2024-2025 Catalog

HIST 11004. Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations III: South Asia. 100 Units.

This course will explore major themes in the history of women, gender, and sexuality in modern South Asia. We will address reform, legislation, nationalism, and rights discourses across periods of colonialism and independence in the nineteenth and twentieth century. This includes examining how colonial reforms and criminal codes impacted women with respect to education, marriage, abortion, infanticide, and prostitution, as well as how laws targeted gender expression and criminalized forms of queerness. In independent South Asia, we will consider the development of gender and queer rights discourses and how these have been shaped by the politics of patriarchy, religion, caste, and class. We will also examine instances of gendered and sexual violence during moments of rupture such as the Partition of India and the Bangladesh Liberation War. Students in this course will draw on a range of primary and secondary texts across written and visual mediums to critically think about the place of women and gender/sexual minorities and their expressions of resilience and defiance in modern South Asia.

Instructor(s): Zoya Sameen     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This is an optional 3rd quarter of GNSE Civ. Students must have taken the first two quarters to be able to count this as a Core class.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 15005, SALC 15005

HIST 11301. Global British Empire to 1784: War, Commerce, and Revolution. 100 Units.

This course traces the origins, development, and revolutionary transformation of the British Empire. Students will explore the English Civil War, King Philip's War, Bacon's Rebellion, the development of slavery, the Revolution of 1688, the making of British India, the rise of Irish discontent, the Scottish Jacobite Rebellions, the causes of the American Revolution, and the transformation of the British Empire into an authoritarian state. Students will read selections from Locke, Defoe, Swift, Franklin, Burke, and many others.

Instructor(s): S. Pincus     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Assignments: one short paper, a classroom presentation, and one longer research-based paper.
Equivalent Course(s): DEMS 11301

HIST 11703. Jewish Spaces and Places, Imagined and Real. 100 Units.

What makes a ghetto, a ghetto? What defines a Jewish neighborhood? What determined the architectural form of synagogues? Taught in Special Collections in Regenstein Library and making extensive use of the textual and visual sources there, this course will analyze how Jews (in all their diversity) and non-Jews defined Jewish spaces and places. Sources will include: Jewish law and customary practice, cookbooks, etiquette guides, prints, films, novels, maps, memoirs, architectural drawings and photographs, and tourist guides. We may also take a field trip to the Oak Woods Cemetery. The focus will be on Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, but we will also venture back into the early modern period and across the Mediterranean to Palestine/Israel and North Africa and the Atlantic to the Caribbean and the Americas. We will study both actually existing structures and texts and visual culture in which Jewish places and spaces are imagined or vilified. Parallel to our work with primary sources we will read in the recent, very rich, scholarly literature on this topic. This is not a survey course; we will undertake a series of intensive case-studies through which we will address the larger issues. Assignments include: presentations (individual or collaborative), short papers, Canvas postings, and there will also be the option of making a digital map or an on-line exhibition. This is a limited-enrollment, discussion-based course. No previous knowledge of Jewish history is expected.

Instructor(s): Leora Auslander     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): In order for a Spring course to qualify as a civilization course for the general education requirement, the student must also take Jewish Civilization I and II. A Spring course, however, may also be taken as an independent elective.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 12006, JWSC 12006, RLST 22015

HIST 12203. Italian Renaissance: Petrarch, Machiavelli, and the Wars of Popes and Kings. 100 Units.

Florence, Rome, and the Italian city-states in the age of plagues and cathedrals, Petrarch and Machiavelli, Medici and Borgia (1250-1600), with a focus on literature, philosophy, primary sources, the revival of antiquity, and the papacy's entanglement with pan-European politics. We will examine humanism, patronage, politics, corruption, assassination, feuds, art, music, magic, censorship, education, science, heresy, and the roots of the Reformation. Writing assignments focus on higher level writing skills, with a creative writing component linked to our in-class role-played reenactment of a Renaissance papal election (LARP). First-year students and non-History majors welcome.

Instructor(s): A. Palmer     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Graduate students by consent only; register for the course as HIST 90000 Reading and Research: History.
Note(s): Assignments: short papers, alternative projects.
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 22216, ITAL 16000, RLST 22203, FNDL 22204, SIGN 26034, MDVL 12203, RENS 12203, KNOW 12203

HIST 12706. Diaspora(s) 100 Units.

This class will orient students to the practices, frameworks, and geographies of diasporic communities from the early modern period to the present. The term's initial origins in Jewish experiences of forced dispersal and migration underscores how its meaning is shaped by histories of collective displacement and loss, as well as invention and heritage. The discourse of diaspora remains foundational for several interdisciplinary fields, including Black studies, Asian American studies, Indigenous studies, Latinx studies, and more. Within these intellectual orientations, diasporic identities are notably expansive and unfixed. As observed by the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall, "diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference," bridging old and new traditions of worldmaking, resistance, and solidarities within and across distinct diasporic sensibilities." Students in this class will work with scholarly, literary, sonic, and visual materials demonstrating how use of diaspora alternately mobilizes and roots people, in ways that claim pasts and futures at once.

Instructor(s): Adom Getachew     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 22700, RDIN 12200, CRES 12700

HIST 13802. The Russian Empire. 100 Units.

Empire is back in contemporary Russia. Old imperial insignia have replaced hammers and sickles on government buildings, the bodies of the last tsar and his family have been exhumed and venerated, and Putin's foreign policy stakes imperial claims on the nations on Russia's border. This course examines what the Russian empire was, how it worked, and the legacies that it left behind. Themes to be considered include the culture of the autocracy and the tradition of reform from above; imperial expansion and multiethnic society; the construction of class, ethnic, and estate identities; and the causes and consequences of the Old Regime's collapse. Mondays and Wednesdays are reserved for lectures, Fridays for discussion. Note(s): First-year students warmly welcomed; no prior Russian history, culture, or language assumed. Equivalent Course(s): REES 13802

Instructor(s): F. Hillis     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): First-year students warmly welcomed; no prior Russian history, culture, or language assumed.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 13802, DEMS 13802

HIST 14504. The History of Everyday in Modern Korea. 100 Units.

Everyday" is easily perceived as too trivial to discuss its importance or mundane to have no historical value. In contrast, postcolonial, postmodern, poststructural, and even posthuman seem to have attempted to deconstruct pre-existing systems, social structures, our relationships with other people, objects (either living or not living), environment, and cultures (from ideology to affects, you name it). Yet, what we easily call macro-level or meta-narratives feels too heavy to lift. We will try to learn how to fill the gap between abstract and concrete and try to understand history as something specific and commonplace: Everyday. Using modern Korea as a lens, this course will address topics related to everyday-from what we do everyday (housing, eating, and clothes) to how we do everyday (earning, spending, meeting, thinking, feeling, etc.) How does food reflect the history of any society's culture? What historical situations have created so-called "the Apartment Republic" in South Korea? Why did the Korean public become crazy about dancing in the 1950s? How has SPAM become a popular holiday gift set? Likewise, we can ask various questions about our notions of everydayness and discuss the multiple meanings of everydayness, the politics of everyday, and its relationships in modern Korean History.

Instructor(s): E. Park     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 14504

HIST 14601. Twentieth-Century China through Great Trials. 100 Units.

This course surveys China's turbulent twentieth century through the lens of great trials. From communist show trials to international courts, from struggle sessions to investigative journalism, and from trial by mob to trial by media, students will witness public and private "justice" in action both in and beyond the courtroom and across the long century's radically different governmental regimes. Our view of China will explore both the sweeping events of revolution and individual experiences. There is no prerequisite for this course.

Instructor(s): J. Ransmeier     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 24600, EALC 14601

HIST 17000. Myth and Its Critics. 100 Units.

Myth is essential to how humans make sense of the world: our foundational stories explain the nature of the world; they justify and explore social and sexual difference; they teach and test the limits of human agency. The course will survey contexts and uses of myth-making in the ancient Mediterranean world. We will also explore the many traditions of critique and anxiety about myth-making, among philosophers, literary critics and religious authorities.

Instructor(s): Carolina López-Ruiz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28498, SIGN 26037, CLCV 15000

HIST 17206. The United States in the 21st Century. 100 Units.

This discussion-based common-year seminar is open to first- and second-year students interested in the discipline of history. The ambition of the course is to offer a "history of the present" of the United States. When does history give way to the present? When does the present become the proper subject of history? Asking these questions, the course underscores the ability of the historical method to find interconnections among subjects, whether it is culture, economy, climate, society, or politics, often kept separate by other disciplines. Topics covered will include: the US-led globalization of the turn of the second millennium and its fate; 9/11 and the War on Iraq; the rise of genomic science; transformations of identity, including gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity; the economic origins and aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession; the elections of Obama and Trump; the birth of social media; the problem of climate change; the future of American democracy. Course materials will include political speeches, fiction and nonfiction books and essays, works of scholarship, film, music, and other media.

Instructor(s): J. Levy     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 17206

HIST 17800. Formations of Indigeneity. 100 Units.

Whose land are we on? What does it mean to be Indigenous, for generations past and in the twenty-first century? From debates over claims of Indigenous ancestry by political actors to the struggles of sacred lands protection against natural resource extraction, understanding the stakes of these concerns for Indigenous peoples and nations is more relevant than ever. This seminar-part of the sequence for majors in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity-introduces students to core texts and concepts in the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS). Topics will include sovereignty and governance, settler colonialism, citizenship and nationhood, blood quantum and racialization, diasporas and urban indigeneity, and relationships to land and environment. Course activities may include engagement with Indigenous films, dialogues with visiting Indigenous scholars, and field trips to Chicago-area cultural institutions.

Instructor(s): Teresa Montoya and Matthew Kruer     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 12300, CRES 12800, ANTH 12800, CHST 12300

HIST 18405. Histories of Native America. 100 Units.

Modern Americans often think of their history beginning with the European discovery of the "New World." But those Europeans did not "discover" anything. In the Americas, they encountered an Old World filled with diverse Indigenous peoples, cultures, and polities; a world alive with its own dynamic histories. This courses explores the world of Native North America from the evolution of complex city-states in the centuries before European invasion to the seismic changes that Indigenous peoples have navigated in the era of colonization (1492-present). Topics include Native struggles to create a shared world with settlers in the seventeenth century; movements to maintain independence from European empires and the new United States; nineteenth-century experiences of conquest, removal, confinement to reservations, and coercive assimilation; twentieth-century resurgence, battles in the courts, and "Red Power" activism; and twenty-first century struggles for sovereignty, self-determination, and environmental justice. Students will engage with a variety of primary and secondary sources, focusing on texts produced by Native people and centering Native points of view.

Instructor(s): M. Kruer     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 18405

HIST 18702. Race, Politics, and Sports in the United States. 100 Units.

This lecture-discussion course explores how racial identity has been experienced, represented, and contested throughout American history.  We will examine the major historical transformations that have shaped the development and understanding of racial identity, by engaging historical, legal, literary, and filmic texts.  A diverse set of primary sources will be read against historical works.  Moving along both chronological and thematic axes, themes of ambiguous, hidden, and hybrid identity will be critical to investigate the problems of racial mixture, mixed-race identity, racial passing, and racial performance across historical periods.  The interplay of the problems of class and gender in the construction of racial identity will also be explored.

Instructor(s): M. Briones     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): History in the World courses use history as a valuable tool to help students critically exam our society, culture, and politics. Preference given to 1st- and 2nd-yr students.
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 18702

HIST 18808. Asian American History through the Novel. 100 Units.

This course examines the interwoven histories of migration, language, and identity formation and re-formation in Asian American experience. How are migrant and diasporic identities represented in fictional (or quasi-fictional) terms? How have factors such as race, religion, class, gender, and sexuality shaped everyday Asian American life? Course readings consist primarily of novels, representing a variety of Asian ethnicities and experiences, by writers of Chinese, Filipina/o, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese descent. These works are supplemented by selected historical documents and short lectures to shed additional light onto the sociohistorical contexts under study.

Instructor(s): C. Kubler
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 18808, CRES 18808

HIST 19902. Workers of the World: Global Labor History, 1600-present. 100 Units.

Workers of the world, unite!" But who are the workers of the world? Why would such a diverse group be considered as one? In this class, we look at the making of the modern world from below, through the perspectives, experiences, and movements of those who worked the plantations, mills, mines, and households where capitalism was forged. How did diverse experiences of free and unfree labor relate to each other? What have been the historical relationships between class, gender, race, and nationality? How have workers' movements related to the great ideological struggles between liberalism, socialism, fascism, and colonialism? We will both study the social history and political economy of work-who did what jobs where, when, under what circumstances?-and the efforts to make common political meaning out of those diverse experiences of work.

Instructor(s): G. Winant     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 20007. Africa in the Middle East and the Middle East in Africa. 100 Units.

From Mansa Musa's Hajj in 1324 to the contemporary Afrobeats scene in Dubai, African and Middle Eastern societies share long histories of interconnection. This course examines these interconnections from the early modern to the contemporary era through a series of case studies ranging from traditions of exchange on the Swahili Coast, to the Ottoman Scramble for Africa, to the creation of a long-standing Lebanese diaspora in West Africa and a more recent Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel. Students will examine debates that animate this field of scholarship including conversations about race; histories of slavery and its legacies; conceptions of indigeneity, nativism, and settler colonialism; religious encounters; gender and society; shared and divergent experiences of European colonialism and struggles for independence; and transnational collective-building projects such as Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism. In addition to scholarship based on textual analysis, students will develop skills to investigate cultural sources such as music, photography, film, fashion, literature, and sports. No prior coursework in Middle Eastern or African studies is required. However, a background in African Civ, Islamic History and Society Civ, or Islamic Thought and Literature Civ is recommended.

Instructor(s): K. Hickerson     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Assignments: Short papers; long paper; in-class presentation
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 20007, RDIN 20007

HIST 20008. East Africa and the Indian Ocean. 100 Units.

This course offers an introduction to the long history of East Africa in the Indian Ocean world. Areas of concentration will include trade and cultural interaction with the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia, new dynamics in the context of European colonization, and East Africa's important place in decolonization and the Non-Aligned Movement. Along the way, we will ask some broad questions about the region. How are societies formed through processes of migration and interaction? What dynamics bind people together as distinct communities, and what factors lead them to break apart? How have ideas about gender and sex changed over time in East Africa? How are all these matters shaped by religion and cosmology? East African lives were shaped by forces external to the continent - but East Africans shaped those forces too. Along the way, we will analyze a wide variety of materials and viewpoints, including ones that are not conventionally used to tell stories about the past. These include archaeology, linguistics, oral traditions, environmental sources, written and archival materials, life histories, and visual and performed art.

Instructor(s): Daly Samuel Fury Childs     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 20091. Field Archaeology. 100 Units.

This course entails four weeks of full-time, hands-on training in field archaeology in an excavation directed by a University of Chicago faculty member. At the Tell Keisan site in Israel, students will learn techniques of excavation and digital recording of the finds; attend evening lectures; and participate in weekend field trips. Academic requirements include the completion of assigned readings and a final written examination. For more information about this archaeological field opportunity in Summer 2020, see http://keisan.uchicago.edu. Students who are enrolled in this course will pay a Summer Session tuition fee in addition to the cost of participation in the dig. UChicago College students are eligible to apply for College Research Scholar grants to fund their participation.

