UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG

Level 1000 courses

HIST 1002: Living with the USA (A)

Module Description

The Soviet Challenge and Collapse: an outline

The block begins with a description of the Soviet system, dealing with party, government, ideology, and the operation of the economy. The attention then turns to how the Soviet Union attempted to face up to the West after 1945, concentrating upon certain case studies, notably the various Berlin confrontations and the Cuban missile crisis. Detente is next studied, but this slackening in the Cold War is seen as brought to an end by limits on what the Soviet government could accept regarding the freedom of its citizens, and also by the reliance in foreign affairs upon the arms trade and the use of military force. The return to the Cold War, and in particular the renewed arms race encouraged by President Regan, made unacceptable demands upon an economic system that by the 1970s was clearly falling behind the capitalist model. Internal dissent, and increasing demands from outside for greater freedom for Soviet citizens, added to the Kremlin's difficulties. The pressures for economic reform eventually brought MS Gorbachev to power, initially with the task of maintaining the Soviet state. But economic reform brought political reform, and eventually both capitalism and democracy, which resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Beginning of American Global Dominance

This section of the unit traces the rising power of the United States in the post-war period. It explores the unprecedented economic boom of the late 1940s and 1950s and analyses the impact of consumerism on American culture. Simultaneously, the US experienced a phase of virulent anti-communism accompanied by a general clamp down of political and cultural opposition. Externally, the US broke decisively with its pre-war isolationism and sought both to contain left-wing advances internationally (Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Congo) and to expand its own political and economic influence on a global scale. The US maintained particularly tight control of its own 'backyard', Latin America, with the frustrating exception of Cuba. The mid 1960s brought an internal political and cultural backlash in the US, powerfully underpinned by generational conflict. The so-called 'counter culture' of the 1960s and early 1970s was a generational rebellion against materialism, militarism and racism. The Reagan years represented yet another backlash, this time against the perceived leftism and permissiveness of the 60s generation. The US maintained relentless pressure on the Soviet Union, especially with arms manufacture, until the collapse of the East Bloc in 1989. This left the US as the only remaining global superpower.

Schedule

First Semester on the C timetable slot

HIST1008: Topics in Medieval European History

Module Description

There are two sections in this modular unit. The first examines the transition from the ancient world and the 'making of Europe'. Beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire, we shall explore various interpretations of Rome's fall, the problems of ethnicity raised by the 'barbarian invasions', and the social and political consequences of these events. The unit will then consider the political and social structures that emerged in both northern and southern Europe during the early middle ages, the disintegration of the state during the ninth and tenth centuries, and the contrasting histories of France and Germany after the year 1000. Attention will be paid throughout to the Church as an institution, and to its role in forging the characteristic cultural and political institutions of western Europe. The second section of the unit deals in greater detail with the history of a single medieval society: England from the fifth to the fourteenth century. We shall be considering how far the case-study of medieval England confirms or contrasts with the general European experience as discussed in section 1. The unit will examine the role of kinship and lordship in early medieval England, the welding of the disparate tribes into a united kingdom, and the precocious nature of the early English kingdom in historical context. The English case-study offers students a good opportunity to consider the contentious issue of feudalism. The module will end with the centralizing power of English kings during the high middle ages, the political resistance that these centralizing policies produced, and with a consideration of economic change and social conflict.

Schedule

First Semester on the A timetable slot

HIST 1003: Living with the USA (B)

Module Description

The Middle East

The unit explores and debates some of the salient themes in the history of the Middle East from the turn of the 20th century to the present, and aims to provide a critical reading of the region's history. Lectures will thus consider issues such as Orientalism, Fundamentalism, Identity and Violence, Imperialism (British and USA) and Nationalism and Islamophobia. A principal focus of the unit is the role of the United States in the region since World War 2. The key questions that will be discussed in this regard are: what have been the main features of US imperialism in the region and what have been the consequences of its intervention for the people of the region. Specific attention will be given to the centrality of oil in shaping relations between the USA and various Middle Eastern countries.

African Popular Culture

The last unit of Living with the USA shifts the attention from institutional-political history to social and cultural history. This section explores the genesis, developments and outcomes of cultural interactions between sub-Saharan Africa and the supposedly ‘hegemonic’ West, primarily the United States of America. Special attention is devoted to past and present popular culture, namely, popular music genres (from muziki wa dansi, i.e., urban jazz, to taarab, sung Swahili poetry with a blend of Egyptian, Indian and Swahili elements, to contemporary hip-hop, particularly in East Africa), cosmopolitan clothing styles, and movie-going habits in various African colonial and post-colonial contexts, mainly in East Africa, and from the Second World War to the present. Students are also provided with an historical background to cross-cultural exchanges and early globalization processes which occurred well before 1945. This section then looks at themes such as how ‘ordinary’ Africans have historically adopted, redefined, and contested foreign cultural forms, not only from the USA, but also from Britain, India, Latin America and so forth. Other topics investigated include African resilience and agency, and how Africans have appropriated cultural elements and foreign items in a purposeful and selective manner sometimes derived from their pre-existing cultural perceptions. The last part of this unit explores the cosmopolitan identities of African urban youths between the mid-1940s and the present day.

Schedule

Second Semester on the C timetable slot

HIST 1004: Renaissance Europe

Module Description

This modular unit examines the history of Europe during the Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The unit looks at the crisis of lordship in the late middle ages and the devices used by the nobility to re-assert seigniorial power during the course of the sixteenth century. It also explores the commercialization of agriculture in certain regions of western Europe and asks what distinguished these regions from those where such a transition failed to take place. Building on this background, the next section turns to political developments at the end of the Middle Ages: specifically the nature of political power, the importance of localism and the concepts of the corporate state and the Renaissance state. After tracing the ideological movements of Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-Reformation this section ends with a discussion of the aggressive parliamentary institutions, social unrest and the so-called religious wars of the mid- and late-sixteenth century. Finally, the unit examines political theories developing at the end of the sixteenth century regarding the nature of sovereignty and divine right of kings as well as exploring the problems of divine-right monarchy in seventeenth-century England. The unit concludes with the rise of French absolutism and with an assessment of the strengths and limitations of royal power as revealed in France during the reign of Louis XIV.