COURSES

111a Introduction to Western Civilization SO

111b Introduction to Western Civilization SO

A year-long course that surveys Western European civilization from the fall of Rome to the present. It focuses on the institutional and intellectual dimensions of the western tradition, by closely interrogating both primary sources and secondary accounts.

114 An Introduction to Global History SO

A year-long survey of topics in world history from the era of classical empires (Rome, Han China) to the present; with emphasis on the changing relationships among different regions and peoples of the world, and on the geo-politics of point of view in making history and in understanding it.

203 The Age of Jefferson and Jackson, 1789-1850 SO

B. Saler
This course charts the transformation in American political institutions, economy, and society from the ratification of the Constitution to the eve of the Civil War. Often identified as the crucial period when the American nation cohered around a national culture and economy, this period also witnessed profound social rifts over the political legacy of the American Revolution, the national institutionalization of slavery, and the rise of a new class system. We will consider the points of conflict and cohesion in this rapidly changing American nation.

204 The History of American Women and Gender to 1870 SO

B. Saler
This course surveys the history of American women from the colonial period through 1870. We will consider and contrast the lives and perspectives of women from a wide variety of social backgrounds and geographic areas as individuals and members of families and communities, while also examining how discourses of gender frame such topics as colonization, slavery, class identity, nationalism, religion, and political reform. Not offered in 2001-02.

209a Colonial Latin America SO

J. Krippner
Traces the initial confrontation between Amer-Indian peoples and European colonizers, the emergence of distinctively Latin American societies under Spanish and Portuguese rule, and the variety of national experiences in Latin America since Independence.

209b Modern Latin America SO

J. Krippner
This course surveys Latin American history from the end of colonial rule to the present. Special attention is paid to the social dynamics of class, race, and gender; to the emergence and redefinition of contemporary republics; and to conflict, crisis, and historical change.

226 Twentieth Century Europe SO

L. Gerstein
The emergence of the culture of Modernism; revolutionary dreams and Stalinist nightmares in Russia; Facism; the trauma of war 1914-1945; the divisions of Cold War Europe; and the challenge of a new European attempt at re-integration in the 1990s.

227aThe 17th Century Crisis SO

L. J. Graham
This course examines the political, social, and cultural responses to the perceived crisis of authority that followed on the heels of the Reformation. The crisis in faith was accompanied by extraordinary innovations in all areas of human life from political thought and science to art and literature. Topics include the emergence of the royal state, absolutism and constitutionalism, protest and rebellion, witchcraft and popular culture, court society and Baroque aesthetics, and scientific discovery.

227b The Age of Enlightenment SO

L. J. Graham
This course approaches the Enlightenment as a process of political and cultural change rather than a canon of great texts. Special emphasis will be placed on the links between the institutions of the public sphere and the new forms of sociability that accompanied them. We will also pay close attention to the rise of the novel as a literary genre and the question of subjectivity as distinguishing features of 18th century European life. Not offered in 2001-02.

228 The French Revolution SO

L. J. Graham
Most historians identify the French revolution of 1789 with the birth of the modern world. The French captured international attention when they tore down the Old Regime and struggled to establish a democratic society based on Enlightenment principles of liberty and equality. The problems confronted by revolutionary leaders continue to haunt us around the world today. This course examines the origins, evolution, and impact of the French Revolution with special emphasis on the historiographical debates that have surrounded the revolution since its inception.

229 Gender, Sex and Power in Europe, 1550-1850 SO

L.J. Graham
Drawing on recent theoretical work, this course traces changing definitions of gender and sexuality in early modern Europe through a variety of primary and secondary sources. It focuses on the intersection of gender and power in specific sites such as the royal court, the law courts, the theater, the convent, and the workshop. Special attention will be paid to the way gender interacted with the new medium of print. Not offered in 2001-02

230 Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Between War and Peace SO

A. Kitroeff
War was integral to the spread of nationalism and nationalist rhetoric in Europe from the Napoleonic Era to World War II; war also gave rise to a European counter-discourse, best described as patriotic pacifism. This course surveys debates among European politicians, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens in this era about the true interests of the nation. Not offered in 2001-02

234a Nationalism and Politics in the Balkans SO

A. Kitroeff
The interrelationship of politics with communism and nationalism in the Balkans. The political legacies of the region; the rise of communism and the way in which communist regimes dealt with nationalist issues in each of the region's nation-states; the sharpening of nationalist conflicts in the post-communist era; focusing on the Yugoslav war and the post war efforts to restore democratic rule and resolve nationalist differences equitably. Not offered in 2001-02

234b African American Political and Social Thought SO

P. Jefferson
The development of a modern African American intellectual and cultural tradition--in the context of a changing political economy and our national coming of age, 1895-1945.

