Department of History

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

HIST 50b Race and America: 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 Rethinking 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 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.
Staff

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 oc 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.
Staff

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.
Staff

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

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

AAAS/HIS 131a African Americans and Health
[ ss ]

May not be taken for credit by students who took AAAS 131a in prior years.

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/HIS 154b Race, Science, and Society
[ deis-us ss ]

May not be taken for credit by students who took AAAS 154b in prior years.

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

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 171a The United States in the Pacific World
[ deis-us djw ss ]

How have U.S. imperial ventures'cultural, military, political, and economic'reconfigured local societies and geographies? What are the afterlives of those ventures and how have they reverberated between American society and the Pacific World? To answer these questions, this course explores the history of American incursion into places such as China, Hawai'i, the Philippines, Guam, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Samoa from the nineteenth century to present. We explore issues such as orientalism, empires and militarism, labor and commerce, race and inequality, intimacy and sex, as well as migration, culture, family formation, and identity both in and across the Pacific Ocean. In focusing on the lasting legacies and human consequences of this contact, this course deepens our understanding of the multiracial history and character of the United States and also provides an opportunity to place the American experience within a larger global context. 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

ANTH/HIS 143b Sugar: Cultivation, Circulation, Power
[ deis-us djw ss wi ]

As a key element of global trade since the fifteenth century, sugar has been a lucrative and much desired stimulant with widespread political, economic, cultural, environmental and health effects. At the same time, the movement of millions of African slaves and Asian laborers to American sugar plantations transformed and continues to transform the cultural makeup and social foundation of empires and nations across the world. Through sugar, we will study a range of critical issues and topics: labor (including slavery and other forms of unfreedom) racial capitalism, colonialism, global health, monoculture, consumption, rites of passage, art, and music. Special one-time offering, spring 2022.

Greg Childs and Elizabeth Ferry

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 102a Gender and Law in the Japanese Empire
[ djw ss ]

Examines how the Japanese Empire mobilized its legal frameworks and institutions to transform family relations, gender norms, and sexual behaviors in the societies that it engulfed. We explore these processes through which contradictory ideas and practices collided and intersected. In the first half of the semester, we study Japanese family law as a malleable instrument for imperial governance and an interactive space of negotiation and contestation. The second half is devoted to probing Japanese efforts to criminalize abortion, regulate reproduction, “cure” disabilities, and fashion the body. In each session, we analyze the category of gender as integral to our discussions of empire, nation, ethnicity, race, culture, and war. The course does not require any prior knowledge of East Asian history. Special one-time offering, fall 2021.
Jooyeon Hahm

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 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 109b A Global History of Sport: Politics, Economy, Race and Culture
[ deis-us djw nw oc ss ]

Examines soccer, boxing, baseball, cricket and other sports to reflect on culture, politics, race, and globalization. With a focus on empire, gender, ethnicity, this course considers sport as the battleground for ideological and group contests. Usually offered every second year.
Avinash Singh

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 in Global Context
[ 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 113b Crazy Rich Europeans: Wealth and Inequality in Modern History
[ djw oc ss ]

Brings together insights from modern European and Asian history, business, economics, and sociology. We will investigate the changing role, power, and composition of social elites in history and how they impacted workers, colonial populations, women, and urban landscapes in the past two centuries. We will study how actors as diverse as fashion models, Russian oligarchs, and powerful bankers gain their status and influence. We will also discuss the origins of global social inequality, including the ‘great divergence’ debate on Chinese and European modernization. How do we get from ‘Crazy Rich Europeans’ to ‘Crazy Rich Asians’? Usually offered every year.

Mate Rigo

HIST 114b Histories of American Capitalism
[ deis-us ss wi ]

Explores the history of American capitalism as it developed from the colonial period to the near present. We will follow three main analytical themes through the centuries: racial capitalism; the role of the state in shaping economic development; and the function of social reproduction and other unwaged work in commercial societies. As we engage central historiographic debates about the timing and location of the transition to capitalism in the United States, we will use the concept of capitalism as a tool to better understand and differentiate the wide range of economic systems that have existed in the nation’s history. Topics include: the rise of wage labor and the expansion of markets; slavery and emancipation; territorial conquest; technological and infrastructural development; the rise of big business and organized labor; alternative labor regimes and the experience of work; the economic dimensions of gender, race, and other categories of social difference; social welfare policy; and recent developments in deindustrialization, globalization, and income inequality. Usually offered every year.

