Southwestern University
2002-2003 Catalog

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HISTORY DEPARTMENT

Division of Humanities
Professor Jan C. Dawson, PhD, Chair
Associate Professor Daniel Castro, Jr., PhD
Associate Professor Steven C. Davidson, PhD
Assistant Professor Elizabeth Green Musselman, PhD
Assistant Professor Lisa Moses Leff, PhD
Assistant Professor Thomas V. McClendon, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor Greg Cushman, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor Zujie Yuan, PhD
Assistant Professor Martha K. Norkunas, PhD (part-time)

The study of History promotes individual and collective self-understanding by examining the record of the past. It develops a way of thinking that enables students to identify trends and relations of human existence and to appreciate both the limits and the possibilities of our own age.
The History program provides students with a global perspective and a solid grounding in the methods and fields of history, while also encouraging interdisciplinary connections. The History major provides students not with a random collection of courses, but with a program that is concerned with finding patterns and connections. Beginning with introductory courses, our major prepares students for advanced courses on topics, themes, and methods of history, and for research experience. With their understanding of the past and their historical mindedness, History students go on to careers in all levels of education and government, in law, social service, communications, museum and archival work, and business.
To receive a BA in History, a student must take two World History courses (see below), Historiography in the sophomore or junior year, two courses designated as Research Seminars, and five other courses from the general departmental offerings chosen in consultation with the academic adviser according to the guidelines below. Taken in sequence, Historiography and the Research Seminars constitute the History major’s capstone experience.
The following courses are foundation courses for the study of History. Each seeks to provide students with basic historical literacy. Each also seeks to develop appreciation for large-scale regional and global patterns as well as regional and global connections, including exchanges of ideas, labor, trade, technology, etc. Finally, each of these World History courses seeks to combat ethnocentricity by examining the internal development of the cultural and institutional heritages of each people involved in these patterns and exchanges. History majors and minors must take two introductory Topics in World History courses, one from Group A and one from Group B.
Group A—Pre- and Early Modern: 16-013 World Civilizations to 1500
16-033 Women in World History
16-043 Exploration, Discovery, and
Colonization in World History
Group B—Modern: 16-023 World Civilizations Since 1500
16-053 Ecological History of the World
16-063 Colonial and
Post-Colonial Worlds
16-073 The “Nation” in World History
History majors are required to take at least one upper-level course (200 or above) from at least three of the following geographical areas: Africa, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America (16-453 Slavery in the Atlantic World can count for Africa, Latin America, or North America; 16-483 Race and Rights in the United States and South Africa can count for Africa or North America).
Either as part of their geographical distribution or as one of their five non-designated courses (i.e., not World History and not Capstone), history majors also must take at least one upper-level course from the following list of courses having a substantial pre- or early modern component: 16-203 Early Modern Europe, 16-223 Latin American Civilization, 16-253 Chinese Civilization, 16-263 African History, 16-273 Japanese Civilization, 16-283 History of Science, 16-313 Greek Civilization, 16-323 Roman Civilization, and 16-393 History of European Women.
All majors are encouraged to have proficiency in at least one classical or modern language and a study abroad experience. Students preparing for graduate work in history should check graduate catalogs to see if additional language work is expected.
It is also possible to do a 54-hour paired major in History and Feminist Studies by double-counting two courses cross-listed in History and Feminist Studies. Currently those courses are 16-033 Women in World History, 16-393 History of European Women, 16-473 Gender and Generation in Africa, 16-543 Gender and Science, 16-643 Women in Colonial Latin America, and 16-763 Gender and Sexuality in U.S. History, although other cross-listed courses, such as the Research Seminar on Gender and the Politics of History, may be substituted by permission of the Chair of the Feminist Studies Committee, and new courses may be added.
To minor in History, a student must take two World History courses as described above, and any four additional courses numbered 200 or above, preferably from different time periods and geographical areas.
Majoring or minoring in History for secondary teacher certification requires the following eight courses: one course from World History Group A and one course from World History Group B; Borderlands and Texas; Historiography; U.S. Civilization; one U.S. course from 453, 483, 713, 763, 773 or 783; and two additional courses numbered 200 or above. In addition, students seeking secondary certification with a History major must take two additional courses and fulfill the capstone experience and other graduation requirements for the regular 30 semester hour History major.
The 48-hour Social Studies Composite secondary teaching field for teacher certification requires the same 24 semester hours of History listed above for the secondary History major and minor, plus American Government, State and Local Government, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Geography, World Geography, and two additional courses from among History, Political Science, Economics, and Geography (see Education section for specific requirements). Students with the Social Studies Composite teaching field are treated as History majors for purposes of academic advising.
To be certified to teach with elementary certification and History as an 18-hour specialization requires one course from World History Group A and one course from World History Group B; Borderlands and Texas; one U.S. History course from 233, 713, 763, 773 or 783; and one additional course numbered 200 or above.
Individual members of the Department work with highly motivated students who design independent study projects. The Department also occasionally has internships in local history. Finally, the Department participates in the Honors Program by inviting exceptional students to do an Honors Project during their senior year.

