Why do we presume that East Asia is a monolith when so many of its component parts are at odds? This introductory course looks at the political, cultural, and social history of China, Japan, and the Koreas while analyzing our preconceptions about truth and history. Students will grapple with primary texts, literary works, films, and propaganda to see how narratives can change and shape international relations.

What if ARMY isn't just about music? What if anime isn't as new as Demon Slayer? Asian popular culture's reception in America is not just a 21st century phenomenon and isn't just a one-sided love affair. The reception of Asian popular culture in the United States provides an amazing lens into American ideas about gender, race, and ethnicity, even as the countries involved are politically fractious.

The ancient civilizations of the Americas and their monumental architecture pique the modern imagination. Most tourists who visit the region, apart from soaking up sun on beaches, seek out the pyramids and other ruins from the lost civilizations of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca. They ascend the towering Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan to view the extensive remains of America’s largest Pre-Columbian city, imagine human sacrificial rituals while contemplating a chacmool at Chichén Itzá, or marvel at the elegance of Machu Picchu’s majestic setting in the Urubamba Valley. Most probably ponder how such powerful societies collapsed and disappeared after the Spanish conquest of the 1500s. Although powerful Indigenous empires undeniably fell to Spanish conquistadores, did Indian civilizations really collapse and disappear? This semester we will address that question as we explore the rise of Indigenous civilizations in the Americas, their “conquest” by the Spaniards, and how these two peoples fought with and accommodated each other to forge a new colonial society and culture. This new colonial society was complex and varied. But more important, it was something entirely new, built on—but not confined by—the cultural achievements and shortcomings of the Americas and Europe.

For at least 2.5 million years, humans have created tools of increasing sophistication and variety. In this introduction to archaeology, we focus on the artifacts that are antiquity’s leftovers. What can this “stuff” reveal about past people? How and why did they use it? How did it shape who they were? How can literary evidence, where it exists, enrich and complicate the picture? And how do we use (sometimes abuse?) it to define who we are today? These are just some of the questions we will address. Along the way, we will learn about the discipline’s aims, history, and methods, consider its relationship to the field of history, and devote special attention to its modern practice, problems, and significance. Broadly speaking, the course will consider, in turn, the nature of archaeological evidence, how we interpret it, and finally what we should do with it. While we often will focus on archaeological sites in the Mediterranean and Near East, discussion will touch on others throughout the world. As will be clear immediately and throughout, at the heart of this course is the identity of human beings, past and present.

Students will investigate the tension between traditionalism and revolution from the Black Death through the Age of Napoleon. Highlights include examination of the religious revolution of theologians, political leaders and ordinary people that rocked the western Christian church in the 16th century, investigation of scientific discoveries and Galileo’s challenge to the geocentric model of the universe that challenged Europeans’ understanding of the world and their place in it, and analysis of new ideas about the political and social world put into action in one of the defining events of the modern age, the French Revolution.

This survey examines European history. Topics and period to be emphasized varies, but major developments in political, social, intellectual and economic history are examined.

This course examines major themes in European history since around 1750. Students will study the French Revolution and its legacy; nationalism and imperialism; world wars in the 20th century; and Europe since 1945, including the Cold War, decolonization, immigration, changing European identity, and the European Union. The course concludes with current events considered in historical context.

This course examines European history since 1750, prior to the French Revolution, and concludes with transformation of the continent in the European Union. Students will examine various themes that shaped this period of revolution, modernization, and transformation in European society.

What is the American Experience? This question drives our exploration of the North American past from the early-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. The historical themes of violence, empire, liberty and faith guide our study. To help us understand these themes and the experiences of Americans, we will read and discuss historical monographs and primary documents. During the semester, students will have opportunities to strengthen their analytical reading, critical thinking, argumentative writing, and public speaking.

When Americans talk about what makes our nation special or “great,” we often point to the idea of individual opportunity, or what historians call the American Dream. More specifically, the American Dream argument is that everyone has a chance to be successful, and that an individual’s talent and drive, rather than external factors, shape the outcome. In this class, we are going to ask how true the Dream is. Do all people have access? Are there groups who are simply excluded because of their race, gender, or other factors outside individual control? What have people done when the distance between the Dream and reality became intolerable? How has change occurred? We will start examining this question in the era when large monopolies began to dominate the economy, and end with contemporary arguments from Black Lives Matter to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

This course explores the history of the United States in the twentieth century, paying particular attention to events that have helped shape various communities within the nation and to the ongoing struggle to define just what “American” means. Topics covered will include changes in social, political, and economic life; the environment; race and gender relations; the growth of cities and industry; the American role in global conflicts; the progress of technology; the impacts of immigration and internal migration; and the role of popular culture in American society. We will approach the study of history with three major goals in mind: to develop knowledge of the basic “facts” of 20th century American history; to learn to think, speak, and write analytically about the past; and to better understand ourselves and the various communities to which we belong.

This course explores the historical experience of growing up in the United States through the intersection of race and gender. We will analyze the ways that childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood have been constructed, as well as the social and cultural institutions which shape individual experiences and identities. We will answer such questions as: How do a range of femininities, masculinities, and other gender expectations impact us as we grow to be adults? How and why have the concepts of “race” and “gender” developed, and how do those ideas differ by class, sexual identity, religion, region, education, and other cultural and social markers? How have young people created their own youth culture and attempted to change social expectations using advertising, film and television, magazines, music, and social media?

In this course students and various members of the history faculty will read and discuss current and classic writings in the discipline. Topics will vary from semester to semester. Course is offered for S/U grading only.

This course covers the past and present of medicine in the United States, paying special attention to ways in which ideas of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity intersect to shape medical practice and the experiences of patients and doctors alike. Topics include gender and racial dynamics in the shift from midwifery to obstetrics; barriers to medical education for women and Black students; eugenics and medical experiments like the Tuskegee study; and debates surrounding LGBTQ+ health care.

The ideas and events of the French Revolution continue to be hotly debated more than 200 years later. Was it a revolution of the bourgeoisie? Was it a revolution of the working class? What role did books and ideas play? Was the Revolution a success or a failure? We will explore these and other questions through an intensive role-playing game in which you, the students, become revolutionaries and debate the future of France.

