University Bulletin (2019-2020)

• Minor
• Major (BA)
• Master of Arts
• Doctor of Philosophy

Undergraduate Major

Over the centuries, the study of history has stood at the heart of a liberal education. In the twenty-first century – as human societies the world over become ever more closely interconnected and historical time itself seems to accelerate – a well-informed and well-reasoned understanding of the past has become all the more vital.

In its sweeping subject matter and wide-ranging methodologies, history is an unusually robust field of inquiry. Historians employ methods as diverse as the kinds of evidence they study – from geological traces to the archival manuscripts of dynasties long gone to the digital information of the modern world. Whatever the subject, the study of history involves the student in all of the most essential elements of liberal learning, including the acquisition of knowledge, the development of critical thinking skills, and the strengthening of oral and written communication. Whether the past being examined is that of a foreign country or one’s own, history involves a recognition of the central importance of sequence and context – the crucial differences of time and place that shape the possibilities of human endeavor and the meanings of community. Reflecting a broader concern for human values and needs, historians seek the universal in the particular, the global in the local, the breadth of human experience in the details of the everyday.

The History major is flexible, enabling students to devise individual programs tailored to their specific needs and interests. In consultation with their faculty advisors, students should design a major that makes sense in terms of their other course work and career plans. The strategy will be different for each student. A student planning a professional career in history, for example, will certainly want to take a broad variety of courses, undertake substantial research projects through the History Lab or independent study (HIST 98a/98b), and pursue one of the two paths to departmental honors. Students interested in other careers, such as law or business, will design programs of study that complement their course work in other departments and programs (for example, legal studies or economics). The department strongly recommends that students acquire geographical and chronological breadth, which is best provided by our surveys in American, Asian, European, Latin American, and World history. Students should also select appropriate offerings from our more advanced courses that are thematic or national in scope and that permit more intensive analysis. The department is deeply committed to the development of writing and analytical skills, which are invaluable and transferable, regardless of future career—be it higher education, teaching, law, business, or public service. The advanced courses, with smaller class sizes, provide an ideal opportunity to develop those skills. Internships in History (HIST 92a) and History Research Internships (HIST 93a) allow students to gain work experience and to improve their writing and analytical skills in real-world settings with faculty guidance.

Graduate Program in History

The graduate program trains students to research, write and teach history at the highest level. It emphasizes the need for broad perspectives on urgent problems, rooted in a thorough and in-depth knowledge of the past. Through courses, supervised research and teaching fellowships, History faculty at Brandeis prepare future historians for the excitement and challenges of a career devoted to exploring and explaining the past.

Doctoral students receive tuition waivers and generous fellowships, renewable for a total of up to five years based on satisfactory progress. Students must maintain an average of A- or above. In their second and third years, students staff department courses as Teaching Fellows. Students also teach a University Writing Seminar in either the fourth or the fifth year of study, the specific timing to be arranged in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies in History and the Director of University Writing.

Undergraduate Major

The Brandeis History major seeks to provide students with a broad introduction to the development of the modern world. By design, the major is flexible, enabling students to devise individual programs tailored to their own specific needs and interests.

Knowledge

Students completing the major in history will come away with a strong understanding of:

1. The cultures, economies, social structures, and governmental systems of past civilizations. To this end, the department’s flexible requirements for the major direct students to take courses covering the histories of the North America, Europe, and non-western countries
2. The diverse sources and methods that historians use to study the past
3. The perspective afforded by studying events, ideas, and actions in historical context and sequence
4. Different forms of historical explanation, argument, and narrative

Core Skills

The history major teaches core skills in scholarly research, critical thinking, oral communication, and written expression. The study of history teaches students to strive for a higher appreciation of the world around them, and to understand that to effectively address contemporary problems requires a full understanding of the origins and causes of those problems.

Upon Graduating

A Brandeis student with a history major will be prepared to:

1. Use the knowledge, perspectives, and skills gained from their historical studies to pursue (as many of our majors have done) careers in law, business, journalism, public service, or numerous other fields
2. Organize, evaluate, and communicate a critical assessment of competing and often conflicting sources of information about the past
3. Pursue graduate study and a scholarly career in history

The department is deeply committed to the development of writing and analytical skills that are invaluable and transferable, regardless of future career. And it is our belief that the knowledge and skills our major provides will lay the foundation for a fuller, more productive, and engaged life after college.

General Education Learning Goals and Requirements for History Majors

I. Digital Literacy (DL)

Learning Goals: Increasingly, the practice of history involves the purposeful use of digital resources—databases, digital research tools, and digital modes of presentation. Digital resources are useful for learning the elemental historical literacies, including the ability to distinguish and work with primary vs. secondary sources, to identify the provenance of a source, to put trends, events, and ideas in chronological sequence, and to make original arguments based upon strong evidence. As part of the Major experience, Brandeis History Majors will be exposed to a wide variety of digital resources and will pursue wide-ranging Digital Learning Goals, which may include:

• The ability to evaluate the validity of digital sources
• The ability to find and use appropriate digital tools (including software and databases).
• The ability to create original scholarly work in a digital medium
• The ability to discover, create, analyze, present, and reason about large sets of data relevant to the discipline.

I. Oral Communication (OC)

Learning Goals: History Majors will receive instruction in widely transferrable Oral Communication skills. Majors will learn to listen effectively and to critically evaluate orally presented information and arguments. In OC- designated History courses, students will also learn (through practice and feedback) how to create and deliver effective oral presentations.

III. Writing-Intensive (WI)

Learning Goals: Since ancient times, writing has been a central medium for historical reasoning, argument, and story-telling. Writing-intensive courses in History involve frequent writing assignments, opportunities for rewriting, and consultations about writing with the instructor. History Majors will learn how to craft clear and concise prose to effectively present their own ideas, interpretations, and arguments about the past with well-organized pieces of writing supported by appropriate historical evidence.

Graduate Program in History

I. Learning Goals for the PhD in History

Core Skills

1. Critical thinking, advanced research, and writing.
2. Ability to analyze, discuss, and write about major problems in history and historiography.
3. To analyze primary historical sources within their social, cultural, economic, and political contexts.
4. To design and execute original historical research projects at the highest graduate level, culminating in a doctoral dissertation.
5. To teach history at the college level.

Knowledge

1. Understand major problems and methodological approaches in the discipline of history.
2. Build a broad and deep foundation of knowledge in a major field of historical interest.
3. Develop understanding of a discipline outside of history, or the history of a country or region outside of their main research focus.

Social Justice

An understanding of history’s relationship to questions of social justice.

II. Learning Goals for the Master’s Degree in History

Core Skills

1. Critical thinking, research, and writing.
2. Ability to analyze, discuss, and write about major problems in history and historiography.
3. To analyze primary historical sources within their social, cultural, economic, and political contexts.
4. To design and execute original historical research projects, culminating in capstone project.

Knowledge

1. Understand major problems and methodological approaches in the discipline of history.
2. Develop broad perspectives on urgent historical problems, rooted in a thorough and in-depth knowledge of the past.

Social Justice

An understanding of history’s relationship to questions of social justice.

Students normally begin their studies with one of the general courses in historical studies and then go on to more advanced courses. To declare and design a major, the student should first see the undergraduate advising head; together they will select as advisor a faculty member who seems best suited to that student's areas of interest and future work. The advisor and student will then select a course of study that gives greatest coherence to the student's other course work and career plans.

MA Program

The general requirements for admission to the Graduate School given in an earlier section of this Bulletin apply to candidates for admission. Students should have a strong undergraduate record that includes at least some history courses. The priority deadline for MA applicants is January 15; the final deadline is April 30.

PhD Program

The general requirements for admission to the Graduate School given in an earlier section of this Bulletin apply. Students with a sound preparation in history and who have demonstrated unusual imagination and critical insight will receive special consideration. Undergraduate majors in related fields in the humanities or social sciences, so long as they have good preparation in history, are welcomed. Students may enter the doctoral program with an MA degree (usually from another university), or earn an MA in history en route to the doctoral degree. Applicants should submit a sample of written work, preferably in history. Admitted applicants normally receive funded offers from the Graduate School. The deadline for PhD applicants is January 15. Admission decisions are based solely upon demonstrated achievement and scholarly promise, without regard to field, region, or method of study.

Michael Willrich, Chair
American social and legal history.

Gregory Childs
African diaspora, Latin America and Caribbean, African American, race and gender, political theory and history.

Abigail Cooper
19th-century America. Religious and cultural history. The American South. African American history and slavery.

Yuri Doolan
Asian-American history. Korean history. US archives.

Gregory Freeze
Russia, Central Asia, and Germany. Social history, religion, globalization.

Xing Hang (on leave academic year 2019-2020)
East Asian History.

Mark Hulliung
Intellectual, cultural, and political history—European and American.

Paul Jankowski, Director of Graduate Studies
Modern European and French history. History of war.

David Katz
History of religion and ideas in the long early modern period (1500-1900), especially England.

William Kapelle
Medieval history.

Alice Kelikian
Modern history. Social and institutional history.

