*History and Literature 90aa. Possessions and Belongings: The Consumer Revolution in 18th-Century America - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 32128 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Katherine Stebbins mccaffrey
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–3.
Explores the rise of consumer culture in the eighteenth-century American colonies, along with its social, cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic consequences. Introduces students to the range of goods circulating in the Atlantic World through the work of historians, museums, and archives. Analyzes the ways in which colonists and indigenous peoples imagined things and negotiated exchange, both in daily interactions and through transatlantic literature. Assesses the expectations and complications surrounding consumption in the newly United States.
*History and Literature 90ac. The British & American Revolutions - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 98757 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Joanne van der Woude
Half course (fall term). M., 1–3.
This course compares the British Civil War (1642-1651) and the American Revolution (1775-1783) in an Atlantic context. Looking at patterns of flight, resistance, revolt, and sentiment, we will place these two moments in larger structures of class and cultural conflict by reading diaries, songs, pamphlets, and pictures. Authors include Winthrop, Milton, Marvell, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Fieldtrips to the Boston State House and the MFA will also foster discussions of revolutionary music and visual culture.
*History and Literature 90ad. Anatomies of Melancholia: Loss, Gender and Ethnicity in Early Modern Literature - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 84724 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Christina Wald
Half course (spring term). Th., 3–5.
This interdisciplinary seminar explores the complex relationship between mourning, melancholia and the formation of identity, in particular with regard to sex and gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. After briefly taking stock of the medical and cultural histories of the ‘chameleon’ melancholia, we will bring together eminent texts from the corpus of melancholia studies (including Burton, Freud, Judith Butler, Anne Anlin Cheng) and early modern literature (including Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Othello, Sidney’s Arcadia).
*History and Literature 90e. Imperial Intimacies: Bodies and Cultures, 1800-present
Catalog Number: 3818 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Judith Surkis
Half course (fall term). W., 2–4.
Explores the place of "intimate matters" -- families, bodies, and sexualities -- in the history and literature of empires. How were these zones implicated in colonial encounters and government, domination and resistance, travel and consumption, the development of feminism, nationalism, and decolonization? How do they inform understandings of the colonial and postcolonial today? Focus will be on comparative European empires.
*History and Literature 90i. American Road Narratives
Catalog Number: 9056 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Amy L. Spellacy
Half course (fall term). Th., 3–5.
Explores the significance of the road narrative in twentieth-century American literature and film, focusing on how stories of travel have functioned as a forum for examining larger social and cultural issues. Course will consider the possibilities and promises represented by travel in these stories, and will also interrogate how race, class, and gender affect the experience of being on the road. Authors include Zora Neale Hurston, John Steinbeck, Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, and Cormac McCarthy.
*History and Literature 90j. The Paradoxes of Progress
Catalog Number: 1605 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Joshua Humphreys
Half course (spring term). Tu., 2–4.
This seminar explores the idea of Progress, and its accompanying problems and paradoxes, in European history and literature since the Enlightenment. Our approach will be comparative, concentrating on materials drawn primarily from France, Britain, and Germany, ranging from novels, poetry and plays by Shelley, Tennyson, Hugo, Mann, and Camus to political and philosophical writing and social and cultural criticism (Kant, Condorcet, Comte, Fourier, Freud, and the Frankfurt School) to 20th c. music (Webern, Schönberg, Górecki).
*History and Literature 90l. Stories of Slavery and Freedom
Catalog Number: 5335 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Timothy P. McCarthy
Half course (fall term). W., 3–5.
In the last generation, scholars have revolutionized our understanding of slavery and freedom in the modern Atlantic world. This sea-change has been the result of a major methodological shift: to view this history through the eyes of slaves rather than the eyes of masters. This course will examine the history of the "black Atlantic" through a diverse range of cultural texts--poetry, pamphlets, court cases, petitions, autobiographies, novels, speeches, and sermons--produced by slaves, free blacks, and abolitionists from the Age of Revolution to emancipation.
*History and Literature 90q. Performing America - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 23222 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Robin M. Bernstein
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 3.
An investigation of the role of theatre and other forms of performance in the United States from the Revolution through the early twentieth century. Topics include plays staged by eighteenth-century Harvard students, melodrama, blackface minstrelsy, abolitionist lectures, P.T. Barnum, freak shows, world fairs, museum displays, "leg shows," and New Negro theatre. This hands-on course teaches deep skills in archival research. In a typical week, we will meet once in the classroom to discuss course readings and once in an archive (the Harvard Theatre Collection, Schlesinger Library, or Peabody Museum) to work directly with primary materials.
*History and Literature 90s. Cloak and Swagger: Fashioning the Body in Early Modern Europe and the New World - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 38329 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Nenita Ponce de Leon Elphick
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4.
