History Undergrad - Fall Courses

History

Questions or Comments

History Department

History Department
Eastern Illinois University
600 Lincoln Ave.
Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 581-3310
Ms. Donna Nichols

History Courses for Fall, 2009

The Department of History has produced this short "catalog" to help you, the student, choose your classes for Fall 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 1500: WORLD CIVILIZATION: SOCIETY AND RELIGION
Drs. Lee Patterson, Ralph Ashby, and Bailey Young

This course examines the interrelationships between society and religion in the great civilizations of the ancient and medieval worlds. The emergence of distinct traditions in Egypt and the Near East, India, China, and classical Greece and Rome are examined, and the impact of the new, dynamic religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam spreading beyond their homelands through Europe, Asia and Africa are considered. By comparing the development of these different civilizations, we consider such questions as: What forces drive historical change? How do societies interact and influence one another? What is the role of environment? Of significant events and people? Of new ideas and beliefs? In shaping historical development?

HIS 1510: WORLD CIVILIZATION: SLAVERY AND FREEDOM
Dr. David Smith

Slavery as an institution has been a world wide practice. After discussing the idea of slavery and investigating some examples of slavery as practiced around the world, this course will focus on the trans-Atlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries — the largest forced migration of any group in human history. We will explore the origins and development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. including such issues as slave raiding, the middle passage, slave life and culture, slave revolts, bondage and emancipation, and the slave economy in the New World.

HIS 1520: WORLD CIVILIZATION: INTERACTIONS
Drs. Roger Beck, James Schwartz, Jin-hee Lee, and Ali Yaycioglu

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 1590: WORLD CIVILIZATION: SOCIETY AND RELIGION
Dr. Joy Kammerling

For University Honors students.

This course will explore the historical origins of the world's great religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We will study the lives of the "founders" of each faith, learn the central beliefs of each group, and analyze the conflicts (spiritual and political) that promoted changes of belief and practice over time.

HIS 2010: HISTORY OF THE U.S. TO 1877
Dr. Mark Voss-Hubbard, Nora Small, Charles Foy, Terry Barnhart, and Lynne Curry

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 2020: HISTORY OF THE U.S. SINCE 1877
Drs. Jonathon Coit, Mark Voss-Hubbard, James Schwartz, Terry Barnhart, and Ralph Ashby

"America grew up in the country then moved to the city," wrote one prominent American historian. A bitterly divided, largely agrarian country at the end of the Civil War, the United States grew to be a world power by the end of the nineteenth century. That power would only grow over the next 100 years--a time that could rightly be called "the American Century." But the pace of growth and development were not without consequences. Many Americans found themselves struggling to preserve and advance democratic traditions and individual opportunity. This course introduces students to the paradoxes, struggles, successes, and failures of American history, 1877 to the present.

HIS 2500: HISTORICAL RESEARCH AND WRITING
Drs. Michael Shirley and Sace Elder

This introduction to researching and writing history aims: (1) To develop ability to assess and think critically about historical issues and how people interpret those issues; (2) To develop familiarity with a variety of sources and the conventions of citing those sources in historical writing; (3) To develop skills in analyzing historical data and reaching informed conclusions about those data. There are a number of short assignments which build particular skills, and which are interrelated in that they help build towards a required, final research paper. The techniques and sources covered in the assignments are applicable to all history courses.

HIS 2560: EARLY MODERN WORLD HISTORY
Dr. David Smith and Newton Key

His 2650 begins with classical civilizations unraveling and ends with the threads of modernity; it moves from the global civilization of the previously nomadic Mongols in the 13th century to the export of the French Revolution to the rest of Europe and the New World circa 1800. The course introduces the rich source material of the early modern world, and helps refine your skills of analysis and synthesis. It also provides a broad narrative of events.

HIS 3100: HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 1066-1688
Dr. Newton Key

His 3100 examines early modern England - the age ruled by Tudor and Stuart monarchs, but shaped by many English men and women both commoners and aristocrats. Besides the political and religious narrative, we examine sources on specific intellectual, political, social, religious, and economic issues confronting the English (and Welsh, Scottish, and Irish) peoples. Course goals include: introducing (and general mastery of) a basic political and religious narrative of English history from the late 15th to early 18th centuries; and introducing and discussing various early modern sources.

HIS 3175: HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
Dr. Joy Kammerling

Survey course on origins and development of Christianity from Old and New Testament times to current churches and movements: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, early communities, Middle Ages, Islam, Reformation, anti-Semitism, multicultural Christianity, American church history.

HIS 3415: WORLD WAR I
Dr. Sace Elder

A study of the background, course, and consequences of the first world war.

HIS 3520: MEDIEVAL HISTORY
Dr. Bailey Young

How did civilizations grow, develop, and interact from their earliest emergence, in the Middle East around 3000 B.C., through the Fall of the Roman Empire around A.D. 500? How can we understand and interpret the history of such distant times, and what has been their impact on the modern world? This course will focus primarily on classical Greece and Rome, and students will be introduced to the problems of using original sources to understand such phenomena as the origins of democracy in Greece and the strange triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

HIS 3555: MODERN WORLD HISTORY
Drs. Sace Elder and Anita Shelton

This course explores the major political, economic, social, and cultural developments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will examine the rise of industrialization and the international division of labor that served as the basis for vast global empires in the nineteenth century. They will explore the nationalist movements that brought down those empires, the challenges of nation-building in the post-colonial world, and the competing modern ideologies that inspired and shaped those nation-building projects. Nationalism, both productive and destructive, will be contrasted with the internationalism arising from the ashes of the two world wars in the form of new institutions such as the UN and the European Union. At the end of the course will be George Bush, Sr.'s "new world order" and the challenges to Western dominance presented by the Muslim world and China as students consider globalization at the beginning of the twentieth century.

