Content Comparison

An introduction to Islam and the lives of Muslims in the Middle East and around the globe through movies, tv, music, and other media. Introduces students to Islam as a living faith through the lives of Muslims and their representation. By combining history and religious studies, the course provides important context for understanding the role of Islam and Muslims in the world today. Drawing examples from the contemporary Middle East and Middle East history, the course situates Islam as a global religion and in relation to transnational social and political movements. Examples consider the place of Islam in secular states whether majority Muslim (Egypt) or majority Christian (the U.S.) and in relation to religious nationalism (Saudi Arabia) to examine how religion intersects with socio-economic class, gender, and race. Drawing examples from television, fiction, documentary film, and multiple musical genres to expose students to popular culture made by and for Muslims, we combine critical media literacy with an understanding of the development of media infrastructure, commercialization, and the politics of production and consumption.

Concentration: US/Global / Period: Modern

HST 102: American History Since 1865

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This semester offers a broad look at the history of the United States in the 150 years from the end of the Civil War through the first decade of the 21st Century. Throughout the course, we will engage with the social, political, and cultural changes, ideas, and events that have profoundly shaped modern American society.

Key questions include: How have we defined being American? How has the nation’s relationship with the world changed?  How have the rights of citizens evolved over time? How have various groups in American society articulated their claims to citizenship and national belonging? What factors have affected the development of American political leadership?

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

HST 112: Napoleon to the Present 

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This course examines the major developments in European history since the late 18th century, including the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, the Industrial Revolution, imperialism, the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Fascist and Nazi seizures of power, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and European Unification. The thematic focus of this course is the relationship between the individual and the state. How does this relationship change over time – what makes it “modern”? To address this question, we will examine ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, socialism, nationalism, fascism), the birth of mass society, poverty, violence, women’s rights, and racism. There are two lectures and one discussion section per week. Discussions emphasize primary sources and historical debates. Grades are based on in-class exams, papers, and discussion.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern

HST 122: Global History 1750-Present

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This course introduces students to global history beginning in 1750 by focusing on social, economic, political, intellectual and religious developments in major regions of the world: Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Beginning with the Mughal Empire in India, the Ottomans, and the empires of the New World, it will trace the growing interaction of these areas with Europe through colonialism and trade. From the age of revolutions to the age of empires and the age of nation-states, this course studies the relevance of the early modern world for understanding today’s global patterns and economic interdependency. We will explore twentieth-century developments including the spread of Marxism, secular nationalism, and decolonization. The course ends by looking at current issues in world history, including the environment, global capitalism, and religious revivalism. Topics will be covered thematically in general chronological order. Lectures will be supplemented by maps, visual materials, music, documentaries and films. All students are required to attend lectures and one discussion section a week. Students need not have taken HST 121 Global History to enroll.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

The course will analyze the complex histories and transnational forces that influenced the migration of diverse communities from their homelands. In addition to assessing forces that influenced these developments, such as colonization, imperialism, and globalization in the global north and south, the course will attempt to understand the transnational experiences, struggles, and activisms of diasporic communities across race, class, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on a diverse range of case studies, for example the global South Asian and African diasporas, the course will draw connections between a diverse array of experiences while also appreciating and understanding the nuances between them. Exploring these trajectories from the late colonial period to the present day, students will critically analyze what categories like diaspora, migration, and immigration mean to communities that are given these labels and to what extent these categories are tied to global power dynamics.   

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern  

Did ancient people feel the same emotions as we do? How did people in the past cope with depression and anxiety? What makes people ultimately happy? Why did some medieval Christians think that angels don’t feel pity? These and similar questions are central to this course that focuses on conceptions of the 'soul', the force felt to animate and energize a human body for as long as it was considered alive, and to activate virtually all aspects of its behavior through time. The emphasis will lie on texts on the care of the soul and on the relationship between body and soul – the latter topic being especially important in Christian discourses regarding the bodily resurrection.

