University Bulletin (2010-2011)

HIST 51a History of the United States: 1607-1865
[ ss ]
An introductory survey of American history to the Civil War. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 51b History of the United States: 1865 to the Present
[ ss ]
An introductory survey of American history from the Civil War to the present. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 52b Europe from 1789 to the Present
[ ss ]
Analytical introduction to modern European history considering such issues as the French Revolution, economic and social modernization and the Industrial Revolution, the evolution of modern nationalism, imperialism and socialism, development of the world market, imperialism, diplomacy and war in the twentieth century, Bolshevism and the decline of liberalism, modern totalitarianism, World War II, decolonization, the Cold War, the revival of Europe, and the revolutions of 1989. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Jankowski

HIST 55b The History of the Family
[ ss ]
A social history of the family in Europe from early modern to contemporary times. Topical emphasis on changing patterns in kinship and household structure, child rearing, sex-role differentiation, employment, and marriage. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 56b World History to 1960
[ nw ss ]
An introductory survey of world history, from the dawn of "civilization" to c.1960. Topics include the establishment and rivalry of political communities, the development of material life, and the historical formation of cultural identities. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 61a Cultures in Conflict since 1300
[ ss wi ]
Explores the ways in which cultures and civilizations have collided since 1300, and the ways in which cultural differences account for major wars and conflicts in world history since then. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Freeze and Mr. Jankowski

HIST 65b College 101: American Higher Education in Historical Perspective
[ ss wi ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took HIST 109b in fall 2009.
This seminar studies one of the most important institutions in modern America: the university. Students examine the current organization and orientation of higher education in historical and sociological perspective, using nonfiction accounts, memoirs, and fiction about the college experience. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 71a Latin American History, Pre-Conquest to 1870
[ hum nw ss ]
Introduction to the historical foundations of Latin America: Amerindian civilizations, Spanish conquest, colonial economy and society, independence movements, and their aftermath. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 71b Latin American History, 1870 to the Present
[ hum nw ss ]
Modern Latin America, with stress on the interactions of economics, politics, and external dependency in the region. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 80a Introduction to East Asian Civilization
[ hum nw ss ]
A selective introduction to the development of forms of thought, social and political institutions, and distinctive cultural contributions of China and Japan from early times to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 80b East Asia: Nineteenth Century to the Present (China and Japan)
[ hum nw ss ]
The civilization of East Asia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the impact of the West, the contrasting responses of China and Japan to the confrontation, and the development and nature of their present societies. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 98a Readings in History
Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 98b Readings in History
Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 99d Senior Research
Does not meet the major requirement in history.
Seniors who are candidates for degrees with honors in history must register for this course and, under the direction of a faculty member, prepare an honors thesis on a suitable topic. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG/HIST 118b London from Restoration to Regency: People, Culture, City
[ hum ss ]
Sponsored by the Mandel Center for the Humanities as part of its thematic focus on 'The Human and the Inhuman'.
Explores the history and culture of London from the Great Plague of 1665 to the onset of the industrial age. Topics include the natural and built environments, the city's changing population, and its literary, visual, and musical cultures. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kamensky and Ms. Lanser

HIST 100a Ice and Fire: An Ecological Approach to World History
[ ss ]
A survey of world history through the past 10,000 years, with particular attention to the choices that people have made in relation to their changing environment. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fischer

HIST 103a Roman History to 455 CE
[ hum ss ]
Survey of Roman history from the early republic through the decline of the empire. Covers the political history of the Roman state and the major social, economic, and religious changes of the period. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 106b Britain in the World, 1562 to the Present
[ ss ]
A global history of the British Empire, spanning four centuries and seven continents.
Topics include America, India, China, Egypt, Israel, Diplomacy, Trade, Slavery, the World Wars and James Bond. Emphasis on class discussion, writing development and contemporary parallels. Special one-time offering, spring 2011.
Mr. Green

HIST 110a The Civilization of the Early Middle Ages
[ ss ]
Survey of medieval history from the fall of Rome to the year 1000. Topics include the barbarian invasions, the Byzantine Empire, the Dark Ages, the Carolingian Empire, feudalism, manorialism, and the Vikings. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 110b The Civilization of the High and Late Middle Ages
[ ss ]
Survey of European history from 1000 to 1450. Topics include the Crusades, the birth of towns, the creation of kingdoms, the papacy, the peasantry, the universities, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years' War. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 111a History of the Modern Middle East
[ ss ]
An examination of the history of the Middle East from the nineteenth century to contemporary times. Focuses on political events and intellectual trends, such as imperialism, modernity, nationalism, and revolution, that have shaped the region in the modern era. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Sohrabi

HIST 111b The Iranian Revolution: From Monarchy to the Islamic Republic
[ ss ]
An examination of the roots of the Iranian revolution of 1979, the formation of the Islamic Republic, and its evolution over the past 30 years. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Sohrabi

HIST 112a Nationalism in the Middle East
[ nw ss ]
Seminar examining the history of nationalism in the modern Middle East. Covers divergent theories and practices of nationalism in the region, and explores the roles of gender, memory, historiography, and art in the formation and articulation of Middle East nationalisms. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Sohrabi

