History Classes - Fall 2008

History Classes - Spring 2008

History Classes - Summer 2008

history classes - spring 2008

WORLD CULTURES AND CIVILIZATION II:
TWENTIETH CENTURY WORLD
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
and Human Diversity co-requirement

HIST 1302-001
MWF 11AM-11:50—102 Dallas Hall
Donald Niewyk—63-DH--214-768-2971

A survey of international history in the twentieth century.  Stresses the globalization of the world economy, the origins of the two world wars, the dynamics of decolonization, and the rise and fall of the Cold War.

Main text: Twentieth Century World by Findley and Rothney.

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
THE UNITED STATES AND THE VIETNAM WAR
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 1321-001
TUE 2PM-4:50—106 Dallas Hall
Thomas Knock—59-DH—214-768-2972

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam War continues in one way or another to influence the foreign policy of the United States and to hammer a sharp wedge into American politics and society.  In this seminar, students will consider (among other things) how the country became involved in a ground war in Southeast Asia, why it sustained the war for so long, whether the United States was bound to fail, and the implications of that failure.  We will study America's longest war and its consequences from a variety of perspectives--through historical writing and primary documentary sources, journalistic accounts, memoirs, and popular culture (including novels and motion pictures).

Readings include:

1. Phillip Caputo, A Rumor of War
2. Graham Greene, The Quiet American
3. Robert J. McMahon, ed., Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War
4. Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars
    

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR IN EUROPEAN HISTORY:
QUEENS AND MISTRESSES OF RENAISSANCE FRANCE
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 1322-001H
TUE 2PM-4:50—303 Virginia Snider Hall
Kathleen Wellman—65-DH—214-768-2970

This seminar will focus on officially designated royal mistresses and queens as a vehicle to explore the history of Renaissance France and the history of women.  It will treat the story of their lives and the myths constructed around them by looking at memoirs, paintings, chronicles, poetry, etc. to understand the process of historical writing.  It will also explore the ways these women have been used in French history since the Renaissance to explore the development of historiography.  This seminar will concentrate on these specific women to explore the broader culture of the French Renaissance.

Readings will include a reader along with the following:

1. R. Knecht, The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France
2. Merry Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe
3. Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth century Italy
4. R. Knecht, Catherine de Medici
5. Marguerite de Navarre, Memoirs.
   

OUT OF MANY:
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TO 1877
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
[Restricted to Hilltop Scholars]

HIST 2311-001
TTh 11AM-12:20—101 Dallas Hall
Edward Countryman—333-DH—214-768-2907

This course is being taught for students in the Hilltop Scholars Program, who have first choice on enrollment.  There will be no textbook.  Instead, students will read primary sources and specialized historians’ work both in print and on line.  The course will deal with three great problems.  The first problem is the encounter of complete strangers between the first Viking voyages (about 1000 CE) and roughly 1700 CE. By the end of this period North America was heavily “colonized” in two senses.  One is that the effects of contact reached deep into the interior, far beyond the zones of European and African settlement.  One result was to force people who never expected to meet to learn to deal with one another, somehow.  The second was to link all of them in a web that spanned three continents (America, Europe, and Africa) and the Atlantic Ocean.  The second great theme will be how one group of “colonial Americans” took control of their own part of the world, and of many people unlike themselves, during the American Revolution.  The transition was enormous, and like colonization it reached both into the interior and across the ocean.  The transformation was enormous as well.  My third great theme will be the crisis that the successful American revolutionaries bestowed on themselves by not resolving (or being unable to resolve) the problem of slavery in the land of the free.  We will look at Africans struggling against the hated institution, at the Abolitionist movement that set out to destroy it, and at the way that many white southerners came to believe in it so strongly that they were willing to die to protect it.

Readings include:

1. 1) Geoffrey Symcox and Blair Sullivan, Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies
2. Paul Finkleman, Defending Slavery
3. Stuart Schwartz, Victors and Vanquished
4. Alan Greet, The Jesuit Relations
5. Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
6. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, ed. Edward Larkin
7. David Walker, David Walker’s Appeal, ed. Sean Wilentz
8. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 
9. We’ll also use on-line and visual sources heavily.

OUT OF MANY:
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TO 1877
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 2311-701
MON 6:30PM-9:20—102 Dallas Hall
Lee Thompson—214-768-2984

This course examines the principal aspects of the history of the United States from the first colonial settlements through the Civil War.  It further seeks to introduce students to the intellectual skills and attitudes involved in trying to understand the past on its own terms and to apply that understanding to a consideration of the present.  Moreover, in the tradition of the liberal arts, it seeks to develop and to promote an understanding of human beings and of the human situation in general.  Finally, students are provided the opportunity to develop and hone writing skills through a series of "hands on"` written assignments involving primary materials.  Topics covered include the collision of cultures, slavery, the evolution of “the American,” the imperial crisis and the Revolution, Republicanism, western expansion, the Mexican War, the sectional crisis, secession, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Readings include:

1. Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation, Volume I: To 1877
2. Paul F. Boller, Jr. and Ronald Story, A More Perfect Union: Documents in U.S. History, Volume I: To 1877
3. Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Related Writings
4. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, with Related Documents.
    

