Due to the storm, Barnard College closed at 4pm Friday, for non-essential personnel. “Essential personnel" include staff in Facilities, Public Safety and Residence Halls.
Friday evening and weekend classes are cancelled but events are going forward as planned unless otherwise noted. The Athena Film Festival programs are also scheduled to go forward as planned but please check http://athenafilmfestival.com/ for the latest information.
The Barnard Library and Archives closed at 4pm Friday and will remain closed on Saturday, Feb. 9. The Library will resume regular hours on Sunday opening at 10am.
Please be advised that due to the conditions, certain entrances to campus may be closed. The main gate at 117th Street & Broadway will remain open. For further updates on college operations, please check this website, call the College Emergency Information Line 212-854-1002 or check AM radio station 1010WINS.
3:12 PM 02/08/2013
HIST BC 1062y Introduction to Later Middle Ages:
1050-1450
Social environment, political, and religious institutions, and the main intellectual currents of the Latin West studied through primary sources and modern historical writings.
- J. Kaye
HIST BC 1101x Introduction to European History: Renaissance to French
Revolution
Political, economic, social, religious, and intellectual history of early
modern Europe, including the Renaissance, Reformation and
Counter-Reformation, absolutism, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment. -
D. Valenze
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Reason and Value (REA).
3 points
HIST BC 1302y Introduction to European History: French Revolution to
the Present
Emergence of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary mass political
movements; European industrialization, nationalism, and imperialism;
20th-century world wars, the Great Depression, and Fascism.
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Reason and Value (REA). General Education Requirement:
Ethics and Values.
3 points
HIST BC 1401x Survey of American Civilization to the Civil
War
The major theological and social concerns of 17th-century English colonists;
the political and ideological process of defining an American; the social and
economic forces that shaped a distinctive national identity; the nature of
the regional conflicts that culminated in civil war. - H. Sloan
3 points
HIST BC 1402y Survey of American Civilization Since the Civil
War
Examines the major intellectual and social accommodations made by Americans
to industrialization and urbanization; patterns of political thought from
Reconstruction to the New Deal; selected topics on post-World War II
developments.
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 1760y Introduction to African History:
1700-Present
Survey of African history from the 18th century
to the contemporary period. We will explore six major themes in African
History: Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, Colonialism in Africa,
the 1940s, Nationalism and Independence Movements, Post-Colonialism in
Africa, and Issues in the Making of Contemporary Africa.
Corequisites: Students who take this course may also take Introduction to
Africa Studies: Africa Past, Present, and Future. General Education
Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 1801x Colonialism and Nationalism in South
Asia
Introduction to South Asian history (17-20 c.) that explores the colonial economy and state formation; constitution of religious and cultural identities; ideologies of nationalism and communalism, caste and gender politics; visual culture; and the South Asian diaspora.
- A. Rao
HIST BC 3062x Medieval Intellectual Life 1050 to 1400
Development over three centuries of a language of the heart, of the intellect, and of the polity. Primary readings in devotional and courtly literature, university speculation, and political thought, discussed in their historical and cultural contexts.
- J. Kaye
HIST BC 3116y Filthy Lucre: A History of Money
Examining the history of money and the history of ways of thinking about
money. We investigate how different monetary forms developed and how they
have shaped and been shaped by culture, society, and politics. Tracing money
from gift-giving societies to the European Monetary Union, the focus is on
early modern Europe. - C. Wennerlind
Not offered in 2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3180x Merchants, Pirates, and Slaves in the Making of
Atlantic Capitalism
Examines how the Atlantic Ocean and its boundaries were tied together through
the flow of people, goods, and ideas. Studies the cultures of the communities
formed by merchants, pirates, and slaves; investigates how their interactions
and frictions combined to shape the unique combination of liberty and
oppression that characterizes early modern capitalism. - C. Wennerlind
General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). General
Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3230y Central Europe: Nations, Culture, and
Ideas
The making and re-making of Central Europe as place and myth from the
Enlightenment to post-Communism. Focuses on the cultural, intellectual, and
political struggles of the peoples of this region to define themselves.
Themes include modernization and backwardness, rationalism and censorship,
nationalism and pluralism, landscape and the spatial imagination.
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3255x Between the Two World Wars:Democracy and Dictatorship
in Italy, the Balkans, and Turkey
The course examines the social, economic and political impact World War I had
on the Balkans, Italy, and Turkey. In particular, the growing influence of
fascism from its birthplace in Italy to its emergence in various forms
throughout the Balkans will be the central theme in the course. - P.
