Course Descriptions

HIS 169 - The Making of Modern Africa

Survey of African history from the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the present, emphasizing major trends in economic, political, and social life in colonial and post-colonial Africa. Introduces students to critical  historical debates and a range of historical artifacts including oral histories, African literature, and popular culture. 

Fulfills a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Africa).
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement. 
Satisfies a requirement in the International Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement. 

HIS 171 - Taj Mahal to Terrorism: Modern India

What unfolded in South Asian history from the time the Taj Mahal was built in the seventeenth century to contemporary War on Terror?  Focuses on transition from Mughal to British Rule, British colonialism, Indian nationalism, rise of independent India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, in terms of social, economic, political, and cultural developments.

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies interdisciplinary minor requirement in South Asian studies.

HIS 175 - The Middle East, 610-1453: The Formation of Islam

Satisfies a requirement in the Arab Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Middle East interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 176 - The Middle East, 1453-Present: Islam in the Modern World

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.
Satisfied a requirement in the Arab Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Middle East Studies interdisciplinary minor.

HIS 183 - East Asian History to 1850

This course provides a broad overview of the important intellectual, cultural, economic, and political developments in China, Japan, and Korea from prehistoric times until 1850. Particular attention will be paid to philosophical traditions, political dynamics, material culture, the Mongol Empire, trade, women’s roles in society, literature, and social change.

Counts as a pre-modern course in the History major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies major and minor.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 184 - East Asian History 1850 to the Present

This course covers the societies, cultures, politics, and economies of China, Japan, and Korea from 1850 to the present. By reading a variety of primary and secondary sources, students will consider interpretations of the past that continue to influence how people in East Asia today perceive themselves, their countries, and international relations. We will also interrogate the ways in which historical events are interpreted by the hermeneutics of the present. Topics covered include imperialism, nationalism, World War II, revolution, economic development, political protests, and environmental challenges.

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.

Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 207 - Digital Medieval History

An introduction to reading, writing and research in history with the help of digital methods. Students will study the primary sources and historiography of Medieval Europe (500-1500 C.E.) using digital methods of text mining, map making, sentiment analysis, network analysis and/or topic modeling. No prior experience expected. 

Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the Digital Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies requirement in Data Science interdisciplinary minor.

HIS 211 - Land and Power in the Middle Ages

A course on the exercise of power in Europe, ca. 750 - 1100 C.E   In the absence of what we would call state or public institutions, power in the Early Middle Ages was personal, fluid, expressed through elaborate rituals, and tied closely to the land. Students will investigate these topics through a careful study of primary sources as well as the historical scholarship they have inspired.

Satisfies a major requirement in History.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 218 - Jihad and Crusade

A study of the history of religious violence.  Topics include the relationship between religion and violence in a number of different traditions, with a special focus on the history of violent conflict between the Islamic world and the West.

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Middle East Studies interdisciplinary minor.

HIS 225 - Women and Work: Gender and Society in Britain, 1700-1918

An examination of British women’s lives and social relations with regard to production-artistic, domestic, industrial, intellectual, etc.-in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. 

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a major requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Satisfies a minor requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies

HIS 226 - Repression & Liberation in the Soviet Union: Minorities and the Soviet Project

This course looks at the promises, failures, hopes and disappointments of the Soviet project through the lens of minority groups. What appeal did the communist ideology have to marginalized populations, both in the Soviet Union and across international borders? How did minority groups help to shape Soviet policy, propaganda, and international outreach? What responses did minority groups have, upon realizing that the Soviet Union was not the bastion of minority rights that they had expected? How were minorities mobilized by both the East and the West in the Cold War? This class explores these questions, which are central to understanding the Soviet project, the Cold War, and the rise of socialism and leftist values among educated minorities around the world. It focuses on groups like Jews, Central Eurasians, American black intellectuals, linguistic minorities, and Muslims and their hopes, beliefs, and disappointments in the Soviet project, as well as historiographic debates around repression and agency of minority groups in the USSR.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Center for Interdisciplinary Studies major requirement.  
Satisfies Russian Studies minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

HIS 228 - Modern Bodies: Gender, Sex, & Race in France

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Counts as an elective in the French & Francophone Studies major (prior departmental approval required).
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
Satisfies a major requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Satisfies a minor requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies

HIS 230 - African Diasporas, German Encounters: Histories, Conflicts and Movements

Provides new perspectives on African Diasporas and Germany by exploring how Germans interacted with and impacted the lives of African Americans in North America and indigenous peoples on the African continent and how, in turn, African Americans and Africans in the German lands profoundly reshaped things German since the eighteenth century.  The course will examine these complex histories with a particular emphasis on the Black Atlantic, migration and labor, cultural practice and political activism, gender relations, racism, violence, war, and genocide.

