ECON 5352 British Economic History Since 1850

Studies the structure, performance, and policy in the British economy since 1850, focusing on the causes and consequences of Britain's relative economic decline. Prerequisite: Instructor permission

ENMC 5559 Global English

The themes of this course are migration, exile, displacement, and (sometimes) return. Our primary readings will consist of 21st century anglophone fiction drawn from around the globe. Likely candidates include Helen Oyiyemi, Nell Zink, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Teju Cole, Michael Ondaatje, Ruth Ozeki, NoViolet Bulawayo, Monica Ali, Amitav Ghosh, Aleksandar Hemon, and Dinaw Mengestu. We will also engage with the lively critical debates on the status of world literatureas a field of study and of “global English” as an aesthetic medium.

ENMC 8500 Topics in Modern Literature: On Diaspora

Topics vary from year to year.  For more details on this class, please visit the department website at https://english.as.virginia.edu/courses.

ENMC 9500 Studies in Modern/Contemp. Literature: Time, Space, and Culture

Topics have included  Poetry in a Global Age, Postmodern Fiction and Theory, Faulkner, Women and Cultures of  Modernism, Yeats and Joyce, Modernism and the Invention of Homosexuality. 

Topic 2017: Poetry in a Global Age: How does poetry articulate and respond to the globalizing processes that accelerate in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? In this seminar, we will consider modern and contemporary poetry in English in relation to theories of globalization. The writers we will explore range from modernist poets like Eliot, Yeats, H.D., Moore, and Claude McKay to contemporary poets of Ireland, India, Africa, Britain, and the Caribbean, such as Heaney, Walcott, Arjun Kolatkar, Karen Press, and Daljit Nagra. Requirements include active participation; co-leading of discussion; and two conference-length papers (8-10 pages). Our texts will be from volumes 1 and 2 of The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, third edition, as supplemented by other poems and critical and theoretical texts. For details on this class, please visit the department website https://english.as.virginia.edu/courses.

ENSP 5822 The Cultural History of London

This course offers an interdisciplinary approach to metropolitan culture, as an historically embedded object of inquiry. Located in London, it runs for a month each year from early June to early July.  Faculty members from the University direct, teach, and lead the class; they are complemented by London-based specialists in architecture, art history, religious studies, and contemporary politics.  This 4-credit course is conducted at Regent’s University, London during the summer term. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at https://english.as.virginia.edu/courses. This summer course may be taken for credit with GSAS approval.

FREN 5581 Topics in African Literature: Francophone African Literature

This course is a survey of 20th century Francophone literature of Africa. Colonial literature and Assimilation; Negritude, Nationalism and Identity; Postcolonial literature; Feminism; Literature and Censorship; Language and Literature; Theatre and ritual performance; and Oral literature as a major intertext will all be examined through novels, poems, and plays by contemporary African writers in French [Taught in French]

FREN 5585 Topics in French Civilization & Culture

Interdisciplinary seminar in French and Francophone culture. Topics vary. [Taught in French]. Recent topics have included: 

Topic 2017: Approaches to Global France:  History, Education, Empire. This course prepares students to think about France through a global lens and to familiarize them with important theoretical approaches--derived from history, anthropology, sociology and literature--to such an expansive object of study. In order to understand how scholars use theory, we will examine theoretical texts in tandem with scholarly works that exemplify them (Balandier, Geertz, Anderson, Bourdieu, Foucault, deCerteau, Chartier). Then, to give focus to the broad objectives outlined above, our study will be anchored by three intersecting concerns: the writing of history, both national and global; the role of education, including schools, books, and reading; and the construction and deconstruction of empire.

Topic 2016: Évolution et critique de la théorie postcoloniale francophone : pour une approche archipélique. Ce cours a pour but d’interroger les problématiques postcoloniales qui informent l’espace des littératures d’expression française. En suivant une approche archipélique, il permettra de mettre en dialogue des auteurs qui sont à l’origine des premières théorisations sur la condition postcoloniale dans le monde francophone, mais également de discuter des questions récentes que suscite la pensée de la « différence ». Dans une perspective mettant en avant une pensée en archipel(s), nous explorerons à partir de textes de fictions, de représentations graphiques et de textes théoriques la complexité des espaces francophones ainsi que la diversité de leurs réponses à la « crise des identités ». La pensée en archipel(s) nous permettra de nous déplacer en suivant les ensembles aquatiques mêlant terre et mer : la Méditerranée, la Caraïbe, les Mascareignes. Chacun de ces ensembles redessine les contours de la francophonie et la complexifie. Ces derniers fonctionnent aussi en résonance les uns par rapport aux autres. Il faudra donc saisir les constantes et les variantes de cette pensée théorique et poétique portée par les écrivains francophones, par définition pluriels dans leur pratique de la langue. 

