Education in Black America 3 s.h.
Introduction to various educational policies and events germane to the history of African American education from 1900 through the mid-1980s; read works and watch documentaries that examine those policies, concepts, strategies, and events surrounding Black education; analyze and synthesize this information through small and large class discussions, reading responses, quizzes, a debate, a book review, a short essay, and related presentation.
Historical PerspectivesWorld Archaeology 3 s.h.
What do archaeologists know about the past? And how do they know about the past? This course covers the evolution of human cultures from the Ice Ages to the first cities and describes archaeological methods used to understand the past. Classes will include group discussions and in-class activities to enhance critical engagement with course material.
Historical PerspectivesFrom Mona Lisa to Modernism 3 s.h.
Survey of the Western world's visual arts from Renaissance (ca. 1400) to present; major movements and principal masters of Western Europe and the United States in their social and historical contexts; focus on stimulation of visual literacy and familiarity with outstanding cultural monuments.
This is the foundational course for the study of art history. No prior study of art history is necessary. The course is a survey of Western Art from the European Renaissance to the contemporary world. It introduces some of the most famous and exciting works of art produced in the West from the Renaissance to the present day, including works of painting, sculpture, architecture, prints, photography, performance and installation art. We follow artistic developments through the centuries, looking at major artists and works from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, 18th and 19th-centuries, and from the world of modern and contemporary art. Art is presented in historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts.
Historical Perspectives Literary, Visual, and Performing ArtsThis course covers the Middle East and Mediterranean world from the era of Alexander the Great (d.323 B.C.E.) to that of Suleiman I the Magnificent (d.1566). Taking as the beginning and ending points two fabled conquerors who brought together into both symbiosis and conflict the cultures of Asia and the West, students explore the ensemble of Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern societies, cultures, and religions as they intersected in what was once termed "the Old World"--the lands stretching from the ancient Persian Empire in the East to Morocco and Spain in the West. Topics covered include the development and interaction of Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious communities; Greco-Arabic philosophy, science, and medicine in the Islamic world; the experience of the Crusades in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities according to authors writing in Latin, Greek, and Arabic; and the art and architecture of the kingdoms and empires of this region--the Ptolemies and Seleucids, the Romans, Byzantines and Sassanians, the Caliphates of Baghdad and Cordova, the Latin West, and the Ottomans. At the end of the semester, students should be equipped to understand the cultural roots of conflicts in the Balkans, Middle East, and Central Asia in our own times.
History Matters 3 s.h.
How do we understand the past on its own terms and what is its relevance to the present? Introduction to historical thinking through a variety of topics.
Historical PerspectivesHow does history help to explain our interconnected world? Introduction to international and global thinking through a variety of topics.
Historical Perspectives International and Global IssuesModern Religion and Culture 3 s.h.
The world is changing fast. People use religion to struggle against these changes, create meaning out of them, or change along with it. This is as true (and disorienting) today as it has ever been. But it was also true at the dawn of the Reformation more than 500 years ago. So, we’ll start there with Martin Luther and his hammer at the door of the Wittenburg Church on October 31, 1517 and follow the ripples, effects, and threads through to today. Focusing on Europe and the United States, we will explore the explosion of Christian and religious diversity, the violence of the Wars of Religion, anti-Semitism, the rise of religious tolerance, the changing perspectives on class, race, and gender, and the challenge of science and modernity in their larger context. Course requirements include three multiple-choice examinations and two short essays based on common readings.
Historical PerspectivesThe Modern World 3 s.h.
How did today's globalized world come to be? Which aspects of globalization are new and which are inherited from the past? Taking a long-term perspective, this course traces the development and acceleration of global interdependence since the 14th century; how far-flung parts of the globe have been linked to one another, how long-distance connections affected the societies involved, and how individuals have experienced and contributed to such global networks; students develop an understanding of globalization's long history leading up to the present and of their place in contemporary global networks.
How you ever wondered how you ended up in Iowa City? Or how that thing in your pocket that was made halfway around the world got there? Whether you have anything in common with college students on the other side of the globe?
In this class, we’ll explore how the globalized world as we know it today come to be. What is new about globalization today, and what have we inherited from the past? Why have people traveled long distances and what did they carry with them when they went? How do people from different cultures interact when they meet? What happens to them and their societies when they come into contact with people from distant lands and get pulled into new global networks? Taking a long-term perspective, we’ll trace the development and acceleration of global interdependence since the 14th century.
Because the world is a big place and 700 years is a long time, we will focus on the movement of things and people through particular regional world-systems. We’ll talk about how trade, politics, and the spread of Islam made the Indian Ocean into the world’s first global super-region, linking Asia, Arabia, and East Africa. We’ll study the shift of power from Asia to Europe, and the rise of the Atlantic World connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas through colonization, slavery, and revolutionary ideas. Then we’ll think about how the empires built during the Industrial Revolution created global economies and pathways for migration. In the last part of the course, we’ll see how the two world wars, the Cold War, and modern consumer culture created a new Pacific World linking Asia and the Americas.
