Attention: This schedule is subject to change. Before registering for classes, check the on-line schedule of classes to confirm course numbers, times, and availability. Prerequisite requirements are strictly enforced. Please take note that many upper-level history courses have prerequisites. If you have not met the prerequisite, you may be dropped from the course.
History Department Course List Main Page
Hist106: The American Jewish Experience (cross-listed as JWST141)
TuTh 11-12:15 Rozenblit
CORE Social or Political History (SH) Course.
Hist 110: Ancient World
TuTh 11-11:50 & Discussion section Eckstein
Interpretation of select literature and art of the ancient Mediterranean world with a view to illuminating the antecedents of modern culture: religion and myth in the ancient Near East; Greek political, artistic, scientific, and literary invention; and the Roman tradition in politics and administration.
CORE Humanities (HO).
Hist 111: Medieval World
MW 1-1:50 & Discussion section Rutenberg
The development of Europe in the Middle Ages; the role of religious values in shaping new social, economic, and political institutions; medieval views of history and history-writing; medieval literature; the development of the "medieval synthesis" of Classical, Christian, and Barbarian cultures; the ideals and realities of medieval leaders. This course introduces students to historical methodology including interdisciplinary approaches, analysis of primary sources, and historical writing.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 111: Medieval World - Honors
MW 1-1:50 & F 11-11:50 Rutenberg
This is a special honors section taught by the instructor, J. Rutenburg. This section will have a small enrollment--limited to 12-15 students. Basic course requirements are the same as History 111 regular sections. But the overall study and discussion of required readings will be more intensive, with a more sophisticated level of discussion and analysis than the regular sections of the course offer. Honors Humanities students are encouraged to enroll, along with students in the History Honors Program, and outstanding students in general, who may enroll with the consent of the instructor.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 113: Modern Europe, 1789-present
MW 10-10:50 & Discussion section Herf
A survey of political, intellectual and international history of Europe beginning since formation of the state system in the 17th century and continuing through the Enlightenment, the French and Industrial Revolutions, and the history of dictatorship and democracy, war and peace in the 20th century.
CORE Social or Political History (SH)
Hist 120: Islamic Civilization
MW 9-9:50 & Discussion section Borrut
The fast spread of Arab political rule and Arab culture after the emergence of Islam is one of the most astonishing developments of human history. The course covers the history of the Islamic civilization from this initiating moment to the present. We will take a social and cultural approach to outline the different histories of Islamic societies. There will be a balance between an outline of political history and long term social and cultural transformations, as well as an introduction to the main elements of Islamic religion and the culture and practices of the societies it shaped and continues to shape.
CORE Social & Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 122: African Civilization to 1800
MW 10-10:50 & Discussion section Jones
This course is a survey of Africa’s history from earliest times to the dawn of the colonial era. We will address major themes including the peopling and settling of the continent, ancient Nile Valley civilizations, power and politics in pre-colonial Africa, the spread of Islam, oral tradition, Africa in the era of the Atlantic slave trade and interactions between Africa and Europe before 1800. Students are expected to attend lecture and will be evaluated on their participation in discussion section, knowledge of geography, examinations and a writing assignment.
CORE Social & Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 156 (01): History of the United States to 1865
MW 11-11:50 & Discussion section Berlin
If you want to know what makes an American an American, this is it. History 156 provides a broad overview of the making of American society between the initial European and African settlement and the American Civil War. While introductory, the course requires a general understanding of the American past, its chronology and its character. The course focuses on critical questions of political legitimacy, state creation, economic development and--most critically--identity formation. Emphasis is given to the role of slavery in the making and unmaking of American society, and to why the Civil War was fought.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 156 (02): History of the United States to 1865
TuTh 9-9:50 & Discussion section Bell
Who made America? This course examines how three peoples - Europeans, Indians and Africans - encountered each other in North America and, though conflict and cooperation, created what became the United States. We'll interrogate some of the major problems in American history - prayer vs. profit, slavery vs. liberty, community vs. privacy - by scrutinizing some of the many primary documents that early Americans left behind. This course will devote special attention to the Revolutionary War and the complex inheritance it left for Lincoln and those of the Civil War generation.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 157 (01): History of the United States since 1865
TuTh 10-10:50 & Discussion section Greene
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 157 (02): History of the United States since 1865
MW 12-12:50 & Discussion section Smead
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 157 (03): History of the United States since 1865
MW 10-10:50 & Discussion section Freund
A lecture and discussion course introducing participants to major developments and themes in U.S. history from 1865 to the present. Readings include an engaging text and numerous “primary” sources (documents, oral histories, images, film, etc.). Lectures and readings also explore a central thematic question: Why have the meanings of “freedom” and “Americanism” been contested and how have they changed throughout modern U.S. history?