Interested in the Middle East but not sure where to begin? This course is the perfect introduction to understanding a fascinating and dynamic part of the world today. It covers major aspects of Middle East history from the twentieth century to the present, including the countries from Turkey and Iran in the east, to Palestine, Israel, Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, and from Egypt across northern Africa to Morocco in the west. Lectures combine political basics with a insights on social and cultural life, and women’s rights. Readings blend specific details of political and economy change in each country while indicating broader regional trends, from as European imperialism, the impact of the two world wars, to revolutionary aspirations and radical social movement. These are supplemented by primary sources that incorporate the words, perspectives, and self-representations of individuals across the Middle East. Additional topics include intellectual life, constitutionalism and democracy, anti-colonial nationalism, feminism and women’s movements, the radical left, political Islam, and contemporary debates.

There are no prerequisites for this class.

This class meets twice a week, there is no discussion section.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

HST 211: Medieval and Renaissance Europe

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This introductory survey traces Europe’s transformation during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, from roughly 300 CE to roughly 1500 CE. It begins as the Roman Empire slowly gave way to new societies in both East and West, and then follows the fortunes of these societies over more than 1000 years. It explores the religious, political, economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and artistic aspects of these societies and how they changed over time. Readings will include both primary sources (those written at the time) and secondary sources (by modern scholars). Students will learn to analyze these sources in order to find out what happened in this period, how people understood events, and how historians use evidence to explain the past. Requirements include reading and participation, midterm and final exams, and two papers.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

A survey of modern African history since 1800. Are you curious about African History? Do you want to understand the causes and consequences of colonialism in Africa? How about understanding how Africans navigated colonialism oftentimes to their advantage while opposing its excesses? How did some Africans manage to evade colonialism? Do you wonder about the role of African states in the Cold War? How has Africa come to be a part of the global community by default? This course will answer those questions and more through surveying the history and transformations of the African continent over the last two hundred years. Some of the themes and topics this course will examine include: the role of slave trade in shaping nineteenth century Africa, nineteenth century commerce, European imperialism and African responses, colonial economies, the effects of colonization on African societies, rise of African nationalism, decolonization, Africa and the Cold War, postcolonial successes and challenges, the state of Africa in the twenty-first century and digital age.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

Elizabeth I: Cultural icon? Virgin queen? ‘Father/Mother’ of the nation? This course will examine the images, personality, words and actions of one of the most important monarchs in English history. How did Elizabeth manage to negotiate her rule of a patriarchal society as a ‘weak-willed woman’? Did she exploit her considerable political skills to benefit the country or simply to maintain her position on the throne? And what of those who sort to assassinate or replace her? How did she react to threats of foreign invasion, domestic rebellion and a barely concerned hostility among many in the governing classes? Using both early modern and modern iconography, we will explore the images and representations of Elizabeth to unravel her life and examine how she sought to portray herself and how others have seen her through the years.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern

Capitalism is not only a Western economic system. It is a more comprehensive mode of organizing society that is being continuously adopted, modified and subverted around the globe. In this course, we will explore the multiple, and often counter-intuitive ways, in which capitalism became entrenched in the modern Middle East. Drawing on social, intellectual, environmental and business histories, we will examine how the encounter with modern capitalism shaped such pervasive political phenomena as European imperialism, post-colonial nationalism, and contemporary sectarianism. Additionally, we will dissect common modern practices, like smuggling and consumerism, to uncover how they came to define the culture of capitalism in the Middle East over the past two centuries.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

This course examines two concurrent developments in medieval history and historiography. The first is scholarship reevaluating race (and ideas about race) in the European Middle Ages. Second is how ideas about race continue to frame discussions about the Middle Ages today, both in academia and in the broader culture. Examples include debates among medievalists about the study of race, and the misappropriation and misrepresentation of the Middle Ages by white supremacists. By discovering that medieval Europe was more diverse than is generally assumed and that ideas about race go further back than most historical accounts recognize, students will better understand how the medieval era shaped the present and is being distorted in the present.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern

This course will examine the long history of Asians and Asian Americans in the United States, while exploring how they have narrated their experiences and family histories, fought for human and civil rights, and grappled with marginalization and unbelonging. The class begins with historical overviews beginning in the mid-19th century when Asian migrants arrived on the Pacific Coast and encountered fierce nativist reactions and discriminatory laws. We look at subsequent policies (Immigration Acts of 1924, 1965, Executive Order 9066, etc) that impacted Asian and Asian-American demographics in the United States. The course then focuses on various memoirs, graphic novels, and art produced by American authors of Asian descent (east, south, southeast and west Asian) across the last century. Engagement with these sources will allow students to familiarize themselves with the ways Asian-American writers and artists have experimented with narrative voice and pushed against stereotypes and myths. Readings will cover topics ranging from mental health and well-being to intergenerational trauma, memory and erasure, inter-racial and inter-ethnic relations, humor and joy. We will explore how the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender, citizenship and immigration status have impacted ways of understanding and navigating identities. Students will also have the opportunity to hone their own narrative voice by working on various creative-non-fictional pieces.

Concentration: US/Global / Period: Modern

HST 300: Native American History 1830-Present

This course is part two of the Native North American Survey. Beginning with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, this course will take a chronological approach to Native North America to understand how major historical events and themes connect the past to the present. This is mostly a discussion-based course with major topics including Native sovereignty and self-determination, forced removal, forced assimilation, the Red Power movement, Landback, Native repatriation, and other forms of Native resistance and cultural perseverance.

Concentration: U.S./Native / Period: Modern

This course explores the history of representations of Native Americans and their culture in popular media by both Native and non-Native peoples. Through analyses of both films and literature, this course will investigate major several major themes that affect Native people in the present-day such as colonialism, erasure, survivance, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, forced assimilation and boarding schools, the myth of the vanishing Indian, and Natives dealing with a post-apocalyptic future. The course will be accompanied by a weekly film viewing series where we watch movies from several different genres, mostly written and produced by Native filmmakers.

Concentration: U.S./Native / Period: Modern

What is History? How do scholars “do” history? This seminar introduces history majors to the methods and goals of historical study, and to the skills needed to conduct independent historical research. The first part of the course will be spent discussing what exactly history is and has been. We will then move on to discussing the kinds of history that have developed across the century in the American Historical profession. Finally, students will spend a large portion of the course familiarizing themselves with the analytical and practical skills needed to develop their own research projects. 

T/TH 2:00-3:20

What is History? How do scholars “do” history? This seminar introduces history majors to the methods and goals of historical study, and to the skills needed to conduct independent historical research. The first part of the course will be spent discussing what exactly history is and has been. We will then move on to discussing the kinds of history that have developed across the century in the American Historical profession. Finally, students will spend a large portion of the course familiarizing themselves with the analytical and practical skills needed to develop their own research projects. 

The course explores and analyzes the place of Africa and Africans as victims and players in historical events of global implications from the late nineteenth century (circa 1870) to the present. By utilizing interpretations from history of international relations, the course puts Africa and Africans at the center and periphery of these global currents as important role players and victims. Examples of  global events/processes examined include, but are not limited to: integration of Africa into global economies; nineteenth century European imperialism; Colonial Economies; Global conflicts; health and disease; environmental issues; the Cold War; decolonization; Neocolonialism; International institutions and Africa; the Development Question; global war on terror; to mention but a few. Readings combine primary documents with secondary sources.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

This course provides a survey of the most important political, cultural and social developments in the period between 300 and 900, or roughly between the reign of Constantine and end of the rule of the Carolingian kings, mostly focusing on Western Europe. In this period falls one of the most dramatic historical breaks: the “Fall of the Roman Empire” and the “Beginning of the Middle Ages.” But was there really a “Fall of the Roman Empire?” When, how and why did the Roman Empire come to an end? This still ferociously debated question will play a central role in the course. Other topics will be the rise of Christianity, the development of medieval institutions (such as kingship, church structures, and feudalism), and the continuity and discontinuity of intellectual traditions. A special emphasis will be laid on reading and interpreting (translated) primary sources and on methods of historical research.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

What caused the French Revolution?  How did an absolutist regime transform into the First Republic?  How did the ideals of democracy, equality and liberty lead to Terror?  How did Napoleon rise out of the ashes of the French Revolution?  The class will examine the social and cultural foundations of the Old Regime, the expansion of the French empire into Asia, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic world, and the ways this expansion triggered tensions among France's Three estates and with non-French populations.  It will study the radical transformations in French society, politics and culture generated in the age of Enlightenment and Revolutions.  How did Enlightenment thinkers redefine concepts such as reason, nature, civilization and sociability?  How did Enlightenment ideals regarding universalism and human rights impact politics, state, and culture? How did they lay the groundwork for reform while also creating a new vocabulary for the exclusion of others?  The final segment of the class will study the transition from reform to revolution.  What political languages were in play at the start of the revolution?  How did women, slaves, Jews, and Muslims participate in revolutionary upheaval?  The class will examine the development of the Terror, Robespierre’s Republic of Virtue, and the rise of Napoleon.  What was the impact and legacy of the Revolution on the nineteenth century?  On future revolutions, socialism, totalitarianism?  On the present?  Course documents will include novels, political treatises and policy memos, images, plays and journal excerpts.  

Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern

In 1945, the hopes and ideals of classical liberalism and even the enlightened spirit of Europe itself seemed to have been destroyed by the European descent into bloody cataclysm. The shattered continent found itself the chessboard of an emerging American and Soviet conflict—a conflict that would unmistakably shape European history for the next half century. While war in Europe went cold, proxy wars and wars of decolonization chipped away at centuries of imperial dominance. Refugees, migrants, and laborers flooded into Europe bringing with them new challenges that tested the limits of tolerance. Within this commotion Europeans simultaneously recast historic ideals, struggled for social justice, and sought to stabilize the international political order. By the turn of the 21st century, unprecedented economic growth across the continent and the emergence of the EU announced that Europe had risen from the ashes anew. But today, Russian expansionism in the east, massive waves of African and Middle Eastern refugees, the rapid rise of right-wing populism, and the British secession from the EU undermine stability and echo catastrophes of the past.

This class will have four main themes. The first is to consider this period of history as postwar history, an era unmistakably shaped by legacies, memories, and narratives of the Second World War. Second, this period is Cold War history, a story of dividing Europe into conflicting political and cultural spheres. Third, Europeans in this era did a great deal of work to redefine themselves and we will focus on efforts of reinvention, political purges, conflicts with the past, social mobilizations, and political cooperations both before and after 1989. Finally, European history since 1945 has been global history, driven by advanced globalization, decolonization, and migration.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern

This course will survey the history of China from the seventeenth century to the present. Our focus will be on revolution and reform: the primary means through which Chinese people responded to the challenges of a new world, and, most particularly, to Western encroachment and invasion. Topics to be considered in depth include:  politics and society under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911); the end of the dynastic system and the continuing quest for a viable political system; reform of Chinese culture through revolution; the challenge of changing old attitudes about gender roles; conflicting visions for the new nation; the critique of communism by dissident Chinese; the persistence and resurgence of traditional ways, and the renewed interest in Maoism during the 2000’s. Assigned readings include a slim textbook to provide chronology and a variety of historical materials including memoirs, fiction and poetry.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

This course surveys the history of modern South Asia from the beginnings of British colonial rule in the eighteenth century to the formation of independent India and Pakistan in the mid-twentieth century.

The course has two broad themes. First, we will explore how colonial rule transformed Indian society, its political forms, culture, and economy. Second, we will study the emergence of the Indian nationalist movement, the challenges it faced, and the fissures within society – along lines of class, caste, and religion – that underlay the formation of modern India. We will also examine how the politics of nationalism impacted the histories of postcolonial India and Pakistan. Students will be exposed to a range of primary sources including fiction, memoirs, maps, documentaries, and films.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

During the era of the transatlantic slave trade, more than 350,000 Africans disembarked as slaves in what is now the United States. While significant, these women, children, and men were only part of the more than 12.5 million people who were forcibly trafficked from Africa to the Americas during the same period, and of the countless other people forced into unfree labor. How did the experiences of enslaved men and women in the colonial and early republican United States compare with those of people in other parts of the Atlantic World? How might learning about and comparing their experiences shape our understanding of the meanings of race and national belonging?

Rather than focusing on the slave regimes of individual empires or nations, this course emphasizes the centrality of slavery to the creation of a shared Atlantic World by focusing on the diverse experiences of enslaved people and their descendants in the Americas (North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean), while also touching on the practice of slavery in Africa and Europe. Adopting a broad geographic and temporal perspective allows us to examine evolving relationships between labor, gender, and race, and to consider how and why these relationships have been remembered or forgotten in imperial and national histories. Although the majority of this course focuses on the Americas during the colonial and early-independence eras, consideration will also be given to how the acknowledgement, denial, or ignoring of histories of racial slavery shape the present day.

Major themes and issues to be elaborated include:

• How did labor practices affect the place of—and relations between—white, Black, and Indigenous peoples in the Atlantic World?
• What place were Afro-descended peoples afforded in different European colonies and in independent American nations? What spaces did they seek to create for themselves?
• How has slavery been remembered, forgotten, and/or silenced in modern American nation states? What are the consequences of this remembrance and forgetting?

Concentration: U.S./Global / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern

This course will examine the complex and varied African American experiences from Reconstruction to the present period. The course’s goal is twofold: first, to introduce you to the history and culture of African Americans; and second, to determine the manner in which these experiences relates to the contemporary world. Specifically, this course emphasizes Black people lives and quests for freedom through a thorough examination of: Reconstruction; de jure and de facto racial discrimination; race, class, and gender; political expression; community formation; migration; sociogeographical place; culture and representation; Black freedom movement; and current affairs.

Concentration: US / Period: Modern

A comprehensive survey of ancient Roman political, economic, social and cultural history based on the interpretation of primary sources, both literary and archaeological, from the foundation of the city through the dissolution of the Empire in the west. Special focus is given to important topics and themes in Roman history, including Roman foundation legends, the interrelationship of Roman statecraft and Roman religion, Roman aristocratic ethical values and imperialism, the Roman reaction to Greek culture and literature, the imperial cult of the Roman emperor, the position of women in Roman society, the Roman institution of slavery, the origins and early growth of Christianity, the third century CE military and economic crises, and modern ideas on Rome's transformation into medieval Europe. Short paper, mid-term and final examinations.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

This course examines the political, cultural and social history of Early Modern England. Topics covered will include the power and image of the monarchy (cases studies - Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Charles I); the role of the printing press in both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture; the impact of crime and the treatment of criminals; the importance of London as a center of commerce and culture; the myth and reality of Shakespeare and the role of the theater; witchcraft and the dominance of religion in everyday life; and the role of women in a patriarchal society. The course will emphasize reading, discussion, visual culture and the use of primary sources.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern

Among the ancient world’s most enduring legacies, democracy continues to exert a powerful influence over the modern political imagination. This course examines forms of ancient democracy and democratic participation in government to help understand and problematize today's so-called democracies. Throughout the course, we probe questions like why democracy arose, what factors limited participation, who benefited most from it, and why twenty-first century versions of it are failing.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern

This course will examine the history of one of the world’s most famous cities. Today the city is known as a major tourist destination. But for many centuries, Venice was one of the economic powerhouses of Europe and on the frontlines of the conflict between Western Latin Christendom and Islam. Venice was also duly famous throughout the late medieval and early modern periods for its republican form of government. After a brief introduction to the origins of Venice as a Byzantine outpost in the lagoons of the northwestern Adriatic, this course will examine the development of Venice as a colonial and trading power, the evolution of its republican form of government, the peculiar configuration of its society, and the role of art and ritual in Venetian life. The final part of the course will be devoted to a consideration of Venice’s role in the world after its fall as an independent republic. Among other topics we will consider are the Romantic preoccupation with Venice, the development of mass tourism, and the city’s response to looming ecological catastrophes.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

American political thought from the Puritans to Lincoln. American Revolution, establishment of the Constitution, and Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian systems.

Concentration: U.S / Period: Modern

The role that religion may have played in women’s understandings of themselves as abolitionists and social reformers. A selected group of women will be studied, with considerable attention given to Frances Harper.

Concentration: U.S / Period: Modern

This course examines the way women and gender have shaped international movements for social change since 1945. Students will study international social movements, including feminism/#Metoo, anti-apartheid, student movements, and AIDS activism, and explore how these movements have shaped international relations. Students will conduct original research on women or gender in an international social movement of their choice.

Concentration: U.S/Global / Period: Modern

This course examines the history of Western attitudes towards China.  In particular, we will focus on experts: the relatively small group of individuals we have relied upon for our knowledge of China. Among their numbers have been journalists, historians, missionaries, fiction writers, poets, and philosophers. Some have been famous, such as Pearl Buck and Marco Polo; and some infamous, such as the forger Sir Edmund Backhouse. One famous expert even boasted he’d never been to China. Why, he asked, should he permit the real China to interfere with the more glorious China of his mind?  How experts have seen China has been determined in some sense by how they wanted to see it, and by how they wanted to convey it to the people back home.  Students choose a China expert to research in depth, and prepare a substantial research paper based on original sources. 

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

Americans have frequently resorted to conspiracy theories for simple explanations of complex events and social developments, to demonize "outsiders" or expose "insiders," and to rouse popular anger for political gain. Through lectures, discussions of assigned readings, and research projects, this course examines conspiratorial thinking and its consequences across the broad span of American history, from the witch hunts of colonial New England, to revolutionary-era fears of British plots against American liberties, to nineteenth- and twentieth-century anxieties over the conspiratorial designs of Freemasons, Roman Catholics, abolitionists, the "slave power" and the "money power," Mormons, Jews, communists, and "the media." Particular attention will be devoted to the question of what a "conspiracy theory" is and what distinguishes it from other modes of explanation, especially in its peculiar use of evidence.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

How diverse and inclusive were medieval societies? How did they deal with people of different believes, sick or disabled people, queer people or non-conformists? Was the medieval world a world of repression and structural violence against minorities or were there also spaces that fostered diversity and tolerance? Can observations on the Middle Ages help us understanding and resisting modern forms of othering and discrimination?

We will discuss these questions and develop individual research projects that are based on studying and contextualizing medieval primary sources and engaging with recent scholarship on medieval diversity.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern

This course focuses on modern Iraq from the early 20th century to the present. While Iraq features prominently in current news headlines about violence, sectarian strife, hardship and civic disintegration, what did it look like before Saddam Hussein? The course explores Iraqi cultural life, its labor movement and successful socialist politics before turning to the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War and sanctions, and the 2003 invasion. It introduces students to the dynamism of modern Iraq through a range of texts by anthropologists and historians as well as works of fiction and a popular blog.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

Instructor Consent Required

Students doing the thesis will take 3 credits of HST 495 the first semester and 3 credits of HST 496 the second semester (2 semesters for a total of 6 credits), which may begin in their junior or senior year.  Students should register for HST 495 and 496 upon approval from the faculty advisor and Undergraduate Director.