This course explores different cultures in ancient Greek, Roman, and/or Near Eastern lands that came into intimate contact, producing hostility and violence and/or creative cultural exchange. We will study the cultures of femininity and masculinity (gender), rival imperial cultures or imperial culture and that of a subject people (race and ethnicity), and the cultures of wealth and poverty (class). Our investigation is to better understand the defining features of each of these opposing cultures in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, how the social identity and status of any one person was informed by all three factors (gender, race and ethnicity, and class), how the contact of such cultures involved a power dynamic and could lead to conflict, and how, despite this, they could also lead to fruitful exchange, producing hybrid cultural forms that still impress us today or at least understanding that awaited social change.

Nomadic societies. The agriculture revolution and the emergence of established societies. The development of complex societies. The emergence of modernity and the industrial revolution. The historical construction of the modern globalising world.

Supervised reading or research at the lower-division level. Permission of department chair required. Consult department for applicability towards major requirements. Not available to first-year students.

Sport holds a significant place in the lives of many Americans. We play, watch, and talk about sports; many find joy in sport video games or gambling on the outcome of live events. Sports programming dominates television on weekends, and we have multiple networks devoted to both live programming and the dissection of sporting minutiae. In short, sport consumes major portions of our attention. Sport also shapes our society in many ways. Big time college athletes get the "promise" of an education while making millions for their institutions, professional athletes earn astronomical amounts, and the owners of sports franchises demand the public financing of stadiums as the price of staying put. On another level, even as the number of girls participating has grown, fan interest, especially at the professional level, is minimal. Furthermore, in the three most popular American sports, women find it difficult to be seen as having sufficient credibility to provide live commentary. On the other hand, at least some American minorities, particularly African Americans, have been able use athletic skill to improve their economic standing. Finally, we are increasingly aware that participants in many sports run the risk of serious injury, including permanent brain damage. How did we get here? Much of the description above would be very different if we traveled back a century, so one thing this course will do is to provide a brief overview on the how and why of change, while also examining areas of continuity. Using stories from a variety of sports, we are going to think about what drives athletics, and the ways that sports have shaped social change over the last century. More specifically, we'll examine ways that sport reflects/affects racial attitudes, and its interaction with assumptions about gender roles. We'll also look various economic and legal aspects of sport, from Title IX to big time college athletics, television, labor relations, and the complex dance of private ownership and public subsidies.

How have Americans used protests, riots, rebellions, & social movements to create social change and claim the rights of citizenship? This course will explore the processes of social and political change, considering how change happens and with what results, who gets to make changes and in what ways, and how social movements have impacted the United States as we know it today. We will specifically address the ways that Americans have used protests to influence meanings of justice, equality, and citizenship. Who has been included or excluded from being an “American,” and how did protests and collective violence change those definitions over time? We will use primary sources and scholarly articles to explore why the past helps us understand and create change in the present, as well as practice skills of critical thinking and analytical reading and writing.

This course examines fascism with respect to historical origins, its political and social manifestations in the 1920s-1940s, and its post-WW2 legacy. Specifically, the course addresses fascism as a general concept, Italian fascism, German Nazism, and other variants in the period of historical fascism. The latter part of the course examines fascism in recent past and present manifestations.

¡Viva la Revolución! Latin Americans from many countries shouted their loyalty to revolutionary movements over the twentieth century. The revolutionaries sought to overthrow unresponsive and often times corrupt, brutal governments. They also desired a new, more egalitarian society, one that more evenly distributed the wealth generated from the region’s rich resources. Most of these movements, however, failed. What caused Latin Americans to rise in revolution in the twentieth century? What were the revolutionaries’ goals? Why did most of these movements fail? We will examine precisely these questions over the semester.

British philosopher Bertrand Russell often sneezed at Confucius' ideas, but he could never discount them. How is it that a long dead Chinese sage caused such allergies in an analytic philosopher in the 20th century? Why did Confucius, his contemporaries, his Asian detractors, and his disciples have such import in East Asian cosmology? And just what is this cosmology and how did it help to shape actions throughout the area? This course offers a glimpse into East Asian civilization--namely, the political, cultural, and social history of China, Japan, and Korea from the paleolithic era to the 17th century.

How did Britain become great—or was it ever? This course traces the rise and fall of Great Britain as a global superpower, using the themes of sex, murder, and empire. From mass murder on a slave ship, to serial killers hunting prostitutes in Victorian London, to the “empire strikes back” of decolonization and migration, we will trace how Britain was made and un-made from the eighteenth century to Brexit. This course is suitable to students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

“Renaissance Italy” calls to mind the sculptures of Michelangelo, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, the wealth and power of the Medici, the revival of the liberal arts, the opulence of the Vatican. Why was the Italian peninsula the site of such a burst of commercial, cultural, and intellectual innovation between the 14th-16th centuries? How did Italian city-states amass so much wealth and why did they invest so much of it in art, culture, and learning? We will examine literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, political thought, and philosophy in the context of Renaissance political, economic, and religious structures; gender, family and kinship networks; and social values to understand why profits, paintings, and the liberal arts were essential for power in Renaissance Italy.

This course analyzes the causes, course, and consequences of the American Revolution within the context of the Atlantic World between approximately 1750 and 1820. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course explores global health from a historical perspective. It examines global health challenges within a larger historical, cultural, political, and economic framework. This course will cover a wide range of health challenges from a variety of cultural and geographic contexts. We will examine a number of diseases – both infectious and non-communicable – through case studies in different parts of the world. Topics include gender inequality, maternal and child health, humanitarian aid, and the bioethics of global health practices. The course emphasizes the numerous political, economic, structural and cultural forces that lead to the unequal distribution of disease globally.

Intended for new and potential History majors and minors, this course focuses on the interpretation of a wide variety of primary sources. Topics vary with instructor, please see individual section descriptions (295A, 295B, etc.) for details. Prerequisite: 1 lower division history course. Offered for A-F grading only.

The ideas and events of the French Revolution continue to be hotly debated more than 200 years later. Was it a revolution of the bourgeoisie? What role did books and ideas play? Why did the revolution devolve into the Reign of Terror? Was the Revolution a success or a failure? Was women’s position better or worse as a result? We will explore these and other questions by examining a variety of primary sources (such as documents that provide eye witness accounts of events such as the fall of the Bastille, newspaper articles written from various political perspectives, revolutionary songs, and images from the period) as well as secondary sources. We will begin to explore these and other questions through an intensive role-playing game in which you, the students, become revolutionaries and debate the future of France. Students will assume, research, and reenact the roles of various revolutionary factions in the National Assembly. You will continue to follow your characters through the rest of the revolution to see how they might have reacted and fared by the Napoleonic era. Offered for A-F grading only.

