What is disease? How have different cultures experienced and responded to it? Using case studies from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, this course examines global ecological changes and global human exchanges as a key factor in the spread of epidemic disease. It also highlights the role of medical and scientific knowledge in the human responses to disease. We explore the changing notions of the body's anatomy and physiology; the role of the environment; the interaction between healers, doctors, and patients; the nature of different therapeutic approaches; and the structure of health care institutions. Contributes to Environmental Studies, Health Studies, International Studies, and Spanish for Healthcare Professions Certificate. (Annually) (H)

This course traces the evolution of a variety of empires (real or imagined), from the pre-Columbian indigenous, Iberian, French, British, and Dutch empires through the Age of Revolutions, the rise of industry, capitalism, nationalist movements, World Wars, and communism. We will conclude with the process of decolonization and the possible development of an American Empire and other new kinds of empires. Empires, very broadly construed, will be our lens to interpret world history. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Design Thinking and International Studies (Annually) (H)

This course investigates the development of national identities around the world and the nationalisms that describe or defend them. This course investigates the development of national identities around the world and the nationalisms that describe or defend them. Through a series of national case-studies, it explores how nations are defined, whether nations are natural expressions of human community, why nationalism has often led to violence, and what the future may be for the nation-state. Contributes to International Studies, Race and Ethnicity Studies/Allied Course, and Legal Studies Certificate. (Annually) (H)

This course introduces the world of premodern Eurasia by tracing transregional connections from the domestication of the horse by Inner Asian nomads to the Eurasian conquest of the Mongol Empire. We discuss mass migrations, individual travels, military conquest and virus transmission, as well as arenas of interaction such as monasteries, courts, ships, and caravans. By tracing objects, stories, and ideas, this class explores the Silk Road, a pre-Columbus global network of exchange, and other Silk Roads, to uncover world history as a network of overlapping links rather than a collection of national narratives. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to International Studies. (Annually) (H)

This class explores the development of global society through the lens of food and culinary experiences. It uses primary and secondary sources to examine how different factors have historically shaped the development and nature of foodscapes globally. It pays attention to the key historiographical debates and seminal turning points, showing the shifts and continuities within social, economic and environmental appreciation of food by society. We steer through emotive themes including race, indigeneity and belonging, colonialism, nutrition, gender and climate change. This course will show how world foodscapes demonstrate the complex, yet colorful realities and cosmology of society. Contributes to Environmental Studies. (Annually) (H)

This course offers an alternative thematic approach to the study of societies, cultures, and civilizations around the world and their interactions. May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This class explores the social, economic and political history of modern African societies since 1800. It provides a thorough appreciation of the multiple and complex dynamics that shape the nature and experiences of different African communities over time and space. It unpacks the shifting contours of social, economic, environmental, and political development before, during and after colonization. The course engages with varying themes including, colonization, gender, economic and political development and nationalism. This course aims to make the continent more recognizable to us. Contributes to International Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H)

This course introduces the East Asian civilization from its beginnings to the eve of the modern age. Covering the histories of the current nation-states China, Korea, and Japan, this course explores transregional processes that help define East Asia as a unit of historical inquiry. Major themes include political history, ethnic discourses and practices, the localization of Buddhism, indigenous religions, inter-state relations, urban life, gender, family, and intellectual change. These themes allow us to deliberate the formation of the East Asian world and the exchanges of the premodern era. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies, East Asian Studies, and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course introduces students to the inter-related histories of China, Japan, and Korea since 1800 until the present day. Major topics include cultural exchanges, revolutions, war, imperialism, colonialism, and Cold War geopolitics. While globalizing forces oversaw the convergence of East Asia and European imperialism, politicians, intellectuals, and even commoners began to imagine themselves as members of distinct nations. By placing the emergence of East Asian nation-states and the interactions among them within the context of an increasingly connected world, we explore the making of the modern East Asian world. Contributes to East Asian Studies and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course explores the individual, social, cultural, and political experiences of Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans between the apogee of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas and the Creole wars of independence of the 19th century. By examining pre-Colombian states, early European explorations, la conquista, the settlement of mostly Spanish but also Portuguese and other European colonies, and the responses of a diverse group of local inhabitants, this course shows that Latin American societies resulted from complex processes of colonization, exploitation, and resistance. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies, Health Studies, International Studies, Latin American and Border Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H)

After their independence in the early 19th century, Latin American countries faced the challenge to become nations. This course surveys the many paths that these countries followed, including the rise of nationalism and its overcoming by the neocolonial order, the revolutionary option in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua during the 20th century, the authoritarian responses to national discontent, and the rise of neoliberalism. It also explores how these trends transformed the society, culture, economy, and policies at the local level in response to both national and international influences. Contributes to International Studies, Latin American and Border Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H)

This course surveys the political, social, cultural and intellectual history of early America, from the beginnings of European settlement to the eve of the Civil War. It focuses on several central issues that emerged in early American society and that continue to affect the United States today. These include the meaning of equality and freedom, ideas redefined over time in relationship to changing ideas about slavery, political authority, and the creation of governments, conceptualizing American identity, and constructing political authority. Citizenship, revolution, popular sovereignty, and the role of minority opinions in a democracy are major topics explored. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies, and Legal Studies Certificate. (Biennially) (H)

This course surveys major political, economic, social, cultural and diplomatic developments in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. Course topics include the role of the individual in the state and the state in society, the meaning of equality and freedom, and the United States' role in the world. (Biennially) (H)

This course explores and questions the concept of the early modern period of European history, from the close of the fifteenth to the dawn of the nineteenth century. Students will examine political, cultural, and intellectual developments from the period of feudalism to the modernity ushered in by Atlantic-wide revolutions. The course will examine Renaissance art and theory, Reformation and confessional tumult, sovereignty and expansion. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course surveys the history of Europe from the late eighteenth century revolutions through the creation and expansion of the European Union. It explores social, political, intellectual, and cultural developments, paying particular attention to reform movements and revolutions. The course tracks shifting ideas of gender, race, and class, as well as examining Europe's role in the world. Contributes to Data Analytics, Data Science, Feminist Studies, and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

Agriculture and resource extraction are the economic, cultural and political mainstay of many African economies. Their development and exploitation have varyingly contributed towards the shaping of the environmental landscape of the continent. Relying on primary and secondary sources, this class explores Africa's environmental history tracing the shifting contours of social, political, economic as well as environmental movements over time and space. It engages with varying emotive and contested themes including, (white settler) colonization, agrarian and environmental reform and policy, gender and society, imperialism, resource extraction, climate change as well as race and ethnicity politics. The course aims to make the environmental realities more recognizable to us. Contributes to Environmental Studies, International Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H)

In the histories of their sedentary neighbors, nomadic groups across Eurasia (including the Mongols and Uyghurs) have often been portrayed as barbarians, minimized to the role of mere outsiders separated by the curtain of civilization. This course puts the nomads of Eastern Eurasia on center stage in a multiethnic setting teeming with the exchange of sedentary and nomadic culture. By examining the nomadic way of life and mode of state building, we explore how nomads served as agents of change and influenced pre-modern Eastern Eurasia. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Classics, Early Modern and Medieval Studies, East Asian Studies, International Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Allied course. (Biennially) (H)

This course explores the history of women and sexuality in China from the early ages to the modern era. By framing women as central figures in the formation of Chinese societies, states, and empires throughout history, we examine diverse female lives through the exploration of key Chinese texts and primary sources written for, by, and about women, which will provide insights into how women made contributions to their societies. This study of gender covers various topics including family, marriage, politics, gendered body, and same-sex relations. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies, East Asian Studies, Feminist Studies, and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

Telling the history of Latin America poses challenges because the region's own definition lies between what its inhabitants have been told about their past and what they know is their past. Films and novels capture some subtleties that lay between institutional and lived history, official and personal history, and history and memory. Using a selection of films and novels that focus on particular historical episodes from colonial times to the early twenty-first century, this course examines these subtleties and their relevance to understanding current transformations in Latin American societies. Contributes to International Studies, Latin American and Border Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H) (SJ) (PJ)

This course uses human reproduction and reproductive labor to examine the material conditions and processes that have shaped Latin American societies since pre-colonial times. Human bodies have sustained altepetls, ayllus, empires, colonies, and nation-states. Consequently, the way societies conceive, support, and regulate the production of these bodies as well as the way these societies challenge and resist such notions define the societies' own structure and function. The case studies examined in this course illustrate regional trends and local variations in Latin American reproductive histories. This course has a community-engaged learning (CEL) component. Contributes to Health Studies, International Studies, Latin American and Border Studies, Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course, and Spanish for Healthcare Professions Certificate. (Biennially) (H) (SJ) (PJ)

The Mexican Revolution was a fiesta of bullets that transformed Mexico and launched the 20th century. Using the Mexican Revolution as the event that shaped Mexican history throughout the 20th century, this course examines the conditions that mobilized Mexican such as Madero, Zapata, and Villa into a civil war in 1910 and that ended up with a new Constitution in 1917, the challenges, successes, and failures to create institutions that implemented the revolutionary values during the 1920s and 30s, and the value of the Revolution to promote social and political change in the second half of the 20th century. Contributes to International Studies, and Latin American and Border Studies. (Biennially) (H) (SJ) (PJ)

This course explores major social, political, economic, and cultural developments in the history of Texas from contact through World War II. Focusing particular attention on the 19th century, it places the development of the borderlands region at the intersection of various European, North America, and Native American powers, emphasizing the continued importance of transnational currents in the making of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Texas into the twentieth century. Contributes to Latin American and Border Studies . (H)

This course explores the history of the Black Freedom struggle in the twentieth century United States. Moving beyond the classic Heroic Era of the civil rights (from Brown v. Board of Education to the Voting Rights Act), it examines social, cultural, and political protests from the consolidation of Jim Crow through founding of Black Lives Matter. Contributes to Feminist Studies, Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course, and Legal Studies Certificate. (Biennially) (H) (SJ) (PJ)

This course will examine the history of the conservative movement in the United States from the late 19th century through the election of Donald Trump. Blending chronological and thematic organization, it will examine topics that include Social Darwinism and anti-Progressive politics, business and the New Deal state and the emergence of libertarianism, McCarthyism and the Fourth Great Awakening after World War II, the Goldwater movement, racial backlash and the Silent Majority, the Tax Revolt of the 1970s, the Reagan years, the culture wars, before moving to more recent developments. Contributes to Legal Studies Certificate. (Biennially) (H)

This course uses the social, cultural, and political history of sport to examine American history from the 1830s to the present. It considers the emergence and development of modern athletics in connection to broader questions of gender and sexuality, masculinity and femininity, labor and politics, race and ethnicity, immigration and Americanization. Contributes to Applied Movement and Sport Studies, Exercise Sport Studies, Feminist Studies, Health Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Allied Course. (Biennially) (H)

This course focuses on the history of the U.S. West as both frontier and region, real and imagined, from the mid-19th century onward. It considers topics such as Indian Removal, wars of conquest, immigration and migration, urban frontiers, environmental change, and the myth of the frontier. It especially highlights the intersections of race, gender, class, nationality and the environment. Course objectives include learning to interpret varied forms of historical evidence and fostering analytical, reading, discussion and synthetic skills that will help students think and communicate critically about historical and contemporary society and politics. Contributes to Environmental Studies and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Allied Course. (Biennially) (H)

This class examines the long history of slavery in modern society. It shows how the historical practice of slavery has shaped societal race, gender, environmental, socio-economic, and political landscapes. It engages the contentious debates, legacies and impacts of slavery on global communities. It examines how profoundly different perspectives on slavery have been captured, engaged, preserved, and expressed over time and space. It illuminates the social and economic bonds between Africa, Europe and the Americas, to show how slavery is not just a history of oppression, but equally a story of agency, indigeneity, development, and survival. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to International Studies and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H)

This course traces the development of Islamic societies and cultures throughout the world from Mohammad's seventh-century revelations to the present. Topics include Islamic empires, relations with other groups, art and architecture, science and philosophy, evolution and adaptation. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course explores the relationship between science, technology, and medicine and their publics since the Early Modern period to our recent past. Drawing from case studies that examine the role of scientific societies, formal education, textbooks, popular literature, publicity, and other formal and informal means to disseminate knowledge, students will understand the changing relationship between science and the public sphere, the role that the popularization of science plays in democratic societies, and the impact of popular science and the public perception of science in the production of new scientific knowledge. Contributes to International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

WITCHES, NUNS, PROSTITUTES, WIVES, AND QUEENS: WOMEN & GENDER IN THE BRITISH WORLD. This course explores the multifaceted experiences of women in the British World, from the medieval era to the present. We consider how gender and sexuality have been constructed differently over time and space; the role of churches, states, and empires in defining and proscribing sexual activity, masculinity, and femininity; the social and political expectations placed upon men and women; cultural representations and manifestations of gender and sexuality; the intersection of gender and other categories of difference; and how pivotal, transnational historical events like the Reformation and decolonization affected women and notions of gender. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies, Feminist Studies, and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course examines the British Isles since the Glorious Revolution via political, social, cultural, and intellectual lenses, integrating imperial and oceanic perspectives. It explores how British inhabitants formed, developed, and governed four distinct nations (England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) as part of a single kingdom, constructing one of the most powerful empires of the modern age, leaving a profound legacy in a globalized, post-colonial world. Contributes to International Studies and Legal Studies Certificate. (Biennially) (H)

This course investigates French history from 1789 to the present, charting political, social, and cultural developments within France and determining the extent to which these altered, or were influenced by, events outside the borders of the French mainland-in the Empire or in foreign relations. The course pays particular attention to attempts to define French identity within a global context. Contributes to Design Thinking and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course will chart the development of European society, culture, and politics from ca. 1000 to 1500, from British, European, Atlantic and global perspectives. We will study the combination of legend and history manifest in contemporary and modern appraisals of an era when lines between reality and lore, truth and superstition, secular and spiritual were blurred. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Classics, Early Modern and Medieval Studies and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course traces the history of Muslim-European relationships from the early Islamic empires in Andalusia, through European imperial experiences with Muslims around the world, to the more recent reception of Muslim migrants on European soil. The course questions the intellectual and political utility of defining populations of such cultural, linguistic, and geographical breadth solely by their religion; discusses the development of a European Islam; and debates the existence of a clash of civilizations or a shared Mediterranean culture. Contributes to International Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group-Theme Course. (Biennially) (H) (SJ) (PJ)

This course examines the Tudor dynasty, an age of personal monarchy, tyranny, national consolidation, imperial expansion, patriarchy and the rule of wealthy courtiers. Students will explore how the Tudor-Stewart revolution in politics and culture fundamentally transformed Britain and Ireland, with great consequences for the world beyond its borders, between the accession of Henry VII and the death of Elizabeth I. Fulfills the pre-/early modern requirement in the History major. Contributes to Early Modern and Medieval Studies, Feminist Studies, and International Studies. (Biennially) (H)

This course explores developing categories of race within European contexts and highlights the experiences of diverse racial and ethnic groups on the European continent. After considering the Classical world, it moves to the Renaissance and Enlightenment as major moments for developing racial ideas and hierarchies. From there, it examines both the growth of overseas imperialism and racial projects within the European continent, alongside anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. Finally, it considers race, national identity, citizenship, migration, and culture in contemporary Europe. Contributes to International Studies, and Race and Ethnicity Studies/Group/Theme. (Biennially) (H)

This course traces the origins of contemporary human rights debates from ancient traditions, through the Enlightenment and the abolition of slavery, to the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, global movements for decolonization, and the present day. It tracks both gradually expanding notions of rights and changing understandings of who counts as human. The course includes discussions of political and civil rights, social and economic rights, gender and sexuality rights, minority rights, cultural rights, and environmental rights (among many others). Contributes to Data Science, Feminist Studies, International Studies, and Legal Studies Certificate. (Biennially) (H) (SJ)(PJ)

Thematic courses with a focus on African history. May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to International Studies. (H)

Thematic courses with a focus on Asian history. May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to East Asian Studies and International Studies. (H)

Thematic courses with a focus on Latin American history. May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to International Studies. (H)

Thematic courses with a focus on U.S. history. May be repeated with change in topic. (H)

Thematic courses with a comparative or transregional theme (covering at least three different world regions). May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to International Studies. (H)

Thematic courses with a focus on European history. May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to International Studies. (H)

These courses investigate the historical relationship between humans and nature. Every version of the course will emphasize how broader historical contexts have shaped human knowledge of nature, exploring the changing interrelationship between scientific knowledge, society, and culture across time and space. May be repeated with change in topic. Contributes to Health Studies. (Biennially) (H)

A study of the concept of history, the history of historical writing, the major schools of historical interpretation today and the relation of history to the philosophy of history. Prerequisite: 16-014, 16-024, 16-034, 16-044, 16-054 or 16-094; and must have junior status or permission of instructor. (Fall) (H) (WA)

Topics, which change from semester to semester, include: History and Memory, Transnational Histories, and Science, Society, and the State. Prerequisite: History 16-604. (Spring)(H)(WA)

By invitation only. Students will work closely with a faculty mentor to prepare a formal prospectus and annotated bibliography that outline the historical problem to be researched, offer a preliminary literature review of the subject, and suggest the methodology and organization for a full Honors project to be carried out the following year.