Instructor(s): David Schloen
Equivalent Course(s): NEAA 20091, ANTH 26612, CLCV 20091, CLAS 30091

HIST 20205. Race in African History. 100 Units.

This course examines the category of race in African history from the nineteenth century to the contemporary era. It references the legacies of earlier identity constructions in the creation of these categories, as well as analyzing its transnational and trans-imperial dimensions. The class combines intellectual, cultural, and social history to illuminate the actors, encounters, and debates animating this dynamic field of study-moving beyond assumptions of African societies as spaces of ethnic-and not racialized-identities to examine the construction of difference through transnational history of science, gender and sexuality studies, histories of slavery, Middle Eastern colonial projects, as well as the invention of the category of "native" in European colonial discourse. Are categories of differences primarily due to European colonialism, as many claim? Or are they embedded in a more complex configuration coming from settler colonial projects, national liberation struggles, and postcolonial nativist discourses? Students examine case studies from across the continent-from Ghana to Sudan to South Africa-paying close attention to experiences of Asian, Arab, and mixed-race peoples navigating colonial and postcolonial African states; while keeping an eye on how debates about difference, diaspora, and nationalism in North America and Europe inform discussions of race in Africa, and how Africans shape discourses of race in colonial metropoles and the United States.

Instructor(s): K. Hickerson     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students who have not take African Civiliizations I, II, and III are asked to read African History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2007) in preparation for this course.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 20205, GNSE 22225, HIPS 20205

HIST 20509. Collecting the Ancient World: Museum Practice and Politics. 100 Units.

Where is this artifact from? Who does it belong to? How did it get here? Who's telling its story? Critical inquiry into the practice and politics of museums has reached a new zenith in contemporary discourse. From discussions of acquisition and repatriation to provenience (archaeological findspot) and provenance (an object's ownership history) and the ethics of curation and modes of display, museum and art professionals-and the general public alike-are deliberating on the concept of museums and the responsibilities of such institutions towards the collections in their care. This course will explore the early history of museums and collecting practices and their impact on the field today, with a focus on cultural heritage collections from West Asia and North Africa. We will first spend time on such topics as archaeological exploration of "the Orient," colonial collecting practices, and the antiquities trade, as well as the politics of representation and reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Next, we will look at critical issues presently facing museums, including ethical collection stewardship, provenance research, repatriation, community engagement, and public education. The course will be structured in a seminar format, with lectures devoted to the presentation of key themes by the instructor and critical discussion as a group. Meetings will include visits to the ISAC Museum at UChicago.

Instructor(s): K. Neumann     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34815, HIST 30509, NEHC 34815, ARTH 24815, NEHC 24815

HIST 20803. Aristophanes's Athens. 100 Units.

The comedies of Aristophanes are as uproarious, biting, and ribald today as they were more than 2,400 years ago. But they also offer a unique window onto the societal norms, expectations, and concerns as well as the more mundane experiences of Athenians in the fifth century BCE. This course will examine closely a number of Aristophanes' extant plays (in translation) in order to address topics such as the performative, ritual, and political contexts of Attic comedy, the constituency of audiences, the relationship of comedy to satire, the use of dramatic stereotypes, freedom of speech, and the limits of dissent. Please note that this course is rated Mature for adult themes and language.

Instructor(s): J. Hall     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 33608, CLCV 23608, LLSO 20803, HIST 30803, ANCM 33900, FNDL 23608

HIST 20902. Empires and Peoples: Ethnicity in Late Antiquity. 100 Units.

Late antiquity witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of peoples in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Vandals, Arabs, Goths, Huns, Franks, and Iranians, among numerous others, took shape as political communities within the Roman and Iranian empires or along their peripheries. Recent scholarship has undone the traditional image of these groups as previously undocumented communities of "barbarians" entering history. Ethnic communities emerge from the literature as political constructions dependent on the very malleability of identities, on specific acts of textual and artistic production, on particular religious traditions, and, not least, on the imperial or postimperial regimes sustaining their claims to sovereignty. The colloquium will debate the origin, nature, and roles of ethno-political identities and communities comparatively across West Asia, from the Western Mediterranean to the Eurasian steppes, on the basis of recent contributions. As a historiographical colloquium, the course will address the contemporary cultural and political concerns-especially nationalism-that have often shaped historical accounts of ethnogenesis in the period as well as bio-historical approaches-such as genetic history-that sometimes sit uneasily with the recent advances of historians.

Instructor(s): R. Payne     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 33718, HIST 30902, MDVL 20902, CLCV 23718, NEHC 20802, NEHC 30802

HIST 22003. Perpetration of Mass Violence: Motivations and Dynamics of Participation in the Armenian Genoci. 100 Units.

The systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was planned and executed by a cadre of individuals. Although in recent decades historians have explored the biographies of leading figures in the Committee of Union and Progress and explored their roles in the destruction of the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, there is little systematic research on the motivations of and interactions among perpetrators. Furthermore, most active participants in the genocide on the local level are little known today. In this course, we will explore motivations of perpetrators and different forms of perpetration of violence during the Armenian genocide in a comparative perspective. We will investigate the lives and legacies of genocide perpetrators as well as their post-genocide careers who actively participated in the annihilation of Armenians and plunder of their wealth and cultural heritage. Our aim is to reconstruct the background, motivations, and actions of the perpetrators at the national, local and provincial levels, a largely understudied dimension of Armenian genocide history. Through social network analysis and micro-historical portraits, this course aims to shed light on the political and socio-economic factors that reinforced the foundations of a genocide in the making and demonstrate how the policies of Ottoman central authorities found fertile ground in provinces and districts across the empire.

Instructor(s): Umit Kurt     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30676, NEHC 20676, HIST 32003

HIST 22110. Renaissance Demonology. 100 Units.

In this course we analyze the complex concept of demonology according to early modern European culture from a theological, historical, philosophical, and literary point of view. The term 'demon' in the Renaissance encompasses a vast variety of meanings. Demons are hybrids. They are both the Christian devils, but also synonyms for classical deities, and Neo-platonic spiritual beings. As far as Christian theology is concerned, we read selections from Augustine's and Thomas Aquinas's treatises, some complex exorcisms written in Italy, and a recent translation of the infamous "Malleus maleficarum," the most important treatise on witch-hunt. We pay close attention to the historical evolution of the so-called witch-craze in Europe through a selection of the best secondary literature on this subject, with special emphasis on Michel de Certeau's "The Possession at Loudun." We also study how major Italian and Spanish women mystics, such as Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi and Teresa of Avila, approach the issue of demonic temptation and possession. As far as Renaissance Neoplatonic philosophy is concerned, we read selections from Marsilio Ficino's "Platonic Theology" and Girolamo Cardano's mesmerizing autobiography. We also investigate the connection between demonology and melancholy through a close reading of the initial section of Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" and Cervantes's short story "The Glass Graduate" ("El licenciado Vidriera").

Instructor(s): A. Maggi
Note(s): Course taught in English. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 26504, CMLT 27602, ITAL 26500, RLST 26501

HIST 22207. The Social History of Alcohol in Early Modern Europe. 100 Units.

This course will examine the multifaceted role that beer, wine, cider, and spirits played in European society and will challenge students to consider how a seemingly familiar commodity was a key component in shaping early modern social relations. It will focus on several major themes that have guided historical inquiry and show how hard drink intersects with and entangles these histories. Major themes will include alcohol and gender relations; state legality and taxation; moral policing; environmental projects and crises; labor and technology; and colonialism. Using both primary and secondary sources will push students to look below the surface to see how drink alternately challenged or reinforced social hierarchies, much as it continues to do in the present time.

Instructor(s): C. Rydell
Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 22207, HIPS 22207

HIST 22211. Magic in Early Modern Europe. 100 Units.

Magic was a constant element in early modern European culture. Almost all people in this period, from peasant to prince, accepted it as a real and powerful presence in their lives. They respected its credibility and practices in general, even if they might question particular claims. In this course we address why it was so ubiquitous, what it involved, and why, in the end, it seemed to decline. The course will introduce students to the major arguments that historians in this field have advanced, and provide critical perspectives on the interpretation of the range of practices falling under the term "magic," from witchcraft and necromancy to alchemy. Among the topics likely to be discussed are demonology, natural magic, astrology, the witch craze, the roles of memory, orality, and literacy in sustaining and qualifying magical cultures, and the relationships between magic, medicine, and science.

Instructor(s): A. Johns     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Assignments: short papers, long papers, in-class presentations, alternative projects.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32211, HIPS 22211, CHSS 32211

HIST 22402. Anglo-Saxon England. 100 Units.

The kingdom seized by William the Conqueror in A.D. 1066 had been centuries in the making. Founded by pagan warlords following the retreat of the Roman legions, the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons were already old when missionaries arrived from Rome in A.D. 597, bearing icons and Gospel books. What happened when their kings converted to Christianity? How did their language, law, politics, culture, society, and economy change? What roles did monks, warriors, women, merchants, and poets have in crafting a kingdom so richly endowed that William coveted it as his prize? This course charts the making of Anglo-Saxon England through close readings of primary sources, including histories, epic poems, liturgies, and laws, alongside archeological surveys and works of art. Special attention will be given to the links that the Anglo-Saxons cultivated both with Rome and cultures even further south and east.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MDVL 22402, HIST 32402

HIST 22509. Religion and Politics in Modern European History, 1789-1965. 100 Units.

The general theme of the colloquium is the relationship between religion and civil society in Central Europe, the United Kingdom, and France between 1740 and the end of World War II. We will use this broad theme to explore a variety of important issues in modern European history, including the history of the relationship of the church and state; the contribution of religious consciousness and culture to the construction of class, gender, and national identities; and the role played by religious movements in the creation of a liberal, adversarial political system and the formation of a bourgeois public sphere. Special topics will include the role of religious disputes in the formation of administrative reform agendas in the Eighteenth Century, the shifting patterns of religious practice that developed in the Nineteenth Century; the role of religiously-based political movements in the crisis of the Liberal state in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries; the ambivalent relationship of the churches to National Socialism and the Vichy regime; the role of organized religion in the reconstruction and transformation of the European state system at the conclusion of World War II; and patterns of religious renewal in Europe in the 1960s.

Instructor(s): J. Boyer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32509

HIST 22510. Get Cultured in Nine Weeks: Historical Perspectives on Art and Education. 100 Units.

Get Cultured in Nine Weeks: Historical Perspectives on Art and Education: What does it mean to 'get cultured'? Why-and how-do we do it? Does an education in the arts and letters make us more moral, more intelligent, more resistant to authority-or perhaps more submissive? These questions are at the center of debates about the place of cultural learning in the contemporary world, but our century was not the first to think critically about the social and political functions of this form of education. This course investigates how students, educators, writers, and artists conceptualized the aims and means of becoming cultured from the 1700s forward, focusing on European history and connecting it to the concerns of the present. We will pay particularly close attention to both formal and informal means of cultural education, and to the ways in which these practices have been understood to produce social structures of class, gender, and race. Readings will draw from the fields of history, literature, philosophy, sociology, and art history. At the end of the quarter, students will be asked to design their own fantasy syllabus for "getting cultured in nine weeks."

Instructor(s): Sophie Salvo and Alice Goff     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32510, GRMN 26225, GRMN 36225

HIST 23006. Looting, Plunder, and the Making of Modern Europe. 100 Units.

At the end of the eighteenth century Europeans recognized the seizure of enemy property to be a time-honored practice of warfare and subjugation. At the same time, however, new ideas about human rights, cultural heritage, and international law began to reshape the place of looting in the exercise of power. This course will take up the history of looting in European cultural and political life from the late eighteenth through the twentieth centuries as a tool of nationalism, imperialism, totalitarianism, and scholarship. How was looting defined, who defined it, and what kinds of ethical and legal codes governed its use? How was the seizure of personal property, cultural artifacts, and sacred objects legitimized by its practitioners and experienced by its victims? In what ways did looting change the meaning of objects and why? How do we understand looting in relationship to other forms of violence and destruction in the modern period? While the focus of the course will be on Europe, we will necessarily be concerned with a global frame as we follow cases of looting in colonial contexts, through migration, exploration, and during war. Course materials will including primary texts, images, objects, and historical accounts.

Instructor(s): A. Goff     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Assignments: one short paper, one long paper, short alternative assignments, and an in-class presentation.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 33006

HIST 23010. Themes in the European Reformation(s) 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction to the study of the Reformation(s) in early modern Europe. As well as covering the key theological ideas of famous Protestant reformers (Luther; Zwingli; Calvin), it will give ample space to the impact that these religious revolutions had on contemporary society, including attitudes to gender, politics, economics, and visual/material culture. It will cover the reformations and renewals undergone by Catholicism in the same period, and discuss the key arguments, questions, and concerns which have preoccupied historians of the Reformation since the nineteenth century. Students will have the opportunity to read and engage with famous texts from the period (for instance Erasmus's On Free Will; Luther's 95 Theses; Calvin's Institutes) as well as lesser-known but still influential works (e.g. the poetry of the female Italian humanist Olympia Fulvia Morata and the writings of early Jesuit missionaries to China and Japan), in addition to historically significant documents (such as contemporary witchcraft confessions and extracts from Reformation demonologies). Finally, there will be time devoted to unpacking the complex legacies of the Reformation and the 'unintended consequences' attributed to it, focusing especially on the afterlives of Max Weber's analyses.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22655

HIST 23210. Urban Core in Paris. 100 Units.

This course is both an introduction to how historians think about cities and a history of cities from the Middle Ages through the Cold War. Most of the examples are drawn from Europe, with a special focus for the version of the course taught in Paris on that city, but significant attention is given to Africa and the United States. The course is chronological in organization, but each class also focuses on a different theme, such as the place of politics, industrial development, migration, culture, and commerce in the transformation of urban forms and experiences.

Instructor(s): L. Auslander     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the Paris: Social Sciences Urbanism program
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 23210, RDIN 23210, ENST 23210

HIST 23523. History of the Jewish Present in the US, France, and Israel and Palestine. 100 Units.

The contemporary Jewish situation in Israel and Palestine, the US, and France as seen through historical, sociological, anthropological, political science, and cultural religious studies lenses. Central concerns include politics, society, conflict, and Jewish-Palestinian entanglements and mutual formation in Israel and Palestine; space, place, power, poverty, and wealth in contemporary Jewish life; questions of community-society relations in American and French societies riven by questions of race and racism and intercommunal tensions as well as enduring questions of democracy and inequality; divergent Jewish identities and the ideas, histories, and affects that shape them with special attention to mizrahiut; Jewish religious revival with particular attention to various forms of Orthodox, pietistic, mystical, and illiberal religiosity on the one hand and the impacts of feminism and other liberation movements on the other; Jewish culture and literature in Israel and the diaspora in a post-secular age; rising disagreements over Zionism, identity, politics, and the Jewish future roiling Jewish communities.

Instructor(s): K. Moss     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 23523, HIST 33523

HIST 23615. Post-Soviet Ukraine. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the cultural life of Ukraine after the Soviet collapse. In a guided process, students will co-facilitate this syllabus, deciding on topics and readings in (translated) Ukrainian literature and film as well as the history of Ukraine. Possible topics include: memory of Soviet wars, the capitalist transition, Chornobyl, artistic movements, subcultures, the Maidan Revolution, Russia's war, language politics, ethnicities, and gender relations. Reading options include Andryukhovich, Zabuzhko, Plokhy, Zhadan. No prior knowledge required.

