Academic Catalog 2024-2025

Academic Catalog 2024 - 2025

HIS 2180 History of Video Games 3 credits This course will explore video games as a social and cultural phenomenon. A chronological approach to the study of video game development will allow students to explore the connections between gaming technology and the nation’s economic and political landscape between the end of the Second World War and the early 1980s. Students will engage in a sustained examination of the origins of gaming culture and its connection to issues of race, class, and gender. HIS 2577 United States History to 1877 3 credits Examines the development of the United States from its colonial past to the end of Reconstruction. Emphasis is placed on the motivating factors of dissent, the Enlightenment, and slavery. HIS 2578 United States History Since 1865 3 credits Examines the development of the United States from Reconstruction to the present. Emphasis is placed on struggles for social justice, the growth of American power, and the rise of mass culture. HIS 3515 United States Cold War Culture 3 credits This course explores how the political and social concerns of the Cold War era were reflected in the nation’s cultural production. Through an examination of movies, TV, comic books, music, art and other artifacts, students will develop an understanding of how culture and politics interacted to shape the national psyche. HIS 3600 United States Military History 3 credits Surveys the history and progress of the Armed Forces of the United States from the colonial period through the first Gulf War (Desert Storm). HIS 3371 History of Rock and Roll 3 credits This course surveys the history of rock and roll music from the early 1950s through the present. It will explore its origins in blues and country music, trace the development of major genres over time, examine its international appeal, discuss the impact of rock music on American society through the lenses of race, class, and gender, and consider the impact of the economics of the music business on artistic output. HIS 4100 United States History Since 1945 3 credits This course surveys United States history from 1945 to the 2001. This class focuses on American popular culture, politics, and social change. Topics include: the Cold War, 1950s America, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sixties, the Vietnam War, and the rise of the New Right. (Prerequisite: HIS 2578 or instructor approval) HIS 4590 History and Film 3 credits This course utilizes popular film to engage students in a focused exploration of a specific aspect of history and the act of interpreting past events in a visual medium. Historical topics for this course change with each offering. Past and potential future topics include Contemporary British Culture, 20 th Century Wars, Vacationland Florida, and American Crime. The course will employ a comparative approach and challenge students to identify common historical and narrative themes across film styles and genres, as well as explore the benefits and drawbacks of placing the past on the screen. Students will leave the class with an appreciation of filmed history and an enhanced ability to view historical films with a critical eye. HIS 4620 The Holocaust in History and Memory 3 credits This course will explore the attempt by Nazi Germany to carry out the mass extermination of European Jewry during the Second World War. Three main themes will be explored: the development of a racial worldview and ideology that created the conditions necessary for the Holocaust to be put into practice; the development of a system of mass murder in Eastern Europe; and the development of a memory of the Holocaust in the decades after the war ended. HIS 1574/2574/3574/4574 Topics in History 3 credits An advanced examination of selected topics in specific areas of study in history.

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