Europe and its Strangers - Christian Encounters with Jews and Muslims: syllabus

Please arrive in class having completed the assignments listed for that day.
Each class meeting consists of three components.
- Readings are historical or scholarly texts on which I will elaborate in a lecture;
- Primary sources were written by contemporaries living in the period we’re studying.
- Visual Culture includes one or two works of art for which a student team will lead discussion.  When we know the class size, students can form teams – ideally one student with fluent English skills will team up with a student for whom English is more of a challenge.
Explanation of assignments:
- Each student will purchase the books listed.  Most of the reading is on Blackboard.
- Several assignments ask students to find an article on the Duke University library of databases.  This does not mean searching the web or using Wikipedia.
- Materials indicated by “E-Res, Bb” or “Course Docs” Bb are on “Blackboard” on the Duke website that is available only to registered students.
- For particular discussions, each student will contribute a comment on the “Discussion Board,” which is also on Blackboard. 
- Some materials are available on the Web, and the URL for these materials is listed.
- Every PowerPoint lecture will be posted on the Duke Bb under “Course Documents.”

Orientation Week
Please feel free to email or schedule a conversation about the course.

Week 1
Lecture I: Invasions of Europe: Arabs,
Read: Richard Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent. 100-130. E-Reserves, Bb.
Visual Culture: The Battle of Tours, 732 and the Sack of Constantinople, 1204. Course Docs, Bb.
Primary Source: Medieval Song, which we will hear in class.
Primary Source: Seumas Milne, “Anti-Gypsy hatred,” The Guardian, London. July 10, 2008, p. 29, you can find this on www.lib.duke.edu. Go to data bases. Log in. Write Lexis in the empty field. Check NEWS and search for key words and author. The purpose of this small exercise is to familiarize yourselves with the data bases and also to alert you to the existence of growing contempt for gypsies in Italy. 
Lecture II: 
Reading: D. Howard, “The Medieval City,” Architectural History of Venice. 43-71, Bb
Optional Reading: Richard Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent. 131-156. E-Res, Bb.
Visual culture: “Marco Polo Departs from Venice,” Course Docs, Bb.
Primary Source: Excerpts from the Adventures of Marco Polo. 1271-1274. Select one chapter:
· XXXVIII ,CONCERNING THE CASTLE OF CAICHU.
· XXXVIII.--CONCERNING THE CASTLE OF CAICHU. THE GOLDEN KING AND PRESTER JOHN
· XXXIX.--HOW PRESTER JOHN TREATED THE GOLDEN KING HIS PRISONER
· XLV.--CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TEBET
· XLVI.--FURTHER DISCOURSE CONCERNING TEBET.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12410/12410-8.txt

Week 2
Prepare for discussion next Tuesday: Walk through Venice and find Islamic influences in the buildings you see. Take photos and send me your favourite before the next class meets. During class discussion on Tuesday, tell us what you found out about the object.
Lecture I: The Emergence of Europe.
Reading: Deborah Howard, “The Medieval City,” from Architectural History of Venice. 43-71, Bb
Reading: Joan Acocella, “Holy Smoke: What were the Crusades really about? The New Yorker, December 13, 2004, 5 pages. Find on the New Yorker website or via www.lib.duke.edu.
Primary source: TBA
Visual Culture: Paolo Veronese, “The Rape of Europa,” 1580.
Quiz 1: Identification of ten key concepts or events from readings & lectures.
Discussion in Class about the buildings or objects you found on your walk through Venice.
Lecture II: The Plague Arrives from the East.
Reading: Cartwright, Disease and History, (Bb, E-Reserves).
Primary source: Boccaccio’s Decameron vol. I (translated by Richard Aldington illustrated by Jean de Bosschere), either on the Web
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.htm
Or: Boccaccio, “Introduction,” Decameron, pp. 4-23. E-Res, Bb.
Visual Culture: The Sack of Constantinople.

