HIS 560 Approaches to World History
W 5-7:30 LA
202
Instructor: Dr. Scott S. Reese Office:
LA 345
Office Hours: M 1-2, T,Th 9-10, W 3-4 or by appointment
Tel.: 523-9049
Email: scott.reese@nau.edu
Course url: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~ssr7/HIS560F05.htm
Instructor’s Webpage: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~ssr7
From Vasco da Gama to the WTO, for better or worse, the world has become an undeniably smaller place since 1500. The goals of this course are two-fold. First, we will look at how cultures, economies and polities have become increasingly intertwined over the last 500 years. The second goal of the course, however, is to explore the how participants as well as contemporary writers and scholars have imagined this phenomenon as a historical process. Thus the readings and discussions for the course will range widely between history, literary critique, fiction and current political polemic.
The course itself is divided into three parts. During the first four weeks of the course we will read several of the foundational works of world systems theory. There is a vast literature on the subject and I have chosen three works by individuals who are seen as among the most important theoretical “founding fathers” of the discipline. Part II of the class is devoted to the notion of empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the ways in which it shaped the colonizers views of the world and themselves. Finally, part III of the course will be devoted to examining recent theory regarding identity, the movement of ideas and how people construct the world around them.
Required texts:
Andre Gunder Frank, Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age
Phil Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History.
Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men. Cornell University Press; Reprint edition (September 1990)
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism Vintage Books (1994)
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Public Worlds, V. 1) (University of Minnesota Press, 1996)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, Revised Edition,1991)
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W.W. Norton Co., 1999)
Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past, (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003)
K.N. Chauduri, Trade and
Civilization in the
John Thornton,
The above books are Required Readings for all students in the course and are available at the NAU Bookstore. Other weekly readings are listed within the body of the syllabus and are available on electronic reserve from Cline Library via the following link: http://www.nau.edu/library/courses/fall05/his560-reese/
Assessment of Outcomes: As a graduate course the primary means of evaluating student performance will be frequent written assignments and class discussion.
- Reaction Papers: During the course of the semester each student is required to submit six (6) critical evaluations of the week’s readings. These should be 3-5 pages in length (1 inch margins, font no larger than 12 point). Essays should not merely recapitulate the arguments of the author/s, but should approach the readings with a critical eye and seek to identify both the strengths and weaknesses of a given author’s point of view.
- Bibliographic Essay: All students will be required to write a 15-20 page bibliographic essay on a topic relating to global history or some historiographic issue with global implications. Each essay should be aimed at delineating the major arguments and schools of thought regarding a particular issue as well as a detailed overview of the current literature on a given topic. As this is an assignment designed to acquaint you with the scholarly literature on a given topic the use of web sources will not be permitted. Essays will be due at the last class meeting. Criteria sheets will follow.
- Participation: The idea of the graduate seminar is
based on the notion of a free and open exchange of ideas through
discussion. Hence, arriving to class prepared and ready to engage the
material through active participation is a crucial part of the course. Those
who come to class unprepared or fail to take an active part in discussion
on a regular basis will be docked accordingly.
- Discussion Leader: Each week one or two seminar participants (depending on class size) will be responsible for initiating that week’s discussion. Discussion leaders are neither expected nor asked to provide a synopsis of the readings. Rather, the role of the discussion leader/s is to provide their own “take” on the readings and posit thoughtful questions in order to stimulate the exchange of ideas.
- Oral Presentation: The last two class meetings will be devoted to oral presentations on individual bibliographic essays. Students will need to provide a brief (10 minute) synopsis of their project and be prepared to field questions from the other seminar participants.
Note1: Missing more than 1 class meetings may seriously jeopardize your ability to pass this course. It should be noted that this does not mean that you are “allowed” to miss one class, you should be here for all class meetings. What it does mean is that you will not be unduly penalized if circumstances dictate that you miss a class.
Note 2: As in any course plagiarism is completely unacceptable. Any form of academic dishonesty may result in a failing grade for the course.
Course Evaluation:
Your course grades will be based on the following distribution:
Reaction Papers: 30%
Bibliographic Essay—25%
Participation -- 30%
Discussion Leader – 10%
Oral Presentation – 5%
A standard grading scale will be in use
90%+= A; 80-89% =B; 70-79%=C; 60-69%=D; below 60%=F
Weekly Schedule of
Topics (bear in mind this is a guide.
Part I—Conceptualizing World Systems
Wk 1 08/31-- Introduction: Whose “world”?
Wk 2 09/07 -- Emergence of European Supremacy?
Wk 3 09/14 Commerce and the World
Wk4 09/21 Roots of the “Modern” World System?
Bose, “Space and Time on the Indian Ocean Rim: Theory and History” in Modernity and Culture—From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, Leila Fawaz and C.A. Bayly, editors (Columbia University Press, 2002) pp. 365-386. on e-reserve
Wk 5 09/28 Is there an “Atlantic World”?
Bernard Bailyn: "The Idea of Atlantic History” in Itinerario, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1996: 19-44. on e-reserve
Peter Coclanis, "Drang Nach Osten: Bernard Bailyn, the World-Island, and the Idea of Atlantic History," Journal of World History 13, 1 (Spr 2002) on e-reserve
PartII Ramifications of
Empire
Wk 6 10/5 Defining
the Other
Wk 7 10/12
Part III Culture, Colonialism and Global History
Wk 8 10/19 The
Nation—What is it good for?
Antoinette Burton “Introduction: On
the Inadequacy and the Indispensability of the Nation” in After the Imperial Turn—Thinking with and through the Nation,
Antoinette Burton, ed. (Duke University Press, 2003) pp. 1-23 on e-reserve
Stuart Ward, “Transcending the
Nation: A Global Imperial History?” in After
the Imperial Turn—Thinking with and through the Nation, Antoinette Burton,
ed. (Duke University Press, 2003) pp.44-56 on e-reserve
Wk 9 10/26 Imagining the World
Chatterjee,
“Whose Imagined Community,” in The Nation
and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton
University Press, 1993) pp. 3-13 on e-reserve
Wk 10 11/2 Theoretical
Approaches to Culture, Identity and the Postcolonial
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (selections)
Akhil
Gupta & James
Karen Leonard, “Finding One’s Own
Place: Asian Landscapes Re-visioned in Rural
California” in Culture, Power,
Place—Explorations in Critical Anthropology Akhil
Gupta & James
Wk 11 11/9 Individual meetings with Instructor on paper progress.
Wk 12 11/16 Manufacturing the past?
Wk 13-14 11/23-30 Individual presentations
Final papers due 11/30
Wk15 12/7 No Class