HIST 195 - Topics in History for First-years and Sophomores

FDR: HU
Credits: 3 credits in Fall or Winter; 4 credits in Spring
Planned Offering: Offered when interest is expressed and departmental resources permit.

Prerequisite: Varies with topic. Selected topic or problem in history. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Spring 2014 topic:

HIST 195: Introductory Seminar on Thomas Jefferson (4). A seminar focusing on the life and times of Thomas Jefferson: planter, slave owner, husband, father, author, legislator, diplomat, Secretary of State, Vice President, President, sage. It devotes much of its attention to his two terms as president and also examines his life before his election to the presidency in 1801 and after the expiration of his second term in office. We analyze his strengths and weaknesses, his successes and failures, and his legacy. Includes readings in primary and secondary sources, discussion, weekly essays, and optional tours of Monticello and Poplar Forest. (HU) Merchant. Spring 2014

Winter 2014 topic:

HIST-195: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America (3). This course examines the history of race and ethnicity in Latin America from the colonial past to the republican present. We focus on the origin and evolution of these contentious concepts and also explore how they operated in distinct local-historical contexts, generating social exclusion and, paradoxically, political inclusion. (HU) Gildner.

Fall 2013 topic:

HIST 195-01: Animal Behavior and Human Morality, 1800-present (3). This course deals with the history of the study of animal behavior in its bearing on human morality, from the beginning of the professionalization of the subject around 1800 till the present day. Time and again, tentative connections have been and are being made between the ways animals behave and how humans conduct themselves, thus conferring legitimacy on shared traits. The line of argument in making these linkages is simple and straightforward: if animals behave in certain ways, these ways are natural and therefore beyond reproach; if humans share these traits, they, too, are free of blame. Issues of gender and sexuality traditionally have been at the center of these considerations, but also marriage, the family, slavery, systems of government (monarchy, republic, etc.) have been argued for or against on the basis of animal examples. (HU) Rupke.