My Courses

History 101: European Civilization, 1500-1789. [Fall semesters] Religious pluralism became a fact of life after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, but for the next 250 years most European governments chose one Christian denomination as their official, "established" church, persecuted all other denominations, and hoped for the day when their version of Christianity would be embraced by all of Christendom. In the first half of this course we will study the causes of the Protestant Reformation, reforms within the Catholic Church, witch hunts and other campaigns against "heresy", and the bloody religious wars that convulsed Europe from the 1540s to the 1640s. In the second half we will study the trend toward secularization in Europe after 1650, the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, origins of the Industrial Revolution, and causes of the French Revolution. Our goal will be to understand why the modern industrial economy, modern definitions of human rights, and modern forms of representative government began to spread rapidly in Europe at the end of the 18th century.

History 102: European Civilization, 1789 to the Present. [Winter semesters] Analyzes the transformation of Europe as a result of the Industrial Revolution and French Revolution, and the spread of the movements of liberalism, conservatism, Marxian socialism, feminism, nationalism, fascism, and communism. Topics include the unification of Italy and Germany, Europe's first experiments with parliamentary democracy, the causes of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Nazi seizure of power, the Holocaust, and the development of the European Union. Our goal will be to analyze what Europeans have learned from two centuries of strife about the foundations of democracy and international peace.

History 213. National Unification and Its Discontents: Germany, 1815-1914: [Fall 2012] Topics include the impact of the French Revolution and Industrial Revolution on Germany, the failure of the attempt to unify Germany through democratic methods in 1848, Bismarck's success at unifying Germany through warfare, the challenge to traditional values posed by the spread of the socialist and feminist movements, and the forces which shaped Germany's increasingly aggressive foreign policy after 1900. Our goal will be to understand how Germany developed the most advanced industrial economy in Europe while retaining an authoritarian political system, and to understand the origins of the major political ideologies of the twentieth century.

History 214: Dictatorship and Democracy in Germany, 1918-1991. [Winter 2013] Topics include the impact of the First World War on German society, the successes and ultimate failure of the Weimar Republic, the changing position of women in Germany, the mentality of the Nazis and the structure of their dictatorship, the Holocaust, the occupation and partition of Germany in 1945, the surprising success of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the collapse of the East German Communist regime in 1989 and reunification of Germany.

History 215. Weimar Cul ture, 1918-1933: Modernity and Its Foes. [Spring 2012] Germany adopted an admirably democratic constitution after the First World War, and the Weimar Republic became a center of bold experimentation in literature, the arts, theater, cinema, and scholarship, but it also became a hotbed of radical nationalism and xenophobia. This course analyzes the relationship between art and politics through case studies in the debates provoked by anti-war films and poetry, the Bauhaus “international style” of architecture, the plays of Bertolt Brecht, expressionist art, and films and paintings to celebrate the advent of the “New Woman.” Why did modernism inspire so much anxiety in Germany in the 1920s? To what extent did cultural experimentation contribute to the popularity of Adolf Hitler? What lessons did Weimar intellectuals in exile learn from the Nazi seizure of power?

History 223. International Relations 1815-1918: Europe and the World. [Fall 2013] Topics include the "Metternich system" for maintaing peace, strains in that system caused by the rise of nationalism, Europe's relations with Africa and Asia during the era of Free Trade, the dramatic expansion of Europe's colonial empires in the late nineteenth century (with special emphasis on the partition of Africa), the development of rival alliance systems within Europe, and the causes of the First World War. Our goal is to understand the causes of international conflict and the most successful strategies for maintaining peace.

History 224. International Relations, 1919-1970: The End of European Hegemony. [Winter 2014] Topics include the Versailles peace settlement of 1919, the spread of the British Empire to the Middle East and birth of Palestinian nationalism, the impact of the Great Depression and totalitarianism on international relations, the outbreak of the Second World War, the Holocaust and foundation of the State of Israel, the Nuremberg Trials, decolonization in Africa and Asia, the origins of the Cold War, and the foundation of the European Union. What have Europeans learned about conflict resolution from their experience of two world wars and numerous colonial wars?

History 226: European Cultural History, 1860-1930. [Fall 2012] Analyzes the novel ideas about human nature and society developed by Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche, and the impact of their theories on social movements in the twentieth century, including the artistic avant-garde, Freudian psychoanalysis, and extremist political movements. To what extent were the ideas of Marx responsible for the crimes of Stalin? Did Darwin and Nietzsche actually influence the Fascists and Nazis? To what extent did these classic nineteenth-century theories help, and to what extent did they hinder women in their efforts to achieve equality with men?

History 312: Research Seminar on Nazism and the Third Reich. [Winter 2014] An introduction to the most important scholarly debates about the causes of the failure of democracy in the Weimar Republic, the mentality of the Nazis, the nature of the regime they created in 1933, the Nazi campaign to reverse the trend toward equality for women, the origins of the Holocaust, and the extent to which the German people supported the criminal policies of the Nazi regime. All students must carry out a substantial individual research project related to one of these controversial issues. The course is recommended for students who have completed History 214 or 224; History 102 is the minimum prerequisite.

History 319. Research Seminar on the Great War in History and Literature. [Winter 2013] Our common readings in this advanced seminar address the question of who was most responsible for the outbreak of the First World War, the psychological impact of trench warfare on soldiers, the new freedoms and burdens facing women on the "home front," and the social and cultural impact of "total war." We will analyze different kinds of testimony regarding the war's impact in Great Britain, France, and Germany, including war memoirs, an autobiographical novel, and poetry. Students then choose a topic of special interest to them for a substantial twenty-page research paper. Prerequisite: either History 112, 213, 218, 220, or 223, or permission of the instructor.