Hum/H 1 ab
East Asian History
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
Late imperial values, institutions, and behaviors and their evolution in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hum/H 1 a will deal largely with China, and Hum/H 1 b with Japan. The readings will consist of selected thematic texts as well as a chronological textbook. Each term is independent of the other, and students will normally take only one of the two terms.
Instructor:
Staff
Hum/H 2
American History
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
Among the major events, trends, and problems of our country's history are the American Revolution, the framing and development of the Constitution, wars, slavery and emancipation, ethnic and gender relations, immigration, urbanization, westward conquest, economic fluctuations, changes in the sizes and functions of governments, foreign relations, class conflicts, domestic violence, and social and political movements. Although no one course can treat all of these themes, each freshman American history course will deal with two or more of them. How have American historians approached them? What arguments and evidence have scholars offered for their interpretations and how can we choose between them? In a word, what can we know about our heritage?
Instructor:
Kousser
Hum/H 3 abc
European Civilization
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
This course will be divided into three terms, each of which will focus on a coherent period in the history of European civilization. Each term is independent of the others, and students will normally take only one of the three terms.
Hum/H 4 abc
Civilization, Science, and Archaeology
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
This course will be divided into three terms, each of which will focus on a particular aspect of pre-classical antiquity or premodern science. Each term is independent of the others, and students will normally take only one of the three terms.
Instructor:
Buchwald
Hum/H/HPS 10
Introduction to the History of Science
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
Major topics include the following: What are the origins of modern Western science, when did it emerge as distinct from philosophy and other cultural and intellectual productions, and what are its distinguishing features? When and how did observation, experiment, quantification, and precision enter the practice of science? What were some of the major turning points in the history of science? What is the changing role of science and technology? Using primary and secondary sources, students will take up significant topics in the history of science, from ancient Greek science to the 20th- century revolution in physics, biology, and technology. Hum/H/HPS 10 may be taken for credit toward the additional 36-unit HSS requirement by HPS majors and minors who have already fulfilled their freshman humanities requirement and counts as a history course in satisfying the freshman humanities breadth requirement.
Instructor:
History staff
H 40
Reading in History
Units to be determined for the individual by the division
|
Elective, in any term
Reading in history and related subjects, done either in connection with the regular courses or independently, but under the direction of members of the department. A brief written report will usually be required. Graded pass/fail. Not available for credit toward humanities-social science requirement.
H 41
Prehistoric Peoples of the Southwest
9 units (3-0-6)
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second term
This course offers a comprehensive overview of the rich and varied archaeological record of the American Southwest, beginning with the colonization of the New World at the end of the last ice age and ending with the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 16th century. The course will review the major prehistoric culture that inhabited this region, stretching from coastal Southern California to the edge of the Great Plains in New Mexico and Colorado. Archaeological method and theory, the history of research in the region, and contemporary issues and debates in the field will also be discussed.
Instructor:
Van Keuren
H 98
Reading in History
9 units (1-0-8)
Prerequisites: instructor's permission.
An individual program of directed reading in history, in areas not covered by regular courses.
Instructor:
Staff
H 99 abc
Research Tutorial
9 units (1-0-8)
Prerequisites: instructor's permission.
Students will work with the instructor in the preparation of a research paper, which will form the basis of an oral examination.
Instructor:
Staff
H 107
Violence in Medieval Europe
9 units (3-0-6)
This course will explore how people understood violence in Europe between ca. 500 and ca. 1400 A.D. It will focus in particular on the various norms that could govern or justify the use of violence in a period when the right of free people to carry and use weapons was considered self-evident. Working through primary sources from the period, students will explore the connections between violence and such things as vengeance, the law, emotions, public ritual, economics, and religion. They will also follow the norms broadcast and/or followed by kings and princes as they both wielded violence themselves and sought to control or limit its use by others. At the end, the course will ask students to consider whether we can see in the Middle Ages the seed of the modern idea that the use of violence to redress wrong and uphold order should be restricted to the state.
Instructor:
Brown
H 108 a
The Early Middle Ages
9 units (3-0-6)
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first term
This course is designed to introduce students to the formative period of Western medieval history, roughly from the fourth through the tenth centuries. It will emphasize the development of a new civilization from the fusion of Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions, with a focus on the Frankish world. The course focuses on the reading, analysis, and discussion of primary sources. Not offered 2007-08.
