Courses

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)

Introduction to aims and methods of historical thinking. Through concentrated exploration of a particular historical issue, students develop their understanding of the nature and limits of historical evidence, various legitimate ways of approaching it, and the art of making persuasive claims about it. No more than two History 199 courses may apply to the major or minor. Each course must be on a different topic.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Law/Liberal Arts area 2 (LW2), HIST: North America (HINA), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Survey of colonial history from earliest British settlements to the end of French and Indian War in 1763.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), HIST: North America (HINA), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Study of the War of Independence and formation of the Republic, 1763-1788.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: North America (HINA), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

An exploration of the history of the Early American Republic from the beginnings of the American Revolution through the Ware of 1812 and its aftermath. Examines the beginnings of the United States, with particular attention to the formation of governments, the expansion of wage labor and the domestic slave trade, the implications of settler colonialism for native people, and the nature of politics in the early national period. What were the consequences of the imperial crisis and the American Revolution for the continent’s diverse inhabitants What was the nature of the federal government that Americans created, and how did their definition of “the people” change over time? Particular attention will be paid to the commodification of both natural resources and human beings.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), US history requirement (HIUS), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: North America (HINA), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Explores the history of slavery and freedom in Early America, from the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade to the eve of the Civil War. Pairs primary and secondary sources to ask how historians locate, interpret, and write about slavery’s archive.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)

Examination of slavery, sectional controversy, secession, the war, and the political, economic, and social problems of Reconstruction.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), US history requirement (HIUS), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: North America (HINA)

An examination of US, global, and local history through the lens of tobacco, one of the world’s most significant and revolutionary commodities.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), WGSS Historical Perspectives (WGHP), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: North America (HINA)

Through primary and secondary sources, the course will explore the experiences of African American women in the history of the United States as community members, leaders, organizers, and theorists from the fifteenth through the 20th century.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: North America (HINA)

Introduction of major questions, themes, and events in African American history to understand how African Americans impacted the past and present. It will move from the seventeenth century to the present, centering the perspectives and actions of African Americans during the eras of slavery, Civil War and Emancipation, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, the 1980s and 90s, and into the 21st century.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), HIST: North America (HINA)

Cases decided by the US Supreme Court in the 20th century. Topic areas vary from semester to semester. Emphasizes thinking historically about courts and the law by focusing on the social, political, and cultural context in which cases are brought to the court and the impact of Court decisions on US society.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: North America (HINA)

Historical study of efforts by individuals to act collectively to change political, social, economic, and cultural systems in the modern US.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), US history requirement (HIUS), WGSS Historical Perspectives (WGHP), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), HIST: North America (HINA)

Examines the 2003 US Supreme Court decision that found laws criminalizing private consensual sodomy unconstitutional and the impact of historical scholarship in this landmark decision. In addition to an in-depth examination of the case, topics include the history of sodomy laws, origins of the LGBT movement, the Lavender Scare of the 1950s, and the constitutional theories of liberty and privacy that formed the basis for the Court’s opinion.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), Historical Studies (FSHT), HIST: North America (HINA), US history requirement (HIUS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), WGSS Gender and Violence (WGGV)

An examination, in its historical context, of a famous 1931 legal case in which nine Black teenagers were falsely accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Pol Gov diplomacy/order (GSDW), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: North America (HINA)

Survey of the history of the United States since World War II in transnational perspective. Topics will include the Cold War, the interrelationship between foreign policy and domestic politics, American involvement in the developing world, migration, citizenship, and economic and cultural globalization.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), WGSS Historical Perspectives (WGHP), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: North America (HINA)

Survey of American ideas and culture since the Civil War. Topics will include the "social questions" of the 19th century; visions of the self and society; the role of science and expertise in American life; political debates over freedom and the market; and cultural battles over pluralism and American identity.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Examines the twentieth-century wars that consumed Southeast Asia and remade nations and international politics. While emphasizing the “American” War (1964-1973) and its impact on US politics and foreign policy; also explores the multiple histories, perspectives, and experiences that shaped the conflict and legacies of war in popular culture and national memory.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), Law/Liberal Arts area 2 (LW2), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: North America (HINA)

