History

The First and Second World Wars were among the largest events in human history. As “total” wars, they shattered the central pillar of traditional warfare: the distinction between combatants and civilians. In the First World War, technology gave the advantage to the defense, and the result was the stalemate of trench warfare. But beyond the horrors of the Western Front, the war also set precedents for submarine and chemical warfare, the bombardment of cities, and the starvation of civilian populations. The Second World War only increased the scale and scope of destruction, and added the atrocity of systematic genocide. New technologies restored the initiative to the offense, but also increased the vulnerability of civilian populations. The Second World War killed at least five times as many people as the first, and almost half of the dead were civilians.

How have artists and writers in Europe responded to these traumatic events? Sometimes with works on the grand scale, but more often with miniatures, short works laced with irony. Sometimes with modernist experiments, but more often with attempts at realistic representation and a reinvigoration of traditional forms. Drawing on a variety of media-poetry, fiction, memoirs, painting and sculpture, theater and film, this course surveys some of the most memorable and powerful responses of men and women to the tragic events of the twentieth century.

1. The Great War
Sir Michael Howard, “The First World War Reconsidered,” in The Great War and the Twentieth Century, ed. Jay Winter, Geoffrey Parker, and Mary Habeck
Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, The First World War
War poems by Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Alfred Lichtenstein, August Stramm, Georg Trakl, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Guillaume Apollinaire

2. A Troglodyte’s World: The Western Front
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, chapters 1–5
W.H.R. Rivers, “The Repression of War Experience,” in The Great War Reader, ed. James Hannah
Pat Barker, Regeneration (historical novel about the Sassoon/Rivers relationship)

3. Lost Generation
Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, chapters 4–6
Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, selection in The Great War Reader
War poems by Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg

4. At The Front And Behind The Lines
Ernst Jünger, The Storm of Steel (Somme chapters)
Jay Winter, “The Apocalyptic Imagination in Art,” in Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning
Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Svejk, Part I (“Behind the Lines”)

5. Aftershocks
Tyler Stovall, “Bringing the Jazz Age to Paris,” in Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night, Part I
R.C. Sheriff, Journey’s End (play)
Abel Gance, J’accuse (film)
Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (film)

6. “Death Is A Matter Of Mathematics”: The Second World War
Richard Overy: Why the Allies Won
Barry Amiel, “Death is a Matter of Mathematics” (poem)
Bertolt Brecht, “1940,” “When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain,” “War Has Been Given a Bad Name,” “To Those Born Later” (poems)

7. Britain’s War
Richard Hillary, The Last Enemy (selection)
Keith Douglas, Alamein to Zem Zem (selection) and poems (“Vergissmeinicht,” “Cairo Jag”)
Ian Watt, “The Liberty of the Prison,” in Yale Review (1956)
Ronald Searle, Kwai drawings
Humphrey Jennings, Fires Were Started (film)

8. A Surplus Of Memory: Poland’s War
Poems by Czeslaw Milosz and Zbigniew Herbert
Simha Rotem, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter: The Past Within Me
Andrej Wajda, Kanal (film)

9. War Of Annihilation: The Eastern Front
Heinrich Böll, The Casualty (short stories)
Elem Klimov, Come and See (film)
Anna Akhmatova, poems

10. Collaboration And Resistance
Marcel Ophuls, The Sorrow and the Pity (film)
Natalia Ginzburg, All Our Yesterdays (memoir)
Roberto Rossellini, Rome, Open City (film)
Alberto Giacometti, sculpture

Course requirements: class participation, two short papers (5–6 pages) based on course readings, one research paper (8–10 pages). A final examination is not required for this course.

Related UCSC courses: History 30C, Modern Europe 1914–present (but with the exception of a few poems, there is no overlap in the readings).

Enrollment restrictions: none. Enrollment is unlimited. Prerequisites: none.

Catalog description: Drawing on a wide variety of media, this course explores the responses of European writers, artists, and filmmakers (both men and women) to experiences of trauma, defeat, resistance and occupation during the two “total” wars of the twentieth century.

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150C. Twentieth-Century China

The following books have been ordered at the Bay Tree Bookstore:

Spence, The Search for Modern China
Cheng and Lestz, The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection
Chen Yuan-tsung, Dragon’s Village
Huang, The Spiral Road
Yang, Spider Eaters
Weston and Jensen, China Beyond the Headlines

We will be reading all these books except Spence’s Search and Cheng and Lestz’s companion volume in their entirety. (These two books, however, are the basic texts for the course.) Although backup copies are on reserve in the library, it is strongly recommended that you purchase all the books. In addition, other required materials will be available on ereserves in conjunction with the course.

We will meet three times a week for a combination of lectures and discussion. Weekly discussion sections are also required. Course requirements include:

Mindful reading and wakeful attendance. Complete the assigned readings before each class session, and come prepared to share your opinions, observations, and questions. Class sessions will be devoted to contextualizing as well as analyzing the required readings. We will cover material in class that enhances but does not duplicate the course reading; therefore attendance and selective (not compulsive) note-taking are essential.

Writing. You will be asked to write weekly reading responses (sometimes in the form of a one-paragraph email to the instructor and TA, sometimes as a brief in-class quiz), three text analyses (1–2 pp. each), and one 6–8 pp. essay based on course readings. You will also complete a map quiz, a midterm, and a final.