Instructor:
Brown
H 108 b
The High Middle Ages
9 units (3-0-6)
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second term
This course is designed to introduce students to European history between 1000 and 1400. It will provide a topical as well as chronological examination of the economic, social, political, and religious evolution of western Europe during this period, with a focus on France, Italy, England, and Germany. The course emphasizes the reading, analysis, and discussion of primary sources. Not offered 2007-08.
Instructor:
Brown
H 109
Medieval Knighthood
9 units (3-0-6)
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second term
This course tells the story of the knight from his beginnings in the early Middle Ages, through his zenith in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, to his decline and transformation in the late medieval and early modern periods. The course treats the knight not simply as a military phenomenon but also as a social, political, religious, and cultural figure who personified many of the elements that set the Middle Ages apart. Not offered 2007-08.
H 110
The World of Charlemagne
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
The emperor Charlemagne looms large in the European consciousness as the warrior-king who created Europe. This course looks at Charlemagne's career in order to see how this late 8th- and early 9th-century Frankish ruler might have earned his reputation as the maker of a Christian Europe. At the same time, it explores the period dominated by his family, the Carolingians, as one in which the world of late antiquity was transformed into the civilization we call the Middle Ages. Not offered 2007-08.
H 111
The Medieval Church
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
This course takes students through the history of the medieval Christian Church in Europe, from its roots in Roman Palestine, through the zenith of its power in the high Middle Ages, to its decline on the eve of the Reformation. The course focuses on the church less as a religion (although it will by necessity deal with some basic theology) than as an institution that came to have an enormous political, social, cultural, and economic impact on medieval life, and for a brief time made Rome once more the mistress of Europe.
Instructor:
Brown
H 112
The Vikings
9 units (3-0-6)
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third term
This course will take on the Scandinavian seafaring warriors of the 8th-11th centuries as a historical problem. What were the Vikings, where did they come from, and how they did they differ from the Scandinavian and north German pirates and raiders who preceded them? Were they really the horned-helmeted, bloodthirsty barbarians depicted by modern popular media and by many medieval chronicles? What effect did they have in their roughly two centuries of raiding and colonization on the civilizations of medieval and ultimately modern Europe? Not offered 2007-08.
H 115 abc
British History
9 units (3-0-6)
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first, second, third terms
The political and cultural development of Great Britain from the early modern period to the 20th century. H 115 a covers the Reformation and the making of a Protestant state (1500-1700). H 115 b examines the Enlightenment and British responses to revolutions in France and America (1700-1830). H 115 c is devoted to the Victorian and Edwardian eras (1830-1918). H 115 a is not a prerequisite for H 115 b; neither it nor H 115 b is a prerequisite for H 115 c. Not offered 2007-08.
H 116
Studies in Narrative: History, Fiction, and Storytelling
9 units (3-0-6)
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second term
This course examines the fraught relationship between historical and literary narratives, two interdependent but often opposed forms of storytelling. It will look at works that raise the issue of veracity and storytelling, including fictions like Graham Swift's Waterland, films such as Kurosawa's Rashomon, and the "historical novellas" in Simon Schama's book Dead Certainties. It will also investigate in some detail the works of American, French, and Italian historians who have tried to solve this problem by turning to so-called microhistory. Not offered 2007-08.
Instructor:
Brewer
H 117
Consumer Society: The Debate 1950-2000
9 units (3-0-6)
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third term
This course examines the debates about the nature, virtues, and vices of "consumer society" from its inception in the 1950s to the end of the 20th century. It will examine works of history, economics, sociology, and criticism, including such works as Galbraith's The Affluent Society, Rostow's The Stages of Economic Growth, Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, and Frank's Luxury Fever. Not offered 2007-08.
H 118
Histories of Collecting
9 units (3-0-6)
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third term
This course examines the history and theory of collecting, concentrating on collectors, collections, and collecting in the West since the Renaissance. It will include field trips to collections around Los Angeles, including the Huntington Art Gallery and the Museum of Jurassic Technology, and the examination of issues such as forgery and the workings of art markets. Not offered 2007-08.
Instructor:
Brewer
H 121
American Radicalism
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
The course will cover a number of radical social, political, and artistic movements in 20th-century America. A focus on the first two decades of the century will center around the poet, journalist, and revolutionary John Reed and his circle in Greenwich Village. Topics will include their involvement with artistic experimentation, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Mexican Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the movements for birth control and against American involvement in World War I. Other areas of concentration will be the Great Depression of the '30s, with its leftist political and labor actions, and the freewheeling radicalism of the '60s, including the anti-Vietnam protests, Students for a Democratic Society, and the ethnic struggles for social and political equality. Some reference will be made to the anti-globalization movements of today.
