History (HIS)

The Learning Environment

We are committed to providing a rigorous, top quality education for the next generation of scholars, whether in academia, public history, secondary education, government and cultural organizations, publishing, or in many contexts where history and its associated skills are valued. Students read deeply in their fields while learning to create new knowledge by asking their own questions about the past, engaging in primary research, analyzing findings and communicating their conclusions artfully and persuasively.

Courses range from large lectures to small, discussion-based seminars and combine a variety of teaching methods Courses aim to build students’ skills in critical thinking, research, and both written and oral communication. We also offer experiential learning opportunities, such as the public history internship, which can be taken for credit (HIS 496). In addition, our faculty work one-on-one with students involved in independent study (HIS 499) and the Honors Seminar (HIS 497).

About Our Facilities

The History Department is housed in Park Hall, and has two dedicated seminar rooms. The department also holds classes in centrally scheduled space throughout the campus, which includes traditional classrooms and lecture halls that can accommodate our program’s teaching philosophies.

About Our Faculty

The history department includes faculty of national and international distinction in their research fields and many members who have received teaching awards. Full-time faculty are committed to teaching at all levels, from introductory classes through upper-division seminars. Faculty teaching fields cover the globe and span the medieval period through the present. Faculty incorporate a diversity of approaches to teaching history, using technology and sharing the diversity of material, and oral sources available to scholars and students. They stress the importance of thinking historically about the context of events and individuals of the past and through their teaching help students make informed interpretations about the past.

Faculty List Directory

Please visit the History department website for additional information about our faculty.

HIS Courses

HIS 113LEC Myth & Religion in the Ancient World
Lecture

An investigation of the mythic and religious traditions of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Greco-Roman traditions are examined in comparison with those of other ancient Indo-European peoples, especially the Hittites, Indians, Persians, Celts and Vikings. Cross-listed with CL 113 & RSP 113. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
HIS 11SAHWC Special Studies History
Tutorial

Special Studies History

Credits: 0 - 99
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 141LR Human Origins of Global Society
Lecture

Human origins mark the start of human history, when the "world" was bounded by oceanic separations. We will begin with the ancient past and consider how global connections are forged, ending roughly 1500. Among other topics, the course may consider: how humans meet the challenges of their environment, migrate, develop new social and political systems, secure necessities and acquire luxuries, create religions and intellectual ideas, produce art, music, and architecture, and make war and peace. HIS 141 covers the Breadth requirement. Per the university repeat policy, HIS 141 may be used to replace the grade for UGC 111.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 142LR Civilizations and Beliefs: Global History
Lecture

This course will examine major civilizations in world history since roughly 1300, with particular attention to the foundational ideas and beliefs that have both inspired and challenged them. Human civilizations have been continuously evolving, adapting, expanding, fragmenting, and interacting with one another for thousands of years. Understanding the history of civilizations requires attention not only to material and technological changes over time, but also to the belief systems, ideologies, and structures of power that have defined civilizations and shaped our lived environments. Has the rising intensity of global interaction over the past several centuries led us on a path of convergence toward a single civilization? Or does the past demonstrate that despite high levels of contact and exchange, human civilizations remain as varied as ever? Per the university repeat policy, HIS 142 may be used to replace the grade for UGC 112.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 143LR Global Inequality and Power
Lecture

The increasing interaction of peoples and nations we call globalization benefits some more than others. This course focuses on the historical origins and consequences of a world divided between the rich and poor, the privileged and excluded, the mainstream and the marginalized. Students will consider, among various topics, the emergence of racial and ethnic categories, which accompanied the divergence of a small number of wealthy nations, primarily in the northern hemisphere, from many more poor ones, primarily in the south. They will examine resulting hierarchies that structure other realms of social life, including gender relations, religious conflict, access to education and technology, and environmental degradation. The course also explores how individuals, communities, and societies have challenged dominant understandings of the world, advanced alternative perspectives, and struggled for social justice.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 144LR Introduction to Health, Medicine, and Society
Lecture

What are "health" and "illness"? What are their causes? What counts as "normal" or "abnormal"? Is anatomy, or genetics, destiny? These questions are fundamental to medicine, yet they involve much more than biological factors. This course explores the ever-changing relationships between bodies/biology and the social, cultural, political, environmental, and economic determinants of health, disease, illness, and normality. Physicians, health-care professionals, and policymakers, indeed, anyone who might interact with patients, need to understand how such social contexts affect our attempts to heal, cure, or live with disease or disability. Given their complex social roots, there is no substitute for historical perspectives to reveal the often hidden, and usually ignored, causes of health, illness, or disability: no substitute, as well, for the humanities as an integral partner with medicine in addressing what ails us. This course combines the history of medicine with histories of public health, disease, the body, sexuality, and disabilities to explore: who gets ill, and why; who gets labeled abnormal, and why; how societies construct and respond to illness and abnormality; the changing experience and meanings of health and illness; the historical forces shaping the physician-patient relationship; and the future of medicine and health-care. Examples will range from the ancient and medieval world to the present; from Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas; from the bubonic plague to cholera, tuberculosis, alcoholism, cancer, AIDS, and mental illness. This course acknowledges that medicine is a social and humanistic discipline, one requiring skills of interpretation and the ability to entertain multiple story-lines tracing complex webs of causality.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 161LR United States History I
Lecture

This is not your high school history class. We won't ignore presidents and generals but we will also push beyond them to look at ordinary people, popular culture, and the unexpected ideas that shaped American history from Native American settlement to the aftermath of the Civil War. We will pay particular attention to the interaction among Europeans Africans and the Native Peoples of the New World. We will also explore historical methodologies, practice critical thinking, and discuss how this history has shaped the country we know today. We will use film, music, and compelling stories to show that history is not just a list of names and dates; it is a gripping drama of individuals and groups from foot soldiers to farmers striving to create a new nation.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 162LR US History 2
Lecture

This is not your high school history class. We won't ignore presidents and generals, but we will push beyond them to look at ordinary people, popular culture, and the ideas that shaped American history from the end of the Civil War to the present. From Robber Barons and Captains of Industry; to radical unionists and free-lovers; from the rise of Jim Crow to civil rights activism; from Victorian bustles to flappers and feminists; from the New Deal to the Tea Party; we cannot understand the present without understanding how these stories have transformed America over the last century and a half. We will use film, music, and compelling stories about men and women living through the issues of their day to show that history is not just a list of names and dates. **NOTE: HIS 161 is not a prerequisite for HIS 162. Students may register for one, both, and in any order.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 181LEC Asian Civilization 1
Lecture

Introduction to major themes and events in the histories of China, Korea, Japan, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia in early times. Considers the developments of ways of thought, the emergence of and interactions among states and empires, and artistic and literary movements. Our goal is to understand the historical forces and transformations shaping Asia before about 1600. This course is the same as AS 181, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements. HIS 181 covers the AAL requirement.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 182LEC Asian Civilization II
Lecture

Introduction to major themes and events in the histories of China, Korea, Japan, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia in recent centuries. Considers the impacts of colonialism and imperialism, the emergence of nationalist and revolutionary movements, decolonization and the Cold War. Our goal is to understand the historical forces and transformations shaping contemporary Asia, the common experiences that different areas of Asia have shared in the recent past, and what distinguishes the histories of particular Asian nations within a comparative perspective. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 198SEM UB Seminar
Seminar

The one credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps transition to UB through an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 198 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

Credits: 1
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Other Requisites: Students who have already successfully completed the UB seminar course may not repeat this course. If you have any questions regarding enrollment for this course, please contact your academic advisor.
HIS 199SEM UB Seminar
Seminar

The three credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps students with common learning outcomes focused on fundamental expectations for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and oral communication, and learning at a university, all within topic focused subject matter. The Seminars provide students with an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 199 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Other Requisites: Students who have already successfully completed the first year seminar course may not repeat this course. If you have any questions regarding enrollment for this course, please contact your academic advisor.
HIS 200LEC Movies & Mod Amer Society
Lecture

Movies are both a product of and a window into the era in which they were made. In this course, we will use film to explore the social, cultural, and political history of the United States in the 20th century. Themes addressed in the course may include social movements, war, violence, broad social trends, such as changes in the workforce and marriage and family life, or periods of cultural or political crisis, such as the Cold War.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
HIS 201LEC Israel & the Ancient Near East
Lecture

People of the Bible; the environment in which they lived; what they absorbed and rejected from Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, Iran, Egypt. Cross-listed with JDS 201 & RPS 201.AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 202LEC Roman Civilization
Lecture

Survey of Rome's mythical beginnings to the time of the emperors that covers the full spectrum of Roman cultural expression. Topics covered are not only literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture but also details of everyday life in the Roman world, as well as the roles played by marginal figures (women, slaves, foreigners). This course is the same as CL 223 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 203LEC Greek Civilization
Lecture

Elements of Greek civilization analyzed from synchronistic and developmental views to produce a coherent image of that culture as a living and expanding entity.This course is the same as CL 222, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 205LEC Ancient Near East & Egypt
Lecture

This is a topical survey of the contribution of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian cultures to Western History and thought, from the 'invention' of writing to the fall of the Assyrian Empire. After a discussion of the origins of what civilization is in the context of the urbanization of Egypt and Mesopotamia, we will then continue on to study the nature of kingship, religion (including church vs. State issues, approaches to divinity), trade and economy, and the development and pursuit of empire. There is a short, summarizing textbook and collateral readings of original documents in translation. Several videos and access to WEB-based tools will be made available for the course. Assignments include a mid-term, final, and a short paper on an approved topic. This course is the same as CL 211, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 206LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Topics vary by semester.EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 208LEC U S in the World
Lecture

USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 209LEC The American Civil War
Lecture

Introduction in to the causes of the American Civil War, its impact on the American nation, and its continued significance for American politics and society. Topics covered include: the role of slavery in antebellum politics and the crisis of the 1850s, army life, the changing nature of warfare and introduction of "total war" tactics, changes in gender relations and women's political activism, Abraham Lincoln and his assassination, slave emancipation, Reconstruction, and the memorialization of the war from the nineteenth century to the present day. We will read a variety of primary and secondary source documents, as well as literary treatments of the period and films, in order to obtain a fuller cultural understanding of this pivotal moment in American history.USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 211LEC Special Topics
Lecture

MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 213LEC Modern Africa: Globalization and Imperialism Since 1800
Lecture

The second of two introductory surveys of African history offered by the Department of History. In this course, we focus on African history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The course covers the increasing encroachment on African by European colonialism and the historical responses of Africans to colonial rule. Among the larger themes that the course will focus on are the responses of African societies to the ending of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Islamic reform and activism in the nineteenth century, colonial political economies, religious change, labor mobilization and migration, urbanization, African political mobilization, and anti-colonial nationalism. The course will also consider some of the historical outcomes in post-colonial Africa.AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 215LEC Death in America
Lecture

This course examines death in America from before Columbus until today. Through lectures, movies, music, slides, and the World Wide Web, we will investigate how people have thought about death throughout American history. Because people have always been fascinated with death, they left behind numerous sources that allow us access to their innermost thoughts: diaries, letters, gravestones, songs and artwork. We will examine these sources to learn how attitudes towards death and dying have changed over the last several centuries. Topics include Indian burial practices, Puritan death, the problem of infant mortality, the meaning of death in the Civil War, capital punishment today, and physician-assisted suicide. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 216LEC Crime and Punishment in America
Lecture

In colonial America, practicing witchcraft was against the law. Beating your wife was not. Convicted wrongdoers faced hanging, flogging, even branding - but not prison. There has always been crime and punishment in America, but just what counts as crime, which crimes are committed, which are especially dreaded, how criminals are prosecuted, who they are and what kinds of penalties they face has changed from century to century.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 217LEC Civil Rights in America
Lecture

This course will examine the African American civil rights movement in America. Following the call to view civil rights from a local perspective, we will study the movement in a variety of locations: from the rural south to the urban north. In addition to examining the nonviolent struggle for integration in the South we will look at activist demands for better housing, jobs, and economic parity nationwide. Rather than viewing the black power movement as separate and divisive we will intertwine the history of black power and self-determination with the history of civil rights activism. Although the course will focus on the post- World War II period, we will discuss the roots of the movement in early twentieth-century struggles for justice. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 218LEC African States and Civilizations to 1800
Lecture

The first of two introductory surveys of African history offered by the Department of History. In this course, we focus on the formation of diverse states, kingdoms and empires in Africa and their integration into global economies through the expansion of trade in natural resources, human beings, and luxury commodities. The course will introduce students to specific themes such as sources of African history, pre-colonial African political systems, religious beliefs, gender relations, slavery and migration, art and architecture, as well as the African Diasporas. We conclude with a study of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and identification of prime factors in Europe?s colonial conquest of Africa

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 219LEC Latin America and the United States
Lecture

This course explores the intertwined histories of Latin America and the United States from the Age of Revolutions forward through history, literature, and film. The course has three concrete goals. First, it aims to introduce students to critical themes in Latin American history. Second, this course challenges traditional narratives of U.S. History by asking students to take a second look at key topics in U.S. History that appear different when seen from a Latin American vantage point. Third, this course will expose students to the rich literary and visual culture that is a product of North-South, cross-border relations in the Americas. Equipped with proficiency in the history of 200 years of political, economic, social, and cultural exchanges between Latin America and the United States, students in HIS 219 will be able to understand and contextualize contemporary issues in the Americas such as migration and immigration, Americanism and Anti-Americanism, cultural and economic imperialism, environmental issues, and cross-border, social justice, and anti-globalization movements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 220LEC Culture & Arts East Asia
Lecture

AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 221LEC Latin American Colonial History
Lecture

A survey of the conquest and colonization of Latin America from Pre-Columbian civilizations through independence in the early nineteenth century, this course focuses on the creation of new societies in the Americas, shaped by the interaction of Europeans, Indians, and Africans. We will concentrate on the three great poles of colonial development in the New World-central Mexico, highland Peru, and coastal Brazil but our inquiry will also include the Caribbean and other regions. Emphasis is on social and cultural history, including such topics as popular religion, native labor systems, slavery and the slave trade, race relations, marriage and the family, and the challenges of daily life. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 221LEC Eastern Europe, 1880-1991
Lecture

History of Eastern Europe, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania, during the late 19th and 20th centuries.MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 228LEC Colonialism
Lecture

The decolonization of the postwar period, often a violent process, defined colonialism primarily in political and economic terms. Recently, the analysis has shifted to understanding empire as a cultural phenomenon-to understanding it, that is, as a system of thought that enabled the political and economic view of colonialism. Recent analysis also stresses that colonialism had cultural repercussions both for the colonial authorities and for the colonized. This course applies these insights as it explores three phases of European imperialism. We begin by looking at the Spanish empire in the New World and at the expansion of trade and the gradual accumulation of outposts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The emphasis then shifts to the study of nineteenth-century colonialism. The first example will be India: how the British came to control and administer this part of the world. Then, we shall examine the transfer of this model of colonial administration to Africa in the late nineteenth-century, examining, at that point, French, German, as well as British versions of empire.MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 229LEC Medieval Judaism
Lecture

Medieval Judaism is an exploration of Judaism as a minority religion living between the Crescent and Cross, the Islamic and Christian empires between the 9th to 16th centuries. We will explore the dual nature of the medieval period for Jews: part intellectual and cultural flourishing and part persecution and tragedy. Topics to be discussed include: the origins of anti-Semitism, the crusades, philosophy vs. mysticism, the Maimonidean controversy, Jewish-Christian dialogue and polemics, the inquisitions, marranos, responses to tragedy and the Renaissance. This course is the same as JDS 229 and RSP 229, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 230LEC Modern Jewish History
Lecture

Jewish experience from the late 18th century to the present day; Western and Eastern European Jewry; ethnic origins and backgrounds of contemporary Jewry in the United States, Canada, and Israel. This course is the same as JDS 230 and RSP 230, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 231LEC Israel and the Emergence of Judaism
Lecture

Post-biblical Jews and Judaism; their adaptation to Greco-Roman life; rise of Jewish sectarianism; writing of the Talmud. How to critically read ancient texts in comparative contexts. This course is the same as JDS 202 and RSP 202 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 232LEC Crisis in Jewish History
Lecture

Six issues in Jewish history and their impact on the development of Judaism and on the Jewish community; analysis of the resilience and adaptability of a people under stress. Cross-listed with JDS 102. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 233LEC Historical Geography and Archaeology of Israel
Lecture

Methods and results of excavation in Israel; development of material culture (pottery, architecture, and so forth) and its interpretation. This course is the same as RSP 205 and JDS 205 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 235LEC The American Jewish Experience: History, Social Justice, and the Counter Culture
Lecture

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many Jews who fled persecution in Europe immigrated to America. By the 1950s, the United States became home to the largest Jewish community in modern history. In this course, we will explore the ways in which life in a liberal political and capitalist economic order shaped the Jewish experience in America, and how Jews, in turn, came to influence American culture, politics, and society. This course is the same as JDS 235, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 237LEC History of Israel and Zionism
Lecture

This course will chart the development of a prophetic persona in Hebrew Literature in relation to the Zionist Project. We will reflect upon the specific attributes of the genre of prophetic Zionist Literature and consider it within the historical, literary and theological contexts from which it emerged. Readings include: Abraham Mapu, Judah Leib, Gordon, Ahad Ha-am, and Chaim Nachman Bialik. This course is the same as JDS 237 and RSP 237, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
HIS 238LEC Mass Media and Foreign Policy
Lecture

Examines the influence of the mass media on the formulation and implementation of US foreign policy from the Cuban Revolution in 1959 to the US war with Iraq in 1991. Analysis covers major newspapers and magazines, television news, PBS documentaries and the films: "Salvador" (Oliver Stone) and "Missing" (Costa Garras). Beginning with classes about the Fairness Doctrine, changes in the media since World War II and the media's role in domestic politics, the course uses case studies of Castro's revolution, the Vietnam War, Israel and Lebanon (1982), the 1980s crisis in Central America, the October surprise, Iran-Contra and finally Desert Storm to help the student develop and apply critical skills to the analysis of print media, TV news and film. The major focus of this course will be on the presidential terms of Ronald Regan (1980-1988).