History (HIS)

(Courses marked * are offered annually; all others are offered biennially.)

World History Group A: Pre- and Early Modern

†16-013WORLD CIVILIZATIONS TO 1500*. The origins, development, and character of the major world civilizations and their relationships to one another to 1500. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
†16-033WOMEN IN WORLD HISTORY*. Survey of women’s experiences in history, from hunter-gatherer societies to the present. We will especially explore the mixed legacy of “civilization” for women’s status and some of the basic literature on women’s historiography. As we move through history, we will consider topics like the following: the comparative role of women in the major world religions, how women have participated in various economies, the relative merits of the histories of “great women” vs. social histories of the majority of women, whether women’s status has progressively improved or deteriorated or neither, the supposed superiority of women’s positions in Western societies, and the history of women’s rights movements. Also Feminist Studies 04-033. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
†16-043EXPLORATION, DISCOVERY, AND COLONIZATION IN WORLD HISTORY*. From Eric the Red to Lope de Aguirre, innumerable explorers ventured out to discover new worlds. From Asia to the Americas, new and old civilizations collided and merged, irreversibly transforming the world we inherited. This course is intended as an examination of the processes and personages responsible for the dramatic transformation of our world between the 10th and 16th centuries. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)

World History Group B: Modern

†16-023WORLD CIVILIZATIONS SINCE 1500*. The changing nature of the world’s civilizations and their increasing inter-relations after 1500. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
†16-053ECOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE WORLD*. Examines world history from the perspective of interactions between human groups and the ecosystems in which they have lived from prehistory to the present. Focuses particularly on ecological processes such as the development of agriculture and its impacts, first in southwest Asia, China, and Mesoamerica; the role of disease in world history, especially through trade networks such as that of the Mongols; European “ecological imperialism” since 1500; and ecosystem imbalances produced by industrial developments in the North. It also examines religious and secular beliefs that have justified and/or challenged human manipulation of ecosystems, including current efforts to pursue ecological sustainability, especially in South Asia and Latin America. Also Environmental Studies 49-053. (POK-Social Analysis)
†16-063COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL WORLDS*. This course will introduce students to a historical understanding of the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, framed by colonial and post-colonial relationships between the West and areas colonized by it after 1750. We will pursue several themes, including: (1) imperialism, including contradictory goals and methods of colonizers and varieties of indigenous response; (2) social and cultural effects of colonization on colonizers, as well as colonized peoples; (3) anti-colonial struggles, decolonization, and the Cold War; (4) independence and dependence; and (5) globalization of markets, political structures, and cultures. We will explore these themes through textbooks and primary source accounts, as well as novels and films. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
†16-073THE “NATION” IN WORLD HISTORY*. A history of the modern world focusing on how “nations” are defined in different historical and geographical contexts. In each context, the course will address the question of who has the legitimate authority to represent the “nation,” as well as how national “insiders” are distinguished from “outsiders” by those who have the authority to define the boundaries of the nation. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)

