SECOND SEMESTER 2008-09
GRADUATE LEVEL COURSES
Consult BannerWeb for registration codes.

HST 428/528 Russia’s War and Peace – T R 11:00-12:15
Dr. Stephen Norris

This course will introduce students to the history of nineteenth-century Russia by using Tolstoy’s War and Peace as a guide. We will discuss society, politics, culture, family life, wars, national identity, and other themes addressed in the novel. In addition to completing War and Peace, we will make use of a wide range of other sources, including memoirs, secondary critiques, films, music, and art that all discuss Russia and Europe during the Napoleonic era.

AMS/HST 433/533 Oral Tradition: History and Practice - W 7:00-9:40 pm
Dr. Nishani Frazier

Traces the use of oral tradition in historical writing and introduces theory and practice of oral history as a methodology basic to historical research.

HST 434/534 China along the Silk Road before 1600 -- T R 9:30-10:45
Dr. Yihong Pan

When the European explorers arrived in China in the sixteenth century, they found a huge empire that showed no interest in developing trade with the West. There then grew the myth that China was a self-centered “Middle Kingdom,” uninterested in any contact with foreigners. The realities were far more complex. China “discovered” the Silk Road in the second century B.C.E. and from then onwards the transcontinental road played an important role in China’s interactions with other peoples. This course examines such interactions and the roles the Silk Road played in enriching Chinese culture and history.

HST 436/536 Havighurst Colloquium: Religion and Russian Culture (4 credits) – M W 12:00-1:50
Dr. Scott Kenworthy (Comparative Religion)
History Major: European Advanced

HST 437/537 Latin American Environmental History -- T R 5:00-6:15 pm
Dr. Tatiana Seijas

As a field of history, the study of the environment focuses on the relationship between humans and their natural surroundings. It assumes that an understanding of the past requires that we examine how people have altered the landscape and reacted to environmental challenges. This has been a long-standing interaction, so the periodization for the course is from the first migrations to the Americas to the present. Latin America encompasses modern Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the South American continent. This vast region has been home to societies with varying degrees of environmental sustainability. Some have sought to limit agricultural and other forms of extraction, while others have come close to depleting their natural resources. The course focuses on particular examples across time and space with the goal of understanding peoples’ perceptions of the environment and the economic and cultural factors that have led to soil exhaustion and deforestation, among other environmental problems.

HST 702 Research Seminar – M 2:00-4:40
Dr. Allan Winkler

Development and presentation of an original piece of research, based on primary sources, in one’s field of emphasis.

HST 710 Colloquium in American History – M 6:00-8:40
HST 780 Colloquium in World and Comparative History
Topic: Religion in the Atlantic World
Dr. Carla Pestana

From the foundation of the first Spanish colonies in the Caribbean until the end of the colonial period in the Americas, European expansion brought the religions of the invaders into contact both with each other and with the faiths of the people they encountered, conquered or enslaved. This aspect of the encounter has been studied for various locations, ranging from New Spain to New England, from New Mexico to Sierra Leone; occasionally scholars have tried to pull together the larger story, to send this history in an Atlantic framework. This course will explore a variety of instances of religious encounter in various locations throughout the Atlantic World. Early English America will play a part in this course, but it will range well beyond that framework to encompass the Atlantic more generally.

HST 794 History and Theories – T 7:00-9:40 pm
Dr. Kevin Osterloh

Introduction to theories and models of the practice of history from 1850 to the present.

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