Class Schedules

This course explores the history of tourism in the modern world from a global perspective. We will consider how tourists engaged with transnational processes like world war, decolonization, and global economic shifts that allowed for the slow and uneven democratization of leisure travel over the course of the twentieth century. We will also investigate the ways that racism and other forms of discrimination have become deeply embedded in global travel networks and infrastructure. Over the course of the semester we will "visit" a wide range of locales, traveling from the United States and its Pacific empire to Antigua, the Soviet Union, and Peru. As we "tour" the globe, we will contemplate a range of transportation options, including the role that cars, trains, and planes played in shaping the evolution of global tourism. Meets the global and/or comparative requirement for the history major and can count towards the "Colonization and Empire," "Race and Indigeneity," or "Global/Comparative" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of the history of Africa before 1800, this course covers the major themes relating to the development of African societies and cultures from the earliest times. Students will engage with themes of state-building, trade and religion as catalysts for change and learn how historians have reconstructed the history of early Africa. This course will provide students with knowledge of specific case studies from North, South, East, West, and Central Africa. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In the Plan of Union prepared during the 1754 "Albany Convention," Anglo-American colonists met to consider uniting as a loose confederation for their common defense and to ally with the Iroquois confederacy. That plan failed, but a later experiment in unity succeeded when the united colonies declared independence. Nevertheless, social, cultural, and ideological differences persisted, and the union formed in 1776 was tried and tested before finally fracturing with the secession of South Carolina, precipitating the Civil War. In the intervening years, Americans grappled with how they should govern themselves, who should be included in the polity, and how society should be organized. Reformers considered the controversial issues of women's rights, the role of Native Americans within the US, and the place of slavery in a nation founded on the precept that "All men are created equal." This course covers the periods of the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the early national and antebellum periods, before concluding with the Civil War. It also considers the global causes and consequences of the war and the rise of the new United States. We will also analyze the construction of the myth and historical memory of Alexander Hamilton, the founding father who has captured the imagination of people in the modern U.S.  Through a study of the recent biography of Hamilton along with the music and stage production of Hamilton, we will consider both the biographical and mythical Alexander Hamilton in order to understand his era and our own. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces the cultures and societies of China, Japan and Korea from the earliest times to the present day. Primarily an introductory course for beginners in East Asian civilization, this course considers a variety of significant themes in religious, political, economic, social and cultural developments in the region. Meets global and/or comparative history requirement. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Asia" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course offers a general survey of the complex and heterogeneous region we somewhat reductively term Latin America. It follows a roughly chronological approach, beginning with the eve of encounter and continuing through the contemporary era. Discussions will consider themes such as the institution and legacy of colonialism, the search for new national identities, and the onset of modern racial and political strife. The course will emphasize the import of global economic, political, and cultural trends on the formation of the region. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Latin American/Caribbean" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Colonization and Empire; Race and indigeneity; Asia; Global/International. Encompassing a vast and diverse region that includes the present-day states of India,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bhutan, SouthAsia is home to a fourth of the world’s population. What was political, social, and culturallife in this region like before modernity? How did the plural religious, linguistic, andsocial identities that shape everyday life emerge? How did the encounter withcolonialism reshape the contemporary trajectories of South Asian cultures? Proceedingchronologically, we will explore important themes that continue to inspire a rich historicalscholarship, namely: processes underlying the integration of diverse cultural traditionsacross the Indian Ocean; the emergence, and consolidation of Indo-Persian kingshipand attendant forms of socio- cultural life; changes wrought upon this landscape by thearrival of European colonial rule; and the postcolonial trajectories of South Asiansocieties. We will explore these changes by engaging with sources and scholarship ondifferent genres and mediums of communication ranging from art, architecturalpractices, music, film, fiction, and ethnography. This course will not only introduce youto critical issues for understanding contemporary South Asia but also to culturalpractices and modes of representation unique to the region. By examining the past withan eye to its contemporary relevance, we will investigate why premodern identities andhistories remain at the center of debates about politics and culture in contemporarySouth Asia.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The French called it “le lac superieur,” or “the uppermost lake.” Later visitors, overwhelmed by its size and strength, called it an “inland sea.” For Ojibwe people, though, it was and always has been Gichigami: home to the place where the food grows on water, the place prophesied to be their homelands. This class centers Indigenous histories of Lake Superior, from the fur trade and fisheries to treaty rights and tribal national parks, looking especially at the lake’s cultural, economic, and environmental role in Indigenous pasts, presents, and futures.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The course examines the post-World War II Civil Rights Movement led by African Americans in the United States.  