History Courses for Spring 2012
The History Department has produced this short "catalog" to help you, the student, choose your classes for Spring 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: ROOTS OF THE MODERN WORLD: SOCIETY AND RELIGION
Drs. Lee Patterson, Bailey Young, and Joy Kammerling
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 1520: ROOTS OF THE MODERN WORLD: GLOBALIZATION Drs. Roger Beck and Jose R. Deustua-Carvallo
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
Drs. Charles Titus, Charles Foy, Mark Voss-Hubbard, John McElligott, and Terry Barnhart
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. Jonathan Coit, Terry Barnhart, and Martin Hardeman
"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 2090: HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES TO 1877, HONORS
Dr. Mark Voss-Hubbard
The colonial period; the independence movement; framing and adoption of the Constitution; growth of American nationality; Manifest Destiny; the Civil War and Reconstruction.
HIS 2500: HISTORICAL RESEARCH AND WRITING
Dr. Newton Key
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
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 3110: BRITAIN 1688 TO PRESENT
Dr. Newton Key
This course provides a narrative of British history from the era of the British reaction to the French Revolution and Napoleon through the counter-revolution of Margaret Thatcher and beyond to the sunny vistas (?) of New Labour. It also provides a chance to understand the contemporary issues in Britain from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries by using primary documents. Goals include developing an understanding of the basic narrative of modern British history, focusing on the three themes: Industrious Britain and Social Class; The Rise and Fall of Imperial Britain; and The Experience of War (the relation between the home front and the trenches).
HIS 3130: IRAQ AND THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
Dr. Lee Patterson
The course surveys the history, culture, literature, and institutions of pre-Islamic Iraq and neighboring regions of the Middle East, from the early Sumerian period to the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great.
HIS 3250: AFRICAN HISTORY
Dr. Roger Beck
From the earliest human beings to modern independence movements, Africa is a continent rich in tradition, history, and culture. This course offers a broad overview of African religious, political, economic, and social traditions before focusing on the course of African history during the last five hundred years. Hopefully the class will break down inaccurate and racist stereotypes and provide the student with enough knowledge about Africa's past that they are able to understand Africa's present and future.
HIS 3260: MODERN LATIN AMERICA
Dr. José Deustua-Carvallo
Survey of Latin America from Independence, including the nineteenth century struggle between liberalism and conservatism, the Mexican Revolution, popularist and authoritarian paths to development, the Cuban and Central American Revolutions, and the recent rise of neo-liberalism.
HIS 3380: THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY
Dr. Charles Foy
This course is an interdisciplinary study of the Golden Age of piracy in the early modern Atlantic World. Focusing on the period between 1500-1726 it will use pirates as a lens through which to study the massive transformations of the late 16th to the 19th century that marked the development of interconnected economies and societies in the Atlantic basin.
HIS 3500: CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT AND HISTORY SINCE THE LAST ICE AGE
Drs. Bailey Young and Cameron Craig
Climate and History. Since the 1960s historians and geographers have become more concerned with the impact of climate on history and the global environment, with increasing emphasis on the interdisciplinary nature of this study. Students will engage in exploring the last 18,000 years with an integrated historic and geographic methodology, to gain a better understanding of how human societies have adapted to climate-driven changes.
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 Jinhee Lee
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. Lynne Curry, Martin Hardeman, and 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 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. 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 3800: U.S. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY
Dr. Edmund Wehrle
A survey of American diplomacy from the American Revolution to the present time.
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 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 Renaud
Survey of journalism in the United States from colonial times to the present.
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 4800: THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
Dr. Joy Kammerling
A study of the intellectual and spiritual rebirth of Europe from 1350 to 1559. The Renaissance and Reformation movements shattered the medieval world-view, challenged its institutions and authorities, and ushered in the modern world.
