 |
| ||||||||||||||
Course Description for Fall 2009
HISTORY History 300-0: New Lectures in History
Please scroll down to see all descriptions for this course.
History
300-0-30: New Lectures in History : Latino History during the 20th Century
Instructor: Geraldo Cadava
Office address:
Phone:
E-mail:
Office Hours:
Expected Enrollment: 32
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The growth of various Latino groups has transformed communities throughout the United States, and has led to heightened debates about their political power, cultural characteristics, and ethnic and racial status. While increasing attention to Latinos may in fact feel “new,” Latino communities have played a pivotal role in U.S. history throughout the 20th Century. This course explores the development of Latina and Latino communities in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and elsewhere. We will address themes including migration, labor, race, and empire through comparisons of Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and Cubans. Although we will focus on the United States, we also will look at the movement of Latinas and Latinos within and between the United States, Latin America, and Caribbean. Their histories argue for an international approach to U.S. history and for an analysis of Latin America that is more attentive to the importance of Latina and Latino communities in the United States. We will look at a variety of media, including literature, film, art, political cartoons, and more traditional historical interpretations.
PREREQUISITES: None
TEACHING METHOD: Lecture and discussion.
EVALUATION METHOD: Students will be graded on: collaborative, web-based encyclopedia (20%); one short (4 pp) paper (20%); one longer (10 pp) paper (40%); discussion and class participation (20%).
READING: TENTATIVE READING LIST:
* David E. Hayes Bautista, La Nueva California: Latinos in the Golden State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004);
* Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002);
* Adrian Burgos Jr., Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007);
* Carlos Eire, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy (New York: The Free Press, 2003);
* Juan González, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (New York: Penguin, 2001);
* George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Additional Resources:
* Antonia Darder and Rodolfo D. Torres, editors, The Latino Studies Reader: Culture, Economy, and Society (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998);
* Suzanne Oboler and Deena J. González, editors, Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005);
* Mark Overmyer-Velázquez, editor, Latino America: State-by State (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, forthcoming)
REFERENCES: BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OR PERSONAL STATEMENT: Geraldo Cadava is a native of Tucson, Arizona. He teaches courses on the U.S.-Mexico border region, and Mexican Americans and Latina/os in the United States.
NOTE: AREA OF CONCENTRATION: Americas
History
300-0-31: New Lectures in History : History of Terrorism from Ancient to Modern Times
Instructor: John Lynn
Office address: 1800 Sherman Ave
Suite 106
Phone:
E-mail:
Office Hours:
Expected Enrollment: 40
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This lecture/discussion course seeks to understand terrorism and the use of terrorist tactics as a historical phenomenon, from ancient times to the present. What unites the examples we study is not so much their causes or goals but their practices and the reactions to them. While we deal with radical Islamist terrorism; it is not our sole focus. In addition, we consider the use of terror tactics during wartime, racist terrorism in the United States, and the actions of the IRA, the Tamil Tigers, and the radical left in Europe. This course also tries to consider current events in historical context, and to that purpose we use the New York Times. Over the course of the semester, every student will be required to lead a discussion on a subject dealt with in the Times during the previous week. Terrorism provides a low entry cost for violent extremists that it is fated to be a deadly reality in the years to come, and in dealing with its future, there is much to be learned from its past.
PREREQUISITES: None
TEACHING METHOD: Lecture/discussion.
EVALUATION METHOD: Three short papers, oral presentations on NY Times, and participation in general discussion.
READING: * Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism;
* Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin, The History of Terrorism;
* Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA;
* Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America.
REFERENCES: John Lynn, Distinguished Professor of Military History, Part-Time, comes to Northwestern after a career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In recent years he has won teaching awards on the department, college, and university level at the U of I, including the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Professor Lynn has written and edited several books, ranging in focus from strategy to logistics to combat motivation. His writings on insurgency and terrorism are used by the U.S. military, with publications in the Army’s Military Review and the Marine Corps Gazette. He devoted a chapter to the subject of terrorism in his Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (2003, rev. ed. 2004). In 2006 he received the award of commander in the Wissam al Alaoui, the order of the royal family of Morocco.
