HISTORY 235: Global Voyages: Navigating the Early Modern World (HISTORY 335, HISTORY 435A)
[Graduate students completing a two-quarter research seminar must enroll in 435A in Winter and 435B in Spring.] This seminar explores global travel, knowledge, curiosity, experience, and understanding, ca. 1500-1800. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of global realignments, an age of empires, missionaries, embassies, and trading companies. This seminar takes students around the world, following global travelers, merchants, missionaries, and mapmakers. Students will work extensively with rare books, manuscripts, maps and other artifacts, especially in the Rumsey Map Center to design an exhibit. Urbano Monti's 1587 world map and Francesco Carletti's accidental circumnavigation of the world, 1594-1603, will guide our global voyage, contextualized by sources, artifacts, and histories from many other parts of the world.
Last offered: Winter 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 235C: Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology (HISTORY 335C, HISTORY 435C)
Colloquium on witchcraft, magic, and demonology in early modern Europe. Readings will cover the history of the European witch hunts, demonology, and the magical practices and beliefs of Europeans between 1400 and 1800. Assignments will include a book review, historiographical presentation, and a final paper proposing a research topic. Graduate students may take the course as the first half of a research seminar by enrolling in
HISTORY 435C in Autumn and 435D in Winter.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Stokes, L. (PI)
HISTORY 235D: The Trial of Galileo: Science, Politics, and Religion (HISTORY 335D, ITALIAN 233, ITALIAN 333, RELIGST 235X)
In 1633, the Italian mathematician Galileo was tried and condemned by the Roman Inquisition for advocating that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the cosmos. The Catholic Church did not formally admit that Galileo was right until 1992. Examines the many factors that led to the trial of Galileo and looks at multiple perspectives on this signal event in the history of science, politics, and religion. Considers the nature and definition of intellectual heresy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and examines the writings of Galileo's infamous predecessor Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake in 1600). Looks closely at the trial documents and related literature to explore the many different histories that can be produced from Galileo's trial. What, in the end, were the crimes of Galileo? Seminar meets regularly in Special Collections to give students hands-on experience of rare books and manuscripts, including Galileo's own works.
Last offered: Autumn 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 235J: The Meaning of Life: Modern European Encounters with Consequential Questions
(
History 235J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units;
History 335J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Across two centuries of social, political, and religious upheaval and transformation, modern Europeans confronted a series of interconnected 'big questions': What is humanity's relationship with deity? Where does life, including human life, come from, and where is it going? What considerations should shape human beings' relationships with, and actions toward, one another? What is socially and morally acceptable - or transgressive? Is there life after death, and a spiritual realm distinct from the material world? Through case studies in the history of religion, evolutionary thought, gender and sexuality, and the aims and ends of empire, this course will examine European engagement with these questions across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (with some background in earlier periods), paying attention to the ways in which the questions people asked - and the conclusions they drew - were shaped by social, religious, and political institutions and structures.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 235L: Alien Imaginations: Extraterrestrial Speculations in Modern European History
(
History 235L is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units;
History 335L is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This course will examine the historical basis and evolution of modern European beliefs concerning the existence and nature of alien life throughout the universe, and the ways in which these imagined alien beings have historically reflected an interplay of social, religious, political, and scientific assumptions, hopes, fears, and preoccupations. We will explore the relationship between belief in extraterrestrial life and historical themes and episodes in European history including the debate over heliocentrism, deism and freethought, theories of life and of human nature, changing concepts of national identity, and the intertwined histories of immigration, colonialism, race, and gender. We will particularly examine how and why concepts of the alien took a dark and sinister turn across the late nineteenth- and early-to-mid-twentieth centuries.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 236: Illustrating the Past: History as graphic non-fiction
In this course, students will create graphic history. We will read several graphic histories and then proceed through a set of assignments combining research and graphic art to compile the material for the final project. At the end of the class, students will produce a full-page scene for a new graphic history either on a topic of their choosing or on the course topic. The course topic will be the microhistorical "Murder of Uly Mornach", a tale of greed, honor, violence, and urban history in Basel circa 1500.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Stokes, L. (PI)
HISTORY 236F: French Kiss: The History of Love and the French Novel (FRENCH 159, FRENCH 256)
