Courses
History
5231. Gender and Sexuality in Asia (3 s.h.)
The course focuses on gender and sexuality in the modern history of Asia.
5500. Studies in Asian History (3 s.h.)
Readings on selected topics in modern Asian history are discussed.
5800. Comparing Women's Histories (3 s.h.)
This course explores two to three selected topics in women's history in a comparative, global perspective. Topics may include gender, race, and state; women, religion, and social change; women in industrializing societies; domestic contestations; and histories and theories. See the current semester description.
8009. Women and Gender in the American South (3 s.h.)
This seminar surveys the field of Southern gender history in the 19th and 20th centuries to World War II. The field itself is a new one — and a course such as this would have been difficult to put together a generation ago, but Southern women's and gender history already has its "classic" works, dominant interpretations, and heated controversies.
8101. Introduction to American History (3 s.h.)
This course offers an introduction to the study of American history at the graduate level. It examines major interpretations and schools of thought. American political, social, and diplomatic history includes Republicanism, the Jacksonian revolution, slavery, social mobility in the U.S., the rise of America as a world power, the Cold War, and the development of labor.
8102. American Cultural History (3 s.h.)
Despite the notion that cultural history dominated the discipline of history from the mid-1980s until quite recently, there is no journal of U.S. cultural history, no U.S. cultural history association, and no clear sense of its divergent schools of thought or approach. In this readings course, we try to pin down this slippery beast by reading key works; discussing methodologies and their implications; and attempting to identify major questions, trends, and conversations.
8103. Studies in American Diplomatic History (3 s.h.)
Readings focus on the principal schools of interpretation and conceptual frameworks in the history of U.S. foreign relations as a means to introduce students to the subfield. As a complement to HIST 8209: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Cold War, the chronological parameters extend from the Revolutionary era through the conclusion of World War II. In addition to completing weekly reading and writing assignments, and as a final assignment a comparative review essay, students participate actively in class conversations about history and historians.
8104. Studies in African American History (3 s.h.)
Emphasis is on the period since the Civil War. Possible topics include Reconstruction and rise of segregation; urbanization of the black population; history of black women in the U.S.; and the Civil Rights revolution.
8105. History of Education (3 s.h.)
This course focuses primarily on the way that educational institutions, broadly construed, have shaped American culture and society. Special attention is paid to recent historiographic debates concerning education and its social effects.
8106. Studies in Modern American Social History (3 s.h.)
The theme of the course in recent years has been Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty in the U.S., 1870-1940. The main subject is the impact of industrialization and urbanization on the working class, the poor, and minority groups during the period when the U.S. emerged as an industrial power. Attention is also given to the response to poverty, both by private charities and the state.
8109. Studies in U.S. Political History Since 1928 (3 s.h.)
This graduate course is devoted to the critical evaluation of the historiography of U.S. political history since the election of 1928. Students read and evaluate selected writings on such topics as the politics of the Great Depression, the New Deal revolution, domestic politics during World War II, the politics of fear and loyalty, the Fair Deal, Eisenhower, Kennedy, the politics of civil rights, the politics of dissent, LBJ and the Great Society, the “New Politics” (1968), the Republican majority since Nixon, interest-group politics, and the paradigms of American politics.
8121. Stalinism: Power, Society, and Culture (3 s.h.)
The seminar deals with "classical" books written by witnesses and contemporaries of Stalinism, the stalwarts of the “totalitarian school” and its first revisionists. The seminar focuses on the major developments and events that determined and shaped Stalinism as a historical period. The discussion also deals with major aspects of the phenomenon: politics, social transformation, formation of new elites, mass mentality, propaganda, language, culture, and art. The course ends with an overview of de-Stalinization. It addresses the reasons for the staying influence of Stalinist experience and the attempts in the Soviet/Russian society to reject and supercede it.
8151. Studies in American Material Culture (3 s.h.)
This course is an introduction to literature from several fields that use artifacts to understand culture. Various theoretical approaches are explored. Topics include architecture, folk art, photography, decorative arts, landscape design, historic preservation, and the use of interior space.