NOTE: AREA OF CONCENTRATION: Americas, Europe, Asia/Middle East
History
300-0-32: New Lectures in History : Spain 1500 - 1700
Instructor: Regina Grafe
Office address: Department Of History
Harris Hall
Room 106
Phone: 847-491-7412
E-mail: grafe@northwestern.edu
Office Hours:
Expected Enrollment: 30
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course studies the social, political and economic history of the largest early modern European Empire. By the mid-sixteenth century the Spanish crown famously reigned over an empire ‘in which the sun never set’, controlling not only the Iberian Peninsula, but also the Netherlands, large parts of Italy, overseas possessions in the Americas and Asia and holding the German Imperial Crown. It was also one of the most vibrant European societies and economies. After 1640 Spain successively lost its European possessions and receded into the periphery of European intellectual and social life while its economy entered a prolonged phase of stagnation, although it continued to control its Latin American colonies.
The course starts out by examining the genesis of peninsular Spain into a union of reigns and peoples loosely integrated under a common monarchy. It looks at the diverse religious (Muslim, Jewish, Christian) and linguistic origins that shaped Spanish society, as well as the contrast between urban and rural worlds and the urban rebellion of the comuneros of the early 16th century. It examines the origins and consequences of renewed social control in the 16th century in the form of the famous Spanish Inquisition and asks if religious and political attempts at ‘unifying’ Spanish society and economy were successful.
The program then turns to comparing the peninsular Spanish experience to that of the Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and German subjects of the Spanish crown and investigates the origins of the revolts that eventually led in some cases to their departure from common rule. It also seeks to understand how the ‘discovery’ of the Americas made Europeans reflect about their own society. By examining the diversity and the unifying elements of the Hispanic experience in the light of its other possessions the course offers an overview of one of the most important European players of the early modern period.
PREREQUISITES: None
TEACHING METHOD: Lecture/discussion.
EVALUATION METHOD: Short paper, mid-term, final paper, class participation
READING: **Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469-1714 : A Society of Conflict (London, New York: Longman, 1991);
** J. Casey, Early Modern Spain. A social history (London and New York, 1999).
REFERENCES: BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OR PERSONAL STATEMENT: Regina Grafe is an economic historian of Spain and the Spanish Atlantic with a special interest in Global History. She was trained in the UK and has previously worked in Spain and the UK. At Northwestern she has since 2006 taught courses on Spanish history between the late fifteenth and the early nineteenth centuries and on European and Global economic history.
NOTE: AREA OF CONCENTRATION: Europe.
History
300-0-33: New Lectures in History : Historical Background to the est. of Israel
Instructor: Elie Rekhess
Office address:
Phone:
E-mail:
Office Hours:
Expected Enrollment: 40
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course examines the historical background to the birth of the State of Israel. The first part of the course traces the events which led to the rise of Zionism, the Jewish national movement. It discusses the main tenets of Zionist thought and its practical manifestations: immigration to Palestine and development of a Jewish settlement (Yishuv) there.
The second part examines Palestine under British Mandate and the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine. It surveys the Jewish-Arab military confrontation in the 1920’s and 1940’s as well as the question as to what extent did the armed conflict contribute to the evolution of Palestinian and Jewish national movements. Special emphasis is laid on the impact of the Holocaust and the rapidly evolving events of 1947-1948.
PREREQUISITES: None
TEACHING METHOD: Lecture and organized discussions.
EVALUATION METHOD: Mid-term and take-home final exam.
READING: **Howard Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time;
**Course packet of selected readings
REFERENCES: BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OR PERSONAL STATEMENT: Professor Rekhess (Ph.D Tel-Aviv University) specializes in the study of Israeli politics and society, the Arab minority in Israel, Jewish-Arab relations, Palestinian politics, and the Islamic resurgence in the West Bank and Gaza. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, and the head of its Program on Jewish-Arab Cooperation in Israel sponsored by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. As of January 2009 he is the Visiting Crown Chair in Middle East Studies at Northwestern University.
NOTE: AREA OF CONCENTRATION: Asia/Middle East
[Course Descriptions for Fall 2009] [Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences] [HISTORY History]