TH 1:30-4:20
SSC 212
Office: SSC 117 Phone: 7692
E-mail: ecarlson@gustavus.edu
Office Hours: MWF 9:00-10:00
This is an enormous subject and it is not possible to study it exhaustively. We will also be working within limits dictated by the available (and readable) material. The assignments have been selected with a few specific goals in mind, all emerging from the History Department Mission Statement. The History Department asserts that we desire above all that our students learn to think historically. What does that mean? Thinking historically includes:
- understanding change and continuity over time;
- appreciating the importance of historical context;
- knowing how to interpret and critique primary and secondary sources;
- being able to construct arguments based on historical evidence;
- understanding the varieties of approaches employed by historians;
- developing an appreciation for the histories of different regions, societies and time periods;
- developing an understanding of the past as the past and of its importance in the present.
Every week, we will discuss the ways in which the historians we are reading construct their arguments. First, we will work on clearly and accurately identifying the authors' thesis or theses. Second, we will reflect upon the methodological approaches used to advance the authors' arguments. Finally, we will critically examine the primary sources that they use in forming and advancing their arguments. By the end of the semester, you should have greater facility at identifying theses, placing them in their larger historiographical context, and critically evaluating primary sources.
While all courses in the History Department foster the development of your writing skills, this course is designed to improve your oral communication skills--formal and informal--as well. In particular, you will be challenged to express yourself in class discussions clearly and coherently and to make formal presentations of research in a way that is articulate, engaging and effective. These are very important life skills, and a small seminar such as this is an ideal venue to work on them.
Detail from "Bearded Woman" (1631) by Jusepe de Ribera
Graded Requirements
As with much in life, the first thing you need to do is show up. Attendance is expected at all class meetings. (My attendance policy is explained below.) But just showing up isn't enough! Informed participation in all class discussions is essential to the process of active learning. A seminar depends particularly on the participation of each member in order to be successful. The reading on which discussions will be based is indicated in the calendar below. Your participation in class (its quality, not its frequency) will be worth up to 25% of your final grade. In order to help you focus and gather your thoughts for class, you will write weekly informal papers. Each will be brief (500 words or less) answering a question or questions about the reading that will be discussed that day. They will not be graded with standard letter grades. Instead, you will receive full credit if what you have written demonstrates that you have been careful and conscientious in reading the assignment and have given more than superficial thought to the question(s). You may receive half credit or no credit if, in my judgment, you have not done so. I may also ask specific individuals to read or summarize their papers in order to help start discussion. This component will be worth 25% of your final grade. There will be two projects due, which will each be worth 25% of your grade. There will be two components to each project: a paper and an oral report. The details of the project topics, expectations, and format can be found through the course index page.
Fair warning: Failure to complete all of the projects and papers, or a pattern of failure to complete reading assignments, attend class, and/or engage in informed participation will result in an F for the course. If you have a problem, please see me before it becomes a crisis!
Attendance Policy
Excused absences are those required by illness or personal/family emergency, or for conflicts caused by documented participation in a college-sponsored activity. (The supervising faculty member is required by college policy to provide you with a letter for your instructors spelling out the dates, times and details of necessary absences for such activities.) Since we meet only once each week, I consider no more than one absence for college activities to be reasonable; if it needs to be more, see me early in the semester. In cases of excused absences, you will still have to demonstrate that you have read and reflected on the readings; please see me to discuss that if you will have an excused absence. Unexcused absences from a seminar need to be avoided. Any unexcused absences may result in a reduction in your grade; more than two will result in an F. This is non-negotiable.
Detail from "The Birth of John the Baptist" (c.1490) by Domenico Ghirlandaio
1. Be familiar with the college's expectations concerning academic honesty, printed in the current academic catalog. Violations will result in appropriate consequences, which may include filing a report with the Dean's office and a failing grade.
2. If you have a diagnosed learning disability or any health situation (physical or mental) that might have an impact on your ability to complete your assignments, it is your responsibility to let me know about it at the beginning of the semester. I will make every reasonable accommodation.
3. Cell phones should be turned off during class. If you are expecting an urgent call, set the phone to alert you silently, and let me know that you may have to leave during class to take the call.
4. If you borrow course materials from me or the library, you are expected to return them unmarked and undamaged. You will not receive a grade for HIS-312 until all borrowed materials have been returned, or until damaged materials have been replaced.
