History 149

Approaches to World History

MW 8:35-9:50

King 325

 

David E. Kelley

History and East Asian Studies

Office: Rice 312

X58646

mailto:David.E.Kelley@oberlin.edu

Blackboard: http://Bb.oberlin.edu/

 

This course is a colloquium for first- and second-year students that is aimed at developing skills of critical thinking, including close reading, logical and articulate discussion, and clear analytical writing. The course focuses on a critical examination of approaches to world history including the continental, civilizational, and world systems approaches, as well as of narratives constructed around themes such as the rise of the West, European expansion, the discovery of the New World, and the like. We will focus on largely unexamined metageographical conceptions and how they are implicated in Eurocentric assumptions about world historical developments. We will read recent critical works on world history and historiography that have suggested new approaches to the subject, in particular regarding trade and economic exchange, so that we may bring to bear a critical perspective on material and cultural exchange and diffusion from a global perspective. Finally, although “globalization” is a very current concern, we will discover that it has been a salient issue for the past five hundred years.

 

This course will use a web-based program called Blackboard. Instructions for use can be found at http://www.oberlin.edu/OCTET/Bb/FAQ_Students.htm.

 

Assignments:

All assignments must be completed to receive credit for the course. Since the course emphasizes reading and discussion, it is important to keep up with the reading and be prepared for discussion. Class attendance is crucial for your own learning, but also for the learning of the other participants, including me.

 

1.                 Study questions will be posted on Blackboard for the major readings. A discussion question will also be posted on the Discussion Board of the Blackboard web site for each major reading. Each student is required to respond to the Discussion Board questions or to follow up on another student’s comments. Comments should be thoughtful and around 300 words or so.

 

2.                 An analytical essay of 6-8 pp. will be assigned on a topic or topics arising from the reading and class discussions. The essay is due Monday April 5 or before.

 

3.                 Collaborative Research: The class will be divided into groups for cooperative projects and mini-discussions. The cooperative project is a panel or other presentation. Topics will be discussed in class midway through the first half of the course. Group members will present the results of their work to the class and moderate a discussion after the presentation. Members of the previous group will submit short written critiques of the current panel to me and to the panel participants. The group scheduled for the last presentation will critique the first presentation. We will discuss the principles and practices of collaborative research and constructive critique in advance.

 

4.                 Each student will submit a final essay of 6-8 pp. on the topic of his or her preparation.

 

Books available for purchase: (and on Reserve under History 149)

 

Lewis, Martin W. and Karen Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography(1997)

Bentley, Jerry H, Old World Encounters (1993)

Blaut, J. M., The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism & Eurocentric History (1993)

Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1999)

Pomeranz, Kenneth et al., The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture & the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (1999)

 

 

 

Class Meetings:

 

Feb.      9             Introduction to the course and to each other

11                World Histories: Some Big Questions

 

Martin and Wigen, The Myth of Continents, Introduction through Chapter 3

 

               16          Mapping History

18          Discussion: The Myth of Continents (through Chapter 3)

 

Myth of Continents, complete

 

               23          Discussion: Myth of Continents, Chapter 4 to end

25          World History over Time

 

Bentley, Old World Encounters first half

 

Mar.     1             Discussion: Bentley

               3             Collaborative Research and Doing History

 

Old World Encounters, complete

 

 

Mar.     8             Discussion: Bentley

10                Interregional and Supra-regional History (Read Hodgson)

 

Marshall G. S.Hodgson, “Hemispheric Interregional History as an Approach to World History,” Journal of World History/Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale (UNESCO) 1.3:714-23 (1954)

 

               15          World Systems and World History (Wallerstein and Voll)

17          Discussion: Blaut

 

Immanuel Wallerstein, “World-Systems Analysis: Five Questions in Search of a New Consensus,” The History Teacher 18: 527-32 (August 1985)

John Obert Voll, “Islam as a Special World System,” Journal of World History 5:213-26 (Fall 1994)

 

Blaut, Colonizer’s Model of the World, through Chapter 2

 

               22          Discussion: Blaut

24          Discussion: Themes of first half of course

 

Blaut, Colonizer’s Model, complete.

 

Spring Break

 

Apr.      5             Big History/Global History

               7             Discussion: Diamond

 

Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel. through Chapter 8

 

               12          Discussion: Diamond

               14          Discussion: Pomeranz

 

Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, complete

 

Pomeranz, The World that Trade Created: Society, Culture & the World Economy, 1400 to the Present, through Chapter 4

 

               19          Discussion: Pomeranz

21                Group Project Presentation

 

Pomeranz, World Trade Created, complete

 

               26          Group Project Presentation

28          Group Project Presentation

 

May      3             Group Project Presentation

               5            Assessment and Discussion of Group Project Experience

              

For discussion. Choose two:

 

Geoffrey Barraclough, “The Prospects of World History,” in Main Trends in History (New York: Homes and Meier, 1991), 153-63

Eric R. Wolf, “Connections in History,” in Europe and the People without History (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), 3-9

Philip D. Curtin, “Depth, Span, and Relevance” (presidential address delivered at the Ninety-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, San Francisco, 28-30 December 1983). American Historical Review 89:1-9 (February 1984)

William H. McNeill, “The Changing Shape of World History,” History and Theory 34:14-26 (May 1995)

 

               10          Discussion Future of World History

11                Final Discussion: Where have we been? Where are we going?

 

`              Panel papers due