Courses

How to save Africa? This course will not provide an easy answer to that question. Instead, we will study how and why that query has become ubiquitous and legitimate in the first place. Salvation projects have been numerous in African history: the antislavery campaigns; the so-called civilizing mission; structural adjustment programs; and, more recently, humanitarian campaigns like "Save Darfur" and "Kony 2012." We will use recent scholarship to discuss different points of views on these projects. We will also closely read a set of primary sources -- memoirs, newspaper articles, and films on the "salvation complex" in Africa -- and we will subject them to similar questions: what did Africa need to be delivered from? Who were the agents of redemption? What were the effects of the salvation projects? How did Africans react to them? Finally, we will examine the changes and continuities between the different projects of salvation, and consider how the study of history might help us understand Africa's position in the world today. [ more ]

By the middle of the thirteenth century, Mongol armies led by Genghis Khan had conquered an enormous swath of territory, extending from China westward to Eastern Europe. Further expanded by Genghis's descendants, the Mongol Empire incorporated a vast range of different peoples and cultures, enhancing communications, trade, and exchange among them. In this course we will examine the "world order" of the Mongol Empire from its origins on the Asian steppe through its expansion, consolidation, disintegration, and legacies for later periods. From a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including travelers' accounts, chronicles, art, and literature, we will investigate the diverse experiences of the Mongol world in different places, such as China, Russia, Persia, and Central Asia. [ more ]

In the summer of 1661, a marriage alliance between the Portuguese and the British crowns resulted in the hand over of a set of seven small, swampy, spottily inhabited islands on the west coast of India to the latter. Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these islands, turned into a contiguous landmass by the British, emerged as the thriving port city of Bombay. Known today as Mumbai, it is the heart of India's commercial life comparable in vibrancy and multiculturalism with the world's foremost cities like New York and Shanghai. Yet, Mumbai also has its own unique character. In fact it is often said that Mumbai is not just a city but also a state of mind. Its vibrant culture and dark underbelly of poverty and violence have inspired numerous books and films. In this course we will explore the many narratives about Mumbai, from colonial to contemporary times to understand how this city of dreams has been imagined throughout its history. These narratives will be placed alongside recent research on the specific themes in order to understand the different elements that went into the making of this modern metropolis. [ more ]

The French Revolution was an important turning point in world history. Besides ushering in an age of liberte (liberty) and egalite (equality), it also postulated the existence of a new revolutionary fraternite (brotherhood) between peoples of all backgrounds. Would revolutionary fraternity include women, African slaves, and Jews in the new democratic polity? French men and women debated these questions in ways that have had a direct impact on our contemporary discussions of race, gender, religious freedom and ethnicity. In this course, we will explore these debates, their Enlightenment roots, and the legacy of these debates for France's minorities today. Students will be introduced to various types of historical sources (rare books, art, opera, plays), as well as to the lively historiographical debates between historians of France concerning methodology, politics, and the goal of historical research. [ more ]

Between 1096 and 1099, thousands of peasants, soldiers and nobles set out to seize Jerusalem from the Turks. Their unprecedented military expedition, which ushered in a long series of religious wars and has deeply influenced modern impressions of the Middle Ages, is known to history as the First Crusade. In this seminar, we will follow the crusaders through medieval chronicles and histories as they respond to ecclesiastical demands for military intervention in the East, travel to Constantinople, lay siege to Nicaea and Antioch, and finally capture Jerusalem. Along the way we will pause frequently to study the broader social, religious and political environment that gave birth to the crusading movement. Careful reading and discussion will drive this writing-intensive course. [ more ]

During the nineteenth and early twentieth century Europeans and their immediate offspring created the modern world. European industry, science, trade, weapons, and culture dominated the globe. After a century of general peace the continual "progress" of Western Civilization seemed assured. Then, in August, 1914, the major European powers went to war with one another. After four years of unprecedented carnage, violence, and destruction, Europe was left exhausted and bitter, its previous optimism replaced by pessimism, its world position undermined, and its future clouded by a deeply flawed peace settlement. What were the fundamental causes of the Great War? How and why did it break out when it did and who was responsible? Why was it so long, ferocious, wasteful, and, until the very end, indecisive? Why did the Allies, rather than the Central Powers, emerge victorious? What did the peace settlement settle? How was Europe changed? What is the historical significance of the conflict? [ more ]

Imperial Russia on the eve of the First World War presents a complex picture of political conflict, social and economic change, and cultural ferment and innovation. Newly emergent political parties sought to enlist mass support to transform or overthrow the tsarist regime, which in turn endeavored to preserve itself through a combination of repression, reform, and the refashioning of its image. Rapid urbanization and industrialization, and the spread of education and literacy, gave rise to social conflict and dislocation, demands for social reform, and the redefinition of individual identities and beliefs. These political, social, cultural, and economic developments provided a fertile context for the burst of literary creativity and the emergence of modernist literary and artistic movements that occurred in fin-de-siecle imperial Russia. Through a variety of primary and secondary sources, this course will explore the interrelationship in late imperial Russia between political, social, and cultural change and conflict on the one hand and literary and artistic creativity on the other. Our goal will be to gain an understanding of both the pressures that contributed to the Revolutions of 1917 and the reasons why this proved to be such a culturally creative period. [ more ]

Is there an historically distinct American way of war? How have Americans experienced warfare? From the earliest days of European settlement through the final campaigns against American Indians west of the Mississippi, Americans have often been at war. Long before the United States became a world power those conflicts had determined many of the basic contours of American society, culture, and nationhood. This tutorial will investigate the nature and development of American wars over the period 1600 to 1900. Though some attention will be paid to the American Revolution and the Civil War, the tutorial will concentrate primarily on lesser known but still historically significant wars, including King Philip's War, the Seven Years War, the War of 1812, Jackson's Indian Wars, the Mexican-American War, the Plains Indians Wars, and the Spanish American War. All but the last were fought to conclusion in North America itself. How did Americans fight these wars? How did American militaries establish control over such a huge and varied continent? What role did military institutions play in the development of a distinctive American society? Did war abet social mobility, or lend itself to social control? What role did race play in the creation and sustaining of martial goals? What was the relationship between local military institutions and centralist attempts to create a national and/or professional army? What was the impact of warfare on American culture, on concepts of masculinity, and national or community images? Despite the fact that Americans have often conceived of themselves as a peace-loving people, war from the beginning has played a key role in shaping their society and nation. It is exactly the nature, meaning, and paradoxes of American wars that this tutorial will attempt to unravel. [ more ]

The collision of cultures and peoples in colonial North America created a New World that demanded new forms of political leadership. This course explores the history of leadership from the colonial era to the Civil War through the study of consequential individuals whose actions shaped seminal moments in American history. As often as possible, the course will analyze rival leaders to understand the many different forms of leadership that existed throughout American history and how historical contexts affected individual decisions. The course opens with Powhatan, whose Native American empire spanned the East Coast of North America, and John Smith, who confronted this Indian empire as he tried to establish England's first toehold in the New World, and it ends with Abraham Lincoln, who tried to keep together a nation that Jefferson Davis aimed to destroy. In between, the course will explore colonial leaders like John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; African American leaders like Gabriel Prosser, who led a slave rebellion, and Richard Allen, a free black abolitionist; presidents like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson; First ladies like Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison; advocates for women's rights like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and others. Providing a survey of early American history through the study of these individuals, students will have a deeper appreciation of how historical processes shaped leaders--and how leaders have shaped history. [ more ]

Slavery and freedom rose as concomitant ideologies--simultaneously and interrelated--critical to the development of the American colonies and United States. Few areas of American social, political, and economic history have been more active and exciting in recent years than the study of this relationship. This seminar introduces students to the most important aspects of American slavery, beginning with an examination of the international slave trade and traces the development of the "peculiar institution" to its demise with the Civil War. [ more ]

