Seminars with space left

September 9, 2015
The following Fall 2015 departmental seminars may still have available space. To enroll, please email the instructor before showing up to class, where possible.
 
HIST 277J, Memory and History in Modern Europe
Jennifer Allen, T 9:25-11:15, HGS 217B
An interdisciplinary study of memory as both a tool in and an agent of modern European history. Collective memory; the media of memory; the organization and punctuation of time through commemorative practices; memory of the French Revolution; memory and rise of nationalism; memory in and of World Wars I and II; the relationship between memory of the Holocaust and the process of decolonization.
 
HIST 456J, Experiments in Writing History
Sophia Rosenfeld, T 1:30-3:20, RKZ 05
Key questions about how historians approach evidence, narrative, time, space, subject matter, and voice. Readings include classic examples of experimental and noteworthy history writing. Opportunity for framing historical research questions and crafting a substantial historical paper.
 
HIST 259J, Cosmopolitanism and the Nation State in Modern Europe
Isaac Nakhimovsky, T 1:30-3:20, WALL81 401 (PI)
Cosmopolitanism, patriotism, and nationalism in modern European intellectual history. Focus on eighteenth-century development of theories of the nation state. Readings from Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Sieyes, Herder, Fichte, Mazzini, J. S. Mill, Meinecke, Bauer, and Arendt, as well as contributions to contemporary historiography and political theory.
 
HIST 481J, Grand Narratives in Global History
Fabian Drixler, M 3:30-5:20, HGS 117
Analysis of recent attempts to find patterns and unifying narratives in the complexity of world history. Topics include the decline of violence, economic divergences and global inequality, geographic determinism, climate and history, human history and the biosphere, demographic and evolutionary perspectives on history, history as neurochemistry, and the shifting shape of world history from different geographical vantage points.
 
HIST 339J, Race, Religion, and Ethnicity in the Modern Middle East
Saghar Sadeghian, W 3:30-5:20, WLH 210
Concepts of citizenship and national identity in the Middle East with emphasis on Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the nineteen and twentieth centuries. Focus on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities; social and legal reforms; and human rights violations.
 
HIST 308J, History and Politics in Early China
Ann-Ping Chin, T 3:30-5:20, HGS 301 (PI)
How the history and politics of early China came to shape political thinking and policy debates in two thousand years of imperial rule.
 
HIST 182J, Gender in Science and Medicine
Courtney Thompson, W 1:30-3:20, HGS 217
Exploration of the relationship between gender and science, medicine, and technology in Western society, from the medieval and early modern period to contemporary American debates. Topics include gendered representations of the body; ways in which gender expectations have informed visual and material representations of the body; ways in which ideas about the natural world and medical practice have been shaped by gendered assumptions; the development of scientific theories and medical practices surrounding gender, sex, and reproduction; and debates surrounding the role of women and men in scientific and medical practice, from early modern scientists to recent controversies surrounding the role of gender in STEM. Class sessions at the Yale Medical School and the Peabody Museum.
 
HIST 228J, Venice and the Mediterranean, 1400-1700
Francesca Trivellato, T 1:30-3:20, RKZ 04 (PI)
Major issues in the history of Venice and the Mediterranean in the early modern period as they emerge from the works of historians and from a reading of primary sources in English translation. Topics include travel narratives, the organization of trade, slavery, Venetian republicanism, women and gender roles, the Inquisition, ethnic and religious minorities, and relations between East and West.
 
HIST 382J, Vietnamese History from Earliest Times to 1920
Benedict Kiernan, W 3:30-5:20, WLH 009 (PI)
Evolution of a Vietnamese national identity, from Chinese colonization to medieval statehood, to French conquest and capitalist development. The roles of Confucianism, Buddhism, gender, and ethnicity in the Southeast Asian context.
 
HIST 388J, Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa
Robert Harms, W 1:30-3:20, WLH 004 (PI)
The slave trade from the African perspective. Analysis of why slavery developed in Africa and how it operated. The long-term social, political, and economic effects of the Atlantic slave trade.
 
HIST 253J, Culture, Dissidence, and Control in Golden Age Spain
Maria Jordan, T 9:25-11:15, LC 207 (PI)
Aspects of Spanish culture and society in the Golden Age (c. 1550–1650) that demonstrate discontent, dissidence, and suggestions for reform. Emphasis on the intersection of historical and literary sources and the dynamic between popular and elite cultures.
 
HIST 272J, Russia in the Age of Revolution, 1890-1924
Sara Brinegar, Th 2:30-4:20, WHC B-04
The end of the Russian empire and the creation of the Soviet Union, including World War I, the Russian Civil War, and three major revolutions. Processes and forces that led to massive political and social changes between 1905 and 1924; connections among radical ideas, social movements, war, and political change.
 
HIST 387J, West African Islam: Jihad Tradition and its Pacifist Opponents
Lamin Sanneh, T 2:30-4:20, CO493 103
The influence of Islam on state and society, and the encounters of Muslim Africans first with non-Muslim societies in Africa and then with the modern West in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Focus on Muslim religious attitudes and responses to the secular national state and to the Western tradition of the separation of church and state.
 
HIST 420J, Photography and the Sciences
Chitra Ramalingam, Th 1.30-3.20 WALL81 401
The making of photography’s discursive identity as an experimental and evidentiary medium in the sciences, from its announcement to the public in 1839 to the digital innovations of the present. Historical and archival perspectives on uses for photography in different fields of the natural and human sciences. Use of photographic image collections in the Peabody Museum and the Beinecke Library.
 
HIST 449J, The United States and the International System, 1776-1920
Patrick Cohrs, M 1:30-3:20, RKZ 04           
The transformation of the modern international system and of America’s role in this system from the American Revolution to the Paris peace conference. Underlying causes of international conflicts; the Vienna and Versailles peace settlements; the Monroe Doctrine; international relations in the era of imperialism; the emergence of the United States as a world power; Woodrow Wilson’s pursuit of a “peace to end al