8152. Managing History (3 s.h.)
This course explores the practical considerations and theoretical issues concerning the management/ownership of the interpretation, preservation, and presentation of history for public consumption. Emphasis is on public management policies and methods of private ownership of critical historical issues, including, but not limited to, museum exhibits; historical preservation policies and practices; governance of historical societies and museums; publication practices; historical documentaries (aural and visual); and other elements related to the dissemination of historical interpretations, common historical knowledge, and public memory. This course asks: Who manages American history and American memory? Who owns history? Who is empowered to tell the story and how did they gain that power? What role does the historian play in the formulation and preservation of public memory?
8153. Archives and Manuscripts (3 s.h.)
This course is an introduction to the theoretical and applied aspects of historical records management. It is taught in cooperation with local archives and historical societies.
8201. History of Philadelphia (3 s.h.)
Students who enroll in this class are given an opportunity to analyze the cultural, economic, political, and social history of Philadelphia. Special attention is paid to immigration, ethnicity, and race.
8202. Studies in American Colonial History (3 s.h.)
This course offers a survey of how American society developed before the Revolution: the evolution of American politics and political institutions; the changing imperial system; internal and external conflicts; how the economies and lifestyles of the various colonial regions developed; the role of women; free and forced migration; and the foundations of modern American life in the experience, thought, and values of colonists before 1775.
8203. The Age of American Revolution (3 s.h.)
This course examines the history of the United States between 1776 and 1800. Special attention is paid to the institution of slavery.
8204. Early U.S. Social History (3 s.h.)
This course is an introduction to American social history from 1800 until the Civil War. Recent research is presented on the structure of American society, the American family, immigration, the worker, urban developments, and the reform movements of the Jacksonian era.
8205. Studies in Civil War and Reconstruction (3 s.h.)
This course focuses on the ordinary citizen rather than the rich and powerful. Much attention is paid to issues of race, class, and gender.
8206. Studies in Recent Urban History (3 s.h.)
This course is broadly interdisciplinary, concerned with major developments in America's large cities from the mid-19th century to the present. Basic issues include the changing spatial structure of the city, social and geographical mobility, the nature of ethnicity and the Black experience, the development of crime and rioting, the structure of local politics, and the movements for urban reform.
8207. Recent U.S. History (3 s.h.)
This course presents a new approach to the history of the United States since World War II, focusing on social and economic change. Topics include urbanization and suburbanization, the rise of post-industrial economy, racial problems, the shift of population and political power to the Sunbelt, and the impact of new technologies. Political history of the era is related to these fundamental socio-economic changes.
8208. Studies in U.S. Urban Crime (3 s.h.)
This course examines the significant scholarship and issues involved in understanding the history of crime in American cities, with special emphasis on the period since the Civil War. The course deals mostly with the organized underworld, including drugs, gambling, bootlegging, prostitution, professional theft, and other ongoing criminal activities. By linking the underworld to the city structure, sports history, entertainment, and reform, the course examines the interrelationship of American urban and social history with the changing underworld.
8209. U.S. Foreign Policy in the Cold War (3 s.h.)
Few if any “moments” within America’s historical experience have generated the intensely competitive and emotionally charged debates as the "moment" called the “Cold War.” The purpose of this course is to identify the questions that have bedeviled historians of the Cold War and, by reading competing interpretations, evaluate the strategies by which they have been addressed. Sample topics include U.S.-Russian (Soviet) relations, the nuclear arms competition and arms control, regional rivalries, summitry, alliance politics, cultural instruments of influence, crisis management, intelligence agencies, and critical personalities. Students read widely, write frequently, and speak extensively.
8211. The Rise of the Military Profession (3 s.h.)
The overriding purpose of this course is to provide students with a theoretical framework for analyzing the evolution of modern military institutions and the people who lead them. Students examine the development of the military profession in the United States from the War of Independence through the 1990s. Students examine contemporary concepts of military professionalism by studying the careers of American officers in their historical context. This course also addresses the major European influences that revolutionized standards of officer procurement, training, education, and advancement in the United States and around the world.
8301. Introduction to European History (3 s.h.)
This course provides an overview of the field, its shape, main lines of research, and central concerns. Through selected readings, discussion, and guest speakers, participants gain understanding of current practice, including political, social, and cultural history and the treatment of Europe in global studies and contemporary metahistory.
