History is a discipline in the liberal arts and sciences, which collectively constitute the foundation of your education here at Butler. As such, you will gain in this class an introduction to the ways in which the humanities and social sciences strive to understand the world, in this case via an historical perspective. We are all products of our past, in some sense, so by semester’s end you should be able to see more clearly some of the links between the political and economic issues of today and those of earlier centuries. We will also focus on developing particular skills that are central to the liberal arts: the close and careful reading of texts, clear and concise expository writing, critical thinking, and the ability to conduct research.
American Visions – HS 226 Ryan Anderson
We will use memoir, autobiography, and fiction (none of which are all that distinct from each other) to explore US history and come to some sort of understanding of how both everyday people and important figures explained their times. Our readings focus on a “flashpoint” in the nation’s story, such as The American Revolution, The Great Depression, and The Civil Rights Movement. We will take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding why different commentators wrote about an event or movement’s importance in the way they did. In doing so, we will come to some understanding of why and how people explained their lives to future generations and what that tells us about what they witnessed.
By the end of the semester you will know more about US history and will have broadened your understanding of how history is read outside of the academy, how regular people write and view history, and your own place within recent events. We will do this by combining lecture, writing, class discussion, and peer evaluation. My lectures provide a big picture backdrop that contextualizes our writers’ stories. Each week you will read a portion of one of the common readings or your assigned supplementary reading and come to class prepared to participate in discussion. At mid-semester you will begin writing your own memoir, setting it within a topical framework that says something about the historical legacies shaping your life at the turn of the 21st century.
By structuring the class in this fashion, we will tie the inspection of history into the larger meaning of studying within the liberal arts. You will not only gain a better understanding of the human condition, but also sharpen your writing abilities, your critical thinking skills, and a self-awareness of your place within the larger world.
History of Africa – HS 320 William W. Neher
Course Description: A survey of African history, from prehistoric times to the present with emphasis on developments in sub-Saharan Africa. The peoples of Africa and their history are a significant part of the human heritage, although often little-known or understood, especially in the United States or the “West” in general. A basic purpose of a liberal education is to make the world more understandable. History is intended to make your world comprehensible in revealing the complexities of human experiences and challenges unfolding over time.
Course Objectives: Students will be able to explain--
Physical and geographical setting of the Continent in terms of effects on human development and history.
The role of the development and diffusion of agriculture and iron-working technology.
Development of early historic cultures and states.
Linguistic evidence for human migration and interaction in Africa.
Impact of international trade on state formation and development.
The impact of Islam on African history.
The historical development and impact of the African slave trade.
The causes for the "Scramble for Africa."
Varieties of African resistance and reaction to European colonization.
Characteristics of the colonial systems and impact on African history.
Historical stages of African Nationalism.
Patterns of African Independence.
The Individual and Society in Europe, 1600-1850 – HS 324 P. Hanson
The liberal arts, broadly speaking, examine the human condition from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. In this course we will be focusing on how ordinary people lived their lives between 1600 and 1850. Some of what you encounter this semester will startle you (people did not, for example, think about family, death or themselves in quite the same way 400 years ago as we do today), even as you will be reassured to learn that some things have not changed so much (parents could be tyrants, for example, even back in the the 17th century). Learning about how Europeans lived their lives in the past should lead most of you to ponder, at least a bit, how you propose to live yours in the years ahead. We aspire, in the liberal arts, to think critically about the world and our place in it, to reflect on past experience and the experiences of others. To accomplish these things the skills of careful reading, articulate discussion, and cogent writing are all essential, and we will work to hone those skills throughout the semester.
History of Children and Youth – HS 331 John Cornell
During this semester, we will study the history of children and youth in the United States from the colonial era to the present. Our starting point is to recognize childhood as a social construction and not as an enduring “natural” state. We will begin by looking at the very different childhoods of European colonists, Native Americans, and African-American slaves. We will map out new ideas about childhood introduced in the Victorian era, and the ways these values played out in middle-class homes, in those of urban immigrants, and out on the frontier. We will explore conditions rapidly reshaping children’s lives in the twentieth century with the spread of schooling, suburbanization, the emergence of pervasive and powerful new media (like TV and computers), and the shifting economic basis for families (e.g. women at work). Our goal is to place current debates about “family values”, the condition of schools, welfare, no-child-left-behind, kids and computers, etc., into historical perspective. The purpose of a liberal arts education is to subject our needs and desires (in this case, to provide young people with a “good” childhood) to informed, rational, critical scrutiny, in order to make good decisions for ourselves--and for the children in our care. The historian’s contribution to this project is to show the ways in which our expectations for “childhood” depend upon a dense array of economic, cultural, social, and political conditions, all of which are historically contingent.
