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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
Prisons and Public History: the Spectacle of Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary: This course will simultaneously explore the history of prisons and the practice of public history. The course will end with a week-long field trip to a unique historical site, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. We will discuss the uses and potential abuses of public history by comparing current day issues in penal reform to the presentation of prison history at Eastern State. The United States is uniquely committed to the use of prisons. Since 1980 America's prison population has almost quadrupled. The US is first amongst all industrialized nations in its per capita incarceration rates. Why would a country so committed to "freedom" be so vigorous in its use of prisons? What better place to answerthis than in Philadelphia? Where else could one simultaneously view a "shrine of liberty" such as the Liberty Bell, as well as one of the mostinfluential prisons ever constructed a prison whose prolonged use of solitary confinement for all prisoners took incarceration to its logical extremes? For decades after it was built in the 1820's, Eastern State attracted flocks of visitors intent on copying its construction. In this course we will explore what such a pilgrimage could accomplish for the public today.
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4.00 Credits
The course begins with China's humiliating defeat in the Opium War, and, through missionaries, millenarianism, and modernization, opens the 19th century to inquiry. After examination of China's last Empress, and the chaotic revolution, China's searing experience with Japanese aggression in World War II will be analyzed. The Korean War, Cultural Revolution, and the rise of reform under Deng bring us to the present, where China's staggering economic growth and cultural power present challenges and opportunities for the United States. Gender, modernity, and the tension between stability and human rights form core themes in this course.
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3.00 Credits
This course is focused on the Korean experience in the 20th century. Korea's ancient roots and the occupation of the country by Japan will form the first week of the course. The second week examines the Korea's pivotal role in the Cold War, which witnessed further foreign occupation, division of the country, and the devastating Korean War. The las week of the course will probe at prospects of divided Korea, seeking to understand the North Korean psychoses as Juxtaposed with the vibrant South Koreans and Korean-Americans.
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4.00 Credits
Japan's meteoric rise to prominence after the Meiji Restoration is examined against the backdrop of Japanese tradition and the Darwinian imperatives of foreign policy. From emperor to commoner, Japanese society underwent sharp changes in the twentieth century, necessitating our engagement with questions of social class and gender in analyzing the dislocations of Japanese modernity. Students will focus on how Japan embroiled itself in the Second World War, attempting to understand how the holocaust of war shaped, and perhaps twisted irrevocably, Asian views of Japan into the twenty-first century. Questions of war and memory thus form a core theme in the latter part of this course, but we will also deal in lively fashion with such topics as Japanese baseball and the explosion of Japanese popular culture onto the world stage.
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4.00 Credits
Part of a special program of studies in British culture designed to be taught in Cambridge, England, during the Cambridge Quarter. Readings and lectures on topics of British social, political and intellectual history. Preference is given to upperclassmen. Offered off-campus only.
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4.00 Credits
Concubines, Mothers, and Saints: European Women and the Family, C. 200-1500: This class is designed to explore the major developments in the history of women and family from c. 200 to c. 1500 with a special emphasis on social and cultural history. The core of the course will investigate late Roman, early Christian, and early Germanic women's roles and how these three cultures fused in medieval Europe to form a unique milieu for the women's experience. A related theme that we will examine is the interplay between religion, social institutions, and politics.
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3.00 Credits
Kings and Vikings: the Formation of England: This class is designed to explore the social, religious, and political history of early medieval Britain from the end of the Roman occupation to the Norman conquest. The course investigates the information of the kingdom of England and the role that the Vikings played in that development. In order to assess the Scandinavian influence on Britain, we will also study the Vikings at home and in their various overseas kingdoms. A related theme that we will examine is the interplay between religion, social institutions, and politics.
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4.00 Credits
Spinsters and Suffragists: Modern European Women and Gender: This class is designed to explore the major developments in the history of women, gender, and the family from c. 1500 to the present with a special emphasis on social and cultural history. The core of the course will investigate how the modern ideals of liberty and equality have been both denied to and applied to women. The course will also examine European institutions and events that have shaped women's lives, in particular, political and industrial revolutions and the world wars. A related theme that we will discuss is the interplay between ideas, social institutions, and politics.
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3.00 Credits
Colonization and Exploitation: the British Empire: This class explores the political, economic, and intellectual history of the British Empire. The course investigates the formation of the empire and its role in the modern world. We will study the interplay among ideas, social institutions, and politics; this examination will help us to understand how and why the British influenced the cultures of the peoples they ruled. The course will also sharpen your use and understanding of the historical method-the critical use of both narrative and record sources to reason about the past.
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4.00 Credits
Evolving Hierarchies in Latin American History: The subjugation and exploitation of people and resources has been an enduring feature of the Latin American world. The forms of hierarchy that accomplished such exploitation, however, have been immensely variable. When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World they were able to engraft themselves atop existing hierarchies erected by Indian peoples. The encomienda and mita systems capitalized on Aztec and Incan tribute systems. These systems, coupled with a slave labor system, built with imported Africans, would allow Spain and other European nations to extract great riches milfrom their New World empires. When Americanos overthrew European rule in the early nineteenth century, colonial class and race hierarchies, nonetheless, endured. White Creoles benefited from the loss of European rule, but the postcolonial world was little different for the broad base of people beneath them. While late nineteenth century liberalism would sweep away some conservative legacies, it would also help bring Latin American countries into neocolonial relations. The United States would come to exert enormous economic and political influence over this region of the New World. The fact that twentieth century waves of nationalism could celebrate the mestizo, that is, mixed race, character of Latin American countries, shows how far these nations had moved beyond their colonial past. And yet, the neocolonial subjugations imposed by their northern neighbor endure.
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