Fall 2008: HACU/SS 247: Contemporary Germany: History, Society, Culture (1918-present) (with Jeff Wallen)

Dramatic changes have taken place in Germany during the last 90 years.  The first democracy was established after WW I; Hitler and the Nazis rose to power; Germany was defeated and largely destroyed during WWII; the country was divided during the Cold War; and recently it was reunited and is now at the center of the emerging New Europe. German culture has be equally tumultuous, dynamic, and diverse in this period, with many writers, filmmakers, and artists making a broad international impact. This course will focus on German cultural, social, political, and economic history of the last 90 years. We will explore some of the literature, film, and also the art and architecture of this period, and examine such topics as modernization and the Weimar Republic, the effects of the Nazis' rise to power, the territorial changes and population movements after WWII, the failures of denazification and the legacies of the Holocaust, the Economic Miracle, the youth rebellion in the Sixties, the two cultures of East and West Germany, the fall of the Wall and the problems of reunification, responses to the pressures of globalization and the future of Europe.  This course is recommended to all students who plan to participate in the Berlin program in the spring of 2009.  There are weekly film screenings M, 7-9 pm.

 

 

Fall 2008: Renaissance Italy: Sex, Art, Family, Power (1400-1600)

(co-taught with UMass faculty Monika Schmitter)

This core course on Renaissance history and visual culture will be taught in conjunction with a show on "Marriage and Love in Renaissance Art" at the Met.  We will analyze the paintings on display and other relevant visual source material in the context of historical scholarship on family and kinship structures; Catholic and secular concepts of marriage; the prosecution of sodomy; female same-sex relations and the invention of pornography; medical theories of sexual difference; wet-nursing practices and the eroticization of the breast; women's property rights and convent culture; conspicuous consumption and the self-fashioning of political elites.  Finally, we will discuss the selection and presentation of the art works on display, and the treatment of Renaissance art as cultural capital.  The course will be taught at UMass on …(time).

 

 

Spring 2009: Renaissance Venice: Society, Politics, Visual Culture (1500-1600)

This core course on the history and visual culture of Renaissance Venice will be taught in conjunction with an exhibition of major works by Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese at the MfA in Boston.  Starting from an analysis of the art works, we will discuss central questions in Venetian history such as: the defense of republicanism, civic liberties, and political independence; Venice's anti-papal Catholic identity and its trade relations with German protestants; the gendered representation of charity and the organization of a welfare-state; the eroticization of the female body and political discourse; sodomy, marriage, and the formation of "straight" kinship; male domesticity, women's properties, and convent culture; women writers, courtesans, and the printing press; Venice and the Ottomans in an age of Atlantic discoveries.  Pending approval, this course will be followed by a 10-day trip to Venice in early May.

 

Spring 2009: The Atlantic World (1450-1800) (with Amy Jordan)

This course on Atlantic history introduces students to core concepts, questions, and methods in investigating the many entangled histories of the Americas, Africa, and Europe in the age of colonization.  Among the larger questions we will address are: the emergence of a global economy in the 16th century, the formation of the Black Atlantic, and the inter-dependent developments of the Spanish and British empires in the New World.  More focussed discussions will be on the development of the slave trade and the invention of plantation-style slavery; genocide and the concept of human rights in sixteenth-century literature; Catholic syncretism in Africa and the colonies; Inca commentaries on the conquest of America and their influence on European political philosophy; women's property rights in a slave-owning society (Brazil); wet-nursing and the formation of creole identities.

 

 

Previous Courses:

 

SS 112T: Queering the Renaissance

We've always known that Michelangelo was gay and Henri III, King of France, liked to cross-dress.  Recent historical scholarship has shown how homosocial environments like female convents, male literary academies or youth associations promoted same-sex relationships.  Especially after the re-discovery of the clitoris in the sixteenth century, debates about hermaphrodites, the seat of lesbian desire, and the usefulness of African clitoridectomy stirred up the medical and political establishment.  In the military, cross-dressing was rampant; even evidence of trans-gendering can be found in sixteenth-century Spain.  This course will explore issues of self-identity in a period that, to contemporary observers, can seem hauntingly familiar and irrevocably foreign at the same time.

 

 

SS/HACU 239: Europe and the World: Travelogues, Colonization, Ethnography (ca. 1500-1750)

As soon as Western conquistadores, missionaries, and explorers set foot in Africa, Asia, and the New World, they started to write about their experiences.  Some were remarkably perceptive and well-informed, even independent in their judgment, like Duarte Barbosa (visiting South India), Jean de Léry (Brazil), and Peter Kolb (South Africa), others even outright critical of the Spanish genocide in America, like Bartolomeo de las Casas (Central America), and yet, a careful analysis of their writings reveals how entangled each of them were in the project of colonization.  This course will introduce students to select examples of post-colonial scholarship, and trace the history of European colonization through travel literature, memoirs, and scientific treatises.

