Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Natural Sciences & Mathematics Liberal Arts CORE: None
Introduces students to the basic structures of German and focuses on the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing German in cultural, functional contexts. The courses simultaneously introduce students to the vibrant societies and cultures of German-speaking Europe.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Continued introduction to the basic structures of German and focuses on the four language skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing German in cultural, functional contexts. The courses simultaneously introduce students to the vibrant societies and cultures of German-speaking Europe.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 195 - Elementary-Level German Language Abroad
Elementary-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Completes the presentation of basic structures of German and helps students develop greater facility and sophistication in using these structures - in comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Continue the exploration of German cultures begun on the 100 level.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GERM 122 or equivalent Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Restrictions: Not open to students who score 3 or higher on a German AP exam Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Completes the presentation of basic structures of German and helps students develop greater facility and sophistication in using these structures - in comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Continue the exploration of German cultures begun on the 100 level.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GERM 201 or equivalent Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Castles, enchanted forests, princes and princesses, wicked stepmothers, dangerous beasts, moral lessons and terrible punishments: this course re-visits the world of childhood bedtime stories with the aim of developing a critical appreciation of the meaning, structure, and function of classic fairy tales. Beginning with the tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, the course also examines Disney film adaptations and modern rewritings by authors such as Roald Dahl, Margaret Atwood, and Anne Sexton. Questions to consider include: What is a fairy tale? How have fairy tales been used to teach moral lessons and reinforce cultural values? How have these stories been re-imagined for different audiences? Readings and discussions will culminate in a collaborative multimedia project. Course taught in English.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 295 - Intermediate-Level German Language Abroad
Intermediate-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Students screen a selection of representative German films and analyze them with an eye to the social and historical context in which they were made and to their innovation and influence in the development of cinema art and film language. The films are also discussed in terms of larger theoretical and methodological issues (film and literature, realism, representations of class or gender stereotypes, film and political propaganda, etc.). Taught in English. Participation in the accompanying FLAC section is mandatory for students wishing to earn German major/minor credit for this course.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite:GERM 322L Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Credits: 0.00 Corequisite: GERM 322 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 325 - Transnationalism in Contemporary German Culture
Demographic changes in Europe’s largest country have transformed conceptions of its national culture. The discourse of transnationalism has emerged to address contemporary political and cultural phenomena no longer confined to the stages of nation-states. This course examines the transnational imagination at work in recent German cultural production, with an emphasis on cinematic negotiations of German and European identity. Factors contributing to these negotiations include the tenuous legacy of German unification, the consolidation of the European Union, and the migration of people to Germany, especially those with a non-European background. The course’s method of inquiry is multidisciplinary: a focus on contemporary films is supplemented with historical background, contemporary philosophy, and political essays. To address the aesthetic qualities of transnational cinema, students familiarize themselves with the terminology and methodologies of film studies and perform critical visual analyses of the cinematic material. Participation in the accompanying FLAC section is mandatory for students wishing to earn GERM major/minor credit for this course.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite:GERM 325L Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Recommended:FMST 200 is desirable but not required Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Credits: 0.00 Corequisite:GERM 325 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 326 - Germany and the Environmental Imagination
Germany is widely recognized as a global leader in environmental policy and green technology. To what extent does Germany’s role as a pioneer in the global environmental movement have its roots in German culture? Building on interdisciplinary scholarship in the growing field of environmental humanities, this course offers an introduction to environmental thought in German literature, culture, and the arts from the 18th-century to the present. The goal of the course is to develop an ecocritical model of reading, focusing on the way literature and other artworks stage the encounter between people and nature in a range of different genres: fairy tales, prose, poetry, landscape painting, and film. Tracing the emergence of the German environmental imagination in key texts from German literature, art, and film, the course also examines the emergence of the modern environmental movement in Germany, and explores how literature and the arts contribute to contemporary debates about environmental justice, species extinction, and sustainability. Course taught in English with an optional FLAC section in German.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Kafka may be the most dizzyingly overdetermined proper name in world literature. Not only does it stand for the author, it has come to signify a host of political, institutional, existential, and aesthetic conditions. One refers to “Kafkaesque” experiences, sensibilities, or bureaucracies; situations, movies, the 20th century, and modern life are all regularly dubbed “Kafkan” or “Kafkaish.” The name seems to have a life of its own; but to understand what it means, students must animate Kafka by reading him. Students read, discuss, and think about a range of Kafka’s writing, from novels and short stories to diary entries and legal brief, paying close attention not only to the texts and their various obsessions, but to their emergence in his creative process and their afterlives in translation and the works of other artists. Students explore the multicultural Central European milieu that Kafka inhabited and examine the global transmission and remediation of his work in its critical reception, multiple translations, and adaptations; its transmutation into a style; and its metastasis in popular culture. Taught in English. Participation in the accompanying FLAC section is mandatory for students wishing to earn GERM major/minor credit for this course.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 341 - Advanced Conversation and Composition (Study Group)
Especially geared to the needs of American students studying and living in a German environment. Addresses methods for coping in everyday situations as well as in the special setting of a German university. The first part is taught by the director while traveling; the second part is taught by the director or tutors in accordance with the very specific needs of each individual student.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 351 - Introduction to German Literary Studies I
Introduces students to a variety of German literary texts from the 18th century to the present, in their cultural and historical contexts. Through its exploration of topics such as revolution and social change; constructions of gender; national identity; migration and minority experience; and modernity and aesthetic innovation, the course considers the versatile powers of literature to interpret and influence personal and collective experience. The course also serves as a workshop in which to develop techniques and vocabulary of literary and cultural analysis. In addition to furthering critical understanding of German literature as part of living culture, this course will help students strengthen and expand German language skills in all four areas: reading, writing, comprehension and speaking. Taught in German.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GERM 202 or equivalent Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 352 - Introduction to German Literary Studies II
Develops critical and analytical skills through a program of selected readings in German literature of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries in their cultural and historical contexts.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GERM 202 or equivalent Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Advanced-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GERM 457 - German Literature and Culture (Study Group)
Designed to create a frame of reference for students by presenting them with a survey of German history and culture and connecting it to the present experience abroad. In addition to study trips in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the course incorporates current theater performances, concerts, and visits to museums and art galleries. As with GERM 341, the course has two components: the pre-term weeks (February and March) devoted to travel, and the term at Freiburg during which regular class sessions are scheduled.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Introduces Goethe’s writing and thought through selected plays, narrative fiction, critical writings, and poems. Topics include Goethe’s interest and influence in various cultural spheres, such as the visual arts, the scientific fields of his time, and politics in the age of revolutions. Students explore his comparative approach to world languages and literatures, his changing aesthetic positions during his lifetime, and his literary explorations of gender and love. The seminar interprets Goethe in the context of his time and also examines his dominant and debated position in the German cultural tradition.
Credits: 1.00 Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Since Plato, artists and philosophers have recognized the close connection between genius and madness (Wahnsinn). But how exactly does one distinguish between inspiration and mania? Why is it so many geniuses are also mad? And how do changing definitions of mental illness affect how one perceives the relationship between madness and genius across history? These questions are central to the study of literature, philosophy, and the history of social institutions. In this course, students delve deeper into these questions by examining a series of literary, philosophical, and visual works from the German tradition that foreground the relationship between madness and genius, as well as works by geniuses that may also have been “mad.” Authors may include Plato, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Hölderlin, Immanuel Kant, Heinrich von Kleist, Georg Büchner, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Walser, and Thomas Mann. This course emphasizes reading, speaking, listening, and writing German, as well as discipline-specific research skills.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
German Romanticism and the movement known as Young Germany evolved in the years between the French Revolution to the “March Revolution” of 1848 and circled around the aspirations and disappointments of the revolutionary spirit. The literature of these years follows shifts in the intellectual debates of the times: the proclamation of individual rights, the crumbling of traditional social structures and the rise of new social forms, the plight of the lone individual detached from traditional moorings. Works we will read include folk fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers, the poetry of Novalis and Eichendorff, fantastic tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and the socially critical poetry of Heinrich Heine.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
