History 641

History 641
Research Seminar in Modern European History:
Europe from the Periphery
Spring 2008
Prof. Auerbach
Tuesdays, 4:20-6:50 pm
Sierra Hall 186

Description: For centuries, modern European history has been told from a European or Western perspective. Scholars know a lot about how Europeans saw themselves and how they portrayed the people and places they came into contact with, but very little about how non-European people viewed Europe, European people, European ideas, and what are generally regarded as European events. This course seeks to redress this imbalance by looking at modern European history through non-European eyes. During the first half of the semester the class will read and discuss selected travel narratives, secondary sources, and theoretical works. During the second half of the semester each student will write a 15-20 page research paper based on primary sources and deliver a brief presentation on their findings. Possible topics include the Spanish Conquest (from the perspective of the Nahua); the Slave Trade (from the perspective of a freed slave); Industrialization (from the perspective of a Japanese samurai); Turn-of-the-Century London (from the perspective of Australian tourists); and the First World War (from the perspective of Indian soldiers stationed in Europe).

Books: (A complete listing of readings and assignments may be found on the syllabus)

Ian Buruma and Avi Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies (Penguin, 2004)
Susan Gibson Miller, ed., Disorienting Encounters: Travels of a Moroccan Scholar in France in 1845-1846 (1992)
Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (2004)
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (Northwestern, 1988)
Joe Lunn, Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (Heinemann, 1999)

Articles:

Edward Said, Orientalism
Stuart Schwartz, Implicit Understandings
Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions
Louis Montrose, "The Work of Gender in the Discourse of Discovery"
Mary Louise Pratt, "Scratches on the Face of the Country"
Nabil Matar, In the Lands of the Christians
Bernard lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe

Images: (Top Right) Al-Idrisi's map of the world, 1456. Al-Idrisi was a Muslim scholar in the court of King Roger II of Sicily during the 12th century. Orignally drawn with south at the top, this example has been inverted for easier viewing; (Bottom Left) African wood statue of Queen Victorian, nineteenth century.