History

Social, intellectual, political, and economic, elements of European history, 800 to 1648. Role of, Christianity in the formation of a dominant, culture; feudalism and the development of, conflicts between secular and religious life., Contacts with the non-European world, the, Crusades, minority groups, popular and elite, cultural expressions. Intellectual and cultural, life of the High Middle Ages, secular challenges, of the Renaissance, divisions of European culture, owing to the rise of national monarchies and, religious reformations.

History of Latin America from Native American, contact cultures through the onset of independence, movements in the early 19th century. Cultural, confrontations, change, and Native American, accommodation and strategies of evasion in dealing, with the Hispanic colonial empire.

This course surveys the history of women in the United States from the colonial period to the present, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. The course will approach women’s history from a variety of angles and will investigate the unevenness of women’s experiences as influenced by class, race, and region. Furthermore, we will be looking at the history of gender as well as the history of women. Most importantly, we will not merely try to add women to our conventional narrative of U.S. history, but rather grapple with the question of how putting women and gender at the center of our analysis transforms our understanding of U.S. history. Among the topics we will discuss are: the transformation of a household economy to an industrial economy; the influence of slavery and emancipation on the experience of women, bound and free; women’s movement into low-paid “women’s work” and their designation as the primary consumers in a consumer society; women’s involvement in social reform; changing notions of women’s (and men’s) sexuality; the conflicted history of women’s suffrage; the relationship between ideologies of gender and imperialism; suburbanization and the “feminine mystique;” and the rights revolutions of the twentieth century. In addition to reading some of the most important works in the field of women’s history, we will use a variety of other sources, such as visual images, architecture, film, fiction, and memoir.

Social thought about race and nation in Latin, America. The Iberian concept of pureza de sangre,, development of criollo national consciousness,, 20th-century indigenista movements. Linkages, between national identities and constructions of, race, particularly in the wake of revolutionary, movements. Freyre (Brazil), Marti (Cuba),, Vasconcelos (Mexico), and Sarmiento (Argentina).