Course descriptions for our seminars, special topics courses, and other non-regular catalog offerings for Winter 2012 are listed below. Students looking for course descriptions for our regular catalog courses should consult the course listings in the PSU Bulletin, located on our website at www.history.pdx.edu/docs/catalog.pdf. HST 399: The Holocaust TR 1000-1150 Prof. Meir An introduction to the Nazi-planned and -executed genocide of European Jewry that has come to be known as the Holocaust. Topics includes the German and European contexts for the rise of Nazism; the nature of antisemitism and its links to Nazi ideology and policy; the circumstances of European Jewry in the interwar period; the "Final Solution"; the nature and definition of resistance; the question of the "bystanders"; and varieties of responses to the Holocaust. HST 399: Race and Ethnicity in the United States TR 1400-1550 Prof. Kerns This course will also explore the history, meaning and construction of racial and ethnic identities in the United States from the time of European colonialism to the present. The story is complex and we will attempt to engage the ways in which social practices, science, economics, cultural images and interaction, and local and federal laws have worked, often times in tandem, to attach meaning to the ideologies of racial and ethnic identities. A primary operating assumption in this course is that these racial and ethnic identities are not natural nor are they static. They have evolved over time and exist within a particular historical context. HST 399: Jewish History from the Middle Ages to the Present TR 1400-1550 Prof. Meir This course surveys Jewish history from approximately the year 1000 to the present, covering major developments in Jewish society and culture in the medieval Islamic and Christian realms, early modern Europe and the Middle East, and the modern world. Topics include the rise of the Spanish and northern European Jewish communities, trends in Jewish religious thought (including the emergence of kabbalah), expulsions from western Europe, new settlements in Ottoman Empire and Poland, changes in Jewish civil status in the modern age, Jewish migrations and political movements (including Zionism), the rise of U.S. Jewry, the Holocaust, and the establishment of the State of Israel. N.B. This class is the second in a two-semester introduction to the study of Jewish history, religion and culture, but the first half of the survey is not a prerequisite for this course. HST 399: Rabbinic Cultural in the Roman World TR 1000-1150 Prof. Spielman Course description pending from instructor. HST 405K/505K: Reading Colloquium: Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Late Antiquity until the Age of the Crusades TR 1400-1550 Prof. Ott For three millennia, the city of Jerusalem and its surrounding land has been revered as holy by believers of the three Mediterranean monotheisms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This course explores by a combination of primary and secondary source readings the meaning of Jerusalem and the power of place through the historical and practiced traditions of all three religions, from the Late Antique Christian era (~300 C.E.) until the fall of Acre and the closure of the crusader period (1291). Note that this class does not examine holy war per se (crusade or jihad) or attitudes toward it, though they comprise the background to the course subject matter proper, which is the city of Jerusalem and the “holy land” of medieval Palestine and Syria. Prerequisite: HST 300 or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 405M/505M: Reading Colloquium: Russia and Its East T 0900-1150 Prof. Hsu Course description pending from instructor. Prerequisite: HST 300 or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 405N/505N: Reading Colloquium: Roman Empire W 0900-1150 Prof. Turner Course description pending from instructor. Prerequisite: HST 300 or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 407A/507A: Research Seminar: Mongol Empire W 1400-1700 Prof. Walton Focusing on the approximately two centuries when the Mongols dominated Eurasia, this seminar will first approach the study of the Mongol Empire as an example of a “steppe empire,” beginning with the ethnohistory of the Mongols and tracing their adaptation to sedentary rule from the Middle East and Central Asia to Russia and China. We will consider the pax Mongolica, “Mongolian peace,” in relation to culture, religion, and commerce along the Silk Roads and contact between Europe and Asia. We will make use of travelers’ and envoys’ accounts of their experiences in the Mongol Empire and translations of other primary sources as available. This is a research seminar for the Readings in Eurasian History colloquium and is appropriate for students with background in European, Russian, Middle Eastern, Asian, or world history. Prerequisite: HST 300 and HST 405A or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 407G/507G: Research Seminar: History of the American West R 1400-1700 Prof. Barber In this course we will explore the historically constructed region that is the American West. Although geographic region and “place” will be major analytical foci, we will attend to multiple identity factors such as race, class, gender, nationality, tribal affiliation, and sexuality. The primary written assignment is a research paper. We will use the group setting that the seminar provides to enrich individual work through discussion and peer review. Prerequisite: HST 300 and HST 405H or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 407H/507H: Research Seminar: History of the American South M 1000-1250 Prof. Garrison Course description pending from instructor. Prerequisite: HST 300 and HST 405H or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 407I/507I: Research Seminar: Continuity and Change in Early Modern England R 1000-1250 Prof. Litzenberger This will be the second of a two-term readings and research sequence for advanced undergraduate and graduate students focusing on the history of 16th- and 17th-century England. This period in English history was marked by change in religion, politics, society and the economy, with the nature of this change ranging from gradual to abrupt – from being in continuity with the past to being dramatically and suddenly different from the past. This was the time of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the introduction in England of ideas of Renaissance humanism, increased population and economic dislocation, and the rise of England as a nation state. These developments, in turn, fueled provincial revolts and civil wars, accusations of heresy and treason, an increase in literacy, and the redefinition of gendered boundaries. In this research seminar, students will select a specific aspect of the history of this period (covered in the first term), as the focus for a research paper to be based on a combination of primary and secondary sources. Prerequisite: HST 300 or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 407J/507J: Research Seminar: Japan and the World T 1000-1250 Prof. Ruoff This course examines Japan’s role in world history from the 1920s through to the present. Prerequisite: HST 300 or consent of the instructor. Students who have not completed HST 300 will be unable to register for this course via web registration. HST 409/509: Public History Seminar: Oral History Lab W 0900-1150 Prof. Barber This course will focus on the practical application of oral history collection in an ethical practice that documents the historical experiences and perspectives of individuals and preserves them for use by future scholars. Students will conduct and process interviews in partnership with community agencies. This course fulfills four 511 credits for graduate students on the Public History Track. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. HST 409/509: Public History Seminar: Civil Rights & Community Life through Verdell Rutherford Papers R 1000-1250 Prof. Schechter This course is a seminar in public history that takes a hands-on approach to archives, preservation, interpretation, and programming. Participants in this class will explore, inventory, and begin to process the Verdell Rutherford Papers, a rich repository of local, regional, and national African American history. The collection includes records of the local NAACP and women’s clubs, city and state-wide advocacy, and a unique collection of photographs dating to the nineteenth century. The course will culminate in a public program featuring highlights from student learning and from the collection itself. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. HST 415/515: Topics in Greek History: The Early Greek Polis TR 1400-1550 Prof. Armantrout In this class we will be studying the origins and the early development of the Greek polis from the collapse of the Bronze Age palaces down to time of the Persian war. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. HST 429/529: Topics in U.S. History: Populist Cultural Expression MWF 1015-1120 Prof. Horowitz Course description pending from instructor. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. HST 495/595: Comparative World History: Money, Trade, and Empire TR 1000-1150 Prof. Luckett Course description pending from instructor. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. HST 495/595: Comparative World History: Internment and Redress of Japanese-Americans W 1400-1700 Prof. Ruoff This course first examines the context, not only in the United States but in countries such as Canada and Peru, leading up to the mass internment, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, of individuals of Japanese descent in the Americas. In the second half of the course, we address the history by which victims of internment (again, not just in the United States, but throughout the Americas) gained redress for this injustice. The class has been scheduled to coincide with programming to mark the 70th anniversary of internment. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. HST 497: Film and History: The Lawyer through Film T 1730-2100 Prof. Garrison This course examines how film makers depicted the legal profession through the course of the twentieth century. In particular, we will consider how film affected or reflected public attitudes about the legal profession and how they represented the practice of law at the time they were produced. We will also use film as a springboard to discuss the history of the American lawyer and the ethical issues that have confronted the American bar through time. Recommended prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of the instructor. Department of History Winter 2012 Course Descriptions