Survey of United States political and social development in the twentieth century. Topics include immigration and ethnicity, the American labor movement, the New Deal, World War II, urban crises and suburbanization, the postwar civil rights movements, the politics of gender and sexuality, the career of the modern American welfare state, and how all of these movements intertwined and connected to form the political and social the ideas of twentieth-century America.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), US history requirement (HIUS)

Exploration of the connections between work and political, economic, and cultural life in America in the last century, addressing such questions as: How did the meaning of work change for Americans in the twentieth century? How did work generate protests, legislation, electoral triumphs, and political falls from grace?

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), US history requirement (HIUS), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: North America (HINA)

Survey of United States political and social movements in the late twentieth century. Does not focus exclusively on Ronald Reagan himself but rather the time period, the development of new conservatism in America, and the political climate that led to the Reagan Administration. Topics include The Great Society, race and racism, the rightward shift in American politics, second wave feminism and abortion politics, the rise of the "moral majority," AIDs, and welfare reform.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Classics elective (CLEL), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Survey of Greek history from end of the Bronze Age through career of Philip II of Macedon.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Classics elective (CLEL), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Investigation of rise of the Roman hegemony in context of the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Special attention given to role of Hellenistic kings.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Classics elective (CLEL), Italian studies elective (ITEL), European history requirement (HIEU)

Study of how the Romans and their Byzantine followers maintained an empire in the hostile atmosphere of the first five centuries of our era.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), European history requirement (HIEU), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

An overview of the roots of the crusading movement; the ways in which the crusades brought three world cultures (the West, Byzantium, Islam) into contact and confrontation; the vitality of the crusading idea in Western Europe; and how crusades history has moved from a very Christian-centered view to take into account the experiences of those non-Christians who encountered the crusaders.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Classics elective (CLEL), Historical Studies (FSHT), Italian studies elective (ITEL), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Study of Italy from the formation of the communes to the first stirrings of the Renaissance. Emphasis on the development of the commercial economy, differential development between North and South, the emergence of a strong Papal State, and the causes and effects of the Great Plague.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Classics elective (CLEL), Historical Studies (FSHT), Italian studies elective (ITEL), European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Overview of some of the principal social, political, and cultural developments in Europe c. 1000-1300 with special attention to the increasing vitality of urban culture, the varying position of women, the formation of bureaucratic "states," and the emergence of such concepts as romantic love and individualism.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), European history requirement (HIEU)

This course investigates race and immigration in Europe’s past and present—comparing Britain, France, and Germany—from the end of World War II until today.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Italian studies elective (ITEL), European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Overview of the culture, politics, economics, modern science, and overseas expansion of the Renaissance, especially in Italy.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), Historical Studies (FSHT), European history requirement (HIEU)

Survey of British business history from the late eighteenth century until the present with an emphasis on intersections between business history and the histories of society, culture, and imperialism.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): German studies elective (GEEL), European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Survey of the Protestant and Catholic reformations with emphasis on the social, political, and cultural implications of church reform.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: Latin America/Caribbean (HILA)

Explores the reasons behind the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean as well as the experiences of freedom during the wider era of emancipation.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), GS: Eastern Europe/Eurasia (GSEE), GS: Int Econ global power (GSGP), Russian studies elective (RSEL), European history requirement (HIEU)

Political, social, diplomatic, and cultural overview of the fate of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union from the Napoleonic Wars through the end of the Cold War with special focus on nationalism, socialism, Stalinism, and the fall of the USSR.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Exploration of the history of popular belief, witchcraft, and the Enlightenment in early modern Europe, addressing such questions as: How did popular ideas about church reform shape the German Peasants’ War? How do we explain the rise and fall of the European “witch hunts”? What effect did Enlightenment beliefs have upon legal definitions of religious toleration?

