1. science
2. social science
3. history

NOTE: All information contained herein is subject to change without advance notice
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA
Course Descriptions
Fall Semester 2015
FOCUS DESIGNATIONS:
E = Contemporary Ethical Issues
O = Oral Communication
WI = Writing Intensive
H/HAP = Hawaiian, Asian, Pacific Issues
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
HIST 151
World History to 1500
Foundations: FGA
Kelley, Liam
Content:
This course analyzes the historical development of human societies and their cultural
traditions in all parts of the world, including Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and
Oceania, up to 1500 C.E. Lectures and readings offer integrated analyses of the political,
social, economic, and cultural dimensions of human societies, as well as processes of
cross-cultural interaction and exchange. In small weekly discussion groups, students
engage in the study of writings, narratives, artifacts, or cultural practices of different
peoples and societies. Overall, the course provides students with an intellectual
foundation for responsible citizenship in the complex, interdependent, globalizing world
of contemporary times.
Requirements:
To be announced (varies dependent on section).
Required Texts:
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R. K. Narayan, The Ramayana
N. K. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh
Robert Van Guilk, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee
HIST 151
World History to 1500
Foundations: FGA
Schwartz, Saundra
Content:
This course analyzes the historical development of human societies and their cultural
traditions in all parts of the world, including Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and
Oceania, up to 1500 C.E. The course is organized around six themes—environment,
society, cities, empire, ideas, and contact—all of which still have significance and
urgency for today’s global community. Lectures and readings offer integrated analyses of
the political social, economic, and cultural dimensions of human societies, as well as
processes of cross-cultural interaction and exchange. In small groups, students engage in
the study of writings, narratives, artifacts, or cultural practices of different peoples and
societies.
Requirements:
Chapter quizzes (online), midterm, final, three short papers.
Required Texts:

Bentley and Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to 1500
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HIST 152
World History Since 1500
Foundations: FGB
Ziegler, Herbert
Content:
History 152 is a course designed to fulfill (in conjunction with History 151) the
University of Hawaii’s requirement that all students take two courses related to “Global
and Multicultural Perspectives” as part of their Foundations general education course
work (FG).
This course will focus on the processes and results of encounters between peoples of
different societies or cultural regions from approximately 1500 to the present. These
encounters involved the establishment of economic or trading relationships, the
imposition of colonial regimes, struggles for hegemony between peoples of different
societies, and the massive process of decolonization of the twentieth century. This course
will also emphasize how various societal traditions have continued to exercise their own
enduring influence, especially within the context of globalization. The format of this
course is a combination of lectures and once-a-week discussion meetings in small groups.
Requirements:
Successful completion of this course requires: (1) attendance at scheduled lectures, (2)
completion of the assigned readings and other works, (3) passing of examinations, and (4)
participation in the discussion (Labs) sessions. The latter are an integral and essential part
of the course and will provide you with the opportunity to ask questions about the lectures
and readings as well as help prepare you for the examinations. Teaching Assistants will
conduct the Labs, and will make appropriate assignments for their respective Lab
sections.
Required Texts:
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Feng Jicai, The Three-Inch Golden Lotus.
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart.
Erich Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front.
Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. My Father Bleeds History, vol. I.
Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. And Here My Troubles Began, vol. II.
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Bentley & Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, Vol. II.
HIST 156
World History of Human Disease
Foundations: FGC
Romaniello, Matthew
Content:
This course focuses on the role of disease in world history. We will begin with a famous
case of the modern conflict between Western and non-Western medicine in order to better
understand how different societies’ understanding of illness can provide insights into the
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complexity of global interactions. We will then trace the relationship between viruses,
parasites, and bacteria and the human host from the Plague of Athens around 500 BCE
until the modern day. Besides examining the role played by disease during the Black
Death and conquest of the New World, this course also looks at the nineteenth-century
debate over the germ theory and the contemporary threat of bioterrorism.
Requirements:
A take-home midterm and final; two response papers to the course readings; regular
participation in weekly discussions.
Required Texts:
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J. N. Hays, The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in History
Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her
American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Warwick Anderson, The Collector of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen
HIST 161A
World Cultures in Perspective
Foundations: FGA
Jolly, Karen
Content & Requirements:
HIST 161A is an honors seminar that meets the UHM Foundations Global and
Multicultural Perspectives requirement (FGA). We will be examining the historical
development of human societies in various parts of the world, including Africa, the
Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania up to C.E. 1500.
Our theme for the course is worldviews, examining both the origins and development of
cultural traditions as well as their spread and encounters with others. In particular, we
will read selections in translation from a wide array of primary source literature, first to
see how various people groups thought about the world, their place in it, and found
meaning in their own histories; and second to see how people, goods, and ideas move
around the world, interact with each other, and the changes that occur through these
encounters.
