European History

Program Description

The University of Oregon offers a comprehensive program in European history, with courses in ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern Europe , spanning most major national histories and methodological approaches.

Recent Graduate-Level Courses in European History

Ancient Greece (J. Nicols)
Imperialism: Ancient and Modern (seminar and colloquium; J. Nicols)
Roman Empire (J. Nicols)
Republic in Ancient Rome (J. Nicols, M. Nicols)
Late Medieval Holy Women (Wolverton)
Medieval Spain (Wolverton)
Golden Age Spain (Rowe)
Renaissance Europe (Rowe)
Holocaust & History (Luebke)
Deviants & Outcasts in European History (Luebke)
Graduate Colloquium on Pre-Modern Europe (Luebke)
Monarchy in Europe (Luebke)
Witches in Europe (Luebke)
Cultural History of the Enlightenment (McNeely)
Biology, Ecology, and World History (McNeely)
Globalization in the 1800s (McNeely)
Organization of Knowledge from Alexandria to the Internet (McNeely)
Revolutionary-Napoleonic Europe (McNeely)
Britain in the Age of the French Revolution (McGowen)
Crime and Punishment in 18th-century England (McGowen)
Everyday Lives: 18th-century Diaries and Memoirs (McGowen)
The Making of Modern Britain, 1660-1720 (McGowen)
World War I (seminar and colloquium, Dracobly)
European Economy in the 20th Century (Sheridan)
The Idea of Europe ( Sheridan, McCole)
History of Russian Political Culture (Kimball)
Russia and Democracy (Kimball)
Colloquium: Historiography of the USSR (Hessler)
Europe since 1945: Politics and Conscience (Hessler)
Fascism: Italy, Germany, Europe (Hessler)
Russian Revolution (Hessler)
Soviet History Sources (Hessler)
Stalinism (Hessler)
Twentieth-century Eastern Europe (Hessler)
Soviet Culture: Ideas, Intellectals and the Arts from Khrushchev to Gorbachev (Hessler)
Modern European Intellectual History (McCole)
Social Thought and Cultural Criticism in Germany (McCole)
Society and Culture in Fin-de-siecle Europe (McCole)
The Idea of Europe (McCole, Sheridan)

HESSLER, Julie. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1996, Chicago) specializes in 20th-century Russia and Europe . Current research focuses on the history of Soviet cultural relations with the Third World from the 1960s through the 1980s, including student exchanges, traveling exhibitions and performance groups, Soviet international friendship associations, academic study of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East in the USSR , and Soviet-sponsored polytechnical institutions and teachers abroad. Author of A Social History of Soviet Trade (2004) and related articles on retail trade, consumption, and the black market in the Soviet Union . She has published “Death of an African Student in Moscow : Race, Politics, and the Cold War,” Cahiers du monde russe (2006) and projects additional articles on Patrice Lumumba University for the Friendship of the Peoples and the Soviet Committee for Afro-Asian Solidarity. She is presently working as a co-author on a major revision of Robert O. Paxson, Europe in the Twentieth Century , with emphasis on the postwar period (forthcoming in 2008). hessler@uoregon.edu

KIMBALL, R. Alan. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1967, Washington), specializes in 19th-century Russia . Current research centers on political movements of the era of Russia 's "Great Reforms" in the mid-19th century. Work in progress, tentatively entitled To Make a Better Life: The Mobilization of Political Opposition in the Russian Empire, 1859-1863 , is a computer-assisted study of several dozen social organizations and their members in this period. Scholarly articles include "Russkoe grazhdanskoe obshchestvo i politicheskii krizis v epokhu Velikikh Reform, 1859-1863," in L.G. Zakharova, ed., Velikie Reformy v Rossii 1856-1874 (1992); "Alexander Herzen and the Native Lineage of the Russian Revolution," in Charles Timberlake, ed., Religious and Secular Forces in Late Tsarist Russia (1992); "The Russian Peasant Obshchina in the Political Culture of the Great Reforms: A Contribution to Begriffsgeschichte," Russian History/Histoire Russe (1990). Also contributes to Telos . kimball@uregon.edu

LUEBKE, David M. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1990, Yale), specializes in early modern Europe, especially the political culture and religions of the Holy Roman Empire . His current project focuses on conflict and coexistence among the Christian religions of late sixteenth-century Germany . He also teaches advance course on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Author of His Majesty's Rebels: Communities, Factions, and Rural Revolt in the Black Forest, 1725-1745 (1997) and numerous articles, including “Customs of Confession: Managing Religious Diversity in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Westphalia,” in Religion and Authority in Central Europe from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (2008); “Signatures and Political Culture in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Journal of Modern History (2004); “'Naïve Monarchism' and Marian Veneration in Early Modern Germany,” Past and Present (1997Editor of The Counter-Reformation: Essential Readings (1999). dluebke@uoregon.edu

MCCOLE, John. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1988, Boston), specializes in 19th/20th-century German intellectual history. Author of Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition (1993); editor, with Benhabib and Bonss, On Max Horkheimer: New Perspectives (1994). Currently writing Berlin Crossings , a study of the sociologist Georg Simmel in the context of turn-of-the-century Berlin . Research interests include the history of social thought and cultural criticism, urban history in the 19th and 20th centuries, and Berlin . mccole@uoregon.edu

MCGOWEN, Randall E. Professor (Ph.D., 1979, Illinois), specializes in 18th-century Britain , with research interests embracing such diverse subfields as legal history, the history of humanitarianism, and economic history. Author of The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd: Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London (coauthored with Donna Andrew) (2001) and numerous articles, including "From Pillory to Gallows: The Punishment of Forgery in the Age of the Financial Revolution," Past and Present (1999); “Managing the Gallows: The Bank of England and the Death Penalty, 1797-1821,” Law and History Review (2007). author of numerous other scholarly articles. rmcgowen@uoregon.edu

MCNEELY, Ian F. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1998, Michigan), specializes in Europe during the ages of Enlightenment and Revolution, with additional interests in world history and the history of knowledge. Author of The Emancipation of Writing: German Civil Society in the Making, 1790s-1820s (2003); Medicine on a Grand Scale: Rudolf Virchow, Liberalism, and the Public Health (2002); and with Lisa Wolverton, Reinventing Knowledge From Alexandria to the Internet (forthcoming 2008). http://www.uoregon.edu/~imcneely . imcneely@uoregon.edu

NICOLS, John. Professor (Ph.D., 1974, UCLA), specializes in Ancient Rome and Greece . Research interests center on urbanization in the ancient world. Recent articles include "Sallust and the Greek Historical Tradition," Text and Tradition (1999); "Hospitium and Political Friendship in the Late Republic ," Journal of Roman Archaeology (Suppl. 43, 2001). Author of a monograph on civic patronage in the Roman Empire; collaborator (with James Mohr) in the "Mapping History" Interactive Atlas , a collaborative project with historians at the Universität Münster ( Germany ) and sponsored by the University of Oregon and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Teaches a graduate course on the use of new media in history teaching. nic@uoregon.edu

Rowe, Erin K. Assistant Professor (Ph.D., 2005, Johns Hopkins), specializes in the early modern history of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, with particular emphasis on Spain . Recent articles include "St. Teresa and Olivares: Patron Sainthood, Royal Favorites, and the Politics of Plurality in Seventeenth-Century Spain," Sixteenth Century Journal (2006). Current projects include a monograph on patron sainthood and national identity in early modern Spain . Research interests include saints and sanctity, women's history, the Inquisition, and connected histories of Mediterranean peoples. erowe@uoregon.edu

SHERIDAN, George J. Jr. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1978, Yale), specializes in France and Modern Europe. Publications include The Social and Economic Foundations of Association Among the Silk Weavers of Lyons, 1852-1870 , 2 vols. (1981); "Corporatism, Association, and the Language of Labor in France, 1750-1850," The Journal of Modern History 58 (December 1986), co-authored with Lynn Hunt; "Les réseaux de direction dans les associations sociales et non politiques des ouvriers en soie de Lyon (1860-1877)," in Du Groupe au réseau: réseaux religieux, politiques, professionnels , ed. Philippe Dujardin (1988); "Esprit de quartier et formes de solidarité dans les mouvements sociaux et politiques Des ouvriers en soie de Lyon, 1830-1880," in Le Monde Alpin et Rhodanien: Revue Régionale d'Ethnologie , 2e-3e trimestres (1991) ; and “Craft Technique, Association and Guild History: The Silk Weavers of Nineteenth-Century Lyon,” in Guilds and Association in Europe, 900-1900 , ed. Ian A. Gadd and Patrick Wallis (2006). He has co-edited (with Evlyn Gould) Engaging Europe: Rethinking a Changing Continent (2005), which includes “A Story of Europe,” summarizing the history of the idea of Europe from antiquity to the present. He is currently writing two book-length studies of the Lyon silk weavers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one with a focus on association and the other with a focus on fashion and fabric, weaving technique, and utopianism. In addition his work in progress includes a study of artisan autobiography and the history of the popular press in nineteenth-century Lyon . gjs@uoregon.edu

WOLVERTON, Lisa. Associate Professor (Ph.D., 1997, Notre Dame), specializes in Medieval Europe. Research interests include politics and social change, medieval classicism, money and economic development, and frontier societies. Author of Hastening Toward Prague: Power and Society in the Medieval Czech Lands (2001); coauthor of Reinventing Knowledge From Alexandria to the Internet (forthcoming 2008); and translator of The Chronicle of the Czechs by Cosmos of Prague (to be published in 2009). She is currently writing a close analysis of this twelfth-century Latin history, entitled Cosmos of Prague and the Birth of National History . http://uoregon.edu/~lwolvert . lwolvert@uoregon.edu

Contributing Faculty in European History

In addition to these core faculty, who serve as faculty advisors for graduate students and on Ph.D. committees, students may also have the opportunity to take courses with a number of adjunct and emeriti faculty in European history and historians in other UO departments and programs. A partial list is below. Graduate students in European history have the opportunity to take courses on Europe in many other departments across the university. In particular, the History Department participates in the following interdisciplinary programs, which offer certification at the master's level: European Studies , Judaic Studies , Russian and East European Studies , Medieval Studies , and Women's Studies.

BASKIN, Judith R. Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies (Ph.D., 1976, Yale), specializes in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, history of Jewish women. Author of Pharaoh's Counsellors: Job, Jethro, and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic Tradition (1983) and Midrashic Women: Formations of the Feminine in Rabbinic Judaism (2001); editor of Jewish Women in Historical Perspective (2nd Edition 1998); and Women of the Word: Jewish Women and Jewish Writing (1994). Recent essays include "Women" Encyclopedia of Judaism (2000), and "Dolce of Worms: Women Saints in Judaism," Arvind Sharma, ed., Women Saints and World Religions (2000). jbaskin@uoregon.edu

BIRN, Raymond. Professor Emeritus (Ph.D., 1961, Illinois), specializes in 18th-century Europe and the history of the book. His current research centers on the book publishing industry in 18th-century France . Author of more than fifty articles in 18th-century cultural and intellectual history, and the following books: Pierre Rousseau and the Philosophes of Bouillon (1964); Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe 1648-1789 (1977, rev. 1992, revised and expanded 2005); Forging Rousseau: Print, Commerce and Cultural Manipulation in the Late Enlightenment (2001); and most recently, La Censure royale des Livres dans la France des Lumieres (2007). Edited The Printed Word in the Eighteenth Century (1984). Visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes en Sciences Sociales (1992), the College de France (2001). Fellowships have included a Fulbright to France (1968-69), NEH to the Newberry Library, Chicago (1987-88), the Center for the History of Freedom, Washington University , St. Louis (1991-92) rbirn@uoregon.edu

DRACOBLY, Alex. Senior Instructor, (Ph.D., 1996, Chicago). Teaching specialties include the history of war and society and modern Europe . His research interests center on the specializes in the history of medicine and medical ethics. He is currently working on a study of medical research practices in mid-19th-century France . dracobly@uoregon.edu

FRACCHIA, Joseph. Associate Professor, Honors College (Ph.D., 1985, University of California, Davis), specializes in modern European cultural and intellectual history. Author of Die Marxsche Aufhebung der Philosophie und der Philosophische Marxismus (1987). Articles include: "Marx's Aufhebung of Philosophy and the Foundations of Historical-Materialistic Science" History and Theory (1991); "Michel Foucault, Karl Marx, and the Historical-Materialist Horizon" Intellectual History Newsletter (December, 1998); "Dialectical Itineraries," History and Theory (May, 1999); "Does Culture Evolve?" co-authored with Richard Lewontin, History and Theory (December, 1999). Currently engaged in a book project entitled "Materializing History: The Corporeal Foundations of Society and Culture." fracchia@uoregon.edu

NICOLS, Marianne S. Senior Associate Dean and Chief of Operations, College of Arts and Sciences (Ph.D., UC Berkeley, 1992) specializes in Ancient Rome. Doctoral dissertation concerns clienteles in the rule of Pompey the Great. msnic@uoregon.edu

ROSENBERG, Daniel. Assistant Professor, Honors College (Ph.D., 1996, University of California, Berkeley) specializes in intellectual history; Enlightenment, France and Britain . Articles include "An Eighteenth-Century Time Machine: The Encyclopedia of Diderot" in Enlightenment and Postmodernism (2000); "A New Sort of Logick and Critick: Etymological Interpretation in Horne Tooke's Diversions of Purley " in Language, Self, and Society (1991); "No One is Buried in the Hoover Dam: Modernism and Rumor" in Modernism, Inc. (2001). Currently at work on a book entitled Senses of the Past: Language, Epistemology, and the Problem of Origins in the Enlightenment and editing an anthology volume entitled Histories of the Future on cultural and historical diversities in temporal understanding. Research interests include time, language, and media.