2006 | Summer Courses
When possible, syllabi are provided along with course descriptions. Please note that instructors may alter readings and assignments as needed.
History 201-206 seminars are open to history majors only during pre-registration. If the course does not reach its enrollment maximum, it will be open to all students beginning with drop/add on a first-come first-serve basis.
12-Week Evening Session (May 15 - August 4, 2006)
HIST 164.900 Recent American History
Wilkens
R 6:00-9:10PM
This course examines major developments in United States history since the Great Depression, a tumultuous period that gave birth to many of our contemporary debates about the responsibilities of government, the possibility of radical social change, and the meaning of citizenship. We will address the building of the New Deal state; the emergence of the United States as a superpower; the domestic and international repercussions of the Cold War; the impact of mass consumption, suburbanization, and new technologies; the civil rights movement and other drives for social change; the cultural and political fallout of the Vietnam War; transformations in gender roles and the family; and the end of the "American century."
HIST 207.900 Oral History
Farnsworth-Alvear
R 5:30-8:40PM
SEM
This course will provide a hands-on introduction to both the practical aspects of doing oral history (recording, transcribing, etc.) and the methodological and ethical challenges that can arise when one attempts to write about others memories. Seminar participants will first discuss interdisciplinary readings designed to help with what practitioners often describe as the problem of "learning to listen." The course will then move toward a "workshop" format, to aid students in designing and completing a term project. Students will do interviews, partial transcriptions, and a final presentation that includes a written presentation of analytical and interpretative issues raised in their research. Dr. Farnsworth-Alvear is committed to working closely with participants, with the aim that the end product is in every case the best work a student is capable of.
HIST 520.940 Popular History: Promise and Pitfalls
Cassanelli
W 6:00-9:10PM
SEM
The seminar will look at a variety of mass market history books (along with some TV shows and movies that deal with historical subjects) and evaluate their contributions to scholarship, their impact on public awareness of historical issues, and the potential dangers of "popularizing the past." Students will compare popular and academic studies of selected landmark events in U.S. and World History, read commentaries and critiques from the mass media and scholarly journals, and write some of their own "popular" history. Depending on the interests of participants, we may also include discussions about public history and museum exhibits, history standards and culture wars, cases of historical plagiarism, and the uses of pop psychology and sociology in historical texts.
HIST 610.940 Oral History
Farnsworth-Alvear
T 5:30-8:40PM
SEM
Our focus is the analytical and interpretative challenge historians face when integrating oral material into complex projects. Seminar participants will design and complete an interview-based project in oral history, culminating in a twenty-to-thirty page analytical essay. Course readings will provide some exposure to practical questions about interviewing styles, project design, and the complexities of transcription, and Dr. Farnsworth-Alvear will also work individually with students as they plan their research. We will critically evaluate others work while discussing the challenges facing seminar participants as each student prepares a final essay.
First Session (May 16 - June 23, 2006)
HIST 021.910 United States since 1865
Kropp
MTWR 1:00-2:35PM
This course provides a broad overview of the social, political, economic and cultural history of the nation from the end of the Civil War to the recent past. Key topics include Reconstruction, the West, urbanization and immigration, reform movements, consumer culture, the Great Depression, World War II, post-war affluence, the Cold War, the turbulence of the sixties, and contemporary affairs. Major themes we will trace throughout these events will be the changing nature of American politics, the shifting social divisions and relations between the races, classes, and the sexes, the evolution of cultural expression, and ongoing debates over what it means to be American.
HIST 052.910 Modern Ireland
Burke
MW 5:30-8:40PM
This course is a survey of the political, economic, social and cultural history of Ireland from the late 18th through the late 20th centuries—from the Rebellion of the United Irishmen to the integration of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland into the European Community. We will examine the patterns of competition, conflict and cooperation amongst the peoples who have inhabited the island of Ireland; and we will consider the often-contested understandings of "Irishness" that have emerged in these contexts.
HIST 145.910 Eastern European Jewish Experience
Rosman
TR 5:30-8:40PM
Although Jewish life in Eastern Europe has been popularly represented through images of the "Fiddler on the Roof," this was actually a highly complex culture, filled with competing religious, secular, and political movements. The majority of contemporary Jews are descended from East European ancestors, and this population shaped much of what is identified today as Jewish culture, This course explores Jewish Eastern Europe from the early modern period through the twentieth century. It traces pivotal historical events, including popular uprisings, pogroms, World War I, the Holocaust, and the rise and fall of Communism. The course treats key Jewish movements such as the Jewish enlightenment, Hasidism, the Labor movement, and Zionism, and examines the shtetl, urban culture, religious practices, business life, politics, migration and secularization. No previous knowledge of Jewish history required.
