Class Schedules

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

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

This course surveys the political, economic, and cultural development of the peoples of the ancient Greek world from the late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic era. Students will hone their critical thinking skills while working with translations of ancient literature, archaeological remains and works of art. The basic structure of the course is chronological, but we will examine major themes across time and space, which may include the interaction between physical landscape and historical change; rule by the one, the few and the many; the nature and development of literary and artistic genres; the economic, military, and/or cultural dimensions of empire; or the intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, slave/free status and civic identity in the Greek world.  Meets History Department pre-1800 requirement.

General Education Requirements:

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 examines the history of childhood and youth in the United States. The historical voices and perspectives of childhood that we study will pay close attention to the significance of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, time periods, and social settings. Some questions we will consider relevant to the study of history: Do children have agency? What is the role of children as subjects in history? How has childhood been socially and historically constructed? Why are children such galvanizing social and political symbols? How is identity shaped in childhood and what impact does this have on adult society at certain historical moments? Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields.

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

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This is an introductory course focused on African-American history and the places it inspired. We will examine the ideological, political, economic, and cultural make-up of the Black musical traditions in the United States. The basic themes of this course will include: Black geographies; historiography; visual art and design; African American literature; the spatial revolution; and Afrofuturism. Fields: Africa and Atlantic World, North America, Race and Indigeneity, Public History.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This is an introductory course focused on African-American history and the music it inspired. We will examine the ideological, political, economic, and cultural make-up of the Black musical traditions in the United States. The basic themes of this course will include: musicology; historiography; visual art and design; Gospel traditions; Blues Legacies; the Jazz revolution; and Hip Hop transformations. Fields: Africa and Atlantic World, North America, Race and Indigeneity, Public History.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Revolutions in the United States and Haiti transformed the late eighteenth-century Atlantic World. The emerging new republics influenced each other as both nations wrestled with the meanings of race and citizenship. How did revolutionary-era Haitian's politics, history, and cultures influence the early United States? How have North Americans ascribed meaning to the Haitian revolution? In U.S. politics and popular opinion, North Americans have exoticized Haiti by emphasizing voodoo religion, “octoroon” women, and spicy Creole cuisine. Later US history focuses on the nation’s invasions and influence on Haiti, especially in the 20th century. But connections between the two mattered long before that. In this course students will examine primary sources, including political speech, food, fiction, and expressive culture, to explore how the reverberations of the Haitian Revolution shaped the early United States. Fields: Africa and Atlantic World, Colonization and Empire, Race and Indigeneity, Global/Comparative.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What constitutes a disaster in human history, and who decides this? How have explanations for and responses to calamity changed over time and place? What does it mean to describe a disaster as natural, social, or political? How have disasters intersected with racial and socioeconomic inequalities, colonialism and capitalism? In this course, we will consider what historians bring to the table in the growing, interdisciplinary field of disaster studies, surveying select case studies of disaster from across time and around the world that include plague, fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, revolutions, warfare and pollution. We will also consider how writing and disaster converge: Can trauma be captured in prose, and can it be useful to approach our own writing as catastrophic? Fields: Global and Comparative, Environment, Law and Social Justice.

General Education Requirements:

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. This course is suitable for first-year students. (4 credits)

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," and 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 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

This course examines the Russian empire (1689-1917) within a global historical narrative. We will explore the formation and collapse of the Russian empire, paying special attention to its role within larger world developments and the experience of the diverse peoples that populated its territory. Considering external and internal processes, we will examine the numerous challenges that the Russian Empire faced throughout two and a half centuries. Of particular significance are its relationship with the West, Russia's imperialism, and the issues of modernization. Can count towards History's "Europe" and "pre-1800" and "Race/Indigeneity" and "Colonization/Empire" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Through the study of Russian films starting from the silent era up to the present day, the course will explore how storytelling in cinema differs from that in history and fiction, as well as how power relations, technology, and aesthetics shaped cinematic depictions of major historical events in Russia and the Soviet Union, from medieval times to post-Soviet era. Students will view and analyze films that are among the essential Russian contributions to world cinema, by directors including Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Mikhalkov, and Sokurov. Course readings will draw upon film theory, history, fiction, and memoirs. We will use our readings to create a conceptual framework for examining the films as narratives about real events, as vehicles of propaganda, and as imaginative works of art. In addition to attending weekly film screenings and discussing the films and readings in class, students will give presentations on topics of their choice arranged in consultation with the instructor. Can count towards History's "Europe" field.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

After a brief but essential global history of drugs, this course will focus primarily on the 20th century to the present. We will examine histories of substance use and abuse, temperance and prohibition, the "War on Drugs," the shifting concept of addiction as a moral failing to addiction as a treatable disease, as well as study the history of the recovery movement and harm reduction. This course is not intended to be an exhaustive, comprehensive history of the subject-but it will provide you with a solid base from which to explore other aspects of this fascinating and contentious aspect of human history. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course presents an historical overview of the interaction between artists, the state, and national identity in Latin America. After an introduction to the import of images to crafting collective identities during the colonial era and the 19th century, we will focus on the 20th century. Topics to be discussed include the depiction of race, allegorical landscapes and architectures, the art of revolution, and countercultures. Multiple genres will be explored with an emphasis on the visual arts, architecture, and popular music. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Latin American/Caribbean" field.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
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

In this co-taught, cross-listed History and English course, we will use baseball as a lens to explore historical movements and literary genres. In the history half of the course, we will consider the past two hundred years, both in the United States and abroad, making connections between Jackie Robinson and desegregation, free agency and the labor movement, American empire and the globalization of the game, and an Indigenous women’s softball team and shifting gender roles in Yaxuna, Mexico. In the literary half of the course, we will read and discuss writers who have used the game to better understand their personal experiences and the world around them. Readings may include fiction, essays, narrative profiles, comic book memoirs, labor histories, performance studies analyses, and oral history projects, by a wide variety of authors. We'll also go to Target Field to see a Twins game. By the end of the semester, students will have completed a personal chapbook of four short baseball essays, both literary and historical. Meets the post-1800 requirement and the Global and Comparative fields. Appropriate for first-year students.