The course objectives (Student Learning Outcomes) are:
1) Learn to think historically and cross-culturally while studying distinct cultural
identities and their interactions with one another;
2) Understand how to make the past meaningful by engaging other worldviews
with historical empathy; and
3) Develop university-level analytical skills in reading, thinking, and writing.
Class sessions are run seminar style: students are expected to complete the reading
before class and come prepared to discuss the primary source selections assigned for
each chapter. Grading is based on essay exams, thought papers, and oral participation in
class.
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Required Texts:
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Jerry H. Bentley, Herbert F. Ziegler, and Heather E. Streets-Salter, Traditions and
Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past, Vol. 1, 6th ed. (McGraw-Hill, 2015).
Primary source readings, uploaded to Laulima.
HIST 281
Introduction to American History
WI Focus
Kraft, James
Content:
This course, offered online, is a broad survey of major patterns and trends in American
history from colonial times to 1865. It addresses a host of important questions about the
nation’s past. It asks, for example, how slavery could have arisen in a place where people
were dedicated to principles of human liberty and dignity, and how a strong national
government could have emerged at a time when so many people believed in the
sovereignty of individual states. The course also asks questions about working class
protests, social reform movements, the Civil War, and more.
Requirements:
Weekly online discussions; several short papers on assigned readings; 2 examinations.
Required Texts:
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Wilson, Forging the American Character: Readings in the United States History of 1877,
Vol. 1
Boller & Story, A More Perfect Union: Documents in US History, Vol. 1
Tindall & Shi, America: A Narrative History, Vol. 1
HIST 282
Introduction to American History
Daniel, Marcus
Content:
This course is an introduction to the history of the United States from the Civil War to the
present. In just over a century a nation of small towns and agricultural producers, whose
men and women aspired to a life of independent labor on the land, became and industrial
super-power, sustained by a society of white and blue collar wage-earners whose
agricultural skills had atrophied to lawn-mowing. During the same period, a political and
social order that was controlled and governed by white men became a multi-racial
democracy acknowledging in principle, though not necessarily redeeming in practice, the
democratic rights of all citizens, regardless of race and gender. These changes were
profound, and they were neither smooth nor uncontested. Many Americans in this period
disagreed profoundly with the direction their country was taking. Conflict was as
common as consensus, and both shaped and reshaped American life in the C19th and
C20th. This course will trace the most significant of these conflicts, exploring through
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them divergent and changing visions of family life, social order, national identity and
political citizenship. How for example, did different social groups define American
society and what it meant to be an American? How did these definitions change over
time? Above all, I hope you will acquire a sense of the way that ordinary Americans
responded to, coped with, and helped create their own future and our shared past.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 284
History of the Hawaiian Islands
Rosa, John
Content:
Survey of state and local history from Polynesian chiefdoms to Hawaiian Kingdom to
American territory and state.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 301
India and South Asia to 1700s
Bertz, Ned
Content:
This course will introduce students to the history of India and South Asia from the earliest
civilizations in the Indus Valley to the fall of the Mughal Empire, a time when many
forces—internal and external—were competing for control of the subcontinent. The class
will open with a geographical, political, historical, social, and cultural overview of South
Asia. In the first weeks of the semester, we will examine the early civilizations uncovered
in the Indus River valley, followed by the rise of Vedic culture, especially through the
telling of one of the world’s most popular epics, The Ramayana. The next unit will focus
on the changes in Hinduism and the emergence of Buddhism and Jainism as competing
political and religious forces. Classical Indian culture will be studied through ancient
Sanskrit tales before we move on to the spread of Islam especially after the turn of the
millennium. The last weeks of the course will deal with the trajectory of the Mughal
Empire. The course will end with the shadow of Europe drawing over South Asia in the
eighteenth century. For extra credit, there will be an optional Bollywood film series with
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movies shown in the late afternoon every two or three weeks.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:
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Thapar, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
Narayan, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
Van Buitenen, Tales of Ancient India
HIST 311
History of China
Davis, Edward
Content:
History 311 will introduce the student to the history of China from the Neolithic through
the middle of the Ming Dynasty (c. 1600). The lectures will focus on institutional,
cultural, and social history. Requirements for the course include a take-home mid-term, a
final, and perhaps several one-page papers. Class time, although predominantly lecture,
will be devoted on occasion to discussion of the readings. Attendance and participation
are therefore encouraged and will be taken into account in assigning a final grade. The
week’s reading assignments should be completed by each Friday.
The readings, lectures, discussions, and exams are all designed to teach the student how
to understand pre-modern Chinese texts, identify their cultural assumptions, and use them
to reconstruct interpretative narratives of Chinese history. History, while ostensibly about
“what happened”, always involves an interpretive transaction between you and another
(person, culture, text) and a narrative transaction between the present (your time) and the
past (another’s time.)
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:
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To be announced.
HIST 321
History of Japan to 1700
Farris, William W.
