Summer I 2011 Courses
HISTORY DEPARTMENT ADVANCED COURSES SUMMER I 2011
The SFA History Department will offer the following advanced and graduate courses during the Summer I 2011 semester. For more information about individual courses, see the instructor.
All 300 and 400 level courses have a prerequisite of 6 hours of history.
HIS 313 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, Dr. Dahmus, MTWR 8:00-9:55, F475
This course will examine the entire history of Christianity from the time of Christ to the twenty-first century, but with primary emphasis on the period up to 1700. Included in the topics to be considered will be the Apostolic Church of the first century, the conversion of the Roman Empire, the theological debates of the early centuries, the conversion of the barbarians, monasticism, the Greek Church, the growth of papal power, the Crusades, the Reformation, the wars of religion, the modern attacks on Christianity beginning with the French Revolution, and the spread of Christianity to non-Western lands.
HIS 321 WORLD HISTORY, Dr. Dormady, MTWR 2:45-4:40, F477
This course surveys major developments in world history from the Neolithic Revolution to Globalization. Models of study will include concepts of meta geography, trade, cross cultural interaction, world systems, diasporas, and biological exchange. Particular attention is paid to the pre-Conquest Americas, Oceania, and the Afro-Eurasian complex. Topics include the rise and maintenance of cities, comparative empires, colonialism, neo-colonialism, modernization, and globalization as evidenced in societies such as Archaic Sumer, the Aztec Empire, Andean South America, Colonial West Africa, Central Asia, and EZLN occupied Mexico.
Meets an elective requirement for the International Studies second major or minor.
Meets a requirement for those seeking teacher certification in History for grades 8-12.
HIS 345 AMERICAN WEST, Dr. Bremer, TR 12:30-2:25, F-472
This course is an introduction to the American frontier that uses both lecture and discussion formats to help you understand this crucial region. We will survey the area from first native settlement to the late nineteenth century, focusing on economic and cultural change, social history, migration, settlement, and the frontier’s influence on American culture. Topics include Native American resistance and culture, the Gold Rush and overland trails, exploration, the fur trade, the transcontinental railroad, settlement on the plains and the Civil War in the West. We will also look at the lives of ordinary people, including slaves, cowboys, farm wives, European immigrants and native people. The class will make extensive use of video resources. Books include: Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie, and the textbook Frontiers.
HIS 459 NAZI GERMANY, Dr. Jackson, MTWR 10:15-12:10, F-480
Few brief periods in history have made as much difference in the lives of millions of people as did the years between 1930 and 1945.The epicenter of the period was in Germany, where the National Socialist regime after 1933 organized and launched a racial and military war. This course will discuss the continuities and discontinuities in German history – the “before, during, and after” impact of the Nazi regime. The ways the experiences of Germany were comparable to that of other Western nations will also be discussed. The course will be divided into three parts: The Nazi rise to power, their actions and policies while in power, and their waging of total war on Europe and the Jews from 1939-1945. Some of the questions highlighted will be: Why did the Weimar Republic fail? Why did the Nazis succeed? How did the Nazis stand democracy on its head? What contradictions in democracy made this possible? What happened to individual rights in the totalitarian state? How did the radical departure from the ethics of the Western tradition turn Social Darwinism into the Holocaust? Was Hitler personally to blame or was the guilt collective? What responsibility do foreign governments like the U.S. have in the Nazi march to war and horror? What lessons can be gleaned from a study of the period?
GRADUATE COURSES
HIS 578 RACE IN US HISTORY, Dr. Carney, MTWR 2:45-4:40, F-480
This course examines the role of race within the broad contours of American culture and history. Taught as a readings seminar, this class will center on the student-led discussion of monographs, academic articles, film, and music. Writing assignments will include book reviews as well as historiographical essays. Topics will include: the construction of race in the Americas; race and the question of freedom and liberty; 19th century conceptions of blackness; W.E.B. Du Bois and black history writing; modernity and the African American experience; black diasporic culture; postwar American society; the long Civil Rights Movement; and the politics of African American identity after the 1970s.