/ Triumphant fables, untold stories, centuries-long cover ups. This class examines the sixteenth-century meetings between Spaniards and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, peeling back generations of storytelling and silencing to try to understand what “really happened.” Through critical analysis of Spanish chronicles, Indigenous writings, and cutting-edge scholarship, we will explore the dynamics of cultural encounters that have shaped our world. Fall semester.
This course will trace the history of African Americans in the United States, from Reconstruction to the Twenty-First Century. We will pay particular attention to the many mechanisms through which people and institutions impacted African Americans’ lives and maintained racially-based segregation and inequality, including systems of labor, access to goods, and use of violence. We will also closely examine the ways that African Americans – both leaders and “average” people – responded to inequality and shaped their own lives. Throughout, we will ask: what has it meant to be black in United States history? Fall semester, odd-numbered years.
This course explores the development of Western Civilization from its origins in ancient Iraq to its flowering in Renaissance Europe. Key topics include society and belief in the ancient Near East; Greek philosophy, theater and politics; Roman imperialism and urbanism; Christian origins; Islamic contributions to the West; Medieval monarchy, universities and the papacy; and Renaissance art and humanism. This course seeks to provide students with a keen awareness of our debt to past cultures and with new perspectives on where human civilization may be headed. Fall semester.
This course explores the development of Western Civilization from the rise of the national monarchies in the Renaissance Era through the conclusion of the Cold War in the late twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Key topics include relations between Catholicism and Protestantism and their effects on European society; the rise and challenges of absolutist and limited monarchies, democratic republics, and totalitarian regimes; capitalism, socialism, communism, liberalism, nationalism, and conservatism; Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment; religious war, revolution, and total war; as well as overseas exploration, colonization, racism, anti-Semitism, and imperialism. This course seeks to provide students with a keen awareness of our debt to past societies and with perspectives on where human civilization may be headed. Spring semester.
This course traces the political, social and cultural development of the U.S. from its pre-Columbian origins through the Civil War. From encounters between early colonists and Native Americans, to midwives tending to colonial women, to 19th-century laborers adjusting to industrial changes, and finally to the slave trade, this course pays particular attention to the role of race, class and gender in shaping society and politics.
This course traces the political, social and cultural development of the U.S. from Reconstruction to the present. From Jim Crow segregation, to labor organizing during the Great Depression, to women’s rights movements, to the debates over immigration, this course pays particular attention to the role of race, class and gender in shaping society and politics.
This course surveys select topics in the social, economic and political history of Africa. Students explore the great medieval West African kingdoms and empires; trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trading networks; the importance of Africa’s resources, including gold, to the medieval world economy; and the involvement of Africans in Atlantic trade. Fall semester.
This course explores topics in the social, economic and political history of Africa from 1800 on. Students explore select pre-colonial powers, European colonization and its effects, the pre-colonial economic and political roles of African women and how these changed with colonialism, and the independence movements that led to colonialism’s end. Spring semester.
This course traces the major political, social, economic and intellectual developments that have shaped the Middle East over the past 1,400 years. Beginning with the career of the prophet Muhammad and the rise of Islam in the seventh century, it follows the processes of political unification and cultural integration from early Arab rule to the aftermath of World War I. Special attention is given to Islamic civilization – what it achieved and what it has meant to the people of the Middle East. Fall semester.
This course is designed to introduce students to the central issues of 19th- and 20th-century Middle Eastern history: imperialism, nationalism, secularism, modernization and Westernization, and the resurgence of militant Islam. The course begins with the decline of the Ottoman Empire and examines in detail the experiences of several countries, including Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The course concludes with a survey of the present conflicts in the region, seeking to understand them in their historical dimensions.
This course provides an introduction to Colonial Latin American history. The course will cover the fifteenth century through the early nineteenth century, and will examine topics including Pre-Columbian indigenous cultures, contact and conquest, colonial hierarchies and resistance, race, gender, indigeneity, the Catholic Church, and Latin American independence.