Africa

†16-263AFRICAN HISTORY*. This survey is an introduction to African cultures and history from precolonial times to the present, emphasizing Africa’s variety and its connections to other parts of the world. Topics include: precolonial social and political organization; the spread of Islam and Christianity; the impact of the Atlantic slave trade; conquest and resistance; social change under colonial rule; decolonization; neo-colonialism and postcolonial challenges. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
†16-433MODERN SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY. A survey of the history of southern Africa from the eve of the region’s encounter with European settlers to the present; this course will emphasize the 19th and 20th centuries. Themes will include indigenous social organization; colonization; slavery; the spread of Christianity; labor migrancy; industrialization; segregation and apartheid; African nationalism and resistance; the disintegration of apartheid; and the rise of the “new” South Africa. We will examine these issues with attention to questions of race and ethnicity, class, gender and generation, and the nature of resistance. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
16-453SLAVERY IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD. Slavery and the slave trade were fundamental to the development of the Americas. Africa and the Americas were linked through the Atlantic slave trade, as well as through the movement to abolish slavery. Slavery was also widespread in Africa, and it grew in importance as a result of the Atlantic slave trade. This course will consider various systems of slavery and the changes in those systems over time, as well as examine the economic and ideological links among slave systems in Africa and the Americas.
16-473GENDER AND GENERATION IN AFRICA. This course enables students to gain a better understanding of historical and contemporary Africa through examination of two important and interlocking features of African social organization: gender and generation. These constructed categories have important implications for students of Africa, as both gender and generation significantly shape community life and structure social conflicts. Changes associated with colonialism and modernity have in turn had significant effects on African understandings of gender and generation and have resulted in new types of conflict. We will analyze these social and cultural patterns, changes, and conflicts through reading and discussing the work of historians and anthropologists, as well as novels and films by contemporary Africans. The course will conclude with presentation of students’ own research. Also Feminist Studies 04-473.
16-483 RACE AND RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTH AFRICA. Many historians and journalists have been struck by the parallel experiences of the United States and South Africa with respect to race. However, there are important differences of demography, culture, and political tradition that have affected social and political change in the two countries. This course compares these historical experiences, focusing on: the construction of race; racial policies (from segregation and apartheid to the controversies over affirmative action and immigration); resistance and politics; and the role of law and the courts.

East Asia

†16-253CHINESE CIVILIZATION*. A survey of the history and culture of China from the rise of the Shang dynasty in the second millennium B.C. to the present. The course will focus on the development of China’s classical culture, the formation of empires, the nature of the traditional state and society, China’s confrontation with the West, and the rise of modern China’s revolutionary movement. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
†16-273JAPANESE CIVILIZATION*. A survey of the history and culture of Japan from the rise of the Yamato state in the sixth century A.D. to the present. The course will examine indigenous institutional and cultural developments and the nature of stimuli and influences from the East Asian continental cultures and from the West. Heian aristocratic society, Japanese feudalism, Japan’s late traditional state and society, the Meiji Restoration, and the rise of modern Japan’s state and society will be examined. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
16-563 20TH CENTURY CHINESE HISTORY. A study of the fall of the Chinese dynastic system, cultural and revolutionary movements, the establishment of the People’s Republic, and the continuing transformations in contemporary China.
16-583 MODERN JAPANESE HISTORY. A study of the intellectual, social, and institutional origins of modern Japan, its role in World War II in the Pacific, its post-War transformations, and recent trends.

