Course Description
A special subject not otherwise offered in the history curriculum. Topics, methodology, and instructors vary from semester to semester.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Additional research and papers are normally required for graduate level work.
Athena Title
THEMES IN COMP HIS
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is designed to cover special topics not otherwise offered in the history curriculum. Specific objectives and learning outcomes will vary from instructor to instructor and from topic to topic. In general students will be expected to: 1. read a wide range of primary and secondary sources critically; 2. polish skills in critical thinking, including the ability to recognize the difference between opinion and evidence, and the ability to evaluate--and support or refute--arguments effectively; 3. write papers using processes that include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, and revising, editing, and polishing the finished papers.
Topical Outline
Will vary from instructor to instructor and from topic to topic. Representative topics include: "Women in Middle Eastern History," "Religious and Ethnic Communities in the Modern Middle East," "Romance in the Islamic Tradition," and "Authoritarianism in the Middle East." A sample topical outline for the topic "The Hollocaust in Comparative Perspective" would be: Introduction Identity, the Holocaust and Comparative Histories European societies in war and peace European Christian-Jewish relations: from shetl to assimilationism, from the Belle Epoque to the end of Weimar. Representations of the Holocaust "Seeing" the genocide of European Jews: the historical process from contemporary Jewish perspectives to present-day Gentile apology, neo-Nazi denial and State memorialization Persecution and Terror: German legal and extra-illegal violence against Jews, individually and collectively International Reaction, from the Nuremberg Laws to the Evian Conference and the voyage of the St. Louis Accommodating Nazism: German Christians Protestant women and their choices Was "eliminationist anti-semitism" specifically German? How was Christianity implicated? Cities: Berlin, Warsaw, Cracow, Lodz, Minsk, Vilna, Moscow, Vienna, Prague Cities: Budapest, Paris, Nice, Marseilles, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Salonika Tues Communities: Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden Business, Medicine, the Arts, Education Childhood Memories: Berlin, Vienna The Roman Catholic Church: Institutional and Popular Responses to Nazism Auschwitz: Victims and Perpetrators Resistance: Fighting Back Rescue (Non-violent resistance) Christians and Jews in WWII Europe: Comparative Perspectives
Syllabus