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681 - 690 of 1219 results for: all courses

HISTORY 13P: Media and Communication from the Middle Ages to the Printing Press (ENGLISH 13P, ENGLISH 113P, HISTORY 113P, MUSIC 13P, MUSIC 113P)

Did you know that the emperor Charlemagne was illiterate, yet his scribes revolutionized writing in the West? This course follows decisive moments in the history of media and communication, asking how new recording technologies reshaped a society in which most people did not read or write--what has been described as the shift "from memory to written record." To understand this transformation, we examine forms of oral literature and music, from the Viking sagas, the call to crusade, and medieval curses (Benedictine maledictions), to early popular authors such as Dante and the 15th-century feminist scribe, Christine de Pizan. We trace the impact of musical notation, manuscript and book production, and Gutenberg's print revolution. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, how did the medium shape the message? Along the way, we will consider how the medieval arts of memory and divine reading (lectio divina) can inform communication in the digital world. This is a hands-on course: students will handle medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Special Collections, and will participate in an "ink-making workshop," following medieval recipes for ink and for cutting quills, then using them to write on parchment. The course is open to all interested students.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: Phillips, J. (PI)

HISTORY 32S: Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Nightmares: Visions of the Ideal Society in Early Modern Britain

Visions of the ideal society are a mainstay in the European imagination, from Plato¿s Republic to Charles Fourier¿s phalanstère. Yet utopianism has always been maligned as idealistic, impracticable, or naïve, while its proponents accused variously of hypocrisy, totalitarianism, and abject failure. Nowhere more so has the utopian impulse been felt than in early modern Britain during the age of imperial, scientific, and industrial revolution. This course asks how British writers imagined better futures, starting with Thomas More¿s genre-defining Utopia and ending with the utopian socialists and communitarian experiments of the early nineteenth century. We will ask what utopias can tell us about the societies which imagined them, and appraise their lasting legacies in political thought, social science, and critical theory. Covering themes such as empire, capitalism, gender, enlightenment, and socialism, we will engage with a range of primary sources, including literary texts, cartographic images, political and scientific tracts, and letters, aided by secondary literature from the history of political thought, literary history, the history of science, and theory.
Last offered: Spring 2021 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 35Q: Convict Australia: "Rogues," "Whores," and "Savages"

In 1787, the British government made the audacious decision to send its prisoners to a continent on the other side of the globe about which very little was known. In this new colony, a motley crew had to learn to live together: military men, who were determined to make their unlucky posting pay off; the convicts, who found themselves exiled from their families and homes most often for petty crimes of poverty; the female convicts, who served primarily to fulfill the sexual needs of the men; and the Indigenous peoples, who were deemed absolute "savages" by their invaders. Through early starvation days, rebellions, and frontier wars, a new society was contentiously formed, as various groups battled for supremacy, status, or simply survival and norms of race, class, and gender adapted to a unique environment. In this hands-on IntroSem, we will do the work of the historian: read and interpret primary sources. During class time, we will work in groups, essentially crowd sourcing primary rese more »
In 1787, the British government made the audacious decision to send its prisoners to a continent on the other side of the globe about which very little was known. In this new colony, a motley crew had to learn to live together: military men, who were determined to make their unlucky posting pay off; the convicts, who found themselves exiled from their families and homes most often for petty crimes of poverty; the female convicts, who served primarily to fulfill the sexual needs of the men; and the Indigenous peoples, who were deemed absolute "savages" by their invaders. Through early starvation days, rebellions, and frontier wars, a new society was contentiously formed, as various groups battled for supremacy, status, or simply survival and norms of race, class, and gender adapted to a unique environment. In this hands-on IntroSem, we will do the work of the historian: read and interpret primary sources. During class time, we will work in groups, essentially crowd sourcing primary research, in order to piece together what life was like on the ground. We will debate the extent to which we can trust the sources and how best to use "biased" reports. We will also read the interpretations of historians and decide whether or not we agree with them. In doing so, we will see that the writing of history is never complete.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: Burkett, M. (PI)

HISTORY 38S: All That Glitters is not Gold: The Country House in Modern Britain

The country house is more than just the setting for period dramas starring Maggie Smith; its story, from construction to demolition, is also that of modern Britain. This class is a biography of the country house, told each week as a chapter of historical methodology. From palace to military hospital to 'heritage' property of the National Trust, we will use the country house--its occupants, decor, and collections--to see how this symbol of class hierarchy came to be a national rallying point for Brexiteers.
Last offered: Autumn 2022 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 40A: The Scientific Revolution

(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) What do people know and how do they know it? What counts as scientific knowledge? In the 16th and 17th centuries, understanding the nature of knowledge engaged the attention of individuals and institutions including Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, the early Royal Society, and less well-known contemporaries. New meanings of observing, collecting, experimenting, and philosophizing, and political, religious, and cultural ramifications in early modern Europe.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 41Q: The Ape Museum: Exploring the Idea of the Ape in Global History, Science, Art and Film (GLOBAL 41Q)