This course provides an introduction to modern Latin American history. The course covers the early nineteenth through twenty-first centuries, and covers topics including independence struggles, nation-state formation, Latin American-U.S. relations, economic systems, political reform, dictatorship and genocide, cultural and social movements, and other questions.
This course is designed to give History majors a better understanding of the many ways in which the past has been retrieved, sorted and recorded to create what we call history. Often this process has involved a search for the truth, based upon verifiable evidence, in order to explain the present; perhaps just as often, it has also meant the distortion of facts, the invention of traditions, and the (re)making of myths in the service of some political or other agenda. Students begin by surveying several of the better-known schools of historical writing, starting with the classical Greeks and ending with the postmodernists and world historians. Next, students investigate some examples of historical writing as they apply to the history of the Middle East. Ultimately, students gain an understanding of what is meant by the expression “the use and abuse of history.” Spring semester, alternate years.
This course introduces students to historical research methods and familiarizes them with the tools and techniques that historians use to study the past, with a focus on United States history. Topics include developing historical questions, conducting library and archival research, and producing historical writing. The class also visits historical archives and talks with practitioners in the world of history: archivists, reference librarians, museum curators, academics and public historians. By the end of the course, students understand how and why historians conduct research on past events. Spring semester, alternate years.
Digital Humanities is a course designed to introduce students to historical research methods with a particular focus on digital approaches to conducting research and sharing knowledge. In this course, students will learn about the variety of research and writing skills that historians use, and they will apply those skills to a historical research project of their own. Spring semester, odd-numbered years.
This course examines the political, economic, social and cultural development of Mexico from its attainment of independence in the early 19th century to the present. Major topics include the emergence of political strongmen and patron-client relations, Mexico’s relations with the U.S. and other foreign powers, the Native Americans’ loss of their land and agrarian reform, urbanization and migration, the Revolution, and the development of the one-party state. This seminar course also emphasizes students’ development in the areas of critical and analytical thinking and in effective oral and written expression. Alternate years.
Although “Never Again” is an important post-Holocaust slogan, the reality is that genocides have been occurring with increasing frequency since 1945. This course explores two lesser-known genocides: the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Students also explore the conditions that make a society ripe for genocide and consider strategies for preventing genocide, and for moving forward in its profoundly traumatic wake. Fall semester, alternate years.
This course examines the historic encounter of the Native Americans and the Spanish in the first decades after 1492. The course focuses on the political organizations, social structures, economic systems and cultures of Spanish and indigenous civilizations; it explores Spanish and Indian perspectives; and it assesses the historical consequences of conflict and accommodation in 16th-century America. Alternate years.
This course traces the history of immigration to the United States from the 19th century to the present. In the 19th century, waves of immigrants arrived in the U.S., building communities and sparking outrage among Native Americans. Today, many descendants of these immigrants call for tighter border control. This course examines immigrant characteristics and motivations, as well as legislation that has defined what it means to be American and has changed patterns of migration. Throughout, the course asks: What does it mean to be an immigrant in this nation, and what does it mean to be a nation of immigrants? Alternate years.
This course examines the poor in modern America: from orphans in Chicago’s Home for the Friendless, to sharecroppers in the Great Depression, to Reagan’s notorious welfare queen of the 1980s. Students analyze primary and secondary sources to understand why people were poor and how they coped with the insecurity and instability of poverty, and to investigate America’s various anti-poverty crusades. Finally, considering the majority of non-white men and women living below the poverty line, students pay particular attention to race and gender and ask how Americans have responded to, and at times perpetuated, this disparity. Spring semester, alternate years.
This course examines the history of Cuba from the late-18th century to the present. This period begins with a sugar boom and the development of African slavery in the Spanish colony, and ends with Cuba’s current difficulties in a post-Soviet world. Other topics of the course include the Cubans’ struggles for independence from Spain, relations with the U.S., monoculture and the export economy, political institutions and political change, race and class relations, and the Cuban Revolution (a significant portion of the course treats Cuba since 1959). This course aims to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding of Cuba’s past and place in Latin American and world history.