THE UNFINISHED NATION:
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1877
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 2312-001
TTh 9:30AM-10:50—157 Dallas Hall
Glenn Linden—64-DH—214-768-2980

This course examines the principal aspects of the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction to the present.  It further seeks to introduce students to the intellectual skills and attitudes involved in trying to understand the past on its own terms and to apply that understanding to a consideration of the present.  Moreover, in the tradition of the liberal arts, it seeks to develop and to promote an understanding of human beings and of the human condition in general.  Finally, students are provided the opportunity to develop and hone writing skills through a series of "hands on" written assignments involving primary materials.  Topics covered include the aftermath of Reconstruction, industrialization and immigration, overseas expansion, Populism and Progressivism, World War I, the twenties, the Great Depression and New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, civil rights, the women’s movement, the Vietnam War, and the contemporary era.

Readings include:

1. Elliot Gom, Constructing American Past, Vol. II
2. William Graebner, True Stories from the American Past, Vol. II
3. Alan M. Kraut, Huddled Masses: Immigrants in America
4. Glenn Linden, Voices from the Reconstruction Years, 1867-1877
5. John Murrin, Liberty, Equality, Power Vol. II
6. Ueda, Postwar Immigrant America

THE UNFINISHED NATION:
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1877
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 2312-002
TTh 9:30AM-10:50—101 Dallas Hall
Alexis McCrossen—60-DH—214-768-3676

 This course seeks to put modern United States history into a global context.  We will take as our mandate the title of the first chapter in the course’s textbook: “American History as if the World Mattered.” The course will cover the period between the end of Reconstruction (1877) and the end of the Vietnam War (1975).  Classes will combine lecture and discussion; graded work will include examinations and papers.

Readings include:

1. Carl Guarneri, America in the World
2. Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad
3. David Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940
4. Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War
5. Karen Merrill, The Oil Crisis of 1973-1974

 THE UNFINISHED NATION:
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1877
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 2312-003
TTh 11AM-12:20—102 Dallas Hall
Thomas Knock—59-DH—214-768-2972

This course examines the principal aspects of the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction to the present.  It further seeks to introduce students to the intellectual skills and attitudes involved in trying to understand the past on its own terms and to apply that understanding to a consideration of the present.  Moreover, in the tradition of the liberal arts, it seeks to develop and to promote an understanding of human beings and of the human condition in general.  Topics covered include the aftermath of Reconstruction, industrialization and immigration, overseas expansion, Populism and Progressivism, World War I, the twenties, the Great Depression and New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, civil rights, the women’s movement, the Vietnam War, and the contemporary era.

Readings include:

1. Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom and Armitage, Out of Many: A History of the American People, Vol. II (3rd edn.)
2. David and Woodman, eds., Conflict and Consensus in Modern American History.

LATIN AMERICA IN THE MODERN ERA
Co-listed with CFA 3319
Fulfills Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 2385-001C
TTh 8AM-9:20—101 Dallas Hall
Peter Bakewell—225-DH—214-768-2195

This introduction to modern Latin America requires no prior knowledge of the subject.  The course begins in the early 1800s with the wars of independence, in which the mainland colonies of Spain and Portugal won their political freedom, and carries through to recent times.  The geographical focus of the course is on Mexico, the central Andean countries, and Brazil.  The arts will receive attention, and readings will include some Latin American modern fiction.  Students will be expected to participate in discussion.  Frequent short quizzes on readings will count for a large part of the final grade.

Readings include:

1. Peter Winn, Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America
2. M. Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes
3. G. Garcia-Mάrquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
4. Will Fowler, Latin America. 1800-2000.

MODERN EAST ASIA
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
and Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 2395-001
MWF 10AM-10:50—101 Dallas Hall
Ling Shiao—58E-DH—214-768-3683

This course surveys the history of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam from the 1600s to the present.  We will examine the indigenous legacies that shaped each civilization, the crises of the nineteenth century, the quests for resolution, and how each country sought to establish national identities in a rapidly emerging and often violent modern world order.  While each of these countries has a distinctive past and identity, their shared cultural heritages and historical experiences make this region an excellent case for comparative study.

Readings include:

1. Conrad Schirokauer and Donald N. Clark, Modern East Asia: A Brief History
2. Merle Goldman and Andrew Gordon, eds. Historical Perspectives on Contemporary East Asia
3. Richard Kim, Lost Names
4. Akira Iriye, China and Japan in the Global Setting
5. Course Reader on e-reserve.

