The central goal of each History 498 senior seminar is for every student to research and write a paper based on substantial primary research. Writing an original research paper can be daunting, but it is an important milestone in your career as an undergraduate history major. This seminar is designed to give you the structure and assistance you need to produce something of which you can be proud.
Each History 498 focuses on a different topic. This one focuses on the history of the Olympic Games during the second half of the twentieth century, during which tensions between the communist and non-communist blocs were at their highest. The rivalries of the Cold War played out on the field, in the pool, and in the gym. International sporting competitions, as George Orwell wrote way back in 1945, constituted “war minus the shooting.” The Olympics are a lens through which we can examine a wide variety of themes that were fundamental to the international history of the twentieth century: ideology, national identity, race, technology, popular activism, the role of the media, the position of women in society, and the relationship between the state and its citizens.
During seven of our ten class meetings, we will discuss primary and secondary source readings about certain key issues in the history of the Olympics during the Cold War. I intend for these discussions to provide important context for your own research project. Through these readings and class meetings, you will get a sense of how historians write about the broader societal and geopolitical implications of the Cold War. I have not designed this course to be comprehensive in its coverage of the Olympics during this time period, but instead to delve deep into a few specific topics. In particular, we will discuss the Soviet government’s support for its ice hockey team, the defections of Hungarian athletes following the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, the sporting rivalry between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, the efforts of the United States to use sports as part of its diplomatic outreach to the non-Western world, the use of performance-enhancing drugs, the ways the international battle over apartheid in South Africa played out within the Olympic movement, and the American-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
For each of these seven class discussions, you will read both one or two short works of secondary scholarship and a small number of primary sources. These primary sources are especially important, since we will discuss how historians can use different kinds of primary sources as evidence in their scholarship. I have assigned you to read primary sources from a variety of genres, including government documents, newspaper and magazine articles, memoirs, and even political cartoons. Depending on the topic you choose for your final essay, you might be able to draw on any of these genres of primary source in your own work.
As in all History Department senior seminars, students who earn a passing grade in this course will also receive a writing credit.