Robert Schwartz

206 Skinner

e-mail: rschwart@mtholyoke.edu

Office Hours: Tu-Th 10:15-12:00; Wed. 4-5 (except for the Wednesday of Faculty Meeting); and by appointment

The French Revolution: Mirror of the Past and the Present

Sept. 11

Introduction

“French Revolution,” Encyclopedia Britannica (5 page handout), and on the web at:

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,36018+1+35357,00.html

Further Reading (optional)

The French Revolution: Liberalism and Radicalism,Section 7:Brooklyn College Core Curriculum: The Shaping of the Modern World, on the web at: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/core4-7.htm

John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe, Vol. 2, chap. 12, “The French Revolution” (Library Reserve) (Until the book is on reserve, I will leave a copy of this chapter outside of my office for use in Skinner only.

Sept. 13

The Changing Faces of Danton and Robespierre, 1929 and 1989

Group 1

“Danton” by J. M Thompson, in his Leaders of the French Revolution (London, 1929) (CP)

“Danton” by Mona Ozouf, in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 213-222 (CP)

Group 2

“Robespierre” by J. M. Thompson, in Leaders of the French Revolution (1929), pp. 115-134 (CP)

“Robespierre” by Patrice Gueniffey in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), pp. 298-312 (CP), 215-244

Group 3

“Terror” by Francois Furet in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution

David D.Bien, "François Furet, the Terror, and 1789", French Historical Studies 16 (no. 4, Fall 1990), pp. 777-783, on the web at:

http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/corehistorians/frenrev/resource/21a1(4).htm

Further Reading (optional)

“Committee of Public Safety” by Denis Richet in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (CP)

Sept. 18

Film: Danton directed by Andrzej Wadja (1982)

Read before seeing the film: either

Robert Darnton, "Film: Danton and Double Entendre," The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections on Cultural History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), pp. 37-52 (CP)

OR

Robert Darnton, "Danton," in Past Imperfect: History according to the Movies, ed. Mark C. Carnes (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), pp. 104-109.

Additional background on the film (optional):

Notes on Danton by David Hart, University of Adelaide (Australia)

http://arts.adelaide.edu.au/person/DHart/Films/Danton.html

Sept. 20

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Robert Rosenstone, “History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film, American Historical Review 93 (1988): 1173-1185

"Andrzej Wajda" in World Film Directors. Volume 2, ed. John Wakeman (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1987), pp. 1148-55

Richard Cobb, “The Revolutionary Mentality in France,” A Second Identity. Essays on France and French History (London, 1969) 122-141

Hitler and National Socialism

Jeremy King

Sept. 25

Documentary Film: Triumph of the Will directed by Leni Riefenstahl (1934)

Sept. 27

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Alan Cowell “Admire Her Art? (Her Camera Adored Swastikas).” New York Times, 21 August 1997, p. A4.

Sontag, Susan. “Fascinating Fascism.” In Under the Sign of Saturn. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980, pp. 73-105. [First published 1975.] Excerpt: pp. 73-98.

Gary Morris, “Lonesome Leni” on the web at:

 http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/26/riefenstahl.html

Oct. 2

Open

Oct. 4

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Introduction to the next unit: (read before class)

George H. Roeder, "Censoring Disorder: American Visual Imagery of World

War II," in Lewis Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch, eds., The War in American

Culture: Society and Consciousness during World War II

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 46-70.

Oct. 9

Break

Lifeboat: Movies as Primary Sources

Mary Renda

Oct. 11

Film: Lifeboat directed by Arthur Hitchcock (1944)

Oct. 16

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Documents (CP)

John Steinbeck, "Lifeboat," Collier's, November 13, 1943.

Darryl Zanuck to Alfred Hitchcock, memoranda dated August 19, 1943 and September 4, 1943, in Dan Auiler, Hitchcock's Notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock (New York: Avon Books, 1999), 129 & 132.

Bosley Crowther, "Adrift in Lifeboat," The New York Times, January 23,1944.

Oct. 18

Intermission

Taking Stock and Looking Forward: Themes and Paper Topics

Glory and the Changing History of the Civil War

Lynda Morgan

Oct. 23

Film: Glory directedby Edward Zwick (1989)

Oct. 25

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Ira Berlin, “Glory Be” (review)

Jim Cullen, “A Few Good Men”

James McPherson, “Who Freed the Slaves?”

Ira Berlin, “Emancipation and Its Meaning in American Life”

Selected letters from black soldiers

Selected letters from Robert Gould Shaw

Oct. 30

Open

Nov. 1

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Men with Guns

Harold Garrett-Goodyear

Nov. 6

Film: Men with Guns directed by John Sayles (1997)

Nov. 8

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

“A Conversation between Eric Foner and John Sayles,” Past Imperfect: History according to the Movies, ed. Mark C. Carnes, pp. 11-29

Godfather, Part II

Dan Czitrom

Nov. 13

Film: Godfather, Part II directed by Francis Ford Coppala(1974)

Nov. 15

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Michael Schumacher, “The Death of Michael Corleone,” from Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life (New York, 1999)

Humbert S. Nelli, “Early Ventures in Syndicate Crime” and “A Summing Up,” from The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (Chicago, 1976)

Walter Lippmann, “The Underworld: Our Secret Servant,” from The Forum 85 (January 1931)

Nov. 20

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Nov. 22

Break

War in Vietnam: Apocalypse Now

Joe Ellis

Nov. 27

Films: Scenes from Green Berets, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Deerhunter, Rambo I, and Rambo II, Monuments of Stone.

Nov. 29

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

“When Trouble Comes”

Dec. 4

Film : Apocalypse Now directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1979)

Frances FitzGerald, “Apocalypse Now,” Past Imperfect: History according to the Movies, pp. 288-291

Dec. 6

Seminar Meeting: Readings and Discussion

Summing Up

Dec. 11

Reflections on the BIG THEMES, or Rewriting Rosenstone

Robert Rosenstone, “History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film, American Historical Review 93 (1988): 1173-1185 (CP)

& Student Presentations

Dec. 13

Reflections on the BIG THEMES, Part II, and Envoi