and write book reviews, and they will write a final paper.
HIST 6851 US Women's History - Dr. Christine Eisel
WEB-Online Asynchronous
This course presents women's experiences throughout American history, from the colonial
period to modern times, with an emphasis on women's working, family, sexual, and political
lives. In this course, you will explore the ways in which women's public and private
lives intersected with, and were often defined by, changing ideals of gender, sexuality,
race, and class. Your work in this course, will enhance your ability recognize and
develop connections between historical issues and life outside the classroom; improve
your ability to think critically and argue effectively; and enhance your ability to
examine current issues from a historical perspective. As a graduate student, you will
read, review, and discuss 4 monographs over the semester and lead a discussion forum.
HIST 7070 Research Seminar - Dr. Andrei Znamenski
WEB-Online Asynchronous (M50 and 410 sections available)
HIST 7100 Global Historiography - Dr. Andrew Daily
WEB-Online Asynchronous
This course provides an introduction to the major schools of global historiography
and to some of the concepts, issues, and methods that historians have used to write
global history. This course adopts a genealogical approach, starting with the early
theoretical precursors and then follows the historiography up through its contemporary
manifestations. Topics include: civilizational histories; the difference between world,
global and transnational histories; Marxism and world-systems theory; postcolonialism
and postcolonial studies; race and racism; settler colonialism; empires and imperialism;
Black diaspora; decolonization; ecological histories; histories of capitalism; and
globalization. Students will familiarize themselves with: the major methodologies
and theories of global historiography; the issues and questions that have driven research
in global history; and the assumptions and blind spots of global historiographic approaches.
HIST 7980 Thematic Studies in US History: Popular American Music and Performance -
Dr. Cookie Woolner
WEB-Online Asynchronous
This asynchronous graduate course explores the emergence of a variety of music and
performance genres in early and modern America. Drawing on cultural studies and theory
along with the histories of music, theater, and culture, this course will begin with
the birth of blackface minstrelsy, situating issues of race, power, and commerce as
central throughout the semester's readings. Vaudeville, burlesque, blues, jazz, swing,
rock 'n' roll, country, soul, disco, punk, and hip hop will be some of the genres
covered as we seek to understand how issues of power and politics have influenced
music and popular culture and vice versa. Students will write weekly reading responses,
participate in weekly online discussions, and write historiographical papers based
on their own interests in the topic.