Topic 2014: France in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1789-1918. This course focuses on the cultural and historical influences that have shaped Modern France. We will explore the essential relationship between culture and political power in France, the changing role of government, and how ordinary men and women experienced social change. Topics to be studied include: the French Revolution and its legacy; French literary and political culture; the writing of history in the 19th century; the role of caricature, public art and visual culture; the expansion of empire; religion and republicanism; Paris versus the provinces; regional migration and immigration; the rise of a commercial mass society; the Dreyfus Affair and the Belle Époque; changing gender relations; and the cataclysmic effects of the First World War.

HIEU 3471 English Legal History (may be taken for graduate credit)

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HIEU 5001 Dark Age Greece

The rise of Greek civilization through the seventh century B.C..  This discussion seminar will stress an interdisciplinary approach to the fragmented study of early Greek history, and use archaeological evidence as well as more traditional literacy sources to examine fundamental topics like the rise of the polish; the development of the idea of citizenship; the beginnings of coinage (and the questions of how to define value); the importance of purported changes in warfare; writing, literacy, and law-givers; the values of activities of the aristocracy (and how these can be identified and defined); colonizations; and the development of sanctuaries.  We will read a mix of primary sources and secondary monographs (an established survey, either O. Murray's Early Greece or Jonathan Hall's A History of the Archaic Greek World; F. de Polignac, Cults, Territories, and the Origins of the Greek City-States; V. Hanson, The Other Greeks; I. Morris, Archeology as Cultural History, among others); some of the work of the course will be reports on the ever-burgeoning scholarship in this field.  Requirements will include:  two oral reports, one on an historical monograph and one on an archeological site;  one exercise on evidence; one shorter paper analyzing a scholarly controversy; and one longer paper analyzing approaches to the 'rise of the polis' question.  Reading will average 250 pages per week.

HIEU 5010 Late Archaic Greece

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HIEU 5021 Greece in the Fifth Century

This course examines the political, military, and social history of Greece from the end of the Persian Wars (479 BC) to the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC).  This is the age of the creation of Athenian democracy and Athenian Empire, as well as of the growing tensions with Sparta that eventually resulted in the Peloponnesian War.  Understanding these developments is crucial to understanding all Greek history.  This class will proceed by discussion, including discussion of five five-page papers written by each student (due variously throughout the term) distributed before the class in which they will be discussed.  There will also be two exercises (on working with ancient evidence) and a final exam.

HIEU 5031 Greece in the Fourth Century

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HIEU 5051 The Roman Empire

This course will examine the Principate from its founding (27 B.C.) to the beginning of the third-century crisis (A.D. 235).  It will proceed by an examination of themes and topics rather than as a narrative:  these themes and topics will include emperor and administration, local municipalities, slavery and varying gradations of freed status and citizenship, patronage, social mobility, economy, romanization, the courts, emperor-cult, and resistance to Rome.  Students are expected to write five exercises based on ancient sources; to write one five-to-seven-page paper; and to take a final exam. 

HIEU 5061 Roman Imperialism

How and why did the Romans come to dominate the known world by 140 BC? This course explores the relations between the martial tenor of Roman society, the army, war aims, and diplomacy and internal politics.  Was the Roman empire assembled intentionally or unintentionally?  Did the Romans of the Middle Republic have a foreign policy, or a strategic sense, at all?  A discussion seminar open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates.  Readings average 200 pages per week; one seven-to-ten-page paper, one ten-to-fifteen-page paper, one brief oral report, and a final.

HIEU 5077 Pius XII, Hitler and the United States in World War II

For the past forty years the role of Pius XII and the Vatican during World War II has been controversial.  This seminar will look at that controversy and place it in the context of newly available archival material.  The students will read several books on both sides of the question and then present their own research papers, the topics of which will be chosen in consultation with the professor.

HIEU 5642 Russia Since 1917

Explores the collapse of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Communist state. Emphasizes the social revolution, Stalinism and subsequent 'de-Stalinization,' national minorities, and the collapse of the Soviet regime.

HIEU 5082 Modernity and History

Surveys a range of philosophers and other writers who have reflected on the role of history in modern life.  Prerequisite:  Upper class standing or above, with one or more courses in relevant theory.

HIEU 5302 Nationality, Ethnicity and Race in Modern Europe

Colloquium on how categories of human identity have been conceived, applied, and experienced in Western and Eastern Europe from 1789 to the present. Topics include the construction of identities, national assimilation, inter-confessional conflict, colonialism, immigration, and the human sciences.  Prerequisite: One course in modern European history or instructor permission.