At the dawn of the 20th-century, central Europeans lived, debated, and created amidst great doubts that their world had any future. At the heart of a conflicted and paradoxical modernity arose a keen sense of the unreality and futility of human affairs. Yet modernity’s seemingly unresolvable challenges—including questions about the political arrangements of diverse and multilingual societies, the constitution of the human psyche, the chances of human survival on the eve of World War I, as well as class, inter-ethnic and gender relations—spawned a furor of pioneering responses in the urban centers of Germanophone Europe. Exploring the resources of this rich period (1890-1924), this course investigates the cultural, literary, philosophical, artistic, and musical activity abounding in Vienna, Prague, and other sites of central European modernity. Readings include works by Zweig, Roth, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Freud, Musil, Kraus, and Kafka. Focus is on reading and writing about central Europe will be supplemented by visual works of art, architecture and cinema relevant to the period.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Examines the literature and cultures of German-speaking Europe in the 20th century. Because of the wealth of the material, selections vary from semester to semester. Areas of focus may include: the Weimar Republic, exilic literature by émigrés of National Socialism, comparative approaches to West and East German literature, confronting the Holocaust, Austrian and Swiss writers, migration and transnationalism, and the literature of German unification and the Berlin Republic.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
A survey of selected examples of German poetry from the Baroque period to the present. Poems are examined with an eye to developments in form and to poetry’s engagement with the changing world in which it is created, from the Thirty Years’ War to the European Union.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
This examination of this unique German form from Goethe to the present emphasizes its 19th-century expression.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Examines the history, theory, and practice of German drama with a focus on a selection of major dramatic works from the 18th century to the present. As theater continues to thrive as a unique aesthetic and social institution of German-speaking Europe, students conduct a performance-oriented study of theater as a medium of cultural and transcultural communication. Canonical playwrights to be studied may include Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Kleist, Büchner, Ibsen, Brecht, Peter Weiss, and Heiner Müller. Contemporary playwrights may include Elfriede Jelinek, Falk Richter, Sibylle Berg, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Nurkan Erpulat and Dea Loher. Investigating the genre of the bürgerliches Trauerspiel, the Volksstuck, epic theater, postdrama, and postmigratory theater, students also undertake experiments in drama pedagogy.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite:GERM 485L Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Credits: 0.00 Corequisite:GERM 485 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
What is German World Literature? This question highlights the relationship between the idea of a national literary tradition and a broader concept of literature that crosses linguistic, cultural, or national boundaries. This seminar focuses on theories of “world literature/s” and on primary literary texts written in German as examples of works that circulate through and reflect multiple cultural and linguistic contexts. How are the Grimm fairy tales mediated by Disney? What do we understand by the term “Kafkaesque”? Why did Goethe emulate the Persian poet Hafis? Do Senoçak’s readers in America contribute to a new idea of German or German-Turkish literature? Topics include the roles of translation, migration, economic and media globalization, nationalisms, and contemporary and historical transnational identities in shaping world literature written originally in German. This course is taught in German, and all written work is to be completed in German.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: Two GERM 300-level courses Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Devoted to the honors project, this course must be taken in addition to the eight courses required for the major. Although it is a year-long course, students register for it once, in the spring semester of the senior year. See “Honors and High Honors,” on department page.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
The first semester of an introductory study of the elements of the Greek language. A thorough and methodical approach to the basics is supplemented, as students progress, by selected readings of works by ancient authors.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
The second semester of an introductory study of the elements of the Greek language. A thorough and methodical approach to the basics is supplemented, as students progress, by selected readings of works by ancient authors.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 121 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Elementary-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
This intermediate-level course in the Greek language focuses on advanced grammar and syntax and on reading selections from a range of authors, e.g., Plato, Herodotus, Xenophon. Students increase their familiarity with Greek style while devoting attention to literary, historical, or philosophical analysis.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 122 or equivalent Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
An intermediate-level course in the Greek language with readings from one of the following poets: Sophocles, Homer, Euripides. Students increase their knowledge of Greek grammar and style and of the basic literary and technical aspects of Greek poetry.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 122 or equivalent Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
GREK 295 - Intermediate-Level Greek Language Abroad
