HISTORY 840 Colloquium on Global History Nationhood Spring Syllabus. The information below is subject to change at the instructor s discretion.

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1 HIST SPRING HISTORY 840 Colloquium on Global History Nationhood Spring 2017 Syllabus The information below is subject to change at the instructor s discretion. Instructor: Winson Chu, Associate Professor, Department of History Office: Holton 327 Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2 to 4 pm and by appointment Office Phone: (414) wchu@uwm.edu Class Number: Days/Hours: Thursdays 4:00 pm-6:40 pm Dates: January 23 May 11, 2017 Room: Holton Hall 341 Course Description This reading intensive colloquium examines the writing of history in different countries and regions and how the concept of exceptionalism -- the idea that a country has followed a special path -- has been employed in changing contexts. While there will be a focus on Europe and especially Germany, other cases include Britain, France, Poland, Russia, and the European Union. This comparative perspective will also encompass the idea of exceptionalism in the United States so that the course will be useful for students who are focusing on U.S. political history. Finally, the course will approach recent works that have both challenged and revived European exceptionalism(s). By looking at a wide variety of materials, participants will seek to understand how national narratives are framed and how these shape views of the past. The readings encompass a wide variety of research questions, source collections, methodologies, and publication formats that students can apply to their seminar papers, theses, articles, and other professional work. Throughout the course, the focus will be on researching and writing a paper on how national narratives are constructed. Students are encouraged to look at historiographical arguments in terms of schools. Although the readings will focus largely on Europe, students are free to explore other cases from around the world in their historiographical papers. Required work includes regular attendance and participation in class discussion, the introduction and moderation of one class meeting, short weekly response papers (1 page), a paper proposal (3 pages), one long historiographical essay (20 pages) on a topic devised by the student in consultation with the professor, and a 15-minute presentation of the paper at the end of the course.

2 HIST SPRING Learning Goals - to become familiar with the literature and controversies concerning nationhood and nationalism, both conceptually and in specific case studies - to understand the role of different forms of academic writing (e.g., books, journal articles, volume contributions) - to assess how positions in historical studies are constructed and debated - to be able to lead and moderate a discussion in seminar - to be able to analyze a corpus of works in a historiographical paper and to give a concise oral presentation on the paper s results Course Requirements 1. Regular attendance is mandatory. Missing any session without an excuse will affect your grade. In lecture, tardiness and leaving class early are disruptive and not acceptable. Every two instances of tardiness/leaving early will be treated as one unexcused section absence. Usage of computers and phones beyond course needs is also disruptive to your fellow students and may be penalized at the discretion of the instructor. 2. You are expected to acquire and to read the assigned texts before the first meeting of each week and to turn in a brief response each week. Books and reading materials relevant for that week need to be brought to class. You can ask the professor if you have any questions. 3. Active participation, including having texts in class and being prepared to discuss the material, is an important part of the course and of your grade. 4. Each participant must prepare and lead one of the course meetings. 5. Each participant must present a critical analysis of historiographical schools on Wikipedia. 6. Each participant must complete a 20-page historiographical paper on a topic approved by the instructor. 7. Each participant must turn in a three-page paper proposal before beginning the historiographical paper (see course schedule for due date). 8. Seminar participants must present the paper topic to fellow students at the end of the semester. Grading 20% Participation (including weekly response submissions) 20% Leading a seminar meeting 10% Paper proposal 10% Presentation of schools on Wikipedia 30% Historiographical paper 10% Presentation of paper

3 HIST SPRING Grade Scale Letter Grade Percentage Score A % A B B B C C C D D D F 0-59 Adjustments and deductions may be made to the preliminary course grade for absences and other factors. Grading scales may change and/or differ for various assignments. Required Books: Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London/New York: Verso, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Perennial, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation Third Revised Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Davies, Norman. Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw. New York: Penguin Books, 2005). ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. New York: Basic Books, ISBN-10: ISBN-13:

4 HIST SPRING Hunt, Lynn. The Family Romance of the French Revolution. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Goldhagen, Daniel. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Grazia, Victoria de. Irresistible Empire: America s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Judson, Pieter M. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Kane, Eileen. Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Kauffman, Jesse. Elusive Alliance: The German Occupation of Poland in World War I. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. ANY EDITION Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, Stanford: Stanford University Press, ISBN-10: ISBN-13: The required books can be found online or ordered in bookstores. Wherever you obtain the books, please pay attention to the ISBN numbers to make sure that you get the correct edition.

5 HIST SPRING Other Readings: Some weeks may include required or supplemental readings. These readings may be on D2L or in the required books above. Library Reserve: Copies of the required books have also been ordered for two-hour reserve at the Golda Meir Library. The editions may vary. You can check the availability of the books at (go to Course Reserve and look for this course). Please keep in mind that these library reserve copies might be in high demand by other students. Also, some books might not be on reserve if the library does not carry the title, so check beforehand. and D2L You must check your UWM regularly and often for important course notifications. The course also uses the Desire2Learn website to distribute information, including grades for assignments and papers. Please note that D2L and are used for supplementary course information and are not meant to replace going to class or doing the readings. You can access D2L at the following website: If you are having problems accessing D2L, go to It is your responsibility to find out any work you may have missed and to be aware of deadlines. Policies: If you are a student requiring special accommodation for a verified disability, please contact the instructor immediately. Do not make audio or visual recordings without the explicit permission of the instructor. Using class lists and individual student addresses for commercial purposes may be reported to the Dean of Students. Academic misconduct will not be tolerated. Plagiarism in assignments and cheating on exams may lead to failure in the course and other sanctions, including expulsion from the university. On Plagiarism, see: On Academic Misconduct, see: For more information about these and other policies, please refer to the following link from University-wide policies: Credit hour policy: This 3-credit course meets for 3 hours per week during the semester. Students are expected to put in 7 additional hours per week studying and working on assignments to achieve the learning goals of this course. Auditors: This course is an advanced graduate seminar that requires active participation from graded participants. Unfortunately, auditing this course will not be permitted.

6 HIST SPRING Course Schedule The readings and schedule are subject to change at the instructor s discretion. An asterisk (*) indicates a reading located on D2L. Writing Exceptional Histories: Nationalism and Modernization Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities Week 1 1/26/17 John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, eds., Nationalism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994): Introduction, 3-13; Elie Kedourie - Nationalism and Self-Determination, 49-55; Ernest Gellner - Nationalism and Modernization, 55-63; Ernest Gellner - Nationalism and High Cultures, Stefan Berger, Writing National Histories in Europe: Reflections on the Pasts, Presents, and Futures of a Tradition, in Conflicted Memories: Europeanizing Contemporary Histories (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2011), BRITAIN A United Kingdom? Week 2 2/2/17 Linda Colley, Britons E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1966): Chapter 12, Community, BRITAIN Progress and Empire Week 3 2/9/17 Niall Ferguson, Empire George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, in The Orwell Reader (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1961): 3-9. Philippa Levine, The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset (Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2007): Chapter 7, Ruling an Empire,

7 HIST SPRING Week 4 2/16/17 FRANCE The Model Revolution Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen FRANCE The Model Nation Week 5 2/23/17 Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992): Chapter 5, Migrants into Citizens, , and Chapter 6, The Citizenry as Community of Descent, Also available at ACLS website: PAPER PROPOSALS DUE AUSTRIA Prison House of Nations I Week 6 3/2/17 Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, : A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965). Tara Zahra, Imagined Non-Communities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis, Slavic Review 69 (2010):

8 HIST SPRING GERMANY Special Path I Expansionism Jesse Kauffman, Elusive Alliance: The German Occupation of Poland in World War I Week 7 3/9/17 D2L Isabelle V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005): Introduction, 1-4; Chapter 6 Standard Practices, ; Chapter 7, Doctrines of Fear and Force, ; Chapter 8 Stopping the Process, ; Conclusion and Implications, Vejas Liulevicius, "The Military Utopia," War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): Chapter 2, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire , Trans. Kim Traynor (Leamington Spa, UK: Berg, 1985): Chapter III (partial), The Ruling System and Politics, 53-83, Chapter IV, A Balance Sheet, Week 8 3/16/17 GERMANY Special Path II Antisemitism Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler s Willing Executioners 3/20-3/24/17 Spring Break No class RUSSIA Prison House of Nations II Week 9 3/30/17 Eileen Kane, Russian Hajj Chapter from Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime GERMANY/SOVIET UNION Totalitarianism Week 10 4/6/17 Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands Yuri Slezkine, The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994):

9 HIST SPRING Norman Davies, Rising 44 POLAND CHRIST OF NATIONS Week 11 4/13/17 Włodzimierz Borodziej, The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001): Introduction, 3-13; Chapter 2 The Polish Questin, , 24-35; Chapter 5 On the Way to the Decision, July 20-31, 1944, 61-73; Chapter 7 Refusal from Moscow, William W. Hagen, Before the Final Solution : Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland, The Journal of Modern History 68, no. 2. (June, 1996): Week 12 4/20/17 Presentation of Schools from Wikipedia HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PAPERS DUE UNITED STATES/EUROPE The Uses of Soft Power Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire Week 13 4/27/17 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996): Chapter 3, A Universal Civilization? Modernization and Westernization, 56-78, James J. Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008): Chapter 8, The Rise of the Civilian State and Chapter 9, Why Europe Will Not Become a Superpower, , Week 14 5/4/17 Week 15 5/11/17 Paper presentations Paper presentations