HIEU 5382 The British Empire

Surveys the rise, rule, and demise of the British Empire from the Seven Years War (1756-63) to decolonization after World War II.  Topics include the expansion and consolidation of empire, opposition, and resistance and the cultural consequences of imperialism.

HIEU 5559 New Course in European History: Late Antiquity, AD 235-410

This new class, a discussion seminar, examines the great Roman crisis of the third century and the Roman's response to it, as well as the nature of reestablished Roman rule through the fourth century AD.  This is the great of the emperors Diocletian and Constantine, of Julian and Theodosius.  Topics to be examined include governance, warfare, the late-antique economy, religious strife, the life of cities, similarities and differences between East and West, and more general assessments of different aspects of late-antique culture.  The major work of the course will be a twenty-five page research paper, along with two oral reports (one on the research underway), as well as continued high-quality contribution to discussion. Readings will be mainly drawn from primary sources in translation.

HIEU 5892 Colloquium on Europe since 1890 (last offered in spring 16)

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HIEU 5559 The Early Medieval Mediterranean (will be offered in 18-19)

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HIEU 7013 Anthropology of Ancient Greece

A reading and discussion course tracing the abundant and profitable use made since the early 20th century of anthropological method in the study of ancient Greece.  Weekly readings (all in English, translated where necessary) usually mate a classic work of anthropology with a work on Greek religion, history, literature, or culture which makes use of the method presented in that work.   Among the readings by Classical scholars there is particular emphasis on the “Paris School” of Vernant, Detienne, and Vidal-Naquet.

HIEU 7261 Early Modern England

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HIEU 9025 Tutorial in Fall of the Roman Republic

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HIEU 9032 Tutorial in Modern Jewish History

This tutorial explores the major explores the major historiographical literature of modern Jewish history, with an emphasis on core themes of political, cultural, and religious patterns, issues of periodization, and questions of its relationship to other fields of modern history.

HIST 5559 The Atlantic World

This course introduces graduate students in all fields to the history of the Atlantic world from roughly the fifteenth through the nineteenth century.

The course will explore questions of historical interpretation as well as method and theory.  It is designed to challenge students' assumptions about the traditional construction of the Atlantic world and undermine theological and top-down narratives about nation states and empires.

Graduate students in other departments will find the seminar a useful addition to their primary academic fields. 

LATI 5020 History of the Latin Literature of Empire

Lectures with readings from Vergil through Juvenal.  For more details on this class, please visit he department website at https://classics.as.virginia.edu/.

LATI 5559 Forgery, Fraud and Imposture

This course will focus on some ancient works that are not what they purport to be, along with some others whose bona fides has been questioned. We will examine some notionally distinct types of fabrication (forgery, plagiarism, hoaxes, pastiche, pseudepigraphy, parody, and fiction), and their methods and motivations. In the process we will find ourselves raising some larger questions. How do we recognize a fake? How does the meaning of a work change when its authorship is reassigned? To what extent does the study of art forgery provide a helpful paradigm for the interpretation of forged texts? What does a successful fake reveal about its consumers? What, if anything, can the fake tell us about the real? For more details on this class, please visit the department website at https://classics.as.virginia.edu/.

LAW 7029 European Union Law

This course offers a comprehensive survey of the constitutional and legal structure of the European Union. After a brief historical introduction, the course will explore such fundamental structural features as sources and forms of European Union acts, the role of the Court of Justice and of fundamental rights, as well as current problems in European integration. (Instructor permission required for enrollment)

LAW 7610 French Public and Private Law

This short course will study the various sources of French Law, the French Civil Code, the increasing significance of case law, and the impact of the European Convention of Human Rights towards a European Civil Code, basic principles of contracts and new directions, key notions on torts (recent trends in case law), and modern trends in family law (spouse, so-called Pacs, effects of foreign polygamy and repudiation in France, inheritance, etc.). N.B. This course is a J-term short course. Instructor permission required for enrollment

LAW 7635 Legal Theory in Europe and the United States: A Comparative Analysis

Twentieth-century European legal theory was dominated by the question of what gives law its validity, whereas American legal theorists have been preoccupied with rather different questions. Yet in Europe and the United States, legal theorists have ultimately found themselves worrying about much the same set of problems. Have American and European legal theorists tended to raise the same sorts of questions about law? If they haven’t, what are the differences in perspective? Twentieth-century European legal theory was dominated by the question of what gives law its validity, whereas American legal theorists have been preoccupied with rather different questions. Yet in Europe and the United States, legal theorists have ultimately found themselves worrying about much the same set of problems. This 1-credit course – which is suitable for JD and LLM students – is designed to provide students with broader perspectives on some of the problems encountered in other parts of their syllabus, and to familiarize them with arguments and literature that they might draw upon when studying, and completing assignments for other law courses. The course examines some persistent legal problems – persistent elsewhere as well as in the United States – concerning the making and application of law. N.B. This is a 1-credit short course. Instructor permission required for enrollment

