GRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS -- SPRING 2015
Below you will find descriptions for the graduate courses which we are offering in Spring semester. All graduate classes are restricted and you must contact the instructor for admission to the course and a permission number.
It is important to meet regularly (once a semester) with the graduate coordinator to discuss your program and to make sure that you are taking a mix of courses that will lead to graduation. You can make an appointment with Dr. Oliver by calling the History department office (818)677-3566.
History 541: Modern European History W 1600-1845 SH279 Dr. Donal O’Sullivan
The course provides students with a differentiated overview of significant historiographical debates in Modern European History since the French Revolution. Each week, we will address a major debate by studying ground-breaking contributions and discussing the merits of different approaches. The emphasis will be on developing the skills to assess scholarly debates in their respective context and be able to critically analyze their contributions to the discipline. Students should have a general overview of recent European history (1789-1989), gained from participating in a lower-level survey class or through self-study. This course will be extremely challenging for students who have not taken a survey class. The course will deepen the understanding of history as a continuous conversation as well as improving debating and writing skills.
History 546: The Holocaust and Genocide for Educators R 1600-1845 SH268 Dr. Beth Cohen
The Holocaust was a turning point in modern history, changing the world and our thinking about humanity. In this course, we will explore the background, evolution and aftermath of this cataclysmic event. We will start with the roots of antisemtism, study the Armenian Genocide and Jewish life before WWll, analyze the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, confront the “Final Solution” and its antecedents, and after to the reverberations of the Holocaust in our own day. Using a range of sources including historical documents, diaries, and film, we will raise complex questions for which there are no facile answers: How did this happen? Was it inevitable? What do we learn about the worst and best of human behavior? These are some of the issues we will probe as we grapple with this complicated history. Our class will depend on reading, writing and critical thinking. It will combine a study of history with innovative pedagogical strategies emphasizing interactive work that includes group activities, writing, films, speakers, and discussion.
History 577: A Colloquium in United States Social and Intellectual History Focused on Slavery and the Civil War Thur 1900-2145 SH288 Dr. Joyce Broussard
This colloquium focuses on the historical controversies in the study of slavery in the U. S. South from the Colonial era through the Civil War. Among the themes explored are the origins of slavery, its changing legal framework, slavery and American capitalism, the slave family, the domestic slave trade, slave markets and slave traders, plantation slavery, white/black sexual relations, runaway slaves and the underground railroad, abolitionism as well as the defense of slavery, gender relations within slavery, slave conspiracies, and the role of the enslaved during the Civil War. Students will read and discuss a number of key books during the semester, present a critical précis on a select book dealing with a particular topic, actively participate in class discussion, and develop a culminating historiographic essay on a specific aspect of slavery treated by scholars in the field.
History 596G: Colloquium on Colonial and Modern North American Borderlands M 1900-2145 SH288 Dr. John Paul Nuno
This course will survey recent scholarship that utilizes Borderlands frameworks in order to gain new understandings of colonial and modern North American history. The emerging field of Borderlands History challenges and complicates nationalistic narratives that narrow intellectual queries to topics that ultimately buttress and explain the existence of the nation-state. Conversely, borderlands frameworks explore geopolitical and sociocultural spaces where power is contested and negotiated. Specifically, this class will explore colonial spaces in the Southwest and Southeast where indigenous, African, and European peoples engaged in economic, political, and social relationships while creating societies that experienced both change and continuity. In the nineteenth century, we will examine how borderland areas were affected by the emergence of strong nation-states. Our twentieth century studies will focus on transnational movements associated with immigration, flows of capital, and cross-cultural influence.
History 601: Theory and History M 1600-1845 SH257 Dr. Miriam Neirick
Prerequisite: Classified standing. Sophisticated, graduate-level introduction to history as a discipline. Surveys the development of history as a discipline, examines the various genres of historical writing, explores issues and problems of historical interpretation, and considers the how historians use theoretical models from other disciplines to shape their work. Readings include seminal works by major historians.
History 681: History of California R 1600-1845 SH288 Dr. Josh Sides
History 681 is a graduate research seminar in the history of California. In addition to reading key historiographical works, students will conduct their own original research on a topic, developed in consultation with the professor. Upon completion of the course, graduate students should understand the most essential historiographical debates about California's past; be familiar with a number of specific historical research methods; have completed original, primary research; have written an original, 25-page paper.
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