printer friendly pageHISTORY 239C: Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Modern (DLCL 13, FRENCH 13, HUMCORE 13, PHIL 13)
This three-quarter sequence asks big questions of major texts in the European and American tradition. What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? This third and final quarter focuses on the modern period, from the rise of revolutionary ideas to the experiences of totalitarianism and decolonization in the twentieth century. Authors include Locke, Mary Shelley, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
HISTORY 239G: The Algerian Wars (CSRE 249, FRENCH 249, JEWISHST 249)
From Algiers the White to Algiers the Red, Algiers, the Mecca of the Revolutionaries in the words of Amilcar Cabral, this course offers to study the Algerian Wars since the French conquest of Algeria (1830-) to the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. We will revisit the ways in which the war has been narrated in literature and cinema, popular culture, and political discourse. A special focus will be given to the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962). The course considers the racial representations of the war in the media, the continuing legacies surrounding the conflict in France, Africa, and the United States, from Che Guevara to the Black Panthers. A key focus will be the transmission of collective memory through transnational lenses, and analyses of commemorative events and movies. nReadings from James Baldwin, Assia Djebar, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Mouloud Feraoun. Movies include "The Battle of Algiers," "Days of Glory," and "Viva Laldjérie." nTaught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 239J: Work and Leisure in Nineteenth Century Britain (HISTORY 339J)
This course charts the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, empire, and social factors in Britons' lives at work and at home in the nineteenth century. Readings will explore trade unionism and Chartism, urban migration, consumer culture, print culture, organized sports, shows, rational leisure" and the development of exhibitions and public museums. Students will gain a sense of how Britons worked and played in a century that gave birth to pastimes and institutions that continue to shape our own.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Williams, J. (PI)
HISTORY 239K: Sex, Death, and God in Modern Europe (HISTORY 339K)
In the midst of social and political upheaval and transformation, people in modern Europe have grappled with central questions of human existence. What place does humanity occupy in the universe and in relation to God? How does life begin, and under what circumstances? What gives life its meaning? What is socially and morally acceptable--or transgressive? Is there life after death, and a spiritual realm distinct from the material world? This course will examine answers to these questions across the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and the ways in which the questions people asked--and the conclusions they drew--were shaped by social, political, and religious assumptions, hopes, and fears.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Daly, J. (PI)
HISTORY 240: The History of Evolution (HISTORY 340)
This course examines the history of evolutionary biology from its emergence around the middle of the eighteenth century. We will consider the continual engagement of evolutionary theories of life with a larger, transforming context: philosophical, political, social, economic, institutional, aesthetic, artistic, literary. Our goal will be to achieve a historical rich and nuanced understanding of how evolutionary thinking about life has developed to its current form.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Riskin, J. (PI)
HISTORY 242D: Knowledge and Information Infrastructures (STS 166)
This course introduces historical, theoretical, and comparative perspectives on knowledge and information systems from the medieval world to the present. Cases include libraries, meteorology, climate science, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and social science data systems. It theorizes how infrastructures form, how they change, and how they shape (and are shaped by) social systems. The course ends with challenges to modern knowledge infrastructures, such as crowdsourcing, citizen science, and alternative and bogus knowledge.
Last offered: Winter 2018
HISTORY 242G: Spaces and Practices of Natural History (HISTORY 342G)
Gentleman scientists once practiced natural history by studying specimens collected from around the world, stored in cabinets of curiosity. From the 17th to 19th centuries, natural history moved out of the cabinet and into the field; these environments required new ways of thinking and different types of scientific workers. This course will track how new spaces, practices, and people became associated with natural history and explore how they shaped the content of the field and the social contours of science.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Williams, J. (PI)
HISTORY 243C: People, Plants, and Medicine: Colonial Science and Medicine (HISTORY 343C)
Explores the global exchange of knowledge, technologies, plants, peoples, disease, and medicines. Considers primarily Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans in the eighteenth-century West but also takes examples from other knowledge traditions. Readings treat science and medicine in relation to voyaging, colonialism, slavery, racism, plants, and environmental exchange. Colonial sciences and medicines were important militarily and strategically for positioning emerging nation states in global struggles for land and resources.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Schiebinger, L. (PI)
HISTORY 243G: Tobacco and Health in World History (HISTORY 343G)
Cigarettes are the world's leading cause of death--but how did we come into this world, where 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year? Here we explore the political, cultural, and technological origins of the cigarette and cigarette epidemic, using the tobacco industry's 80 million pages of secret documents. Topics include the history of cigarette advertising and cigarette design, the role of the tobacco industry in fomenting climate change denial, and questions raised by the testimony of experts in court.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
Instructors:
Proctor, R. (PI)
HISTORY 244F: Beyond Pink and Blue: Gender in Tech (FEMGEN 344F, HISTORY 344F)
This d-school seminar prototypes concepts and methods for "inclusive" design. From the moment we arrive on the planet, gender shapes our perception of the world. Examples of products (including objects, services, and systems) gone awry will serve as prompts for design activities, challenges, and discussions on gender issues to illustrate the different needs of women, men, and gender-fluid people. Class sessions mix use case explorations with design methodology, design thinking abilities, and guest speakers from technology, design, and academia. Students will be asked to work in interdisciplinary teams on several design challenges, culminating in the development of a toolkit for inclusive design. Methods will interact in crucial ways to create "intersectional thinking" (i.e., to consider how gender, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status, etc. work together to require new solutions in design). Topics include: algorithms, media, seat belts for pregnant women, robotics, assistive technologies, tech for developing worlds, video games, urban/rural design, software development, and many more. Admission by application only. Visit
d.school.stanford.edu/classes for more information.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-EDP
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