First-Year Seminars taught by History faculty introduce history as a method of inquiry, analysis, and interpretation concerned with understanding the variety of past human experience and with communicating that understanding clearly. The limited enrollment of these course permits a concentration on the close reading and analysis of secondary and primary texts, and on the process of writing and revision. The substantial concentration on writing qualifies such seminars as writing-intensive courses. All first-year seminars are listed together under First Year Seminars.
The department’s 100-level survey courses are designed both for students seeking an introduction to a particular geographic area new to them and, equally, for students wishing to pursue intermediate or advanced work in a particular field. Students interested in pursuing American or European history, for example, are advised to take the pertinent survey as preparation for more advanced work, just as those interested in Africa, Asia, or Latin America should take the survey in their chosen area of interest.
HIST-124 History of Modern South Asia, 1700 to the Present
This course will explore the history of South Asia between the eighteenth century and the present. Using a combined chronological and thematic approach and against a historical canvas that engages such diverse issues as gender, political economy, conquest, resistance, state formation, economic exploitation, national liberation, and identity politics, the aim of this course is to interrogate the impact of British colonialism and South Asian nationalisms on the state, society, and people of the subcontinent. Using primary and secondary sources, we will address both the most significant historical moments of modern South Asian history and the historiographical debates that surround them.
HIST-137 Modern East Asia, 1600-2000
A comparative history of China, Japan, and Korea from the early seventeenth century to the present, with strong focus on regional interaction. After an introduction to early modern histories and cultures, we will examine the struggles of these countries to preserve or regain their independence and establish their national identities in a rapidly changing, often violent modern world order. While each of these countries has its own distinctive identity, their overlapping histories (and dilemmas) give the region a coherent shape. We will also look at how individuals respond to and are shaped by larger historical movements.
HIST-141 Introduction to Modern African History
This course provides an introduction to African history over the past three centuries. Venturing beyond the stereotypes, we will explore the complex histories that constitute a diverse continent. Special attention is given to spotlighting the voices of African people through a range of primary and secondary sources, including memoirs, film, music, cartoons, speeches and photography. Students will gain knowledge of African geographies and histories, develop the skill of primary source analysis, and be able to connect events in -- and narratives of -- present-day Africa to a deeper historical past.
HIST-142 Introduction to Pre Colonial African History
This course surveys the social, political and economic history of Africa from earliest times to 1750. We will consider developments in early significant units of the continent such as Ethiopia, Kush, Zimbabwe, and Egypt. We will focus on themes such as human origins, agriculture, migration, Islam, gender, slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. By the end of the course, students will have a sound understanding of key developments in African history from ancient times to the eve of European expansion in Africa.
HIST-151 Europe in the Modern World
Surveys the major movements and developments in Europe during the era of European expansion and dominance--from the devastations of the Thirty Years War to the Second World War--and up to the current era of European Union. Topics include: the French Revolution and the birth of nationalism; the scientific and industrial revolutions; the modern history of international relations; imperialism, fascism, the Holocaust, the two World Wars, and the present and potential roles of Europe at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
HIST-161 British Empire and Commonwealth
This course is an introduction to the expansion, consolidation, and eventual disintegration of the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will examine this history with an eye to understanding the causes and legacies of empire. We will discuss British attitudes and policies toward empire and the imperial foundations of the British economy. Cutting an arc of territory from the Caribbean to Africa and from South Asia to the Pacific rim, we will consider the role of culture and gender in informing anticolonial resistance. We will interrogate how legacies of colonialism manifest in the contemporary period by shaping post-colonial identities and perceptions of the world.
HIST-170 The American Peoples to 1865
This course surveys the history of Indigenous worlds, colonial projects, enslavement, and the contested transformation of lives and communities in North America through the U.S. Civil War. How did settler political and economic strategies shape the land and life upon it? How did Native people and people of African descent claim sovereignty, create new bonds, and partake in the creation of new nations in landscapes of violence and subjugation? Topics include cross-cultural encounters; competing religious and social visions; the formation of the United States and the evolution of its political system; gender and sexuality; the development of racial capitalism; and the coming of the Civil War.
