Lower-Division

European social thought understands society to be the product of the historical process. Readings from early-modern natural law thinkers (Hobbes, Lock, Rousseau), 19th-century theorists of the democratic and industrial revolutions (Tocqueville, Marx), and 20th-century social scientists (Weber, Braudel), explore the nature of this fertile connection.

Although most teaching and research on slavery has focused on slavery in the Americas (and not always from a comparative perspective), the institution of slavery has been part of societies in nearly every part of the world. This course addresses questions such as the shape slavery took in different times and places, the bases and justification for enslavement, who could or could not be enslaved, occupational employment, possibilities for manumission, and the weaning or abolition of the institution. The last third is dedicated to slavery in the Americas. (Formerly course 36.)

Christianity from its origins as a Jewish messianic movement, its expansion in multiple forms in the Greco-Roman world and the East, to its transformation into the major religion of the Roman and Byzantine empires.

Through readings on local history topics and bi-weekly field expeditions, students discover different types of archives and historical repositories, the diversity of sources that they contain, and the varied uses to which they can be put. Course also explores the range of career opportunities open to history majors (sometimes loosely grouped together under the rubric public history).

An introductory course on the racial/ethnic history of the U.S. Of central concern are issues of race, ethnicity, oppression, resistance, mass migrations, city life in urban America, and power and protest in modern America. Priority enrollment to freshmen and sophomores.

A survey of the early histories of Indus Valley, Vedism, the epics, Buddhism, Jainism, with an exploration among original sources: archaeological, visual, ritual, literary, and epic texts. Thematic focus on communities, social systems, elite and popular cultures, and their mutual interaction. (Formerly Histories of Traditional India)

Reviews major social, political, economic, and cultural developments in Europe from 1000 to 1500 and themes including gender, warfare, ethnicity and religion, through primary sources and secondary readings. Primary focus is Western Europe: England, France, the Iberian Peninsula, the Holy Roman Empire, the Low Countries, and Italy.

Examines gender, sexuality, and family across classes in late imperial China, and the transformation of all three by revolution (and vice versa). Concentrates throughout on gender as a category of historical analysis that has remained largely invisible in the construction of conventional Chinese history.

Examines how constructions of gender and intersecting constructions of race, class, and sexuality define the power of women differentially in the world of work. Beginning with the history of emancipation, traces the broader constructions of paid and unpaid labor in the 20th-century U.S. Traces the specific histories of transgender women workers, specific regional and industrial histories, and those marked by the meaning given to African, Asian, Euro-, indigenous, and Mexican descent in the construction of gender and work. Uses feminist methodology and contemporaneous visual and written work by women artists and filmmakers.

An examination of the history of public policy in the U.S. considering the changing political, racial, and gender ideologies that have informed social policies over time and led to inequality in American society. Students are required to have a field placement in addition to class time. Will be offered in the 2002–03 academic year.