LAW 8652 Emerging Markets: Principles and Practice

This seminar explores the legal and regulatory structures affecting foreign investors seeking to participate in the development of so-called "emerging markets" and in particular in the restructuring of formerly socialist economies. Instructor permission required for enrollment

LAW 9016 Comparative Constitutional Law Seminar

This seminar will explore the issues entailed in the drafting and uses of a constitution. To what extent do constitutions reflect universal values (such as human rights) and to what extent are they grounded in the culture and values of a particular people? How much borrowing goes on in the writing of a constitution? In what respects do the United States Constitution and American constitutionalism serve as models for newer democracies? Instructor permission required for enrollment

LAW 9174 Comparative Constitutional Law Seminar

In this seminar, we explore the considerations and challenges in designing a constitution. We will focus on the 'hard-wired' aspects of a constitution - that is, its institutional or structural components - not its interpretation per se. Instructor permission required for enrollment

PPOL 6085 Social Policy in Advanced Economies

What social programs do governments prioritize? How does social policy shape behavior, and conversely, how does public opinion shape policy? This course will contrast social programs across Europe and North America by considering the welfare state broadly (e.g. how social insurance and social assistance are framed and funded) and specifically (e.g. how policies push Americans to own and Germans to rent).

PHIL 7634 Duty to Obey the Law

This seminar will examine philosophical debates concerning the duty to obey the law (or political obligation) and the grounds for various kinds of legal disobedience. Readings will be from contemporary sources in political philosophy and legal theory, and we will consider arguments concerning (among other things) consent, fairness, justice, associative responsibilities, civil disobedience, conscientious refusal, and violent resistance. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at https://philosophy.virginia.edu/.

RELJ 5559/JWST 5559/GERM 5500, Germans and Jews

In his wide-ranging and highly readable history, The Pity of It All, historian Amos Elon traces the onset of what he called “the German Jewish epoch” to the entry of a 14-year-old Moses Mendelssohn into Berlin in 1743.  Why this date and event? And what was the German Jewish epoch? What did the German Jewish epoch mean for Jews and non-Jews in the German-speaking context?   What impact did it have on the culture, thought, and history of the period?  What kinds of transformations in society, culture, and identity did it bring about? How did Jews and non-Jews respond to this new situation? Did such responses de-form old notions of self and identity, of the individual and the collective, of religion and secularity, the national and the territorial, European and Other. Drawing on a range of texts—philosophy treatises, fiction and poetry, on essays, and various other textual interventions, we will address these questions and others in this course. Readings will include works by Moses Mendelssohn, Kant, Heinrich Heine, Hegel, Kafka, Freud, Joseph Roth, Arnold Zweig, Else Lasker-Schüler, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Gerschom Scholem, among others; we may also screen Paul Wegener’s 1920 film “Der Golem” or one or more other films.  It is recommended that before the start of the semester students read Amos Elon’s The Pity of It All for historical background.

RUSS 5360 The Gulag: Graduate Studies in History and Literature

From the Bolshevik Revolution to the end of the Soviet order, the only evidence of the Gulag available to the outside world, apart from the Soviet propaganda, were the testimonies of witnesses and survivors.  Their stories functioned as the only available history, thus shedding an interesting light on the traditional distinctions between literature and history. In this course, students will examine the Gulag's history via literature and film.

RUSS 5370 Literature and Orthodoxy

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RUSS 5390 The Russian Utopian Imagination

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SLAV 5200 Rebels and Robots: Classics of Czech Literature and Culture

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SLAV 5610 Polish Literature

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SPAN 5702 Islam in Europe: Muslim Iberia

An introduction to Islam and a cultural history of al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia) from the year 711 until the expulsion of the Moriscos “Muslims converted, often forcibly, to Christianity” from early modern Spain in 1609.  Prerequisite: SPAN 3010 or equivalent level of proficiency in Spanish.

PPOL 5345 Turkey and the USA: Poverty, Politics, and Social Policy

This course compares social policy in NATO Allies Turkey and the US. Social policy consists of health, education, and social protection (welfare and social security). Turkey and the US have very different social policy environments, reflecting different histories and politics. This seminar will look at a different aspect of poverty, politics, and social policy each week, with one class . Instructor permission required for enrollment