Gripping stories from U.S. history provide the foundation for many popular films, novels, television shows, and other media. How do creators of those popular works decide which stories to tell and how to tell them? Where do filmmakers and authors get it right or wrong, or is that even the most important question? Are there larger historical "truths" to be shared by reinterpreting the past? This course will explore how creators of popular media, like historians, interpret and argue about the past. We will use popular works and secondary sources for background, but our emphasis will be on analyzing primary sources and constructing our own arguments about the past. This course will help you practice skills of historical thinking and analytical reading, writing, and discussion. Offered for A-F grading only.

What was a slave revolt? Historian Eugene Genovese suggests it was “a struggle for freedom.” This course focuses on enslaved peoples’ struggles for freedom in North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We will analyze their historical experiences within the larger contexts of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas. We will use primary and secondary sources to investigate what we can and cannot know about the histories of enslaved people, and to understand the historian’s craft. Offered for A-F grading only.

This course will focus on Germany during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, two vastly different societies. After World War I, Germans faced questions about national identity, economic crisis, political revolution, utopian ideas about the future, sex, racial policy, war, genocide, and more. Should we support the Bolsheviks and spread revolution to Germany? Why are women voting and holding public office now? Can I borrow your sex manual? Aren’t you afraid “modernity” will destroy the German people? Why doesn’t everyone like the Nuremberg party rally as much as I do? Why do my neighbors exclude me just because I am Jewish? Why is there a satellite concentration camp in my town? What is really happening on the Eastern Front? The course will include secondary source readings on Weimar and the Third Reich, but a substantial proportion of the materials will be primary sources. Students will have many opportunities to engage and use the sources from this fascinating period. Offered for A-F grading only.

How did a few hundred Spanish adventurers defeat the mighty Aztec Empire? We will unpack this deceptively simple and misleading question as we examine the Spanish-Aztec encounter from 1517-1521. We will analyze this encounter from multiple perspectives to develop a deeper understanding of the historian’s craft. Texts will include firsthand accounts of the conquest by Hernando Cortés, the captain of the Spanish adventurers, by Bernal Díaz, a foot soldier in Cortés’ band, and by Aztecs who lived through the fall of their empire. We will also read later historians’ interpretations of the conquest and its consequences for Mexico. We will examine how an author’s perspective shapes the conquest narrative and explore how Spanish chroniclers invented the conquest of Mexico.

From where do myths about historical figures arise? How do the realities of life as a samurai or a geisha differ from the lore? Why do these legends exist and for whose benefit? In this course, students will analyze sources (both primary and secondary, written and visual) that perpetuate the myths of these professions with those that provide the less glamorous aspects of such lives to discover how historical interpretations differ and to what end. Offered for A-F grading only.

The Haitian Revolution has been described as “unthinkable”: not only did enslaved people overthrow one of the most powerful empires of the 18th century, but they established the first Black republic in the modern era. This course focuses on the interpretations and misinterpretations of the Haitian Revolution, as we analyze competing primary sources and historical narratives about the revolution that changed the world. We will investigate not only “what happened,” but also clashing understandings of freedom and human rights that continue to reverberate in the present.

In 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” This course will explore the development of “race” in the US and analyze how and why laws created racial categories. Americans have repeatedly used laws to define ethnicity, slavery and freedom, religion, immigrant status, skin color, property ownership, and other labels to determine who was an American. Major themes of the course include the intersectionality of race and gender, questions and laws determining belonging and citizenship, and how labor and property shaped a person’s social, economic, and racial status in society. Through reading and discussion, argumentative writing, and critical thinking, students will analyze the racial possibilities, cooperation, and conflicts in the United States from its creation to today. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

Contemporary global health inequalities and organizations are not new, but rather have their roots in colonial medicine and development programs from the 19th and 20th centuries. In this course, we will look at the connections between imperial power dynamics, the history of medicine, and global health structures in Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. We will examine both how science and medicine were used as “tools of empire” during the course of European and American imperial conquest, as well as how subject populations resisted, co-opted, and transformed Western medical knowledge. We will pay special attention to how constructions of gender, race, and ethnicity intersected in cross-cultural medical encounters, informing clinical practice and shaping public health policies. Some topics will include: the relationship between colonial medical interventions and the spread of epidemics, how imperial health policies created and sustained structures of inequality, and the ways in which understandings of race, gender, and difference have affected health initiatives across borders. This course is suitable for students in any major.

East Asia’s unique application of Christian belief and ideology to its indigenous cultures and beliefs offer a fascinating complement and contrast to Christianity in other parts of the world and in various doctrine. This course will explore the theological and historical underpinnings of Christian practice and faith in China, Japan and the Korean peninsula in the modern period (1600 to present). This course is suitable for any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

How did China become the economic and political success story of the 21st century? This class analyzes China's rise from the collapse of the imperial system, the failed republic, and the chaos of multiple wars as the nation revises, redefines, and resuscitates communism throughout the last 100 years. Throughout the course, students will be expected to examine, analyze, and interpret what defines national success, how Chinese intellectuals, politicians, and bureaucrats have created their own definitions of national success (and failure), and whose interpretations prevail (and why) through discussions, information presentations, and analytical and reflective essays. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course examines horror in its myriad forms in the history and formation of modern Japan, from the Tokugawa period to the present. By exploring the historical context in which primary sources are produced (and in turn, reflect) and what the works represent, students will gain a broader understanding of how, why, and what fears helped to shape the historical development of modern Japanese culture and society and how these fears changed over time. While this course considers a wide variety of sources it places them within their historical contexts as a way to illuminate their respective periods. Historical information can and should be gleaned from such a variety of sources. This will be elaborated upon throughout class discussions and projects.