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 175: Science and Technology in Western Civilization
MW 2-2:50 & Discussion section Friedel
An overview of the development of both science and technology in the West since Classical Times. Particular attention is given to the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and to the Twentieth Century.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 208F: Historical Research & Methods Seminar: The West and Human Rights in the 20th Century
Tu 1-3
Hist 208W: Historical Research & Methods Seminar:
M 12-2 or F 12-2 Conner
Prerequisite: Permission of department. HIST majors only.
Hist 208X: Historical Research & Methods Seminar:
Tu 9:30-11:30 or Tu 12:30-2:30 Hardin
Prerequisite: Permission of department. HIST majors only.
Hist 208Y: Historical Research & Methods Seminar:
W 11-1 or Th 11-1 Walsh
Prerequisite: Permission of department. HIST majors only.
Hist 208Z: Historical Research & Methods Seminar:
M 10-12 or Th 1-3 Rivera
Prerequisite: Permission of department. HIST majors only.
Hist 210: Women in America to 1880 (cross-listed as WMST 210)
MW 11-11:50 & Discussion section Lyons
This course examines the history of American women from the era of European colonization to the eve of the modern era in 1880. It explores the experiences of Native American, colonial, African-American, immigrant, and frontier women. It examines women's social, political, economic, familial, sexual, and religious experiences, with particular attention to how time, place, race, class, and ethnicity influenced women's lives. This course also examines the social construction of gender to see how it has changed over the course of American history, and how women influenced these developments.
CORE Social & Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 212: Women in Western Europe, 1750-present (cross-listed as WMST212)
TuTh 11-11:50 & discussion Gullickson
Between 1750 and today women’s rights, roles, responsibilities and opportunities changed dramatically. This course examines these changes for a wide variety of women: wealthy aristocratic, poor peasant, working-class and middle-class women; radicals and conservatives; victims, villains and heroines; women who became famous and women who struggled just to survive. Topics include, the women’s suffrage movement, women and war, women and the holocaust, women’s clothing, the birth control movement, marriage and motherhood, divorce, work, and so on. Readings include women’s autobiographies, plays, political articles, speeches, and men’s writings about women.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 219F: Special Topics: The Crusades in Medieval and Modern Perspective
TuTh 12:30-1:20 & Discussion Wasilewski
The Crusades, that long medieval struggle between Muslim and Christian armies in the Middle East and Europe, have had historical consequences that remain with us today. But their very relevance often obscures our understanding of what caused medieval crusades, who joined them, and what effects they had. In this course, we will examine the identities and convictions both of the Western Europeans who participated in the Crusades and of the Easterners—Muslim, Christian, and Jewish—whom they encountered in the Holy Land. Focusing on the era of the first four great crusades, from about 1095 to 1215, we will discuss the cultural impact of these movements on both Western Europe and the Middle East, locating areas of interchange as well as conflict. Texts written by people who experienced the Crusades firsthand will serve as points of departure for understanding historical events. We will also consider artwork and architecture as a record of cultural exchange, and debate medieval justifications for the Crusades, including the formulation of ideas about “holy war” and “just war.” Finally, we will address modern appropriation of the term crusade to describe specific political and military encounters between West and East.
Hist 219J: Special Topics: History of West Africa
MW 1-2:15 Jones
Hist 219M: Special Topics: Asian American History (cross-listed as AAST201)
MW 9-9:50 & Discussion section Mar
This course introduces the history of Asian Americans in the United States and the Americas and the field of Asian American Studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. Topics include theories of race and ethnicity; Asian migration and diaspora to the Americas; Asian American work and labor issues; gender, family, and communities; nationalism and nativism, and anti-Asian movements; Asian Americans, World War II, the Cold War, and the issues in the civil rights & post-civil rights era. We will focus on the personal voices of Asian Americans as means of understanding how individuals made choices and interpreted their situations. Through personal stories, we will explore the meanings of Asian American experiences, mapping their influence within main currents in American and global history. Because we will spend much time examining Asian Americans' stories, we will often have discussion in class. The course has a lecture and discussion section format so come prepared to read, think, write and debate. No history background is required for this course.
Hist 219V: Special Topics: The Atlantic World in the Early Modern Period
MW 1-1:50 & Discussion section Caneque
This course will introduce students to the concept of Atlantic history, a field of study that emerged in the 1990s as an interpretive framework in which to understand early modern history in the western hemisphere. Although the histories of the peoples of Western Europe, West Africa, and the Americas became inextricably linked together after Columbus first crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, the vast majority of historians still make the nation-state the essential, often unquestioned framework of analysis. Atlantic history, however, contends that the encounters, exchanges, and clashes between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans in the New World can be better understood if we study them in their Atlantic context. Some of the topics we will study are systems of conquest and colonization; the movement and mixing of peoples, plants, animals, and microbes; the Atlantic slave trade; imperial rivalries and piracy; the Atlantic economy and the development of European capitalism; religious transformations; and the persistence of native cultures after conquest and colonization.