Content:
This course focuses on the social and economic history of Japan until 1700. Topics
include the development of agriculture and the life of peasants, the rise of trade and urban
centers, the birth of various industries such as ceramics, iron, silk, and fishing, family
structure and the status of women, social classes both free and unfree, and the role of
disease, famine, and war in population change. Every attempt will be made to place pre7
modern Japan in an international context.
Requirements:
One mid-term and a comprehensive final (all essay). A paper to be decided in
consultation with the instructor. There will be several class discussions and participation
is an important element in the final grade.
Required Texts:
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Addis et al, eds., Traditional Japanese Arts and Culture
de Bary et al, Sources of Japanese Tradition (Vol. 1, 2nd ed.)
Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature
Farris, Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History
HIST 322
History of Japan: From 1700 to the Present
Totani, Yuma
Content:
This course explores the history of Japan since the middle of the Edo period (1603-1868)
to the present. The purpose of the course is for students to develop an appreciation of the
diversity of Japanese native traditions while also understanding the complex origins of
modern Japan. No prior knowledge of the Japanese language, history, or culture is
required. However, students are required to undertake intensive reading and writing
assignments as well as participate in weekly classroom discussions.
Requirements:
Midterm and final exams, and one essay assignment.
Required Texts:
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Gordon, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, 3rd Ed.
Course Packet
HIST 324
Samurai of Japan
Farris, Wayne
Content:
The samurai has become a cult figure in both Japan and the US, as witnessed by recent
films, animé and video games. This popularity goes to show that the myths of the samurai
have far outlived the historical reality. This course attempts to dig down through layers of
myth to find out what samurai were really like. What were the origins of the samurai?
How did they ascend to political power in Japan? What happened to them when they
attained power? Is there any parallel with the feudalism of Western Europe? Why was the
class eventually abolished? What role did samurai values play in the making of modern
Japan? This course will address these questions through Power Point lectures,
discussions, and film.
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Requirements:
Mid-term and final exams (all essay). A choice of readings leading to a critical paper in
which students evaluate the question: What is true and what is myth about samurai?
Required Texts:
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Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan
Farris, Heavenly Warriors
Varley, Warriors of Japan
Katsu, Musui’s Story
Keene trans., Chushingura
HIST 331
Ancient Greece I
O Focus
Schwartz, Saundra
Content:
This course will focus on the study of Greek civilization from its earliest manifestation in
the Bronze Age until the end of the Peloponnesian war. This was a formative period in
political history, as independent city-states (poleis) throughout the Aegean, Black, and
Mediterranean Seas created guidelines for how communities could live together, and fight
together in ongoing wars against their neighbors. We will use a variety of primary source
readings in order to understand how the Greeks, and especially the Athenians, understood
themselves, others, and their place in the world.
In order to bring this complex and fluid period to life, students will participate in The
Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C., a historical simulation game from
“Reacting to the Past” (http://reacting.barnard.edu).
Requirements:
Two tests, two short papers, two oral presentations, final, and class participation.
Required Readings:
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Selections from Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aeschylus, Aristophanes,
Plato and more.
HIST 340 / ECON 341
Comparative Economic History
Hoffenberg, Peter
Content:
History 340/Economics 341 introduces students to some of the many relationships
between History and Economics by focusing on a series of modern case-studies. Those
include, but are not limited, to industrialization, poverty and the poor, the origins and
early history of capitalism and the Great Depression. We will highlight for each the
economic, political, intellectual and social questions at the core of comparative economic
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history, or what scholars often call “The Great Transformation.”
Readings, lectures and assignments consider particular nations, or societies, such as Great
Britain, China, Japan and the United States, and in doing so we work to find what
differentiated their economic histories and what those histories shared. Some of the topics
will suggest ways to think about comparative growth and development, as well as the
contours of globalization since around 1700 C.E., or so. Please be prepared to engage
both primary and secondary sources. Those readings and the case-studies suggest how we
might integrate History and Economics in a more ‘total’ study of society and the past; the
modern transition to capitalism, or “the economic revolution” of the market, and its
historical development over the past several centuries; the process of industrialization and
the birth of modern society; questions of wealth, poverty, and equality; the economic
impact of overseas imperial expansion, trade and rule; explanations for uneven
development within and among nations; and a series of modern economic crises,
including famine and the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Requirements:
Lectures, discussions and writing assignments.
Required Texts:
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Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism
Michael Harrington, The Other America
Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third
World
Diane Coyle, The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why it Matters
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929
Peter N. Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History
HIST 345
France in the Old Regime
WI Focus
Lauzon, Matthew
Content:
This course will examine the characteristics that marked the old regime as distinct from
the world the French Revolution created. The course, however, will also take seriously
Alexis de Toqueville’s famous suggestion that the seeds of European modernity were
already being sown in the centuries before the Revolution. The course therefore also will
examine the period as one of significant historical changes. Students will discuss major
social, cultural, religious, political, and intellectual developments in western Europe from
1500 to 1789. The focus will be primarily on France but the course may occasionally
draw comparisons and contrasts with Britain as an alternative old regime society.