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 240LEC Alcohol and Other Drugs in American History
Lecture

In the 21st century, Americans are debating whether to legalize marijuana. But how did marijuana get to be illegal in the first place? Who decided that some drugs are so dangerous we should fight a war against them, while others are so beneficial that entire industries should be devoted to encouraging their use? Why are American debates over drugs so intense and so complex, and why have they produced such a contradictory legal and cultural landscape? This course answers such questions by exploring the rich history of alcohol and other drugs in America: from the Pilgrims? beer riots to Prohibition, from cocainized Coca-Cola to crackheads, from Bayer?s Heroin to Purdue Pharmas OxyContin, from the Marlboro Man to vape lounges, from vipers to hippies to ravers. We will track the changing worlds of drug discovery and commerce; drug use and drug-using subcultures; drug regulation and policing (domestic and global); drug treatment and addiction science; and the shifting, racially-charged cultural politics of drugs.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 241LEC Sexuality in America
Lecture

What does sexuality have to do with American history or politics? In "Sexuality in America" we explore the topics of sex-sexual behavior, sexual morality, sexual identity, and sexual experience by placing them in historical context and tracing changes over time in the ways Americans have understood and tried to regulate sexuality. We question to what extent sexuality is natural/biological or cultural/social. To understand sexuality as having a history, we will investigate three areas within American society: First, we will look at views of sexuality within major belief systems like religion, science, and the law. Second, we will trace changing sexual beliefs and practices in everyday life, examining sex as an ordinary part of family and community life. Finally, we will look at sexuality when it becomes an explicit part of American political life, as it did in the 19th-century temperance movement, the early 20th century birth control movement, the post-Stonewall (1969) gay and lesbian movement, and today's anti-abortion movement.USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
HIS 248LEC War in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Lecture

Warfare has been a constant feature of societies and civilizations. It both destabilizes and stabilizes the order of things. All the dualities of human nature are intimately bound up with and played out in warfare. However we feel about them, wars past and present, perhaps more than any other single factor, have shaped the world we live in. This course is designed to provide a historically anchored survey of warfare in the ancient Mediterranean civilizations, particularly those of Greece and Rome.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 249LEC Social History of Sport and Recreation
Lecture

The main aim of the course is to develop an understanding of the history of sport and recreation, not as isolated activities but in their social contexts; i.e., as they are influenced by, and themselves influence, other aspects of society, including the social, political and economic aspects of culture. Topics which will be explored include, but are not limited to, examinations of: the role of sport in relation to the growth of industrialization and nationalism in the nineteenth century; the role of race, gender, class, and sexuality as determining factors in the evolution of national sporting traditions, the connections between the international aspects of sport and Western dominance in the global marketplace, and finally, the relationship between sport and notions of civilization, masculinity, and femininity. The predominant focus will be on examples drawn from the Anglophone world of the United States, United Kingdom and the former British Empire.MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 251LEC Foundations of European History
Lecture

What are the foundations of Europe? Are the differences among its parts greater than its commonalities? This course traces the development of Europe to roughly the eighteenth century and analyzes the common and singular attributes of the regions and states encompassed by the geographical area. Expect to study from among a variety of topics, including significant political events and developments, social change and continuity, economic growth and decline, agricultural and technical innovation, the rebirth of towns, intellectual and cultural debates and dialogues, religious conflict and coexistence, and exploration, empire, and military conflict. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 252LEC Power and Challenges in European History
Lecture

European nations wielded power over the inhabitants within their own borders and exercised tremendous economic, intellectual or cultural, and imperial power over vast areas of the globe. How did Europe since roughly the eighteenth century exercise such influence: and what were the internal and external challenges to influence and power? Themes of the course may include, but are not limited to, interactions and exchanges with other parts of the world; colonization and decolonization; capitalism and alternative economic models; society, class, and gender; intellectual and cultural creativity; science and technology; industry and agriculture; political reform, revolution, and conservatism; and religion and secularization. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 253LEC Special Topics
Lecture

EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 255LEC Nationalism and Democracy
Lecture

What was the "long nineteenth century" in Europe, and why should we study it today? This course traces the radical transformation of Europe from a traditional agrarian society with vast poor and illiterate regions in 1789 to the industrialized continent that plunged the world into war in 1914.MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 275LEC The Wars in Vietnam
Lecture

AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 295LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Content varies by semester.USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 298LEC The Second World War
Lecture

The Second World War was the most destructive and profoundly transformative conflict of modern world history. This course will examine the origins, key decisions, major turning points, and consequences of the war from several perspectives. Because war constitutes one of the most terrible and all-embracing aspects of the human experience, considerable time will also be devoted to non-military aspects: daily life, propaganda, culture, and some of the ethical and practical dilemmas faced by ordinary people and leaders alike. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 299LEC Holocaust: History, Culture, and Memory
Lecture

How did the Holocaust happen? How was the Final Solution developed and executed? How have victims, perpetrators, and bystanders written and re-written the accounts of what happened? And how do we remember this today? This course places the Holocaust in the broad context of Western history, thought, and culture by focusing on a variety of sources that include survivor testimonies, novels, and political theory. We will study classic texts such as Elie Wiesel's Night, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, and Art Spiegelman's Maus. We will also view selected films, among them Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, and Alain Resnais' Night and Fog. This course is the same as JDS 208, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 300LEC The Age of Exploration
Lecture

Bridges the Atlantic by examining European exploration and the founding of European colonies in North and South America, 1400-1800.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 301DIS Historical Writing
Discussion

This course is designed to help students develop the essential skills of good historical writing: the ability to synthesize a wide variety of secondary information, construct nuanced interpretations of primary source material, formulate original historical arguments, and tell engaging, meaningful stories about the past. Students will practice these four foundational areas (synthesis, analysis, argumentation, and narration) through a variety of informal and formal writing assignments, including blog posts, in-class writing, book reviews, and a research essay. In addition, students will gain experience presenting their work orally and visually.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Prerequisites: Completion of Communication Literacy 1 or completion of Writing Skills 1 (ENG 101 or placement into ENG 201)
HIS 303LEC Americans and their Governments, U.S. Politics during the long Nineteenth Century
Lecture

This course explores the political history of the United States. It assess how Americans from the constitutional period through the Gilded Age, shaped and understood government power, balanced their belief in individual rights with a need to protect the public good, and applied the tenets laid out in their founding documents in myriad, often conflicting ways.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 304SEM Art & Revolutionary Politics in Latin America
Seminar

This course examines the history of political change in 20th century Latin America through the prism of art and aesthetics. We focus on three central areas - Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua - where revolutionary political change has gone hand in hand with aesthetic and artistic production. Our goal is to study the political history of these places, but to do so in a way that incorporates a range of materials and documents that are often left out of traditional political histories - namely visual culture and visual sources including but not limited to film, photography, theater, political muralism, poster art, performance art, and graffiti.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 305LEC Modern Spain, Italy, and Portugal
Lecture

Examination of the dynamics of nationalism, imperialism, revolutionary ideology, and three variants of right-wing dictatorship in Southwestern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 306LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Subject matter determined by instructor.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 307LEC History of Paris
Lecture

The objectives of the course are to provide students with insights both into European urbanization and the specific development and cultural importance of Paris. The course covers four different time periods: the Middle Ages, the eighteenth century, the second half of the nineteenth century (from Haussmanization during the Second Empire to the 1889 World's Fair and the Eiffel Tower), ending with the post-WWI influx of Americans, known as The Lost Generation. The main text for the course will be Colin Jones' History of Paris. Students are encouraged to write a research paper on an American in Paris from a list of important visitors.MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 308LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Subject matter determined by instructor.AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 309LEC Politics of Everyday Life: Food and Eating
Lecture

This course explores the politics of everyday life in the Americas, with a special focus on the history of food and eating in the Americas. It takes food as a lens through which to understand the history of nation building and immigration in the Americas, with a special focus on race, class, gender and identity. This course will help student hone their critical eye by analyzing a wide range of food related texts, images, and other media from the 19th century into the present, including cookbooks, literature, blogs, TV and films. Students will also study the food they make, cook, eat and discard as the product of history and also the means by which social, political and national identity are made and unmade.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 310LEC 20th Century US Political History
Lecture

This course deals with national politics in the U.S. during the 20th century. Periods of rapid change - such as the Progressive Era, Great Depression, Sixties, and 1970s-1980s - will receive particular attention. A major focus will be on the ways the major political parties changed over the decades, and the crucial role the African American freedom movement (and reactions to it) played in this process. The course will introduce students to a greater range of factors that are valuable in understanding national politics than the usual stress on the values and personality of the president, including economic, social, and cultural developments, grassroots movements, the institutional framework of the American political system, and the dynamics of world politics. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 311LEC The Early Republic: American Histories from 1789 to 1848
Lecture

This class surveys the first sixty years or so of U.S. history. Although this period is often narrated as a triumphal story of a few wise national politicians building American democracy, these years were in fact a far messier and uncertain time when millions of people participated in the making of a new nation: free and enslaved, male and female, rich and poor alike. In our lectures, readings, writings, and discussions, we will examine the complicated dynamics of the era, from the making of "the people"; to the role of empire and warfare in shaping American nationalism; to the expansion and politics of slavery; to the violence of Indian removal; to the partisanship of Jacksonian America; to the impact of evangelical Christianity; and to the many sides, and many silences, of early-American capitalism.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 312LEC The United States in the Age of Jackson, 1815-1837
Lecture

The course details developments in America between 1815 and 1837. Stress will be placed on political, economic, and social developments. The major problems emphasized are: the results of the War of 1812, the development of the West, the impact of the transportation revolution, the origins of the Jacksonian movement, Jacksonian democracy, social reform, and the development of slavery as a political issue. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 313LEC 20th Century Europe
Lecture