This course will explore the idea of "the ape" in global history, science, art, and film. The idea that apes might be humanity's nearest animal relatives is only about 200 years old. From the start, the idea developed in a global context: living fossil apes were found in Africa and Asia, and were immediately embroiled in international controversies about theories of human origins and racial hierarchies. This class will look at how and why "the ape" became a generative and controversial new concept in numerous national and regional contexts. We'll explore some of the many ways humans have looked at, studied, and thought about apes around the world: the "out of Asia" versus "out of Africa" hypothesis for human origins; Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee raised as a human child; Koko, the gorilla who may have learned sign language; Congo, the chimpanzee who made "abstract" paintings; films such as King Kong, Planet of the Apes, and 2001: Space Odyssey; the ape in World War II and Cold War propa more »
This course will explore the idea of "the ape" in global history, science, art, and film. The idea that apes might be humanity's nearest animal relatives is only about 200 years old. From the start, the idea developed in a global context: living fossil apes were found in Africa and Asia, and were immediately embroiled in international controversies about theories of human origins and racial hierarchies. This class will look at how and why "the ape" became a generative and controversial new concept in numerous national and regional contexts. We'll explore some of the many ways humans have looked at, studied, and thought about apes around the world: the "out of Asia" versus "out of Africa" hypothesis for human origins; Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee raised as a human child; Koko, the gorilla who may have learned sign language; Congo, the chimpanzee who made "abstract" paintings; films such as King Kong, Planet of the Apes, and 2001: Space Odyssey; the ape in World War II and Cold War propaganda in Japan, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United States; Jane Goodall's study of chimpanzees "culture" and "personality"; the place of apes in natural history museums and zoos around the world; and Stanford's own fraught history of comparing apes and humans through the archival writings of eugenicist founding president David Starr Jordan. Taught in conjunction with an exhibit on global ape imagery at the Stanford Library curated by Professors Riskin and Winterer in 2024, the course will culminate in students' own miniature exhibits for a class-generated "Ape Museum."
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 41S: The Spirit in Motion: Desire in Early Modern Europe

How did people experience and express desire -- for objects, for ideas, or for each other -- in the early modern period? From lusting after a beautiful woman to frantically seeking gold in the farthest corners of the earth, early modern individuals and societies were shaped by the many things they craved. This course will use desire as a lens to better understand its impacts on daily life and culture, and to explore what it meant to want in early modern Europe.
Last offered: Winter 2023 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 42N: The Missing Link

This course explores the history of evolutionary science, focusing upon debates surrounding the evolutionary place of human beings in the natural world, by examining the history of the idea of a "missing link," an intermediate form between humans and apes. We will consider famous hoaxes such as the Piltdown Man, and films and stories such as King Kong and Planet of the Apes, as well as serious scientific work such as that of Eugène Dubois, the paleoanthropologist and geologist who discovered Homo erectus (first called Java Man and then Pithecanthropus erectus) and first developed the notion of a missing link. We will take an interest not only in scientific aspects of missing-link theories but in their accompanying political, social and cultural implications. And we'll watch some classic monster films.
Last offered: Autumn 2020 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 42Q: Animal Archives: History Beyond the Human

There's a great big world out there. We humans are just one of a million or more animate beings on this planet. Nonhuman animals have their own histories that influence, intersect with, and stand apart from our own. This IntroSem takes animals seriously as subjects of historical study. Together we'll explore how the study of animals--from platypus to (plastic) pink flamingo--offers new ways of seeing human history. We'll examine how animals have shaped historical events and, inversely, how animals are historical artifacts. And we'll spend the majority of the course puzzling through challenges that arise when studying nonhumans. Can we understand creatures that do not communicate the way we do? Do nonhumans tell stories and chronicle their own histories? Are animals themselves archives of historical information? If so, how do we read them? This course will introduce you to diverse ways of studying historical animals and contemporary creatures too. You'll write animal biographies, practice slow witnessing of the more-than-human world, and conduct research deep dives into nonhuman narratives. You'll encounter multi-disciplinary approaches to our core questions, including historical and cultural analysis, ethnography, scientific inquiry, and technological surveillance. Ultimately, you'll gain insight into how scholars reconstruct the past and know the lives of others, whether human or nonhuman. The creative research skills and critical analysis that you exercise in Animal Archives will serve you in other history courses and beyond.
Last offered: Spring 2022 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

HISTORY 45B: Introduction to African Studies I: Africa in the 20th Century

(AFRICAAM/ HISTORY 45B is 3 units; AFRICAAM/ HISTORY 145B is 5 units.) CREATIVITY. AGENCY. RESILIENCE. This is the African history with which this course will engage. African scholars and knowledge production of Africa that explicitly engages with theories of race and global Blackness will take center stage. TRADE. RELIGION. CONQUEST. MIGRATION. These are the transformations of the 20th century which we shall interrogate and reposition. Yet these groundbreaking events did not happen in a vacuum. As historians, we also think about the continent's rich traditions and histories prior to the 20th century. FICTION. NONFICTION. FILM. MUSIC. Far from being peripheral to political transformation, African creative arts advanced discourse on gender, technology, and environmental history within the continent and without. We will listen to African creative artists not only as creators, but as agents for change.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
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