History

This course focuses on the colonial period in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In addition to the political, social, and economic effects of colonial rule in each of these countries, attention will be given to the evolution of 'Indochina' as an entity created by the French and to its impact on relations among the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao peoples. These issues will be examined in the context of precolonial history and as a backdrop to the destructive warfare, that followed independence.

This course examines the history of Ireland, taking a wide view of the island’s history, from the introduction of Christianity to Ireland until the present day. The course aims to provide students with a broad outline of Irish history, introducing them to important aspects of Irish history and culture.

This course examines the emergence of mainly youth-led resistance and protest movements in post-World War II Europe on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and attempts to understand their origins, their meaning and their effect on the societies in which they occurred. American counterculture in the 1960s is often associated with rock’n’roll music, drug-taking, dropping out, and the Anti-Vietnam protest movement. In Europe the associations are more complex and include revitalization of European feminist movements as well as countercultures in places like West Germany and Italy that are remembered for planting bombs and joining underground terror cells in the name of the New Left, or more extreme iterations of the New Left. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, in places like Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union, anti-government protesters faced a very different, more dangerous existential struggle against authoritarian regimes that utilized torture and detention without trial to mute or prevent social uprisings. This course accounts for the nature and intensity of post-war European protest movements by examining the historical context of the traumatic impact of recently defeated fascism on the continent, and the division of Europe into spheres of interest reflecting the Cold War world. It examines the post-war socio-economic developments that led to the massive expansion of higher education in Western Europe, promoting a generational divide which saw a radicalized younger generation turn on their parents and other members of the older (Nazi) generation or the so called system, sometimes in rage and violence, as in the examples of the Red Army Faction in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy. This is compared to examples in Eastern Europe, where resistance movements against Communist regimes, such as in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, were met with deadly force and violent oppression. The course keeps as its particular focus East Germany (GDR) and West Germany (FRG), but the course also encounters the student-led uprisings against Sovietized Communism in Hungary in 1956 and during the 1968 Prague Spring, as well as the curious case of the Soviet Hippies. Throughout the course, the city of Berlin serves as a backdrop: as a place of often very radical anti-government movements in West Berlin, compared with the muted and hidden resistance to authority over the Berlin Wall in East Berlin. The course also examines how resistance in Western Europe often meant solidarity with anti-colonial movements in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. It also discusses the rise of new political movements as the Green Party.

This course focuses on the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples since colonization began, exploring key social, political, and legal events; issues and debates; and the people behind them. Students learn about important historical events and issues in areas such as civil and political rights, land rights, self-determination, and reconciliation, developing an understanding of how these have shaped the shared history of Australia.

This course provides an overview of the history and characteristics of Taiwanese civil life and culture.  It covers regional developments and architecture; cultural power network and judicial life; religious organizations and folk beliefs; types and characteristics of civil and military formations as well as public ceremonies;  rituals, taboos, leisure, and pop culture in Taiwan.

This course examines the structure and organization of the economy of West Africa, under European colonial rule. It explores the dynamics of the West African economy in the context of major themes such as establishment of colonial rule and state structure, organization of land and labor and taxation, business enterprise, and the place of women.

Focusing on the Anglophone world (USA, Canada, Ireland, Britain, and Australia in particular), this seminar course examines the emergence of the radical labor ideologies of syndicalism (or industrial unionism) and communism in the early 20th century. It considers the organizational forms and cultures of the principal movements espousing these ideologies (i.e., the 'Wobblies', originating in the US, c.1905; the Russian-dominated Communist movement, post-1917), discuss the relationship of one to the other, and compare their orientations towards social democratic and nationalist movements.

This course discusses the role of men and women in the Spanish Civil War. Topics include: background and possible causes of the Spanish Civil War; development of the conflict; gender relations during the war; women's presence and public participation; post-war society.