This course is designed to present a survey of major political, cultural, and social developments in Europe during the 20th century. In the first half of the semester, the course examines the concept of "modernity" and the rise of mass society. We look at the causes and the experience of the two world wars in Europe, analyze the rise of totalitarian ideologies and dictatorial states, and include the Holocaust. In the second half of the semester, we deal with the division of the European continent under the conditions of the Cold War, and examine the new cultural and intellectual dynamics within European society after 1960. Finally, this course will address the collapse of the Cold War order and the birth of new nation-states in Europe around 1990. Visual materials play a prominent role throughout the semester. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 315LEC German Culture and Society, 1789-1989
Lecture

German history from Bismarck to the unified Germany of today. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 316LEC Early Modern Europe
Lecture

This course serves as an introduction to European history from approximately 1400-1789, using several key themes. Many dramatic transformations-religious, political, economic, social, intellectual-played a role creating the modern world. This course examines transformations central to the development of the modern and encourages seeing the familiar elements brought about by these changes. This class also strives to show the complexity of this period, including the instability and uncertainty of the changes. Many things about the Early Modern are unfamiliar to us, and in many ways it is an alien culture. Early Modern Europe has a dual nature, and the readings of this course should be a tug-of-war between the familiar and odd; it should be recognizable and strangely distant at the same time. Ultimately, this course proposes that the birth of the modern world, as we know it, was not the only path, and the Early modern period offered many possibilities. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 317LEC History of Early Modern Britain
Lecture

This course surveys British history between c. 1485 and c. 1800, between the end of a civil war and the dawn of an industrial and imperial world power. We will study topics from among the following: social changes that affected women, the family, and household; political transformations that shaped the relationship of King and Parliament, government and people; religious reformations that made Britain an officially Protestant country; cultural developments that contributed to philosophy, science, the arts, and literature; and economic revolutions that impacted agriculture and spurred industry.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 318LEC History of Ireland
Lecture

This course is an introduction to the history and historiography of Ireland from the seventeenth century to the present, with an emphasis on Ireland's social, cultural and political history from the Cromwellian invasion to the Good Friday Peace accords. While the past is important to most modern cultures, it is particularly central to modern Irish society. The past (or various interpretations of the past) is so often used as ammunition in the on-going battle over the relationship between the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The goal of the class will be to untangle the intertwined threads of history, legend, propaganda, and folklore which comprise the Irish vision of the past. Topics covered include: the 1798 United Irishmen's Rebellion, the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Catholic Emancipation, the Great Famine/An Gorta Mor, the Gaelic Renaissance, the Home Rule movement, the Troubles, the Irish Diaspora, and the roles of the religion, sport, music, drama and literature in the creation of the Irish nation. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 319LEC The Interwar Crisis, 1919-1939
Lecture

This is an advanced level undergraduate survey of World history between World War I and World War II. Students will be introduced to interwar history as the great period of crisis in contemporary history. This concept will be considered from diverse perspectives, including the changing dynamics of international relations, rapid social and cultural transformations, and the radical new politics ushered in by World War I and its aftermath. The course will focus on the major conflicts of the period, particularly those resulting from World War I and leading to World War II. Considerable attention will be given to the formation of the Soviet Union; the formation of the modern Middle East; the revolutionary civil wars in Spain, China, and elsewhere; the crisis of liberal democracies; and the rise of an age of dictatorship across much of the globe. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 320LEC British History, 1668-1848
Lecture

The structure of aristocratic society and the impact of industrialization upon that society. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 321LEC Victorian History, 1832-1901
Lecture

In 1851, when the Great Exhibition opened in the new Crystal Palace in London, Britain's position as the pre-eminent great power in the world seemed unrivaled. The Crystal Palace was a massive glass structure that covered almost nineteen acres of ground and showcased some of the most spectacular examples of British ingenuity produced by a century of industrial growth in canals, railways, and factories. HIS 321 will look at both the self-congratulatory and hopeful world of Great Britain and the British empire during the reign of Queen Victoria as well the underside of that world that included new depths of Dickensian poverty, famine in Ireland and the grisly East End of Jack the Ripper. We will explore a range of themes, including: urbanization, class tensions, industrial change, imperialism, gender, socialism, rural nostalgia. In particular, the class will chart the rise of industrial wealth, the problems of urbanization, the expansion of the British empire, and the development of an interventionist state. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 322LEC Latin America: Culture and History
Lecture

The leaders of the newly independent Latin American nations faced a multitude of problems. Geography, culture, economics, and political rivalries doomed most Latin nations to chaos and economic underdevelopment. The first part of this class will focus on the colonial legacy and nineteenth century frustration. The class will examine two unique attempts to grapple with those problems in Haiti and Paraguay. The next two sections will cover failed attempts at reform in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay and then study equally futile revolutions in Mexico, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The fourth section of the course will focus on current problems, including drugs, debt, immigration, and the looming pressure of the United States. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 323LEC Indian-Euro Encounters
Lecture

USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 324LEC Roman Imperialism
Lecture

EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 325LEC Twentieth-Century Britain
Lecture

This class will examine the dramatic transformation of Great Britain from world power in 1900 to a reluctant partner in the European Union in 2000. Topics to be covered include: the world wars, Britain's relationship to Ireland, decolonization and the growth of the commonwealth, the rise of the welfare state, Thatcherism, British pop culture, the changing demographic face of the UK, and British politics from Salisbury to Blair. Readings will include fiction and non-fiction and the class will use film and musical evidence to explore Britain's changing place in the world. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 326LEC Ancien Regime
Lecture

Social, political, economic, and diplomatic history of the Old Regime in Europe and France, 1715-1789.EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 327LEC The City in American History
Lecture

American cities reflect America's complex culture. Studying cities can reveal the ideals of generations of intellectuals, planners, reformers, and immigrants who viewed the city as a center of their utopian dreams. Studying urban life, however, also reveals how racial prejudice, concentrations of wealth, and political corruption have shaped the American city. This course will explore these contradictions through an examination of the growth and development of urban centers in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Major American cities will also be compared to cities in Europe and Latin America.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 328LEC History of Brazil
Lecture

Examines major topics in Brazilian History, including the conquest of Amerindians, the consolidation of Portuguese colonial society, the role of slavery and abolition, the interplay of political independence and economic independence, and the contest between authoritarian rule and democracy. Considers Brazilian women's lives, race and ethnic relations, environmental controversies, and the cultural expressions of religion, music, and sport - all in historical perspective. Covers five centuries of social change, from the arrival of European colonists to the recent past. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 329LEC US History Since Wwii
Lecture

A survey of modern United States history from WWII to the millennium that examines popular culture, social movements, foreign and domestic politics, and economic developments. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 330LEC Race, Religion, and Sex in Early Modern Europe
Lecture

We use modern categories of race, ethnicity, and gender to understand diversity in contemporary society. But how did people living between 1400 and 1800 understand differences? We will study how early modern Europeans used race, religion, the biological differences between men and women, and sexuality to write about or define differences among people. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 331LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Subject matter determined by instructor. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 333LEC German Culture 1750-1950
Lecture

MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 334LEC Islam/Muslim in Modern South Asia
Lecture

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh together have the largest population of Muslims in the world. This course provides an introduction to the history of Muslim communities in modern South Asia: their re-definitions in the modern period and their role in forming new nation-states in the twentieth century. We will read primary sources - political speeches, newspaper reports, diaries, fiction, poetry, film and music - and also acquaint ourselves with South Asian Muslim cultures. No prior knowledge of South Asia is expected. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 335LEC Culture, Memory and the Uses of the Past
Lecture

History is not something that simply happened but is produced, crafted and contested in different ways throughout the world. Such variety reflects different methods of recording and remembering the past, and different ways of organizing the past to make it culturally sensible. This course explores how the past is produced, who its practitioners are, and what counts as evidence and proof. Above all we consider how the past is utilized toward a range of aims that make it capable of speaking to what matters in the present. Our examination will extend from state archives and other written sources such as letters and diaries, to monuments, photographs and paths through the forest. Each source reflects different notions of a usable past, and differen cultural and political reasons why a particular past is worth remembering. At every stage of the course we will ask how the past matters, we will examine the ways it is represented, and we will probe how claims about it imply different stakes and satisfy different ends. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 336DIS History of the Old South
Discussion

This course explores the history of the Old South from the colonial period until the Civil War (1600-1860). Topics to be covered include: the development of the chattel slavery, the creation of sectional identity and the idea of the southern exceptionalism, the rise of "King Cotton," southern cultural and religious practices, the plantation community, and proslavery ideology. This class considers the construction of southern identity though the experiences of white and black southerners, both slaves and free, as well as experiences particular to women. The class will combine both lecture and small group discussion. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 336LEC History of the Old South
Lecture

This course explores the history of the Old South from the colonial period until the Civil War (1600-1860). Topics to be covered include: the development of the chattel slavery, the creation of sectional identity and the idea of the southern exceptionalism, the rise of "King Cotton," southern cultural and religious practices, the plantation community, and proslavery ideology. This class considers the construction of southern identity though the experiences of white and black southerners, both slaves and free, as well as experiences particular to women. The class will combine both lecture and small group discussion. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 337LEC Intellectual History of Europe
Lecture

