Class sections will be divided between lectures and seminar discussions. The seminar discussion sessions will serve as a forum for the analysis and discussion of scholarly literature and as a testing ground for student hypotheses. The instructor will encourage students to elaborate, refine and revise ideas. Discussion sessions will also include tutorials in conducting historical research, the exploration of primary source documents, and practice in oral presentations. Participation in both lectures and seminar discussions is required for the successful completion of the course.
Methods may include:
- lecture/discussion
- group work
- peer review
- independent research
- instructor feedback on students’ work
- individual consultation
- presentation (individual or group)
A sample course outline would include the following topics.
Note: Content may vary according to the instructor’s selection of topics.
- Introduction
- Europe in Ruins: The Legacy of Nazism and the Holocaust
- A Bipolar World: The Origins of the Cold War
- Reconstruction and Consumerism: Beginnings of West European Recovery
- Real-Existing Socialism: The Soviet Bloc and De-Stalinization
- Stepping Down: Decolonization and Post-Colonialism
- Politics and the Road from Rome to Brussels: Steps toward European Integration
- 1968: Youth Rebellion on Both sides of the Iron Curtain
- Helsinki and the Oil Crisis: Promise and Stagnation in the 1970s
- Cold War 1980s Redux: Peace Marches and the Dual Track
- Die Wende: The Fall of the Berlin War and Dissolution of the USSR
- Closer, Deeper, and War-Torn: The “Common European Home” of the 1990s
- Europe’s Renaissance? Sidelined in the “Global War on Terror”
- Europe’s Uncertain Future
At the conclusion of the course the successful student will be able to:
- Examine historical sources critically and analytically. These sources include not only survey texts and scholarly articles, but also short monographs and extended primary sources. Students are required to read in the course subject area beyond the texts assigned by the instructor.
- Create and communicate personal interpretations of historical problems. This course is writing intensive. Forms for communication of personal interpretations include research proposals and annotated bibliographies, research essays (from 3000-5000 words), comparative book reviews, shorter interpretive essays, historiography analyses, primary source studies, and final examinations or final summative assignments.
- Analyze the ideas of other students and the instructor in both tutorials and seminars both independently and in cooperation with other students.
Assessment will be in accord with the Douglas College student evaluation policy. Specific evaluation criteria will be provided by the instructor at the beginning of the semester and will vary according to the instructor’s assessment of appropriate evaluation methods.
An example of one evaluation scheme: Any combination of the following totalling 100%
|
Primary source document analyses |
15% |
|
Research proposal and annotated bibliography |
10% |
|
Research essay |
25% |
|
Comparative book review |
15% |
|
Seminar presentations |
10% |
|
Class participation |
10% |
|
Final examination |
15% |
|
Total |
100% |
Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students:
Texts will be chosen from the following list, to be updated periodically:
An instructor’s Course Reader may be required, and students will be required to read in the course subject area beyond the texts assigned by the instructor.
Fulbrook, Mary, ed. Europe Since 1945. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Hitchcock, William. The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent. 1945-2002. Doubleday, 2002.
Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin, 2005.
Kaelble, Hartmut. A Social History of Europe, 1945-2000: Recovery and Transformation after Two World Wars. Berghahn, 2012.
Larres, Klaus. A Companion to Europe Since 1945. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Panayi, Panikos. An Ethnic History of Europe Since 1945. Longman, 2000.
Paxton, Robert and Julie Hessler. Europe in the Twentieth-Century. 5th ed. Wadsworth, 2012.
Perry, Marvin, Matthew Berg, and James Krukones, eds. Sources of European History Since 1900. 2nd ed. Wadsworth, 2011.
Thody, Philip. Europe Since 1945. Routledge, 2000.
Wegs, J. Robert and Robert Ladrech. Europe Since 1945: A Concise History. 5th ed. Bedford/St Martin’s, 2007.
Winks, Robin and John Talbott. Europe, 1945 to the Present. Oxford, 2005.
In addition to such textbooks and general monographs, it is possible that novels, memoirs, and anthologies could be adopted as course texts. Texts may include:
Anonymous. A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City. A Diary. Picador, 2006; originally published 1954.
Ash, Timothy Garton. The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague. Vintage, 1993.
Bauer, Karin, ed. Everybody Talks about the Weather… We Don’t: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof. Seven Stories, 2008.
Charef, Mehdi. Tea in the Harem. Serpent’s Tail, 1983/1990.
Darnton, Robert. Berlin Journal, 1989-1990. Norton, 1993.
Drakulic, Slavenka. Café Europa: Life after Communism. 1996.
Fleming, Ian. From Russia With Love. 1957.
Funder, Anna. Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall. Harper, 2011.
Havel, Vaclav. Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990. Vintage, 1992.
Milosz, Czeslaw. The Captive Mind. 1953.
Schneider, Peter. The Wall Jumper: A Berlin Story. University of Chicago, 1998.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. 1962.
ONE 1000-LEVEL HISTORY COURSE
Or the permission of the instructor