"I am an invisible man." So begins Ralph Ellison's treatise on black life in the United States in the middle of the twentieth century. Ellison's book Invisible Man appeared in 1952, won the National Book Award, and secured a prominent place in the canons of both American and African American arts and letters. Often studied for its literary crafting and for the ways it echoes the work of classic American writers, Invisible Man iterates the black past as it affects its protagonist. This course examines the novel and its themes in historical context: debates among black ideologues and leaders; links between culture and protest; and effects of black migration and urbanization. In addition to the novel the course also includes readings in black sociology, anthropology, law, literature, political science, education, folklife, and music. [ more ]

This course will examine African Americans' transition from slavery to freedom. In the years that encompassed the Civil War and immediately after, most African Americans changed from being legal property, able to be bought, sold, mortgaged, rented out, and leveraged into U.S. citizens, with the Constitutional right to male suffrage. This course examines this transition. How did it come about? To what extent were African Americans able to exercise their rights that the constitution guaranteed? How did Emancipation shape African American family relations, culture and demography? This is a research seminar. We will examine work of historians and discuss the contradictions and nuances of emancipation. Readings will include monographs, scholarly articles and heavy dose of primary sources, as many as possible written by African Americans themselves. Assignments include an original research paper on an aspect of Emancipation. We will devote considerable time throughout the semester to finding primary and secondary sources and on the writing process. [ more ]

These two years were tumultuous ones worldwide. The escalation of the war in Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Prague, the student uprisings in Paris and Japan, and the racial politics in the Summer Olympics held in Mexico City all had their counterparts that reverberated in the streets, college campuses, the halls of Congress, movie theaters, and concert halls and rock festivals in the United States. This first-year seminar will examine some of the major events of this time period in America: the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, as well as cultural trends such as the development of the anti-war movement, the push for curricular reforms on college campuses, and the rise of the "counter culture." [ more ]

What is the history behind some of the major issues covered by the media? And what are some of the differing perspectives on and interpretations of how to address some of the most significant issues that face us all? This course will challenge students to think historically about the present by introducing the methods and conceptual tools historians use to understand the past and how that may lead to a better appreciation of contemporary society. Students will be encouraged to become more critical readers of the media and thus better assess when and how history is used and abused in the public sphere. Throughout the semester, members of the History Department will visit the class and address how their field is represented in the media and political discourse. Because of its commitment to explore how people in different societies respond to the pressing issues of the day and how people in various corners of the world are redefining and rethinking notions of rights, this course is part of the Exploring Diversity Initiative (EDI). [ more ]

This course surveys the history of Sub-Saharan African in the 19th and 20th centuries. We will explore the parallel and shared histories of informal imperialism, European conquest, colonialism, liberation struggles, decolonization, and postcolonial challenges in West, Central, East, and Southern Africa. We will particularly explore Africans' lived experiences of these two centuries of history: how have Africans been affected by the different historical processes of the 19th and 20th centuries? And how did they actively participate in shaping these processes? Course materials will include films, photographs, music, fiction, written primary sources, and recent scholarship. [ more ]

This survey course introduces some of the most fascinating figures, puzzling problems, and heated debates in Middle Eastern history. We will explore trends in the pre-Islamic Middle East; traditional and revisionist interpretations of Islamic origins; the expansion of the Islamic polity throughout the Middle East; the great Islamic caliphates based in the flourishing capitals of Baghdad and Cairo; the disruptive impact of the Crusades, Mongol conquests, and Black Death on the medieval Middle East; and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. After reading primary and secondary sources, students will be equipped to form their own interpretations of this foundational period in Middle Eastern history. [ more ]

This survey course addresses the main economic, religious, political and cultural trends in the modern Middle East. Topics to be covered include the cultural diversity of the Middle East, relations with Great Powers, the impact of imperialism, the challenge of modernity, the creation of nation states and nationalist ideologies, the discovery of oil, radical religious groups, and war and peace. Throughout the course these significant changes will be evaluated in light of their impact on the lives of a variety of individuals in the region and especially how they have grappled differently with increasing Western political and economic domination. This course is part of the Exploring Diversity Initiative because it compares the differences and similarities between different cultures and societies in the Middle East and the various ways they have responded to one another in the past. [ more ]

Both Muslim and non-Muslim historians usually see the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E. as a total break with the past. This course will challenge that assumption by placing the rise of Islam in the context of the history of late antiquity (c. 250-700 C.E.). The first portion of the course will examine the impact of Judeo-Christian monotheism in the ancient world, the rise of confessional empires, articulation of new ideas about holiness and its relation to sexuality and the transformations undergone by Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. We shall examine the conversation of these traditions with classical paganism and philosophy, the internal struggle within traditions to define rules of interpretation, the impact of ascetic, iconoclastic and apocalyptic ideas and, finally, polemics among the traditions. We will then examine the career of Muhammad (PBUH) in the context of Arabia, the spread of the Islamic empire into Christian and Iranian worlds, the impact of apocalyptic expectations, the fixation of religious decision making within the tradition, the process of conversion, the encounter with the Late Antique heritage and religious diversity within the commonwealth of Islam. The course will end with the end of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. [ more ]

China expanded from scattered Neolithic settlements to become one of the world's most complex and sophisticated civilizations. During this process, it experienced dramatic transformation as well as remarkable institutional and cultural continuities. This course will examine Chinese history from prehistoric times to the "early modern" seventeenth century. It will address topics such as the creation and transformation of dynastic authority, the reinterpretation of Confucian thought, the transmission of Buddhism, the conquest of China proper by "barbarian" peoples, the composition of elites, and change in daily life, popular culture and China's place in the East Asian and world systems. This course fulfills the Exploring Diversity Initiative requirement in that it disputes the idea of a single, stable Chinese identity throughout history, and focuses instead on the variety of cultures and cultural encounters that contributed to what we currently think of as "Chinese" history and culture. [ more ]

Observers may be struck by the apparent contradictions of contemporary China: market reforms undertaken by a nominally Communist government, extremes of urban wealth and rural poverty, increasing participation in the international community and intensifying nationalist rhetoric. This course will examine China's historical engagement with the modern world in order to gain perspective on our current views. It will cover the Qing (1644-1911) dynastic order, encounters with Western and Japanese imperialism, the rise of Chinese nationalism, Republican and Communist revolutions, the "other Chinas" of Taiwan and Hong Kong, economic liberalization, and globalization. This course is part of the Exploring Diversity Initiative in that it requires students to engage with questions of difference through studying the development of the modern Chinese nation-state from the multi-ethnic empire of the Qing and China's particular experiences of imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. [ more ]

The collapse of the Soviet Union, the recognition of untapped mineral wealth, and Islamic resurgence have all led to an increased focus on Central Asia and its neighbors, Russia, China, the Middle East. This course will be an introduction to the Caucasus, the Central Asian Republics, Xinjiang and Mongolia and the interests of their neighbors, including now the United States in those areas. This will be a lecture course that will introduce the salient themes and issues that are necessary for understanding these areas. The course will inevitably be deeply comparative focusing on themes of "the clash of civilizations," the construction of national identities, notions of ethnicity and the treatment of ethnic minorities, resurgent religious movements, and the relation of state and civil society. This course will also function as an introduction to doing social scientific research on these areas and special attention will be devoted to the preparation of a research paper. [ more ]

A stunning revolution, the construction and collapse of an empire, the waging of wars, devastating defeat and occupation by a foreign power, and postwar economic rollercoaster have marked Japan's modern experience. This course will explore how various Japanese from politicians and intellectuals to factory workers and urban youth have understood, instigated, and lived the upheavals of the past century and a half. We will ask why a modernizing revolution emerged out of the ashes of the early modern order; how Japan's encounters with "the West" have shaped the country's political and cultural life; what democracy and its failures have wrought; how world war was experienced and what legacies it left in its wake; how national identity has been constructed and reconstructed; and how postwar Japan has struggled with the successes and costs of affluence. Materials will include anthropological studies, government documents, intellectual tracts, fiction, films, and oral histories. [ more ]