An introduction to the intellectual history of Europe since the Enlightenment studied through analysis and important documents of philosophy, political and social theory, literature and art. A central focus of this course will be the consciousness of a crisis of modern society and culture that permeated broad sections of nineteenth and twentieth century thought. The course begins with an examination of the humanistic values of the Enlightenment, traces their fate in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and concludes with the question of their survival in our time. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 338LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Subject matter determined by instructor. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 339LEC Pearl Harbor: Japan Goes to War
Lecture

The course will probe the historical circumstances in the decades of the 1920s and the 1930s which led Japan into war first on the Asian continent and then with the United States. Common assumptions about Japan's diplomatic and military aims will be critically reviewed, through analysis of Japanese documents of the time, in English translation. Students will learn how the United States and its allies tried to remold Japanese thought and society after the war. The course will also deal with postwar judgments on Japanese policy and actions, voiced in war crimes trials and the memories of Chinese and Korean victims of the war. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 340LEC Topics in German History
Lecture

Varying topics in German history, as chosen by the professor. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 341LEC Social History of Women in the United States
Lecture

This course will examine the history of women in colonial America and the U.S. through the 19th century. We will concentrate on social history, looking at how women of different races, ethnicities, classes, regions and ages experienced and shaped their daily lives under the constraints of a given era. Themes will include work, family relations, slavery, childbirth and motherhood, sexuality, and popular culture. We will also look at political issues, including changing notions of patriarchy, women's legal status, the meaning of the American revolution for women, and women's political activism in the abolition, temperance, and woman's rights movements. The central questions will be: How can we understand these issues historically, and what relevance do they hold for more recent history and our own time. This course is the same as GGS 252, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 342LEC History of Modern South Asia
Lecture

An introduction to the history of modern Southeast Asia and three of its nations: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 343LEC Indonesia: From Colonialism to Dictatorship
Lecture

The course examines Indonesian history from the beginnings of the nationalist movement in the early twentieth century, through the Japanese occupation during World War Two and the anti-colonial revolution that followed it. It then looks at the decline of constitutional democracy and the subsequent establishment of martial law, as well as the tragic killings in the mid-1960s that led to the rise of the 32-year long regime of President Suharto.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
HIS 344LEC Spain, Portugal, and the Iberian World
Lecture

Broad historical survey of the Iberian Peninsula from prehistory to the present. Topics include: geography of Iberia; complex institutional. Cultural, and religious interactions of the medieval period; the rise and historical development of the Spanish and Portuguese empires; numerous crises that beset the peninsula in the modern period; and the return of stability and prosperity over the last half-century. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 346LEC 19th Century Europe
Lecture

This course is a survey on European history between the French Revolution in 1789 and the First World War. It covers the major political, social, and cultural developments of this "long nineteenth century." The course addresses the emergence of revolutionary and national movements as well as the recomposition of the European map through wars and state-building. It will pay equal attention to the fundamental transformations of society through industrialization, urbanization, and the emergence of a mass public. Cultural and ideological aspects include the rise of modern science, the changing role of religion, and the main ideologies of the century: nationalism, liberalism, socialism, and imperialism. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 347LEC Civil & Renaiss Italy
Lecture

EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 348LEC Special Topics
Lecture

USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 349LEC American Dissenters
Lecture

American Dissenters uses biography and autobiography, as well as fiction and histories, to analyze the development of lives, movements, and ideologies in American history that challenged mainstream culture, politics, and attitudes. We are most concerned with two problems: the nature of commitment to a frequently unpopular course of action; and the ways in which people choose to explain their motives, fears, and aspirations. Politics as such is of less concern to the work of the course than the study of what motivates people to stand against the main currents of the times in which they live. Among the lives we may study are the following individuals: Karen Silkwood; Lenny Bruce; Joe Hill; Mother Jones; Emma Goldman; Agnes Smedley; Jack Kerouac; and Allen Ginsburg. Among the problems we will discuss are the limits of free speech and the moral dilemmas of whistleblowers. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 351LEC Colonial America to 1763
Lecture

This course examines the history of North America and the Caribbean in an Atlantic context from 1492 to 1763. The colonies established by Spain, England, and France in this region formed crucial connections between the Old World and the New. Peoples from Europe, Africa, and North America interacted, shaping the Old World even as they created a New World. Class sessions consist of lecture and discussion. Assignments include several short papers, a take-home midterm, and a take-home final.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 352LEC The American Revolution
Lecture

The American Revolution from the initial tensions between Great Britain and its North American colonies through the ratification of the Constitution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 353LEC Scientific Revolution
Lecture

EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 354LEC American Transition, 1877-1901
Lecture

Social, economic, and political transformation of the U.S. during the last decades of the nineteenth century. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
HIS 355LEC U.S. Foreign Relations, 1914-Present
Lecture

An advanced survey of American diplomatic relations in the 20th century. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 356LEC Social History of Women in the U.S., 1875-Present
Lecture

This class will examine women as political activists, women in popular culture, and women's diverse experiences of work, family and sexuality. We will compare late 19th century women's reform movements, culminating in the successful drive for women's suffrage in the 1910s, to the second wave feminist movement spawned in the 1960s and 1970s. We will also explore popular culture as a realm of performance and a powerful site for the creation of female images and ideals. Finally, we will examine birth control, abortion, sexual danger and sexual pleasure as important personal as well as political issues in women's lives. How much have women's lives changed since the 19th century? Have women of varied ages, racial/ethnic communities, and social class been empowered by these changes? How do we assess or measure social change, power, and gender hierarchy? USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 357LEC History of Medicine
Lecture

This course will survey the social, cultural, and institutional history of medicine in the West, with particular emphasis on the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Topics will include: medical theory and practice; the medical and "health-care" professions; hospitals; clinical medicine; the impact of disease on individuals, families, society, and history; the changing experience and meaning of illness; the changing nature of the physician-patient relationship; medical conceptions of race and gender and their historical consequences; colonialism and medicine; and the social and cultural construction of disease, sexuality, and the body. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 358LEC Renaissance
Lecture

Society and culture of Italy ca. 1300-1530, including the structure of the city-state, and changing perceptions of people's existence in the state and the cosmos EAR.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 359LEC Reformation
Lecture

This course explores the causes and development of the division of western Christianity into Protestant and Catholic communities. Following a general survey of social and religious tensions in the late Middle Ages, attention will be given to the contexts and political trends in fifteenth century Europe leading to the so-called "magisterial Reformation" under Luther and Calvin. The religious ideologies of the reformers will be examined against the background of Renaissance culture and developing ideas of the nation-state, the rediscovery and transformation of classical learning, the development of literary and historical criticism, the growth of populism and the power of the laity in the Radical Reformation, and the beginnings of anti-Trinitarian ideas among the Socinians. Some attention will be given to the conciliar and theological efforts to reform the Catholic Church, and to the dispersion of Reformation political ideals and theology to the New World, with special reference to New England. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 361LEC American Cultural History I
Lecture

Explores the main contours of American culture from the Puritans of the seventeenth century to the Victorians of the nineteenth. We will examine a wide variety of phenomena-from magic to science, reading to shopping, social thought to social reform, tea party manners to boxing matches-that reveal the values and attitudes of diverse groups of Americans. Much of the reading will consist of "best sellers" of times past, including fiction, children's literature, and propaganda pieces. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 362LEC American Cultural History II
Lecture

What made America modern? Was it the cigarette smoking, fun-loving Flapper elbowing aside the respectable Victorian matron? Was it leaving the farm for the assembly line or office skyscraper? Was it putting the overstuffed furniture on the patio and redecorating with the latest streamlined look? Or was it leaving the parlor piano behind for the movie palace and the television set? We examine the transformation of American culture between the Civil War and the Vietnam War, examining the way in which American values, attitudes, and ideas changed as the shape of our society did. We look at issues ranging from the impact of war on American culture to coping with changing race, class, and gender relations, to the rise of mass and consumer cultures. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 363LEC Jewish Civilization I: From Biblical Times to 1492
Lecture

Examines the social, economic, religious, and political experiences of the Jewish people from the biblical period until the end of the fifteenth century. Discusses the religious and social expressions of Jews within the broader context of cultures in which the found themselves. Begins with an exploration of major themes within the culture of biblical Israel, and traces the history of Jews from the Babylonian exile through the Bar Kochba revolt. Explores consolidation and expansion of rabbinic Judaism in Babylon and the history of Jews in Christian and Muslim civilizations in both Europe and North Africa. Topics include Jewish law, theological conflicts, philosophic and poetic cultural exchange, Jewish communal organization and economic activities, and anti-Judaism. Concludes with the emergence of Marranos and the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 364LEC Jewish Civilization II: From 1492 to the Present
Lecture

Explores the social, economic, religious, and political expressions of the Jewish people from 1492 until the modern period. Begins with an exploration of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland, Reformation Germany, and Renaissance Italy, turning to the Age of Emancipation and Enlightenment. Discusses the rise of the Jewish Question and the various attempts to solve it including emancipation, assimilationism, socialism, Zionism and other forms of Jewish nationalism, emigration to the New World, and Hitler's Final Solution. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 364SEM Jewish Civilization II: From 1492 to the Present
Seminar

