Nineteenth-Century Europe

 

History 344                                                                                                           Fall 2004

Sarah Curtis                                                                                              TTh 11:00-12:15

 

 

Course objectives:

This course covers the history of Europe from the Napoleonic period to the eve of World War I.  It will concentrate primarily on the historical experience of Britain, France, Germany, and Russia with occasional attention paid to other European nations.  But above all, we will examine the issues common to the European experience in the nineteeth century: industrialization and its consequences, new forms of political organization, social reform, urbanization, the emergence of mass culture and politics, and the expansion of European power.  The course attempts to balance political, social, and cultural history.

 

In order to examine these themes and to make the course comprehensible, balanced, and (hopefully) exciting, we will examine the main events of the nineteenth-century in week-long units.  With a few exceptions, we will discuss that week's reading on Thursday; you should come to class prepared to do so.

 

This course meets the Segment III requirement in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century European Contributions to World Culture.  All Segment III courses include a minimum of 10 pages of corrected writing.  Segment III rules are described in the Class Schedule and Bulletin; student must have earned 60 units by the end of the semester in which they take the course.

 

 

Reading:

The reading is mainly drawn from nineteenth-century novels, memoirs, and original documents and is designed to give you a taste of nineteenth-century writings and issues. 

I do not ordinarily assign a textbook in this class, but I ordered John Merriman’s A History of Modern Europe, vol. 2, for those students who feel in need of one.  Do not feel obliged to buy it.  I have put one copy of the book on reserve in the library if you just want to consult it occasionally.  These readings are marked optional on the syllabus.

 

The following books are required and are available for purchase at the bookstore:

            Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (Broadview)

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Bedford/St. Martin’s)    

            Heinrich Mann, Man of Straw (Penguin; photocopy; or find used)

Barbara Engel and Clifford Rosenthal, eds., Five Sisters: Women Against the Tsar (Routledge)

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Broadview, 2d ed.)

They are also available on reserve at the library, but not always in the same edition.

 

 

Electronic reserves and websites:

Some of the readings are available on electronic reserves at the library.  They can be accessed via the internet on campus or at home at the following address: http://eres.sfsu.edu/ (or by the link on the library web page or my web page).  The password for this course is Napoleon.  (If you are having trouble logging in, check that you have capitalized and correctly spelled the password.)  These readings are indicated on the schedule with the abbreviation ER.

 

Some readings are directly accessible on the web, in which case the URL is given in the syllabus.

 

 

Course requirements:

There will be two exams (midterm and final) and two paper assignments in this class.  Dates are indicated on the schedule. Paper topics are on the last page of the syllabus.

 

Graduate students will also be expected to write a book review on a secondary monograph chosen in consultation with me.  This book review is due November 23.

 

 

Grading:

Grades will be calculated as follows: midterm 25%, final 25%, each paper 20%, participation 10%.  (Graduate students: midterm 20%, final 20%, each paper 20%, book review 20%.)

 

Papers one class period late will be penalized one-half grade (e.g. A to A-), two class periods one full grade (A to B), and papers more than one week late will not be accepted.

 

I may give reading quizes in order to ensure that students are not doing the reading necessary for discussion; those scores will be included in your participation grade.

 

If you are unable to complete the course requirements by the end of semester, it is your responsibility to withdraw from the course.  I will issue no instructor-initiated withdrawals or incompletes.  Student-initiated incompletes are reserved for serious medical excuses (with documentation) or other natural disasters within the last three weeks of the semester.  The last day to drop a course without a “W” is September 22; the last day with a “W” (except in extreme circumstances) is November 15.

 

 

Office hours and contact information:

Tuesday 12:30-1:30, Thursday 9:30-10:30 and 3:30-4:30, and by appointment

office location: Science 267

phone: 338-2250

e-mail: scurtis@sfsu.edu

website: http://bss.sfsu.edu/scurtis

 

Week 1: August 31-September 2

The Napoleonic Legacy

 

Required reading: 

            Napoleonic Civil Code (http://www.napoleonseries.org/reference/political/code.cfm)

            Read the background material on the Civil Code and browse the code itself.

 

Begin Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (chap. 1-9)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 13

 

 

Week 2: September 7-9

Nationalism and Romanticism

 

Required reading:

Johann von Herder,  “Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind”

(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1784herder-mankind.html)

Johann Fichte, “To the German Nation” (1806)

Lord Byron, “The Isles of Greece”

(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/byron-greece.html)

William Wordsworth, “Tables Turned”

(http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2373.html)

William Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/wordsworth-tintern.html)

 

Continue Mary Barton (chaps. 10-18)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 15 (pp. 598-618, 654-661)

 

 

 

Week 3: September 14-16

Liberalism and the Middle Classes

 

Required reading:

Samuel Smiles, Self Help, chaps. 2, 8, 10 (ER; this is also an e-book in the SFSU library; look it up on the Investigator catalogue and click on “computer file.”) 

