| 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.
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10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 203 |
| 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.
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08:30 AM-09:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 203 |
| HIST 118-01 |
American History 1877 to Present
Instructor: Matthew Pinsker
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.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 317 |
| 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.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 104 |
| HIST 121-01 |
Middle East to 1750
Instructor: David Commins
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEST 121-01. The rise of Islam, the development of Islamic civilization in medieval times and its decline relative to Europe in the early modern era, 1500-1750.
This course is cross-listed as MEST 121.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 203 |
| HIST 130-01 |
Early Latin American History to 1800
Instructor: Marcelo Borges
Course Description:
Cross-listed with LALC 230-01. Survey of pre-Colombian and colonial Latin American history. Students explore the major ancient civilizations of the Americas, the background and characteristics of European conquest and colonization, the formation of diverse colonial societies, and the breakdown of the colonial system that led to independence. The course includes both the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas from a comparative perspective.
This course is cross-listed as LALC 230.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 313 |
| 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.
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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.
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09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313 |
| HIST 204-01 |
Introduction to Historical Methodology
Instructor: Marcelo Borges
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.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
LIBRY ARCHCLS |
| HIST 207-01 |
History of the Climate Crisis
Instructor: Emily Pawley
Course Description:
While we may think of climate change mostly in terms of the futures it threatens, its a human-created disaster and so has a human history. So too do the solutions currently underway to respond to it. In this class well examine the rise of fossil fuels, the building of unequal and vulnerable landscapes, the birth and development of climate science, the intentional construction of climate denial, and the consequent failures of climate politics. However, well also look at the histories of renewable energy, soil building, mass forest planting, ocean farming, organic farming, protest, movement-building, regulation, and political action. In doing so, well help create usable histories for a survivable and ethical future.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 303 |
| HIST 211-01 |
Archives and Practicing Public History
Instructor: Lindsay Houpt-Varner
Course Description:
This course investigates the intersection of archival studies and public history, examining how society preserves its past and how institutions engage with the public using archival resources. Students will master the core principles of record management, preservation, the ethical stewardship of historical materials, and emerging technologies in the field. Through site visits to local repositories and direct engagement with professionals, students will bridge the gap between academic theory and professional application in the modern archive.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 212 |
| HIST 211-02 |
The Civil Rights Movement: North and South
Instructor: Say Burgin
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-01. The post-World War II movement for African Americans' civil rights is often considered solely in terms of Southern-based groups and events. This class will explode the myth that the civil rights movement was confined to the South by exploring the national character of inequalities, segregation and the movement for Black freedom. With special attention to the years 1945-1975, this class will consider how segregation formed differently in Birmingham versus Alabama, how the fight for school de-segregation included battles in both Little Rock and New York, and how gender shaped protest politics and tactics of the movement across the nation. Key topics will include Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and ideas of leadership; key campaigns in Birmingham, New York, Detroit and elsewhere; important groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and how ideas about masculinity and femininity shaped the movement. An important thread throughout the class will be understanding how racial inequalities came to be "baked into" the structures and systems that shape life in the United States - from housing to education to employment. We'll learn about structural racism through the prism of Black resistance to it.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
DENNY 203 |
| HIST 211-03 |
Remembering 1776
Instructor: Matthew Pinsker
Course Description:
On the nation's 250th anniversary, this topics course will examine how Americans have commemorated the nation's founding through the decades and have argued over its meaning right up to the present day.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 211 |
| HIST 213-01 |
Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe
Instructor: Regina Sweeney
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEMS 200-01. This course will explore the everyday culture of early modern Europe including careful consideration of how people made sense of their world. It will range from examining religious rituals and objects such as relics to natural magic and the popular science that came with the Scientific Revolution. We will also examine the relationship between commoners and the elites while looking at how ideas spread whether by oral culture, images or the new technology of printing.
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09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 311 |
| HIST 248-01 |
The American Revolution
Instructor: Christopher Bilodeau
Course Description:
This course will focus on the period between 1763 and the first decade of the 1800s in North America, a time of tumultuous upheaval, intellectual ferment, and sporadic but intense violence which culminated in the creation of the United States. It will cover topics such as the expulsion of the French from North America, the rise of the a bourgeois public sphere, colonial contestation over sovereignty with Great Britain, the role of the military and violence in the new nation, republicanism, and the immediate ramifications of independence on a wide variety of groups within North America, such as women, American Indians, and free and slave African Americans.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 211 |
| HIST 259-01 |
Islam
Instructor: David Commins
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MEST 259-01 and RELG 259-01. An introduction to Islamic beliefs and practices in their classical forms: rituals, law, mysticism, and other topics. The course will consider aspects of Islamic cultures and societies in medieval and modern times.
This course is cross-listed as MEST 259 and RELG 259.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 203 |
| HIST 262-01 |
Life and Death in the Age of the Samurai and Geisha
Instructor: Evan Young
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EASN 262-01. In this course, we critically investigate the surprising origins behind some of the most pervasive icons of premodern Japan. By analyzing a variety of historical sources, including diaries, picture scrolls, and woodblock prints, students will gain insight into what it was like to live in the 12th19th centuries. Topics include the rise of the samurai as a military and political force, the development of geisha as skilled entertainers, and how those figures featured in everyday life. By analyzing these sources and engaging with new, innovative scholarship, students will learn how to craft original and compelling arguments that change the way we understand premodern Japanese society and culture. This course is cross-listed as EASN 262.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 104 |
| HIST 272-01 |
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1850
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 272-01 and LALC 272-01. During several centuries of European colonization in the New World, a thriving slave trade forced the emigration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic-an immigration far larger than the simultaneous immigration of Europeans to the same regions. We will address not only the workings of the slave trade on both sides (and in the middle) of the Atlantic, but also the cultural communities of West and West-Central Africa and encounters and exchanges in the new slave societies of North and South America. Through examination of work processes, social orders, cultural strategies and influences, and ideas about race and geography, across time and in several regions, we will explore the crucial roles of Africans in the making of the Atlantic world. This course is cross-listed as AFST 272 and LALC 272. Offered every two years.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 313 |
| HIST 273-01 |
African Americans Since Slavery
Instructor: Say Burgin
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 221-01. 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.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 311 |
| HIST 284-01 |
Ecological History of Africa
Instructor: Jeremy Ball
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 284-01. This course provides an introduction to the ecological history of Africa. We will focus in some detail on demography, the domestication of crops and animals, climate, the spread of New World crops (maize, cassava, cocoa), and disease environments from the earliest times to the present. Central to our study will be the idea that Africa's landscapes are the product of human action. Therefore, we will examine case studies of how people have interacted with their environments. African ecology has long been affected indirectly by decisions made at a global scale. Thus we will explore Africa's engagement with imperialism and colonization and the global economy in the twentieth century. The course ends with an examination of contemporary tensions between conservation and economic development.This course is cross-listed as AFST 284.
Offered every two years.
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01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DENNY 313 |
| HIST 311-01 |
Modern History of Policing and Incarceration in the US
Instructor: Say Burgin
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 320-01. The United States of America imprisons more of its residents than almost any other country in the world. How did mass incarceration come to define this country? In this class, we will explore this question by looking at the multiple ways that the US policed and incarcerated various groups throughout the 20th century. We will pay special attention to the ways that lawmakers, police and the courts have historically targeted African Americans, but we will also study how other people of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, and workers were criminalized. A major learning goal for this class will be understanding that "deviance" and "crime" were constructed categories. We will consider how the meaning of these categories shifted over time and why. Major topics will include chain gang prisoner exploitation; eugenics, the psychiatric creation of "feeble-mindedness," and asylum incarceration; the criminalization of sex work, interracial relationships, labor organizing, and political dissent; jingoism, a "new" Yellow Peril, and Japanese internment; and outlawing drug use and mass incarceration. To gain a deeper understanding of how the criminal courts actually work, students on this class will participate in a court-watching program, for which everyone will receive training.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 311 |
| HIST 358-01 |
19th-20th Century European Diplomacy
Instructor: Regina Sweeney
Course Description:
Cross-listed with INST 358-01. European diplomatic history from the Congress of Vienna through World War II.
This course is cross-listed as INST 358. Offered occasionally.
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11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
DENNY 203 |
| HIST 375-01 |
Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and the Rise of Authoritarianism
Instructor: Karl Qualls
Course Description:
Cross-listed with GRMN 275-01 and RUSS 260-01. Course taught in English. Contrary to the hope of contemporaries, World War I was not "the war to end all wars." Instead, at its end Europe emerged into a world of unprecedented turmoil and confusion, a time that was nonetheless permeated with hope, idealism, and possibility. This course explores European politics, society, gender, economics, and culture between 1918 and 1945, focusing on the extreme developments in Germany, Russia, and Italy during this time. We will examine the emergence, development, form, and consequences of the rule of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini while also comparing to executive state expansion under FDR. Students will learn to think about modern state practices rather than lumping countries into unhelpful and inaccurate categories like totalitarian.This course is cross-listed as GRMN 275.
Offered occasionally.
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03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 204 |
| HIST 404-01 |
The Social History of Medicine in the 18th and 19th Centuries
Instructor: Evan Young
Course Description:
This senior seminar is an exploration of the social history of medicine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from a global perspective. A key aim of the course is to understand the nature of medical knowledge as a social and cultural construct, as well as they ways in which illness and therapy have been woven into daily life and popular culture. We will consider a wide range of topics that have generated compelling intellectual dialogue, including the relationship between medical knowledge and authority, the agency of patients in determining their course of treatment, and the social and cultural meanings of illness and therapy. While reading landmark works in the field, we will also dedicate much of the course to the craft of research and writing. Students will contribute to scholarly debates by writing their own original research papers over the course of the semester. These papers will engage with scholarship in the students chosen geographic and thematic subfields and make new arguments based on original readings of primary historical sources.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
DENNY 303 |