This course is an introduction to the history of South Asia from prehistoric times to the emergence of "early modernity". During these centuries, the subcontinent emerged as one of the most diverse and complex regions of the world, as it continues to be even today. The course will cover the period between the rise of the Indus Valley civilization to the end of the Mughal Empire and will address topics such the as the "discovery of India", the coming of the "Aryans", society and culture in the great epics like the Ramayana, the beginnings of Jain and Buddhist thought, politics and patronage under Islamic polities, the formation of Mughal imperial authority through art, architecture and literature, among others. Through the study of social processes, the course will focus on the diversity and connectedness that have defined the subcontinent throughout its history. It will also consider the role of history in the region and how a number of events from the past continue to inform its present. [ more ]

This course will focus on the history of South Asia with the aim of providing an overview of the political and social landscape of the region from the end of the Mughal Empire through British colonial rule and the Partition of India and Pakistan. We will explore a range of themes including the rise of colonialism, nationalism, religion, caste, gender relations, and the emergence of modern social and political institutions on the subcontinent. In addition to reading key texts and primary sources on the specific themes, the course will also involve regular screenings and discussions on important, related films. [ more ]

Ancient Greece has been thought to embody the origins of Western civilization in its institutions, values, and thought; it has been seen as the infancy of modern society, with the attributes of innocence, purity, and the infant's staggering capacity for exploration and learning; it has been interpreted as an essentially primitive, violent culture with a thin veneer of rationality; and it has been celebrated as the rational culture par excellence. The study of ancient Greece indeed requires an interpretive framework, yet Greek culture and history have defied most attempts to articulate one. We will make our attempt in this course by investigating ancient Greece as a set of cultures surprisingly foreign to us, as it so often was to its own intellectual elite. But we will also come to appreciate the rich and very real connections between ancient Greek and modern Western civilization. The course will begin with Bronze Age-Greece and the earliest developments in Greek culture, and will conclude with the spread of Greek influence into Asia through the conquests of Alexander the Great. We will explore topics such as the aristocratic heritage of the city-state, the effects of pervasive war on Greek society, the competitive spirit in political and religious life, the confrontations with the East, the relationship of intellectual culture to Greek culture as a whole, Greek dependence on slavery, and the diversity of political and social forms in the Greek world. The readings will concentrate on original sources, including historical writings, philosophy, poetry, and oratory. [ more ]

This course examines the development of Roman archaeology and material culture from the early Iron Age, ca. 1000 BCE, to the end of the reign of Constantine in 337 CE. The primary goal of the course is to help students understand the social and historical context in which Roman material culture was created and used. We will consider a variety of evidence from across the empire, including monumental and domestic architecture, wall painting, mosaics, sculpture, coins and inscriptions. Special emphasis will be placed on the city of Rome; however, we will also look at other important urban centers, such as Pompeii, Aphrodisias and Lepcis Magna. Roman art and architecture were not the product of any single people or culture, but rather the hybrid synthesis of complex cultural negotiations between the Romans and their colonial subjects (i.e., Greeks, Jews, Celts, etc.). Class discussions will focus on issues related to gender, ethnicity and cultural identity in the Roman Empire. For example, we will explore what it meant to be "Roman" in terms of language, ethnicity and cultural institutions. We will also discuss how Roman elites used material culture to convey political messages and social status in the imperial hierarchy, as well as the legacy of Roman art and architecture in the modern world. [ more ]

The European world saw dramatic changes and the creation of new cultures and societies between the ancient and modern periods. This course will survey more than a millennium of history, beginning late in classical antiquity and concluding at the dawn of the modern era. We will concentrate both on developments within Europe, and on European encounters with Islam, the Byzantine East, and pagan cultures. With an approach that is both chronological and thematic, we will place the broader narrative of medieval history alongside special consideration of Europe's neighbors, social organization, medieval women, religion and piety, and education. Lectures and class discussion will receive equal emphasis. [ more ]

This course introduces students to the era of the European domination of the world, a time of revolutionary excitement and fervor, of war and travesty, of profound social and economic change, and of great intellectual ferment. Topics include the French and Russian Revolutions, the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the Industrial Revolution, German and Italian Unification, European imperialist expansion, the origins of World War I, and the environmental impact of 19th century Europeans on the world. With an eye toward exploring the origins of today's complex attitudes toward class, race, ethnicity, and gender, the course will also focus on Marxism, racism, anti-Semitism, and feminism in the nineteenth century. [ more ]

This course will offer a survey of some of the important themes of twentieth-century European history, from the eve of World War One to the end of the century. Organized topically and thematically, the course will consider European society in the fin-de-siecle period; imperialism, racism, and mass politics; the impact of the Great War on European thought, culture and society; the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia; economic and political stabilization in the 1920s; the Depression; the rise of Fascism and National Socialism; World War II and the Holocaust; the establishment of postwar social democratic welfare states; decolonization; the "economic miracle" of the 1950s; the uprisings of 1968; the development of the European Union; and the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe. Through a combination of lecture and discussion, the course seeks to introduce students to the major ideologies and institutions that shaped the lives of Europeans in the twentieth century, and to reflect on the role of ordinary people who devised, adapted, embraced, and sometimes resisted the dominant ideas and practices of their time. [ more ]

Across the entire world of the Middle Ages, no region has captured the modern pop-culture imagination as much as medieval England. From the Battle of Hastings to Magna Carta, from Braveheart to King Arthur, medieval English history and popular knowledge of the medieval past are closely linked. This course will survey the history of England from the Roman period through the reign of Richard II (AD 43--1399). We will find a great deal to detain us in these thirteen centuries, including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England and subsequent conversion to Christianity, the Viking raids of the ninth and tenth centuries, the Norman Conquest, the growth of English common law, the murder of Thomas Beckett, Edward I's campaigns in Wales and Scotland, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, and the beginning of the Hundred Years War. We will focus particularly on power and politics, but primary readings will add important social, cultural and religious context. Our meetings will emphasize lectures and discussion equally. No prior knowledge is expected. [ more ]

Between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries the princes and political elite of Muscovy created an extensive multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire in Eastern Europe and Asia. Over the next 150 years their imperial heirs transformed and extended this empire, to the point that on the eve of the Crimean War (1853-1855) many believed it to be the most powerful state in Europe. But defeat in the war exposed the weakness of the imperial regime and helped to provoke a process of state-led reform that failed to avert, and may well have contributed to, the collapse of the regime in the February Revolution of 1917. Using a combination of primary and secondary sources, this course will explore the character of the Muscovite and the Russian empires and the forces, processes, and personalities that shaped their formation, expansion, and, in the latter case, collapse. [ more ]

The October Revolution of 1917 brought to power in the debris of the Russian Empire a political party committed to the socialist transformation of society, culture, the economy, and individual human consciousness. Less than seventy-five years later, the experiment appeared to end in failure, with the stunning collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Using a combination of primary and secondary sources, this course will explore the nature and historical significance of the Soviet experiment, the controversies to which it has given rise, and the forces, processes, and personalities that shaped the formation, transformation, and ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. [ more ]

This course will examine the processes commonly referred to as the creation of "Latin America" and will do so from numerous perspectives. Starting with the construction of indigenous societies, from small and decentralized groupings to huge imperial polities-, before 1492, to the invasion of Europeans from that date forward, we will take up the question of the Iberian "conquest," looking at the often violent encounters that made up that event and analyzing its success, limits, and results. We will then study the imposition of Iberian rule from the point of view of would-be colonizers and the peoples they treated as objects of colonization, stressing the multiple and conflicting character of European, indigenous, and African perspectives. Thus looking at the Americas from both the outside-in and inside-out, we will focus on the unequal relations of power that came to define cultural, political, and economic life in the colonies, always with an eye on the gendered and racialized nature of those relations. We will also not only compare very different regions of the Iberian Americas but also see how the grand shifts of history intervened in--and perhaps consisted of--the most normal elements of daily life in northern Mexico, the central Andes, coastal Brazil, and other parts of colonial Latin America. Visual as well as more traditional written primary materials, along with secondary texts and films, will serve as the basis for our discussions throughout the semester. [ more ]

This course will examine salient issues in the history of the independent nations of Latin America. The first two sections of the course will focus on the turbulent formation of nation-states over the course of the "long nineteenth century," from the crises of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires in the late eighteenth century to the heyday of liberal political economies at the turn of the twentieth century. In this regard the course will analyze the social and economic changes of the period up to World War I and the possibilities they offered for both political order and disorder. Key topics addressed will include caudillismo, the role of the Church in politics, economic dependency and development, and the place of indigenous and African Latin-American peoples in new nations, and industrialization and urbanization. The latter two sections will examine the trend toward state-led national development in the twentieth century, considering the diverse forms it took and conflicts it generated in different nations and periods. Here we will take up questions the emergence of workers' and women's movements and the rise of mass politics; militarism, democracy, and authoritarian governments; the influence of the U.S. in the region; and the life and possibly death of revolutionary options. Within this chronological framework of national and regional political economy, we will consider the ways that various Latin American social actors shaped their own lives and collective histories, sometimes challenging and sometimes accommodating the ideals of national elites. General regional trends will be illustrated by selected national cases, including Mexico, Brazil, Agentina, Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. [ more ]

This course will provide a survey of North American history from Europe's first expansion into the New World to the American Civil War. Cast as a contest between competing empires and their peoples, the course begins in Europe and Native North America before contact and studies the expansion of European nations into the New World. The course will emphasize the history of British North America and the interactions between and among the many peoples of colonial America. The course will then examine the coming, course, and consequence of the American Revolution (or what many at the time considered America's first civil war). The new nation unleashed massive and far-reaching economic, social and political changes. The last third of the course will explore these changes in the antebellum era and trace how they affected the coming of America's second civil war. [ more ]

This course surveys themes and issues that inform the historical landscape of the United States after the Civil War and Reconstruction, from the late nineteenth century to the present. With special attention to freedom and fragmentation, the course examines the dilemmas inherent to American democracy, including: westward expansion and Indian affairs; immigration and nationalism; progressivism and domestic policy; the expanding role of the United States in the world; race, gender, and rights; and the shifting terrains of liberalism and conservatism. The course also tunes into the connections between current affairs and the American past. Course materials include a range of primary sources and historical interpretations. [ more ]

From its foundation in 1776 to the beginning of World War I in 1914, the United States developed a complex of ideas for understanding--and methods for securing--its place in the world. During this period, the nation's diplomacy went through several phases as it made the transition from a young republic struggling to conduct its diplomacy, to an expansionist power in the first half of the nineteenth century, to an emerging world power in the aftermath of the Civil War, and then to an imperialist power after the Spanish-American War. Amidst these events, U.S. statesmen and citizens constantly debated the country's proper diplomatic role and struggled to construct and propagate a unique American ideology, as well as an advantageous geo-strategic position, on the global stage. Debates about foreign relations were imbued with questions of race, nation, independence, religion, economy, law, gender, and geographic expansion; indeed, defining U.S. foreign relations was a means of defining the nation itself. Through a variety of primary sources and scholarly books and articles, this course will examine U.S. relations with external powers as well as the interactions that occurred between U.S. domestic and foreign policy during this period. [ more ]

This course explores America's engagement with the world from 1914 to the present. The First World War ushered in a new era for U.S. foreign relations. The self-identified isolationist power became a principal player on the world stage and by the end of the Second World War emerged as one of the two global superpowers, poised to compete with the Soviet Union in a protracted Cold War. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, some spoke of the United States as a "hyperpower," but how it should exercise its unrivalled power was far from clear. Through a mixture of lecture and discussion, this course introduces students to the key events of America's most powerful century and to the new wave of scholarly literature being written about the United States and the World. Readings will reflect current trends in the sub-field, which focuses not only on high-level diplomacy, but also on a range of other factors that influence foreign relations, including ideology, race, gender, culture, domestic politics, and the roles of individual personalities. [ more ]

This course provides an introduction to the history of African Americans in United States during the colonial, early republic, and antebellum eras. The course demonstrates how economically, culturally, and politically, African Americans shaped and were shaped by the historical landscape of the nation. The experience of enslavement necessarily dominates this history, and it is the contours and nuances of slavery--and the development of racial classifications--that give this course its focus. But with a attention centered on African Americans, the course also explores African cultural influences, the significance of gender, the lives of free blacks, and the cultural and intellectual significance of the abolitionist movement. The course closes on the themes that emerge from the war between the states, and on the meaning of freedom and emancipation. Our readings will include primary sources and secondary literature. Class meetings will combine lecture and discussion. Informed participation in class discussion is essential. This EDI course explores the experiences and expressions of the culturally diverse peoples of African descent in the New World (and the Old), as well as the myriad ways in which they confront, negotiate, and at times challenge dominant U.S. and/or European hierarchies of race, culture, gender and class. [ more ]

This course introduces students to the significant themes and events that have shaped African-Americans' historical experiences from Reconstruction to the end of the twentieth century. Course themes will include: the changing meanings of freedom, equality, and rights; the intersection of ideology and activism; the disconnection between local and national perspectives. Additionally, the course explores the political nature and development of African-American protest traditions, giving particular attention to the rise of Jim Crow, the franchise, black institutional and organizational life, black migration and urbanization, the black freedom movement and its legacy, and the demise of the liberal coalition. [ more ]

This course serves as the introduction to Asian American history, roughly covering the years 1850 to the present. It examines the lives of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Indians, and Southeast Asians in America, and the historical reasons why they came to the US and their subsequent interactions with other ethno-racial groups in the United States. Topics include the anti-Asian exclusion movements, the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, the increase of Asian immigration after the 1965 Immigration Act and the war in Viet Nam, and the impact of the events of September 11, 2001 on Asian American communities. These themes and others will be explored through the use of historical texts, primary documents, novels, memoirs, and films. This is an EDI course because it examines how people from different Asian countries and cultures interacted with each other and those already here in the US. Theirs is a story of immigration, exclusion, resistance, accommodation, and the process of "becoming American." [ more ]

A study of the growth and development of medical thought and practice, together with consideration of its interaction with science and social forces and institutions. The course aims at an appreciation of the socio-historical construction of Western medicine, from prehistory to the twentieth century. The course begins with paleomedical reconstructions, and moves to Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek [not only Hippocratic] medicine, Greek and Roman anatomy and physiology, Arabic medical thought, Renaissance medicine, and the gradual professionalization and specialization of medicine from the sixteenth century. Attention is paid to theories of health and disease, ideas about anatomy and physiology, in addition to achievements such as anesthesia and internal surgery, and advances in instruments such as obstetrical forceps and the stethoscope. [ more ]

Although technologically dependent, the American colonies slowly built a network of native scientists and inventors whose skills helped shape the United States' response to the Industrial Revolution. The interaction of science, technology, and society in the nineteenth century did much to form American identity: the machine in the garden, through the "American System of Manufactures" helped America rise to technological prominence; the professionalization and specialization of science and engineering led to their becoming vital national resources. Understanding these developments, as well as the heroic age of American invention (1865-1914), forms the focus of this course: how science and technology have helped shape modern American life. [ more ]

This course is designed to acquaint students with some of the ways historians have thought about the past. Beginning with Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, the work of eleven historians will be studied closely and critically over the course of the semester. In the process, students not only will become familiar with various important historical approaches but will also be encouraged to examine their own assumptions about the past and about how and why--or even if--we know it. We will meet weekly to define, understand, and assess the different ways historians considered in the course have thought about the past. [ more ]

How does historical knowledge evolve? How do historians build on but also repudiate the work of historians that came before them? In this course, we will explore the historiography that has developed over the last 150 years about the Anglo-American settlement of the West, using it as a lens to explore larger questions about shifting perspectives of the historian's craft. This historiography will also illuminate critical conflicts about the meaning of American history. Did the frontier build American character, as Frederick Jackson Turner argued in 1893? Did it establish patterns of conquest that have shaped American policy toward other parts of the world, as later historians would argue? Has the West been an "exceptional" place or representative of the nation at large? The class will meet twice a week, and the discussions will focus intensively on one book, examining the theoretical and historical assumptions of the author; how these assumptions shaped the historian's search for evidence and his or her claims; and the impact they have had on our understanding of the American West. [ more ]

This course examines the practice of history from the nineteenth century to the present. We will examine the sources, methods, and theoretical assumptions that have shaped the historical craft in this period, as well as the deeper questions that all historians must confront, implicitly or explicitly: What is "history"? Who makes it and how? To address these issues, we will discuss the work of canonical and non-canonical historians from across the world, and from outside as well as inside the academy. The particular focus will be on the production of history from the rise of the nation-state through the spread of new imperialisms in the late nineteenth century and on to the emergence of the "Third World," decolonization, and the "new globalization" over the course of the twentieth century. In weekly seminar meetings we will analyze texts and how their authors define historical subjects/actors and processes, as well as the meanings of history for different audiences and eras. [ more ]

Much of what we know and understand about American history is rooted in the received narrative of our national history, a history that is constructed of individual, collective, and a national memory of the past and its meanings. This course will examine some forms through which American historical memory is presented and (re)presented, such as monuments, museums, novels, film, photographs, and scholarly historical writing, by considering a number of pivotal events, institutions, or eras in American history. Potential topics are slavery, race, and the Civil War; westward expansion; the Great Depression; World War II; the Sixties; the war in Viet Nam; and the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001. [ more ]

Contrary to the stereotypical image of an unchanging, universally oppressed Middle Eastern woman, the experiences of women in the Middle East have not remained static across time and place. We will begin by framing questions of current interest, such as the veil, women's rights in Islamic law, and female access to economic resources and political power. We will then examine the foundations of these issues in religious scriptures, legal treatises, historical narratives, and biographical accounts from the pre-modern Middle East. By investigating how issues of modern relevance have been approached throughout history, we will learn to appreciate the diversity of Middle Eastern women's lived experiences and to combat stereotypes with careful historical arguments. [ more ]

This course provides a close examination of Africa's recent history. In 2010, seventeen African countries commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of their accession to independence in 1960. We will begin the class by examining how Africans have debated and remembered this important historical moment. The reading of primary sources and recent scholarship will help us to historicize the trajectory of African political independence since 1945. Our themes of focus will be: the postwar labor question, the emergence of African nationalism, debates about postcolonial political orientations, and the current challenges of authoritarianism, economic domination, and demographic growth. We will question both the historical roots and specificity of these challenges. [ more ]

At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States was considered a benign superpower in the Middle East. Americans were known as "innocents abroad" for their educational and philanthropic work. From a distance, American society was admired for its affluence and freedom, and Middle Eastern politicians eagerly sought American advice and assistance. Today, however, the situation could hardly be more different. This course will examine the remarkable transformation of American involvement in the Middle East. Significant cultural and political encounters of the latter half of the twentieth century will be assessed in order to identify how the United States has approached the region and consider the multifaceted and sometimes ambivalent reactions of people in the Middle East to increasing U.S. presence. It will also explore the difficulty the United States has experienced in balancing diverse, and sometimes conflicting, foreign policy interests, and will evaluate what may account for the increasing level of antagonism and mistrust on both sides. [ more ]

Nationalism is a major political issue in contemporary East Asia. From anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, to tensions on the Korea peninsula, to competitive elections in Taiwan, to debates in Japan about the possibility of a woman ascending the Chrysanthemum Throne, national identity is hotly debated and politically mobilized all across the region. This course begins with an examination of the general phenomena of nationalism and national identity. It then considers how nationalism is manifest in the contemporary politics and foreign relations of China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and Taiwan. [ more ]

Although sometimes claimed as part of a set of immutable "Asian values," the Chinese family has not remained fixed or stable over time. In this course, we will use the framework of "family" to gain insight into gender, generational, and sexual roles in different historical periods. Beginning in the late imperial period (16th-18th Centuries), we will examine the religious, marital, sexual, and childrearing practices associated with the "orthodox" Confucian family. We will then explore the wide variety of "heterodox" practices in imperial China, debates over and critiques of the family system in the twentieth century, and configurations of gender and family in contemporary China. As an EDI course, this class makes use of anthropological and gender studies methods to analyze both the specificities of Chinese ideas and practices regarding family, gender and sexuality as well as the considerable variety among these ideas and practices at different points in time. [ more ]

This course offers a historical and literary approach to the varied works of the controversial Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus. Josephus was a personality intensely engaged in the events of his day. Born into a high priestly family, he participated unwillingly in the disastrous Jewish revolt of 66-73 CE against Rome, which resulted in the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem. Having found refuge with the Roman commander, the future emperor Vespasian, Josephus went to live in Rome, concerned himself with the political and religious position of the Jews in a difficult time, and wrote histories in Greek, including his famous eyewitness account of the 'Jewish War'. Josephus has probably been the most widely read historian in European Christian culture, both because he appears to provide near-contemporary testimony to Jesus Christ and because he documents the catastrophic demise of Jewish Jerusalem. He is crucial to our understanding of the first century CE in Judaea and Galilee, as well as in the Roman empire generally. Through a close reading of key passages, along with a selection of secondary readings that employ new approaches to historiography, new documentary material (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls), and some remarkable archaeological finds, we will re-examine where Josephus stands, how he has been received, and where we might stand in relation to his writings. All readings are in translation. [ more ]

From the ancient world to the twentieth century, war has always played an important part in European history. Europeans have not only constantly been at war with other Europeans, but also with neighboring cultures and, indeed, most peoples around the globe. This course will introduce students to the history of European warfare from its origins in the classical and medieval periods to its maturation in the early modern period (1450-1815), and its disastrous culmination in the nationalist struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Has there been a distinctively "European Way of War" from the beginning? How do we explain failure and success in European wars? What exactly happened at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war? And what caused changes in the organization and waging of European war from one period to the next? [ more ]

A wide variety of human cultures have accepted the existence of the supernatural, the reality of magic, and the possibility of magical transgression. Among the most common supernatural crimes is witchcraft, which societies can invoke to explain natural disasters and disease, and to blame these occurrences on specific individuals, often social outcasts. Witchcraft became a particular focus of fear and fascination in Early Modern Europe, when inquisitors, theologians and many ordinary people came to believe that Western Christendom was threatened by a vast, covert conspiracy of witches in league with the devil. Countless "witches"--most of them women--were accordingly tried, tortured and sometimes even executed. Our course will examine these bizarre events and consider what religious, cultural and intellectual factors might help explain them. We will begin by investigating the medieval legal and theological developments that enabled and encouraged the persecution of witches, and go on to study some of the most important and sensational witch trials of the later medieval and early modern periods. Throughout, we will encounter many strange and intriguing documents produced by the inquisitors who persecuted witches, the scholars who imagined their activities, and the laws that defined their crimes. No prior experience with European history is required for this seminar, which will emphasize thoughtful writing and discussion. [ more ]

This course tracks the major developments in Christian thought from the Reformations to the nineteenth century. We will begin by examining the background to the Reformations across Europe and across denominations of Christianity, showing how the Reformations along with their precursors indirectly helped to usher in a world that placed greater emphasis on the value of selfhood and moral autonomy, encouraged the emergence of the Enlightenment and scientific rationality, and helped to lead to the cultural and political re-alignment of nation-states. [ more ]

