Topical studies that vary by year and instructor. Topics might
include "Art and Society in the Age of the Reformation," "War and
Gender in Twentieth-Century Europe," "Society and Culture in the
Medieval European City," and "Imperialism and Anti-imperialism in
Modern Europe."
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Additional research and/or paper(s) are normally required for graduate level coursework.
Athena Title
Studies in European History
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about select topics in modern European history by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of modern Europe has shaped social and cultural identities and attitudes toward class, nation, and gender, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
By the end of this course, students will be able to generate their own research question or topic, locate suitable primary and secondary sources, and synthesize their ideas in novel ways.
By the end of this course, students will be able to initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate their independent research projects in stages and to give and receive constructive feedback through the peer review process.
Topical Outline
Because various course will be taught under this title, topical outlines will vary widely. Courses recently taught under this title include Culture and Cataclysm in Twentieth-Century Europe, Microhistories of Modern Europe, Music and History, and Problems of Modern Italian History.
Below is a sample topical outline for a typical 4300/6300 course in Modern European History:
Culture and Cataclysm in Twentieth-Century Europe:
1. The cultural framework before the Great War
2. The unforeseen experience of war, 1914-1918
3. Innovation, tradition, and irony in the cultural response to World War I
4. The Russian Revolution and the search for a post-bourgeois culture
5. Spectacle, style, and substance in fascist Italy
6. Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus, and the effort to create socially useful art forms in Weimar Germany
7. The Spanish civil war, Picasso's Guernica, and the Paris exhibition of 1937
8. Holocaust testimony and the question of memory
9. The Holocaust in literature, painting, music, and film
10. The search for cultural bearings after World War II
11. Intellectuals and the Cold War: Marxism, anti-Marxism, and the debate over Soviet communism
12. The "German question" in post-war Germany: From Karl Jaspers to the Berlin Republic
13. "The other Europe": Intellectuals in the communist countries after World War II
14. Václav Havel, Milan Kundera, and the cultural impact of the anti-communist revolution of 1989-91
