History department releases fall 2008 registration info
Getting started
Advising week begins March 24. Don’t wait until the last minute to consult your advisor. Give thought to your schedule before the meeting. Since sabbaticals and the arrival of new faculty may have changed your assignment, an updated list of advisee/advisors are posted on bulletin boards located on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors of Ryland Hall.
Registration dates
The first round of online registration will begin April 8.
Major/Minor requirements
Check out the department's major/minor requirements. Please note that History 100 is required for the major: AP credit will not exempt you from that requirement.
Advice for Minors
History minors who need advice should consult with Professor West.
Troubleshooting
If you are not on the advising list, consult with Mrs. Govoruhk in Ryland 319. If you are a double major or have only recently declared history, your PIN might have gone to your other or previous advisor.
Course lists
A list of fall 2008 history courses by category is available.
Enrollment caps
Some seats in the History 400 research seminars have been reserved for graduate students. The enrollment caps are set accordingly. Once we know, toward the end of August, the seminars in which the graduate students have enrolled, we will adjust the number of seats available. Majors will be informed when that adjustment is made.
Internships
Internships are available at the many libraries, museums and historic sites in the Richmond area. If you wish to do an internship, please consult with Professor Treadway right away. Do not delay, as securing an internship involves applying to, and having an interview at, your chosen agency.
Directed study
To qualify to take History 401 you must have completed five history courses. To register, you must secure agreement from a faculty member to direct your work and approval from the department chair.
Sabbaticals
Keep in mind that professors Holton, Sackley, Summers and Watts will be on sabbatical next fall.
Visiting faculty
We are honored to have three distinguished people from outside the department teach courses for us this fall:
- Don Doyle. Professor Doyle is our Douglas Southall Freeman Visiting Professor for this year. He comes to us from the University of South Carolina. He is the author of many books, the most recent, Nationalism and the New World (2006). He will be teaching a course for us in the fall on Southern history.
- Erna Brodber. Professor Brodher is a visiting professor from the University of West Indies, Jamaica. Professor Brodber will be teaching a course on African Caribbean/African relations.
- Victor Rodriguez. Professor Rodriguez is completing his Ph.D. at UCLA. He will be teaching courses in Latin American and world history.
New courses
The following courses will be taught for the first time or by new instructors:
History 261. Modern Latin American History. Professor Rodriguez. This course explores major social, cultural, economic and political developments in Latin America from the period following the Wars of Independence to the present. Attention will be paid not only to such dramatic events as the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions, but also to such long term processes as state formation, rural-urban migration, industrialization, modernization, service sector expansion, social hierarchies, cultural transformations, and changing gender roles. The course will offer different historical interpretations to problems such as racism, persistent poverty and political repression. It will study how subordinated groups in Latin America—peasants, workers, women and people of color—have historically experienced and challenged social hierarchies. Also, the course will pay close attention to the ideas, culture and power of the elites and the middle classes. Simultaneously, we will examine Latin America’s changing relations with the outside world, and particularly with its powerful neighbor to the north.
History 299-01. Jacksonian America. Professor Halperin. Americans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries experimented with government, politics, economics, religions, and social arrangements. While many embraced the new, most Americans felt deeply ambivalent about what they saw and thought, and how they acted. Many had misgivings about the effect factories, cities, political parties, the acquisition of new territory, and the expansion of slavery for example would have on the American union and their experiment with republican government and society. On the other hand, some of these the same people could also celebrate these changes as progress. This course will explore what defined America and what did it meant to be an American in the United States from 1780s through 1840s.
History 299-02. Faulkner and Southern History. Professor Doyle. This course will examine the ways fiction can illuminate history and vice versa by exploring the world William Faulkner created in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. The place and the people were fictional but they were grounded in the very real history of the place, Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner lived most of his life. Besides linking the "apocryphal" with the "actual," as Faulkner put it, we will be reading Faulkner's interpretation of the southern past, from the dispossession of the Indians, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the rise of the New South in the modern era. Among the works we will be reading are several of Faulkner's short stories; The Unvanquished; The Portable Faulkner; Absalom, Absalom!; Intruder in the Dust; and we will be viewing several film adaptations of Faulkner's fiction. Among the history texts we will be using will be Doyle's Faulkner's County: The Historical Roots of Yoknapatawpha. Grading will be based on class discussion and paper assignments that ask students to analyze history and Faulkner's interpretation of the past.
History 299-03. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A Survey on Modern World History. Professor Rodriguez. This course provides an introduction to some of the most important historical processes that made the modern world since the middle of the 19th century, including imperialism and nationalism, revolution and fascism, decolonization and cold war politics, industrialization and the expansion of the service sector, “globalization” and immigration, state expansion and neo-liberalism. Certainly, the course is not intended to give students a comprehensive and complete synthesis of world events over the last two centuries, an impossible task for a semester. Instead, by drawing on primary sources and selective bibliographical readings, the course emphasizes historical process of connection, dialogue, conflict and influence that took place across nations, regions and continents. Throughout, the course pays particular attention to the formation of gender, sexuality, class and race, and their critical importance to shaping historical experiences and political struggle.
History 299-04. African Caribbean/African American Relations 1782-1944. Professor Brodber. This course looks at the occasions of and the nature of the interaction of African Caribbean peoples and African Americans between 1782 when loyalists and their enslaved workers left the USA for some Caribbean islands, and 1944 when the ownership of property ceased to be a requirement for the suffrage and black people who were the poorest in Caribbean societies, could now participate in government by voting. We will pay special attention to the part played by women in facilitating the interaction between these two groups of descendants of Africans enslaved in the New World.
History 299-05. American Environmental History, 1865-2000. Professor Checkovich. This course is a survey of major trends in American land uses and environmental challenges, with an emphasis on the twentieth century. Topics include nature's role in shaping daily life; America's role in shaping global economics; the development of federal policies; varieties of environmentalism; technology and the built environment; and methods historians use to assess environmental health, risk, and sustainability.
History 299-06. History of American Medicine. Professor Checkovich. This course surveys health care in America since the colonial era. Topics include social histories of public health and disease; the development of medical institutions; professionalization and its impact upon the doctor-patient relationship; the evolution of the relationship between health and social structure; and popular ideas about the body and healing.
History 399-01. American Identities. Professor Yellin. How have Americans come to define themselves to each other? How and when have divisions that we often take for granted -- such as categories of race, gender, or class -- been formed and changed over the twentieth century in the United States? In this upper-division colloquy, we will analyze and discuss the historical construction of identities that have shaped American social, cultural, and political life. The seminar will focus around key moments and groups and examine their histories in depth. Such groups include, women and men, black, white, Latino and Asian Americans, gay, queer, and straight Americans, as well as broader identities like "immigrants" and "workers." Most importantly, no single American claims only one identity, so we will talk about how all of these identities have interacted, overlapped, and influenced each other in the twentieth century.
History 399-02. Crisis in the Late Middle Ages. Professor Routt. Explores the historiography of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe, an era often labeled as an “age of adversity” or an “age of crisis” but more properly viewed as a transitional era in which not only medieval political, social, economic, and cultural edifices crumbled but new patterns of life and thought emerged and pointed the way to early modernity. The course’s topics include, among others, the demographic and economic transformation of Europe (Great Famine and Black Death); popular rebellion; the church in crisis (Avignon papacy, Great Schism, the conciliar movement, and the Renaissance papacy); the erosion of the scholastic synthesis; the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses; and medieval attitudes toward death and dying.
Research seminars
Three research seminars will be offered this semester:
History 400-01. 1970s America. Professor Yellin. For many Americans -- including professional historians -- the 1960s stands as the pivotal post-World War II decade. But what came next would have as much, if not more, impact on how we live our lives today. In this research seminar, students will design and pursue original research projects looking at key events and topics from the 1970s. When did schools in Virginia actually begin to desegregate? How did Richard Nixon’s promises of a return to “law and order” play out in national and local politics? What happened to Rock 'n' Roll after Woodstock? Through specific topics such as these, students will explore the political, social, and cultural history of the United States in the 1970s.
History 400-02 Soviet Identity. Professor Brandenberger. This seminar deals with questions of identity in Soviet society, ranging from ethnic and class loyalties to those revolving around gender, profession and class. Participants spend the first few weeks reading and discussing a common syllabus and then proceed to focus on topics of their own choosing. All are encouraged to contact Professor Brandenberger for further information or an optional summer reading list.
History 400-03. Empires in Asia. Professor Loo. Empires have a long history in Asia. By the 15th century, Asia had already seen the rise and fall of the Sri Vijaya and Majapahit empires which stretched across Southeast Asia. The Chinese empire dominated social, political, economic and intellectual life in the region well into the 20th century. Japan, a late-comer to the imperial game, created a pan-Asian empire in half a century. The vast mercantile, political, and religious empires of Britain, France and the Netherlands in Asia lasted until the end of WWII, when they were replaced by new American power. Asia is a place where empires have been made. This research seminar focuses on the unique configurations of power that take shape as “empires” in order to understand how they work. Recognizing that each manifestation of imperial power in Asia is unique in its own way, this seminar asks participants to analyze how imperial power has functioned in Asia and what their effects on the region have been.
You must have the permission of the instructor to enroll in these seminars.
Related courses
History majors are always encouraged to take courses in such related disciplines as religion, English, political science, sociology, philosophy, and art history. Be sure to look for courses of interest in those departments.
Posted March 17, 2008