The presence of the past immediately strikes foreign visitors to Mexico. In Mexico City, the sprawling cosmopolitan capital of Mexico, ancient pyramids and Spanish colonial churches stand next to glass and steel skyscrapers. Remnants of the colonial past are particularly visible. Imposing Spanish cathedrals and palaces dominate the centers of almost all modern Mexican cities. Spanish monasteries and government buildings dot the rural landscape. The ubiquity of Spanish colonial art and architecture in modern-day Mexico testifies to the profound impact Spanish colonization had and continues to have on Mexico. The question we will explore during this semester is three-fold: 1) how did the Spaniards colonize Mexico from 1519-1821, 2) how did this process of colonization shape new societies and cultures in Mexico, and 3) how does this particular history of colonization continue to affect Mexico today? Major themes that we’ll examine in our exploration of colonial Mexico include: pre-Columbian culture, the Spanish conquest, religion, race relations, the family and gender, political reform, and independence. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course traces the history of Mexico from Independence in 1821 to the present. Although we will examine Mexico’s political development since 1821, this course focuses mostly on the social and cultural history of Mexico. We will explore Mexico’s ethnic diversity, national identity, religious traditions, and gender patterns and how all these elements changed over time—from a chaotic nineteenth attempt to forge an independent nation, through the throws of the Mexican Revolution, to the present-day struggles between the state and drug cartels. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

The changing nature of religious cultures in Latin America from the pre-Columbian period to the present day. Includes the study of indigenous religious practices the European “spiritual conquest” of the New World, the creation of syncretic forms of Catholicism, 19th century conflicts between religion and secularism, the spread of Protestantism in the 20th century, and the advent and course of liberation theology in Latin America. Within a historical context, examines the role of religion in shaping sense of self, forms of community, and human interaction with the physical world. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

The multitude of churches and the seemingly constant tolling of church bells immediately strike most visitors to Latin America. It is impossible to walk more than a few blocks in any direction in the centers of Latin American cities without encountering a church. In rural villages, churches are the centers of community. It is simply undeniable that religious sentiment runs high in Latin America. But what type of sentiment? How have diverse groups of Latin Americans practiced and experienced religion? Catholicism has dominated religious culture in Latin America until recently, but have Latin-American peoples practiced a uniform type of Catholicism over the years? Furthermore, in the 20th century, Protestantism has spread rapidly in the region. Why have people in the most Catholic area of the world been attracted to new religious currents over the last century? We’ll address these and other questions over the course of the semester. Major themes include Indigenous and Afro-Latin American variants of Catholicism, revolutionary attempts to eradicate traditional Catholicism, the rise and spread of Protestantism, and the emergence and trajectory of liberation theology in Latin America. We will also examine how religion both shapes and responds to its context, changing as its context changes. Our explorations will challenge traditional understandings of Christianity and present a decoupling of European cultural heritage from Christianity. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

After brutal wars of conquest, Spanish colonizers, imbued with a late-medieval crusading spirit, attempted to uproot the sophisticated religious cultures of Latin American Indigenous civilizations and replace them with a European Counter-Reformation Catholicism. What motivated this conversion campaign? How did various Indigenous populations resist, deflect, and accommodate Christianity? Did the Indigenous people convert to Catholicism or did they convert Catholicism to fit their Indigenous realities? Later Church and secular authorities would try to eradicate the lavish hybrid Catholicisms that arose in Latin America and replace them with a more sedate religious practice. Why did they attempt to undermine one form of religion and promote another? We will examine these questions over the semester and examine how religion both shapes and responds to its context, changing as its context changes. Our explorations will challenge traditional understandings of Christianity and present a decoupling of European cultural heritage from Christianity. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course explores the relationship between missionaries and imperialism, focusing specifically on health, identity, and cultural change in Africa. Scholars have long debated the complicated relationship between missionaries and imperialism. Has the mission field been a place that aids imperial conquest, or one that resists it? As we investigate the relationship between Christian missions and colonialism in Africa, we will explore topics such as the effects of evangelism on African cultures, how colonialism affected mental health, and interventions of medical missionaries into the intimate lives of African women. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course focuses on encounters between Great Britain and the African continent from the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the present. Topics include slavery and imperial conquest; the role of African men and women in reshaping British colonial power; cultural exchanges between Africa and Britain; settler violence and warfare; and the aftermath of independence. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

The Classical Period in Greece (c. 480-323 BCE) is a cornerstone for western history, and its legacy very much extends into our modern world. In this course, we will concentrate on investigating Greek society and culture at this vibrant time. In particular, we will explore the complexities of Greek identity, broadly defined. At the heart of this course will be the contention that identity was (and is) not a fixed and immutable concept. Rather Greeks constructed and negotiated key elements of their identity as part of a dynamic social process. With this in mind, this course will focus on evidence that illustrates how Greek identity was articulated and debated in a social context in general and in certain social spaces in particular. Such “spaces” of interest will include political debates, battlefields, theatrical productions of tragedies and comedies, funerals, philosophical dialogues, legal trials, drinking parties, and athletic events. In considering how Greek identity was worked out in various ways in these different social contexts, we will learn about a wide range of Greek social and cultural practices related to government, ethnicity, the military, family, gender, religion, death, humor, intellectualism, the body, and education. Humans today are social animals, and the ancient Greeks were no different. Appreciation of the Greeks’ intensely social orientation will lead us to new insights about them – and ourselves. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

Students will investigate the forces that shaped the social and cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity and examine how they informed the identities, experiences, and imaginations of late medieval and early modern Europeans (1300-1800). Students will analyze the impact of gender on sexuality, family life, work, crime, religion, and intellectual life of early modern Europeans and how these intersected with socio-economic status, age, marital status, and religious identity. Students will uncover and analyze the gaps between gendered expectations and the lived experience of early modern men and women. Historical perspective allows us to uncover the origins, evolution, and persistence of gendered expectations and understand how they influence human experience. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

