printer friendly pageHISTORY 379: Latin American Development: Economy and Society, 1800-2014 (HISTORY 279)
The newly independent nations of Latin America began the 19th century with economies roughly equal to the U.S. and Canada. What explains the economic gap that developed since 1800? Why are some Latin American nations rich and others poor and how have societies changed over time? Marxist, dependency, neoclassical, and institutionalist interpretive frameworks are explored. The effects of globalization on Latin American economic growth, autonomy, and potential for social justice are examined and debated.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Frank, Z. (PI)
HISTORY 380B: The Birth of Islam: Authority, Community, and Resistance (GLOBAL 134, GLOBAL 234, HISTORY 280B)
This course explores the historical problem of how authority and community (in both the political and religious sense) were defined and challenged in the early Islamic period. Chronological topics covered include: the political, cultural, and religious world of Late Antiquity into which Muhammad was born; the crystallization of a small community of believers who supported Muhammad's message of radical monotheism and aided him in the conquest and conversion of the Arabian Peninsula; the problems of legacy and leadership in the community of the faithful after Muhammad's death; the Arabo-Islamic conquests beyond Arabia during the 7th and early 8th centuries and the establishment of the first Islamic empire under the rule of the Umayyad clan; the Sunni/Shi'a split (and further splits in Shi'ism); the revolution of 750 A.D. and overthrow of the Umayyads by the 'Abbasids; the flourishing of a sophisticated world of learning and culture under the 'Abbasids; and the waning of the 'Abbasids empire in the tenth century and political reconfiguration of the Islamic lands.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Izzo, J. (PI)
HISTORY 381E: Oil, Maps, Data: Technology in the Middle East (HISTORY 281E)
This course introduces students to a wide range of humanities and social science concepts pertaining to the global study of technology with an emphasis on the Middle East in the 19th, 20th and 21st-centuries. The main body of the course focuses on three case studies namely oil, mapping, and the internet through which issues of power, race, colonialism, financial imperialism, violence, and surveillance will be explored. This colloquium provides a unique perspective on contemporary debates about the politics and ethics of technology through a study of their global circulation.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 383C: The Medieval Middle East: Crusaders, Turks, and Mongols (GLOBAL 133, GLOBAL 233, HISTORY 283C)
This course surveys the history of the Middle East from c.950 A.D. to c.1517 A.D., placing particular emphasis on the following questions: What were the social, cultural, and political contexts for conversion to Islam in the Middle Ages? How did the interplay of nomadic and sedentary peoples shape Middle Eastern history? What were the nature of Christian-Muslim relations and the fate of religious minorities in an age of Crusade and Jihad? What were the conditions for the rise, flourishing, and eventual collapse of a ¿world-system¿ in this period (with the lands of the Middle East serving as its nexus)? Chronological topics include: the arrival in the Middle East of the Seljuk Turks, new adopters of Islam and recent nomads; the western European crusades to the Holy Land and the establishment of so-called ¿Crusader States¿ in Syria; the subjugation of Iran to pagan Mongols¿and the Mongols¿ eventual conversion to Islam; the rise to power of a dynasty of Turkish slave-soldiers (mamluks) in Cairo and the political reunification of Syria and Egypt under their rule. Readings will consist of both primary sources and works of modern scholarship.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Izzo, J. (PI)
HISTORY 384E: Contemporary Muslim Political Thought (HISTORY 284E)
This course aims to provide an intellectual history of contemporary Muslim political thought. It presents post-nineteenth century Muslim contributions to political thought. It is designed as a survey of some major thinkers from the Arab world to Iran and Southeast Asia, from Turkey to North America, who sought to interpret Islam's basic sources and Islamic intellectual legacy. Our readings include primary texts by Tahtawi, Tunisi, Afghani, Rida, Huda Sharawi, Qutb, Shariati, and Mernissi among other prominent figures. We will analyze recurring ideas in this body of thought such as decline, civilization, rationality, ijtihad (Islamic independent reasoning), shura (deliberative decision-making), democracy, secularism, Muslim unity, khilafah (caliphate and vicegerency), freedom, equality, and justice. We will discuss their current significance for the ongoing theoretical debates in Muslim political thought, Muslim intellectual history, and comparative political theory.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Yenigun, H. (PI)
HISTORY 385A: Core Colloquium in Jewish History, 17th-19th Centuries (JEWISHST 385A)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Rodrigue, A. (PI)
HISTORY 385B: Graduate Colloquium in Modern Jewish History (JEWISHST 385B)
Instructor consent required.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 385C: Jews in the Contemporary World: The Jewish Present and Past in Film, Television and Popular Culture (CSRE 185B, HISTORY 185B, JEWISHST 185B, REES 185B, SLAVIC 183)
(Same as
HISTORY 85B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Smith, A. (PI)
;
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 391B: The City in Imperial China
The evolution of cities in the early imperial, medieval, and early modern periods. Topics include physical structure, social order, cultural forms, economic roles, relations to rural hinterlands, and the contrast between imperial capitals and other cities. Comparative cases from European history. Readings include primary and secondary sources, and visual materials.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Lewis, M. (PI)
;
Prakash, P. (TA)
HISTORY 391K: Korean History and Culture before 1900 (HISTORY 291K, KOREA 158, KOREA 258)
This course serves as an introduction to Korean culture, society, and history before the modern period. It begins with a discussion of early Korea and controversies over Korean origins; the bulk of the course will be devoted to the Chos'n period (1392-1910), that from the end of medieval Korea to the modern period. Topics to be covered include: Korean national and ethnic origins, the role of religious and intellectual traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism, popular and indigenous religious practices, the traditional Korean family and social order, state and society during the Chos'n dynasty, vernacular prose literature, Korean's relations with its neighbors in East Asia, and changing conceptions of Korean identity.nThe course will be conducted through the reading and discussion of primary texts in English translation alongside scholarly research. As such, it will emphasize the interpretation of historical sources, which include personal letters, memoirs, and diaries, traditional histories, diplomatic and political documents, along with religious texts and works of art. Scholarly work will help contextualize these materials, while the class discussions will introduce students to existing scholarly debates about the Korean past. Students will be asked also to examine the premodern past with an eye to contemporary reception. The final project for the class is a film study, where a modern Korean film portraying premodern Korea will be analyzed as a case study of how the past works in public historical memory in contemporary Korea, both North and South. An open-ended research paper is also possible, pending instructor approval.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
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