235 Colonial North America SO

E. Lapsansky
Surveys the political, economic, and community aspects of North America, with an emphasis on the areas that became the United States, and the varieties of peoples and cultures that helped shape the convergence of cultures.

240 History and Principles of Quakerism SO (Also called Religion 240b)

E. Lapsansky
The development of Quakerism and its relationship to other religious movements and to political and social life, especially in America. The roots of the Society of Friends in 17th-century Britain, and the expansion of Quaker influences among Third World populations, particularly the Native American, Hispanic, east African, and Asian populations. Not offered in 2001-02.

243 African American Political and Social Thought SO

P. Jefferson
The best of times and the worst of times: black modernism, 1895-1945. This course reconstructs the development of a modern African American intellectual and cultural tradition in the context of a changing political economy and our national coming of age. Not offered in 2001-02.

244 Russia from 1800-1917 (Also called Russian 244b)

L. Gerstein
Topics considered include the culture of serfdom, Westernization, reforms, modernization, national identities, and Revolution.

245 Russia in the 20th Century SO (Also called Russian 245b)

L. Gerstein
Continuity and change in Russian and Soviet society since the 1890s. Major topics: the revolutionary period, the cultural ferment of the 1920s, Stalinism, the Thaw, the culture of dissent, and the collapse of  the system.

246 Literature and Society in Modern Russia SO (Also called Russian 246b)

L. Gerstein
The social context of the Russian novel in the 19th and 20th centuries and the uses to which literature has been put in a society of restricted political expression. Readings (in translation) in literary and historical sources. Not offered in 2001-02.

255a American Intellectual History SO

P. Jefferson
A two-semester course which reconstructs our national historical “project[s],” from the landing of the first Africans at Jamestown in 1619 and the founding of Plymouth Plantation in 1620 to the present. Our Ariadne’s thread will be the persisting problems of race, class, and regional differences for a would-be republican commonwealth. Reading widely in the sources, we will relate the architecture of public discourse in America — its rhetorical scaffolding, its recurrent themes, and its alternative blueprints for a well-ordered society — to the perceived constraints of a changing political economy. This course may be divided. The first semester will cover the years 1619 to the Civil War; the second semester will cover the period from the Civil War to the present.

255b American Intellectual History SO

261 The Emergence of Modern China and Japan SO

P. Smith
Traces and compares the evolution of basic institutions and social structures in China and Japan from the 7th century through the present with special focus on Sino-Japanese cultural and political interaction, trajectories of political and economic change, and the relationship of China and Japan to the wider world.
Not offered in 2001-02.

262 Chinese Social History SO (Cross listed in East Asian Studies 262a)

P. Smith
Surveys a rotating series of topics in Chinese social and cultural history. Topic for fall 2000: "Confucianizing China, 1100 to 1800." Focuses on the ascent of the fundamentalist [or Neo-Confucian] movement from the Song through the Qing dynasties, with special attention to its impact on the legal and examinations systems, elite and peasant family life, and gender roles, and on Neo-Confucian efforts to establish religious orthodoxy and eradicate popular [heterodox] gods and cults. Not offered in 2001-02.

263 The Chinese Revolution SO

P. Smith
Places the causes and consequences of the Communist Revolution of 1949 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.
Not offered in 2001-02.

265 Modern Japan SO

P. Smith
Explores selected topics in the rise of modern Japan from the late-16th century to the Pacific War, including the creation of the centralized Tokugawa state, the urban culture of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Meiji Restoration and modernization in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and the sources and consequences of Japanese imperialism. Not offered in 2001-02.

270 From Empire to Nation: the Ottoman World Transformed SO

A. Kitroeff
Introduces students to the historical study of empires and the circumstances and consequences of their collapse by focusing on the Ottoman Empire. A cluster of recent studies treat the history of the Ottoman Empire (1453-1923) as a complex, dynamic and changing entity revising the older perspectives that viewed it as epitomizing the supposedly backward, unchanging, and mysterious Orient. Based on the more accessible works among this new literature, the course examines the transformation of the Ottoman Empire in terms of its political structures, its ties with Islam, its social make-up and its economy, as well as its relationship with Europe and its responses to the forces of modernity.


281a Mexican Cultural History: Ancient and Colonial

J. Krippner
This course provides an introduction to Mexican cultural history from antiquity through the colonial centuries. Particular attention will be paid to elite and popular understandings and forms of expression as recorded in visual culture, material objects and the writings of the colonial era.

281b Mexican Cultural History SO

J. Krippner
This course provides an overview of Mexican cultural history from antiquity through the present. Particular attention will be paid to the intersection between elite and popular understandings and forms of expression, in widely varied contexts. Students will be introduced to the profound historical roots of Mexican culture and political life, while gaining a familiarity with Mexican contributions to the worlds of archaeology, art, filmmaking, and literature.

