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History Current Courses

Fall 2025

Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
HIST 101-01 The Age of Faith: Medieval Europe Between Church and State
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with RELG 209-01. This survey course will study the development of European civilization during the period c.400 to 1500 with special attention to the rise of the papacy and religious conflict. It will consider the impact of such events as the decline of the Roman Empire, the Germanic invasions, the development of Christianity and the Church, the emergence of feudalism, the expansion of Islam and the Crusades, and the creation of romantic literature.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411
HIST 106-01 Early Modern Europe to 1799
Instructor: Regina Sweeney
Course Description:
Society, culture, and politics from the Renaissance through the French Revolution.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 311
HIST 117-01 American History 1607 to 1877
Instructor: Christopher Bilodeau
Course Description:
This course covers colonial, revolutionary, and national America through Reconstruction. Include attention to historical interpretation. Multiple sections offered.
08:30 AM-09:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 203
HIST 118-01 American History 1877 to Present
Instructor: Emily Hawk
Course Description:
This course covers aspects of political evolution, foreign policy development, industrialization, urbanization, and the expanding roles of 20th century central government. Includes attention to historical interpretation. Multiple sections offered.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 311
HIST 120-01 History of East Asia from Ancient Times to the Present
Instructor: Evan Young
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EASN 120-01. This course explores the diverse and interrelated histories of the region currently composed of China, Korea, and Japan, over the past two thousand years. We begin by studying the technologies and systems of thought that came to be shared across East Asia, including written languages, philosophies of rule, and religions. Next, we examine periods of major upheaval and change, such as the rise of warrior governments, the Mongol conquests, and engagement with the West. The course concludes by tracing the rise and fall of the Japanese empire and the development of the modern nation states that we see today.This course is cross-listed as EASN 120.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 311
HIST 151-01 History of Environment
Instructor: Emily Pawley
Course Description:
Examines the interaction between humans and the natural environment in long-term global context. Explores the problem of sustainable human uses of world environments in various societies from prehistory to the present. Also serves as an introduction to the subfield of environmental history, which integrates evidence from various scientific disciplines with traditional documentary and oral sources. Topics include: environmental effects of human occupation, the origins of agriculture, colonial encounters, industrial revolution, water and politics, natural resources frontiers, and diverse perceptions of nature.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
HIST 170-01 African Civilizations to 1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 170-01. This course provides an overview to the political, social, and ecological history of Africa. We will examine the peopling of the continent, the origins of agriculture, the growth of towns and the development of metal technology. Written sources before the 1400s are almost nonexistent for most of Africa, and so we will use archaeological and linguistic sources. The geographic focus of the course will be the Middle Nile, Aksum in Ethiopia, the Sudanic states in West Africa, Kongo in Central Africa, the Swahili states of the East African coast, and Zimbabwe and KwaZulu in Southern Africa. We will also examine the Atlantic Slave Trade and the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope.This course is cross-listed as AFST 170.
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
HIST 204-01 Introduction to Historical Methodology
Instructor: Christopher Bilodeau
Course Description:
Local archives and libraries serve as laboratories for this project-oriented seminar that introduces beginning majors to the nature of history as a discipline, historical research techniques, varied forms of historical evidence and the ways in which historians interpret them, and the conventions of historical writing. Prerequisite: one previous course in history.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
LIBRY ARCHCLS
HIST 211-01 Archives and Practicing Public History
Instructor: Lindsay Houpt-Varner
Course Description:
This course will explore the practice of public history with a special concentration on archival preservation and management. Through firsthand experience, students will learn the principles, practices, and theories behind maintaining historical records. Archival codes of ethics and emerging technologies in the field will be studied. The class will visit several archival repositories across the region, and students will meet with archival professionals virtually and in person to learn about the types of institutional settings where archives are held.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 211
HIST 211-02 US Constitutional History
Instructor: Matthew Pinsker
Course Description:
This course surveys advanced topics in US constitutional history from the framing of the government in 1787 to the recent past. Students will study various landmark Supreme Court cases, key constitutional amendments and selected constitutional crises, such as the nation's historical impeachment battles.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 211
HIST 213-01 Roman History
Instructor: Scott Farrington
Course Description:
Cross-listed with CLST 253-01. An introduction to the history of ancient Rome focusing on the rise and fall of the Republic, the Augustan Age, and the Principate. Topics include race, gender, and sexuality. Students develop habits for reading ancient and modern sources critically. Assignments introduce students to the primary tools, methods, and conventions of researching and writing in the field of ancient history. Part of the Globally Integrated Semester in Italy.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
ALTHSE 07
HIST 253-01 Autocracy, Uprisings, and Daily Life in Medieval Ukraine, Russia, and its Empire
Instructor: Karl Qualls
Course Description:
Cross-listed with RUSS 253-01. Course taught in English. This course will survey the first 1000 years of the eastern Slav lands that are now Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus and the expanding empire of the former into Central Asia and the Caucasus. Students will gain a better understanding of the regions political, economic, social, and cultural development and how it can inform our understanding of Russia today. We will examine the early formation of multi-ethnic clans into a large multinational empire while highlighting state formation, the role of women, church power, the arts, and nationality conflict. The course concludes with the impending collapse of the Russian empire under Tsar Nicholas II.This course is cross-listed as RUSS 253.
