HIST 302W.001 Studies in the Founding Fathers
Schedule # 264112
T R 2:30P - 3:45P
Instructor: Dr. Wilson Moses
The great orators of the American Revolution, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the Framers of the Constitution disagreed on many points, from the separation of church and state to the right of the President to executive privilege. They attacked one another constantly, and, indeed, one of them killed another in a duel. Thus, the "original intent" of "The Founders" on Constitutional issues is extremely difficult to discern. This course focuses on the political thought and the literary excellence of those who shaped the Foundation Period of the United States, and concentrates on six of the Founders, including Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. To these we shall add Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. The secondary literature of this course will include one book of moderate length on each of these six Founders, focusing on the ideology and political achievements of each. These books will be supplemented by weekly selected readings in the writings of each Founder and one additional book to be announced. This course will require an essay on each of the six Founders, which may be around 2,000 words in length. There will also be a final examination of the objective type, which will bedesigned to test the thoroughness of your reading, and scored numerically. Perfect attendance and active oral participation are among the normal expectations for students in the College of Liberal Arts at the Pennsylvania State University.
HIST 302W.002 Gender and the History of Women in the Modern Middle East
Schedule # 264115
W 2:30P - 5:30P
Instructor: Dr. Janina Safran
This course investigates trends in politics, society, and culture in the history of the modern Middle East with a focus on gender and the history of women. We will begin with the “Great Transformation” of the nineteenth-century and consider how major economic, social, political and cultural changes and developments associated with imperialism and integration into the global economy affected understandings of masculinity and femininity, the legal and political status of women, work, and the experience of women and men in relation to each other. Moving into the twentieth century we will consider these questions in the context of nationalism and independence movements, political regimes espousing liberal democracy and socialism, authoritarian rule and Islamist opposition movements, and the Islamic Revolution and foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will take a comparative approach, considering developments across countries, with a more concentrated focus on Egypt and Iran (students may do their research on other countries). Students will be required to write short papers every week and submit a substantial research paper at the end of the semester.
HIST 302W.003 Asian and Latin American Immigration 1882 to 1996
Schedule # 299521
TR 1:00P – 2:15P
Instructor: Dr. Grace Delgado
This course analyzes the causes and consequences of Asian and Latin American immigration into the United States from 1882 to 1996. Students will explore the relationship between U.S. economic and foreign policies and immigration, transnational ties between immigrants and their homelands, and the economic, political, and cultural influences of Asian and Latino immigrant communities on American society.
Historically, the United States has favored European immigration over Asian and Latino immigration with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and the National Origins Act of 1924. In 1952, however, Congress removed racial barriers to immigration and naturalization, abolished the national origin quota system in 1965, and provided amnesty for 3.7 million undocumented immigrants under the Immigration Act of 1986. Furthermore, U. S. intervention in Southeast Asian, Central America, and the Caribbean spurred the entry of refugees into the United States. Today, Asians and Latinos are the fasting growing populations in the United States, due mostly to immigration.
Students will investigate:
- Domestic and international forces shaping immigration patterns both recent and historical
- The history of U. S. immigration laws (e.g. Chinese exclusion, Gentleman’s Agreement, IRCA)
- Varieties of immigrant experiences, contrasting arrival/survival experiences (border/non-border)
- Immigration laws and current debates about U.S. immigration/refugee policy; Proposition 187 in California (1994), anti-immigrant Congressional laws of 1996
- The post-industrial economy (economic restructuring, NAFTA) and immigrant labor
HIST 302W.004 Contemporary Relevance of Confucianism
Schedule # 299527
W 2:30P - 5:30P
Instructor: Dr. On-cho Ng
This is a writing-intensive seminar designed to help students develop writing and research skills by focusing on the following topic: the contemporary relevance of Confucianism through a historical examination of the ideological assumptions and political culture of the tradition. We are interested in what Confucianism has to say about human rights and global ethics. Confucianism, as political ideology and socio-cultural ethic, seems to promote collective good at the expense of individual rights and creativity. But can the core Confucian values provide the grounds for pluralistic manifestations? In what way can Confucianism be related to liberal, humanistic thinking? Do the conceptual apparatuses and symbolic resources in Confucianism offer cultural capital for a global ethic that features human rights? What are the problems engendered by the contemporary appropriation and manipulation of Confucianism?
HIST 302W.005 The Conquistadors
Schedule # 322261
R 2:30P - 5:30P
Instructor: Dr. Matthew Restall
This reading and writing seminar explores the history of the Spanish invasions, conquests, and early settlements in the Americas. We will follow the development of the latest historiographical movement in this field, known as the New Conquest History. Rather than following the traditional old narratives that emphasized military encounters and privileged the perspectives of the Spanish conquistadors, the NCH emphasizes multiple narratives and protagonists. We will pay particular attention to regions hitherto dismissed as marginal, and to indigenous and black conquistadors. We will read accounts written not only by Spaniards, but also by Aztecs and Mayas. Most of our sources will be texts translated into English, but we will also examine visual evidence, such as the pictorial accounts made by indigenous conquistadors.
You will be expected to attend every class session; your grade will be based on your attendance and participation in discussion, and on three papers, due approximately every five weeks.
History 302W Course Descriptions - Spring 2010
HIST 302W.001 Cairo as Microcosm of the Islamic World
Schedule # 371107
M 2:30P - 5:30P
Instructor: Dr. Jon Brockopp
This history seminar takes a single city as its subject, one that is unfamiliar to most students. Founded by a Shicite sect in 969 C.E., Cairo (al-Qāhira) is now the second largest city in Africa and the capital of the Arab world. By exploring the ways people have written about its history, we see how lawyers, Shīcites, and Sufis shaped, and were shaped by, their city. By looking at a single location from the late antique up to the modern day, we can discern enduring patterns and subtle shifts in historical representation.
