HY105-Civilization of the West
HY109/PA118-Civilization in East Asia
HY120- The American Past
HY200 & PS203-The Search for Islamic Order: Yesterday
and Today
Blocks I: Carol Neel, HY105, Civilization of the West
Block II: Bryant (Tip) Ragan, HY105, Civilization of the West
The course as a whole meets Critical Perspectives: The West in Time (2 units).
This course will consider the ways in which various ancient,
medieval, and modern cultures in the Mediterranean and in Europe have constructed
community and identity. Source readings will include major
works of literature, seen in the context of, on the one hand, the material
culture of village and city life and, on the other, the spiritual and emotional
lives of both elites and ordinary people. Class discussion, individual writing
assignments, and group research initiatives will alike respond to the question,
"How did the people of the past understand participation in society to
make their lives meaningful?"
*This course fulfills the entry requirement for the History, History/Political Science and Classics/History/Politics majors.
A two-block course with one instructor in each block; one grade
will be given for the course as a whole.
Blocks I & II: John Williams, HY109/PA118, Civilization in East Asia
Meets two units of Critical Perspectives: Diverse Cultures & Critiques.
Civilization in East Asia
"There are no Asians in Asia," wrote historian Ronald Takaki, "only
people with national identities, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian,
Vietnamese, and Filipino." He was referring to the fact that ' Asia'
as a word and concept was a Western invention. But who lived in East Asia
before the people called 'Chinese,' 'Japanese,' and 'Korean,' and how did
they come to identify themselves in this way? How did 'traditional' East Asian
societies become 'modern' nation-states? And how have the latter shaped our
understanding of the former?
These are the central questions under consideration as we traverse the ages
from Neolithic to 21 st century East Asia. Block I concerns the formation,
development and interaction of East Asian societies before the 15 th century.
We begin ca. 10,000 BCE, approaching the earliest human settlements and statebuilding
efforts from an archeological perspective. Relating this evidence to the written
legacy of the states that followed, we examine culture formation and the invention
of ethics via the genesis of the Confucian tradition. The relationship between
state formation and the invention of history is the subtext of our consideration
of the Han empire, and its implications for societies from the Korean peninsula
to the Red River valley in modern day Vietnam. The Han collapse ca. 200 CE
leads to discussion of the dynamics of cultural syncretism: How was South
Asian Buddhism transformed into an East Asian spiritual tradition? How did
the spread of Chinese writing and Chinese-style imperial systems to Korea,
Japan and Vietnam shape statebuilding processes there? Tension between nomadic
and sedentary civilization is also a feature of premodern East Asian history,
and we close Block I with the greatest nomadic empire the world has ever known:
the Mongols.
Block II focuses on modernity and nationhood. In order to understand contemporary
China, Japan and Korea, we will debate the nature of 'modernity' and its relation
to East Asia, examining first 15 th to 18 th century commercial and social
transformations that force us either to redefine our understanding of modernity,
or locate its East Asian origins before the arrival of the West. We then turn
to the impact of Western imperialism in the 19 th century, and its implications
for the creation of post-imperial, post-colonial states in the 20 th. Crucial
to this discussion is the role of ideology and nationalism as political value
systems, and in this connection we will compare the very different trajectories
of China and Japan. We close with a look at the post-WWII economic transformation
of East Asia: the rise of Japan, the 'Tigers' and finally China, interrogating
the notion of an 'East Asian' development model and its implications for the
world.
A two-block course with a single instructor; one grade will be given for the
course as a whole.
Blocks I & II: Bryan Rommel-Ruiz, HY120, The American Past
The course as a whole meets Critical Perspectives: The West in Time (2
units).
What is American history? Is it an extension of European history? Or a history
that is unique unto itself, maybe even exceptional: the historical manifestation
of the Hegelian philosophical ideal of human freedom? This course has us
search for the meaning of America, from its distant past in medieval England
through our current position as global leader. The first part of this class
goes to the heart of the course by asking the question of whether colonial
American history is an extension of English history or whether it is the
pre-history of the United States. In this regard, it asks the question of
whether the American Revolution was truly a revolution as a political, social,
and cultural break from its European roots, or whether it was an affirmation
of an independent society and culture that was moving inevitably towards
political independence. The second half of this course picks up the theme
of "Searching for America" by looking closely at its formative
ideology: liberal democracy. Can a liberal democracy remain stable and prosperous
over a large geographic space with a large population? This classic Madisonian
question has been put to the test numerous times throughout our national
history since 1776, and this class will look at the ways the emergence of
the United States as a liberal democracy both affirmed Jeffersonion and
Hamiltonian ideas of independence and prosperity and the ways the ideology
of Lockian liberalism endured the challenges of racial slavery, geographic
expansion, civil war, industrialization, and globalization. Is the United
States truly exceptional in its achievement of Lockian liberalism, or can
it be a model for modern liberal democracies throughout the world? If so,
can we, or should we encourage the development of democratic societies?
This last question has been the central idea behind American foreign policy
since Woodrow Wilson's presidential administration, and has become more
pressing as we remain the most powerful industrial democracy in an age of
integrated political, cultural, and economic globalization.
A two-block course taught by one instructor; one grade will be given for
the course as a whole.
Blocks I and II: Robert Lee, HY200 & PS203, The Search for Islamic Order: Yesterday and Today
Meets two units of Critical Perspectives: Diverse Cultures and Critiques.
Since September 11, 2001, Americans have discovered that it is not easy
to speak about Muslims in general or the Islamic world as a whole. Is there
an Islamic way of organizing society? What do Islamists mean when they talk
about an Islamic state? Why do some Muslims insist that Islam offers a program
for political action, while others insist that religious belief has nothing
to do with politics? How is it that a single set of revelations passed to
Muhammad in the seventh century lends itself to so many interpretations
and so many purposes?
In the first block, the course examines the historical development of Muslim
society and Islamic orthodoxies. What was the nature of the state Muhammad
established in Medina? How did the subsequent Arab Empires reflect and differ
from that experience? In what context did scholars construct the legal system
of Islam? How did the political order proposed by Shi'ism differ from that
characterized by Sunnism? What was the appeal of mysticism in both the Shi'a
and Sunni communities? To what extent did the Ottoman Empire, which brought
together a significant portion of the Muslim world from 1300 until 1918,
represent a new version of Islamic order?
The second block confronts the questions of order and disorder in the contemporary Muslim Middle East and North Africa, examining the rise of the nation-state; the impact of imperialism, liberalism, and socialism; the blossoming of Islamist movements; the impact of modernism on the position of women in the Muslim world; and the relationship of Islamic doctrine to human rights, democracy, and violence. It will consider the political thought of several prominent Muslim intellectuals, secular, Islamist, and post-Islamist.
A set of linked one-block courses that must be taken together, with a single
instructor; separate grades will be assigned for each block.