The history of the French novel is also the history of love. How did individuals experience love throughout history? How do novels reflect this evolution of love through the ages? And, most significantly, how have French novels shaped our own understanding of and expectations for romantic love today? The course will explore many forms of love from the Ancien Regime to the 20th century. Sentiment and seduction, passion and desire, the conflict between love and society: students will examine these themes from a historical perspective, in tandem with the evolution of the genre of the novel (the novella, the sentimental novel, the epistolary novel, the 19th-century novel, and the autobiographical novel). Some texts will be paired with contemporary films to probe the enduring relevance of love "a la francaise" in the media today. Readings include texts by Lafayette, Prevost, Laclos, Dumas fils, Flaubert, Colette, Yourcenar, and Duras. This is an introductory course to French Studies, with a focus on cultural history, literary history, interpretation of narrative, thematic analysis, and close reading. Undergraduate students should enroll for
FRENCH159, while graduate students may enroll for
FRENCH256. Readings and discussion in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Edmondson, C. (PI)
HISTORY 237B: Michelangelo: Gateway to Early Modern Italy (ARTHIST 218A, ARTHIST 418A, HISTORY 337B, ITALIAN 237, ITALIAN 337)
Revered as one of the greatest artists in history, Michelangelo Buonarroti's extraordinarily long and prodigious existence (1475-1564) spanned the Renaissance and the Reformation in Italy. The celebrity artist left behind not only sculptures, paintings, drawings, and architectural designs, but also an abundantly rich and heterogeneous collection of artifacts, including direct and indirect correspondence (approximately 1400 letters), an eclectic assortment of personal notes, documents and contracts, and 302 poems and 41 poetic fragments. This course will explore the life and production of Michelangelo in relation to those of his contemporaries. Using the biography of the artist as a thread, this interdisciplinary course will draw on a range of critical methodologies and approaches to investigate the civilization and culture of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Course themes will follow key tensions that defined the period and that found expression in Michelangelo: physical-spiritual, classical-Christian, tradition-innovation, individual-collective.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Prodan, S. (PI)
HISTORY 237D: The French Revolution and the Origins of Modern Politics (HISTORY 337D)
Human rights, national sovereignty, terror, even revolution itself - the French Revolution gave rise to modern politics. This course examines the causes, course, and consequences of the revolution from the crisis of the Old Regime to the Napoleonic period. We will read both original documents and current historical scholarship on the French Revolution. Throughout, key themes will include the role of ideas and language in political change, the relationship between revolution and violence, the politics of rights, and the global legacies of the revolution.
Last offered: Spring 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 238: Europe's Moral Economy: Solidarity, Justice, and the Welfare State from Bismarck to Brussels (HISTORY 338)
The course provides a broad introduction to the history of the European welfare state from the late 19th century until today. Informed by theoretical approaches such as Gosta Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare regimes, the course explores how different nations addressed issues like old age, poverty, unemployment, and health care, creating systems that fundamentally reshaped the relationship between citizens and the state. Comparative case studies concentrate on countries like Germany, Britain, Sweden, and Italy, focusing on their diverse approaches to social policy and on the historical contexts in which these policies emerged and developed. We will analyze the normative foundations underpinning welfare systems, including notions of social justice and solidarity, and critically evaluate the welfare state's impact on structures of inequality and trends in social expenditure. Readings include a blend of primary sources, historiographical literature, works from leading social and polit
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The course provides a broad introduction to the history of the European welfare state from the late 19th century until today. Informed by theoretical approaches such as Gosta Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare regimes, the course explores how different nations addressed issues like old age, poverty, unemployment, and health care, creating systems that fundamentally reshaped the relationship between citizens and the state. Comparative case studies concentrate on countries like Germany, Britain, Sweden, and Italy, focusing on their diverse approaches to social policy and on the historical contexts in which these policies emerged and developed. We will analyze the normative foundations underpinning welfare systems, including notions of social justice and solidarity, and critically evaluate the welfare state's impact on structures of inequality and trends in social expenditure. Readings include a blend of primary sources, historiographical literature, works from leading social and political scientists, and critiques of the welfare state from across the ideological spectrum. Students will reflect on the broader historical and political implications of welfare systems and consider how they continued to evolve under pressure from demographic change, fiscal constraints, and shifting political ideologies. By the end of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of the historical foundations and contemporary challenges facing the European welfare state.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Torp, C. (PI)