The western Christian church was splintered by a religious revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But this was not simply a revolution made by theologians—ordinary men and women, from elites to ordinary people participated. The implications of revolutionary religious ideas about salvation, scripture, and faith were felt far beyond the pews, in everything from political life to family life. Students will investigate the far-reaching impact of the Reformation by analyzing the circumstances that led to it, the revolutionary ideas that characterized it, the agency of theologians, political leaders and ordinary people in its creation and establishment, and the changes it created in social life, marriage, gender, and the family, in Europe and in the “New World.” This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course examines the history of Germany in the modern era by asking the fundamental questions: “Who is German?” and “What is Germany?” These questions, and the changing answers over time, will help us understand not only “Germany” but also more broadly common experiences of modernization. Our study begins with an overview of “Germany” in the 18th and 19th centuries and proceeds to in-depth readings on the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the post-1945 divided Germanies, and the reunified Berlin Republic. The course includes consideration of current events in historical context. The course materials and our discussions will illuminate the diversity of experiences in German history by examining issues of political allegiance, ideology, social class, race and ethnicity, gender, religious confession, and regional identities. The course emphasizes intensive reading and discussion of historical literature. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course examines the history of Russia from the 19th century to the present, that is, the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras. Throughout this period of intense social, political, and economic transition, fundamental questions have persisted: Is Russia part of or separate from the West? Will Russia be governed by traditional forms or power, or is reform possible? What role have resistance and revolution played in the evolving Russian experience? Topics of study include the Romanov Empire, the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalinism, World War II, post-Soviet Russia, and Russia under Putin. The course includes consideration of current events in historical context. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course will explore the history of Early North America from the earliest sustained contact between Europeans and Native Americans during the fifteenth century until the mid- to late eighteenth century. We will attempt to understand Early America on its own terms, rather than as a prelude to the United States. We will examine the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of Early America by investigating the experiences of Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans. We will focus on themes of power (intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality), religion, enslavement, and violence to analyze how various people met, clashed, cooperated, and remade themselves and their worlds. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course will explore the causes of the American Civil War, the experiences of war for Union and Confederate soldiers, free and enslaved African Americans, and women at home, and the varied meanings and results of Reconstruction. This course will help explain many of the ongoing challenges in American society, including battles over race, gender, state and individual rights, region, and memory. Using primary sources, scholarly articles, films, novels, and images, we will consider why the Civil War continues to evoke an emotional response today. Although topics will include some military history, the course will focus primarily on the cultural, social, and political ramifications of events. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course introduces students to Atlantic History, one of the most exciting fields of recent historical scholarship. When historians speak of an Atlantic World, they refer to the convergence of people, commodities, ideas and cultures from Europe, Africa, and the Americas in the three centuries after Christopher Columbus’s initial 1492 voyage to the Americas. We will begin by exploring the methods of Atlantic historians and conclude by reflecting on the use of the “Atlantic World” as a historical concept. In between, we will study the meetings and migrations of Europeans, Americans, and Africans; transatlantic exchanges of commodities and cultures; how slave traders attempted to transform captured Africans into commodities; how enslaved people asserted their humanity; and revolutionary upheavals. While encountering the histories of the Atlantic World, students will have opportunities to strengthen their analytical reading, historical thinking, argumentative writing, and public speaking. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

The period between 1920 and 1960 was marked by fundamental shifts in almost every aspect of American life. Technologically it spanned the gaps between horses and superhighways, telegraphs and computer networks, zeppelins and rocket ships, TNT and hydrogen bombs. Economically it ran from the unregulated boom of the 1920s, through the depths of the Great Depression, and into one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth in our nation's history. Politically it saw the end of the American socialist and Communist parties as significant players and the rise of new post-war coalitions and regional coalitions that reshaped political landscapes. International conflicts of this era, including WWII and the Cold War, continue to influence diplomatic, cultural, and economic relationships well into the 21st century. Cultural shifts-- including expanded civil rights for minorities and women as well as emerging generational divisions --yielded striking changes in communities across the nation, all during a period in which the US population grew by 75%. HIST 357 will explore the key events of these four tumultuous decades, including the economy of the "Roaring 20s," the political and cultural responses to the Great Depression, life in wartime America of the 1940s, and the post-war economic and social changes that gave rise to the Baby Boom and greater economic opportunity for more Americans than ever before. We will examine primary and secondary sources ranging from novels to scholarly articles, popular films to newspaper advertisements, all with the goals of developing your sense of what happened during these decades, why those events happened, and what the longer-term consequences were for the American people. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

Political, economic and social change in recent America. A central theme will be the way that the social/political changes of the 1960s, and the reaction against them, has divided our nation and shaped our recent history. Specific topics include the struggle for equal rights for minorities, the changing roles of men and women, the domestic consequences of our foreign wars from Vietnam through Afghanistan, the growth of political power among cultural conservatives, the causes and impact of growing income inequality amid expanding affluence, and arguments over the power of the Presidency and the primacy of the Federal government from the administrations of John Kennedy through Barak Obama. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

Environmental history is the study of the relationship between humans and nature over time. This course examines the changing American understanding of nature in the 19th and 20th centuries with particular attention to the development of public policies toward natural resources and wildlife, the emergence of a new set of values recognizing non-utilitarian values in nature, and to the evolution of the conservation and environmental movements. Intellectual, political, economic, scientific, and social evidence will all be examined in the process of placing nature back into the human history of North America. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

An examination of the U.S. role in world affairs since 1929. Topics include isolationism, World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam and post-war adjustments, Reagan’s efforts to restore primacy, involvement in the Middle East, the search for a post-Cold War role, and the roots of the war on terrorism. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course will use gender as a tool of analysis to explore how gender and sexuality have influenced Americans’ personal identities and interactions with others. Historically, in what ways have Americans defined what it means to be a man or a woman, and how have those definitions and supposed natural characteristics influenced one’s status within the nation? We will examine beyond the binary of masculinities and femininities and the intersection with other identities from European colonization to the present day, and how those meanings have changed based on the needs or anxieties of the time. This course will help you think critically about documents and other sources that you encounter in daily life: who produced it, what assumptions about gender or public/private life the author makes, and how those assumptions influence one’s understanding of cultural identities. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

Introduction to history from 3000 B.C. to the 1st century B.C. It will cover the Dark Ages, Archaic Period, Persian Wars, Peloponnesian War, Athenian Democracy, etc.

A survey course, with extensive on-site teaching, covering the art and archaeology of Greece from prehistoric times to the end of the Classical period. Its purpose is to introduce the student, using whenever possible the primary sources (monuments, art and artifacts) of the ancient civilizations of the Aegean and Greece: Minoan, Mycenaean, and Classical Greek. The schedule of class visits to sites, monuments and museums is coordinated as much as possible with school field trips. Classroom lectures and the readings provide the historical context for the monuments and artifacts students are instructed on. This course (Aegean & Ancient Greek Art & Archaeology) cannot be taken with A361.

This course provides an exploration of the Aegean prehistory from the Neolithic times up to the beginning of the Iron Age, focusing primarily on the Bronze Age cultures that flourished in the region. The archaeology of the islands and the mainland will be placed within the greater Eastern Mediterranean cultural sphere in order to achieve an in-depth survey of the various aspects of political, artistic, technological, religious, administrative and social dynamics of the Bronze Age people. Students will be introduced to theoretical and interpretative methodologies, current debates as well as old and modern approaches of studying the available corpus of archaeological data. At the same time, the results of new and on-going research projects and excavations will be discussed offering a fresh look on the large number of sites in the areas of interest. Finally the students will be able to experience site and museum visits as well as hands-on activities in order to study closely the construction, function, circulation and consumption of the abundant material culture of the Aegean Bronze Age.