Anastasakis
Not offered in 2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3305x Bodies and Machines
Situates key scientific and technological innovations of the modern era in
their cultural context by focusing on the interactions between bodies and
machines. Through our attention to bodily experience and material culture, we
will explore the ways in which science and technology have shaped and been
shaped by the culture of modernity. - D. Coen
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in
2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3321y Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Culture of
Empire
Examines the shaping of European cultural identity through encounters with
non-European cultures from 1500 to the post-colonial era. Novels, paintings,
and films will be among the sources used to examine such topics as exoticism
in the Enlightenment, slavery and European capitalism, Orientalism in art,
ethnographic writings on the primitive, and tourism. - L. Tiersten
General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). General
Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3323y European Women in the Age of Revolution
Exploration of the origins of the "modern" European woman: changing political and legal definitions of women; new concepts of women's work and authority during industrialization; women's involvement in religion and reform; and emergence of socialist and feminist critiques of 19th-century womanhood.
- D. Valenze
HIST BC 3367x The History of Childhood in Europe: Middle Ages to
Today
This class explores the changing history of childhood in Europe. We will
examine children's lives and what childhood came to represent in different
periods and cultures. Childhood is still emerging as a historical category of
analysis. We will discuss the latest scholarship on topics of child
psychology; childhood as a site for state and expert intervention; popular
and scientific practices of childrearing; theories of parenthood; the
construction of childhood as a period of education rather than labor;
children in democratic, dictatorial, and colonial regimes; juvenile
delinquency; children and consumerism; children in war and ethnic conflicts;
and children and human rights. We will analyze primary texts such as novels,
autobiographies, images, and films, and draw on secondary sources that
examine the history of private life, gender, selfhood, the family, war, and
nationalism. - M. Shapira
Not offered in 2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3374y France in Modern Times, 1789-Present
Explores the history of modern France in its wider European, Mediterranean,
and imperial contexts. Major themes include: republicanism and rights;
revolution and reaction; terror and total war; international rivalry and
imperial expansion; cultural and political avant-gardes; violence and
national memory; decolonization and postcolonial migration; May '68 and
contemporary challenges to the republican model. - J. Surkis
Not offered in 2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3380y Social and Cultural History of Food in
Europe
Course enables students to focus on remote past and its relationship to
social context and political and economic structures; students will be asked
to evaluate evidence drawn from documents of the past, including tracts on
diet, health, and food safety, accounts of food riots, first-hand
testimonials about diet and food availability. A variety of perspectives will
be explored, including those promoted by science, medicine, business, and
government. - D. Valenze
Prerequisites: Previous course in history strongly
recommended.
3 points
HIST BC 3388x Introduction to History of Science since
1800
How has modern science acquired its power to explain and control the world?
What are the limits of that power? Topics: the origins of scientific
institutions and values; the rise of evolutionary thought and Darwin's
impact; the significance of Einstein's physics; ecology and environmental
politics; the dilemmas of scientific warfare. - D. Coen
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3408x Emerging Cities: 19th Century Urban History of the
Americas and Europe
Urban history of 19th century cities in Europe and the Americas. First, we
study the economic, geographic, and demographic changes that produced 19th
century urbanization in the Western world. Second, we examine issues of urban
space: density, public health, housing conditions, spatial reforms, and the
origins of the modern city planning. - G. Baics
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC).
3 points
HIST BC 3413x The United States, 1940-1975
Emphasis on foreign policies as they pertain to the Second World War, the
atomic bomb, containment, the Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam. Also considers
major social and intellectual trends, including the Civil Rights movement,
the counterculture, feminism, Watergate, and the recession of the 1970s. - M.
Carnes
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3414x The United States in the World
Examination of the meaning of empire in its relationship to the historical
development of what we now call the United States of America. Starting with
the thirteen colonies and moving west through time and space, we will examine
the relationship of ideas, geography, borders, immigration, culture,
economies and the military to the expansion of U.S. power in the world. Using
insights from our current "global" moment, we will investigate questions
dealing with the control and use of resources, the structure of society, the
meaning of political borders, inequality and power. - E. Esch
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC). Not offered in
2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3423y The Constitution in Historical
Perspective
Development of constitutional doctrine, 1787 to the present. The Constitution
as an experiment in Republicanism; states' rights and the Civil War
amendments; freedom of contract and its opponents; the emergence of civil
liberties; New Deal intervention and the crisis of the Court; and the
challenge of civil rights. - H. Sloan
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3424x Approached by Sea: Early American Maritime
Culture
Thematically and chronologically ordered narrative of the impact of the
Atlantic Ocean and its tidal tributaries upon the beginnings and subsequent
development of the American colonies and of the Early American Republic.
Special stress will be placed upon the physical givens and cultural
implications of the coastal environment in which early Americans went about
their lives. - R. McCaughey
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3454x History of Sexuality in America
An examination of sexuality, as a product of history and arena of power relations, with attention to its place in the formation of categories such as class, ethnicity, gender, and race. Topics include control of sexuality, sexual orientation, miscegenation, violence, fertility, marriage, prostitution, and the science of sex.
- R. Rosenberg
HIST BC 3457x A Social History of Columbia University
Traces the University's history from 1754 to the present; will focus on institutional interaction with NYC, governance and finance, faculty composition and the undergraduate extra-curriculum; attention also to Columbia professional schools and Barnard College.
- R. McCaughey
HIST BC 3466y American Intellectual History Since 1865
Examination of the major ideas engaging American intellectuals from Appomattox to the present, with special attention to their institutional settings. Topics include Darwinism, the rise of the professoriate, intellectual progressivism, inter-war revisionism, Cold War liberalism, and neoconservatism.
- R. McCaughey
HIST BC 3472y Projecting American Empire on Film
Critically surveys how the coincidence of the development of audiovisual mass
culture and the rise of the United States as a world power was decisive for
the history of each across the twentieth century. Special attention will be
paid to film and television as domestic ideology and international
propaganda. - S. Fein
3 points
HIST BC 3494y Era of Independence in the Americas
Comparative examination of colonial independence struggles in the New World, c. 1760-1830. The transition from the monarchical ancient regime to a more or less "republican" order. State formation and the invention of nationality. Special attention to the cases of the United States, Haiti, and Mexico.
- H. Sloan
HIST BC 3567y American Women in the 20th Century
A consideration of women's changing place in modern America; the "family claim"; women in the workplace; educational expansion; the battle for suffrage; social reformers; the sexual revolution; women in the professions; the crisis of depression and war; the feminine mystique; and the new feminism.
- R. Rosenberg
HIST BC 3570y Alma Mater: A History of American Colleges &
Universities
The founding, growth, and present condition of American colleges and
universities, with particular attention to the social history of Columbia
University. Issues of governance, faculty rights and responsibilities,
student activism and the pubic perception of institutions of higher learning
will be considered. - R. McCaughey
Prerequisites: NONE General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3978y 20th Century Cities: Americas and Europe
Urban history of 20th century cities in the Americas and Europe. Examines the
modern city as ecological and production system, its form and built
environment, questions of housing and segregation, uneven urban development,
the fragmentation of urban society and space. Course materials draw on cities
in the Americas and Europe. General Education Requirement: Historical
Studies (HIS). General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC).-
G. Baics
Prerequisites: None
3 points
HIST BC 3440x Intro to African American History
Major themes in African-American History: slave trade, slavery, resistance,
segregation, the "New Negro," Civil Rights, Black Power, challenges and
manifestations of the contemporary "Color Line." - C. Naylor
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST W 3661y Latin American Civilization II
Explores major themes in Latin American history from the independence period
to the present. It will trace economic, political, intellectual, and cultural
trends. Particular attention will be given to the enduring issue of social
and racial inequality and the ways that the interactions of dominant and
subordinate groups have helped shape the course of Latin American
history.
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3664x Reproducing Inequalities: Families in Latin American
History
Explores changing structures and meanings of family in Latin America from
colonial period to present. Particular focus on enduring tensions between
"prescription" and "reality" in family forms as well as the articulation of
family with hierarchies of class, caste, and color in diverse Latin American
societies. - N. Milanich
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
3 points
HIST BC 3676x Latin America: Migration, Race, and
Ethnicity
Examines immigrations to Latin America from Europe, Africa, and Asia and the
resulting multiracial societies; and emigration from Latin America and the
formation of Latino communities in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Analyzes
the socioeconomic and discursive-cognitive construction of ethno-racial
identities and hierarchies, and current debates about immigration and
citizenship. - J. Moya
General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC). Not offered in
2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3681x Women and Gender in Latin America
Examines the gendered roles of women and men in Latin American society from
the colonial period to the present. Explores a number of themes, including
the intersection of social class, race, ethnicity, and gender; the nature of
patriarchy; masculinity; gender and the state; and the gendered nature of
political mobilization. - N. Milanich
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC). Not offered in
2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3682y Modern Latin American History
Explores major themes in Latin American history from independence to the present, with a special focus on the evolution of socio-racial inequality, political systems, and U.S.-Latin America relations. We will discuss not only "what happened" in Latin America's past, but how historians know what they know, the sources and methods they use to write history, and the theoretical frameworks they employ to interpret the past.