HIS 3600: THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE NATION
Drs. Jonathan Coit and Martin Hardeman

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 3690: THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE NATION
Dr. Lynne Curry

For University Honors students.

A survey of the origin and development of the Constitution and its impact on the history of the United States.

HIS 3700: TURNING POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE
Dr. John McElligott

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 3760: THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Dr. Martin Hardeman and Janet Cornelius

A history of the American South with emphasis on social and cultural developments and the deviation between North and South.

HIS 3810: THE HISTORY OF ILLINOIS
Dr. Charles Titus

The state of Illinois has a fascinating past which stretches from the era when pre-historic peoples created vibrant, flourishing cultures to the struggle for empire during the French and British colonial eras to contemporary times when the Prairie State serves as one of the industrial and agricultural centers of the nation. History 3810 traces these developments and examines the social, cultural, political and economic aspects of our state from pre-historic times to the very recent past. Students will read both scholarly and popular accounts of Illinois history and will examine and analyze primary documents which help explain why the state developed as it did. Students will read both scholarly and popular accounts of Illinois history and will examine and analyze primary documents which help explain why the state developed as it did.

HIS 3900: WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Dr. Debra Reid and Janet Cornelius

This course surveys the history of women in America from precolonial times to the present, with special attention to the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, religion, class, and region have shaped this history. The course also introduces students to the theories and methodologies historians have developed to examine the lives of women in the United States. Essay examinations and a term paper are required.

HIS 3920: MILITARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
Dr. Charles Titus

The military has been an important factor in the nation's history since the colonial era. History 3920 examines the military experience within this larger context of United States history. The course surveys the origins, strategies, tactics, logistics and consequences of selected American wars. The role of technology, military professionalism, and social views toward war and the military as these matters have affected United States history are also examined in the class.

HIS 3940: HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM
Dr. Sally Turner

Survey of journalism in the United States from colonial times to the present.

HIS 3992: SALEM WITCH TRIALS
Dr. Joy Kammerling

in an era of religious passion and genuine fear of the devil, over 400 people were charged with the crime of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. When the witchcraft hysteria finally subsided, 20 people had died due to torture and execution. This course will address the various social, religious, and political causes of the Salem Witch Trials through examining the actual documents from the event (such as letters written by accused witches, trial records, sermons).

HIS 3994: HISTORY OF CHRSTMAS
Dr. Joy Kammerling

This course will explore the origins of Christmas and examine the traditions surrounding the celebration, including the legend of Santa Claus, the history of Christmas carols, and the traditions of Christmas trees and gift-giving. We will discuss how the celebration of Christmas has changed over the centuries and how people all over the world celebrate the holiday season.

HIS 3999: AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST
Dr. Joy Kammerling

This course will examine the attitudes, policies, and actions of the war-time United States government when faced with irrefutable information about the Nazi atrocities against the Jews. We will look at the response of other Americans, including Christian groups, the American Jewish community, and the newspapers. How much did the American public know about the killing?

HIS 4303: COLONIAL AMERICA TO 1763
Dr. Charles Foy

The origins of England's North American Colonies and their cultural, economic, political, social, and religious development in the period ending with the French and Indian War.

HIS 4350: THE DR. HEBERT LASKY SEMINAR IN THE EARLY NATIONAL HISTORY OF THE US
Dr. Mark Voss-Hubbard

The Dr. Herbert Lasky Seminar in the Early National History of the US. (3-0-3) F. The Early National era (1787-1815) saw Americans write their Constitution, fight their first major war, and engage in intense political and cultural battles over the meaning of their Revolutionary heritage. In this rigorous seminar, students will explore in depth the history of America?s diverse founding generation. Restriction: Restricted to Junior and Senior History majors.

HIS 4400: INDEPENDENT STUDY
Various Instructors

For the advanced undergraduate student who would like to work intensively on a particular research topic under the supervision of a professor in the field. May count towards the History Major as an elective. See the Department Chair (Anita Shelton) for more information.

HIS 4444: HONORS INDEPENDENT STUDY
Various Instructors

Open to those who have been accepted into Departmental Honors (which culminates in the writing of an Honors thesis and an Honors diploma). May count towards the History Major as an elective. See the Departmental Honors Coordinator (Sace Elder) for more information.

HIS 4555: HONORS RESEARCH
Various Instructors

In consultation with a faculty member, the student designs, executes, and writes the results of an original piece of research. Any methodology may be utilized.

HIS 4644: HONORS THESIS
Various Instructors

Intensive research in preparation of a thesis on a topic in History approved by faculty supervisor and the Departmental Honors Coordinator.

HIS 4666: HONORS SEMINAR
Various Instructors

Areas of investigation which require integration of History and research will be treated.

HIS 4775: NATION OF IMMIGRANTS
Dr. Jonathon Coit