HIST 280 Topics

“Brexit and the Northern Ireland Troubles”

This course will look at the turbulent history of Northern Ireland in the twentieth century, and the re-emergence of community tensions in the wake of the 2016 BREXIT vote in the UK.  We will consider the course of the “Troubles” of Northern Ireland from a historical context, while also recognizing that, viewed from a global perspective, such political conflict is far from unique. During the course of the semester, students will be tasked with constructing a research paper that compares and contrasts the Northern Irish conflict with another ethnic/political/societal conflict across the globe.

“African American Autobiography”

This seminar will examine representative autobiographical works of African Americans over the course of the twentieth century. Our list of readings will include a broad array of famous black leaders, writers, and sports figures such as Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Jackie Robinson, Malcolm X, and Barack Obama. However, the course will also introduce you to lesser-known figures who have made important contributions to American history and their communities. The course has several objectives: to introduce you to some of the most important literature in the field of African American history; to encourage you to think more broadly about African American leadership and the varied and multifaceted roles that Black men and women have played throughout history; to assist you in developing or sharping your critical and analytical skills; and to encourage you to write a short paper of approximately 10 to 12 pages in length, using both primary and secondary sources, on some individual of your choice.

“The Vietnam War/The American War”

This is a writing-intensive course that introduces students majoring in history to the craft of the profession through a variety of strategies and techniques, such as lectures, discussions, work with primary and secondary sources, writing laboratories. All these will help students in their successful completion of a research project related to the subject of the course – the wars in Vietnam in the twentieth century. The course will cover history of the foreign involvements in Vietnam in the twentieth century as well as Vietnamese internal conflicts that contributed to these wars. It will consider origins and development of hostilities, wartime societies, culture, collaboration, resistance, colonialism, nationalism, and the outcomes of the wars. The course will also address effects of the war on the United States as one of the major players in the armed conflicts in Vietnam. The final product of the course will be a research paper that will bring together students’ skills developed in both parts of the course.

“Paris at War in the Long-Nineteenth Century”

HIST 280, the Historian’s Craft, is designed for those students majoring in history. In this course, we will consider the role of history and historians in our society and examine what historians do, why they do it, how they do it, and the relevance of all of this to our society. We will learn how scholars identify important questions related to a specific historical period as well as the skills they use to write about their varied topics, including identifying relevant primary and secondary sources, analyzing evidence, discussing it with others,  and constructing an argument based on it. We will practice the historian's craft in this seminar by exploring how war influenced social, political, and cultural dynamics in France's capital city during the long-nineteenth century. Through a series of case studies- 1848 Revolutions, 1870 Franco-Prussian War/1871 Paris Commune, and World War 1- we will examine how historical changes influenced ideas about and the practice of war in France and her colonies, paying particular attention to how these changes affected the daily lives of Paris’s varied inhabitants.

“The US Mexican Borderlands”

This is a writing-intensive course on the discipline of history through the topic of the United States-Mexican Borderlands. Students will learn about the process of border-making, the emergence of the nation-state, identities, state-sanctioned and non-state sanctioned violence, the way in which gender, labor, race, ethnicity and space has been defined/used/negotiated and contested in the borderlands, and other themes associated with the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. In many ways, the U.S.-Mexican borderlands exemplify how the nation-state can both be transgressed and upheld with complex daily negotiations in-between. Emphasis will be given to the historiography and research methodologies of this topic; we will consider the role of history and historians and what historians do. Through an overview of this particular borderland students will learn about the major historical writings of this topic. This course is designed to provide history majors and those interested in pursuing related careers, a hands-on learning experience by focusing on developing and strengthening critical reading, writing, and analytical skills essential to the discipline of history and other professions. This is an intensive writing (W) course and certain days will be reserved as ‘writing workshops’ in & outside of class.

“Popular Culture in Early 20th Century America”

Over the course of the semester, we will explore the ways in which popular culture informed experiences from 1890 through 1940. Popular culture manifests in many ways, including sports, dance, magazines, cartoons, music, theater, toys, food, and language. Through analysis of primary and secondary materials, we will examine how the patterns of popular culture show us both the stability of everyday traditions and the potential for change in the actions of “ordinary” people. Students will develop original research papers supported by primary and secondary sources.