- N. Milanich
HIST BC 3980y World Migration
Overview of human migration from pre-history to the present. Sessions on classical Rome; Jewish diaspora; Viking, Mongol, and Arab conquests; peopling of New World, European colonization, and African slavery; 19th-century European mass migration; Chinese and Indian diasporas; resurgence of global migration in last three decades, and current debates.
- J. Moya
HIST BC 3803x Gender and Empire
Examines how women experienced empire and asks how their actions and
activities produced critical shifts in the workings of colonial societies
worldwide. Topics include sexuality, the colonial family, reproduction, race,
and political activism. - A. Rao
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC).
3 points
HIST BC 3805y Law and Society in South Asia
Examines law as a critical site from which to explore changing conceptions of self and community from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial periods.
- A. Rao
HIST BC 3840x Topics in South Asian History
Examines caste and gender as an important lens for understanding the transformations of intimate life and political culture in colonial and post-colonial India. Topics include: conjugality; popular culture violence, sex and the state; and the politics of untouchability.
- A. Rao
HIST BC 3855y Decolonization: Studies in Political Thought and
Political History
This course will take the historical fact of decolonization in Asia and
Africa as a framework for understanding the thought of anticolonial
nationalism and the political struggles that preceded it, and the
trajectories of postcolonial developmentalism and the contemporary new world
order. - A. Rao
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in
2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3861x Chinese Cultural History 1500-1800
Introduction to visual and material cultures of China, including
architecture, food, fashion, printing, painting, and the theatre. Using these
as building blocks, new terms of analyzing Chinese history are explored,
posing such key questions as the meaning of being Chinese and the meaning of
being modern. - D. Ko
Prerequisites: An introductory Asian history course preferred but not
required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not
offered in 2012-2013.
3 points
HIST BC 3865y Gender and Power in China
This course explores the power dynamics of gender relations in Chinese
history and contemporary society. Specifically, we seek to understand how a
range of women--rulers, mothers, teachers, workers, prostitutes, and
activists--exercised power by utilizing available resources to overcome
institutional constraints. - D. Ko
General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). General
Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in
2012-2013.
3 points
All seminars require permission of the instructor. Enrollment is limited to 15.
HIST BC 4062x Medieval Economic Life and Thought ca 1000 to
1500
Traces the development of economic enterprises and techniques in their
cultural context: agricultural markets, industry, commercial partnerships,
credit, large-scale banking, insurance, and merchant culture. Examines usury
and just price theory, the scholastic analysis of price and value, and the
recognition of the market as a self-regulating system, centuries before Adam
Smith. - J. Kaye
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4064y Medieval Science and Society
The evolution of scientific thinking from the 12th to the 16th centuries, considering subjects such as cosmology, natural history, quantification, experimentation, the physics of motion, and Renaissance perspective. At every point we link proto-scientific developments to social and technological developments in the society beyond the schools.
- J. Kaye
HIST BC 4119x Capitalism and Enlightenment
Traces the lively debates amongst the major European Enlightenment figures
about the formation of capitalism. Was the new market society ushering in an
era of wealth and civilization or was it promoting corruption and
exploitation? Particular emphasis on debates about commerce, luxury, greed,
poverty, empire, slavery, and liberty.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4323y The City in Europe
A social history of the city in Europe from early modern times; the economic,
political, and intellectual forces influencing the growth of Paris, London,
Vienna, and other urban centers.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preference to upper-class students. Preregistration required. General Education
Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4324x Vienna and the Birth of the Modern
Examines Vienna from the 1860s through the 1930s as the site of intellectual,
political, and aesthetic responses to the challenges of modern urban life.
