HIS 121 EF 7966 EAST ASIA, ORIGINS-1800
MW 12:20pm-1:35pm
STEPHEN HALSEY
Would you like to learn about fierce samurai warriors, glamorous imperial princesses, mad Mongol khans, learned Confucian scholars, and bloodthirsty sea pirates? To understand what Buddhists, Confucians, Buddhists, and Shintoists believe? This introductory survey traces the history of East Asia from its beginnings to 1800, examining the lived experiences of these colorful actors and many more. The course emphasizes the connections that define East Asian societies—writings systems, religion, philosophy, material culture, commerce, and political institutions. The crucial historical watershed in this class comes during the seventh to the tenth centuries CE, when the three societies of China, Korea, and Japan engaged in an intensive exchange that created a distinctive East Asian “world.” Afterward the histories of these countries were irrevocably intertwined and remain so even today in the twenty-first century. As appropriate, this course will also examine the pastoral societies of Central or Inner Asia, particularly their interactions with China.
HIS 132 91 7977 EUROPE SINCE 1648
S 11:00am-1:45pm
JEREMY GATES
THIS COURSE IS FOR BGS STUDENTS ONLY, ONLINE INSTRUCTION ONLY
A survey of the development of the West from the formation of modern European nation states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the present, emphasizing the rivalry of European powers, the impact of European expansion, the effect of industrialism and revolution upon Western society, and the role of the New World.
HIS 229 O 7996 GLOBAL CONSUMER SOCIETY
TR 9:30am-10:45am
EDUARDO ELENA
In the United States we are surrounded today with a seemingly limitless variety of consumer goods, and we are offered constant reminders of the increasingly globalized nature of modern life. Too often, however, such commentary reflects a shocking lack of historical understanding about the origins and evolution of contemporary consumer society. This course offers a new perspective on these transformations by exploring the historical relationship between consumption and globalization. Spanning an arc from the early modern era to the present, the course explores the impact of innovations in global trade, industry, and commercial culture on everyday life in multiple societies. The lectures and readings focus on cases studies in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Africa that reveal underlying convergences and divergences worldwide as well as the unresolved social, ethical, and environmental problems associated with the rise of mass consumption.
HIS 262 D 7983 WOMEN’S AMERICA II
MW 11:15am-12:05pm
SUMITA CHATTERJEE
THIS COURSE REQUIRES A DISCUSSION SECTION
This course centers the political, social, economic, and cultural experiences of women in the United States of America from the movement for suffrage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to contemporary developments such as debates over reproductive rights and justice. Using secondary scholarship and primary sources, as well as visuals such as archival photographs, material objects, and documentaries we will explore diverse women’s lived experiences and participation in key movements of their times. We will analyze the impact of key events and figures in American women's history, including the suffrage movement, labor activism, the feminist movements, and women's roles in civil rights, politics, and popular culture.
This course will use a feminist intersectional lens to frame our study of women and the ways in which American history is reimagined through a gender lens intersecting with race, class, sexuality and ethnicity. We will center the experiences of Native Indigenous, European, African, Latin American, Caribbean and Asian American women – citizens and immigrants. The course will be a combination of lectures and discussions, utilizing a wide array of textual and visual sources.
HIS 262 7D 7981 WOMEN’S AMERICA II
DISCUSSION SECTION
F 11:15pm-12:05pm
SUMITA CHATTERJEE
HIS 262 7F 7982 WOMEN’S AMERICA II
DISCUSSION SECTION
F 1:25pm-2:15pm
SUMITA CHATTERJEE
HIS 266 CD 7998 THE FOUNDERS: FACT & FICTION
MW 10:10am-11:25am
ASHLI WHITE
Few historical actors have attracted as much attention in the United States as the founders, the individuals credited with leading the charge for revolution and establishing a new nation. In this course we consider the founders in their eighteenth-century context, examining the experiences, issues, and events that shaped their lives, ideas, and actions. Each lecture takes as its starting point a person, or in some cases, a set of people, who opens an interpretative window onto a key moment or theme. Meanwhile, the readings consist of primary sources from the period that provide important portals to their world as well as give us opportunities to reappraise what we thought we knew about the founders. This approach to the era also allows us to assess “founder” as a historical category, to evaluate the terms of inclusion (who is seen as a founder and who is not) and how those terms have changed over time. Finally, we will explore how the founders continue to resonate today, in politics, in public history, and in the popular imagination.