Requirements:
To be announced.
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Required Texts:
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Dunn, The Age of Religious Wars, 1559-1715
Woloch, Eighteenth-Century Europe: Tradition and Progress, 1715-1789
Rice, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559
HIST 356
Survey of African History
Njoroge, Njoroge
Content:
This course is a general survey of African history from the earliest times to the present.
Its primary goal is to provide students with a general understanding of the major
developments of African history as well as providing an historical framework for
interpreting contemporary African societies and politics. The course will examine broad
historical processes such as the rise of ancient Egypt and classical indigenous
civilizations; state formation and empire building; the spread of Islam and Christianity;
slavery and the Atlantic slave trade; European colonialism and imperialism; nationalism
and the struggle for independence; and the current state of the African continent. The
ultimate objective of this course is to introduce students to a general history of Africa and
place Africa within the broader context of world history.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:
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To be announced.
HIST 373 / AMST 343
American Thought and Culture
WI Focus
Rapson, Richard
Content:
This description includes both halves of the yearlong sequence of History 373-374
(American Studies 343-344), though each course stands on its own and may be taken
separately. The courses attempt to define the “climates of opinion” in America at
different stages of our past. Consequently a wide range of material is dealt with, the
intellectual aim being synthesis. An attempt is made to maximize the possibilities of
discussion. Students can expect to attend lectures, hear music, watch movies, participate
in several small discussion groups, etc. The first semester (373) moves from European
antecedents of colonization to the early years of the 20th century. The second semester
(374) concentrates on the more recent period. Students may take either semester, or they
may take both in any sequence. Opportunities are offered for the student to fulfill the
requirements of the course in a wide variety of ways. The course carries graduate credit,
and is limited to 20 students.
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Requirements:
Papers and book reports. No exams.
Required Texts:
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Gail Collins, America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and
Heroines
E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime
Roderick Nash, From These Beginnings, Volume 1
Arthur Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society
Richard Rapson, Magical Thinking and the Decline of America
HIST 374 / AMST 344
American Thought and Culture
WI Focus
Rapson, Richard
Content:
This description includes both halves of the yearlong sequence of History 373-374
(American Studies 343-344), though each course stands on its own and may be taken
separately. The courses attempt to define the “climates of opinion” in America at different
stages of our past. Consequently a wide range of material is dealt with, the intellectual
aim being synthesis. An attempt is made to maximize the possibilities of discussion.
Students can expect to attend lectures, hear music, watch movies, participate in several
small discussion groups, etc. The first semester (373) moves from European antecedents
of colonization to the early years of the 20th century. The second semester (374)
concentrates on the more recent period. Students may take either semester, or they may
take both in any sequence. Opportunities are offered for the student to fulfill the
requirements of the course in a wide variety of ways. The course carries graduate credit,
and is limited to 20 students.
Requirements:
Papers and book reports. No exams.
Required Texts:
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Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Here My
Trouble Begins (The Complete Maus)
Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave
Richard Rapson, Magical Thinking and the Decline of America
Gail Collins, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from
1960 to the Present
Robert Heilbroner, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect
Roderick Nash, From These Beginnings, Volume 2
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HIST 396B
Introduction to History: Historiography
WI Focus
Arista, Noelani
Content:
This course is an introduction to the history of historical scholarship, and the ways in
which historians have framed and written history. We will survey a variety of approaches
to thinking and writing about the past used by historians in the past few decades. This
class will give you the chance to practice analyzing historical sources, and acquire
discipline specific forms of writing. This course is structured as a seminar, with brief
introductory lectures by the instructor, followed by class discussions.
The courses emphasizes different approaches to the writing of history, but also
investigates questions of scale: trans-national, national, regional, and micro. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of each, and what kinds of sources are more suited to a
particular frame?
I will also highlight methodological developments in Hawaiian and Native American
history has and the potential to transform work on encounter, colonization, law, and
empire.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 396B
Introduction to History: Historiography
WI Focus
Matteson, Kieko
Content:
This course introduces students to the diverse ways that historians approach, interpret,
and write history. Drawing on enduringly influential texts as well as recent works,
the course explores past and present trends in historiography, theory, and methods.
Through class discussion and written assignments, students will analyze different forms
of historical interpretation, gain practice in working with primary sources, and develop
their historical research and writing skills.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
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HIST 400
Digital History in the Global Village
Rath, Rich
Content:
This course has a dual focus. First, it is a history of the digital in a globally connected
world. Second, it is a hands-on practicum for “doing” digital history, which involves
taking the writing and research skills central to historical work and applying them in the
digital domain.