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Examination of the growth of the French state under the Bourbon monarchy and the centralizing policies of ministers Richelieu, Colbert and Fleury that saw the expansion of venal office holders and robe nobles as well as the critical counter voices of Enlightenment thinkers and the protests of unruly commoners. How did Louis XIV help to make France a world power? What contributed to its vibrant culture emulated throughout Europe? How did the claims of absolute rule give way to liberal ideas of equality and liberty?

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Embodied Communication (IFEB), European history requirement (HIEU)

Examination of the social, political, economic and cultural aspects of the Revolution of 1789 in France with particular attention to ideas of liberty and equality and their implementation in the early and later, more radical, phases of revolution, ending with the rule of Napoleon as child of the Revolution and Emperor of France.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), PPEL Law-related Area Course (PPLW), WGSS Transnational Perspective (WGTP), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

This course examines the Western concept of Human Rights and how it emerged in an era of revolution. Born of philosophical inquiry, political debates, public protests, and mass uprisings, the claims of political and civil rights for marginalized peoples took center stage for newly declared nations in France, America and Haiti. On what basis were rights claimed? Under what means could equality and liberty be guaranteed to all people? This course focuses on the rights of women, Jews, free blacks and enslaved peoples, drawing on case studies to emphasize how radicals disrupted and disputed prejudice and sought (sometimes violent) change.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), European history requirement (HIEU), WGSS Historical Perspectives (WGHP), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Centers on the lives of two, French, female icons: Joan of Arc and Marie-Antoinette, as a window into the history of early modern women, gender and sexuality. The course also examines representations of these iconic female figures over the centuries in film, plays, portraiture, popular and scholarly literature, advertising, and propaganda.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): German studies elective (GEEL), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), GS: Western Europe (GSWE), European history requirement (HIEU)

Study of Prussia and Germany from 1848 to present. Emphasis on unification, political movements, Nazism, and origins and effects of World Wars I and II.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), Historical Studies (FSHT), German studies elective (GEEL), GS: Pol Gov diplomacy/order (GSDW), GS: Western Europe (GSWE), European history requirement (HIEU), JWST elective group C (JWSC)

An exploration of the rise and fall of the Nazi regime, World War II, and the Holocaust, emphasizing how Hitler’s rise to power impacted politics, economics, society, culture, and everyday life in Germany and across Europe. Topics include: the Nazis’ racial ideology; international conflict, militarism, and warfare; propaganda in film, art, and architecture; the persecution of Jews, Roma and Sinti, Black Germans, LGBTQ people, and disabled people; the role of women under Nazism; postwar justice and memory; and the resurgence of neo-Nazism, Holocaust denial, and far-right extremism today.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Eastern Europe/Eurasia (GSEE), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), European history requirement (HIEU)

An examination of the deployment of propaganda in peacetime and war across the span of the twentieth century through the investigation of a series of case studies and broader theoretical readings. Ultimately, the course attempts to offer a definition of propaganda, an examination of the concept in dialogue with other terms such as ideology, persuasion and public relations, and a broader context-based understanding of the phenomenon over the course of the twentieth- and early twenty-first century.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), European history requirement (HIEU), Russian studies elective (RSEL)

Study of the USSR’s experience with political repression and dictatorship under Stalin between 1917 and the height of the Great Terror in 1936-1938. Topics for investigation include ideology, propaganda, state violence and the most important schools of thought concerning what motivated this bout of bloodletting.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Eastern Europe/Eurasia (GSEE), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), Russian studies elective (RSEL), European history requirement (HIEU)

Examination of Russia in revolution from the attempts at reform in 1905, through the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and the subsequent consolidation of power under Lenin and Stalin. Special emphasis on the nature of "revolution" and questions of agency and contingency.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): European history requirement (HIEU)

An exploration of the rising tides of industrial capitalism and humanitarianism, imperialism and anti-imperialism, nationalism and democracy in Europe between the French Revolution and the outbreak of the First World War. Particular attention will be paid to how radical forms of democracy gave way to authoritarian backlashes while uprisings in the empire reminded imperial powers of just how fragile their rule was.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), German studies elective (GEEL), GS: Western Europe (GSWE), European history requirement (HIEU)

