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Senior Seminar in History: History of Long-distance Trade Fall 2004 Arkansas State University
Instructor: Erik Gilbert Office: 116 Wilson Hall Phone: 972-3046 Email: egilbert@astate.edu Webpage: www.clt.astate.edu/egilbert Office Hours: 10-11 MWF, 10-12 T
This course is meant to be the capstone in the undergraduate history program. Now that you have taken the Practice of History and other upper-level history courses you should be ready to participate in a seminar on a fairly narrow topic. A seminar is different than a lecture course in that all the participants in the seminar-students as well as the instructor-are expected to participate. That participation extends to careful and critical reading of the assigned texts, active, thoughtful, and informed participation in our discussion of those texts, weekly writing about your reading and research, and the preparation of a research paper. In short, the course will draw together all the skills and knowledge you have acquired as a historian in training.
Texts:
Phillip Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, 1984.
Erik Gilbert and Jonathan Reynolds, Trading Tastes: Commodity and Cultural Exchange to 1750, forthcoming.
Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik, The World that Trade Created, 1999.
Curtin and Pomeranz & Topik are available at the ASU Bookstore. I will provide a copy of the typescript of Gilbert & Reynolds.
Additional readings will be reserve at the library.
Course Requirements:
Journal: A critical part of the historian’s craft is writing. The best way to improve your writing is to write. Daily writing is to the historian is what daily running is to the track athlete-a central part of one’s daily routine. We will be writing 5 journal entries a week. Two of these will be one two page reactions to the assigned reading. Two will be one to two page reflections on your research. The third will be a three page summing up of your thoughts on the weeks reading and discussion. The mechanics of the journal will be explained in class. I will not grade your journal until the end of the semester, but I will collect it occasionally so that I can comment on it. Bring it to every class meeting.
Discussion: This is not a lecture course, so come to class prepared to talk about the week’s readings. Because you will have read them in advance and written about them in your journal, you should have some thoughtful and critical things to say about the readings.
Research Paper: You will write a 15 page research paper. It will be based on primary sources and set in the context of the relevant secondary sources. Please consult with me about an appropriate topic. You will make several presentations about you paper to the class.
Grades:
Journal 30%
Class Participation 20%
Paper 50%
Schedule
Week 1: Introduction Aug. 23-25 Read: Gilbert&Reynolds, Chapter 1
Week 2: Why trade? Kula Beads in the Pacific Aug. 30-Sept. 1 Read: Malinowski, excerpt Curtin, Chapters 1&2
Week 3: Trade in the Ancient World Sept. 8 Read: Curtin, Chapters 4&5
Week 4: The Silk Road Sept. 13-15 Read: Bentley, Old World Encounters, excerpt Bulliet, Camel and the Wheel,excerpt
Week 5: The Indian Ocean Sept. 20-22 Read: Curtin, Chapter 6 Gilbert & Reynolds, Chapter 2
Week 6: Europeans in Asia Sept. 27-29 Read: Curtin, Chapters 7&8 P&T, 1.4, 1.13, 2.1
Week 7: Europeans in the Americas Oct. 4-6 Read: Curtin, Chapter 10 Curtin, Plantation System, excerpt P&T, 1.7, 1.8, 5.2, 5.6
Week 8: The Atlantic World Oct. 11-13 Read: Gilbert & Reynolds, Chapter 3 Curtin, Curtin, Plantation System, excerpts P&T, 7.1
Week 9: Drug Trades Oct. 18-20 Read: P& T, Chapter 3
Week 10: Industrial Revolution Oct. 25-27 Read: Curtin, Chapter 11 Landes, Unbound Prometheus, excerpts P&T, 7.2, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7
Week 11: High Imperialism and Trade Nov. 1-3 Gilbert, “Coastal East Africa” see web page. Headrick, Tentacles of Progress, excerpts P&T, 2.9
Week 12: Global Economy: The Shipping Container and the Internet Nov. 8-9 Read, Langewiesche, The Deadly Sea, excerpt Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, excerpt Economist, “Special Report: Containerized Shipping”
Week 13: Presentations Nov. 15-17
Week 14: Presentations Nov. 29-Dec. 1
Week 15: Papers due in class Dec. 6 |