HST 103: WESTERN CIVILIZATION = 19TH & 20TH CENTURIES

HST 103: WESTERN CIVILIZATION = 19TH & 20TH CENTURIES

This is a course in focused world history. And it is our history, here and now. I should explain “focused” and “here and now”. The course is “focused” because it does not attempt to treat every significant episode in the whole of global history over the past two centuries. Yet it is still “world history” because it treats a large inventory of decisive global issues that have been caused by, or reflected within, that vague and vasty history of what is called “Western Civ”. Usually university history courses are about the experience of “nation-states”, that is, nameable sovereign geo-political units like Germany, Russia, Japan and USA. “Western Civ” is different, it’s about more than one — it’s about more than several — nation-states, more than Europe and/or North America. As a visiting research scholar at the Japanese National Slavic Research Center, I frequently heard Japanese professionals refer to their nation and contemporary culture as a part of “the West”. At the same time, oddly, no one describes the influence of the English scientist Newton on the philosopher Voltaire as an example of “Westernization” of a French thinker. No one calls the ultra-fundamental influence of Christianity on Europe as “Easternization”. We’re dealing with a slippery, maybe even tricky, possibly deceptive notion here.

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Exercise 1 =  Purchase two things in the UO Bookstore = (1) the course textbook, “The West in the World”, and (2) a blue canvas lab book (9×7 inches; Stock # 43-571, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE. The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let’s call it the journal) is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Please leave the inside cover & the first 5-6 pages blank for keeping your own table of contents, a comprehensive, numbered list of materials consulted and course exercises completed, best simply in the order in which you do the work. It is your responsibility to guide the reader to each part of the journal. Leave the final two pages of the lab book blank for instructor’s comments & grading. Separate from the journal, keep another notebook for lecture, course handouts, etc. The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS AND PHOTOCOPIED TEXTS