Biography of an Empire: The Surprising Life of Byzantium course explores the history and life of the Eastern Roman/‘Byzantine’ empire, the so-called ‘Byzantium’. The empire, founded on the classical Greek and Roman past, encompassed and extended well beyond the Mediterranean region and survived for over a thousand years: from its Christianization in the 4th century AD up to the fall of its capital, Constantinople, to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. By which means, was an empire of this magnitude able to negotiate its survival over the course of a millennium? In examining the issue, particular attention will be paid to the investigation of the prevailing social, political and economic conditions in the region, as well as the massive changes in society, culture, religion, geography and ideology that Byzantium first introduced. The empire, throughout its extraordinary life, promulgated and maintained a unique ideology that was, paradoxically, able to protect an image of stability, timelessness and unchanging order. At the same time, Byzantium accomplished major transformations and innovations in its political ideology, state institutions, political, social and cultural life, that allowed it to prevail even during the last centuries of its life, building an ever-lasting legacy. Besides the narrative of main historical events, special emphasis will be given throughout this course, to the character and riches of this quite different civilization. What Byzantium was in the end, why and what special significance does it still hold for us today? Through the analysis of the identity of the Byzantines and different interpretations of particular historical events, we will try to achieve a better understanding of the broader mechanisms of (re)construction of historical memory. Class sessions combine lectures, as well as discussion of primary texts and, in-depth analysis of visual material, in order to provide a holistic introduction to the history and culture of the Eastern Mediterranean during the period.

This course takes a sociological and anthropological approach to ancient Athenian society, focusing on the individual and examining the human journey through the rites and rituals surrounding birth, transitional phases, marriage, family and kinship, illness and death. We will examine the role of religion in all aspects of the ancient city; explore the political relationships that bound Athenians together; watch them at the gymnasium and in sports and athletic contexts within different age classes; see how they join the workforce in the household, factories or shops, and how the economy of city was organised; and delve into their private lives at home. A holistic approach to all aspects of society will bring to the fore the many groups who have traditionally been marginalized in scholarship: children, women, servants, enslaved peoples, foreigners and refugees in the city. To gather evidence for this analysis of ancient life, we will visit a number of archaeological sites and museums around Athens. Classes are taught both in the classroom and out on archaeological sites and in museums around Athens

The main aim of “Sports, Games and Spectacles in the Graeco-Roman World” course will be to explore the emergence and development of both athletic competitions and sports-based games and spectacles from the Bronze age through to the period of late antiquity. Within this wider spatial and temporal context, we will focus on two separate thematic entities: Ancient Greek Athletics, with particular attention to the development and evolution of the main Ancient Greek athletic events over the ages, and an in-depth investigation of Roman public spectacles and gladiatorial games. Drawing on a variety of disciplines and available (primary) sources, from history and archaeology to modern sports studies and social psychology, the course will primarily seek to examine the main purpose and function of these games and spectacles within the wider social, political, religious, cultural and intellectual context of the times, as well as their overall significance in the daily lives of the ancients. A secondary aim of “Sports, Games and Spectacles in the Graeco-Roman World” will be to explore how archaeologists and historians analyze primary sources to determine their veracity and reliability. To this end, we’ll be looking at re-creations and experiments that have been conducted, as well as conducting many of our own, to create a hands-on and thus better understanding of these athletic activities. We’ll also look at how ancient sports and spectacles have been represented in contemporary popular culture, to test our gained knowledge against the images produced by Hollywood and elsewhere. In addition to in-class lectures and discussions, the course will also include a substantial on-site teaching component, with field trips to archaeological sites and museums of athletic significance (such as Olympia, Isthmia, Nemea, Delphi and Messene) where sessions will centre on the examination and interpretation of the physical evidence.

The conquests of Alexander the Great, which brought under Macedonian rule the regions of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia, up to the borders with India, had a profound impact on the future course of the history of the Near East. Through the study of primary sources, both literary and archaeological, this course explores the long history of interaction between the Greco-Roman world and that of its Near Eastern counterpart and the significant influence this interaction had on the formation and development of a common cultural, religious, and political identity, which modern scholars have labeled “Hellenistic”. Within this perspective, our main focus will be on the investigation of particular aspects of Near Eastern civilization: the emergence of new cultural and social institutions, new forms of economic life, and the creation, fusion, and amalgamation of religious institutions (to which “To the Strongest: The Ancient Near East from the Death of Alexander to the Coming of Rome” will give a special emphasis). The main purpose of “To the Strongest: The Ancient Near East from the Death of Alexander to the Coming of Rome” will be to provide significant insight into an often neglected and yet very important and formative era in world history, the Hellenistic period.

Was there life in Greece after the Classics? What happened to the Greek lands after the Classical period and until Early Modern times? Who were the Byzantines and why did they call themselves Romans? And if Byzantines identified themselves as Romans, then who were the Latins from Italy, France and the rest of Western Europe who conquered much of Greece in the 13th century? Did you know that an Islamic Emirate ruled much of the Aegean for two centuries? And that many placenames even in the southmost of Greece originate from the Slavic language spoken by migrating population in these areas in the early Middle Ages? Or that the Ottoman sultan in 15th c. Istanbul was regarded by many Greek speaking as the continuation of the Byzantine emperor? The course examines the history and material culture of Greece during the expanded Middle Ages from the 4th to the 16th century by focusing of the different cultures and ethnic groups that flourished on the lands of modern-day Greece. We will follow the historical evolution from the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, through the remarkable growth of Late Antique culture to the great crisis that the Great Migrations in the Balkans and the Rise of Islam in the East initiated during the 7th century. We will hear the subaltern voices of the non-Greek and non-Roman Slavic populations or the Arab raiders that settled in the Peloponnese and the Aegean during the Early Middle Ages. We will see in detail the Reconquista effort of the official Byzantine/Roman state to rule back and control the lands of Greece by Christianization and military force and the subsequent period of the Greek High Middle Ages (1oth-12th c). We will move on to the Crusades period and the Latin presence in the Greek peninsula in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (1204) and the division of the Byzantine lands among Frankish princes and Italian states. Finally, we will reach the times collapse of Byzantine and Latin rule in the wake of Ottoman conquest and the Early Modern formation of the Balkans. In addition to in-class lectures and discussions, the course will also include substantial on-site teaching, with field trips to archaeological sites and museums evidencing the presence of these groups in Medieval Greece and marking their material culture and historical heritage (such as the Byzantine and the Benaki Museum in Athens, the Athens Acropolis and Roman Agora, the monastery of Delphi).