Explores the social, economic, religious, and political expressions of the Jewish people from 1492 until the modern period. Begins with an exploration of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland, Reformation Germany, and Renaissance Italy, turning to the Age of Emancipation and Enlightenment. Discusses the rise of the Jewish Question and the various attempts to solve it including emancipation, assimilationism, socialism, Zionism and other forms of Jewish nationalism, emigration to the New World, and Hitler's Final Solution. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 365LEC Buffalo Nash Yrs 1892-1961
Lecture

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 366LEC History of LGBTQ America
Lecture

The changing social organization and cultural meaning of same-sex relations in the United States, primarily in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 368LEC Modern Japan Since 1600
Lecture

Japan's emergence as a modern state. This course is the same as AS 368LEC, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 369LEC Korean History Up to 1800
Lecture

This course traces roughly two thousand years of Korean history, from tribal federations to the rise of early states that vied with one another for supremacy and the eventual establishment of political rule over the peninsula by a succession of dynastic states Silla, Kory, and Chos. The goal is to familiarize students with the major social, cultural, political, intellectual and religious developments in the Korean peninsula up to the start of the nineteenth century, while at the same time placing these historical developments within the wider regional context of Korea?s relations with China and Japan. For most of East Asia's history, the people of Korea had more culturally extensive and historically significant contacts with its two neighbors than they had with each other. For this reason learning about Korea?s history provides a unique window onto premodern East Asia, and the history of these interconnections in turn reveals something important about the formation of a distinctive Korean identity. In addition to reading and being tested on primary and secondary sources on Korean history, students will be expected to demonstrate their ability to discuss and think critically about the material through written assignments. This course is the same as AS 369 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
HIS 371LEC Social History of Europe
Lecture

Explores the social history of Europe, including gender, culture, family structure, class and race. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 373LEC Mexico Diaz to Cardenas
Lecture

This class covers Mexican history from 1878 to the present. Emphasis will be on the years 1878-1940. We will analyze the Revolution of 1910 and the roles played by Pancho Villa, Alvaro Obregon and Emiliano Zapata. The course will end with classes on contemporary problems such as drugs, crime, immigration to the US and NAFTA. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 374LEC History of the Spread of Christianity in Asia
Lecture

This course traces the introduction and spread of Christianity in Asian history, focusing primarily on East Asia and giving special attention to Korea. It begins with an examination of Jesuit missions to Japan and China, as well as the role that India played in the establishment and maintenance of these missions. The different Jesuit strategies for accommodating or rejecting indigenous religious beliefs and customs are compared and considered, as well as the Nestorians in China much earlier. Then we turn to the unique way in which Catholicism was subsequently established in Korea, where Christianity has enjoyed unparalleled success in East Asia. We will look closely at how Christianity has affected and been affected by socio-political developments, its interactions with and influence upon traditional Asian religions, its relationship to nationalism since the late 19th century, and its tensions and conflict with colonialism and Communism in the 20th century. It concludes by asking what factors might have enabled Christianity to have such success in Korea (and the Philippines) and compare these to the situation in China and Japan. This course is the same as AS 374 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
HIS 375LEC The U.S. and East Asia
Lecture

A survey of relations between the U.S. and East Asia from the eighteenth century to the present.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 376LEC African-American History to 1877
Lecture

This course analyzes the history of African-Americans to 1877. We are interested in a number of themes including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the development of particular notions of race in the United States, as well as the methods of slave resistance. The student will be exposed to relevant primary source documents and will be asked to assess and analyze these sources in light of the larger issues in the course. In addition, the student will be exposed to some of the major debates in African American history and will be encouraged to form opinions and convictions on these major issues. The course is interactive and will include sources from the lived experience of African Americans including songs, folktales, and visual culture. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 377LEC Weimar Germany, 1918-1933
Lecture

The story of Germany's first sttempt at democracy between World War I and the rise of Nazism. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 378LEC Nazi Germany, 1933-1945
Lecture

The creation of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933 to the Third Reich's destruction in World War II. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 379LEC African-American History, 1877 to Present
Lecture

This course analyzes the history of African-Americans from 1877 to present. It addresses a number of themes including the experiences of freed persons during the period immediately following slavery, the legal and socio-economic development of racial segregation and discrimination, along with the persistent and varied forms of resistance that African Americans engaged in as avenues of redress. The course also treats the arts and discusses the development of black vernacular arts during the period, linking, for example, the rise of musical forms such as blues and jazz to the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 380LEC England in the Late Middle Ages
Lecture

Monarchical decline and revival during the era of the Black Death, Hundred Years' War, and disintegration of the medieval ideal. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 382LEC American Religious History
Lecture

This course is an introduction to religion in America from the Puritans in the early seventeenth century to Protestant evangelicals in the late twentieth. In between we will be looking at religious movements of many kinds, including "imports" that took on new forms in the American environment, from African religions to immigrant Catholicism and Judaism, as well as others, like Mormonism and Christian Science, "Made in the U.S.A." By looking at phenomena ranging from witchcraft and religious revivals to the Easter Parade and the "Monkey Trial," we will examine religion as a vital force in American Life. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 383LEC War & State: European Foundations
Lecture

It has often been said that: "war is the continuation of politics with other means." What exactly does this statement express? How have wars figured into the rise and fall of modern nation states? This lecture course examines how warfare affected the power relations in nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe. Looking at a range of military conflicts including the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, World Wars I & II, and the Cold War, we will investigate what led to the outbreak of these wars, certain military campaigns and their effects on national politics. Moreover, we will study the effects of warfare on the daily life of frontline soldiers as well as the homefront. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the role of warfare, military technology and its effect on everyday life and national politics in modern European history. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 384LEC War and Peace Since 1800
Lecture

The effects of war and revolution with particular attention to Europe during the last two centuries. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 385LEC Special Topics
Lecture

MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 386LEC The Great Depression and the New Deal
Lecture

When the bottom dropped out of the economy and huge dust storms blew across the prairies in the 1930s, it seemed as if the social world and nature alike had turned against Americans. But the country fought back against depression and drought in this creative and conflict-filled period. In this course we will explore the ferment of experimentation in politics and culture that marked this era, when ordinary people as well as national leaders forged new directions for American life that continue to affect our lives today. We will consider the implications of the "New Deal coalition," the rise of a strong national government, the development of the Social Security system, the construction of public works, the impact of protest movements and massive strike waves, and the response of artists, writers, and the commercial entertainment industry. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 388LEC Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Europe- 1789 to the Present
Lecture

How have European women's lives changed over the last two hundred years? What sparked feminist movements in the late 19th century and again after 1968? How have changing ideas about gender roles and sexuality affected the ways in which European women defined themselves? MOD This course will examine these and other questions through a variety of sources in a broad survey of European cultural, political, and social development during this period.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 389LEC Pirates, Drifters, Fishers: Maritime Southeast Asia
Lecture

This course examines key moments and longer-term dynamics of Southeast Asia's maritime history. We will consider how the sea affected state-building from its earliest days, its impact on pre-colonial international relations, its role as a conduit of the desire for conquest and for exotic goods, and the question of piracy, past and present. This course is the same as AS 389, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
HIS 390LEC The Pattern of Chinese History
Lecture

Survey of Chinese history from antiquity to 1600 exploring political culture, philosophical thoughts, religious trends, social organizations, and scientific developments during this period. By reading a combination of primary sources in English translation and secondary literature, students will develop a basic understanding of the foundational ideas and practices as well as pivotal transformations in Chinese civilization.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 391LEC China and the World
Lecture

Survey of Chinese views of the world order, exchanges in material culture across China's borders, and the ways in which Chinese governments and people have interacted with the world from the imperial era to the present era of the rise of China. This course is the same as AS 391, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 392LEC History of Chinese Medicine
Lecture

What is Chinese medicine? Many of us today associate it with the exotic practices of acupuncture and herbal remedy, and the all-encompassing concepts of yin-yang and qi/chi. These impressionistic views of Chinese medicine, however, belie a more sophisticated understanding of the long-lasting system of healing. We may ask further: How does Chinese medicine actually work? What are the cultural milieus in which it develops and flourishes? And how do we evaluate it in juxtaposition with modern biomedicine? Overall, this course seeks to not only enrich our understanding of Chinese medicine in the past, but also to utilize historical knowledge to illuminate our ways of living today. [No prior knowledge in Chinese language or history is required.] This course is the same as AS 390, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 393LEC Medieval Civilization I
Lecture

The first semester of a two-semester sequence devoted to an exploration of the medieval European world. This course examines the earlier Middle Ages, from c. 450 to c.1100 AD, that is from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the disintegration of classical civilization to the First Crusade. This course will focus on certain kinds of historical themes and issues and will adopt a certain approach to historical inquiry. The main purpose is to understand the culture and society of the medieval world. How was society organized? What was the mental outlook? What values were assumed or articulated? In particular, what was the role of Christianity, and how did Christianity as a set of beliefs and as a set of institutions influence, and in turn become influenced by, medieval society? In considering these matters, less attention will be paid to a narrative of events than to a scrutiny of key developments and transformations. We will look at the barbarian world, the Carolingian Empire, the Vikings, the development of feudalism, and the circumstances that led to the First Crusade. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 394LEC Medieval Civilization II
Lecture

