A general survey of the political, constitutional, economic, and social history of the United States.
This class surveys the political, social, and cultural foundations of East Asian civilization from earliest times to around 1600. From the rise of states and empires to the Ways of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, we will explore the flowering of Chinese cultural norms across Asia as well as consider the unique expressions of these norms throughout China, Korea, and Japan.
This class focuses on the modern transformations of China, Japan, and Korea from roughly 1800 to the present, considering the relationships between these three countries and the wider world. With many describing the 21st century as the “Asian century,” students will gain a greater understanding of key topics that have shaped modern Asian experiences, such as war and memory, reform and revolution, and empire and decolonization.
This course encompasses both the established history of the southern African region c. 1500-2004 and recent historiographical developments. As a result of this dual focus, the course highlights the production of southern African history, considering how, for whom, and why that history has been written. Topics include: the environment in history; the creation and interactions of racial groups; the mineral revolution and capitalist development; white domination, segregation, and apartheid; and political and popular resistance to these oppressive racial regimes. The course ends with the transition to majority rule, the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the democratic future of South Africa.
A survey of the major topics and issues in African-American history from 1865 to the present: the era of emancipation, the turn-of-the-century nadir of race relations, black participation in both world wars, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and various dimensions of contemporary black life. The course will also explore some of the historiographical themes that have catalyzed current scholarship and will analyze diverse theories about the black experience in America.
A survey of the major changes in American women's lives since the end of the last century, including increased access to education, movement into the labor market, and changes in reproductive behavior and in their role within the family. Special consideration will be given to the movements for women's rights.
This course surveys European women's gendered experiences of war, revolution, and terrorism from the French Revolution to the present. Adopting gender analysis as its methodological framework, it focuses on the changing constructions of femininity and masculinity in relation to major global upheavals and theories of violence in the modern world The course examines the impact of such developments on the lives of European women of different socioeconomic, regional, and racial backgrounds. Topics covered include the Russian Revolutions, World Wars I and II, global terrorism of the 1970s, and contemporary European feminist politics of immigration and the veil.
This course explores the social, political, and cultural history of the French Revolution from its origins in the eighteenth century to the fall of Napoleon's Empire. It highlights revolutionary debates over how to constitutionally and practically realize the Enlightenment principles of human rights, individual liberty, and social equality in the context of France and the French Empire. Topics include radical republicanism, popular violence and the Terror, the Haitian Revolution, women's revolutionary roles, gender and the reconfigured family, counterrevolution and the Church, the citizens' army, and the Napoleonic Empire. Not open for credit to students who have received credit for HIST 308.
This second offering in a two-course sequence addresses the modern Middle East, and emphasizes the region's place in global politics and the world economy. Among the topics considered are European imperialism and local responses, nineteenth-century reform movements, the rise of the nation-state, the impact of Arab nationalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamic political movements, gender relations in the region, the importance of oil, the Iraq conflict, terrorism and the peace process.
Selected topics in the history of Royal, Republican, and Imperial Rome. Emphasis on reading, papers, discussion.
Selected topics in the history of western Europe during the Middle Ages. Emphasis on reading, papers, discussion.
This American History course covers the Black Power Movement’s history from its origins in the late 1960s and early 1970s through the current Black Lives Matter era. Together we review how the Black Power Movement empowered individuals and groups to protest police brutality, advance criminal justice reform, advocate for self-defense, promote Black collective interests, advance Black values, create Black institutions, and secure Black autonomy.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has long dominated the politics of the Middle East and been seen as central to U.S. foreign policy in the region. This seminar considers the history of this conflict and the politicized historiographical debates that accompany it. Topics addressed include Zionism, Palestinian and Arab nationalism, the birth of the Arab refugee crisis, the effects of the 1967 and 1973 wars on the region, the use of terrorism, the two intifadas, and the Oslo peace process. Primary texts, secondary sources, and scholarly articles from a variety of perspectives will be used to investigate how people within and outside the region debate and fight over these issues.
An exploration of Southern history through the lenses of biography, autobiography, and fiction. This seminar examines the careers of significant figures in the history and literature of the South from the antebellum era to the present.
A seminar dealing with important political, social, and intellectual movements in American history.
A seminar dealing with important political, social, and intellectual movements in American history.
This course explores watershed changes in the strategies used to produce and circulate new knowledge in the early modern world (c. 1500 to 1800),
pursuing a global and interdisciplinary approach to understanding the diverse tools, embodied practices,socio political configurations, social and economic networks that contributed to the rise of modern science. Topics to be addressed may include natural magic, secrets and recipes; natural history collecting, empire and observation; human anatomy,medicine and the Galenic body; drug trials and experimentation; mechanical philosophy, androids, and the transfer of knowledge.
Cities have long offered possibilities for resisting gender and sexual norms, constructing new gender and sexual identities, forming sexual subcultures, and fighting for gender and sexual freedom. But cities have also been sites of repression and violent conflict around gender and sexuality. This seminar asks how urban life has shaped—and been shaped by—gender and sexuality, examining topics such as the anxieties about nineteenth-century “streetwalkers,” “race riots” fueled by rumors of interracial sex, and the gay liberation movement. Course materials draw primarily from histories of American cities but will also consider works of urban history focused on other geographic regions.
This course examines the military, economic, political, and social upheaval of mid-nineteenth century America. We will consider the failure of antebellum political mechanisms, the growth of sectionalism, justifications for and against secession, the methods and implications of war, competing constitutional systems during the conflict, efforts to eradicate Southern separatism, and the lingering cultural implications of the nation's fratricidal dispute. Students will employ the America's Civil War web site, as well as other media, in preparing for discussions, tests, and research papers.
An exploration of the conservation and wilderness preservation movements, and their impacts on peoples, landscapes, and animal populations, with a focus on North America and Africa. The class will examine the historiography of these interrelated phenomena, including their connections with colonialism, urban growth, anti-colonial resistance, local and indigenous agency, tourism, and landscape ecology. Case studies will might include the Kruger National Park in South Africa, and various U.S. national parks. Attention will also be given to recent work on private and public/private conservation. Students will develop research projects in an area of their interest.