HUMAN RIGHTS: AMERICA’S DILEMMA
Co-listed with CF 3317
Fulfills Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3301-701C
TUE 6:30PM-9:20—116 Dallas Hall
Rick Halperin—237DH—214-768-3284

The study of human rights requires a sense of history and moral courage, for no nation or society in human history has been totally innocent of human rights abuses.  This course will examine certain violations of human rights within their historical context, and will also focus on America’s human rights record, with regard to its own policies and its relationship to human rights violations in other countries.  Attention will also be given to the evolution of both civil and human rights as entities within global political thought and practice.  Students will be encouraged to rely on reasonable evidence and critical thinking when studying these historical controversies, rather than on biased accounts or emotional arguments.  From torture to terrorism and from slavery to genocide, students will discuss the current status of human rights in the world today.

Readings include:

1. Rebecca Cook, Human Rights for Women
2. Dee Brown, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee
3. Duncan Forrest, Glimpse of Hell
4. Henry Friedlander, Origins of Nazi Genocide
5. David Chandler,  Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison
6. Samantha Power, A Problem From Hell: America and Age of Genocide.

BLACKS AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

HIST 3304-001
TTh 2PM-3:20—156 Dallas Hall
Kenneth Hamilton—315 Clements Hall—214-768-3598

An investigation of the actions and reactions of African Americans during the origin, evolution and decline of the Civil Rights Movement.  In the effort to secure an understanding of the era and the life experiences of blacks, course materials will focus on the history of black Americans from the Depression through the mid-1970s.  The course's professor will give particular attention to the post-World War II migration of African Americans, the change in white America's concept of race, the relative increase in the prosperity of blacks, the clashes between integration and black nationalism, and the lives of black individuals who played nationally significant roles in the Civil Rights Movement.

Readings include:

1. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle
2. David L. Lewis, King, a Biography
3. Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound
4. Aldon D. Morris, The Origin of the Civil Rights Movement.

PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
THE SEVENTIES IN THE U.S.
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 3310-701H
TUE 6PM-8:50—101 Dallas Hall
Alexis McCrossen—60-DH—214-768-3676

It takes a few decades before the past becomes history; thus is the case with the 1970s, a decade which is now receiving intensive historical assessment and consideration.  This course will explore the various components of the long 1970s (1968-1984) that made the period as significant a watershed moment in the United States as the 1930s.  Authority (governmental, institutional, familial) was questioned more intensively than ever before or since.   A new informality symbolized by long hair, blue jeans, and slang, among other things, overtook nearly all spheres of American life.  What is more, the rising expectations that nearly all Americans had held since World War II came to an end: wages stagnated, prices soared, industries failed, various quests for equality (civil rights, feminism, gay rights, youth movement) stumbled, and political leadership vanished.  This course, which is for students enrolled in the University Honors Program, meets Perspectives Requirements.  Class preparation will include reading historical essays and books; watching period films like “Rocky” or “Saturday Night Fever”; listening to period music like Led Zeppelin; and looking at period art and news photography.  Classes will primarily be discussion; graded work will include a research paper.

Reading include:

1. Philip Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares
2. Bruce Schulman, The Seventies
3. Beth Bailey and Dave Farber, America in the Seventies
4. P. Braunstein, Imagine Nation
5. Karen Merrill, The Oil Crisis of 1973-1974
6. Andreas Killen,  1973 Nervous Breakdown.

PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
THE HISTORY OF FLIGHT

HIST 3310-702
TUE 6:30PM-9:20—102 Dallas Hall
Peter Bakewell—225-DH—214-768-2195

This is a seminar-like class that is centered on the history of flight in the USA, but also deals in a comparative way with aviation in Europe. The main requirement is a 25-30 page research paper, to be based primarily on printed sources. The paper will count for most of the semester grade, and each stage of its preparation (carried out in close collaboration with the instructor) will be graded. In addition, students will be asked to read, assess, and discuss about half a dozen books, and also present weekly reports on current events in aviation. The class will visit two local aviation museums. There will be short mid-term and final exams.

Readings will include:

1. Roger Bilstein, Flight in America
2. Robert Buck, North Star over my Shoulder. A Flying Life
3. Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop's Boys. A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright
4. Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey.

PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
CIVIL RIGHTS: OUR UNFINISHED REVOLUTION
[Team taught with Dennis Simon/PLSC 4321-701]

HIST 3310-703
THU 6:30PM-9:20—158 Fondren Science
Benjamin Johnson—58B-DH—214-768-2709

This team-taught course will focus upon the history, politics, and moral claims of the movement that not only destroyed the system of racial segregation known as Jim Crow but also dissolved barriers to political participation by African Americans in the American South.  Accordingly, we will examine the rise of the civil rights movement, the politics and culture of the segregated South, and evolution in how national politicians addressed the issues of race and segregation.  We will also explore the legacy of this revolution and its influence on contemporary politics and culture in the United States.  The course will combine readings and classroom discussion with an extended trip over spring break to historic civil rights venues in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. 

Students enrolling in this course must participate in this trip. There will be a charge for lodging (approximately $350 for 8 nights).  Students are also required to pay for most of their meals.  Previously, this trip was known as the Civil Rights Pilgrimage with support provided by the Office of the Chaplain at SMU.  Details about the 2007 trip are available at: http://smu.edu/chaplain/CRP2007/history.asp.