A survey of the history of the first half of what is often called the “long 20th century” (1881-2001) from a variety of subdisciplinary perspectives: political history, social history, cultural history and diplomatic history. Case studies are also examined on the history of gender, race and empire.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), Historical Studies (FSHT), German studies elective (GEEL), GS: Pol Gov diplomacy/order (GSDW), GS: Eastern Europe/Eurasia (GSEE), GS: Western Europe (GSWE), Italian studies elective (ITEL), European history requirement (HIEU)

We often associate the Cold War with propaganda, espionage, nuclear explosions, and the ideological clash between U.S.-style capitalism and Soviet-style communism. But to what extent did these global tensions actually impact the everyday lives of ordinary people on both sides of the “Iron Curtain”? Alongside ideologies, geopolitics, and economics, we will consider how the omnipresent hostility of the Cold War underlay Europeans’ experiences with other vast transformations in the realms of society and culture. Topics include but are not limited to: post-war reconstruction, the consolidation of the European Union, decolonization and neo-imperialism, social movements and activism, gender and sexuality, and immigration and racism.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), Chinese Studies elective (CHIN), Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Asia (GSAS), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Asia (HIAS)

Exploration of the journeys that China, Korea, and Japan took that have resulted in the shape of East Asia as we know it today, examining their long history of interconnection and philosophical, cultural, and political traditions and the different ways they respond to similar issues at the same time.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), Chinese Studies elective (CHIN), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Asia (HIAS)

Study of the several Chinese revolutions that together spanned the better part of the twentieth century and changed China in fundamental ways, with particular focus on the life and work of the main instigator of those revolutions, Mao Zedong.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Chinese Studies elective (CHIN), GS: Asia (GSAS), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Asia (HIAS)

Investigation of the period 1900-1940, during which many aspects of the modern Chinese state and society were established. Includes the emergence of Chinese national identity, Chinese vernacular, and the political ideologies that continue to define China today. Also studies the emergence of a sophisticated urban culture in cities like Shanghai, and radical transformations in the social fabric of Chinese society.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), ALAMEA history requirement (HIAL), HIST: Asia (HIAS)

The “Opium War” of 1839-1841 is the popular shorthand for the first Sino-British War, a pivotal event in modern Chinese history. It is the first war that the China fought with a Western power in the modern era and is commonly cited as the beginning of China’s “One Hundred Years of Humiliation,” a century in which China suffered greatly at the hands of rapacious Western imperialists and which continues to inform Chinese understandings of its place in the world today. This course examines this conflict in detail, while providing an introduction to the field of historical studies.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Asia (HIAS)

Examination of the reign of the Meiji emperor (1868-1912), considered to be the period in which modern Japan emerges, as a loose unifying metaphor for the many radical shifts in Japanese society, politics, and culture that occurred in his time.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Latin America (GSLA), ALAMEA history requirement (HIAL), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: Latin America/Caribbean (HILA)

Exploration of the multiple meanings and impacts of the complex, cataclysmic and often times bloody encounter between conquering Iberians (people from Spain and Portugal), Africans and the indigenous people of the Americas and the development of Latin America colonial societies until their national independence in the early nineteenth century.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), GS: Latin America (GSLA), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: Latin America/Caribbean (HILA)

Introductory survey of Latin American history from independence; focus on the quest for political stability, economic development, and social change.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), GS: Latin America (GSLA), Luso-Brazilian stud. elective (LBEL), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), HIST: Latin America/Caribbean (HILA)

Study of how modern Brazil came to be with special attention to comparative issues in the study of slavery, race, gender, and ethnicity.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), ALAMEA history requirement (HIAL), HIST: North America (HINA)

Explores some of the many histories of the U.S.-Mexico border from 1846 to the contemporary era. Considers: What are borders and borderlands? How have they been created? How are borders artifacts of history and geography? How do borders change over time and what impact does change have on the lives of people? Study of how borderlands shape how centers of national power (e.g. cities, national capitals, etc.) have defined their relation to issues such as sovereignty, immigration, labor, community formation, along with race and ethnicity.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Latin America (GSLA), WGSS Gender and Violence (WGGV), HIST: Latin America/Caribbean (HILA)