Instructor:
Rosenstone
H 122
Household and Family Forms over Time
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
This course examines the wide variety of family forms and household structures in past societies, as well as the social, cultural, institutional, and economic variables that influenced them. The course focuses mainly on Europe from about 1600 to the present, as this is the area for which most research has been done, but there will be some discussion of other parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and North and South America. Special attention is given to comparisons among different societies.
Instructor:
Dennison
H 125
The End of the Roman Empire
9 units (3-0-6)
This course will trace the transformation of the Roman world from the second century to about 700. It will examine the reforms of Diocletian, which provided a short-lived solution to some of the problems confronting the Roman Empire, visit the North Africa of St. Augustine, and end with the very different societies born out of the former empire, the Byzantine empire in the East and a series of Germanic kingdoms in the West. The course will trace the end of the Roman world and the birth of the Middle Ages with attention to the social, religious, and economic shifts that accompanied the political changes.
Instructor:
Davis
H 126
Imperial China
9 units (3-0-6)
The purpose of this course is to review the history of imperial China from the late third century B.C.E. to the mid-19th century C.E. The main focus of the course will be on changes in Chinese economy and society. How and why did China's economy and society evolve into what they are today? In addition to the historical chronology of the Chinese experience during these two millennia, the class will emphasize some of the distinctive features of this experience in comparative perspective.
Instructor:
Li
H 127
20th-Century Transportation History: the Case of Los Angeles
9 units (3-0-6)
This course will examine the changing technologies of transportation in their social, political, and cultural contexts. Major topics will include the economics of rail, the ascendance of the automobile, the development of aviation, the death and rebirth of mass transportation, and the transformation of shipping. Several field trips will be required, and students will conduct independent research on local subjects. A basic familiarity with United States history is recommended.
Instructor:
Dyble
H 128
Slavery in the Americas
9 units (3-0-6)
This course examines the European exploitation of African labor throughout the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries. It explores slavery in its many American contexts: the sugar-producing colonies of Brazil and the Caribbean; the tobacco, rice, and cotton plantations of North America; mining outposts in Latin America; skilled urban, domestic, and maritime occupations. Such variations in labor regimes led to further distinctions in the lives of slaves and the development of African American cultures. To understand what set African slavery apart, students will also consider other "un-free" labor regimes, such as indentured servitude and compulsory Native American labor.
Instructor:
O'Malley
H 130
Postmodern History
9 units (3-0-6)
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offered by announcement
In recent years some historians have experimented with new and innovative ways of telling the pastÂ-on the printed page, using film and video, and on the Internet. The course will focus on these new approaches to historical presentation and knowledge. Students will read, watch, and interact with various examples of these innovative historical works. They will also be exposed to the critiques of traditional historical writing from philosophers, literary critics, and postmodern theorists, which provide intellectual underpinning for experimenting with new forms of history.
Instructor:
Rosenstone
H/F 131
History on Film
9 units (2-2-5)
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offered by announcement
An investigation into the variety of ways history has been and can be represented on the screen. Some terms the focus will be a specific historical period or nation; other terms the focus will be the nature of film as a medium for history and biography. The class will include weekly screenings of films as well as weekly discussion sections.
Instructor:
Rosenstone
H/F 133
Topics in Film History
9 units (2-2-5)
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offered by announcement
The course will focus each term on one kind of motion picture-either a film genre, or films made by an individual director, or from a single nation or region of the world or particular historical era. Included are weekly screenings, readings on film, a weekly discussion meeting, and a term paper.
Instructor:
Rosenstone
H/F 134
The Science Fiction Film
9 units (2-2-5)
|
offered by announcement
This course will introduce students to some of the classic works of the science fiction film from the earliest days of cinema until the present. It will analyze aesthetic, historical, and social documents, and will show that such films, while describing alternative, hypothetical, and futurist worlds, also serve as a commentary upon and/or a critique of contemporary (to the film) historical, social, political, and ideological systems and attitudes.
Instructor:
Rosenstone
H 135
War, Conquest, and Empires
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
This course will use historical examples of war and conquest and ask why some periods of history were times of warfare and why certain countries developed a comparative advantage in violence. The examples will come from the history of Europe and Asia, from ancient times up until World War I, and the emphasis throughout will be on the interplay between politics, military technology, and social conditions. Not offered 2007-08.
Instructor:
Hoffman
H/F 136
Ethnic Visions
9 units (2-2-5)
|
offered by announcement
In recent decades, directors from ethnic minorities that are often un- or misrepresented in mainstream Hollywood films have been making dramatic features depicting the history, problems, and prospects of their own communities. This course will feature a selection of such films by directors from African, Latino, Asian, Muslim, and European American ethnic groups, with an eye toward assessing the similarities and differences in the processes of immigration, acculturation, and Americanization.
Instructor:
Rosenstone
H 137
Encounters in Early America, 1607-1814
9 units (3-0-6)
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third term
This course offers an exploration of early American history through the study of the multifaceted encounters between the indigenous inhabitants, the European settlers, and the Africans who were forcefully brought over. Early America was a melting pot of diverse ambitions, and understanding such diversity, as well as the tension between competing cultures and ideals, is crucial to comprehending both early American history and the nature of American society today.
Instructor:
O'Malley
H 138
Human Nature and the Enlightenment, 1760-1815
9 units (3-0-6)
Focusing primarily on the Enlightenment, this course addresses how late 18th-century thinkers pursued the challenging task of defining human nature. More specifically, it is structured around three themes: body (the humours, iatromechanism, and nervous disorders), mind (tabula rasa, ideas, and the operations of the mind), and spirit (dualism, materialism, and vitalism). Throughout the module, these topics will be considered historically and in light of recent work that addresses the history of the book and reading practices.
Instructor:
Eddy
H 139
Victorian Science, Religion, and Human Origins
9 units (3-0-6)
Within the history of science and culture, the 19th century often is viewed as an era of secularization-a time when science broke free from the shackles of religion and objectivity ushered in the modern world. At the same time, uncomfortable questions arose: Were the origin accounts of religious texts compatible with scientific theories? Did life spontaneously erupt from a primeval ocean? Was race a biological fact or a social construct? This module reflects on these questions by addressing the different types of evidence that Victorian thinkers used to explain human origins.
Instructor:
Eddy
H 140
The Art and Science of Alchemy
9 units (3-0-6)
Alchemy has occupied a curious place in Western art and science: it has been both revered and reviled, considered at once a colorful episode in the long history of popular superstition and a crucial chapter in the emergence of modern chemistry. While the alchemical quest has never produced the Philosopher's Stone-with its power to transform base metals into gold and bring wealth, health, and spiritual purity-it has generated an extraordinary body of texts and a long tradition of work that connects the scientific and the artistic. The course will survey the history of alchemy and a wide range of primary texts.
Instructor:
Sherman
H 141
Science in Print
9 units (3-0-6)
This class will explore the impact of the invention of printing (in the middle of the 15th century) on the spread of scientific discoveries and methods-and even on the definition of science itself. There will be regular trips to the Huntington Library, the ideal place to take a closer look at some landmarks in the history of the scientific book. The impact of digital texts on the history of scientific publication will also be considered.
Instructor:
Sherman
Law/PS/H 148 ab
The Supreme Court in U.S. History
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second, third terms
The development of the Supreme Court, its doctrines, personalities, and role in U.S. history through analyses of selected cases. The first half of the course, which is a prerequisite for the second half but may also be taken by itself, will deal with such topics as federalism, economic regulation, political rights, and free speech. The second half will cover such issues as the rights of the accused, equal protection, and privacy.
Instructor:
Kousser
HPS/H 156
The History of Modern Science
9 units (3-0-6)
|
third term
Selected topics in the development of the physical and biological sciences since the 17th century.
Instructor:
Kormos-Buchwald
HPS/H 158
The Scientific Revolution
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second term
The birth of modern Western science from 1400 to 1700. The course examines the intellectual revolution brought about by the contributions of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Newton, and Harvey, and their relation to major political, social, and economic developments. Not offered 2007-08.
HPS/H 160 ab
Einstein and His Generation: The History of Modern Physical Sciences
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first, third terms
An exploration of the most significant scientific developments in the physical sciences, structured around the life and work of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), with particular emphasis on the new theories of radiation, the structure of matter, relativity, and quantum mechanics. While using original Einstein manuscripts, notebooks, scientific papers, and personal correspondence, we shall also study how experimental and theoretical work in the sciences was carried out; scientific education and career patterns; personal, political, cultural, and sociological dimensions of science. Not offered 2007-08.