Hist 224: Modern Military History, 1484-1815
MW 9-9:50 & Discussion section Sumida
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 235: History of Britain, 1461-1714
TuTh 9:30-10:45 Baron
This class examines the massive changes that swept England and the British Isles between 1455 and 1714. We shall focus in particular on the political history of the period, but we will also be exploring other dimensions of English life, such as religion, culture, warfare, and everyday human existence. These years saw remarkable transformations and upheavals, including the Wars of the Roses, the Reformation, the birth of Puritanism, the Great Migration to New England, the English Revolution, the incorporation of Scotland and Ireland into an incipient “British empire,” and the so-called “commercial” and “financial” revolutions of the later seventeenth century. All of these subjects will be illuminated over the course of this semester.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 237 Russian Civilization
TuTh 2-3:15 Stotland
An overview of Russian history stressing the main lines of development of the Russian state and the evolution of Russian culture from Peter the Great to the present day. Primary focus will be on the cultural development, the role of the intelligentsia, modernization, imperialism and the attempts to reconcile traditional social forms while adapting to the challenge of the West. The course will also examine the impact of communism and its continuity to the Imperial Russia.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 250: Latin American History I
TuTh 9:30-10:20 & Discussion section Vaughan
Introduction to the history of the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and South America from the late pre-Contact era through the Wars of Independence (c. 1450-1820). The course concentrates on the cultural, political, social and economic interaction between Europeans, Amerindians, Africans, and peoples of mixed-race descent under a colonial regime. Recurrent themes include discovery and conquest, cultural contact and conflict, social organization and stratification, racial mixture and race relations, slavery, economic production, colonial administration, identity formation, and incipient nationalism.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 255: African-American History, 1865-present
TuTh 11-12:15 Moss
Lectures, readings, and class discussions engage the role of African Americans in the social, political, economic, cultural and artistic life of the US. Emphasis is placed on the enduring themes that have shaped the black experience in American society, and the impact of those themes on contemporary problems in race relations is examined.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 266: The United States in World Affairs
TuTh 12:30-1:45 Zhang
This is a survey course which cover the history of United States foreign relations in the 20th Century. It will focus on the major factors that constituted the so-called "American Century". It will be primarily a lecture course, but ample opportunities will be provided for questions and discussion.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
Hist 280: Reconstructing the Civilization of Ancient Mesopotamia
TuTh 12:30-1:45 Cohen
This course provides the student with an awareness of and appreciation for the culture of the ancient Near East--from the neolithic period through its domination by the Persian Empire--and its profound effect upon the development of western civilization. The course concentrates on the eastern half of the ancient Near East, Mesopotamia--the home of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians--although its cultural and political relations with Israel, Egypt, and Anatolia are discussed. The following topics are presented: political history of Mesopotamia, archaeology and neolithic settlements, mythology and the gods, religion, the legal system, the development of writing, literature, science and mathematics, social structure, trade and economic structures, Persian and Greek influence in Mesopotamia, Mesopotamian influence on the Bible, and the legacy of ancient Mesopotamia.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 282: History of the Jewish People I (Cross-listed as JWST 234)
MW 11-11:50 & Discussion section Cooperman
This course surveys the history of Jews and Judaism from their origins in ancient Israel to the end of the Middle Ages, covering Israelite origins and the development of biblical literature, the development of Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, and the experiences of Jews in medieval Christian and Islamic societies of Europe and the Middle East. Assignments and discussion will address questions of evidence and historical argument. Particular emphasis throughout the course will be placed on the interrelationship of political, cultural, and social factors in shaping the experience of people.
Hist 282H: History of the Jewish People I – Honors (Cross-listed as JWST 234)
MW 11-11:50 & Discussion section Cooperman
CORE Social or Political History (SH) CORE Diversity (D) This is an honors course. This course surveys the history of Jews and Judaism from their origins in ancient Israel to the end of the Middle Ages, covering Israelite origins and the development of biblical literature, the development of Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, and the experiences of Jews in medieval Christian and Islamic societies of Europe and the Middle East. Assignments and discussion will address questions of evidence and historical argument. Particular emphasis throughout the course will be placed on the interrelationship of political, cultural, and social factors in shaping the experience of people. This course will meet with the professor for discussion section and will also require an individual research paper.
Hist 284: East Asian Civilization I
TuTh 2-2:50 & Discussion section Lilley
History 284 surveys the political, economic, social, and cultural histories of China, Korea, and Japan and their interactions with one another. Some attention is given to the histories of Inner Asian peoples. The time frame for the course is ca. 3000 B.C.E. to 1650 C.E.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 286: The Jew and the City through the Centuries (cross-listed as JWST275)
MWF 12-12:50 Cooperman
Over the centuries, Jews have become the urban dweller par excellence. This course will explore the history of the Jewish people from an urban point of view, asking why Jews tended to flock to cities, how they organized themselves in the cities, how they interacted with the other urban populations, how municipal governments shaped policy towards the Jews, and how, especially in the modern State of Israel, the Jews have organized and shaped the urban environment within which they live. On another level, we will explore the impact of the urban experience on Jewish culture and on cultural perceptions of the Jews, asking how Jewish literature perceived of the city and what role has been assigned to the Jew in the urban landscapes of fiction and film. We will use many different kinds of source material over the semester: archival and legal documents; religious and social commentaries, memoirs and travel accounts, modern novels, short stories, poems, and films. Thus the course is also an introduction to central aspects of the historian's craft.