A. J. Murphy

HIST 115a Corporate Power and American Capitalism
[ ss wi ]

Examines the legal, political, and ideological forces that made space for the growth of private corporations within American capitalism. We will analyze how American corporations transformed from the small scale chartered institutions of the 18th century to the multinational conglomerates of today. During the early national period most corporations were public entities serving charitable, religious, or educational purposes. However, by end of the nineteenth century, private interests like insurance, manufacturing, and railroads dominated the corporate landscape. Corporations, over the course of the 19th and into the 20th century, amassed enormous political, economic, and social capital enabling them to challenge both American government and American labor. In this course, we will interrogate how the corporation became the dominant mode of business association in the United States as well as what role the law played in this transformation. Special one-time offering, fall 2022.

Jared Berkowitz

HIST 116b The History and Politics of Infrastructure in the United States
[ deis-us ss ]

Infrastructure is meant to recede into the background of civic life. But seemingly innocuous projects like roads, railways, electric grids, or even schools arose across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they became crucial nodes of colonial power, sites of enslavement and racial segregation, and of the policing of gender. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, states started to cede infrastructure to capitalist firms, privatizing key utilities and, increasingly, demurring from the responsibility to regulate these firms. By digging up the hidden history of infrastructural development, this class will reframe how we conceptualize the role of government in laying out the foundations for social activity, and give us the tools to intervene in contemporary debates over who should build, control, and maintain our infrastructure. Usually offered every third year.

Emilie Connolly

HIST 117b The History of Modern Christianity, 1700-2022
[ ss ]

Christianity is the common culture of about a third of the world’s population. The evolution of Christianity is a wonderful illustration of the history of ideas, and the way an ideology adapts itself to the needs of its followers. Usually offered every second year.

David Katz

HIST 118a The History of American Advertising
[ dl ss ]

Considers American advertising from the eighteenth century to the present to understand the growing role of consumerism in our lives. We will begin by examining how the professionalization of advertising and a rise of a new occupation, the advertising agent, created the national market and assisted in the transition of American society from a rural to urban society in the nineteenth-century U.S. We will follow this discussion by identifying the role of advertising in shaping the normative foundations of American identity in terms of race, class, and gender. Finally, we will use advertising as a starting place for researching the ways popular protests emerge under consumer and corporate capitalism. This course will foster the development of incisive analysis and advanced digital literacy skills by exploring a range of primary sources, engaging in structured forum discussions, and conducting independent research. Usually offered every year.
Nataliia Laas

HIST 119b The Personal is Political in American History
[ ss ]

“The Personal Is Political” is a slogan that was popularized in the 1970s to draw attention to how the experiences of the sexual, bodily, and familal experiences were inextricably connected to larger cultural and political structures. Starting in the seventeenth century and finishing at the end of the twentieth century, this course examines the overlapping worlds of the personal and political. Special one-time offering, spring 2022.

Hannah Jung

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 124b Universities and Colonialism
[ deis-us ss ]

Brandeis, like every university or college in North America, sits on Native land. This course provides a primer to the history of that land and its people, while inviting your original research on a specific question: How have universities played a role in colonialism? To answer this question, you will undertake an independent or small-group research project on a topic of your choosing related to universities and colonialism, preferably (but not mandatorily) one located in New England. The audience for your research will be your campus community: peers, staff, and faculty who might seek context when crafting a land acknowledgment for Brandeis’ Indigenous hosts. Usually offered every third year.