 

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, chap. 1 and browse one other chapter of your choosing (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/household/index.html)

 

Continue Mary Barton (chaps. 19-27)

 

Optional reading: 

Merriman, chap. 15 (pp. 618-636)

 

 

Week 4: September 21-23

Poverty and the Working Classes

 

Required reading: 

Finish Mary Barton (chaps. 28-38, appendices C and E)  (The two appendices are available on ER if you have a different edition of the book.)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 14 (553-592)

 

 

Week 5:
September 28-30

Utopian and Marxist Socialism

 

Required reading:

The Communist Manifesto (pp. 61-96, documents 1, 3-9)

(The documents are available on ER if you have a different edition of the book.)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 14 (592-597)

 

 

Week 6: October 5-7

Revolutions of 1848

 

Thursday: PAPER DUE

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 16

 

 

 

Week 7: October 12-14

Russia and the Emancipation of the Serfs

 

Required reading:

Ivan Turgenev, Sketches from a Hunter's Album: "Yermolay and the Miller's Wife," "Farmer Ovsyanikov," "Bailiff," "Two Landowners" (ER)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap.  15 (643-44), chap. 18 (770-80)

 

Week 8: October 19-21

The Darwinian Revolution

 

Tuesday : MIDTERM

 

 

 

Week 9: October 26-28

Paris: Capital of the 19^th Century

 

Required reading:

Rupert Christiansen, Paris Babylon, pp. 1-14 (ER)

Begin Heinrich Mann, Man of Straw (chaps. 1-3)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 18 (794-801)

 

 

 

Week 10: November 2-4

The Unification of Germany

 

Required reading:

Finish Heinrich Mann, Man of Straw (chaps. 4-6)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 17 (720-736), chap. 19 (814-831)

 

 

 

Week 11: November 9-11

Anarchism and Radical Politics

 

Required reading:

Five Sisters (introduction, Vera Figner, Praskovia Ivanovskaia, Elizaveta Kovalskaia)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 18 (780-89; 801-05), chap. 20 (858-72);

other autobiographies in Five Sisters

 

 

 

Week 12: November 16-18

Culture Wars

 

Required reading:

“The Apparitions at La Sallette, 1846” (skim) (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1846sallette.html)

 

“Politics of Anticlericalism” and “French Schoolteachers’ Testimonies” (ER)

 

Optional reading:

Merriman, chap. 18 (805-813), chap. 19 (831-857)

 

 

 

Week 13: November 23 (No class Thursday: Thanksgiving Holiday)

The New Woman

 

Optional reading: Merriman, chap. 20 (873-74)

 

GRADUATE BOOK REVIEW due November 23

 

 

 

Week 14: November 30 – December 2

The New Imperialism

 

Required reading: 

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (pp. 9-13, 61-148; Appendix C, docs. 1-17, Appendices E, F, G) (The Conrad appendices, except the photos, are available on ER if you have a different edition of the book.)

 

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, chap. 9 (ER)

 

Optional reading: Merriman, chap. 21

 

 

 

Week 15: December 7-9

Europe on the Eve of the Great War

 

Tuesday: PAPER DUE

 

 

 

FINAL EXAMINATION   Thursday December 16 (10:45am-1:15pm)

                                                         PAPER ASSIGNMENTS

 

Each paper should be typed (12-point font) and double-spaced with normal margins.  Staple it in the upper left-hand corner.  Citations of quoted material can be informal (e.g. pp. nos. in parenthesis after the quotation), but all material taken from another source (including the internet!) should be put in quotation marks and cited appropriately.  It should advance an argument that answers one of the questions below, using specific examples and evidence from the assigned readings.  You are not expected to do outside research.  If you hate all the paper topics and have a better idea, see me.

 

 

 

Paper due October 7

 

1)         Both Self-Help and Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management are examples of advice or prescriptive literature; that is, they told the emerging middle classes how to behave and how to succeed.  Compare and contrast the advice given by these two books with the conditions described by Elizabeth Gaskell in Mary Barton.

 

2)         Mary Barton is an example of the "condition of England" novels that became popular in the 1830s and 1840s.  To what extent does Elizabeth Gaskell suggest in this novel that England is divided into "two nations" of rich and poor?  How does her analysis reflect historical reality?

 

3)         Imagine that the utopian socialists and Marx and Engels were called upon to solve the problems of the characters in Mary Barton.  What solutions would they propose?  (You may write this either as an analytical piece or in a more creative format.)

 

 

 

Paper due December 7

 

1)         How do the memoirs by the women revolutionaries in Five Sisters reflect the problems faced by the Russian radical movement in the 1870s and 1880s?  Do they mirror any of the issues or attitudes found by Turgenev in the 1850s?

 

 

2)         What elements of German culture and society does Heinrich Mann critique in his novel Man of Straw?  Is his criticism fair?

 

 

3)         To what extent does Heart of Darkness condemn of European imperialism in Africa?  Use specific examples from the text to show the ways in which Conrad criticized or accepted the standards of late 19th-century imperialism.