Intermediate-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Close reading and study of one or more plays from the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides. This course is designed to give students a wider appreciation of the genre of Greek tragedy as well as to increase their philological skills.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 201 or higher Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Studies at least one play of the Athenian comic poet Aristophanes. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the comedies of Aristophanes and Athenian tragedy, the language of Aristophanic comedy, and the social and political background of his works.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 201 or higher Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Close reading and study of selections from the Iliad or the Odyssey. Students, in addition to mastering the epic language, acquire a clearer sense of the place of the epics in Greek literary history.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 201 or higher Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Close reading and study of selections from the Histories of Herodotus, the so-called father of history. This course introduces students to the study of Greek historiography and the nature of Herodotean history.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 201 or higher Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Close reading and study of selections from the History of the Peloponnesian War of Thucydides, an astute political and historical analysis of the great conflict between Athens and Sparta that ended with the defeat of Athens. This course pays particular attention to the complex language of Thucydides and to his historiographical principles.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 201 or higher Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Translation and close study of selected dialogues of Plato. This course focuses on the importance of Plato’s Greek and the dialogues’ structure to the philosophical arguments of each work.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:GREK 201 or higher Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Advanced-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Teach modern Hebrew as spoken in Israel and are designed for students who are interested in developing oral and written Hebrew skills. The course is helpful to those who are interested in deeper knowledge of Jewish culture and wish to improve their knowledge of Hebrew for religious studies. Designed for students with no previous Hebrew background and students who have learned to read phonetically without comprehension.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Teach modern Hebrew as spoken in Israel and are designed for students who are interested in developing oral and written Hebrew skills. The course is helpful to those who are interested in deeper knowledge of Jewish culture and wish to improve their knowledge of Hebrew for religious studies. Designed for students who have completed HEBR 121 or have equivalent knowledge.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:HEBR 121 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
HEBR 195 - Elementary-Level Hebrew Language Abroad
Elementary-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Continuing course for students who have completed HEBR 122 and for students with equivalent or advanced knowledge of modern Hebrew. These courses aim at enhancing the students’ reading, writing, comprehension, and speaking skills and involve extensive teaching of grammar. Instruction tools include audiovisual materials, popular texts, Israeli newspapers, and exercises in the language laboratory.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:HEBR 122 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Continuing course for students who have completed HEBR 201 and for students with equivalent or advanced knowledge of modern Hebrew. These courses aim at enhancing the students’ reading, writing, comprehension, and speaking skills and involve extensive teaching of grammar. Instruction tools include audiovisual materials, popular texts, Israeli newspapers, and exercises in the language laboratory.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites:HEBR 201 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts CORE: None
HEBR 295 - Intermediate-Level Hebrew Language Abroad
Intermediate-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts CORE: None
Advanced-level language courses taken abroad with a Colgate study group, an approved program, or in a foreign institution of higher learning.
Credits: 1 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts CORE: None
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty.
Credits: variable Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts CORE: None
Africa (AF)
Asia (AS)
Europe (EU)
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)
Middle East (ME)
Transregional (TR)
United States (US)
HIST 101 - The Growth of National States in Europe (EU)
Examines national states after 1450; conflict in Europe and world-wide commercial and colonial ambitions; Renaissance culture, the Protestant revolt, Spanish ascendancy; 17th-century French absolutism and constitutional government in England; Austria, the weakened Germanies, the rise of Prussia and Russia; 18th-century liberalism; and the French Revolution, Napoleonic conquest, and the European settlement of 1815. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Restrictions: Not open to students with AP credit in European history. Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Explores the social, economic, political, and cultural history of Europe over the last two centuries. Topics include the revolutions of 1848, nationalism and the unification of Italy and Germany, the Industrial Revolution and the growth of socialism, imperialism and the alliance system, the Russian Revolution and the two World Wars, Stalinism and the fall of the Soviet Empire after 1989, and the development of the European Union. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Restrictions: Not open to students with AP credit in European history. Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
A broad survey of key patterns, events, and the history of peoples in America from ca. 1500 to 1877. Covers the breadth of Native American life and the effects of European settlement, the colonial and constitutional periods through the age of reform, the crisis of union, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Prepares students for upper-level courses in early American history. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Restrictions: Not open to students with AP credit in U.S. history. Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
A survey of United States history from the era of Reconstruction to the present. Topics include post-Reconstruction racial retrenchment in the South; immigration; the rise of industrialism and the response to it by farmers and workers; Populism and Progressivism; women’s suffrage and the modern women’s movement; the World Wars, the Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam; the New Deal and public policy; the cultural convulsions of the 1920s and 1960s; the victories and frustrations of the Civil Rights movement; and the post-Cold War period. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Restrictions: Not open to students with AP credit in U.S. history. Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 105 - Introduction to the Modern Middle East (ME)
