HIST 244 - Europe in the Shadow of War

2020-2021 Catalog Year

Credit(s): 4
Lecture: 4
Non-Lecture: 0
From the First to the Second World War, from the Spanish to the Yugoslav Civil Wars, and with workers’, students’, and anti-colonialists’ uprisings in between, Europe’s twentieth century has been overshadowed by conflict. In this class, we explore political, social, and cultural struggles and how they impacted the everyday lives of ordinary people. When we study the Great War, for instance, we study trench warfare as well as the crusade to reconfigure gender relations. When we explore Stalinism in the Soviet Union, we discuss the violence of industrialization and its effect on the state as well as the lives of millions of peasants. And when we turn our attention to the 1960s, we ask how the decade of protests redefined European society as well as the place of women, minorities, and youth in it. Primary sources like novels, films, art, and political manifestos will allow us to learn about the past through the voices of those who lived it.

Offered: Not on a Regular Basis
Program Attribute: HEUR