Bryn Mawr College

Courses

Courses stress the development of ideas, cultures, and institutions, not merely the accumulation of data about particular events. Students study some topics and methods intensively to learn how to use and evaluate primary sources. Instructors assign extensive reading to familiarize students with various kinds of historical writing. Students are expected to participate in class discussions, and most courses emphasize critical writing rather than examinations.

History students may also be interested in historically-oriented courses in related fields such as History of Art 212 - Medieval Architecture or Growth & Structure of Cities 180 - Introduction to Historic Preservation.

Fall 2009 Tri-Co Course Guide Listings

Spring 2010 Tri-Co Course Guide Listings

Course List.

HIST 102: Introduction to African Civilizations

Kalala Ngalamulume
The course introduces students to African societies, cultures, and political economies in historical perspective, with emphasis on change and responses among African people living in Africa and outside.

This course will be team taught at Haverford College w/Professor Tracey Hucks

Counts toward Peace and Conflict Studies Concentration and Hispanic American Studies Concentration)

HIST 118: Comparative Media Revolutions: Print, Radio and Internet

(New Course)
Jennifer Spohrer
This seminar provides an introduction to the issues raised by the histories of technology and media through a comparison of three so-called “media revolutions.” We will look first at general theories about the relationships between technology and social change and explore the historiography of the printing press, radio, and the Internet in greater depth. What historical explanations are given for the development of these different media technologies? What kind of agency is ascribed to them? Are media inherently revolutionary or can they be tools for stabilization and consolidation as well?
This course is open to everyone. No pre-requisites or previous knowledge of history is required. (Limit 15 students)

HIST 128: Crusade, Conversion and Conquest (New Course)

Elly Truitt

This new course explores the nature of Christian religious expansion and conflict in the medieval period. This course is not a survey, and instead has a thematic focus. This course is based around primary sources with some background readings. The topics within the larger theme are: early medieval Christianity and conversion, the crusades and the development of the doctrines of “just war” and “holy war,” the rise of military orders such as the Templars and the Teutonic Knights, and later medieval attempts to convert and colonize eastern Europe. Course material will include primary sources, film screenings, and scholarly articles. No background in medieval history is necessary.

HIST 131: Chinese Civilization

Yonglin Jiang

A broad chronological survey of Chinese culture and society from the Bronze Age to the present, with special reference to such topics as belief, family, language, the arts and sociopolitical organization. Readings include primary sources in English translation and secondary studies.
(cross-listed as EAST 131)

HIST 208: The Roman Empire

Russell Scott

Imperial history from the principate of Augustus to the House of Constantine, with focus on the evolution of Roman culture and society as presented in the surviving ancient evidence, both literary and archaeological. (cross-listed as CSTS 208)

HIST 216: Post Communist Transitions in Eastern Europe (New Course)

Tereza Hyankova

Prerequisite: an introductory social science cousre, or permission of the instructor.

After the fall of communism, there was widespread acceptance of democratic politial systems and capitalist free market models.  In the last twenty years this momentous political, social and cultural change has influenced lives and institutions in complex ways.  The course will compare communist and post-communist social formations in Eastern Europe in selected nation-states with special focus on the case of the Czech Republic.   We will consider social changes as this has influenced various spheres of life such as family, gender, morality, religion, fashion, architecture, economic institutions and nationalism. We will also examine this transformation from an interdisciplinary perspective drawing on the literatures of social sciences, especially anthropology .Enrollment limited to 25 students. (cross-listed as ANTH 226)

HIST 223: The Early Medieval World (New Course)
Elly Truitt
This new course will be the first of a two-course sequence that provide an introduction to medieval European history. The chronological span of this course is from the early 4th century (the Christianization of the Roman Empire) to the early 10th century (the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire). Topics covered include: the spread of early Christianity, the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West, the persistence of the Roman Empire in the East, the rise of Islam, Germanic tribal kingdoms, and the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. Readings for this course consist mainly of primary sources, textbook reading, and major historiographic debates. No previous coursework in medievalia is necessary.

