History Courses for Summer 2012
The History Department has produced this short "catalog" to help you, the student, choose your classes for Summer semester. In it you will find short descriptions of the content, objectives and, in some cases, requirements, for the classes. We have also listed the professors who are teaching these classes. You may want to contact them directly if you have questions or want more information about a course. Just go to the EIU history department's website and click on "Faculty."
HIS 1520: ROOTS OF THE MODERN WORLD: GLOBALIZATION
Dr. Roger Beck
This course explores many of the exciting factors contributing to the emergence of the modern world. From the end of the fifteenth century, people, goods, information and technology traveled around the world at an unprecedented pace. This is most clearly illustrated by the European explorations and conquests of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which revolutionized global dynamics with the 'discovery' of the New World and the subsequent establishment of European colonies across much of the Americas, Africa and Asia. In addition to examining the global race of colonialism, this course will introduce students to the great early modern empires of the Islamic World and East Asia. It will also engage such topics as the factors precipitating the Industrial Revolution, why it happened in Europe and not elsewhere, and its repercussions on the rest of the world. In the final weeks of the course we will turn to more recent global historical issues, including the rise of nationalism, its relationship to the decline of European colonialism, and its turbulent legacy today.
HIS 2010: HISTORY OF THE U.S. TO 1877
Dr. Mark Voss-Hubbard
At its most basic level, this course is a survey of the political, social, economic, and cultural history of the colonial and post-colonial United States. Every professor, however, structures the course somewhat differently, sometimes relying on themes such as community and culture, other times emphasizing one particular historical thread (such as politics)to provide a framework for the class. No matter how it is taught, students are introduced to the use of primary sources and the interpretive nature of history, that is, how historians reconstruct past events to write history.
HIS 3320: HISTORY OF MODERN CHINA
Dr. David Smith
Survey of Chinese history between 1800 and present.
HIS 3600: THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE NATION
Dr. Jonathon Coit
History 3600 explores the legal issues that shaped the development of United States government, and the relationships of citizens to that government. The U.S. system is based on a written constitution that gives the government power and legitimacy. The course helps students understand the development of the ideas behind the Constitution and rule by law by analyzing the myriad ways that judges, lawyers, legal scholars, politicians, and ordinary citizens interpret the document. The "readings" of the Constitution by these groups often conflict, and in many instances their interpretation has changed over time. This makes it difficult to decipher the original intent of those who drafted the Constitution. Based on primary sources including the Constitution, amendments, state and federal legislation, and Supreme Court decisions, students realize how little the Constitution has changed over time but how much its interpretation has evolved to meet the demands of U.S. citizens, historically and today.
HIS 3700: TURNING POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE
Dr. David Smith
Man lives in a universe without the faintest idea why it exists and why he (as a part of the universe) exists either. This fundamental fact of the human condition presents the further problem of how one should live his life in such a situation. Every civilization makes a response to this problem which defines the culture and guides the lives of the people. Normally, this response is couched poetically in religious terms and is so pervasive and taken for granted that the ordinary person cannot clearly articulate it. This course examines the historical development of the Western answer to the human condition. It begins with the Christian world-view and then traces how that view was altered by major developments in science: the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, Darwinism, and Freudianism. The goal of the course is to bring the dominant modern, scientific, materialistic world-view of Western culture fully to consciousness so that the students can (perhaps for the first time) critically evaluate it and see the plausibility of the alternative views of the past and of other cultures. No prior knowledge of science or mathematics is required to master the material of this course.
HIS 4775: HUMAN RIGHTS
Dr. Sace Elder
Study of historical topics not typically presented in standard courses. Topics to be announced.
HIS 4880: MODERN JAPAN: FROM SAMURAI TO FREETERS
Dr. Jinhee Lee
This course examines the historical transformation of Japan from Tokugawa times to the present. Particular attention will be given to the most influential political, economic, and social phenomena that the people have faced in the making of modern Japan since the nineteenth century.
HIS 4980: THE VIETNAM WAR: AN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE ORDEAL
Dr. Edmund Wehrle
A reading, discussion, and writing course focusing on the Vietnam War (Second Indochinese War, 1965-1975) from an American, Vietnamese, and international perspective.
The following courses are open to graduate students only
HIS 4880: MODERN JAPAN
Dr. Jinhee Lee
This course examines the historical transformation of Japan from the Tokugawa shogunate era to the present. We will explore major political, economic, and social phenomena that have shaped and influenced the lives of ordinary people in the making of modern Japan such as the samurai culture, the rise of merchants, the encounter with the West, a series of wars in the process of becoming an empire, and the post-WWII development. In our analysis of the changes and continuity in their spiritual and material conditions, we take “modern” and “Japan” not as unchanging, homogenous entities but socially constructed, transformative ideas which have emerged in the particular historical and social context in and beyond the archipelago. Your participation in dynamic class activities—such as positional debate, role play, presentation, one-minute essay writing, mutual critique, and mini-field trip—will enable you not only to observe the history of modern Japan but also understand and articulate the particular manifestations of the shared human experiences of modernity in the context of Japan. As we explore various images and information about Japan through diverse source materials, this course will help you enhance your critical thinking skills, self-awareness, and adaptability in our rapidly globalizing society.
HIS 5400: STATE AND SOCIETY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Dr. David K. Smith
This course will focus on the rise of the early modern state from the sixteenth to through the eighteenth century in Europe. The course will consider various components of state functions and issues surround the relationship between state structures and the societies they seek to rule over. Key topics will include royal states v. administrative monarchies, role of war in state formation, the theory of governmentality, provincialism v. centralization, and the state and the public sphere.
HIS 5980: INTERNSHIP IN HISTORICAL ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Anita Shelton
A semester's experience as an intern in a historical library, historical society, museum, archive, restoration project, or historical agency of government.