8302. Atlantic World: 1500-1800 (3 s.h.)
This course examines main aspects of social and economic change in which the Old World and the New interacted in the 17th and 18th centuries: colonization; commercial agriculture and trade; servitude, free labor, and slavery; migration; changing lifestyles and expectations; the development of family and community; and religion, reform, and revolts.
8303. Studies in Russian History (3 s.h.)
This course explores milestones in Russian/Soviet history and society during the 20th century. Basic knowledge of European and Russian history is assumed. Students do intensive reading on the Russian Revolution, Stalinism, World War II, and peaceful devolution of communism. The main purpose of this class is to familiarize students with the fundamental issues of this history; provide exposure to diverse interpretations; and promote discussion of research strategies and, to an extent possible, their source base. Special assignments of individual research that will help enrich class discussions are encouraged . Writing assignments and oral presentations are the main requirements.
8304. Studies in Soviet Society (3 s.h.)
This course is a sequel to HIST 8121: Stalinism: Power, Society, and Culture. It studies two groups of literature: one on Soviet Cold War behavior and the collapse of the Soviet empire, and another on the post-Stalin history of the Soviet Union. The course emphasizes internal social-economic, cultural, and intellectual developments inside the USSR as a crucial, essential, and previously underestimated factor in Soviet transformation and the peaceful end of the Cold War. This course is aimed at students who are interested in foreign relations, but also contemporary international history, globalization, and social change.
8307. Studies in 20th-Century Europe (3 s.h.)
This course discusses major events in 20th-century Europe such as the origins of the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, World War II, and the subsequent collapse of European political dominance. It investigates the Cold War, the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, and the gradual economic and political establishment of the European Union. In addition to a standard historiographic study of these topics, the course includes developments in the "new cultural history" and the history of "representations" and "memory."
8308. Studies in Imperialism (3 s.h.)
To Lenin, imperialism was “the highest stage of capitalism.” To Rudyard Kipling, it was “the white man’s burden.” To Joseph Schumpeter, it was “the object-less disposition of a state to expansion by force without assigned limits.” In this course, we both attempt to define imperialism and to understand the various ways in which historians and other scholars have approached the study of imperialism. Focusing primarily on the modern European empires, we examine imperialism from the perspective of economic, environmental, military, diplomatic, and cultural history. We discuss Edward Said’s extremely influential theory of orientalism and examine how contributions from historians of gender, scholars associated with the subaltern studies movement, and post-modern/post-colonial studies have influenced the field.
8400. Studies in Modern European History (3 s.h.)
Readings on selected topics in modern European history are discussed.
8401. Studies in European Expansion (3 s.h.)
This course examines the growth and decline of the modern European empires from the 18th century through the present-day post-colonial world. We examine various theories of imperial expansion, including economic, political, military, and cultural. We look at specific topics such as gender and imperialism, post-coloniality, subalternity and resistance, colonial nationalism, and interactions between metropole and empire. The texts we use range from some of the classic works on European imperialism to more recent texts in the fields of literary criticism, cultural studies, anthropology, and history.
Students who enroll in this class are given an opportunity to analyze the cultural, economic, political, religious, and social history of the Jewish people. Special attention is paid to gender and secular ways of being Jewish.
8403. European Military History and Policy (3 s.h.)
This course introduces the literature and problems of Europe's military history since 1789. It examines both the practical and theoretical contributions of the battlefield, the cabinet room, and the individual military leader as theorist. Social and economic factors are also considered.
8501. Introduction to the Third World (3 s.h.)
This course is an introduction to the historical issues and literature concerning broad thematic areas of Third World life such as imperialism, economic development, global economic organization, peasant life, urbanization, migration, nationalism, cultural and social change, the role of the state, and international relations.
8502. Vietnam War Studies (3 s.h.)
This reading seminar explores the significant English- and French-language historical literature on the "Vietnam wars," considered in the large sense of the political and military struggles from 1945 to 1991 for control of the Indochina peninsula.
8505. Studies in Latin American History (3 s.h.)
The year 2010 offers Mexico a bittersweet pair of anniversaries of its 1910 revolution and its 1810 independence revolt amid the country’s serious present-day troubles. We compare Mexico’s experience within the broader Latin American context over key issues in 19th- and 20th-century history. Each week we read a significant work of recent historiography either on Mexico or some other part of Latin America, developing a comparative framework across the semester. Requirements include classroom discussion and the writing of three book review essays.
8610. Studies in Chinese History (3 s.h.)
This course surveys key issues and themes in modern Chinese history. Topics include the ideology and politics of the China field, long-term patterns of change, peasant rebellions, imperialism, the nature of elite reform, the origins of the revolution, the Nationalists, militarism and state building, rural revolution and communist success, and the Maoist road to socialism.
8701. Making
World Histories (3 s.h.)
This course is a review of the concept of World History and its historiography;
an introduction to materials now available to the study of
World History; and an introduction to key themes and conceptual
frameworks in the study of World History.
8705. New Themes in the History of Slavery (3 s.h.)
This course is a comparative social history of Atlantic world slavery and Red Sea-Indian Ocean-Persian Gulf world slavery. Slavery in other domains, such as the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, are also discussed.
8706. Comparative Social and Economic History (3 s.h.)
This course is a comparative examination of peasant politics and rural social movements with particular focus on the questions of class/community, alternative nationalisms, and revolution. This course is suitable for students in various disciplines and world areas.
8707. History of Sexuality (3 s.h.)
This course studies recent work on sexuality and its relation to gender, race, class, and power. The course's emphasis is on the modern U.S. and Europe because that is where the most theoretically interesting recent work has been done. The course also looks at the ancient world and pre-modern Europe, and considers the cross-cultural.
8711. Historical Writing and Editing (3 s.h.)
This course offers training in the style and mechanics of writing and editing history. Writing for wide audiences and for profit as well as for professional audiences is learned.
8712. Teaching History in College (1-3 s.h.)
This course is required of all teaching assistants and recommended for all graduate students interested in teaching at the college level. Methods of teaching are analyzed, including writing and delivering a lecture, leading a discussion, using audiovisual materials, writing exams, and developing techniques for grading.
8713. The Historian & Society: Public History Internships (1-3 s.h.)
Prerequisite: Matriculation in Temple's Public History Program or in good standing in another graduate program.
This course provides graduate credit for Public History Internships in selected Philadelphia-area historical societies, museums, and cultural institutions. Interested students should contact Professor James Hilty at JHilty@temple.edu.
8714. Historical Methods (3 s.h.)
This seminar is an introduction to the practice of professional history and to historical methodologies. One of the main purposes is to familiarize participants with the methodological and historiographical evolution of professional history. How has the approach of historians to their craft changed in the last century? What assumptions informed the decisions that have been made about how to study the past? In short, we study methodology because it is a way of approaching the questions that are central to historical scholarship: How do we know what has happened? How do we decide what matters? How do we best study the past? Whose version of history is authoritative?
8800. Topics in History (3 s.h.)
This course is an introduction to a variety of historical and normally comparative topics and themes such as environmental or psychological history.
8801. Cross-Cultural Encounters (3 s.h.)
Readings of selected issues in the history of the interaction of various cultures and societies are discussed. Special attention is paid to issues of power.
8807. Studies in Comparative History of War (3 s.h.)
Beginning with the emergence of armies and navies that can be considered "modern" because of the professional educational qualification of their officers, this course examines the historical literature dealing with warfare and armed forces around the world from the 17th century to the present.
This course refights the military history of World War II, with the battles emphasized but placed in their diplomatic, political, and economic contexts. This course is designed as an introduction to graduate study in history for college graduates who have a basic knowledge of modern history. Through lectures and discussion, and with readings tailored to the interests of each student, the major issues of the causes, conduct, and significance of World War II are raised and examined as they have emerged in debate among the participants in the events and historians.
9153. Research in Archives and Manuscripts (3 s.h.)
Prerequisite: HIST 8153.
This is the second course in the Archives sequence. Students, individually directed by the instructor, undertake an in-depth research project. Investigations concern some aspect of an operation or administration of archival institutions, or the care and preservation of records of historical significance.
9187. Practicum in Archives and Manuscripts (3 s.h.)
Prerequisite: HIST 8153.
Students who have taken HIST 8153: Archives and Manuscripts work for 12 hours per week at a local public or institutional archive or historical society that meets their own particular interest. Basic work is undertaken in the standard professional archival operations with specific projects agreed on between the student, the instructor, and the repository.
