Spring 2024 Advising Guide

General Advising Reminders

Advising FAQ, Tips, Tricks, and Reminders

Program Planners and Sample Sequences

History Course Descriptions

HIS100-01 Ancient Warfare

This course is designed to explore goals, motives, and methods of warfare in the ancient world as well as people’s thinking about war. By reading primary texts and secondary texts, and looking at images of ancient weaponry, you should be able to develop a complex understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon of ancient warfare, its causes and consequences, and its interaction with social, political, intellectual, and economic phenomena.

HIS100-03: The Fall of Rome

This course will explore the transformation of the Mediterranean world, from the crisis of the Roman empire in 3 rd century and the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305 AD) to the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests (6th -8 th centuries AD). The main themes include: the triumph of Christianity, the “Barbarian” invasions, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the formation of “Barbarian” kingdoms, the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), and the rise of Islam.

HIS120-01 Modern European History- Dr. Joseph Campo
This course is designed to give students an appreciation for how the history of Europe unfolded from the Enlightenment to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. More so than traditional “western civ” surveys, my course seeks to explore the contact, interactions, connections, and influence Europe had with the rest of the globe. I pay particular attention to three themes: the role of chance and contingency is history, the power of social forces, ideologies, and economic developments have in changing our world, and the profound ways in warfare have acted as dynamic of change.

HIS130-01 and -02 Soviet History in Film and Fact

The course will examine a number of major themes of Soviet history through screening films and placing them in their historical context. To achieve these aims, students will screen films, attend lectures, as well as read select books and articles dedicated to various larger themes of the topic and discuss them in class. No knowledge of Russian is required, although students with Russian-language expertise can opt to take the course for LAC credit.

HIS165-01 History of Disease and Health in the US

This course will explore changing American understandings of what it means to be healthy or sick, and how the quest to promote healthiness and avoid disease shaped American history and culture from the colonial era
to the 21^st century. Using a variety of sources and an interdisciplinary approach, we will examine the relationship of health and environment, disease outbreaks and the responses to them, and battles over health policy. Topics will include the role of disease in American aboriginal depopulation, the catastrophic outbreaks of Yellow Fever and Cholera in the Early Republic, the doctor-patient relationship, the role of medicine in sustaining slavery, movements for dietary and health reform, the effects of urbanization on American health, debates over quarantine and immigration policy, and the role of the media in spreading information and misinformation about preserving health.

HIS165-02 Gender and the Body in American History

This course examines the historical development of the United States from the early colonial period to the present day through the lens of gender. While the actions, words, and lives of American women will form the basis of our inquiry, we will also explore the construction of manhood and womanhood in the past. Though often treated as immutable facts, the meaning of manhood and womanhood in the United States has fluctuated significantly over the course of four centuries. These categories are crosscut by other identities, such as race, class, sexuality, language, and national origin. Students will use primary sources and secondary readings to understand the how gender informs the historical experience of a diverse group of Americans and shaped the meaning of citizenship, politics, social roles, identity, and national belonging.

HIS165-03 The Vietnam War

This course will cover the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1975, beginning with the French occupation following World War Two and concluding with the final phase in 1975 and the war’s aftermath in the American consciousness. The reading material will cover a broad spectrum, from autobiography to journalism to fiction. Particular attention will be paid to the socioeconomic status of the soldiers, the political climate in the United States during the era, and the cultural texts produced about the war. This course will seek to enhance the understanding and appreciation of students for one of the more contentious moments in American history.

HIS187-01 Memory and World War Two

This course is designed to give students an appreciation for how the history of the Second World War unfolded and to explore how different groups of peoples at different periods after 1945 have contested the memories of those events.  It pays particular attention to three themes: those wars and experiences that history seemingly forgot, crucial/controversial developments that have competing interpretations, and how even after the war was “over,” it has been (and still is) very much a central part in many people’s lives.   Its main objective is to get students to comprehend that this was indeed a world war, that is, it had an impact on the entire globe.

HIS230-01 and -02 The City in the Modern World

 Since the earliest civilizations, humans have created built environments as centers of housing, commerce, government, and culture. A hallmark of the modern historical era (1500-present) has been the increasing urbanization of the globe. This course will study global history through a series of case studies of major urban centers in North and South America, Asia, Europe and Africa, such as New York, London, Potosi, Johannesburg, and Prague. We will explore various ways urban historians have sought to understand the dynamics of cities from class, race, and gender relations to architecture and city planning models.

HIS260-01 Notions of the Americans

HIS365-01 Baseball in American History

Scholars often use baseball as a lens for examining American history. And with good cause. After all, the game evolved during America’s formative years and had to contend with sweeping changes in American society. Students in this course will therefore use the history of baseball to explore how the game reflected and resisted broader societal trends, especially with regard to the labor movement, urbanization, immigration, and civil rights. In the process, they will learn not only about the history of the National Pastime, but the history of the United States itself.

HIS390-01 Testimonies of the Holocaust

Through a special partnership with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University, students in this course will learn about and practice methods of documenting and preserving Holocaust memory. As a class, we will study the history of the Holocaust, the concept of the archive, and the relationship between trauma and memory. Each student will design a research project that involves editing a transcript of at least one survivor interview and placing it in context of the larger history of the Second World War. Students can shape their projects around particular interests such as gender, sexuality, religion, and country of origin. The work produced this semester will make a lasting contribution to genocide studies and documentation.  Students must have instructor approval to enroll. Please contact Dr. Paces if you are interested in the course.  This class can be used to fulfill a Readings Seminar requirement or a 300-level requirement. Geographic region: Europe.

HIS450-01 The City in Modern China

This seminar studies recent scholarship on the thriving field of Chinese urban studies and the dynamic change of urban China since the early 20^th century. It examines large urban centers such as Shanghai and small towns, urban institutions of sociability such as the teahouse, city people from the elite to beggars, migrants, and protesters. It focuses on the impact of modern China on the making of the Chinese city and the role the city played in the making of modern China. 

HIS460-01 Urban America

HIS463-01 Death in Early Christianity

Death is central to the human experience, but people in different times and places treat death in radically different ways when compared with our contemporary society. This class explores death in early Christianity. We analyze how early Christians imagined Jesus’ death, the death of saints, and their own deaths. We examine the Jewish concept of resurrection and some of the earliest accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. We also look at Paul’s concept of bodily resurrection and how that concept evolves throughout the early Christian period. We study martyrdom, relics, and the death of honored saints. Finally, we explore how early Christians conceptualized their own deaths and commemorated their loved ones who were deceased.