Emilie Connolly

HIST 125b Europe in the Global Cold War
[ deis-us ss ]

Offers a thematic overview of the history of the post-1945 period in Europe’s East and West, and situates these histories in their global contexts, such as decolonization, environmental change (Chornobyl catastrophe) the struggle of the USSR and the US, the Vietnam War, and debates on the “end of history” around 1989. We will study how events that started in Eastern and East-Central Europe, such as the Russian Revolution, World War II, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union triggered political and social changes in China, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. Through reading diplomatic correspondence, pamphlets, memoirs and literature written by dissidents, party members, and politicians, as well as by watching and reflecting on media footage, we will examine how the Cold War and 1989 ushered in a new world order that is here with us up to the present. The course also focuses on how European states East and West rebuilt ties with the “Global South” through socialist solidarity, development aid and investments, and how the Cold War shapes the institutions and politics of the European Union up to the present. Usually offered every year.

Mate Rigo

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 130b Crime and Punishment in U.S. History
[ deis-us ss ]

The United States incarcerates more of its people per capita than any other nation on the planet. How did this come to be? This course examines how Americans have defined, represented, and punished crime, from the birth of the penitentiary to the present day. We will discuss an eclectic mix of historical texts and genres ' criminal codes, trial records, true-crime journalism, historical studies, social theory, urban sociology, and films. Usually offered every second year.
Michael Willrich

HIST 131a Hitler's Europe in Film
[ dl 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.
Staff

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.
Staff

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 Get Up, Stand Up: A Century of Revolutions in the Middle East
[ djw nw oc 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.
Staff

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.
Staff

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 ]

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 144b Native North America
[ deis-us ss ]

Explores the history of peoples Indigenous to Turtle Island, or the lands known today as the United States. Over five hundred years, settlers carried out an invasion of the Native Old World, a place in which diverse Indigenous people developed robust civilizations and dealt with complex geopolitical rivalries. Contrary to settler assumptions, however, Indigenous peoples did not disappear in the face of European encroachment, nor did they consolidate into a singular stereotyped Indian figure. For this reason, our course will trace the diverse evolutions of distinct Indigenous societies as a result of their ordeals with colonization. In short, we will encounter the many Native New Worlds that emerged and endure today. Usually offered every year.
Emilie Connolly

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.
Staff

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.
Staff

HIST 147a Russian Empire: Gender, Minorities, and Globalization
[ djw dl oc 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: Revolution, Nationality, Global Power
[ dl oc 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 152b The European Occult Tradition, 1200-2021
[ ss ]

Is the universe alive? Yes...according to the European occult tradition, a coherent intellectual stream that has roots in religion, philosophy and history and the more supernatural elements of conventional religion, such as providence, prophecy and messianism. Usually offered every third year.
David Katz

HIST 153b Slavery and the American Civil War: #1619 Project
[ deis-us dl ss ]

A hard look at American slavery from the Middle Passage to Mass Incarceration, plus an investigation into the Civil War through the lens of Black self-emancipation. Uses the tools and insights from #1619 Project. 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 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 158a Race, Riot, and Backlash in Modern America
[ deis-us ss ]

Explores key moments of urban unrest, riot and backlash through the lens of race and racial experiences in the United States, while also analyzing the significance of these events to transformative change in American socio-political institutions in both the past and the present. Usually offered every second year.
Leah Wright Rigueur

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

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 166a History of Crises: Europe's Twentieth Century
[ djw nw ss ]

Systematically tackles the main turning points of Western and Eastern Europe’s modern history and their global impact. The focus is on the first half of the twentieth century, and the histories of the First and Second World Wars that still shape contemporary world politics today. We will also touch on the histories of colonialism, totalitarianism, the Ukrainian famine under Stalin, the Holocaust, and "moral panics" around changing gender roles. Analyzes both primary sources and the most recent scholarly debates. Requirements include a book review and a short research paper. Usually offered every year.

Mate Rigo

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 oppression 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 173a What's the Big Ideas? People and Concepts You Should Know About from Darwin to Derrida
[ ss ]

The history of ideas stands at the intersection of several disciplines: philosophy, literature, religion and history. Beliefs and their expression drive action in the real world, and grasping how they connect sparks an intellectual excitement that can literally be life-enhancing. Usually offered every third year.
David S. Katz

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 ]

Topic for Fall 2023: Ottoman Diasporas in New England

Offers a unique opportunity to engage in real historical research. With your participation, this project will identify, organize, map and assess the written, material and cultural sources for understanding the diaspora communities of Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Syrians, Turks and others who arrived in New England from the later 19th through the early 20th centuries. Develops your ability to understand and use sources, scholarship, and digital humanities tools. Usually offered every second year.