HIST 112b The Crusades and the Expansion of Medieval Europe
[ ss ]
Survey of the relationships between medieval Europe and neighboring cultures, beginning with the decline of Byzantium. Topics include a detailed look at the Crusades, the Spanish reconquista, the Crusader kingdoms, economic growth, and the foundations of imperialism. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 113a English Medieval History
[ ss ]
Survey of English history from the Anglo-Saxon invasions to the fifteenth century. Topics include the heroic age, the Viking invasions, and development of the English kingdom from the Norman conquest through the Hundred Years' War. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 115a History of Comparative Race and Ethnic Relations
[ ss ]
Explores and understands the origin and nature of racial and ethnic differences in the United States, South Africa, and Brazil. Explores how theoreticians explain and account for differences, and how race and ethnicity relate to economic class and social institutions. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sundiata

HIST 116a Black Homeland: West Africa
[ nw ss ]
Surveys the history of the ancestral land of most African Americans from the rise of the great African empires through the period of the slave trade and colonialism. Traces the rise of African nationalism up to 1960. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sundiata

HIST 120a Britain in the Later Middle Ages
[ ss ]
Exploration of the critical changes in government and society in the British Isles from the late fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Topics include the Black Death, the lordship of Ireland, the Hundred Years' War, the Scottish War of Independence, economic change, the Tudors, and the Reformation. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 121a Breaking the Rules: Deviance and Nonconformity in Premodern Europe
[ ss wi ]
Explores the ways in which "deviant" behavior was defined and punished by some, but also justified and even celebrated by others in premodern Europe. Topics include vagrancy, popular uprisings, witchcraft, religious heresy, and the status of women. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 122a Madness and Medicine in the Modern Age
[ ss ]
Explores the evolution of Western concepts of insanity and medicine from the 18th century to the present. Includes developments in psychiatry, sociology of science, medicine and cultural history as well as recent interest in questions of gender and race. Special one-time offering, spring 2011.
Mr. Wirth

HIST 123a The Renaissance
[ ss ]
Culture, society, and economy in the Italian city-state (with particular attention to Florence) from feudalism to the rise of the modern state. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kapelle

HIST 123b Reformation Europe (1400-1600)
[ ss wi ]
Survey of Protestant and Catholic efforts to reform religion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Topics include scholastic theology, popular piety and anticlericalism, Luther's break with Rome, the rise of Calvinism, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, the Catholic resurgence, and the impact of reform efforts on the lives of common people. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 125a Sexualities in United States History
[ ss ]
Examines sexual behaviors, attitudes, and identities in the United States since the Revolution. Topics include the regulation of sexual behavior; marriage and family structures; interracial and same-sex intimacy; contraception, censorship, and pornography; and gay, lesbian, and transgender movements. Special one-time offering, spring 2011.
Mr. Landrum

HIST 126a Early Modern Europe (1500-1700)
[ qr ss ]
Survey of politics, ideas, and society in Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Focuses on the changing relationship between the emerging modern state and its subjects. Topics include the development of ideologies of resistance and conformity, regional loyalties and the problems of empire, changing technologies of war and repression, and the social foundations of order and disorder. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 127b Household and Family in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1300-1800)
[ qr ss ]
An examination of the fundamental building block of premodern European society. Topics include the demographic structures, economic foundations, and governing ideologies that sustained the household, as well as the repercussions of failure or refusal to live according to "normal" forms. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 130a The French Revolution
[ ss ]
The sources, content, and results of the French Revolution; its place in the broader context of the democratic revolution of the West. A study of the events and analysis of the elements involved. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 131a Hitler's Europe in Film
[ ss ]
Takes a critical look as how Hitler's Europe has been represented and misrepresented since its time by documentary and entertainment films of different countries beginning with Germany itself. Movies, individual reports, discussions, and a littler reading. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 132a European Thought and Culture: Marlowe to Mill
[ ss ]
Main themes and issues, modes and moods, in philosophy and the sciences, literature and the arts, from the skeptical crisis of the late sixteenth century to the Romantic upheaval of the early nineteenth century. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Binion

HIST 132b European Thought and Culture since Darwin
[ ss ]
Main themes and issues, modes and moods, in philosophy and the sciences, literature and the arts, from mid-nineteenth-century realism to late twentieth-century unrealism. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Binion

HIST 133a Politics of the Enlightenment
[ ss ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken USEM 6b in previous years.
The Enlightenment as a source of the intellectual world we live in today. Examination of some of the political, philosophical, and scientific writings of the philosophers. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 133b Rights and Revolutions: History of Natural Rights
[ ss ]
An examination of the doctrine of national rights, its significance in the contemporary world, its historical development, and its role in revolutionary politics. The English and French Declarations of 1689, 1776, and 1789 will be compared and contrasted. Usually offered every second or third year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 134a Nineteenth-Century Europe: From Revolution to National Unification (1789-1870)
[ ss ]
The demographic, economic, and French revolutions; Napoleonic imperium; instability and revolt in restoration Europe; romanticism; urbanization and industrialization; revolutions of 1848; national unification and ethnic politics; the "liberal era." Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 134b Nineteenth-Century Europe: Nationalism, Imperialism, Socialism (1850-1919)
[ ss ]
The world of nation-states; urbanization and mature industrial societies; science and culture; attacks on liberal civilization; socialism, collectivism, and imperialism; domestic tensions and world politics. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 135a Monarchies and Republics: Early Modern Political Thought
[ ss ]
An examination of early modern European political thought. Texts include plays, pamphlets, and political treatises. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 137b World War I
[ ss ]
Examines the opening global conflict of the twentieth century. Topics include the destruction of the old European order, the origins of total war, the cultural and social crisis it provoked, and the long-term consequences for Europe and the world. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Jankowski