Satisfies a major or minor requirement in History.
Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Africa).
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 234 - The Global Holocaust

According to a 2018 survey, over half of millennials have never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi’s most famous death and labor camp system. However, even Auschwitz represents just one of the myriad experiences that we now understand as the Holocaust. This course introduces students to full, complex, and largely forgotten array of phenomena that we understand as part of the Nazi-led program of mass murder. Beginning with the rise of fascism across Europe and discriminatory policies against Nazi Jews in Germany, it follows the ways in which local populations - both Jewish and non-Jewish - responded to and shaped the realities of the Holocausts in local contexts. Topics will include the role of war in the development of the Final Solution, ghetto life, various forms of resistance, hiding and escape, the often-forgotten death camps of the East, the “Holocaust by bullets,” the interconnected realities of Nazi race hatred and eugenics, the role of prisoners in the concentration camp system, partisan warfare, and complicity of local populations. This course will provide students access to the most complicated and ever-present debates in history, including the role of memory and memorialization, how to record and study trauma, morality in war, systemic vs local racism, and responsible practices of historical methodologies.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies Justice, Equality and Community requirement.

HIS 242 - Origins of the American South

An introduction to the main events, ideas, and issues that have shaped the history of the American South from the era of first contact and colonial settlement through the era of Civil War and Reconstruction (1580s-1870s). Major topics include Anglo-Indian relations, colonialism, plantation agriculture, race and slavery, regionalism, violence, and warfare.

HIS 243 - Native Women

How have Indigenous, American Indian, Native American, and First Nations women constructed their identities, participated in their societies, and responded to common experiences, particularly those resulting from colonization? How did Indigenous women’s ancestors live, and how have cultural traditions and identities been lost, maintained, and reconfigured over time? Through historical scholarship, films, fiction, and autobiography, the voices of Indigenous women and their allies speak eloquently about the diversity and complexity of these women’s lives over time and across place.

Meets the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
Satisfies a major requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Satisfies a minor requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies

HIS 244 - Settlement of the American West, 1800-1900

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
Satisfies depth or breadth course requirement in the humanities track of the Environmental Studies major or interdisciplinary minor.

HIS 245 - Digital History of Early American Knowledge

This course explores communication technologies and knowledge production in the antebellum United States, while introducing students to newer methods afforded by digital studies.  By the end of the course, students will understand how people parsed information, talked, wrote, and signaled one another in the past. They will also understand how new tools help us to communicate both with other scholars and with the public today.  Throughout the course they will engage in formal historical writing - historiography, primary source analysis, historical interpretation - as well as with the new opportunities for public engagement afforded by digital history.

We will examine both elite and non-elite modes of knowledge production and transmission, and how communication was used both to exert power and as a form of resistance.  Over the course of the semester, students will engage with primary sources, historical monographs and popular culture representations of communication and knowledge production in America’s past.

Satisfies a major requirement in History

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement

Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement

Satisfied an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Communication Studies

HIS 248 - The Native South

This course is an interdisciplinary analysis of the history of the Indigenous peoples of the American South. Throughout the semester, we will develop a sophisticated understanding of the development of Southeastern Indian societies over time and across place since prior to the arrival of Europeans until the modern day. Scholars of the Native South critique the “black and white” master narrative of Southern history and suggest that an inclusive perspective with Native people at its heart enriches the stories we tell about this region. We seek to understand how Native people in this region formed, maintained, and evolved as distinct groups united (and sometimes divided) by experience, belief, and action. This class is an immersion into the sixteenth through twentieth centuries as lived by the ancestors of those Native communities that call the South home today or look to it as their ancestral homeland. 

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies Cultural Diversity requirement

HIS 252 - The U.S. in World War II

Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor.
Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 253 - The United States since 1945

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor.

HIS 255 - American Popular Culture

American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include sports, popular music, theatre, motion pictures and television. 

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor.

HIS 259 - US Latino/a History

This course contends that we cannot understand the history of the US without studying the history of Latin@s from the colonial-era Spanish possessions to the US-Mexican War era to the Bracero era and, finally, the beginnings of Latino Charlotte in the late 20thc. Themes include migration, labor, religion, cultural identity, political organization. Students will learn about the cultures and experiences of Latinos with the US as well as US government responses to Latinos.  Emphasis on Mexican-Americans with some attention to the Caribbean and South American experience. 

Satisfies a major and minor credit in Latin American Studies.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a cultural diversity requirement. 

