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 and discussions on selected topics in modern Asian history.
5800. Comparing Women's Histories (3 s.h.)
Exploration of two to three selected topics in women's history in comparative, global perspective. Topics may include: 1) gender, race, and state; 2) women, religion, and social change; 3) women in industrializing societies; 4) domestic contestations; 5) histories and theories. See current semester description.
8009. Women and Gender in the American South
This seminar will survey the field of Southern gender history in the neneteenth and twentieth centuries (to WWII). The field itself is a new one - 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.)
Introduction to the study of American history at the graduate level. Examines major interpretations and schools of thought. Political, social, and diplomatic history including 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 Intellectual History (3 s.h.)
Investigates ways that historians and other scholars have interpreted modern popular culture, 1800 to the present. American media, sports, entertainment, fashion, art, as well as American myths, ideas, and popular thought are some of the topics that will be explored.
8103. Studies in American Diplomatic History (3 s.h.)
Readings in and discussion of 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. A complement to Studies in the Cold War (History 8209), 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 will participate actively in class conversations about history and historians.
8104. Studies in African American History (3 s.h.)
The 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 U.S.; Civil Rights revolution.
8105. History of Education (3 s.h.)
This course focuses primarily on the way that educationally 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 is 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.)
A graduate studies course 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 will deal with “classical” books written by witnesses and contemporaries of Stalinism, the stalwarts of “totalitarian school” and its first revisionists. The seminar will focus on the major developments and events that determined and shaped Stalinism as a historical period. The discussion will also deal with major aspects of the phenomenon: politics, social transformation, formation of new elites, mass mentality, propaganda, language, culture, and art. The course will end with an overview of de-Stalinization; it will address 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.)
Introduction to literature from several fields that use artifacts to understand culture. Exploration of various theoretical approaches. 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 placed 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.)
An introduction to the theoretical and applied aspects of historical records management. Taught in cooperation with local archives and historical societies.
8201. History of Philadelphia (3 s.h.)
Students who enroll in this class will be given an opportunity to analyze the cultural, economic, political, and social history of Philadelphia.
Special attention will be paid to immigration, ethnicity, and race.
8202. Studies in American Colonial History (3 s.h.)
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; 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 will be paid to the institution of slavery.
8204. Early U.S. Social History (3 s.h.)
Introduction to American social history from 1800 until the Civil War. Recent research 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 will be 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-nineteenth 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.)
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, rise of post-industrial economy, racial problems, shift of population and political power to the Sunbelt, and the impact of new technologies. Relates the political history of the era to these fundamental socio-economic changes.
8208. Studies in U.S. Urban Crime (3 s.h.)
Examines the significant scholarship and issues involved in understanding the history of crime in American cities, with special emphasis upon the period since the Civil War. The course deals mostly with the organized underworld, including drugs, gambling, bootlegging, prostitution, professional theft, and other on-going criminal activities. By linking the underworld to the city structure, sports history, entertainment, and reform, the course will examine 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 has 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: 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 will 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 will examine the development of the military profession in the United States from the War of Independence through the 1990s. Students will examine contemporary concepts of military professionalism by studying the careers of American officers in their historical context. This course will also address 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.)
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, the treatment of Europe in global studies and in contemporary metahistory.
8302. Atlantic World: 1500-1800 (3 s.h.)
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; 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 will do intensive reading on the Russian Revolution Stalinism and the Second World War, and on 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 will be encouraged, i.e., individual research that will help enrich class discussions. Writing assignments and oral presentations are the main requirements.
8304. Studies in Soviet Society (3 s.h.)
This course is a sequel to the graduate course on Stalinism (History 8121).
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 aims 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.)
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. 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, “the white man’s burden” and to Joseph Schumpeter, “the object-less disposition of a state to expansion by force without assigned limits.” In this course, we will 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 will examine imperialism from the perspective of economic, environmental, military, diplomatic and cultural history. We will discuss Edward Said’s extremely influential theory of orientalism and will 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 and discussions on selected topics in modern European history.
8401. Studies in European Expansion (3 s.h.)
This course examines the growth and decline of the modern European empires from the eighteenth century through the present-day post-colonial world. We will examine various theories of imperial expansion including economic, political, military and cultural and will 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 will use range from some of the classic works on European imperialism to more recent texts in the fields of literary criticism, cultural studies and anthropology, as well as history.
