Courses

Fall Semester information

100A: Historical Encounters: People on the Move

Why do people move from place to place? In this course, we will study the historical background behind the issues of migration and refugees in contemporary Europe. We will study the migrations within, out of, and into Europe over the past centuries up to today. We will consider a wide variety of primary and secondary sources including scholarly analyses, personal narratives, films, and statistics to develop an understanding of the historical dimension behind the contemporary crises. Along the way, students will get the opportunity to read and analyze texts, identify and develop their own theses, research specific topics, and develop empathy for the 'people on the move'.

100B: Historical Encounters: Life and Death in Early Modern China

This course is an exploration of seventeenth-century Jiangnan, the heart of the Chinese Ming empire, one of the largest empires of the early modern world and the center of the emerging global economy. Today, the region of Jiangnan is best-known for modern cities like Shanghai and the traditional gardens of Suzhou. The early modern period (ca. 1500-1800) was a transformative and turbulent time in world history and, by focusing on Jiangnan during this time, this course opens a window on the challenges, dramas, and fascination of people's lives and social change during this period. Through the best-selling fiction and historical sources of the seventeenth century, discover seeds of the modern world in the environmental issues, family relationships, economic growth, political conflict, and cross-cultural interactions of this time and place. This course provides an introduction and foundation for further work in Asian studies, history, and the humanities and social sciences.

100C: Historical Encounters: French Revolution

The French Revolution is best known for its most radical phase when the revolutionary government of France put the French king on trial, condemned him to death by guillotine, and then went on to behead thousands of its own citizens. This period, "The Reign of Terror," has gone down in infamy. How did a revolution fought in the name of "liberty, equality, and brotherhood" go so wrong? Who were the leading figures in this event? Who thought up the guillotine, and why was this instrument of terror considered an advanced, enlightened approach to the death penalty? Focusing on the period 1792-1795, the period of the revolutionary government known as The Convention, this course will seek to understand how, with the best of intentions, revolutionaries can become terrorists.

100D: Historical Encounters: Boxing in History, Literature and Film

In this course we will analyze the history of organized boxing, the so-called "Sweet Science" or what Joyce Carol Oates described as "America's tragic theater", through its representations in histories, literature and film. From the implementation of the Broughton Rules in the 1740s to the present, we will analyze the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, social class and capitalism in a boxing context. With a particular emphasis on the 20th century and African-American boxers in the heavyweight division (Johnson, Louis, Ali and Tyson), the course traces boxing's rise to mass popularity and its precipitous decline. You will read the commentaries of literary figures like Joyce Carol Oates, Leonard Gardner, Richard Wright and scholars like Gerald Early and Kasia Boddy. You will critically assess films like Raging Bull, Rocky, Creed, Girl Fight and boxing documentaries.