9200. Seminar in American History (3 s.h.)
This is a general research and writing seminar in American history. Students engage in original research in a selected field and prepare an article-length paper. Students also explore various research techniques and gain experience in writing and editing for publication.
9201. Seminar in American Colonial History (3 s.h.)
This is a research seminar in colonial American history, using resources locally available or by arrangement with the instructor. A research paper is required, with discussion of it. Topics are open to negotiation.
9203. Seminar in the American Frontier (3 s.h.)
This seminar surveys the history of the American West from the mid-18th to the mid-20th century. The course emphasizes the reciprocity of social and environmental history, cultural interactions in the multi-ethnic West, and the iconography and ideology of the "frontier."
9204. Seminar in American Cultural History (3 s.h.)
This research seminar in the cultural history of the United States is designed for advanced M.A. and Ph.D. students. Focusing on the past patterns of a peoples' attitudes, values, and beliefs, and their interaction with the ways in which people actually behave, cultural history, broadly defined, is the study of cultural production. Specific subjects may include, among others, the study of literature and media; ritual (both religious and secular); or the construction of race and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In this course, the primary emphasis is on the research and writing of an article-length paper based principally on primary sources.
9205. Seminar in African American History (3 s.h.)
This course covers topics in African American History and on African American women.
9206. Seminar in U.S. Military Policy (3 s.h.)
This course is a survey of the major research issues and problems in the field, with each student required to write a research paper using primary sources.
9208. Seminar in International History (3 s.h.)
This research seminar explores a range of subjects in international history, with particular emphasis on 20th-century diplomatic and military history. Research topics are not restricted to any geographic area. Students prepare an oral presentation and research paper on a specific subject of their choosing, with the approval of the instructor. Research utilizes some secondary but principally primary sources.
9209. Seminar in Modern American Social History (3 s.h.)
This research seminar emphasizes race, ethnicity, gender, and poverty during the period of massive industrialization and urbanization, 1870-1940.
9401. Seminar in European Social History (3 s.h.)
Participants select a topic drawn from their own area of interest and prepare a research design. (The topic may be related to the dissertation.) The literature in social history is discussed in conjunction with issues and questions encountered in participants’ projects.
9402. Seminar in 18th-Century England (3 s.h.)
This course examines themes in the history of England in the long 18th century, 16881815. Among the topics addressed are the role of war in the development of the state, conflict and stability in society, religion, and the cultural history of identity. Readings also treat England¹s connections to the rest of Britain, the empire, and the Atlantic world.
9683. Readings in History (3 s.h.)
Students enrolled in this course are given an opportunity to pursue independent study of a topic of particular interest to them. Their work is supervised by a member of the graduate faculty in the History Department.
9783. Readings in History (3 s.h.)
Students enrolled in this course are given an opportunity to pursue independent study of a topic of particular interest to them. Their work is supervised by a member of the graduate faculty in the History Department.
9801. Seminar in Comparative History (3 s.h.)
This is a research and writing seminar on topics in comparative history. Most recently, this seminar has analyzed the origins, development, and repercussions of nationalism from a world-historical, comparative, and historiographic perspective. Another frequently stressed theme is comparative women's history. In addition to producing a primary-source based paper, integral to the seminar is discussion of research techniques, the historian's methodology, and the craft of history.
9804. Seminar in Women's History (3 s.h.)
The students' principal task in this seminar is the research, writing, and completion of an original paper, based on primary research, in U.S. Women's history. Research topics are of the students' choosing, subject to the instructor's approval.
9898. Dissertation Colloquium (1-3 s.h.)
This course is for doctoral students writing dissertations and residing in the Philadelphia area. It provides a sense of community among dissertation writers, in which they can explore problems confronted in dissertation design, research, and writing, and find helpful comments and criticism at the time they are engaged in dissertation research. Prospectuses, outlines, and chapters may be offered to the group for discussion.
9994. Preliminary Exam Preparation (variable credit)
9996. Master's Thesis (variable credit)
9998. Pre-Dissertation Research (variable credit)
9999. Dissertation Research (variable credit)
Updated 6.2.11