Exploration of the socio-political, cultural and economic processes through which gender, sexuality, class, and ethnic/cultural dynamics are interconnected and constructed in Latin America from the colonial era to the contemporary period. Focus will be on the complicated relationships between historically specific ideologies and socio-economic systems of production and domination, and the respective privileged or unprivileged positions of women and men under the colonialist, capitalist, socialist, and neoliberal states of Latin America.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Middle East (GSME), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: Middle East (HIME), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Introduction to the major institutions that evolved under the aegis of Islamic Civilization from the advent of Islam in the early seventh century C.E. through the Mongol invasion in 1258. Since "Islam" in this context encompasses an entire cultural complex, the course will examine religious, political, economic, and social institutions.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), GS: Middle East (GSME), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: Middle East (HIME)

Survey of social, cultural, economic and political history of the Middle East from the late nineteenth century. Examines European imperialism, emergence of nationalism, decolonization, and rise of Islamic political movements.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: Middle East (HIME)

Survey of the history of Ottoman Turkish power from its origins as an obscure band of frontier warriors (ghazis), to its emergence as a world-empire and its eventual collapse in the aftermath of World War I.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), GS: Middle East (GSME), ALAMEA history requirement (HIAL), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: Middle East (HIME)

Focusing on the Ottoman Empire, this is a social, cultural, and political history of the war and the mandate period from 1914-1922. Covers a range of topics, including the experiences of the common soldier, changing gender roles, the home front, public health and disease, famine, ethnic violence, and how the war has been remembered in the post-war years.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), ALAMEA history requirement (HIAL), HIST: Africa (HIAF)

Uses primary and secondary sources to examine the past and the historiography of South Africa, focusing on South Africans’ practices of race, nationhood, and class. The class centers on South Africans’ construction and contestation of ideas of race, civilization, segregation, apartheid, non-racialism and Black Consciousness and ends by examining the new South Africa after 1994, and how South Africans continue to struggle with that complex historical legacy.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Africana Studies Group C (AFSC), GS: Africa (GSAF), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: Africa (HIAF)

Introduction to economic, social, political, and intellectual history of Africa from time of trans-Atlantic slave trade to colonial conquest.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Africa (GSAF), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Africa (HIAF)

Introduction to economic, social, political, and intellectual history of Africa from colonial period to present.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Africa (GSAF), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Africa (HIAF)

This course explores the history of decolonization in Africa as told by the anticolonial activists who made African independence possible. Examining the crucial decades after World War II, when European empires moved to reinvent colonialism in Africa for a postwar world. It looks at how different African activists—from women writers to guerilla fighters—tried to seize the political opening to imagine a new Africa altogether, free from European rule.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Pol Gov diplomacy/order (GSDW), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Survey of British history from the late eighteenth century to the present day, including Britain’s relationship with its empire and the wider world. Topics include social relations during industrialization, imperial crises in Jamaica and India, feminism, the world wars, and the making of the welfare state.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Historical Studies (FSHT), GS: Culture & Comm elective (GSCC), GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), GS: Dev & Change group 2 (GSD2), GS: Int Econ global power (GSGP), HS-Human Perspecitve (HSHP), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Historical examination of modern public health experiences, knowledge, and policy in the Global South. Using case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America in the period from the late 1800s to the present, will examine what biomedicine and public health initiatives have meant to subjects, citizens, physicians, patients, scientists, rulers and activists.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Quantitative Data Literacy (IFQD)

Exploration of how population growth came to be identified and considered a “threat” to the planet. Consideration of writings of Thomas Malthus, a prophet of population limits, and the influence of his ideas through time and around the world: birth control pills in Puerto Rico; sterilization in India; one-child policy in China; development of metrics of population “quality” in the modern insurance industry; demographic change in Africa. Employment of basic demographic tools: standardization for comparing populations, life tables for understanding mortality conditions, and lexis diagrams for analyzing social change.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE)

Examine specialized topics in History, usually centered on a particular theme such as a region, time period, event, or methodology. Topics will vary from semester to semester, as will the Focus Area requirements that courses fulfill for history majors.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)

Examine specialized topics in History, usually centered on a particular theme such as a region, time period, event, or methodology. Topics will vary from semester to semester, as will the Focus Area requirements that courses fulfill for history majors.

Units: 1

Examine specialized topics in History, usually centered on a particular theme such as a region, time period, event, or methodology. Topics will vary from semester to semester, as will the Focus Area requirements that courses fulfill for history majors.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), HIST: North America (HINA)

This course considers changing interpretations of the American Revolution and its legacies over time, from 1783 to the present. We will begin by exploring key moments in which early Americans argued over the meaning of the war in the decades after its conclusion. How have different groups and individuals used war memory for political purposes? We will then examine how historians and the public have clashed over interpretations of the American Revolution in the twentieth century. This course will ask students to consider how people create narratives about the past.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), HIST: North America (HINA)

Comparison of historians' treatments of the Civil War with its portrayal in documentaries, feature films, and literature.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), WGSS Historical Perspectives (WGHP), HIST: North America (HINA)

Thematic exploration of historical issues of identity development and construction in the twentieth-century United States, focusing on such questions as: What do historians mean by "identity"? How do they use categories like race, class, and gender to understand the American experience? How have they approached issues of status, power, and individuality?

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): European history requirement (HIEU), HIST: Pre-1800 (HIPR)

Historical study of the world of work in early modern and modern Europe. Focus on the nature of work itself, how it framed mentalities, created social classifications, informed economic thought, and shaped the political process. Topics include history of wage labor and guilds, early industry from countryside to cities, working class formation, division of labor in industry, and policing labor.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Written Communication (IFWC), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), GS: Western Europe (GSWE), European history requirement (HIEU), WGSS Gender and Violence (WGGV)

Critiques the standard “Great Man” narrative of Modern European history through the lens of gender and sexuality, emphasizing the intersectionality of race, religion, and nationality. Works chronologically from 1750 to the present, exploring topics including: Enlightenment ideas about anatomy and sex organs; feminist interpretations of the French Revolution; marriage and domesticity; masculinity and effeminacy; the relationship between gender and (dis)ability; imperial-era sexual encounters; the policing of prostitution, masturbation, and pornography; early theories of homosexual and trans identities; fascism, sexual violence, and the world wars; and discourses surrounding immigrant sexualities. Includes study of historiography—the changing theories and methods that historians have used to understand the past—and examines how the fields of “women’s history,” “gender history,” “the history of sexuality,” “the history of homosexuality,” and “queer history” have developed from the 1970s until today.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Explores various historical approaches to the topic of food in Europe and the Americas. Introduces a variety of historical methods and theoretical frameworks that inform the history of food and foodways. Topics include New World foods and their adaptation in European diet; the politics of subsistence and provisioning; dietetics, food therapy and public health; culinary literature as a source for social history; the cultural construction of taste and connoisseurship in the realm of gastronomy; and the migration and adaptation of various alimentary regimes in the Atlantic World.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Eastern Europe/Eurasia (GSEE), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), Russian studies elective (RSEL), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), European history requirement (HIEU)

An examination of the historical experience of the USSR or the People’s Republic of China, this course approaches the historical and philosophical issues surrounding the modern communist experience via the work of nearly two dozen major thinkers. A course in intellectual history, it pays special attention to the changing makeup of this supposedly monolithic ideology.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), GS: Western Europe (GSWE), European history requirement (HIEU), IF-Written Communication (IFWC)

Explores what it has meant to be British in the past two centuries as a way of shedding light on contemporary debates over Brexit.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): Chinese Studies elective (CHIN), GS: Asia (GSAS), GS: Culture & Comm elective (GSCC), GS: Complex Problems (GSCP), GS: Pol Gov diplomacy/order (GSDW), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HIST: Asia (HIAS)

