Kansas State University

  1. K-State home
  2. »Arts and Sciences
  3. »History
  4. »Undergraduate Program
  5. »Topics Courses

Department of History

Topics Course Descriptions Fall 2016

Each semester, the History Department offers several "topics" courses. These are often new or cross traditional chronological and geographical divides. American History topics fall under HIST 533, European topics fall under HIST 597, and Non-Western topics fall under HIST 598. The KSU catalog does not offer a full description of these topics classes, so we do so below. 

HIST 533: TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS 



HIST 533B: Manifest Destiny
Prof. Sanders, Tu/Th 1:05-2:20 Course #16680

       The focus of this course will be very different from any history course students  have completed in the past. It will not center on the history of a particular person          or place or period or event. This course, rather, will chart the history of an idea. Specifically, it will assess the importance of the idea of “Manifest Destiny” in the          first three centuries of American history. 
       It will open with a survey of Pre-Columbian patterns of land ownership and use in North America and then examine the ways in which colonial conceptions of                property, divine imperative and natural rights shaped the history of colonial development from the time of the first settlements at Plymouth and Massachusetts              Bay. We will then move into the 19th century and explore the connections between Manifest Destiny and events such as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the                  Louisiana Purchase, Indian Removal, the Texas Revolution, overland migration and the War with Mexico. It will close with a study of American motives and                  objectives in the Spanish-American War, the American decision for overseas empire, and the occupation of the Philippines. 



HIST 533C: Progressive Era

Prof. Sherow, M/W/F 11:30-12:20 Course #16681
This course will focus on examining both the culture and politics of progressivism. Political reform (which includes foreign diplomacy) will comprise urban movements, reform governors such as Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism, Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom and Fourteen Points, and the New Era politics of the 1920s, which culminates with President Hoover's administration. Examination of social, cultural, economic and environmental issues will form a large part of the course. The course material will be presented and interpreted through a combination of readings, lectures, videos, class discussions and independent research.

HIST 597: TOPICS IN WESTERN HISTORY

HIST 597: Himalayas
Prof.Mrozek,online, Course #17507
The course explores the history of countries in the Himalayan region from early times to modern times. This includes regions and countries such as Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, while trying them into the larger political and military actors impacting this region over the centuries such as Genghis Khan and the Mongols, Imperial China, Great Britain, and others. The course explores fields such as philosophy and religion, art and architecture, and other forms of social interaction and expression. The course studies countries and regions whose histories have often been seemingly out of phase with that of much of the rest of the world, so that it becomes a study in the "social relativity of time." For example, in 1945, Tibet was more like the Europe of the 14th or 15th centuries than like the Europe of the 20th century. How the different states and territories have dealt with "modernization" in the second half of the 20th century and beyond is also important to this course.

HIST 598: TOPICS IN NON-WESTERN HISTORY