HIST 139b Fascism East and West
[ ss ]
A comparative analysis of dictatorship in Europe, Japan, and Latin America during the twentieth century. Topical emphasis on the social origins, mass culture, and political organization of authoritarian regimes. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 140a A History of Fashion in Europe
[ ss wi ]
Looks at costume, trade in garments, and clothing consumption in Europe from 1600 to 1950. Topics include sumptuous fashion, class and gender distinctions in wardrobe, and the rise of department stores. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 141b Studies in British History: 1830 to the Present
[ ss ]
Topics include Victorian society and culture, Britain in the world economy, liberalism, socialism, and the rise of labor, democracy, and collectivism between the wars, labor in power, mass culture, and the Thatcher Revolution. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 142a Crime, Deviance, and Confinement in Modern Europe
[ ss wi ]
Examines the crisis of law and order in old regime states and explores the prison and asylum systems that emerged in modern Europe. Surveys psychiatry and forensic science from the Napoleonic period until World War II. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 145a War in European History
[ ss ]
Introduces students to the changing nature of war and warfare in European history since the Middle Ages. Explores the reciprocal influence of armies and societies and the ways in which wars reflect the cultures of the polities waging them. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Jankowski

HIST 145b Introduction to Modern France
[ ss ]
Explores French politics and society from 1789 to the present. Emphasis on the shocks from which it has had to recover, including revolutions, wars, and foreign occupation, the implantation of stable institutions, and the continuing role of intellectuals in French society. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Jankowski

HIST 146a Romantic Europe, 1798-1848
[ ss wi ]
Revolution and reaction; social ferment; religion, philosophy, and ideology; the arts and sciences; historicism and exoticism; heroism and populism; realism and reverie; vitality and languor; dreams and nightmares in Europe's age of Romanticism. Lectures; common readings; individual research. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Binion

HIST 146b Hitler, Germany, and Europe
[ ss ]
Hitler's personality and politics in their German and European context, 1889-1945. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Binion

HIST 147a Imperial Russia
[ ss wi ]
Examines the processes and problems of modernization--state development, economic growth, social change, cultural achievements, and emergence of revolutionary and terrorist movements. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Freeze

HIST 147b Twentieth-Century Russia
[ ss ]
Russian history from the 1905 revolution to the present day, with particular emphasis on the Revolution of 1917, Stalinism, culture, and the decline and fall of the USSR. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Freeze

HIST 148a Religion and Society in Modern Russia
[ ss ]
Examines the role of religion, institutional and popular, in the social, political, and cultural development of Russia from the eighteenth century to the present. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Freeze

HIST 148b Central Asia in Modern Times
[ nw ss ]
Surveys the modern history of Central Asia, emphasizing the twentieth century and contemporary history; it gives particular attention to the processes of colonialization and modernization and their impact on the traditional social order and Islamic religious life. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Freeze

HIST 151b The American Revolution
[ ss ]
Explores the causes, character, and consequences of the American war for independence. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fischer

HIST 152a The Literature of American History
[ ss ]
Readings and discussions on the classical literature of American history, the great books that have shaped our sense of the subject. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fischer

HIST 152b Salem, 1692
[ ss wi ]
An in-depth investigation of the Salem witch trials of 1692 and their role in American culture during the last 300 years. Focusing on gender, religion, law, and psychology, the class explores primary sources as well as films, plays, and novels. Students will also conduct field research in Salem. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kamensky

HIST 153a Americans at Home: Families and Domestic Environments, 1600 to the Present
[ ss ]
This survey of nonpublic life in the United States explores the changing nature of families and the material environments that have shaped and reflected American domestic ideals during the last four centuries. Major topics include gender roles and sexuality; production, reproduction, and material culture in the home; conceptions of the life course; racial, ethnic, and regional variations on the family; the evolution of "public" and "private" life; and the relationship between the family and the state. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Kamensky

HIST 153b Slavery and the American Civil War
[ ss ]
A survey of the history of slavery, the American South, the antislavery movement, the coming of the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fischer

HIST 154b Women in American History, 1600-1865
[ ss ]
An introductory survey exploring the lives of women in Anglo America from European settlement through the Civil War. Topics include the "history of women's history"; the role of gender in Native American, African, and European cultures; women's religion, work, and sexuality; and the changing possibilities for female education and expression from the colonial period through the nineteenth century. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Kamensky