HIS 262 - Piracy in the Americas

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 263 - Development and Dissent in Africa

In this course, we will examine a variety of projects for economic and social transformation in twentieth-century Africa. The guiding principle of this course is to consider development not as a pre-determined trajectory (from “traditional” to “modern” or “developing” to “developed”), but instead as a deeply contested set of ideas and practices that has shaped interactions among African people, African governments, and international and diasporic actors for over a century. The course will introduce students to the writings of pan-Africanist thinkers, architects of colonial rule, and theorists of development and underdevelopment. To develop our understanding and facility with historical analysis, we will then examine particular cases in which these theories were put into (messy) practice, using a variety of sources from print media, planning documents, scholarly publications, and records of oral historical research. As historians, we will grapple with the choices we face in reconstructing contested visions and exploring the sizable gap between theory and reality.

Satisfies a requirement in the History major.
Satisfies a requirement in the History minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the Historical & Geographical Investigations category of the Africana Studies major (Region: Africa).
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality and Community requirement.

HIS 264 - Latin American History

In depth study of Latin American history.  Emphasis on traditional and digital methodologies.  

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 267 - Health and Society in Africa

Histories of health, healing, and disease control in Africa from c. 1500 to the present.  Explores the ways African people and states have conceived of and responded to relationships between human and natural environment, between individual and collective well-being, and between bodily and social health.

Satisfies a major or minor requirement in History.
Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Africa).
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Public Health.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement 

HIS 272 - Massacres and Migrations: India Partitioned

Examines the causes and consquences of Partition of India in 1947. As centuries of British rule drew to a close, chaos enveloped South Asia. India and Pakistan were born out of genocidal violence that left over a million people dead as millions escaping turmoil traversed to new lands. Focuses on a people’s history of Partition, in South Asia’s unprecedented territorial division into nations along religious lines.

Satisfies a requirement in South Asian Studies minor.
Fulfills the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement

Meets the Historical Thought requirement

HIS 273 - Japan 1800-1965: The Making of Modern Japan

An introduction to the changes in society, politics, and culture of Japan from roughly the late Tokugawa period to the mid-20th century.  

Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies Asian Studies and International Studies interdisciplinary minor.

HIS 274 - Youth and Revolution

This global history course explores the fascinating causes and dynamics of revolutions and social movements in India, China, Iran, Egypt, and the United States. Students will investigate how and why young people participated in revolutions and social movements around the world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Key themes of the course include anti-colonialism, nationalism, communism, democracy, religion, youthful rebellion, race relations, and social media.

Satisfies a major requirement in History and East Asian Studies.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Chinese Studies.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in East Asian Studies and International Studies.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a cultural diversity requirement.
 

HIS 275 - Drugs in East Asia

This is an introduction to the history of addiction and psychoactive substances - opium, tobacco, and alcohol - in East Asia from 1600-present. Questions involving the consumption, circulation, perception, and regulation of psychoactive substances will be discussed.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies requirement in Asian Studies, International Studies, Public Health, and Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Minors.

HIS 283 - Historiography of Modern China

This course is an introduction to common topics and methodologies used in the professional study of Chinese history.  

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies Asian Studies and International Studies Interdisciplinary Minor.

HIS 286 - Student Movements & Revolution in China

This course explores the fascinating dynamics, causes, and pathways of student movements and revolutions in China. The course is divided into four units, each of which covers a different period of student activism in twentieth- and twenty-first-century China: student involvement in the May Fourth Movement (1919), Red Guard activism during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1968), the Tian’anmen Square protest and its aftermath (1989), and student involvement in the Hong Kong democracy protests (2014). We will examine not only how each of these movements affected individual Chinese citizens, but also how these movements shaped the way the Chinese government explained, re-evaluated, condemned, celebrated, or silenced previous revolutions. Students in this course will analyze primary source documents from each of these periods and critically engage with a variety of other less conventional texts, such as films, memoirs, literature, propaganda posters, song lyrics, and blogs. Key themes of the course include nationalism, anti-imperialism, communism, capitalism, youthful rebellion, and democracy.

Satisfies the 200-level methods course requirement in the History major and minor.
Satisfies the research methods course requirement in the East Asian Studies major.
Counts as an elective in the Chinese Studies minor
Counts as an elective in the East Asian Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Counts as an elective in the International Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 287 - Memory and Identity in the People’s Republic of China

Instructor
Mortensen

This course explores how the government of the People’s Republic of China historically has defined and managed ethnic and religious diversity within China, and how in turn, various ethno-religious groups in China have negotiated their own sometimes fraught positions. How have local understandings of identity in China been influenced by state-driven narratives about China’s collective past? How is historical memory in China incarnated in physically tangible and symbolically meaningful places, such as museums and memorials? This course draws on historical and anthropological approaches to identity, ethnicity, language, modernity, religion, nationalism, and memory to explore these questions in detail.