Talking. Most class sessions will be divided between lecture and discussion, while sections will be devoted entirely to student debate and discussion. Prepare to question, opine, and defend!

You can obtain more information about the course by contacting the instructor at 9-4041 or by email at gbhers@cats.ucsc.edu.

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Winter 2002
Instructor: Mr. Burke
TTH 12:00–1:45 p.m.
College Eight 252

The course explores the cultural transformation of the Mediterranean region in comparative historical perspective from the rise of the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires to modern times. Topics include orientalism, political and economic transformations, social movements, cultural change, gender, colonialism and imperialism.

The course is divided into three parts:

In Part 1, “The Mediterranean Divided,” (4 weeks); students will learn about the basic human geography of the region and its prior unified history under Islam; the multiple meanings of 1492 (unification of Spain, double ethnic cleansings, the enforced division of the Mediterranean between Christianity and Islam); the Sixteenth century world war between the Ottomans and Habsburgs; and the contrast between the imperial centers and provincial realities.

In Part 2, “The Mediterranean Before Colonialism” (3 weeks), students will deal with the economic underdevelopment of the area following the silver price inflation of the 16th century, and the shift of the economic center to northwestern Europe; the importance of Muslim and Christian corsairing, and the persistence of rebellions; and finally, the looming shadow of the West: the French expedition to Egypt (1798) and Egyptian responses.

In Part 3, “Making the Mediterranean Modern,” (3 weeks), we study the ways in which the nineteenth liberal reforms affected different parts of the region, the onset of colonialism (and its culture), and the rise of nationalism in Turkey (seen via the 1925 “hat struggle”) and of fascism in Italy (seen via Victoria de Grazia’s book on Women and Fascism).

The class will be conducted by a combination of lecture and discussion. There will be two lectures a week, generally on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The syllabus assumes that students will come to class having already completed the reading assignments for the week.

Students will be required to complete a short paper, an in-class midterm examination, and a take-home final or a term paper.

The following books have been ordered from the Baytree Bookstore for this course.

1. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World (California) ISBN: 0520203089, Vol. 1.

2. Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus (Ivan R. Dee) ISBN: 1561310220

3. Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, Napoleon in Egypt (Markus Wiener) ISBN: 1558760709

4. Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (Norton) ISBN: 0393003280

5. Jeremy Seal, A Fez of the Heart (Harcourt Brace) ISBN: 0156003937

There will also be a course reader.

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Sections:
Tues 8:30–9:40 a.m. Soc Sci 1 153
Tues 3:30–4:40 p.m. Oakes Acad 222
Thurs 5:30–6:40 p.m. Crown 202
Thurs 2:00–3:10 p.m. Cowell 222

Course Description

Compares memories and interpretations of war in Southeast Asia by diverse groups in France, America, and Vietnam. Topics include war origins, military strategies, propaganda, combat, civilians, media, activism, MIAs, refugees, mixed race children, memorials, textbooks, films, music, literature, and art.

Course website:
http://humwww.ucsc.edu/history/history157

General Education Code E

Evaluation
20% class participation
20% 4–5 page analytical paper
30% research paper
30% final exam

Weekly Topics:
I. Introduction: Nationalism, Memory and History
II. Colonialism, Resistance, and Revolution
III. Memories of the First Indochina War
IV. Domino Theories and American Intervention
V. Wars of Attrition and Wars of Liberation
VI. Homefront Perspectives in the US and Vietnam
VII. Peace with Honor, Refugees, and the Third Indochina War
VIII. Victors and Losers: Nation Building and Nation Healing
IX. Myths, Monuments, and Memorials
X. Legacies and Lesson in France, Vietnam, and the US

Weekly Films
Vietnam: A Television History
Indochine
The 317th Platoon
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam
Full Metal Jacket
Three Seasons
From Hollywood to Hanoi
Rambo First Blood Part 2
Regret to Inform

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This course surveys the history of modern Islamic societies from the emergence of the regional gunpowder empires (Ottoman Turkish, Safevi Persian, Mughal Indian) in the sixteenth century to their subsequent transformations in the new global context of Western hegemony and the world market.

The aim of the course is to acquaint the student with the main phases of the history of Islamic societies since 1500 and their changing political forms and social institutions. A major challenge of the course is to get beyond Eurocentric and modern biases in order to view Islamic civilization in something like a world historical perspective, in all its richness and diversity.

Topics include: the regional gunpowder empires, 19th century reforms, colonialism, nationalism, and the emergence of militant Islam.

The class will be conducted by a combination of lecture and discussion. We’ll also be using a lot of films, slides, and music. The syllabus assumes that students will come to class having already completed the reading assignments for the week.

Students will be required to complete the following written assignments.

1) A short paper on a topic to be assigned.
2) An in-class midterm examination on Parts 1 & 2 of the course.
3) A take-home final or a term paper on the materials in Part 3. Term papers must be approved by the instructor, and must go through two drafts.

The following required books have been ordered by the Baytree Bookstore. There will also be a class reader.

Leila Ahmed, Women & Gender in Islam (Yale)

Edmund Burke & Ira Lapidus, Islam, Politics and Social Movements (California)

John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford)

John Esposito, Voices of Resurgent Islam (Oxford)
ISBN: 0-19-503340-X

Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge) Order 50

Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet (Pantheon)

Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1600–1923 (Cambridge)

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187. The US and the World