printer friendly pageHISTORY 216D: Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Lord of the Rings: The Middle Ages in the Modern World
From its inception the term "Middle Ages" carried negative connotations. Renaissance humanists bewailed the fall of the Roman Empire and its replacement with "barbarian" kingdoms. Enlightenment philosophes abhorred the Middle Ages even more intensely than their Renaissance forerunners and decried medieval "superstition" and "barbarism." Nevertheless, as part of their rejection of the Enlightenment, nineteenth-century Romantics embraced the Middle Ages and sought inspiration for political and cultural renewal within medieval civilization. From nationalist movements, to colonialism, to movements within high and popular culture interest in the Middle Ages helped fashion the modern world in important ways. This class will explore the complex history associated with the images of the Middle Ages in the modern world.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 217D: Love, Death and the Afterlife in the Medieval West (FRENCH 217, FRENCH 317, HISTORY 317D, ITALIAN 217, ITALIAN 317)
Romantic love, it is often claimed, is an invention of the High Middle Ages. The vocabulary of sexual desire that is still current in the twenty-first century was authored in the twelfth and thirteenth, by troubadours, court poets, writers like Dante; even by crusaders returning from the eastern Mediterranean. How did this devout society come to elevate the experience of sensual love? This course draws on primary sources such as medieval songs, folktales, the "epic rap battles" of the thirteenth century, along with the writings of Boccaccio, Saint Augustine and others, to understand the unexpected connections between love, death, and the afterlife from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. Each week, we will use a literary or artistic work as an interpretive window into cultural attitudes towards love, death or the afterlife. These readings are analyzed in tandem with major historical developments, including the rise of Christianity, the emergence of feudal society and chivalric culture, the crusading movement, and the social breakdown of the fourteenth century.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Phillips, J. (PI)
HISTORY 218: The Holy Dead: Saints and Spiritual Power in Medieval Europe (HISTORY 318, RELIGST 218X, RELIGST 318X)
Examines the cult of saints in medieval religious thought and life. Topics include martyrs, shrines, pilgrimage, healing, relics, and saints' legends.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 218C: Peace and War in Medieval Islam: From the Arab Conquests to the Crusades (GLOBAL 190, GLOBAL 232, HISTORY 318C)
This course interrogates the theory and reality of war-making and peacemaking across the first millennium of Islamic history (c.600-c.1600 CE). We will examine major historical events (e.g. the struggle of the early community of Muslims against the pagan tribes of Arabia; Arab expansion and conquest during the seventh and eighth centuries; a sequence of civil wars, dynastic struggles, and schisms within Islam; and external invasions of the Islamic world by crusaders and steppe nomads, etc.). We will also investigate the development of major normative concepts across the Islamic tradition concerning peace and war (e.g. holy war; treaty- and truce-making; treatment of conquered enemies and prisoner; diplomacy with Muslims and non-Muslims, etc.). With respect to these concepts, we will attend especially to change over time and diversity across various sects. Mix of lecture and discussion. Readings will consist of both primary sources (in English translation) and modern scholarship. No previous experience with pre-modern or Islamic history required.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 221B: The 'Woman Question' in Modern Russia (FEMGEN 221B, HISTORY 321B)
(
History 221B is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units;
History 321B is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Russian radicals believed that the status of women provided the measure of freedom in a society and argued for the extension of rights to women as a basic principle of social progress. The social status and cultural representations of Russian women from the mid-19th century to the present. The arguments and actions of those who fought for women's emancipation in the 19th century, theories and policies of the Bolsheviks, and the reality of women's lives under them. How the status of women today reflects on the measure of freedom in post-Communist Russia.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Jolluck, K. (PI)
HISTORY 222: Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe and Russia (HISTORY 322A)
Explores criminal law in early modern Europe and Russia, ca 1500-1800, in law and in practice. Engages debates about use of exemplary public executions as tactic of governance, and about gradual decline in "violence" in Europe over this time. Explores practice of accusatory and inquisitory judicial procedures, judicial torture, forms of punishment, concepts of justice.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 223E: Cities of Empire: An Urban Journey through Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean (HISTORY 323E, REES 204, REES 304)
This course explores the cities of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires in the dynamic and turbulent period of their greatest transformation from the 19th century through the Two World Wars. Through the reading of urban biographies of Venice and Trieste, Vienna, Budapest, Cracow, Lviv, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Salonica, and Odessa, we consider broad historical trends of political, economic, and social modernization, urbanization, identity formation, imperialism, cosmopolitanism, and orientalism. As vibrant centers of coexistence and economic exchange, social and cultural borderlands, and sites of transgression, these cities provide an ideal lens through which to examine these themes in the context of transition from imperial to post-imperial space.
Last offered: Spring 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 223F: Russia's Industrial Revolutions: The Making and Breaking of a Superpower
In the span of a single century, Russia went from unstable empire to revolutionary proving ground, from scene of mass starvation to space pioneer, from the geopolitical sidelines to a seat among superpowers -- all before falling back again. This course foregrounds industrialization, economic development, and (often agonizing) adaptation as engines of these dramatic transformations. Was pre-revolutionary Russia 'backwards' as many suggested? Can state socialism be credited for decades of rapid growth and the landmark achievements of the USSR? Or should it be blamed for economic stagnation, environmental degradation, and the ultimate collapse of an empire? How have the conditions of that late 20th-century collapse impacted the country's prospects and problems into the 21st? Readings and assignments will encourage students to explore various methodological approaches -- social, cultural, economic, urban -- to address long-term themes and sector-specific histories of Russian industrialization. (This course has been submitted for WAY-SI and WAY-EDP certifications, currently pending review.)
Last offered: Spring 2022
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 224C: Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention (HISTORY 324C, JEWISHST 284C, JEWISHST 384C, PEDS 224)
Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Traces the history of genocide in the 20th century and the question of humanitarian intervention to stop it, a topic that has been especially controversial since the end of the Cold War. The pre-1990s discussion begins with the Armenian genocide during the First World War and includes the Holocaust and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Coverage of genocide and humanitarian intervention since the 1990s includes the wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, the Congo and Sudan.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors:
Patenaude, B. (PI)
HISTORY 225E: From Vladimir to Putin: Key Themes in Russian History (HISTORY 325E, REES 225E)
Formative issues in Russian history from Muscovy to the present: autocracy and totalitarianism; tsars, emperors, and party secretaries; multi-ethnicity and nationalism; serfdom, peasantry; rebellions and revolutions, dissent and opposition; law and legality; public and private spheres; religion and atheism; patterns of collapse. Class format will be discussion of one to two assigned books or major articles per class.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
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