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HIST 280 Topics

FALL 2024

Professor TBA HIST 280-901: "The Human Body in Modern America" Our bodies are strange. They can be mundane, boring, familiar -- but also necessary, mysterious, and often the cutting edge of research in science and technology. This course investigates this complexity of the human body and its role in modern science, politics, and culture. We will explore how, throughout the modern age, the human body posed ideas and questions about personhood, governance, genetics, race and gender, the natural environment, the relationship between humans and technology, and the rise of artificial intelligence. These inquiries, in turn, transformed how everyday Americans understood modern America itself. What kinds of bodies belong in America? Who has the power to know and define bodies, and who has the power to control them? How are new technologies unsettling old definitions of bodies, societies, and humanity? Applying these broader themes to specific topics of their choice, students will develop an original research paper in this writing-intensive (W) course.

Olga Dror HIST 280-904: "WWII in Asia and the Pacific" The course will cover different aspects of World War II in East and Southeast Asia, such as the origins and development of hostilities, wartime societies, culture, collaboration, resistance, colonialism, nationalism, and the outcomes of the war. The course will also address certain effects of the war in the United States upon Asian Americans and upon American attitudes toward Asians. Students will develop an original research paper in this is writing-intensive (W) course.

Lorien Foote HIST 280-905: "Fugitive Federals: A Digital Humanities Investigation of Escaped Union Prisoners" This course introduces students to the sources and methods of professional historians through student participation in an innovative historical research project about the mass escape of 3000 Union prisoners of war during the American Civil War. Seminar participants will be introduced to archival and primary source research, evidence and argumentation, historiography, and the principles and methods of the analytical narrative. Students will research and write four short biographies of escaped prisoners of war that will be published on the project website: https://sites.google.com/tamu.edu/fugitive-federals/the-project.

Jessica Herzogenrath HIST 280-999: "Popular Culture in Early 20th Century America" Over the course of the semester, we will explore the ways in which popular culture informed experiences from 1890 through 1940. Historical study of popular culture allows us the opportunity to see the complex ways in which people have negotiated their identities – such as class, race, religion, political allegiance, ethnicity, and gender expression. Popular culture manifests in many ways, including sports, dance, magazines, cartoons, music, theater, toys, food, and language. Through analysis of primary and secondary materials, we will examine how the patterns of popular culture show us both the stability of everyday traditions and the potential for change in the actions of "ordinary" people. Students will develop original research papers supported by primary and secondary sources.

Professor TBA HIST 280-906: Japan in the World This course introduces students to primary and secondary sources to explore how the concept of Japan was constructed and constantly challenged by different groups. In particular, it will encourage students to think about questions of unbroken imperial lineage, how female literature contributed to the development of Japanese cultures, and how Japan interacted with other regimes in the continent and overseas.

Rebecca Schloss HIST 280-902: "Paris at War in the Long-Nineteenth Century" We will practice the historian's craft in this seminar by exploring how war influenced social, political, and cultural dynamics in France's capital city during the long nineteenth century. Through a series of case studies – 1848 Revolutions, 1871 Paris Commune, and World War I – we will examine how historical changes influenced ideas about and the practice of war in France and her colonies.