Readings include:

1. Charles Marsh, God’s Long Summer:  Stories of Faith and Civil Rights
2. Laurie Green, Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle
3. J.L. Chestnut, Jr., Black in Selma
4. excerpts of many primary documents and films
5. guest speakers.

WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
and Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3312-001
MWF 11M-1150—152 Dallas Hall
Crista DeLuzio—56-DH—214-768-3748

This course surveys the history of American women from the colonial era to the present and provides an introduction to the major themes, questions, and problems organizing the discipline of women’s history.  We will explore the diverse experiences of women in the past, including those of Native American women prior to and under colonization, African American women in slavery and freedom, women workers, female immigrants, girls, mothers, reformers, and feminists. We are interested in examining the ways in which women’s sense of self and identity, private and public experiences, status, influence, authority, and power have changed over time. We will pay careful attention to the ways in which gender – as a conceptual category and as a system of power relations – shaped and was shaped by various social, cultural, economic, intellectual, and political factors and forces over the course of U.S. history. Throughout, our focus will be on the ways in which gender has come to be configured and experienced in relation to other forms of social difference, most notably race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and age.

Readings include: 

1. Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes: An American History
2. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale
3. Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
4. Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers
5. Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are:  Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE U.S., 1877 TO THE PRESENT
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
and Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3314-001
TTh 9:30AM-10:50—102 Dallas Hall
Kenneth Hamilton—315-Clements Hall—214-768-3598

The purpose of this course is to study the experience of African Americans in the United States from 1877 to present.  In conceptualizing African-American history since 1877, particular attention will be given to the promise and disillusion of the post-Civil War period, African-American leadership ideologies, the influence of mass migrations, the impact of the Great Depression and two world wars on African-American life, the urban African American movement, the quest for equality in the 1950's, and culminating with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's and the flowering of African Americans' culture and nationalism.

Readings include:

1. Neil R. McMillen, Dark Journey
2. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom
3. Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound.

SEX IN AMERICA: AN INTRODUCTION
Co-listed as CF 3311-001H

HIST 3316-001C
TTh 2PM-3:20—357 Dallas Hall
David Doyle—109D Clements Hall—214-768-2813

No field is more interdisciplinary than the study of gender and sexuality.  As writers and scholars seek to understand how these two categories have changed over time, or remained constant, they routinely read in such fields as anthropology, feminist theory, literature and literary criticism, history, psychology, and sociology.  To a greater or lesser extent all of these areas are considered in this course.  Although often conflated, this course will emphasize how gender and sexuality are two separate-if occasionally overlapping-categories.  Readings will begin with three theoretical readings on how to approach the study of gender and sexuality, and how their study is important in understanding the larger culture of any given time and place.  Building on the foundations of these initial readings, the course will then move through American history in roughly chronologically order-albeit with greatly different methodologies inherent in the various disciplines we utilize.  For instance, anthropology is essential to learning about Native American societies; novels and literature key in uncovering the sensibility of nineteenth century American bourgeois; and the basics of psychology necessary in beginning to appreciate twentieth century departures from earlier periods.  Similarly, our readings in American social history will be critical in providing cultural context on these many different societies, groups, and behaviors that together constitute our shared past.

Readings include:

1. 1) Steven Seidman, The Social Construction of Sexuality (2003)
2. Will Roscoe, Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America 1998
3. Clare A. Lyons, Sex Among the Rabble: An Intimate History of Gender & Power in the Age of Revolution (2006)
4. Lillian Faderman, Scotch Verdict (1983)
5. C.A. Tripp, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2005)
6. Martha Hodes, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth Century South. (1997)
7. Kevin White, Sexual Liberation or Sexual License? The American Revolt Against Victorianism. (2000)
8. Joanne Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed (2002)
9. Grace Metalious, Peyton Place (1956)
10. Rickie Solinger, Wake up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy Before Roe v. Wade (1992)
11. Keith Boykin, One More River to Cross: Black & Gay in America. (1996)
12. Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again. (2006).
    

TEXAS HISTORY

HIST 3319-001
TTH 12:30PM-1:50—101 Dallas Hall
Benjamin Johnson—58B-DH—214-768-2709

This class provides students with a broad understanding of the major developments of Texas history, from the region’s first settlement by human beings through the present.  We trace the major events and processes that shaped Texas’ development, placing them within the wider contexts of Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. history.  Familiar staples of Texana such as the Alamo and the Texas Rangers will be considered alongside topics such as high school football, the space program, and race relations.

Readings include: 

1. Randolph Campbell, Gone to Texas
2. Cabeza de Vaca, The Account
3. James Crisp, Sleuthing the Alamo
4. William Carrigan, The Making of a Lynching Culture
5. Don Graham, Kings of Texas
6. Gregg Cantrell, Feeding the Wolf: John B. Raynor and the Politics of Race
7. Américo Paredes, George Washington Gómez
8. H.G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream.

