Europe’s Twentieth Century in a World Historical Context:
Empire, Race, and Nation
Spring 2005
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Instructor: Sandra Zito
Email: szito@uci.edu
Office Hours: Monday and by appointment
Description
This course is designed to introduce students to the
political, economic, social, and cultural history of twentieth century Europe
within a world historical context.
The course has been arranged around pertinent themes, problems, and
conflicts that are not only important to understanding the history of Europe in
the twentieth century, but also to help students make sense of the global
political, economic, social, and cultural circumstances that affect their
contemporary everyday lives. This
class is framed around the assumption that twentieth century history of Europe
must be studied in relationship to its colonial, imperial, and capitalist
projects pursued outside of the European continent in the late nineteenth
century. The history of
nation-state consolidation, the two World Wars, the rise of the technocratic
welfare state, the Holocaust, the emergence of the refugee, mass mediated
communicative technologies, and the claims for minority and human rights, are
best understood in relationship to the processes of European imperialism,
racism, and nationalism. For
example, the history of national self-determination and the construction of
sovereign political states based on the idea of a homogenous ethnic, linguistic,
religious, and historical identity is best understood in relationship to
imperialism, global capitalism, and ideas about race. In addition, the emergence of industrialized killing and
racialized violence within the boundaries of the European continent during the
twentieth century must be analyzed with reference to late nineteenth century
European practices of labor, land, and human exploitation in Africa and
Asia. The spatial model of the
city-countryside, metropole-colony, or core-periphery will be used throughout
the quarter to structure our interpretation of the history of twentieth century
Europe.
Goals
Required
Readings
Textbook: Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West: Peoples and Cultures from the Stone Age to the Global
Age
Ruth Kluger, Still
Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, New York, 2001.
Course Packet & E-Readings
Assignments
Attendance & Participation: 20%
2 Papers: 30% (1st paper: 3-5 pages; 2nd
paper: 5-7 pages)
Mid-term Exam: 25%
Final Exam: 30%
Week 1:
Introduction; High Imperialism, Nationalism, and Discourses on Race
Tues: What is “History”? Why study it?
Why “Europe in a world historical context”?; introduction to
world-systems theory; intro to Europe in the nineteenth century.
Thurs: Scramble for Africa, scientific racism,
civilizational discourse and national identity; case studies: King Leopold and
the Congo; the race for Fashoda; Cecil Rhodes.
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 24: 835-850
Cecil Rhodes, “Confession of Faith” http://husky1.stmarys.ca/~wmills/rhodes_confession.html
Rudyard Kipling, The
White Man’s Burden
This pair of readings illustrates how European ideas about
race and the “white man’s burden” and the civilizing mission were put to use in
political rhetoric and poetry.
These readings were chosen as examples of how widespread and pernicious
ideas about race, nation, and imperialism were in Europe. Cecil Rhodes’ text demonstrates how
scientific racism was used to justify British imperialist conquest. Kipling’s poem shows the origin of the
term “white man’s burden” and how justifications for British political
endeavors can be found in cultural and aesthetic expressions, such as
poetry. Also, Kipling’s biography
is significant in that he was a “European” who was born in India, i.e. in the
colonized territory of Britain, showing that ideas and humans were flowing back
and forth between the colony and the metropole.
Week 2:
Eugenics, Colonial Conflicts, Nationalism, and the Road to War
Tues: Eugenics and family planning, fears of social
degeneracy within nation-state and the rise of mass social movements: suffrage
movement, working class movements.
Thurs: Colonial conflict and the lead up to WWI: The Boer
War and the use of concentration camps; jingoism, new media technologies, arms
build up.
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap 25: 853-876
George Orwell, Shooting
an Elephant
Max Nordau, Degeneration,
excerpts
Orwell’s essay illustrates a counter-point to the works of
Rhodes and Kipling. Orwell, like
Kipling was born in a British colony; however, his essay exemplifies an
ambivalent response to British imperialism from a European perspective. It also shows everyday life and
relationships between the colonizers and colonized. Selections from Max Nordau’s text, Degeneration, were chosen to represent how pervasive ideas about
hygiene, eugenics, and fears of social contamination and erosion were in Europe
before the rise of Nazism.
Nordau’s criticism of modern art as social degeneration would later
reappear in Hitler’s Degenerate Art
show. Nordau’s work again
represents the widespread use of Social Darwinist and scientific racist ideas
in Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Week 3:
WWI: Total War, Russian Revolution, Self-Determination, New Geographic Borders
Established
Tues: the Great War in Europe and in Africa; Wilson’s 14
pts; Film excerpt: Black and White in
Color (Noirs et Blancs en Couleur)
Thurs: Russian Revolution; Redrawing Map of Europe;
self-determination for some, not for colonized; responses to mass death
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 26: 876-915
Wilson’s 14 points, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1918wilson.html
George Grosz, excerpts from autobiography on fighting in
WWI
Paper 1
Due
Wilson’s 14 points articulates the idea of nationalist
self-determination, a crucial concept to understanding the history of the
twentieth century. The idea would
be unevenly applied across the globe, in particular, in relation to Europe’s
colonies whose subject populations were deemed incapable of
self-determination. However, as
the century progressed, the idea of national and political self-determination
would mobilize anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, and minority rights movements
around the world. George Grosz’s
autobiography is a useful source for illustrating the horrific effects of WWI
on soldiers. It combines visual
images and written word in a particularly compelling combination. It also demonstrates cultural responses
to mass death as well as the postwar conflicts in Berlin under the Weimar
Republic.
Week 4:
Postwar Cultural and Intellectual Responses
Tues: Postwar economic boom, state planning and scientific
management of labor, rise of the mass culture industry: film, radio, mass
commodities, etc.; more women in the public sphere
Thurs: the Jazz Age and other Americans in Paris, German
Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and the Bauhaus; primitivism and modernism;
avant-gardism as a critique of the culture industry and response to mass death
of WWI
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 26: 915-933
André Breton, Surrealist
Manifesto, excerpts, http://www.seaboarcreations.com/sindex/manifestbreton.htm
Sigmund Freud & Albert Einstein, “Why War?” from
The Einstein-Freud Correspondence
The pair of readings assigned for this week will
demonstrate cultural and intellectual responses to the effects of mass death in
WWI. Aesthetic “avant-garde”
movements were particularly powerful after WWI as a site of political
resistance to the ideas of rationalism that led to ease with which mechanized
and industrialized slaughter occurred.
The critique of rationalism through the valorization of the unconscious
can be culled from the Breton reading.
In the Einstein-Freud correspondence the idea of the unconscious and
irrational impulses that drive aspects of the human psyche is detailed, also as
an attempt to understand the horrific violence of the First World War.
Week 5:
Capitalist Crisis, the Limits of Democracy and the Rise of Fascisms
Tues: the Great Depression, conflicts in the Weimar
Republic and rise of Nazism; Stalinism; Film excerpts: Triumph of the Will;
Degenerate Art show.
Thurs: Mid-term
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 27: 933-954
Ruth Kluger, Still
Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, Part 1 & 2
Ruth Kluger’s Still
Alive is a Holocaust survivor narrative from the perspective of a young
child. It offers undergraduate
students an autobiographical account of Nazi imperialism and racism. Her narrative details all of the
aspects of the rise of Nazism, from the Anschluss, ghettoization to
concentration camps, and concludes with escape and migration to the US (notable
for her experiences of anti-Semitism in New York schools). Kluger’s memoir leaves the reader with
a vivid image of the experience of Nazism for Jews in Austria. It also illustrates how European Jewish
identity was forged through Nazi persecution. This Holocaust memoir shares concepts and ideas with other
such narratives, in particular, it shows how the individual struggles with
moral and emotional ambivalence during genocidal persecution (in this case,
from a young girl’s perspective) and also deals with an issue that continues to
be salient today – questions of morality surrounding the memorialization
of the Holocaust through monuments and museums.
Week 6:
WWII: Race War? Technology, Race, and Genocide
Tues: Lebensraum: race and space or the rise of Hitler’s
empire; Japanese imperialism; racism and the road to WWII; WWII in the global
theatres.
Thurs: the Final Solution and the Holocaust, race,
technology and the rationalization of slaughter, concentration camps to
genocide.
Hunt, et al. The Challenge
of the West, Chap. 27: 954-973
Ruth Kluger, Still
Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, Part 3 & 4
Detlev Peukart, “The Genesis of the “Final Solution” from
the Spirit of Science” in David F. Crew, ed. Nazism and German Society 1933-1945.
Peukart’s essay links the previous themes of the class
– scientific racism, social Darwinism, eugenics, hygiene, and fears of
social degeneration – with the Final Solution and the Holocaust. His text explores the origins of the
Nazi decision to exterminate Jews in relationship to European scientific
practices and discourse. At this
point in the course, students should be familiar with these ideas that
Peukart’s essay will not seem too radical. I hope students will begin to think critically about modern
science and technology in that they are not always a panacea that will cure
social ills, or free populations from political tyranny. In fact, modern science and technology
have been used to justify political tyranny, human exploitation, and racialized
killing. Also, I hope that at this
point students begin to see how ideas, for example, about science, technology,
and race, etc. are not simply abstract idealistic entities but in fact
structure actions and practices which can be at times beneficial and at other times
brutal to humanity.
Week 7:
Cold War
Tues: End of WWII, atomic power, new geographic boundaries
constructed, Nuremberg Trials, UN, international declaration of human rights.
Thurs: Reconstructing Europe, the Marshall Plan, IMF and
the World Bank, development discourse, concept of “three worlds” and superpower
politics, containment of communism.
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 28: 973-992
UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Simone de Beauvoir, The
Second Sex, Introduction, http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/debeauv.htm
Paper 2
Due
This pair of readings will demonstrate how the legal
ramifications post-WWII does not necessarily guarantee universal application of
the law in everyday practice.
Sexual and racial discrimination continue around the globe, despite the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The UN Declaration would nevertheless serve as a basis for political
mobilizations in the second half of twentieth century, such as the civil rights
movement in the US, and feminist, anti-colonial, and immigrant rights movements
across the world. The pairing of
these readings will help students to better understand the readings and lessons
for the final weeks of the class.
Week 8:
Decolonization
Tues: Expansion of welfare state, consumer boom, rise of
youth cultures, music, film, pop art, television.
Thurs: the end of 19th century European empires,
Algerian independence; rise of US imperialism; new migration patterns.
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 28: 992-1006
Frantz Fanon, case studies from The Wretched of the Earth
Kristin Ross, “Hygiene and Modernization” in Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and
the Reordering of French Culture
Film: The Battle of
Algiers
Keeping with the colony-metropole theme of the class, the
Fanon reading illustrates how racist hatred and violence is inscribed on the
psyches of both the colonized and the colonizer. Fanon’s case studies show the everyday effects of racism and
colonial violence on the individual mind and body. The Ross essay continues with the themes of hygiene, purity,
and health in the construction of a national community when threatened by
outside influences – in this case, France with Americanization.
Week 9:
May 68
Tues: Situationist International, mass student and youth
mobilizations, hippie culture, critique of technocratic, militarized, and
racist societies, Prague Spring, May 68; decline of superpower politics.
Thurs: Deindustrialization, rise of information age,
hi-technology, service economy, multi-national corporations; rise of new form
of warfare: terrorism employed in Europe.
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 29: 1009-1038
Guy Debord, Society
of the Spectacle, Chap. 1, http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4
Enoch Powel, “Rivers of Blood” Speech, 1968, http://www.hippy.freeserve.co.uk/rofblood.htm
Guy Debord’s Society
of the Spectacle links back to early twentieth century avant-garde cultural
movements that critiqued both bourgeois society and the mass media (or the
culture industry). It offers
students another case of critical responses to the mass media but this time in
terms of the proliferation of images through television, photography, and film
post-WWII. In addition, Debord’s
essay represents a critique of post-WWI consumer society and social
relations. The Situationist
International movement was also a source of inspiration to May 68 student
mobilizations. The Enoch Power
“Rivers of Blood” Speech ties back to Cecil Rhodes essay “Confessions of Faith”
that was assigned at the beginning of the course. It reveals how racist ideas continue to structure political
relations in Europe, but now in terms of immigration policy.
Week 10:
Collapse of Soviet Communism, Balkans Conflict, Return of the Right
Tues: German reunification, collapse of Soviet communism,
ethnic, racial, and religious violence in the Balkans conflict: internment
camps and ethnic cleansing again.
Thurs: Globalization, neo-fascism
on the rise, anti-immigration legislation and violence; privatization and
dissolution of the welfare state; recap and last thoughts on course.
Hunt, et al. The
Challenge of the West, Chap. 30: 1041-1069
Andrew Herscher and Andras Riedmayer, Monument and Crime: The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo,
Grey Room 01, Fall 2000
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=6&tid=2958
This essay presents the Balkans conflict from a unique
perspective by analyzing the relationship between architecture, war, and
Serbian claims for nationalist and ethnic sovereignty. The themes of racism and nationalism
are illustrated in the essay through the specific targeting and destruction of
architecture associated with ethnic Albanians, such as mosques, marketplaces,
and kullas (traditional stone mansions).
This essay reveals how markers of cultural heritage, particularly
architecture, have become salient sites for racist, religious, and nationalist
violence in the late twentieth century.
5-7 page
paper assignment:
Ideas about race have been used from the late nineteenth
century to the present to organize political, economic, legal, and social organizations
and practices both within Europe and in terms of its relations to others
outside of Europe (most importantly through its colonies). In fact, ideas about race have been
crucial to other important twentieth century political movements, such as nationalism,
imperialism, science, technology, and global warfare. How has the concept of race been used to organize historical
practices throughout the twentieth century? Historical practices include but are not limited to
imperialism, capitalism, nationalism, modernism, warfare, genocide, civil
rights and student movements, immigration, etc. You must discuss how race has shaped and influenced at least
two different political, economic, social or cultural practices. You do NOT need to discuss how race has
influenced all these institutions and processes. In fact, you are encouraged to limit your answer so that you
can concentrate on constructing a convincing argument with specific examples
from primary and secondary sources to buttress your thesis.
Please discuss at least two examples from the twentieth
century: one before and one after WWII.
You must use a primary source from class readings as an initial
departure point for organizing your essay. In addition to using class readings, you are required to
research at least two other sources – primary and/or secondary – to
support your thesis. You may use
novels, film, audio, and visual sources as primary or secondary sources. I strongly urge you to make an
appointment with me to discuss your ideas and sources before you start writing.