Europe

†16-203EARLY MODERN EUROPE*. Survey of the history of Europe from about 1400 to 1800. Topics will include the Renaissance and Reformation; transitions from feudal to capitalist and colonial economies; health and epidemic disease; women’s experiences, sexuality and family life; magic, the “Scientific Revolution” and Enlightenment; absolutism and the development of modern nation-states. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
†16-213MODERN EUROPE*. A history of Europe from the French Revolution of 1789 to the present, emphasizing the development of new political traditions and social structures, the establishment of new forms of international organization, the transformation of work, changes in the lived environment, and the evolution of understandings of the self. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
†16-283HISTORY OF SCIENCE*. This course will explore the history of human thought about the natural world from ancient times to the present, concentrating especially on the 17th century forward. We will discuss not only the most celebrated ideas of science’s past, but also the approaches that did not last and why, and how social and economic changes have shaped the development of the sciences. While we will primarily discuss European and American science, we will also consider the important contributions of the rest of the world, and explore whether science is really a “Western” phenomenon. Topics will include: ancient cosmologies, the importance of Islamic translations and medieval universities and courts, printing and New World exploration, alchemy as a predecessor to chemistry, the 16th and 17th century “revolution” in astronomy and mechanics, the professionalization and popularization of science, the sciences of power during the industrial revolution, the many faces of Darwinism, and “big science” (the atomic bomb and the Human Genome Project). (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
†16-313GREEK CIVILIZATION. See Classics 07-313. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
†16-323ROMAN CIVILIZATION. See Classics 07-323. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
16-353MODERN EUROPEAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY. A history of major currents in European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Romanticism, Psychoanalysis, Existentialism and Structuralism. The class will explore these currents by reading the works of European novelists, social theorists, and philosophers, including, for example, Goethe, Balzac, Freud, Sartre, and Foucault.
16-383 THE HOLOCAUST. This course will look at the Holocaust, the destruction of European Jewry, as an event in both European history and Jewish history. We will focus on the development and implementation of Nazi ideology and the “final solution” in Germany and the territories it conquered during World War II, and seek to account for both the actions of perpetrators and the responses of victims and bystanders to the events as they unfolded. We will draw on work scholars have done in the fields of literature,
anthropology, philosophy, and religious studies, as well as history.
16-393 HISTORY OF EUROPEAN WOMEN. Introduction to the experiences of European women from the High Middle Ages through modern feminist movements. The course focuses on the effect of changing political, economic, and intellectual trends on European perspectives of gender and sexuality—and vice versa. Topics will include religions, peasant life, courts and salons, education and intellectuals, marriage and family life and laws, effects of industrialization, complicity in and rejection of imperialism, and feminist movements. Also Feminist Studies 04-393.
†16-403THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND MODERN FRANCE. A history of France from 1789 to the present. We will study the development of new political ideologies and institutions during the Revolution, the modernization of state, culture and society in the 19th and 20th centuries, workers’ struggles, and questions of religious, political and ethnic diversity. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
†16-523BRITISH HISTORY, 1688 TO THE PRESENT*. This course will look at the modern portion of Britain’s unique history. Beginning with the 1688 Glorious Revolution, when England restored its monarchy under a constitution and Protestant church, we will trace not only political developments, but also the key economic, social, and cultural changes that have shaped modern Britain. Topics will include the bitter loss of America and the often violent absorption of Scotland and Ireland; changes in the class system; the Anglican Church’s fight to maintain religious dominance; increasing literacy and popularity of science and literature; rivalries with the French; the wonders and horrors of industrialization; the growth of cities; imperialism’s heyday and decline; the changing status of women; the devastation of the two world wars; the rise of the welfare state; and Thatcherism and Tony Blair’s response: Cool Britannia. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
16-533TOPICS IN BRITISH CULTURE. Cultural history seeks to understand how people have attached meanings to their lives through the expression of ideas, art, science, performance, consumption, sport, and other cultural forms. This course will examine various aspects of Great Britain’s cultural history to try to understand British identities, and how Britons have understood the meanings of their everyday lives. Offerings include British Isles under the Tudor-Stuarts; English and Scottish Enlightenments; Victorian Britain, Ireland, and Empire. (May be repeated with change in topic.)
†16-543 GENDER AND SCIENCE. In this course we will look at what the sciences have said historically about women, men, gender, and sexuality. We will also explore the flip-side of that coin: how have preconceived notions about women, men, gender, and sexuality shaped scientific ideas? By using historical examples, we will consider when the sciences have alternately been tools for empowerment and enslavement. Subjects may include: women in the sciences, changing anatomical views of male and female bodies, race as a complicating factor in scientific notions about gender, scientific investigations of homosexuality, the masculinity and femininity of scientists, the gendering of nature itself, and science as a kind of power. Also Feminist Studies 04-543. (POK-Values Analysis)
16-573IMPERIALISM AND THE CIVILIZING MISSION. This course will examine the relationship between European self-understanding as “bearers of civilization” and European political domination over large segments of the Asian and African world which it deemed “un-civilized.” We will also examine the work of Gandhi and Fanon, two critics of the European “civilizing mission.”
16-593MODERN JEWISH HISTORY. A survey of the major currents in Jewish culture, society, religious life, and political status from 1492 until the present. We will place these aspects of Jewish life in the context of the wider cultures within which Jews have lived. Topics to be covered include: the consequences of the Spanish expulsion of 1492; traditional piety in European Jewish culture; forms of mysticism; the Jewish enlightenment; patterns of acculturation; religious reform; Zionism; the Holocaust; and Jewish life in America. Also Religion 19-593.

Latin America

†16-223LATIN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION*. This course examines the most salient characteristics and important interactions of the different ethnic, political, and economic streams that have contributed to the birth and development of Latin America from the late 15th century to the present. (POK-Other Cultures and Civilizations)
16-333 GUERRILLA MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY. The objective of this class is to provide students with a general overview of the evolution of guerrilla warfare in Latin America from the earliest indigenous rebellions in the 16th century to the struggles waged in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico at the end of the 20th century.
16-633HISTORY OF MEXICO, 1519-1920. An examination of the evolution of some of the most significant strands that form the tapestry of Mexican history. This survey begins with an examination of the subjugation of high native civilizations by European invaders and concludes in the apotheosis of the Mexican Revolution.
16-643WOMEN IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA. The primary objective of this course is to examine the crucial role played by women in the period between the first contact of Spain with mainland America, 1519, to the period of national independence in the early 19th century. In the process of this examination, we will attempt to rid ourselves of existing outmoded perceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes concerning Latin American women. Also Feminist Studies 04-643.
16-653LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY IN FILM AND LITERATURE. Latin America, or Indoamerica as some of us prefer to call it, is a complex territory and a state of mind suspended between the extremes of despair and unbound hopefulness. Telling its history poses insurmountable challenges to the academic historian, and often the history of the land and its people is better expressed in the work of magicians, artists, writers and auteurs. This course is but a humble attempt to venture into the labyrinthine relationships between the artist and that enigmatic territorial and spiritual landscape extending from the Rio Bravo to Tierra del Fuego.
16-663THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION. On April 10th of every year, the anniversary of Emiliano Zapata’s assassination, thousands of peasants march to the doors of the National Palace in Mexico City demanding land and liberty, but every year they return home empty-handed after being informed that there is no more land. As we usher in the twenty-first century most of the Revolution’s demands continue to be unfulfilled; it is almost as if all the participants in it failed to live up to its expectations and one by one were devoured by an event more momentous than anyone could have imagined. This course attempts to dissect, study and analyze the legacy and significance of the Mexican Revolution as the first significant revolutionary movement of the twentieth century.