Hannah Muller
Britain and the British Empire.

Amy Singer
Ottoman studies. History of charity and philanthropy. Digital history.

Naghmeh Sohrabi
Middle Eastern Studies. Cultural and political history

Govind Sreenivasan
Early modern European history with an emphasis on Germany. World history.

Affiliated Faculty (contributing to the curriculum, advising and administration of the department or program)
Brian Donahue (American Studies)
ChaeRan Freeze (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Karen Hansen (Sociology)
Laura Jockusch (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Daniel Kryder (Politics)
Carina Ray (African and Afro-American Studies)
Jehuda Reinharz (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Jonathan Sarna (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Eugene Sheppard (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)
Chad Williams (African and Afro-American Studies)

All minors are expected to complete five semester courses in history from among the HIST and cross-listed offerings. The approval of one course transferred from study elsewhere is subject to the approval of the department's undergraduate advising head. No course grade below a C nor any course taken pass/fail will be given credit toward the minor. Students should declare the minor in history no later than the beginning of their senior year.

All majors are expected to complete satisfactorily at least nine semester courses in history from among the HIST and cross-listed offerings. No course grade below a C nor any course taken pass/fail will be given credit toward the major requirement of nine courses.

Students must take courses in at least three different geographic regions - United States, Europe (including Russia), Africa/Middle East, Latin America/Caribbean, Asia, and Global/Transregional. At least one course presented for the major, normally taken in the sophomore or junior year, must require independent written research work totaling 12 or more pages in length.

Foundational Literacies: As part of completing the History major, students must:

• Fulfill the writing intensive requirement by successfully completing one of the following: Any HIST course approved for WI or HIST 99d.
• Fulfill the writing intensive requirement by successfully completing one of the following: Any HIST course approved for OC or HIST 99d with an oral defense of the thesis.
• Fulfill the digital literacy requirement by successfully completing one of the following: AAPI/HIS 163a, HIST 8a, HIST 10a, HIST 50b, HIST 111b, HIST 147b, or a senior thesis HIST 99d incorporating a project based-experience with a significant digital history dimension, approved by a faculty advisor.

Students may double-count a single course toward the area and the research paper requirements.

Transfer students and those taking a year's study abroad may offer up to four semester courses taught elsewhere. To apply such transfer courses to the History major, a student must obtain the approval of the department advising head.

In addition, History offers a variety of independent study options, where a student's work is guided, in tutorial fashion, by a particular faculty member. HIST 98a and 98b (Readings in History) may be taken by students on a subject of particular interest to them that is not covered in the regular curriculum One internship in History (HIST 92a) may be taken for credit in the major.

The History Department offers two tracks for attaining departmental honors. Students may complete a Senior Honors Thesis by enrolling in HIST 99d (Senior Research) for two course credits over two semesters. Alternatively, students may present two major research papers (20-25 pages in length). Normally, at least one of those papers will be written in a specially designated Research Seminar or History Lab. The papers may also be completed by means of an Independent Study (HIST 98a), a research paper completed for an internship (HIST 92a), or in another History course presented for the major. In addition to the Thesis or major research papers, to achieve departmental honors, students must also maintain a 3.5 GPA in courses for the major, and must take courses in four (not three) of the geographic areas noted above.

The major can be combined with other programs of study, such as Latin American and Latino Studies or Russian and East European Studies. Students should consult their advisors to design a major that best complements the requirements of other programs.

History and cross-listed courses that meet the area requirements:

US History

AAAS 70a, 130b, 131a, 154b, 155b, 156a; AAPI/HIS 163a; AMST 30b, 35a, 105a, 150a; HIS/HSSP 142a; HIST 50b, 51a, 149a, 151a, 152a, 153b, 156a, 157b, 158b, 159b, 160a, 160b, 161a, 162a, 164a, 164b, 166b, 168b, 169a, 171b, 174b, 195a, 196a; LGLS 145b; NEJS 162a, 162b; POL 113b, 163a

Europe (including Russia)

CLAS 100a, 115b, 120a; HIST 52b, 103a, 110a, 110b, 112b, 113a, 120a, 121a, 123a, 123b, 126a, 128b, 131a, 133a, 133b, 137b, 138a, 140a, 142a, 142b, 145a, 147a, 147b, 150b, 170a, 181b, 183b, 186a, 192b; NEJS 37a, 140b, 142a, 148a

Africa/Middle East

AAAS 115a, 120a, 135a; HIST 111a, 111b, 112a, 114a, 135b, 140b, 172b; IMES 104a NEJS 145a, 185a, 185b, 188a

Latin America/Caribbean

ANTH 119a, HIST 71a, 71b, 162a, 167a, 174a, 175b

Asia

HIST 66a, 80a, 80b, 146a, 176b, 179b, 182b, 183a, 184a, 184b, 185a, 187b; IGS 165a

Global/Transregional

AAAS 135a, 168b; HIST 8a, 10a, 56b, 61a, 62a, 106b, 136b, 167a, 178b, 179a, 180a; NEJS 135a, 140a, 149b

Research Courses

AAAS 70a, 115a, 131a, 146b, 156a, 162a, 168b; AMST 30b, 150a; ANTH 119a; CLAS 120a; HIST 131a, 133b, 136b, 137b, 140a, 140b, 142a, 142b, 145a, 147a, 147b, 149a, 151a, 152a, 153b, 156a, 159b, 160a, 160b, 161a, 164b, 167a, 168b, 170a, 174a, 176b, 178b, 179b, 180a, 181b, 183a, 183b, 185a, 186a, 187b, 192b, 195a, 196a; NEJS 37a, 142a, 150a, 162a, 162b; POL 113b

Master of Arts in History

This one-year full-time program is designed to provide students with a graduate-level understanding of the discipline of history and to enhance their mastery of historical research and writing.

Program of Study

A flexible program of study allows students to work closely with the faculty in ways that best suit the students' particular goals, whether for future doctoral study or for careers in writing, teaching, or public history.  In consultation with their advisors, students select a program of six courses at the 100- or 200-level that fall within their areas of historical interest. In addition to these six courses, the MA experience culminates in two capstone credits.  Various options exist for the capstone, a tutorial-supervised learning opportunity designed to advance the student’s particular career aims. Those considering doctoral work would complete the capstone with a double-credit primary-source-based Master’s Thesis advised by a member of the faculty in consultation with the director of graduate studies, or with two single-credit one-semester essays advised by two different supervisors. In the case of students who elect to write a year-long Master’s thesis there will be a thesis defense at the end of the year with a committee consisting of the thesis advisor and one other member of the department.

M.A. students must enroll in at least two graduate seminars over the course of their year at Brandeis.

Residency Requirement

Students admitted to the MA program must fulfill the Graduate School residence requirement of one full year of course work. The program may take an additional one or two semesters to complete as an Extended Master's student.

Language Requirement

There is no foreign language requirement for the terminal master’s degree.

The Joint Degree of Master of Arts in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for Doctoral Students in History

During the course of their work toward the PhD, students in History may earn a joint MA with Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies by completing the following requirements in conjunction with program requirements for the MA:

1. WMGS 205a, the foundation course in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
2. One course in feminist research methodologies (WMGS 208b or the Feminist Inquiry course offered through the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies).
3. Two elective courses in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, one inside and one outside the history department. Normally, only one of these courses may be a Directed Reading course.
4. Joint MA Paper Requirement: Completion of a Master's research paper of professional quality and length (normally 25-40 pages) on a topic related to the joint degree. The paper will be read by two faculty members, one of whom is a member of the History department, and one of whom is a member of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies core or affiliate faculty. In consultation with the primary advisor, a student may register for WMGS 299, "Master’s Project." However, this course may not count toward the eight required courses in History.

The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History

Program of Study

The doctoral program in history embraces the eclectic nature of the discipline and the initiative of graduate students to design flexible courses of study that advance their unique interests. The first two years in the PhD program are devoted to coursework intended to provide the foundation of knowledge and experience necessary for embarking on a dissertation. Students normally take a total of sixteen semester courses over these two years. These courses include Directed Research, Regional Colloquia, Thematic Seminars, Field Courses, and Pedagogy. The specific requirements for coursework are minimal; in addition to their Directed Research, all students normally complete Introduction to Doctoral Studies in History, at least one Colloquium, and at least one Thematic Seminar.

The sine qua non of preparation for dissertation work is primary-source research, which is a central focus of the first year. Half of a student’s workload each semester that year consists of Directed Research, working with a Brandeis historian (chosen in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies) to complete an article-length essay analyzing primary sources.

All first-year doctoral students must take at least one 200-level course in addition to Introduction to Doctoral Studies. During their second year doctoral students must take at least two graduate seminars.

During the first or second year, each student typically takes at least one course designed to introduce major themes and scholarly approaches to historical study of a given region. These Regional Colloquia are currently offered in American, European, and World History.

Additional courses are selected in consultation with faculty members to best meet the specific needs and interests of individual students. These electives may include Field Courses devoted to in-depth study of a particular era or methodological approach, and Thematic Seminars, broad and transnational courses of interest to historians irrespective of regional specialization. In addition, students normally take at least one course outside the discipline of history, whether at Brandeis or within the Graduate Consortium.

Pedagogy courses are taken in the second year, accompanying students’ work as Teaching Fellows.

Residency Requirement

The residency requirement for doctoral students in History is three years.

Language Requirement

All students are expected to demonstrate proficiency in at least one foreign language by the end of their second year.  Many specializations require proficiency in two or more foreign languages.Proficiency is normally tested by a written translation exam, offered each semester. Students may use alternative means of demonstrating proficiency on petition to the Director of Graduate Studies.

Comprehensive Examination

Outside Field

Before taking the oral exam, all doctoral students must obtain a certificate from a Brandeis professor confirming that they have taken a course in either (a) a discipline outside of history that complements historical studies, such as anthropology, sociology, or literary studies, or (b) the history of a country or region outside of their main research focus. The certifying professor may also require that the student prepare a reading list or a proposed course syllabus. The selection of course and professor should be made in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies.

Major Field

After completing the certification of an Outside Field, students must pass a comprehensive oral examination in their major field of historical interest. Within the major field the candidate will be examined by two professors in two broadly conceived subfields, to be determined by the student in consultation with the examiners and the Director of Graduate Studies, for 30-45 minutes each. Frequently these subfields will be defined chronologically but sometimes a student may wish to focus on a thematic or a methodological field. Each examining professor will ask the student to prepare a list of some 50 to 75 books that are crucial to the student’s field of inquiry. Normally students must pass their exam by the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth semester. Students with compelling reasons to make different course arrangements before the general examination may petition the graduate program to do so.

Teaching Requirement

Doctoral students must teach during five of their ten funded semesters, normally in years two through four. Typically, a student will serve four times as a teaching fellow in a History course, one time as the instructor in a University Writing Seminar.

Dissertation

After completing the qualifying examination, students begin research on their dissertation. Working with a primary advisor and a second reader (both from the Graduate Faculty in History unless approved by the Director of Graduate Studies), students prepare a proposal of 15-30 pages describing the dissertation's topic, source based, and historical significance. The prospectus will be presented publicly to the faculty and graduate students in the History Department. After the proposal is presented and accepted, the student will be considered advanced to candidacy.

When ready to defend their completed dissertation, students consult with their primary advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies to constitute, formally, the dissertation committee. Normally that committee includes the primary advisor, the second reader, and an outside reader drawn from the faculty of another university. With the approval of their committees, students arrange a public dissertation defense.

HIST 8a Globalization in History
[ dl ss ]
Seeks to historicize "globalization"—to explore its extension and transformation since its emergence in the sixteenth century. The principal task is to analyze the key dynamics that drove—and periodically interrupted—this process, and to give particular attention to its perception and impact. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 10a Not Even Past: History for the Global Citizen
[ dl ss ]
Applies historical thinking to a wide range of past and present human concerns. Each of its four concentric units of analysis centers on an issue of contemporary importance: "The Self," "The Life," "The Community," and "The World." Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 50b American Transformations: Perspectives on United States History, Origins to the Present
[ dl ss ]
Investigates U.S. history in a wider world, from its origins to the present, starting with the premise that American History itself is a construct of modern empire. Only by investigating the roots of power and resistance can we understand the forces that deeply influence our world as we live it today. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

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 52b Europe in the Modern World
[ oc ss ]
Explores European history from the Enlightenment to the present emphasizing how developments in Europe have shaped and been shaped by broader global contexts. Topics include: revolution, industrialization, political and social reforms, nationalism, imperialism, legacies of global wars, totalitarianism, and decolonization. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 56b World History to 1960
[ djw 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.
Govind 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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 62a Decolonization: The End of Empire
[ ss wi ]
Examines the end of the European colonial empires following the Second World War. Explores the political, social, and cultural roots of anticolonial activism, as well as the responses of colonial powers, and the emergence of a world of nation-states. Special one-time offering, fall 2018.
Staff

HIST 66a History of South Asia (2500 BCE - 1971)
[ djw nw ss ]
Introduces South Asian history from the earliest civilizations to the independence of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Surveys the formation of religious traditions, the establishment of kingdoms and empires, colonialism and its consequences, and post-independence political and economic development. Usually offered every second year.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 71a Latin American and Caribbean History I: Colonialism, Slavery, Freedom
[ djw hum nw ss ]
Studies colonialism in Latin America and Caribbean, focusing on coerced labor and struggles for freedom as defining features of the period: conquest; Indigenous, African, and Asian labor; colonial institutions and economics; Independence and revolutionary movements. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 71b Latin American and Caribbean History II: Modernity, Medicine, Sexuality
[ djw hum nw ss ]
Studies the idea of "modernity" in Latin America and Caribbean, centered on roles of health and human reproduction in definitions of the "modern" citizen: post-slavery labor, race and national identity; modern politics and economics; transnational relations. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 80a Introduction to East Asian Civilization
[ djw dl 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.
Heyward James

HIST 80b East Asia in the Modern World
[ hum nw ss ]
Surveys East Asian history from the 1600 to the present. Compares Chinese, Korean, and Japanese encounters with forces of industrial capitalism, including colonialism, urbanization, and globalization, resulting in East Asia’s distinctive cultural and social modernity. Usually offered every year.
Heyward James

HIST 92a Internship in History
History internships allow students to gain work experience and to improve their writing and analytical skills. Although non-credit internships are an option, students seeking course credit must obtain approval from the History internship supervisor in advance, and normally complete some written work under the supervision of a faculty sponsor. Students may count one HIST 92a toward completion of the major or minor. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

HIST 95a History Research Internship
Yields half-course credit.
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
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

AAPI/HIS 163a Asian American History
[ deis-us dl ss ]
Explores the history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States with a focus on their lived experiences and contributions to U.S. society. Course culminates in a final AAPI digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

AAPI/HIS 186b Legacies of the Korean War
[ deis-us djw ss ]
Explores the lasting legacies and human consequences of the Korean War in a transnational context. Course culminates in a final digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

HIS/HSSP 142a Health Activism
[ deis-us oc ss ]
Formerly offered as HSSP 142a.
Examines the history of health activism in the U.S. over the past 125 years, from late 19th century debates over compulsory vaccination to contemporary public health campaigns around gang violence and incarceration. Usually offered every third year.
Wangui Muigai

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.
William Kapelle

HIST 106b The Modern British Empire
[ djw oc ss ]
Surveys British imperial history from the Seven Years’ War through the period after decolonization. Explores economic, political, and social forces propelling expansion; ideologies and contradictions of empire; relationships between colonizer and colonized; and the role of collaboration and resistance. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

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.
William 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.
William Kapelle

HIST 111a History of the Modern Middle East
[ djw nw 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.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 111b The Iranian Revolution: From Monarchy to the Islamic Republic
[ djw dl nw 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.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 112a Nationalism in the Middle East
[ djw 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.
Naghmeh 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.
William 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.
William Kapelle

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.
William Kapelle

HIST 121a Breaking the Rules: Deviance and Nonconformity in Premodern Europe
[ djw 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

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.
William 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 126a Early Modern Europe (1500-1700)
[ oc 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 128b Borders, Regions and Ethnicities in Modern Europe
[ ss ]
Considers Europe's history since the French Revolution "from its margins," with special attention to what is often rendered invisible by a telling of European history that focuses on nations - the stories of borderlands, of regions, and of ethnic and religious minorities. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Drew Flanagan

HIST 131a Hitler's Europe in Film
[ ss wi ]
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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 133a Politics of the Enlightenment
[ ss ]
Examines 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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 133b Rights and Revolutions: History of Natural Rights
[ ss wi ]
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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 134b The Ottoman Empire: From Principality to Republic by way of Empire
[ ss ]
The Ottomans in history: how did a tiny principality grow from 1300 to be a global empire by 1550 and become a modern nation state by 1923? Who were the Ottomans? What are their legacies in today's world? Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

HIST 135b The Middle East and Its Revolutions
[ djw nw ss ]
An examination of the various revolutions that have shaped the modern Middle East since the late 19th century. The course focuses on four different revolutionary moments: The constitutional revolutions of the turn of the century, the anti-colonial revolutions of mid-century, the radical revolutions of the 1970's, and most recently, the Arab Spring revolutions that have affected the region since 2011. Usually offered every second year.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 136b Global War and Revolutions in the Eighteenth Century
[ djw oc ss wi ]
Surveys global conflicts and revolutions and examines exchanges of idea, peoples, and goods in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. Explores the legacies of inter-imperial rivalry and the intellectual borrowings and innovations of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions in comparative perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 137b World War I
[ ss wi ]
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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 138a The World Between the Wars, 1919-1939
[ ss ]
Explores links between the First and Second World Wars, including the rise of fascism, Soviet communism, the world economic depression, the collapse of collective security, and the crisis of world empires. Usually offered every other year.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 140a A History of Fashion in Europe
[ dl 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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 140b Charity and Poverty in Islamic Societies
[ djw nw ss ]
Charity and poverty are universal aspects of human societies, culturally specific and historically contingent. This course studies charitable giving as a fundamental aspect of Muslim belief and practice, reflecting change over time and space, offering comparisons with non-Muslim societies. Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 142b History of Sexualities in Europe
[ ss ]
Formerly offered as HIST 55b.
Explores a social history of sexualities in Europe from early modern to contemporary times. Topical emphasis on changing patterns in kinship, child rearing, gender differentiation, immodesty, and marriage. Usually offered every third year.
Alice 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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 146a An International History of Japan
[ ss ]
Japan from prehistory to today, focusing on the archipelago's relationship to its Asian neighbors and the wider world. Topics include early Chinese influence, the introduction of Buddhism from Korea, the samurai, Westernization, and the rise and fall of imperial Japan.
Ryan Glasnovich

HIST 147a Imperial Russia: From Westernization to Globalization
[ ss ]
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.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 147b Twentieth-Century Russia
[ dl 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.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 149a Prison: A Global History
[ ss ]
Explores the history of the modern prison from a global perspective, comparing and contrasting the history of incarceration in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 150b Reading the Writing of European History
[ ss ]
Is history a science or an art, just another form of literature? Whether history repeats itself, historians do repeat each other, as we see by reading selections from famous and forgotten historians addressing these questions over the past 250 years. Usually offered every third year.
David Katz

HIST 151a Conservatives and Liberals in Modern America: Race, Democracy and History in the U.S.
[ deis-us ss ]
Examines the history and politics surrounding ideas of "conservative" and "liberal" in the modern United States, through the lens of race and race relations, beginning in the post-World War II period. Our investigation will explore the ways in which political institutions, ideas, movements, and activism influenced a contemporary understanding of liberalism and conservatism, while also analyzing how conservatives and liberals have influenced structures, politics and policies, and the American state, with respect to the intersection of race. Moreover, this course provides students with the necessary tools to assess and understand the chaos and volatility that has come to define the intersection of race and presidential politics. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 152a American History, American Literature
[ 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.
Staff

HIST 153a The History of Big Data
[ ss ]
How did numbers become the gold standard for truth? This course will ask how people, things and ideas have been quantified since the seventeenth century, and explore how numbers can clarify and obscure our social, political, and economic ideologies. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Rachel Knecht

HIST 153b Slavery and the American Civil War
[ deis-us dl 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.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 156a U.S. Responses to Global Inequality: Recent Histories
[ ss wi ]
Examines official American responses to global economic inequality from WWII/decolonization through the Millennium Development Goals. This course explores domestic and international debates over development and explores the range of instruments and approaches taken in the name of development. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 157b The Secret Lives of the Enslaved: Marginalized Voices and the Writing of History
[ deis-us dl ss wi ]
Seeks to understand not only the system but the inner lives and cultures of slaves within that system. This course is a reading-intensive seminar examining both primary and secondary sources on American slaves. Focuses on the American South but includes sources on the larger African diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 158b Social History of the Confederate States of America
[ deis-us dl 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.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 159b Modern African American History
[ deis-us ss ]
Introduces students to some of the key social, political, economic, and cultural moments that defined the African American experience in the United States, 1865 through the present. Through the use of primary and secondary source materials, critical surveys, lectures, and guided discussion, this class highlights the richness and significance of the African American history. This course covers a diverse array of key themes and topics including: Reconstruction and segregation; the Great Migration; the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Feminist movements; black political power; mass incarceration and the surveillance state; and Hip Hop culture. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 160a American Legal History I
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 161a Women's Work: Gender and Capitalism in American History
[ ss ]
Although economic history usually focuses on men, domestic labor, women workers, social norms, and family welfare have all profoundly affected American economic life. This course will explore how gender has shaped American economic life since the eighteenth century. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Rachel Knecht

HIST 162a Writing on the Wall: Histories of Graffiti in the Americas
[ djw dl ss ]
Focuses on the history of graffiti in the U.S. from 1960s forward. Includes the historical role of Caribbean migration, the impact of criminology and economic recession of the 1970s on graffiti culture, and the relationship between private property, public space, and graffiti. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

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.
Staff

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.
Staff

HIST 165a Starting from Food: New Perspectives on the Middle East and Islam
[ djw ss ]
Studying food - consumption, production, distribution, regulation, representation - illuminates every aspect of human history. This course explores texts, images, objects, local supermarkets and your experience to consider questions of power, identity, faith, taste, and more in Middle Eastern and Islamic history. Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

HIST 166b The United States in 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.
Staff

HIST 168b America in the Progressive Era: 1890-1920
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 170a Italian Films, Italian Histories
[ dl 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.
Alice 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.
Staff

HIST 172b Historicizing the Black Radical Tradition
[ djw ss ]
Introduces students to the many ways that people and scholars of African descent have historically struggled against racial oppresion by formulating theories, philosophies, and practices of liberation rooted in their experiences and understandings of labor, capitalism, and modernity. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 173b Digital History, Digital Historians: What's it All About?
[ dl ss ]
"Digital Humanities" are becoming widespread as a research approach to history. These qualitative and quantitative methods offer historians new research insights and efficiencies. This course explores Digital Humanities through reading, discussion, and experimentation to discover their strengths and weaknesses. Usually offered every year.
Amy Singer

HIST 174a U.S. Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean
[ nw ss wi ]
Explores United States economic, political, and cultural relations with the major Caribbean nations in the context of U.S. relations with Latin American nations. Topics include interventions, cultural understandings and misunderstandings, migration, and transnationalism. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

HIST 174b History Lab: Research and Writing in History
[ dl ss wi ]
Offers a unique opportunity to engage in real historical research. Through research into key themes in history, it introduces components of the historian's craft, opens up archives and exposes students to the exciting field of digital humanities research. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 175b Resistance and Revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Focuses on questions of race, gender and modernity in resistence movements and revolutions in Latin American and Caribbean history. The Haitian Revolution, Tupac Amaru Rebellion, and Vaccination Riots in Brazil are some topics that will be covered. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

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.
Staff

HIST 178a The Middle East and the West: Historical Encounters
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Examines Middle Eastern and Western encounters from nineteenth century to the present. Topics include: travel, Orientalism, modernity, spectacles and world fairs, gender and sexuality, notions of sovereignty, and the immigrant experience. Usually offered every second year.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 178b Britain and India: Connected Histories
[ djw oc ss wi ]
Surveys the history of Britain and India from the rise of the East India Company to the present. Explores cultural and economic exchanges; shifts in power and phases of imperial rule; resistance and collaboration; nationalism; decolonization and partition; and postcolonial legacies. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 179a Labor, Gender, and Exchange in the Atlantic World, 1600-1850
[ deis-us 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 179b India and the Superpowers (USA, USSR, and China): 1947 and Beyond
[ nw ss ]
Examines the history of modern India through its relationships with the "superpowers," USA, USSR, and China. Covering the period between 1947-2018, the course analyses ideological, economic, foreign policy shifts and subcontinental conflict in a constantly changing geo-political scene. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 180a The Global Opium Trade: 1755-Present
[ nw ss ]
Investigates the history of the opium trade from early times to present. Coverage will include the Anglo-Indian opium trade, the Opium Wars; the political economy of the legal trade; and the complex ramifications of its prohibition. Usually offered every third year.
Heyward James

HIST 180b Modern India: From Partition to the Present
[ djw nw ss ]
Examines the history, culture, and economy of modern India (1947-2019) with a focus on key concerns, such as the environment, urbanization, gender/sexual relations, and the transformations of democratic politics. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 182b Modern China
[ djw nw ss ]
Surveys Chinese history from the Ming to Mao, with an emphasis on political, social, cultural, and literary trends; and attention toward ethnic minorities and overseas communities and diaspora. Usually offered every year.
Xing Hang

HIST 183a Empire at the Margins: Borderlands in Late Imperial China
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Explores Ming and Qing China's frontiers with Japan, Korea, Inner Asia, Vietnam, and the ocean from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, examining the role of borderlands in forging the present-day multiethnic Chinese state and East Asian national identities. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 184a Silk, Silver, and Slaves: China and the Industrial Revolution
[ djw nw ss wi ]
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.
Xing Hang

HIST 184b Swashbuckling Adventurers or Sea Bandits? The Chinese Pirate in Global Perspective
[ nw ss wi ]
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.
Xing Hang

HIST 185a The China Outside China: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Diaspora in the Making of Modern China
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Studies the history of Chinese outside Mainland China, from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Siberia and Africa, from fifteenth century to present day. Ambivalence to ancestral and adopted homelands made these communities valuable agents of transnational exchange and embodiments of Chinese modernity. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

HIST 186a Europe in World War II
[ dl ss wi ]
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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 187a Frenemy States: Identity and Integration in East Asia
[ ss wi ]
Examines the emergence and development of distinct national identities in East Asia. We focus upon key transformative moments and events in the histories of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam from the dawn of time to the early twentieth century. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

HIST 187b Unequal Histories: Caste, Religion, and Dissent in India
[ djw nw ss ]
Examines the religious, political, and social dimensions of discrimination in India. In order to study caste, power, and representation, we will look at religious texts, historical debates, film, and literature from the Vedic Age to contemporary India. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

HIST 188b The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1350-1900
[ ss ]
How do you talk about religion after Darwin, when science has replaced religion as the authoritative discourse, but most people everywhere adhere to some sort of religious belief? By reading together The Varieties of Religious experience (1902) by William James. Usually offered every third year.
David S. Katz

HIST 189a Modern Japan Through Crime
[ ss ]
The bloody history of modern Japan as told through both true crime and crime fiction. Covers the period from the fall of the samurai in the mid-nineteenth century to today. Course culminates in a true crime podcast project. Special one-time offering, spring 2020.
Ryan S. Glasnovich

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.
Mark 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.
Mark 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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST/SOC 170b Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
[ djw ss ]
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor.
Explores historical and contemporary debates about gender and sexuality in South Asia; revisits concepts of "woman," "sex," "femininity," "home," "family," "community," "nation," "reform," "protection," and "civilization" across the colonial and postcolonial periods. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller and Gowri Vijayakumar

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 the North American colonies and the United States before the Civil War. 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 205b Introduction to Doctoral Studies
Examines major problems in the study of history. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 209b Empires: Boundaries and Belonging
Explores the diverse ways that the boundaries of overseas empires were constructed and asserted between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Topics include: possession, sovereignty, treaties, passports, mapping, captivity, gender, family intimacies, and conceptions of difference. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 210b Atlantic World Histories in Black and Red
Focuses on the entanglement of goods, peoples, and cultures across the Atlantic Ocean from 1500-1850. Though informed by the histories of European imperial expansion, this course also concentrates heavily on Black and Indigenous centered conceptions of Atlantic history. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 212b Refugees and Comparative States of Statelessness
This graduate readings seminar examines refugees and displaced persons as well as the sovereignty of the modern nation-state in comparative contexts from early modern period to the present. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

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.
Govind 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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 222a Histories of the Carceral State
Considers the rises of contemporary mass incarceration and the carceral state from an interdisciplinary perspective that draws upon history, sociology, anthropology, geography, literature, and legal scholarship. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 224a Modern Black Political Thought
Focuses on the emergence and development of various strains of black political thought within the United States. Through a broad examination of the modern 20th Century period, this course will explore some of the most significant roots, ideologies, and constructions of different forms of black political thought and action in America. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 240c MA Proseminar
Yields half-course credit per semester. Open only to Master's degree students.
This proseminar for Master's students will support students conducting graduate-level research. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Childs

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

HIST/SOC 216a Migration, Dislocation and Dispossession in North American History
Prerequisite for undergraduates: A course on immigration.
Explores migration, displacement of Native Americans and Civil War refugees within North America. It examines contests over land, movements of people, patterns of settlement, senses of home, the meanings of dispossession, and debates over empire and citizenship. Usually offered every third year.
Abigail Cooper and Karen Hansen

AAAS 70a Introduction to African American History
[ ss ]
Introduces the experiences of African Americans from the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the present. Explores major themes that have shaped African American history, such as survival and resistance, struggles for freedom, citizenship and equality, institution building and the meaning of progress. Particular attention given to the role of class, gender and diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 130b Black Brandeis, Black History
[ ss ]
Examines the history of African Americans and other people of African descent at Brandeis University from 1948 to present. Usually offered every third year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 131a African Americans and Health
[ ss ]
Examines African American health experiences from the 17th century to the present, with a focus on the strategies and practices African Americans have employed to improve their health. Explores the historical development of “racial” diseases and inequalities. Topics include: slave health, the black hospital movement, eugenics, midwifery, and the crack and opioid epidemics. Usually offered every second year.
Wangui Muigai

AAAS 154b Race, Science, and Society
[ deis-us ss ]
Traces scientific concepts of race from the 18th century to today, interrogating their uses and transformations over time. It explores how science has defined race, how people have challenged such conceptions, and alternate ways for understanding human difference. Usually offered every second year.
Wangui Muigai

AAAS 155b Hip Hop History and Culture
[ ss ]
Examines the history of hip hop culture, in the broader context of U.S., African American and African diaspora history, from the 1960s to the present. Explores key developments, debates and themes shaping hip hop's evolution and contemporary global significance. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 156a #BlackLivesMatter
[ ss ]
Explores the evolution of the modern African American civil rights movement through historical readings, primary documents, films and social media. Assesses the legacy and consequences of the movement for contemporary struggles for black equality. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 170a Black Childhoods
[ deis-us ss ]
Explores historical experiences of growing up black in America. We will examine the role of race in shaping experiences and meanings of childhood from slavery to the present day, including studies of black girlhood and boyhood. Usually offered every second year.
Wangui Maigai

AAPI/HIS 163a Asian American History
[ deis-us dl ss ]
Explores the history of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States with a focus on their lived experiences and contributions to U.S. society. Course culminates in a final AAPI digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

AAPI/HIS 186b Legacies of the Korean War
[ deis-us djw ss ]
Explores the lasting legacies and human consequences of the Korean War in a transnational context. Course culminates in a final digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

AAPI/WGS 126a Asian American Women's History
[ deis-us ss ]
Explores race, gender, and U.S. history from the perspective of Asian American and Pacific Islander women. Course culminates in a final AAPI women's digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

AMST 30b American Environmental History
[ ss wi ]
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 year.
Brian Donahue

AMST 35a Hollywood and American Culture
[ ss ]
This is an interdisciplinary course in Hollywood cinema and American culture that aims to do justice to both arenas. Students will learn the terms of filmic grammar, the meanings of visual style, and the contexts of Hollywood cinema from The Birth of a Nation (1915) to last weekend's top box office grosser. They will also master the major economic, social, and political realities that make up the American experience of the dominant medium of our time, the moving image, as purveyed by Hollywood. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 105a The Eastern Forest: Paleoecology to Policy
[ ss wi ]
Yields six semester-hour credits towards rate of work and graduation.
Can we make sustainable use of the Eastern Forest of North America while protecting biological diversity and ecological integrity? Explores the forest's ecological development, the impact of human cultures, attitudes toward the forest, and our mixed record of abuse and stewardship. Includes extensive fieldwork. Usually offered every second year.
Brian Donahue

AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
[ ss ]
Examines history, cultural ideas, and policies about childhood and youth, as well as children's literature, television, and other media for children and youth. Includes an archival-based project on the student movement in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Krasner

AMST/ANT 133a Deep Historical Perspectives on Native North America
[ djw nw ss ]
Surveys deep (pre- and post-Colombian) Native American histories in eastern North America and inquires into the politics of the past, focusing on the relationship between archaeology and Indigenous ways of knowing. Usually offered every second year.
Lee Bloch

HIS/HSSP 142a Health Activism
[ deis-us oc ss ]
Formerly offered as HSSP 142a.
Examines the history of health activism in the U.S. over the past 125 years, from late 19th century debates over compulsory vaccination to contemporary public health campaigns around gang violence and incarceration. Usually offered every third year.
Wangui Muigai

HIST 50b American Transformations: Perspectives on United States History, Origins to the Present
[ dl ss ]
Investigates U.S. history in a wider world, from its origins to the present, starting with the premise that American History itself is a construct of modern empire. Only by investigating the roots of power and resistance can we understand the forces that deeply influence our world as we live it today. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

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 149a Prison: A Global History
[ ss ]
Explores the history of the modern prison from a global perspective, comparing and contrasting the history of incarceration in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 151a Conservatives and Liberals in Modern America: Race, Democracy and History in the U.S.
[ deis-us ss ]
Examines the history and politics surrounding ideas of "conservative" and "liberal" in the modern United States, through the lens of race and race relations, beginning in the post-World War II period. Our investigation will explore the ways in which political institutions, ideas, movements, and activism influenced a contemporary understanding of liberalism and conservatism, while also analyzing how conservatives and liberals have influenced structures, politics and policies, and the American state, with respect to the intersection of race. Moreover, this course provides students with the necessary tools to assess and understand the chaos and volatility that has come to define the intersection of race and presidential politics. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 152a American History, American Literature
[ 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.
Staff

HIST 153b Slavery and the American Civil War
[ deis-us dl 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.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 156a U.S. Responses to Global Inequality: Recent Histories
[ ss wi ]
Examines official American responses to global economic inequality from WWII/decolonization through the Millennium Development Goals. This course explores domestic and international debates over development and explores the range of instruments and approaches taken in the name of development. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 157b The Secret Lives of the Enslaved: Marginalized Voices and the Writing of History
[ deis-us dl ss wi ]
Seeks to understand not only the system but the inner lives and cultures of slaves within that system. This course is a reading-intensive seminar examining both primary and secondary sources on American slaves. Focuses on the American South but includes sources on the larger African diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 158b Social History of the Confederate States of America
[ deis-us dl 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.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 159b Modern African American History
[ deis-us ss ]
Introduces students to some of the key social, political, economic, and cultural moments that defined the African American experience in the United States, 1865 through the present. Through the use of primary and secondary source materials, critical surveys, lectures, and guided discussion, this class highlights the richness and significance of the African American history. This course covers a diverse array of key themes and topics including: Reconstruction and segregation; the Great Migration; the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Feminist movements; black political power; mass incarceration and the surveillance state; and Hip Hop culture. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 160a American Legal History I
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 161a Women's Work: Gender and Capitalism in American History
[ ss ]
Although economic history usually focuses on men, domestic labor, women workers, social norms, and family welfare have all profoundly affected American economic life. This course will explore how gender has shaped American economic life since the eighteenth century. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Rachel Knecht

HIST 162a Writing on the Wall: Histories of Graffiti in the Americas
[ djw dl ss ]
Focuses on the history of graffiti in the U.S. from 1960s forward. Includes the historical role of Caribbean migration, the impact of criminology and economic recession of the 1970s on graffiti culture, and the relationship between private property, public space, and graffiti. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

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.
Staff

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.
Staff

HIST 166b The United States in 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.
Staff

HIST 168b America in the Progressive Era: 1890-1920
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

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.
Staff

HIST 174b History Lab: Research and Writing in History
[ dl ss wi ]
Offers a unique opportunity to engage in real historical research. Through research into key themes in history, it introduces components of the historian's craft, opens up archives and exposes students to the exciting field of digital humanities research. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

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.
Mark 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.
Mark Hulliung

LGLS 145b Building the Massachusetts Constitution
[ ss ]
Explores the process of compromise and negotiation leading to the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, the world's oldest operative written constitution. Students learn innovative digital literacy methods by simulating the real-time process of law-building, using techniques developed by Oxford University researchers. Usually offered every second year.
Daniel Breen

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 year.
Jonathan Sarna

NEJS 162b It Couldn't Happen Here: American Antisemitism in Historical Perspective
[ 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.
Jonathan Sarna

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.
Daniel Kryder

POL 163a Seminar: The United Nations and the United States
[ dl ss wi ]
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
Investigates the United Nations organization and charter, with an emphasis on the integral role of the United States in its founding and operation. Using archival documents and other digitized materials, explores topics such as UN enforcement actions, the Security Council veto, human rights, and the domestic politics of US commitments to the UN. Usually offered every second year.
Kerry Chase

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.
Cheryl 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.
Cheryl Walker

CLAS 120a Age of Caesar
[ hum wi ]
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.
Cheryl Walker

HIST 52b Europe in the Modern World
[ oc ss ]
Explores European history from the Enlightenment to the present emphasizing how developments in Europe have shaped and been shaped by broader global contexts. Topics include: revolution, industrialization, political and social reforms, nationalism, imperialism, legacies of global wars, totalitarianism, and decolonization. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

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.
William Kapelle

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.
William 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.
William Kapelle

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.
William 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.
William Kapelle

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.
William Kapelle

HIST 121a Breaking the Rules: Deviance and Nonconformity in Premodern Europe
[ djw 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

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.
William 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 126a Early Modern Europe (1500-1700)
[ oc 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 128b Borders, Regions and Ethnicities in Modern Europe
[ ss ]
Considers Europe's history since the French Revolution "from its margins," with special attention to what is often rendered invisible by a telling of European history that focuses on nations - the stories of borderlands, of regions, and of ethnic and religious minorities. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Drew Flanagan

HIST 131a Hitler's Europe in Film
[ ss wi ]
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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 133a Politics of the Enlightenment
[ ss ]
Examines 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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 133b Rights and Revolutions: History of Natural Rights
[ ss wi ]
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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 137b World War I
[ ss wi ]
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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 138a The World Between the Wars, 1919-1939
[ ss ]
Explores links between the First and Second World Wars, including the rise of fascism, Soviet communism, the world economic depression, the collapse of collective security, and the crisis of world empires. Usually offered every other year.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 140a A History of Fashion in Europe
[ dl 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.
Alice Kelikian

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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 142b History of Sexualities in Europe
[ ss ]
Formerly offered as HIST 55b.
Explores a social history of sexualities in Europe from early modern to contemporary times. Topical emphasis on changing patterns in kinship, child rearing, gender differentiation, immodesty, and marriage. Usually offered every third year.
Alice 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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 147a Imperial Russia: From Westernization to Globalization
[ ss ]
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.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 147b Twentieth-Century Russia
[ dl 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.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 150b Reading the Writing of European History
[ ss ]
Is history a science or an art, just another form of literature? Whether history repeats itself, historians do repeat each other, as we see by reading selections from famous and forgotten historians addressing these questions over the past 250 years. Usually offered every third year.
David Katz

HIST 170a Italian Films, Italian Histories
[ dl 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.
Alice Kelikian

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.
Mark Hulliung

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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 186a Europe in World War II
[ dl ss wi ]
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.
Paul Jankowski

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.
Mark Hulliung

NEJS 37a The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry
[ hum ]
Open to all students. May not be taken for credit by students who took NEJS 137a in prior years.
Why and how did European Jews become victims of genocide? A systematic examination of the planning and implementation of Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” and the Jewish and general responses to it. Usually offered every year.
Laura Jockusch

NEJS 140b Gender, Ghettos, and the Geographies of Early Modern Jews
[ hum ]
Examines Jewish history and culture in early modern Europe: mass conversions on the Iberian peninsula, migrations, reconversions back to Judaism, the printing revolution, the Reformation and Counter Reformation, ghettos, gender, family, everyday life, material culture, communal structure, rabbinical culture, mysticism, magic, science, messianic movements, Hasidism, mercantilism, and early modern challenges to Judaism.
ChaeRan Freeze or Eugene Sheppard

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.
ChaeRan Freeze

NEJS 148a Inside Nazi Germany: Social and Political History of the Third Reich
[ hum ]
Provides an overview on the social and political history of Nazi Germany (1933-1945) covering the most significant topics pertaining to the ideological basis, structure and functioning of the regime as well as the social and political mechanisms that led millions of Germans to perpetrate war and genocide. Usually offered every second year.
Laura Jockusch

AAAS 115a Introduction to African History
[ djw 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.
Staff

AAAS 120a African History in Real Time
[ djw nw oc ss ]
This information literacy-driven course equips students with the skills to place current events in Africa in their historical context. Collectively the class builds 5-6 distinct course modules which entail sourcing and evaluating current newstories from a range of media outlets, selecting those that merit in-depth historical analysis, and developing a syllabus for each one. Usually offered every second year.
Carina Ray

AAAS 135a Race, Sex, and Colonialism
[ djw oc ss ]
Explores the histories of interracial sexual relations as they have unfolded in a range of colonial contexts and examines the relationships between race and sex, on one hand, and the exercise of colonial power, on the other. Usually offered every year.
Carina Ray

AAAS 151b Africa: A Reggae Anthology
[ djw nw ss ]
Draws on the genre of reggae music as a course of understanding how Africa, its people, its history, and its contemporary circumstances are imagined, understood, represented, and engaged by African descended people in Jamaica and in the broader African diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Carina Ray

HIST 111a History of the Modern Middle East
[ djw nw 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.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 111b The Iranian Revolution: From Monarchy to the Islamic Republic
[ djw dl nw 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.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 112a Nationalism in the Middle East
[ djw 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.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 134b The Ottoman Empire: From Principality to Republic by way of Empire
[ ss ]
The Ottomans in history: how did a tiny principality grow from 1300 to be a global empire by 1550 and become a modern nation state by 1923? Who were the Ottomans? What are their legacies in today's world? Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

HIST 135b The Middle East and Its Revolutions
[ djw nw ss ]
An examination of the various revolutions that have shaped the modern Middle East since the late 19th century. The course focuses on four different revolutionary moments: The constitutional revolutions of the turn of the century, the anti-colonial revolutions of mid-century, the radical revolutions of the 1970's, and most recently, the Arab Spring revolutions that have affected the region since 2011. Usually offered every second year.
Naghmeh Sohrabi

HIST 140b Charity and Poverty in Islamic Societies
[ djw nw ss ]
Charity and poverty are universal aspects of human societies, culturally specific and historically contingent. This course studies charitable giving as a fundamental aspect of Muslim belief and practice, reflecting change over time and space, offering comparisons with non-Muslim societies. Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

HIST 172b Historicizing the Black Radical Tradition
[ djw ss ]
Introduces students to the many ways that people and scholars of African descent have historically struggled against racial oppresion by formulating theories, philosophies, and practices of liberation rooted in their experiences and understandings of labor, capitalism, and modernity. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

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

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 year.
Staff

NEJS 185b The Making of the Modern Middle East
[ hum nw ss wi ]
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

ANTH 119a Conquests, Resistance, and Cultural Transformation in Mexico and Central America
[ nw ss wi ]
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.
Charles Golden