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

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Macalester College sits on the homelands of the Dakota people. But what’s the history of the land Macalester occupies? Whose stories are told -- and who gets to tell these stories? How do language, culture, and thought shape the ways we understand the land and our relationships with it? This course will center and amplify these narratives by focusing on the past, present, and future uses of the Katharine Ordway Natural History Study Area (commonly called the Ordway Field Station) in order to help students understand the Indigenous history of Minnesota and the Twin Cities, as well as Indigenous ways of knowing and understanding non-human nature. Fields: Environment, Public History, Race and Indigeneity, North America.

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

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the dynamic and diverse cultures and people of the Maghreb – North Africa. From Carthage and other indigenous empires of North Africa, through early Christian centuries, to the arrival of Islam and its various expressions, to the “golden period” when North Africa and Spain came together, in Al-Andalusia; one of the greatest chapters of human creativity and cooperation. We conclude c.1492, and the beginning of the early modern period in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Fields: Africa and Atlantic World, Global and Comparative. Offered occasionally.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Arms race! Space race! Farm Race! Following the end of the Second World War, scientists found themselves at the center of the Cold War. Both national leaders and ordinary citizens relied on their expertise to generate new scientific knowledge and develop innovative technologies that would elevate their countries above their ideological adversaries. Yet, the Cold War was not solely a period of competition. While science became deeply entangled in international rivalries, this era also saw significant growth in transnational collaboration among scientists. This course will explore the history of Cold War scientific competition and cooperation, with a particular focus on the Soviet Union and the United States. Meets the post-1800 requirement and the Global and Comparative fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Covering the period from pre-modern times to the twenty-first century, this course places food at the center of the world history narrative. It explores the transnational histories of food commodities such as rice, tomatoes, bananas, and corn while using food as a lens to examine political, economic, cultural, and gender history, as well as the history of science and foreign affairs. The course is based on the premise that food—from cultivation to consumption—permeates every aspect of human life and, therefore, serves as a valuable framework for understanding complex historical processes such as industrialization, globalization, and cross-cultural and transnational exchange. Ultimately, the course aims to introduce students to food as a powerful analytical tool for interpreting global historical developments. Meets the pre-1800 requirement and the Global/Comparative and Environment fields. Offered occasionally.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course focuses on dance in the United States from the early 20th century to today with attention to how it has interacted with the nation’s cultural transformations. The historical study of dance as an embodied art form inevitably lends itself to an intersectional examination of how gender, race, ethnicity, and class experiences continually reflect and shape individual as well as collective identities. We will examine dance forms that have grown in and outside of concert halls, discuss seminal texts in dance and cultural studies, analyze dance videos and live performances, and write short papers that critically consider the relationship between the histories of American dance and culture over the last century. Frequency: Every other year.

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

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Although the United States accounts for just five percent of the world's population, it consumes roughly twenty-five percent of the world's total energy, has the world's largest economy, and is the world's largest consumer and generator of waste. Relative to its size, its policies and actions have had a significantly disproportionate impact on global economic development and environmental health. Mixing broad themes and detailed case studies, this course will focus on the complex historical relationship between American actions and changes to the global environment. Meets global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the History post-1800, and the global and/or comparative history requirements, and can count towards "Environment," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Global/Comparative" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the rise, expansion, and challenges of China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644–1912). Founded by the Manchus, a non-Han ruling elite, the Qing state governed a vast and diverse empire through a combination of military prowess, bureaucratic sophistication, and strategic incorporation of Han Chinese traditions. Topics include Qing government institutions, the complexities of Manchu and Han racial identity, early encounters with Westerners, and the transformative role of opium in shaping China’s 19th-century crises. Through primary sources and historical scholarship, students will examine how the Qing navigated internal stability and external pressures, setting the stage for modern China's turbulent transformations. Fields: Colonization and Empire, Race and Indigeneity, Global/Comparative. Offered occasionally.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This research seminar will explore themes of sexuality, relationships, and gender across the European continent and in Europe’s overseas empires from the French Revolution in 1789 to fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. We will focus on a broad range of topics, including reproductive rights, labor, immigration, family policy, war, political representation, and queer love. During the first half of the semester, our time will be spent on discussions of shared readings, complemented by short, foundational lectures. In the second half of the semester, you will have the opportunity to develop your own individual research project and we will work together to foster a supportive community as we grow as researchers and writers. Throughout the term, you can expect to engage in ongoing history fun in the form of History Mysteries and hands-on History Labs during class time. Can count towards "Gender," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Europe" fields. Prerequisite(s): sophomore standing or higher.

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