 

 

SS 157: Nuns, Saints, and Mystics in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Early Christianity had a tremendous appeal to women and slaves.  Early Christian spirituality and practices of devotion were part of a broader cultural revolution aimed at subverting both Jewish and pagan Roman patriarchal family structures, slavery, and the political structures in which they were embedded.  The high numbers of female converts, martyrs, and donors testify to the extent to which the church in its formative phase relied on women -- slaves as well as high-ranking Roman ladies -- and their spiritual and material contributions.  In medieval Catholicism, women mystics formulated a theology according to which Christ in his human nature could be thought of as entirely female.  In the early modern period, female religious rallied to withstand the onslaught of the tridentine movement, which was aimed at purging the religious "public sphere" from its many female protagonists.  Female imagery, and the orchestration of cults devoted to the Virgin Mary, for example, played a key role in converting native Americans.

In this course, we will be reading original sources written by or about women in their roles as followers of the apostles, founders of convents, mystics, nuns, "real" as well as "fake" saints, but also secondary literature in this rapidly expanding field of historial studies.

 

 

Spring 2008: SS 212: Autobiographies, Literacy, and Book Culture in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800) (with Jim Wald)

This course examines several types of writing about the self (autobiographies, memoirs, letters) in the context of rising literacy rates and the print revolution.  We will read how courtesans, Rabbis, artisans, mystics, women scientists, artists, house-wives, heretics, sailors, slaves, and presumed criminals reflected about their lives, imagined the cosmos, narrated catastrophes, encountered God, told of their lovers, described their family management, or defended themselves in court.  In addition, we will study writing and reading habits of the past, and get hands-on experience with Early Modern books by visiting various rare book collections in the valley.

 

SS/HACU 236: Bodies and Souls in History

In the wake of Foucault's path-breaking studies, many cultural historians of Europe have placed the analysis of bodily practices and surrounding discourses at the center of their research.  Critical assessments of the invention of categories like "identity," "self," and "subjectivity" as modern forms of interiority have followed.  In this course, we will discuss some of Foucault's work and his feminist and post-colonial critics on the intersection of bodies and souls, and trace the historical development of the modern subject and its "agency" that we seem to be so loath to give up.  Particular importance will be placed on the experience of colonialism and imperialism in couching the gendered and racialized identities of modernity that are grounded in desire.

Topics for the historical case studies might include: the Portuguese "discovery" of feiticeria (idol worship) in sixteenth-century Africa and its metamorphosis into the Freudian fetish; medieval mysticism as an expansion of interiority (spirituality) oriented around food practices and the redefinition of Christian body metaphors; the rediscovery of the clitoris in sixteenth-century Europe and its designation as the site of "lesbian" sex.

 

SS/HACU 280: The Italian Renaissance: Society, Culture, Politics

"The" Renaissance was only the last such re-birth of ancient culture in a long line of "renascences" that ranged from the revival of Greek temple architecture in 4th century Rome, and Charlemagne's campaign to promote Latin scholarship, to the rediscovery of Aristotle and Roman Law in medieval cities and universities. In fourteenth and fifteenth century Italy, finally, not only the arts and architecture, literature and philosophy, music and the sciences experienced a rapid and thorough transformation by reference to ancient models, but also urban society, law, and government structures, which made "the" Renaissance a truly unique phenomenon. We will look at these diverse cultural and political trends in different Italian cities, and study a wide rage of topics, including urban development, political philosophy, family and kinship, women in the public sphere, arts and politics. This course will introduce students to recent interdisciplinary trends in Renaissance historiography, and is open to all Div II and Div III students interested in Italian culture and history. Assignments will be flexible to accommodate different students' interests and needs.

 

 

SS 249: Imperial Cultures and Resistance: The Portuguese Empire (ca. 1450-1800)

In this course, we will study post-colonial critiques of imperialism inspired by literary criticism and discourse analysis, economically oriented world-systems theory, and sociological studies on race and modernity. We will also read a wide range of historical case studies focusing on Portuguese attempts at Empire building in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Regions. The topics we will address range from the production of "knowledge" about indigenous cultures (16th century ethnographies, travelogues, etc.), a comparative perspective on early modern slavery and race relations, the construction of a new world economy, the investigation of gender, kinship, and ethnicity, and studies on global migrations (other than slavery). Our sources will consist of texts, but also internet material and movies. Assignments flexible.

 

 

SS/NS 191: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Reproduction, Pregnancy, and Childhood Development (with Elizabeth Conlisk)

This interdisciplinary course investigates issues surrounding women's reproductive health (menarchy, pregnancy, lactation and menopause) and early childhood development in Early Modern European History, current Medicine and U. S. Public Health policies. One of our goals is to problematize the historically and culturally situated contexts of mothering practices, medical knowledge, and health policies. We will also address historical phenomena (wet-nursing, midwifery, etc.) in light of modern scientific evidence. Topics to be discussed might range from Renaissance concepts of conception and sexual difference, Caesarian births and the dissection of women, contraception, child abandonment, and images of breastfeeding women to current scientific research on age at menarchy, maternal nutrition, infant feeding modalities and hormone replacement therapy. This is a CBD course.

 

 

Associate Professor of History

School of Social Science

Hampshire College

jsperling@hampshire.edu

curriculum vitae