Course Format: Interactive lectures and sections will emphasize hands-on engagement with course materials, critical reading and writing skills, and intellectual community. We’ll read things written by people who traveled long distances and things written by historians about the movement of people and things around the world, including a graphic history of slavery in Ghana, and watch films about our own consumer culture.
Assignments: The centerpiece of this course is a semester-long project called “Where In World History Am I?” You will research your own history and how it connects you to the wider world, deciding individually what format you would like to use to present your findings. Along the way, we’ll have four ICON reading quizzes and four in-class hourly quizzes to practice reading and writing skills and apply what we’ve learned about global interconnections.
The instructor is Professor Rob Rouphail.
The History of Oil 3 s.h.
This course provides broad historical perspective on the business, science, geology, technology, politics, environment, and culture of the global oil industry.
This course asks students to contemplate the big questions surrounding the origins, development, and meaning of the “Age of Petroleum,” an age in which we continue to live.
How and why did oil become the most powerful international business of the last 150 years? What were the factors behind oil’s emergence as the world’s main transportation fuel, a chief source of heat and electricity, and the building block for a proliferating array of consumer goods? How and why did struggles over oil become central to world politics and shape the rise and fall of nations? How do we wrestle with the trade-offs between the unprecedented wealth and prosperity generated by oil development and the social, economic, and environmental costs that have come with it? How has the search for oil fostered human awareness of both Earth’s deep history and the fragility of ecosystems on which we depend?
Students completing this class will gain a solid foundation in the history and science of oil. Both fields emphasize the importance of thinking historically, developing explanations for why the past unfolded as it did, rather than along an alternative path. In this class, which fulfills a general education requirement for “Historical Perspectives,” students study both primary and secondary sources to learn to do the work of professional historians. As oil development increasingly impacts our lives, this course is also designed to expand your understanding of the costs and benefits of oil to modern society and prepare you to confront the challenges of ensuring energy sustainability over the long run. This course will also serve as a gateway for further study in History or Earth and Environmental sciences, as well as in other energy and sustainability-related courses at the University of Iowa.
Instruction combines a mixture of lectures, discussions, and inquiry-based activities in order to sharpen analytical abilities, promote teamwork, and improve oral and written expression of ideas. The major graded assignments consist of three exams, class participation and discussion, and a research paper.
How did the United States become a major world power in the 20th century? Why did the role of the federal government expand so dramatically in the century after the Civil War? How did diverse groups of Americans define and pursue “the American dream,” and what were their successes, conflicts, and disappointments?
Topics include the industrial conflicts of the Gilded Age; immigration; the rise of Jim Crow racial segregation and disfranchisement; westward and overseas expansion; the social reform campaigns of the Progressive Era; prosperity and cultural conflict during the Roaring Twenties; survival and protest during the Great Depression; World War II; the Cold War against communism at home and abroad; social movements of the 1960s; economic and political crises of the 1970s; the conservative ascendancy of the 1980s; and subsequent debates over American objectives abroad and at home, in response to challenges such as terrorism, climate change, and social inequality.
Each week you will attend two 50-minute lectures and one 50-minute smaller group section. Through exercises in the weekly section meetings, you will develop your skills in analyzing primary documents and in written and oral expression. Requirements include essays based on assigned readings, quizzes, active participation in class discussions, and informal assignments for discussion sections.
How have the events of European history shaped modern institutions, politics, and culture worldwide – and how have other regions of the world shaped Europe? This course explores this question by tracing European history in a global context from the late Roman Empire to the eighteenth century.
From 400 to 1400, we will follow the rise of Christianity, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the development of the “heirs of Rome:” the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the medieval Islamic caliphates.
The years 1400-1800 bring radical scientific and religious change as well as a dramatic new global reach. We’ll look at the Renaissance, the Reformation, the advent of the printing press, contact between Europe and the Americas, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, witchcraft panic, the Scientific Revolution, and the rise of modern forms of warfare, governance, and global trade.
By the end of the semester, you will be able to see links between political, economic, and cultural changes over time. Through reading and discussing primary historical sources and completing short writing assignments, creative, research-based essays, and exams, you will learn to interpret historical evidence and write and speak confidently about it. You will bring an informed historical perspective to many crucial questions facing modern global societies.
Images of Modern Italy 3, 4 s.h.