This is a beginning course for study of the Middle East region, and a nuts-and-bolts primer on understanding the background for current events. Students learn the political, geographical, and social/ethnic borders that divide the region and the distribution of languages and faiths across it. The historical content of the course is a survey of the past two centuries, with emphasis on the 20th century. No prior knowledge of the Middle East is assumed. (ME)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None Formerly: HIST 259
Surveys the history of Africa from 1880s to the contemporary period. Major themes will include: the imperial scramble and partition of Africa; African resistances; colonial rule in Africa; independence and problems of independence; socio-economic developments in independent Africa; ethnic conflicts; crises and contemporary issues. (AF)
Credits: 1.00 Crosslisted:ALST 282 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None Formerly: HIST 282
An introduction to the ways of looking at the past that differ substantially from those encountered in most high school history courses. Cultural history investigates the many different ways in which diverse peoples in the past have understood themselves, their societies, and their surroundings. It concerns itself with the lives of ordinary people, asking not only what they did, but how they thought about what they did. This course invites students to delve deeply into the cultural practices and ideas of past individuals through a series of case studies from widely disparate times and places. It introduces students to the methods of cultural history and to the historical discipline more generally through readings and analyses of primary sources alongside critical and synthetic approaches to important secondary literature. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Introduces students to Colgate’s rich and diverse history as they learn to navigate the university archives; gain hands-on experience with primary sources; and learn the basics of researching and creating digital history. Students will also learn how historians document under-represented groups and wrestle with how best to commemorate both the happy and the controversial aspects of a university’s history. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None Formerly: HIST 312
Trains students in historical methods by focusing on research, writing, and communication skills. Students learn to understand historiographical debates, assemble and assess bibliographies, find and interpret primary sources, construct effective written arguments, cite sources correctly, and develop appropriate oral communication skills. Depending on the instructor, the course may also include the use of non-traditional sources such as film or material culture, as well as the interpretation of historic sites, monuments, and landscapes.
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Recommended: Intended for history majors; should be completed by the end of sophomore year. Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None Formerly: HIST 200 and HIST 299
HIST 202 - Europe in the Middle Ages, c. 300 - 1500 (EU)
The Middle Ages were a period of enormous transformation and creativity in Europe. This course examines the emergence of medieval civilization from the ruins of the ancient world and the subsequent evolution of that civilization into modern Europe. Themes to be covered include the fall of Rome, the spread of Christianity and the conflicts within the medieval church, the rise and fall of Byzantium, the challenge of Islam and the crusades, the Vikings, the development of the medieval economy, the feudal revolution, the 12th-century Renaissance, the origins of law and government, the effects of the Black Death, and the Italian Renaissance. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Covers the age of the American Revolution, beginning with the Stamp Act Riots in 1765 and ending with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 and the success of white male suffrage. Topics include the pre-Revolutionary debates and turmoil, the war itself, popular post-war government, and the construction of the Constitution. From there students survey the first presidential elections, the building of a federal government, and the expansion of the United States to the Mississippi River. Includes debates over slavery, suffrage, Native Americans, and diplomatic history. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
The events that followed Columbus’ accidental arrival in the New World in 1492 shaped the world in which we live today. This course explores the formation of the Atlantic communities as the result of interactions between European, African, and Native American peoples as well as the circulation of diseases, natural products, labor systems, imperial designs, economic policies, and frontier zones in the Atlantic world. Many of the consequences of this process of interaction were unintended. Students explore the configuration of European, African, and Native American societies before contact and the configuration of new communities in the New World; the slave trade and the establishment of the plantation complex from Brazil to South Carolina; the spread of Christianity in the New World; the development of scientific practices in the service of imperial and national states; the establishment of labor systems; and the different strategies of accommodation, resistance, and rebellion of the different actors trying to find/protect their place in the Atlantic world. This course intends to provide a regional framework for the study of colonial societies in the western hemisphere as well as for the study of emerging empires and states in Europe. (LAC)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 210 - The History of Health, Disease and Empire (TR)
A comparative approach to exploring issues of disease, health, and medicine in the context of European imperial projects around the globe. Focusing on the late 17th through the early 20th centuries, the course traces how global empires facilitated environmental changes and exchanges, as well as the spread of diseases across distant sites. Students will study the shifting understanding of disease and health, as well as health disparities between enslaved and colonized populations and colonizers. These disparities had far-reaching geopolitical, economic, and social ramifications, including major influences on ideas of race and human difference. Students will gain an understanding of how practices of medicine and public health developed in imperial contexts as contested techniques of governance. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Examines the social and cultural history of women in the United States from the Revolutionary era to the present day, tracing feminist ideas from the margins of democratic thought to the center of modern political discourse and culture. Students will explore how issues including race, class, region, religion, work, education, and generational differences have shaped women’s lives and maintained gendered order in American society and how, in turn, women have shaped their lives in response to these issues, opportunities, and constraints. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None Formerly: HIST 311
A comparative and cross-cultural approach to modern women’s history, from the Enlightenment to the present. The course considers common elements of women’s experience in modern history, including changes in fertility and sexuality, increasing educational attainment, transformations in economic roles, and new access to political power. Students explore the importance of women’s own agency, or resistance to oppression, in bringing about and exploiting these changes; and they assess the diversity of women’s identities as conditioned, for example, by class, race, or ethnicity. The course emphasizes the particular history of different nations or regions depending on the instructor, but it always involves students learning to work within a comparative framework. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
How has gender been negotiated in the confined space of the city? Focusing primarily on the rich histories of New York and Chicago, and other U.S. cities, this course considers how urban life for women and men diverged, and how it met, from the early 19th century, through the post-WWII “urban crisis” and women’s liberation movements, to the present day. Students will examine historical arguments about the construction of gendered identities, paying particular attention to divisions of race, class, sexuality, and religion. Throughout the course, students will interrogate their own personal geographies, as well as those inhabited by our historical subjects. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 214 - American Cultural and Intellectual History (US)
Surveys some of the most important conversations in the history of the United States. Explores: America’s providential destiny, slavery, and the roots of “liberty;” the problem of maintaining a democratic society built on the wealth and inequality generated by capitalism; the making of a modern nation and the nature of nations; the multiplication of “experts” ready to help us live our increasingly bureaucratized lives; and late 20th-century debates about justice and identity. Students read and write extensively using primary sources and learn to read other cultural artifacts from the American past. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 215 - American Foreign Relations, 1776 - 1917 (US)
Examines the development of American foreign relations from the Declaration of Independence to the entry of the United States into World War I. Considers the emergence of competing ideas about the place of the United States in the world in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and such subjects as the formation of early American foreign policy, tensions with Europe, westward expansion and the war with Mexico, the growth of American economic power, and the rise of U.S. imperialism. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 216 - U.S. Foreign Policy, 1917 - Present (US)
U.S. foreign relations from the entry into the Great War to the present. Topics include the unquiet “normalcy” of the 1920s, origins of U.S. participation in the Second World War, the atomic bombs, the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, arms control, the end of the Cold War, and the new world of terrorism and conflict. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 218 - The African American Struggle for Freedom and Democracy (US)
Surveys the presence of African Americans in the United States and their struggle for freedom under the concept of democracy. Examines African origins, the Middle Passage, the creation of an African American culture in slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the growth of black communities in the face of hostility, the African American impact on American culture, the Civil Rights movement, and the continuing struggle by African Americans to make democracy real. (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
It may seem self-evident that oceans have histories, that far from being timeless, they constantly change. Nonetheless, this is a relatively recent idea. This course takes this idea as its starting point, and in doing so explores oceans and coastal areas as more than simply spaces, but as complex historical entities. Marine environmental history will provide the main framework for the course, although maritime history and oceanic studies concepts–such as Atlantic and Pacific Worlds–will also feature prominently. The course gives particular attention to the period of increasing globalization and drastically intensifying human exploitation of the oceans since roughly the fifteenth century. It also, however, considers pre-modern, pre-industrial relations between humans, oceans, and marine environments, suggesting their mutual influences long before the period usually associated with major human effects on the environment. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 220 - The History of Nature and Capital in the United States (US)
Tells a story about Americans’ encounters with the natural world alongside their development of new technologies, modes of labor, and methods of business and finance. The wide-ranging explorations reveal the various ways that capitalism in the United States has packaged, developed, pillaged, improved, or sold the natural world—all while fundamentally shaping modern American business and society in the process. Students learn the fundamental methods of historical inquiry through in-depth investigation into the histories of particular commodities while they simultaneously wrestle with important questions in environmental studies and political economy. They ask the questions: what was the nature of power and what was the power of nature in the past? (US)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 225 - Jamaica: From Colony to Independence (Study Group) (LAC)
