100-Level Courses

110: United States

HIST 110: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871

In one memorable night and day, over three square miles of Chicago burned to the ground, consumed by a fire that mysteriously began in a backyard barn. Using pictures, maps, newspaper accounts, and written personal memories, students will study the social, political, and religious importance of this transformative Chicago disaster.

HIST 110: Gods and Generals: Religion and the Civil War

The Civil War was not a war over religion, but it was fought by soldiers and civilians on both sides who imagined their cause as God’s cause. Using letters and diaries, as well as published accounts casting the war as a moral and spiritual event, students will consider this war as a religious event.

HIST 110:  Jonestown: Suicide or Murder?

In 1978 over 900 Americans died deep in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Were they stereotypical fanatics who followed their crazed pied piper to the point of death, or were they innocent common people victimized in their quest for a better life?    Students will seek answers to this question by reading diaries and newspaper accounts and listening to audio recordings of the People’s Temple movement.

HIST 110: Massacre at Waco

Questions of religious liberty and the place of new religious movements in a pluralist American society erupted in the summer of 1993 when federal agents attempting to end a six-week siege used chemicals to force Branch Davidians to leave their homes in Waco, Texas, setting off a deadly inferno. Students will seek to understand the Branch Davidians and the often complicated relationship between church and state by reading diaries and watching video accounts of the Branch Davidians and the raid.

HIST 110: Slaves, Saints, and Smallpox

Enter the fantastic yet tragic world of the 18^th century-South, a world of slavery and slave rebellions, religious revivals and enlightenment discovery, muggy swamps and horrid disease, exquisite mansions and meager slave quarters. Students will enter this world through colonial newspapers, diaries, travel accounts, and personal letters and diaries.

HIST 110: Wild West

A study of the trans-Mississippi West from 1800 to 1890, using original narratives, government documents, and videos about the artists who recorded the era.

120: World

HIST 120:  Literature is Fire:  Radical Thought in Latin America.

This course will focus on Latin America’s dissenting voices in literature, history, politics, philosophy and the arts during the 20^th century. 

HIST 120: The Long Today, 1900-1950

A study of the contemporary world using documents up to the immediate aftermath of World War II focused on the ways in which people collectively and as individuals understood and dealt with the changing world around them.

HIST 120: The Long Today, 1950-2000

A study of the contemporary world using documents from the Cold War to the present focused on how the threat of nuclear annihilation, the construction of a bipolar world, and the collapse of communism influenced people’s perception of their lives and cultures.

130: Europe

HIST 130: Mad Emperors and Bad Ones

A study of Roman rulers from Caesar to Vespasian based on original sources.

190: Public History 

HIST 190: Introduction to Archives

An introduction to handling cataloging, and locating materials in the Monmouth College Archives for scholars and classes. Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor. May be repeated for credit.

200-Level Courses

200: Historiography

HIST 200: American Historiography

A study of the ways that historians have interpreted the past; conducted as a seminar based on student reports.

HIST 200: European Historiography

A seminar examining selected aspects of the changing interpretations and uses of source material by historians and other scholars recreating the European past.

210: United States

HIST 210:  George Washington

A survey of the life and times of George Washington based on videos and secondary-source readings.

HIST 210: Gods and Generals: Religion and the Civil War

The Civil War was not a war over religion, but it was fought by soldiers and civilians on both sides who imagined their cause as God’s cause.   Students will read important secondary sources to get a sense of the uses and abuses of religion during this national crisis. 

HIST 210: From Prairie to Rust Belt: Illinois and the Midwest

A survey of the history of the Midwest considering , among other topics, the great Mississippian Indian culture whose heartland was centered in western Illinois, the old “West” that was frontier Illinois, the Midwest during the great sectional conflict that culminated in the Civil War, and the Midwest as both the promise of an American industrial future and the blight of the “Rustbelt.” Students will enjoy a wide variety of secondary sources, including film, creative non-fiction, historic sites, and scholarly works.

HIST 210: The War of 1812. 

The year 2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the long-forgotten War of 1812. Recent books on the war will remind students of this second war with Great Britain, a rather unremarkable military event that nonetheless changed the continent for Anglo-Americans, British, and Native Americans, gave the nation its national anthem, and made a folk hero—and a president—of Andrew Jackson.

220: World

HIST 220: Breaking the Chains, Forging the Nation: Pan-Africanism, Culture and Politics.

The African diaspora was formed through the violence of slavery and the slave trade and through the racial oppression and political colonization that followed abolition. African peoples from different parts of the world have at many times tried to come together to pursue common political goals and forge a common identity. This class looks at key incidents of this struggle and the cultural and political challenges it has faced.

HIST 220: Freedom and Power: African Nationalism and the Independence Struggle

This class looks at the struggles of African people for freedom and self-determination from colonialism and white-minority rule. Through a series of case studies we will consider both the political and armed struggles and at questions of gender, generation, popular culture, ethnicity and religion within them.

230: Europe

HIST 230: Cops and Robin Hood

A study of medieval history, mostly in England, organized around four Robin Hood movies.

HIST 230: History thru Movies: Political Thrillers. A study of how movies have reflected and influenced American political attitudes from the eve of World War Two to the end of the Cold War.

HIST 230: History Through Movies: France, Romance and Drama

A history of France from Louis XIV to de Gaulle through movies and readings.   

240: Comparative

HIST 240: Pirates of the Barbary and the Caribbean

How historians and others have defined and interpreted acts of piracy in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean seas, looking at novels, monographs, articles, and films.

290: Public History

HIST 290: Practicum in Archival Work

Study in the theory and practice of archival work. Involves supervision of students in HIST 190: Introduction to Archives. Prerequisites: HIST 190: Introduction to Archives, and permission of the instructor. May be repeated for credit.

300-Level Courses

310: United States

HIST 310:  Research in Monmouth College History

An introduction to the process of research and writing focused on the history and personalities of this College, culminating in a paper of permanent value at the end.

HIST 310: Family History

Introduction to the techniques of collecting genealogical information and organizing it into a narrative; videos will be used to illustrate daily life in the 20^th century.

320: World

HIST 320 (BAR):  Black Atlantic Rebels

This course will focus on the intellectual history of the African diaspora in the Americas and their participation in the revolutionary movements in Europe and the Americas during the 19^th and 20^th centuries.