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 36073, REES 26070, HIST 33615

HIST 23706. The Soviet Union. 100 Units.

This lecture course surveys the making and unmaking of the Soviet Union as a society, culture, economy, superpower, and empire from 1917 to 1991. The Soviet Union began as an unprecedented radical experiment in remaking society and economy, ethnic and gender relations, personal identities, even human nature, but in the course of its history, it came to resemble other (capitalist) societies, sharing, in turn, their violence, welfare provisions, and consumerism. The story of this transformation-from being unique and exhilarating to being much like everyone else, only poorer and more drab-will be at the center of our exploration. The main themes of the course include social and cultural revolutions; ideology and the role of Marxism; political violence from the birth of the socialist state to the end of the Stalin terror; origins, practices, aesthetics, legacies, and critiques of Stalinism; law, dissent, and human rights; nationality policies and the role of ethnic minorities; the economy of shortages and the material culture it created; institutions of daily life (communal apartments, courtyards, peasant markets, dachas, and boiler rooms); socialist realism and the Soviet dreamworld.

Instructor(s): E. Gilburd     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Assignments: weekly readings, document-based papers, and a final exam.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 23706

HIST 24008. (Re)Branding the Balkan City: Comtemp. Belgrade/Sarajevo/Zagreb. 100 Units.

The freedom to make and remake our cities (and ourselves) is one of the most precious yet most neglected of the human rights," argues David Harvey. In this course, we use an urban studies lens to explore the complex history, social fabric, architecture, infrastructure, and cultural transformation of the former Yugoslav capitals. Since their inception, these cities have relied on multifaceted exchanges of peoples and political projects, forms of knowledge, financial and cultural capital, means of production, and innovative ideas. Among others, these exchanges produced two phenomena, Yugoslav architecture, embodying one of the great political experiments of the modern era, and the Non-Aligned Movement, as explored in recent documentary films (Turajlić 2023), museum exhibits (MoMA 2018, "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980"), and monographs (Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity). Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnography of the city, we consider processes of urban destruction and renewal, practices of branding spaces and identities, metropolitan citizenship, arts and design, architectural histories and styles, and the broader politics of space. The course is complemented by cultural and historical media, guest speakers, and virtual tours. Classes are conducted in English.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 21301, BCSN 31303, ARTH 31333, ARCH 21300, BCSN 21300, REES 31303, REES 21300, ARTH 21333

HIST 24122. Buddhist Meditation: Tradition, Transformation, Modernization. 100 Units.

From the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta of the Pāli canon to the "mindfulness" boom of recent years, Buddhism and meditation often appear inseparable. The aim of this seminar is to historicize and critically question this seemingly natural intimacy, for while it certainly cannot be denied that the various Buddhist traditions have always had on offer a plethora of techniques for mental (and physical) cultivation, it is far from clear how or even if all these could be subsumed under the in its current usage relatively recent category of "meditation". Drawing on Buddhist meditation literature from various traditions, historical periods, and literary genre, in this seminar we will take up a twofold question: First, how has the encounter with Buddhist techniques of cultivation shaped the modern understanding of "meditation", and second, up to which extend, and at what cost, has this very modern understanding conversely conditioned us to see Buddhism as a "meditative religion" par excellence?

Instructor(s): Stephan Licha     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24609, EALC 34600, RLST 24600, SALC 34600, SALC 24600, HIST 34122, HREL 34600

HIST 24123. History of Food in Japan. 100 Units.

Although food is an essential part of human existence, it has only recently become the object of historical analysis, and historical research has drawn attention to its significance in relation to issues of health, gender, class, technology, and culture. This course explores the history of food in Japan in the period from c. 1600 to the postwar era. Topics to be examined include changing practices of consumption and production, medical discourse and conceptions of a proper diet, the impact of introduction of new foods and new methods of preparation, the rise of nutritional science, the development of a "national cuisine," and the impact of war and defeat upon food culture.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 34123, EALC 34123, EALC 24123

HIST 24124. Post-empire: Japan and East Asia. 100 Units.

This course is on the post-imperial and postcolonial history in East Asia. After Japan declared defeat on August 15th, 1945, the empire has officially ended. Yet, the aftermath and afterlife of Japan's empire still deeply influenced the social and political environment in this region. How did the post-imperial connections shape Japan and its Asian neighbors? How did different actors react to this sudden change of political environment? This course pays close attention to the imperial and post-imperial continuity and changes.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34124, EALC 24124, HIST 34124

HIST 24206. Medicine and Culture in Modern East Asia. 100 Units.

This course will focus on the cultural history of medicine in China, Japan, and Korea from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1980s. We will be concerned with tracing the circulation of new medical knowledge and understanding its cultural and social implications. Topics to be explored include the introduction of "Western medicine" and its impact for "traditional" medicine; the struggles over public health, gender, medicine, and modernity; consumer culture; and medicine. No knowledge of an East Asian language is required, but those with reading skills will be encouraged to utilize them.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 24206, EALC 26201, EALC 36201, HIST 34206, CHSS 34206

HIST 24215. The History of the Book in East Asia: From Bamboo to Webtoon. 100 Units.

This seminar offers an overview of the development and history of the "book" and its physical forms, broadly conceived, in East Asia from ancient times to the present. Drawing on recent scholarship, selected primary sources, and rare books housed within the library system, this course familiarizes students with the evolution of the book and methods of book production in China, Korea, and Japan, the principles and practices of material bibliography and the application of such to physical and digital objects, and selected topics salient to the social and cultural meanings of books: authorship, the book trade, reading, censorship, and more. Assignments include a short paper, a short presentation, and a longer final paper. All readings in English, but knowledge of East Asian history or languages helpful.

Instructor(s): G. Reynolds     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 34215, CHSS 34215, EALC 34225, EALC 24225, HIPS 24215

HIST 24306. New Histories of Chinese Labor. 100 Units.

Past scholarship has often reduced the history of Chinese labor to the history of the Chinese labor movement or the history of the Communist Party in its function as "the leading core" of the proletariat. The factory proletariat, of course, was never more than a small segment of the Chinese labor force - less than five percent under the Republic, less than ten in the People's Republic. Recent work has been more inclusive, looking at work outside the formal sector, in agriculture, handcrafts, and service industries; at the work of women in formal employment and at home; at sex work and emotional work; at unemployment and precarious work; at the work of internal migrants; at Chinese workers abroad; at coerced work in private industry (the 2007 "kiln slaves' incident"); and at carceral labor in Xinjiang and elsewhere. Most of the readings will deal with work in the Mao and post-Mao years, right up to the present. We will combine readings on Chinese labor history with more general texts on the relationship between productive and reproductive work, wage work and non-wage work, male and female work, autonomous and heteronomous work. The guiding question throughout the course is if a new Chinese labor movement is necessary, possible, or probable, and if it is not, under which conditions it might become so.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 34306, EALC 24455, EALC 34455

HIST 24406. (Un)popular Fiction: Chosŏn Era Novels and Readership. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the prose literature of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) of Early Modern Korea with a focus on novels and short stories, their readers, and their detractors. We will examine major works of early modern Korean literature in translation, investigate elite and popular literary culture, and explore the status of novels according to contemporary critics. The course highlights questions of cosmopolitan and vernacular language, translation, script, the materiality of texts, readership and reading practices, gender, class, canonization, cross-cultural influence with China and Japan, and the legacies of Chosŏn literature in contemporary North and South Korea.

Instructor(s): G. Reynolds     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24407

HIST 24407. Post-1945 South Korean Politics and Society. 100 Units.

This course aims to go through recent English-written monographs in the Korean Studies field each week and to learn how scholarship addresses South Korean politics and socioeconomic changes in terms of class, gender, modernization, and development politics. By reading and discussing significant scholarly works, this course will help students extend their understanding of modern South Korean society and its relationship to the family, the state, civil society, popular culture, class, and the economy in both local and global contexts.

Instructor(s): E. Park     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24408

HIST 24512. Everyday Maoism: Revolution, Daily Life, and Material Culture in Socialist China. 100 Units.

The history of Maoist China is usually told as a sequence of political campaigns, from land reform to the Cultural Revolution. Yet for the majority of the Chinese population, the promise of socialism was as much about material transformations as it was about political change: a socialist revolution would bring better living conditions, new work regimes and new consumption patterns. If we want to understand what socialism meant for different groups of people, we have to look at the "new objects" of socialist modernity, at changes in dress codes and apartment layouts, at electrification and city planning - or at the persistence of an older material life under a new socialist veneer. In this course, we will analyze workplaces in order to understand how socialism changed the way people worked, and look at rationing and consumption in the households to see how socialism affected them at home. We will look at how specific objects came to stand in for the Maoist revolution, for socialist modernity, or for feudal backwardness. The course has a strong comparative dimension: we will read some of the literature on socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, to see how Chinese socialism differed from its cousins. Another aim is methodological. How can we understand the lives of people who wrote little and were rarely written about? To which extent can we read people's life experiences out of the material record of their lives?

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): MA students can take with instructor's permission.
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24. This course is almost identical to EALC 24255/34255, except that it is designed for undergradates only.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24256

HIST 24518. Women and Work in Modern East Asia. 100 Units.

Worldwide, women do about 75 percent of the world's unpaid care and domestic work. They spend up to three hours more per day cooking and cleaning than men do, and anywhere from two to ten hours more per day looking after children and the elderly. Women's underpaid work at home and in industry subsidized the early stages of industrialization in nineteenth-century Britain, early twentieth-century Japan, and contemporary China, and women's unpaid contributions to their households enable employers worldwide to keep wages low. We know, at least in outline, how women came to carry double burdens in Europe and North America, but little research has been done so far about this process in East Asia. In this course, we will discuss when and how China, Japan, and Korea developed a division of labor in which most wage work was gendered male and reproductive work was marked female. Are current divisions of labor between men and women rooted in local cultures, or are they the result of industrial capitalist development? How do divisions of labor differ between the three East Asian countries, and how did developments in one East Asian country affect others?

Instructor(s): Jacob Eyferth     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24501, HIST 34518, GNSE 30121, EALC 34501, GNSE 20121

HIST 24519. Li Zhi and 16th Century China: The Self, Tradition, and Dissent in Comparative Context. 100 Units.

The 16th century Chinese iconoclast Li Zhi (Li Zhuowu) has been rightly celebrated as a pioneer of individualism, one of history's great voices of social protest, an original mind powerfully arguing for genuine self-expression, and more. He was a Confucian official and erudite in the classics, yet in his sixties he takes the Buddhist tonsure, and late in life befriends the Jesuit Matteo Ricci. He sought refuge in a quiet monastery devoting his life to scholarship, yet invited constant scandal. His A Book to Burn "sold like hotcakes," and attracted enough trouble that reportedly readers would surreptitiously hide their copies tucked up their sleeves, and was later banned by the state soon after his death. In this seminar, we will place Li both within the context of the history of "Confucian" thought, and within the literary, religious, and philosophical conversations of the late Ming. Using his writings as a productive case study, we will think about topics including "religion," tradition and innovation, "spontaneity" and "authenticity," and the relationship between "classics" and commentaries. Throughout, we will bring our discussions into comparative analysis, considering views of thinkers and traditions from other times and places. Chinese not required; for those interested, we will read select essays of Li's in Chinese and students may choose translation as a final project.

Instructor(s): Pauline Lee     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 23202, EALC 33202, DVPR 33202, HIST 34519, HREL 33202, EALC 23202, RLST 23202

HIST 24615. History of Energy in East Asia. 100 Units.

This course discusses the history of major energy sources in East Asia with a focus on coal, hydropower, and nuclear power plant. We pay close attention to both the technological side of the history of energy and how different energy sources interact with the social and political environment in Japan, China, and Koreas.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 34615, HIST 34615, EALC 24615, HIPS 24615, EALC 35615

HIST 24812. East Asian Science and Technology: Ways of Knowing. 100 Units.

This course is the first half of the East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine series. The second part of the course will be offered in the spring quarter by Professor Jacob Eyferth. In this series, we will read major works on the history of STM in East Asia and constantly are in conversation with studies of this history in the globe.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 31812, HIST 34812, HIPS 24812, EALC 25812, EALC 35812

HIST 24813. East Asian Science and Technology: Ways of Making. 100 Units.

This is the second part of the East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine series. In this series, we will read major works on the history of STM in East Asia and constantly are in conversation with studies of this history in the globe.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34813, CHSS 34813, EALC 24813, HIST 34813, HIPS 24813

HIST 25023. Tutorial: Evolution Beyond Darwin. 100 Units.

One of the most identifiable images associated with evolution is the visage of Charles Darwin. Historical narratives of evolution center on Darwin's work, and scientific publications today still note whether or not Darwin pre-empted their ideas. This course aims to build a narrative of evolution that brings the story up to today, asking why so many see Darwin as a shorthand for evolution and what consequences that might have for the development and communication of the science. In addition, it will interrogate other "iconic" images and narratives in evolution, like the tree of life. We will ask where our ideas about evolution have come from, how they are perpetuated, and what consequence that might have for the discipline of evolutionary biology. The course has three aims: 1) to provide a historical understanding of evolution after Darwin; 2) to reflect on how evolution is communicated between scientists and to the broader public, and to ask how "icons" or Darwin himself suggest implicit meanings counter to the work of the scientists; and 3) to more broadly examine what is a science-a process or a body of knowledge?

Instructor(s): E. Kitchen     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered in Autumn 2023
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 29637

HIST 25030. Pacific Worlds: Race, Gender, Health, and the Environment. 100 Units.

This discussion-based course will introduce students to both classical and recent scholarship in Pacific World historiography. By adopting micro-historical, comparative, and transnational methods, students will examine the formation of three overlapping "worlds": The Antipodes, Polynesia, and the northeastern Pacific. Analyzing the myriad intersections of race, gender, health, and the environment, we will explore a range of large-scale historical processes that shaped and reshaped the Pacific between the mid-eighteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. These processes include European exploration, settler colonialism, and indigenous sovereignty; sex, depopulation, and race science; labor, migration, and urbanization; industrialization and environmental exploitation; and imperial expansion and citizenship. The course is intended for students with an interest in the Pacific Islands, Australasia, and the North American West, as well as those interested in race, gender, health, or the environment within indigenous, immigrant, or settler colonial contexts. Required readings - which will consist of book chapters and academic articles - will be used to contextualize and critically analyze a variety of primary sources during each class session.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. Restricted to 3rd and 4th year students.
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 20151, GLST 25151, HLTH 20151, CRES 20151, ENST 20151, GNSE 22151

HIST 25031. Climate Change, Environment, and Society. 100 Units.

How has natural and anthropogenic climate change shaped historical relationships between humans and their environments? Against the backdrop of planetary environmental emergencies of the early-21st century, this discussion-based course will consider various time scales of ecological, technological, social, and political transformation, including: the rise of agriculture, state formation, and civilizational collapse; the "Medieval Warm Period" and the "Little Ice Age"; the Industrial Revolution, imperialism, and the consolidation of a global fossil fuel regime; the "Great Acceleration" of the mid-20th century; the development of modern climate science; and the social, political, and technological responses to human-induced global warming. Within these time scales, we will explore past dynamics of climate change, the environment, and society through the historical study of land management, population displacement and migration, resource extraction, energy production and consumption, the global commons, as well as the role of national and international governance arrangements in mediating the unequal distribution of environmental risk across the world. Ethics, morality, equity, and justice, among other concepts, will be investigated as we analyze historical connections among socio-environmental transformations and class-based, racialized, and gendered forms of inequality.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Offered twice a year.
Note(s): Students who have taken ENST 21201: Human Impact on the Global Environment may not enroll in this course.
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 21001, CEGU 20001, ENST 20011

HIST 25032. The Politics of Environmental Knowledge. 100 Units.

