History Undergraduate Courses and Descriptions - Spring 2026
Please refer to Class Search/Shopping Cart for more information when classes are being offered.
You can find a link to the History Major Undergraduate Requirements and Course Catalog here.
You can find a link to the History Minor Undergraduate Requirements and Course Catalog here.
HST 102 American History Since 1865 - Tevis
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 - Modern Europe: Napoleon to the Present - Terrell
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 to Present - Cheta
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
HST 145 Archaeology of and in the Modern World - Haines
See ANT 145.
HST 211 Medieval and Renaissance Europe - Herrick
This course surveys the history of Europe and the Mediterranean world from the Late Roman Empire to the Renaissance and early Reformation Era. The first unit of the semester (c. 300-1000 CE) concentrates on the rise of Christianity, the end of Roman rule in western Europe, and the development of three distinct civilizations along the Mediterranean Sea: The Latin West, Byzantium, and Islam. The course’s second unit (1000-1400) examines the struggle between church and state, crusading and holy violence, the rise of towns and states, and trends in late medieval religion. Consideration will be given to persecution and, in particular, conditions for women and Jews throughout Europe. The final unit of the course (1400-1517) explores the close of the Middle Ages signaled by the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy and the start of the Protestant Movement.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 214 Modern Africa: 1800 - Present - Shanguhyia
The course focuses on the history of Africa societies from the early nineteenth century through the colonial to the postcolonial period. Themes include, but are not limited to nineteenth century religious, economic, and political revolutions; European imperialism and African response; Africa and the nineteenth century global slave trade; European exploration and missionary enterprises; structure of colonial administrations; colonial economies; the nature and consequences of colonialism; social and ethnic identities; African nationalism and dissolution of European empires in Africa; postcolonial challenges; Africa and the Post-cold War world.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 300 Queen Elizabeth I - Kyle
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: Modern
HST 300 History of Capitalism in the United States - Cohen
This course considers the history of capitalism in the United States, exploring the nation from its origins as part of the British empire through its emergence as the world’s greatest financial power. In it, students will explore how canals, turnpikes, and railroads transformed the nation’s transportation network. They will discuss the rise of markets in cities and towns. Students will explore the emergence of plantation slavery, making the South the center of a global market in cotton. The course discusses how technology reshaped manufacturing. They will consider the development of an American working class and their protests against their treatment. Students will learn about the rise of modern banking, corporations, and the stock market. And the class will discuss a range of additional themes, including law, war, regulation, consumerism, de-industrialization, and white-collar work.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 300 Cultural History of AI - Lasch-Quinn
As A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) has exploded into contemporary consciousness and its uses in everyday life have expanded exponentially (ChatGPT, for example), it is vital to pause to reflect on its potential impact on nearly every realm, from education, jobs, popular culture, and entertainment to how we think of ourselves as human beings, form relationships, interact with others, and navigate other aspects of our public and private lives. In this course, we will explore AI as a cultural phenomenon through its history, imaginative portrayals in film and the arts, and current debates over its pros and cons, with special attention to the impact of the virtual world of computer technology, social media, the internet, and now AI, on the self. Comparison with earlier concepts of the self, emotion, and thought in intellectual history and cultural criticism of technology and media—with their visions of what the human person is and might strive to be—can help us assess what might be different in emerging concepts and practices.