The Italian nation was created in 1861. Prior to this date the Italian peninsula was a patchwork of states, each with its own history and traditions. Consequently, the construction of a national identity in Italy is a fairly recent process, and some of the problems that beset such a process at its inception still remain unresolved. In fact, while a variety of landscapes and traditions greatly contribute to Italy’s famed charm, differences such as those between the prosperous, industrialized North and the poor, rural South have been a persistent source of divisiveness and political instability. The aim of this course is twofold: to offer a survey of Italy’s history since Unification, and to familiarize students with diverse aspects of modern Italian culture and society through various visual and textual materials. Focusing on ethnicity, religion, politics and gender as means with which people define themselves and others, we will examine notions of the Italian nation, the “South,” and the family expressed through cinema, literature, and the media. Topics for discussion also include the following: the role of cinema and literature in shaping both collective memories and the understanding of contemporary realities; cultural policy and cultural consumption; political identities and Catholic culture; migrations and multiculturalism; and the new myths of sport, fame, fashion, and style. Class is taught in English, with a discussion session in Italian for students enrolled for 4 sh. Readings are in English (for students of Italian, some readings are in Italian); films are in Italian with English subtitles. Requirements include an oral presentation on one of the main topics headlined on the syllabus, a final project (to be presented in class) expanding upon or complementing topics covered in the readings and films, two written tests, and class participation. Grades will be calculated as follows: participation 20%, first oral presentation 20%, final project 20%, midterm 20%, and final 20%. The plus or minus grading system will be adopted.
for students earning 4 s.h.—ITAL:2204
This course surveys the historical and cultural development of media in the United States and globally, from the printing press to the digital age. It delves into what media are, how they've evolved, the various factors driving these changes, and their significant cultural and political consequences on the world and how we understand it. We pay special attention to how media intersect with race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality over time.
Historical PerspectivesHistory of Popular Music 3 s.h.
Historical narrative of popular music; focus on understanding and analyzing music of past and present in relation to major issues central to popular culture and society; production, dissemination, and reception of popular music; interpretation of ways in which music forms individual and collective identities and how contemporary musical experiences are shaped by historical processes.
Historical PerspectivesHistory of Western Music II 3 s.h.
The Meaning of Life 3 s.h.
This course will be a survey and careful examination of answers to the question: what is the meaning of life? This seems to be an important question; indeed it seems to be the question, but philosophers have taken a number of different positions in attempting to answer it. In the first segment of the course, we will consider the issue of whether or not there is a connection between the value of human pursuits and the existence of God and the afterlife. In the second segment we will address the related issue of whether or not the best life is a life of hedonistic self-interest or a life that is guided by a concern for those around us. In the next segment of the course we will consider the Stoic and Buddhist view that happiness is not a matter of making things go as we please but instead is a matter of adjusting to the way that things happen inevitably and on their own. Then we will discuss what some critics have taken to be obstacles in the way of a meaningful life--for example the internet, technology, modernity, and the I-pod. The semester will conclude with a discussion of the prospect that life is just absurd. Philosophers have offered compelling insights on the different sides of these issues, and we will have a lot of discussion to try to sort it all out. Assignments will include study-question assignments, two exams, and active participation in discussion section.
Historical PerspectivesExamination of conflict between state power and individual liberty; philosophical and historical examination of theories from Plato through today.
This course evaluates the relationship between liberty, equality, and happiness. It takes into account core theories of human nature as they bear on questions of happiness – are humans fundamentally social? What is the role of hierarchy and recognition in a just society? To what extent are people solely self-interested? What is the scope of individual freedom, and when and how do we need to cooperate with others? We examine these questions by looking at works of some of the most influential philosophers in history, and, when possible, we try to understand their views within the larger context of the historical and intellectual climate in which they were expressed. Readings include Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, Leviathan by Hobbes, and On Liberty and Utilitarianism by Mill. All assigned readings will be posted on ICON.
Historical PerspectivesRepresentative plays as performed in social contexts of ancient Egypt; classical Greece, Rome, India, and Japan; and medieval and early modern Europe.
This course offers an engaging way to learn about world history through the theatre. We study plays not just as texts on the page but as performance events that reveal a great deal about how people in different societies through time saw themselves and their world. Considering Ancient Egyptian influences and moving into Classical Greece, Rome, India, Japan, and Medieval and Renaissance Europe, we read plays–including works by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Aphra Behn, one of the earliest known women playwrights–that range from shocking tragedy to bawdy comedy. Course material is covered through lectures, attendance at two University Theatre productions, and once-weekly discussion sections. Special attention is given to helping students improve their writing as they fulfill course requirements. Primary assignments periodic short writing assignments, a midterm and a final exam in short-answer and essay format, and a final research project with options for creative approaches.
Historical Perspectives Literary, Visual, and Performing ArtsMajor developments in Anglo-European, Indian, Asian, and African theatre and drama, 3000 B.C.E. to C.E. 1700; sociopolitical, economic, and cultural circumstances of original productions.
This course examines how theater has both reflected and created social structures, perceptions, and values in ancient Egypt; classical Greece, Rome, India, and Japan; and medieval and early modern Europe. Representative plays, ranging from shocking tragedy to bawdy comedy and including works by Shakespeare and the earliest known women playwrights, are analyzed as performed events within their respective historical contexts. Course material is covered through lectures and participation in once-weekly discussion sections. Assignments include weekly play and text readings, short writing assignments, a midterm and a final exam, and a research project with options for creative approaches.
Historical Perspectives Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts