Fall 2023
We analyze the principles guiding the exclusion of certain free inhabitants from the political communities in which they lived and often prospered, the initiatives taken by ancient states to integrate them despite their secondary rank, the non-citizens' own efforts at integration, and the evolution of these interactions over time. We also study the factors that influenced both exclusion and integration (ethnicity, religion, etc.) and how the broad and ever-changing spectrum of what we call 'non-citizens' provides us with a window into the formation/transformation of categorial infrastructures from the ancient to the medieval world.
This course explores the role of science and technology in the material culture of late imperial China in the Qing (Ch'ing) era, roughly 1550-1900. Emphasis is on navigating Chinese and other language primary sources.
This course provides an introduction to the written sources of Japanese history from 800-1600. Instruction focuses on reading and translating a variety of documentary genres, although court chronicles and some visual sources are introduced in class as well. Each week entails the translation of several short documents. Some research resources are also introduced. Weekly assignments include documents which are published on Princeton's komonjo website. In a presentation of the final translation project and analysis is required during the final class and a 12-15 page paper is due on Dean's Day.
A colloquium to introduce the beginning graduate student to the great traditions in historical writing, a variety of techniques and analytical tools recently developed by historians, and the nature of history as a profession.
Topics include the relationship between society and warfare in pre-modern and modern Africa, the impact of violence on society (for example, population displacement, disease, and genocide) and post-conflict recovery (i.e. demobilization, return and resettlement of internally displaced persons and refugees, the transition from emergency aid to development aid) and reconciliation (for example, truth- and/or reconciliation commissions and war crimes/humanitarian courts) as well as the memorialisation of the violence and peace-building.
Since 1991, the Association for Asian Studies has offered a biennial award for a first work dealing with the geographical region of Southeast Asia. Named after the late Harry J. Benda, the pioneering Czech historian of the Japanese occupation of Java, the prize has long assigned value (and expectation) to emerging scholarship on the region. But while we shall see how it can be used as a sampling of how a field might be taking shape at a given time, it is also worth juxtaposing with other works within the list, what has since emerged, and how one might connect Southeast Asia to other spaces and concerns.
This graduate seminar explores the current state of modern Middle East intellectual history. By attending to the foundations, methods, and critical debates of intellectual history broadly conceived, the course carefully investigates the development of modern Middle East intellectual history on its own terms, as a field producing meaningful knowledge that is neither derivative of nor irrelevant to the mainstream of the historical discipline.
This seminar surveys the allied fields of women's history, gender history, and the history of sexuality, situating recent works in the context of canonical texts and longstanding debates in the field. Please see instructor for a draft of the syllabus.
A survey of major issues in the historiography of early modern Japan and Meiji Japan (1600-1890).
Readings in Japanese political, social, and economic history. Topics include transwar continuity and change, political economy, labor, gender issues, culture and state, religion, Japanese expansion and colonialism, the Allied Occupation of Japan and "social management." Some readings in Japanese (optional for those who do not specialize in Japanese history).
The seminar looks at the way political revolutions have been defined and understood throughout modern history, surveys major theories of revolution, examines key elements of revolutions such as violence and the transformation of social structure, and takes an in-depth look at two case studies: the French and Haitian Revolutions.
This course provides students with a introduction to the advanced, graduate study of the history of France and its overseas empire between the 'grand siècle' of Louis XIV through the foundation of the Fifth Republic and the independence of Algeria. Readings focus on recent historiography, with the aim of introducing students to some of the most exciting and innovative recent work in the subject, and to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. A reading knowledge of French is helpful, but is not required.
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the history of the Syriac language and Syriac-speaking Christians. We focus on important individual authors, key historical moments, and significant themes and aspects of the history of Syriac-speaking Christians in the Middle East. Since Syriac-speaking churches have traditionally been classified by Western authors as "heretics" we also examine the nature of orthodoxy and heresy. Students are introduced to and trained in the use of the most important instrumenta studiorum of Syriac studies.
The goal of this seminar will be to introduce students to some of the most important ideas and debates surrounding the two major religious revolutions of Late Antiquity: the triumph of Christianity and the subsequent emergence and world conquests of Islam. The course will focus on extensive reading in both primary and secondary literature and students will be introduced to and trained in using major instrumenta studiorum for this period; texts may also be read in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. No prior knowledge of Late Antiquity, Christianity, or Islam will be assumed.
'This is perhaps why a general history of `conservative' doctrine cannot be written; too many minds have been trying to `conserve' too many things for too many reasons.' Thus J.G.A. Pocock. This course takes up the challenge posed by J.G.A. Pocock and examines the history of conservatism in modern European history. Simultaneously, we examine 'crisis' as a historical category of analysis.
This seminar surveys classic and more recent scholarship in the history of work in the United States. Path-breaking studies to be considered include many that are imbricated with histories of capitalism as well as those that emphasize transnational approaches. Inequality will be a central thematic throughout the semester.
During the twentieth century, Marxism became a powerful social and political force in countries across the world. This international success, however, was by no means preordained. Tailored to the conditions of a rapidly industrializing Western Europe, Marxist ideas were not easily applied elsewhere. This course examines how theorists sought to revise and adapt Marxist theory to fit the requirements of their time and place. The course pays attention to the way in which intellectuals from a range of countries challenged some of the core principles of Marxism, proposing new ideas about the role of the nation, religion, and race.
This course offers readings in multidisciplinary literature on peasant/agrarian studies. It combines anthropological, sociological, and historical approaches and analyzes how peasant communities interact with the world of rising capitalism, nation states, standardization, colonialism, and postcolonial global order. The main themes discussed in the classes include: peasants as "the others" for educated elites, peasant economy and the way of life in comparative prospective, and forms and languages of domination, passive, and active resistance.
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the literature of African-American History, from the colonial era up to more recent times. Major themes and debates are highlighted. The course should help students to define interests within the field to pursue further study and research and also to aid preparation for examinations.
Intensive readings course surveying rich recent scholarship on history of cities and their regions, intersecting with disciplines such as geography, sociology, political science, art history, built environment, planning, policy, architecture, and public humanities-as well as with historical fields of research in race, ethnicity, gender, class, capitalism, business, and culture. Seminar covers field's evolution from 1960s to recent multidisciplinary, comparative, national, and transnational studies, addressing problems of place, social processes, human experience, methods, and archives. Includes short research assignments.
This reading course introduces History Dept. graduate students to historical literature on American technology from the Colonial Era through the Twentieth Century. A chronological survey of technological development highlights the variety of ways scholars have understood technology and its interactions with society and culture from a historical perspective.
This course provides an introduction to the historiography of colonial North American and the American revolutionary era. Topics of interest include empire, slavery, the Atlantic world, Native American history, settler colonialism, gender, revolution, political culture, and state formation.
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A broad survey of major works and recent trends in the history of medicine, focusing on the cultural politics of disease and epidemics from tuberculosis to AIDS, the relationship of history of medicine to the history of the body and body parts, the politics of public health in comparative national perspective. Surveying key controversies at the intersection of biology and medicine, the intellectual and political logic of specialization in fields such as genetics, health and political activism, and the relationship of class, race, and gender to shifting notions of disease and identity.
This class approaches the history of early science and medicine by asking how past societies responded to the challenge of observing and testing nature. Historically, what counted as an experiment and how did experiment become the arbiter of scientific discovery in the European world? Drawing on ancient, medieval, and early modern sources, as well as historical reconstructions of past experiments, we trace the changing role of experience across such diverse fields as astronomy, surgery, alchemy, and magic.
An introduction to hands-on work with medieval Arabic documentary sources in their original manuscript form. Between 100,000 and 200,000 such documents have survived, making this an exciting new area of research with plenty of discoveries still to be made. Students learn how to handle the existing repertory of editions, documentary hands, Middle Arabic, transcription, digital resources and original manuscripts. The syllabus varies according to the interests of the students and the instructor. Experience reading Arabic is required; experience reading manuscripts is not.
This seminar covers significant works of Russian eighteenth-century literature (poetry, drama, and prose) in their historical context. Major themes include: empire, church and state; Russia and the West; Peter and Catherine as cultural legislators; Patronage; Censorship; Political Dissent; Women's Life and Letters. Some attention will be given to European connections and influences.