A major theme in British historiography is the enormous social change that has taken place in Britain since the end of the Second World War. In the 1950s, sociologists argued about the extent to which postwar affluence was leading to the "embourgeoisement" of the working class; in the 1960s, the advent of the so-called "Permissive Society" witnessed the flourishing of a new culture of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll; in the 1970s, the feminist and gay movements challenged gender roles that earlier had seemed so secure; in the 1980s, Thatcherism sought to halt the nation's apparent terminal decline, repudiating much of the progressive legislation of earlier decades; finally, throughout this period successive ways of immigration challenged the cultural homogeneity of white Britain. This course will explore these themes, addressing the question of what it meant to be "postwar" in Britain, charting the gradual emergence of a new politics of class, gender, race, and sexuality in Britain that the made the nation in 1990, at the end of the postwar period, a radically different place from what it had been in 1945. In attempting to make sense of these complex changes, we will consider a variety of documents and works by recent historians, along with a dozen films, which students will be required to view outside of class. [ more ]

This course will introduce students to some of the most significant and exciting social, artistic, intellectual, and political developments in fin-de- siecle Europe (1870 to 1914). "Fin-de-siecle" is a concept that denotes not only a historical period--the end of a century--but refers to a consciousness of living in a time of accelerated change and crisis. Intellectuals and artists of the decades we will be examining were preoccupied with "degeneration," loss of innocence, meaning, morality, and the inner self. They were simultaneously fascinated and horrified by technological innovation, emergent political and ideological currents, and the challenges to traditional values and identities posed by them. After a survey of political upheavals during the European fin-de- siecle, the course will focus on three metropolises consecutively: Vienna, Paris, and St. Petersburg. Through analyses of historical literature, novels, music, visual art, and the seminal texts of psychoanalysis we will explore how the self, public life, gender relations, sexuality, and aesthetics were conceived and re-imagined in each city, and bring to light the sensibilities and culture they shared. [ more ]

The Weimar Republic has been examined and re-examined, not only in an effort to account for the failure of democracy and the rise of Hitler in Germany but also for its remarkable artistic achievements. Using a variety of primary documents, including movies, works of art and literature, as well as more traditional historical sources and the writings of historians, this course will consider the social, political, and cultural history of the Weimar Republic. At issue in the course will be the relationship between the political and social instability and the cultural blossoming that characterized in Germany during the 1920s. We will also consider whether the Weimar Republic in general, and Weimar culture, in particular are better understood as the product of Germany's past or as harbingers of its future. [ more ]

The Near East under Roman rule was a zone of intense cultural contact and exchange. Major urban centers, like Ephesus and Alexandria, were home to a diverse array of Greeks, Romans, Jews, Egyptians and other Semitic peoples. Out of this cultural crucible emerged new movements in religion, science, and the arts which changed the face of the Roman Empire. This course examines the history and material culture of Roman cities in the Near East, from Pompey's annexation of Syria in 64 BCE to the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE. We will consider a variety of evidence, including sculpture, architecture and epigraphy, as well as textual sources, such as Josephus' Jewish War, Acts of the Apostles and Tacitus' Histories. Class discussion will focus on issues related to ethnicity and identity formation in the eastern Roman provinces. Possible topics include the Romanization of the Near East, the First Jewish Revolt, the formation of early Christianity, and the Roman wars with Sassanian Persia. This course fulfills the EDI requirement because it explores the interaction between peoples and cultures in the ancient Near East and their diverse responses to Roman imperialism. [ more ]

The American Revolution produced a galaxy of brilliant politicians and statesmen of extraordinary courage, intellect, creativity, and character. They succeeded in drafting an unparalleled Constitution and establishing enduring democratic political institutions while nevertheless failing to grapple with the wrenching issue of slavery and the rights of women. In this course, we will explore the lives, ideas, and political leadership of these men, most of whom belonged to the social elite of their day: Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Adams,and Hamilton. We will study in depth their superb writings, such as the correspondence between Madison and Jefferson and between Adams and Jefferson, and Madison's and Hamilton's Federalist essays. We will also read recent interpretations of the founding generation by Gordon Wood, Joseph Ellis, Bernard Bailyn, and others. [ more ]

The American Revolution remains one of the most-studied events in American history. Yet, agreement about its main causes, significance, and purpose remains as distant as ever. Some historians argue that political ideas and principles brought about calls for Independence. Others emphasize the economic motives behind revolutionary fervor. Still others argue that British political institutions failed to adapt to the needs of a growing empire, leading colonists to replace British imperial rule with a form of government suited to their local exigencies. Some have told the story through the eyes of the Founding Fathers, while others have explored what the American Revolution meant for the lived experience of average citizens, of women, of free and enslaved African Americans, of Native Americans, and of peoples living beyond North America. Collectively, such a range of studies speaks to the significance of the American Revolution. Individually, however, these varying perspectives provide a fragmented picture of the era and its people. Through readings, lectures, and primary sources, this class will explore these different views of the Revolution and try to create some synthetic unity out of this historical kaleidoscope. [ more ]

This course will study the diverse and vibrant economic, social, political, and cultural life of the northern states from the late-eighteenth century to the Civil War. Assignments will focus on specific civic, literary, business, and political leaders as a way to understand this era of rapid transformation. Topics covered will include industrialization, expansion, transcendentalism, regionalism, and political activism. [ more ]

In this course we will study the lives, ideas, visions and, above all, the political and moral leadership of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The three Roosevelts transformed the role of government in American society, bringing about fundamental and lasting change. What were their leadership strategies and styles? Did they mobilize followers or did their followers mobilize them? How did they balance political compromise with bold, principled leadership? How did their personalities affect their visions and their goals? To what extent did they offer ethical and moral leadership? In addition to studying histories and biographies, we will do extensive research in primary source material. [ more ]

During the course of the semester, we shall investigate two broad, interrelated topics: slavery in the antebellum South, and the impact of slavery on Southern civilization. Our approach will be primarily topical. In the first half of the course, we shall look at subjects like the foreign and domestic slave trade, patterns of work and treatment, the nature of the master-slave relationship, resistance and rebellion, and slave cultural, social, and family life. The second half of the course will concentrate on the influence of the institution of slavery on the mind, social structure, and economy of the Old South, and slavery's impact on Southern politics and the decision for secession in 1860-61. [ more ]

A study of the history of the American South from 1877 to the present. Social, political and economic trends will be examined in some detail: the rule of the "Redeemers" following the end of Reconstruction; tenancy, sharecropping, and the rise of agrarian radicalism; Southern Progressivism; the coming of racial segregation and the destruction of the Jim Crow system during the years of the Civil Rights movement; Southern politics during the depression and post-World War II years. [ more ]

The politics surrounding the environment today are a super-heated source of conflict, at the same time that most opinion polls show that Americans widely embrace many environmental protections. While environmental concerns have long been a part of local politics in America, this course will largely explore the emergence and prominence of environmental issues in national politics from the first organized conservation efforts in the late nineteenth century to the present-day concerns with the global environment. Throughout the course, we will investigate both how changes in the environment have shaped American politics and how political decisions have altered the American, as well as the global environment, with particular attention to which groups of people have had, or have not had, access to political processes and institutions. [ more ]

American race history has its deepest and most troubled roots in racial slavery - a system protected by the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes and state laws. This course will first examine the core theme of Black and White race relations, beginning with the slavery clauses of the Constitution and continuing through the color-blind affirmative action decisions of the Supreme Court. This examination of Black and White racial construction will study the implicit definitions of race, racism and the power relations of racial subordinations. The class will next examine groups recognized in the law - American Indians, Asian Americans, and Latinos/as, with a focus upon their emergence as legal and historical actors. Each group will be examined as case studies in multiple forms of racial subordination. For American Indians, the theme is sovereignty and forced Americanization. For Asian Americans, we examine the creation of the racial themes of foreignness, model-minority and the post- 9-11 Islamic/Jihadist Terrorist. For Latinos, we will focus upon imperial conquest, immigration and "Latin" racial classifications. The course will use primary legal materials - edited Supreme Court opinions, federal and state statutes - as well as other legal commentaries. [ more ]

As slaves and free women, activists, domestics, artists and writers, African Americans have played exciting and often unexpected roles in U.S. political, social, and cultural history. In this course we will examine black women's lives from the earliest importation of slaves from Africa and the Caribbean through to the expansion of slavery, the Civil War, freedom, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movements, and up to the present day. Consistent themes we will explore are the significance of gender in African American history and the changing roles and public perceptions of black women both inside and outside the black community. We will read and discuss a combination of primary and secondary sources; we will also consider music, art, and literature, as well as more standard "historical" texts. This course meets the requirements of the Exploring Diversity Initiative in that it focuses on empathetic understanding, power and privilege, especially in relation to class, gender, and race within a U.S. context. [ more ]

If race is socially and historically constructed, then the study of race relations in the U.S. extends to the topic of whiteness. And if we are never without the past, then "whiteness" must be a part of current discussions about politics, citizenship, and social issues. Focusing on how historians have written about whiteness in American history, this course uses the prism of race to explore social, political, and economic development in U.S. history. The class follows the development of "whiteness" through a chronology that begins in colonial Virginia, travels through immigration in the nineteenth century, examines racial politics and popular culture in the twentieth century, and ends with a look at the current election season. This course is framed by several questions: What is whiteness, and what has it meant in the history of the United States? Who is (and is not) white? What about other analytical categories, like gender and class (or region or ethnicity or sexuality): how have these experiences shaped and been shaped by the racial category of whiteness? Because historically whiteness has carried overtones of power, privilege, and wealth in the United States, the course necessarily critiques the roots of racial disparities. This class is not for the faint-hearted. Informed participation is necessary to its success. The course fulfills the requirements for the Exploring Diversity Initiative because it examines the differences and similarities between white Americans and other American cultures, and because it explores whiteness as a prism for understanding the operations of power and privilege in American society. [ more ]

This course explores Vietnam's twentieth century wars, including an anti-colonial war against France (1946-1954), a massive Cold War conflict involving the United States (1965-1973), and postcolonial confrontations with China and Cambodia in the late-1970s. Course materials will focus primarily on Vietnam's domestic politics and its relations with other countries. Lectures, readings, films, and discussions will explore the process by which Vietnam's anti-colonial struggle became one of the central conflicts of the Cold War, and examine the ramifications of that fact for all parties involved. The impact of these wars can hardly be overstated, as they affected the trajectory of French decolonization, altered America's domestic politics and foreign policy, invigorated anti-colonial movements across the Third World, and left Vietnam isolated in the international community. Students will read a number of scholarly texts, primary sources, memoirs, and novels to explore everything from high-level international diplomacy to personal experiences of conflict and dramatic social change wrought by decolonization and decades of warfare. [ more ]

Can historians study oceans rather than lands? Is it possible to think about an aquatic space as an integrated cultural region rather than simply focusing on terra-centric empires and societies? What can we learn about human interactions in the past through the study of oceanic histories? This course seeks to answer these questions by focusing on the oldest maritime highway in history: the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean connected diverse regions, cultures and communities for millennia, thus making it a vital element in the birth of globalization. South Asian ports and port cities remained the fulcrum of the Indian Ocean world throughout its history; traders, travellers, nobles, scholars, pilgrims and pirates from all over the world travelled to the Indian coast in search of adventure, spices, knowledge and wealth. Thus we will primarily focus on India's role in the Indian Ocean roughly from the rise of Islam in the seventh century CE through the intrusion of various European communities in the region and the subsequent rise of the global economy and colonialism in the nineteenth century. Rather than following a strict temporal chronology we will concentrate on themes such a travel and adventure; trade and exchange; trust and friendship; religion and society; pilgrimage; piracy; the culture of port cities; and food across time. [ more ]

"The year that shaped a generation," "the year that rocked the world," "the year that changed everything": 1968 remains in contemporary history as a year of change and excitement, superlatives and excesses. More than just the year, 1968 represents the sequence of youth protests that ran, throughout the world, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. This course explores the history of 1968 in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. We will question the communalities and connections between different histories of protest throughout the world. Class materials will include films, photographs, speeches, memoirs, and recent scholarship. [ more ]

In the late-eighteenth century, two revolutions burst forth-they were the most striking and consequential events in modern history, decisive turning-points that transformed society and politics. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the overarching ideas and visions of the sister revolutions. Through correspondence, political essays and speeches, we will seek to understand the fundamental theories, goals and accomplishments of both revolutions. Who were their leaders and according to what principles did they govern? Did revolutionaries in France find a model in America for their Revolution? What is the meaning of the "Terror" in France and what light does it shed on modern revolutionary movements? Why was the American Revolution followed by decades of stability while the French Revolution bequeathed a turbulent succession of failed governments? Have America and France continued to conceive of themselves as revolutionary nations? We will read works by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Just, Tocqueville, Burke and others. [ more ]

Is religion the most powerful force in the Middle East? Is religion becoming more prominent in the political sphere and what impact will that have on religious minorities and the status of women in the Middle East? Using a case study and historical approach, this course will consider the development of religiously inspired political ideologies in the Middle East in the 19th and 20th century. We will explore the experience of Iran, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan and evaluate role of religious actors, institutions, and ideologies in constructing national identities, policymaking, state-building, regime change, conflict, and war. [ more ]

This senior Africana capstone course/History seminar explores the central role of Haiti in the American and the transnational pan-African imaginations. As home to the world's only successful slave rebellion, Haiti has been a role model of tremendous importance, stimulating slave rebellions in America and throughout the Caribbean, playing an instrumental role in the liberation of South America from the Spaniards, and inspiring decolonization movements in Africa and the Caribbean in the 20th century. Not surprisingly, it has had tumultuous relations with both its colonial occupier, France, and its most powerful neighbor, the United States. From isolation and sanctions, to occupation and U.S. supported dictatorship, this seminar traces the historical silencing suffered by Haiti at the hands of western historians, the vivid images Haitians evoke in the American imagination--from boat people and carriers of Aids, to practitioners of voodoo and creators of a uniquely African-Caribbean art--and the role of the French and American governments in the recent coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Film, dance, literature, music, history, anthropology and religion will be explored in this interdisciplinary course, with an eye towards helping students produce an original work of their own as the final project. By examining Haiti's fraught racial relations--particularly between Haitian blacks and mulattoes--and her early and unique black power movement--noirisme--this class fulfills the requirements of the Exploring Diversity Initiative. [ more ]

This course will explore the diversity of American women's experiences from the colonial era through the Civil War. We will pay particular attention to the roles women filled--as slaves, nuns, housewives, mothers, and workers, as well as depictions of women as witches, paragons of virtue, and urban consumers. In our reading of historiography and primary texts we will analyze the ways in which literacy and artistic culture as well as geopolitical events shaped women's lives. As we study works of history, we will also read modern works of feminist and race theory to further our understanding of connections between ideology and practice, between narrative and argument. [ more ]

This research seminar will survey the rich history of early America (1607-1850) by focusing on the most momentous events and consequential individuals from the era. The course will also explore some of the most pressing historiographical questions and some of the research methods historians of the era deploy. Students will then select a topic that interests them and produce a substantive research paper. The course will also serve as a capstone course for Leadership Studies concentrators. [ more ]

