Syllabus
http://www3.uta.edu/faculty/garrigus/Garrigus_6337%20syllabus_F08.pdf
Fall 2008
HIST 6337-001
INTRODUCTION TO TRANSATLANTIC HISTORY TO 1800
University Hall, Room 334; Tuesday, 7 pm to 9:50 pm
| Instructor: John Garrigus, Ph.D.E-mail: garrigus@uta.edu | Office location: University Hall, Room 325Office phone: (817) 272-0685 |
| Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2 to 3 pm; or please make an appointment with me to meet before class. | Web page: http://www3.uta.edu/faculty/garrigus/Class Blog: http://garrigus6337.edublogs.org/WebCT: http://webct.uta.edu |
Description: This colloquium is designed to introduce graduate students to the concept of “transatlantic history” and some of its subfields. Although primarily a reading and discussion course, the class will make liberal use of some relatively new electronic tools that can help us understand the Atlantic world and communicate our ideas more effectively.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Students will be able to describe the concept of “transatlantic history” and identify the main authors and issues in the environmental, economic, political and cultural historiography of this field.
2. Students will be able to produce critical appraisals of course reading, orally and in writing.
3. Students will demonstrate competent use of electronic tools for scholarly communication, notably blogs and blog readers, on-line databases, and the bibliography manager Zotero
4. Students will demonstrate familiarity with the geography of the Atlantic as it pertains to the history of the region, using Google Earth.
Required Books:
1. Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.
2. Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
3. Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Belknap Press, 2004.
4. Elliott, John H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
5. Harms, Robert W., and Robert Harms. The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books, 2003.
6. Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New Ed. NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2004.
7. Schwartz, Stuart B., ed. Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
8. Sensbach, Jon F. Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. New Ed. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Required Software Tools [all free] and Policies:
1. I require you to subscribe to our class blog and the blogs of the rest of the class members using Google Reader, which is free once you establish a Google account.
2. I require you to maintain a blog for the class. This is where you’ll post your papers and links to other electronic assignments in the class. You can get a free blogs from several services, including Google, but I recommend http://edublogs.org or http://wordpress.com.
3. I require that all documents you submit to me come as electronic links to your Mavspace account. Go to http://mavspace.uta.edu to review the user manual and log in to your account.
4. I require that you use Google Earth, a free software program available from that company once you have an account. http://earth.google.com
5. I require that you use the bibliography manager Zotero [free from http://www.zotero.org]. Zotero, in turn, requires that you use the Firefox web browser. [free from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/]
6. I will post all grades to our WebCT page, which you can access at http://webct.uta.edu
Weighting of Grades:
| Attendance/ Participation |
15% |
| Bibliography / Google Earth assignments |
10% |
| Blog postings |
10% |
| 6 book reviews |
55% |
| Final essay: What is Atlantic history? |
10% |
| TOTAL |
100% |
Academic Integrity/Plagiarism: University of Texas Regents’ Rules and Regulations, Series 50101, Section 2.2: “Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such acts.”
It is the philosophy of The University of Texas at Arlington that academic dishonesty is a completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Discipline may include suspension or expulsion from the University.
Student Support Services Available: Students requiring assistance learning assistance, developmental education, advising and mentoring, admission and transition, or help with federally funded programs should contact the Office of Student Success Programs at 817-272-6107 for information and appropriate referrals.
Drop Policy: The instructor will not, and cannot, drop students for excessive absences. You are responsible for dropping this course before the cut-off date.
Americans With Disabilities Act: The University of Texas at Arlington is on record as being committed to both the spirit and letter of federal equal opportunity legislation; reference Public Law 92-112 – The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. As a faculty member, I am required by law to provide “reasonable accommodations” to students with disabilities, so as not to discriminate on the basis of that disability. Your responsibility is to inform me of your need for accommodation and to provide authorized documentation through designated administrative channels
Grade Grievance Policy: See the university policy in the UTA catalog.
Book Reviews:
We’ll read 8 books this semester and you will write book reviews of 6 of these. You’re still responsible for reading and discussing these texts, as well as the other assignments described below. Each book review should address the following points: the thesis of the book, its organization and content, the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, and what the book contributes, if anything, to our understanding of transatlantic history. A book review should be about 1000 words. I recommend that you write your book review before reading anyone else’s. Submit the final versions of these reviews to me in an email before class. DO NOT send me an attachment; instead upload the file to your MavSpace account and send me the link in your email.