Marshall McLuhan famously observed that communication networks with global reach
and near-instantaneous speeds were collapsing both time and space to turn the world into
a “Global Village.” Human innovations from the personal computer to the Internet to
MP3s and smart phones have created new interconnected media that have massively
accelerated this trend in the decades since McLuhan penned his aphorism. The
localization of the world has not been an even or equitable process however. It has
benefitted some people and places at the expense of others while putting up a front of
revolutionary advancement for everyone. It has involved not only flows of ideas across
the world, but the global flow of bodies as part of the much longer history of labor
migration that the IT sector has tapped into during the past twenty-five years. In this
course we will uncover the historical foundations of the global village and track its
uneven development over the past seven decades, with roots not only in progress and
constant change but also in continuities and repeated patterns that stretch back across the
centuries up through to the present day.
We will learn by doing, by engaging with the tools that a university student in Hawaiʻi
has available. Students will do historical research using digital and networked resources.
Since much of the historiography for the early Internet is focused on the United States
and the West, online archives will provide key insights into the challenges and promise of
Internet connectivity in the Asia, Africa, and the global South. Students will also work
with online collections of secondary sources as well as learning to engage critically with
the vast wilds of the open internet. Traditional writing and presentation skills will be
combined with working in media formats that employ hypertext and multimedia such as
blogging (micro-blogging included), wikis, audio, video, and social media. While the
final projects and course assignments will not be traditional papers, the rigor, writing
techniques, documentation, and critical skills of the historian will be part and parcel of
the work we are doing. Coders are welcome, but no special computing skills are required
beyond an adventurous spirit.
Required Texts:
Since new and interesting readings are emerging, the reading list is TBA. All of the
reading will be available electronically, and open access where possible. There are a few
software requirements, all of which are free and open source and require no prior skills.
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HIST 401
History of the Indian Ocean World
WI Focus
Bertz, Ned
Content:
This upper-level collaborative seminar will revolve around the idea that the Indian Ocean
world, through interactions and imagination, constitutes a coherent unit of historical
analysis. The class will examine the Indian Ocean world through the sweep of global
history, sailing across time in a thematic fashion. We will focus on the western Indian
Ocean and how contacts between places like India, Arabia, and eastern Africa have
shaped the lives of people who live near the sea and whose existence is affected by the
rhythms of the monsoon. Topics to be covered include the role of religion and especially
Islam in connecting the region; the collision between indigenous structures and the
intrusion of European imperialism; the lives of individual actors such as slaves, sailors,
pirates, merchants, and women; port towns as nodes of cosmopolitan contact; travel,
trade, and the scattering of Indian, Arab, and African diasporas around the oceanic rim;
literature, film, and other aspects of Indian Ocean world cultures; nationalism, race, and
identity; sexuality and gender; and, finally, nation-states and globalization in the future of
the Indian Ocean world.
Requirements:
To be announced in class.
Required Texts:
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Pearson, The Indian Ocean
Ghosh, In an Antique Land
Vassanji, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
HIST 402
Researching World War II in Southeast Asia
WI Focus
Kelley, Liam
Content:
This course will introduce students to the practice of conducting archival research.
Thanks to the digitization of archival materials in various institutions around the world,
historians can now engage in a good deal of archival research via the Internet. At the
same time, there are various digital tools that have been developed that enable people to
engage in research and to present their findings in new ways. In this course, students will
learn how to engage in archival research via the Internet, and they will also learn how to
use some digital tools for engaging in research and presenting their findings. All of this
will be done by focusing on the topic of World War II in Southeast Asia. Many of the
materials that we will use were written by Europeans/Americans, as most of Southeast
Asia was under colonial rule when the war began, however we will endeavor as much as
possible to try to gain an understanding of what the war was like for the indigenous
peoples of Southeast Asia.
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Requirements:
To be announced in class.
Required Texts:

Readings will be available electronically.
HIST 410
Twentieth-Century China
WI Focus
Brown, Shana
Content:
From communist revolution to the revolution of the latest CD on a Shanghai DJ’s
turntable, twentieth century China experienced repeated waves of dramatic political,
social, cultural, and economic change. This lecture course examines the great historical
events of the past hundred years, including the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the
Republican period, the Sino-Japanese War, civil war between the Communists and
Nationalists and the establishment of the People’s Republic, the Cultural Revolution,
post-war Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the recent reform period. We will also consider
China’s “other” histories, including music and literature, sexuality and private life, global
diaspora, and the shaping of China’s new urban revolution in art and technology.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:
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Schoppa, Revolution and its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History
Lawrance, China Since 1919 - Revolution and Reform: A Sourcebook
Dong & Glosser (eds.), Li Fengjin: How the New Marriage Law Helped Chinese Women
Stand Up
HIST 411
Local History of Late Imperial China
WI Focus
Wang, Wensheng
Content:
This upper division course provides a broad survey of Chinese local history over the long
period from the Tang-Song transition (ca. 800) to the collapse of Qing rule (1911). The
focus will be on the late imperial period (1550-1911)—from mid-Ming to the end of Qing
dynasties. Major topics include family and lineage structure, gender roles, patterns of
work and leisure, religious activities and their meanings, class relations, changes in basic
demographic patterns (birth and death rates, migration, marriage patterns, etc.), patterns
of violence, protest movements, and relations among different ethnic groups. Students
will focus on the bottom-up studies of local society and gain some basic understanding of
this dominant approach to Chinese history.