Examination of the lingering controversies surrounding the history of WWII in East Asia. The focus is on the intersections of history and memory, and the politics of remembering and representing difficult historical events associated with the war. Issues include the Nanjing Massacre, comfort women, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Battle of Okinawa.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): HCS Law, Phil, Bioethics, Hum (HCSL), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Historiographical examination of such questions as: What is insanity? How do we define the normal and the pathological? Who in society is best suited to determine psychological health and sickness? Can there be sciences of the emotions and sexuality? How do class, race, religion, and gender influence our views of human mental functioning? Can the human mind know itself? How did the sciences of the mind (i.e. psychiatry, psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, psychopharmacology, and the cognitive neurosciences) claim tremendous scientific authority and exert enormous cultural influence at the turn of the twentieth century? A variety of settings will be considered, including continental Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Middle East (GSME), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Examination of major debates in the field of Modern Middle Eastern and Islamic History, exploring what the main approaches and their critiques are, how the field (especially recently) came to be polarized and politicized, and where more fruitful middle ground might be found between these hardened categories. Topics will include Orientalism and its discontents, the rise of political Islam, nationalism, and "civilizational identities." ,br>

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): EVST electives (EVEL), GS: Africa (GSAF), GS: Asia (GSAS), GS: Culture & Comm elective (GSCC), GS: Dev & Change group 3 (GSD3), GS: Pol Gov econ integration (GSEI), GS: Int Econ history/culture (GSHC), HCS Law, Phil, Bioethics, Hum (HCSL), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

How have people sought and fought power by managing the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food? This class will draw on case studies from premodern, colonial, and revolutionary contexts to explore how people in China, India, and Eastern and Southern Africa have connected food with power. We will explore how, in some of these contexts, managing the food supply allowed states, societies, and families to delineate legitimate power, moral rules, and social obligations. And we will examine what happened with scarcity, starvation, and collapse. Exploring both empirical details and ethical commitments, the course will allow us to use History to understand and assess divergent policies, and their implications.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER), GS: Dev & Change elective (GSDC), Law/Liberal Arts area 2 (LW2), PPEL Pol Theory Area Course (PPPT), WGSS Transnational Perspective (WGTP), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT)

Exploration of the ideas, institutions, and social networks around which movements for transnational reform have been built. Students will examine the history of four movements for transnational social reform since the early 19th century: abolitionism, women's rights, anticolonialism, and environmentalism.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): GS: Dev & Change elective (GSDC), GS: Pol Gov diplomacy/order (GSDW), HIST: Comp/Trans/Global (HICT), HIST: North America (HINA)

Seminar examining how the categories of “humanitarian,” “human rights,” and “development” emerged; how they became integral to the work of nation states, multilateral institutions, and NGOs; and how they have shaped local politics and the lived experience around the globe.

Units: 1

Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): American studies electives (AMER)

Introduction to various tools used by historians in their work. Topics covered might include: digital methods, the nature of the archive, quantitative methods, paleography, oral history, genealogy, cartographic investigation, and exhibition design.

Units: 1

Introduction to principles and practices of historical writing. Although some attention is paid to the history of historical writing since classical times, focus will be on contemporary modes of historical writing.

Units: 1

First-time or one-time colloquia on focused topics not covered or not yet covered in the history program.

Units: 1

Required seminar for majors taken in junior or senior year. Investigation of a topic of limited focus culminating in substantial paper based on common reading and individual research in primary and secondary materials. Topics and instructors vary. See departmental Web site for seminar topics. Enrollment limited to 12 students.

Units: 0.5-1

Individually designed reading or research program conducted under faculty supervision.

Units: 0.5-1

Practical history-related work combined with some academic study.

Units: 0

Documentation of the work of students who receive summer fellowships to conduct research [or produce a creative arts project] in the summer. The work must take place over a minimum of 6 weeks, the student must engage in the project full-time (at least 40 hours per week) during this period, and the student must be the recipient of a fellowship through the university. Graded S/U.

 

Approval by a faculty member

Units: 0.5

Preparation of research prospectus for honors research seminar under direction of appropriate faculty.

 

Approval by instructor

Units: 1

Research and writing of honors thesis in history.

Units: 1

Research and writing of honors thesis in history.

 

HIST 412