Concentration: U.S./Native / Period: Modern
HST 300 Love & Friendship in Antiquity - van der Meer
See LIT 300
HST 300 A History of the Internet - Glazman-Schillinger
This course will provide historical context to students about the Internet, which has become the most powerful technological force shaping culture, society, politics, and wealth in the 21st Century. By engaging with cutting-edge research, this course will train students to be active archivists and historians of this unique communications medium. Beginning with the stuttering, sometimes failing government projects to connect computers to one another in the United States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom throughout the 1960s and 1970s, this course will then cover the rise of modem-based dial-up computer networks, the development of webpages and hyperlinks, the deployment of Web 2.0, and conclude with the “Walled Gardens” that define the modern American Internet. Along the way students will delve into the unique digital societies and cultures that developed in chatrooms, blogs, and comment sections. By examining online expressions of human experience, rather than the wires and bits that transmit digital communications, students will be encouraged to think critically about community formation and the increasingly dramatic impact these online cultures have had on the last five decades of offline American History. While this course will predominantly engage with the American experience of the internet, it will do so with the understanding of the internet as a global phenomenon that often eschews traditional political and geographical boundaries. A typical week in this course will involve hands-on workshops where students will connect to long-dead computer networks, seminar discussions on topics ranging from FinTech to fashion to fanfics, and in-class direction on conducting digital archaeology.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 300 World Cup 2026: History of Sport and Arab Soccer - A. Kallander
Whether called soccer, football, or futbol, the beautiful game is truly a global sport. This course explores the global dimensions of soccer from a historical perspective including debates about soccer’s relationship to the environment and energy corporations; politics and international diplomacy; masculinity, femininity, and the gender pay gap; ability and disability; immigration, refugees, and migrant labor.
FIFA, the largest international soccer association, has 211 member associations representing more nations and territories than the UN. Yet from its founding in the early 1900s and the World Cup in 1930, soccer was the product of an era of European colonial occupation and domination of much of Africa and Asia with white settler control in Oceana and the America. The first Women’s World Cup was not held until 1991, and it was not until the 21st century that Asian (Japan and South Korea), African (South Africa) or Arab (Qatar) nations hosted soccer’s greatest competition. How can we understand the global popularity of soccer alongside these inequalities? What can we learn about the social and political history of a nation through soccer and soccer fandom? This course draws examples from majority Arab states such as Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, and Qatar, to think analytically and historically about soccer in global and comparative contexts.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 300 Ghandi - Kumar
Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most recognized and inspiring figures from the twentieth century world. At the same time, he is also one of the most misunderstood and controversial leaders from modern India. Using his own writings, biopics, art, and articles, this course will shed light on Gandhi and his times; his revolutionary use of non-violence against the British empire; his opinions on nation, religion, caste, and sexuality; and his attitude to modernity, capitalism, and technology.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 301 Practicum in the Study of History - Lasch-Quinn, Hagenloh
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.
HST 309 Africa and Global Affairs 1870 - Present - Shanguhyia
This course examines the place of Africa and Africans in the context of global events and developments from the late nineteenth century 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. The idea is to identify major developments of global dimensions and analyze how and where Africa and Africans fit in them. Examples of these global events/processes 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. The topics/themes are arranged chronologically, situating them in the late pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial contexts. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach; therefore, readings include secondary sources drawn from different disciplines: history, environment, political science, international relations, anthropology, etc. Students are also assigned primary source documents that they will read alongside the themes/topics, and which they will use to write their term paper.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 310 The Early Middle Ages - Diem
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
HST 313 French Revolution: Sun King to Guillotine - Takeda
This class explores the history of early modern France in global context from the reign of Louis XIV to the French Revolution. Topics include absolute monarchy, globalization and imperial expansion, the Enlightenment and knowledge-making, the French and Haitian Revolutions.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 321 Modern China - Kutcher
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
HST 323 Modern Latin America - Jashari
In this course, we will explore Latin American history from independence to the late twentieth century. This course is broad, geographically and temporally, but no prior knowledge of Latin American history is necessary. Drawing upon primary documents, audio and visual materials, and secondary historical literature, this course will explore the nation-building process and the ways that ordinary people interacted with the state. We will also analyze the construction of racial, class, and gender hierarchies in various Latin American contexts. We draw from case studies and national histories, but we will place these historical moments within a global perspective, elucidating how Latin American actors shaped imperial practices, nation-state formation, revolutionary and counterrevolutionary dynamics during the Cold War, and innovative political practices against neoliberalism.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 333 African American History: After the 19th Century - Ruffin
See AAS 333.
HST 343 Food in Pre-Modern Europe - Herrick
This course explores the history of pre-modern Europe through its food. That is, we study what people ate, how they ate, where their food came from, what they thought about food, and how all these things changed between about 500 BCE and 1750 CE – from ancient Greece to just before the French Revolution. This focus on food will help us to understand pre-modern Europeans and how they changed the world. It will also reveal surprising things about our own eating habits. We will ask a number of questions and answer them using evidence. Some of the questions include: 1) Why did diet change over time? How did people respond to new foods? 2) How did people use food to demonstrate their beliefs and status? 3) What difference did changing diet make for society? 4) What were the environmental and geo-political impacts of different diets? 5) How did food relate to medicine? What foods or eating habits were considered healthy and unhealthy? Did people’s food choices reflect these ideas? Most of the evidence that helps us to answer these questions comes from written sources, but we will also consider other types (such as archaeology). The best evidence is in the form of primary sources, which were produced by people who lived during the events. We will work with this kind of evidence by reading documents created by the people we are studying (and translated into English) and looking at images they produced. This will show us how they saw the world. We will also read some works by modern scholars (secondary sources). These readings will give us more information about the people we are studying. They will also illustrate how scholars use evidence to answer questions about the past.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 346 International Relations in Antiquity
This course explores interstate systems of ancient Greece and Rome through international relations theory. The theoretical framework is applied to two famous historical narratives: Thucydides’ portrayal of the great Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, and Polybius’ account of the Punic Wars between the Roman Republic and its arch nemesis, Carthage. Readings feature sizable extracts from the ancient Greek historians Thucydides and Polybius, interwoven with classic works in IR theory to establish interpretive analytical frameworks for the ancient texts. Formal requirements are a series of student panel discussions, and one research paper.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 348 Queering the Middle Ages? - Diem
This course introduces students to the models and methods developed in the field of queer theory and teach them to apply them on a wide range of medieval texts (letters, novels, monastic rules, medieval historiography, legal texts etc.). Starting from John Boswell’s groundbreaking but also highly controversial work Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality we will alternate between reading and discussing major theoretical texts, historiography and medieval primary sources. The course will introduce students of all fields to tools and methods used in historical research.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern
HST 349 Women in America: Civil War to Present - Thompson
Focusing mainly on the past 150 years, this course is intended to provide an overview of women’s experiences in America from the Civil War to the present. While it is not a course on the history of feminism, it will be taught from a feminist perspective. What does that mean? Stated simply, in this class women will be considered as subjects—as actors who themselves “make history,” and not simply as passive objects of the actions of others. Moreover, it assumes the full personhood of women, the reality of discrimination against women, and the intrinsic significance of women’s experience. Beyond that, it is not expected that students in the course will share the professor’s point of view on all matters (indeed, with any luck, the class will contain a healthy diversity of backgrounds and perspectives). It should be understood from the outset that “U.S. women’s history” is not monolithic. Therefore, we will pay considerable attention to the diversity among women and their experiences over time. This diversity adds to the complexity of what we will be studying—but it also will add to the richness of understanding that I hope you will take away from this class. Student participation is not only welcome, but essential! Finally, this course also assumes the seriousness with which women's history needs to be considered—so, know from the outset that HST/WGS349 is designed to be both demanding and challenging. There is a lot of assigned reading (after all, we are dealing with a lot of long-neglected material). Though it may be impossible for you to do it all, the more you read, the more you will get out of the class (and the better your grade will be). And you are expected to do most of it! As we go along, certain readings will be noted as deserving special emphasis.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 352 History of Ancient Greece - Champion
Survey of ancient Greek political, economic, social and cultural history based on interpretation of primary sources, both literary and archaeological, from the Bronze Age through Alexander the Great.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 353 History of Ancient Rome - Champion