HIST 155a Thinking with Witches: Witchcraft in England and New England
[ hum ss ]
Examines the history, literature, and scholarly debate surrounding witchcraft in England and New England from 1500-1700. Readings include accounts of witchcraft trials and testimonials; contemporary plays, poems, woodcuts, and novels; anthropological and historical texts; and several important films. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kamensky and Ms. Targoff

HIST 157a Americans at Work: American Labor History
[ ss ]
Throughout American history, the vast majority of adults (and many children, too) have worked, although not always for pay. Beginning with the colonial period, we shall explore the idea that a job is never just a job; it is also a social signifier of great value. Topics include slavery and servitude, race and gender in the workplace, household labor and its meanings, technological innovation, working-class political movements, and the role of the state in shaping patterns of work. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

HIST 158b Social History of the Confederate States of America
[ ss ]
An examination of the brief life of the southern Confederacy, emphasizing regional, racial, class, and gender conflicts within the would-be new nation. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

HIST 159a Old South, New South, from Jim Crow to Katrina
[ ss ]
A survey of southern history from the Civil War to the present, emphasizing political and economic changes that were initiated by and shaped the lives of men and women, farmers and factory workers, immigrants and native-born blacks, and whites. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 160a American Legal History I
[ ss ]
Surveys American legal development from colonial settlement to the Civil War. Major issues include law as an instrument of revolution, capitalism and contract, invention of the police, family law, slavery law, and the Civil War as a constitutional crisis. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ ss ]
Survey of American legal development from 1865 to the present. Major topics include constitutionalism and racial inequality, the legal response to industrialization, progressivism and the transformation of liberalism, the rise of the administrative state, and rights-based movements for social justice. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 161b American Political History
[ ss ]
Development of American party politics, the legal system, and government. Special attention paid to the social and cultural determinants of party politics, and economic and social policymaking. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 164a Recent American History since 1945
[ ss ]
American politics, economics, and culture underwent profound transformations in the late twentieth century. Examines the period's turmoil, looking especially at origins and legacies. Readings include novels, memoirs, key political and social documents, and film and music excerpts. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 164b The American Century: The U.S. and the World, 1945 to the Present
[ ss wi ]
America's global role expanded dramatically in the aftermath of World War II. Explores key aspects of that new role, from the militarization of conflict with the Soviets to activities in the Third World. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 166b World War II
[ ss ]
Focuses on the American experience in World War II. From the 1920s to the early 1940s, totalitarian regimes were widely believed to be stronger than open societies. The outcome of World War II demonstrated the opposite. By combining the methods of the old military and political history with the new social, cultural, and economic history, examines history as a structured sequence of contingencies, in which people made choices and choices made a difference. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fischer

HIST 168b America in the Progressive Era: 1890-1920
[ ss ]
Surveys social and political history during the pivotal decades when America became a "modern" society and nation-state. Topics include populism, racial segregation, social science and public policy, the Roosevelt and Wilson administrations, environmental conservation, and the domestic impact of World War I. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 169a Thought and Culture in Modern America
[ ss wi ]
Developments in American philosophy, literature, art, and political theory examined in the context of socioeconomic change. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 169b The Radical 1950s: Politics and Culture in Postwar America
[ ss ]
This advanced seminar examines social criticism by the supposedly complacent Americans of the 1950s, looking for links to the turmoil that followed. Topics include foreign policy, treatment of African-Americans, roles for women, and the alienation of mass society. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 170a Italian Films, Italian Histories
[ ss wi ]
Explores the relationship between Italian history and Italian film from unification to 1975. Topics include socialism, fascism, the deportation of Jews, the Resistance, the Mafia, and the emergence of an American-style star fixation in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Kelikian

HIST 171b Latinos in the U.S.
[ ss ]
History of the different Latino groups in the United States from the nineteenth century when westward expansion incorporated Mexican populations through the twentieth century waves of migration from Latin America. Explores the diversity of Latino experiences including identity, work, community, race, gender, and political activism. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Arrom

HIST 173b Latin American Women: Heroines, Icons, and History
[ nw ss wi ]
Graduate students who wish to take this course for credit must complete additional assignments.
Explores Latin American women's history by focusing on female icons and heroines such as La Malinche, Sor Juana, Eva Perón, Carmen Miranda, and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Topics include conquest, mestizaje, religion, independence, tropical exoticism, dictatorship, and social movements. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Arrom

HIST 174a The Legacy of 1898: U.S.-Caribbean Relations since the Spanish-American War
[ nw ss wi ]
This seminar explores relations between the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic) and the United States during the twentieth century. Topics include interventions, cultural misunderstandings, migration, transnationalism, and Puerto Rican status. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Arrom

HIST 175a Topics in Latin American History
[ nw ss wi ]
Course may be repeated for credit.
Examines a major theme or problem in Latin American history. Topics very from year to year. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 176a The Emergence of Modern Japan
[ nw ss ]
A general introduction to Japan's modern transformation from a late feudal society into a powerful nation-state capable of challenging the Western powers. Particular attention is given to feudal legacies, rapid economic growth, nationalism and ultranationalism, the "Pacific War" between Japan and the United States, the meaning of defeat, issues of postwar democracy, and the workings of the postwar political economy. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. James

HIST 176b Japan and Korea in Modern World History
[ nw ss ]
Investigates the long and problematic history of interactions and exchanges between Japan and Korea from early times to the present. Topics include language, migration, art, architecture, material culture, popular culture, propaganda, and warfare. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. James

HIST 177b Modern Germany: From Second Empire to Second Republic
[ ss ]
Offers a systematic examination of modern Germany from the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 to unification in 1990. Primary focus is political and social history. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 178a Middle Eastern Encounters in the Age of Colonialism
[ nw ss wi ]
Examines Middle Eastern travel to Europe in the nineteenth century. Topics include: the city, the transfer of knowledge, spectacles and world fairs, gender and sexuality, notions of sovereignty, and the immigrant experience. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Sohrabi

HIST 179a Labor, Gender, and Exchange in the Atlantic World, 1600-1850
[ ss ]
An examination of the interaction of cultures in the Atlantic World against a backdrop of violence, conquest, and empire-building. Particular attention is paid to the structure and function of power relations, gender orders, labor systems, and exchange networks. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 181a Seminar on Traditional Chinese Thought
[ nw ss ]
Social, historical, and political theory is one of China's greatest contributions to world civilization. Studies the most influential schools (Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism, and Legalism) through the reading and discussion of original texts. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 181b Red Flags/Black Flags: Marxism vs. Anarchism, 1845-1968
[ ss ]
From Marx's first major book in 1845 to the French upheavals of 1968, the history of left-wing politics and ideas. The struggles between Marxist orthodoxy and anarchist-inspired, left Marxist alternatives. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 182a Sino-American Relations from the Eighteenth Century to the Present
[ ss ]
A seminar providing a historical overview of two centuries of Sino-American relations. Diplomacy and war, mutual perceptions, Americans in China, Chinese emigration and communities in the United States, and relations between the United States and the People's Republic. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

HIST 183b Community and Alienation: Social Theory from Hegel to Freud
[ ss ]
The rise of social theory understood as a response to the trauma of industrialization. Topics include Marx's concept of "alienation," Tönnies's distinction between "community" and "society," Durkheim's notion of "anomie," Weber's account of "disenchantment," and Nietzsche's repudiation of modernity. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 184a Silk, Silver, and Slaves: China and the Industrial Revolution
[ nw ss ]
Examines why industrial capitalism, which underpins the current world order, first developed in Western Europe rather than China. Comparative treatment of commercialization, material culture, cities, political economies, and contingencies on both ends of Eurasia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hang

HIST 184b Swashbuckling Adventurers or Sea bandits? The Chinese Pirate in Global Perspective
[ nw ss ]
Explores the commercial role, political economy, social structure, and national imaginations of the Chinese pirate situated in both world history and in comparison to "piracies" elsewhere. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Hang

HIST 186a Europe in World War II
[ ss ]
Examines the military and diplomatic, social and economic history of the war. Topics include war origins; allied diplomacy; the neutrals; war propaganda; occupation, resistance, and collaboration; the mass murder of the Jews; "peace feelers"; the war economies; scientific warfare and the development of nuclear weapons; and the origins of the Cold War. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Jankowski

HIST 186b A Global History of the Vietnam Wars
[ ss wi ]
A reading and research seminar on the American involvement in Vietnam. Focuses on teaching the history of America's longest war, as well as improving the student's ability to write a research paper using source materials. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 189a Topics in the History of Early America
[ ss ]
Reading and discussion seminar exploring problems in the history of British North America from the first white settlement through the mid-eighteenth century. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Kamensky

HIST 189b Open Leaders in American History
[ ss ]
Advanced coordinated research from primary materials. Students will engage in a common project in American social history. Topics vary from year to year and the course may be repeated for credit. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Fischer

HIST 191b Psychohistory
[ ss ]
The theory and practice of psychohistory from its beginnings as applied psychoanalysis through its emergence as an independent discipline to the main tendencies and controversies in the field today. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Binion

HIST 192b Romantic and Existentialist Political Thought
[ ss ]
Readings from Camus, Sartre, Beckett, and others. Examination and criticism of romantic and existentialist theories of politics. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 195a American Political Thought: From the Revolution to the Civil War
[ ss ]
Antebellum America as seen in the writings of Paine, Jefferson, Adams, the Federalists and Antifederalists, the Federalists and Republicans, the Whigs and the Jacksonians, the advocates and opponents of slavery, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 195b American Political Thought: From the Gilded Age through the New Deal
[ ss ]
Topics include the Mugwumps, Populists, Progressives; Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; the New Nationalism and the New Freedom; the continuities and discontinuities of the New Deal and the Progressive Era. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 196a American Political Thought: From the 1950s to the Present
[ ss ]
Covers the New Left of the 1960s, its rejection of the outlook of the 1950s, the efforts of liberals to save the New Left agenda in the New Politics of the 1970s, and the reaction against the New Left in the neoconservative movement. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hulliung