This course provides students with an introductory knowledge of the history of Ancient Rome from its origins through the 2nd cent. AD. More specifically, it addresses political, religious, social and economic aspects of Antiquity while also exploring the city of Rome at first hand, in order to illustrate the context and development of its various historical processes. Class lectures are complemented by fieldtrips to different areas of the ancient city, which will further explain the background and nuances of its history. The goal of the course is to help students understand how political, religious and economic circumstances of Roman history had a fundamental influence on shaping the urban landscape of the city and how today we can read the history of the Roman empire by carefully studying the different compounds of that urban landscape. Emphasis will be given to the place of Rome in the cultural history of the Mediterranean, the spaces of political activity within the city, as well as the way in which emperors conveyed their rule to the citizens by coordinated building programs. A selection of texts from ancient writers will illustrate daily life in the metropolis that ancient Rome grew to become at the beginning of the second cent. AD. (study abroad only)

This course will highlight the main events and characters that influenced modern Roman and Italian history, from the Counter-Reformation (circa 1545) to the end of the Second World War and of the Nazi-Fascist occupation of the peninsula (1945). Lectures and discussions in the classroom will be complemented by weekly study excursions to museums and other relevant sites. Among the topics that will be addressed are the rise of the Jesuit order, the impact of the battle of Lepanto (1571), the cases of Beatrice Cenci and Giordano Bruno, echoes of the siege of Vienna and Buda, the French revolution, Napoleon’s invasion and the role of the papacy, the movement of the Carbonari, the two Roman Republics (1798 and 1848-49), the unification of Italy and the conquest of Rome, the relation of Church and State, Fascism and anti-Fascism, the Nazi occupation and the Resistance, the arrival of the Allied troops. Note: this course requires payment of an additional fee to cover active learning components that are above and beyond typical course costs, such as site visits, entrance fees, and other expenses.

This course will examine the history of the Sicilian mafia from the Unification of Italy in 1861 to the present day, considering how different cultural, social, political, and economic factors during this period have influenced its development. Students will be encouraged and guided to critically analyze the material discussed in class and the assigned readings. Rather than remembering the names of bosses or dates of massacres, the emphasis is upon understanding the interrelated historical and cultural dynamics, such as changes in national politics and legislation or the transformation of illicit activities, so as to be able to fully make sense of the information provided in the lessons and to acquire a more incisive knowledge of the mafia.

This course consists of two sections: Japanese traditional arts and culture and Japanese contemporary life and popular culture. The traditional section will include lectures and practical studies of the performing arts (Kabuki, Kyogen, Noh, Tama-sudare), literature (Haiku, folk tales, poetry), refined culture (tea ceremony, flower arrangement, calligraphy), sports (Sumo, Judo, Kendo, Karate), and children's games (Kendama, Otedama, Ayatori, Origami). The contemporary section will include lectures and practical studies of family life, formal ceremonies, education, annual festivals, popular entertainment, and food. Mandatory and optional excursions. Term papers and class participation required. This is a required course on the Japanese study abroad program.

With 27 member countries, how are various cultural differences reconciled to create a free flow of people, goods, services, and capital around the European Union? What are the origins of European integration? What place does the EU have in the world economy? What does the future hold for the EU in terms of growth in membership and economic prowess? This course provides a comprehensive examination of the processes of European economic integration and a critical analysis of EU policies in their broader political-economic context. It focuses on the external dimension of Europe in the global economy, the integration processes of the EU, including the Single Market, Economic and Monetary Union or the Common Agricultural Policy, and its impact on global economics, ranging from the World Trade Organization to EU enlargement and the Third World.

State formation, the Renaissance and revolutions: • Origins of the modern state. • The Renaissance as cultural phenomenon. • Origins, dynamics and impact of historical revolutions. Wealth and poverty in Western history: • Changing views and attitudes. • Perspectives on systems such as socialism, capitalism and communism. • Dimensions of the culture of wealth and poverty. Method of assessment: Flexible assessment

Selected themes in twentieth century history from political, environmental and social history perspectives, including: • Global social, environmental, economic, demographic, and political shifts and cultural change: religion, gender, and class. • Changes in the civil society, education, the arts, and science in the twentieth century. Engagement with the basic idea of historiography and basic historical methodology. Colonial liberation and nation building in the 20th century: • The end of the formal imperial era. • Independence movements in Africa and India. • New states. • Cultural dimensions of independence: the search for a “pure” African culture in a globalising world. • Africa in a globalising world.

The main goal of this course is to give students an overview of Spain´s history over the past 500 years, with special emphasis on events that have marked Andalusia more profoundly. Additionally, we will also study and analyze different trends and phenomena of modern day Spain, along with some traditions that still hold in our time. Field trips, projections of slides and videos will all be key elements in this course helping the student to have a clearer perception of each period. Conducted in English.

Supervised reading or research at the upper-division level. Permission of department chair and completion and/or concurrent registration of 12 credits within the department required. Consult department for applicability towards major requirements. Not available to first-year students.

An examination of the history of the Roman empire, beginning with Julius Caesar and Augustus, who introduced rule by Roman emperor in the late first century B.C.E., and ending with Constantine, who legalized Christianity in the fourth century C.E. Our point of departure is the vastness of this empire. It stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates River, from the North Sea to the Sahara Desert. As such, it encompassed and encountered numerous peoples and cultures, many subject to the power Rome. With this in mind, we will try to achieve a more balanced view of life in the Roman empire by investigating it from the perspective of the rulers and the ruled. To this end, we will (1) study the Roman emperors and their policies, (2) grapple with the struggles of an example subject people, the Jews, under Roman empire, and (3) support students in their pursuit of research projects that will underscore the rich diversity of experience within the Roman world. Throughout we will focus especially on the potential of ancient evidence to answer the following questions. What were the priorities of the Romans, and especially the emperor, in the maintenance of the Roman empire? What was the response of subject peoples like the ancient Jews to that empire? What strategies did they develop for political, cultural (especially religious), social, and economic survival? As we pursue these questions, students will have the opportunity to take part in many well-informed class discussions and to engage more deeply with particular issues through thoughtful papers and collaborative workgroup sessions. This course is suitable for students of any major, including those who have not taken a previous history course.

