HISTORY/WS 516: US Women's History
This course will explore a range of topics in American women's/gender history from the Revolutionary era through the late nineteenth century. The goals are to familiarize you with some of the content of women's history and to acquaint you with the key historiographical and theoretical debates of the field. Particular attention will be paid to the tension between conceptualizing women as a group and studying the ways race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation have shaped women's--and men's--lives. The course is designed as a readings course, and books and articles vary with semester. In the past, readings have included such works as Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization (1995), Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work (1990), Anne Boylan, Origins of Women's Activism (2002), Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood (1977), Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow, Susan Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl (1990), Helen Horowitz, Rereading Sex , Susan Juster, Disorderly Women (1994), Jonathan Ned Katz, Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality , Melton McLaurin, Celia, a Slave, Leslie A. Schwalm, A Hard Fight for We (1997), Christine Stansell, City of Women (1986), Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Toms Cabin , Susan Zaeske, Signatures of Citizenship (2002).
HIST 539: READINGS IN MILITARY HISTORY
This is a reading seminar in which we will explore the broad topic of War and Society in a global context, focusing on the period from 1500 to the present. This will not be an operational military history course with a focus on battles, campaigns, and generals. Instead, through selected core readings, it is designed to introduce the various ways in which military history intersects with, borrows from, and influences cultural, social, political, economic, and intellectual history. All students in the seminar will have a degree of flexibility to select and read several additional works that both expand upon one or more core themes and possess some immediate relevance to their own academic programs. The seminar will meet for weekly discussion of readings, and students will complete three short essays and one longer paper on a topic germane to their own academic interests. The core readings include: Jeremy Black's War and the World: Military Power and the Fate of Continents, 1450-2000 ; Lawrence Keeley's War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage ; Sun Tzu's The Art of War ; Geoffrey Parker's The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 ; John Keegan's The Face of Battle ; Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 ; John Dower's War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War ; Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture ; and Carol Reardon's Pickett's Charge in History and Memory . This course can benefit all students interested in imperialism; nationalism and nation-building; the economic bases of modern war and statecraft; classic interpretations of the theory and nature of the art of war; religion, morality, and war; racial and gender issues in military history; the social and cultural history of war and warriors; the home front during wartime; technology in war; and public memory and commemorations of war.
HISTORY 543, ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
This course is an intensive research seminar focusing on the period roughly from 1800-1860. The object of the course is not only to enable students to research and write a substantial paper based upon primary sources, but also to help students to develop general research skills. An important goal of the course is to get acquainted with the wealth of ways to locate source material. It is designed to follow on the 19 th -century Proseminar, so a general historiographical background is assumed. Class members are required to create a research proposal which would meet guidelines for typical pre-dissertation external funding sources. Standard and emerging reference tools (catalogs of manuscript collections, checklists of newspapers, collections of city directories, etc. in both conventional and Web media) will be introduced and evaluated. Students will carry out at least a portion of the proposed research, producing an article-length manuscript based on primary sources. During the second half of the semester we will devote our full energies to the process of research; during this phase, discussions will focus upon both practical problems encountered as work proceeds, and on the intellectual issues posed by different kinds of historical evidence. At all times, the relationship of our research to broad, interpretive historiographical issues will be critical to our inquiry. Finally, as writing and rewriting occur, we will continue to meet and to circulate and critique drafts. Instruction at all stages will be both individualized and with the entire class. I hope that by the end of the semester, all class members will have gained experience which will be directly relevant to their futures as article, thesis, or dissertation writers.
HIST 544: READINGS IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR ERA
This is a readings course to acquaint participants with the historiography of the American Civil War Era. The course serves as the first part of a year-long seminar. The second half of the course will involve research projects that emerge from an exploration of the social, political, cultural, and military facets of this part of American History. Weekly class sessions will include discussion of the following topics: southern and northern societies, why the war came, how the North won, the home front, guerrilla warfare and outrages, the political war, opposition to war (both North and South), women and war, soldiers' life, the African American war, the international war, emancipation, Reconstruction, and the politics of remembering the conflict. Each week will involve discussion of at least one book; additional articles are likely. Students will be assigned to lead the class discussion and, depending on enrollment, will probably lead more than one session. Written work will include at least ten short papers of roughly three pages that respond to the readings. These should include a statement of the author's argument, the contribution of the work, critical assessment of it published in reviews, and the reader's own critique. One additional paper will be required: a proposal for a research project. This will consist of no more than ten pages that states the problem to be analyzed, establishes a research question, provides the historiographical context, and presents a plan of research, including a discussion of the sources that might be available to fulfill the project. Grading will be based on a combination of the written work and participation.
HIST 544: READINGS IN AMERICAN RECONSTRUCTION
This is a readings seminar that also will have several short projects based on research in key sources. For the first portion of the course we will familiarize ourselves with the historiography of Reconstruction through Eric Foner's seminal works, as well as a sampling of the changing interpretations from the Dunning School to the present. We also will consider more recent trends in Reconstruction historiography-labor arrangements by Amy Dru Stanly, gender by Laura Edwards, class divisions among African Americans by Michael Fitzgerald, and grassroots political mobilization by African Americans in Steven Hahn's Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Finally, we will read works on coming to terms with defeat, such as a comparative study on the U.S. South, Germany, and France, as well as studies of the Lost Cause in the U.S. South. Then students will dive into key sources to produce several short written case studies of roughly five pages: the view from below as contained in the sub-commissioner reports of the Freedmen's Bureau, the view from above as revealed in the Congressional globe, and the view from Northern and Southern whites as revealed in newspapers and/or travel accounts. The course ends with a discussion that compares the experiences of the U.S. South with the key questions and concerns that faced authorities at the end of other wars, including the contemporary situation in Iraq.
HIST 544: CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
This course examines the major interpretations of the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction in America. The course offers exposure to various historical approaches taken in studying the period: social, economic, military, political, constitutional, and intellectual. Readings and discussions will be organized around such themes as: Blundering and Conspiracy: The Causes of the War; Gender and Nationalism; the New Military History; the Cult of Violence in Current Writing on the War; Emancipation and Constitutional Determinism; and Reconstruction and the Perils of Periodization. Attention will be paid to the roots of modern interpretations in such landmark works as Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities ; John Keegan's Face of Battle ; and George Fredrickson's Inner Civil War . Three 12-15-page papers will measure modern interpretations of the period discussed in the seminar.
HIST 545: STUDIES IN GILDED AGE AND PROGRESSIVE-ERA AMERICA, 1877-1919
This seminar explores major issues and developments in American society from the end of Reconstruction through World War I. It will be structured this term as a reading and discussion course, introducing students to significant themes and debates in the historiography of Gilded Age and Progressive Era America. Among the topics to be explored are: the conquest and reshaping of the West; industrialization and the social and ideological tensions it engendered; the growth of the city and the mass influx of immigrants; the development of the American working class and the labor movement; the evolution of middle-class culture; the commercialization of agriculture and the Populist challenge; the rise of Jim Crow and African-American response; the emergence of American imperial power; changing concepts of gender and the revival of feminism; the advent of Progressive regulation and reform; and, consensus and conflict in the World War I era. Students will be evaluated on the basis of short weekly commentaries on the readings, one 15-20 page or two 8-10 page historiographical essays, and participation in seminar discussions.
This seminar focuses on post- Civil War Southern and African American history. It briefly addresses the issues of the transition from a slave to a free society and the legacy of Reconstruction, then moves on to the emergence of a "New South" after 1877. We will focus on the major issues associated with these decades: the rise of a colonial economy, the creation of the Lost Cause Myth, the persistence of African American struggles for freedom, the rise of black nationalism, black political movements, the Populists and Knights of Labor, Jim Crow, southern Progressivism, the impact of a century of wars and depression on the region, and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. This is a readings seminar with weekly reflective short essays.
HIST 549: THE MODERN BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLE IN THE US
This graduate reading seminar surveys the modern black freedom struggle in the United States from the grassroots mobilizations in the mid-1950s to the demise of the Black Power Movement in the mid-1970s. Students will be exposed to the major historiographical debates about the Civil Rights and Black Power movement and will compare and contrast tactics, strategies, and leadership styles of various organizations and individuals that played critical roles in the historic events of the period. The central themes of this seminar are black nationalism, the interplay between local, national, and international events, liberalism and the policies of the federal government, the role of gender, and the ways in which ordinary people participate in the process of social change. Students will be required to periodically assume discussion leadership, write several short journal-style book reviews, and a fifteen-page research paper on a topic of their choice within the parameters of the course. Book-length readings will include Timothy B. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power; Belinda Robnett, How Long? How Long? African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights ; Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin, eds. , Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement ; Charles Payne , I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle ; Komozi Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics ; Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy ; William W. Sales, From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity ; Gretchen Cassel Eick, Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954-1972 ; Carol Polsgrove, Divided Minds: Intellectuals and the Civil Rights Movement ; and Charles Jones, ed., The Black Panther Party Reconsidered .
HIST 555: AMERICAN LABOR HISTORY
This course explores the American working-class experience from its artisanal and agricultural roots, through the rise of industrial capitalism, to the "post-industrial" era. It surveys a range of issues and developments that have animated historical study of American labor in recent years: the formation of America's working classes; the breadth, visions, and strategies of workers' movements; evolutions in the labor process and managerial strategies; the connections among working-class culture, community, and the work place; the effects of race, gender, and ethnicity on workers' identity; the role of the state in shaping labor relations; and labor's varied analyses of, and impacts upon, American society, economy, and polity. The course is structured chiefly as a research seminar. After two months of weekly class sessions to discuss secondary readings and selections of primary sources, students will focus exclusively on their individual research projects. During this phase the seminar will meet periodically, serving as a setting for the presentation and discussion of work-in-progress. The course grade will be based on short weekly commentaries on seminar readings, in-class participation, progress reports and an early draft of the research paper, and, above all, the final product.
HIST 592: PROSEMINAR IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY UNITED STATES
Students in History 592 investigate key issues and events of the nineteenth century, and become acquainted with the wide variety of intellectual approaches currently employed by historians. We will consider the usefulness of different sources and methodologies to the historian, and will ponder why historical investigation has changed over time. Major goals of this class include the mastery of historiographic debates and periodization for the 19th-centuryhistory of the United States. This course is divided into two sections: the first third of the course will be devoted to studying the historiography of the period, the remainder will cover a selected range of topics politics, the economy, culture, society, and war. We will debate, discuss, and evaluate the assigned readings each week. Situating each book within the current historiography provides a major goal of the class. In addition, the discussions, the oral presentations, and the writing assignments will aid in your professional development as a scholar and teacher. Course requirements include an oral presentation and historiographical review (10 pages), two short book reviews, and a 10- 15 page final project related to the historiography of the nineteenth-century.
HIST 592: PROSEMINAR IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA
This course will introduce basic problems in American history and identify schools of historical interpretation from the ratification of the Constitution through World War I. We will examine various methodological approaches through classic and provocative readings on the period. Typical of the books and articles to be assigned are Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution ; Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States ; Joan B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic ; Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: 'Women's Sphere' in New England, 1780-1835 ; Jon Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie ; Michael F. Holt , The Political Crisis of the 1850s; Frederick Jackson Turner , "The Significance of the Frontier in American History;" Shepard Krech, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History ; Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin ; Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll ; Eric Foner, Reconstruction, 1863-1877: America's Unfinished Revolution ; C. Vann Woodward , Origins of the New South ; David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society . Students will be required to write several brief papers.
HIST 597A: AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE FROM THE CONSTITUTION TO PROGRESSIVISM
This seminar will examine the theory and practice of American politics as much through the writings of its practitioners as from works by modern historians. Students will gain a familiarity with important texts of American political life in the period: The Federalist and Anti-Federalist writings; and the speeches and state papers of Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and others. This store of knowledge should serve students will in future teaching and research. In addition, the seminar will study letters and documents complementing the more famous and formal texts by showing how politics was actually practiced and how it touched the lives of voters and the disenfranchised in a century of limited suffrage and restricted categories for office-holders. We will use the documents to evaluate major historical theories of American politics from the Progressive historians of a century ago to the New Political History, "political culture," "republican thesis," and more modern critics of those schools of interpretation. We will read such historians as Michael Holt, Jean Baker, Stephanie McCurry, Daniel Howe, Daniel Rogers, and Richard McCormick. Required writing for the course will be based on original sources and will not emphasize modern monographs.
HIST 597B: SLAVERY IN NORTH AMERICA
This course will address the historiography of slavery in North America. Between 1600 and 1860, slavery underwent a series of complex, epoch-making transformations. By the end of this process, North America emerged from a backwater of staple production in the Atlantic world to the largest slave society in the Americas. Slaves and slaveholders migrated from the Old World to the New and from the Atlantic Seaboard across the Deep South and into the Trans-Mississippi West; negotiated terms of labor and carved out markets for new staple crops; and forged new collective identities and political ideologies. Slavery was integral to the rise of much of what is most modern in American history, including capitalism, liberalism, and racism. Topics for readings and discussions will include the resistance, rebellions, and culture of slaves; slaveholding in practice, ideology, and politics; and relationships between work and culture and between slavery, republicanism, and southern nationalism.