CORE Social or Political History (SH).
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 299: Directed Research (1-3 Credits)
Individual instruction course: contact department or instructor to obtain section number.Hist 310: History of South Africa
TuTh 9:30-10:45 Landau
Hist 324: Classical Greece
TuTh 2-3:15 Holum
This course treats the history and culture of the Greek city-states in the archaic and classical periods. Studied in depth are: the "World of Achilles and Odysseus" represented in Homeric poetry; the rise of the city-state, the Persian wars and conflict between Athens and Sparta; and Athenian culture in the age of the Sophists and Socrates.
Hist 330: Europe in the Making: The Early Medieval West (300-1000 AD)
TuTh 9:30-10:45 Wasilewski
The Middle Ages began with the decline of the Roman Empire. During the subsequent centuries, European thinkers and rulers sought to restore, or to continue, the imperial tradition. But the concept and practice of empire both changed as time passed. In this course, we will explore the ways in which new challenges and new priorities shaped early medieval people’s attempts to recover Roman imperial glory, and consider the innovations they introduced as a result.
Hist 332: Renaissance Europe
MW 12:30-1:45 Soergel
Prerequisite: HIST111 or 112; or permission of instructor
Continental Europe from 1450 to 1650: development and spread of Renaissance culture; growth in the powers of central government; economic expansion and beginnings of overseas colonization; division of Western Christendom into two rival religious camps. Particular emphasis on the Protestant and Catholic reformations and their consequences for Europe’s political, social, and cultural development. Renaissance and reformation, 1450-1555. The age of religious wars, 1555-1650.
Hist 352: America in the Colonial Era, 1600-1763
TuTh 11-12:15 Bradbury
Prerequisite: Hist 156, 210, 213, or 254; or permission of instructor.
The course focuses on the history of the British colonies in what became the United States of America from 1600-1760. Yet it does so in ways that place their development in a larger North American context, indeed in the context of the interactions of many nations and peoples within the Atlantic world.
Hist 353: American in the Revolutionary Era
MW 9-10:15 Ridgway
Prerequisite: Hist 156, 210, 213, 254, or 275; or permission of instructor.
Hist 357: Recent America, 1945-present
MW 2-3:15 Smead
Prerequisite: Hist 157, 211, 213, 222, 255, 265, or 275; or permission of instructor. This course examines the political and cultural trends that have shaped America since World War II. Focus is on the consequences of the Cold War on domestic America and the causes and implications of the Culture Wars that followed. Specific attention will be paid to certain presidencies, liberalism, conservatism, and the Vietnam War.
Hist 386: Experiential Learning (3-6 credits, Permission Required)
Prerequisite: permission of department. Junior standing. The History Department’s Internship Program. Pre-professional experience in historical research, analysis and writing in a variety of work settings.
Hist 395: Honors Colloquium I
M 10-12 Eckstein
Prerequisite: Permission of the department. HIST majors only.
Hist 398: Honors Thesis
M 1-3 Eckstein
Prerequisite: Permission of the department. HIST majors only.
Hist 404: History of Modern Biology
TuTh 9:30-10:45 Milam
Hist 406: History of Technology
MW 11-12:15 Friedel
The changing character of technology in modern history, beginning with the Middle Ages. Concentrates on the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath, the nature of technological knowledge and the sources of technological change.
Hist 408B: Senior Seminar: Asia-Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan
Tu 10-12 Mayo
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
In addition to quizzes and reports, the major requirement is a substantial essay based on primary materials. Prior to selection of research topics, students will examine the outbreak of total war between China and Japan, 1937-45; World War II in East Asia and the Pacific, 1941-45; Japan’s total defeat in 1945 followed by the American/Allied Occupation of Japan and Japan’s return to sovereignty by 1952. There will be a special emphasis on gender, class, and race in examining battlefield and homefront experiences. Students must be willing to use one or more of the following archival sources in conducting research: microform and special collections, including the Gordon W. Prange Collection, University of Maryland Libraries; National Archives II (College Park); Center of Military History (Washington, D.C.); or Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) There are additional archival resources in the Washington metropolitan area, such as the Navy Historical Center (Navy Yard). HIST408B is a research seminar.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408F: Senior Seminar: 20th Century African American History
Th 1-3 Moss
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
History 408F is an upper level seminar in which students, guided and assisted by the instructor, do original research on a topic of choice dealing with any aspect of 20th century African American cultural, economic, social, political, or religious history. Throughout the semester each student, using primary sources, will work on an individual research project and serve as a peer reviewer of the research projects of other class members. The end product for each student is a completed research paper based on primary sources. Hist408F is a research seminar.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408I: Senior Seminar: Politics, Protests and Social Movements in 20th Century America
Tu 12:30-2:30 Muncy
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only. This course allows history majors to pursue independent research in twentieth-century US history. Each project will focus on some aspect of electoral politics, political/social protest or the history of social movements in the twentieth century US. Students might, for instance, research the feminist movement of the 1970s, the political campaigns of Spiro Agnew, or student anti-war protests in the 1960s. They might study miners’ strikes in the coal fields of Colorado in the 1910s and 1920s or the role that African Americans played in the election of Harry Truman. They might ask whether men and women running for the US Senate in the 1990s and 2000s represented themselves differently or put forward significantly different agendas.