THE MEXICAN AMERICANS: 1848 TO THE PRESENT
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
and Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3324-001
MWF 10AM-10:50—357 Dallas Hall
John Chávez—55-DH—214-768-2975

Stressing the indigenous background of Mexican Americans in the Southwest, this course surveys their history from prehistoric times to the present.  Emphasis is placed on events since 1848 when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war between the United States and Mexico, created the Mexican-American minority.  The major theme of the course is the Chicano perception of the Southwest as a lost land and how that perception has affected the history of this ethnic group.

Readings include:

1. Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge
2. David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas
3. Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines
4. Zaragosa Vargas, Major Problems in Chicano History
5. Arnoldo de León and Richard Griswold del Castillo, North to Aztlán.

______________________________________________________________________________

FROM PEW TO BLEACHER:
AMERICAN CULTURE AND ITS INSTITUTIONS

CF 3330-001
THU 2PM-4:50—106 Dallas Hall
Alexis McCrossen—60-DH—214-768-3676

This course considers the development of U.S. culture within institutions devoted to religion, learning, theater and sports.  It takes up four particular themes: the roles of politics, technology, the market and government in founding and running cultural institutions.  Class meetings will be devoted to lectures and directed discussions.

Readings:  In addition to reading period sources such as newspaper articles, sheet music, diary entries and photographs, students will read historical books and articles about topics ranging from the Second Great Awakening (1820s & 1830s), the Astor Place Theater Riots (1849), European tours of “Wild West Shows” (1890s), World’s Fairs (1876 & 1893), vaudeville houses and movie palaces, professional and amateur sports, the regulation and censorship of radio and television broadcasting, the 1968 Olympics, and the 1990s’ “spiritual marketplace.”

SOVIET/POST-SOVIET POLITICS AND SOCIETY, 1917-PRESENT
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement
and Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3341-001
TTh 9:30AM-10:50—116 Dallas Hall
Daniel Orlovsky—352-DH—214-768-3746

The course is a general introduction to the history of the Soviet Union and its successor states.  There are no prerequisites.  The focus is on Soviet/Russian/Eurasian societies and domestic politics and their relationship to culture, ideologies and institutions.  There will also be material on foreign policy.  Students will be required to take a written final examination, write a short essay (6-8 pages) on required course reading (topics to be distributed in class), and keep a weekly journal based upon reading of current materials from the Russian press and other sources.  We are going to attempt to connect Soviet history to the unfolding events within the former Soviet Union, with special attention to the problems of building “democracy,” a “market economy” and a new national identity in Russia under the Yeltsin and Putin regimes, and the now independent states of Ukraine, the Baltics, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Readings include:

1. P. Baker and S. Glasser, Kremlin Rising
2. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad
3. Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted
4. Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain
5. David Remnick, Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
6. John Scott, Behind the Urals
7. S. Fitzpatrick, Stalinism: New Directions
8. W. Rosenberg, Revolutionary Culture, Vol 1
9. Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate.
   

CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION

HIST 3347-001
TTh 2PM-3:20—152 Dallas Hall
Glenn Linden—64-DH—214-768-2980

This course will cover the period of American history from the 1840s through the 1870s. It will examine the South and slavery, the abolitionist movement, the 1850s and the Civil War and Reconstruction, through films, readings and class discussion. Students will write two essays, take two examinations, and do a term paper over a topic of interest to the student.

Readings include:

1. John Blassingame, The Slave Community
2. Eric Foner, Reconstruction:  America's Unfinished Revolution
3. James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire
4. Glenn Linden and Tom Pressly, Voices from the House Divided
5. Glenn Linden, Voices From the Reconstruction Years
6. a number of readings on reserve in the library.
   

LIFE IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD: 1095-1350
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 3351-001
TTh 2PM-3:20—116 Dallas Hall
Jeremy Adams—67-DH—214768-2969

A survey course sweeping from the generation of the First Crusade to the general systemic cataclysm of the Black Death, topically organized around political structures (sacred and secular monarchies and republics), social structures (the classes, the sexes, and mobility among them), and intellectual structures (from the wandering scholars to the university).  Lectures and discussion sections; much visual material.

Readings include:

1. Brian Tierney, Western Europe in Middle Ages
2. Brian Tierney, Crisis of Church and State
3. Georges Duby, William Marshal:  Flower of Chivalry
4. Jean de Joinville, Life of St. Louis
5. Letters of Abelard & Heloise; ed., trans. Betty Radice
6. David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought.

AGE OF CRUSADES

HIST 3352-001
TTh 11AM-12:20—157 Dallas Hall
Jeremy Adams—67-DH—214768-2969

A lecture-and-discussion course on the medieval European response to the phenomenon of holy war, especially as represented by the Islamic jihad.  Although concentrating on the period 1075-1291, the course will also explore sources, causes, parallels, and long-range consequences of the Crusades in both practice and theory.  Reports, written exams, optional term papers.

Readings include: 

1. Hans-Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades
2. Jonathan Riley-Smith, A Short History of the Crusades
3. Carol Hillerbrand, The Crusades: An Islamic Perspective
4. Edward M. Peters, ed., The First Crusade
5. M.R.B. Shaw, ed. & tr., Chronicles of the Crusades.