Survey of ancient Roman political, economic, social and cultural history based on interpretation of primary sources, both literary and archaeological, from the Bronze Age through Alexander the Great.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern
HST 356 Modern Italy - Ebner
“Italy” has only existed as a unified nation for about 165 years. This course examines the history of the modern Italian nation-state from its formation during the nineteenth century up to the present day, covering the major events in modern Italian history: the Risorgimento and Unification, the First World War, the decline of the Liberal state, the rise of Fascism, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the crisis of the Italian Republic (1990s). As we examine these events, we will explore topics such as regionalism, the Catholic Church, class conflict, poverty, social movements, immigration, terrorism, political corruption, violence, and the Mafia.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 357 Culture and Politics in Early Modern England: Henry VIII to Charles I - Kyle
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 Iand CharlesI); 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: Modern
HST 358 Democracy Ancient and Modern - Champion
Let’s go on an exciting intellectual adventure! We will study what is probably the most important, and elusive, political idea in human history: democracy. We will see that it began life in ancient Greece (in Athens, to be precise), but that both the idea and the practice of democracy have changed radically over the centuries leading up to our own times.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern
HST 365 Russia in the Twentieth Century - Hagenloh
The history of twentieth-century Europe can be understood in large part as the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The first half of the century was dominated by the antagonism between the Soviet and Fascist powers; the second half, between Soviet and Western spheres of influence in the Cold War. Likewise, if the 20th century began in 1914 with the start of WWI, it arguably ended in 1991 with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. This course has two main objectives: to examine the major issues surrounding the rise and fall of communism in Russia in the 20th century, and to give you a glimpse of what life was like for people who lived through the Soviet era.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 369 The World at War: 1914-1918, 1939-1945 - Allport
On 28 June 1914, in the city of Sarajevo, the imperial heir presumptive Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were both shot dead by a Bosnian Serb schoolboy. Within six weeks of their deaths the continent of Europe, which had enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace for a century, was at war. How the assassination of an Austrian nobleman, motivated by an obscure sectarian quarrel in the Balkans, could have triggered such a war remains much disputed by historians. What is not in dispute, however, is the catastrophic scale of what came next. For four-and-a-half years, two military coalitions waged a pitiless war of attrition against one another. When the fighting came to an end in November 1918, the old order in Europe was smashed beyond recognition. And the twenty years of peace that followed turned out to be merely a brief interlude in the conflict, for in 1939 war broke out again, this time with even greater ferocity. In hindsight, the whole period from 1914 to 1945 looks like one vast civil war, a war which not only brought an end to two centuries of European world hegemony but which also led to the ascent of the United States of America as a global superpower. In this course we will examine the origins, conduct, and consequences of Europe’s so-called ‘Second Thirty Years’ War.’ Although strategic decision-making and military operations will naturally occupy much of our attention, we will also look at some of the other, no-less-important themes of the period, such as the effects of the conflict on society and culture. Class meetings will be predominantly lecture-style. Students will complete a series of primary and secondary source readings. Assessment will be based on three in-class tests and some reading and writing assignments.
Concentration: U.S./Europe / Period: Modern
HST 372 Caste and Inequality in Modern India - Kumar
This course examines caste in India, from colonial times until today. It studies the routine reproduction of unequal caste identities, the experience of ‘impure’ personhood, and varied forms of protest undertaken against caste inequality.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 395 The History of Modern Japan - G. Kallander
Examines Japanese society from early-modern times (1600-1868) through modern (1868-1945) and postwar Japan (1945-today). Topics include: urbanization, mass culture and nationalism, popular protest, imperialism and empire, gender, war and occupation and globalization.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 401 Senior Seminar: American War in Cinema - Allport
Research techniques in the use of source material and historical evidence. Preparation of original research paper. Satisfies research requirement for history majors and minors.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HST 401 Senior Seminar: Fascism: Mussolini to the Present - Ebner
Research techniques in the use of source material and historical evidence. Preparation of original research paper. Satisfies research requirement for history majors and minors.
Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern
HST 407 Iraq: Modern Nation to US Occupation - A. Kallander
This course focuses on the history modern Iraq from roughly 1900 to the present. If Iraq appears in US news headlines it is often associated with violence, sectarian strife, hardship, and civic disintegration, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon. This class centers Iraqi experiences to understand the impact of colonialism, the dynamism of Iraqi cultural life, the strength of its labor movement, and successful socialist politics. The second half of the class turns to the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, the sanctions regime, the 2003 US invasion and its aftermath. Throughout, we will focus on the lives of Iraqis of various social classes, religious, political, and ethnic identities, and the ways in which broader social, economic, and political changes effected Iraqi men, women, and their families. Overall, this course introduces students to the dynamism of modern Iraq through a range of texts by anthropologists and historians as well as fiction and a popular blog. This class meets the requirements for IDEA courses and Critical Reflections in the College of Arts and Sciences. There are no prerequisites.
Concentration: Global / Period: Modern
HST 423 White Nationalism/Populism in Modern America - Thompson
This course will examine why White Nationalism and Right-wing Populism have become so prominent on the early 21st-century American political landscape. Although such tendencies have long been evident (consider the Second KKK in the 1920s and the Dixiecrats of the 1940s and '50s as two examples), we will explore why they have achieved such significance in recent years. Among the questions we will consider are these: To what extent is there continuity between earlier forms of right-wing radicalism and those we see today? Was the emergence and ongoing influence of Donald Trump (and pro-Trump groups like QAnon, Proud Boys, Militias, and America First) a cause or consequence of the surge in such beliefs?In what ways are US developments distinctive, and how are they part of a global authoritarianist wave? How has social media enabled the development of movements like these? Throughout the term, emphasis will be on reading, reflection, and discussion.
Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern
HONORS ONLY
HST 429 Native American History from 1830 to the Present - Luedtke
To a large extent, the history of Native America from the nineteenth century on is a history of violence, dehumanization, and erasure. A cursory look at standard US history textbooks reveals a portrayal of Native peoples as obstacles or barriers to manifest destiny, or the American mission to expand westward to the Pacific coast, spreading civilization and modernity along the way. This standard narrative of US history tends to describe Native Americans as fighting valiantly against settler encroachment in the late nineteenth-century Indian Wars before finally disappearing before the might of the United States' vastly superior military. Textbooks and common history curricula give Native peoples very little in the way of representation after the turn of the twentieth century. This course shifts the narrative lens to center Native perspectives and agency in the history of the United States from the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 to the present day.
Concentration: U.S./Native / Period: Modern
HST 430 History of Native American Culture through Film and Literature - Luedtke
For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Native American peoples were represented in popular culture mediums primarily by non-Natives. Such representations tended to paint Native peoples as less than human (either Noble or Ignoble Savages) and ahistorical (only capable of existing in the past). These representations led to the perpetuation of the myth of the “vanishing Indian.” The damage caused by degrading and demeaning representations reverberates through the hundreds of distinct, extant, modern, adaptive, sovereign, and still culturally vibrant Native communities that exist in the present-day United States and Canada. However, as this course argues, Native peoples have continuously fought to regain control over their own representation ever since non-Natives first began to paint them as inferior and disappearing. This course is an exploration of the history of Native representation in the popular mediums of film and literature. We will look at representations by both Native and non-Native people (though we will lean heavily to Native productions of film and literature), and we will discuss the implications of those representations in both historical and contemporary contexts. Each week will focus on a different theme or issue that affects Indigenous communities in the 2 present, and we’ll look to the past to discuss how those issues have been (mis)remembered or forgotten by mainstream society.
Concentration: U.S./Native / Period: Modern
For any questions regarding the History Program please contact:
Director of Undergraduate Studies: Professor Radha Kumar at rkuma100@syr.edu or
Academic Coordinator: Christina Cleason at cmcleaso@syr.edu or 315-443-2210
All undergraduate forms should be submitted electronically to Christina Cleason via email for processing.