HIST 204.910 Politics of Disunion, 1848 - 1876
Engs
TWR 5-7:50PM
SEM
The major socio-economic, cultural, racial, ethnic and religious elements of antebellum America came together to produce a political transformation that destroyed the old party structures and nearly destroyed the Union itself. From that crisis evolved the Third American Party System that survives in most part to this day. That change facilitated the transformation of the U.S. from a primarily agrarian, rural nation to a primarily industrial, urban one. Because all of this occurred within the context of a devastating civil war, the nuances and complexities of the political reformation are sometimes overlooked. This seminar will employ interdisciplinary sources and methodologies to explore the interaction of political and non-political forces in the process of party reorganization between 1830 and 1880. Extensive use will be made of the Civil War-era holdings of Van Pelt Library and of the Crisis of the Union Electronic Archives. Students will also be encouraged to utilize the rich holdings in local repositories such as the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Civil War Museum.
HIST 204.911 History and Memory in American Culture
Kropp
TWR 2:40-4:15PM
SEM
Professional historians are not the only people who write history, students not the only ones who read it. This seminar examines the ways in which Americans of many types have remembered, forgotten, interpreted, and shared history. We will explore the role of history in American culture and public memory from the nineteenth century to the contemporary fascination with heritage. Central topics will include war and memorials, museums and historic preservation, race, ethnicity and regional identity, theme parks and tourism, personal pasts and memoirs, film and television. Addressing these themes will engage us in broad theoretical debates about the relationships between academic, public and popular history. Students will pursue individualized research projects investigating a particular site of memory; this seminar will fulfill the research requirement for the major.
HIST 317.910 Islam and the West
Haq
MW 1:00-4:10PM
We shall begin with a thorough examination of the images of Islam in Europe during the Middle Ages. The Latin Christendom's understanding of Islamic belief system, its portrayal of the "Saracens," and, paradoxically, its systematic appropriation of Arabo-Islamic intellectual, literary and artistic legacy--these phenomena, with all their intricate ironies, will constitute our core subject matter. Around this core, we shall explore the mystique of Islam as it developed during the period of Europe's massive colonial expansion, studying the whole range of Western attitudes, methodologies, and imperial control that has been designated as "Orientalism." Finally, we shall survey the modern encounter of Islam with the West, and the political tendencies, rhetoric, emotionalism, and the acute sense of "otherness" this newer encounter has generated in the Muslim world. Readings include selections from Dante's Divine Comedy, and from Arabian Nights; as well as works of Bernard Lewis, Roy Mottahedeh, and Edward Said. All readings in English.
Second Session (June 25 - August 4, 2006)
HIST 002.920 Europe in a Wider World 1450-1950
Muskiet
MW 5:30-8:40PM
An examination of European social, economic, political and cultural development from 1500 to the present, with attention to Europe's impact on the rest of the world.
HIST 201.920 History of Writing and Print
Fisher-Gray
TR 6:00-9:10PM
SEM
Experience history through hands-on encounters with original sources! This course traces the evolution of writing and print from its origins in the ancient world through the current digital age, exploring Penn's collections of clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, medieval manuscripts, early printed books, and e-books. Readings and discussions on writing and historical change will complement each class period's trips to the Penn Museum or Rare Book Room. Students will also have an opportunity to make their own writing paper on a field trip to Rittenhouse Town, America 's oldest papermaking facility.
HIST 202.920 The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
Allport
MTWR 10:40-12:15PM
SEM
Well over two billion people today live in parts of the world that were once territories of the British Empire, the largest and most powerful single polity in human history. That a small and otherwise unremarkable group of islands off the northwest coast of Europe was the hub of this vast global project was astonishing then, and remains astonishing now. This course will follow the strange and dramatic rise and demise of the British Empire, from the East India Company's epochal victory at Plassey in 1757 to the surrender of the last significant enclave, Hong Kong, in 1997. We will examine the imperial experience from the point of view of colonizer and colonized alike, looking at why and how the empire expanded, the various manners in which it was run, and in what ways the very mixed legacy of the 'Pax Britannica' continue to shape and inform the modern world.
HIST 202.921 Russian Politics from Gorbachev to Putin, 1985 - 2006
Sogrin
TR 5:30-8:40PM
SEM
The course is taught by a distinguished visiting Russian scholar, and a professor of history at prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Affairs. He is also editor-in-chief of the journal Social Sciences Today. Main themes of this course are : economic and political reforms and changes in the periods of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin; crash of the communist regime and the USSR, formation and problems of market economy, post-communist social structure and post-communist political regime; presidential elections of 1990, 1996, 2000 and 2004; origins, stages and the state of political parties and political pluralism; changes in mentalities and political culture of elites and masses; changes in Russian foreign policy and especially in Russian-American Relations.
HIST 203.920 Revolutionary America
Pearson
TR 5:30-8:40PM
SEM
The American Revolution is the single most important event in the history of North America. Not only did it end imperial ties with Great Britain, but it led to the creation of the modern world's first republic. This course explores the causes, major events (political, social, and military), and consequences of this momentous period. We begin by tracing the impact of the Seven Years' War on the colonies and how colonists challenged the program of the British government that came in the wake of that conflict. We then turn to examine the ways in which Americans created a new political order while conducting a war against the might of the British Empire. We end by examining the efforts made by the new citizens of the new nation to build a more perfect union in the 1780s and 1790s. The course concludes by looking at the impact of the American Revolution in France and elsewhere in the Atlantic World.