PROBLEMS IN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY:  ISSUES IN
CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST—POLITICAL ISLAM

HIST 3389-001
MW 3PM-4:20—102 Hyer Hall
Sabri Ates—58C-DH—214-768-2968

This course is about Islam and politics. It aims to provide students with necessary tools to analyze and study the place of religion inspired politics in Muslim countries. It also provides students with an historical overview of Islam as religion and culture. Hence we will begin with an exploration of the early period of the religion and the formation of the two main branches of Islam and their orthodoxies. Following a chronological order from there we will proceed thematically trying to explore how different ages interpreted the question of Islamic state, and the phenomenon of Islam and politics. However most of class time and readings will be devoted to contemporary Islam and politics. Some of the issues that will be covered are: Shia and Sunni notions of power and legitimacy; the role of Islam in the administration of Muslim Empires; reformist Islam of the 19th and 20th centuries; the structure and ideology of Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hizballah, and Shia and Sunni parties in Iraq; Taliban in Afghanistan; Iran and the role of Islam in the administration and politics of that country; and lastly Islam in America and post-9/11 world and Islam.  The course consists of two lectures and discussion time per week.  The lectures will introduce the weekly topics and will be related to, but not a repetition of the assigned readings.  Exams will require short answers and essays.

Readings include:

1. Joel Beinin and Joe Stork, Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report
2. John L.Esposito, What Everybody Needs to Know About Islam, (Oxford University Press, 2002).

MODERN MIDDLE EAST
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement,
and Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3390-001
MWF 11AM-11:50—158 Fondren Science
Sabri Ates—58C-DH—214-768-2968

This course seeks to provide a broad introduction to history and politics of the modern Middle East. The course starts with examining the cultural, ethnic and religious diversity of the region and questioning the very usefulness of the term “Middle East” for a region that stretches from North Africa to Central Asia. After offering a brief historical background about the region the course concentrates on the post-WWI Middle East. Topics that will be dealt with include but not limited to: World War I and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, rise of nationalism and authoritarian nationalist states in Iran, Turkey, and Egypt; the birth and development of the Arab state system; the struggle over Palestine; Cold War and the Middle East; Lebanon and the Lebanese civil war; Ba’athist Syria and Iraq, Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, especially the rise of Islamist political movements and last but not least American occupation of Iraq. Throughout we will attempt to highlight important social and economic dimensions of problems of change and development, such as the changing status of women and the question of democracy in the Middle East.  The course consists of two lectures and a discussion session per week.  The lectures will introduce the weekly topics and will be related to, but not a repetition of the assigned readings.  Exams will require short answers and essays.

Readings include:  

1. William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East
2. James Gelvin, Modern Middle East
3. Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star
4. Hiner Saleem, My Fathers Rifle
5. Sinaan Antoon, Ijaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody.

CHINA IN REVOLUTION
Fulfills Human Diversity co-curricular requirement

HIST 3393-001
MW 3PM-4:20—157 Dallas Hall
Ling Shiao—58E-DH—214-768-3683

China's twentieth century opened with high drama when foreign troops from eight imperialist powers descended upon Beijing to crush an anti-foreign rebellion, adding yet another humiliating chapter to the history of modern China.   The end of the century witnessed the dramatic reemergence of China as a world power.  In this course, we will examine this profound transformation by exploring the two predominant themes of the century: nation-building and revolution.  Underlying all our reading, discussion, and writing will be several fundamental questions. How is the modern Chinese nation different from the traditional Chinese empire? What were the ways in which the Chinese imagined and defined themselves as a new national community? Why did the Chinese embrace revolution?  How did Communism triumph in China?  What was the role of mass propaganda and political mobilization in the revolutionary movements before and after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949?  How do the legacies of nation-building and revolution continue to shape the Chinese modernization process and its position in the world in the recent decades?

Readings & viewing include: 

1. R. Keith Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past
2. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 2
3. Shu-min Huang, The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village
4. course reader on e-reserve
5. Three documentary films:  China in Revolution, the Mao Years, and Tiananmen:  The Gate of Heavenly Peace
6. Feature film:  Crows and Sparrows.

HIST 4300:  JUNIOR SEMINAR IN RESEARCH AND WRITING
[Restricted to History Majors]

The Junior Seminar consists of readings and instruction in research methods and writing within the context of a general topic chosen by the instructor.  A relatively small core of common required readings is assigned during the first part of the semester, along with closely supervised writing exercises based on those readings.  A major paper, usually 20 to 25 pages in length, is the chief task in the second half of the semester.

NOTE: Majors are required to take the Junior Seminar during their junior year--not before or after that time. Any exception to this rule must be cleared by the Department Chairperson or the Undergraduate Director.