In the class, students will analyze key people, issues, events, and debates within movement history, including, but not limited to, gender and leadership; struggles for civil rights in the south, west, and urban north; the impact of the Cold War on race relations; student activism; movement strategies; and the emergence of Black Power.  Throughout the semester, students will read a wide variety of primary and secondary texts to illuminate the activities and life stories of individual participants as well as the broad historical forces that characterized this long era of insurgency.   Can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The objective of this course is to explore the role that women have played in the development of African history and to understand the major issues that define their experience as women from this region of the world. This course introduces students to the ways in which gender is studied in African history and to the major "break-through" works on women in African history. An important component of this course is the study of life histories of women from various geographical regions of the continent. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines Native history to 1871 -- the year that Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations -- by considering the multifaceted histories and experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. By looking at Native interactions with (and resistance to) Spanish, French, British, and American explorers, settlers, missionaries, militaries, and government officials, this course argues that Native history is essential to understanding past as well as present issues. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Since the 1960s historians have revisited early American history to identify populations on the margins and historical actors whose stories and experiences were neglected in the traditional canon of history. Historians of women made some of the first forays into this important work of recovery. Building up the foundations produced by women's historians, the field of gender and sexuality studies have flourished and enriched the narratives of American history. This course examines American peoples and cultures from the 16th through early 19th centuries to uncover the ways in which gender and sexuality shaped the formation of an early American society. Particular attention will be given to the way that ideologies of gender and sexuality shaped early concepts of race and the development of North American political institutions. Can count towards "Gender," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines traditions of 20th century African American women's activism and the ways in which they have changed over time.  Too often, the narrative of the "strong black woman" infuses stories of African American women's resistance which, coupled with a culture of dissemblance, makes the inner workings of their lives difficult to imagine. This course, at its heart, seeks to uncover the motivations, both personal and political, behind African American women's activism. It also aims to address the ways in which African American women have responded to the pressing social, economic, and political needs of their diverse communities. The course also asks students to consider narrative, voice and audience in historical writing, paying particular attention to the ways in which black women's history has been written over the course of the twentieth century. Can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

People have always had to contend with the natural world, but only recently have historians begun to explore the changing relationships between people and their environment over time. In this course, we will examine the variety of ways that people in North America have shaped the environment, as well as how they have used, labored in, abused, conserved, protected, rearranged, polluted, cleaned, and thought about it. In addition, we will explore how various characteristics of the natural world have affected the broad patterns of human society, sometimes harming or hindering life and other times enabling rapid development and expansion. By bringing nature into the study of human history and the human past into the study of nature, we will begin to see the connections and interdependencies between the two that are often overlooked. Meets History's post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Environment," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What causes people to change their religious beliefs? How have societies handled those who do alter their spiritual attitudes? This course focuses on several dramatic case studies of men and women who self-consciously changed their religion during the turbulent period of imperial encounters between the mid-1500s and the 1700s. Among others, we will examine and interrogate reports of converts to Christianity including Jewish and Muslim prisoners of the Inquisition, captives of Mediterranean pirates, and the nearly canonized Mohawk convert Catherine Tekakwitha. We will consider how violence, national loyalties, gender, charisma, local power dynamics, environmental upheaval, and serendipity affected the choices and fates of these converts. This course fulfills both the global/comparative and pre-1800 requirements for the major. Meets the pre-1800, and the global and/or comparative history requirements, and can count towards "Law and Social Justice," or "Global/Comparative" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class examines the Atlantic commerce in enslaved Africans that took place between 1500 and 1800. We will explore, among other topics, transatlantic commerce, the process of turning captives into commodities, the gendered dimensions of the slave trade, onboard experiences, resistance to the trade, Africans in the Americas, and the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Students will read a range of primary and secondary sources in order to gain a more complex understanding of the trade and how it changed over time. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields within the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A survey of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet history from the Russian Revolution to the present. Topics include the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Bolshevik rule and its tsarist heritage, Soviet "monocratic" society under Lenin and Stalin, dissent in the USSR, the "command economy" in the collapse of Communist political power, and national consciousness as an operative idea in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Can count toward History's "Europe" and "post-1800" and "Colonization/Empire" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Rather than approaching the history of Europe in wartime solely through the lens of military history or the history of international relations, this course will also delve into European culture, politics, and society in the period 1914-1945 and will explore the ways that both world wars profoundly changed the lives of Europeans living at the time, as well as the landscape of Europe itself. We will take a peripatetic approach, diving into different themes in different places and times. We will explore, for example, the lives of a young British nurse and a young German soldier during the First World War. We will grapple with the experiences of a concentration camp survivor during the Holocaust. We will think about the ways that critics of empire drew on the experiences of fascism in the twentieth century to build their case against colonialism. And finally, using more contemporary accounts and news coverage, we will consider the legacies of these two transformative wars and think about how they shape our conceptions of Europe and Europeans today. The class will strongly emphasize the development of research and writing skills. We will engage with a wide range of primary source material and students will conduct historical research on a topic of their choice, culminating in a major research paper that they will present as part of an in-class research conference. Can count towards "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Europe" or "Post-1800" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Colonization and Empire, Global/Comparative, Post-1800, Environment. This course examines the relationship between empire and environment in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union from the 18th to the 20th century. How did imperial expansion and socialist projects transform the livelihoods and landscapes of Northern Eurasia? Using primary and secondary sources, we will explore this question and consider how both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union enacted policies that sought to tame and protect the environment of Northern Eurasia. Among the topics that we will discuss are the conquest of Siberia and the Far East; fur trade, hunting, and animal extinction; the Arctic environment; agricultural landscapes, famines, and food resources; the Virgin Land Campaign; Soviet industrialization; the exploitation of labor and nature in the Gulag; nuclear landscapes; environmental disasters and mysteries (Chornobyl, the Aral Sea, and the Tunguska meteorite).

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

'Us vs. Them: the Cold War and its Culture' explores the politics, cultural exchanges, and ideological battles that defined the Cold War era, 1945-1991. Perspectives on the decades-long standoff will include not only the superpowers in the East and the West but also the socialist bloc of nations and the peoples and states shaking off the chains of colonialism.Discover how the intense rivalry and the specter of nuclear annihilation shaped global politics, economics, and societies, from the space race and the arms race to proxy wars fought on foreign soils. This course delves into the fears, strategies, and motivations that drove the actions of the United States, the Soviet Union, their allies, and the newly independent nations, providing a nuanced understanding of their interrelations.However, the Cold War's legacy is not solely one of political and military maneuvers; it also sparked significant cultural exchanges that influenced music, literature, film, and art, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary culture. During this period, culture became a frontier for competing ideologies, and it shaped how individuals and communities across different political and ideological spectrums navigated this complex era of suspicion and cooperation.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the four significant periods of theater history (Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and Restoration) through learning about the historical context, the physical theater elements, the plays that defined the time and the playwrights who wrote them. Students will engage with script analysis of the plays through staged readings.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Much about the mainstream narratives of queerness and gender transgression have been determined by powerful, cis-dominated institutions, still even to this day: the media, schools, police, the law, doctors and psychiatrists. These are institutions structured by a racialized, heteronormative gender binary, and for whom trans people pose a problem to be managed. Oral history offers the possibility for queer and trans people to tell their own stories, and, in doing so, give more nuanced, complex analysis of identity, activism, and of the intersectional operations of systems of power. Oral history also makes room for the complex interplay of joy, playfulness, grief, anxiety, and connection that makes queer and trans life so valuable. In this course, students will have hands-on experience building an archive of queer and trans oral histories in the context of the pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. In this community-engaged course we will work closely with the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota, learning about oral history methodology, interview techniques, and having the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews and contribute to an online archive of queer and trans oral history. In particular, this semester, students will have the opportunity to work on an ongoing collaborative research project entitled "The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha," which uses oral history and archival research to grapple with the layers of history at the Lake/Minnehaha intersection in South Minneapolis, from the legacies of colonialism, to the intersecting systems of racialized capitalism that unevenly expose some members of the community to homelessness, policing, and violence, to the narratives of racialized gender that animate these struggles over space.