AMH 6198 – Graduate Readings in Early American History
Dr. Jon Sensbach
Description:
This course will explore political, social and cultural developments in early America from the period of colonial contact through the American Revolution. We will examine the complex cultural interchange and contest for power among European, African and Indian peoples while paying close attention to historiographic developments in the field over the last twenty years. Among the topics the course will explore are the impact of European colonization on indigenous people; the creation of an “Atlantic world” and its relationship to global and continental approaches to early America; the rise of free and slave labor systems and the evolution of both racial ideology and African-American cultures; the role of religion in colonial life; gender and women’s history; the imperial struggle among competing European nations; and contested meanings of freedom during the era of Revolution.
EUH 5934 –Methods in Intellectual History: Theory and Practice
Dr. Anton Matytsin
Description:
All historians are intellectual historians in so far as they work with texts, attempt to recover meanings, and try to reconstruct the contexts of past events. However, in the more precise sense that some historians are specifically interested in the history of thought and ideas, only they are conventionally defined as intellectual historians. In the last forty years, the discipline of intellectual history has been at the center of historical debates over meaning, context, hermeneutics, the relation of thought and action, and the explanation of historical change. It has also had close relations with the study of philosophy, science, literature, and political theory, among other fields. This course will introduce students to some of the major methodological debates within intellectual history, and between intellectual history and these other disciplines. We will discuss the relationship between the theory and practice of intellectual history and its applicability to different chronological periods and geographical areas. The course is open to history graduate students focusing on any region and time period. It is also open to graduate students in other fields, including philosophy, literature, and political science.
HIS 6061 – Introduction to Historiography
Dr. Sean Adams
Description:
This intensive reading seminar will examine the variety of ways in which historians create history. We will look at theory, methods, and mediums of recreating the past over the course of the semester by exploring works written about various time periods and locations; the common thread will be the shared task of understanding past events and making them relevant to present generations. By the conclusion of this course, you should have an appreciation for some of the different approaches employed by historians of various generations, the ways in which they attempt to make their work relevant to both scholarly audiences and the public, and a greater appreciation of how history is created.
LAH 5934 – The Iberian Atlantic World
Dr. Max Deardorff
Description:
This seminar explores the contours of the early modern Iberian Atlantic world from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In the simplest sense, the “Atlantic World” refers to the lands surrounding this great ocean, and takes into account how the commingling of their heretofore separated peoples after 1415 led to social, cultural, environmental, and economic transformations in the subsequent centuries. The “Iberian Atlantic” therefore focuses upon settlements, trade relationships, and conflicts established by and/or involving inhabitants of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies. The issue of slavery, because it involved multiple of these elements, is a quintessential Atlantic World topic. In order to emphasize the importance of cross-regional interaction, the reading list for this course will highlight historical events set alternatively on the shores of western Europe, Africa, or the Americas, but whose drama and outcomes fit into a wider trans-Atlantic frame. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to consider the contours and validity of the concept of an Atlantic World as viewed through an Iberian prism.
WOH 5932 – Empires and Nationalism
Dr. Jessica Harland-Jacobs
Description:
This course introduces students to the historiography, debates, and various topics in the study of empires and imperialism. We will examine a range of early modern and modern empires. including, but not limited to the Mongol, Ottoman, Iberian, Dutch, British, French, and American empires. Various methodologies and approaches to the analysis of empires will be considered. We will pay particularly close attention to world history, with a focus on empires as a pedagogical category of analysis. Students will work on collaborative projects as well as individual assignments, including a research or historiographical paper concerning some aspect of the history of imperialism.