Through readings in politics, literature, science, and philosophy, as well as
through art and music, we explore three contested elements of personal
identity: nationality, sexuality, and rationality. - D. Coen
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4327x Consumer Culture in Modern Europe
The development of the modern culture of consumption, with particular
attention to the formation of the woman consumer. Topics include commerce and
the urban landscape, changing attitudes toward shopping and spending,
feminine fashion and conspicuous consumption, and the birth of advertising.
Examination of novels, fashion magazines, and advertising images. - L.
Tiersten
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4330x Between France and North Africa: History, Identity,
Difference
Explores the historical relationship between France and North Africa from the
late 18th-century to the present. Through a variety of historical approaches,
we examine dynamics of contact and conflict across the region, over land and
sea including piracy and conquest; environment and engineering; colonial
settlement and post-colonial migration; law and literature; national identity
and transnational cultural production; space and sexuality; political
violence and religious pluralism. - J. Surkis
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4332y The Politics of Leisure in Modern Europe
Transformations in the culture of leisure from the onset of industrialization
to the present day. Relations between elite and popular culture and the
changing relationship between the work world and the world of leisure will be
among the topics considered in such settings as the department store, the
pub, the cinema, and the tourist resort. - L. Tiersten
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4333x The History of Childhood in Britain and
Europe
This research seminar explores the changing history of childhood in Britain
and Europe. We will examine children's lives and what childhood came to
represent in different periods and cultures. We will discuss the latest
scholarship on topics of child psychology; childhood as a site for state and
expert intervention; popular and scientific practices of childrearing;
theories of parenthood; the construction of childhood as a period of
education rather than labor; children in democractic and dictatorial regimes;
juvenile delinquency; and children and consumerism. We will draw on secondary
sources that examine the history of private life, gender, selfhood, the
family, war and nationalism. Not open to first-year students. - M.
Shapira
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4360x London: From Great Wen to World City
Social and cultural history of London from the Great Fire of 1666 to the
1960s. An examination of the changing experience of urban identity through
the commercial life, public spaces, and diverse inhabitants of London. Topics
include 17th-century rebuilding, immigrants and emigrants, suburbs, literary
culture, war, and redevelopment. - D. Valenze
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4366y Collaboration and Resistance in Occupied Europe:
Complicating the Picture
Examines the nature of collaboration and resistance in Occupied Europe during
World War II. In particular, it looks at how Nazi race theory, prewar plans,
military strategy, and local circumstances shaped both Nazi policy during the
war and the response of the local population. - P. Anastasakis
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4368y History of the Senses
Examination of European understandings of human senses through the production
and reception of art, literature, music, food, and sensual enjoyments in
Britain and France. Readings include changing theories concerning the five
senses; efforts to master the passions; the rise of sensibility and feeling
for others; concerts and the patronage of art; the professionalization of the
senses. - D. Valenze
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4371x War and Gender: World War One, Masculinity and
Femininity
This seminar explores the experience of men and women in Europe before,
during, and immediately after World War One. The Great War was a human
tragedy whose human total was astounding and its legacy continued to
reverberate throughout the twentieth century. The war transformed European
society. It influenced the development of new political theories, and
artistic and scientific advances. It accelerated socio-cultural and political
changes. These developments had gendered components, and they influenced men
and women differently. Topics include trench warfare; the experience of the
battlefields; treatment of shell shock; war poetry; life on the home front;
women's roles; pacifism; war psychology; and postwar memory. - M.
Shapira
Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4375y Boundaries and Belonging: Gender and Citizenship in
Modern History
Examines the ways gender has constituted citizenship in modern western
history. Topics include suffrage; national belonging; marriage and military
service for women and LGBT citizens; social citizenship and the welfare
state; "postpolitical citizenship" through economics and consumption;
statelessness and migration; cosmopolitan citizenship; and parity, quotas and
representation.
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20
students. Sophomore standing. Preregistration required. General Education
Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4391x-BC4392y Senior Research Seminar
Individual guided research and writing in history and the presentation of
results in seminar and in the form of the senior essay.
Prerequisites: Open to Barnard College History Senior Majors.
8 points. 4 points each term.
4 points
HIST BC 4402y Selected Topics in American Womens
History
Critical examination of recent trends in modern U.S. women's history, with particular attention to the intersection of gender, sexuality, class, and race. Topics will include: state regulation of marriage and sexuality, roots of modern feminism, altered meanings of motherhood and work, and changing views of the body.
