HIST2401 - Indians, Pirates, Rebels and Runaways: Unofficial Histories of the Colonial Caribbean

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Indians, Pirates, Rebels and Runaways: Unofficial Histories of the Colonial Caribbean
Term
2024C
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
401
Section ID
HIST2401401
Course number integer
2401
Meeting times
M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Yvonne E Fabella
Description
This seminar considers the early history of the colonial Caribbean, not from the perspective of colonizing powers but rather from “below.” Beginning with European-indigenous contact in the fifteenth century, and ending with the massive slave revolt that became the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), we will focus on the different ways in which indigenous, African, European and creole men and women experienced European colonization in the Caribbean, as agents, victims and resistors of imperial projects. Each week or so, we will examine a different social group and its treatment by historians, as well as anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, and novelists. Along the way, we will pay special attention to the question of sources: how can we recover the perspectives of people who rarely left their own accounts? How can we use documents and material objects—many of which were produced by colonial officials and elites—to access the experiences of the indigenous, the enslaved, and the poor? We will have some help approaching these questions from the knowledgeable staff at the Penn Museum, the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and the Van Pelt Library.
Course number only
2401
Cross listings
AFRC2401401, GSWS2401401, LALS2401401
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST2257 - Russia's 20th-Century: History Through Literature

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Russia's 20th-Century: History Through Literature
Term
2024C
Syllabus URL
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
401
Section ID
HIST2257401
Course number integer
2257
Meeting times
T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Benjamin Nathans
Kevin M.F. Platt
Description
To study Russia’s twentieth-century history through its literature is to come face-to-face with a country for which works of fiction have often served, as the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it, as “a second government.” Russia is a society that takes literature seriously—one in which the pen is assumed to have direct historical consequences. In this course, we will study how twentieth-century Russian literature actively participated in war, revolution, totalitarian dictatorship, and resistance. The masterworks we will study open windows into worlds of revolutionary rapture and moral uplift in the face of tyranny, of history as a gigantic wheel that lifts some people up even as it crushes others. Our readings will range from an avant-garde play intended to rewire your mind, to an epic representation of revolutionary social transformation, to surreal and absurdist representations of a world gone mad. In other words: fasten your seatbelts low and tight; turbulence ahead!
Course number only
2257
Cross listings
REES2730401
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST2208 - Dialogue: Communicating Science and Knowledge from Socrates to Today (SNF Paideia Program Course)

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
Dialogue: Communicating Science and Knowledge from Socrates to Today (SNF Paideia Program Course)
Term
2024C
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
301
Section ID
HIST2208301
Course number integer
2208
Meeting times
M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Edward M Chappell
Description
From Socrates in the fourth century BCE to Galileo in the seventeenth, the dialogue—a form of writing that stages a conversation or debate between two or more speakers—was one of the most popular genres for disseminating observations and opinions about the world, particularly when they were new or controversial. Although scientists no longer use written dialogues to share their research today, discussion, disagreement, and debate remain important tools for advancing scientific knowledge, at least in theory if not always in practice. The aim of this course will be to explore how dialogue as a genre and a principal was and still is a critical tool not just for productively communicating scientific knowledge but also for developing and creating it. In the first part of the class, we will look at a range of ancient, medieval, and early modern scientific dialogues to understand better how and why premodern authors employed the genre to advance and share their opinions even as the nature of science changed dramatically over these periods. In the second part, we will explore scholarly works on the institutional, intellectual, and technological changes from the seventeenth century onwards that led to the dialogue falling by the wayside as a genre of scientific writing. We will look at the principles and practices that have emerged in its place and to what degree they have succeeded or not in creating authentic dialogue. In short, this course will trace the (sometimes bumpy) journey of dialogue from page to principle.
Course number only
2208
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST2154 - The State of the Union is not Good: The US in Crisis in the 1970s

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
301
Title (text only)
The State of the Union is not Good: The US in Crisis in the 1970s
Term
2024C
Syllabus URL
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
301
Section ID
HIST2154301
Course number integer
2154
Meeting times
T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Randall B Cebul
Description
Vietnam. Watergate. Deindustrialization. Inflation. Disco. These events and forces only begin to scratch the surface of the social, cultural, political, and economic transformations that remade American life in the 1970s and which, by 1975, forced President Gerald Ford to concede “that the state of the union is not good.” Beyond these familiar topics, this reading seminar will explore a range of developments that are crucial for understanding why the 1970s was perhaps the pivotal decade in making modern American politics, economics, and culture. Topics will include the fate of the Civil Rights movement and the war on crime; the rise and impact of second wave feminism; the rise of the modern conservative coalition (e.g., its religious, economic, and white working-class components); the emergence of the finance economy; the reorientation of organized labor and the remaking of the Democratic Party; the explosion of “therapeutic” cultures of self-help, individualism, and entrepreneurialism; and the rise of the Sunbelt as the nation’s dominant cultural, political, and economic region.
Course number only
2154
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST2104 - American Books/Books in America

Status
A
Activity
SEM
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
American Books/Books in America
Term
2024C
Syllabus URL
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
401
Section ID
HIST2104401
Course number integer
2104
Meeting times
R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
James N Green
John Pollack
Description
This course investigates book histories and the worlds of readers, printers, publishers, and libraries in the Americas, from the colonial period through the nineteenth century. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.
Course number only
2104
Cross listings
ENGL2604401
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST1733 - Free Speech and Censorship

Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
1
Title (text only)
Free Speech and Censorship
Term
2024C
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
001
Section ID
HIST1733001
Course number integer
1733
Meeting times
MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Sophia A Rosenfeld
Description
This course will explore the idea of free speech - its justification, its relationship to various forms of censorship, and its proper limits - as a historical, philosophical, legal, and ultimately, political question. In the first half of the course, we will explore the long history across the West of the regulation of various kinds of ideas and their expression, from malicious gossip to heresies, and read classic arguments for and against censorship, copyright protections, and standards of taste and decency and of truth. In the second part of the seminar, after looking at how the idea of freedom of speech came to seem an existential prerequisite for democracy as well as individual liberty, we will take up the historical and philosophical questions posed by such recent dilemmas as whether or not hate speech deserves the protection of the First Amendment, the distinction between art and pornography from the perspective of freedom of expression, speech during wartime, and the transformative effects of the internet on the circulation and regulation of ideas. We will end the semester by thinking about the globalization of the idea of free speech as a human right and its implications, both positive and negative. Readings will range from Robert Darnton's The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, to D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, to documents concerning the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo and law review articles about Citizens United v. FEC. We will also make considerable use of local resources, from museums to the library.
Course number only
1733
Fulfills
Humanties & Social Science Sector
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST1710 - Jews in the Modern World

Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Jews in the Modern World
Term
2024C
Syllabus URL
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
401
Section ID
HIST1710401
Course number integer
1710
Meeting times
TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Beth S. Wenger
Description
This course offers an intensive survey of the major currents in Jewish culture and society from the late middle ages to the present. Focusing upon the different societies in which Jews have lived, the course explores Jewish responses to the political, socio-economic, and cultural challenges of modernity. Topics to be covered include the political emancipation of Jews, the creation of new religious movements within Judaism, Jewish socialism, antisemitism, Zionism, the Holocaust, and the emergence of new Jewish communities in Israel and the United States. No prior background in Jewish history is expected.
Course number only
1710
Cross listings
JWST1710401, MELC0360401, RELS1710401
Fulfills
Cross Cultural Analysis
History & Tradition Sector
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST1708 - Revolutionary Ideas, Ideologies of Revolution

Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
1
Title (text only)
Revolutionary Ideas, Ideologies of Revolution
Term
2024C
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
001
Section ID
HIST1708001
Course number integer
1708
Meeting times
TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Description
Ideas play an intangible role in defining culture and politics. Mass movements and revolutions have become a familiar feature of modern social activism and political life. This course surveys some of the major revolutions and ideologies that have caused significant change, beginning with revolutions of the 18th and early 19th centuries (American, French, Haitian) and then the rise of modern revolutions in Russia (Bolshevik), South Asia and Africa (anti-racist, decolonizing), and the Middle East (constitutional, anti-establishment, Islamic, gender). We will read and critique the writings of theorists of revolution (ex: John Locke, Karl Marx, Crane Brinton, Francois Furet). In addition, we will examine the icons of imperialism and consider varying sources of conflict within and between revolutionary states. Finally, we will assess artistic revolutions and determine how revolutionary changes in cinema, literature, and communication contribute to the realization of social upheavals. Novels, essays, films, classic texts, social media, and secondary works will comprise the bulk of the readings. The weekly assignments will focus on themes that show the nature of political change in various geographic settings to help students put the ideas of revolt and protest in the proper historical context.
Course number only
1708
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST1600 - Jews and Judaism in Antiquity

Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Jews and Judaism in Antiquity
Term
2024C
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
401
Section ID
HIST1600401
Course number integer
1600
Meeting times
MW 8:30 AM-9:59 AM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Simcha Gross
Description
A broad introduction to the history of Jewish civilization from its Biblical beginnings to the Middle Ages, with the main focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Course number only
1600
Cross listings
JWST1600401, MELC0350401, RELS1600401
Fulfills
History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled

HIST1560 - Economic Histories of Modern South Asia, c. 1600 - Present

Status
A
Activity
LEC
Section number integer
401
Title (text only)
Economic Histories of Modern South Asia, c. 1600 - Present
Term
2024C
Subject area
HIST
Section number only
401
Section ID
HIST1560401
Course number integer
1560
Meeting times
TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM
Level
undergraduate
Instructors
Brian T Cannon
Description
Courses on the economic history of South Asia typically begin circa 1750, when European Company produced data series legible to economic historians first become available. This course departs from that trend, by beginning with the expansion of the Mughal empire and its deeply bureaucratized revenue system, along with the arrival of the British and Dutch East India Companies in the early seventeenth century. The course ends not in 1947 (with the decolonization of the subcontinent), but rather with the liberalization of independent national economies in the late twentieth century, which significantly altered the commercial landscape by permitting the entrance of foreign direct investment. We will analyze numerous economic and socio-political phenomena that played into commercial development and change across the subcontinent during this period, including: the organization and influence of colonial joint-stock companies; systems of land tenure; the role of ecology in affecting economic production and consumption; industrial growth and the rise of economic urbanism; labor organization and the significance of kinship and patronage; and the immense influence of the informal (i.e. “shadow” or “black”) economy, comprising some three-fourths of the South Asian labor force. The course will also introduce students to some of the theoretical literature in economic history scholarship. No prior knowledge of south Asia or economic history is required.
Course number only
1560
Cross listings
SAST1560401
Use local description
No
LPS Course
false
Major Concentrations
Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled