Sweet Briar College

2010-2011 Catalog Prerequisite: Not open to students who havetaken HIST 339. A survey of Southern historyfrom founding of Jamestown to the rise of theSunbelt. Topics will include the plantation, slavery,white society, Civil War, Reconstruction,Redemption, and the rise of Jim Crow. Thecourse will conclude with the South’s continuingefforts to deal with the legacies of its past.Offered alternate years. V.1, V.5.Women’s experiences and past identities inAmerica have been shaped by household structureand economics, religion, cultural assumptionsand access to public life, among other factors.This course examines the history of womenin America as daughters, mothers, wives, workers,individuals, and public actors to account forchanging patterns of experience, opportunityand achievement. Offered alternate years. May becounted as a core course toward the minor in genderstudies. V.1, V.5.This course explores the changing ideals and activitiesdefining American manhood from the colonialperiod through the present. We will inquire intothe cultural and social forces that shaped the “male”public sphere in the 18th and 19th centuries. Othertopics include the varied relations between maleidentity and work, home life and leisure, the emergenceof sexuality as a key component of masculinity,and the impact of urbanization, immigrationand race on ideals of manhood. Offered alternateyears. May be counted as a core course toward theminor in gender studies. III.W, V.1, V.5.Prerequisite: HIST 127, HIST 143 , HIST223, or HIST 224 recommended. This courseexplores gender and sexuality in Europe andthe Mediterranean from late antiquity to theIndustrial Revolution. It considers such topicsas marriage and the family, “women’s work,” theinfluence of law and religion on gender roles andsexuality, and early debates about the differencesbetween the sexes. It also investigates the conflictingtheoretical approaches to understandinggender difference, sex roles and sexual identity.Offered alternate years. May be counted as a corecourse toward the minor in gender studies. III.W,V.1, V.5.Prerequisite: HIST 144 or HIST 245. A study ofmajor political, diplomatic, economic, and socialdevelopments from the Bolshevik Revolutionof 1917 to the presidency of Vladimir Putin.Special emphasis will be placed on the state’scontinued expansionism and Soviet imperialism,Stalinism and de-Stalinization, World WarII, and the Cold War. Offered alternate years.This course surveys the foundations and developmentof western criminal law, penal institutions,and criminal jurisprudence from antiquityto the modern world. Patterns of criminality andenforcement, attempts at controlling crime, andphilosophies regarding crime and punishment willbe explored. We will also examine current debateson such controversial issues as violence, the deathpenalty, and the prosecution of “crimes againsthumanity.” No knowledge of statistics or dataanalysis is assumed. Students will learn the necessarytechniques and skills in the course. May becounted as an adjunct course toward the minor in lawand society. III.Q, V.1, V.7.Prerequisites: One HIST course and permissionof the instructor. The study of introductorylevel material by an individual student or bya small group of students under the immediatesupervision of a faculty member.An introduction to modern Africa from 1880 tothe present that concentrates on the experienceof Colonial rule and its relation to the rise ofnational movements that led to the creation ofindependent states in the 1960s. Special emphasiswill be placed on economic and politicaldevelopments during the period of independencethat affect Africa’s international relations.V.4, V.5.