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HST 300 Cultural History in Images
This is an advanced research aresearch and writing seminar on selected ideas/movements/episodes in cultural history, ancient and modern, as seen in images. Through close-reading, students investigate texts, images, and other cultural artifacts. Research centers especially on representations of the self, emotion, and the art of living as reflected in a range of primary sources, including philosophy, literature, art, architecture, music, and film. Secondary readings help students to situate their sources in time and place and to identify original research questions. Attention to each step of the project allows students to master such skills as the choice and proposal of topics, archival research (including digital), footnoting and use of evidence, bibliographical annotation, logical argumentation, revision of rough drafts, constructive critique of others’ work, and enhancement of the literary quality of their final papers. Students produce a 25-30 page research paper on a subject of their choosing dovetailing with the course theme. This seminar is the capstone of the History major and is required for majors.Concentration: U.S./Europe/Global / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern
HST 300 World War II in Europe
The Second World War in Europe lasted for six years and cost the lives of more than 50 million soldiers and civilians. It transformed the continent's politics, economics, society, and culture. Its memory continues to haunt Europe and influences every aspect of the region's current affairs. Studying its causes, conduct, and consequences, then, is an essential precondition for understanding modern Europe. In this seminar we will combine close classroom readings of important primary and secondary sources with independent research on aspects of the conflict chosen by the students themselves. The end goal for each participant will be an original research paper drafted and presented to the class.
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HST 300/JSP 300 Antisemitism in US History
What is antisemitism? How and in what contexts has it appeared in the United States? How, if at all, does it resemble other forms of American bigotry? How, if at all, does it resemble antisemitism elsewhere in the world? This course addresses these questions through analysis of anti-Jewish discrimination in the United States between the colonial period and the present. Examining anti-Jewish practices and discourses, students will learn to identify representations of Jews as “others”; determine the origins and sources of anti-Jewish sentiments and policies; and analyze the extent to which, if at all, anti-Jewish bigotry resembled antisemitism in other national contexts and racism and xenophobia in America.
Concentration: .
Concentration: U.S./Europe/Global / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern
HST 300 World War II in Europe
The Second World War in Europe lasted for six years and cost the lives of more than 50 million soldiers and civilians. It transformed the continent's politics, economics, society, and culture. Its memory continues to haunt Europe and influences every aspect of the region's current affairs. Studying its causes, conduct, and consequences, then, is an essential precondition for understanding modern Europe. In this seminar we will combine close classroom readings of important primary and secondary sources with independent research on aspects of the conflict chosen by the students themselves. The end goal for each participant will be an original research paper drafted and presented to the class.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 300/JSP 300 Antisemitism in US History
What is antisemitism? How and in what contexts has it appeared in the United States? How, if at all, does it resemble other forms of American bigotry? How, if at all, does it resemble antisemitism elsewhere in the world? This course addresses these questions through analysis of anti-Jewish discrimination in the United States between the colonial period and the present. Examining anti-Jewish practices and discourses, students will learn to identify representations of Jews as “others”; determine the origins and sources of anti-Jewish sentiments and policies; and analyze the extent to which, if at all, anti-Jewish bigotry resembled antisemitism in other national contexts and racism and xenophobia in America.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 300 American Jewish History Survey, 1654-Present
One hundred and fifty years ago, most of the world’s Jews lived in Europe or the Ottoman Empire. Yet by the middle of the twentieth century the United States was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Using the tools of social, cultural, and intellectual history, this course examines the lives of Jews in America from 1654 through the present, exploring how they adapted to life in the United States and how the United States adapted itself to the presence of Jews.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 300 American Jewish History Survey, 1654-Present
One hundred and fifty years ago, most of the world’s Jews lived in Europe or the Ottoman Empire. Yet by the middle of the twentieth century the United States was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Using the tools of social, cultural, and intellectual history, this course examines the lives of Jews in America from 1654 through the present, exploring how they adapted to life in the United States and how the United States adapted itself to the presence of Jews.
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HST 300 Food in Modern Europe
In the last two and a half centuries, food has transformed dramatically. Global integration and new agrarian and industrial systems of production have displaced many earlier relationships with the land and its products. The people who grow, harvest, prepare, and serve food and how they do so have transformed due to accelerating social processes from urbanization to mass migration and the culture of domesticity. Eating, too, has become both deeply politicized and intensely refined—the stuff of regulation, identity formation, and emotional connection. The production, consumption, abundance, and scarcity of food create boundaries, political or otherwise, defining people and shaping bodies from obesity to genocide. This course anchors the study of these transformations in European history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 301 Practicum
What is History? How do scholars “do” history? This seminar introduces history majors to the methods and goals of historical study, and to the skills needed to conduct independent historical research. The first part of the course will be spent discussing what exactly history is and has been. We will then move on to discussing the kinds of history that have developed across the century in the American Historical profession. Finally, students will spend a large portion of the course familiarizing themselves with the analytical and practical skills needed to develop their own research projects.