This course examines World War II from the perspectives of historical events, the memory of those events, and postwar trials for war crimes. Although we often use the terms "history" and "memory" interchangeably, they are different and provide different approaches to understanding and dealing with the past. Our understanding of the past is further complicated when it becomes the subject of legal proceedings and the justice system. In addition to selected aspects of the war, the course will examine the ways the war has been remembered (for example, historical interpretations and commemorative efforts) and adjudicated in court (such as the Nuremburg Trial and the Eichmann Trial). The course will also examine recent efforts to apply legal restrictions to interpretations of the past (for example, Poland's Holocaust law).

This course explores the history of the 20th century world through an environmental lens, emphasizing relationships between humans and the natural world, the impacts of social/political/economic systems on nature, and the evolving use of natural resources in human societies. Movements of people, raw materials, capital, manufactured goods, and living material between ecosystems receive particular attention. The impacts of human action on the natural world, including resource extraction, large-scale construction, agriculture, transportation of species between ecosystems, warfare, migration, and the generation of pollutants will be followed through the century on scales ranging from regional to global. Students will develop an understanding of how humans have shaped the environments they inhabit both directly and indirectly, how nature influences culture over time, and how the environmental crises of the 21st century are rooted in historical events, decisions, and actions. The skills of historical analysis and argumentation will be practiced throughout the course as well.

The strivings and desires of colonies, countries, and nations can reveal much about the realities of life for the individuals who struggle, survive, and thrive there. This course will analyze the last century of hopes on and for the Korean peninsula, from colonization to Kpop, Japanese empire to Juche, on both sides of the 38th parallel. By examining a variety of sources and drawing on a variety of different techniques, students will learn how to interpret Korean dreams and the truths they reveal.

Intended for advanced History majors, this course emphasizes research skills in preparation for the individual projects in HIST 399. The primary goal is for students to understand that historical interpretations are constructs and that historians often disagree among themselves. Topics vary with instructor; please see individual section descriptions (395A, 395B, etc.) for details. Recommended prerequisite: 295 or permission of Department Chair.

“Who shall write the history of the American Revolution? Who can write it? Who will ever be able to write it?” asked John Adams in a July 1815 letter to Thomas Jefferson. “Nobody; except merely its external facts,” Jefferson replied. Adams and Jefferson were wrong. Few events in the history of humanity are as well known as the American Revolution. Tens of thousands of texts are dedicated solely to the investigation of this one historical event. In this course, we will explore how historians interpret the American Revolution to identify and analyze changes in historiography — historical interpretation — over time. Studying changing historical interpretations of the American Revolution will allow us to gain a better understanding of the methods — questions, approaches, and theories — historians use to interpret this event. While studying the historiography of the American Revolution and the methods of its historians, you will practice and strengthen your critical reading, argumentative writing, discussion, and historical thinking skills. Offered for A-F grading only.

Students are expected to develop the skills and historiographical awareness required for their individual Senior Thesis project (HIST 399), and these goals are best achieved through the study of a specific subject matter. For this course, our subjects are the concepts of “history” and “memory,” i.e., the ways in which countries and societies remember the past, what they remember, why they remember, and how they use memory. Sometimes, the things that are forgotten are as significant as what is remembered. The common readings focus on the politics of memory in Europe, but the approach is applicable for any country, region, or time period, and students may select any memory-related topic for their final project in this course. Offered for A-F grading only.

Historiography was created to help History majors better understand how historians think and work while exploring the historiography of a particular topic in depth. While each section of the course focuses on a specific topic, they share the common goals of exposing students to the study of history itself as a field of inquiry, exploring various research methods, and considering how various types of evidence might be used in constructing historical arguments. This seminar will examine the history of the American West, covering such topics as the impact of U.S. expansion on the environment and native peoples of the West, the realities of violence in “frontier” towns, the political and economic relationships between Eastern cities and their Western counterparts, and the evolution of the 20th century West into an overwhelmingly urban society in the midst of a sparsely populated hinterland. Special attention will be paid to historical debates over the “meaning of the West,” the introduction of race, class, gender, and environment as themes in these debates, and the varying types of evidence historians have used to interpret the region’s past. Offered for A-F grading only.

After the fall of Aztecs, the conquering Spaniards attempted to impose a late-medieval version of Catholicism on the indigenous populations of Mexico. What resulted from this “Spiritual Conquest?” Historians have pondered this question for decades. Whatever the result, religion constituted a sphere of struggle during the almost 300 years of Spanish rule over what was then called New Spain. This class examines how historians have thought and written about religion in colonial Mexico and how historians’ ideas about it have changed over time. In short, this course aims to introduce students to the concept of historiography and thus hone student skills of sophisticated historical analysis and habits of mind. Offered for A-F grading only.

This class is designed to introduce and hone advanced skills of historical analysis. We will focus our reading, writing, and discussion this semester on the concept of historiography. The term has several interconnected meanings: the philosophy of historical analysis, the study of the history of historical analysis, and the changing ways historians have written about a particular topic over time. We will explore these three principle meanings of historiography as we read about, write about, and discuss how historians have interpreted and debated Japanese involvement in the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and its aftermath. Offered for A-F grading only.

In this course, intended for advanced History majors, we will analyze the development of historical interpretation in the field of women’s history and the transition to the study of gender history. We will explore how US historians have interpreted the gendered past to gain a better understanding of the questions, approaches, theories, and types of evidence that historians have used to construct arguments over time and why they often disagree among themselves. This course emphasizes research skills and historical analysis in preparation for individual projects in HIST 399 Senior Thesis. Offered for A-F grading only.

Supervised career exploration which promotes the integration of theory with practice. An opportunity to apply skills under direct supervision in an approved setting. Prerequisites: approval of the department chair and a faculty moderator; completion of the pre-internship seminar.

This course is the capstone for the major. Students develop independent projects in collaboration with History faculty and write substantial research papers based upon primary and secondary sources. Students give formal oral presentations of their research. This course draws upon and synthesizes the skills developed in HIST 295 and 395. Those majors seeking to graduate with “Distinction in History” must take COLG 396 the spring of their junior year, History 399 fall of their senior year, and complete their Honors research and writing the spring they graduate.