HIST 200a Colloquium in American History
Topics vary from year to year. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 200b Colloquium in American History
An examination of major themes in the historiography of modern America. Topics vary from year to year. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 201a Major Problems in American Legal History
An advanced readings seminar on major interpretive issues in the field of American legal history. The seminar examines the different ways historians have interpreted law, political culture, and governing institutions, and their historical relationship to broader social, economic, cultural, and political processes. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 202a History of the Present
An advanced readings seminar that explores recent scholarship on American history since 1945, including politics, culture, social movements, and international relations. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 202b Modern American History from a Global Perspective
Note: Open only to MAT students.
Examines recent scholarly works that situate American history in a broader transnational framework, with a focus toward how the books challenge central and reshape narratives of American history. Focus for summer 2009 is on twentieth-century U.S. history. Usually offered every summer.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 203a American Historians and American Identity
Analyzes the major intellectual and institutional changes of the American historical profession since its founding in the late nineteenth century. By focusing on historians' conceptions of American identity, it also reveals early antecedents to contemporary "identity politics." Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 203b Colloquium in Modern World History
Designed to introduce students to the methods, sources, and writing about global and non-Western histories of the late 20th century, and era of extraordinary conflict and change. Topics include decolonization, economic transformation, and the global implications of American-Soviet antagonism. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Engerman

HIST 204a The Worlds of William Bentley
Graduate research seminar centered on the life and times of Salem minister William Bentley (1759-1819). Through their work with Bentley's diary, as well as field study, archival visits, secondary readings, and group research projects, students explore such topics as religion, politics, economic thought, intellectual life, material culture, gender relations, and the life course in the post-Revolutionary United States. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Kamensky

HIST 204b Writing History
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken HIST 188a in previous years.
This reading seminar and writing workshop explores the changing nature of the historian's craft in an age when notions like "objectivity," authors' control over texts, even the possibility of verifiable truth have come under attack. Explores theoretical writings on postmodern narrative, but focuses mainly on practice: reading and writing history that engages these concerns. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Kamensky

HIST 205a Social Politics in the Progressive Era
An advanced readings seminar that examines the different ways historians have interpreted the origins, causes, and consequences of social politics in Progressive Era America (1890). Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 205b Introduction to Doctoral Studies
Examines major problems in history. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 206a Problems in American Women's History
[ ss ]
Selected readings in the history of American women, with an emphasis on historiography, research methodology, and the conceptual frameworks of several major, recent secondary works in the field. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

HIST 206b Text/Context in American Social History
This seminar explores interdisciplinary perspectives--sociological, autobiographical, journalistic, anthropological--on the writing of American history. Six classics in American social history are paired with a recent monograph dealing with the same or a similar topic. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 207a Anatomy, Sexualities and Gender
Traces changing perceptions of the body and sexual differences from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Examines relations between men and women, notions of gender difference, ideals of beauty, and the social construction of decent and indecent behavior. Usually offered every second year.
Ms Kelikian

HIST 215a World History
Designed to introduce students to the methods, sources, and writings about global and non-Western histories. Taught collectively by specialists in Latin American, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern history. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 215b Teaching World History
Open only to MAT students.
Focuses on the rational and content of world history as a teaching subject. Explores whether the "case" for world history is simply that more material must be somehow be better, or whether a global perspective offers genuine analytic and interpretive gains. Offered summer 2008.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 221a Colloquium in European Comparative History since the Eighteenth Century
Designed for first-year graduate students. Comparative examination of major historical issues in Europe from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 221b Thematic Seminar in Premodern Legal History
A seminar in the comparative legal history of the pre-modern world. Explores a series of overlapping subthemes–courts, lawyers, crime, property, sexuality and colonialism–in Europe, the Americas, China, and the Indo-Islamic world, largely before the 19th century. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Sreenivasan

HIST 300e Directed Research for PhD Students
Students will normally elect one research topic in the fall term and the spring of the first year. Each is designed to provide experience in designing, researching, and writing a substantial essay of a monographic character, based on extensive use of sources. Each is the equivalent of two full courses. Specific research topics are selected by the student in consultation with the adviser. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 301d Directed Research for MA Students: Master’s Thesis
Year-long research project designed to provide experience in designing, researching, and writing a substantial essay of a monographic character, based on extensive use of primary sources. Students select a specific research topic in consultation with the adviser. The course covers two semesters, with one course credit given in each term. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 302a Directed Research for MA Students: Master’s Essay
Semester-long research project culminating in a Master’s essay. Students select a specific research topic in consultation with the adviser. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

HIST 320a Readings in History
Usually offered every term. Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested.
Staff

HIST 320b Readings in History
Usually offered every term. Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested.
Staff

HIST 340a Teaching in History
Usually offered every term. Supervised graduate teaching in history.
Staff

HIST 340b Teaching in History
Usually offered every term. Supervised graduate teaching in history.
Staff

HIST 401d Dissertation Research
Usually offered every semester. Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested.
Staff

AAAS 18b Africa and the West
[ nw ss ]
Focuses on the relationship between Africa and the "West" from the time of the ancient Egyptians to the postcolonial period. It also assesses the dilemma neocolonialism poses for the West. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sundiata

AAAS 70a Introduction to Afro-American History
[ ss ]
A survey of the Afro-American experience from the era of slavery to the present. Topics include the rise of a distinct community and its institutions, reconstruction and segregation, the contributions of blacks to American society, and the struggles for freedom and equality. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AAAS 85a Survey of Southern African History
[ nw ss ]
Explores the roots of segregation and apartheid in South Africa, the development of a regional political economy dominated by South Africa, labor migrancy and land alienation in southern Africa, and the rise of African and Afrikaaner nationalisms. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sundiata

AAAS 115a Introduction to African History
[ nw ss ]
Explores the history of African societies from their earliest beginnings to the present era. Topics include African participation in antiquity as well as early Christianity and preindustrial political, economic, and cultural developments. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Sundiata

AMST 30b American Environmental History
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 101a in prior years.
Provides an overview of the relationship between nature and culture in North America. Covers Native Americans, the European invasion, the development of a market system of resource extraction and consumption, the impact of industrialization, and environmentalist responses. Current environmental issues are placed in historical context. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Donahue

AMST 40a Women in American History
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 123b in prior years.
A historical and cultural survey of the female experience in the United States, with emphasis on issues of education, work, domestic ideology, sexuality, male-female relations, race, class, politics, war, the media, feminism, and antifeminism. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Antler

AMST 104b Boston and Its Suburbs: Environment and History
[ ss ]
Advanced seminar follows the development of the cultural landscape of Boston, Waltham and the western suburbs from glacial retreat to urban sprawl. Employs ecology and history to better understand and address contemporary environmental issues. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Donahue

AMST 125a History of United States Feminisms
[ ss ]
This is an experiential learning course. An investigation of the development and politics of women's rights in the United States. Explores the internal and external coalitions and conflicts at the nexus of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion. Examines the transnational shift to organizing for human rights. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Antler and Ms. Hansen

AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
[ ss ]
Examines cultural ideas and policies about childhood and youth, as well as child-rearing and parenting strategies, child-saving, socialization, delinquency, children's literature, television, and other media for children and youth. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Antler

ANTH 108b History, Time, and Tradition
[ ss ]
Explores topics relating to the historical dimension of societies in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives: the cultural construction of the past, temporal and calendrical systems, the invention of tradition, ethnohistorical narrative, cultural memory and forgetting, historical monuments, and museums. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Parmentier

ANTH 119a Conquests, Resistance, and Cultural Transformation in Mexico and Central America
[ nw ss ]
Examines the continuing negotiation of identity and power that were at the heart of tragedy and triumph for indigenous peoples in colonial Mexico and Central America, and which continue in the modern states of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Golden

CLAS 100a Survey of Greek History: Bronze Age to 323 BCE
[ hum ]
Surveys the political and social development of the Greek city-states from Bronze Age origins to the death of Alexander. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Walker

CLAS 115b Topics in Greek and Roman History
[ hum wi ]
Topics vary from year to year and the course may be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. Topics include the Age of Alexander the Great, the Age of Pericles, the Greekness of Alexander, and Imperialism in Antiquity. See the Schedule of Classes for the current topic. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Walker

CLAS 120a Age of Caesar
[ hum wi ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who took CLAS 115b in spring 2005.
The life and times of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) viewed through primary texts in a variety of genres: from Caesar himself to contemporaries Cicero and Catullus and biographers Plutarch and Suetonius. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Walker

GECS 155a Modern German Jewish History
[ hum ]
Course to be taught at Brandeis summer program in Berlin.
Study of Germany and the European Jews from the period of emancipation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the present. Examines the role of German Jews in German politics, economic life, and culture; the rise of anti-Semitism in the nineteenth century; the Nazi government's anti-Jewish policies to the postwar period. Usually offered every year.
Ms. von Mering

IMES 104a Islam: Civilization and Institutions
[ hum nw ]
Provides a disciplined study of Islamic civilization from its origins to the current state of affairs. Approaches the study from a humanities perspective. Topics covered will include the Qur'an, tradition, law, theology, politics, Islam and other religions, modern developments, women in Islam, and Islam and Middle Eastern politics. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 35a History of the Jews from 1492 to the Present
[ hum ss ]
Open to all students.
Main trends and events in the legal, economic, social, cultural, and religious history of the Jewish people in the context of the general background, with emphasis on major areas of Jewish settlement. Usually offered every year.
Staff

NEJS 135a The Modern Jewish Experience
[ hum ]
Themes include Enlightenment, Hasidism, emancipation, Jewish identity in the modern world (acculturation and assimilation), development of dominant nationalism in Judaism, Zionism, European Jewry between the world wars, Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, and contemporary Jewish life in America, Israel, and Europe. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Freeze or Mr. Sheppard

