Required for All Majors:
HIST 21300 - The Historian's Craft
Designed to introduce history as an academic discipline. It offers students an intensive introduction to research skills and the principles and methods of historical analysis. Helps students enhance their critical reading and writing skills while increasing their understanding of the nature of historical inquiry. Required for all history majors who declare a history major beginning in Fall 2015 and thereafter.
Electives:
The Americas:
HIST 24000 - The United States: From Its Origins to 1877
The major theological and social conflicts of 17th century English colonies; the political and ideological process that defined an American identity; the social and economic forces that shaped the early Republic; the nature and the regional conflicts that culminated in civil war.
HIST 24100 - The United States: Since 1865
Examines the social conflicts that accompanied the transformation of the United States from an agrarian republic and slave society to one of the most powerful industrial nations in the world. Particular attention will be paid to the building of new social and economic institutions and to cultural and visual representations of the nation and its people.
HIST 28000 - Latin America in World History
A historical introduction to the cultures and societies of Latin America and the Caribbean from the Pre-Colombian era to the present and their place in world history.
HIST 28100 - Colonial Latin America
A study of the impact and meaning of colonial rule in Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing on the interaction between European goals and institutions, and indigenous American and African strategies of socio-cultural survival.
HIST 28200 - Modern and Contemporary Latin America
Contemporary economic, social, and political problems of Latin America and the Caribbean studied in historical perspective. Themes include: foreign economic and political interventions; labor systems and patterns of land ownership; class, ethnic, and racial relations; the politics of reform, revolution and authoritarianism.
HIST 31088 - History of U.S. Immigration
HIST 31089 - African-American Cultural and Political History: 1915-1945
HIST 31130 - Asians in Latin America
This course will offer an overview of the history and & cultures of Asian immigration and community building in and into Latin America & the Caribbean from the 16th century to the present. Topics include: the strategies of resistance & accommodation; community formation and their links and interactions with broader Asian diasporic communities; the impact of Asian immigrants on national, racial, and class formation; and the re-migration of Latin Americans of Japanese descent (dekasegi) to Japan of the last decades.
HIST 31137 - The Cold War
Examines the Cold War from a U.S. and international perspective, using some of the newest literature to show that the it was not simply a contest between the superpowers, mostly centered on Europe, but that the Cold War was global and connected to developments in the Third World. The course will focus on major events and interpretations, drawing on newly available materials from both Eastern and Western archives. Requirements include a 10-15 page research paper.
HIST 31146 - Affluence and its Discontents
This course examines, first, the emergence and development of a consumer culture in the US during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and, second, the struggles waged during the middle decades of the 20th century over access to the fruits of a consumer-based economy, and over what shape that economy should take.
HIST 31151 - United States During World War II
This course will examine United States intervention in the Second World War, including the military theaters in Europe and the Pacific, the war's impact on the home front and diplomacy, and its contributions to the origins of the Cold War.
HIST 31155 - Documenting Anti-Gentrification in Harlem
HIST 31165 - Crime & Policing in America
HIST 31170 - Environmental History of Latin America
This course will offer a survey of the history of the mutual interaction between human society and Latin America’s diverse ecological environments from pre-colonial times to the present. Among other topics the course explores: the relationship between pre-colonial societies and their environments; environmental consequences of European conquest and colonization; impact of immigration and export economies on nature; globalization, sustainable development and intercultural clashes over the environment.
HIST 31180 - Controversies in U.S. History
HIST 31184 - Blacks and Native Americans: Comparative Histories
HIST 31186 - Latin America & The Cold War
HIST 31187 - History of Cuba
HIST 31194 - Slavery & Antislavery in the United States
This course examines the conflict over American slavery from its genesis in the colonial period through the final abolition of slavery in the Civil War. Particular attention is devoted to the regional diversity of slavery, the moral and political arguments against enslavement, and the role of slave resistance in abolition.
HIST 31195 - Dominican Heritage: Trujillo to the Present
HIST 31196 - US Immigration Since 1870
HIST 31199 - The American Civil War in Global Perspective
HIST 31208 - The U.S. Since Watergate
HIST 31255 - American Religious History
HIST 31346 - U.S. Civil Rights Movement
The course will analyze the Black freedom struggle and its impact on US society, focused on the years 1945-1972. Topics include: urbanization and migration; strategic debates within the movement; the Cold War context and anti-colonialism; the role of leadership; and the transition to Black Power.
HIST 31447 - Era of Détente
This is a research seminar on the Era of Détente, the period during the Cold War marked by prolonged absence of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Students will spend the bulk of the semester writing a primary-based research paper on one aspect of Détente. The course will also attempt to define Détente and evaluate its policy implications. Students will study the origins of Détente and its evolution over time and in different international contexts. The course will begin by examining early efforts at Détente in the late 1960s, continue through the successes of the Nixon administration and the challenges faced by Presidents Ford and Carter, and finish with the advent of the "new Cold War" in the first years of Reagan's presidency.
HIST 31617 - US/Mexico Relations from Revolution to Globalization
The course will explore the relations between the two countries from the early 20th century to the present. The course will take a broad historical approach considering labor organization, migration, political activism, artists, and borderlands peoples as equally important as governments in the making of the relationships between both countries.
HIST 31824 - History of Human Rights
The course explores the historical origins and development of human-rights thinking and politics in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe by analyzing the intellectual, legal, and political background of the concept of human rights. To begin, the course seeks to understand how and why humanity as a whole came to be valued in the West, and then asks: how did the slowly developing worldview of humanitarianism conceive of human beings and their treatment.
HIST 32100 - Early America: From Settlement to the Great Awakening
This course examines the formation of early American society on the Atlantic seaboard. Particular attention is given to the establishment of four distinct regional socio-political cultures in New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake, and the Deep South. Other topics include the impact of European settlement and trade on Amerindian life and culture, the emergence and rise of slavery, and the role of women and the family in early American society.