12:30 PM-01:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 203
HIST 273-01 African Americans Since Slavery
Instructor: Emily Hawk
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-04. Focuses on the history of Americans of African ancestry in the years following the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. The course examines several important transformations of African Americans as a people. In the first, we consider the transition from slavery to a nominal but highly circumscribed "freedom," which ended with the destruction of Reconstruction governments in the South. We consider the institution-building and community-building processes among African Americans, and the development of distinctive elite and folk cultures among various classes of black people. We examine the Great Migration north and west between 1900 and 1920, and the urbanization of what had been a predominately rural people. Fifth, we consider the differential impact of World War I, the Great Depression, and the New Deal and World War II on African Americans, and the creation of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's - 1980's. This course is cross-listed as AFST 221. Offered every two years.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 211
HIST 274-01 The Rise and Fall of Apartheid
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 274-01. The peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa in the early 1990s was widely hailed as the "South African Miracle." This course asks why such a transition should be considered miraculous. In order to answer our question, we will begin with South African independence from Britain in 1910 and study the evolution of legalized segregation and the introduction in 1948 of apartheid. After reviewing opposition movements we will move to a discussion of the demise of apartheid and the negotiated political order that took its place. We will examine the machinery and the deliberations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and debate its accomplishments. The course ends with an examination of memory and history.This course is cross-listed as AFST 274.
09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 313
HIST 277-01 European Empires
Instructor: Regina Sweeney
Course Description:
This course will investigate the building, celebration and dissolution of the European empires moving from the 15th century into the 20th century. Definitions of imperialism as it developed over time will be discussed. The readings look at the effects of empire in Europe as well as some of the effects in the colonies, including works by Christopher Columbus, William Shakespeare, George Orwell, and Chinua Achebe. Offered every two years.
11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 311
HIST 376-01 The Holocaust
Instructor: Karl Qualls
Course Description:
Cross-listed with GRMN 250-01 and JDST 316-02. The course explores the causes of the Shoah/Holocaust, including anti-Semitism, the eugenics movement, the growth of the modern state, and the effects of war. Themes will also explore perpetrator motivation, gendered responses, bystanders and rescuers, and the place of the Holocaust among other genocides. Students will approach the Holocaust through its historiography, which will equip them to interpret facts and understand how and why scholars have shifted interpretations over time. Course taught in English. The course explores the causes of the Shoah/Holocaust, including anti-Semitism, the eugenics movement, the growth of the modern state, and the effects of war. Themes will also explore perpetrator motivation, gendered responses, bystanders and rescuers, and the place of the Holocaust among other genocides. Students will approach the Holocaust through its historiography, which will equip them to interpret facts and understand how and why scholars have shifted interpretations over time. This course is cross-listed as JDST 316. Offered occasionally.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 204
HIST 404-01 Jacksonian Democracy and the Imperial Presidency
Instructor: Christopher Bilodeau
Course Description:
In this course we will study the rise of what is called "Jacksonian Democracy." In 1828, Andrew Jackson ascended to the presidency after losing a deeply contested election in 1824, and he brought with him a sense of populist democratic possibility, anger at his political enemies, and a program that relied on loyal advisors over appointed government officials. In doing so, he attempted to centralize power in the executive branch of the federal government all the while arguing for "states rights." How did these at times contradictory notions mesh together? In what ways did he and his supporters insist on the political power and dignity of the common man? In what ways were his most salient policies-slashing government monopolies, tariffs against foreign goods to support small American owners and workers, and removing native peoples from lands east of the Mississippi River-a reflection of changing democratic norms? And what did this mean for his political opponents? We will study these issues, and many others, as we analyze the rise of democratic populism and the central part Jackson played from roughly the1810s to the 1830s.
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
DENNY 204
HIST 500-01 Medieval European History
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description: