Upcoming Course Descriptions
Fall 2023
199 Medieval England from the Norman Conquest to Bosworth Field (Routt)
Units: 1 - Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
Medieval England traces English history from the arrival of the William the Bastard of Normandy in 1066 through the end of the Wars of the Roses at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The course examines in detail the intermingling of Celtic, Germanic, Viking, Norman, Latin, and French influences to create the unique medieval English society and culture. Among topics addressed are the Norman settlement, the rise of Common Law, the development of Parliament and the English monarchy, church-state conflict, university life, monasticism, women and family, town and country, the Great Famine, the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, and the Wars of the Roses. The course will also examine depictions of the English Middle Ages in film and other popular culture.
199 How to End an Empire in Africa (Traugh)
Units: 1 - Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
This course explores the history of decolonization in Africa as told by the anticolonial activists who made African independence possible. The course examines 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. We will learn about how to end an empire from the activists themselves. We will read the material they produced in the historical moment: a theory of peasant revolution in Algeria, conferences on African unity in Britain, pamphlets on African socialism in Tanzania, the drafting of the Freedom Charter in apartheid South Africa. The course shows how African activists remade their world as well as the wider international order in the twentieth century.
199 Women in Contemporary Eastern Europe (Kis)
Units: 1 - Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
For decades, women’s rights advocates regarded the Soviet Union and its satellites as model societies of gender equality. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 revealed a different picture. This course surveys the (dis)advantages of state socialism for women, and the opportunities and challenges presented by a transition to democracy and the market economy. Using gender, socialist emancipation and the post- socialist transformation as core concepts and focusing on Ukraine, Poland and Russia as case studies, this course focuses on issues like access to education, participation in the labor market, reproductive rights, state-patronized family roles, political (under)representation, women’s (de)activated citizenship, and reinvented feminist activism. It also pays close attention to the controversial topics of gender-based violence, ubiquitous sexism, shadow-market economy, illegal migration, (un)liberated sexualities and exploitation of women’s bodies. Students will explore these subjects through a variety of textual and visual materials (art, propaganda, schoolbooks, commercials, pop-music, feature movies, legislation, personal testimonies, statistics, etc.) to reveal women as both targets and agents of historical changes.
199 Oral History: Theory and Practice (Kis)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
This course introduces students to major theoretical debates in oral history along with hands-on practical training in the application of this knowledge. Class discussions are based on texts exploring different perspectives on (dis)entanglement of individual memories and collective trauma, (in)equalities in researcher-narrator relations, pitfalls of ethical and legal issues in oral history, etc. Students learn the best practices and basic principles of doing oral history in order to interview methods and techniques suitable for anthropological, historical, and sociological research. Special attention is be paid to challenges of doing oral history in post-totalitarian (including post-soviet) contexts and in societies in/after crisis (war, revolutions, genocides). Students acquire first-hand experience in oral history by conducting their own projects, starting with a thorough project design, followed by field research, primary processing of collected materials and the presentation of research outcomes.
199 US History – topic #1 TBD (name of fantastic instructor we are in process of hiring!)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
199 US History – topic #2 TBD (name of fantastic instructor we are in process of hiring!)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
199 Latin American History – topic TBD (name of fantastic instructor we are in process of hiring!)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
213 Lawrence vs. Texas (Holloway)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
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 Courts opinion.
216 American Culture, 1945-2000 (Sackley)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
Mass Culture. Counterculture. Culture Wars. From Hollywood film and rock ‘n roll to art and intellectual manifestos, cultural forms influenced the turbulent US political and social debates of the post-World War II era. HIST 216 surveys US artists, entertainers, activists, and intellectuals in their historical context. Topics to include: war and society, consumer culture, youth and rebellion, gender and queer history, the Black freedom struggle, ecology, the counterculture, conservatism, and reality TV.
220 Reagan’s America (Yellin)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
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.
222 Hellenistic Greece and Republican Rome (Stevenson)
Units: 1
Investigation of rise of the Roman hegemony in context of the Hellenistic Mediterranean. Special attention given to role of Hellenistic kings.
232 British Business History (Bischof)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
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.
243 Nazi Germany (Kahn)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
An exploration of the rise and fall of the Nazi regime, World War II, and the Holocaust, emphasizing how Hitlers rise to power impacted society, culture, and everyday life in Germany. Topics include: political and economic turmoil; international conflict, militarism, and warfare; the persecution of Jews, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, and other minority groups; the role of women under Nazism; art, architecture, and propaganda; and postwar representations of the Nazi period in museums, monuments, films, and popular culture.
260 Colonial Latin America (fantastic instructor we are in process of hiring)
Units: 1 – Fulfills General Education Requirement (FSHT)
323 Gender and Sexuality in Europe (Kahn)
Units: 1
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.
326 Communism (Brandenberger)
Units: 1
Although most courses on Communism tend to conflate the history of the ideology with 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. In so doing, it examines an array of tracts, manifestos and broadsides from a broad swath of 19-20th century communist movements, from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin to the CPUSA, the WPK of North Korea and the Kampuchean Communist Party, in order to introduce students to key historical and philosophical issues and their fluctuation over tie. A course in intellectual history, it pays special attention to the changing makeup of this supposedly monolithic ideology.
399 Writing the History of a Warming Planet (Traugh)
Units: 1
How do we write the history of a warming planet? This course looks at how historians and other scholars have tried to explain the global climate crisis and other forms of environmental change since the nineteenth century. We will consider scholarly debates about the origins of climate change, about whether humanity or capitalism is to blame for the climate crisis, and about whether humans should be at the center of every history. The course takes a global approach to environmental history, with a focus on the global South. We will read about imperial food systems that stretch from Britain to Argentina, fossil fuels and state-led development in postcolonial India, and the racial politics of conservation in contemporary South Africa. We will also consider how the imperative to combat climate change has shaped the concerns of scholars as they look back on the past and think about the future of the planet.
400 Research Seminar for Majors – Fall 2023 Topic: Environmental History (McCommons)
Units: 1
How do we understand the environment as its own actor in life’s drama? Climate events, changing landscapes, and environmental policies shape the world we inhabit as much as humans do, and new environmental histories are establishing the study of human interactions with the environment as fundamental parts of historical inquiry. This research seminar blends Environmental History with the field of Black Ecologies to engage issues of place, space, landscape, and climate alongside race, class, gender, and disability. By its end, students will develop their own historical interventions by writing a 25-page research paper. The seminar, required for history majors, will guide students through the process of developing an original thesis, finding and evaluating primary sources, and engaging with secondary literature through assigned readings, writing workshops, and individual meetings with the professor. Students will be encouraged to think nationally and internationally as they place the environment at the center of their analyses.
412 Honors Research Seminar (Sackley)
Units: 1
Research and writing of honors thesis in history. Prerequisite: HIST 410 or 411