NEJS 136b History and Culture of the Jews in East-Central Europe, 1914 to the Present
[ hum ]
An examination of the history of the Jews in the countries of East-Central Europe (Poland, the Soviet Union and its successor states, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia) from the outbreak of World War I until the present day. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 137a The Destruction of European Jewry
[ hum ]
Open to all students.
Why did the Jews become the subject of genocidal hatred? A systematic examination of the anti-Jewish genocide planned and executed by Nazi Germany and the Jewish and general responses to it. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 137b A History of the Jews in Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna, and Odessa
[ hum ss ]
Examines the history of the four largest Jewish communities in the Russian Empire from the earliest settlement through the Holocaust to the present, comparing internal organization, different political and cultural allegiances, and relations with the majority population. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 138a Genocide and Mass Killing in the Twentieth Century
[ hum ]
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of twentieth-century world history is preferable.
An interdisciplinary seminar examining history and sociology of the internationally punishable crime of genocide, with the focus on theory, prevention, and punishment of genocide. Case studies include Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, Stalin's Russia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 140a History of the Jews from the Maccabees to 1497
[ hum ss wi ]
Judea during the Second Commonwealth; Jews in the Roman Empire; origins of anti-Judaism; Jewish religious heritage; Islam and the Jews; the Jewish community; church, state, society, economy, and the Jews; the expulsion from Western Europe. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 140b The Jews in Europe to 1791
[ hum ]
Considers the following topics: church, crusades, state, economy, society, and the Jews; religious and intellectual life, family and community; England, France, and the Germanic lands; Spain, Spanish exile, and Iberian Diaspora; Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation; Eastern Europe and Hasidism; the return to the West; and the Enlightenment and emancipation. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Ravid

NEJS 142a Modern History of East European Jewry
[ hum ]
A comprehensive survey of the history (economic, sociopolitical, and religious) of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe from the middle of the eighteenth century until World War II, with emphasis placed on the Jews of Poland and Russia. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 142b Secular Jews: Lives and Choices from 1750 to the Present
[ hum ]
A survey of the lives of Jews who since 1750 have seen their identity in new ways, either as individuals without religious faith but still identified as Jews or as adherents of ideologies which provided alternative definitions of Jewish identity. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 145a History of the State of Israel
[ hum ]
Examines the development of the State of Israel from its foundation to the present time. Israel's politics, society, and culture will be thematically analyzed. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Troen

NEJS 150b History of Poland since 1750
[ hum ]
May only count toward the NEJS major or minor with the written permission of the instructor.
Surveys the history of Poland from the middle of the eighteenth century to the recent changes since 1989. Emphasizes the specific character of the Polish lands as a borderland and as a multi-religious and multi-ethnic area. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Polonsky

NEJS 151b Ghettos, Gondolas, and Gelato: The Italian Jewish Experience
[ hum ss ]
Topics include the Jews of classical antiquity, attitude of church and state toward Jews, ghetto, Jewish merchants and moneylenders, Renaissance and the Jews, Marranos and the Inquisition, raison d'état, emancipation, Holocaust, and communities today. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 152b Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, and Anti-Zionism
[ hum ss ]
A historical survey of the three major forms of hostility toward the Jews from classical antiquity to the present. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 162a American Judaism
[ hum ss wi ]
American Judaism from the earliest settlement to the present, with particular emphasis on the various streams of American Judaism. Judaism's place in American religion and comparisons to Judaism in other countries. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sarna

NEJS 162b It Couldn't Happen Here: Three American Anti-Semitic Episodes
[ hum ]
A close examination of three American anti-Semitic episodes: U.S. Grant's expulsion of the Jews during the Civil War, the Leo Frank case, and the publication of Henry Ford's The International Jew. What do these episodes teach us about anti-Semitic prejudice, about Jews, and about America as a whole? Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sarna

NEJS 167a East European Jewish Immigration to the United States
[ hum ss ]
Open to all students.
A historical survey of East European Jewish immigration to the United States (1881-1924). Regular readings will be supplemented by primary sources, immigrant fiction, and films. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Sarna

NEJS 184a Introduction to Jewish Museum Studies
[ hum ]
Using readings, case studies, field trips, and class discussions, this course gives students introductory theoretical, historical, bibliographic, and hands-on skills for interpreting and producing exhibitions, museums, and historic sites in American, Europe, and Israel. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Smith

NEJS 185a Topics in Israeli Social and Political History
[ hum ]
Not recommended for first year students.
Focuses on key topics in the shaping of the Israeli experience, including Zionist colonization; absorption of immigrants; shaping Jewish identity, personal and national, in a secular sense; and homeland/Diaspora relations. Comparative perspectives are employed. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Troen

NEJS 185b The Making of the Modern Middle East
[ hum nw ss ]
Open to all students.
Discusses the processes that led to the emergence of the modern Middle East: disintegration of Islamic society, European colonialism, reform and reaction, and the rise of nationalism and the modern states. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

NEJS 188a The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1800
[ hum nw ss ]
A historical survey of the Middle East from the establishment of the Ottoman Empire as the area's predominant power to 1800. Topics include Ottoman institutions and their transformation, and the Ottoman Empire as a world power. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

POL 113b The American Presidency
[ ss ]
Philosophical and historical origins of the presidency, examining the constitutional role of the chief executive. Historical development of the presidency, particularly the emergence of the modern presidency during the twentieth century. Contemporary relationships between the presidency and the electorate, as well as the other branches of government. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kryder