(cross-listed as Classics 223)

HIST B224: High/Late Middle Ages

Elly Truitt
This course will cover the second half of the European Middle Ages, often called the High and Late Middle Ages, from roughly 1000-1400. The course has a general chronological framework, and is based on important themes of medieval history. These include feudalism and the feudal economy; the social transformation of the millennium; monastic reform; the rise of the papacy; trade, exchange, and exploration; urbanism and the growth of towns. The goals of this course are: 1) to make students familiar with some of the most important aspects of the second half of the medieval period; 2) to introduce students to different historical methods, including social, economic, intellectual, and institutional history; 3) to help students develop their abilities to make historical arguments, both orally and in their written work. No prior coursework in medieval history is necessary to take this course.. (cross- listed as CSTS B203)

HIST 229: Europe 1914-1945: Challenge of the Masses (New Course)
Jennifer Spohrer
In the early 20th century, many elite and middle-class Europeans felt their culture and way of life were increasingly threatened by a growing “massification” of society. Modern warfare and economic crises seemed to demand the political and economic mobilization of entire societies, while at the same time strategies of mass production, marketing and consumption, mass media and expanding suffrage seemed poised to undermine the values and hierarchies that made European liberal democracies work. This course looks at the European drive to develop political institutions, ideologies and strategies suited to a new mass age, as well as the contemporary theories of mass psychology and mass society that informed such responses.

HIST 230: Europe Since 1945 - Present

Jennifer Spohrer

This course provides an overview of the major economic, social, and political developments dividing and uniting Europe since 1945. We will look at the devastation and fragmentation of the immediate post-war period; the social and political implications of the unprecedented growth of the 1950s and 1960s; the stagnation, turmoil, and uncertainty characteristic of 1970s and 1980s; and the promises and tensions renewed by integration movements since the 1990s. What are the legacies of Europe’s troubled past? How do they affect Europe and Europeans today?

HIST 231: Medicine, Magic and Miracles in the Middle Ages

Elly Truitt

This course explores the history of health and disease, healing and medical practice in the medieval period, with special emphasis on the Dar al-Islam and the Latin Christian West. Using methods from intellectual, cultural, and social history, the themes of this course include: 1) theories of health and disease in this period, including Galenism; 2) the varieties of medical practice, including magical and supernatural, as well as naturalistic healing; 3) the specific rationalities of these modalities; 4) views of the body and disease; 5) medical practitioners, including midwives, surgeons, physicians, and saints. No previous coursework in medieval history is necessary.

(cross-listed as ARCH 231  and CSTS 231)

HIST 259: Ethnic Minorities in Europe

Tereza Hyankova

Prerequisite: Any social science course or the permission of the instructor.

Europe is a region cuturally, linguistically and ethnically very heterogeneous. Many minorities and ethnic groups demand their rights within the frame of the nation-state.  Countries apply different polities concerning this conflict, often involving issues of ethnic identity.  Drawing on anthropological and other social science and historical sources, this course will consider ethnic minorities in Europe.  We will compare ethnic conflicts in the Balkans region, the division of Czechoslovakia into two countries, tensions between Fleminish and Walloon population in Belgium, and the situation of Basques in Spain. In the context of politics of indigenous peoples, this course will include the Sami of Norway, Sweden and Finland. As a special case we will consider the Romani (Gypsies) with the focus on their situation in Eastern  Europe.
Enrollment limited to 25 students. (Cross-listed as ANTH 259)

HIST 260: Human Rights in China

Yonglin Jiang

The purpose of this course is to convey an understanding of the human rights issues in China from a historical perspective. It will look at the development of China's rights tradition as seen in Confucianism, the struggle for human rights in the 20th-century, and the contemporary debates, both within China and between Chinese and others, on the values and practices of human rights. Its topics include diverse perspectives on human rights, historical background, civil rights, religious practice, justice system, as well as such social groups as migrant laborers, women, ethnic minorities, and peasants.