Students who enroll in this class will be given an opportunity to analyze the cultural, economic, political, religious, and social history of the Jewish people. Special attention will be paid to gender and to secular ways of being Jewish.
8403. European Military History and Policy (3 s.h.)
Introduces the literature and problems of Europe's military history since 1789. 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.)
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.)
We will examine Latin America in the age of the Cuban Revolution and beyond, covering the array of new historical literature that continues to emerge concerning the Revolution itself, the rise and fall of insurgencies and national security states in many parts of Latin America, and the more recent period of incomplete establishment of democracy and accountability.
8610. Studies in Chinese History (3 s.h.)
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; the Maoist road to socialism.
8701. Introduction to
World History (3 s.h.)
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.)
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, will also be discussed.
8706. Comparative Social and Economic History (3 s.h.)
A comparative examination of peasant politics and rural social movements with particular focus on the questions of class/community, alternative nationalisms, and revolution. Suitable for students of various disciplines and world areas.
8707. History of Sexuality (3 s.h.)
Studies recent work on sexuality and its relation to gender, race, class, and power. The course's emphasis is on modern U.S. and Europe because that is where the most theoretically interesting recent work has been done, but the course will also look at the ancient world and pre-modern Europe, and consider cross-cultural.
8711. Historical Writing and Editing (3 s.h.)
Training in the style and the mechanics of writing and editing history. Writing for wide audiences and for profit as well as for professional audiences.
8712. Teaching History in College (1-3 s.h.)
Required of all teaching assistants and recommended for all graduate students interested in teaching on the college level. Methods of teaching are analyzed, including writing and delivering a lecture, leading a discussion, using audiovisual materials, writing exams, and techniques for grading.
8713. The Historian & Society - Public History Internships (1-3 s.h.)
Open to students in Temple's Public History Program and to matriculated graduate students in good standing, 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 (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 of the seminar is to familiarize its 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 they 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.)
Introduction to a variety of historical and normally comparative topics and themes in, such as environmental or psychological history.
8801. Cross Cultural Encounters (3 s.h.)
Readings and discussion of selected issues in the history of the interaction of various cultures and societies. 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.
Refighting 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 will be 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: History 8153.
Second course of Archives sequence. Students, individually directed by the instructor, will undertake an in-depth research project. Investigations will 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: History 8153.
Students who have taken History 8153 work for 12 hours per week at a local public or institutional archive or historical society which meets their own particular interest. Basic work in the standard professional archival operations with specific projects agreed upon between the student, the instructor, and the repository.
9200. Seminar in American History (3 s.h.)
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.)
Research in colonial American history, using resources locally available or by arrangement with the instructor. Research paper required, and seminar discussion of it. Topics open to negotiation.
9203. Seminar in the American Frontier (3 s.h.)
This seminar surveys the history of the American West from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth 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.)
A research seminar designed for advanced M.A. and Ph.D. students in the cultural history of the United States. 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 will be on the research and writing of an article-length paper based principally on primary sources.
9205. Seminar in African American History (3 s.h.)
Course will cover topics in African American History and African American Women.
9206. Seminar in U.S. Military Policy (3 s.h.)
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 will prepare an oral presentation and research paper on a specific subject of his/her choosing but approved by the instructor. The research will utilize some secondary but principally primary sources.
9209. Seminar in Modern American Social History (3 s.h.)
Research seminar on 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 (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 Eighteenth-Century England (3 s.h.)
This course examines themes in the history of England in the long eighteenth century, 1688 1815. 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 will also treat England¹s connections to the rest of Britain, the empire, and the Atlantic world.
9683. Readings in History (3 s.h.)
Students who enroll in this course are given an opportunity to pursue an independent study of a topic of particular interest to them. Their work will be supervised by a member of the graduate faculty of the history department.
9783. Readings in History (3 s.h.)
Students who enroll in this course be given an opportunity to pursue an independent study of a topic of particular interest to them. Their work will be supervised by a member of the graduate faculty of the history department.
9801. Seminar in Comparative History (3 s.h.)
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 will be the research, writing, and completion of an original paper, based on primary research, in United States Women's history. Research topics will be of the students' choosing, subject to professor's approval.
9898. Dissertation Colloquium (1-3 s.h.)
For doctoral students writing dissertations and residing in the Philadelphia area. 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)