HIS 272 Q 8001 HAWAI’I AND ITS PACIFIC WORLDS
TR 12:30pm-1:45pm
MARTIN NESVIG
On the surface this is a class about surfing. But to understand surfing is to study the history of Hawai’i and of the sport which Hawai’ians developed and created surfing. This course traces the early history of ancient Hawai’i, when navigating migrants traveled between Polynesia and Hawai’i until they ceased contact. Traditional Hawai’i was governed by complex social and ritual systems, bound by the concept of kapu, or taboo. The class analyzes the process by which Hawai’i went from being a united kingdom to missionary outpost and target of pineapple plantations, to a U.S. territory which specifically disenfranchised native Hawai’ians to the near suppression of surfing. The resulting Hawai’ian Renaissance reshaped images of Hawai’i and surfing found willing converts in California. Other topics include the history of surfing styles and competition, comparative surf breaks and shore cultures, California dreamin, the feeling you get when you hear the Eagles; beach bums; professional surf competitions and O’ahu North Shore culture; spam and plate lunch; the broader Pacific world; castaways; fur traders; tuna and canning industry; fisherman.
HIS 284 S 7986 SECOND WORLD WAR
TR 3:30pm-4:45pm
HERMANN BECK
This lecture course offers a comprehensive history of the Second World War, including a detailed analysis of its diplomatic origins, the military and political course of events, and the consequences of this world-wide conflagration -- the Cold War. The course begins with an examination of the diplomatic roots of the war and then concentrates on the sequence of military events, as well as the economic, scientific, and psychological dimensions of the conflict. Topics of discussion include: The first phase of the war from the German attack on Poland to Operation Barbarossa; collaboration and resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe; the war of extermination on the Eastern Front; the connection between the Holocaust and the war in the East; the conflict in the Far East; D-Day and the dramatic conclusion of the war in Europe; the end of the Grand Coalition and the origins of the Cold War; and the war’s political, social, and cultural impact on subsequent generations.
HIS 302 HI 7993 HISTORY ON TRIAL
MW 3:35pm-4:50pm
SCOTT HEERMAN
This course asks students to think about the relationship between social history, the law, and politics in American society. This course on American Legal History asks students to confront the "intents of the framers" of U.S. laws and constitutional provisions. It requires them to make arguments about how history should inform the outcomes of major legal cases. This is a problem-based, interdisciplinary course that bridges history, political science, legal studies, and sociology to understand the historical context that informs major lawsuits that shaped American jurisprudence.
HIS 304 J 7965 SLAVERY AND CINEMA
MW 5:05pm-6:20pm
SCOTT HEERMAN
This course looks at how major Hollywood films have talked about and portrayed slavery. Spanning over a century, from Birth of a Nation (1915) to Harriet (2019) it will explore how and why the history of slavery became a commodified—something to be bought and sold and profited from. Covering the major eras of film from the silent era, the studio system, period of auteur directors, and the contemporary era, the class will track how portrayals of slavery changed, and how they stayed the same. Pairing readings on the history of slavery with cultural production in cinema during the twentieth century, the class will ask how we can come to terms with this painful past, and how mass culture can be a tool for that kind of work.
