HISTORY 309B: Slavery, Agency, Resistance (HISTORY 209B)
This course will examine the notions of agency and resistance as it relates to the global history of slavery. Students will engage with the ongoing debates among scholars as well as a wide range of primary sources from different regions. The course will cover an extensive timeline, spanning from around the 9th century and up into the 20th century. This is a research-oriented course designed to provide students with insight into the challenges and possibilities that are unique to the study of slavery.
Last offered: Winter 2025
| Units: 5
HISTORY 309F: Maps in the Early Modern World (HISTORY 209F)
The significance of cartographic enterprise across the early modern world. Political, economic, and epistemological imperatives that drove the proliferation of nautical charts, domain surveys, city plans, atlases, and globes; the types of work such artifacts performed for their patrons, viewers, and subjects. Contributions of indigenous knowledge to imperial maps; the career of the map in commerce, surveillance, diplomacy, conquest, and indoctrination. Sources include recent research from Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Last offered: Spring 2025
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 310J: Fascism and Authoritarianism
This course introduces students to the history of fascist and authoritarian movements in modern Europe, from their origins through the post-WWII era. Germany and Italy will serve as central case studies, though the course will consider other examples as well. Through analytical consideration of secondary sources, primary texts, and art as political propaganda, we will interrogate the meanings and applications of these fraught and complex terms, the different forms taken by fascist and authoritarian movements, and their relationship to nationalism, race, religion, gender, and economic and political institutions. Why did millions of Europeans accept -- and even enthusiastically support -- fascist and authoritarian regimes? To what extent was a single, charismatic leader central to the success or failure of such governments? The course will conclude with an opportunity to reflect on the degree to which fascism and authoritarianism are concepts that remain relevant to political discourse in the twenty-first century.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 311: Out of Eden: Deportation, Exile, and Expulsion from Antiquity to the Renaissance (HISTORY 211, JEWISHST 211)
This course examines the long pedigree of modern deportations and mass expulsions, from the forced resettlements of the ancient world to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and from the outlawry of Saga-era Iceland to the culture of civic exile in Renaissance Italy. The course focuses on Europe and the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period, but students are welcome to venture beyond these geographical and chronological boundaries for their final papers.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 311M: New Directions in Medieval and Early Modern Studies (COMPLIT 311M)
This 1-unit course meets weekly throughout the year to discuss work-in-progress by members of the Stanford community and invited visitors. It seeks to foster ongoing discussion and collaboration among the interdisciplinary campus community of medieval and early modern scholars. Enrollment is accordingly open to all graduate students (and advanced undergraduates, with permission) with an interest in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period (ca. 400-ca. 1700).
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
6 times
(up to 6 units total)
Instructors:
Dorin, R. (PI)
HISTORY 313: Core Colloquium: Graduate Readings in Medieval History
This course serves as a graduate-level introduction to major themes, problems, methods, and historiographical traditions in medieval European history.
Last offered: Autumn 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 313F: Medieval Germany, 900-1250 (GERMAN 213, GERMAN 313, HISTORY 213F)
(Undergraduates may sign up for
German 213 or
History 213F, graduate students should sign up for
German 313 or
History 313F. This course may be taken for variable units. Check the individual course numbers for unit spreads.) This course will provide a survey of the most important political, historical, and cultural events and trends that took place in the German-speaking lands between 900 and 1250. Important themes include the evolution of imperial ideology and relations with Rome, expansion along the eastern frontier, the crusades, the investiture controversy, the rise of powerful cities and civic identities, monastic reform and intellectual renewal, and the flowering of vernacular literature. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
Last offered: Spring 2024
| Units: 1-5
HISTORY 314B: The things to come? Prophecy in the Middle Ages (GERMAN 200, HISTORY 214B)
Grand rulers, decisive battles, one or more antichrists, and, inevitably, the end of the world - prophetic texts from the Middle Ages abound with significant allusions. These references are intricately interconnected and shrouded in enigmatic language. This course delves into the phenomenon of prophecy as depicted in medieval sources. Bridging eschatology and chronological perspectives, we will investigate the value of these texts and strive to gain a deeper understanding of the intellectual history of the Middle Ages. Moreover, we will meticulously examine the distribution of these numerous texts within manuscripts, scrutinizing the intended audience and specific effects of the texts. This subject area will serve as an exemplary object of study, enabling us to apply and refine the tools of historical scholarship.
Last offered: Winter 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 315B: Race and Ethnicity in Premodern Europe (ARTHIST 207D, ARTHIST 407D, HISTORY 215B)
How do historians, art historians, and literary historians of premodern Europe shape their research and their teaching around questions of race? How do current debates on race theory shape our perception of the past and deepen historical inquiry? This graduate colloquium focuses on the most recent publications on race in medieval and early modern studies to reflect on such questions while examining the challenges that race studies put on historical definitions, research methodologies, as well as teaching institutions.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 315C: War, Love, and Other Games: Play and Violence in the Middle Ages (FRENCH 215C, FRENCH 315C, HISTORY 215C, ITALIAN 215C, ITALIAN 315C)
The intersection of play and violence has been a focal point for historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, even psychologists. In today's world, "gaming" represents a multi-billion dollar industry; in the Middle Ages, those with the means also invested vast sums on games and battle. These ranged from the tournament and the warhorse to hunting and falconry, ivory chess pieces, and musical "rap battles" that pitted contestants against one another. Treatises on the Art of Courtly Love described the conquest of a lover's body as a sport that could be played by women or men. This seminar traces the twin themes of violence and play as enacted by the fighting classes of medieval Europe, beginning with the emergence of the tournament and the crusading movement in the eleventh century. We will investigate how the new ethos of chivalry impacted social relations and the organization of feudal society. And, we will see how tactics and social structures changed with the coming of the gunpowder age. In addition to primary sources including Boccaccio and Machiavelli, the course introduces modern theories of play. Why do humans identify so powerfully with a team? What explains the compulsion to invest financial and emotional resources in play and games?
Last offered: Winter 2025
| Units: 4-5