This course examines the origins and development of Jewish-Arab rivalry in the Middle East, beginning with the advent of Zionism in the 19th century and concluding with a review of current events. Social and economic dimensions of the conflict are considered alongside the political history. Students are introduced to a wide range of materials on the topic. Spring semester, alternate years.
TThis course focuses on the lives and legends of two charismatic figures of the 19th century – Charles G. Gordon, the Victorian martyr-hero and Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, the Sudanese holy man and revolutionary. After considering the ideals that each man died trying to uphold, students examine a variety of accounts of their lives in an attempt to understand the cultures that created these men and the discipline of history that explains them. Fall semester, alternate years.
This course is designed to introduce students to the central issues of 19th- and 20th-century Middle Eastern history: imperialism, nationalism, secularism, modernization and Westernization, and the resurgence of militant Islam. The course begins with the decline of the Ottoman Empire and examines in detail the experiences of several countries, including Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The course concludes with a survey of the present conflicts in the region, seeking to understand them in their historical dimensions. Prerequisite: HIST 120 or instructor’s consent. Fall semester, alternate years.
This course examines Africa during the years following 1900, when most of the continent came under European political control. Six novels written by Africans are read, which, in contrast to standard histories of Africa, give the reader a rich understanding of what the colonial period in Africa meant for Africans in their daily lives. Topics to be addressed include the effects of colonialism on existing African social, economic and political institutions; African responses to colonialism; anti-colonial movements; and missionary activity in Africa. The novels are supplemented by more conventional historical materials, including a brief African history text. Fall semester, alternate years.
This course contrasts American slavery with forms of unfree labor in other parts of the world. Six topics are covered, the precedents (slavery in the ancient world, Islamic Middle East and pre-colonial Africa); the slave experience in the Americas, including Brazil, the Caribbean and the U.S.; the economy of slavery and its effects in Africa and the Americas; slave resistance; the abolition of slavery in Africa and the Americas; and the legacies of slavery in the Americas (miscegenation, racial identity and relations, and economic development). Spring semester, alternate years.
This course explores the political, social, economic, military and cultural aspects of modernity in the European context from the French Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Key topics include enlightenment values; revolution and reaction; industrial society; romanticism, socialism and communism; nationalism, imperialism and totalitarianism; world wars and Cold War; and Europe united. This course seeks to illustrate how the ideas, movements, conflicts and personalities of modern Europe have shaped our contemporary ways of thinking, feeling and living. Spring semester.
This course allows history majors with an emphasis on the Middle East to examine the historical roots of the most pressing issues in the region today. While the course content is expected to change somewhat each time it is taught, subjects likely covered are U.S. involvement in the region since World War I, the Shi’ite revival since the Iranian revolution, the spread of political Islam (e.g. the Muslim Brothers, al-Qa’ida and ISIS) and the revolts of the “Arab Spring.” Students are encouraged to take HIST 343 before this course to familiarize themselves with 20th-century developments. Prerequisite: HIST 120. Spring semester, alternate years.
This course examines the many ways that beliefs about a final judgment and an end-time event (“apocalypse”) have been put into action in Western and non-Western societies during periods of acute crisis. Students are exposed to a variety of disciplinary approaches to the study of millenarian movements, and are expected to reflect critically in class discussions and essays on the values that these movements reflect and their change or continuity across space and time. The course concludes with an examination of contemporary American millenarian beliefs. Spring semester, alternate years.
This course provides an in-depth look at revolution in Latin America, including a central consideration of the idea of revolution, as well as a series of case studies that will facilitate comparative study. In this course, we will examine Latin America’s independence wars, the Guatemalan Spring and its violent aftermath, the Cuban Revolution, the Chilean Socialist experiment and the repressive military dictatorship that followed, and recent revolutionary-inspired political movements and regimes.
History is often understood in terms of individual nations – their distinct cultures and individual histories. Borderland histories, by contrast, examine the human spaces and practices where societies meet, blend, and clash. How did people living in the North American Southwest, for example, see themselves in relation to European empires, indigenous cultures, and nation-states? How did indigenous people in South America’s southern cone respond to Chilean and Argentinean expansion into their territories? This course explores historical case studies of borderlands in the Río Grande/Bravo region and the Southern Cone, and challenges the conceptual nature of borderlands. Fall, odd-numbered years.
This course explores Latin America’s experiences with the United States during the twentieth century. The class addresses U.S.-Latin American relations from a variety of angles, covering topics from military intervention and government policies, to informal imperialism and cultural exchange through film and literature. We will discuss everything from filibusters to Carmen Miranda, from tourism to Cold War covert operations.
A course taught at intervals by a member of the faculty, dealing with a topic in European, Latin American, Asian, African, Middle Eastern or U.S. history. The topic is announced each time the course is offered. The course, which counts as an advanced course in the area of concentration in which the topic falls, may be taken more than once, for credit, if the topic is different.
A tutorial course for majors only involving either a directed reading program in an area of special interest to the student or a project based on research under the supervision of a faculty member.
This course explores ancient Greek civilization from its dawn in the second millennium B.C. to its absorption by the Roman Empire in the third century B.C. Key themes include tyranny and democracy; innovations in philosophy and science; competition through warfare and athletics; mythology, poetry and history; and new standards in art and architecture. This course seeks to illustrate how different the world would be without the vibrant and creative culture of ancient Greece. Fall semester, alternate years
This course is an exploration of Roman civilization from its origin in a tiny Italian village in the eighth century B.C. to the decline of its vast empire in the fifth century A.D. Key themes include political, administrative and legal achievements; conquest, imperialism and multiculturalism; the shift from republic to empire; daily life in town and country; the impact of Christianity; and architecture and urbanism. This course is designed to provide the student with a firm grounding in the Roman experience and a keen awareness of what we, today, owe the Romans of the distant past. Spring semester, alternate years.
This course examines the dynamic period of change in Europe from the fading of the Roman Empire through the flowering of the high Renaissance. Key topics include the fusion of Roman, Germanic and Christian cultures; warfare and kingship; the relative powers of church and state; creation of representative assemblies and universities; theology, philosophy and science; Europe and the Middle East; heresy and reform; and Romanesque, gothic and Renaissance art and architecture. This course seeks to illustrate how different medieval people were from us, yet also how we are very clearly their political, cultural and spiritual descendants. Fall semester, alternate years.
This course introduces students to the “other half” of Europe’s Middle Ages, the eastern half with a focus on the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire had tremendous theological, artistic and legal influence on western Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It served as a model of advanced politics and diplomacy, of trade and commerce, and as a military bulwark against Islamic invaders, preventing their assault on eastern Europe for nearly 800 years. Spring semester, alternate years.
This course explores women and gender in American history from colonial America to the present. Students examine how gender norms changed throughout history and how individuals interacted with those norms. They analyze how women and notions about gender shaped American politics: through cultural trends like fashion; through family and daily life; and through social movements such as suffrage, temperance and welfare rights. The course asks: When did gender constrict the choices that individuals faced, and when did individuals expand and even disassemble gender norms? Alternate years.
This course examines the topic of women and work historically, with attention to changes over time in the work histories of African and American women. The course explores women’s working lives in the context of the gendered social norms within which they have lived. Within this general framework, the course examines occupations including domestic work, prostitution, farming, market trading and professional/managerial work. The course also explores the intersections of work with marriage and parenting and the effects of race and class upon women’s working lives. Fall semester, alternate years.
From the 1850s through the 1950s, Western women played significant roles in the British colonies in Africa and India in the fields of education, public health and missionary work. These women believed they could improve the lives of non-Western women by acculturating them to the norms of their own middle-class, Western and Christian lives. The course explores how these women tried to reshape key social institutions in Africa and India, such as marriage, parenting, medical practices and religion. This course also explores how the women and men these individuals came to “civilize” in turn shaped the cross-cultural encounter through their powerful reactions to the often unwelcome acculturating messages they received. The course draws upon historical material and autobiographical, literary, missionary and travelers’ accounts to investigate these events. Spring semester, alternate years.