282 Mexican Cultural History: Modern and Postmodern

J. Krippner
This course provides an introduction to Mexican cultural history from the late 18th century until the present. Students will gain a historical sense for the emergence and redefinition of the Mexican nation, while being introduced to Mexican contributions in the worlds of painting, photography, filmmaking, and literature.

317 Topics in Latin American History SO

J. Krippner
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for spring 2002: Visions of Mexico. An introduction to the visual and print culture (painting, literature, photography, and cinema) of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in which Mexico and Mexicanness are represented.

333 Topics in History and Theory

B. Saler
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for Fall 2001: Nation-States and Colonial Subjects. An introduction to recent theoretical approaches to the relations between developing nation-states and their colonies. Questions to be addressed include: How were liberal political theories of universal citizenship and natural rights connected to "civilizing" projects within colonial states? How did indigenous peoples, racially mixed, and European-descent colonials challenge colonial authority?

340 Topics in American History SO

E. Lapsansky
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for spring 2002: The West in Fact and Fiction. The American western "frontier" has caught our imagination as myth and symbol, photograph and painting, costume and politics, definer and redefiner of gender and race, and technological challenge. Through individual and group readings, discussion and bibliographic exploration, we will pursue the elusive "truth" of the American western frontier.

341 Topics in Comparative American History

B. Saler
Seminar meetings, reports and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for fall 2000: Borderlands. Borderlands are zones of cultural contestation, transformative terrains by definition. This course will compare the histories of "American" regions bordering on Mexico and Canada as well as interior parts of the American Republic where European, Euro-Americans and native peoples vied for political and cultural control. Not offered in 2001-02.

343a Topics in American Intellectual History SO

P. Jefferson
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for fall 2000: American Constitutional Law: History, Theory, Sociology, and Politics, 1787 to the Present. This seminar will reconstruct the development and functioning of constitutional law in American society from 1787 to the present. We will consider the major episodes in American constitutional history: The mooted issues in constitutional law; the sociology of the legal profession; and the ideological implications of different theories of jurisprudence. Other topics include: Social Science, Ideology, and Public Policy, 1890 to the Present; American Philosophy: The Pragmatic Tradition. Not offered in 2001-02.

343b Topics in African American Intellectual History SO

P. Jefferson
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for spring 2001: Black Paris: Art and Ideology in a Modern[ist] Diaspora, 1925-1975. Conceptualizing (black) expatriation as a type of cultural performance, we will read the lives and work of (selected) African American artists and intellectuals in Paris in their framing cultural contexts -- local and global. Other topics include: African American Sociology; African American Historiography; Autobiography as History; and Two Faces of Cultural Nationalism. The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.

347 Topics in East Asian History SO

P. Smith

Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topics include: Peasants, Elites, and the State in China; Travelers' Accounts of China; Literature and the Social History of China. Not offered in 2001-02.

349 Topic in Comparative History SO

P. Smith
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for spring 2001: Outlaw Heroes in China and England, 1100 to 1700. This course uses the Robin Hood and Water Margin story cycles as represented in ballads, romances, plays, and novels to analyze the cultural role of bandit heroes in China and England.

354 Topics in Early Modern European History SO

L. J. Graham
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for spring 2002: The Culture of Discontent. How did individuals excluded from the formal political process make their grievances heard, and to what effect? This course examines theories and strategies of resistance at the individual and collective level between 1500-1850.

356 Topics in Modern European History SO

L. Gerstein
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for fall 2000: St Petersburg: The History of an Image. An exploration of the changing meanings of the city in Russian history, using literature and art/architectural material as well as historical analysis. Not offered in 2001-02.

357 Topics in Modern European History SO

A. Kitroeff
Seminar meetings, reports, and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Topic for fall 2001: Nationalism. Seminar. Meetings focusing on the evolution of nationalist ideology, contemporary theories on nationalism, and the role of national identity in the European society.

400 Senior Thesis SO

A two-semester course designed to develop further the research skills students have acquired as history majors, and to guide them through the extended process of writing an undergraduate thesis. Enrollment limited to senior history majors.

480a, b, f, i Independent Study

COURSES AT BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

101 The Historical Imagination

190 Form of the City

200 History of Three Worlds

205 Ancient Greece

207 Hellenistic and Roman History

230 History of Chinese and Japanese Thought

237 Urbanization in Africa

243 Slave Society in the New World

257 Unreal Cities: Bombay, London, New York

264 Indian Diaspora: 1800 - Present

265 American Colonial Encounters

267 History of Philadelphia 1682 to Present

284 Modernity and its Discontents

336 West African Social History

339 The Making of the African Diaspora

357 Topics in British Empire: The Sporting Life, Sport, and Empire

392 Sexuality and Public Order in Victorian Britain

398 Senior Thesis