Satisfies a requirement in the History major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies major.
Satisfies a requirement in the Chinese Studies major and minor.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 288 - Environmental China: Nature, History, and Crisis

Satisfies a major requirement in History.
Satisfies a major requirement in East Asian Studies.
Satisfies a major requirement in Environmental Studies.
Satisfies a minor requirement in History.
Satisfies a minor requirement in Chinese Studies.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in East Asian Studies.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Environmental Studies.
Meets the Historical Thought requirement.
Meets the Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 301 - Making History

This course explores how history is produced, memorialized, and remembered in the present day (and all the complications and debates that result). It will do so locally, investigating history and memory in the South in general, and Charlotte in particular. It will do so internationally, investigating history and memory in Great Britain in general, and London in particular. And it will do so independently, as students pursue an in-depth study of how history manifests itself in an arena of personal interest. 

Course materials will include historical scholarship, films, literature, and site visits. Course members will spend spring break in London visiting and reporting on spaces and institutions of historical importance. The History Department will finance all course-related travel.
 

Satisfies a History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies the Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
Intended for History majors and minors and will require permission to enroll.  

HIS 302 - African American History to 1877

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 303 - African American Society & Culture since 1877

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 306 - Women and Gender in U.S. History to 1870

The history of women in what is now the United States, beginning prior to European colonization and ending after the Civil War.  Comparison and contrast of the experiences of female people with attention to race, class, and religion in shaping women’s lives, with emphasis on changing social roles, labor, and suffrage.

Satisfies Gender and Sexuality Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

HIS 307 - Women and Gender in U.S. History Since 1870

The history of women in the United States from 1870 to the present, with emphasis on educational and work experiences, the suffrage movement and the ongoing struggle for women’s equality, family and sexuality, and differences of race, class, and sexual orientation.

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

HIS 312 - The Crusades: Then and Now

This course concerns the Crusades and the broader crusading movement, as well as the impact of that movement on the peoples of both Europe and the Middle East. Most people think of “the Crusades” as the effort of European Christians to reclaim the “Holy Land” from the Muslims, an effort that stretched from Pope Urban II’s famous sermon at the Council of Clermont in 1095 to the fall of Acre, the last Crusader outpost in Palestine, in 1291. In fact, however, the Crusading phenomenon had roots in an older history of competition between Christianity and Islam, and in Christian and Muslim thinking about what constituted a “just war.” Moreover, the Crusading spirit, the religious competition behind it, and the memories of the Crusades did not disappear at the end of the thirteenth century, but continued to shape the experiences of the inhabitants of Europe and the Middle East down to the present day.

Satisfies an elective requirement in the History major and minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 315 - Central Europe in the Middle Ages

Ethnogenesis, slavery, conversion, state building, sanctity, economic life, family relations

and learned culture in medieval Germany, Poland, Bohemia and Hungary 800-1250 CE.

Satisfies a major requirement in History

Satisfies a requirement in Historical Thought

HIS 317 - The European Renaissance

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 322 - The Age of Discovery, 1492-1700

HIS 324 - Illicit Sexualities: Sex, Law, and Modernity = GSS 324

Satisfies a major requirement in History

Satisfies a major requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies.  Only counted in one track.

Satisfies a minor requirement in Gender and Sexuality Studies  Only counted in one track.

Satisfies a requirement in Historical Thought

HIS 325 - Britain from 1688 to 1832

The evolution of British society and culture during the “Long Eighteenth Century,” with emphasis on the reaction to an age of revolution-the Glorious Revolution, Industrial Revolution, American Revolution, and French Revolution. 

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 328 - Rebels & Radicals: Art and Politics in France, 1789-1940

HIS 331 - History of Germany in Global Context, 1871-1990

The foundation of the first German nation state in 1871 to German unification of 1990. Examines modern German history in the context of cross-regional exchanges, inter-cultural connections, and European-wide and global transformations. 

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
 

HIS 332 - European Metropolis, 1870-1914

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
 

HIS 333 - Empire Jews: From False Messiahs to Fascism

Empire, as a political structure, shaped the experience of Modern Jewry in ways that continued beyond the collapse of the major European empires after World War I. This course explores the Jewish experience of living within three major European Empires-the Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman Empires. What social, cultural, and economic realities did Jews face as citizens of diverse and expansive bureaucratic empires? It explores religious, cultural, and political developments through the early modern and modern period, focusing particularly on promises of salvation (both political and religious); Jewish, Christian, and Muslim coexistence; and how modernization and a changing world affected Jews’ every day realities within the empire. The course begins with the arrival of false messiah Shabtai Tzvi in 1648 and continues until after World War I, when Jews were viewed suspiciously for having been loyal citizens of their respective Empires in their new nation states. It focuses on topics such as religious movements, secularization, economic realities, communal structures and the development of modern Jewish cultures, the careers of merchant traders, intra-Jewish prejudices, the rise of Zionism and socialism, and living with anti-Semitism.

Satisfies a History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies a Center for Interdisciplinary Studies major requirement.
Satisfies a Russian Studies minor requirement. 
Satisfies the Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.
 