The second semester of a yearlong sequence devoted to an exploration of the medieval European world. It is not assumed, however, that students enrolled in the course have previously taken HIS 393 Medieval Civilization I. HIS 393 examined the earlier Middle Ages, from c.450 to c.1100. HIS 394 will consider the later period, from c.1100 to c.1500. This period was marked by new patterns of spiritual and intellectual life, by the emergence of new ideals of aristocratic demeanor and behavior (chivalry and courtly love), by the growth (and the decline) of papal authority, by the re-emergence of cities, and the revival of monarchical power. This course will focus on certain kinds of historical themes and issues and will adopt a certain approach to historical inquiry. The main purpose is to understand the culture and society of the medieval world. How was society organized? What was the mental outlook? What values were assumed or articulated? A particular focus will be the role and significance of Christianity. How did Christianity as a set of beliefs and as a set of institutions influence, and in turn become influenced by, medieval society? EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 395LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Subject matter determined by instructor. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 396LEC Special Topics
Lecture

USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 397LEC 20th Century American Popular Culture to 1945
Lecture

History of American popular culture to 1945. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 398LEC American Popular Culture Since 1945
Lecture

History of American popular culture since 1945.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 399LEC Special Topics
Lecture

EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 400SEM Varieties of Fascism
Seminar

Fascism was the novel political phenomenon of the twentieth-century world. It remains one of the most widely known and yet least understood terms in the modern political lexicon. This seminar will examine the origins and development of fascist ideology and practice, comparing and contrasting the various fascist movements to emerge throughout Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. At the center of the course will be the question of whether fascism is best defined as an ideology, a political culture, an ethic or morality, a historical era, or whether the term is a useful analytical device at all. Readings and seminar discussions over the course of the semester will consider diverse historical interpretations of fascism, seeking to understand the social, political, and cultural origins of fascist movements and the processes by which they led to such devastating consequences. In the final weeks of the semester, the seminar will examine fascist-like movements outside of Europe and after 1945, analyzing the similarities and differences they present relative to the classic forms of interwar European fascism. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 401SEM Alcohol and Other Drugs in American History
Seminar

Explores the worlds of drug users and traffickers; the cultural politics of anti-drug campaigning and enforcement; the central and changing role of organized medicine; and the impact of globalization on drug trade and control in the US. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 402SEM The Spanish Civil War
Seminar

The Spanish Civil War remains an archetype of modern civil war six decades following its conclusion. This course examines the many debates surrounding the origins of the war, the explanations for its outcome, and its legacy in Spanish and world affairs. Students will read personal war memoirs, historical novels, political tracts, and history texts, and will address these critically in oral presentations and written assignments. The seminar will seek to understand the origins and results of the Spanish conflict, and to gain perspective on the significance of revolutionary civil wars in the shaping of the contemporary world. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 403SEM Special Topics
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 404SEM Colonialism in South Asia
Seminar

AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 405SEM What is History?
Seminar

Student research on topics that students choose, combined with exploring how historians study the past. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 406SEM The Civil War in American Memory
Seminar

2011-15 marks the beginning of the Civil War sesquicentennial. As part of that celebration, this course explores the historical memory of the war as it has developed in the last 150 years. We will seek to understand how Americans have memorialized this great event, what counts as "history" and just as important, what has been forgotten. Using secondary historical texts and a variety of primary sources, including film and literary treatments of the war, we will debate the various meanings given to the war, its causes, and its impact on American society and culture.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: HIS 209
HIS 407SEM Church and State Relations
Seminar

History of the legal and constitutional issues arising from the religion clauses of the first amendment to the constitution. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Winter
HIS 408SEM Nature & the Environment
Seminar

EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 409SEM Voyages of Discovery
Seminar

Europeans have always been on the move, visiting or trading with other parts of the world, or bent on conquest as during the medieval Crusades. With the discovery of the New World, a new era nonetheless opens when the accumulation of territory and goods would appear boundless, inciting further voyages to find places as yet "undiscovered" and "unclaimed." Through primary readings of explorers' accounts and through secondary analyses, we will chart the changing aims and justifications for such explorations: what drove them, what stimulated individuals who undertook them, who financed them and to what ends. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 410SEM Women in Latin America
Seminar

AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 411SEM Tudor-Stuart Biography
Seminar

Intensive experience in writing the biography of King Henry VIII from primary sources, such as letters and papers of Henry VIII. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 412SEM Topics in Women's History
Seminar

This course will explore the history of women in the United States. Seminar readings will begin with the colonial period and continue through the mid-20th century. Topics of focus include women's work and family lives; women's political movements and relationship to the state; differences and conflicts across race and class; the expression and regulation of female sexuality; and changing definitions of femininity and womanhood. We will also read articles on feminist theory that are relevant to historical interpretation. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 413SEM Topics in American Political History
Seminar

Varying topics in American political history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 414SEM Cuban Revolution
Seminar

AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 415SEM Topics in Renaissance History
Seminar

Varying topics in Renaissance history, as chosen by the professor. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 416SEM European Immigrant Lives
Seminar

This seminar seeks to understand the aspiration and experiences of the millions of ordinary men and women who immigrated to the USA from Europe in the century of the European mass migrations between 1820 and 1920, and the influence of the presence of these immigrants on the shaping of American society. Students also will gain insights into the central debates among historians of immigration about the nature of these immigrants' experiences in leaving Europe and resettling in the United States. Finally, some part of the course will be spent comparing historical and contemporary immigrations into the USA. The readings will consist of histories, novels, and sociological studies. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 417SEM The Haitian Revolution and the Atlantic World
Seminar

The revolution in the French colony of St. Domingue (1791-1804) was the most successful slave rebellion in the history of the Atlantic. Although this revolution is important in its own right for creating the republic of Haiti, is equally important as part of a larger story of the revolutionary Atlantic world which stretches from English Civil War of 1640s-50s through the American, French and Haitian revolutions of the 1770s-1790s and ending with the Bolivarian liberation of Latin America from Spanish rule. The Haitian Revolution also has had a long history as an inspiration for anti-colonial struggles through the twentieth century. This course will explore the history and historiography of the revolution. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 418SEM Comparative Slavery: Africa, America, and the Caribbean
Seminar

This seminar examines slavery in a global context, by comparing and contrasting systems of slavery and slave experiences from classical Greece and Rome, through Medieval Europe and Islamic Mediterranean Slavery, to the Modern Atlantic (slavery in Africa, Europe, and the Americas). The course demonstrates how slavery went from a common human practice to a racialized operation in the modern period. It is divided into five parts: old world slavery, colonial slave systems, slave societies, slavery and gender, and slave soldiers. Throughout the course, we will seek to understand how and why the institution of slavery changed over time and why it was different from place to place.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 419SEM Special Topics
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor.USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 420SEM Special Topics
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 421SEM Topics in British History
Seminar

Varying topics in British history, as chosen by the professor.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 422SEM Topics in American Intellectual/Cultural History
Seminar

Varying topics in American intellectual and cultural history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 423SEM Problems in Modern European History
Seminar

Varying topics in modern European history, as chosen by the professor. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 424SEM Topics in American Social History
Seminar

Varying topics in American social history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 425LEC Global Genealogies of Race
Lecture

The purpose of this course is to help us develop a more complex idea of "race" as a global phenomenon. Much of what we know, or think we know, about "race" is derived from our particular history and experience in the United States. But American ideas and enactments of "race" are by no means universal. In this course, we will explore the development of racial ideas in a variety of historical and geographical contexts. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 426SEM Special Topics
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 427 Contemporary France
Seminar

MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 428SEM 20c European Readings
Seminar

MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 429SEM History of the American Landscape
Seminar

Introduces students to the historical study of the human-made landscape. Focusing on phenomena ranging from Puritan town plans to streetcar suburbs, and domestic architecture to shopping plazas, students learn to evaluate the landscape as the historical artifact of human activity and human choices, shaped by a shifting mix of cultural values, economic patterns, technological developments, and government policies. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 430SEM Women in South Asian History: 1500 to the Present
Seminar

Students will gain an understanding of evolving institutions and practices shaping women's lives, such as the family, law, and religious traditions. Students will also understand the impact of historical processes - the formation and breakdown of empire, colonialism, nationalism, and decolonization - upon South Asian women between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. We will read a wide variety of primary sources including a history written by a Mughal princess, conduct books, tracks, autobiographies, and novel.AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 431SEM Myth and History
Seminar

AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 433SEM Latin American Native Peoples
Seminar

Examines the struggle for dominion and survival among indigenous peoples in colonial Latin America as they encountered peoples of European and African descent between 1500 and 1800. Focusing on social and cultural themes, students will explore how warfare, violence, subjugation, resilience, and ethnogenesis shaped indigenous societies, destroying some, transforming others and giving rise to more. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 434SEM Topics in Early Modern Europe
Seminar

Varying topics in early modern European history, as chosen by the professor. EAR

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 435SEM History of Working Women
Seminar

Changes in women's work in the home, in the family, and in the labor force in the 19th and 20th centuries. Major themes include the impact of urbanization and industrialization on working women in different ethnic and racial communities, their experience with and in unions and their conflicts with them, and their contributions to labor struggles. Covers the period from the 1830s; examines the growth of new sectors of the female labor force and the beginnings of unionization in the clerical and service industries. Involves extensive reading in primary and secondary sources, class participation, and a paper or research project. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 437SEM Beyond Paradise: The History of the Modern Caribbean
Seminar

Examines the history of the modern Caribbean in an effort to move 'beyond paradise.' Explores major themes in Caribbean history, including encounter, conquest, and settlement, slavery and resistance, piracy and contraband, negritude and decolonization, and tourism and immigration. Considers how the Caribbean has been invented and (re)imagined by artists, intellectuals, travelers, exiles, immigrants, and tourists over the last two centuries. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 438SEM European Intellectual History
Seminar