HIS 4815: THE HISTORY OF IRELAND AND THE IRISH, 1600 TO THE PRESENT
Dr. Newton Key
Course focuses on twentieth-century issues and events in Ireland but roots these in the Anglo-Scot settlements of the seventeenth century, the romantic nationalism of the late-eighteenth century, and the rural conflict and famine of the nineteenth. It also examines the Irish diaspora outside the isle, as well as modern Northern Ireland. In addition to undergraduate requirements (exams and papers), graduate students will be expected to map major schools of Irish historiography, and include in paper presentations the relation of their particular subjects to world history themes (as might be presented in lower-division or junior college course).
HIS 4820: THE WORLD IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Dr. Roger Beck
Twentieth Century History, H 4820, is a broad review of the major people, events and ideologies that shaped the twentieth century, including Freud and Einstein, both world wars and the Cold War, "isms" from Communism to Post-Modernism, art from Picasso and Chaplin to Andy Warhol, and the great changes brought about by technology, urbanization, the civil rights movement, and globalization. There are two exams, a research paper, and three book reviews required.
HIS 4845: WOMEN AND GENDER IN MODERN EUROPE
Dr. Sace Elder
Why couldn't Marianne vote when she was the symbol of republican France? Why was prostitution legal in much of Europe in the 19th century when the Victorians were supposed to be such prudes? Why did so many women become Nazis when Nazism was a masculinist, misogynist political ideology? Why were patriarchal men outsiders of the late Victorian household? This course seeks to address these and other vexing questions regarding the development of gender roles in European politics, society, and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The course examines the implications of the industrial and French revolutions for the modern family and the domestic ideal, as well as the roles of women and men in the modern nation-state and imperialism, Victorian morality, consumer culture, and postwar youth culture. We will devote special attention to the twentieth-century fascist and communist dictatorships and contrast the ways in which those regimes defined female citizenship. In exploring the changing status of women in European society, we will make use of contemporary gender theory to better understand how historical constructions of female societal and cultural roles were integrally connected to changing notions of manhood and masculinity.
HIS 4900: HISTORICAL PUBLISHING
Dr. Michael Shirley
The official catalog description is simple: "Writing, editing, and producing professional journal articles, book and exhibit reviews in history for a journal and newsletter in print and online." In practice, what it means is students produce a call for papers for Historia, Eastern's student-written and student-edited history journal, read the submissions, choose which papers to publish, and edit them for publication. Students also edit the History Department's annual newsletter. Graduate students have extra editing duties, acting as editors-in-chief of Historia, and write an extra essay on the history of a particular scholarly journal.
HIS 4910: THE FOUNDATION OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL SYSTEM
Dr. Debra Reid
This course focuses on U.S. constitutional history from the foundational ideas expressed in the Magna Carta through the colonial & early national period, with an emphasis on historical controversies, disputes, and rival interpretations. Is there really one foundation? - No- there are at least FOUR! What did British subjects think about their rights and their relationship to authority before and during the colonial era? How did American attitudes become distinctive enough from the British to lead to a revolution? What debates occurred during the writing of the Constitution that resulted in a distinctive U.S. governance system? Why don't disagreements about rights, liberty, authority, and justice lead to more conflict in the United States?
HIS 4950: THE EMERGENCE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA
Dr. Lynne Curry
Focusing on the period from 1880 to 1920, this course examines the economic, political, social, and cultural changes that accompanied the United States' transition from a rural to an urban nation.
HIS 4970: HISTORY OF IDEAS IN AMERICA
Dr. Jonathan Coit
The development of American ideas from first settlement to the present.
The following courses are open to graduate students only:
HIS 5030: ARCHIVAL METHODS
Dr. Terry Barnhart
Study of the purpose, content, and organization of archival collections and of editorial techniques involved with historical materials.
HIS 5050: HISTORY AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE
Ms. Nora Small
The course acquaints the student with the development of architecture in this nation from its European roots to the recent past, emphasizing how style and form reflects cultural, economic and technological changes in our history.
HIS 5090: CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS
Dr. Debra Reid
An introduction to the physical and intellectual management of collections with the goal of mitigating deterioration. Topics include museum registration and cataloguing standards; preventive conservation (storage, handling, and care of ten artifact groups); programmatic use of artifacts in exhibits and site interpretation; and planning as it relates to animate as well as inanimate objects.