Building on the skills developed in HIST 208, this course will guide students toward completion of an original historical essay of 15-20 pages. The course will review the process of research and writing: how to generate a fruitful question for research; how to develop an efficient research strategy; how to craft a compelling essay.
For the first two weeks, students will discuss common readings. Work in these weeks is designed simply to suggest issues and research strategies in twentieth-century US history and to remind students how best to structure an historical essay. After that, the course will make room for students to design their own research projects, pursue their own research, and make sense of their findings.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408K: Early American History
Tu 2-4 Bradbury
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
The course examines the literature of Early American History, 1600-1800, through class discussion and independent reading. On the basis of that examination, students will be expected to prepare a 15-20 page research paper on some aspect of Early American History. Much of the research for the paper will be done in primary sources. Attendance in class is an important part of the work of the course.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408N: Senior Seminar: Islamic Cities & The Urban Environment in the Medieval Era
W 11-1 Borrut
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408O: Senior Seminar: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine and Babylonia, Origins and Development
W 3:30-5:30 Lapin
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408P: Senior Seminar: Writing the Cultural History of the American 1930s
M 1-3 Giovacchini
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
This senior seminar will offer students the opportunity to write a research paper on a particular aspect of the history of American culure in the 1930s We shall begin our seminar with 4/6 weeks of introductory readings focusing on historiographical and methodological issues. We shall then get to the nuts and bolts of writing a publishable research essay as well as to the techniques of clearly and effectively presenting one's work in public.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist408W: Senior Seminar: The Rise and Fall of the Old South
W 1-3 Rowland
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
The destruction of slavery in the United States was part of a century-long Age of Emancipation that saw the end of chattel bondage throughout the Americas. Nowhere did slaveholders welcome the end of slavery. Yet only in the United States did they have the ideological commitment, the political strength, the self-confidence, and the wherewithal to fight to the death in its defense. This seminar examines the rise, maturation, and ultimate destruction of the social and political order of the Old South. We will consider the Old South's constituent elementsBslaves, slaveholders, yeoman farmers, white nonslaveholders, free people of African descentBand ask questions about sources of cohesion and conflict within the society. We will also examine the position of the Old South within the nation, the development of regional self-consciousness, and the fateful decision to stake everything on a bloody bid for independence. Finally, we will examine the dissolution of the Old South under the pressure of war, a war that exposed to full view both the solidarities and the fissures that had lain beneath the surface.
As a capstone readings seminar, the course has two principal goals. The first is consolidation of skills that history majors have been developing in their other history courses, especially HIST 208 and upper-level courses. These include such skills as active reading, identifying the thesis of a book or article, evaluating analytical frameworks and arguments, framing historical questions, discerning the relationships between questions, sources, and arguments, interpreting primary sources, developing historical arguments, and writing clearly, persuasively, and in accordance with the conventions of the historical profession. Second, the course aims to create a high-level seminar experience in which participants build up a common body of knowledge and conceptual perspectives and collectively develop their critical and interpretive skills.
Reading assignments average 200-250 pages per week, and students are expected to come to class not only having completed the readings but also prepared to discuss them. Writing assignments include 2-3 pages each week, a midterm paper of 5-6 pages, and a final paper of 6-8 pages. HIST408W is a readings seminar.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 408Z: Senior Seminar: The Atlantic World: The Invention of America
W 4-6 Cañeque
Prerequisite: Completion of Hist 208 AND permission of department. HIST majors only.
This course explores how sixteenth-century Europeans, in general, and Spaniards, in particular, tried to make sense of the discovery of America. While China, Africa, and India had been slowly incorporated into the European imagination, America constituted a ‘New World’ which had to be incorporated into the Europeans’ geographical, historical, anthropological, and religious understanding. Through readings of well-known texts and the most recent historiography, we will analyze the rhetorical and iconographic strategies utilized by explorers, missionaries, and men of letters in their attempts at bringing this new world into European consciousness. We will consider, as well, how this process contributed to the formation of a Eurocentric view of the world and the role played by these texts in the history of colonialism. HIST 408Z is a research seminar. Students will develop, in consultation with the instructor, an independent research project related to the theme of the course.
CORE Capstone (CS) Course.
