HIS-History

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.

Focuses on the transformation of many different societies of Asia, Africa, and the Americas from 1400 to 1750 through case histories and the comparative study of European colonial hegemony, labor systems, global economic exchange, missions, and warfare.

The history of the world from 1750. Focuses on the liberal project (the industrial and democratic revolutions) and its impact on the world—slavery and abolition, self-strengthening movements, race and class, imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism.

Explores the impact of modernity on a variety of religious traditions. Examines the rise of secularism and the phenomenon of disenchantment; the invention of religion; and the emergence of fundamentalism in the modern period.

Readings examine 18th- through 20th-century social movements and related phenomena in Europe/America: examples include Tulipomania; revolutionary action in France; U.S. Civil Rights movement; and the environmental and feminist movements. Lectures focus on social science frameworks used to explore the social base, tactics, success or failure, and inter-relationships of social movements as a distinctive mode of social change.

Explores the history of work, working-class people, and the labor movement in the U.S., with attention to race and gender dynamics as well as to the development of workers' organizations.

Explores the history of work, working-class people, and the labor movement in the U.S. in global perspective with attention to race and gender dynamics and political-economic changes.

Examines U.S. society, politics, and culture during the 1930s, with emphasis on the relationship between social movements and public policy, and dynamics of race, ethnicity, immigration, and gender, and dynamics between labor, business, and the state.

Examines U.S. expansion and subsequent ascent to global power. In tracing the presence of the U.S. in different areas of the world during the 20th century, course considers the ideas, politics, gender, and social relations that have influenced imperial aspirations.

California had a multi-ethnic indigenous society for centuries. Course traces the persistent multi-ethnic quality of the region as it became part of the Spanish empire, Mexico, and the United States. Considers the many diasporas that have shaped California's steady connection to the world, especially to Mexico and other nations that border the Pacific.

Examines the tribal histories and epistemologies of California's recognized and unrecognized tribes. Beginning with ancient pasts of linguistically distinct indigenous peoples, the class focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries, and considers the role of colonialism, genocide, and historical recovery.

Examines the interactions and integration of indigenous people and settlers in the Southwest U.S. and Northern Mexico from a region defined by its indigenous colonial borderlands to national borders. Explores the connections between the U.S. and Mexico. Within the deeply cross-cultural region studied, also examines the particular histories of states, indigenous peoples, and Mexican-origin groups and regions.

History of racial and ethnic minorities in the American city in the 19th and 20th centuries. Examines the experiences of several non-white groups, with analyses of race, class, culture, gender, acculturation, and implications for social policy in the urban environment.

Helps students better understand the various social/economic/political issues of public policy by providinga historical perspective analysis. Each student is required to participate in a public history/public service internship.

A study of the Caribbean from the conquest to the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. Focus on the Greater Antilles, particularly the Spanish Caribbean. Emphasis on economic and social issues such as colonialism and the role of sugar production, slavery, and race/ethnicity in these multicultural societies.

Studies Pre-18th century colonial Latin America, with particular emphasis on Peru and Mexico. Topics include: strategies of colonization; cities and urban life; and knowledge, technology, and the professions (ethnographic projects, indigenous intellectuals, schools and universities, medicine and hospitals, the law and the courts).

Exploration of the social history of colonial and imperial Brazil. Material progresses chronologically and thematically from the pre-contact indigenous societies that were encountered in South America to the colonization of Brazil through independence to the 19th-Century empire that ended in 1889.

Exploration of the social history of the Brazilian republic. Course passes chronologically and thematically from the end of the Empire in 1889 to present-day Brazilian films, texts, and lectures.

China to 1644. Examines the origins and development of the Chinese political and cultural order, including intellectual and religious systems, the imperial state, village and urban life, the family system, gender hierarchy, economic transformation, millenarianism and rebellion. (Formerly course 150A.)

Explores aspects of Chinese history from the 16th to the 21st Century. Analyzes modernization movements, nationalism, the party-state regime, gender and family, minority policies, human rights, the Chinese legal system, national identity, and the Chinese diaspora.

Satyajit Ray is widely acclaimed as a master of world cinema. Course considers his work to examine authorship at multiple levels: the cultural, historical, social, and familial contexts and the relationship of his film to fiction, the politics and poetics of his vision, and its relationship to colonial, nationalist, and postcolonial India. Also studies the question of gender and the underclass.

Political, social, economic, and cultural history of the Crown of Aragon, a major medieval Mediterranean power which failed to survive the transition to the modern world. Emphasis on interaction between diverse ethnic/religious groups within and outside of the Crown.

The civilization of Islam to 1258 A.D. Origins and early florescence, an international civilization, the coming of the steppe peoples. (Formerly course 161.)

Surveys the history of modern Islamic societies from the emergence of the regional gunpowder empires (Ottoman Turkish, Safevi Persian, Mughal Indian) in the 16th century to their subsequent transformations in the new global context of Western hegemony and the world market. (Formerly course 162.)

An introduction to the physical manifestations of ancient Greece, with emphasis on the various interpretative strategies for deciphering the cultural meanings of the material object. The specific topic of the course rotates among the following: Aegean Bronze Age; Dark Ages and Archaic Period; Classical Greece; the Hellenistic World. (Formerly course 102.)

This social and cultural history of Israel begins with the rise of the Israelite monarchy and ends in the early Roman period. Economy, political organization, and religious practices and beliefs such as polytheism and monotheism are compared with those of neighboring peoples. Priority given to history majors.

Ancient and modern conceptions of sin, and remedies offered for it. Course is not a theology of sin and redemption, but an invitation to reflect on ways sin and fault have been imagined and formulated. (Formerly course 163.)

Surveys how books were made and used in Europe from 600-1500. Focuses on the relationship between book production and the development of libraries. Meets in Special Collections, McHenry Library. Exhibition as class project.

Focuses on the origin of the Republic in the revolt against Spanish overlordship, and its political, social, and economic development in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Examines the political/social upheaval in 1789, 1830, and 1848 in light of the sweeping changes brought to 19th-century France by those other great revolutions of the age, the democratic and the industrial. Students' written work focuses on the comparative analysis of revolution.

Focuses on Hitler's political career and analyzes how he harnessed Germany and much of Europe to his vision of a New Order organized along a social-Darwinist notion of the racial community.

Topics include Russia's relations with Scandinavia, Byzantium, and the Mongols; Orthodoxy; and the roles of women. Materials include chronicles, letters, law codes, household manuals, travelogues, epics, art, architecture, and maps. Also explores the continuing relevance of Russia's medieval past through operas and film.

Focus on the emergence in 19th-century Russia of a westernized intelligentsia; its effort both to assimilate western ideas and to define the destinies of Russia; the shaping of the Russian revolutionary movement. Readings in Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Herzen, and representative Russian Slavophils, Populists, and Nihilists.

Considers how Britain became the pacemaker of modernity in the 18th and 19th centuries; how national, regional, class, and gender identities formed and altered; and how Britain coped with loss of global power in the 20th century.

Explores the impact of modernization upon women and the concepts of gender, both feminine and masculine, in Jewish societies across Europe, the Middle East, and India.

Complete original research in California and borderlands history in this senior research seminar. Focus on selected problems and themes. Assignments and discussions help students frame their research and edit their writing.

Examines history of women and social movements in the U.S., such as abolitionism, anti-lynching, Chinese and Jewish garment workers, Chicana farm labor activism, the American Indian Movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Civil Rights movement.

Explores the migration of the more than 10,000 Jewish refugees who fled Europe during World War II and settled in Shanghai. Examines the different Jewish populations that fled to Shanghai, the Shanghai ghetto, and the recovery of this piece of history from the 1980s through the present.

The modernization of a world city from 1750 to the present. Cairo's social and cultural history (literature, film, music) against the background of its changing political and economic contexts. Topics include: orientalism, nationalism, imperialism, minorities, women, migration, urbanism, popular culture, tourism.

Writing-intensive course on the Mediterranean. Topics include: U.S. relations with the region (including direct and indirect intervention), local responses, and cultural transformations. Students pursue advanced research using primary and secondary sources.

Reading and research seminar for graduate students interested in gender, colonialism, nationalism, and race. Topics include theories and methods employed in different chronological and national contexts. (Formerly course 225.)

Introduction to major themes and controversies in the interpretation of U.S. history. Readings cover both chronological eras and topical subjects, often in a comparative context: 20th century.