H 161
Selected Topics in History
9 units (3-0-6)
; offered by announcement.
Instructors:
Staff, visiting lecturers
HPS/H 162
Social Studies of Science
9 units (3-0-6)
A comparative, multidisciplinary course that examines the practice of science in a variety of locales, using methods from the history, sociology, and anthropology of scientific knowledge. Topics covered include the high-energy particle laboratory as compared with a biological one; Western as compared to non-Western scientific reasoning; the use of visualization techniques in science from their inception to virtual reality; gender in science; and other topics.
Instructor:
Feingold
HPS/H 166
Historical Perspectives on the Relations between Science and Religion
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
The course develops a framework for understanding the changing relations between science and religion in Western culture since antiquity. Focus will be on the ways in which the conceptual, personal, and social boundaries between the two domains have been reshaped over the centuries. Questions to be addressed include the extent to which a particular religious doctrine was more or less amenable to scientific work in a given period, how scientific activity carved an autonomous domain, and the roles played by scientific activity in the overall process of secularization.
Instructor:
Feingold
HPS/H 167
Experimenting with History/Historic Experiment
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
This course uses a combination of lectures with hands-on laboratory work to bring out the methods, techniques, and knowledge that were involved in building and conducting historical experiments. We will connect our laboratory work with the debates and claims made by the original discoverers, asking such questions as how experimental facts have been connected to theories, how anomalies arise and are handled, and what sorts of conditions make historically for good data. Typical experiments might include investigations of refraction, laws of electric force, interference of polarized light, electromagnetic induction, or resonating circuits and electric waves. We will reconstruct instrumentation and experimental apparatus based on a close reading of original sources. Not offered 2007-08.
Instructor:
Buchwald
HPS/H 168
History of Electromagnetism and Heat Science
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
This course covers the development of electromagnetism and thermal science from its beginnings in the early 18th century through the early 20th century. Topics covered include electrostatics, magnetostatics, electrodynamics, Maxwell's field theory, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics as well as related experimental discoveries.
Instructor:
Buchwald
HPS/H 169
Selected Topics in the History of Science and Technology
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
Instructors:
Staff, visiting lecturers
HPS/H 170
History of Light from Antiquity to the 20th Century
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
A study of the experimental, mathematical, and theoretical developments concerning light, from the time of Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D. to the production of electromagnetic optics in the 20th century.
Instructor:
Buchwald
HPS/H 171
History of Mechanics from Galileo through Euler
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second term
Prerequisites: basic Caltech physics course.
This course covers developments in mechanics, as well as related aspects of mathematics and models of nature, from just before the time of Galileo through the middle of the 18th century, which saw the creation of fluid and rotational dynamics in the hands of Euler and others.
Instructor:
Buchwald
HPS/H 172
History of Mathematics: A Global View with Close-ups
9 units (3-0-6)
|
offered by announcement
The course will provide students with a brief yet adequate survey of the history of mathematics, characterizing the main developments and placing these in their chronological, cultural, and scientific contexts. A more detailed study of a few themes, such as Archimedes' approach to infinite processes, the changing meanings of "analysis" in mathematics, Descartes' analytic geometry, and the axiomatization of geometry c. 1900; students' input in the choice of these themes will be welcomed.
Instructor:
Staff
HPS/H/Pl 173
History of Chemistry
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first term
This course examines developments in chemistry from medieval alchemy to the time of Lavoisier. It will examine the real content of alchemy and its contributions to modern science, as well as how to decode its bizarre language; chemistry's long quest for respect and academic status; the relations of chemistry with metallurgy, medicine, and other fields; and the content and development of the chemical theories and the chemical laboratory and its methods. Not offered 2007-08.
HPS/H/Pl 174
Celestial and Terrestrial Mechanisms: Landmarks in the Development of Greek Astronomy
9 units (3-0-6)
|
first term
The course will highlight the background and some of the landmarks in the evolution of Greek astronomy from its tentative beginnings in the 5th century B.C., to its culmination in the work of Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D. Not offered 2007-08.
HPS/H 175
Matter, Motion, and Force: Physical Astronomy from Ptolemy to Newton
9 units (3-0-6)
|
second term
The course will examine how elements of knowledge that evolved against significantly different cultural and religious backgrounds motivated the great scientific revolution of the 17th century. Not offered 2007-08.
Published Date:
July 28, 2022