5. Late arrival is sometimes unavoidable, and I would prefer that you come late rather than not at all. However, late arrival is distracting and should be avoided. If it becomes a pattern, there may be negative consequences.
The following books are required reading for this course and available in The Book Mark:
Rudolph M. Bell, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians
Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages
Joanne M. Ferraro, Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice
Ronald C. Finucane, The Rescue of the Innocents
Barbara A. Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London
David Herlihy, Medieval Households
Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men
Steven Ozment, Magdalena and Balthasar
Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships
"Emperor Maximilian I with His Family" (1516) by Bernhard Strigel
Unless otherwise indicated, reading assignments are from the books available in The Book Mark.
Some assignments are on electronic reserve--indicated by (er)--and some can be found in the on-line editions of the journal in which they were published--indicated by (www). Where possible, I have provided a link below.
You have access to electronic reserve and on-line journals through any computer on the Gustavus network.
To provide a relatively compact page, I have not included the weekly discussion/paper questions below. They can be found on a separate page (click here). This syllabus is up-dated regularly. The last time was on 27 AUGUST 2003.
from De formatu foetu (1639) by G. Casserio
Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 1-10, 13-39, 70-88, 105-281
Herlihy, Medieval Households, pp. 1-111, 131-59
John Boswell, "Expositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children and the Ancient and Medieval Family," Amer. Hist. Rev. 89 (1984), 10-33 (www)
Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Kin, Friends, and Neighbors: The Urban Territory of a Merchant Family in 1400," in Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985), 68-93 (er)
Kenneth R. Stow, "The Jewish Family in the Rhineland in the High Middle Ages: Form and Function," Amer. Hist. Rev. 92 (1987), 1085-1110 (www)
Bell, How To Do It, pp. 1-72
John M. Riddle, "Oral Contraceptives and Early-Term Abortifacients during Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages," Past & Present 132 (1991), 3-32 (er)
Peter Biller, "Birth-Control in the West in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries," Past and Present 94 (1982), 3-26 (er)
Dorothy McLaren, "Marital Fertility and Lactation 1570-1720," Women in English Society 1500-1800, ed. Mary Prior (London, 1985), 22-53 (er)
Ulinka Rublack, "The Public Body: Policing Abortion in Early Modern Germany," Gender Relations in German History, ed. Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey (Durham NC, 1997), 57-79 (er)
from Eucharius Roesslin, Rosengarten (1513)
October 2
Pregnancy, Childbirth and Infancy
Bell, How To Do It, pp. 73-145
Finucane, Rescue of the Innocents, pp. 1-53
Mary Fissell, "Gender and Generation: Representing Reproduction in Early Modern England," Gender and History 7 (1995), 433-56 (er)
Linda A. Pollock, "Embarking on a Rough Passage: The Experience of Pregnancy in Early-Modern Society," Women as Mothers in Pre- Industrial England, ed. Valerie Fildes (London, 1990), 39-67 (er)
Adrian Wilson, "Participant or Patient? Seventeenth Century Child- birth from the Mother's Point of View," Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge, 1985), 129-44 (er)
Linda A. Pollock, "Childbearing and Female Bonding in Early Modern England," Social History 22 (1997), 286-306 (click here)
Ulinka Rublack, "Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany," Past and Present 150 (1996): 84-110 (er)
Patricia Crawford, " 'The sucking child': Adult Attitudes to Child Care in the First Year of Life in Seventeenth-Century England," Continuity and Change 1 (1986): 23-51 (er)
Childhood
Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London, pp. 3-39, 55-87
Bell, How To Do It, pp. 145-74
Finucane, Rescue of the Innocents, pp. 55-168
Nicholas Orme, "The Culture of Children in Medieval England," Past & Present 148 (1995): 48-88 (er)
Details from Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Children's Games (1559-60)
Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London, pp. 109-222
Bell, How To Do It, pp. 175-197
Stanley Chojnacki, "Measuring Adulthood: Adolescence and Gender," Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 2000), 185-205 (er)
Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Reasons of Misrule," Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, 1975), 97-123 (er)
Steven R. Smith, "The London Apprentices as Seventeenth-Century Adolescents," Rebellion, Popular Protest and the Social Order in Early Modern England, ed. Paul Slack (Cambridge, 1984), 219-31 (er)
| Dr Carlson will be attending the North American Conference on British Studies in Portland, Oregon |
Karras, From Boys to Men (entire)
Scott Hendrix, Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany," Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995), 177-93 (www)
Lyndal Roper, "Blood and Codpieces: Masculinity in the Early Modern German Town," Oedipus and the Devil (London, 1994), 107-24 (er)
Rocke, Forbidden Friendships (entire)
Portrait of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham by unknown artist (c.1610)
Eric Josef Carlson, Marriage and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1994), 9-33, 105-41 (er)
Georges Duby, "The Matron and the Mis-Married Woman: Perceptions of Marriage in Northern France circa 1100," in Social Relations and Ideas, ed. Trevor Aston (Cambridge, 1983), 89-108 (er)
Shannon McSheffrey, " 'I Will Never Have None Ayenst My Faders Will': Consent and the Making of Marriage in the Late Medieval Diocese of London," Women, Marriage, and Family in Medieval Christendom, ed. C. M. Rousseau and J. T. Rosenthal (Kalamazoo MI, 1998), 153-74 (er)
Frederik Pedersen, "Did the Medieval Laity Know the Canon Law Rules on Marriage? Some Evidence From Fourteenth-Century York Cause Papers," Mediaeval Studies 56 (1994), 111-52 (click here)
Alison Wall, "For Love, Money, or Politics? A Clandestine Marriage and the Elizabethan Court of Arches," Historical Journal 38 (1995), 511-33 (click here)
Michael M. Sheehan, "Theory and Practice: Marriage of the Unfree and the Poor in Medieval Society," Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies, ed. James K. Farge (Toronto, 1996), 211-46 (er)
Steve Hindle, "The Problem of Pauper Marriage in Seventeenth-Century England," Trans.of the Royal Hist. Soc. 6th ser., 8 (1998), 71-89 (er)
Husbands and Wives
Ozment, Magdalena and Balthasar, pp. 11-109, 161-66
J. A. Sharpe, "Plebeian Marriage in Stuart England: Some Evidence from Popular Literature," Trans.of the Royal Hist. Soc. 5th ser., 36 (1986), 69-90 (click here)
Anthony Fletcher, "Men's Dilemma: The Future of Patriarchy in England 1560-1660," Trans.of the Royal Hist. Soc. 6th ser., 4 (1994): 61-81 (er)
Anthony Fletcher, "Husbands and Wives: Case Studies" and "Living Together," Gender, Sex & Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New Haven, 1995), 154-91 (er)
Linda A. Pollock, "Rethinking Patriarchy and the Family in Seventeenth Century England," Journal of Family History 23 (1998): 3-27 (er)
Jan van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife Giovanna Cenami (1434)
Video: "The Return of Martin Guerre" (to be arranged)
Ferraro, Marriage Wars, pp. 3-103, 119-60
Cynthia Herrup, "The Patriarch at Home: the trial of the 2nd Earl of Castle- haven for Rape and Sodomy," History Workshop Jl 41 (1996), 1-18 (er)
Allyson M. Poska, "When Love Goes Wrong: Getting Out of Marriage in Seventeenth Century Spain," J. of Social Hist. 29 (1996), 871-82 (er)
Lyndal Roper, "Discipline and Marital Disharmony," The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg (Oxford, 1989), 165-205 (er)
Ducking Stool, English early 17th century
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Portrait of Lady Anne Ruhout (1631)
Widowhood
Bell, How To Do It, pp. 258-78
Barbara Hanawalt, "The Widow's Mite: Provisions for Medieval London Widows," in Upon My Husband's Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe, ed. Louise Mirrer (Ann Arbor, 1992), 21-45 (er)
Barbara J. Todd, "The remarrying widow: a stereotype reconsidered," Women in English Society 1500-1800, ed. Mary Prior (London, 1985), 54-92 (er)
Barbara B. Diefendorf, "Widowhood and Remarriage in Sixteenth-Century Paris," J. of Family History 7 (1982), 379-95 (er)
Jeremy Boulton, "London widowhood revisited: the decline of female remarriage in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries," Continuity and Change 5 (1990), 323-55 (click here)
Elizabeth Foyster, "Marrying the Experienced Widow in Early Modern England: the Male Perspective," Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Sandra Cavallo and Lyndan Warner (London, 1999), 108-124 (er)