An introduction to the intellectual history of Europe since the Enlightenment studied through analysis and important documents of philosophy, political and social theory, literature and art. A central focus of this course will be the consciousness of a crisis of modern society and culture that permeated broad sections of nineteenth and twentieth century thought. The course begins with an examination of the humanistic values of the Enlightenment, traces their fate in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and concludes with the question of their survival in our time. Readings will be selected from a variety of thinkers - Voltaire, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, Max Weber, Freud, Brecht, Sartre, Orwell, and Foucault - representing a broad spectrum of philosophic and political opinion. At the same time an attempt will be made to examine the history of ideas within the broader framework of the political, social, economic, and cultural history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 446SEM Topics in Diplomatic History
Seminar

Varying topics in diplomatic history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 447SEM Health and Illness in American History
Seminar

This course traces the experiences of health, illness, and medicine in American history in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will address the shift from traditional to scientific and professional medicine; the experience of being ill and of being a patient; the "medicalization" of everyday experiences; the health impact of modern commercial capitalism; and the use of medicine as a source of cultural authority in ongoing political battles over identity (e.g. citizenship, race, gender, sexuality). Students will have the opportunity to find and analyze historical documents in a substantial research project

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 448SEM Race and American Urban History
Seminar

Race has played a major role in defining the physical, cultural, and political environment of American cities. This course will explore the role of race in urban history from the colonial period to the present. Cities were utopian destinations for generations of immigrants and native-born African Americans. Yet, those same cities were marked by racial prejudice, concentrations of poverty, and political corruption. We will examine these contradictions by analyzing the experiences of African American, Latino and Asian city dwellers.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 449SEM American Cold War History
Seminar

This seminar will deal with the history of the U.S., both internationally and domestically, from the end of the Second World War to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in the early 1990s. Topics will include the post-war competition in Europe between the Americans and the Soviets in the immediate post-war years, the Korean War, the Red Scare, the nuclear arms race and protests against nuclear testing, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam and the anti-war movement, and the roles of Gorbachev, Reagan, and the nuclear freeze movement during the arms race of the 1980s. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
HIS 450SEM Problems in 20th Century U.S. History
Seminar

Varying topics in 20th century U.S. history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 451SEM Topics in the American Revolution
Seminar

Varying topics in American Revolution history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 452SEM Topics in Colonial America
Seminar

Varying topics in colonial American history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 454SEM Special Topics
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 455SEM Sex and Empire
Seminar

A comparative history of European imperialism in the Americas, Africa, and Asia through the prism of gender and sexuality.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 456SEM European Underground Movements
Seminar

The causes and effects of European underground movements from 1796 to 1945 MOD.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 458SEM JFK Assassin & US For Pol
Seminar

USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 459SEM Special Topics
Seminar

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 460SEM Special Topics
Seminar

USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 465SEM Childhood Through the Ages
Seminar

The history of childhood.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 468SEM Black Women in United States History
Seminar

Examines the history of black women in the United States from the slave era through the reform movements that occurred after World War II. Focuses on the range of demands placed on black women during the Gilded and Progressive eras - the founding of the National Association of Colored Women in 1896, their participation in the women's suffrage movement, black struggles for liberation in the United States and in the African Diaspora, cultural movement, war, labor force participation, and health. Also explores black women's interaction with male-dominated groups and feminists from other racial and ethnic groups. Students will analyze black women as leaders, their leadership styles and the impact that they have made on constituents. This course is the same as AAS 460 and GGS 460, and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 472SEM Topics in the History of Science
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 473SEM Technology in American Society & Culture
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 475SEM The Great War and European Society
Seminar

The subject of this seminar is the European war that involved (directly or indirectly) every country in Europe, leading to religious and political realignments, rebellion and civil war, and huge civilian losses. It brought the existing system of governance into question and opened the way to what we know as the Age of Absolutism. The readings for the course will cover the center of the conflict, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, but also France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and England. Requirements, besides the weekly readings, will include a short historiographical paper and a longer research paper MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 480SEM Topics in Early American Legal and Constitutional History
Seminar

The interplay between race, ethnicity, and the law during the century after the U.S. Constitution's creation. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 481SEM A Chinese Dynasty: The Qing, 1644-1911
Seminar

This seminar traces the rise, florescence, and decline of the Qing polity in an effort to place it in the larger contexts of Chinese, Asian, and world history. It begins with recent controversies over whether the Qing succeeded in unifying a fifth of the world's people in a single state and in attaining a high degree of peace, prosperity, and social justice because it adopted and carried on cultural traditions called Chinese or, rather, because it was a Manchu conquest empire that ruled the Han Chinese and neighboring peoples (the Mongols, Uighurs, and Tibetans) with greater sensitivity and skill than did previous-or would subsequent-Chinese political orders. The course then attempts to transcend this debate by examining the ways in which successive reigns or, roughly, generations, of Qing subjects (or citizens) situated themselves in time and space. After isolating those perspectives, we will try to use them as keys to the cultural, political, social, and economic evolution of the system from the mid-seventeenth century to the early twentieth. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 482SEM Problems in Japanese History
Seminar

This course explores the complex interplay between Japanese imperialism, colonial occupation, and the formation of modern Korean nationalism. It begins with a brief examination of the historical relationship between Korea and Japan, the changes that occurred in late nineteenth-century East Asia, and an overview of Japanese colonialism in Korea during the early twentieth century. It then shifts to a consideration of the theoretical approaches to imperialism, nationalism and Orientalism. Students will be asked to assess the applicability of these theories to the historiography of Japanese colonialism in Korea with respect to national consciousness, identity formation, gender, class, socio-economics and industrialization, resistance and collaboration, and law.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 483SEM Folk Heroes and Historical Martyrs
Seminar

In this seminar we will examine historical figures who have also become folk heroes. What sorts of people were they to have captured the popular imagination, motivating others to conceive of themselves in novel, special ways, and inspiring them to take action in some cases against the odds? What makes them so memorable that their names continue to evoke powerful associations? And how have the iconographies and ideas connected to them been appropriated and re-worked in subsequent social and political moments? From ancient Britain to contemporary Chiapas, we will analyze folk heroes by looking at them in two ways. First, we will consider the historical contexts from which they emerged, and second, we will examine how they were later taken up in popular discourses and practices.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
HIS 484SEM Problems in Chinese History
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 485SEM Twentieth-Century China Politics
Seminar

China changed more radically, arguably, than any other country in the twentieth century. This seminar explores these changes, which have had and will continue to have major impacts across the world. After a broad and rapid survey of Chinese social and political history in the 19th and 20th centuries, subsequent units examine particular topics in greater depth. Students will complete research projects based in part on primary sources in English translation. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 487SEM Self & Society in Urban China
Seminar

The 20th-century transformation of Chinese cities is the focus of this seminar, which draws on primary sources and scholarly works to analyze the influence of worldwide currents of urban reform in China, as well as the persistence of Chinese patterns of urban life. Students will conduct research on topics of their choice related to the general theme. AAL

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 488SEM Topics in Slave Folklore
Seminar

Investigation of what slave folklore tells us about the nature of slavery and the lives of slaves. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 489SEM Historiography
Seminar

Investigation of the development of historical techniques, patterns, and approaches through time. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 490SEM Rebellion & Revolution in History
Seminar

Subject matter determined by instructor. MOD

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 491SEM U. S. 1920's & 1930's (Research)
Seminar

This seminar explores changes that occurred in American society and politics in the period between the two world wars. The main focus of the course is an original research paper based on primary sources (chiefly congressional hearings) that deals with a major public issue of each students choosing. Especially during the New Deal era of the 1930s, the federal government expanded rapidly, and committees of the U.S. Congress heard testimony on almost every conceivable subject. The research and writing of the paper will happen in steps over the course of the semester, with guidance of the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 493SEM Topics in African-American History
Seminar

Varying topics in African-American history, as chosen by the professor. USH

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 496TUT Public History Internship
Tutorial

Students learn to connect their historical studies with the world outside the academy by doing an internship at a historical site or museum. Students must arrange the internship themselves. The internship site must have a strong connection to history; some local examples include the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, the Amherst Museum, Old Fort Niagara, and the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural site. Students register for this course through the History Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 497SEM Honors Thesis I and II
Seminar

All seniors in the History honors program are required to take this two-semester sequence. The first semester consists of weekly seminars that will help students choose a good topic and teach research strategies. The second semester involves a research project arranged with and carried out under the guidance of a faculty member.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
HIS 497TUT Honors Thesis I and II
Tutorial

All seniors in the History honors program are required to take this two-semester sequence. The first semester consists of weekly seminars that will help students choose a good topic and teach research strategies. The second semester involves a research project arranged with and carried out under the guidance of a faculty member.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
HIS 498SEM Undergraduate Research
Seminar

Involves a research project arranged with and carried out under the guidance of a faculty member.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 498TUT Undergraduate Research
Tutorial

Involves a research project arranged with and carried out under the guidance of a faculty member.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
HIS 499TUT Independent Study
Tutorial

Course topic and requirements arranged in consultation with instructor. Except in special circumstances, this course cannot be used to satisfy the department's seminar requirement.

Credits: 1 - 15
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies

History