Amy Singer

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 176a Haiti and the Modern Caribbean
[ djw ss ]

Studies how Haitian political thought traveled throughout and the Caribbean in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the themes we will thus encounter include: race and the formation of nation-states in the 19th century Caribbean; the place of Haiti in the world economy; Haiti-US diplomatic relations; and interactions, antagonisms, and entwined histories of Haiti with other Caribbean societies. 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
[ djw 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.

Avinash Singh

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.
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 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.
Staff

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.
Staff

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 185b Turkey: From Ataturk to Erdogan
[ djw ss ]

Examines the history of the Turkish Republic, from its founding in the wake of World War I until the beginning of the 21st century. Through discussions of politics, economics, society and culture, the course studies the forces that shaped and reshaped Turkey. Like the Ottoman Empire from which it emerged, Turkey has attracted the attention of admirers and detractors alike. Meanwhile, it has played key roles and continues to be an important economic, political and cultural hub in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the world. Usually offered every second year.
Amy Singer

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.
Staff

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 dl nw oc 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 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.
Staff

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.
Staff

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.
Staff

HIST/SOC 170b Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
[ djw nw 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/WGS 120b Queer History in the United States
[ deis-us dl oc ss ]

Traces shifting concepts and practices of gender and sexual deviance in the United States from the colonial period to the present. We will treat queer identity and experience as a topic of historical inquiry as well as a theoretical problem, following the way that currently distinct concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality historically defined each other in shifting configurations. Topics include: queer life and concepts of gender and sexuality before Stonewall; the emergence of the categories of heterosexuality and homosexuality, and later transgender identity; the dependence of gender and sexual categories on class and racial categories; the mechanisms of state and informal policing of gender and sexual norms; the creation of social movements around queer an0d gender-nonconforming identities; attitudes towards gender nonconformity in the gay rights and feminist movements of the seventies; the AIDS Crisis and activist responses to it; and the politics of contemporary representations of the history of queer and transgender struggle. Usually offered every year.
AJ Murphy

(200 and above) Primarily for Graduate Students

HIST 200a Colloquium in Early 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.
Emilie Connolly

HIST 200b Colloquium in Modern U.S. History

An examination of major themes in the historiography of the United States since the Civil War. Topics vary from year to year. Usually offered every second year.

Abigail Cooper

HIST 201a Major Problems in American Legal History
[ ss ]

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 Colloquium in 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.
Staff

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 223a Quantifying Globalization: Methods and Metrics

Seeks to develop a quantitative global perspective for research and teaching. The sessions provide hands-on training in the abundant transnational datasets that abound not only for the current period, but for modern history and earlier periods as well. Usually offered every second year.

Gregory Freeze

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 225b Twentieth-Century Christianity: Secularization and Globalization

offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of twentieth-century Christianity, the goal being to elucidate the patterns and dynamics of expansion and crisis. It draws upon the profusion of new cutting-edge research in multiple fields, all directed toward elucidating how secularization (and desecularization) as well as globalization have reconfigured and transformed what was once primarily European Christianity. Usually offered every fourth year.
Gregory Freeze

HIST 230a Capital Cities in History

Open only to graduate students.

What is a capital city? Most people have no problem naming several capital cities, whether they are county, state, national or imperial, contemporary or historical, official or unofficial. You may have heard of summer and winter capitals. Yet when we stop to consider what 'capital' means, what makes a capital exactly that, many possibilities emerge. Does anything unite them? And what roles did they play in the history of the places for which they were capital? This seminar explores the idea and phenomenon of 'capital city' in order to problematize and defamiliarize this term, that is, to cast doubt on the assumption that it is a universal concept whose meaning, form and role are shared across polities and cultures.
Amy Singer

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 301c PhD Dissertation Writers' Seminar

Prerequisites: ABD status, at least one drafted dissertation chapter ready to share.

Advances doctoral student training through the medium of shared dissertation chapters. Participants practice close reading, critical thinking, attentive editing, and lucid writing. Usually offered every year.
Amy Singer

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

HIST Digital Literacy