HISTORY 328: Circles of Hell: Poland in World War II (HISTORY 228, JEWISHST 282, JEWISHST 382)
Looks at the experience and representation of Poland's wartime history from the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) to the aftermath of Yalta (1945). Examines Nazi and Soviet ideology and practice in Poland, as well as the ways Poles responded, resisted, and survived. Considers wartime relations among Polish citizens, particularly Poles and Jews. In this regard, interrogates the traditional self-characterization of Poles as innocent victims, looking at their relationship to the Holocaust, thus engaging in a passionate debate still raging in Polish society.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 328C: Politics and Society in Early Soviet Russia: View from the Hoover Library & Archives (HISTORY 228C, REES 110, REES 211)
The course offers an examination of early Soviet history (1917-1924) based on the archival collections, digital records, and rare books and periodicals in the Hoover Library & Archives, with a focus on the papers of the American Relief Administration and the Soviet famine of 1921. Topics include Bolshevik ideology, the role of the Communist Party, Russian-Ukrainian relations, the formation of the USSR, Soviet economic policy, Soviet foreign policy and the Communist International, the secret police and political repression, culture under the Bolsheviks, demographic shifts and refugee movements, and the famine of 1921, in which six million people perished. Students will become familiar with how to research and interpret primary sources. Class will meet in Hoover Tower, in a secure room where students can work with archival and rare library materials, including early Soviet newspapers and journals. Course is open to graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Students may take the course for either 3 or 5 units. Those enrolled for 5 units will submit a research paper. Russian language ability is not required. Offered in conjunction with the Hoover Library & Archives exhibition Bread + Medicine: Saving Lives in a Time of Famine.
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 329C: Political Exhumations: Killing Sites in Comparative Perspective (ANTHRO 137D, ARCHLGY 137, ARCHLGY 237, DLCL 237, HISTORY 229C, REES 237C)
The course discusses the politics and practices of exhumation of individual and mass graves. The problem of exhumations will be considered as a distinct socio-political phenomenon characteristic of contemporary times and related to transitional justice. The course will offer analysis of case studies of political exhumations of victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, communist violence in Poland, the Rwandan genocide, the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Ukraine. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.
Last offered: Spring 2025
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 330A: Early Modern Colloquium
Historiographical survey from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Topics include Renaissance, Reformation, European expansion, state and nation building, printing, military, and scientific revolutions, origins of Enlightenment. Designed to prepare students doing either a primary or secondary graduate field in early modern European history.
Last offered: Spring 2025
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331: Leonardo's World: Science, Technology, and Art (ARTHIST 231, ARTHIST 431, HISTORY 231, ITALIAN 231, ITALIAN 331)
Leonardo da Vinci is emblematic of creativity and innovation. His art is iconic, his inventions legendary. His understanding of nature, the human body, and machines made him a scientist and engineer as well as an artist. His fascination with drawing buildings made him an architect, at least on paper. This class explores the historical Leonardo, considering his interests and accomplishments as a product of the society of Renaissance Italy. Why did this world produce a Leonardo? Special attention will be given to interdisciplinary connections between religion, art, science, and technology.
Last offered: Autumn 2018
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331B: Core Colloquium on Modern Europe: The 19th Century
The major historical events and historiographical debates of the long 19th century from the French Revolution to WW I.
Last offered: Winter 2024
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331C: Modern European Core: The Twentieth Century
The historiography of 20th-century Europe. Topics include WW I, the Russian Revolution, National Socialism, and the EU.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331G: European Reformations, 1500-1650 (HISTORY 231G, RELIGST 231, RELIGST 331)
This advanced colloquium explores the transformed religious landscape of sixteenth-century Europe from an interdisciplinary perspective. Two professors, one from History and one from Religious Studies, contextualize the key theological and social aspects of the sixteenth-century reformations and provide a general introduction to the study of the reformation era. Students will read primary writings and documents from major reformers and reform movements and gain an overview of secondary scholarship in select classic studies of the period and in recent literature. Undergraduates register for
HISTORY 231G or
RELIGST 231 for 5 units; graduate students register for
HISTORY 331G or
RELIGST 331 for 3-5 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Pitkin, B. (PI)
;
Stokes, L. (PI)
HISTORY 332B: Heretics, Prostitutes and Merchants: The Venetian Empire (ITALIAN 332B)
Between 1200-1600, Venice created a powerful empire at the boundary between East and West that controlled much of the Mediterranean, with a merchant society that allowed social groups, religions, and ethnicities to coexist. Topics include the features of Venetian society, the relationship between center and periphery, order and disorder, orthodoxy and heresy, the role of politics, art, and culture in the Venetian Renaissance, and the empire's decline as a political power and reinvention as a tourist site and living museum.
Last offered: Winter 2025
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 332D: Rome: From Pilgrimage to the Grand Tour
Imagine yourself in Rome. What do you see beyond the ruins of an ancient city? In the fourteenth century the city of over one million ancient Roman inhabitants had shrunk to a paltry population of less than twenty thousand. With the return of the papacy in the fifteenth century the rebuilding and revival of Rome began in earnest. By the late sixteenth century it was the center of global missions, an expanding state, and a nascent tourist industry. This course explores the history of the "Eternal City" from the late Middle Ages through the age of the Grand Tour. It examines the political, diplomatic, and religious history of the papacy, Roman society and cultural life, the everyday world of Roman citizens, the relationship between the city and the surrounding countryside, the material transformation of Rome as a city, and its meaning for foreigners.
Last offered: Winter 2024
| Units: 4-5