Week 3
Lecture I: Who was the Renaissance Man?
Reading: Jacob Burckhardt, The Renaissance, E-Res, Bb.
Begin reading: Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Translated version is okay.
Visual Culture: Gentile Bellini, “Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors,” (1511).
Primary source: Leo Africanus, E-Res, Bb. Select one section.
Lecture II: Where Cultures meet: Markets, Festivals, and Commerce.
Reading: Kate Lowe, “Stereotyping,” in Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, E-Res, Bb
OR
Brian Pullen, “Nations Set Apart?” in The Jews of Europe, E-Res, Bb.
Visual Culture: Paolo Veronese, The Feast in the House of Levi (1573).
View in Class: opening scene from Dangerous Beauty.
Primary source: Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.
Essay 1: In about 1,500 words, respond to one of five topic questions that I will hand out on the first day of class. You are required to use materials posted on Blackboard, plus two scholarly articles that you discover on a Duke Library database. This does NOT mean searching via Google or using Wikipedia. If you use Google Scholar you will probably discover that you must pay for downloads – therefore, find the same article in a Duke University data base and read it without cost. “Scholarly” means that other experts have validated an article, usually indicated as “peer reviewed.”
Your essay must be double-spaced with 12 pt font. Please add a cover page with your name and address; do not write your name on the inside pages; footnote your sources, and include your bibliography on a separate page.
On Friday , Field Trip: A Visit to the Jewish Ghetto and cemetery in Venice.

Week 4
Lecture I: Italian adventurers and Spanish funding.
Reading: David Stannard, American Holocaust. Chapt 3, 57-95, 297-306 notes, E-Res, Bb.
Reading: Joan Acoella, “A Better Place,” (book review), The New Yorker, March 3, 2008, 6 pages.
Visual Culture: Etchings from deBry, Course Docs, Bb.
Primary source: Bartolomé de las Casas E-Res, Bb.
Lecture II: The British Colonize Ireland and North America.
Reading: finish reading Stannard, American Holocaust,
Optional Reading: Stannard, American Holocaust, Chapt 4, pp. 97-146, 306-316, notes. E-Res, Bb.
Visual Culture: Eye witnesses to catastrophe.
Primary source: Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal. Bb.
or on the Web: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Week 5
Lecture I: Napoleon invades Venice and Egypt.
Reading: Sassen, Intro 1-6 and Chapt 2, 7-22.
Visual Culture: Napoleon in Italy.
Primary source: Ernst Renan, “What is a Nation?” E-Res, Bb
Lecture II: 1848 and Violence “from below” in Europe.
Reading: Sassen, Chapt 3, 33-50.
Reading: begin reading Conrad, Heart of Darkness, in translation or English. Do not read Intro.
Visual Culture: “Mob Violence” or “Revolution?”
Primary source: Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
Just for fun: View the Communist Manifestoon on YouTube.

Week 6
Lecture I:The White Man’s Burden.
Reading: Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness. Ed: D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke, 60-158.
Visual Culture: Photographs from Appendix E, in HoD.
Primary sources: selections from the Appendices in HoD. E.D. Morel and Mark Twain, pp. 220-225.
Stanley No. 6 Advertisement & speech, 206-208.
Optional podcast: Richard Holmes, ‘Sahib, the British soldier in India, 1750 – 1914,’
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/rss/podcasts.xml
Lecture II: Examination in Class.
One of two essay questions; two of three one-paragraph answers; and 5 of 6 identifications.

Mid-Term Break: Oct 27-31 

Week 7
Lecture I: South African Wars
Reading: Isabel Hull, “Military Culture,” Bb.
Visual Culture: The Monument to the Victors in Namibia.
Primary source: Kariko, et al, Century of Genocide, Bb.
Lecture II: Migration and Nation.
Read: Sassen, Chapter 4, 51-75.
Primary Source: Ernst Renan, “what is a nation?” Bb, Course Docs.
Visual Culture: Monument to the “Battle of Nations,” Leipzig. In class.
Quiz 2: Ten identification items from reading since the mid-term.

Week 8
Lecture I: Northern European Tourists rediscover Venice.
Read: Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
Primary sources: On the Web or via the Duke data bases, find one review of Death in Venice, the novella, the film, or the opera.
Visual Culture: We’ll view segments of Visconti’s film in class.
Lecture II: Demographic and Political Pressure on Europe.
Read: Sassen, Chapter 5, 77-98.
Primary Source: Excerpt from E. M. Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front. Photocopy.
Visual Culture: Artists recall World War I. In class.
Essay 2: In an essay of 750-1000 words, respond to one of five questions distributed in class.

Week 9
Lecture I: Ethnic Cleansing and World War I.
Read: Chalk & Jonasohn. “Armenian Genocide,” The History and Sociology of Genocide. E-Res, Bb.
Primary Sources: Helen Tatarian, Yevnig Adrouni. Two survivors.
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1915/bryce/
Visual Culture: Photograph, Course Docs, Bb.
Lecture II: Versailles and the politics of Empire.
Read: review Sassen, Chapter 5. Begin reading Zuccotti chapters on the Holocaust E-Res, Bb.
Primary Source: Read two fairly long articles in either the London Times or New York Times, that reports on the impact of Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies between 1935 and 1940.
Visual Culture: Map, Course Docs, Bb.

Week 10
Lecture I: Italians acquire Colonies.
Read: S. J. Lee, “Mussolini’s Foreign Policy, 1922-1940,” pp. 135-144.
Primary Source: Introduction to Mussolini’s Autobiography by the US Ambassador to Italy. Bb
Visual Culture: Mussolini’s self-image, in class.
Optional oral history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfLrg-M8490
Resource on the Holocaust: http://www.timetravelerproductions.com/mandelstephen_feinberg_resource_page.htm
Quiz 3: Ten identification items related to World War I and the interwar period. 
Lecture II: Holocaust: The Plague from the North.
Read: Susan Zuccotti, The Italians and the Holocaust, Chap 9 & 10, pp. 188-228. Bb.
Primary source: “Words Hurt Too Much” & “No. 106477,” D. Broder, I did not interview the dead.
Visual Culture: We will view Alain Resnais’ 1956 classic, Night and Fog, in class.
Optional oral history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrmN0TwKPx0
Commercialization of the Holocaust: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9gNaBm8gQA&feature=related

Week 11
Lecture I: Colonial Subjects migrate to the “Mother Countries” after World War II.
Read: Sassen, Chapt 6, 99-132.
Primary Source: Find one speech by M. Ghandi as reported at the time he gave it.
Visual Culture: 
Lecture II: Algerians in France, Turks in Germany.
Read: Sassen, Chapter 7, 133-158 (Review Chapt 5).
Primary Sources:
Visual Culture: View in class segments from a feature film about Migration. 
Essay 3: In response to one of five topic questions handed out in class, write an essay (1000 – 1500 words) about the Holocaust or Ethnic Cleansing during or after World War I. 

Week 12
Lecture I: Immigration in Contemporary Italian Politics.
Read: M.A. Roggero, “Muslims in Italy,” in Y. H. Haddad, Muslims in the West, 131-143. E-Res, Bb.
Primary Source: http://deviousdiva.com/2008/07/24/roma-discrimination-continues/
Visual Culture: As you walk through Venice, look for evidence of increased immigration. If you comfortable photographing your observations, please send some images to me before.
Lecture II: Demographic Pressure and Climate Change.
Read: Nigel Morris, “Climate Change could force 1 billion,” Independent, Apr 29, 2008, LEXIS.
Primary Source: Tom Mueller, “Beppe’s Inferno,” The New Yorker, Feb 4, 2008, 8 pages. John Vidal, “The Great Green Land Grab,” The Guardian or The Independent, February 22, 2008.
Find ONE ARTICLE IN THE CURRENT PRESS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE & MIGRATION.
Visual Culture: Maps of the Lagoon. DVD in class Venice: Tides of Change and Extreme Engineering.

Exam Week
During final exam week, there will be a final exam emphasizing the material covered since the mid-term exam.