Hist 418D: Jews and Judaism: Selected Historical Topics: Readings in Modern Hebrew: Hasidism and its Opponents (cross-listed as JWST478M)
Tu 3:30-6 Manekin
Selected readings from major early Hebrew Hasidic and anti-Hasidic texts. Emphasis on the central personalities, innovations, dissemination of ideas, and battles.
Hist 419F: Special Topics: Frida Kahlo and the Mexican Revolution
TuTh 12:30-1:45 Vaughan
In recent decades, Frida Kahlo has become an icon of modern Mexico similar to the Virgin of Guadalupe but during her lifetime she was known as the wife of muralist Diego Rivera. This class examines Frida Kahlo as an artist and woman within the context of the revolutionary times in which she lived. We will look at her work in relation to the astounding artistic production emanating from the Mexican Revolution of 1910; in relation to cosmopolitan art movements;
and in relation to Mexican feminism. We will seek to explain why toward the end of the twentieth century she became an international icon, eclipsing the recognition earlier accorded to many Mexican male artists. The class requires regular participation and presentation of
the readings and five short papers.
Hist 419G: Special Topics: Iraq: From the Origins of the Modern State to the Current Crisis
TuTh 11-12:15 Wien
This course is an introduction to political, cultural and social developments and transformations that shaped Iraqi history from the beginning of the 20th century to the current problems of state formation in the post Saddam Hussein period. During Saddam Hussein’s rule, the dictator’s regime of terror and his hazardous foreign policy overshadowed the complex nature of state and society in the perception of many outside observers. Today, a scheme of sectarian divisions is often applied to explain the turmoil since Hussein’s fall. The course will offer a more differentiated assessment of the dynamics of Iraqi
society and politics.
Hist 419J: Special Topics: Strategic Military Theory: Clausewitz
MW 11-12:15 Sumida
Hist 419O: Special Topics: Afro-Diasporic Dialogues in the Americas
MW 1-2:15 Sartorius
The African Diaspora is a concept that attempts to comprehend the shared experiences of African-descended peoples throughout the world, particularly in the Americas. While many of those peoples identify with a particular nationality—being Brazilian, Cuban, or from the United States above or alongside being black, of color, or of African descent—many of them have forged connections with each other across national boundaries. This class will use novels, memoirs, and recent historical scholarship to explore the history of the connections that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-North Americans have created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ultimately, the course will help us understand the historical possibilities and limitations of conceiving of African Americans as a hemispheric, transnational social group.
Hist 425: Imperial Russia
TuTh 9:30-10:45 STAFF
This class covers the period from the late 17th to the early 20th century. We will be exploring the transformation of old Muscovy into a young imperial state under the westernizing rule of Peter the Great; further achievements and failures in its west-, south- and eastward expansion and in staking claims to the status of great European power; the autocracy’s reformist undertakings and their impact on the society. Last but not least, we will turn to the early 20th century revolutionary outbursts that eventually led up to the collapse of the Romanov dynasty and its multiethnic empire in the (ill-)famous revolution of 1917.
To help us capture the driving forces behind this dizzying evolution, the course’s focus will be on the intersection of political processes, social developments, and cultural perceptions. This enables us to see the history of imperial Russia as a story of diversity and fluidity that has been often presented in the guise of homogeneity and rigid hierarchy. We will look at the landmarks of Russian imperial history through the prism of many overlapping oppositions. They include imperial megalomanias vs. a tenacious inferiority complex about the West; the autocratic political order vs. dramatic undergovernment at a grass roots level; an emerging project of nation-state vs. pre-modern patrimonial legacies; the legal chasm between nobles and peasants vs. porous borders between the estates and a relatively high social mobility; the flowering “elite” culture vs. mass illiteracy among the lower classes; etc.
In different contexts, a great share of our attention will be devoted to the logic and motives of individual actors, be they, say, Russian officials, Polish landlords, Jewish merchants, or Ukrainian peasants. We will be reading both secondary literature and primary sources, including memoirs and Russian literary classics (Turgenev, Tolstoy). The latter should serve not only as glimpses into daily life of people of the past, but also as impetus to our reflections on how belles-lettres might have contributed to shaping political-social discourses and practices.
This course examines particular aspects of the social and cultural life of Great Britain, primarily from 1830 to 1900. We will pay particular attention to the various meanings of Victorianism and the bourgeois myths of progress, morality, reform, and imperial conquest. We will focus on the "Two Nations" residing within Britain and how government and moral reformers addressed conditions of social inequality. We will also address Victorian notions of class, race, gender, and sexuality and how they were shaped by and influenced the politics and culture of everyday life. The format is both chronological and topical. Readings will be a combination of primary and secondary sources.
Hist 429B: Special Topics: Cultural History of the Chinese RevolutionsThis course is designed to present a general discussion of major issues in modern Chinese social history, including family, gender, market, social hierarchy, folk religion, and public space. It examines how a congeries of social forces--the commercialization and monetization of the economy, the spread of foreign ideas, the erosion of traditional divisions among social classes, and finally the growth of Communism--gained momentum and significantly altered the social and cultural landscape of modern China.