HIST-171 The American Peoples Since 1865
This course introduces the history of Native North America and the United States from the latter half of the 19th century to the present. Themes include the consolidation of the U.S. nation and of the reservation system; struggles over land, settlement, and citizenship; the transformations of the federal government and of capitalism; the evolution of racial, gendered, and class hierarchies; and changing forms of domestic life, work, politics, social protest, and cultural expression from Reconstruction through the coronavirus pandemic. How have ideas about democracy, heritage, blackness, immigration, and criminality shaped the possibilities of national existence and self-determination?
HIST-180 Introduction to Latin American Cultures
Examines the confrontation, assimilation, and transformation of Amerindian, African, and European cultures in Latin America from the sixteenth century to the present. Focuses on the processes in which distinctive self-images emerged in the region and how these images have been challenged and changed over time. Uses films, literature, and folk traditions to complement scholarly analysis of the emergence of a New World mentality.
The department’s 200-level courses offer focused and intensive studies of particular times and places. They include a variety of courses, ranging from large survey courses to small, limited enrollment reading courses or seminars.
HIST-208 The Consumer Revolution: A History of Shopping
This seminar surveys the history of shopping from the seventeenth to early-twentieth century. From its origin as a term for wastefulness, consumption is now understood as an essential feature of prosperity in modern society. How did shopping change over this period to occupy such an important place in our world? Using primary, secondary and material sources, students will examine the commodities, shopping habits, business strategies, consumer politics, marketplaces, and identities that shaped and sustained the rise of retail. Set primarily in a European context, the course will also emphasize the global and imperial dimensions of consumption and the systems of power that enabled it.
HIST-213 History of Turtle Island: Introduction to Native North America
This course surveys the history of Turtle Island, or Native North America, from origins to the present day. It provides an introduction to the many hundreds of diverse Nations across the continent through the use of specific case studies, as well as Indigenous methodologies and interdisciplinary methods such as oral history, art and material culture, literature, film, and more. This course covers themes such as land, sovereignty, survivance, gender, kinship, race, identity, diplomacy, and colonialism.
HIST-222 Muslim Politics in Modern South Asia
Taken together, Muslims in South Asia constitute the largest population of Muslims worldwide. This course will serve as an introduction to the political history of this diverse group of people. We will begin by considering religious conversion and the rule of Muslim kings in the premodern period. The bulk of the course will, however, concentrate on the modern history of the subcontinent, and especially on events and themes that continue to influence the countries and peoples of South Asia in the present, such as Muslim social reform, the rise of communalism, the partition of the subcontinent, and the influence of religion on contemporary politics.
HIST-226 Bread and Circuses: The Politics of Public Entertainment in Ancient Rome
Bread and circuses (panem et circenses) was a catchphrase in the Roman empire that described the political strategy of controlling an unruly populace through free bread and public entertainment. Against a backdrop of Roman social and political institutions, this course focuses on the imperial ideology, aristocratic ethos, and cultural practices that underpinned this catchphrase, as well as questions concerning the careers of entertainers--gladiators, charioteers, and actors--who were at once celebrities and social outcasts; the rules of spectatorship at the games; the use of these games as a form of social control; and the logistics of feeding the city population.
HIST-227 Ancient Greece
This course will trace the emergence and expansion of Greek civilization in the Mediterranean between the Bronze Age and Alexander the Great. Among themes to be explored are political structures, trade, slavery, gender relations, and religion, as well as the contributions of ancient Greeks to literary genres (drama, rhetoric, historiography, philosophy) and to the visual arts. Throughout we will consider how the history of the ancient Greeks can speak to modern concerns. Sources will include works of ancient Greek literature and history (e.g., Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plutarch) as well as archaeological and epigraphic evidence.