(Cross-listed as EAST 264)

HIST 261: Palestine and Israeli Society: Cultural and Historical Perspective

Tamara Neuman

Considers the legacy of Palestine and the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as key in the formation of Israeli society, shaped by ongoing political conflict. New ethnographic writings disclose themes like Zionism, Holocaust, immigration, religion, Palestinian citizenry, Middle Eastern Jews and military occupation and resulting emerging debates among different social sectors and populations. Also considers constitution of ethnographic fields and the shaping of anthropological investigations by arenas of conflict. Prerequisites: sophomore standing and POLS B111 or ANTH B101 or B102 or permission of the instructor. (Counts toward Peace and Conflict Studies Concentration. (Cross listed with ANTH B261 and HEBR B261) Enrollment limited to 25 students.

HIST 262: The Chinese Revolution

Yonglin Jiang

Places the causes and consequences of the 20th-century revolutions in historical perspective, by examining its late-imperial antecedents and tracing how the revolution has (and has not) transformed China, including the lives of such key revolutionary supporters as the peasantry, women, and intellectuals. (cross-listed as EAST 263)

HIST 263: The Chinese Revolution

Yonglin Jiang

Places the causes and consequences of the 20th-century revolutions in historical perspective, by examining its late-imperial antecedents and tracing how the revolution has (and has not) transformed China, including the lives of such key revolutionary supporters as the peasantry, women, and intellectuals. (cross-listed as EAST B263)

HIST 267: History of Philadelphia: 1682 - Present
Elliott Shore
This course will focus on the intersection of the sense of Philadelphia as it is popularly understood and the Philadelphia that we can reconstruct individually and together using scholarly books and articles, documentary and popular films and novels, visual evidence, and visits to the chief repositories of the city's history. We will analyze the relationship between the official representations of Philadelphia and their sources and we will create our own history of the city. Preference given to junior and senior growth and structure of cities and history majors and those students who were previously lotteried out of the course. (Cross-listed as Cities 267)

HIST 283: Introduction to the Politics of the Modern Middle East and North Africa

Deborah Harrold
This course is a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the politics of the region, using works of history, political science, political economy, film, and fiction as well as primary sources. The course will concern itself with three broad areas: the legacy of colonialism and the importance of international forces; the role of Islam in politics; and the political and social effects of particular economic conditions, policies, and practices. Limit 35 students. (cross-listed as HEBR B283 and Political Science B283)

HIST 284: Movies and America: The Past Lives Forever (New Course)
Sharon Ullman
Movies are one of the major means by which Americans come to know – or think they know – about their own history. This class examines the complex cultural relationship between film and American historical self fashioning.
There will be a weekly mandatory screening. Preference given to sophomores and juniors. Course enrollment will be capped at 30. (Counts toward the Film Studies
minor.)

HIST 287: Immigration in the Modern U.S. (New Course)
Veronica Martinez-Matsuda
As the topic of immigration takes center stage in the U.S. public agenda, the opportunity to analyze the “immigrant problem” in a historical context presents itself to us in a unique manner. A central element of this course will incorporate various aspects of the current immigration debate to examine the historical causes and consequences of migration to the United States. We will address questions regarding the perceived benefit and cost of immigration at both the national and local (community) levels. We will also explore the economic, social, cultural, and political impact immigrants have had on the United States over time. Close attention will be given to examining the ways in which immigrants have negotiated the pressures of their new surroundings and in the process shaped or redefined American conceptions of national identity and citizenship.
Counts toward Latin American, Latino and Iberian Peoples and Cultures Concentration

HIST 292: Women in Britain Since 1750
Madhavi Kale
Focusing on contemporary and historical narratives, representations and theories about the ostensibly transparent and stable categories of "women" and "Britain," this course explores the ongoing production, circulation and refraction of discourses on not only gender and nation but also on race, empire and modernity since the mid-18th century. Assigned texts will incorporate visual and material as well as literary evidence and culture, and the course will consider the crystallization in this period of the discipline of history itself (and the practices that constitute and challenge it) as historically engendered.