An examination of one of the most turbulent periods in American history, with special emphasis on the changing status of Afro-Americans during the era. During the war years, we shall study both the war itself and homefront conditions: military, naval, political, economic, and especially social aspects will be examined in some detail. Our study of Reconstruction will concentrate on the evolution of federal policy toward the Southern states and the workings out of that policy in the South, particularly as it relates to the freedmen. [ more ]

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union set in motion dramatic changes to the natural and built environments of many nations between 1945 and 1991. Nuclear test and missile launch sites, naval installations, military production operations, and border securitizations are just a few of the most obvious ways in which the stand-off between the two countries altered rural and urban landscapes around the world. But one can also see the Cold War as setting in motion less immediately direct but nonetheless profound changes to the way that many people saw and planned for the environments around them, as evidenced, for instance, by the rise of the American suburb, the reconstruction of postwar Europe, and agricultural and industrial initiatives in many developing nations. We will begin this seminar by exploring several distinct "Cold War landscapes" in the United States, then move on to examining others in Europe and the Soviet Union. We will spend the final weeks of the semester discussing examples from other parts of the world. Our approach to our topics will be interdisciplinary throughout the semester, and students are welcome to write their research papers on any geographical area of the world. [ more ]

This tutorial interrogates how Africans fought to gain control over their individual and collective destinies in the face of oppressive colonial regimes, apartheid, and difficult postcolonial conditions. The violence, but also the new possibilities that defined the 20th century, thoroughly transformed Africans' understandings of themselves and views of the world. Students will analyze how historians of Africa have historicized feelings, political passions, intimacies, and their relationships with politics. Students will also read fiction and use films and written primary sources to develop their own reflections on the connections between the categories of love and revolution in Africa. [ more ]

Almost seven decades after Japan's surrender, the enduring question of how to remember the Pacific War continues to provoke controversy both within Japan and between Japan, South Korea, and China. This tutorial will explore how this difficult past has been remembered in postwar Japan, and how and why these memories have changed from 1945 to the present. Our focus will be on certain sites of memory--museums, shrines, literature, textbooks, and films--and how they have expressed and shaped memories of various aspects of the war from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to military comfort women and the Nanking massacre. Key issues include how various Japanese have tried to make sense of death and personal sacrifice in the name of a lost war; the implications of Japan's unique position as both perpetrator of wartime atrocities and victim of atomic bombings; the relationship between memory and nationalism; and what it means to come to terms with pasts contested both within and between countries. [ more ]

1991 marked the fiftieth anniversaries of the Nazi invasion of Russia and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Though war had come to Europe as early as 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, after 1941 the war became a truly global conflict of unprecedented extent, ferocity, and destructiveness. As late as 1943 it still appeared that the Axis powers might win the war. But, by the end of the 1945, the bombed-out ruins of Germany and Japan were occupied by the Allies, who were preparing to put the surviving Axis leaders and generals on trial for war crimes.
This tutorial will concentrate on a number of important questions and issues which arise from a study of World War II. What were the origins of this central event of the twentieth century? How and why did the war begin? Why did the war take the course it did? What were the most crucial or decisive episodes or events? How did the Allies win? Why did the Axis lose? Could the outcome have been different? Many of the topics examined will also have to deal with important questions of human responsibility and with the moral or ethical dimensions of the war. Why did France, Britain, and the Soviet Union not stop Hitler earlier? Who was to blame for the fall of France and the Pearl Harbor fiasco? Why did the Allies adopt a policy of extensive firebombing of civilian targets? How could the Holocaust have happened? Could it have been stopped? Did the Atomic bomb have to be dropped? Were the war crime trials justified? By the end of the tutorial, students will have become thoroughly familiar with the general course the war followed as well as acquiring in-depth knowledge of the most decisive and important aspects of the conflict. Students will also have grappled with the task of systematically assessing what combinations of material and human factors can best explain the outcomes of the major turning points of the war. Students will also have dealt with the problem of assessing the moral and ethical responsibility of those persons, organizations, and institutions involved in the war. [ more ]

The influence and fate of religion in modern Europe present a complex and contradictory pattern. Increased religious tolerance and pluralism have coexisted with intense anti-clericalism, militant secularism, virulent anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia; religious revival and innovation have coexisted with skepticism, secularization, and dechristianization; both religion and irreligion have served as bases for political mobilization and powerfully shaped personal, national, and transnational identities. Demonstrating a long-term trajectory toward secularity, Europe for some scholars reflects the inexorable process of modernization; other scholars reject this claim and contend that Europe's experience is unique in a global context. As evidence, some point to the apparent vitality of religion in imperial Russian and the revival of religious profession and identity in post-communist Russia. This course will explore these differing perspectives on religion in modern Europe and Russia through an examination of selected aspects of the interrelationship between religion and politics, the formation of imperial and national polities and identities, social and economic change, cultural developments, and gender. [ more ]

This course explores a recent wave of historical scholarship on the roles of ideology, culture, and identity in American foreign relations. The proliferation of such studies has contributed to the revival of the once moribund subfield of diplomatic history and restored it to the mainstream of the historical profession. Yet this "cultural turn" has not come without controversy, as some traditional diplomatic historians insist that it dilutes the subfield and discourages young scholars from engaging in necessary research on high-level diplomacy. Students will read several important "state of the field" essays alongside some of the most exciting contributions to this new trend and consider the following questions: What do these new works add to our understanding of U.S. history and the history of the United States in the World? What roles do ideology, culture, and identity play in the policymaking process? In what ways do these studies complement traditional diplomatic histories that privilege the study of power in the international arena and to what extent are they a separate venture all together? What can "the new diplomatic history" contribute to other historical subfields and vice versa? [ more ]

For much of Latin America's postcolonial history, political and business elites in the United States have viewed the region as a source of revolutionary threats. Too often histories of actual revolutionary movements and the ideas they promulgated have followed either the self-serving narratives that the revolutionaries have laid out or the similarly limited stories composed by their opponents. This tutorial, by contrast, will delve into the complex, contingent, and at times counterintuitive history of revolutionary thought in modern Latin America. Our readings and discussions will carry us from the nineteenth century to the rise of the "New Left" in the last few years. Throughout the course our principle goal will be to examine the internal logic of the most influential programs of revolutionary thought as well as their relationship to circumstances external to them, both in their home regions and globally. At the same time, we will consider the human or moral promise and price of revolutionary options: did the proposed or alleged aims of revolutionary ideals justify the costs they would impose? This course will fulfill the requirements of the Exploring Diversity Initiative by comparing and analyzing divergent theorizations of history and society, as well as the contexts in which such theories emerged and to which we might or might not choose to apply them. A central aim of the course will be to compare the formation of revolutionary initiatives across national and chronological boundaries. [ more ]

This seminar is intended solely for writers of senior theses. Although each student's major work for the year will be the writing of a thesis in consultation with an individual advisor, students will gather for occasional meetings in order to present and critique each other's proposals and drafts and to discuss common problems in research and the design of a long analytical essay. For students proceeding to W31 and HIST 494, performance in the fall semester will figure into the thesis grade calculated at the end of the year. The quality of a student's performance in the seminar segment of History 493, as well as his or her performance in all aspects of the May colloquium at which theses are presented and critiqued, will be figured into the overall grade the student is given for History 493-494 and the departmental decision to award Honors or Highest Honors at Commencement. [ more ]

This seminar is a continuation of HIST 493 and is required of all senior thesis writers. Students will meet to discuss draft thesis chapters and prepare for the Thesis Colloquium in May at which theses will be presented and assessed. For students proceeding to W31 and HIST 494, performance in fall semester will figure into the thesis grade calculated at the end of the year. The quality of a student's performance in the colloquium segment of History 493, as well as his or her performance in all aspects of the May colloquium at which theses are presented and critiqued, will be figured into the overall grade the student is given for History 493-494 and the departmental decision to award Honors or Highest Honors at Commencement. [ more ]

History independent study. [ more ]

History independent study. [ more ]