JUNIOR SEMINAR:  GODS AND MONSTERS
RELIGIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

HIST 4300-001
MON 2PM-4:50—138 Dallas Hall
Melissa Dowling—51-DH—214-768-2976

Religion and politics were inextricably linked in ancient societies.  In this research seminar we will exam Roman beliefs, rituals, and sacrifices for the light they shed on ancient ideas of the state and society.  In particular, we will examine the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis (the most popular cult in the ancient world until the spread of Christianity), the soldiers’ cult of Mithras, the powers of the Vestal Virgins, and the development of emperor worship.

Among the books we will read:

1. M. Beard, J. North, S. Price, Religions of Rome
2. R. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World
3. Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion
4. D. Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds
5. R. Beck, Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire
6. R. Wildfang, Rome’s Vestal Virgins.

JUNIOR SEMINAR:
THE AMERICAN WEST

HIST 4300-002
TUE 2PM-4:50—120 Dallas Hall
Sherry Smith—356B-DH—214-768-1312

This course introduces students to the study of the American West, including twentieth century developments as well as those more traditionally associated with “the West.”  We will examine the variety of ways historians have understood the region and its occupants, as it (and they) have changed over time. The first part of the course will focus on scholarly debates and topics in the field. Each student will then write a major research paper, approximately 25 pages long. Because SMU’s DeGolyer Library is such a rich treasure trove of primary sources for research in the American West, students are expected to ground their own project in primary sources from that library.

Readings include: 

1. Anne M. Butler and Michael J. Lansing, The American West: A Concise History
2. Anthony Brundage, Going to the Sources, 4th edition

INSIDE NAZI GERMANY

HIST 4363-001
MWF 9AM-9:50—102 Dallas Hall
Donald Niewyk—63-DH—214-768-2971

A search for the reality beneath the spectacle of the Nuremberg rallies and the supposed efficiency of the totalitarian state.  Particular attention will be given to the formation of Hitler's personality, the conditions that permitted his rise to power, and the nature and purposes of his dictatorship.

Readings include:

1. Sax and Kuntz, Inside Hitler’s Germany
2. Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power.

DEPARTMENTAL DISTINCTION
[Restricted to History Majors]
(Instructor’s signature and Dept. permission
required on student’s enrollment request form)

HIST 4375-P##
By Arrangement with Instructor

History majors with a sufficiently high academic standing may graduate with honors in history by applying for the degree “with departmental distinction.”  Eligible students—those who have completed 21 hours of History credit, including the junior seminar, with a 3.7 History GPA and overall 3.5 GPA—will  be  invited  by the Department Chair to apply.  Candidates for distinction will pursue an individual research project under the direction of a particular professor (while enrolled in HIST 4375).  Such a major research project might well develop out of the 5000 level seminar or HIST 4300, the junior seminar.  The research project will be presented as a thesis before the end of the semester.  The successful honors graduate must pass an oral examination on the thesis.

INTERNSHIP IN HISTORY
(Instructor's signature and Dept. permission
required on student’s enrollment request form)

HIST 4397-P##
By Arrangement with Instructor

An opportunity for students to apply historical skills in a public setting working with a supervisor of the student's work and a professor assessing the academic component of the project.  Prerequisites:  Junior or senior standing and at least 2.5 overall GPA.

INDEPENDENT STUDY
(Instructor's signature and Dept. permission
required on student’s enrollment request form)

HIST 4398/ /4399-P##
By Arrangement with Instructor

History majors in the second semester of their junior year may apply to the Chair of the History Department or to the Undergraduate Director to pursue a personally designed course of study under the guidance of an appropriate professor during the junior or senior year.

SEMINAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY:  EASTERN WOODLAND
INDIANS IN A CHANGING WORLD
Co-listed with HIST 6308-001C
(Prereq: Junior standing or instructor approval)

HIST 5341-001C
THU 2PM-4:50—138 Dallas Hall
Edward Countryman—333-DH—214-768-2907

This course, for graduate students and senior history majors, will explore the problems that Native eastern woodland people faced between earliest contact and Indian Removal as official federal government policy.  We will look heavily at two groups, the Iroquois Nations of what now is New York State and the Cherokee.  Part of the reason is that both have been heavily studied, with great sophistication.  Another part is that each is “iconic” in ways comparable to the Cheyenne, Sioux, Comanche, or Apache.  We will have to reach into anthropology for some of our material, because it offers the only way to appreciate these people prior to contact.  We will look at such subjects as these:  “ethnogenesis” (how the tribes came to be); mythology (how they made sense of themselves and their world); non-state organization (public life without politics); the disturbances caused by white arrival; war, peace, survival; diplomatic encounters; Indians and the American Revolution; and dealing with the triumphant United States.  The course will require heavy reading, including primary sources.  There will be no exam, but graduate and undergraduate students will have different term paper requirements.  As much as possible I will assign materials that are available on-line or in the public domain, to save you expense.

Assigned Readings include:

1. Dean Snow, The Iroquois
2. Richard White, The Middle Ground
3. Alan Greer, Mohawk Saint
4. Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground
5. William McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic
6. Theda Perdue, Cherokee Women. 

These books are required.  Students will make individual reports on the work of other historians at appropriate points, and we will read primary materials together.

SEMINAR IN RUSSIAN HISTORY:
THE STALIN ERA
(Prereq: Junior standing or instructor approval)

HIST 5390-001
TUE 2PM-4:50—138 Dallas Hall
Daniel Orlovsky—352-DH—214-768-3746

A research seminar that concentrates on both Stalin as leader and the era he came to represent. Special attention to such themes as rituals of power, World War II, represssion, science and technology, education, gender, foreign policy, economics and culture. Research paper required.

 Readings include:

1. new and old biographies of Stalin by Deutscher, McNeal, Service and Montefiore
2. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb
3. J. Brooks, Thank You Comrade Stalin
4. Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind
5. E. Pollack, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars
6. Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army
7. Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag and various new collections of translated documents.

COLLOQUIUM: AMERICA, 1877-1932

HIST 6303-001
WED 2PM-4:50—120 Dallas Hall
Crista DeLuzio—56-DH—214-768-3748

This reading course covers the major problems in American history between 1877 and 1932 and seeks to develop in graduate students an understanding of the important questions, themes, and debates in the historiographical literature on the period between Reconstruction and the New Deal.  The course requires extensive reading of major monographs and considerable additional reading of articles, essays, and primary sources.

Reading list: TBA

SEMINAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY:  EASTERN WOODLAND
INDIANS IN A CHANGING WORLD
Co-listed with HIST 5341-001C

HIST 6308-001C
THU 2PM-4:50—138 Dallas Hall
Edward Countryman—333-DH—214-768-2907

This course, for graduate students and senior history majors, will explore the problems that Native eastern woodland people faced between earliest contact and Indian Removal as official federal government policy.  We will look heavily at two groups, the Iroquois Nations of what now is New York State and the Cherokee.  Part of the reason is that both have been heavily studied, with great sophistication.  Another part is that each is “iconic” in ways comparable to the Cheyenne, Sioux, Comanche, or Apache.  We will have to reach into anthropology for some of our material, because it offers the only way to appreciate these people prior to contact.  We will look at such subjects as these:  “ethnogenesis” (how the tribes came to be); mythology (how they made sense of themselves and their world); non-state organization (public life without politics); the disturbances caused by white arrival; war, peace, survival; diplomatic encounters; Indians and the American Revolution; and dealing with the triumphant United States.  The course will require heavy reading, including primary sources.  There will be no exam, but graduate and undergraduate students will have different term paper requirements.  As much as possible I will assign materials that are available on-line or in the public domain, to save you expense.

Assigned Readings include:

1. Dean Snow, The Iroquois
2. Richard White, The Middle Ground
3. Alan Greer, Mohawk Saint
4. Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground
5. William McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic
6. Theda Perdue, Cherokee Women. 

These books are required.  Students will make individual reports on the work of other historians at appropriate points, and we will read primary materials together.

RESEARCH ON THE SOUTHWEST AS A REGION

HIST 6327-001
MON 2PM-4:50—120 Dallas Hall
John Chávez —55-DH—214-768-2975

Since this seminar is specifically designed to have doctoral students write an article of publishable quality, it deals with selecting an appropriate regional topic, devising an approach and a method, as well as locating sources, especially primary materials.  Because the topics range across many different periods and sub-fields, guest lecturers, both professors and advanced students, visit and inform the class regarding their specializations.  From exposure to this variety, students should develop a broader sense of southwestern history, even as they deepen their knowledge of their own specific paper topic.
The class may take two or three field trips to local, off-campus archives.  Short reading and writing assignments, as well as discussions and presentations, focus on the production of the publishable paper.  Though designed for Ph.D. students, any graduate student may take the course.

Readings include: 1) Richard Etulain and Ferenc Morton Szasz, The American West in 2000; 2) Clyde Milner, A New Significance:  Re-Envisioning the History of the American West; 3) Kate Turabian, Manual for Writers; 4) David Weber, Myth and the History of the Hispanic Southwest.

PROBLEMS IN RECENT MODERN EUROPE:
COMPARATIVE REVOLUTIONS

HIST 6347-001
TUE 2PM-4:50—70 Dallas Hall
John Mears—58D-DH—214-768-2974

Drawing on contributions from political science, sociology, psychology, economics, and philosophy as well as history, this seminar will develop a framework for the comparative study of the modern world's great revolutions.  Using England, France, Russia, and China as primary examples, participants will consider problems of definition and causation, the roles played by leaders and followers, the importance of ideologies and the international context, and the impact of violence and terror.  The seminar will conclude with a discussion of the American revolution from a comparative perspective.

In addition to specialized monographs and journal articles, participants will analyze a number of core texts, including:

1. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions
2. Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century
3. Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution
4. Hanna Arendt, On Revolution
5. Michael D. Richards, Revolutions in World History.

THE GRADUATE COURSES LISTED BELOW REQUIRE DEPARTMENT APPROVAL (the signature of the Graduate Director on your enrollment request form):