HIS 313 GH 7964 BOLLYWOOD & BEYOND
MW 2:30pm-3:45pm
SUMITA CHATTERJEE
This course studies themes in Indian society through the lens of Indian cinema - Bollywood and the regional film industry. The course consists of five modules each lasting between two to three weeks. Module one will situate and frame the entire semester’s readings with discussion of a brief history of Bollywood and regional cinema, their respective influence and limits in framing, valorizing and/or critiquing societal and cultural norms. Each subsequent module will open to lecture and discussion with the screening of a Bollywood film (often an excerpt), regional cinema or a documentary. The important themes that will be covered in the modules will relate to a) the significance and perversion of caste in Indian society – film mis/representations; b) the multiple cinematic and popular representations and framing of the religious epic - the Ramayana. Using multiple visual and textual narratives of the Ramayana we will discuss the place of myths, religious ideology, and visual culture in the construction of politics and society; c) issues of gender and sexuality - studying the shaping of celluloid goddesses and real lives of women, consumption of sex, queering of it and its depiction in film and reception in society; d) colonial and post-colonial engagement with modernity in India – through the lens of the nation state and its women, as well as the nation and its “others” from perspectives explored in nationalist cinema e) impact of Bollywood cinema on ideas of home and hybrid identities in Indian diasporic communities in the United States and elsewhere.
HIS 316 HI 7979 MODERN CHINA
MW 3:35pm-4:50pm
STEPHEN HALSEY
China has become one of the most powerful countries in the world in the early twenty-first century, and some commentators believe that it may come to dominate the international system within several decades. Yet during the past hundred and fifty years, it has witnessed three revolutions, fought eight major wars, and suffered the largest manmade famine in human history in the late 1950s. How can we reconcile this tumultuous past with China’s growing stature on the world stage today? This course examines China’s changing place in the global order from the late seventeenth century to the present, arguing that the origins of its current power lie as much in the country’s past as in the economic reforms of the past twenty-five years. In the first third of this course, we will discuss China’s last ruling dynasty (1644-1911), the Qing, addressing topics such as rebellion, the opium trade, imperialism, and foot-binding. We will then examine the Republican era (1911-1949), which saw the rise of Chinese nationalism, the outbreak of civil war, and the Japanese invasion of 1937. In the final third of the semester, we will discuss the communist revolution, Maoist policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and the rapid development of China’s economy since 1978.
HIS 319 R 8002 WARFARE
TR 2:00pm-3:15pm
ETANA DINKA
This course examines the historical role of warfare in shaping African economies, societies, politics, and cultures. The course is organized thematically without ignoring the significance of the chronological boundaries of events in the history of Africa. The discussions aim to start with the early nineteenth-century developments and navigate to the present to open up opportunities for a longue durée approach to help students examine interconnectedness, continuities, and transformation in precolonial, colonial, and independent Africa. Key themes of scholarly debate about the role of warfare in the history of Africa, emphasizing developments since the beginning of the nineteenth century, will inform class discussions and the nature of assignments.
HIS 333 CD 7980 ENGLAND & EMPIRE
MW 10:10am-11:25am
PHILIP HARLING
Britain’s 19 th century was a century of superlatives: The world’s wealthiest nation, the world’s most urban society, the world’s largest empire. It was also a century of stark contrasts: extreme wealth vs. dire poverty; relative peace in Britain vs. chronic imperial warfare; slowly democratizing government “at home” vs. authoritarian rule in the Empire; the promise of emancipation from the inequalities of the past vs. the persistence of hierarchy (on the bases of class, race, and gender). We’ll explore these superlatives and contrasts across the century as we focus our attention on several prominent themes: the social impact of unparalleled urban-industrial growth, the promise and limits of democratic reform; imperial violence and conquest; colonial rule and its critics; Victorian morality and its discontents.
HIS 356 Q 7994 HISTORY OF ARGENTINA’S CIVILIZATION, BARBARISM, AND POWER
TR 12:30pm-1:45pm
EDUARDO ELENA
How did a country that was supposedly so prosperous and advanced become a land of perennial economic crisis, political instability, and widening poverty? Countless observers have posed variations on this question in seeking to make sense of the “Argentine riddle.” This class will provide students with an introduction to the fascinating history of Argentina. We will reject pat explanations of the “riddle” to examine instead the array of cultural, political, and economic forces that have shaped Argentine society. The course begins by examining the struggle for liberation from Spanish colonialism and the ensuring civil wars that dominated the early nineteenth century. Most of the readings will focus on the century between the consolidation of a national order in the 1880s to the 1980s. In particular, we will investigate the changing meanings of national progress and citizenship over the last century. Through weekly discussions, essays, and examinations, students will hone their talents for historical interpretation, including their critical thinking and writing skills.