HIST 303: Topics in American History: Comparative History of Advertising

Elliott Shore
This course examines the key period in the development of advertising in Europe and the United States. Readings will include standard historical treatments as well as fiction and memoirs and the class will use original sources that are available in the Bryn Mawr Special Collections Department and on the Web. Topics that we will explore together could include the elite disdain for advertising, the role of advertising in progressive politics and in public health, and the relationship between the development of the department store and international exhibitions to advertising and how art and photography are connected to advertising.

Limit 15 students

 

HIST 313: Religion in Modern Europe: Enlightenment - Present (New Course)

Jennifer Spohrer
Until recently, historians agreed with Nietzsche’s 19th-century pronouncement that “God is dead,”* viewing post-Enlightenment European history as one of increasing secularism and declining religiousness. This course re-examines that conclusion, looking both at recent historical research that argues religious institutions, values, and issues remained relevant for Europeans into the 21st century and at primary-source documents surrounding events considered to have religious implications, like the publication of Darwin’s Descent of Man or “l’affaire du foulard” in France. If religion remained as important in modern Europe as revisionist historians suggest, then why was Nietzsche’s verdict so readily and widely accepted? This class has a substantial writing component.

Enrollment limited to 15 students.

HIST 314: New Deal America: Politics Culture and Labor

Veronica Martinez-Matsuda

Americans living during the 1930s experienced a series of dramatic changes in their lives due primarily to the collapse of the economy by the late 1920s and the emergence of what became known as the Great Depression. As central focus of this course will explore how the government responded to Americans' needs and demands by developing a serious of programs and policies under the rubric of the New Deal. In order to evaluate the diverse experiences Americans encountered during this era, careful attention will be given to how matters of race, gender, and citizenship were incorporated into (or excluded from) the language and politics of the New Deal. More specifically, we will analyze the experiences of laborers and their organizing efforts throughout the United States. The dramatic upsurge of labor activity in the 1930s, and the response to it by both government and business, offers an important lens through which to examine the unique interrelationship between policy, activism, and popular culture during this time. Finally, as one of the most salient historical moments in our past, the class will end by examining some of the present-day implications of the New Deal Era.

HIST 325: Topics in Social History: History of Sexuality
Sharon Ullman
This course addresses the social history of sexual practices, societal and governmental regulation of sex, and the changing cultural meaning of sex, from the 16th century to the present. Our focus will be on sexuality as a prime arena for the expression of social inequality in America and as an important foundation for the social construction of gender.
Preference given to senior History Majors and G&S concentrators. Course enrollment will be capped at 15.

HIST 336 Topics in African History: Social and Cultural History of Medicine in Africa

Kalala Ngalamulume
This course examines disease and illness, and health and healing, in an African context. We will begin by focusing on indigenous understandings of disease that extend the causes of illness beyond the patient’s body, into society and the spiritual world. The course will also include a discussion of the influences of missionary and colonial medicine, and emphasize the pluralistic nature of medicine in postcolonial Africa and the African diaspora. We will also look at examples of epidemics in Africa, including the AIDS pandemic.

Enrollment limited to 15 students.

HIST 345: Advanced Topics in Environment and Society: Environmental Justice
Allison Noelle Hayes-Conroy

In this course, we will be delving into the history of the complex issues of environmental justice and environmental racism. We will investigate the ways in which environmentalism can and has led to environmental inequalities, and we will study how resource allocation, legal frameworks and access to social and economic power affect experiences of environmental amenities and risks. As we do so, we will learn to read and understand expressions of power in many landscapes, environments, and narratives.
Enrollment limited to 12 students.
(Counts toward the Environmental Studies Concentration. Cross-listed w/CITY 345)

