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 History
Professor Pankratz,
Chair
Professor Fahy
Associate Professor deSyon
Assistant Professors Kiddy
and Serlin
200 Level Courses
| HIS
207 |
Popular History of the U.S. – 1865 to the Present
The course is designed to examine the history of everyday
things and their significance in American life. Special emphasis
will be given to the airplane, the radio, the motion picture,
and the automobile. The history of popular literature, supermarkets,
shopping malls, foods, and so forth, will be included. |
| HIS
211 |
African History
The imposition of colonial administrations and economies by
European powers at the end of the 19th century produced the
central drama in the recent history of Sub-Saharan Africa. Discussions
of African geography and the characteristics of precolonial
social organization and cultural expression serve as prelude
to the problem of colonialization. Consideration of independent
Africa, with its political and subsistence crises, raises questions
of intercultural contact (and conflict) and the nature of historical
change. |
| HIS
212 |
African-American History
This course is the study of African-Americans since the days
of the slave trade. The aim of the course is to carefully review
the facts of black history, expose the many myths about the
black past, recognize the horrors and effects of bigotry and
intolerance that were so present throughout history, and apply
this information to our understanding of black/white conditions
in today’s America. A specific core text, the works of
many African-Americans (Douglass, DuBois, Wright, Malcolm X,
Angelou, and others), documentary films, feature films, analytical
essays, and lectures will be the sources that lead to an understanding
of this important subject. |
| HIS
216 |
Keystone: Pennsylvania in the Wider World
Ethnically pluralistic, liberal, and commercial from the
start, early Pennsylvania was probably a better indicator of
what the United States as a whole would become than either Puritan
New England or the Slave South. That role as a trendsetter in
turn makes Pennsylvania a useful test case, a small but clear
window through which to study the broader forces that have transformed
the World over the past three centuries:
cultural encounter, the industrial revolution, labor migration,
race relations, and
de-industrialization. |
| HIS
224 |
Latin America
This course is a study of Indian civilizations before conquest,
emphasizing the Inca, Mayan, and Aztec cultures. Then the course
will focus on the conquest of the Americas, the Spanish and
Portuguese colonial periods, and the independence movement.
The 19th and 20th centuries will be treated topically with special
emphasis of the many political and social problems that confront
Latin America in the modern period. |
| HIS
232 |
Russia and the Soviet Union
This course examines the History of Russia beginning in
1861, and carries it to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The themes covered will include the causes of the decline of
Tsarist Russia; the revolution of 1905 and the rise of Marxism
Leninism; Lenin and the 1917 revolution; the social reforms
of the new regime and the invention of “the new Soviet
Man”; Stalin’s consolidation of power, the Soviet
Union’s “Great Patriotic War”; the destalinization
process; Soviet involvement in the Cold War; underground life
in the Soviet Union; Gorbachev and Glaznost; and the post-Soviet
Republics. Several novels and films will be analyzed to understand
the nature of life in the Soviet Union. |
| HIS
240 |
Heroes and Villains: A Cultural History of Fame
This course examines changes in the ways that different
societies have chosen or recognized great individuals from their
midst and the evolution of the reputations of heroic figures
from earlier generations. As a history of knowing or perceiving,
the course spans a broad chronology, from antiquity to the present
day, and takes particular note of the media – oral traditions
and myths, epics, coins, art and architecture, printed biographies
and autobiographies, photographs, songs, and electronic representations
– through which glory has been conveyed. Among particular
cases to be addressed: Jesus of Nazareth, Samuel Johnson, Benjamin
Franklin, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. |
| HIS
251 |
History of England I
History 251 traces the history of England from the emergence
of civilization through the establishment of monarchy and parliament
to the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century. |
| HIS
252 |
History of England II
History 252 is a study of England from 1760 to the present,
emphasizing industrialism, imperialism, and the growth and decline
of a liberal intellectual and political tradition. |
| HIS
261 |
Renaissance
A preliminary examination of medieval contributions to the Renaissance
is followed by a thorough analysis of the Age of Discoveries
and the rise of capitalism, the new political structures of
the Italian city-state and the northern monarchies, the new
diplomacy, the papacy and the Church in an era of change, the
revival of art and the classics, humanism in Italy, and humanism
and Christian humanism in the North. |
| HIS
262 |
Reformation
Examines humanism and the Devotio Moderna as a basis for
the Reformation; attention is given to the social, economic,
and political development as a contributing factor to the Reformation
and its aftermath; careful study is given to Luther, Calvin,
Zwingli, and the radical and messianic reformers, as well as
the English Reformation and the rise of Puritanism. |
| HIS
270 |
Modern Germany
This course offers an introduction to major events and themes
of modern German history. We will focus on continuities and
ruptures in German society during the eras of the Second Empire,
the Weimar Republic, National Socialism, the competing Republicans,
and the (unified) Federal Republic of Germany. Major questions
of the course will include the supposed “special path”
to industrial and state formation; the impact of total war;
the importance of confessional difference in culture and society;
the effects of economic and political crisis; the emergence
of the “New Woman”; the nature of Nazi dictatorship;
the conditions of genocide; the development of democracy; the
German “economic miracle”; the East-German state;
and the social and political consequences of German unification. |
| HIS
272 |
History of American Foreign Relations
A survey of American diplomatic history from the Revolutionary
War to the present, with emphasis on the emergence of the
United States from a position of isolation to a position of
world prominence. The course concludes with an examination
of America’s role as the leader of the free world.
HIS 275 Women’s Work: A Comparative Historical Perspective
Our subject matter is the productive labor of half the Planet’s
people over the span of human history. Needless to say, we
will not pretend to “cover” all that the topic entails.
Instead, a number of theoretical perspectives and certain
historical questions flowing from them will help us begin
to make sense of some of the work that women have done in
different geographical locations and in a range of specific
agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial settings.
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