HIS 379 P 7984 HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH (1607-1861)
TR 11:00am-12:15pm
MICHAEL BERNATH
This course examines the history of the Old South (pre-Civil War). We will discuss antebellum southern economic, social, and cultural development including the Cotton Boom, the growth and maturation of the plantation slave system, the southern defense of slavery, growing political controversies with the North, and the development of a separate southern identity. We will look at the experiences of many different groups of southerners – male and female, black and white, enslaved and free, slaveholder and nonslaveholder. From these various perspectives, we will attempt to discover what made this massive and diverse region into “The South,” and how this unifying concept of “southern-ness” came to be accepted by outsiders and southerners alike. By 1861, this notion of southern distinctiveness would prove strong enough to overcome even the bonds of nationhood, pulling white southerners down the road to independence, war, and ultimately the destruction of the Old South.
HIS 397 01 7971 HISTORY INTERNSHIP
MARTIN NESVIG
HIS 400 & HIS 500 DIRECTED READINGS
All 400and 500 level directed readings require permission of instructor before signing up for course.
GRADUATE LEVEL COURSES
HIS 544 4G 7978 MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY
633 4G 7991 Nazi Germany: The Peacetime Years, 1933-1939
W 2:30pm-5:15pm
HERMANN BECK
This seminar focuses on the first phase of the Third Reich: the peace-time years beginning with Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship on January 30, 1933 and ending with the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939. It is directed toward an audience of advanced undergraduate students. We first examine the period of the Nazi seizure of power in 1933/34 and then concentrate on the formation of the Nazi state and the interconnected issues of re-armament, foreign policies, and the anti-Jewish policies of the Nazi regime. Since 1945, more has been written on Nazi Germany than on any other period in History. As a result, numerous controversial issues have emerged in the complex historiography of Nazism. In the course of this seminar, we will therefore also pay attention to the scholarly debates that are connected with the topics under discussion, in particular the “Historikerstreit” of the 1980s, which demonstrates the relevance of the Nazi period for political discourse long after the defeat of the Third Reich.
HIS 551 1D 7974 STUDIES IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY
652 1D 7999 Islands in the Stream: U.S. Empire in the Caribbean and Beyond
M 11:15AM-2:00PM
MICHAEL BUSTAMANTE
In 1898, U.S. intervention turned Cuba’s final war for independence into the “Spanish-American War.” In the war's aftermath, the United States took territorial control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Hawaii was annexed to the United States the same year. Only Cuba would gain independence in short order (1902), albeit under a strong U.S. shadow. Other nations, especially in the greater Caribbean, would also soon experience U.S. military occupations and other forms of U.S. influence in their affairs. This seminar examines the contours, ideology, and cultural substrates of U.S. intervention in the Caribbean, and beyond, in the years following 1898, as well as adaptations and forms of resistance by local populations in response. How, we ask, did other nations experience the rise of the United States as a global power? And what are the varied ways to approach, tell, and research these histories?
662 5R 7963 Sectional Crisis and the Coming of Civil War
R 2:00pm-4:45pm
MICHAEL BERNATH
This seminar will examine one of the most controversial and contested questions in American history: What caused the Civil War? We will study the coming of the war from a variety of perspectives in order to understand the rising tensions between the North and South and the development of separate northern and southern identities between 1820 and 1860. Through our reading and discussions, we will try to explain what caused the biggest crisis and most tragic and revolutionary war in this nation’s history.