HIST 349: Topics in Comparative History: Before European Hegemony in the Indian Ocean World
Madhavi Kale
This course focuses on the emerging literature on the complex networks of interaction and exchange (financial, commercial, intellectual, familial) that linked and divided peoples, beliefs, cultures and polities from the eastern Mediterranean through the Red Sea, around the rim of the Indian Ocean from the Arabian Sea to the South China Sea in the 11th-15th centuries. Capitalizing on the extended presence at Bryn Mawr next fall of a leading historian of this region and period, the course will trace people, dynamics, and processes that seem at once archaic and modern and, in the process, consider in comparative context what is understood at present by "globalization."

HIST 352: China's Environment: History, Policy and Rights
Yonglin Jiang

Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

This seminar explores China’s environmental issues from a historical perspective. It begins by considering a range of analytical approaches , and then explores three general periods in China’s environmental changes, imperial times, Mao’s socialist experiments during the first thirty years of the People’s Republic, and the post-Mao reforms.
(cross-listed as EAST B352; counts toward the Environmental Studies Concentration.)

HIST 355: History of London Since 18th Century
David Cast

Selected topics of social, literary, and architectural concern in the history of London, emphasizing London since the 18th century. (cross-listed as CITY B355)

HIST B357 Topics in British Empire: Screening Empire, Projecting Home:
Film, Domesticity and Modernity in India and Britain
Madhavi Kale
Focusing on themes of displacement and transplantation, this course will examine films by and about men and women circulating (voluntarily or otherwise) through the British empire and the nations that supplanted it to consider the impacts of empire (at "home" and "away") on articulations of modern identities (national, sub-national and other). (Counts towards Film Studies minor)

HIST 364: Magical Mechanisms: The Early History of Robots, Cyborgs and Automata (New Course)
Elly Truitt
This interdisciplinary seminar examines medieval automata—artificial objects that were, or that appeared to be, self-moving copies of natural forms. From their ancient Greek origins to their central place in Muslim courts, these artifacts trickled into the European consciousness and took root in the imagination. This course will explore the ways that westerners envisioned these artifacts, and how they were used to plumb and limn the boundaries between natural and artificial, between life and death, between “East” and “West.” As technological expertise in the Latin West developed, artisans and clerics built copies of existing artifacts and invented new ones, including monumental clocks and elaborate automata for the glory of the Church and the court.   Pre-requisite: at least one previous course in medieval history, or by written permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15 students. (cross-listed as CSTS 364, counts toward Gender and Sexuality Studies Concentration)

HIST  383: Two Hundred Years of Islamic Reform, Radicalism, and Revolution
Deborah Harrold
This course will examine the transformation of Islamic politics in the past two hundred years, emphasizing historical accounts, comparative analysis of developments in different parts of the Islamic world. Topics covered include the rationalist Salafy movement; the so-called conservative movements (Sanussi of Libya, the Mahdi in the Sudan, and the Wahhabi movement in Arabia); the Caliphate movement; contemporary debates over Islamic constitutions; among others. The course is not restricted to the Middle East or Arab world. Prerequisites: a course on Islam and modern European history, or an earlier course on the Modern Middle East or 19th-century India, or permission of instructor. (cross-listed as HIST B383)
Enrollment limited to 18 students.

HIST 395 Exploring History

Sharon Ullman
An intensive introduction to theory and interpretation in history through the discussion of exemplary historiographical debates and analyses selected by the instructor. The coursework also includes research for and completion of a prospectus for an original research project. These two goals prepare senior majors for their own historical production, when the senior thesis is complete. Enrollment is limited to senior history majors.

HIST B398 Senior Thesis (two sections)

Kalala Ngalamulum (section 01);  Jennifer Spohrer (section 02)
Students research and write a thesis on a topic of their choice. Enrollment is limited to senior history majors.

HIST B403 Supervised Work
Optional independent study, which requires permission of the instructor and the major adviser. (staff)

HIST B425 Praxis III: Independent Study
(staff)