History Department

Catalog Additions and Changes, 2007-08

Changes in fall classes:

Hist 127 Islamic Civilization will be taught by Prof Aslanian.

Hist 183 will be taught by Prof. Byars.

Hist 226 Ancient Near East will be taught by Prof. Cooper.

Hist 322 Palestinian-Israeli Conflict is cancelled.

Hist 326 Roman Empire will be taught by Prof. Cooper.

New fall classes:

Hist 223 ST: Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals -- Prof. Aslanian

This course is an introduction to the history of the Islamic empires of the early modern period: the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. Beginning with the emergence of Islam in the seventh century C.E. and the spectacular conquests of the Turko-Mongol steppe peoples in the thirteenth century, the course goes on to examine the formation of Islamic states and societies in the years 1400 through 1900. Topics to be studied include: frontier warriors (ghazi) and the Turkic military patronage system; the creation of Sunni and Shi'i Islamic empires; ethnic and religious communities; women and gender; the role of merchants, the economy, and long distance trade; and urban history in all three empires. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which early modern empires sought to create centralized states and how they negotiated ethnic and religious differences while ruling over heterogeneous populations before the transformations of the nineteenth century and the rise of nation states. The format of the course will be lecture and discussion.

Hist 279 ST: Interwar Paris: The Left Bank and the Lost Generation -- Prof. Byars

This course will explore the dizzying collection of writers and artists who lived in Paris in the aftermath of World War I popularly known as the Lost Generation.  Disillusioned by the destruction of the Great War and purposefully rebelling against what they conceived to be the soullessness of modernity and the tight morality of the Victorians, Hemingway, Pound, Eliot, Fitzgerald and Joyce all made Paris their sometime home.  There they were nurtured by a literary scene fostered by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company Bookstore and the literary salon of Natalie Barney.  Through the works of these writers we will examine the literary community that allowed them to flourish, the historical context that determined the nature of their work, the unique and beautiful city that inspired them and the variety of modernity they espoused.  Students will read Lost Generation writers and secondary historical sources on the period.  A module on art, focusing on Picasso and Modigliani as well as a module on jazz will further flesh out the artistic climate of the age.  Grades will be determined by essays, classroom discussion and a reading journal.

Hist 380 ST: The Indian Ocean in World History -- Prof Aslanian

Description: The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the rapidly growing field of Indian Ocean studies. Our approach will be to study the Indian Ocean as one of the oldest maritime highways connecting diverse regions, cultures and “civilizations.” The time period for the course will roughly coincide with the emergence of Islam in the seventh century C.E. to the intrusion of various European powers into the region and the subsequent emergence of the global economy and colonialism in the nineteenth century. In studying the Indian Ocean “world” within the framework of global history, particular attention will be paid to the role of port cities and their networks and especially to a variety of sea-borne long distance merchant communities that facilitated the circulation of commodities, cultures, and ideas and in doing so helped to give shape to the Indian Ocean as a “unified” aquatic space in world history. We will rely on a variety of texts including primary sources such as travel literature, scholarly studies of the economic history of merchant communities, as well as Amitav Gosh's extraordinary novel of medieval life in the Indian Ocean, In an Antique Land. The format of the course will be lecture and discussion.

Changes in spring classes:

Hist 128 Islamic Civilization II will be taught by Prof Aslanian.

Hist 327 Ancient Greece will be taught by Prof. Cooper.

New spring classes:

--check back in the fall!