HIS 591 1G 7973 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY
Women Warriors
M 2:30pm-5:15pm
TIM MARTIN
Amazons, Boudica, Valkyries, Joan of Arc, Molly Pitcher, and Marie-Jeanne Lamartiniere are just a few of the individuals and groups we will be meeting in this 500-level seminar course, which offers an overview of the martial feats and portrayal of women as warriors, military commanders, and heroine figures throughout history from a global perspective. From ancient to early modern times, women warriors have been shrouded in myth and legend, rarely celebrated as active participants in battle, and often seen as anomalies. However, when history notes their appearances, these warriors are frequently characterized as mystical, superhuman, and divinely inspired larger than life figures or punished as individuals breaking societal norms that divide the roles of men and women during the period in which they lived. In this course, students will examine primary sources, the representation of women warriors through art, and the depiction of battles to explore how these women became idolized in a male-dominated world of war and violence and yet were often despised for their efforts to hide their identity from their fellow soldiers.
HIS 701 5P 7967 RESEARCH SEMINAR 1
T 11:00am-1:45pm
ETANA DINKA
Our research seminars 1 and 2 aim to enable our graduate students to deliver an original article-length essay over two consecutive semesters. This seminar research seeks to prepare students to conduct primary research to produce the essay, which is due the following semester (Fall 2025). In their research and writing, students are expected to craft a compelling argument that mobilizes historical evidence, competently demonstrate awareness about the relevant body of knowledge, convincingly present the significance of their findings, and write clearly. The readings, discussions, and assignments in this research seminar, therefore, are designed as a semester-long set of work to guide students to focus on necessary activities to achieve the goal of crafting an original article.
HIS 703 4D 7976 DIRECTED READINGS IN AFRICAN HISTORY
Colonial and Post-Colonial Ghana: From Expansion of British
Jurisdiction on the Gold Coast to the Fourth Republic
W 11:15am-2:00pm
EDMUND ABAKA
This course examines the colonial and post-colonial history of the Gold Coast/Ghana from the time of the expansion of British Jurisdiction in the Gold Coast from the 1840s through independence to the fourth Republic. It interrogates British policies on the Gold Coast in the post-slavery period, the responses of Gold Coasters towards British colonialism, the struggle against colonialism (for independence) and the various governments formed between independence and the Fourth Republic. It pays particular attention to the controversies around the contributions of various individuals and groups towards independence and the policies various governments pursued after independence. Also, a close examination would be made of the various military regimes that truncated the first, second and third republics. Intimating that they had come to make things better for the people of Ghana, some of these military governments made things worse, especially, when they were accountable to only themselves. The final segment of the course deals with the notion that Ghana has one of the most stable governments in post-independence Africa. Why is this the case - perception or reality? What factors have contributed to this long period of stability?
HIS 762 5P 7995 HISTORY AS A PROFESSION
R 11:00am-1:45pm
KRISTA GOFF
This graduate seminar is designed to help Ph.D. students in the department prepare for professional careers in academia and related fields.
HIS 810 01 7992 MASTER’S THESIS
The student working on his/her master’s thesis enrolls for credit, in most departments not to exceed six, as determined by his/her advisor. Credit is not awarded until the thesis has been accepted.
HIS 825 01 7972 MASTER’S STUDY
To establish residence for non-thesis master’s students who are preparing for major examinations. Credit not granted. Regarded as full-time residence.
HIS 830 01 7988 DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
Required of all candidates for the Ph.D. The student will enroll for credit as determined by his/her advisor, but for not less than a total of 12 hours. Up to 12 hours may be taken in a regular semester, but not more than six in a summer session.
HIS 840 01 7970 POST CAND DOC DISSERTATION
Required of all candidates for the Ph.D. who have advanced to candidacy. The student will enroll for credit as determined by his/her advisor.
HIS 850 01 7975 RESEARCH IN RESIDENCE
Used to establish research in residence for the Ph.D. after the student has been enrolled for the permissible cumulative total in appropriate doctoral research. Credit not granted. May be regarded as full-time residence as determined by the Dean of the Graduate School.
