Spring 2023

Downloadable Spring 2023 Course Offerings (PDF)

PERSPECTIVES ON HISTORY:  COLD WAR, COUP AND THE CIA IN GUATEMALA
50:509:299:01
Cross listed with:  50:480:390:01
M/W 2:05 PM – 3:25 PM
Professor Thomas
GEN ED: W (Writing Course)

This course trains history majors in the craft of reading and writing history. We will focus on a tumultuous period in Guatemalan history between 1944-1954, during which political leaders of the Cold War-dominated United States orchestrated a coup that ousted Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz.  Using both primary sources (newspaper articles and declassified CIA documents, for example) and secondary sources that illustrate the changing interpretations of historians over time, we will investigate the motivations for the coup, how it was planned and executed, and what impact it had both in Guatemala and in the United States.  Students will spend much of the semester mastering three sets of skills: how to assess the ways historians have analyzed the past using archival sources; how to perform close readings of documents themselves; and how to write clearly and persuasively about historical interpretations of a variety of sources.  Students will practice connecting these skills in a 15-page final paper analyzing the origins, outcomes, and impact of the coup.  Course requirements also include a variety of short writing assignments that build up to the larger piece of writing, and formal and informal presentations of source analysis.

Get your hands on history: This is an individualized opportunity to gain knowledge of local and regional history while contributing to a public history project based at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers-Camden. The options include historic house research and curatorship for the Cooper Street Historic District and research and digital publishing for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. In addition to readings in local and regional history, students will be provided with training and ongoing supervision and feedback while working approximately six hours per week on-site on their selected projects (or remotely if the center is not open). This course is by arrangement, with permission of the instructor, and is open to juniors and seniors with a GPA of 3.0 and above.

UNDERGRADUATE INTERNSHIP
50:509:475:01
By Arrangement Professor Woloson  

A supervised internship, usually unpaid, at a museum, historical society, archive, or library

WESTERN CIVILIZATION I
50:510:101:90
Online
Professor Fischer
GEN ED:  HAC (Heritages and Civilizations)

This course is an introduction to the major historical developments in the history of western society and its intellectual tradition.  Secondarily, it is also an introduction to the uses of history itself.  Our survey will consider ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome, Medieval Europe, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of nation-states in Europe.  To understand the history of the west in a larger context, we will examine it in relation to the history of the Middle East, particularly at points of contact such as the Crusades.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEAN
50:510:322:01
T/TH 2:00 pm – 3:20 pm 
Professor Mokbheri
GEN ED:  GCM (Global Communities), G (Global Studies)

SPECIAL TOPICS:  MARIE ANTOINETTE
50:510:380:01
Cross listed with:  50:443:490:02
T/TH 11:10 am – 12:30 pm 
Professor Mokhberi
GEN ED:  GCM (Global Communities), G (Global Studies)

This course focuses on the life and legacy of Queen Marie Antoinette of France.  Students will learn about the powerful queens and mistresses prior to Marie and examine the way formidable women throughout the world projected their authority through art, fashion, music, dance, and theater.  The class then traces the life of Marie Antoinette from her arrival at the palace of Versailles to her journey to the Guillotine.  The Queen became an object of criticism that reflected the anxieties around a women’s role and politics of gender during the French Revolution. Students will examine depictions of Marie, including lampoons and pornography that vilified her. T he myths around Marie Antoinette will anchor a debate about the place of women and other marginalized groups in society in the past and today.

DEVELOPMENT OF UNITED STATES I
50:512:201:01
M/W 9:35 am – 10:55 am 
Professor Ingersoll
GEN ED:  USW (United States in the World)

This general survey course is designed to trace the development of the United States from First Contact through the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, this course will examine the origin of European settlement in what became the United States, the ideologies that led to, and shaped, the American Revolution, the cultural, political, and economic development of the US during the Early Republic, the issues of Antebellum America, as well as the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

DEVELOPMENT OF UNITED STATES II
50:512:202:01
online/asynchronous
Professor Riley

AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY II
50:512:204:01
M/W 2:05 pm – 3:25 pm 
Professor Boyd
GEN ED:  DIV (Multicultural Diversity in the US), D (Diversity)

This course provides an overview of the major events and developments in African American history from 1877 to the present.  Starting with Reconstruction, the course traces African Americans’ quest for freedom through the Jim Crow Era, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.  It then examines key political, social, and cultural developments of the post-war period focusing on social movements such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, Black Feminism, and the Prisoners’ Rights movement. We will end with a discussion on race in the Obama years and the Black Lives Matter movement. 

