611 - 620 of 788 results for: HISTORY

( 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.

( 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.

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.

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.

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.

Influential approaches to problems in British, European, and imperial history. The 19th-century British experience and its relationship to Europe and empire. National identity, the industrial revolution, class formation, gender, liberalism, and state building. Goal is to prepare specialists and non-specialists for oral exams. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center.)

Themes include empire and racism, the crisis of liberalism, the rise of the welfare state, national identity, the experience of total war, the politics of decline, and modernity and British culture.

Why and how did Europeans claim control of 70% of African in the late nineteenth century? Students will engage with historiographical debates ranging from the national (e.g. British) to the topical (e.g. international law). Students will interrogate some of the primary sources on which debaters have rested their arguments. Key discussions include: the British occupation of Egypt; the autonomy of French colonial policy; the mystery of Germany's colonial entry; and, not least, the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884-1885.

This colloquium for advanced undergraduate and graduate students will investigate the political economy of modern empire, focusing on the British empire. Topics include the history of imperial corporations; industry and empire; the commodification of nature and life; racial capitalism; the formation of the global economy; the relationship between trafficking and free trade; and the relationship between empire and the theory and practice of development.