An introduction to historical analysis and argumentation. While individual sections will focus on different topics and time periods, in all sections students will investigate a range of sources, methods and historical approaches to the past. Hist 100 may be repeated for credit with different topics.
| Distribution Area | Prerequisites | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities | 1 course |
Muhammad Ali has been described as "the spirit of the 20th century". A man who proclaimed himself "The Greatest" from the earliest stages of his professional boxing career, Ali achieved an unprecedented level of global sporting fame. Accurately or not, the 1980 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records named him "the most written about" man in history. Yet, despite all the words and images we are left with a deceptively complicated question following his death in 2016: Who was Muhammad Ali? For his part, Ali told the world in the mid-1960s, "I don't have to be who you want me to be." What role did Ali play in shaping his own image? In what contexts was Ali's reputation forged and how did different communities respond? Did Muhammad Ali change? Did we change? This course engages those questions and others while analyzing Ali's complex life and boxing career in the historic contexts of race (including Black Power and white supremacy), religion (Nation of Islam), resistance and political activism (Vietnam War and freedom struggles), sport, masculinity, celebrity and memory. The course will focus heavily on representations of Ali, including commentaries by scholars, journalists and writers, film footage of Ali's boxing matches, documentaries, photographs, songs, etc.
Organized sports are frequently described as one of Victorian Britain's most enduring global legacies. This course will consider the historic development of organized sport in Great Britain and the British Empire through case studies analyzing rugby and cricket, among others. Central themes will include the codification of games in the 19th century, the Victorian sporting ethos, amateurism/professionalism, women's sport and debates over gender roles and social class in a sporting context. Of particular interest are the cultural and sporting ties that spread to the Dominions and Crown Colonies of the British Empire and beyond through formal and informal means. The course will highlight the ways in which sport illuminated broader imperial developments including those that secured ties to Britain and fostered emerging national and post-colonial identities and resistance. The geographic range of the class will include: cricket in the West Indies, Australia and South Asia; Rugby in New Zealand, South Africa and the Pacific Islands.
Illinois proudly proclaims itself the "Land of Lincoln," and Indiana lays claim to being the 16th president's boyhood home. But, in a very real sense, everyone in the United States lives in the Land of Lincoln. Lincoln remains ubiquitous in American life--from monuments and money to automobiles, financial institutions, schools, and street names. The Lincoln Memorial draws tourists, musicians, protesters, and orators to its steps. He is also a character in movies and even in a prize-winning ghost story. Perhaps the most consequential single figure in US history, more has been written about Lincoln than any other American. Lincoln is a puzzle, a reflection, a mystery, a prism. This course combines biography, history, and culture to figure out who Lincoln was and how his story has marked his country during the 160 years since his death.
Everything has a history, including sex. In investigating the history of sexuality in the modern United States, this course introduces the changing social circumstances that affected the meanings of sexuality as well as how sex has been regulated over time. Central questions we will ask are: How did sexuality change over time? How did it come to be a central aspect of identity? How were systems of sexuality, gender, race, and class mutually constituted? What was the nature of the sexual revolution(s) of the 20th century?
Why do people move from place to place? In this course, we will study the historical background behind the issues of migration and refugees in contemporary Europe. We will study the migrations within, out of, and into Europe over the past centuries up to today. We will consider a wide variety of primary and secondary sources including scholarly analyses, personal narratives, films, and statistics to develop an understanding of the historical dimension behind the contemporary crises. Along the way, students will get the opportunity to read and analyze texts, identify and develop their own theses, research specific topics, and develop empathy for the 'people on the move'.
This course is an exploration of seventeenth-century Jiangnan, the heart of the Chinese Ming empire, one of the largest empires of the early modern world and the center of the emerging global economy. Today, the region of Jiangnan is best-known for modern cities like Shanghai and the traditional gardens of Suzhou. The early modern period (ca. 1500-1800) was a transformative and turbulent time in world history and, by focusing on Jiangnan during this time, this course opens a window on the challenges, dramas, and fascination of people's lives and social change during this period. Through the best-selling fiction and historical sources of the seventeenth century, discover seeds of the modern world in the environmental issues, family relationships, economic growth, political conflict, and cross-cultural interactions of this time and place. This course provides an introduction and foundation for further work in Asian studies, history, and the humanities and social sciences.
The French Revolution is best known for its most radical phase when the revolutionary government of France put the French king on trial, condemned him to death by guillotine, and then went on to behead thousands of its own citizens. This period, "The Reign of Terror," has gone down in infamy. How did a revolution fought in the name of "liberty, equality, and brotherhood" go so wrong? Who were the leading figures in this event? Who thought up the guillotine, and why was this instrument of terror considered an advanced, enlightened approach to the death penalty? Focusing on the period 1792-1795, the period of the revolutionary government known as The Convention, this course will seek to understand how, with the best of intentions, revolutionaries can become terrorists.
In this course we will analyze the history of organized boxing, the so-called "Sweet Science" or what Joyce Carol Oates described as "America's tragic theater", through its representations in histories, literature and film. From the implementation of the Broughton Rules in the 1740s to the present, we will analyze the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, social class and capitalism in a boxing context. With a particular emphasis on the 20th century and African-American boxers in the heavyweight division (Johnson, Louis, Ali and Tyson), the course traces boxing's rise to mass popularity and its precipitous decline. You will read the commentaries of literary figures like Joyce Carol Oates, Leonard Gardner, Richard Wright and scholars like Gerald Early and Kasia Boddy. You will critically assess films like Raging Bull, Rocky, Creed, Girl Fight and boxing documentaries.