HIS 335 - Postwar

How did the catastrophic consequences of World War II shape the European continent and its place in the world? This course looks at the period from 1945 to the early post-communist period as the “Postwar” - in other words, a period where Europeans were shaped by the legacies of war and atrocity. It will examine the lingering influence of war in three interrelated cases. First, the role of international legal institutions in defining now-fundamental concepts such as genocide and human rights, and how these concepts and institutions in turn played a role in the dismantling of European colonial empires. Second, how the aftermath of war shaped and continued to play a role in the Cold War until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Third, how awareness and representation of the Holocaust developed over the course of the 20th Century - and both influenced and was shaped by larger political and social movements.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies Justice, Equality and Community requirement.

HIS 336 - Sexual Revolutions:Women, Gender, & Sex in Modern Europe

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement. 
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

HIS 337 - Anti-Semitism and Modern Europe

This class examines anti-Semitism and its opponents in 20th Century Europe, beginning with the Dreyfus Affair and continuing until the post-communist Jewish culture boom in Eastern Europe. It considers how anti-Semitism has motivated European political and social movements, as well as how both Jewish and non-Jewish political, cultural, and social movements have envisioned their work as responses to anti-Semitism. Topics include: the Dreyfus Affair; Protocols of the Elders of Zion (the most enduring anti-Semitic pamphlet of all time); Nationalism and anti-Semitism; Zionism, Bundism and other Jewish political movements as “answers” to anti-Semitism; Nazi propaganda, rescue, uprisings, and other forms of resistance during World War II; reckoning with the Holocaust; the complicated reality of Jewish life under communism; and recent Jewish culture festivals and tourism in Europe. 

HIS 340 - Colonial America

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 341 - The Era of the American Revolution

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 343 - The Old South

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 344 - The South since 1865

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 346 - The Civil War and Reconstruction

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 348 - U.S. Intellectual History

This course explores U.S. thought from the Founding era to the present, with special emphasis on how U.S. thinkers, at different points in time, have reflected on what it means to be human.  Topics include: enlightenment-era debates about the moral sense and what it means for “all men” to be “created equal”; the intellectual history of slavery and the extent to which enslaved laborers qualified as human; debates about Darwinian evolution and what distinguishes humans from other living beings ; debates about feminism and whether women and men are equally human; Native American conceptions of humanity; debates about reproductive rights and when human life begins; tensions between universalism (as in universal human rights) and cultural particularism; debates sparked by environmentalism; debates sparked by advances in artificial intelligence; conceptions of human identity in an imagined cosmos containing other advanced life forms; and competing claims to authority over what it means to be human made by organized religions, legal system, academic disciplines, and the like, each of which has enjoyed different degrees of cultural authority at different points in time.  

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 349 - The Vietnam Experience

This course covers the history of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, its impact on American society, and its influence upon  the United States’ role in the world.  The course will cover topics including the policies of political leaders such as Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon toward Vietnam, the experience of the soldiers who fought in the war, the struggles at home between the anti-war movement and those who supported the Vietnam War and the impact of the war on how Americans view their engagement with the world. 

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.

HIS 351 - Native American History to 1840

This course is an interdisciplinary survey of American Indian history from the period immediately prior to contact with Europeans and Africans until the end of the removal era. We will learn how Native people have survived the colonization of their homelands, and we will focus on key reasons explaining cultural continuity despite change over time. Likewise, we will seek to understand the “big picture” of Indigenous North America, but we will not attempt to create a “master narrative” that summarizes the stories of all Native peoples. Rather, because we take cultural and experiential diversity as our starting point and recognize that what brings Native American people together today is not a monolithic past or a uniform present, we will draw comparisons among the Indigenous nations of the United States. Our goal is a nuanced appreciation for the range of Native American experiences and not a simplistic chronology. Course content will expose students to the histories of many Native societies in relationship to their arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions. We will cultivate a respect for diversity and an appreciation of the values and ethics of Indigenous civilizations.

Counts towards the Western History (Europe & US) requirement in the History major.
Satisfies a requirement in the History minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 352 - Native America since 1840

This course is an interdisciplinary survey of American Indian history covering expansion into the trans-Mississippi West in the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twenty-first century. We will learn how Native people have survived the incorporation of their homelands into the United States, and we will focus on key reasons explaining cultural continuity despite change over time. Likewise, we will seek to understand the “big picture” of Indigenous North America, but we will not attempt to create a “master narrative” that summarizes the stories of all Native peoples. Rather, because we take cultural and experiential diversity as our starting point and recognize that what brings Native American people together today is not a monolithic past or a uniform present, we will draw comparisons among the Indigenous nations of the United States, including rural and urban communities and Alaska and Hawaii. Our goal is a nuanced appreciation for the range of experiences and not a simplistic chronology. We will cultivate awareness of the values and ethics of Indigenous civilizations by learning about the range of ways that Native peoples have responded to attempts to assimilate them and are currently revitalizing their cultures.

Satisfies the Western history (European & US) requirement in the History major.
Satisfies a requirement in the History minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

 

HIS 354 - United States Foreign Policy since 1890

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 355 - American Legal History

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
 

HIS 356 - Presidents and First Ladies

This course examines U.S. presidents and first ladies - their backgrounds, personalities, strengths, weaknesses, goals, policies, successes, and failures - from George and Martha Washington to the present.  Students will study these figures in their own right, will contextualize them historically, and will compare and contrast them to others who held the same offices.

Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 357 - The Civil Rights Movement in the United States

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.

HIS 358 - Civil Rights Wars, Civil Rights Warriors

An oral history-based course that examines the lawyers and litigants who, in the 1960s and 1970s, accepted personal and financial risk to challenge Jim Crow laws.  Students will interview and videotape the courageous lawyers and prepare a video documentary.  Research essays on current civil rights topics as well.

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: North America).
Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies major and minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Spring

HIS 360 - History of the Caribbean: Race, Nation, and Politics (=AFR 360, =LAS 360)

This course explores the history of the Caribbean from pre-Colombian times to the present. The goal of the class is to trace the emergence of modern Caribbean nations beginning from their status as slave colonies of the not-so-distant past within an emphasis on the central role the Caribbean islands have played in global history.  Particular emphasis is given to the maintenance of European and North American imperial enterprises and the elaboration of racial ideologies growing out of the diversity that has characterized the island populations.  Issues to be addressed include colonialism, piracy, sugar revolution, slavery and emancipation, national independence, tourism, and Caribbean migrations. Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica will be the main areas under consideration, although texts from other islands such as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Martinique are included.

Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Latin America/Caribbean).
Satisfies a requirement in Latin American Studies major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the History major or minor.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 361 - The Enslaved of Latin America

Enslavement and its afterlives haunt the history of the Americas. The buying and sale of captives no less than constructed the Atlantic World system and facilitated the development of both colonial and modern societies in Latin America. But what of the enslaved themselves? Far more than dehumanized commodities, they constructed diasporic communities of notable diversity and vibrant social, cultural, and intellectual lives. We also examine how these dynamics played out in enslaved Indigenous and Asian communities. Utilizing a range of sources, from film and literature to professional scholarship and primary sources, we strive to adhere as closely as possible to the lived experiences of the enslaved and, wherever possible, to understand history from their words. 

HIS 362 - The 1959 Cuban Revolution (=AFR 235, =LAS 235)

This course explores the historical underpinnings of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, U.S.-Cuban relations, and how Cubans have experienced the changes the island has undergone in the past 100 years. Particular attention is given to people of African descent who make up over a one-third of the island’s population. This Cuban narrative illuminates a variety of themes including the spread of U.S. imperialism, Cuba’s fight for sovereignty, and race relations in the Americas.  

Satisfies a major requirement in Africana Studies (Geographic Region: Latin American/Caribbean).
Satisfies a major or minor requirement in History.
Satisfies a major or minor requirement in Latin American Studies.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 363 - African Encounters with Development

Examines how projects for “development” have been conceived and carried out in colonial and post-colonial Africa, and how they have been represented and understood by African people, governments, and international actors.  Explores the interaction of ideas and experience-from changing economic and political theories to the daily practices of farmers, bureaucrats, activists, and scholars.

Satisfies a major or minor requirement in History.
Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Africa).
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement 

HIS 364 - Race, Sex, Power in Latin America

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity requirement.
Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor.

HIS 365 - Environmental History

This course covers environmental interactions large and small, tracing the changing ways that Americans have shaped and thought about the places where they live and work. Course focuses on US environmental history from the colonial period to the present, including national parks, preservation, conservation, and wilderness; the relationship between the US and the rest of the world; and debates over what nature is, who it is for, and how it should be used.

Satisfies a major requirement in Environmental Studies

Satisfies a major requirement in History

Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Environmental Studies

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement

HIS 366 - Slavery and Africa

Explores slavery and slave trades in and out of Africa from the 5th to the 20th centuries, as a way of understanding changing relationships between trade, personhood, and social belonging.  Special attention to ideas of and debates about, race, slave status, and diaspora.

Satisfies a major or minor requirement in History.
Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Africa).
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement. 

HIS 369 - Urban Africa/Popular Culture

How have African cities been imagined and experienced?  Jointly offered in Africana Studies, Anthropology, and History, this course uses contemporary popular media, ethnographic texts, and historical artifacts to explore intersections of gender, ethnicity, race, and class in 20th c. African cities. We will give particular attention to visual and material culture, including radio, film, photography, and urban transit cultures. Additionally, the course examines how representations of Africa, within the nation-state and transnationally, have shaped both popular culture and academic writing about African cities. Drawing on our training in anthropology and history, we will ask how popular cultural forms can serve as a basis for powerful critiques of scholarly gazes, disciplinary boundaries, and traditional academic forms.

Satisfies a major and minor requirement in History and Anthropology
Satisfies a requirement in the Africana Studies major (Geographic Region: Africa).
Satisfies a Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 372 - Egypt, From Soup to Nuts

Satisfies a major requirement in History.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in International Studies.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Middle East Studies.
Satisfies a requirement in Historical Thought.
Meets the Cultural Diversity graduation requirement.

HIS 375 - Nationalism and Colonialism in the Modern Arab World

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.
Satisfies the Middle East Studies interdisciplinary minor.

HIS 378 - Gender & Sexuality South Asia

This course will investigate constructions of gender relations as power relations, as well as perceptions of sexuality in South Asia as historical phenomena from the seventeenth century to the present. Subjects include: cultural conceptions of family; notions of same-sex desire; law, tradition, and reform; the making of gender relations across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as they were informed by colonialism and nationalism.

Satisfies a major requirement in History.
Satisfies a requirement in the Gender and Sexuality Studies major and minor.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in South Asian Studies.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in International Studies.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Meets the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 379 - Islam in South Asia

This course will explore the long and complicated history of Islam in South Asia, from the arrival of the Arabs in the eighth century to the emergence of Pakistan and Bangladesh in the twentieth, through both lectures and visits to sites of historical and artistic importance.

Satisfies a major requirement in History.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in South Asian Studies.
Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies history requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 380 - Pilgrims, Poppies, Pirates: Indian Ocean World

The wealth that crossed the Indian Ocean surpassed that of any other region.  This course explores multifaceted connections among the Indian Ocean cultures of India, China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and East Africa, from medieval to modern times.  It also examines interactions between those Indian Ocean cultures and European maritime powers.

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 381 - Asian Diasporas to Latin America, 16th Century to the Present

The history of Asians in the Americas dates to the 16th century in Central Mexico. Though Asian American history is most often bound to U.S. national borders, this course takes an expansive and transnational approach by examining the formation of Asian communities in Latin America from the 16th to 21st centuries. These are histories of migration coinciding with indigenous struggles for survival, as well as the transatlantic slave trade and its afterlives. In this course, we will privilege scholarly approaches that foreground migratory histories as told from migrants themselves. By examining the long chronology of diasporic Asian mobility to places like Mexico, Cuba, Peru, and Brazil, we will cover questions central to migratory experiences like assimilation, transculturation, and racial formation.

Satisfies Latin American Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 382 - Science and the Body II: Public Health in East Asia

This course employs an interdisciplinary approach by drawing upon and applying history, anthropology, gender studies, and philosophy to the study of science and medicine.  Designed for students interested in a) the history, philosophy, and anthropology of science, technology, and medicine, b) East Asian studies, and c) history of public health, this class offers students opportunities to analyze and critically assess the politics of the body in East Asia, 1800-present.

Satisfies a major requirement in History.
Satisfies an interdisciplinary minor requirement in Medical Humanities.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 383 - Pre-Modern Japan

Japanese history from ancient times to 1868. Topics include the origins of Japanese civilization, state and society, economy, law, connections to the outside world, daily life and customs, family, sexuality, warfare and the samurai, arts, literature, and religion. 

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 384 - Shanghai

This course covers the history of the city of Shanghai from the nineteenth century until the present day. Readings and assignments focus on Shanghai’s transformation from a sleepy fishing village into an international treaty port in the nineteenth century, the development of the city’s innovative fashion, music, and media industries in the early twentieth century, the Communist Party’s vilification of the city’s capitalist culture, and its post-Mao reemergence as a vibrant, cosmopolitan, and truly global city. Key themes of the course include imperialism, international trade, war, communism, fashion, literature, film, and gender and sexuality.

Counts as an elective in the History major and minor.
Counts as an elective in the East Asian Studies major and interdisciplinary minor.
Counts as an elective in the Chinese Studies minor.
Counts as an elective in the International Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 385 - History of Imperial China, 900-1800

Survey of late imperial Chinese history with topics covering the environment, daily life, family, kinship, sex, government, law, military, economy, science, medicine, print culture, and travel.

Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 386 - History of Modern China

This course explores the major political, social, economic, religious, and cultural developments in China from the late imperial period until the present day. Course readings, films, and assignments focus on how Chinese intellectuals, women’s rights activists, farmers, artists, and environmentalists defined what it meant to be “modern,” and how their understandings of “modernity” shifted over time

Counts as an elective in the History major and minor.
Counts as an elective in the East Asian Studies major and minor.
Counts as an elective in the Chinese Studies minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies a Cultural Diversity requirement.

HIS 387 - Memory and Identity in the People’s Republic of China

This course explores how the government of the People’s Republic of China defines and manages ethnic and religious diversity within China, and how in turn, various ethno-religious groups in China negotiate their own sometimes fraught positions. How have local understandings of identity in China been influenced by state-driven narratives about China’s collective past? How is historical memory in China incarnated in physically tangible and symbolically meaningful places, such as museums and memorials? This course draws on historical and anthropological approaches to identity, ethnicity, language, modernity, religion, nationalism, and memory to explore these questions in detail. 

Satisfies a requirement in the History major.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies major.
Satisfies a requirement in the Chinese Studies minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the East Asian Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies a requirement in the International Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 388 - War and Memory in East Asia, 1592-1598

This course examines the impact of the First Great East Asian War, involving Korea, China, and Japan. Current tensions in East Asia continue to be understood through the memorial lens of this conflict. Some issues discussed are:  war and memory, dead bodies, martyrdom, and subjecthood. 

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.
Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement.

HIS 389 - Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Japan

This course explores gender dynamics and the lives of women in Japan from the nineteenth century to the present day. It introduces students to the gendered dimensions of Confucianism, marriage, paid employment and unpaid work, parenting, war, political activism, structural power, and popular culture in Japan. Other topics include the political, social, and economic challenges that Japanese women and the Japanese LGBTQ community continue to face.

Satisfies a requirement for the History, East Asian Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies majors.
Satisfies a requirement for the Gender and Sexuality Studies minor.
Satisfies a requirement for the East Asian Studies and International Studies interdisciplinary minors.
Satisfies an Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement. 

HIS 390 - Davidson Summer Program at Cambridge University

Students entering 2012 and after: satisfies Historical Thought requirement. 
Students entering before 2012: satisfies History requirement.

HIS 391 - Writing Historical Fiction

This course teaches students about history by having them research and write original works of historical fiction.  The course approaches historical fiction with an emphasis on the “historical.”  A paper prepared in this course might be a lousy work of fiction but still a great paper if the historical research and analysis are strong.  But no fictional glitter, however sparkling, can redeem a paper marred by weak historical research and analysis.

Satisfies a major requirement in History

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement

HIS 392 - Histories of Science, Knowledge, and Skill

A study of how humans have known, verified, and communicated about natural phenomena, how they have tested their observations through science, applied technical knowledge, and skill, and how they have institutionalized scientific knowledge and engineered their own impacts on the natural world.  Satisfies the History requirement through class of 2015.  Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement for class of 2016 and after.  Environmental Studies major.

HIS 393 - Spanish History and Historical Memory

Spain’s history is long, rich, and very much alive.  The meanings of that history are multiple, contested, and politically divisive.  This course will explore both Spanish history and Spanish historical memory.  After doing some brief introductory readings about the concept of historical memory, students will proceed through a chronological survey of Spanish history.  Each unit will include an excursion to a relevant Spanish historical site.  Students will prepare for each visit by studying the site’s history.  Afterwards, students will reflect about the ways in which the site portrayed the past.  Throughout the semester, the course will chew on the following observation from Spanish writer Reyes Mate: “Although memory sharpens the sense of justice, the process of remembering is a long haul, for the painful past that we slowly uncover together surely holds many surprises.”  Students in this course should have taken three semesters of college-level Spanish or the equivalent.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 395 - IS: Historic Documentary Film

HIS 396 - Independent Study

HIS 414 - Mapping Medieval Europe

Students in this research seminar will investigate the medieval past by reading, mapping, and writing about medieval primary sources. Students will acquire basic coding skills, build geo-databases, and engage in a collective project of digital mapping of a major medieval source or collection of sources.

Satisfies History major requirement.
Satisfies Digital Studies minor requirement.

HIS 420 - The English Civil War

HIS 422 - Gender in Early Modern Europe (C. 15th-18th Centuries)

HIS 424 - The Global French Revolution

This seminar explores the history and historiography of the French Revolution of 1789 as a global event. The Revolution released potent new ideals of political participation and social mobility, and unleashed decades of warfare in Europe, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. It marked a decisive and violent rupture between the Old and the Modern, created “sister republics” across Europe, and touched off the revolutions of free and enslaved people of color in the Caribbean, especially in the Haitian Revolution. We consider historical debates about the origins of the Revolution, and investigate the symbols and rituals of revolutionary culture. What were the consequences of the revolutionary moment for groups not included in triumphal rhetoric of liberty, equality and fraternity (women, workers, enslaved and free black people)? And how has the Revolution been remembered and commemorated around the world in the two centuries since the Bastille fell?

HIS 426 - Victorian People

Society and culture of Victorian Britain through the lens of some of its more captivating personalities and their writings. Possible figures include: Charles Darwin, George Eliot, William Gladstone, William Morris, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.