As a 302W, our focus is on reading and writing history. I have selected books that exemplify several different ways of writing history, and will supplement this with translations of works by Muslim historians. Our class will also focus on material culture as we study the growth patterns of Cairo and the beauty of Cairene architecture, probing these structures for their relationships to ritual, politics and daily life.
HIST 302W.002 Earth Day and the Rise of the Environmental Movement
Schedule # 371110
T 2:30P - 5:30P
Instructor: Dr. Adam Rome
The first Earth Day in 1970 was the biggest demonstration in U. S. history. Because Earth Day now is mostly a corporate-sponsored celebration for kids, the scale and energy of the inaugural event is hard to imagine. The first Earth Day was bigger by far than any civil-rights march or antiwar demonstration or woman's liberation protest in the 1960s. Earth Day activities took place in parks, school auditoriums, and places of worship, on city streets, and in front of corporate and government office buildings. About 1,500 colleges held Earth Day teach-ins. So did roughly 10,000 schools. Millions of Americans took part. Earth Day helped to spark an explosion of environmental legislation and activism–the so-called 'Environmental Decade' of the 1970s.
In this seminar, we will explore the causes and consequences of Earth Day 1970. We will read a few works about the history of the environmental movement as background. In addition, we will explore the celebration of Earth Day at Penn State. The principal assignment will be a research paper of roughly 15 pages. Our goal will be to understand the significance of the first Earth Day in modern American history.
HIST 302W.003 Self, God, and Society in the West: From Antiquity to the Renaissance
Schedule # 371113
W 6P-9P
Instructor: Dr. R. Hsia
Focusing on some key questions in western civilization introduces students to several classic texts from biblical and Greco antiquity to the Renaissance. Two common themes are central: first, the relationship of the individual to divinity (ies), and second, the relationship of the individual to a larger community, be it family, state, or society. Through a close reading and discussion of selected texts, this course will explore the complexities of these relationships: from harmony, antagonism, resistance, submission, to manipulation. Readings include selections from the Bible, Sophocles, Plato, Virgil, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Teresa of Avila.
HIST 302W.004 Themes in American Southern History
Schedule # 401677
R 6P - 9P
Instructor: Dr. Dan Letwin
What, historically, has it meant to be a "southerner"? In what ways has the South contributed to-and in what ways deviated from-the American identity as a whole? Which (if any) generalizations on southern "character" can hold up against the region's enormous diversity of background, perspective, and experience? This seminar will probe the many mysteries and paradoxes that make up the southern past. Drawing on a mix of original documents and historical writing, we will explore not only the history of the South itself, but also the great controversies over how that history should be understood, and presented.
The course will trace the history of the American South from its colonial beginnings to the present. Among the topics explored will be the origins and development of southern slavery, the evolving ideals of southern "womanhood," the relations between the planter elite and the "common folk," the roots and outcome of the Confederate rebellion, emancipation and the meanings of freedom, southern farmers and workers in revolt, the rise of Jim Crow, traditionalism and modernism in New South culture, the civil rights revolution, and the direction of the South today.
Although reading and discussion are an essential feature of the seminar, writing is equally important. In addition to weekly two-page responses to the readings, each student will develop (in consultation with the instructor) a carefully designed research project, involving extensive use of primary sources. Through a series of prospectuses and drafts, the research project will culminate in a 15-20 page paper.
HIST 302W.005 Topics in American Jewish History
Schedule # 371116
W 4P - 7P
Instructor: Dr. Bill Pencak
The course will examine a variety of sources for writing history culminating in a research paper of about 20 pages. During the semester, we will examine how sources including cemeteries, newspapers, genealogy, architecture, art, literature, memoirs, and music can be used to write history. Examples will be taken from and papers will deal with a topic of the student's choosing in American Jewish history. Papers will be presented to the class at the end of the semester; students can use computers, power-point, etc. but are not required to do so.
HIST 302W.007 The Long Nineteenth Century: Work and ambition in nine long novels
Schedule # 424387
T 2:30-5:30
Instructor: Dr. Sophie DeSchaepdrijver
First, a word of warning: do not take this class if you do not like to read voluminous 19th-century novels. If you do, however, and are familiar with modern western history (having taken Hist 002 or HIST 120), you will find in this class an exploration of the shifting meaning of ambition, work, and personal pride through nine classic works of European and U.S. fiction (such as Charlotte Brontë's Villette, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, and five others). How do these books represent striving, effort, the quest for personal fulfillment through work? What does these books' representation of these themes tell us about the cultures in which they were written (or against which they were written)?
This class will be reading-heavy: expect 300 pages of fiction a week, plus, on occasion, a little scholarship (1-2 articles a week). Rest assured, however: there will be little or no literary scholarship–we will approach these novels strictly as historians. You will be expected to write short (2-page) response papers every week, to give six short spoken presentations, to take turns leading the discussion, and to write two 12-page essays, one at midterm, one at the end of the semester. In your essays, you will explore one particular ambition-related theme in a 19th-century novel (either a novel from our reading list… or one outside of it), and place it in precise historical context, using the relevant historiography. For instance, you can interpret Brontë's Villette against the backdrop of middle-class women's (very restricted) career options in the 1840s.