HIS 5111: HISTORY MUSEUM EXHIBITS II
Mr. Rick Riccio
A study of the role, function and development of history museum exhibits as a part of the interpretation process. Students will research and design a temporary exhibit.
HIS 5113: DIGITAL APPLICATIONS IN MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES II
Mr. Richard Riccio
Digital Applications in Museums and Archives II. (0-1-1) S. Museum Digital Applications II. This two-semester sequence course will teach students current standards in digitizing museum and archival collections and provide hands-on experience in digitizing two and three-dimensional objects. HIS 5113 is offered spring semester, during which students will apply knowledge gained in the fall to a collection.
HIS 5160: ATLANTIC WORLD
Dr. Charles Foy
This course introduces students to the variety of approaches and themes that comprise one of the newest and fastest-growing fields in our discipline. The Atlantic World provides a useful conceptual and methodological framework in which to analyze the development of European empires, the creation of American colonial societies, and the emergence of trans-imperial networks in the early modern period (roughly 1400-1800) and beyond. We will read a selection of major works that have defined the field, identify different perspectives and approaches, and trace the development of the historiography. We will also consider the challenges involved in comparative, cross-cultural historical research, and the limits of an Atlantic approach.
HIS 5320: US INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Dr. Edmund Wehrle
America’s interactions with the world long have been sources of both fascination and controversy for Americans and American historians. This course will introduce students to the historiography of American foreign relations. Students will read and discuss major works by historians concerned with a wide variety of issues that link the United States to the world and that take a number of different mythological approaches to that history. In particular, this course aims to illuminate the current debates between revisionists, neo-revisionists, and a new generation of diplomatic historians eager to expand the confines of traditional diplomatic history. Students will write several papers, culminating in a longer research paper, ideally based on documents in a volume of the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United State series.
HIS 5340: NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Dr. Nora Pat Small
Participants in HIS 5340 will examine and analyze the history and historiography of various forces at work in the nineteenth-century United States. The course will proceed topically and will explore issues such as republicanism, industrialization, urbanization, labor, boundaries, and consumerism through the lens of social and cultural history.
HIS 5390: US CIVIL WAR
Dr. Mark Voss-Hubbard
In this research and readings seminar we will analyze America’s defining crisis, from its origins through Reconstruction. We will consider the political, military, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of the period, with emphasis on the connections among politics, ideology and culture in both the North and South. Students will gain a valuable introduction to the important historical literatures of this crucial era in US history. The major writing assignment will involve a research project based in part on primary sources on some aspect of the Civil War era, subject to my approval.
HIS 5430: HISTORY OF MODERN GERMANY
Dr. Sace Elder
Germany: a society responsible for some of the most important artistic, philosophical, and scientific achievements of the modern period, a society that would become in the later twentieth century one of the most prosperous and stable democracies in the world. How could it have also produced the genocidal Herero War, wartime atrocities in Belgium, paramilitary violence in the 1920s, the Holocaust, the Baader-Meinhof Gang? Toward an answer to these questions, this course takes as its focus the role of violence in German society. The course will explore such topics as militarism and paramilitarism, racial violence, domestic violence, and terrorism. Along the way we will be comparing the German case to that of other national contexts to determine the extent to which Germany followed a “special path” of development when it came to violence.
HIS 5700: GENDER & RACE IN COLONIAL ASIA
Dr. Jinhee Lee
Intensive study in special topics in World History to be determined by the instructor.
HIS 5950: THESIS
Staff
As arranged.
HIS 5951: NON-CREDIT THESIS
Dr. Edmund Wherle
The purpose of this course is to allow a graduate student to remain continuously enrolled as an auditor and access services required to complete the thesis after completing the maximum number of hours of credit for thesis [5950], research [5900], and independent study [5990] in a thesis option.
HIS 5990: INDEPENDENT STUDY
Staff
Special permission of the department.
HIS 5991: NON-CREDIT INDEPENDENT STUDY
Staff
Special permission of the department.
