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Fall 2008 Seminars

• Life in a Medieval Castle
• 1950's: Fear, Sex, & Rock'n'Roll (Full)
• Marie-Antoinette: Villain or Victim? (Full)
• Man's Best Friend: Human-Animal Relations in History (Full)
• Living in a Divided World, 1945-1991: "We are all Children of the Cold War"

Life in a Medieval Castle

Martha Carlin, Associate Professor

The medieval castle was much more than a fortress; it was medieval society in microcosm. Castles were the homes not only of the lords and ladies who owned them, but also of the master builders who designed and built them, the young people who studied and trained in them, and the knights, priests, clerks, physicians, accountants, lawyers, tutors, administrators, entertainers, cooks, artisans, servants and soldiers who worked in them. In this course we will use original medieval texts and images, surviving buildings, archaeological evidence, and the work of modern scholars to examine the many facets of life in the medieval castle.Students who take this class should expect to do a lot of serious reading, thinking, discussing, and writing.

This course should provide you with a good understanding of the role of castles and their occupants in medieval society, and enable you to understand the significance both of outstanding individuals, events, and technologies, and of broad and long-term historical patterns. It should also enable you to develop important skills in:

• reading and evaluating sources carefully and critically
• identifying and analyzing a wide variety of types of evidence
• using such evidence to reconstruct and interpret the past
• combining research and analysis with thoughtful writing to produce clear, original, and persuasive arguments

Professor Carlin works on the history of daily life in medieval England; her current research focuses on towns, technologies, letters, food, and shopping.

Number: HIST 192, SEM 001
Credits: 3HU
Time: TR 3:30pm-4:45pm
Place: HLT 341
Class Number: 50200

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1950's: Fear, Sex, & Rock'n'Roll (Full)

Michael Gordon, Associate Professor

Ike, Elvis, McCarthyism, Korea, the Cold War, the Beat Generation, the hydrogen bomb, jazz, civil rights, I Love Lucy, Rebel Without a Cause. These are just a few of the images that remind us of the interesting and important decade BEFORE the turbulent 1960s. It's a time when the grandparents of many of today's college freshmen had good jobs, bought nice homes, and had kids. What was America like in those years? We'll explore that question through fiction, Hollywood films, pop music, autobiography, jazz, and much more. Students will write a family history and several short papers, lead class discussions, and interview a parent or grandparent.

Michael Gordon teaches courses in American labor history, Wisconsin history, and oral history, among others. Recently, he collaborated with Milwaukee's Theater X on a play about the Patrick Cudahy strike of 1987-1989 that was based on his oral history interviews with former strikers and company officials.

Number: HIST 192, SEM 002
Credits: 3HU
Time: MW 11:00am-12:15pm
Place: HLT 341
Class Number: 51424

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Marie-Antoinette: Villain or Victim? (Full)

Jeffrey Merrick, Professor

Marie Antoinette (1755-93), daughter of empress Maria Theresa of Austria and wife of king Louis XVI of France, never scoffed about her hungry subjects, "Let them eat cake!" We will study her relations with her mother, siblings, husband, in-laws, children, the French court, and the French public, as well as her roles as trend-setter, lobbyist, scapegoat, and symbol, against the background of last years of the Ancien Régime and first years of the French Revolution. We will read one biography from cover to cover and excerpts from other biographies, as well as a variety of eighteenth-century sources, in order to explore what we can and cannot know about the Queen and understand why she has been portrayed as both villain and victim. We will also examine portraits, analyze movies, make a field-trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum, and sample French cheeses.

Jeffrey Merrick knew that he wanted to study history by the time he completed fourth grade, eighteenth-century history by the time he completed eighth grade, and eighteenth-century French history by the time he completed twelfth grade. He has spent much of the last thirty years reading and writing about monarchy, family, gender, sexuality, and suicide in pre-Revolutionary France. You can judge for yourselves whether he has become not only older but also wiser in the process.

Number: HIST 192, SEM 004
Credits: 3 HU
Time: MW 9:30am-10:45am
Place: HLT 341
Class Number: 53372

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Man's Best Friend: Human-Animal Relations in History (Full)

Helena M. Pycior, Professor

According to the 2005-2006 National Pet Owners Survey, released by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, 63% of American households include a "pet." Do you share your home with a bird, cat, dog, ferret, fish, snake, turtle, or other nonhuman animal? Do you see such animals as pets, animal companions, family members, workers, or someone/thing else?

The seminar will study relations between humans and animals, especially domesticated animals living in homes. We will analyze the kinds of relations that humans and animals have experienced, primarily in Europe and North America from the 19th century through our own times. Examples of relations include: hunter and dog, pet keeper and pet, experimenter and experimental subject, soldier and war dog, and human and animal companion.

We will begin to trace the evolution of the understanding of human-animal relations from one of pet keeping, according to which superior humans own or keep animals, to that of companionship, according to which humans and animals bond in deep and mutually beneficial ways. Moreover, we will question what humans, in speaking about these relations, reveal about themselves and their societies. What is implied in saying that the dog is "man's best friend"?

Helena M. Pycior received her M.A. in Mathematics and her Ph.D. in the History of Science from Cornell University. She teaches courses ranging from the introductory history of science to graduate seminars on Darwin and Darwinism and on gender, race, science, and medicine. Professor Pycior is an editor of "Creative Couples in the Sciences," a collection of essays on the varieties of spousal collaboration in science and mathematics. She has recently published and article on President Warren G. Harding and his "first dog", Laddie boy. Professor Pycior and her two dogs-Berkeley and Lickety Split -- enjoy frequent, long walks. Her dogs lead, she follows.

Number: HIST 192, SEM 005
Credits: 3 HU
Time: 11:00am-12:15pm
Place: HLT 341
Class Number: 53450

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Living in a Divided World, 1945-1991: "We are all Children of the Cold War"

Philip Shashko, Professor

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, famously proclaimed: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the (European) Continent." With these words, the British Prime Minister warned the world of a new divide that threatened world peace. Sixty-two years later, we are still living with the consequences of that division and conflict.

Most people living today have experienced in one form or another conflicts and tensions of the Cold War (CW). The CW shaped the history of the world during the second half of the twentieth century and left a profound imprint on people's memory. A global conflict that divided the world into Soviet and Western blocs, the CW transformed states and peoples alike across the globe. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, people prepared themselves for a political apocalyptic conflict or sought to prevent one from occurring.

This Freshmen Seminar concentrates on the causes and consequences of the CW for the political, economic, military, social, and cultural life of nations and individuals. It focuses on how international relations and assumptions, especially between the leaders and elites of the Soviet Union and the United States determined the political process leading to the formation of Post-World War II international order. It also considers the sources, dynamic and uniqueness of the CW derived from the social revolutionary movements that in large measure determined the events after 1945.

Philip Shashko received his M.A. in History at the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He teaches courses in Russian, Soviet, Southeast European history and undergraduate and graduate seminars on historical methods, nationalism and the role of intellectuals in society. He has done research and published on nationalism and cultural history, and traveled numerous times to Europe, especially to the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. He likes reading, discussing current events, and enjoys being with his grandchildren.

Number: HIST 192, SEM 006
Credits: 3 HU
Time: MW 11:00am-12:15pm
Place: HLT 286
Class Number: 60211

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