American Constitutional History – HS 347 Allen Sharp
A basic understanding of law is essential to any liberal education. This class will study the historical, political, and philosophical developments that led to the creation, adoption, ratification, and evolution of the United States Constitution. Students will learn about the United States Supreme Court’s role as an important policymaker. A wide range of historical events will be discussed, from the issuance of the Magna Carta to F.D.R.’s court-packing plan to Roe v. Wade. The course will also deal with contemporary issues, such as free speech, privacy, and the expansion of the Executive power.
Race (and Ethnicity in the US) – HS 354 Vivian Deno
In the opening years of the twentieth century the nation’s great intellectual figure, W.E.B. Dubois prophesied that the color line would be the problem of the century, and he was right. The twentieth century started with a bloody struggle over Jim Crow and ended in a pitched battle over Affirmative Action. In-between the conversation about race turned into a bitter argument with both sides refusing to yield ground. In this class, I hope to jumpstart a conversation about the importance of race to the nation’s development—past and present. Moreover, I hope to broaden the discussion and its focus by moving away from the traditional binary of black versus white, to a focus on the multiple histories (and thus futures) of race in the nation. Central to these efforts will be our exploration of several themes: 1) the configuration of race and citizenship; 2) the mutually constitutive relationship between race and class; 3) the interplay between race, science, national identity, and sexuality; and 4) an exploration of the cultural representations of racial and ethnic identity in the modern US.
The skills learned and/or polished in the course—open dialogue, deep reflection, engaged reading, and critical enquiry and research—are essential to History as a discipline and to the methods of a liberal arts education. Traditionally a liberal arts education has trained individuals to become good citizens. In this course we interrogate the raced and gendered foundations of US citizenship—cultural, political, and economic—as a means to better understand the history the US. In order to do so we will use the methods of a liberal arts education as we grapple with the complexities of race and ethnicity in the US as an historical artifact, a lived present, and a shadow future even as we pursue a teleogical agenda that produces better global citizens rather than national citizens.
Historical Method and Historiography – HS 357 George Geib
People sometimes ask me what benefit there is to studying history, and I normally respond by talking about the things that brought me to the discipline: its narrative power, its fascinating content, and its insights regarding the human condition. I try to avoid making too much of the fact that we are “chronological,” or that “we deal with the past,” because many disciplines do this. History originated among individuals who were performing a civic function: training free citizens to understand and exercise the powers that their freedom conferred upon them. The nature, and the applications, of such power are still at the heart of much of what we discuss. Our discussions often take the form of finding solutions to problems. Many in fact argue that we are thus an “adductive” discipline. The methods, the discipline, that you encounter this semester should be applicable to a wide range of questions and chronological periods. Our methods incorporate critical inquiry: phrasing good questions, doing close evaluative reading of documents, formulating and testing hypotheses, and drawing reasoned conclusions from available evidence. Our methods incorporate a heavy emphasis upon research, both in libraries and electronic databases. Our methods require communication as speakers, discussants, and writers. In all these ways, history is very relevant to a liberal arts education. There may be few true “history” jobs out there, but there are a vast number of positions that demand critical thinking, research expertise, and articulate communication.
History of Vietnam – HS 372/AN380 Xiaorong Han
This seminar course examines the different perspectives of Vietnamese history and the diverse cultures of Vietnam with a focus on the modern period. It will explore such themes as Chinese and French colonialism in Vietnam, Nationalism and Communism, tradition and revolution, and peasants and revolutionaries. It covers the Vietnam War (or the America War) as a part of Vietnam’s long history and will locate the war in a broad historical, political and cultural context. In so doing it aspires to contribute to acquiring a fuller view of human experience, nurturing an understanding and appreciation of a unique cultural tradition, and challenging some of the established beliefs and assumptions, which are among the goals of liberal arts education.