History Degree Requirements

This course is a history of the early civilizations of the Mediterranean basin up to 476 C.E. Topics include Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Greek impact on democratic, philosophical, and scientific thought, and the origins of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It 241 is designed both as an introduction to Humanities disciplines and as a venue for teaching Information Literacy skills. No prerequisites; however, students required to take RDG 0050 must complete that course prior to enrolling. (3 credits)

A survey of major themes in American history from the colonial period to the end of Reconstruction. Offered every other year, fall semester. (3 credits)

A survey of major themes in American history in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Offered every other year, spring semester. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

How can studying history prepare you for your future career? That is the question that is explored in this skills-based course. There are no tests or quizzes in this offering. Instead, students will receive hands-on assistance in learning valuable skills that will serve them well in the marketplace. Among the skills to be explored are how to conduct basic research, framing questions for research papers, and advanced presentation skills. In the last weeks, students will explore careers that deal with these skills and create strategies to increase their chances of finding employment in area of their choice. Open to History majors and minors, to anyone who has still not declared a major, or with Permission of Instructor. No prerequisites. (3 credits)

An investigation of the ways historian’s collect, process, an disseminate information. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

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, the nature of nineteenthcentury conservatism, social Darwinism, and the origins of fascism. (3 credits)

 

Students make decisions of war and peace in real time by role-playing as leaders of the major European nations from 1908 to 1914. Thrust into a simulation of the tense pre-war 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. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

This course will use the experience of women as the lens through which we examine the history of America from the end of the civil war until the present. Topics to be covered will 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 changes and which have stayed the same. (3 credits)

This course will use the experiences of women through the lens which we examine the history of America from settlement by Europeans to the Civil War. Topics to be covered include 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 changes and which have stayed the same. Prerequisite: none. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

America’s cultural identity embraces people of diverse backgrounds including many groups that we do 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. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)

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. Prerequisite: WRT 0110. (3 credits)

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. (3 credits)