HIST 71a Latin American and Caribbean History I: Colonialism, Slavery, Freedom
[ djw hum nw ss ]
Studies colonialism in Latin America and Caribbean, focusing on coerced labor and struggles for freedom as defining features of the period: conquest; Indigenous, African, and Asian labor; colonial institutions and economics; Independence and revolutionary movements. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 71b Latin American and Caribbean History II: Modernity, Medicine, Sexuality
[ djw hum nw ss ]
Studies the idea of "modernity" in Latin America and Caribbean, centered on roles of health and human reproduction in definitions of the "modern" citizen: post-slavery labor, race and national identity; modern politics and economics; transnational relations. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 162a Writing on the Wall: Histories of Graffiti in the Americas
[ djw dl ss ]
Focuses on the history of graffiti in the U.S. from 1960s forward. Includes the historical role of Caribbean migration, the impact of criminology and economic recession of the 1970s on graffiti culture, and the relationship between private property, public space, and graffiti. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

HIST 174a U.S. Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean
[ nw ss wi ]
Explores United States economic, political, and cultural relations with the major Caribbean nations in the context of U.S. relations with Latin American nations. Topics include interventions, cultural understandings and misunderstandings, migration, and transnationalism. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

HIST 175b Resistance and Revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Focuses on questions of race, gender and modernity in resistence movements and revolutions in Latin American and Caribbean history. The Haitian Revolution, Tupac Amaru Rebellion, and Vaccination Riots in Brazil are some topics that will be covered. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Childs

AAPI/HIS 186b Legacies of the Korean War
[ deis-us djw ss ]
Explores the lasting legacies and human consequences of the Korean War in a transnational context. Course culminates in a final digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

HIST 66a History of South Asia (2500 BCE - 1971)
[ djw nw ss ]
Introduces South Asian history from the earliest civilizations to the independence of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Surveys the formation of religious traditions, the establishment of kingdoms and empires, colonialism and its consequences, and post-independence political and economic development. Usually offered every second year.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 80a Introduction to East Asian Civilization
[ djw dl 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.
Heyward James

HIST 80b East Asia in the Modern World
[ hum nw ss ]
Surveys East Asian history from the 1600 to the present. Compares Chinese, Korean, and Japanese encounters with forces of industrial capitalism, including colonialism, urbanization, and globalization, resulting in East Asia’s distinctive cultural and social modernity. Usually offered every year.
Heyward James

HIST 146a An International History of Japan
[ ss ]
Japan from prehistory to today, focusing on the archipelago's relationship to its Asian neighbors and the wider world. Topics include early Chinese influence, the introduction of Buddhism from Korea, the samurai, Westernization, and the rise and fall of imperial Japan.
Ryan Glasnovich

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.
Staff

HIST 179b India and the Superpowers (USA, USSR, and China): 1947 and Beyond
[ nw ss ]
Examines the history of modern India through its relationships with the "superpowers," USA, USSR, and China. Covering the period between 1947-2018, the course analyses ideological, economic, foreign policy shifts and subcontinental conflict in a constantly changing geo-political scene. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 180b Modern India: From Partition to the Present
[ djw nw ss ]
Examines the history, culture, and economy of modern India (1947-2019) with a focus on key concerns, such as the environment, urbanization, gender/sexual relations, and the transformations of democratic politics. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

HIST 182b Modern China
[ djw nw ss ]
Surveys Chinese history from the Ming to Mao, with an emphasis on political, social, cultural, and literary trends; and attention toward ethnic minorities and overseas communities and diaspora. Usually offered every year.
Xing Hang

HIST 183a Empire at the Margins: Borderlands in Late Imperial China
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Explores Ming and Qing China's frontiers with Japan, Korea, Inner Asia, Vietnam, and the ocean from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, examining the role of borderlands in forging the present-day multiethnic Chinese state and East Asian national identities. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

HIST 184a Silk, Silver, and Slaves: China and the Industrial Revolution
[ djw nw ss wi ]
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.
Xing Hang

HIST 184b Swashbuckling Adventurers or Sea Bandits? The Chinese Pirate in Global Perspective
[ nw ss wi ]
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.
Xing Hang

HIST 185a The China Outside China: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Diaspora in the Making of Modern China
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Studies the history of Chinese outside Mainland China, from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Siberia and Africa, from fifteenth century to present day. Ambivalence to ancestral and adopted homelands made these communities valuable agents of transnational exchange and embodiments of Chinese modernity. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

HIST 187b Unequal Histories: Caste, Religion, and Dissent in India
[ djw nw ss ]
Examines the religious, political, and social dimensions of discrimination in India. In order to study caste, power, and representation, we will look at religious texts, historical debates, film, and literature from the Vedic Age to contemporary India. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

HIST 189a Modern Japan Through Crime
[ ss ]
The bloody history of modern Japan as told through both true crime and crime fiction. Covers the period from the fall of the samurai in the mid-nineteenth century to today. Course culminates in a true crime podcast project. Special one-time offering, spring 2020.
Ryan S. Glasnovich

IGS 165a Revolution, Religion, and Terror: Postcolonial Histories
[ djw nw ss ]
Examines religious conflict, revolutionary violence, and civil war in modern South Asia. It looks at Jihad, Maoist militancy, rising fundamentalism, and the recent refugee crisis. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

IGS 175a Digital Asia: Democracy in the Internet Age
[ djw nw ss ]
Analyzes the transformative potential of the internet as an agent of development and as a mechanism for disrupting social and political orders in Asia, home to the world's largest democracy and also the world's largest authoritarian regime. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

AAAS 135a Race, Sex, and Colonialism
[ djw oc ss ]
Explores the histories of interracial sexual relations as they have unfolded in a range of colonial contexts and examines the relationships between race and sex, on one hand, and the exercise of colonial power, on the other. Usually offered every year.
Carina Ray

AAAS 168b The Black Intellectual Tradition
[ ss wi ]
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
Introduces broad historical themes, issues and debates that constitute the black intellectual tradition. Examines the works of male and female black intellectuals from slavery to present. Will explore issues of freedom, citizenship, uplift, gender, and race consciousness. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAPI/HIS 186b Legacies of the Korean War
[ deis-us djw ss ]
Explores the lasting legacies and human consequences of the Korean War in a transnational context. Course culminates in a final digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

HIST 8a Globalization in History
[ dl ss ]
Seeks to historicize "globalization"—to explore its extension and transformation since its emergence in the sixteenth century. The principal task is to analyze the key dynamics that drove—and periodically interrupted—this process, and to give particular attention to its perception and impact. Usually offered every second year.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 10a Not Even Past: History for the Global Citizen
[ dl ss ]
Applies historical thinking to a wide range of past and present human concerns. Each of its four concentric units of analysis centers on an issue of contemporary importance: "The Self," "The Life," "The Community," and "The World." Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 56b World History to 1960
[ djw 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.
Govind 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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 62a Decolonization: The End of Empire
[ ss wi ]
Examines the end of the European colonial empires following the Second World War. Explores the political, social, and cultural roots of anticolonial activism, as well as the responses of colonial powers, and the emergence of a world of nation-states. Special one-time offering, fall 2018.
Staff

HIST 106b The Modern British Empire
[ djw oc ss ]
Surveys British imperial history from the Seven Years’ War through the period after decolonization. Explores economic, political, and social forces propelling expansion; ideologies and contradictions of empire; relationships between colonizer and colonized; and the role of collaboration and resistance. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 136b Global War and Revolutions in the Eighteenth Century
[ djw oc ss wi ]
Surveys global conflicts and revolutions and examines exchanges of idea, peoples, and goods in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. Explores the legacies of inter-imperial rivalry and the intellectual borrowings and innovations of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions in comparative perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 178b Britain and India: Connected Histories
[ djw oc ss wi ]
Surveys the history of Britain and India from the rise of the East India Company to the present. Explores cultural and economic exchanges; shifts in power and phases of imperial rule; resistance and collaboration; nationalism; decolonization and partition; and postcolonial legacies. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 179a Labor, Gender, and Exchange in the Atlantic World, 1600-1850
[ deis-us 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.
Govind Sreenivasan

HIST 180a The Global Opium Trade: 1755-Present
[ nw ss ]
Investigates the history of the opium trade from early times to present. Coverage will include the Anglo-Indian opium trade, the Opium Wars; the political economy of the legal trade; and the complex ramifications of its prohibition. Usually offered every third year.
Heyward James

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.
ChaeRan Freeze or Eugene Sheppard

NEJS 140a Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages
[ hum ss wi ]
Surveys Jewish political, social and intellectual history in the domains of Islam and Christianity from the rise of Islam (622) to the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1497). Topics include the legal status of Jews, Jewish communal organization, persecution and response, inter-religious polemics, conversion, the origins of anti-Judaism, and trends in Jewish law, philosophy, literature, and mysticism. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Decter

NEJS 149b Jewish Spaces, Global Cities
[ hum ]
Explores Jewish experiences in the city--from the early modern ghetto to the mellah in Muslim countries and the cosmopolitan metropolis. It will examine Jewish contributions to urban planning, architecture, culture, sports, and inter-ethnic relations in global perspective. Usually offered every second year.
ChaeRan Freeze

AAAS 70a Introduction to African American History
[ ss ]
Introduces the experiences of African Americans from the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the present. Explores major themes that have shaped African American history, such as survival and resistance, struggles for freedom, citizenship and equality, institution building and the meaning of progress. Particular attention given to the role of class, gender and diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 115a Introduction to African History
[ djw 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.
Staff

AAAS 131a African Americans and Health
[ ss ]
Examines African American health experiences from the 17th century to the present, with a focus on the strategies and practices African Americans have employed to improve their health. Explores the historical development of “racial” diseases and inequalities. Topics include: slave health, the black hospital movement, eugenics, midwifery, and the crack and opioid epidemics. Usually offered every second year.
Wangui Muigai

AAAS 146b African Icons
[ djw nw oc ss wi ]
From Walatta Petros, a seventeenth century Ethiopian nun turned anticolonial agitator to Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, this course introduces a broad range of iconic figures in Africa's history to students who also acquire the investigative and analytical skills associated with sound historical research and writing. Usually offered every year.
Carina Ray

AAAS 156a #BlackLivesMatter
[ ss ]
Explores the evolution of the modern African American civil rights movement through historical readings, primary documents, films and social media. Assesses the legacy and consequences of the movement for contemporary struggles for black equality. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 162a Assassination: A History of 20th Century Africa
[ djw nw oc ss ]
Examines the assassinations of a range of different political, cultural, and activist figures, such as Patric Lumumba, Steve Biko, and Ken Saro-Wiwa, and assesses the social, political, economic, and cultural implications and legacies this particular form of murder has had on twentieth-century Africa. Usually offered every second year.
Carina Ray

AAAS 168b The Black Intellectual Tradition
[ ss wi ]
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
Introduces broad historical themes, issues and debates that constitute the black intellectual tradition. Examines the works of male and female black intellectuals from slavery to present. Will explore issues of freedom, citizenship, uplift, gender, and race consciousness. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAPI/HIS 186b Legacies of the Korean War
[ deis-us djw ss ]
Explores the lasting legacies and human consequences of the Korean War in a transnational context. Course culminates in a final digital oral history project. Usually offered every second year.
Yuri Doolan

AMST 30b American Environmental History
[ ss wi ]
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 year.
Brian Donahue

AMST 150a The History of Childhood and Youth in America
[ ss ]
Examines history, cultural ideas, and policies about childhood and youth, as well as children's literature, television, and other media for children and youth. Includes an archival-based project on the student movement in the 1960s. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Krasner

ANTH 119a Conquests, Resistance, and Cultural Transformation in Mexico and Central America
[ nw ss wi ]
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.
Charles Golden

CLAS 120a Age of Caesar
[ hum wi ]
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.
Cheryl Walker

HIST 131a Hitler's Europe in Film
[ ss wi ]
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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 133b Rights and Revolutions: History of Natural Rights
[ ss wi ]
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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 136b Global War and Revolutions in the Eighteenth Century
[ djw oc ss wi ]
Surveys global conflicts and revolutions and examines exchanges of idea, peoples, and goods in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. Explores the legacies of inter-imperial rivalry and the intellectual borrowings and innovations of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions in comparative perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 137b World War I
[ ss wi ]
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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 140a A History of Fashion in Europe
[ dl 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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 140b Charity and Poverty in Islamic Societies
[ djw nw ss ]
Charity and poverty are universal aspects of human societies, culturally specific and historically contingent. This course studies charitable giving as a fundamental aspect of Muslim belief and practice, reflecting change over time and space, offering comparisons with non-Muslim societies. Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 142b History of Sexualities in Europe
[ ss ]
Formerly offered as HIST 55b.
Explores a social history of sexualities in Europe from early modern to contemporary times. Topical emphasis on changing patterns in kinship, child rearing, gender differentiation, immodesty, and marriage. Usually offered every third year.
Alice 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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 147a Imperial Russia: From Westernization to Globalization
[ ss ]
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.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 147b Twentieth-Century Russia
[ dl 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.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 149a Prison: A Global History
[ ss ]
Explores the history of the modern prison from a global perspective, comparing and contrasting the history of incarceration in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 151a Conservatives and Liberals in Modern America: Race, Democracy and History in the U.S.
[ deis-us ss ]
Examines the history and politics surrounding ideas of "conservative" and "liberal" in the modern United States, through the lens of race and race relations, beginning in the post-World War II period. Our investigation will explore the ways in which political institutions, ideas, movements, and activism influenced a contemporary understanding of liberalism and conservatism, while also analyzing how conservatives and liberals have influenced structures, politics and policies, and the American state, with respect to the intersection of race. Moreover, this course provides students with the necessary tools to assess and understand the chaos and volatility that has come to define the intersection of race and presidential politics. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 152a American History, American Literature
[ 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.
Staff

HIST 153b Slavery and the American Civil War
[ deis-us dl 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.
Abigail Cooper

HIST 156a U.S. Responses to Global Inequality: Recent Histories
[ ss wi ]
Examines official American responses to global economic inequality from WWII/decolonization through the Millennium Development Goals. This course explores domestic and international debates over development and explores the range of instruments and approaches taken in the name of development. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 159b Modern African American History
[ deis-us ss ]
Introduces students to some of the key social, political, economic, and cultural moments that defined the African American experience in the United States, 1865 through the present. Through the use of primary and secondary source materials, critical surveys, lectures, and guided discussion, this class highlights the richness and significance of the African American history. This course covers a diverse array of key themes and topics including: Reconstruction and segregation; the Great Migration; the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Feminist movements; black political power; mass incarceration and the surveillance state; and Hip Hop culture. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

HIST 160a American Legal History I
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 161a Women's Work: Gender and Capitalism in American History
[ ss ]
Although economic history usually focuses on men, domestic labor, women workers, social norms, and family welfare have all profoundly affected American economic life. This course will explore how gender has shaped American economic life since the eighteenth century. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Rachel Knecht

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.
Staff

HIST 168b America in the Progressive Era: 1890-1920
[ deis-us 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.
Michael Willrich

HIST 170a Italian Films, Italian Histories
[ dl 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.
Alice Kelikian

HIST 174a U.S. Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean
[ nw ss wi ]
Explores United States economic, political, and cultural relations with the major Caribbean nations in the context of U.S. relations with Latin American nations. Topics include interventions, cultural understandings and misunderstandings, migration, and transnationalism. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

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.
Staff

HIST 178b Britain and India: Connected Histories
[ djw oc ss wi ]
Surveys the history of Britain and India from the rise of the East India Company to the present. Explores cultural and economic exchanges; shifts in power and phases of imperial rule; resistance and collaboration; nationalism; decolonization and partition; and postcolonial legacies. Usually offered every second year.
Hannah Muller

HIST 179b India and the Superpowers (USA, USSR, and China): 1947 and Beyond
[ nw ss ]
Examines the history of modern India through its relationships with the "superpowers," USA, USSR, and China. Covering the period between 1947-2018, the course analyses ideological, economic, foreign policy shifts and subcontinental conflict in a constantly changing geo-political scene. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HIST 180a The Global Opium Trade: 1755-Present
[ nw ss ]
Investigates the history of the opium trade from early times to present. Coverage will include the Anglo-Indian opium trade, the Opium Wars; the political economy of the legal trade; and the complex ramifications of its prohibition. Usually offered every third year.
Heyward James

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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 183a Empire at the Margins: Borderlands in Late Imperial China
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Explores Ming and Qing China's frontiers with Japan, Korea, Inner Asia, Vietnam, and the ocean from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, examining the role of borderlands in forging the present-day multiethnic Chinese state and East Asian national identities. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

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.
Mark Hulliung

HIST 185a The China Outside China: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Diaspora in the Making of Modern China
[ djw nw ss wi ]
Studies the history of Chinese outside Mainland China, from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Siberia and Africa, from fifteenth century to present day. Ambivalence to ancestral and adopted homelands made these communities valuable agents of transnational exchange and embodiments of Chinese modernity. Usually offered every third year.
Xing Hang

HIST 186a Europe in World War II
[ dl ss wi ]
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.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 187b Unequal Histories: Caste, Religion, and Dissent in India
[ djw nw ss ]
Examines the religious, political, and social dimensions of discrimination in India. In order to study caste, power, and representation, we will look at religious texts, historical debates, film, and literature from the Vedic Age to contemporary India. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

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.
Mark 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.
Mark 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.
Mark Hulliung

NEJS 37a The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry
[ hum ]
Open to all students. May not be taken for credit by students who took NEJS 137a in prior years.
Why and how did European Jews become victims of genocide? A systematic examination of the planning and implementation of Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” and the Jewish and general responses to it. Usually offered every year.
Laura Jockusch

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.
ChaeRan Freeze

NEJS 150a The Jews in Weimar and Nazi Germany
[ hum ]
Explores the history of the German Jewish community in the years 1918-1945, a period characterized by the dramatic change from the solid social, professional and cultural integration of the Jews into German society to their disfranchisement, discrimination, and ultimate destruction. Usually offered every third year.
Laura Jockusch

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 year.
Jonathan Sarna

NEJS 162b It Couldn't Happen Here: American Antisemitism in Historical Perspective
[ 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.
Jonathan Sarna

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.
Daniel Kryder