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This seminar considers the interaction between visual culture and the establishment of global empires. It will include examples from the early modern and modern era, beginning with the establishment of European colonization of the Americas and parts of Asia in the 16th century and continuing through semicolonial projects of the 20th century. The course will focus on the interaction between visual representation of empire and the constitution of empire building. The course will follow a broadly chronological focus but will be organized thematically according to forms of visualizing imperial constructions of such topics as racial difference, scientific and technological development, landscape and environmental determinism, and the broader cult to rationality that undergirds the project of "modernity". Students will work with primary and secondary materials to develop original research projects. Counts toward the Global/Comparative, Race and Indigeneity, and Colonization/Empire fields in the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The senior seminar is taught every fall on themes that cross chronological and geographic lines. Past themes have included Memory, Migration, Gender and Micro-History.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is designed to introduce students to the history of Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines major themes relating to change in the colonial period such as European conquest and imperialism, the development of the colonial economy, African responses to colonialism and the rise of nationalist movements that stimulated the movement towards independence. Students will examine these themes by applying them to case studies of specific geographic regions of the continent. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice" or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course we will learn about African history through the stories that Africans themselves have told about their own lives. We will use oral history, songs of West Africa's griots; slave narratives; political autobiographies; theatre and film to explore the personal narration of lived experience. To guide our class discussions we will also consult scholarly essays about life history as a genre, to help us understand the methodology behind the production of these important texts. Class activities will include seminar discussions, writing workshops, a field trip and intermittent background lectures. Each student will carry out an individual research project on their topic of choice. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This is an introductory course that will use a global/comparative approach to introduce students to the ways that historians think about gender. We will examine historical narratives and theories by exploring scholarly monographs and articles, historical novels, podcast episodes, visual art, and debates on social media and in popular culture. This course will emphasize critical reading skills and will also introduce students to the basic tenets of historical research and writing. Meets the pre- and post-1800 requirements and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice."

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In Motion is an introduction to modern African American History from slavery to contemporary times. In Motion emphasizes the idea that both African Americans and the stories of their lives in the United States are fluid, varied and continually being reinterpreted. Rather than a strict chronological survey, this course is organized thematically. Some of the important themes include movement/mobility/migration; work/labor; resistance to systems of oppression; gender/sexuality/culture/performance; politics/citizenship; and sites of (re)memory. While the course is geographically situated in the United States, we will also consider African American life, culture, thought and resistance in global perspectives. In this course, students will read important historical texts, both primary and secondary, engage in discussion, write essays, and make and analyze creative work in digital and traditional art media to critically engage the history of African Americans in the US. Note for Art and Art History majors/minors: this course will count as a Studio Art Elective if taken as ART 294: please ask the Art and Art History Chair to submit a note in Degree Works upon successful completion of the course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The American West is central to the construction of America's identity and popular culture.  The mythology of the American West, built on a narrow foundation of Euro-American settlement and conquest, is critical to understanding the role of the West in the national narrative of American history. Using a variety of materials, including films, art and photography, literature, and historical sources, this course will examine how writers, artists, actors, settlers, and government officials, among others, shaped the creation of the mythic West.  This course will investigate what - and who - is and is not considered part of this mythology, as well as the ways in which these constructs attempted to make sense of the diverse populations converging in the West. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The experiences of African-descended peoples in the Americas, both in slavery and freedom, varied enormously across geography and changed over time. Focusing on North America and the Caribbean before 1865, this course will highlight ways that people suffered under systems of slavery but also explore how they struggled against bondage, created new identities, and formulated a distinctive Black Protest Tradition. The course will interrogate the changing ways that race functioned legally, politically, and culturally before 1865. It will also examine the various ways that Africans in the Americas resisted legal enslavement through violence, political activism, and cultural creativity. Because this is a history course, we will examine the nature of sources, including archives, to consider how we know what we know about the past. Can count towards "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines Native history since 1871, the year Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations. By focusing on Native sovereignty, resistance, and the exercise of treaty rights, this course highlights histories and contemporary experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

People have always had to contend with the natural world, but only recently have historians begun to explore the changing relationships between people and their environment over time. In this course, we will examine the variety of ways that people in North America have shaped the environment, as well as how they have used, labored in, abused, conserved, protected, rearranged, polluted, cleaned, and thought about it. In addition, we will explore how various characteristics of the natural world have affected the broad patterns of human society, sometimes harming or hindering life and other times enabling rapid development and expansion. By bringing nature into the study of human history and the human past into the study of nature, we will begin to see the connections and interdependencies between the two that are often overlooked. Meets History's post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Environment," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores cross-cultural encounters in the Americas that characterized the meetings of Europeans, Africans, and Americans in the early modern world between 1492 and 1763.  During this period, the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent land masses became critical locations for economic, biological, and cultural exchanges.  This course focuses on the Americas as sites for discovery, mutual incomprehension, and exploitation.  The course explores the ways that conquest, resistance, and strategic cooperation shaped peoples' "new worlds" on both sides of the Atlantic. It also considers how colonialism framed and was framed by scientific inquiry, religious beliefs, economic thought, and artistic expression.  Students interrogate primary sources-written, visual and aural--that emerged from these encounters and the secondary literatures that have sought to make sense of them. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa and Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will trace the history of European politics, culture, and society from the end of the Second World War to the present. We will explore topics such as postwar reconstruction and memory, the creation of the European Union, the Cold War, the disintegration of Europe's overseas empires, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and the ongoing challenges of responding to an increasingly diverse cultural landscape in Europe today. Throughout the course we will ask: In what ways is the history of postwar Europe a story of recovery, integration, and unification, and in what ways is it a story of a continent haunted by growing divisions between different cultures, political systems, and values? In order to answer these questions and to situate Europe within a broader global framework, we will explore a wide range of sources, including film, art, memoirs, journalistic accounts, political speeches, and government documents. Our exploration of these sources will be coupled with a reading of historian Tony Judt's "magisterial" account of Europe since 1945: Postwar. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Europe" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of leading institutions and movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-century China. Major emphases include the impact of Western imperialism, intellectual and cultural changes, the transformation of peasant society through revolution, the rise of Mao Tse-Tung, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and the rise of China as a world power. Special attention will be given to China's international relations. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Asia" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

From c.1850-1950 the world's cities transformed as never before. Across the globe, these burgeoning metropolises were reconstituted as massive stages for the economic and cultural transformations of the day - the sites of industrialization, centralized planning, mass transport, and the locus of global migration. This course will trace the broader history of global urbanization during this period with an emphasis on how these processes were represented and imaged by nineteenth and twentieth-century urbanites. How was the modern city conceived as it transformed beyond all recognition? How did the global scope of the modern city impact these images? How were new technologies incorporated into this radical re-imagining of the modern city? And how did these images travel across the globe, themselves spurring further urbanization as they went? Geographically, the class introduces the radical transformation of urban morphology that began in mid-19th century European cities such as Manchester, London, Paris, Vienna and engages the transfer and reinterpretation of such processes on global cities from Kolkata to Moscow to Mexico City to Rio de Janeiro to Chicago and back, often to Paris. The class also engages classic and contemporary urban theory, artistic representations, and other narratives of the modern city. Meets the global and/or comparative history and the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Environment," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Global/Comparative" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

During the Cold War, Latin America was a decidedly "hot zone." This course considers this phenomenon as a result of internal and external pressures, including political and socioeconomic instability, a deep tradition of revolutionary and socialist activism, and the region's conflictive relationship with the United States. The class examines dramatic moments of the Latin American Cold War, such as the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, and the Dirty Wars in Chile and Argentina. It also examines less heralded aspects of the Latin American Cold War, such as its important role in fostering transhemispheric solidarities, the creative possibilities of Cold War cultural production, the emergence of a youth counterculture, and the many attempts by Latin Americans across the political spectrum to reject the premise of the Cold War altogether. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Latin American/Caribbean" field.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This advanced course is required for majors. It examines the various forms of analysis used by historians through a study of different kinds of historical texts and sources. It provides an opportunity for students to develop the skills and habits of thinking essential to practicing the discipline of history. This course invites students to address some of the myriad questions and controversies that surround such historical concepts as "objectivity," "subjectivity," "truth," "epistemology," and thereby to develop a "philosophy" of history. At the same time, it stresses the acquisition of such historical tools as the use of written, oral, computer and media sources and the development of analytical writing skills. The subject matter for study changes each year. Recent themes of the course have been memory, empires, and class formation.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Religion and Law in Africa is an intermediate cross-listed history and religion course designed to teach students how to think like historians and assess how the legal systems of indigenous African societies have been shaped by their respective religions and cosmologies. This course also explores how Arab migration and European colonization in different parts of Africa imposed new legal systems that were influenced by either Islam or Christianity. The major themes of this class include African agency, indigenous African forms of knowledge and periodization, the interconnectedness of religious, legislative, and judicial facets of African societies, and diversity among African regions, societies, ethnic groups, religions, and languages. It counts toward the Legal Studies and African Studies concentrations. For history, it meets either the pre-1800 or post-1800 requirement and can count towards the “Law & Social Justice,” or “Race and Indigeneity,” or “Africa & Atlantic World” fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In 1947, India embarked upon one of the world’s most ambitious experiments in postcolonial democracy. This course surveys the history of the Indian state and society in the decades following the formal end of colonial rule, as the country sought to rebuild its economy, institute a new political system, and usher in large-scale social change. GivenIndia’s immense cultural and social diversity, this was no easy task. It required answering a range of questions: How would the state ensure the rights of the country’s minorities? How would the country’s model of economic growth address wide-ranging demands for social equality? Which of India’s many languages would be designated its official language? Underlying all these questions were debates concerning the history, present, and future of Indian society. In this course, we will consider postcolonial India from its “margins”, that is, by centering the perspectives of migrant workers, Dalits, women, and revolutionaries among others. We will use the ideas and practices crafted by these groups as our guides in assessing the political record of the Indian state. Through a combination of secondary texts and a range of primary sources from postcolonial Indian history, we will develop a complex picture of the relationship, often contradictory, between the promises of democracy, development, and decolonization in postcolonial societies. This course meets the following history department fields: Colonization and Empire, Law and Social Justice, Asia, Global/International. You do not require any prior knowledge of Indian history or languages for this course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class will examine the origins, nature, and legacies of mass terror and the Gulag in the Soviet Union. We will examine the everyday experiences of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders in prisons, camps, and exile settlements. We will also consider how the Gulag fits into the global histories of concentration camps and mass incarceration.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The USSR was a peculiar type of state: an empire that promoted selective forms of national expression and some national groups. Through case studies, this course will examine how the Soviet Union was shaped by seemingly contradictory policies and practices, including the establishment of ethnic homelands, the forced deportations of "enemy" ethnic groups, labor migration, and inter-ethnic conflicts.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The end of colonialism and the emergence of new independent states in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Middle East has been one of the most formative processes that has shaped the world we live in today. This research seminar will explore the process of decolonization in the twentieth century as the end of empire was negotiated between colonial states, former colonial subjects and citizens, international organizations, and a plethora of non-state actors. We will research and discuss several case studies of decolonization in different parts of the world, and we will especially emphasize the international dimensions and global interconnectedness that characterized the dismantling of imperial structures and regimes in the course of the twentieth century. Students will produce a twenty-page research paper using primary and secondary sources. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Global/Comparative" fields. Prerequisite(s): One 100- or 200- level history course or consent of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Taking inspiration from a volume of pathbreaking feminist essays from South Asia, this course asks: can there be a history of sexuality in India that does not start with the Sanskrit treatise kamāsūtrā (400-200 BCE) and end with the modern day kamasutra (India’s preferred condom brand)? Instead, we will investigate how new regimes of sexuality are produced, policed, and challenged in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. We will explore how laws, leisure, and sexual “deviance” shape our understandings and experiences of sexuality. How have social and political movements challenged existing ideas about licit and illicit sexuality? We will explore the production of sexuality across multiple sites—fields, factories, temples, theater, fiction, Hindi films and more. We will also engage with the worlds and work of social actors who have countered existing regimes of sexuality to produce new understandings of the relationship between the ethical, material, and affective dimensions of gender and sexuality. This course will not only introduce you to the history of sexuality in colonial and contemporary South Asia, but it will also animate debates about gender and sexuality in our current moment. This course meets the following History Department field requirements: Gender; Colonization and Empire; Asia; Global/Comparative/International. You do not require any prior knowledge of South Asian history or languages for this course.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Join the conversations around class and the development of the labor movement in the US from the late 1800s to the present day through the lens of the theater and the people who worked in it. We will ask how the economic and political landscape shaped their working conditions, and how the arts themselves then shaped that same landscape. We will engage with this great conversation through 9-10 plays on power, labor and class struggle and analyze them in their context both as pieces of theatrical entertainment and political statements. Throughout the semester, students will also research parallel developments in other parts of the world and will present a research and analysis paper comparing and contrasting their findings with the material presented in class. Not appropriate for First-Year students.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials