Course Descriptions: History
HIS-0200 History of the United States to 1877 A survey of major themes in American history from the colonial period to the end of Reconstruction. Offered every other year, fall semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0201 History of the United States Since 1877
A survey of major themes in American history in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Offered every other year, spring semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0205 Person and Society in the Middle Ages
A study of the institutions and intellectual development of western Europe, Byzantium, and Islam from 500 to 1300 C.E.; Western European political and cultural supremacy in the late Middle Ages; courts, parliaments, communities, universities, art, literature, the papacy, episcopacy, and monasticism. Offered every other year, spring semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0210 Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Studies Selected topics on the cultural, political, social, and religious development of Western Europe, 500-1600 C.E., including interaction with Byzantium and Islam. Emphasis on women's history and the questions it raises regarding interpretations of institutions, eras, and roles. Offered every other year, spring semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0231 History of Women in the United States 19th Century
This course will use the experiences of women as the lens through which we examine the history of the United States in the 19th century. Topics to be covered include the changing conditions and ideas about unpaid housework and paid work; relations between different groups of women and the way relations of power have shaped these interactions; the ongoing political struggle to gain increased civil and political rights; and changing notions of "proper" roles for women, especially regarding sexuality. We will consider which ideas and assumptions within American culture have changed and which have stayed the same. 2 credits
HIS-0232 History of Women in the United States 20th Century
This course will use the experiences of women as the lens through which we examine the history of the United States in the 20th century. Topics to be covered include the changing roles of women; the ways that ethnicity, class religion and region impacted different groups of women and the power relations that have shaped these experiences; and women's efforts to gain greater political and civil equality. We will consider which ideas and assumptions within American culture have changed and which have stayed the same. 2 credits.
HIS-0250 Emergence of the European World
A political, cultural, and intellectual history of Europe from 1500 to 1815. Topics covered include the Reformation, scientific and technological change, the rise of international politics, and the French Revolution. Offered every other year, fall semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0251 Europe Since Napoleon
A consideration of the political, social, economic, and intellectual development of the European world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics studied include the Industrial Revolution, the rise of liberal and socialist thought, and the world wars and their impact. Offered every other year, spring semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0271 Beyond Salsa: Latinas and Latinos in United States History
What is Latino? What is Latina? What historical forces in the American experience have brought together peoples and communities as diverse as, for instance, Chicanas from Los Angeles, Cuban Americans from Miami, and Dominican Americans and Puerto Ricans from New York City? Beginning in the sixteenth century and stretching to the present, this course will map the varied terrains of Latina/o history, exploring the Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and Dominican American experiences in New Mexico, California, Texas, New York, the Midwest, and Florida. 4 credits.
HIS-0273 Ethnicity in American History
America's cultural identity embraces people of diverse backgrounds including many groups that we not think of as having no "ethnic identity" since ethnicity has become synonymous with discourses of race in this country. This course will attempt to tease out the more complicated arguments underlying these national discussions by exploring how many "ethnic" groups, such as Irish Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, and Jewish Americans, who were identified as ethnically "distinct" in the 19th and early 20th century America, and came to be seen as "white" or having "no" ethnicity by the mid-20th century. 4 credits.
HIS-0306 Kaiserreich to Third Reich – Germany Since 1871
An in-depth study of the history of Germany from the unification under Kaiser Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismarck to the reunification in 1990. Special emphasis is placed on the impact of the First World War, the cultural legacy of the Weimar Republic, and the socio-intellectual climate that gave rise to Nazism. Offered every other year, fall semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0307 Nazi Germany
An intensive study of the causes and course of the German National Socialist movement. Emphasis is placed on the social and intellectual dimensions of Nazism, Hitler's role in European and world history, World War II and the Holocaust. Offered as needed. 4 credits.
HIS-0323 History of Islam: General Survey A survey of Islamic history with an emphasis on the development of Muslim religious and political institutions and the efforts of contemporary Muslim societies to bring those institutions into harmony with the altered conditions of modern times. (May not be taken if a student has taken HIS-0321). Offered as needed. 4 credits.
HIS-0337 History of Childbirth in America
In this seminar, we will examine childbirth in the United States from the colonial period to today. We will explore how control of childbirth has moved from women themselves to medical professionals. We will discuss the ways in which women have sought to re-assert control of childbirth in recent years. We will examine how a woman's religious, socio-economic, and ethnic status influence her experience of childbirth in various historical epochs. Students will work with both primary and secondary sources to complete an extensive term paper.
HIS-0346 History for Science Majors (and others) I
This course will examine the history of civilization through the lens of scientific and technological achievement. Part I is concerned with the history of science from antiquity up to and including the Middle Ages. The main goal is to present scientific achievements in the context of the historical realities of the time of discovery, and not just western science but Islamic and Asian, where appropriate In addition, this class will investigate the paradigms of scientific accomplishment, and how they may apply to the study of science in history. Among the topics shall be: Egyptian science and technology; time keeping and calendar making; Thales and the Greeks; Roman technological achievement; and Medieval alchemy.
HIS-0347 History for Science Majors (and others) II
This course will examine the history of civilization through the lens of scientific and technological achievement. Part II is concerned with the history of science from the Scientific Revolution to the present. The main goal is to present scientific achievements in the context of the historical realities of the time of discovery, and not just western science but Islamic and Asian, where appropriate. In addition, this class will investigate the paradigms of scientific accomplishment, and how they may apply to the study of science in history. Among the topics shall be the scientific revolution (Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton); modern sanitation and medicine including public health; penicillin and modern drug creation; the rise of modern chemistry; Einstein and Heisenberg; and Watson and Krick’s double helix.
HIS-0360 Radicals
A study of how Europeans responded to the social and economic inequalities created by the industrial age. Topics to be discussed include utopian socialism of Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, Marxism, and anarchism. Offered every other year. 2 credits.
HIS-0361 Reactionaries
A study of how Europeans responded to the social and economic dislocations of the industrial age. Topics to be discusses include the nature of nineteenth-century conservatism, social Darwinism, and the origins of fascism. Offered every other year. 2 credits.
HIS-0362 Who Started the Great War?
Students make decisions of war and peace in real time by role-playing as leaders in the major European nations from 1908 to 1914. Thrust into a simulation of tense international scene, students will be forced to respond to the crises that led up to the war and in the process discover the role of diplomacy and nationalism played in the coming of Great War. Ultimately, students will come to some conclusions as to how wars are started and who is "at fault" for starting them. Taught as needed. 4 credits.
HIS-0363 Europe Since 1945
A survey of the political, social, and economic trends that have shaped the present European community. Topics studied include post-war reconstruction, the rise of the common market, unity and diversity on both sides of the "Iron Curtain," the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, and the collapse of communism. Offered every other year, fall semester. 4 credits.
HIS-0365 The Middle East in World Affairs
An analysis of the historic role of the Middle East in world affairs and the changes wrought in the area by the constantly changing patterns of world politics and international ideological conflicts. The Middle East, for this purpose, will be taken to mean the world of Islam in general, including the countries of North Africa, Western Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Different specific areas, movements, or conflicts may be chosen for special attention. Offered as needed. 4 credits.
HIS-0375 Making America Modern: Ideas and Ideals
What historical forces have shaped the society we live in today? This course explores trends in American artistic, political, and social practices over the past century in order to understand the culture of the modern United States. 4 credits.
HIS-0389 History of the Family in America This course focuses on how Americans from diverse backgrounds have organized their sexual, reproductive, and social lives within the institution known as the family. Particular attention will be paid to the ways that experiences of the family differ along lines of class, race, ethnicity, and region. We will also consider changes over time to definitions of sexuality, expectations for reproduction, to prescriptive gender roles and gender ideologies, and to the sexual division of labor. Drawing on a variety of primary sources rooted in private life (diaries, letters, memoirs) as well as the social history, we will emphasize above all efforts by individuals to shape their lives, their communities, and American society more generally. 4 credits.
HIS-0451 Historians and their Craft
An investigation of the ways historians collect, process, and disseminate information. Offered in spring. 4 credits.
HIS-0480 Independent Study
Arranged on an individual basis with permission of instructor. Credits and prerequisites will be determined by the instructor.
HIS-0482 Internship
Supervised experience in an institution, corporation, or agency that serves the public in cultural, political and/or historical areas. Interns in the Philadelphia metropolitan area will work with an on-site supervisor in cooperation with the director of the History Internship Program. Interns placed through the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Internship Program will be supervised and evaluated according to the conditions of the particular internship. Open to top junior and senior History majors who are recommended by the History faculty. Credits to be arranged depending on the breadth and duration of the internship as documented in the internship contract.
Available through the Rosemont-Villanova Summer Program in Siena, Italy:
HIS-3126 History of Italian Cities
History of the political and institutional growth of the economy and culture of the Italian city- states from the Middle Ages to the end of the sixteenth century. 3 credits.