Fall 2026

AIHS, FSHT, HILA, HIAL

AIHS, FSHT, HIAL, HIAS

The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (officially known as “The International Military Tribunal for the Far East”), which was conducted between 1946 and 1948, is an important event for several reasons. For the international community, it was a way to hold Japan accountable for its actions in WWII, and to mete out “a stern justice” as punishment for its crimes. For many Japanese people, the trial was a first step in their rehabilitation from a militaristic and ultranationalistic past, a start on their journey to becoming a “democratic” country. This class aims to come to an understanding of not only the trial itself, but also of its significance for Japan and the world today.

AIHS, FSHT, HINA, HIUS

This course considers the methods used by biographers to recover and recount history. It is particularly interested in historical actors from eighteenth- and nineteenth- century American history who are often, but not always, excluded from traditional records. We will explore how biographers write histories of these lives by employing diverse forms of evidence. The course will examine individuals such as Squanto (Wampanoag cultural intermediary), Weetamoo (a female Wampanoag leader), Jane Franklin (sister to Ben), Hannah Crafts (an enslaved woman from North Carolina), Elizabeth L. Van Lew (a Richmond Unionist and abolitionist) and John Henry (semi-legendary nineteenth-century railroad worker), among others. Key questions animating this class include: what lives are worth remembering and memorializing? What is the relationship between society and the individual? How do scholars research and write biographies about hidden figures?

AIHS, FSHT, HINA

In William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! Southerner Quentin Compson’s Harvard roommate asks: “Tell about the South. What’s it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all?” The questions posed by Compson’s Canadian roommate underpin this class. We will explore the history of the American South from its earliest origins in the period of European exploration to the period known as the “New South” ending in the early twentieth century. This discussion-based course is not meant to be an exhaustive study of the region. Instead, we will focus on a variety of topics and themes. Students will consider the separate regions of the South—lowcountry, piedmont, and mountains—and how these areas change over time. A central focus of the course will be the development and changes in Southerners’ thinking about race and racial difference. We will also consider other ways that Southerners identified and organized themselves—by gender, class, religious beliefs, political ideologies, and residence.

MW 10-11:45am & 12-1:15pm | Seeley

AIHS, FSHT, HINA, HIUS, HIPR, AMER

This course will examine the uncertain beginnings of the United States to ask what kind of republic early Americans envisioned and what kind of empire they made. Our conversations will begin in the era of the American Revolution and end in the 1830s. We will range over broad terrain to think about the many ways that the founding of the United States changed life in early North America. We will explore key debates about high and popular politics, slavery and emancipation, Indigenous sovereignty, African American and women’s rights, constitution-making, immigration, and political economy. We will investigate revolutions in religion, science, technology, and sexuality. Many of these foundational debates still reverberate in politics today. At the center of our inquiries will be the question of how early North Americans conceived of the rapid transformation of the lands east of the Mississippi River from Native ground to U.S. states and territories.

AIHS, FSHT, HINA, HIUS, HICT, GSDW, AMER

History 215 examines one of the most transformative half centuries in the history of US engagement with the world: the Cold War. The Cold War was a 45-year struggle between two “superpowers,” the United States and the Soviet Union. It was also a global conflict that enveloped peoples and nations around the world and profoundly influenced U.S. domestic culture, politics, and economics. From contemporary US-Russian relations to conflicts in the Middle East, its legacies reverberate to the present day. Topics will include but are not limited to: the Marshall plan, McCarthyism and Cold War civil rights; the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, the politics of development, détente, and human rights; and US interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, and Central America.

AIHS, FSHT, HINA, IFPE, LW2, AMER

Survey of United States political and social development from the 1920s to the 1960s. 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.

HIPR, HIEU, IFWP, CLEL, ITEL

The crusades are an extremely popular topic for researchers and students. The crusades to the Holy Land lasted from 1095 until 1291, but the movement also encompassed a much wider array of military expeditions. A complex web of factors motivated people to participate in the Crusades, and the Crusading movement developed into a phenomenon which was at the very center of the Medieval world. Focusing largely but not exclusively on the First Crusade, this course examines 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 crusade history has moved from a very Christian-centered view to take into account the experiences of those non-Christians who encountered the crusaders. This course combines short lectures with discussions of primary and secondary texts, such as religious edicts, chronicles, law codes, literary works, saints’ lives, visual art, documentaries and film.

AIHS, HILA, IFPE

With the Abolition Act of 1833, Britain became the first major imperial power to end slavery voluntarily. Why did Britain end slavery, despite the enormous profits it brought? What role did enslaved people play in bringing about the end of slavery and how did they experience the transition from slavery to freedom? How did freedpeople’s understanding of freedom differ from that of plantation owners and missionary-abolitionists? In seeking to answer these questions, we will work towards a deeper understanding of the history of race, imperialism, gender, capitalism, religion, and humanitarianism in the British Caribbean during the era of emancipation.

AIHS, FSHT, HICT, IFPE, PPLW, WGTP, GSSE

A focused examination of human rights across the Revolutionary Atlantic World, 1770-1830. This class pursues questions of political and civil rights for marginalized and enslaved people in Europe and the Americas. What is the relationship between a declaration of rights and the revolutions that accompanied them? On what basis were rights claimed and for whom were they established? What conditions limited the enfranchisement of certain groups? How did they respond? In answering these questions, we will pay close attention to the cultural history and political contestations among three social groups: 1) European Jews, 2) French, British and American women, and 3) the free and enslaved blacks of the French Caribbean. The course will include a one-day class excursion to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Transportation and lunch will be provided by the Center for Civic Engagement.

AIHS, FSHT, HIAL, HIAS, CHIN, GSAS, GSHC

What is the history of the region we know today as East Asia? The course explores the history of deep interconnection and exchange between the three countries. In addition to learning about the modern histories of these three countries, we will pay special attention to how this history of connection – which does not preclude the different ways in which each country responded to challenges – is directly related to the issues that affect East Asia today.

AIHS, FSHT, HIAL, HILA, GSLA, AMER

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.

AIHS, FSHT, HIAF, IFPE, GSAF, GSHC, SLPA

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

AIHS, FSHT, HICT

Modern states and mass movements often use history in order to mobilize social support and public opinion. “Patriotic Histories” examines the instrumental use of the past by a variety of modern political actors in countries such as the US, Great Britain, Russia, China and Japan. Course participants examine and then ultimately build upon these case studies at the nationalist intersection of political campaigning, public education and mass culture.

AIHS, FSHT, HIEU, GSWE, GSDW, JWSB

How did Hitler turn democracy into dictatorship? How did the Holocaust happen? How did ordinary people become mass murderers? And how can we explain the resurgence of far-right extremism and neo-Nazism in Germany today? We will begin by reading key theoretical texts about the concept and definitions of fascism. We will then explore Hitler’s rise to power, showing how the Nazi police state controlled everyday life, suppressed opposition, spread propaganda and misinformation, and built a cult of personality. Next, we will examine the violence and ultra-militarism of World War II and the Holocaust, along with the persecution of multiple victim groups: Jews, Roma and Sinti, Black Germans, queer people, and disabled people. Finally, we will turn to the postwar period, focusing on de-Nazification, justice, memory, and the resurgence of neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial today. Throughout the whole course, we will pay special attention to the strategies that ordinary people used to resist and survive fascist rule, even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

AIHS, FSHT, HIEU, GSSE

Even today, European attitudes toward sex can be very different than those of Americans. And in the past, they were even more different than our contemporary perspectives and identities. For instance, this class will explore how the ancient Romans saw sexuality as dominance, and how the early Christians defined sex as original sin. The Enlightenment also examined sex in new scientific ways. Queer subcultures emerged in cities, and lesbians used coded languages to communicate desires. Imperialists imposed western definitions on trans people in colonial contexts. In the 20th century, revolutionary regimes wanted to change sexual cultures; the Nazi regulation of sex as part of its racist regime. Today, issues of sexuality are entangled in present-day debates over immigration. We will examine historians’ and theorists’ arguments about different approaches to sexual ethics, and test them by reading primary sources to see how people thought about these questions during their own eras.

HICT

The Black Power Movement in the United States shaped and was shaped by social movements for Black liberation in other parts of the world. This course examines the international roots and routes of Black Power activism during the 20th century. It will introduce students to the history of Black Power through the people, places, and organizations that shaped this global movement. By the end of the course, students will have a deeper knowledge of the events that comprise Black Power’s global history and its connection to present-day manifestations.

HIEU, HIPR

This course examines significant scholarship and debates about medieval and renaissance history—mostly in western Europe, 500-1500 but also beyond “the West”. Topics will include: Periodization in pre-modern history The dark ages? "Feudalism" The discovery of women Frontier societies and alterity Plague and recovery (and the twenty-first century pandemic) Discovery of a global middle ages Memory and perception Political uses of the medieval and renaissance past Medieval history and Medievalism.

HINA, HIUS

This course will explore the history and public history of two U.S. cities—Richmond and Philadelphia. Setting the two cities side-by-side is illuminating. They have very different histories of preservation—choices that are a result of their divergent experiences before and after the Civil War. Philadelphia has celebrated and preserved the historical landscape of the American Revolution, while Richmond’s public memory long centered on the Civil War and was rooted in the backlash to Reconstruction. Both cities have been capitols—one of the new United States and the other of the Confederacy. Both cities have an outsize importance in nineteenth-century African American history—one as an abolitionist center and the other as one of the most significant sites of slavery and the domestic slave trade in the country. What do these divergent histories tell us about the way that each city has imagined its place within the nation? What has seemed worthy of preservation in both cities over time, and what does that suggest about the construction of the past in both places?

 This course includes a fully funded trip for all students to travel to Philadelphia to visit historic sites there for three days in October. We will also spend class time visiting Richmond museums, monuments, and cemeteries. For students interested in professional development, we will work with multiple Richmond and Philadelphia history professionals from a variety of fields.

HIME, IFWC

This research seminar explores the intersection of colonialism, nationalism, and decolonization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since the mid-nineteenth century. We will examine the transformative forces that shaped the modern Middle East, such as the decline of regional imperial structures, the imposition of European colonial rule, and the rise of nationalist movements. The first part of the course introduces foundational scholarship and theoretical frameworks, especially those on nationalism. For the remainder of the semester, we will work towards our primary goal of writing a substantial research paper that draws on primary sources to deeply investigate the region’s past.