Assignments for “Set-up” days: [sign up for 3 of these]
- Intellectual biography of the author and his work. Be prepared to speak in class for about 5 minutes on these topics: What articles and books has he published? When and where did he attend graduate school? Which scholars or ideas have most influenced him? What special tools or perspectives does he bring to his work?
- Important articles in this subfield: using Zotero, and drawing from both the assigned book and on-line databases, establish a list of approximately 10 articles that you believe are important in this book’s subfield (see the parentheses). Post that list to your blog and be prepared to speak for about 5 minutes on these articles in class.
- Important books in this subfield: using Zotero, and drawing from both the assigned book and on-line databases, establish a list of approximately 10 books that you believe are important in this book’s subfield (see the parentheses). Post that list to your blog and be prepared to speak for about 5 minutes about these books in class.
- Book reviews: using Zotero and on-line databases, make a list of 6 scholarly reviews of the upcoming book and post that list to your blog before class.
- Google Earth tour: Use Google Earth to make a tour of the key locations in the upcoming book. Save the tour as a KML file and bring it to class to play for the rest of us.
Blog Assignments for “Discuss” days:
For the weeks that you don’t have a “Set-up” assignment, I’d like you to post a version [may not be the final version] of your book review on your blog by Sunday night. The entire class should review these 5 postings, but one or two members of in the class [sign up below] will be responsible for leading the discussion in class. Those who did a “Set-up” assignment the previous week will have 5 minutes to describe their work to the class orally.
Class Schedule
| Week | Date | Topic and Responsibilities |
| 1 | Tuesday, Aug. 26 | Introductions |
| 2 | Tuesday, Sept. 2 | Discuss: Bailyn; papers due, but not blog postings. You should have set up your personal blog by this time, however. |
| 3 | Tuesday, Sept. 9 | Set-up: Crosby (environmental history)
Intellectual bio: ________________________ Important articles in this subfield: _______________ Important books in this subfield: _______________ Book reviews: _______________ Google Earth tour: _______________ |
| 4 | Tuesday, Sept. 16 | Discuss: Crosby
Blog reviewers: ______________ and _____________________ |
| 5 | Tuesday, Sept. 23 | Set-up: Schwartz (ed) (economic history)
Intellectual bio: ________________________ Important articles in this subfield: _______________ Important books in this subfield: _______________ Book reviews: _______________ Google Earth tour: _______________ |
| 6 | Tuesday, Sept. 30 | Discuss: Schwartz (ed)
Blog reviewers: ______________ and _____________________ |
| 7 | Tuesday, Oct. 7 | Set-up: Harms (social history)
Intellectual bio: ________________________ Important articles in this subfield: _______________ Important books in this subfield: _______________ Book reviews: _______________ Google Earth tour: _______________ |
| 8 | Tuesday, Oct. 14 | NO CLASS – submit papers via MavSpace |
| 9 | Tuesday, Oct. 21 | Set-up: Restall (revisionist history)
Intellectual bio: ________________________ Important articles in this subfield: _______________ Important books in this subfield: _______________ Book reviews: _______________ Google Earth tour: _______________ |
| 10 | Tuesday, Oct. 28 | Discuss: Restall
Blog reviewers: ______________ and _____________________ |
| 11 | Tuesday, Nov. 4 | Set-up: Elliott (imperial history; comparative)
Intellectual bio: ________________________ Important articles in this subfield: _______________ Important books in this subfield: _______________ Book reviews: _______________ Google Earth tour: _______________ |
| 12 | Tuesday, Nov. 11 | Discuss: Elliott
Blog reviewers: ______________ and _____________________ |
| 13 | Tuesday, Nov. 18 | Set-up: Sensbach (history of religious thought)
Intellectual bio: ________________________ Important articles in this subfield: _______________ Important books in this subfield: _______________ Book reviews: _______________ Google Earth tour: _______________ |
| 14 | Tuesday, Nov. 25 | Discuss: Sensbach
Blog reviewers: ______________ and _____________________ |
| 15 | Tuesday, Dec. 2 | Discuss: Dubois (political history)
Blog reviewers: ______________ and _____________________ |
| Tuesday, Dec. 9 | Final essay due by 7pm via MavSpace |
