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Bachelor of Arts
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Special Topics and Seminar Course Descriptions, Spring 2010
Hist 06K: History and the News: Focus on the Middle East, Mario Ruiz
Have you ever wondered what an historian takes from his or her reading of the newspaper? Why do your history teachers make such a big deal over keeping up with the news (after all they study the past, not the present, right?). This one credit course will be built around a guided reading of the newspaper. The course will meet for the first 10 weeks of the semester.
Hist 13: Executive War: Presumptive Premises, Preemptive Conflict, the Illusive
Projection of Power, and the American Presidency, Louis Kern
This course will comprise four case studies of historical situations in which mistaken, misleading, or palpably false information was provided by an American president in order to secure congressional acquiescence to unilateral military intervention abroad or to the escalation of a smaller engagement into a wider war. The course will begin with an examination of the Mexican War (1846-48) and will then consider the American-Philippine War (the Philippine Insurrection, 1899-1913), The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (10 August 1964) that inaugurated the expansion of American involvement inVietnam from primarily advisory to a full-scale war (the Vietnam Conflict, (1965-75), and the Iraq War (the Second Gulf War, 20 March 2003-the present). Consideration will be given to: the respective powers of the executive and legislative branches in regard to deliberative decisions on whether to use military force to resolve geo-political problems; failures,misunderstandings, or misuse of intelligence information; the role of national strategic concerns and sustenance of economic and political power in pressuring decision makers; the effects of such preemptive wars on domestic civil liberties; the violations of standard, international military codes and the commission of atrocities in such conflicts; and opposition generated among the general population to what are considered undemocratically initiated and often morally unjustifiable employments of military force.
Hist 14S (1): Islamic Youth Culture, Mario Ruiz
What does it mean to be young and Muslim in the 21st century? In Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, more than 60 percent of the population is under 25 years old. This first-year seminar will examine how Muslim teenagers and young adults from the Middle East and the United States make sense of their identities in a globalized world. Beginning in the late 1970s, we will focus on the formative role of television, film, and music in young people’s lives. We will also discuss why sports, comedy, and the Internet are important for the formation of Islamic youth culture in the last decade.
Hist 14S (2): "Magical Urbanism": The History of Latin Americans and Latinos in the United States, Brenda Elsey
This course examines the experience and significance of Latin American immigration from an historical perspective. It begins with the colonial period, when European, Indian, and African cultures collided in the Americas. It then examines the emergence of independence movements and the establishment of national boundaries in the 19th
century. We will focus on contemporary issues including “border policing” and immigration law, gang violence, machismo, race/ethnic identities, and the relationship between the United States and Latin America. Students research and write local case studies, using Hofstra’s Hispanic/Latino archives, interviews, New York state archives, and the New York Public Library. Field trips to the Museo del Barrio, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Latino International Film Festival in New York City provide learning opportunities outside of the classroom.
Hist 168: Asian-U.S. Relations in Historical Perspective, Yuki Terazawa
This course examines U.S.-Asian relations from the eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, with a particular focus on East Asia (i.e., China, Japan, and Korea). One of the major topics that is discussed throughout this course is the impact of the U.S. and Japanese imperialism as it shaped the relations between the United States and Asian nations. Specific political, cultural and socio-economic developments that pertain to a particular Asian nation at a given period are studied from a perspective of how such processes helped form a nation’s response to U.S. foreign policy. This course investigates larger economic and political forces that fostered a particular type of relationship between the United States and an East Asian nation, but at the same time, it pays attention to the individual human experiences through the use of biographical writings, and feature and documentary films. These biographical and autobiographical readings encompass individuals representing diverse classes, nationalities, ethnicities, gender, and age, and thus, students are exposed to multi-faceted experiences of foreigners and immigrants whose lives were shaped by historical events developed across the Pacific. Another important goal of this course is to discover the continuities between Asian history and Asian American history and to locate Asian and Asian American experiences within the world-wide historical process.
Hist 177A (sec. 1): Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement
This course examines the US civil rights movements in the context of the ferment of the 1960s (involving issues of race, gender, class, war, peace and generations). Particular attention is paid to Dr. King and his interactions with other African-American and white leaders, including the rising role of college students in protest and reform. The Wachtel Archives at Hofstra will be available to examine Dr. King's association with his Long Island close advisor and friend, Harry H. Wachtel, who accompanied King on his Nobel Prize trip in 1964 and brought him to Hofstra as graduation speaker in 1965. Increasingly King and Wachtel focused on the "triple evils of racism, poverty and war."
Hist 177A (sec. 2): Hofstra in History: Campus Life, Long Island, and the Dynamics of Race, Class, and Cultural Change, 1935 to the Present, James A. Levy
How much do you really know about your university? This course will introduce you to on-the-ground research, sending you into the field with audio recorders and into official and unofficial archives to discover a Hofstra past not found in official brochures. You will be asked to tap the collective memories of Hofstra alum, former and current faculty, and local residents and use a variety of interviewing and research strategies to capture stories of key moments in Hofstra’s history - from its early years as an NYU extension school in Depression-era America when tuition was a whopping $375 and total enrollment less than 900 to the campus radicalism of the sixties and on to the recent years of growth and change you know well. We won’t shy away from exploring crucial dynamics of race, class, gender and even geographic space, both on campus and in the neighborhoods surrounding Hofstra. As the University prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2010-2011, work generated from the class may also be used in official Hofstra events and publications produced for that occasion.
HIst 177C: Sex, Crime & Violence in Italy: From the Renaissance to the Present, Stanislao Pugliese
Countering popular culture images and stereotypes, this course seeks to examine sexual practices as well as the causes and manifestations of crime and violence in Italy. Drawing on anthropology, sociology, history and cinema, we will investigate changing gender roles, the debate over divorce, the origins and evolution of organized crime and its collusion with political parties, “hooliganism” and racism at soccer games and contemporary attempts to control sex, crime and violence in Italy.
Hist 178A: “A Tenderness Between Men and Men as Part of Our Democratic Heritage:” Patriarchy, Filliation, Fraternal Rebellion and the Revolutionary Impulse, Louis Kern
The Revolution has typically been understood as a political and economic struggle against imperial and mercantilist control of colonial America. Trade restrictions, commodity monopolization, taxation, limitations and restrictions of the traditional rights of Englishmen, and lack of direct representation in Parliament have most frequently been cited as “causes” of colonial rebellion. But the Revolution cannot be understood exclusively as a public, collective uprising grounded in solely material conditions. Individuals reacted to restrictive English practices, defined as tyranny, both rationally and emotionally. The young men who would ultimately be called “Founding Fathers” saw themselves first and foremost as a band of brothers, oppressed by a cruel and despotic father, who joined forces to overthrow the original “founding father” (King George III) and to usurp his place. The course will examine the young men of the revolutionary generation—Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, inter alia—in their figurative roles as sons and brothers in relation to royal and colonial patriarchal figures and social structures in an attempt to better understand the essential connection between the ideological and affective bases of the Revolution and the triumph of democratic political traditions.
Hist 187: Seminar: America in the 20th Century -- The Great Society, Carolyn Eisenberg
During the 1960's there was wide acceptance of the idea that the federal government had an obligation to eliminate poverty, reduce inequality and insure that all Americans could enjoy a minimum standard of living. This approach was embodied in a remarkable spate of legislation, described as Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." Despite initial enthusiasm, many of the programs proved very controversial and when Republicans assumed control of the White House, they sought to dismantle them. The dispute over the proper role of the federal government has continued to the present day. In this seminar we will explore the issues raised by the Great Society. Individual research projects will help us to deepen our understanding.
Hist 188A: Seminar: Cocaine, Bananas, and Oil: The History of Latin America & Its Commodities, Brenda Elsey
Contemporary life is characterized by the increasingly rapid flow of information, people, and goods across borders. In the Americas the intensification of this process began with colonization, motored by European desire for exotic commodities. Since then, the region’s commodities have continued to fuel global capitalism, violent wars, and political conflict. Scholars have seen the study of commodities as an exciting field of research that brings together cultural, environmental, and economic history. In our common readings, we will focus on the relationships surrounding three important commodities: cocaine, bananas, and oil. Each shaped by complicated ties between Latin America and the United States and Europe, these commodities take us to distinct geographical areas. Central America and the Caribbean take center stage in the study of bananas, Venezuela and Mexico in the case of oil, and Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Mexico in pursuit of cocaine trafficking. Much of the course will be spent analyzing methodology and theory with the idea of helping students formulate an original research paper that traces the history of a Latin American commodity.
Use the prefix HIST (History) to find the most up-to-date information about history courses.