- R. Rosenberg
HIST BC 4411y Race in the Making of the US
Considers what role "race" plays in U.S. culture, politics, economics and foreign policy. Beginning with the origins of racial slavery, examines how, when and whether the subsequent development of racial systems - and challenges to them - shaped historical developments. Through a survey of theories about "race relations" and contemporary discussions about affirmative action, immigration, empire and rights, ponders the possibilities for a "colorblind" society in the United States.
- E. Esch
HIST BC 4423x Origins of the Constitution
An examination of the creation of the Constitution; consequences of
independence; ideological foundations; the Articles of Confederation and the
Critical Period; the nationalist movement and the Convention; anti-federalism
and ratification; and the Bill of Rights. Readings from selected secondary
and primary sources, including The Federalist. - H. Sloan
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4456y The Craft of Urban History
This seminar introduces students to the key issues and the interdisciplinary
practice of modern urban history. Readings draw from the scholarly literature
on 19th and 20th century cities from across Europe and the Americas. We
explore economic, spatial, ethnographic, and cultural approaches to studying
modern cities. - G. Baics
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC). Not offered in
2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4468y American Women in the 1920s
Exploration of women's lives from World War I to the Great Crash. Topics include women's politics, domestic roles, the female work force, collegiate life, the new morality, flaming youth, women in the Harlem Renaissance, women's literature, and the paradox of modern feminism.
- N. Woloch
HIST BC 4542x Education in American History
Consideration of the place educational institutions, educational ideas, and
educators have played in American life. Emphasis will be on the connection
between education and social mobility. - N. Woloch
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4543y Higher Learning in America
Examination of the history of American colleges and universities from the colonies to the present; special emphasis on the evolving relationship between academic institutions and the political and social orders.
- R. McCaughey
HIST BC 4546x The Fourteenth Amendment and Its Uses
The role of the 14th Amendment in shaping the modern American Constitution;
theories of judicial review; the rise and fall of economic due process; the
creation of civil liberties; the civil rights revolution; and the end of
states' rights. - R. Rosenberg
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4587x Remembering Slavery: Critiquing Modern Representations
of the Peculiar Institution
The enslavement of people of African descent signifies a crucial historical
and cultural marker not only for African-Americans but also for Americans in
general. We will interrogate how and why images of slavery continue to be
invoked within the American sociocultural landscape (e.g., in films,
documentaries, historical novels, and science fiction). - C. Naylor
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4592y Maritime History Since the Civil War
Critical consideration of the maritime aspects of American life and culture since the Civil War: rise of American sea power; peaking of American maritime commerce and labor; historic seaports and coastal areas as recreational resources; marine science and environmentalist concerns in shaping recent American maritime policies. Seminar will make extensive use of the web for resources and communication.
- R. McCaughey
HIST BC 4651x Jewish Tales from Four Cities: The Immigrant Experience
in New York, Buenos Aires, Paris and London
Examines Jewish immigrant experience in New York, Buenos Aires, London, and
Paris, c.1880-1930. Focus on the Old World origins of the arrivals, the
formation of neighborhoods, ethnic institutions, family, work, cultural
expressions, and relations with the rest of society. Based on readings and
primary research (newspapers, letters, songs, photographs, etc.). - J.
Moya
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). General Education Requirement: Social Analysis (SOC). Not offered in
2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4669y Inequalities:Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Latin
America
Latin America has long been characterized by extreme and enduring
inequalities - of class, income, race, and ethnicity. Examines patterns of
inequality from different disciplinary perspectives, both historically and in
the present. Examines not only causes and solutions but how scholars have
approached inequality as an intellectual problem. - N. Milanich
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. A general background on Latin America recommended
but not absolutely required. Course limited to 15 students.
4 points
HIST BC 4672x Perspectives on Power in 20th Century Latin
America
Examination of recent Latin American historiography concerns with power in the context of 20th-Century Latin America. Focus on such diverse topics as the Mexican Revolution and migrant culture in Costa Rica, labor mobilization in Chile and the dirty war in Argentina. Themes include the relationship between popular culture and the state; the power of words and the power of symbols; structure and agency; the role of the law; the relationship between leaders and followers; and the intersections of gender, race, and power.
- N. Milanich
HIST BC 4678x The Idea of the Western Hemisphere
Interdisciplinary examination of conceptualizations of the Western Hemisphere
as a distinct geoculture from the age of Bolivar and Jefferson to that of
Chávez and Obama. Working across media and expansively engaging primary
sources we interrogate the international political economy of geography and
the role of culture in international history. - S. Fein
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required.
4 points
HIST BC 4763x Children and Childhood in African
History
This course focuses on the history of childhood and
youth in African societies and how young people as historical agents have
impacted the social histories of their communities. How did young Africans
live in past times? What forces shaped understanding of their status as
children or youth? How have major historical processes such as colonialism,
industrialization, apartheid, and liberation, neocolonialism, and
neoliberalism impacted and been impacted by children and youth in Africa?
What roles have young people themselves played in the making of African
histories? These questions will be explored in course readings, discussions,
and students' original research projects. - A. George
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4771y Critical Perspectives on the Mobilization of Race and
Ethnicity on the Continent and in the Study of Africa
Critically examines the relationship between social difference and narratives and practices of power in historical and contemporary African publics. Race and Ethnicity are the key axes of social difference that will be examined. Other axes of difference such as gender, sexuality, class, caste, generation and nationality will also be examined through points of intersection with race and ethnicity.
- A. George
HIST BC 4788y Gender, Sexuality, and Power from Colonial to
Contemporary Africa
This course deals with the scholarship on gender and sexuality in African
history. The central themes of the course will be changes and continuities in
gender performance and the politics of gender and sexual difference within
African societies, the social, political, and economic processes that have
influenced gender and sexual identities, and the connections between gender,
sexuality, inequality, and activism at local, national, continental, and
global scales. - A. George
4 points
HIST BC 4791x Lagos: From Pepper Farm to Megacity
Examines the many Lagoses that have existed over time, in space, and in the imagination from its origins to the 21st century. This is a reading, writing, viewing, and listening intensive course. We read scholarly, policy-oriented, and popular sources on Lagos as well as screening films and audio recordings that feature Lagos in order to learn about the social, cultural, and intellectual history of this West African mega-city.
- A. George
HIST BC 4805y Caste, Power, and Inequality
Draws on the experiences of life and thought of caste subalterns to explore the challenges to caste exploitation and inequality.
- A. Rao
HIST BC 4830y Bombay/Mumbai and Its Urban Imaginaries
Explores the intersections between imagining and materiality in Bombay/Mumbai
from its colonial beginnings to the present. Housing, slums, neighborhoods,
streets, public culture, contestation, and riots are examined through film,
architecture, fiction, history and theory. It is an introduction to the city;
and to the imaginative enterprise in history. - A. Rao
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required.
4 points
HIST BC 4861y Body Histories: The Case of Footbinding
The deceptively small subject of footbinding provides a window into the larger family dynamics and sexual politics in Chinese history and society. Explores the multiple representations of footbinding in European travelogues, ethnographic interviews, Chinese erotic novels and prints, and the polemics of modern and feminist critiques.
- D. Ko
HIST BC 4870y Gender and Migration: A Global
Perspective
Explores migration as a gendered process and what factors account for
migratory differences by gender across place and time; including labor
markets, education demographic and family structure, gender ideologies,
religion, government regulations and legal status, and intrinsic aspects of
the migratory flow itself. - J. Moya
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. Sophomore Standing. General Education Requirement:
Historical Studies (HIS). General Education Requirement: Social Analysis
(SOC). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4879x Feminist Traditions in China
Explores the intellectual, social and cultural grounds for the establishment and transmission of feminist traditions in China before the 19th century. Topics include pre-modern Chinese views of the body, self, gender, and sex, among others. Our goal is to rethink such cherished concepts as voice, agency, freedom, and choice that have shaped the modern feminist movement.
- D. Ko
HIST BC 4886y Fashion
Investigates the cultural, material and technological conditions that
facilitated the development of "fashion systems" in early modern Europe,
Japan and contemporary Asian diasporic communities. In the global framework,
"fashion" serves as a window into the politics of self-presentation,
community formation, structure of desires, and struggles over representation.
- D. Ko
Prerequisites: At least one course in a Non-U.S. Area in History,
Literature, Anthropology, Film Studies or Art History. Permission of the
instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required. General
Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). General Education
Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4901y Reacting to the Past II
Collision of ideas in two of the following three contexts: "Rousseau, Burke
and Revolution in France, 1791;" "The Struggle for Palestine: The British,
Zionists, and Palestinians in the 1930s," or "India on the Eve of
Independence, 1945". - M. Carnes
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20.
Preregistration required. Reacting I, a First-Year seminar, is recommended.
General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General Education
Requirement: Reason and Value (REA). General Education Requirement: Ethics
and Values.
4 points
HIST BC 4903x Reacting to the Past III: Science and
Society
Prerequisites: Not offered 2008-09.
Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration
required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). General
Education Requirement: Reason and Value (REA). Not offered in
2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4904x Introduction to Historical Theory and
Method
Confronts a set of problems and questions attached to the writing
of good history by examining the theories and methods historians have devised
to address these problems. Its practical focus: to prepare students to tackle
the senior thesis and other major research projects. The reading matter for
this course crosses cultures, time periods, and historical genres. Fulfills
all concentrations within the history major. - J. Kaye
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. Preference to JUNIOR and SOPHOMORE Majors. Fulfills
General Education Requirement (GER); Historical Studies (HIS). Not offered in
2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4905x Capitalism, Colonialism, and Culture: A Global
History
From Indian Ocean worlds of the seventeenth century, to Atlantic world slavery, to the establishment of colonies in Asia and Africa during the nineteenth century, colonization was critical to the development of metropolitan ideas regarding politics and personhood. This seminar will examine these histories, along with emerging constructions of race and gender, as precursors to debates about human rights and humanitarianism in the twentieth century.
- A. Rao
HIST BC 4907y Edible Conflicts: A History of Food
Conflicts emerging from the production and consumption of food from prehistoric to modern times. Settled agriculture and the significance of geography and social stratification in determining food consumption; ideologies of social status and "taste" in Europe; impact of knowledge about health and hygiene on European dietary habits; drink in diets and social life; dining out in European culture; role of transport and technology in consumer culture; food and the welfare state; mass production and globalization of food.
- D. Valenze
HIST BC 4909x or y History of Environmental Thinking
A consideration of how experiences of the natural world and the meaning of
"nature" have changed over the past three centuries. Follows the development
of the environmental sciences and the origins of environmentalism. The
geographical focus will be Europe, with attention to the global context of
imperialism. - D. Coen
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preference to upper-class students. Preregistration required. General
Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
4 points
HIST BC 4913y Madness to Prozac: The Sciences of the Self in the
Modern Era
This seminar will explore the emergence of sciences of the self in the West
from the late eighteenth century to the twenty-first century. We will
concentrate especially on psychiatry and psychology and how they have shaped
and remade modern selves. Using interdisciplinary scholarship from history,
critical theory, sociology, and psychology, we will examine topics such as
the birth of modern psychiatry and psychology; theories of madness; the rise
of the asylum; colonial psychiatry; sexology; the medicalization of gender
and ethnic difference; the emergence of neurosis and trauma; psychoanalysis
and talking cure; hysteria; shell shock and post- traumatic stress disorder;
human sciences and the welfare state, and the rise of the "Prozac Nation." -
M. Shapira
Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4953x Anarchism: A Global History
Explores the historical development of anarchism as a working-class, youth,
and artistic movement in Europe, North and Latin America, the Middle East,
India, Japan, and China from the 1850s to the present. Examines anarchism
both as an ideology and as a set of cultural and political practices. - J.
Moya
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required. General Education Requirement: Historical Studies
(HIS). Not offered in 2012-2013.
4 points
HIST BC 4973y 20th Century Cities: Americas and Europe
Urban history of 20th century cities in the Americas and Europe. Examines the
modern city as ecological and production system, its form and built
environment, questions of housing and segregation, uneven urban development,
the fragmentation of urban society and space. Course materials drawing on
cities in the Americas and Europe. - G. Baics
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.
Preregistration required.
4 points
W1010 The Ancient Greeks 800-146 B.C.E.
W3072 Once Upon a Time: Daily Life in Medieval Europe
W3304 Modern Germany, 1900-2000
W3330 Europe since 1945
W3575 Power and Place: Black Urban Politics
W3628 History of the State of Israel, 1948-Present
W3660 Latin American Civilization I
W3719 History of the Modern Middle East
W4227 Empire and Nation: Nationality Issues in the Russian Empire
W4235 Central Asia: Imperial Legacies, New Images
W4358 Themes in Intellectual History: Montaigne and the Modern Self
W4535 20th Century New York City History
W4911 Medicine and Western Civilization
W4914 The Future as History
W4977 History, Big and Deep
Copyright © 2013 Barnard College | Columbia University | 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027 | 212.854.5262