HIST-228 Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome and its empire can be viewed both as a measure of human achievement and a cautionary tale of the corrupting effects of unbridled power. This course covers the history of Ancient Rome from its mythologized beginnings (753 BCE) to the rise and spread of Christianity under the Emperor Constantine (312 CE). Topics include the creation and development of Rome's republican form of government as well as its eventual transition to monarchy, the causes and consequences of the acquisition of empire, the role of the army in administering the provinces and defending the frontiers, the image of emperor, the economy, and religion.
HIST-230 History and Law
An introduction to the study of history through law, using a comparative approach to group rights. Case studies, rooted in landmark court decisions and legislation, concern racial segregation in America before the civil rights era ('separate but equal') and in Europe during the Nazi era (the Nuremberg Laws, German 'national groups' in the East), as well as affirmative action in America and attempts at promoting equality among national groups in Austria before the First World War.
HIST-236 Turtle Island Stories and Thought
Using interdisciplinary and Indigenous methodologies, this course explores Native American (hi)stories, philosophies, and thought. This course explores the benefits of using Indigenous stories to gain a better understanding of the histories and futures of Turtle Island. We will use specific case studies to take a close look at various stories, historical methodologies, and wisdom found in a variety of Nations and communities across Turtle Island (Native North America).
HIST-239 Topics in Asian History
HIST-239CD Topics in Asian History: 'Chinese Diasporic Communities in the World: Race, Empire, and Transnationalism'
This course examines the experiences of Chinese diasporic communities in Southeast Asia, the United States, and the Caribbean within the historical context of empire building, colonization, war, transnationalism, and globalization. The period covered spans from the 1600s to the present, and focus will be given to how dominant groups attempt to localize and discipline Chinese diasporic subjects and how the latter negotiate, manipulate, and challenge such efforts. Themes include racism, transnationalism, ethnicity, gender, class, empire, and nationalism.
HIST-239EN Topics in Asian History: 'Empire, Nation, and the Making of Tribes in South Asia'
This course will explore the history of colonial and post-colonial encounters with various 'tribal' communities in South Asia. In colonial and post-colonial settings, the tribe has served as a category for military surveillance and pacification, legal regulation, economic development, and political resistance. Drawing mainly on examples from South Asia and engaging theoretical frames from the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Canada, we will consider how colonial and post-colonial governments, missionaries, and tribal populations themselves have invoked tribe. Readings for the course will include scholarly monographs and articles, ethnographic accounts, and missionary records.
HIST-239GF Topics in Asian History: 'Global Food and Local Tastes in Modern East Asia'
This 200-level history seminar studies the changing relationship between people and food on a global scale, but the main regional focus is East Asia. Course materials include but are not limited to the following topics: how does food define and transform social and cultural attitudes and everyday life? What role have governments and markets played in shaping what humans grew in the field? What has impacted local tastes in a given region? How has the emergence of restaurants, fast food, and supermarkets shaped the way humans have thought about food and nutrition? Can you recreate a dish from a recipe?
HIST-239HH Topics in Asian History: 'History of Humans and Other Living Beings'
This course investigates the relationships that humans have developed with other living beings in history. Course materials explore how humans have interacted with wild animals, domesticated some, imagined them in literary works, exploited animal labor, used them in scientific research, trained animals to perform, and co-lived with some as pets. These topics will help us think about how humans have developed ideas about animals and humans ourselves. The course will introduce histories worldwide with a specific focus on East Asia. Students who take this course must do research projects on East Asian topics, though comparative themes are welcome.
HIST-239MC Topics in Asian History: 'Borderlands and Ethnicity in Modern China'
This seminar investigates the processes through which borderlands were imagined and ethnicities were made in twentieth-century China. Drawing from texts and films about and by the people living on the borderlands, students in the seminar are to explore the intersecting relation between the two pressing issues and how Chinese states dealt with them. Furthermore, how did all these concerns originate? To that end, the seminar begins by examining how the central state in early modern China formed a multicultural empire in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.