Hist 429D: Special Topics: Visions of America: European Americanism and Anti-Americanism in the 20th Century
MW 11-12:15 Giovacchini
Our seminar will focus on a thematic and somewhat chronological approach to the study of Americanism and anti-Americanism in 20th century Western Europe. Since their founding, the United Stated have been involved in an intense social, economic, and cultural exchange with the rest of the world. Even though few people might have had a direct experience of them, the idea, if not the reality, of the United States was at the center of passionate debates in Western Europe. At the end of World War I, U.S. influence grew more and more far-reaching and these debates became even more intense. Many Europeans felt the economic, cultural, and social influence of the United States in their lives. Many also saw the United States as the embodiment of what their own societies would become in the future. For some this was an enticing possibility, for others it was a dreadful prospect
Hist 429E: Special Topics: Women and Reform Movements in 20th Century U.S.
TuTh 9:30-10:45 Muncy
US women have been involved in reform movements throughout the twentieth century. This course will focus especially on women in various movements for social justice and will ask questions about how women’s participation in such movements has been shaped by gender, race, and class positions. In each of three periods, we will study women’s participation in the labor movement, movements for racial justice, and social welfare reform. To the extent that movements for the advancement of women have existed independent of these three areas, we will examine those as well. The three periods of special focus are the Progressive Era (1890-1925); the New Deal Era (1933-45); and the Postwar Era (1945-1975).
Hist429Q: Special Topics: Napoleon, France, and the World
W 1-3:30 Sutherland
Hist429T: Special Topics: Tribalism and Ethnicity in Africa
W 12:30-3 Landau
The roots of tribal identities and tribal conflict in modern Africa, focusing on Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Burundi, Sudan (Dar Fur), and Uganda. Tribalism in Africa in most cases commenced under colonial rule. What is a tribe, what are its trajectories, why has the tribe emerged so powerfully in modern states? This class is a discussion seminar, and students are advised, though not required, to have take HIST 122 or 123 (or both) first.
Hist429V: Special Topics: Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States
W 1-3:30 Mar
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to some of the issues in U.S. History relating to immigration, race and ethnicity since 1848. We will focus especially on the cultural impact of migration on immigrants, their children and US society. Topics will include immigrant worldviews, the second generation, the media, sports, food, education, ethnic identities, whiteness, and political controversies relating to immigration. This will be a discussion and research-oriented course, so come prepared to read, write, think and debate. No history background is required.
Hist429W: Special Topics: Communication in Early America
TuTh 12:30-1:45 Bell
As men took arms against each other in the revolutionary war, a quieter revolution was already well underway. The communications revolution, which began with the introduction of the first printing press to America in 1638 and reached its maturity with the invention of the telegraph in the early nineteenth century, brought with it changes to the patterns of Americans’ daily life unparalleled until the coming of the internet. This upper-division lecture and discussion course will introduce students with some background in American history to the history of print culture by using the arrival of pamphlets, newspapers, and novels – three of the many new print technologies that turned early Americans’ oral world into a textual one – as case studies. Did literacy drive the American Revolution? Did democracy depend on Americans’ shared ability to read and write? Did the proliferation of print create an imagined (republican) community? Students will explore how print influenced the ways that Americans, including women, Indians, and African Americans, communicated and how that communication shaped American history before the Civil War.
Hist429X: Special Topics: Religious Movements in Europe
MW 2-3:15 Manekin
History of the different modern Jewish religious movements that developed in Europe, starting with messianic movements and ending with Reform and Orthodoxy. Emphasis on the influence of the academic study of Judaism on the development of modern Jewish religious ideologies and practices.
Hist429Y: Special Topics: Islamic Memory: The Prophet Muhammed and the Founding Generation of Islam
M 11-1 Borrut
This course focuses on some of the most important characters and events of early Islamic history and traces their images and memories across the centuries, down to modern times. Although more and more remote in time, the founding generations of Muslims played indeed a fundamental role in the shaping of an Islamic memory. What is at stake is thus the making of Islamic heroes as well as the use of the past by the successive generations of Muslims. As a consequence, the course aims to define and study some of the most important Islamic realms of memory (“lieux de mémoire”).
The Prophet Muhammad himself will be especially scrutinized, as well as Ali, Husayn, Aisha, and other major actors of early Islam (caliphs, military and religious leaders); the course will also investigates Sunni and Shiite memories. HIST429Y is a reading seminar
Hist 437: Modern France from Napoleon to DeGaulle
MW 9-10:15 Sutherland
An examination of why liberal democracy was so hard to establish in France and why it remained contested for so long : the legacy of Revolution; the insurrections of the Hundred Days, 1830-32, 1848-52, and 1870-1; anti-clericalism, Legitimism and Bonapartism; the appeal of anti-semitism and violent socialist revolution; the stale victory of 1918.
Hist 442: Twentieth Century Russia
TuTh 11-12:15 M. David-Fox
This course considers the entire lifetime of the Soviet Union, from its revolutionary birth in 1917 to its sudden breakup in 1991. Those seven decades of communist rule that had such a decisive effect on the twentieth century will be considered from various analytical angles and on the basis of a variety of historical materials. Major themes of the course include the dynamics of the Russian Revolution; political, social and cultural dimensions to the upheaval; the ideologies and practices of Leninism, Stalinism, and Soviet communism; non-Russians and nationalities policy; cycles of reform in the post-Stalinist system from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. The course closes by considering the great debate over why and how the system collapsed and the legacy of the experience for the region's new regimes.
Hist 443: Modern Balkan History
TuTh 11-12:15 Lampe
Prerequisite: Hist 113 or 240; or permission of instructor
A political, socio-economic, and cultural history of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and the former Yugoslavia from the breakdown of Ottoman domination to the present. Emphasis is on movements for national liberation during the nineteenth century and on war, ethnic conflict and state-building through the twentieth century to the collapse of Communist regimes and the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
HIST450: Economic History of the United States to 1865
TuTh 2-3:15 Sicilia
Prerequsite: HIST156, HIST210, HIST213, HIST222, HIST254, HIST265, HIST275 or ECON311; or permission of instructor. This course explores the transformation of economic life from pre-colonial times to the American Civil War. We will give special attention to the following questions: How was economic life transformed through the interaction of Native American, European, and Mexican cultures? How and why did capitalism take root in colonial North America? To what degree was the American Revolution about economics? What were the causes and consequences of early industrialization? Why did the American North, South, and West follow distinct economic paths? How profitable was slavery, and is the answer important? What did the railroad contribute to U.S. antebellum economic growth? How were American wealth and income distributed before 1865? To address these and related issues, we will analyze primary sources by ordinary and elite historical actors as well as secondary writings by economists and historians.
Hist 457: History of American Culture and Ideas since 1865
TuTh 11-12:15 Gilbert
Prerequisite: Hist 157, 211, 213, 222, 255, 265, or 275; or permission of instructor
History 457 is an in-depth survey of some of the principle intellectual, cultural, and social movements from the 1860s to present day. We will explore issues of modern science, particularly the initial and lasting impact of Darwinism, as well as religious movements like Modernism and Fundamentalism that were, in some sense, responses to evolutionary thinking. In addition we will consider the impact of the new sciences and, particularly, social science on American ideas about society and its possibilities and weaknesses. Some of what we study will center on the impact of new technologies such as photography, Hollywood films, and television. At the same time it is important to recognize how deeply this technology has affected even the fine arts: painting, architecture, and so forth. Much of what is new in the Twentieth Century can be understood as consumer culture and/or mass culture, and this too is an important subject that we will study in World's Fairs and other large public institutions devoted to advertising modernity. A principle part of the course is also devoted to reaction to change. Consequently, we will focus on social and cultural critics, Utopian novels, and other plans, blueprints and critiques of modern America. Students will also read and discuss several of the most important social, intellectual, and literary works of the Twentieth Century.
Hist 481: History of Modern China
TuTh 12:30-1:45 Gao
Modern China from 1800 through the People's Republic of China. A China-centered history with a primary emphasis on politics and foreign relations, and a secondary emphasis on cultural movements and social change. The spectacular but often painful change from a traditional China to a modern China will be closely studied in time sequence.
Hist 482: History of Japan to 1800
TuTh 2-3:15 Mayo
This course has been revised to focus on early modern Japan. It will begin with civil warfare in the 16th century; the first appearance of European merchants and missionaries in Japan; and the process of pacification and reunification. The prime focus will be on the largely peaceful 250 years of early modern Japan or the period of the Tokugawa shoguns, 1603-1868. It will examine a broad range of themes: political and social systems and ideology, foreign relations, taming of the warrior class, commercialization of agriculture and rise of the merchant class, achievements in technology, intellectual and religious currents, education and literary, material culture and family life, urban popular culture and classical arts. The course will end with internal crises, expanding external contacts, and systemic challenges to the existing social and political system, 1850s-1860s. Sources will range from lectures, readings, and documents to films and visual images.
Hist 491: History of the Ottoman Empire
TuTh 9:30-10:45 Zilfi
Critical survey of major issues in the rise and rule of the Ottoman Empire as the largest and longest-lived Islamic state in history. The course combines readings, extended discussions and lectures to explore the formation of the imperial state; conflicts and tensions in the empire’s ethnically and religiously pluralistic environment; encounters with the West; nationalism and ethnic identity in the 19th and early 20th centuries; the “women question” and the discourse on rights; slavery and abolition; World War I and the Turkish war of independence.
CORE Diversity (D).
Hist 499: Independent Study (1-3 credits)
Independently arranged.
Prerequisite: By permission of department. Repeatable to 6 credits.