HIST 32200 - The Era of the American Revolution
This course details the causes, events, and consequences of one of the first and most important revolutionary movements of the Enlightenment. Particular attention is devoted to the social and political causes of the uprising, as well as its cultural meaning for the different participants on the American scene.
HIST 32300 - The New Nation, Slave and Free
Republicanism and the democratization of politics, industrialization of an American working class, social reform and the making of the middle class, westward expansion and the removal of Native Americans, sectional conflict and slave culture.
HIST 32400 - The Era of Civil War and Reconstruction, 1840-1877
The causes and consequences of the American Civil War, focusing on the reasons for sectional conflict, emancipation, the role of Abraham Lincoln, the conflict over Reconstruction and the new status of emancipated slaves.
HIST 32501 - The Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1877-1920
The political, economic, and social phases of the development of the United States from Reconstruction to the First World War. Populism and Progressivism; the industrialization of society and emergence of the labor movement.
HIST 32600 - The US from 1914-1945
The course examines the shifting patterns of political, economic, cultural and social developments in the United States from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II, with a particular focus on America and WWI, the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, and the New Deal, Roosevelt's leadership, WWII, and the beginnings of the Cold War.
HIST 32700 - The US Since 1945
This course will analyze the main political, social, and economic events shaping the United States during this period and try to explain the key political/economic change during these years: the transformation of a country employing an activist Keynesian economic policy and belief in government action to rectify social and economic ills to one espousing market or neo-liberal principles.
HIST 36100 - The Writing of American History
The aim of this course is to study selected writings of major American historians who have thought perceptively and written eloquently about the past. Readings will stress ideas that have challenged, and continue to challenge, thinking people.
HIST 36300 - African-American History to Emancipation
We will explore the history, memory, and representation of enslavement and abolition in the United States. The key questions we are posing are: how do we recover the unrecoverable and how do we remember the “unrememberable?” We will consider the history of enslavement in the Atlantic World, its legacies in the United States, the gaps in our knowledge, the global trauma of Atlantic World Slavery, and contemporary and contemporaneous representations. Key themes include: the formation of the Atlantic World, enslavement, the transatlantic slave trade, slavery in the United States, the formation of African American cultures, the emergence of race and racism, resistance and rebellion, abolition, emancipation, and the meaning of freedom.
HIST 36500 - African-American History from Emancipation to the Present
The post-slavery experience of African-Americans: the creation and destruction of a black peasantry, the growth of a black working class, and the resulting change in black politics and culture.
HIST 36600 - U. S. Women's Movement
This course traces the linkage between women's roles in U.S. society and their activism to achieve women's rights.
HIST 37000 - American Legal History
This course examines key constitutional and legal conflicts in the 19th- and 20th-century United States in order to understand the role of law in American life and the social and cultural meaning of the law in American history. Topics include slave law, property law and economic change, the law of husband and wife, race and the Constitution, the persistence of the 14th Amendment, and the problem of legal ethics.
HIST 37500 - U.S. South
Explores the historical characteristics of the South and relates the experience of the region to that of the US as a nation.
HIST 37600 - Women of the African Diaspora
This course will provide a historical background to the various contemporary situations and problems peculiar to women of the African diaspora. It will study marriage, family, religious practices, politics, business, and work.
HIST 37800 - American Liberalism
This course surveys the strange career of liberalism in the United States. How could liberalism simultaneously be so popular as to define the "consensus" of American political opinion and yet so unpopular that it could be used as effective political slander? How could liberalism encompass both Gilded Age laissez-faire economics and New Deal bureaucratic governance? How could Ronald Reagan be described as both the ultimate American liberal and the strongest critic of liberalism in US history? Drawing from primary source readings on politics and social thought, as well as historians' accounts of liberalism's transformations from the Revolutionary era to the 1980s, this course aims to unravel these questions and to provide a contextualized understanding of the nation's central political creed.
HIST 44000 - Labor, Technology, and the Changing Workplace
Technological change has a profound impact on both work and society. This course explores the meaning of these changes for workers, their unions, and consumers. Questions related to resistance, progress, and how new technologies are shaped are the main concerns of the course. Various issues and historical landmarks that pertain to the changing workplace; social and individual costs and benefits of technology; and, work restructuring and how unions respond to change will be examined.
HIST 44100 - The History of American Labor
Focuses on the period since 1850. Discusses industrialization and the worker, immigration, the impact of social reformers and radicals. Considerable attention to the labor movement, which is viewed within the broader context of American society.
HIST 44400 - US Women's History
Throughout US history, women have voiced their need for equal rights and equal opportunities. This class will examine in-depth the following women's rights movements and the conditions which inspired women to organize them: the antislavery, woman's rights, suffrage, civil rights and feminist movements. Students will do research into other areas such as labor organizing, politics, reproductive rights, philanthropy, charity, self-help, etc.
HIST 44800 - American Urban History
Economic, social, and physical development to the present. Merchant, industrial, and corporate stages of urbanization and their distinctive architectural expressions. Slides and walking tours to examine urban forms and spatial arrangements. Major objective is analysis of physical consequences of market decisions.
HIST 44900 - Power, Race, and Culture: The History of New York City
This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary study of American culture through an examination of New York City--its history, literature, and culture. Students will examine the historical and cultural context of New York as a center of migration and immigration and power, as a cultural capital, and as an arena of racial, ethnic, and religious traditions and conflicts.
HIST 45000 - American Foreign Relations
Explores American foreign policy during the 20th century using primary and secondary historical sources, as well as novels and films. Among topics to be addressed are the War of 1898, World Wars I & II, the Cold War, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars; the shifting equilibrium between isolationism and interventionism; the impact of foreign policy of nuclear weapons; and domestic politics and culture.
HIST 45100 - Comparative Slavery
Slavery, a relationship in which one held property in another's person, existed in many societies, ancient and modern. By examining the role of slavery in various cultures over time, characteristics useful in understanding the development of New World slavery will be explored. The course will begin with slavery in ancient civilizations (e.g., Greece, Rome, Africa), and then examine the New World societies created after 1492. Finally, the sources and character of emancipation and abolition will be considered.
HIST 47700 - The Vietnam War and U.S. Society
The Vietnam War presented in two ways: first, as several wars within Vietnam, including civil, revolutionary, and anti-colonial; second, as a war between the U.S. and Vietnam and its resulting conflicts within the U.S. Topics include: Vietnam before US involvement, US diplomatic involvement in Vietnam, the military aspects of the war, various Vietnamese points of view, relations between US military men and indigenous women, and the anti-war movement, as well as the cultural expressions of the war, including music, films, and art.
HIST 48100 - Power and Resistance in Latin America
This course analyzes the history and culture of recent indigenous insurgencies in Latin America. Focuses on the interplay between historical memory, subaltern organization, and anti-systemic politics in the formation of cultures of resistance. Topics include struggles for land, autonomy, and citizen’s rights among indigenous people in Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala; movements of Afro-descendants for equal rights and cultural recognition of Cuba; and recent popular resistance to free trade and globalization in Chiapas (Mexico) and Bolivia.
HIST 48200 - Women and Gender Relations in Latin America
This course examines three broad themes in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean; colonial foundations of patriarchal relations; gender ideology and nation building; and gender transformations within the context of revolution and globalization.
Asia, Africa, and the Middle East:
HIST 21003 - Africa Before 1500
Course will examine such early civilizations as the Axum, Nubia, Jenne-jeno, Ile-Ife, central African rain forest societies, Swahili towns, and Great Zimbabwe. Close attention will be paid to how mobility, technological innovation, environmental management, and cross-cultural interaction have shaped African history.
HIST 23700 - Asia and the World
The major factors that have shaped the Asian countries and peoples; geography, civilization, migration, and settlements of ethnic groups; philosophies, religions, historical events, leaders, and modern political and socioeconomic institutions.
HIST 23800 - The Middle East in Global History
Introduction to Middle East history and politics in global perspective. Emphasis on historical connections to world regions such as South Asia, North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Topics of study include legal cultures; migration; imperialism; diplomacy; political economy; and the impact of technological, political, and cultural revolutions on Middle Eastern peoples and diasporas across time.
HIST 25100 - Traditional China
The early formation of the Chinese state, the intellectual foundation that has sustained its long history, the shaping of the Confucian way of life, and the cultural sophistication and its decline on the eve of the modern world.
HIST 25300 - Modern China
This course surveys three-and-a-half centuries of modern Chinese history. It will cover major political, economic, cultural, and intellectual developments and changes from the late Ming Dynasty to the end of Nationalist rule in Mainland China. Change and continuity in the Chinese tradition across the 19th and 20th centuries, the encounter with the West, social and political disruptions, efforts to industrialize, and especially the evolution and outcome of the Chinese revolution will be stressed. A goal of this course is to provide students historical background to better understand China's contemporary triumphs and frustrations through the mirror of history.
HIST 25400 - Traditional Japan
Japanese history from its origins to the 19th century, i.e., the "classic" Heian period, "medieval" Kamakura to Sengoku periods and the "early modern" Tokugawa world. Topics include: Japan's contacts and borrowings from other civilizations especially China; Shinto and Buddhism; women and the family; the rise and transformation of bushi or warriors; artistic traditions.
HIST 25500 - Modern Japan
Survey of the building of the modern Japanese state, society and economy from 1868 to the present, with focus on continuity and change, the social costs of rapid industrialization and the emergence of Japan in the global economy.
HIST 26200 - The Middle East Under Islam
The rise of Islam and Arab conquests of the Middle East and North Africa through the Crusades and Mongol invasion. Covering the period between 600 to 1500, we will focus on politics, culture, and society.
HIST 26300 - Traditional Civilization of India
The history and culture of Indian civilization before modern times; major emphasis will be on its formation and classical age, its continuity and change, and the coming of Islam.
HIST 26400 - Modern India
Surveys the elements which have shaped the characteristic institutions of India; the disintegration of the Mogul empire and the rise of the British to dominance; political, economic, cultural, and social developments during the British period and the changes wrought by the republic.
HIST 27600 - Africa and the Modern World
A social history of Africa from the 19th century to the present, with emphasis on state formation, the impact of the slave trade, and resistance to colonialism.
HIST 27700 - Africa Since Independence
Examines the diverse and complex history of sub-Saharan Africa from the 1960s to the present. Themes will include the rise of the post-colonial state, legacies of colonialism, ideologies of development, globalization, as well as questions relating to ethnicity, race, class, and culture.
HIST 31005 - Modern Pakistan
HIST 31007 - History without Documents
HIST 31008 - British Empire in Film
HIST 31009 - History of South Africa
HIST 31087 - Battle Cry for Freedom
HIST 31132 - The Long Partition: India & Pakistan
The course will explore the historiography of the partition of British India into two (and subsequently three—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) nation-states. It will analyze the multiple scholarly positions that have sought to understand it, and even consider popular media representations of the event. This is a seminar course, with heavy emphasis on readings, discussions, and scholarly writing.
HIST 31149 - The Ottoman Empire
This course introduces students to one of the longest-lived empires in world history, and examines its rise, consolidation, and transformation from the 14th through the 20th centuries. It covers the major contours of Ottoman political and social history, the empire's historical relationship to Europe, and its important legacy in the modern Middle East.
HIST 31176 - War in Modern East Asia
HIST 31177 - Mughals of India
HIST 31178 - Japanese-Chinese Relations
HIST 31182 - Gandhi and Civil Disobedience
HIST 31190 - Pilgrimage and the Making of the Islamic World
The act of pilgrimage in the Islamic world takes many forms and includes many destinations beyond Mecca. This course focuses on various forms of religious journeys at the local, regional, and trans-national levels and their role in the formation and expansion of political, social, and economic networks that have contributed imaginings of a worldwide Islamic community. Course themes will include the rituals and meaning of the hajj and "lesser" pilgrimages such as shrine visits; shared traditions and contested holy sites; attempts to define what constitutes an "orthodox" religious journey; and the politics of regulating pilgrimage.
HIST 31197 - The Afghan War
HIST 31198 - Professionals in Africa
HIST 31253 - History of Egypt
This course covers aspects of modern Egyptian history through the eyes of contemporary observers. It will touch on such topics as the French invasion, efforts to build an Egyptian empire, British occupation, the struggle for independence, the emergence of Islamist and other political movements, and the Arab Spring. We will read a variety of primary texts, setting them in historical context.
HIST 31329 - Modernism in India
In postcolonial India modernism as a doctrine made particular sense because of its social and moral imperatives, its international application, and its promise of material progress for maximum number. The course explores how the personal and architectural philosophies of LeCorbusier and Louis Kahn contributed to transforming India from a colonial state into a modern state. Readings/visual/discussions/guest speakers (where possible)/term paper.
HIST 31367 - Afghan War in Film
HIST 31448 - Social & Political History of the Middle East
Introduces students to new approaches to Middle East history, focusing on Ottoman Istanbul, Egypt, and Syria; Qajar Iran; and post-WWI mandates. The course considers the impact of modernity on ordinary people, specifically how they experienced political and legal reform; integration into the world economy; sectarianism, nationalism, and colonialism; and the transition from empire to nation-state.
HIST 31725 - People's Republic of China
This course will examine the history of China since its foundation, a period that was full of eventful changes with far-reaching domestic and international impacts. It will cover major events such as the Korean War, the Great Leap Forward campaign, the Sino-Soviet rift, the Cultural Revolution, the Sino-US rapprochement, and most importantly the post-Mao economic reforms and related social, political, cultural, and environmental changes. Understanding these transformation is important because they present fresh challenges not only to China but also to the world.
HIST 31926 - India After Gandhi
In 1947, Indian independence from British rule came at a high price: first, the subcontinent was partitioned between two nations—India and Pakistan—and the following year Gandhi was assassinated. This course will examine how the new state saved its sovereignty, promoted democracy, and, sixty years later, emerged as an economic miracle of the new century.
HIST 33350 - Twentieth-Century China
This course will examine China's revolutionary changes in the last century. In particular, it will focus on major events from the Boxer uprising and the 1911 Revolution to the Cultural Revolution, the evolution of Sino-U.S. relations, and the post-Mao economic reforms and related social and political changes.
HIST 33450 - China's "Cultural Revolution," 1966-1967
This course will help students to understand the origin, development, and consequences of the movement through the examination of key events, careers of major political players, and the life of average participants of the Cultural Revolution. It will also consider the source, difficulties, and prospects of the ongoing reforms in China.
HIST 33550 - Japanese Society since WWII
This course will look at changing dynamics of Japanese society since 1945, with some emphasis on Japan today in contrast to the United States. Topics include: dynamics of family and work life, popular culture, education, women's roles, major political and ethnic/regional issues, challenges of globalization, urban cultures, Japan's issues with terrorism, and Japan's status in Asia.
HIST 33700 - China after Mao, 1976-Present
Examines the development of China since 1976, covering eventful changes such as economic reforms, Sino-Vietnam border war, Sino-US and Sino-USSR relations, Mainland /Taiwan relations, protests in China, the return of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as related social, political, cultural, environmental changes and their far-reaching impacts.
HIST 33800 - Islamic Political Movements
HIST 34450 - The Modern Middle East
This course will introduce students to the history of the Middle East, including the region from North Africa to Afghanistan, in the 19th and 20th centuries. Central themes include modernizing attempts by the Ottoman and Qajar Empires in the fact of European encroachment; transition from empire to nation-state; the role of religion in politics; Arab nationalism and the role of tribes and oil in state formation.
HIST 35400 - Cities in the Mediterranean World
Examines cities across the Mediterranean world, focusing on politics and society, cosmopolitanism, architecture, trans-regional migration, communal organization, and political and economic relations with hinterlands and metropoles. It considers a range of cities in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa from the 16th Century to the modern era.
HIST 37600 - Women of the African Diaspora
This course will provide a historical background to the various contemporary situations and problems peculiar to women of the African diaspora. It will study marriage, family, religious practices, politics, business, and work.
HIST 45400 - Science and Technology in China
A survey of the scientific and technological developments in China from ancient times to the present. The course covers not only the great Chinese inventions and the decline of Chinese science and technology and its consequences, but also more recent achievements and their relation to developments elsewhere in Asia and around the world.
HIST 46600 - The Japanese Empire in the 20th Century
This course will examine Japan's modern history by considering historical work that reexamines the period of the Japanese empire, 1895-1945. Topics will include the dynamics of colonial culture, issues of gender and marginality, and emerging debates on wartime responsibility and memory.
HIST 46700 - The Pacific War, 1931-1945
This course will explore significant milestones and issues of both U.S. and Japanese societies during the course of the Pacific War. Our focus will be on the human experience and changes that came to both societies as well as contemporary issues regarding the contested memory and responsibility of many aspects of the war. Topics include: the nature of the Japanese empire and its conquest of Asia, beginning in 1931; the China war; US involvement after Pearl Harbor; US domestic responses during the war, including Japanese internment; the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere; the Japanese people and the war; the war's end; the US occupation of Japan; decolonization across Southeast Asia after the war.
HIST 46800 - Architecture in Modern India
This course will explore the traditional (Hindu and Islamic), colonial, and modern representations of Indian architectural traditions of India. Central themes include: the political manipulation of architecture in different periods and its social and cultural influence in modern India.
HIST 46900 - Indian Cinema and Popular Culture
This course will explore the social impact of Indian cinema and the making of the new culture of Bollywood. Central questions include: how has Indian cinema influenced social change? What has been its social and cultural impact in modern India?
HIST 47000 - Religions of India
This course will explore the many religious traditions of India, including the dominant Hinduism, along with Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. Central themes include the origins of each religious tradition; the philosophical underpinnings and the historical growth of each religion; and the social and political conflict/accommodation of multiple religious traditions in modern India.
HIST 47100 - Pakistan: Religion, Military, and the State
This course will explore the complex ties between religion, politics, and the military, while tracing the circumstances of the creation of Pakistan in 1947 out of British India. Central themes include how Pakistan was created and how the military usurped power.
HIST 48500 - Women & Gender in the Middle East
This course surveys the history of women and gender in the Middle East from the rise of Islam to the spread of contemporary Islamic political movements. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which religion shapes women's lives as well as the ways in which women shape religion, women's roles in political and social movements, gendered economic activities, and male-female relations.
HIST 48600 - Arab-Israeli Conflict
This course looks at a century of struggle between nationalist movements that have vied for control of the same territory. In the first fifty years, the conflict was more-or-less contained in territory under Ottoman and then British jurisdiction. In the second fifty years - from 1948 - the conflict widened as wars erupted every decade. The course considers the political, socio-economic, and cultural ramifications of the struggle.
HIST 48800 - History of African Nationalist Thought
A historical treatment of African nationalist thought with special emphasis on the social movements and processes that stimulated the ideological development of the nationalist leaders. Readings will include the writings of these leaders.
HIST 48900 - Power & Consciousness in South Africa
The main objective of the course will be an exploration of the characteristics of settler-colonialism, its impact on the African societies of the region, and the efforts of dominated groups to reform and transform the social order of colonialism. Of particular interest will be an examination of the role of race, ethnicity, class and nation in the modern history of the region. The countries to be studied are South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
HIST 49100 - Decolonization in Africa and the Caribbean
Analyzes the rise of independence movements in Africa and the Caribbean. Countries to be studied include Kenya, Guyana, Ghana, Algeria, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Trinidad & Tobago.
HIST 49200 - Building Nukes: Science and Politics in the US, USSR, and the PRC
A country's nuclear weapons program represents both the scientific strength of the nation and the determination of the nation's political leaders. This course compares the scientific and political issues associated with nuclear weapons programs in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Asia. The goal of this course is to help students understand the scientific developments and political conditions that were involved in these nations' decisions to make nuclear weapons
Europe:
HIST 20100 - The Ancient World: The Near East and Greece
Examines the rise and fall of civilizations in the ancient Near East and the Greek world to the Hellenistic Age. This course will provide an introduction to the ancient culture of the Fertile Crescent and Egypt. It will include discussions of the Sumerians, Hebrews, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians. It will then follow the development of Greek culture from the earliest period of Aegean culture and the Trojan War. It will deal as well with the debt of the Greeks to earlier cultures and the contrasts that are to be found within Hellenic Culture and the time of Alexander the Great.
HIST 20200 - The Ancient World: Rome
Surveys the history of classical antiquity from the Hellenistic Age to the fall of the Western Empire.
HIST 20400 - Early-Modern Europe
An overview of European history from the resurgence of urban life and classical culture during the Renaissance to the trials and tribulations of the French Revolution.
HIST 20600 - Modern Europe
An overview of the social, economic, political, and intellectual developments in Europe from the Enlightenment to the present, and an introduction to the study of history. Topics include the problems of revolution, industrialization and the transformation of rural societies, and the emergence of liberalism and the challenges it has faced in the 20th century.
HIST 30102 - Medieval Europe
HIST 31105 - Warfare in Antiquity
HIST 31143 - Food and Farming
This course will introduce students to the history and historiography of food and farming, including the role of agricultural producers in advanced and pre-industrial societies. Central to the enterprise are the historical trajectories certain foodstuffs have taken--why they are produced and where, and how they have been integrated into socio-economic and cultural environments, politics, policies and trade. Our geographic focus will be on the European experience liberally construed and in comparison. We begin with the classic literature on peasants (Hobsbawm, Shanin, et al.).
HIST 31163 - European Union
The European Union is the largest democratically conceived confederation of sovereign states in human history, directly affecting a half billion people. How did this come to pass, and how has it fared? We will examine earlier examples of union, analyze the nature and origins of the EU, and explore its mechanics and policies. Texts are historical, theoretical, and archival, including two comprehensive web-based history and policy archives and a foundational myth.
HIST 31223 - Women in Antiquity
From Eve to Cleopatra, from prostitutes to priestesses, women played a variety of roles in the ancient world. This course examines their lives and men's perceptions of them through both literary and visual remains. After a close study of Greek and Roman civilization, we end with an exploration of women's role in the development of Christianity and of the ways in which Christianity affected expectations and opportunities for both sexes.
HIST 31592 - Modern Anti-Semitism
HIST 32034 - The Nazi Holocaust
How do we begin to understand the mass destruction of civilians, and especially Jews, by the Nazis during World War II, commonly known as the Holocaust? This course will examine some of the conditions that led to this extraordinary process of transforming whole peoples into the "other" and as potential objects for extermination. Students will look especially at how the race hatred of anti-Semitism became state policy under the Nazis, and what economic, social and political conditions encouraged its rise. The course will as look at examples of resistance to the Holocaust.
HIST 32500 - The Age of the Renaissance
An in-depth exploration of the culture of the Italian Renaissance. Through primary sources, this course reconstructs experiences of: citizenship in the Italian city-states; the enterprises and vagaries of the business world; matrimony, paternity/maternity and sexuality; elementary education and university study; art patronage and visual culture; the entertainments and decorum of life at Court; and expressions of religiosity.
HIST 32850 - The French Revolution
This course will provide a thorough introduction to the French Revolution--one of the defining events of modern times, and a crucible in which key elements of modern politics were forged or redefined: universal manhood suffrage, human rights, civil equality, direct democracy, ideological dictatorship, nationalism, women's liberation, and revolution itself. Although concentrating on the crucial years 1787-1794, we will spend several weeks on the Old Regime to place revolutionary developments in perspective and range into the 20th century to assess its legacy.
HIST 32900 - Twentieth-Century Europe
What's Freud got to do with feminism? Or Horkheimer with Hitler, Christian Democracy with the European Union, or colonial independence movements in Africa and Asia with radical student politics in Paris and Prague? You'll find the answers to these and other questions in this course, which covers Europe during the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Fascism and Nazism, the Second World War, and their aftermath. You'll read what the men and women who shaped the 20th century had to say about it. And you'll learn what it means to evaluate their ideas and actions from a variety of perspectives.
HIST 32950 - History of the Soviet Union
A survey and analysis of the Soviet Union form its establishment in 1917 amid world war and revolution to its collapse in 1991. Starting with the essentials of Marxist ideology and a brief overview of the Russian Empire, the course examines the causes of the Russian Revolution; state-building in the socialist polity; social engineering through forces of collectivization; industrialization and cultural transformation; terror in concept and practice; nationality policies in a multi-ethnic socialist union; the emergence of the Soviet superpower and its role in the Cold War; and the decline and collapse of the Soviet empire.
HIST 34200 - The History of Medicine
Geographical and chronological focus will vary. Themes will include: religious and secular efforts to define "disease"; the importance of gender for medical theory and practice; the relationship between patient rights and the common interest; the development of public health programs; and milestones in the history of biology and medicine.
HIST 34900 - The Third Reich
An introduction to the history of National Socialism. Topics will include the crisis of Weimar Germany, the origins, structure, and evolution of the Nazi regime, Hitler, and the Hitler myth, Nazi culture, the Nazi "new order" in Europe, total war, and the implementation of the Final Solution. Special attention will be given to the question of the memory of the Holocaust.
HIST 35000 - The Scientific Revolution
Special emphasis will be placed upon the institutions, sociability and material culture of science in the early modern period and their importance for the development of modern scientific theory. Topics will include: Renaissance natural philosophy; from natural to mechanical philosophy; the telescope and the new world view of Galileo; the culture of observation, the embrace of empiricism, and the invention of experimentation; the print culture of science and the dissemination of new scientific ideas.
HIST 35100 - The Age of Enlightenment
An in-depth exploration of the protean culture and new knowledges of eighteenth-century Europe. Through primary sources and select historiography, this course reconstructs: the rising literacy rate and proliferation of print culture; the culture of literary and art salons; the appeal of the exotic and the idea of the noble savage; meditations on happiness and pleasure; the problem of luxury and the discovery of the market as well as the new sciences of the mind, of language and of progress.
HIST 35101 - Science, Technology, and Modernity
Explores the relation between science, technology, and modern society from the industrial revolution to the rise of fascism, paying particular attention to the life sciences.
HIST 35200 - Intellectual History of Modern Europe
Examines European thought from the Enlightenment and its ideological offspring - 19th C. liberalism and socialism - to the critique of the Enlightenment, beginning with Nietzsche and culminating in late 20th C. post-structuralism.
HIST 35300 - Intellectual History of 20th Century Europe
Emphasis on the ideological challenges to the heritage of the 18th-century Enlightenment and 19th-century liberalism embodied in modern irrationalist schools of thought, and the rise of contemporary psychological-existential images of humanity.
HIST 35700 - History of Socialism
The growth of the socialist movement in the 19th and 20th centuries and its main ideological expressions: utopian, Marxist, revisionist, syndicalist. The relations between ideology and concrete historical circumstances; trade unionism; revolution; working class growth and change; Bolshevism; national liberation.
HIST 37900 - The Collapse of Communism and Post-Soviet Europe
Examines the history of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from the late 1960s to the present. Topics include the long- and short-term causes of the collapse of Communism, the economic, political, social, and cultural legacies of Communism, and the challenges confronting the post-Communist world.
HIST 41201 - Law & Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
An intensive survey of ideas about the nature and the natural rights of the individual and of the state in medieval and early modern Europe, placing an especial emphasis upon the legal writings of scholars such as Aquinas, Bartolus, Vitoria, Bodin, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Pufendorf, Vico, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Smith, and Kant.
HIST 41600 - The Early-Modern European City
Urbanization in Europe from 1400 through 1800. In particular, it will reconstruct the spectacular emergence of the hallmark features of Europe's preeminent capital cities out of their most intense periods of crisis and transformation in the early modern period. Especial emphasis will be placed upon the new cosmopolitanism of Rome, London and Paris.
HIST 42000 - The Modern European City
Examines cities such as London, Paris, Vienna, Prague, and Berlin as incubators of specific versions of the "modern." Themes covered will include urban planning and architecture; class and ethnic conflict, and the rise of mass politics; the emergence of women's movements, youth culture, and anti-Semitism; and the relationship between modernism and mass culture.
HIST 42100 - Work and Welfare in Modern Europe
Examines the emergence of the industrial revolution and efforts to control it to manage markets for capital and labor since the 18th century.
HIST 42300 - Psychiatry, Madness, and Society
Examines social, cultural, intellectual and institutional aspects of the history of madness in Europe since 1789. The course will begin with the age of the so-called "Great Confinement," then move on to consider the institutional and therapeutic reforms of the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era; the rise of theories of degeneration, hysteria, and neurasthenia in the second half of the 19th century; psychoanalysis and sexology; war neurosis and military psychiatry under the Nazis. It will conclude by looking at the anti-psychiatry movements of the 1960s and the new biological psychiatry of the 1980s and 1990s.
HIST 42400 - The Great War
A comprehensive overview of World War I. Central themes include the origins of the conflict, both long- and short-term; the nature of industrial killing; the growth of the state, of mass armies, of economic regulation; and the revolutionary movements that the prolonged war effort spawned.
HIST 42500 - Age of Dictators
Examines the totalitarian regimes that emerged in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Beginning with the impact of WWI on both societies and ending with WWII, it traces the rise of two regimes that despite their ideological opposition had many features in common: a single party system, the extensive use of propaganda and terror, an embrace of science and of cultural programming, the leadership cult surrounding Stalin and Hitler, and the camps system.
HIST 42600 - Europe Since 1945
The causes of World War II, the Cold War, and the factors leading to the policy of détente. A question to be explored is: can states with distinctly different notions of politics genuinely coexist in an arena of power?
HIST 42800 - Conservatism and the New Right
HIST 42900 - Minorities in Modern Europe
Beginning with the emancipation of Jews during the French Revolution and the emergence of modern, national citizenship, the course will examine the ways in which European states have managed ethno-religious minorities, with a special emphasis on the 20th C. Topics will include WWI and the break-up of multi-ethnic empire, forced population transfers, refugees, and genocide, as well as the growth of labor migration, welfare and guest-worker systems.
HIST 43000 - France and Francophone Africa
Examines the relationships between France and countries of the former French overseas empire in Africa from the occupation of Algeria in 1830 to political independence, to issues of post-colonial dependency in Africa and the emergence of multicultural France today. We will study both the impact of France on these societies and how these former dependencies have transformed mainland France into a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society since the end of the Second World War, often against French popular opinion and preference.
HIST 43100 - The History of Sexuality
This course examines how varying sociopolitical contexts and cultural systems have shaped people's understandings and expressions of sexuality through history. Themes include: same-sex and trans-gendered sexualities; sexual implications of colonialism and racism; pornography; prostitution; rape; and reproductive sexualities.
HIST 43200 - Modern Imperialism
The course examines imperialism around the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will examine different approaches to the study of imperialism, but this course will emphasize the new literature on the culture of colonialism, and national and post-colonial identities produced by the experience of imperialism. Empires include those of England, France, Holland, the US, Germany, and Japan.
HIST 44500 - European Land Empires
An introduction to Europe's great land empires: the Ottoman, Russian, and Habsburg. The course begins with an overview of each empire's historical formation, political structure, economy, and social character. It then turns to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Topics include: concepts of empire; concepts of modernization; the challenges of nationalism, revolution, and terrorism; definitions of citizenship and rights; and the long and short-term causes for each empire's collapse.
HIST 49300 - Einstein and His World
Albert Einstein was a towering influence over the 20th century not only because of his epoch-making discoveries in physics but also because of his active involvements in social and political debates in his world. This course will introduce to students Einstein's scientific achievements as well as his views on the social, political, and religious issues of his day.
Historical Methods:
HIST 21300 - The Historian's Craft
Designed to introduce history as an academic discipline. It offers students an intensive introduction to research skills and the principles and methods of historical analysis. Helps students enhance their critical reading and writing skills while increasing their understanding of the nature of historical inquiry. Required for all history majors who declare a history major beginning in Fall 2015 and thereafter.
HIST 30100-30300 - Honors Independent Study I-III
A program of individual reading and research under the guidance of faculty members specializing in various areas of historical study. Ordinarily the three-term sequence culminates in the writing of an honors thesis. The Departmental Honors Committee also conducts informal colloquia on problems of historical method and criticism, and on important books on history.
HIST 30300/31330 - Research Colloquium
HIST 31000 - Independent Study in History
Designed to meet the needs of students for work not covered in regular offerings. The student will pursue a reading program, with periodic conferences, under the direction of a member of the Department, and with the approval of the Department Chair; limited to juniors and seniors with an adequate background for the work to be pursued.
Transnational/Comparative History:
***NOTE - The Transnational/Comparative History courses outlined below are also listed under the major field distribution category toward which they will be counted***
HIST 23700 - Asia and the World
The major factors that have shaped the Asian countries and peoples; geography, civilization, migration, and settlements of ethnic groups; philosophies, religions, historical events, leaders, and modern political and socioeconomic institutions.
HIST 23800 - The Middle East in Global History
Introduction to Middle East history and politics in global perspective. Emphasis on historical connections to world regions such as South Asia, North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Topics of study include legal cultures; migration; imperialism; diplomacy; political economy; and the impact of technological, political, and cultural revolutions on Middle Eastern peoples and diasporas across time.
HIST 27600 - Africa and the Modern World
A social history of Africa from the 19th century to the present, with emphasis on state formation, the impact of the slave trade, and resistance to colonialism.
HIST 28000 - Latin America in World History
A historical introduction to the cultures and societies of Latin America and the Caribbean from the Pre-Colombian era to the present and their place in world history.
HIST 31007 - History without Documents
HIST 31008 - British Empire in Film
HIST 31087 - Battle Cry for Freedom
HIST 31105 - Warfare in Antiquity
HIST 31130 - Asians in Latin America
This course will offer an overview of the history and & cultures of Asian immigration and community building in and into Latin America & the Caribbean from the 16th century to the present. Topics include: the strategies of resistance & accommodation; community formation and their links and interactions with broader Asian diasporic communities; the impact of Asian immigrants on national, racial, and class formation; and the re-migration of Latin Americans of Japanese descent (dekasegi) to Japan of the last decades.
HIST 31137 - The Cold War
Examines the Cold War from a U.S. and international perspective, using some of the newest literature to show that the it was not simply a contest between the superpowers, mostly centered on Europe, but that the Cold War was global and connected to developments in the Third World. The course will focus on major events and interpretations, drawing on newly available materials from both Eastern and Western archives. Requirements include a 10-15 page research paper.
HIST 31143 - Food and Farming
This course will introduce students to the history and historiography of food and farming, including the role of agricultural producers in advanced and pre-industrial societies. Central to the enterprise are the historical trajectories certain foodstuffs have taken--why they are produced and where, how they have been integrated into socio-economic and cultural environments, and how politics and policies affected and are affected by them. Our geographic focus will be on the European experience liberally construed.
HIST 31163 - European Union
The European Union is the largest democratically conceived confederation of sovereign states in human history, directly affecting a half a billion people. How did this come to pass, and how has it fared? We will examine earlier examples of union, analyze the nature and origins of the EU, and explore its mechanics and policies. Texts are historical, analytical, theoretical, and archival, including two comprehensive web-based history and policy archives and a foundational myth.
HIST 31184 - Blacks and Native Americans: Comparative Histories
HIST 31186 - Latin America & The Cold War
HIST 31199 - The American Civil War in Global Perspective
HIST 31223 - Women in Antiquity
From Eve to Cleopatra, from prostitutes to priestesses, women played a variety of roles in the ancient world. This course examines their lives and men's perceptions of them through both literary and visual remains. After a close study of Greek and Roman civilization, we end with an exploration of women's role in the development of Christianity and of the ways in which Christianity affected expectations and opportunities for both sexes.
HIST 31447 - Era of Détente
This is a research seminar on the Era of Détente, the period during the Cold War marked by prolonged absence of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Students will spend the bulk of the semester writing a primary-based research paper on one aspect of Détente. The course will also attempt to define Détente and evaluate its policy implications. Students will study the origins of Détente and its evolution over time and in different international contexts. The course will begin by examining early efforts at Détente in the late 1960s, continue through the successes of the Nixon administration and the challenges faced by Presidents Ford and Carter, and finish with the advent of the "new Cold War" in the first years of Reagan's presidency.
HIST 31617 - US/Mexico Relations from Revolution to Globalization
The course will explore the relations between the two countries from the early 20th century to the present. The course will take a broad historical approach considering labor organization, migration, political activism, artists, and borderlands peoples as equally important as governments in the making of the relationships between both countries.
HIST 31824 - History of Human Rights
The course explores the historical origins and development of human-rights thinking and politics in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe by analyzing the intellectual, legal, and political background of the concept of human rights. To begin, the course seeks to understand how and why humanity as a whole came to be valued in the West, and then asks: how did the slowly developing worldview of humanitarianism conceive of human beings and their treatment.
HIST 34200 - The History of Medicine
Geographical and chronological focus will vary. Themes will include: religious and secular efforts to define "disease"; the importance of gender for medical theory and practice; the relationship between patient rights and the common interest; the development of public health programs; and milestones in the history of biology and medicine.
HIST 35201 - Science and Technology in the 20th Century
This course covers the history of major developments in science and technology during the 20th c. It presents the making of these scientific and technological achievements and the lives of some of the greatest scientists and inventors as well as their social, economic, and cultural influence.
HIST 35400 - Cities in the Mediterranean World
Examines cities across the Mediterranean world, focusing on politics and society, cosmopolitanism, architecture, trans-regional migration, communal organization, and political and economic relations with hinterlands and metropoles. It considers a range of cities in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa from the 16th Century to the modern era.
HIST 37600 - Women of the African Diaspora
This course will provide a historical background to the various contemporary situations and problems peculiar to women of the African diaspora. It will study marriage, family, religious practices, politics, business, and work.
HIST 43000 - France and Francophone Africa
Examines the relationships between France and countries of the former French overseas empire in Africa from the occupation of Algeria in 1830 to political independence, to issues of post-colonial dependency in Africa and the emergence of multicultural France today. We will study both the impact of France on these societies and how these former dependencies have transformed mainland France into a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society since the end of the Second World War, often against French popular opinion and preference.
HIST 43100 - The History of Sexuality
This course examines how varying sociopolitical contexts and cultural systems have shaped people's understandings and expressions of sexuality through history. Themes include: same-sex and trans-gendered sexualities; sexual implications of colonialism and racism; pornography; prostitution; rape; and reproductive sexualities.
HIST 43200 - Modern Imperialism
The course examines imperialism around the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will examine different approaches to the study of imperialism, but this course will emphasize the new literature on the culture of colonialism, and national and post-colonial identities produced by the experience of imperialism. Empires include those of England, France, Holland, the US, Germany, and Japan.
HIST 44500 - European Land Empires
An introduction to Europe's great land empires: the Ottoman, Russian, and Habsburg. The course begins with an overview of each empire's historical formation, political structure, economy, and social character. It then turns to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Topics include: concepts of empire; concepts of modernization; the challenges of nationalism, revolution, and terrorism; definitions of citizenship and rights; and the long and short-term causes for each empire's collapse.
HIST 45100 - Comparative Slavery
Slavery, a relationship in which one held property in another's person, existed in many societies, ancient and modern. By examining the role of slavery in various cultures over time, characteristics useful in understanding the development of New World slavery will be explored. The course will begin with slavery in ancient civilizations (e.g., Greece, Rome, Africa), and then examine the New World societies created after 1492. Finally, the sources and character of emancipation and abolition will be considered.
HIST 46700 - The Pacific War, 1931-1945
This course will explore significant milestones and issues of both U.S. and Japanese societies during the course of the Pacific War. Our focus will be on the human experience and changes that came to both societies as well as contemporary issues regarding the contested memory and responsibility of many aspects of the war. Topics include: the nature of the Japanese empire and its conquest of Asia, beginning in 1931; the China war; US involvement after Pearl Harbor; US domestic responses during the war, including Japanese internment; the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere; the Japanese people and the war; the war's end; the US occupation of Japan; decolonization across Southeast Asia after the war.
HIST 49100 - Decolonization in Africa and the Caribbean
Analyzes the rise of independence movements in Africa and the Caribbean. Countries to be studied include Kenya, Guyana, Ghana, Algeria, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Trinidad & Tobago.
HIST 49200 - Building Nukes: Science and Politics in the US, USSR, and the PRC
A country's nuclear weapons program represents both the scientific strength of the nation and the determination of the nation's political leaders. This course compares the scientific and political issues associated with nuclear weapons programs in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Asia. The goal of this course is to help students understand the scientific developments and political conditions that were involved in these nations' decisions to make nuclear weapons.
Last Updated: 06/11/2021 18:05