HIST 411 - Junior Seminar

Latin America and the United States, From Independence to the Cold War
Since their respective independence, relations between the United States and the Latin American republics have been of great importance to the domestic politics in both, and have disproportionately affected the political and economic trajectory of the latter. Topics addressed will include competing visions of the relationship between the two regions; U.S. military intervention; trade, foreign investment, and economic ties; and popular attitudes toward the United States in Latin America, and vice versa.

Law, Culture, & Society in Europe & Its Empires (c. 1200-1800)
From its revival as an intellectual discipline and profession in the early twelfth century, law, its practitioners, and its institutions came to occupy an increasingly prominent place in the cultures and societies of premodern Europe and its overseas empires. Aptly described by one historian as a “conduit between discourse and practice,” law became a mechanism for debating “what is right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, just or unjust,” and a means for negotiating and contesting “the small politics of daily life.” As Europe and its imperial spaces became increasingly “legalized,” nobles and commoners, men and women, free and unfree people alike turned to courts of law in disputes over property, honor, and other concerns. Expanding state authorities, meanwhile, sought to harness law and its resources to maintain public order and regulate deviance. This course aims to introduce you to some (though by no means all) of the rich and fascinating body of historical scholarship on the relationship between the world of the law and the cultures and societies of Europe and its empires during the late medieval and early modern periods. At the same time, we will examine how historians’ examinations of legal processes and legal records have profoundly influenced the study of European and imperial history in recent decades.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): Junior standing, and two history courses at Reed
Restriction(s): History and Interdisciplinary-History majors only
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes: Not all topics offered every year. Review schedule of classes for availability.
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.