Topics courses Spring 2008
History Department
2280 (001) Main
Course Title: Topics in American History
Instructor: David Jacobs
Topic: "UFOs in American Society." This is a study of how the society confronts the introduction of an anomalous phenomenon. It involves a historical analysis of how the scientific community, the media, the entertainment industry, the government, the “lunatic fringe,” the conspiracy advocates, the religious advocates, and the witnesses and claimants dealt with the subject.
This is course is not open to those who have had American Studies 116.
2280 (002)
Course Title: Topics in American History
Instructor: J. Robinson-Waldstreicher
The course description for this section is not available at this time.
2480 (001) Main
Course Title: Greek Archaeology
Instructor: Michael Eisman
This is an exploration of the archaeological material that is used in Greek History, Greek Art History and Classical Studies. The course looks the Hellenic period of Greek History (1100 - 323 BCE) and at various sites that have been excavated and well as the material for vase painting, sculpture, architecture, city planning, and the minor arts. While a course in Greek History is not needed for this course some background reading may be helpful. There will be a museum trip where students will get to handle some ancient artifacts. There will be short papers on a vase painter, a building type and an excavated site. The latter will also be given as an oral report. There will be a final exam.
2670 (001) Main
Course Title: Topics in African History
Instructor: Teshale Tibebu
This course deals with war and genocide in Africa in the late twentieth century. It focuses on the armed conflicts that took place in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Rwanda.
2680 (001) Main
Course Title: Topics in Asian History
Instructor: William Pore
Through sources in English which examine Korea and Vietnam from earliest times to the present, this course will encourage a re-imagining of the histories of these two countries not usually thought of as sharing historical similarities or occupying the same region. The course will present Korea and Vietnam in terms of the many similar themes in their “traditional” and “modern” identities and cultures, in an attempt to escape an American-manufactured agenda often attached to both. As such, by analyzing commonalities in the histories of Korea and Vietnam, this course also aims to challenge concepts of national uniqueness so often attached to the history of the nation-state.
8800 (004) Main
Course Title: Topics in European History
Instructor: Barbara Day-Hickman
The French Revolution and Napoleon treats the history of the French Revolution from the mid-eighteenth century through the Napoleonic era (1750-1821). Course material includes varied interpretations of the enlightenment and revolution from Marxist to more recent social, political, cultural, feminist, artistic, and comparative perspectives. The course also includes some consideration of the Haitian revolution in parallel with revolutionary violence and terror during the First French Republic. The final unit examinines the military and political impact of Napoleon Bonaparte on France, the French empire, and subsequent political configurations in nineteenth-century Europe.