HIST-239ME Topics in Asian History: 'Cities in Modern East Asia'
This course asks: what are cities in the history of modern East Asia? Cities were cosmopolitan, centers of commerce, and sites of social movements in late imperial China, Tokugawa Japan, and late Chosǔn Korea. How did the roles of cities change in the nineteenth century when East Asia became more integrated into the global system? How was urban life affected in the first half of the twentieth century when the central states dealt with domestic turmoil and external pressures? How did the state work to redefine cities and urban culture in the postwar era? To answer these questions, this seminar encourages students to position cities historically and comparatively.
HIST-239TB Topics in Asian History: 'Travels and Tibet in the Modern Era'
The seminar focuses on the global history centered on the Tibetan Plateau. Often referred to as "the Roof of the World," the plateau has been a magnet for missionaries, pilgrims, merchants, botanists, and military powers for centuries. Students will read travelogues of those who journeyed to Tibet since the early modern era from the 1600s. These travelers not only documented their expeditions but also brought back objects they believed represented Tibet. These materials will complement the textual sources, and the textual and material representations tell a history of Tibet that reflects both the travelers and Tibet itself, despite the potential distortions and incompleteness in these materials. To that end, students will also explore materials by Tibetans and about their world to provide a well-rounded perspective.
HIST-240 The Holocaust in History
An attempt at understanding the Nazi-led assault on Europe's Jews. Course units include an exploration of origins, both German and European; an analysis of the evolving mechanics of genocide (mobile killing squads, death camps, etc.); comparisons (Germany proper vs. Poland, the Holocaust vs. other instances of state-sponsored mass murder); legal dimensions; and an introduction to the politics of Holocaust remembrance since 1945.
HIST-244 European Public Policy, West and East
In 1968, the USSR commenced a strategy of consumerist depoliticization in its European satellites. Around the same time, states on the other side of the Iron Curtain saw the postwar era of rapid economic growth and social consensus close. This course, reaching across the revolutionary break of 1989 up to the present, raises questions of convergence and continuity in European public policy, West and East. Paired case studies from a variety of countries in fields such as energy, the environment, minority rights, and housing serve to clarify rules and patterns to the politics of policy, from Cold War to European Union and beyond.
HIST-245 Topics in African History
HIST-245EU Topics in African History: 'European Expansion in Africa'
Between the 1870s and 1910s, Africa was conquered by and divided among European powers. Why were European powers interested in informal and formal control of Africa? Why were they in competition with one another? How did Africans respond to European conquest and rule? What were the impacts of colonial rule in Africa? This course answers these and many other questions. The course is divided into two phases. The first focuses on the activities of the European powers in the late nineteenth century. The second examines the post-conquest period and examines African responses to the European conquests and rules in the early twentieth century.
HIST-245MW Topics in African History: 'Modern West Africa, 1800 to the Present'
This course examines historical developments in the West African sub-region from 1800 through colonial period to the formation of the Economic Community of West African States. The course focuses on themes such as the abolition of the slave trade, legitimate trade, European expansion, and colonial rule, and examines the social, political, economic, and cultural changes in West Africa during the period. This course will place Africans at the center of historical development. By studying these important themes, students will have a sound understanding of key developments that shaped Modern West Africa and appreciate the problems and potentials of West Africa.
HIST-245SV Topics in African History: 'Slavery and Emancipation in Africa'
Slavery and emancipation is a broad theme in the history of the modern world. The study of this theme has usually been centered on the Atlantic world and the focus has always been on the enslavement of Africans in the Americas. Yet, slavery was a global phenomenon. Slavery has been one of the most common historical settings in all regions of the world. This course focuses on Africa and examines the meanings and nature of slavery, methods of enslavement, slave use in Africa, internal and external slave trades, the place of women, slave resistance, abolition, and the persistence of slavery in Africa during the colonial rule. We will compare slavery in Africa and other regions of the World.
HIST-247 Mountains and Modernity
From the Himalayas in South Asia to Mexico's Chiapas and from North Carolina's Grandfather Mountain to the Uluru in Australia's Northern Territory, mountains represent more than just a geographical feature. They have been long viewed as transcendental spaces, served as a canvas for epic struggles between humans and nature, shaped cultural attitudes and been at the heart of political struggles. This course traces the history of various political and cultural meanings attached to mountains. Using examples from around the globe, it seeks to argue that rather than a metaphor for remoteness and primitivism, mountains are constitutive to our understanding of modernity.
HIST-252 History of Money
What is money? Is it the same in all times and places? If money could speak, what stories would it tell of the past? This course is about the history of money and money as an object of history. Using primary and secondary sources, students will learn about the social, political and cultural meaning of money at different times in the history of the western world. In addition, students will interpret the history of money using a variety of coins and money-related objects held in the MHC Art Museum. This is a course on the history of money, not the economics of money, but it will be of interest to anyone curious to learn more about the meaning of money in the past and today.
HIST-255 Ideas and Society in Europe
HIST-255DE Ideas and Society in Europe: 'Decentering Europe: An Introduction to Critical European Studies'
Europe embodies crossroads of multiple cultures, memories, migrations, and political demarcati ons. What remains of the ancient and modern regimes? How have global movements, historica l upheavals, and shifting boundaries within and adjacent to European borders, from early empir es to contemporary global networks, affected the transformation of lives? How do ideological pr ojects such as democracy, pluralism and fascism interact within Europe and the global scale? T aking a critical view of conventional paradigms of European nation states and "master" narrativ es, this course studies shifting European cultures and identities through multiple perspectives a cross time and space.
HIST-257 City Life in Modern Europe, 1750-1914
"Our age is ... the age of great cities," wrote Robert Vaughan in 1843. Many Europeans questioned whether the greatness of cities was such a good thing, but most agreed that the history of nineteenth-century Europe could not be written without them. We will examine that history from the perspective of Europe's largest cities between the mid-eighteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Readings will explore the process of urban transformation, the new forms of experience and identity that emerged in city life, and the efforts of governments, social reformers, planners and engineers to control and discipline the new urban masses.
HIST-259 Mary Lyon's World and the History of Mount Holyoke
What world gave rise to Mary Lyon's vision for Mount Holyoke and enabled her to carry her plans to success? Has her vision persisted or been overturned? We will examine the conditions, assumptions, and exclusions that formed Mount Holyoke and the arrangements of power and struggles for justice that shaped it during and after Lyon's lifetime. Topics include settler colonialism and missionary projects; northern racism and abolitionism; industrial capitalism and the evolution of social classes; debates over women's education, gender, and body politics; religious diversity; and efforts to achieve a just and inclusive campus. Includes research based on primary sources.
HIST-260 Topics in the Recent History of Europe
HIST-260HH Topics in the Recent History of Europe: 'The Habsburgs, Hitler, and the Law'
This course explores the complex, often comic, and ultimately tragic history of Bohemia, a territory located today in the Czech Republic, but previously a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, then of Czechoslovakia, and then of Hitler's Third Reich. Students will complement historical studies with autobiographical material and contemporary fiction, beginning with the Revolution of 1848, progressing through the achievements and worrisome trends of Emperor Francis Joseph's 68-year reign, and concluding with the world wars. Emphasis on the interplay among Czechs, Germans, Jews, and other pivotal players: the House of Habsburg and its supporters, and the political elites of neighboring countries.
HIST-262 Stalinism in Central Europe
This course explores the use of revolutionary terror by the state. More specifically, it examines policies of terror pursued by Communist dictatorships in Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the early years of the Cold War. Who did what to whom, and why? What insights do secret police work and public propaganda, knitted together in macabre show trials, allow us into Stalinist rule, European politics, and maybe ourselves? How did memories of terror shape politics after Stalin's death? Students should deepen their understanding for the discipline of History, improve their reading and writing, and develop a working knowledge of Central European politics at the middle of the twentieth century.