Surveys the history of Jamaica from 1655 when the British took possession of the island through political independence in 1962, to the present. Examines the growth of Jamaica to become Britain’s most prosperous colony during the 18th century based on an export sugar-based, slave-driven economy; the social and political consequences of its dependence on slavery; the economic effects of slave abolition and free trade during the 19th century; social and political developments after emancipation; the growth of black nationalism and decolonization; and post/neo-colonial developments. (LAC)
Credits: 1.00 Crosslisted:ALST 225 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 228 - The Caribbean: Conquest, Colonization, and Self-Determination (LAC)
Surveys Caribbean history from European conquest and colonization to political independence. It introduces students to the salient features of the region’s history from indigenous societies and their destruction by Europian invaders and the indigenous peoples; through the rise of plantations and African slavery, the struggles for freedom, post-slavery social and economic developments; to the rise of nationalism leading to political self-determination, and the new American imperialism. (LAC)
Credits: 1.00 Crosslisted:ALST 228 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
How did indigenous peoples, Europeans, Africans, and their mixed-race descendants become “Latin American”? How have people challenged colonial rule and its enduring legacies? Why have dictatorships or military regimes so often taken the reins of power, and what roles has the United States played in the region’s politics and development? This course, which surveys a broad swath of Latin American history from the 16th century to the present, addresses these and other questions through a wide range of sources. Particular attention is paid to records of life and thought left by individuals, who either composed documents themselves or spoke through the writings of others. (LAC)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 231 - Resistance and Revolt in Latin America (LAC)
Examines a broad range of revolts and revolutionary movements in Latin America, beginning in the colonial period and focusing on the 20th century. Some of these successfully overthrew ruling regimes; others did not but left a lasting mark on the region’s history. Also examined are less organized forms of resistance, including sabotage, absenteeism, and riots used by slaves and workers to protest their conditions of life and labor. Case studies include Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Guatemala. (LAC)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
In 1099, a crusading army sacked Jerusalem, killing Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. This act of savagery earned the crusade fame in Christian Europe and infamy in the Islamic world, prompting a crusade movement in the West and a military reaction in the East. The forces stirred up by these events also led Western Europe toward the conquest of Spain, Eastern Europe, Greece, and eventually the Americas and beyond. In this course, students study the causes, progress, and results of the Crusades themselves, as well as the new colonial societies that developed in their wake. Students focus on the transformation of four cultures: western Christendom, Judaism, Byzantium, and Islam. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 233 - The French Revolution: Old Regime, Revolution, and Napleonic Empire, 1770-1815 (EU)
An overview of one of the most tumultuous periods in modern European history. France experienced a range of different governments, from absolute monarchy, to the Reign of Terror, to the Napoleonic Empire, a progression that was accompanied by an expansion of the existing war (from 1792 on) into a massive European-wide war. There were serious claims for citizenship and equality from working class men, from women of all classes, and from slaves and free people of color in France’s colonial empire; there were disturbing acts of violence committed by crowds as well as by the government itself. The course is designed to introduce students to the major events and personalities and the political evolution of the state during this time, as well as to discuss some of the important historiographical arguments. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 238 - Europe in the Age of the Renaissance and Reformation (EU)
A survey of early modern European history. It focuses on the Renaissance and the age of expansion and exploration as well as the Reformation and the era of religious wars. The primary areas of focus include the development of the European state system, the emergence of the European economy, and the growing size and scale of warfare. Additional subjects include the witch craze and gender roles, art and patronage, print culture and literacy, popular religions, and the development of the concepts of the self and individual freedom. (GL)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
In 1485, Henry Tudor became king of England. A second-rate power in Europe, his kingdom had been torn apart by dynastic struggles and civil war. By 1714, when the last of the Stuart monarchs died, everything had changed. England was now part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which included Scotland and Wales, and whose king also ruled over the neighboring island of Ireland. The medieval feudal kingship had been replaced by a well-established parliamentary monarchy, with many stops along the way. Britain was now a world power, at the center of a far-flung empire, and competing with France for dominance in Europe and beyond. This course will explore precisely how these monumental changes came about, taking a close look at British history over the long 16th and 17th centuries from a number of different perspectives: political, religious, social, cultural, commercial, and intellectual. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Focuses on the range of experiences of women in Europe, from the Renaissance to the present day. Topics include the experiences of women in the work force and the family, the witch craze, women and religion, women’s involvement in politics and reform movements, the exercise of state control over women’s bodies, and the changing priorities of feminism and feminist ideologies. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 249 - History of the City of London (Study Group) (EU)
A history of the city from its origins in Roman times, through its medieval rebirth, its growth as the commercial and institutional capital of empire, to its refashioning as a vibrant, cosmopolitan metropolis. Taught through a combination of classroom sessions and walking tours. Offered only in London. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 When Offered: London Study Group
Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None Formerly: HIST 349
While the discipline of history is often approached as a collection of static, undisputed facts, the past is constantly re-interpreted and re-written to suit the needs of those living in the present. Far from being an apolitical exercise or a straightforward empirical investigation, history is contested and hijacked by individuals and groups who seek to use it to advance their interests and promote their agendas. History is not only subject to intense and divisive public debates, it frequently appears at the center of both latent and active inter-group conflicts. Through close readings of key texts and hands-on engagement with contemporary case studies, this course aims to provide a broad overview of the politics of history. The scope of the course is global, and the methodological approach is multi-disciplinary, spanning such fields as history, political science, public and international affairs, memory studies, museum studies, and peace and conflict studies. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
How did Arabian coffee and American tobacco become global vices? How has the use and meaning of these everyday products changed over time? Why are so many people drawn to caffeine and nicotine, and why do they have such a hard time quitting them? This course traces the history of coffee and cigarettes from the 1500s to the present. Readings and discussions range from 16th-century Turkish coffeehouses to 21st-century Starbucks, and from the prohibition by King James I of tobacco to contemporary debates on second-hand smoke. Other historical topics include the discovery and diffusion of coffee and tobacco; the establishment and spread of coffeehouses; early prohibitions on tobacco use; the connections between colonialism and consumer goods; and the medical, economic, and political debates surrounding these products in the 20th century. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
The Ottoman Empire lasted for over six centuries and was one of the last multi-ethnic empires in world history. States that were once part of the empire include Iraq, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. This course examines the social, political, and economic life of the Ottoman state from its beginnings among nomadic tribesmen to the fall of the “Grand Turk” in World War I. Issues addressed include the organization of structures of control over such a large and heterogeneous population and the maintenance of a relatively high level of integration in society over time. The factors that led to the disintegration of this empire, including nationalism and colonialism, are also examined. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Few Western European countries have had as turbulent a recent history as Ireland, nor one whose legacy remains as persistent. This course focuses on Ireland’s evolution from Britain’s oldest colony to a self-governing state, culminating in her current situation as a divided nation whose acute internal tensions sit uneasily within a broader framework of European unity. Although the independence struggle and Anglo-Irish relations in general feature prominently, the course goes beyond the “national question” to examine such issues as the growth of Irish culture, images of Irishness at home and abroad, developments in social and economic history, and the complex roots of the conflict in Northern Ireland. (EU)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
An overview of the cultural and economic relationships that developed across Eurasia from the 1st to the 14th centuries CE. The course focuses on the fabled “Silk Road,” overlapping of overland trade routes through Central Asia that connected China and Japan with western Europe. The impact of the Silk Road was as often regional and local as it was intercontinental; most travelers did not cover the whole route but remained in areas that were indigenous to them. The course examines a number of very broad themes, such as the interaction of nomadic and sedentary peoples, the spread of religions, cultural confrontation, and syncretism. The course is a challenging one for both instructor and students in that it covers an enormous geographic, cultural, and chronological span. (TR)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Examines the formation of modern East Asia, with particular focus on China, Japan, and Korea. Explores the changing role of empire and nation, indigenous reevaluations of tradition, and finally the shifting political, economic, and military relations among China, Japan, and Korea. Concludes with a look at East Asia’s evolving place in the world as a whole. (AS)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
Explores the place of war and violence in East Asian societies from 1200 to 1700. Among the many topics examined are samurai, ninja, martial arts, Ghenghis Khan, and piracy. First, students look at the internal organization of armies, their place in domestic politics and society, and their role in foreign relations. Second, they examine the impact of war on religion, economics, politics, and the arts. Third, because of its importance, violence was tightly linked to religion, literature, and popular theater. Finally, students consider the various ways that these traditions attempted to prevent, control, and manipulate violence through examining political philosophy, law codes, and social mores. (AS)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Senior Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None
HIST 266 - Foreign Relations in East Asian History (AS)
Explores how a large portion of humanity, that is China, Korea, and Japan, understood, articulated, and practiced inter-state relations for most of their history (prior to 1800). Students examine the historical origins of foreign relations in East Asia, trace their variation by time and place, and consider their ties to domestic political, social, and intellectual developments. Finally, students review the strikingly different ways scholars have characterized East Asian foreign relations. (AS)
Credits: 1.00 Corequisite: None Prerequisites: None Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Social Relations,Inst.& Agents Liberal Arts CORE: None