How has "nature" been understood and investigated in the modern world? Building upon diverse approaches to environmental history and philosophy, the history of science, and cultural studies, this course surveys the major frameworks through which the environment has been understood, investigated, and transformed since the origins of global modernity. Such issues are explored with reference to the mobilization of science, technology, and politics in several major areas of socio- environmental transformation in the modern world. Case studies might explore, among other issues, empire, race, and public health; cities and infectious disease since the Black Death; the 'great enclosures' of land associated with settler colonialism; the 'Green Revolution' in industrial agriculture; strategies of resource stewardship, land conservation, terraforming, hydrological engineering and watershed protection; the politics of global warming; and current debates on urban sustainability, carbon capture and geo-engineering. The course also considers the rise and evolution of environmentalist movements and conservation strategies, and the contested visions of nature they have embraced. The course concludes by investigating the competing paradigms of knowledge, science, and environment that underpin divergent contemporary programs of environmental governance and visions of 'sustainability'.

Instructor(s): Jessica Landau      Terms Offered: Offered twice a year.
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 21002, ENST 20012, CEGU 20002

HIST 25033. Disease, Health, and the Environment in Global Context. 100 Units.

Recent concerns about monkeypox, COVID-19, Zika virus, and Ebola have attracted renewed attention to previous disease outbreaks that have significantly shaped human political, social, economic, and environmental history. Such diseases include: smallpox during the 16th-century Columbian exchange; syphilis during the 18th-century exploration and settlement of the Pacific; bubonic plague in the late-19th-century colonization and urbanization of South and East Asia; and yellow fever during America's 20th-century imperial projects across the Caribbean. Through readings, discussions, library visits, and written assignments that culminate in a final project, students in this course will explore how natural and human-induced environmental changes have altered our past experiences with disease and future prospects for health. First, we will examine how early writers understood the relationship between geography, environment, hereditary constitution, race, gender, and human health. We will then analyze the symbiotic relationship among pathogens, human hosts, and their environments. Finally, we will explore how social factors (e.g. migration, gendered divisions of labor, poverty, and segregation) and human interventions (e.g. epidemiology, medical technology, and sanitary engineering) have influenced the distribution of infectious diseases and environmental risks.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts towards the CEGU/ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. CEGU/ENST 4th years wanting to take this as their Capstone must contact instructor and BA Capstone Director Dr. Evan Carver.
Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 22100, RDIN 22100, GLST 22101, HIPS 22210, CEGU 22100

HIST 25121. History of Cartography. 100 Units.

This course offers a grand overview of the key developments in mapmaking throughout history worldwide, from pre-literate cartography to the modern interactive digital environment. It looks at the producers, their audience, the technologies and artistic systems used, and the human and global contexts in which they developed. The course also features experiential learning components with field trips to map collections at Regenstein Library and Newberry Library.

Instructor(s): Yue Lin     Terms Offered: Autumn 2024–25
Equivalent Course(s): GISC 28800, ARCH 28800, HIST 35121, GISC 38800, CHST 28800, CEGU 28800

HIST 25205. The Scientific Image. 100 Units.

This course explores the broad field of scientific image-making, focusing in particular on problems of formalism, abstraction, and realism. What makes a "good" scientific image? What kind of work do scientific images do? What philosophical, ideological, and political constraints underwrite attempts to render the complexity of events and entities in the world in stylized visual vocabularies? And how might we approach the work of aesthetics and style in image-making? We will examine these questions through a survey of several contemporary scholarly frameworks used for thinking about problems of representation in scientific practice, and will attend to such image-making practices as graphing, diagramming, modeling, doodling, illustrating, sculpting, and photographing, among other methods.

Instructor(s): M. Rossi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 25505, HIST 35205, CHSS 35205

HIST 25305. Magic, Miracles, and Medicine: Healthcare in the Bible and the Ancient World. 100 Units.

This course examines the complex issues surrounding the body, disability, and medical care in antiquity. It will be guided by a variety of questions, such as what was the root cause of bodily infirmity and disease in antiquity? How did cultural views of sex, gender, and race influence perceptions of the body and what it meant to be able bodied? Such questions are significant when considering what kind of access to healthcare marginalized groups had. In order to explore these questions, we will examine ancient Mediterranean views of medical care through material remains (e.g., magical amulets and healing shrines) and textual evidence (e.g., Galen and Hippocrates). After considering this wider cultural context, we will examine treatments in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and early Christianity. We will also explore how Christian concepts of medical care evolved in light of accounts of Jesus as a divine healer. In addition to this ancient evidence, we will engage with modern disability studies and sociological analyses to better orient our readings. At the end of the course, students will be better acquainted with the complex relationship between religion and medicine and how that affects modern healthcare decisions.

Instructor(s): Richard Zaleski     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 20223, HLTH 20223, KNOW 20223, JWSC 20923, CCTS 21021, RLST 20223

HIST 25318. Wonder, Wonders, and Knowing. 100 Units.

In wonder is the beginning of philosophy," wrote Aristotle; Descartes also thought that those deficient in wonder were also deficient in knowledge. But the relationship between wonder and inquiry has always been an ambivalent one: too much wonder stupefies rather than stimulates investigation, according to Descartes; Aristotle explicitly excluded wonders as objects of inquiry from natural philosophy. Francis Bacon called wonders "broken knowledge." Since the sixteenth century, scientists and scholars have both cultivated and repudiated the passion of wonder; On the one hand, marvels (or even just anomalies) threaten to subvert the human and natural orders; on the other, the wonder they ignite inquiry into their causes. Wonder is also a passion tinged with the numinous, and miracles have long stood for the inexplicable in religious contexts. Above all, wonders demand attention and interpretation. This seminar will explore the long, vexed relationship between wonder, knowledge, and belief in the history of philosophy, science, and religion.

Instructor(s): Lorraine Daston     Terms Offered: Spring. Spring 2024
Prerequisite(s): Consent is required for both grads and undergrads. This course will be taught in the first five weeks of the quarter. Reading knowledge of at least one language besides English would be helpful but not requried.
Note(s): The seminar will take place on Tuesdays & Thursdays, 09:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.*, during the first five weeks of the term (March 19 – April 18, 2024)
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 20926, HIST 35318, CHSS 30936, RLST 28926, HREL 30926, KNOW 30926, SCTH 30926, SCTH 20926, PHIL 30926

HIST 25508. Tutorial: Mathematical Knowledge: Race, Politics and Materiality. 100 Units.

Mathematical knowledge is commonly treated as objective and neutral, even though it is produced through specific societal contexts and in turn impacts those same contexts. In this course we will take a thematic approach to studying how mathematical and quantitative knowledges are produced and used through political processes from which they cannot be separated. We will look at examples such as the connections between plantation slavery and the precise measurement of molasses barrels in the 18th century, the gendered nature of the prestigious Tripos exam in the 19th century, 20th century attempts to quantify and manage reproduction, and 21st century issues of algorithmic policing. We will consider multiple angles for approaching the study of mathematics by connecting mathematical knowledge to topics such as labor, racial sciences, pedagogy, material tools, masculinity, nation-building, and embodiment. This will allow us to move beyond simply considering representation (of women in STEM, for example) to think about how gender and race are part of the construction of mathematical knowledge. In particular, this course will encourage students to think creatively about other possibilities for how we could justly and effectively use mathematics in our lives. There are no mathematical pre-requisites; students with a variety of experiences with mathematics will be able to participate fully in this course.

Instructor(s): Abigail Taylor-Roth     Terms Offered: Spring. Offered in Spring 2024
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 29647, HIPS 29647

HIST 25511. A History of Cell and Molecular Biology. 100 Units.

This course will trace the parallel histories of cell and molecular biology, primarily in the 20th century, by exploring continuities and discontinuities between these fields and their precursors. Through discussion, attempts will be made to develop definitions of cell and molecular biology that are based upon their practices and explanatory strategies, and to determine to what extent these practices and strategies overlap. Finally, the relevance of these definitions to current developments in biology will be explored. The course is not designed to be comprehensive, but will provide an overall historical and conceptual framework.

Instructor(s): K. Matlin     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): This course does not meet the requirements for the Biological Sciences Major.
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 25902, HIST 35511, CHSS 34300

HIST 25602. Ancient Empires IV: the Achaemenid Empire. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to the Achaemenid Empire, also known as the First Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE). We will be examining the political history and cultural accomplishments of the Achaemenids who, from their homeland in modern-day Iran, quickly rose to become one of the largest empires of the ancient world, ruling from North Africa to North India at their height. We will also be examining the history of Greek-Persian encounters and the image of the Achaemenids in Greek and Biblical literature. The students will visit the Oriental Institutes' archive and object collection to learn more about the University of Chicago's unique position in the exploration, excavation, and restoration of the Persian Empire's royal architecture and administrative system through the Persian Expedition carried out in the 1930s.

Instructor(s): Mehrnoush Soroush     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 21722, NEHC 20014

HIST 25613. Saints and Sinners in Late Antiquity. 100 Units.

Between the third and seventh centuries, Christian communities came to flourish throughout the Middle East and neighboring regions in the Roman and Iranian empires as well as the kingdoms of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Ethiopia. This course will examine the development of Christian institutions and ideologies in relation to the distinctive social structures, political cultures, economies, and environments of the Middle East, with a focus on the Fertile Crescent. The makers of Middle Eastern Christianities were both saints and sinners. Holy men and women, monks, and sometimes bishops withdrew from what they often called "the world" with the intention of reshaping society through prayer, asceticism, and writing; some also intervened directly in social, political, and economic relations. The work of these saints depended on the cooperation of aristocrats, merchants, and rulers who established enduring worldly institutions. To explore the dialectical relationship between saints and sinners, we will read lives of saints in various Middle Eastern languages in translation.

Instructor(s): R. Payne     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20600, HIST 35613, NEHC 30600

HIST 25615. Islamic Thought and Literature II. 100 Units.

This course covers the period from ca. 950 to 1700, surveying works of literature, theology, philosophy, sufism, politics, history, etc., written in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, as well as the art, architecture and music of the Islamicate traditions. Through primary texts, secondary sources and lectures, we will trace the cultural, social, religious, political and institutional evolution through the period of the Fatimids, the Crusades, the Mongol invasions, and the "gunpowder empires" (Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals).

Instructor(s): Adam Flower - Firas Alkhateeb     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20602, SOSC 22100, RLST 20402, MDVL 20602

HIST 25616. Islamic Thought and Literature III. 100 Units.

This course covers the period from ca. 1700 to the present. It explores Muslim intellectuals' engagement with tradition and modernity in the realms of religion, politics, literature, and law. We discuss debates concerning the role of religion in a modern society, perceptions of Europe and European influence, the challenges of maintain religious and cultural authenticity, and Muslim views of nation-states and nationalism in the Middle East. We also give consideration to the modern developments of transnational jihadism and the Arab Spring. This course sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

Instructor(s): Holly Shissler - Tobias Scheunchen     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20603, SOSC 22200, RLST 20403

HIST 25705. Everyday Life in the Early Islamic Period. 100 Units.

How did people live in the early Islamic period? How did they work and study? What do we know about their relations with family members, loved ones, and neighbors? How did they relate to the administration and to people who ruled them? Did they get together to celebrate religious festivals? Did they have parties? What sources do we have to learn about their habits, routines, and feelings? What can we learn about every-day struggles, and how much do these differ from our own? This course aims to introduce undergraduate and early graduate students to the study of social history through a combination of literary and documentary sources from the early centuries of Islam. We will learn about both opportunities and limits of studying history from the "bottom-up."

Instructor(s): CECILIA PALOMBO     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 35705, ISLM 30024, RLST 20324, NEHC 20024, NEHC 30024

HIST 25710. Revolution and Piety in Islam. 100 Units.

This course examines religious responses to major political upheavals in Islamic history, from the Abbasid revolution to the age of European expansion. Topics include the Mongol destruction of the caliphate in 1258 and the opening and closing of confessional boundaries; the formation of regional Muslim empires in the 16th century; Ibn Arabi, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn Khaldun; the development of alternative spiritualities, mysticism, and messianism in the fifteenth century; trans-confessionalism, antinomianism, and the articulation of sacral sovereignties in the sixteenth century; the pious responses to European colonialism . All work in English.

Instructor(s): Mustafa Kaya     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Some knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, French, German is helpful.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20113, ISLM 30113, NEHC 30113, HIST 35710, RLST 21113

HIST 25711. Armenian History through Art and Culture. 100 Units.

Who are the Armenians and where do they come from? What is the cultural contribution of Armenians to their neighbors and overall world heritage? This crash-course will try to answer these and many other similar questions while surveying Armenian history and elements of culture (mythology, religion, manuscript illumination, art, architecture, etc.). It also will discuss transformations of Armenian identity and symbols of 'Armenianness' through time, based on such elements of national identity as language, religion, art, or shared history. Due to the greatest artistic quality and the transcultural nature of its monuments and artifacts, Armenia has much to offer in the field of Art History, especially when we think about global transculturation and appropriation among cultures as a result of peoples' movements and contacts. The course is recommended for students with interest in Armenian Studies or related fields, in Area or Civilizations Studies, Art and Cultural Studies, etc.

Instructor(s): Hripsime Haroutunian     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20692, ARTH 20692, NEHC 30692, ARCH 20692

HIST 25809. The Economy by Other Means": New Approaches to the Economy of the Late and Post-Ottoman Middle East. 100 Units.

Questions around political economy and capitalism are once again gaining prominence in Ottoman and Middle East studies. Whereas these questions have been fundamental to the traditional confines of economic history and political economy, this new engagement takes its cue from a different and diverse pool of fields. As one observer recently put it, an emerging body of literature engages with "the economy by other means." This course takes stock of these still-uncharted means by bringing together and examining a selection of recently published books treating economic themes in the late Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Middle East up to the midtwentieth century. How do these books challenge, build on, and/or conform to the contours of economic modes of analysis? What do they contribute to our understanding of capitalism in the Middle East? What are the new archives they create for the study of economic life? How do they destabilize the conceptual repertoire of political economy? More importantly, in what ways do they change our view of the late Ottoman and modern Middle East? This course will take us from malaria in Anatolia to "men of capital" in Mandate Palestine; from legal battles on family inheritance in Ottoman Syria to the "colonial economism" of the British occupation of Egypt; from the late Ottoman culture of productivity to the rise of the Arabic novel during nahda.

Instructor(s): Murat Bozluolcay     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 30866, NEHC 20866, HIST 35803, NEHC 30866, KNOW 20866

HIST 25810. History of Jews in the Middle East. 100 Units.

This class examines the history of Jews in the Middle East from the early modern period, when many Jewish refugees fleeing Spain and Portugal settled in the Ottoman Empire, to the modern Period, when Jews debated and challenged colonialist, reformist, nationalist, leftist, and secular ideologies. Reading novels, memoirs, and new works in the fields of Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies, we will examine how early modernity and modernity gave birth to new identity formations and new frames of belonging. We will visit the unknown histories of early modern Jews who produced translations and explications of the Hebrew Bible in Arabic, of Jews and Muslims who fought together Christian missionary activities, of Arab Jewish feminists, and of Jewish communists who established anti-Zionist societies in the Middle East.

Instructor(s): Orist Bashkin     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20228, JWSC 23405, RLST 20228

HIST 26106. Tropical Commodities in Latin America. 100 Units.

This colloquium explores selected aspects of the social, economic, environmental, and cultural history of tropical export commodities from Latin America-- e.g., coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, henequen, rubber, vanilla, and cocaine. Topics include land, labor, capital, markets, transport, geopolitics, power, taste, and consumption.

Instructor(s): E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 36106, LACS 26106, CEGU 26106, HIST 36106

HIST 26220. Brazil: Another American History. 100 Units.

Brazil is in many ways a mirror image of the United States: an almost continental democracy, rich in natural resources, populated by the descendants of three continents, shaped by colonialism, slavery, and sui generis liberal capitalism. Why, then, has Brazil's historical path been so distinct? To explore this question, this course will focus on the history of economic development, race, citizenship, urbanization, the environment, popular culture, violence, and the challenge of democracy. Assignments: Weekly reading, participation in discussions, weekly journal posts, and a final paper.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Some background in Latin American or Brazilian studies useful.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 26220, HIST 36220, LACS 36220

HIST 26302. A History of Youth in Latin America. 100 Units.

This course will examine the history of youth-as a social category, and as an experience-in Latin America. We will consider histories of childhood, student activism, and youth culture across the region to consider how young people experience everyday life, and how they effect change. Course materials will combine primary sources including film, music, and other visual and performance artworks with scholarship on childhood and youth.

Instructor(s): Diana Schwartz-Francisco     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 21816, LACS 21816, GLST 21816

HIST 26305. Covid-19 and other epidemics in Latin American History. 100 Units.

This course is designed as an introduction to the history of epidemics and pandemics in Latin America from the XVI century to the present. Emphasis will be on using epidemics and pandemics as historical lenses to illuminate key dimensions of Latin America's society like discrimination, citizenship, authoritarianism, popular resilience and globalization. We will discuss the relationship between epidemics and pandemics and international commerce, analyze the role played by structural inequities and inadequate responses by governments in the intensification of disease outbreaks, and assess popular reactions to government's action and inaction. An organizing principle of several sessions will be "Necropolitics" (a concept originally coined by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe) applied to social studies of health. These studies indicate that it is misleading to consider epidemics and pandemics as equal-opportunity threats since widespread disease outbreaks are usually more acute and tragic for vulnerable populations. A distinctive feature of necropolitics and Covid-19 was a misplaced hope for "herd immunity", embraced by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, namely the natural protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune through previous infection, with the assumption that a large number of people had to die.

Instructor(s): Marcos Cueto     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 35132, HIST 36305, LACS 25132

HIST 26306. Water in Latin America. 100 Units.

The course will explore how water shapes-and is shaped by-humans in Latin America. Drawing from case studies from the pre-Columbian era to the present, the course will consider struggles over aquatic resources, dam building, and hydraulic development, as well as the social life of water in the region. Some background in Latin American history or politics is helpful but not required.

Instructor(s): Diana Schwartz-Francisco     Terms Offered: Course not offered in 24-25
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 26381, LACS 26381

HIST 26307. The Simultaneity of Time: Reading Jorge Luis Borges in the 21st Century. 100 Units.

The Simultaneity of Time: Reading Jorge Luis Borges in the 21st Century

Instructor(s): Mauricio Tenorio     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 29205

HIST 26318. Indigenous Politics in Latin America. 100 Units.

This course examines the history of Indigenous policies and politics in Latin America from the first encounters with European empires through the 21st Century. Course readings and discussions will consider several key historical moments across the region: European encounters/colonization; the rise of liberalism and capitalist expansion in the 19th century; 20th-century integration policies; and pan-Indigenous and transnational social movements in recent decades. Students will engage with primary and secondary texts that offer interpretations and perspectives both within and across imperial and national boundaries.

Instructor(s): Diana Schwartz Francisco     Terms Offered: Course not offered in 24-25
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 23077, CRES 26380, RDIN 26380, LACS 36380, HIPS 26380, GLST 26380, LACS 26380, RDIN 36380

HIST 26319. Art and the Archive in Greater Latin America. 100 Units.

How and why do artists engage records of the past in their work? What are the politics of both creating archives and culling from them to visually render or represent the past? Focusing on artists, art-making, and archives in Greater Latin America (including the United States), this course will consider the process of collecting and creating in artistic production from the perspectives of both theory and practice. Students in the course will work directly with archival materials in Chicago and collaborate on contemporary artistic projects that consider issues of relevance to people and places of the Western Hemisphere.

Instructor(s): Diana Schwartz-Francisco     Terms Offered: Course not offered in 24-25
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 26384, CHST 26384, ARTH 26384, ARTV 20017, LACS 26384

HIST 26500. History of Mexico, 1876 to Present. 100 Units.

From the Porfiriato and the Revolution to the present, this course is a survey of Mexican society and politics, with emphasis on the connections between economic developments, social justice, and political organization. Topics include fin de siècle modernization and the agrarian problem; causes and consequences of the Revolution of 1910; the making of the modern Mexican state; relations with the United States; industrialism and land reform; urbanization and migration; ethnicity, culture, and nationalism; economic crises, neoliberalism, and social inequality; political reforms and electoral democracy; violence and narco-trafficking; the end of PRI rule; and AMLO's new government.

Instructor(s): E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Assignments: two essays
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 26500, LACS 26500, HIST 36500, LACS 36500

HIST 26511. Cities from Scratch: The History of Urban Latin America. 100 Units.

Latin America is one of the world's most urbanized regions and its urban heritage long predates European conquest. Yet the region's urban experience has generally been understood through North Atlantic models, which often treat Latin American cities as disjunctive, distorted knockoffs of idealized US or European cities. This class interrogates and expands those North Atlantic visions by emphasizing the history of vital urban issues such as informality, inequality, intimacy, race, gender, violence, plural regulatory regimes, the urban environment, and rights to the city. Interdisciplinary course materials include anthropology, sociology, history, fiction, film, photography, and journalism produced from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some coursework in Latin American studies, urban studies, and/or history
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 26511, LACS 26510, LACS 36510, HIST 36511, ARCH 26511, CEGU 26511

HIST 26606. Postcolonial and Decolonial History and Theory. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to some key texts in post and decolonial theory. Our goals in this class are three-fold. First, to familiarize students with foundational thinkers who have inspired both decolonial and postcolonial work. We draw attention to the different ways in which their ideas have been deployed in subsequent post and decolonial scholarship. Second, we ask questions oriented towards comparison of postcolonial and decolonial approaches: What, if any, are the points of overlap between decolonial and postcolonial thought? How do both bodies of work critique and contest the legacies of empire? Third, we investigate the present and possible futures of decolonial and postcolonial thought.

Instructor(s): Rochona Majumdar & Lisa Wedeen     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Enrollment limit: 15
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20704, PLSC 20704, CDIN 20704, CCCT 20704

HIST 26703. Modernity and Islam in South Asia: Piety, Poetry and Politics. 100 Units.

What did the experience of modernity and colonialism look like for Islamic South Asia? How did South Asian Muslims, especially in North India, respond to the many challenges and opportunities modernity brought in its wake? This course explores how custodians of Islamic religious and poetic traditions responded to colonial modernity. We also introduce some key ideas of postcolonial studies, and apply as well as think critically about them in the light of the Indo-Islamic case-study. We begin the course by exploring the possible meanings of modernity and colonialism, before diving deeper into Indo-Islamic modernity using two broad and highly intertwined themes: religion, encompassing subthemes of science, rationality, and progress, and literature, especially poetry and the fate of the Persian and Urdu ghazal tradition, occasionally making comparisons with other pre-colonial genres in other Indian languages. We will look at the creation of new genres and new kinds of poetry in Persian and Urdu that emerge both to answer the call of modernity and sometimes to reject and attack it.

Instructor(s): Shariq Khan     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25327

HIST 27001. Law and Society in Early America, 1600-1800. 100 Units.

This colloquium considers law, legal institutions, and legal culture within the lived experience of colonial and revolutionary America. It will emphasize the interaction of social development and legal development and will explore the breadth of everyday experience with legal institutions like the jury, with courts as institutions for resolving disputes, and with the prosecution of crime.

Instructor(s): E. Cook     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Upper-level undergraduates and early state graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 37001

HIST 27209. Martin and Malcolm: Life and Belief. 100 Units.

This course examines the religious, social, cultural, political, and personal factors that went into the making of the two most prominent public leaders and public intellectuals emerging from the African American community in the 1950s and 1960s: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. We will review their autobiographies, the domestic trends within the USA, and the larger international forces operating during their times. Their life stories provide the contexts for the sharp differences and surprising commonalities in their political thought and religious beliefs. At the end of their lives, were they still radical contrasts, sharing the same views, or had their beliefs shifted - did Malcolm become Martin and Martin become Malcolm?

Instructor(s): Dwight Hopkins     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 24601, FNDL 24601, RLST 24601, RDIN 24601

HIST 27210. American Wars and the 20th Century World (1900-1990) 100 Units.

This course explores the history of American military power from the Spanish-American War to the end of the 1980s, focusing on the social, cultural, racial, and human rights aspects of the U.S. military and soldiering in the 20th century. This course will only lightly discuss military strategy and tactic, and instead focus on the broader array of issues which stem from American wars. The course will cover topics such as American military occupations, the desegregation of the Armed Forces, military justice and war crimes, and the rise (and fall) of human rights in American imaginations of war. We will be concerned with questions such as the relationship of the military to state-building in the U.S. and abroad, war as a state-making and race-making mechanism, and the importance of human rights and justice within imaginations of American military power. This course seeks to understand how war and peace shaped the history of the United States in the twentieth century, and the role of grassroots actors in defining the nature of war.

Instructor(s): Syrus Jin, Pozen Center for Human Rights Graduate Lecturer     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 23516, HMRT 23516

HIST 27211. The History of the Future. 100 Units.

We are consumed with thoughts of the future. And why not? Recent events have assumed a pace so dizzying that easy answers-any answers, really-about our fate seem agonizingly out of reach. How and with what effects will the wars in Ukraine and Israel end? Does AI pose a threat to humanity, and if so, on what timetable and in what ways? What impact will climate change have on migration patterns, social organization, and real estate markets? These questions cut to the heart of the profound uncertainty that characterizes life in "the digital age," "the late Anthropocene," or whatever moniker future historians will eventually bestow to our anxiety-inducing times. As an idea, of course, "the future" has a history all its own. In this course, you will acquaint yourself with authors and texts that encapsulate the birth and maturation of futurist thought from the nineteenth century to the present. Moving from the speculative fiction of H.G. Wells to data-driven prediction models, you will explore the ways people have thought about the future, how some prescient souls were able to predict it, and why others got it so wildly wrong. With practice we will acquire a historical sensibility when evaluating the myriad-and hyperbolic!-visions of the future that compete for clicks today. Indeed, through the seminal texts you will explore in this course, you will ultimately discover that thinking about the future is, at heart, thinking about the past.

Instructor(s): S. Buono     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 27304. Narratives of American Religious History. 100 Units.

How do we tell the story of religion in America? Is it a story of Protestant dominance? Of religious diversity? Of transnational connections? Of secularization? This course examines how historians have grappled with such questions. We will read the work of scholars who have offered narratives explaining American religious history, including figures like Sydney Ahlstrom, Albert Raboteau, Mark Noll, Ann Braude, Catherine Albanese, and Thomas Tweed. This course will introduce students to key historiographical questions in the study of American religion, as well as to classic texts which have shaped the field's development.

Instructor(s): William Schultz and Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 41315, RDIN 41315, RLST 21315, AMER 41315, RAME 41315, AMER 21315, KNOW 41315, HIST 47304, CRES 22315, RDIN 21315

HIST 27312. Researching Chicago's Historic Parks and Neighborhoods. 100 Units.

Often considered a "City of Neighborhoods," Chicago has a fascinating network of community areas that were shaped by historical events and developments. Many of the city's neighborhoods include parks that have their own significant architectural, landscape and social histories. The class will introduce students to some of Chicago's most interesting historic neighborhoods and parks; expose them to key regional digital and on-site archives; and instruct them in appropriate methodologies for conducting deep research on sites and landscapes, with a special focus on Chicago's historic park system. Students will utilize an array of resources including Sanborn maps, US Census records, historic plans, photographs, and archival newspapers to provide in-depth studies of unpreserved sites. The course will also expose students to historic preservation policies, methodologies, and guidelines to provide practical strategies for preserving lesser-known places and sites. As a Chicago Studies class, its pedagogy will also include excursions into the city, engagement with local guest speakers, and research in relevant Chicago-area archives/special collections.

Instructor(s): Julia Bachrach     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This special class is offered in conjunction with the University’s ongoing commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture. Olmsted and his sons, the Olmsted Brothers, had a substantial influence on the city’s South Side, including the University’s campus and the development of small parks that provided services to dense immigrant neighborhoods in the early 20th century. The class will include field trips during some Friday class sessions.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 20336, ARTH 20336, CHST 20336, ARCH 10336, CEGU 20336

HIST 27313. Planning for Land and Life in the Calumet. 100 Units.

The collaborative plan to create a Calumet National Heritage Area that touches aspects of environmental conservation, economic development, cultural heritage, recreation, arts, and education will ground this course's exploration of landscape history and landscape planning in the Calumet region. Students will investigate this planning process and its relationship to other local and regional plans. A strong focus of the course is on the opportunities and challenges this complex and richly textured industrial region faces in its transition to a more sustainable future.

Instructor(s): Mark Bouman     Terms Offered: Spring. not offered in 2022-23
Note(s): This course is part of the Chicago Studies Quarter:Calumet. This course includes required field trips every Friday from 9am-3pm.
Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 26366, ENST 26366, CHST 26366, CEGU 26366

HIST 27314. Objects, Place and Power. 100 Units.

Objects are not only formed and interpreted through ideas of place and power, but also shape place and identity. This course looks at how material culture has, in part, formed understandings of the Calumet. Through methods drawn from art history and museum studies, we will look closely at objects, collections, and institutions in the region to analyze the power and politics of representation in placemaking.

Instructor(s): Jessica Landau     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course is part of the Chicago Studies Quarter:Calumet. This course includes required field trips every Friday from 9am-3pm.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 26367, CEGU 26367, ENST 26367, PBPL 26367, CHST 26367

HIST 27315. Environmental Transitions and Unnatural Histories. 100 Units.

The course considers changes wrought in the natural landscape of the greater Calumet region beginning with indigenous Potawatomi and their forced removal. Students will examine how the Calumet's natural environment became collateral damage of the industrial capitalism that transformed the region into an economic powerhouse and explore efforts to rehabilitate the Calumet's rich biodiversity, identifying the challenges and achievements of this most recent environmental transition.

Instructor(s): Mary Beth Pudup     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course is part of the Chicago Studies Quarter:Calumet. This course includes required field trips every Friday from 9am-3pm.
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 26368, ENST 26368, ANTH 26368, CEGU 26368, PBPL 26368

HIST 27409. Blackness and the Problem of the Archive. 100 Units.

