The following courses will be offered January Term 2012. For more information, contact the faculty member teaching the course. Times listed are tentative, and subject to change by the Registrar, who will issue the official time schedule.

History 185:  From Mobile to Margaritaville: Human Geography in the Music and Fiction of Jimmy Buffett
Marvin G. Slind
slindmar@luther.edu
Daily: 9:15 - 10:15; 11:00 - 12:00

This course will use the novels and extensive musical repertoire of Jimmy Buffett as a focal point for studying world geography and the human interactions associated with it through the course of history. Geographic references in Buffett’s songs and fiction will serve as a springboard for student presentations, discussion, and writing.(FYS; HB)

History 185:  April 1865: The Month the Civil War Ended
Edward Tebbenhoff
tebbened@luther.edu
Daily, 1:30 - 3:45

The events of April 1865 provided Americans with a kaleidoscope of jarring experiences and an emotional roller coaster which spared no one. Lee surrendered, the Civil War ended, Lincoln was assassinated and all the while, four and a half million African-American slaves contemplated their futures and the contours and meanings of a freedom that few, black or white, fully understood. The course examines primary and secondary sources describing and analyzing the meaning of this tumultuous thirty day period and explores the process by which events are turned into narratives from which are extracted conclusions, hypotheses, and generalizations.(FYS; HIST; HBSSM)

History 239:  From "China Market" to "Global Terror": Orientalism in America
Brian Caton
catobr01@luther.edu
Daily, 9:15 - 10:15, 11:00 - 12:00

While it is certainly possible to imagine that Americans’ interest in Asia is a recent product of a globalizing economy, in fact it is as old as transoceanic commerce in the colonial era. This course examines the history of American economic and cultural engagement with Asia, through three case studies: American firms operating within the Canton system prior to the Opium Wars (1840); the establishment and administration of direct colonization in the Philippines (1898-1946); and the relationships between American scholarship on the Middle East, on the one hand, and American political and economic interactions with the Middle East in the twentieth century, on the other hand. (HIST; HB)

History 239: Victim or Villain: The Causes of Contemporary Crises in Africa
Richard Mtisi
mtisri01@luther.edu
Daily: 11:00 - 1:15

This course examines several crises affecting post-colonial African states. Special attention will be paid to economic problems, civil war, and AIDS. Through close study of autobiography and film, the course will explore how different colonial and post-colonial policies contributed to the emergence of problems in post-colonial African states. Although the course focuses on Zimbabwe, Rwanda and South Africa, it will give students an opportunity to understand both the achievements and failures of post-colonial rule in Africa.(HIST; HB)