HIST-267 The Country and the City
During the Cold War, as tensions raged between the U.S. and Soviet Union, policymakers of both ideological persuasions oversaw rural development projects across the Third World. Their actions were premised on knowledge that villages were underdeveloped places. Mainly a colonial idea, this thought also had curious antecedents such as the Indian anti-colonialist Gandhi who saw villages as reservoirs of tradition and bulwarks against modernity. This course questions the received wisdom of this dichotomy. Drawing on classic works and case studies from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it asks how the city and countryside became symbols for understanding social and economic development.
HIST-276 U.S. Women's History Since 1890
This course considers the historical evolution of women's private lives, public presence, and political engagement within and beyond the borders of the United States, from the 1890s to the present. How have U.S. racism, consumer capitalism, immigration, and changing forms of state power shaped women's experiences and possibilities? How have regimes of gender, sexuality, bodily comportment, and reproduction evolved in relation to national and global changes? Emphasis will be placed on the experiences and perspectives of working-class women, women of color, and Indigenous women.
HIST-277 History of Energy
We live in an age of energy crises, in which the future of energy is questioned in countless headlines and Twitter feeds. These concerns often include other assumptions about energy's past, in particular the idea that social change invariably follows the discovery of new energy technologies. From food to fuel cells, this colloquium charts a more complicated and interesting history, a history in which people have continually shaped and made meaningful the energies that fuel the modern world.
HIST-279 Modern Civil Rights Movement
Sit-ins, marches, strikes, Supreme Court decisions, and the passing of landmark legislative acts filled the news headlines across the country during the 1950s and 1960s. This introductory-level survey course will examine the diverse strategies and philosophies of political, social and cultural figures that led to and fueled the modern civil rights movement in America. By drawing on a range of primary sources such as films, organizational records, and memoirs, this course will explore the origins of the movement, well-known and lesser-known protests and activists to reveal how anti-war efforts, gay and lesbian liberation, neighborhood rights, ethnic nationalism and even grassroots conservatism laid claim to the rhetoric and tactics of the civil rights movement.
HIST-281 African American History, Precolonial to Emancipation
This course will examine the cultural, social, political, and economic history of African Americans through the Civil War. Topics covered include the African background to the African American experience, the Atlantic slave trade, introduction and development of slavery, master-slave relationships, the establishment of black communities, slave revolts, the political economy of slavery, women in slavery, the experiences of free blacks, the crisis of the nineteenth century, and the effect of the Civil War.
HIST-282 African American History from Emancipation to the Present
This course will examine the social, cultural, political, and economic history of African Americans from emancipation and Reconstruction through the present. Emphasis will fall on postwar southern social and economic developments, the rise of segregation, northern migrations, black class stratification, nationalism, the twentieth-century civil rights movement, and current trends in African American political, social, and economic life.
HIST-296 Topics: Women in History
HIST-296NT Women in History: 'Histories of Native American Women'
This course explores the histories of Native American women, from origins to the present day. This course also introduces students to Indigenous methodologies. We will look at topics such as origin stories, Indigenous feminism, the fur trade, Removal, reservations, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. Major themes include kinship, community, gender, race, material culture, sovereignty, reproduction, matrilineal societies, survivance, and diplomacy.
A colloquium is a 300-level class concentrating on advanced readings in secondary sources and on the analysis and construction of an historical argument. A colloquium may be centered on a broad historical theme, issue, or problem that is likely to affect the world into which current students will graduate. Regardless of topic, they share the common course number HIST-301. Please note that admission to some 300-level history courses is by written application and permission of the instructor. Students may apply online.
A 300-level class requiring students to engage in primary and secondary source research in the history of particular times and places, resulting in a substantial piece of historical writing. The research seminars are the History courses numbered between 302–394. Please note that admission to some 300-level history courses is by written application and permission of the instructor. Students may apply online.
HIST-327 Mayhem Under Nazi Rule: Who Whom, Why and How?
Nazi tyranny inspired heroic opposition across Europe, but also attracted many collaborators. Some resisters engaged in mass murder of their own. Many Germans embraced the fascist regime, but far from all. Working often against stereotypes and myths, historians have occasionally dug up deeply controversial truths and complexities about the Second World War. Ranging from France to Ukraine and from the 1930s to the present, this course probes both a mayhem-filled past and postwar national reckonings with it. Each student will help to frame one of the weekly discussions with a short essay, and will complete a substantial research essay by the end of the semester.
HIST-331 Topics in Asian History
HIST-331WF Topics in Asian History: 'Women and the Family in Imperial China'
This course examines the lives of women in imperial China (221 BCE-1911). How did Confucian didactic texts define women and their place in the family? Seen as the core of the family in a patrilineal, patrilocal, and patriarchical society, men prescribed women's roles in family life. How did women understand and respond to the social expectations imposed on them? What changed over the long history of imperial China? Students consider writings by and about women alongside the evidence of material culture.
HIST-332 Environmental History of China
This course offers a sweeping history of how the people in China have interacted with the natural world. Students will investigate historically specific social, economic, and political forces that have shaped environmental transformations in China. The course is organized thematically within a chronological framework. The course concludes with a closer look at the development of environmental practice in the modern era.
HIST-341 Topics in African History
HIST-341DC Topics in African History: 'Decolonization and the Civil Rights Movement'
This course explores pan-African collaborations between the continental Africans and the African Diaspora during the age of decolonization and the Civil Rights Movement. It examines key developments in the global black movement with a focus on (de)segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, decolonization, and the Black Power Movement. Through readings and discussions, students who complete this course will come to understand the contributions of continental Africans to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the responses of the African Diaspora to social, political, and economic conditions in post-colonial Africa.
HIST-357 History of British Capitalism
This is a research seminar, designed to introduce students to classic and recent debates on the "history of capitalism" and to support original research on a broad array of topics related to the social and cultural history of economic life. Rather than take British capitalism as exemplary of modernization we will situate that which was particular about the British case against the pluralities of capitalism that have evolved over the past three centuries. Topics include revolutions in agriculture, finance, commerce and manufacturing; the political economy of empire; the relationship between economic ideas, institutions and practice; and, the shaping of economic life by gender, class and race.
HIST-358 Oral History Seminar
This course introduces students to oral history. We will discuss oral history from a variety of perspectives and think about ethics, memory, community histories, and the lives of stories. We will include oral history approaches from diverse communities across Turtle Island/North America. Students will conduct oral history interviews and write a research paper.
HIST-372 Material Cultures of Turtle Island/North America
This course explores the histories of material culture on Turtle Island/North America from origins to the present day. We will explore the stories that live inside objects and the relationships people have with material culture. We will explore case studies from a variety of cultures, including Indigenous, Euro-American, and African-American perspectives, but with a heavy emphasis on Indigenous material cultures. Students will be exposed to a variety of research methodologies for studying material culture. This course will culminate in the production of a substantial research paper.
HIST-381 Topics in Recent American History
HIST-381BE Recent American History: 'Black Labor Since Emancipation'
This research seminar will attempt to accomplish two goals; to examine some of the significant issues in the history of African American workers since Emancipation and to introduce you to some of the most recent scholarship addressing those issues. We will begin with general studies of the history of capitalism in the U.S. and Black workers then proceed to a study of: 1) The role of Black labor in several industries, 2) Black women as workers, 3) Black labor and the Black power movement and 4) Herbert Hill's critiques of organized labor and the labor history establishment. As a key part of this course, students will prepare a significant primary-source research paper.
HIST-383 Research Seminar in North American History: From Unsettlement to Reconstruction
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, how was America both settled and unsettled? How did Indigenous peoples and newcomers build and rebuild lives, communities, and possibilities for the future? We will consider themes of settlement, unsettlement, creation, violence, and rebuilding as we examine early contact between Indigenous and European peoples, trans-oceanic relationships, migration, slavery, the state, war, post-Civil War Reconstruction, and other topics students select. We will focus on research practices that produce insight into the ways people lived in their bodies, on the land, and with one another. Students' efforts will culminate in the production of a substantial research paper.
