Social & Cultural History
Social historians study the lives of ordinary men and women more than of political and intellectual elites. They concentrate on large forces, such as population growth, more than on individual biography, and present these findings in terms of social processes more than single events. Social history has grown over the last thirty years to include a rich variety of approaches to historical analysis, including the study of politics, work, race and ethnicity, gender, emotions, popular mentalities and culture. Students in social history are broadly trained to develop a comparative perspective.Following are a few representative social history courses. For a more complete list, please refer to the undergraduate catalog.
History of Sexuality. Does sex have a history? This course argues that sex does. Sex is not a biological "fact of life"; it is historically constructed. Sexuality is conditioned and shaped by the changing nature of society. Shifts in politics, economics, and intellectual currents over the centuries have radically transformed attitudes towards sex and sexual behaviors alike. This course will examine and analyze these changes from ancient times through the twentieth century. This course will discuss all forms of sex and sexuality from the "reign of the phallus" in ancient Athens to twentieth-century "gay New York", and from the "immodest acts" of a sixteenth-century lesbian nun to the sexual liberation of the 1960s.
Women in American History explores the history of women in America since the mid-18th century. Although the main emphasis is on the experience of ordinary women, the rise and significance of feminism is also explored.
Focusing on white and black working class families, Marriage, Divorce and Family examines the larger forces that hold the family together and the pressures that encourage its disintegration. Students discuss changing attitudes toward divorce, individual fulfillment, gender roles, and sexuality over the past forty years in an attempt to define the present and future prospects of the American family.
African American History examines the black experience from reconstruction to the present. The evolution of race relations is an important component of the course, but the major emphasis is on the internal experiences of black people within the framework of larger socioeconomic and political processes in U.S. history.
Films have labeled murder, gambling, prostitution and fraud as immoral and/or criminal. Crime and Justice in Film investigates these interpretations as an aspect of cultural history, linking them to changes in American society.
Religion and Society: The American Experience seeks to answer the following questions: how have Americans experienced, thought about, and manifested their various religious beliefs throughout our history; how have Americans interacted with fellow citizens of differing beliefs; how has religion influenced the development of our current institutions; and why do Americans believe what they do?
In June 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. German troops reached the hills above Moscow, surrounded Leningrad in the longest running siege in modern history, and devastated the country. Twenty million Soviet soldiers and civilians died. The Soviet Union in WWII: Military and Political History examines why and how the war was fought. It uses film, novels, memoirs, journalism, and historical scholarship to explore Stalin's purges of the Red Army in the 1930s, the question of Soviet preparedness, the partisan movements, life on the home front, and the meaning of "The Great Fatherland War" for subsequent generations of Soviet citizens.
Culture and Identity in American Society. This discussion course focuses on economic identity from the era of Benjamin Franklin to the corporate "downsizing" of the 1990s. We will study changing ideas about the American Dream, considering how class, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and occupation shape our assessments of ourselves and each other. Readings include memoirs, poems, and fiction from authors such as Thoreau, Whitman, Maya Angelou, and Arthur Miller. Assignments include a readings journal and short essays.