HST 311 Medieval Civilization
This course explores European civilization from about 800 to about 1200. We will study kings, saints, and villains; faith and violence, love and hatred; ideas and beliefs. Our questions include: how did these people make sense of their world? How did they respond to crisis and opportunity? How did their civilization work? What was life like in medieval Europe? To answer these questions, we will mainly read primary sources that show us what medieval people themselves had to say about their world. Our goal will be to understand the past on its own terms. We will also emphasize the skills of close reading, strong argumentation, and clear expression of ideas.
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HST 315 Europe in the Age of Hitler and Stalin
This course covers the major political, social, and cultural developments in Europe during the period of the two world wars. During this era, liberal democracy and capitalism failed, authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships proliferated, and, ultimately, political violence and warfare obliterated European civilization. In order to understand these developments, we will focus on themes such as political ideology, class conflict, racism, gender, the persecution of “internal enemies” and social outsiders, violence, and Europe’s general “crisis of modernity.”
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 320 Traditional China
In this course we will survey Chinese history from earliest times to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644. This seemingly remote time witnessed the formation of a complex government and society whose influence extended to much of East Asia. Ranging over the centuries, the class will explore some of the main currents in Chinese political, cultural, social, and intellectual history. These include: Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Legalism as competing and sometimes intersecting philosophies; the imperial system and major changes in its form over time; the changing roles of women in society; popular rebellion and heterodox religion; and the place of science and technology in the Chinese past.
We will read a variety of texts in addition to a concise textbook.
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HST/SAS 329 Making Modern India
This course surveys the history of modern South Asia from the beginnings of British colonial rule in the eighteenth century, through the moment of decolonization in the mid-twentieth century, to present-day politics in independent India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Using fiction, memoirs, maps, films, as well as academic literature, we will sequentially address themes ranging from violence and famine to cricket and cuisine
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HST 341/PSC 329 Modern American Presidency
This course analyzes the evolution of the modern presidency and its present operation. The focus of our attention will be on the years since 1960. The decision-making process and operation of presidential administrations from Nixon to Trump will be studied in particular detail. We shall consider the various roles that the president plays in government, politics, and society. We will examine the presidency as an institution and as an individual office to identify factors that have contributed to the successes and failures of particular administrations. This course also shall examine the roles and influence of unelected officials (especially senior White House staff), and popular attitudes toward both the symbolic and the practical presidency—particularly as they have been shaped by the traditional and “new” media. We will consider what lasting effects, if any, events during the past quarter century have had on the presidency as an institution. Food in Modern Europe
In the last two and a half centuries, food has transformed dramatically. Global integration and new agrarian and industrial systems of production have displaced many earlier relationships with the land and its products. The people who grow, harvest, prepare, and serve food and how they do so have transformed due to accelerating social processes from urbanization to mass migration and the culture of domesticity. Eating, too, has become both deeply politicized and intensely refined—the stuff of regulation, identity formation, and emotional connection. The production, consumption, abundance, and scarcity of food create boundaries, political or otherwise, defining people and shaping bodies from obesity to genocide. This course anchors the study of these transformations in European history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 301 Practicum
What is History? How do scholars “do” history? This seminar introduces history majors to the methods and goals of historical study, and to the skills needed to conduct independent historical research. The first part of the course will be spent discussing what exactly history is and has been. We will then move on to discussing the kinds of history that have developed across the century in the American Historical profession. Finally, students will spend a large portion of the course familiarizing themselves with the analytical and practical skills needed to develop their own research projects.
HST 311 Medieval Civilization
This course explores European civilization from about 800 to about 1200. We will study kings, saints, and villains; faith and violence, love and hatred; ideas and beliefs. Our questions include: how did these people make sense of their world? How did they respond to crisis and opportunity? How did their civilization work? What was life like in medieval Europe? To answer these questions, we will mainly read primary sources that show us what medieval people themselves had to say about their world. Our goal will be to understand the past on its own terms. We will also emphasize the skills of close reading, strong argumentation, and clear expression of ideas.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 315 Europe in the Age of Hitler and Stalin
This course covers the major political, social, and cultural developments in Europe during the period of the two world wars. During this era, liberal democracy and capitalism failed, authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships proliferated, and, ultimately, political violence and warfare obliterated European civilization. In order to understand these developments, we will focus on themes such as political ideology, class conflict, racism, gender, the persecution of “internal enemies” and social outsiders, violence, and Europe’s general “crisis of modernity.”