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Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:



Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China
Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century
Kuhn, Soulstealers: the Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768
HIST 417
Chinese Intellectual History
WI Focus
Brown, Shana
Content:
This course examines Chinese cultural, social, and political values in historical context,
from 1800 to the present. Our focus is on the rich range of theoretical and practical
viewpoints that Chinese intellectuals have developed over the past two centuries, in
dialogue with their unique culture and philosophical heritage. The thematic units of the
course are Chinese religion and belief systems; women and gender in Chinese society; the
environment and the natural world; ethnic relations; economics and sustenance rights; and
human rights. This course is Writing Intensive (WI), and is an ICSCP Fall 2012
(graduate) elective. Assignments will include student-led discussion and in-class
presentations; four essays; and a final take-home exam. Readings will include philosophy,
fiction, memoirs, religious works, and political materials. We will also watch two films.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:




Shen Fu, Six Records of a Floating Life
Mitter, Modern China: A Very Short Introduction
Fei, From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society
Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
HIST 422
Tokugawa Japan
McNally, Mark
Content:
This course covers Japanese history from the middle of the 16th century to 1868. The
emphasis will be on the Edo or Tokugawa period (1603-1867). This course will cover all
major facets of Japan’s history for this period, with an emphasis on cultural, economic,
social, political, and intellectual aspects of change.
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Requirements:
All readings; 29 Daily Responses; 16 Weekly Reflections; a midterm exam; a final exam.
Required Texts:




Ikegami, Bonds of Civility
McNally, Proving the Way
Totman, Early Modern Japan
Tsunoda, et al., Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. 2
NOTE: Course readings will be available through Laulima – no books for purchase.
HIST 423
Okinawa
McNally, Mark
Content:
This course covers the major developments of Okinawan history from prehistoric to
contemporary times. The focus is on the political, social, cultural, and religious aspects of
change for the period. Since the course encompasses a long span of time, it will be useful
to learn the following list of periods: 1) Prehistory, 2) Ancient Ryūkyū, 3) Early Modern
Ryūkyū, and 4) Modern Ryūkyū/Okinawa.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:
Readings will be drawn from the following texts:
 Islands of Discontent
 Okinawa: A History of an Island People
 The Okinawa Diaspora in Japan
 The Samurai Capture a King
 A Survey of the History and Culture of Okinawa
 Threshold of a Closed Empire
 Visions of Ryūkyū
NOTE: Course readings will be available through Laulima – no books for purchase.
HIST 443
Nazi Germany
Ziegler, Herbert
Content:
The aim of this course is to provide a coherent and comprehensive narrative of the causes,
collapse, and consequences of National Socialism (Nazism). The scope is broad as the
Third Reich and its social and political structures as well as its domestic and foreign
policies will be presented in all their complex aspects. Chronologically, the course is not
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limited to covering just the years of the Nazi rise to power during the Weimar Republic or
the era of the Third Reich. Rather, it places the National Socialist experience into a
broader historical context that covers nineteenth-century social, political, and ideological
antecedents as well as the post-World War II impact of Nazism.
Requirements:
There will be five written assignments and a comprehensive final examination. The
written assignments will account for 50% of your grade in the course, while the final
examination will account for the remaining 50% of the course grade.
Required Texts:





Omer Bartov. Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich.
Sebastian Haffner. The Meaning of Hitler.
Marion A. Kaplan. Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany.
Erik Larson. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s
Berlin.
Filip Müller. Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers.
HIST 454
Tsarist Russia
WI Focus
Romaniello, Matthew
Content:
Tsarist Russia struggled to accommodate multiple ethno-linguistic groups, religions, and
lifestyles. This course will examine the complex issues of empire in Russia, beginning
with the settlement of the East Slavs on the Eurasian steppe and including Russia’s
conquest and incorporation of land and people in Poland, Ukraine, Siberia, the Caucasus
and Central Asia. We will pay particular attention to the role of the disempowered groups
of the empire: women, peasants, and ethno-linguistic minorities as their responses to the
pressure of state authority.
Requirements:
A take-home midterm and final; regular participation in weekly discussions; and a
research project linked to our course readings.
Required Texts:



Carolyn Johnston Pouncy, trans., The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the
Time of Ivan the Terrible
Aleksandr Nikitenko, Up from Serfdom: My Childhood and Youth in Russia, 1804-1824
There will be several articles to read as well – all of them are available on this class’s
Laulima page.