This course will explore the question what "what is an archive?" from the perspective of Black theorists, historians, artists and historical actors. We will come to understand how the "archival turn," or the scholarly reimagining of the essential nature of the archive presents a range of problems for researching black life. As theorists redefined the archive from a physical repository of textual materials collected by the state to a quasi-metaphorical, hegemonic site of violence and illegibility, traditional forms of historical inquiry and narration came under intense scrutiny. These critiques generated a number of questions which we will ponder together. Can the everyday realities of black subjects-be they enslaved, working-class, female or queer-be recovered through archival texts? How is agency expressed (or not expressed) in the archive? And why? Can archives exist as anything other than repositories for the reproduction of elite consciousness? Or as sites of distortion and dehumanization? With these discussions as our backdrop we will additionally explore imagination and possibility in the archives, asking what Black people's archival practices tell us about human expression and memory. Alongside conceptual texts we will also engage in archival practice as a group. The course will culminate in each student producing a research project which critically engages with a local Black archive in Chicago, or a digital repository of their choosing.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks

HIST 27415. Creating a Different Image: Black Women's Filmmaking of the 1970s-90s. 100 Units.

This course will explore the rich intersections between African American women's filmmaking, literary production, and feminist thought from the 1970s to the early 1990s, with an emphasis on the formation of a Black women's film culture beginning in the 1970s. We will examine the range of Black feminisms presented through film and the ways that these films have challenged, countered, and reimagined dominant narratives about race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. We will explore the power and limitations of filmmaking as a mode of Black feminist activism; the range of Black feminisms presented through film; and the specific filmic engagements of well-known Black feminist critics such as bell hooks, Toni Cade Bambara, and Michele Wallace. As many Black feminist writers were engaged with filmmaking and film culture, we will look at these films alongside Black women's creative and critical writing from the period. Approaching filmmaking in the context of Black feminist thought will allow us to examine the possibilities of interdisciplinary approaches to film studies broadly, as well as to think specifically about the research methods and theories that are demanded by Black women's filmmaking in particular.

Instructor(s): Allyson Field     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): This course is open to graduate and undergraduate students from across the disciplines; our conversations and presentations of the films will both depend on and be energized by different disciplinary perspectives.
Note(s): Not offered in 2024-25. Please email Professor Field at anfield@uchicago.edu before enrolling. Course Description Continued: We will discuss the form, aesthetics, and politics of individual films and we will examine larger efforts by artists and activists to build a Black women’s film culture, asking such questions as: What does a film history of Black feminism look like, and what scholarly and creative methods does such a history demand? To begin to answer these questions, we will revisit the 1976 Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts—believed to be the first ever Black women’s film festival—organized by Michele Wallace, Faith Ringgold, Patricia Jones, Margo Jefferson, and Monica Freeman. The class will collectively participate in a homage series inspired by the 1976 festival, featuring work by filmmakers from the original festival such as Monica Freeman, Madeline Anderson, Michelle Parkerson, Ayoka Chenzira, Carol Munday Lawrence, Edie Lynch, and Camille Billops; as well as others including Julie Dash, Zeinabu irene Davis, Maya Angelou, and Yvonne Welbon. The weekly course screenings will be open to the public and students will gain experience in the public presentation of films by actively engaging in public-facing aspects of film exhibition (writing program notes, delivering introductions, participating in discussions, etc.). The class will culminate with a two-day symposium that will bring together around 35 Black feminist filmmakers and artists, including a number from the 1976 festival, to revisit the threads and legacies of the original event and discuss the present and future of Black women’s film practices.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30128, CMST 21025, HIST 37415, KNOW 31025, CMST 31025, GNSE 20128, HMRT 31025, CRES 21025, HMRT 21025

HIST 27416. Black Religious Protest in the U.S. 100 Units.

This course examines African American religious protest against the American nation for its actual history and its ideals in view of black oppression. The course begins with David Walker's Appeal (1829) and ends with debates around Jeremiah Wright's "God damn America" sermon. The course situates black religious protest amidst discussions of the American Jeremiad, a particular critique of the nation in relation to the divine, American exceptionalism, and racial injustice. We attempt to trace continuity and discontinuity, hope versus pessimism, and visions of a more perfect union in these public critiques of the nation.

Instructor(s): Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22202, RAME 42202, AMER 42202, HIST 47416, RDIN 23202, HCHR 42202, AMER 22202

HIST 27418. Gender and Sexuality in Latin America. 100 Units.

Bringing together Latin American social, feminist and queer theory, we will explore four pivotal moments in history-Spanish conquest, independence, industrialization and revolution-in order to interrogate why social conflicts were often mediated through competing definitions of masculinity and femininity as well as how debates about legitimate sexual practice and reproduction ultimately underpinned larger concerns over racial purity, economic inequality, class struggle and the prerogatives of the state. Our readings will span a variety of perspectives and theoretical orientations in order to shed light on the intellectual and social diversity unique to the Latin American context.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 27510. Religion in the Enlightenment: England and America. 100 Units.

Study in the historiographies of the Enlightenment in England and in America, with special attention to the "trans-Atlantic" communication of ideas regarding the nature of the person, religion, and the role of the political order.

Instructor(s): Richard Rosengarten     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 42200, HIST 47510, AMER 22110, RLVC 42100, AMER 42100, RLST 22110, RAME 42100

HIST 27718. Beyond the Culture Wars: Social Movements and the Politics of Education in the U.S. 100 Units.

Passionate conflicts over school curriculum and educational policy are a recurring phenomenon in the history of US schooling. Why are schools such frequent sites of struggle and what is at stake in these conflicts? In this discussion-based seminar, we will consider schools as battlegrounds in the US "culture wars": contests over competing visions of national identity, morality, social order, the fundamental purposes of public education, and the role of the state vis-à-vis the family. Drawing on case studies from history, anthropology, sociology and critical race and gender studies, we will examine both past and contemporary debates over school curriculum and school policy. Topics may include clashes over: the teaching of evolution, sex and sexuality education, busing/desegregation, prayer in schools, multiculturalism, the content of the literary canon, the teaching of reading, mathematics and history, and the closure of underperforming urban schools. Our inquiry will examine how social and political movements have used schools to advance or resist particular agendas and social projects.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Spring. Offered spring 2025
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20588, SOCI 30588, PBPL 23011, HIST 37718, CHDV 23011, EDSO 33011, CHDV 33011, EDSO 23011

HIST 27719. The Christian Right. 100 Units.

From the Gilded Age to the age of Donald Trump, conservatives Christians have played a major role in shaping American politics and culture. This course will use primary and secondary sources to explore the development of the Christian Right in the United States. We will answer essential questions about the movement: Who joins it? Who leads it? And who funds it? We will examine how conservative Christians approach not only "moral" issues like abortion but also issues like economic regulation and foreign policy. Finally, we will seek to answer the question: What is the future of the Christian Right in an increasingly diverse America?

Instructor(s): William Schultz     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 35700, AMER 22667, AMER 35700, HIST 37719, RLST 22667, RAME 35700

HIST 27806. Histories of Women in Science. 100 Units.

In the mid-1980s, only two female students drew women when asked what a scientist looked like and none of the male students in the study did. Only 8% of STEM workers in 1970 were women; in 2019 that number was still only 27%. This would seem to suggest that the history of women in science is a recent one. Yet historians of science have foregrounded women's involvement in fields ranging from early modern medicine to twentieth century astrophysics. This class introduces students to these histories, investigates how and why science came to be a gendered as male, and asks to what extent gendered values continue to inform modern conceptions scientific achievement or value. In so doing, this course also introduces students to feminist science studies and challenges students to reflect upon their own (gendered) experiences of science. Students are strongly encouraged to develop final research projects that draw upon their own interests, scientific expertise, and linguistic competencies. No prior experience with history is required for this course, although an enthusiasm for history is advised.

Instructor(s): Kristine Palmieri     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 27011, GNSE 37011, CHSS 37011, PHSC 27010, KNOW 37011, ASTR 23700, GNSE 23162

HIST 27807. Sexuality in U.S. History to 1900. 100 Units.

In this course we will study the history of changing sexual practices, relations, politics, cultures, and social systems in the region of North America now comprising the United States and 574 sovereign tribal nations. We begin in the pre-colonial period and end in the late twentieth century, focusing on how gendered, racial, economic, religious, medical, and commercial discourses shaped and were shaped by sexual ones. Moving through various contexts, such as occupied indigenous territories, the secret parties of enslaved people, scientific societies, urban drag balls, medical schools, liberatory movements, and popular culture, we will use primary and secondary sources to develop a research-based understanding of how sexual discourses are produced, revised, and remixed among and across generations.

Instructor(s): Red Tremmel     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts as a Concepts course for GNSE majors.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 23165

HIST 27808. Midwives, Healers, and "Abortionists" 100 Units.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries in the US, most births moved from the home (where they were often attended by midwives) to the hospital (where they were almost always attended by male doctors). In recent decades, demand for midwives has reemerged across the political spectrum. Some see midwives as a bulwark against contracting reproductive rights and autonomy; some see them as protection from government overreach and regulation, or as a return to a lost traditional or religious past; many see them as an answer to a medical system that has failed to meet the needs of mothers and babies. This course will follow the history of midwives, women healers, and abortion providers from antiquity through the Middle Ages and to the present, with a focus on the political, legal, and religious context of midwifery in twentieth and twenty-first century US. Topics include witchcraft accusations of midwives and healers; the importance of Black midwives in the antebellum south; the role of race and gender in laws against practicing midwifery; convergences and divergences between the natural birth movement and the reproductive rights movement; and the prevalence of homebirth among Christian momfluencers.

Instructor(s): P. Heffington     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 20139

HIST 27907. Violence: Vigilantism, Community Defense, and Armed Resistance. 100 Units.

This course explores extralegal violence primarily in the US, from decolonial struggles to white mobs to self and community defense by marginalized peoples. How do we understand different forms of violence, defense, and resistance in relation to the violence of the state? What role does violence play in struggles for justice and freedom? This seminar surveys a range of social science approaches to these questions. In addition to reading the work of anthropologists, historians, and philosophers, we will also take up these themes as they appear in popular media and current events.

Instructor(s): Maya Singhal     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 20900, ANTH 22547, ANTH 32547, CRES 22900, RDIN 30900

HIST 28302. The American Founding, 1763-1789. 100 Units.

This course examines the founding of the United States from the global crisis of the British Empire following the Seven Years' War to the launching of the new national government in 1789. The architects of the American republic believed they were laying the foundations not only of a new political regime but also of a new world. As Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense asserted in 1776, American independence would "begin the world over again." The lectures consider the revolutionary origins of the United States in the long-term context of three centuries of world history commencing with Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492. Course readings consist of primary sources ranging from major works of Enlightenment social and historical theory to political pamphlets, newspaper opinion pieces, and parliamentary debates. This is a lecture course; the assignments consist of two take-home essay exams and a paper.

Instructor(s): J. Vaughn

HIST 28308. Science, Governance, and the Crisis of Liberalism. 100 Units.

In the era of "post-truth" it has become common to link a crisis of scientific authority with a crisis of liberalism. Democracies around the world are under threat, this reasoning goes, in part because of an attack on scientific truth. But what does liberalism - as political culture and as a form of governance - need (or want) from science? Depending where you look, the answer might appear to be facts, truth, a model 'public sphere,' an ethic of objectivity, tactics for managing risk and uncertainty, or technologies of population management (to name a few). In addition to exploring the complex historical relationship between science and liberalism in the modern era, this course will critically assess how the history of science and the history of political thought have theorized truth and governance. We will examine what models of "coproduction" and "social construction" - nearly ubiquitous in the historiography of modern science - fail to capture about the histories of science and state power. We will also think about how political and intellectual historians' theories of truth and mendacity in politics might be enriched by more attention to scientific knowledge in both its technical and epistemological forms. This course focuses on 19th- and 20th-century Europe and the United States in global perspective, and readings will draw from political theory, history, economic thought, the natural and human sciences, and critical theory.

Instructor(s): Isabel Gabel     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 22204, CHSS 32504, HIST 38308, KNOW 32204

HIST 28309. States of Exception in American History. 100 Units.

Although the United States is officially a constitutional democracy, it has repeatedly involved emergency powers to suspend the constitution and abridge constitutional rights. We explore the history of these 'states of exception' in American history, from the founding era to the present. Eligible for LLSO Junior Colloquium.

Instructor(s): Joel Isaac     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 29073, SCTH 20684

HIST 28710. Law and Religion in the Modern United States. 100 Units.

This course explores the persistent tension between law and religious faith in the United States. It will proceed loosely chronologically, beginning with the Supreme Court's first rulings on religious liberty following the Civil War and continuing into the twenty-first century. The course will also introduce students to a range of thematic issues, such as the use of state power by religious actors to regulate behavior, the place of believers (and nonbelievers) within a liberal democracy, the religious rights of corporations, and the emergence of forms of legal pluralism as religious law and civil law increasingly intersect. Readings will include case law, legal and political theorists, as well as religious voices. Students will complete a significant literature review on a topic of their choosing. This course counts as an LLSO junior colloquium.

Instructor(s): Jacob Betz     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Preference is given to LLSO juniors.
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 29711, RLST 28711

HIST 28802. United States Labor History. 100 Units.

This course will explore the history of labor and laboring people in the United States. The significance of work will be considered from the vantage points of political economy, culture, and law. Key topics will include working-class life, industrialization and corporate capitalism, slavery and emancipation, the role of the state and trade unions, and race and sex difference in the workplace.

Instructor(s): A. Stanley     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Graduate students by consent of instructor
Note(s): Assignments: short papers and an in-class presentation
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 28802, GNSE 28802, HIST 38802, GNSE 38802

HIST 28815. American Spectacle. 100 Units.

Spectacles have shocked, awed, delighted, and horrified Americans for centuries-seemingly all at once. This class reexamines American history through the lens of spectacle in its many guises: the scientific, violent, technological, and political. We explore how these various iterations have not only coexisted over time but also intersected, reinforced, and-at times-complicated each other. We will ask how these overlapping spectacles shaped and continue to shape the United States by underwriting and innovating race, class, gender, and statecraft. Is spectacle foundational to the United States? How does it bridge individual lived experience and sociopolitical and economic abstractions? Running from the early modern Atlantic World to the present, we conclude by asking whether the digital age has made spectacle ubiquitous, and at what cost.

Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 21450, HIST 38815, MAAD 28815, MAPS 31450

HIST 29107. Empires and Colonies of the Atlantic World. 100 Units.

This graduate-level reading colloquium explores classic and emerging scholarship that examines the rise and consolidation of European overseas empires and colonies in the early modern Atlantic world (c.1400-1850). While we will analyze transatlantic European imperial structures, the course will pay particular attention to the perspectives of the colonized peoples (such as enslaved and freed people of African descent, creole populations, and Indigenous peoples) and places (such as the Caribbean, West Africa, Latin America, and North America) in the Atlantic World. Among the thematic topics we will discuss include: colonization; the rise of slavery and the slave trade; cross-cultural and political connections; the consolidation of race; gender, sexuality, and the family; the environment; the plantation complex; work and economy; social life; anti-colonial and anti-slavery struggles, revolution; abolition; and the reconstitution of colonial and imperial structures after slave emancipation. Upper-level undergraduates may enroll with instructor consent.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 26455, MAPS 33555, HIST 39107, ANTH 46455

HIST 29327. The Global History of Money. 100 Units.

This lecture course offers a global history of money over the last five thousand years. The course will approach money from diverse perspectives, including economic, political, social, cultural, and other perspectives. Rather than attempting complete coverage, the class focuses upon three distinct and momentous eras of monetary history. First, is the role of money in ancient economies, leading up to the birth of coinage in ancient Greece. Second, there is the role of money in the global emergence of capitalism during the early modern period. Third, is our own era, which began with the turn to fiat money during the 1970s. The course will study different theoretical approaches to understanding money, from economics and other disciplines. However, no background in economics is assumed or acquired.

Instructor(s): J. Levy     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 49304, SCTH 39304, SCTH 29304, HIST 39327

HIST 29427. Fashion, Empire, Capitalism. 100 Units.

Clothing, famously termed the "social skin", mediates the space between individuals and societies. Whether articulating personal taste or reflecting a collective identity, dress can be a powerful symbol-both historically and in the contemporary world. Worn against the skin, clothing is both intimate and connects us to a global, multi-billion-dollar system that employs roughly one in every ten people worldwide. This course addresses the multivalent history of dress from early modern imperial encounters in the Atlantic World, to anti-colonial movements in South Asia, to the nineteen-forties American Zoot Suit Riots-demonstrating the ways that clothes are connected to gendered and racial categories, political projects, and the shape of global capitalism. Students will analyze case studies from Malabar to Manchester, colonial Lima to revolutionary France, nineteenth-century Zanzibar to nineteen-eighties New York. Examining the history of dress and its global interconnections necessitates an interdisciplinary approach; therefore, students will combine historical scholarship with theoretical frameworks from the anthropology of dress and methodologies from material culture studies to analyze sources ranging from museum objects to films, haute couture fashion to flip-flops. Finally, this course sheds light on historic interconnections and the development of fashion systems, asks what ways these continue to animate our contemporary world, and imagines new possibilities for the future.

Instructor(s): K. Hickerson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Assignments: material analyses, essays, and an original research project.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 29427, RDIN 29427

HIST 29431. How (Not) to Save the World: The History of International Development. 100 Units.

The drive to deliver humanitarian aid and improved living standards to the world far beyond one's own borders is a distinctively modern phenomenon. This course introduces students to the theories, actors, and practices that have shaped international development. We will explore the colonial origins of development as an idea, its evolution during the Cold War, and the implications of today's more multipolar world. We will see how different strategies have risen and fallen from favor, from big dams to trade to private philanthropy. Alongside scholarly histories, we will read reflections by development practitioners and critics and examine concrete case studies of development projects in action around the world.

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 29431, HMRT 29432

HIST 29607. History Colloquium: Epidemics, Public Health, and Cities. 100 Units.

The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic has brought a new awareness of the devastating impact of epidemic disease, particularly in cities where population density and other factors contribute to high rates of infection. This undergraduate colloquium aims to guide students through the research and writing of an original research paper that explores public health response to epidemic disease in cities around the world. Topics to be examined include defining an appropriate research question, identifying relevant secondary literature, finding primary sources, and constructing a compelling narrative.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Priority registration is given to History majors.
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 26207

HIST 29610. Colloquium: History and Fiction. 100 Units.

We will explore the relations among historical analysis, historical narrative, and fiction, with an emphasis on the Americas.

Instructor(s): M. Tenorio     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 29631. Taiwan in Asia and the World. 100 Units.

This course examines the distinctive history of the island of Taiwan, from seventeenth-century Spanish colony to outpost of the Dutch empire, from multiethnic pirate cove to Qing coastal fortress, from an essential point of origin for Austronesian languages and cultures to Japan's first model colony, and from decades living under martial law to today's vibrant democratically elected government. There may never have been a time when Taiwan's future was so heatedly debated, or viewed as so central to global politics, as it is at this moment. Readings spanning three centuries and an array of governing regimes. We will explore the historical arguments and narratives that constitute the cultural identity of this diverse and contested place. In addition to reading primary sources and historiography over the quarter, students will develop and share their own research. This will culminate with either a paper or public history project.

Instructor(s): J. Ransmeier     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24518

HIST 29634. African Cities and Urbanism. 100 Units.

This course looks at urbanism and urbanization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through a focus on selected cities in East, Southern, and West Africa. Beginning with existing trade routes and economic centers onto which some colonial cities were mapped, the course explores waves of migration over different historical periods, infrastructural imaginaries and the policies that shaped them, informal and formal economies, and cultural expressions and representations of life and living in the city. We will draw from a diversity of sources including fiction, non-fiction, architecture, town planning, photography, and the arts to examine political, social, economic, and topographical features and forces that drove the growth and development of each city studied, and also to reflect on commonalities that emerged between cities across different regions of the continent.

Instructor(s): T. Thipe     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 29634, RDIN 29634

HIST 29661. Colloquium: Digital Humanities/Digital History. 100 Units.

The modern era has been punctuated by episodes, some lasting centuries, of exploitation, expropriation, and genocide. This course will address how people and institutions have sought to grapple with the legacies of the extreme violence that polities, societies, and individuals have inflicted on each other through the collection and display of the material, documentary, and testimonial fragments left behind. Focusing on the archives and museums dedicated to the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, and the Holocaust, we will discuss the following questions: What is an object of trauma? What makes its way to a depository of traumatic events, what does not, and why? What do archivists and curators hope to accomplish?  What stories can be told, given that so many of the voices of victims are irretrievable? What happens to a remnant of trauma once it is in the custody of a museum or an archive? What is the relationship between archives of trauma and their exhibition? We will consider the traumatic remains that have been deposited both in specialized and in general archives and museums. This seminar-style class will involve intensive discussion of primary sources and interdisciplinary scholarship.  We will also be going on study trips to archives and museums around Chicago, such as the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, the DuSable Black History Museum & Education Center, and The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian.

Instructor(s): L. Auslander & T. Goldsmith     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 29661, JWSC 29661

HIST 29683. History Colloquium: Race, Slavery, and Nation. 100 Units.

With its focus on research methods, this seminar supports the production of an original, primary-source-based research paper related to the course's broad themes of race, slavery, and nation. We will dedicate time to historiographical debates, conceptual frameworks, a group visit to special collections, and peer review. Specifically, students will formulate a viable research question, develop a research agenda that uses the appropriate qualitative or quantitative methods, conduct independent research, and draft and revise a final paper. While some background historical knowledge in the student's proposed area of interest is recommended, it is not required.

Instructor(s): R. Johnson
Prerequisite(s): Priority registration is given to History majors. If possible, students should have taken HIST 17908, African American History to 1865 prior to registering for this course.

HIST 29685. History Colloquium: Asian/Pacific Islander American History, 1850-2021. 100 Units.

Looking through a broad interdisciplinary lens, this course will examine the trajectory of Asians and Pacific Islanders in America. How did nineteenth- and early twentieth-century "sojourners" become "citizens"? What constituted the public's shift in perception of Asians from unassimilable alien to ostensible "model minority"? We will interrogate not only what it means to have been and to be an Asian in America but also what role APIAs have played in striving for a multiracial democracy. The history of anti-Asian violence will be traced from the mid-nineteenth century to the most recent hate crimes in the age of COVID. Conscious of the tendency to homogenize all Asians in the historical imagination, the course will be explicitly comparative, incorporating the diverse and disparate experiences of East, Southeast, and South Asians, as well as Pacific Islanders in America over time. We will, also, at times, investigate the histories of other ethnic/racial groups and compare their experiences to the Asian American experience.

Instructor(s): M. Briones     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Priority registration is given to History majors.
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 27685

HIST 29700. Readings in History. 100 Units.

Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and the History undergraduate advisor.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Summer Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and the associate director of History's Undergraduate Studies Committee.

HIST 29800. BA Thesis Seminar I. 100 Units.

BA Thesis Seminar I provides a systematic introduction to historical methodology and approaches (e.g., political, intellectual, social, cultural, economic, gender, environmental history), as well as research techniques. It culminates in students' submission of a robust BA thesis proposal that will be critiqued in class. Guidance will also be provided for applications for research funding.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): All 3rd-yr history students writing BA theses take HIST 29800 in Spr Qtr. You must receive a B grade in BA Seminar I to continue in the BA Thesis Track and enroll in BA Seminar II.
Note(s): Students who will be out of residence in the spring term of the third year should choose the Colloquium or Capstone Track.

HIST 29801. BA Thesis Seminar II (Autumn) 000 Units.

BA Seminar II is a forum to successfully complete the BA thesis, the topic of which was developed in BA Seminar I, in a structured forum that allows for ongoing discussion and peer review. Autumn Quarter is devoted to completing the research and beginning the writing of the thesis. By the end of the quarter students will have drafted 10-15 pages. Over the course of the Winter Quarter students will complete a draft of the thesis, which will be workshopped in the biweekly sessions. The final deadline for submission of the thesis is the second week of the Spring Quarter.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): HIST 29800; Students writing BA theses register for both Autumn (HIST 29801) and Winter (HIST 29802) quarters. You must receive a B grade in HIST 29801 to continue in the BA Thesis Track and enroll in HIST 29802.
Note(s): The seminar meets every other week (weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) in Autumn and Winter for 10 weeks total.

HIST 29802. BA Thesis Seminar II. 100 Units.

BA Seminar II is a forum to successfully complete the BA thesis, the topic of which was developed in BA Seminar I, in a structured forum that allows for ongoing discussion and peer review. Autumn Quarter is devoted to completing the research and beginning the writing of the thesis. By the end of the quarter students will have drafted 10-15 pages. Over the course of the Winter Quarter students will complete a draft of the thesis, which will be workshopped in the biweekly sessions. The final deadline for submission of the thesis is the second week of the Spring Quarter.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): HIST 29800 (BA Seminar I) and HIST 29801 (BA Seminar II-Autumn)
Note(s): The seminar meets every other wk (wks 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) in Aut and Win for 10-wks total.

HIST 29803. Historiography. 100 Units.

The course provides a systematic introduction to historical methodology and approaches (e.g., political, intellectual, social, cultural, economic, gender, environmental history), as well as research techniques. Students will gain analytical, research, and writing tools that will assist them in their capstone projects, research colloquia, or BA theses.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Historiography is required for all majors, but open to all students.
Note(s): We recommend that Capstone and BA Thesis students take Historiography in the 3rd year. Assignments: short papers, in-class presentation, long paper.

HIST 29804. Capstone Seminar (Autumn) 000 Units.

Capstone Seminar is a forum to create, discuss, and critique History capstone projects. Early weeks of the seminar will be devoted to exploring various forms historical work can take, from museum installations to podcasts and documentaries. In-process work will be shared and critiqued in workshops. The final deadline for submission of the Capstone Project is the second week of spring quarter.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Capstone students register for both autumn (HIST 29804) and winter (HIST 29805) quarters; the seminar meets every other week (weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) for 10-weeks total.

HIST 29805. Capstone Seminar. 100 Units.

Capstone Seminar is a forum to create, discuss, and develop History capstone projects. Early weeks of the seminar will be devoted to exploring various forms historical work can take, from museum installations to podcasts and documentaries. In-process work will beshared and critiqued in workshops. The course meets every other week in autumn and winter, allowing students ample time to develop their projects on their own. The final deadline for submission of the Capstone Project is the second week of Spring Quarter.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Capstone students register for both autumn (HIST 29804) and winter (HIST 29805) quarters; the seminar meets every other week (weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) for a total of 10 weeks.

HIST 29806. Archival Methods and Historical Thinking. 100 Units.

In this course, students will be introduced to archival research methods and to the ways in which historians work with and interpret the sources they use in constructing historical narratives and arguments. We will visit Special Collections, explore digital archives, and consider the range of possible sources and archives, from texts held in national government archives to material objects, maps, audio or video recordings, and everything in between. We will also engage with the work of historians as they seek to make sense of the material they find in archives, considering questions of interpretation, narrative, and holes--that is, what is missing from archives. Students will gain an understanding of the mechanics of archival work and an appreciation for the complexity of historical thinking.

Instructor(s): A. Hofmann     Terms Offered: Summer. Offered Summer 2023

HIST 29908. The Bible Throughout History: From the Dead Sea Scrolls to King James. 100 Units.

While the collection of ancient texts found in modern Bibles appears fixed and is read by many people as a source of edification or theological insight, it has not always been this way. Though absent from most Bibles, there is an entire body of literature commonly known as "rewritten bible": early translations, retellings, or entirely new stories with familiar names and faces that update, retcon, or subvert their "biblical" sources. How might we understand these ancient forms of fan fiction? The class will introduce this corpus (including some of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and its sources, production, and historical contexts. We will confront significant problems in understanding religious texts: how is it that some texts become authoritative while other very similar texts do not? Who gets to retell foundational religious narratives, and within what social or political constraints? What does it mean to relate to sacred texts as artistic prompts or imperfect points of departure? Can a biblical text be rewritten for an entirely different religious tradition? We will consider similar questions for contemporary religious practice, asking: how did rewriting the Bible get started, and has it stopped?

Instructor(s): Doren Snoek     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 20124, MDVL 20124, RLST 20124, CMLT 20124, JWSC 20924

HIST 29909. Comparative Empires. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to major themes in the study of empires, and to primary sources illustrative of those issues. We aim to raise questions about the nature of empires, their techniques of rule, impact on their subjects, and the causes of their rise and fall. For the most part, this will be done through a series of studies of specific empires, which will become the basis for comparative discussions. The empires considered range across the planet, and across the last two millennia, but most will be concentrated in the 16th-19th centuries. Graduate and undergraduate students both welcome.

Instructor(s): S. Pincus & K. Pomeranz     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 39909

HIST 29910. History of Modern Peace and Violence. 100 Units.

How was peace constituted as a modern category? Is there a history of peace? What do new approaches to large concepts-"Latin America," "Europe," "State," "Nation," "Global South," "Judeo-Christian"-tell us about peace and violence and about writing the past of peace and violence? The goal is to launch the wondering of future historians.

Instructor(s): M. Tenorio     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 39910

HIST 29911. Global Legal History. 100 Units.

This course examines topics in legal history from the last two centuries, surveying new and canonical histories from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. In recent years legal history has taken a global turn, moving away from the state-focused approach that long characterized the field. We will consider some of the questions that have come out of that turn. What counts as a "legal" institution, and who decides? How do different legal traditions - Civil Law, Sharia, Common Law, custom - interact with one another? How did law buttress or challenge ideas about race? Law can be a shield or a weapon, sometimes simultaneously. What it does depends on who is using it, and for what purpose. Readings will include history and some legal philosophy. Students will use primary sources extensively, including court records. The course will address historical topics including the use of law in European imperialism; law and the afterlife of Atlantic slavery; colonial regimes of law; the role of law in nationalist movements; law in revolutionary regimes and communist states; and contemporary debates on law enforcement and policing.

Instructor(s): S. Daly     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 29911, HIST 39911

HIST 29913. Memory Bound: Jewish Memory and the Binding of Isaac. 100 Units.

The story of the Binding of Isaac (Gen. 22:1-19) is perhaps the best known narrative in the Hebrew Bible. It may also be the least appreciated for its ongoing influence on Jewish identity and memory. We will apply social and memory theory to the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19), and its interpretations in rabbinic literature, historical chronicles, and literature, in order to better understand the ways in which foundational narratives and cultural identities engage in a process of continuous mutual interpretation. We will also examine how technology and social media are customizing memory, and dramatically reshaping cultures and their collective memories.

Instructor(s): Aslan Cohen Mizrahi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26622, FNDL 28750, JWSC 28750

HIST 10101-10102-10103. Introduction to African Civilization I-II-III.

African Civilization introduces students to African history in a three-quarter sequence. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required; this sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

HIST 10800-10900. Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia I-II.

This sequence introduces core themes in the formation of culture and society in South Asia from the early modern period until the present. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. These courses must be taken in sequence.

HIST 11701. Jewish Civilization I: Ancient Beginnings to Medieval Period. 100 Units.

Jewish Civilization is a three-quarter sequence that explores the development of Jewish culture and tradition from its ancient beginnings through its rabbinic and medieval transformations to its modern manifestations. Through investigation of primary texts-biblical, Talmudic, philosophical, mystical, historical, documentary, and literary-students will acquire a broad overview of Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness while reflecting in greater depth on major themes, ideas, and events in Jewish history. The autumn course will deal with antiquity through the Middle Ages. Its readings will include material from the Bible and writings from the second temple, Hellenistic, rabbinic, and medieval periods. All sections of this course will share a common core of readings; individual instructors will supplement with other materials. It is recommended, though not required, that students take the three Jewish Civilization courses in sequence. Students who register for the Autumn Quarter course will automatically be pre-registered for the winter segment. In the Spring Quarter students have the option of taking a third unit of Jewish Civilization, a course whose topics will vary (JWSC 1200X).

Instructor(s): Larisa Reznik     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22010, MDVL 12000, JWSC 12000, NEHC 22010

HIST 11702. Jewish Civilization II: Early Modern Period to 21st Century. 100 Units.

Jewish Civilization is a three-quarter sequence that explores the development of Jewish culture and tradition from its ancient beginnings through its rabbinic and medieval transformations to its modern manifestations. Through investigation of primary texts-biblical, Talmudic, philosophical, mystical, historical, documentary, and literary-students will acquire a broad overview of Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness while reflecting in greater depth on major themes, ideas, and events in Jewish history. The Winter course will begin with the early modern period and continue to the present. It will include discussions of mysticism, the works of Spinoza and Mendelssohn, the nineteenth-century reform, the Holocaust and its reflection in writers such as Primo Levi and Paul Celan, and literary pieces from postwar American Jewish and Israeli authors. All sections of this course will share a common core of readings; individual instructors will supplement with other materials. It is recommended, though not required, that students take the three Jewish Civilization courses in sequence. Students who register for the Autumn Quarter course will automatically be pre-registered for the winter segment. In the Spring Quarter students have the option of taking a third unit of Jewish Civilization, a course whose topics will vary (JWSC 1200X).

Instructor(s): Kenneth Moss Larisa Reznik     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22011, JWSC 12001, NEHC 22011

HIST 12700-12800. Music in Western Civilization I-II.

This two-quarter sequence explores musical works of broad cultural significance in Western civilization. We study pieces not only from the standpoint of musical style but also through the lenses of politics, intellectual history, economics, gender, cultural studies, and so on. Readings are taken both from our music textbook and from the writings of a number of figures such as St. Benedict of Nursia and Martin Luther. In addition to lectures, students discuss important issues in the readings and participate in music listening exercises in smaller sections.

HIST 13001-13002-13003. History of European Civilization I-II-III.

Has Europe ever been civilized? This sequence, which satisfies the general education requirement in civilization studies, invites students to discuss the simultaneously creative and destructive forces inherent in centuries of European history. While resisting shallow critiques and caricatures of Europe's role in the world, students examine in depth major themes in the history of European ideas about civilization, including the interplay of faith, reason, and secularism; the individual, family, and mass society; and monarchy, revolution, and democracy. Students not only grapple with big questions and transformative ideas but also consider unique perspectives and ordinary people by reading a variety of different kinds of historical evidence. The sequence provides students with foundational skills and knowledge for the University of Chicago general education core curriculum more broadly, which owes much of its intellectual project to European ideas of knowledge and education. In keeping with the traditions of the core curriculum, students contextualize and interrogate sources in small, rigorous, and textually immersive classes. Learn to think historically! There are three parts to this sequence. Parts I and II cover the period from approximately the fall of Rome to the present and should be taken in sequence in the Autumn-Winter or Winter-Spring Quarters. The optional Part III treats specialized topics in greater depth in the Spring Quarter.

HIST 13100-13200-13300. History of Western Civilization I-II-III.

Available as a three-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter-Spring) or as a two-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter or Winter-Spring). This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. The purpose of this sequence is threefold: (1) to introduce students to the principles of historical thought, (2) to acquaint them with some of the more important epochs in the development of Western civilization since the sixth century BC, and (3) to assist them in discovering connections between the various epochs. The purpose of the course is not to present a general survey of Western history. Instruction consists of intensive investigation of a selection of original documents bearing on a number of separate topics, usually two or three a quarter, occasionally supplemented by the work of a modern historian. The treatment of the selected topics varies from section to section. This sequence is currently offered twice a year. The amount of material covered is the same whether the student enrolls in the Autumn-Winter-Spring sequence or the Summer sequence.

HIST 13500-13600-13700. America in World Civilization I-II-III.

The America in World Civilization sequence examines America as a contested idea and a contested place by reading and writing about a wide array of primary sources. In the process, students gain a new sense of historical awareness and of the making of America. The course is designed both for history majors and non-majors who want to deepen their understanding of the nation's history, encounter some enlightening and provocative voices from the past, and develop the analytical methods of historical thinking. Together, HIST 13600-13700 (II and III) meet the general education requirement in civilization studies via two civilization courses. Students who take HIST 13500 (I) must also take HIST 13600-13700 to meet the general education requirement via three civilization courses. HIST 13500–13600-13700 courses do not need to be taken in sequence.

HIST 13900-14000-14100. Introduction to Russian Civilization I-II-III.

This three-quarter sequence, which meets the general education requirement in civilization studies, provides an interdisciplinary introduction to Russian civilization.

HIST 14001. Russian Short Fiction: Experiments in Form. 100 Units.

Russian literature is known for the sweeping epics that Henry James once dubbed the "loose baggy monsters." However, in addition to the famed 'doorstop novels,' the Russian literary canon also has a long tradition of innovative short fiction-of short stories and novellas that experiment with forms of storytelling and narration. This course focuses on such works, as well as the narrative strategies and formal devices that allow these short stories and novellas to be both effective and economical. Throughout the quarter, we will read short fiction from a variety of Russian authors and examine the texts that establish the tradition of Russian short fiction as well as those that push its boundaries. This course will serve as a general survey of Russian Literature, as well as a focused introduction to a particular genre in that tradition. Although predominantly discussion-based, the class will also include short lectures by the instructor to introduce students to the broader historical contexts of the course texts, and to sample diverse theoretical approaches to those texts.

Equivalent Course(s): REES 25602

HIST 15411-15412-15413. East Asian Civilization I-II-III.

HIST 15411-15412-15413 meets the general education requirement in civilization studies via three civilization courses. HIST 15411-15412, HIST 15411-15413, or HIST 15412-15413 meet the general education requirement in civilization studies via two civilization courses.

HIST 15602-15603-15604. Ancient Empires I-II-III.

This sequence introduces three great empires of the ancient world. Each course in the sequence focuses on one empire, with attention to the similarities and differences among the empires being considered. By exploring the rich legacy of documents and monuments that these empires produced, students are introduced to ways of understanding imperialism and its cultural and societal effects—both on the imperial elites and on those they conquered. Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

HIST 15611-15612-15613. Islamicate Civilization I-II-III.

This sequence surveys the intellectual, cultural, religious, and political development of the Islamic world (Middle East and North Africa), from its origins in pre-Islamic Arabia to the late 20th century. The sequence is required for MA students in CMES and counts toward completion of the NELC major and minor. It is recommended that the course be taken in sequence.

HIST 16101-16102-16103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I-II-III.

Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence is offered every year. This course introduces the history and cultures of Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean Islands).

HIST 16700-16800-16900. Ancient Mediterranean World I-II-III.

Available as a three-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter-Spring) or as a two-quarter sequence (Autumn-Winter or Winter-Spring). This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. It surveys the social, economic, and political history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), the Roman Republic (509 to 27 BC), and late antiquity (27 BC to the fifth century AD).

HIST 17311. Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization I: Ancient Science and Medicine. 100 Units.

This undergraduate course represents the first quarter of the Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization general education sequence. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required. This quarter will focus on science and medicine in societies across the ancient world. Students will gain an introduction to methods of healing and knowing practiced in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America before 1500. Students will also acquire an understanding of the many questions that historical research raises for our own understanding of contemporary medicine and science, and some of the methods that historians use to bring the past to light. Topics include ancient surgery and pharmacology; the manifold meanings of "disease;" the function and recognition of "the body," of "mind," and of perception; how to acquire "good" and "true" knowledge; continuity and discontinuity of beliefs and practices over time and place; and exchange of ideas and materials across cultures, among other subjects.

Instructor(s): Michael Rossi     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered in Autumn 2024
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 18301

HIST 17411. Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization II: History of Medicine 1500 to 1900. 100 Units.

This course examines the theory and practice of medicine between 1500 and 1900. Topics include traditional early modern medicine; novel understandings of anatomy, physiology, and disease from the Renaissance on; and new forms of medical practice, training, and knowledge-making that developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Instructor(s): M. Rossi     Terms Offered: Winter. Course is offered in Winter 2025.
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 18401

HIST 17515. Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilization III: Histories of the Bomb. 100 Units.

In the long history of the planet, the years since 1945 have a remarkable and unique geological signature: one left by the creation and testing of atomic weapons, medicine, and energy. This class explores the intellectual, social, economic, and political histories of nuclear research, including topics such as transnational scientific migrations; the Manhattan Project; weapons testing and development; the rise of "Big Science"; postcolonial histories of nuclear development; domestic and international anti-nuclear activism; and ecological and environmental impacts of fallout, waste, and nuclear accidents. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, we will consider how the story we tell about the history of the nuclear age and the rise of science came to be, and how that story has transformed at different points in the twentieth century.

Instructor(s): E. Kern     Terms Offered: Spring. Offered in Spring 2024
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 18505

HIST 17521-17522. Energy in World Civilizations.

This two-quarter course sequence explores the historical roots of climate change and other global environmental problems by focusing on the social use of energy over time. Part I covers energy systems across the world from prehistory to the end of the nineteenth century. Part II investigates global energy systems from the early twentieth century to the present. The courses should be taken in chronological sequence. Taken together, they fulfill the general education requirement in civilization studies.

HIST 18301-18302-18303. Colonizations I-II-III.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This three-quarter sequence approaches the concept of civilization from an emphasis on cross-cultural/societal connection and exchange. We explore the dynamics of conquest, slavery, colonialism, and their reciprocal relationships with concepts such as resistance, freedom, and independence, with an eye toward understanding their interlocking role in the making of the modern world.

HIST 20405. Ancient Empires VI: The Assyrian Empire. 100 Units.

This course will examine the concept and definition of empire and the practices of imperial control through a case study of Mesopotamia's best-known empire, the Neo-Assyrian (first half of the 1st millennium BCE). At its peak, the Assyrians ruled a vast area covering most of modern Iraq and Syria, plus parts of Iran, Turkey and the Levant, with aspirations to control Egypt. The gradual expansion of this empire from late 2nd millennium BCE beginnings and its extremely rapid collapse in ca. 612 BCE provide an excellent example of the tensions within trajectories of empire. The course themes include warfare and political strategies, identity and ethnicity, imperial bureaucracy, and the practical and ideological purposes of infrastructure building. Evidence examined will include texts (in translation) and the archaeological record at various scales, from settlements through artworks. We will also examine paradoxes, such as the contrast between textual claims of hegemony and limited archaeological evidence for this, and the power of visual propaganda versus its select audience.

Instructor(s): Augusta McMahon     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20016

HIST 20406. Ancient Empires VII: Sumerians and Akkadians. 100 Units.

The course introduces students to the first 'empires' in the ancient Middle East. We will study the earliest attempts under both Sumerian and Akkadian leadership at unifying the old Sumerian city states in what is today southern Iraq in the mid-third millennium BCE. Our focus will then be on the two successful empires that arose from these attempts, namely the one founded by Sargon of Akkade in ca. 2300 BCE and the one ruled by the Third Dynasty of Ur from 2092-2003 BCE. While exploring a rich variety of sources, both textual and from archaeological contexts, we will pay particular attention to understanding expansionist efforts, strategies of empire building, the establishment of a centralized state bureaucracy, ideologies of kingship, ethnicity and identity, as well as rebellions against the new political system and theories about why these early empires began to crumble after only a few generations. Since these new forms of dominion were tested and developed for the first time in this formative period and kings of these dynasties acquired a special status in Mesopotamian cultural memory, this course provides a solid base for understanding the later development of ancient Middle Eastern history but can also be studied for the sake of understanding early empire formation.

Instructor(s): Jana Matuszak     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20017

HIST 25610. Islamic Thought and Literature I. 100 Units.

This sequence explores the thought and literature of the Islamic world from the coming of Islam in the seventh century C.E. through the development and spread of its civilization in the medieval period and into the modern world. Including historical framework to establish chronology and geography, the course focuses on key aspects of Islamic intellectual history: scripture, law, theology, philosophy, literature, mysticism, political thought, historical writing, and archaeology. In addition to lectures and secondary background readings, students read and discuss samples of key primary texts, with a view to exploring Islamic civilization in the direct voices of the people who participated in creating it. All readings are in English translation. No prior background in the subject is required. This course sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

Instructor(s): Flowers, Adam     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 20401, MDVL 20601, SOSC 22000, NEHC 20601

HIST 25611. Iranian Political Culture. 100 Units.

The first of a two-part seminar examining the emergence and evolution of the Iranian Empire in late antiquity, the most enduring territorially extensive political system in ancient Near Eastern history. Its name, Ērānšahr, signaled the centrality of Zoroastrianism to its conception and organization. The seminar will therefore focus on the role of the religion, as a complex of ideas and institutions, in the shaping of Iran's society, culture, political economy, and imperial infrastructure. In so doing, students will gain familiarity with the range of available literary, documentary, and archæological sources.

Instructor(s): Richard Payne
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30721, NEHC 20721, HIST 35611

HIST 25616. Islamic Thought and Literature III. 100 Units.

This course covers the period from ca. 1700 to the present. It explores Muslim intellectuals' engagement with tradition and modernity in the realms of religion, politics, literature, and law. We discuss debates concerning the role of religion in a modern society, perceptions of Europe and European influence, the challenges of maintain religious and cultural authenticity, and Muslim views of nation-states and nationalism in the Middle East. We also give consideration to the modern developments of transnational jihadism and the Arab Spring. This course sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

Instructor(s): Holly Shissler - Tobias Scheunchen     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20603, SOSC 22200, RLST 20403

HIST 25704-25804-25904. Islamic History and Society I-II-III.

This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence surveys the main trends in the political history of the Islamic world, with some attention to economic, social, and intellectual history. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required.