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 320 Traditional China
In this course we will survey Chinese history from earliest times to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644. This seemingly remote time witnessed the formation of a complex government and society whose influence extended to much of East Asia. Ranging over the centuries, the class will explore some of the main currents in Chinese political, cultural, social, and intellectual history. These include: Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Legalism as competing and sometimes intersecting philosophies; the imperial system and major changes in its form over time; the changing roles of women in society; popular rebellion and heterodox religion; and the place of science and technology in the Chinese past.
We will read a variety of texts in addition to a concise textbook.
Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-modern
HST/SAS 329 Making Modern India
This course surveys the history of modern South Asia from the beginnings of British colonial rule in the eighteenth century, through the moment of decolonization in the mid-twentieth century, to present-day politics in independent India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Using fiction, memoirs, maps, films, as well as academic literature, we will sequentially address themes ranging from violence and famine to cricket and cuisine
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 341/PSC 329 Modern American Presidency
This course analyzes the evolution of the modern presidency and its present operation. The focus of our attention will be on the years since 1960. The decision-making process and operation of presidential administrations from Nixon to Trump will be studied in particular detail. We shall consider the various roles that the president plays in government, politics, and society. We will examine the presidency as an institution and as an individual office to identify factors that have contributed to the successes and failures of particular administrations. This course also shall examine the roles and influence of unelected officials (especially senior White House staff), and popular attitudes toward both the symbolic and the practical presidency—particularly as they have been shaped by the traditional and “new” media. We will consider what lasting effects, if any, events during the past quarter century have had on the presidency as an institution.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 347/HNR 360 Modern American Politics Through Film
In this course we will examine major themes in the political consciousness and popular culture of modern America, as they are reflected in contemporary films. The focus will be both on particular events and movements and on more generalized and persistent concerns (discrimination, alienation and depersonalization, authoritarianism, violence, gender, sexuality, bureaucratization, corruption). We shall be examining “politics” broadly understood, through the lens of popular culture. The goal is to explore a range of movies as ways of interrogating how Americans understand themes of power, intersectionality, conflict and consensus. This class differs from most at SU in that it is intergenerational. In addition to those enrolled for credit , participants will include approximately ten people from Oasis, a program for “mature learners” (generally, retired professionals and businesspeople) in the Syracuse community. Their lived experiences and perspectives on both the movies and the themes they illuminate will be a major component of what this course is all about.
HONORS ONLY
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 347/HNR 360 Modern American Politics Through Film
In this course we will examine major themes in the political consciousness and popular culture of modern America, as they are reflected in contemporary films. The focus will be both on particular events and movements and on more generalized and persistent concerns (discrimination, alienation and depersonalization, authoritarianism, violence, gender, sexuality, bureaucratization, corruption). We shall be examining “politics” broadly understood, through the lens of popular culture. The goal is to explore a range of movies as ways of interrogating how Americans understand themes of power, intersectionality, conflict and consensus. This class differs from most at SU in that it is intergenerational. In addition to those enrolled for credit , participants will include approximately ten people from Oasis, a program for “mature learners” (generally, retired professionals and businesspeople) in the Syracuse community. Their lived experiences and perspectives on both the movies and the themes they illuminate will be a major component of what this course is all about.
HONORS ONLY
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HST 354/LIT 300 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The late Roman Empire and the Mediterranean world from c.200 to c.700. Political, religious, cultural, social history. Rise of Christianity, transformation of classical culture, and the so-called Decline and Fall of Rome.
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HST/JSP 362 Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
In 1933, a radical and dictatorial regime came to power in Germany, remade the German state, and went on to orchestrate a vast program of mass murder in pursuit of a vision of biological purity and to launch a war of world conquest, ultimately killing millions. This course examines the history of German fascism, the Nazi state, and the Holocaust according to three primary lines of inquiry. In the first part of the course, we will address the question of how the Nazis came to power. What was Nazism, and why did it gain a popular following? Why did the Weimar Republic, the parliamentary democracy founded in 1918, fall (first to dictatorship and then to Nazism) in the early 1930s? In the second part of the course, we will examine the politics of Nazism in power. What was everyday life like for various Germans under the Nazi state, and why did many Germans come to support the regime? The course’s third section addresses war, genocide, and the legacies of Nazism and the Holocaust. How did Nazi genocide policies develop, and how was it possible to implement them? What can the history of Nazi Germany teach us about other state-run mass murder programs? How have Germans grappled with the aftermath of Nazi Germany?