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HIST 458
The American Revolution
Daniel, Marcus
Content:
This course explores the origins, development and consequences of the American
Revolution. By the middle of the eighteenth century, a complex, polyglot, creole society
had emerged along the eastern seaboard of colonial British North America. In the thriving
port cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston, wealthy merchants and
artisans worked in a vigorous and highly commercialized urban economy with
increasingly sharp divisions of wealth and status. In the rural north and mid-Atlantic,
small commercial farmers produced for a rapidly expanding home market, while in the
South planters used slave labor to produce commercial crops for a dynamic overseas
market. All sectors of the economy were closely tied to the rhythms and cycles of the
broader Atlantic economy, the slave trade and the plantation complex of the Caribbean
and the South. In each region, capitalist economic transformation precipitated serious
social and political tensions, and by the 1760’s a serious confrontation with British
imperial power. The inability of the British imperial state to resolve this growing conflict
paved the way for colonial political revolution and, eventually, political independence.
The creation of a new North American nation: the United States of America, transformed
a loosely governed, heterogeneous and ramshackle imperial order into an economically
dynamic, expansionist and racially exclusive nation state with profound consequences for
white settlers, black slaves and the indigenous inhabitants whom they displaced. Over the
course of this semester we will explore the complex currents of change that shaped and
reshaped American society during the eighteenth century, paying close attention to the
relationship between slavery, empire, expansion and citizenship in both the American
Revolution and the new American Republic.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:
 To be announced.
HIST 459
African American History
Njoroge, Njoroge
Content:
This course will trace the main currents in African American history from emancipation
in 1863 to our “post-civil rights” present. Beginning with the abolition of slavery and
Reconstruction the course will examine the social, cultural and political transformations
that have shaped modern African American history. The objective of the course is to recenter African American experiences in US and world history, and analyze the ways in
which African American history has shaped the contemporary world. We will examine the
movement and movements of African Americans from the late 19th century, through the
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Great Migration, Garveyism and the Harlem Renaissance and the inter war period of the
20th. We will then turn to the Civil Rights struggle and Black Power movements of the
1960s. Finally, we look to more recent and contemporary re-visions of African American
history and politics.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 477/AMST 431
History of American Workers
E Focus
Kraft, James
Content:
American workers have had many faces: the skilled artisan, the plantation slave, the
female domestic, the “white collar” employee and more. What have these workers had in
common? What kind of work did they perform and how has it changed over time? How
have they responded to changes in the work environment? What role has government
played in shaping that environment? What problems do American workers face today?
This course explores these and similar questions.
Requirements:
Midterm exam, 10-page research paper, final exam, and class attendance.
Required Texts:



Dubofsky, Labor in America: A History
Boris, Major Problems in the History of American Workers
Kraft, Vegas at Odds: Labor Conflict in a Leisure Economy, 1960-1985
HIST 478/LAIS 468
Colonial Latin America
Beaule, Christine
Content:
For more information, please contact LLEA at 956-4187.
HIST 481
Pacific Islands I
HAP Focus
Hanlon, David
Content:
In this course, we will survey Pacific Islands' pasts from human beings' first entry into the
region to the beginnings of the colonial period. We will place particular emphasis on the
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themes of culture contact and cross-cultural encounters. Voyaging and settlement,
environmental accommodations, first contacts with the Euro-American world, the death
of Captain Cook, depopulation, gender relations, the introduction and spread of
Christianity, the expansion of commerce, the Pacific labor trade, and efforts at political
centralization in Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, and Aotearoa/New Zealand are among the
topics to be considered. We will also pay strong attention to politics of representation and
to more indigenous forms of historical knowledge and transmission.
Requirements:
A mid-term exam, a final exam, and two book reviews.
Required Texts:




Hunt & Lipo, The Statues that Walked
David Chappell, Double Ghosts
Patty O’Brien, The Pacific Muse
Epeli Hau’ofa, We are the Ocean
HIST 483
United States in the Pacific
WI Focus
Rosa, John
Content:
Growth of economic and political interests and policies.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 496B
Senior Tutorial: U.S.
WI Focus
Reiss, Suzanna
Content:
This class fulfills the senior tutorial requirement for history majors. Each student will
complete by the end of the semester a senior thesis based on original historical research
on a topic of your choosing. The course is Writing Intensive (WI) and students will be
required to undertake extensive reading, writing, research, and analysis, while actively
participating in class discussions and peer-review exercises. The final goal of the course
is for students to produce a 20-25 page research paper. In order to maintain thematic
integrity and to promote a collaborative working environment between the instructor and
students, as well as amongst students, this course will take up “The Cold War” as an
overarching theme, although there will be considerable flexibility in defining your own
distinctive project within this thematic focus.
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Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 496C
Senior Tutorial: Europe
WI Focus
Hoffenberg, Peter
Content:
History 496C provides the opportunity to broaden and deepen one’s understanding of
European history, improve research and writing skills, and craft an extended original
essay of around 25 pages on a topic of one’s own choosing. Students are encouraged to
consider a topic, or question in a field that interests them, such as political history, or the
history of film, or women’s history, and are expected to use both primary and secondary
materials. Primary sources could include government records, works of art, literature,
memoirs, and, among others, correspondence. Secondary sources are interpretations of
such primary materials by others, most likely historians. The interpretation and use of
primary and secondary materials are the heart and soul of this project. As a designated
“Writing Intensive” (W) seminar, please expect weekly writing assignments. Active,
engaged and engaging participation at seminar meetings is expected.
Requirements:
Attendance and engaged & engaging participation
Oral introduction and 2-pp discussion of your favorite, or most inspiring History book or
document.
Short answers to questions about A Short Guide to Writing About History and Orwell’s
“Politics and the English Language”
1-p description of the historical problem to be addressed in the research essay
2-pp abstract and 1-p bibliography for the essay
Introduction and discussion of one secondary and one primary source
2-pp outline of essay
Rough draft (circa 15-pp) of the essay and comments on other drafts
One final essay of approximately 25-30 pages
Required Texts:



R. Marius and M. E. Page, A Short Guide to Writing About History
Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History
Additional required readings will be uploaded to our Laulima site
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GRADUATE COURSES
HIST 602
Seminar in Historiography
Davis, Ned
Content:
History 602 (Historiography) will introduce the graduate student to trends in post World
War II historiography, including the influence of the social sciences and literary criticism,
of critical and cultural theory, of notions of power and discourse, of modernism,
postmodernism, and globalization, of world history. Throughout, the nature of historical
sources and historical interpretation, the relation between theory and practice, will be
emphasized. Students will be asked to present one or more of the required readings for
discussion, to fully participate in class discussions, and to write a final 10-20 page paper
on a book – by an historian of their choice and in the field of their choice – that touches
on the themes of this course.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 605
Seminar in Digital History
Rath, Rich
Content:
Examines the various ways that the production, presentation, and learning of history
through digital media is changing the way people access and process information about
the past.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 609
Seminar in World History
Matteson, Kieko
Content:
Analysis, research, and discussion of themes and issues in study of history of humankind.
Requirements:
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To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 611D
Advanced Readings in European History: Early Modern
Lauzon, Matthew
Content:
To be announced.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 617
Atrocity Crimes: Law & History
Cohen, David
Content:
Seminar on history of mass atrocity and international justice in the modern world. Topics
include post-WWII Allied war crimes prosecution, post-cold war ad hoc international
criminal tribunals, and contemporary international law and national legal systems.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
HIST 634F
Research in American History: Foreign Relations
Reiss, Suzanna
Content:
To be announced.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
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HIST 661C
Seminar in Chinese History: Middle
Wang, Wensheng
Content:
This course is an introductory graduate seminar on the history of middle and late imperial
China, with a primary focus on the Ming-Qing dynasties. Its general goal is to examine
what makes pre-modern Chinese history interesting through a survey of significant
monographs and essays. The course is organized around a number of inter-related themes:
(1) state-society relationship; (2) women, gender and family; (3) popular religion; (4)
political economy and socioeconomic change; (5) regional migration and frontier
experience; (6) social protest and peasant movements; (7) imperial politics, statecraft and
political culture; (8) Confucian scholarship and intellectual change; (9) minority rule and
ethnic identity; (10) population growth and environmental change; (11) regional and
global contexts of late imperial Chinese history.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:









Smith and Glahn, The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History
Brook, Confusions of Pleasure
Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance
Elliott, The Manchu Way
Andrade, How Taiwan Became Chinese
Kuhn, Soulstealers
Elman, From Philosophy to Philology
Pomeranz, The Making of A Hinterland
Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates
HIST 665E
Seminar in Japanese History: 20th-Century Diplomatic
Totani, Yuma
Content:
To be announced.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
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HIST 678
Hawaiian Historical Research
Arista, Noelani
Content:
This course is designed to introduce you to the process of Hawaiian Historical research in
libraries and archives. In this course we will identify, pursue, and engage in the process of
Hawaiian historical research. Students will develop approaches and methods consonant
with Hawaiian modes of understanding and interpreting the past as well as the
contemporary practice of history as a scholarly discipline. Students in consultation with
the professor will develop strategies for locating primary and secondary sources for their
projects. Students will familiarize themselves with the steps of processing historical
documents: transcribing, collation, translation, annotation, editing, and indexing
materials. This semester we will focus on the little accessed Judd Collection Papers in
Hawaiian and English at the Bishop Museum Archives.
Requirements:
To be announced.
Required Texts:

To be announced.
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