Using visual, historical, and literary sources, this course explores how clothing functioned in the construction of social status, gender, and race in early modern Europe and the New World. It will examine Judeo-Christian beliefs about clothing; how the elite manipulated clothing to increase their power and prestige; the importance of textiles, dyestuffs, and fur in New World exploration and trade; and how the cloth industry became a crucial site of revolt during eighteenth-century Independence movements.
*History and Literature 90t. Legacies of Torture - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 89851 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Karen E. Bishop
Half course (spring term). W., 2–4.
This interdisciplinary seminar examines literary, historical, and theoretical texts that make up a corpus of international torture studies. Readings and discussion will consider the ways that torture is -- and often is not -- documented historically, as well as the ethical and aesthetic responsibilities and challenges of representing torture in literature, memoir, and film. Specific moments of analysis include WWII, the Trujillo and Marcos regimes, Chilean and Argentine Dirty Wars, Iranian Revolution, and the on-going Iraq War.
*History and Literature 90u. Culture in Depression-Era America - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 77449 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Jeanne Follansbee Quinn
Half course (fall term). W., 1–3.
Examines the history and literature of the Depression-era United States. The course will examine a wide-range of cultural forms--documentary books, photography, fiction, film, radio, history, drama, anthropology, criticism--in order to explore how writers and critics represented the socio-economic crisis and envisioned social change.
*History and Literature 90v. Ancients and Moderns - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 62342 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Tamara Griggs
Half course (fall term). Tu., 1–3.
Between 1400 and 1800, Europeans discovered, imitated, and challenged the cultural and intellectual legacy of Greco-Roman antiquity. In this course, we will examine the complex and ever-changing relationship between "ancients" and "moderns" in early modern European history. Readings will include Tacitus, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Jonathan Swift. Course work includes three short writings assignments and a final research paper.
*History and Literature 90w. Europe and Africa: Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 53436 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Katrina Maria Hagen
Half course (spring term). W., 1–3.
This interdisciplinary seminar explores European colonialism in Africa in historical and literary perspective. The course asks how colonial/postcolonial encounters have shaped European and African societies and selves from the 19th century to the present. Topics include: racial science and imperialist ideology; colonial violence and resistance; gender and sexuality; economic and cultural consumption; decolonization; and travel and migration between Africa and Europe. Students participate in discussion, write short papers, and complete a research project and presentation.
*History and Literature 90x. Medieval Margins - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 68543 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Sally Livingston
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4.
Michael Camille, in Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art, describes the ability of the sometimes outrageous drawings bordering medieval manuscripts "to gloss, parody, modernize, and problematize the text’s authority while never totally undermining it." This course examines historical and literary depictions of groups that existed on the margins of medieval society. What kind of power did they have? What functions did they play in both challenging cultural norms and maintaining societal values?
*History and Literature 90y. London - Paris - Berlin - St. Petersburg: Capital Cities in Europe’s Long Nineteenth Century - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 17021 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
John D. Ondrovcik
Half course (fall term). W., 2–4.
Moving chronologically from Paris in 1789 to St. Petersburg in 1917, this course examines the urban experience during Europe’s long nineteenth century. Students will address the problems of nationalism, industrialization, sexuality, crime, and war through novels, poetry, memoirs, travel writing, political tracts, contemporary scholarly texts, and excellent secondary works. Class discussion will explore--and question--representations of these cities as emblems of particular periods of European history, primarily through direct comparison with other cities in other periods.
*History and Literature 90z. Theory of History and Literature - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 47235 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Andrew John Romig
Half course (fall term). M., 1–3.
What are the key theoretical underpinnings of historical and literary studies today? How should we see literary and historical interpretations as parallel endeavors? What role does interdisciplinary humanistic study play in the modern world? This class explores these questions through the lens of key texts by major critics and thinkers of the past century. Readings will include Spingarn, Bloch, Said, Barthes, Braudel, Derrida, Foucault, Greenblatt, Bhabha, and more. No previous coursework required. Open to non-concentrators.
*History and Literature 97. Tutorial — Sophomore Year
Catalog Number: 1148
Jeanne Follansbee Quinn and members of the Committee.
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Introduction to interdisciplinary methods and to topics in students’ chosen fields. Required of all concentrators. Open only to concentrators.
*History and Literature 98r. Tutorial — Junior Year
Catalog Number: 2766
Jeanne Follansbee Quinn and members of the Committee
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
An individually supervised study of selected topics in the student’s chosen field in History and Literature.
Note: Ordinarily taken as two half courses by juniors. Required of all concentrators.
*History and Literature 99. Tutorial — Senior Year
Catalog Number: 5362
Jeanne Follansbee Quinn and members of the Committee
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
Research and writing of the senior thesis; preparation for the oral exam.
Note: Ordinarily taken by seniors as a full course. Required of all concentrators.