SPECIAL TOPICS:  WORLD WAR II
50:512:281:01
M/W 12:30 pm – 1:50 pm 
Professor Epstein
GEN ED:  USW (United States in the World)

World War II never loses its fascination.  The greatest catastrophe of the 20^th century.  It caused the deaths of some 60 million people, the large majority of whom were civilians.  To understand the origins of the war, we will begin with World War I, and then trace the collapse of the fragile postwar peace in the 1920s and 1930s.   By the time the United States entered World War II, it had been raging for years in Asia and Europe.  We will study the famous battles, campaigns, weapons, and leaders familiar from popular accounts of the war.  But we will also examine how the combatants mobilized their economies and societies, how they developed the logistical capacity to project combat power across oceans and continents, how everyday people and soldiers experienced the war, how the war and the Holocaust were related, and how the war generated new calls for decolonization and human rights.  Last but not least, we will explore how the war changed the international order: vaulting the United States to superpower status, hastening the end of the European empires, leading to the establishment of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, and setting the stage for the Cold War.

The course is designed to be both accessible to non-History majors and rewarding for History majors.  It is approved for General Education credit in the “United States in the World” (USW) category.

CITY AND SUBURBAN AMERICA
50:512:364:01
By Arrangement
Professor Mires
GEN ED:  XPL (Experimental Learning)

This online, asynchronous course will lead students on an exploration of the histories of Philadelphia, Camden, and the surrounding region of southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and northern Delaware.  In addition to online illustrated lectures, the assignments will include finding original historical materials in digital archives and visiting one or more historic places in person.  As a culmination, each student will design and research a walking or driving tour organized around a topic, person, or place of personal interest.  By learning about our local region, students will gain a greater understanding of the development of cities and suburbs in the United States.

SPECIAL TOPICS:  UNITED STATES DISABILITY HISTORIES
50:512:380:01
T/TH 3:35 pm – 4:55 pm 
Professor Belolan
GEN ED:  ECL (Engaged Civic Learning)

This class will provide you with an overview of disability history from the colonial era to the present day.  We will consider how different people experienced disability over time; how disability intersected with race, class, and gender; the relationship between disability and medicine; and how and why ableism (or discrimination in favor of able-bodied people) shaped and continues to shape the lived experience of disability.  This is a reading- and discussion-intensive, collaborative class that will feature short lectures and hands-on learning through visual and material culture.  We will discuss historical content but also historical connections to contemporary disability justice issues such as those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Students will also gain foundational skills in inclusive and accessible communication techniques they can use in any field such as medicine, secondary education, municipal services, and architecture and design, and history. 

INTRODUCTORY TOPICS IN WORLDS HISTORY:  FRANCE, AFRICA, THE CARIBBEAN
50:516:280:01
Cross listed with:  50:014:381:03, 50:480:392:01
M/W 12:30 pm – 1:50 pm 
Professor Marker
GEN ED:  HAC (Heritages and Civilizations), G (Global Studies)

Today there are some three hundred million people who speak French around the world, even though the population of European France is only 65 million.  This is the result of four hundred years of French empire-building and colonial rule around the world.  In this course, we will focus on the complex web of French relations with Africa and the Caribbean, where French activity overseas started earliest and where French influence lasted longest. Indeed, close to half of the world’s French-speaking population today lives in Africa, and there are parts of the Greater Caribbean that are still completely integrated parts of France, just like Hawaii and Alaska are parts of the United States.  This course will explore tensions between the development of European France’s unique political culture of revolutionary republicanism, individual and social rights, and secularism on the one hand, and the history of imperial expansion, slavery, racism, and colonial violence in the French Afro-Atlantic World on the other.  Although the core of the course will examine the colonial period, we will also consider the legacies of empire since the 1960s and the relationships between France, Africa, and the Caribbean today.

This course examines the political, economic, social, and military history of the United States from the 1860s through the 1970s. The course will also examine the roles played by ethnicity, race, gender, class, the development of a national market economy, and the emergence of a powerful national state in shaping ideas about American identity and its place in the world.

MODERN CHINA
50:512:346:01
T/TH 3:35 pm – 4:55 pm
Professor Kapur
GEN ED:  GCM (Global Communities), G (Global Studies)

This course will examine the history of China and the Chinese people from the collapse of the  Ming Dynasty to the present time, including political, social, economic, and cultural developments. We will examine the rise of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the partition of China into “spheres of influence” following the Opium War, the nationalist and communist revolutions of the 20th century, the disasters of Maoist rule, and China’s recent reemergence as an economic powerhouse while still facing many pressing social issues.
This course falls under the following History concentrations: Business, Finance, & Economics; Culture, Literature, & Art; Empires, Imperialism, & Colonialism; Gender, Sexuality, & Society; International Relations and Global Affairs; Law, Politics, & Government; Race, Ethnicity, & Immigration; Religion, Philosophy, & Ideas; Science, Technology, & Medicine; War, Peace, & Diplomacy; World Cultures & Civilizations; China, Japan, & Asia.