United States

†16-233U.S. CIVILIZATION*. A one-semester survey of U.S. history from the first North American encounters among Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans to the present. The course will examine how Americans have negotiated what it means to be American, what Americans have meant by freedom, what roles religious pluralism has played in American life, American expansionism at home and abroad, and how the United States has defined itself in relation to the rest of the world. It will ask questions about the losers as well as the winners in these cultural negotiations and about the costs as well as the benefits of the nation’s achievements. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
†16-423A JOURNEY THROUGH THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. See Sociology 34-423 and American Studies 01-423. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage) (Alternate Springs)
†16-713AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY. This course surveys African-American history since the end of slavery in the United States, to the present. Some of the themes and topics we will explore will include: the meaning of freedom under Reconstruction; labor; migration; gender; segregation; movements for the attainment of civil rights; art and culture; religious experience and thought; racial and ethnic identity; and the intersection of class and race. There is no prerequisite for this course, though it will be useful to have a general knowledge of U.S. history. (POK-American and Western Cultural Heritage)
16-753 BORDERLANDS AND TEXAS. The term Borderlands, coined by American historian Herbert Eugene Bolton in 1921, denotes much more than the geographic “region, between Florida and California now belonging to the United States, over which Spain held sway for centuries.” This course takes a chronological/thematic approach beginning with the earliest explorations of New Spain in the first quarter of the 16th century and culminating in an analysis of the complex, multi-faceted history of the Borderlands and its people, unfolding before our eyes.
16-763 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN U.S. HISTORY. The historical construction of gender systems—prescribed relations between men and women, masculinity, and femininity—among different racial, ethnic, and class groups throughout U.S. history, including ways these systems have shaped peoples’ economic, political, social, and cultural experiences. The course will also examine how historical constructions of sexual identity, especially heterosexuality and homosexuality, have intersected with systems of gender. Also Feminist Studies 04-763.
16-773 U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY. A history of human adaptations to the variety of ecosystems within the United States from pre-colonial times to the present. Topics will include patterns of land use and their environmental and human consequences, conceptions of the human-nature relationship and their implications for patterns of land use, the increasing importance of “built environments” in people’s lives, the origins of current environmental problems at home and the nation’s contribution to environmental problems abroad, and varieties of activism seeking to address environmental problems over time. Students will study these developments in specific ecological regions.
16-783SELF AND SOCIETY IN AMERICAN THOUGHT. Examines U.S. intellectual history through the lens of what public intellectuals, social commentators, and cultural critics have thought about the relation of self and society from early modern European colonization through the emergence of the United States as a pluralistic democracy to the present. Involves close reading and discussion of primary texts.

Comparative

16-453SLAVERY IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD. (See under Africa)
16-483RACE AND RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTH AFRICA. (See under Africa)

Capstone

16-853 HISTORIOGRAPHY*. A study of the concept of history, the history of historical writing, the major schools of historical interpretation today, and the relation of history to philosophy of history.
16-863 RESEARCH SEMINAR*. Part of the capstone experience. Topics, which change from semester to semester, include History and Memory, Gender and the Politics of History, Old World-New World Encounters, Law and Power, Utopias and Utopianism, and Crossing Cultures. Prerequisite: May be taken concurrently with or after Historiography 16-853.

16-301, 302, 303 SELECTED TOPICS. May be repeated with a change in topic.

16-941, 942, 943 INTERNSHIP IN HISTORY.
16-951, 952, 953 INDEPENDENT STUDY. May be repeated with change in content.
16-983 HONORS. By invitation