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HST 364 The Origins of Modern Russia
The Russian Empire emerged relatively late in the modern era, but it quickly rose to dizzying heights of military power, cultural prestige, and influence on international politics. Powerful rulers like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, literary giants like Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky, radical socialists like Alexander Herzen and Vladimir Lenin – these figures placed Russia at the center of trends that transformed European society for five hundred years. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire was in the midst of a period of precipitous decline, which led to the collapse of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty during the First World War. This course examines the history of Russia from the emergence of the Tsarist autocratic system in the 1400s to the revolutions of 1917, focusing on the Russian state, serfdom, the Russian intellectual tradition, Russia’s imperial policies, and nineteenth-century working-class activism. We will also examine the lived experiences of various social groups within the Empire, including peasants, urban women, ethnic minorities, factory workers, and the intelligentsia.
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HST 370 American Military History
Is there, as some historians have claimed, a distinctive ‘American way of war’ traceable over the four centuries since the beginning of the European colonization of North America? If so, what are its characteristics, how has it changed over time, and what does it reveal about a peculiar American attitude to state violence and the relationship between military and civilian society? In this course, we will examine the ‘small’ and ‘big’ wars of the United States from the colonial period to the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Syria. Class meetings will be a mixture of lectures and discussion. Students will complete primary and secondary source readings. Assessment will be based on class discussion and several reading and writing assignments.
Concentration: U.S. 354/LIT 300 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The late Roman Empire and the Mediterranean world from c.200 to c.700. Political, religious, cultural, social history. Rise of Christianity, transformation of classical culture, and the so-called Decline and Fall of Rome.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern
HST/JSP 362 Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
In 1933, a radical and dictatorial regime came to power in Germany, remade the German state, and went on to orchestrate a vast program of mass murder in pursuit of a vision of biological purity and to launch a war of world conquest, ultimately killing millions. This course examines the history of German fascism, the Nazi state, and the Holocaust according to three primary lines of inquiry. In the first part of the course, we will address the question of how the Nazis came to power. What was Nazism, and why did it gain a popular following? Why did the Weimar Republic, the parliamentary democracy founded in 1918, fall (first to dictatorship and then to Nazism) in the early 1930s? In the second part of the course, we will examine the politics of Nazism in power. What was everyday life like for various Germans under the Nazi state, and why did many Germans come to support the regime? The course’s third section addresses war, genocide, and the legacies of Nazism and the Holocaust. How did Nazi genocide policies develop, and how was it possible to implement them? What can the history of Nazi Germany teach us about other state-run mass murder programs? How have Germans grappled with the aftermath of Nazi Germany?
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 364 The Origins of Modern Russia
The Russian Empire emerged relatively late in the modern era, but it quickly rose to dizzying heights of military power, cultural prestige, and influence on international politics. Powerful rulers like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, literary giants like Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Dostoevsky, radical socialists like Alexander Herzen and Vladimir Lenin – these figures placed Russia at the center of trends that transformed European society for five hundred years. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire was in the midst of a period of precipitous decline, which led to the collapse of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty during the First World War. This course examines the history of Russia from the emergence of the Tsarist autocratic system in the 1400s to the revolutions of 1917, focusing on the Russian state, serfdom, the Russian intellectual tradition, Russia’s imperial policies, and nineteenth-century working-class activism. We will also examine the lived experiences of various social groups within the Empire, including peasants, urban women, ethnic minorities, factory workers, and the intelligentsia.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 370 American Military History
Is there, as some historians have claimed, a distinctive ‘American way of war’ traceable over the four centuries since the beginning of the European colonization of North America? If so, what are its characteristics, how has it changed over time, and what does it reveal about a peculiar American attitude to state violence and the relationship between military and civilian society? In this course, we will examine the ‘small’ and ‘big’ wars of the United States from the colonial period to the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Syria. Class meetings will be a mixture of lectures and discussion. Students will complete primary and secondary source readings. Assessment will be based on class discussion and several reading and writing assignments.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST/WGS 379 Race, Gender and Colonialism
This course explores the centrality of gender (ideas about what it means to be a man or woman, understandings of masculinity and femininity) and race (whether biological, cultural, or otherwise) in France, England, and their colonial empires. The focus is the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will examine the hierarchies and presumptions that justified colonial occupation, domination, and exploitation, and the ways they infused politics, science, literature, and the arts in shaping world systems that endure to this day.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 386 Crime and Society in US History
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