Course Descriptions

GRE 216 - Greek Rhetoric

In the fourth-century BCE law-court speech Against Neaira, a freed-slave prostitute named Neaira is charged with posing as an Athenian citizen in order to secure citizen rights for her children. In this class, students will read Against Neaira in Greek and explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, immigration, social status, and citizenship in classical Athens.

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts toward the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.
Satisfies the Language requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201. Students who have already taken a Greek course at the 200 level beyond 201 should enroll in GRE 316.

GRE 218 - New Testament Greek

Studying the New Testament gives students an opportunity to (1) read in the original Greek the collection of books and letters that is the most frequently read of all ancient texts today; (2) learn about the history of the Greek language as it spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great’s conquests; (3) study and practice the principles of textual criticism, principles that apply to editing any ancient text, as we read a text that has a richer manuscript tradition than any Classical text, with more than 5,700 manuscripts.

This year we will begin with the book of Acts, a narrative about the spread of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world, before sampling the gospels, the letters, and the apocalyptic book of Revelation.

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts towards the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201 or placement test. Students who have already taken a GRE course beyond 201 should enroll in this course as GRE 318. 

Not offered in 2023-2024

GRE 233 - Euripides’ Bacchae

Coming soon!
 

 

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201 or placement test. 
Students who have already taken a GRE course beyond 201 should enroll in this course as GRE 333. 
 

Not offered in 2023-2024

GRE 311 - Adv Greek Epic: Apollonius

Apollonius’ Argonautica, the sole extant example of epic from the vibrant Greek Hellenistic Period, charts the tumultuous journey of Jason and the Argonauts to claim the legendary Golden Fleece from the far-off realm of Colchis, on the coast of the Black Sea. We will read Book 3 of the poem in Greek. Students will focus on developing reading skills and reviewing grammar, syntax, and meter. We will also investigate the poem’s socio-cultural contexts and the eclecticism of the Hellenistic Period. Finally, students will read the rest of the epic in English and explore Apollonius’ pivotal place in the larger Greco-Roman epic tradition. As the only complete epic poem written between Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Roman epic the Aeneid, the Argonautica is deeply indebted to its epic predecessors and an enormous influence on its successors. Consequently, a major goal of the course is to gain an understanding of the poem’s themes, style, and intertextuality to appreciate its place in the genre and how it was received in antiquity.

This course is repeatable for credit.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts towards the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.
Satisfies Language requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201 or placement test. Students who have not yet taken a GRE course beyond 201 may enroll in this course as GRE 211.  

Not offered in 2023-2024

GRE 313 - Pindar’s Songs of Victory

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts toward the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.
Satisfies the Language requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201. Students who have not yet taken a Greek course at the 200 level beyond 201 should enroll in GRE 216.

GRE 316 - Apollodorus Against Neaira

In the fourth-century BCE law-court speech Against Neaira, a freed-slave prostitute named Neaira is charged with posing as an Athenian citizen in order to secure citizen rights for her children. In this class, students will read Against Neaira in Greek and explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, immigration, social status, and citizenship in classical Athens.
 

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts toward the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.
Satisfies the Language requirement.

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201. Students who have not yet taken a Greek course at the 200 level beyond 201 should enroll in GRE 216.

GRE 318 - New Testament Greek

Studying the New Testament gives students an opportunity to (1) read in the original Greek the collection of books and letters that is the most frequently read of all ancient texts today; (2) learn about the history of the Greek language as it spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great’s conquests; (3) study and practice the principles of textual criticism, principles that apply to editing any ancient text, as we read a text that has a richer manuscript tradition than any Classical text, with more than 5,700 manuscripts.

This year we will begin with the book of Acts, a narrative about the spread of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world, before sampling the gospels, the letters, and the apocalyptic book of Revelation.

Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts towards the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201 or placement test.

Not offered in 2023-2024

GRE 333 - Euripides’ Bacchae

Coming Soon!

Prerequisites & Notes
Cross-listed with GRE 233.
GRE 201 or placement test.

Not offered in 2023-2024
 

GRE 366 - Greek Philosophers: Plato’s Gorgias

Detailed reading of Plato’s Gorgias in Greek - mostly! - with interpretation and appreciation of the author’s literary and narrative qualities. Readings from secondary literature will provide a more contextualized understanding of intellectual history in Classical Athens, particularly the rise and development of rhetoric.

Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Counts towards the Classical Languages and Literature major and as an elective for the Classical Studies major.
Counts towards the interdisciplinary minor in Global Literary Theory.

Prerequisites & Notes
GRE 201 or placement test. 

Not offered in 2023-2024

GRE 399 - Independent Study in Greek

GRE 499 - Senior Thesis

HIS 101 - History in the Headlines

This course studies how history unfolds in current headlines. The course content uses events in the news from the previous calendar year. It analyzes the way history is invoked in news coverage of those events and the historical context behind the events. Students will read news media, primary source documents, and scholarly histories centered around four units, one for each news event. Specific case studies will change each time the course is taught to reflect current issues in the news. Each iteration of the course will be global rather than limit itself to one world region.

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

HIS 112 - Medieval Europe

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 119 - England to 1688

HIS 120 - Britain since 1688

HIS 121 - Early Modern Europe

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

HIS 122 - Modern Europe

This course examines the history of Europe from the late eighteenth century through the 1960s, and assesses how modern entities such as the nation state and the individual fared in the face of industrialization, urbanization, the rise of nationalism, imperialism, two world wars, and their aftermath. These histories are read through the eyes of writers, artists, politicians, workers, and others, as we attempt to discern how Europeans in each era perceived, described, and made sense of the experience of modern life. We also trace the development and deployment of modern Western categories of race, class, and gender.

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

HIS 125 - History of Modern Russia, 1855-2000

Survey of modern Russia from the “Great Reforms” under Tsar Alexander II up to the struggles of the “Second Russian Republic” headed by President Boris Yeltsin.

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

HIS 140 - Inventing America

An introduction to the history of the region that would come to be known as British North America and the United States (ca. 1500-1800).

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

HIS 141 - 19th-Century US History

This course will introduce students to advanced concepts in historical thinking and selected topics in nineteenth-century US history. Students will explore secondary literature and primary sources organized into five case studies. Although the specific case studies will evolve, one each will generally explore the following major topics: 1) gender and sexuality; 2) white supremacy and racism; 3) immigration and naturalization/citizenship; 4) settler colonialism and expansion; 5) industrialization and urbanization. Students will create a sixth case study in teams.  

Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 142 - The United States since 1900

Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.

HIS 162 - Latin America to 1825

A survey of Latin American history from the eve of Spain’s conquest of the Americas to the era of Latin American independence from Spain. An introduction to the societies of the Americas and the major social, political, and economic themes following the arrival of Europeans to the Americas. 

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

HIS 163 - Place & Nation in Modern Latin America

This course introduces students to Latin American history through themes related to place and space.  Newly independent nations were eager to defend, define, and regulate territory as well as public and domestic spaces.  By following the hows and whys of space and place from Independence to the late 20th century, we chart important political, social, economic, and cultural changes. Topics will include museums, schools, parks, prisons, transportation, maps, and borders. Through learning about the actions of governments and people in these places and spaces, we will analyze how national identity was defined and contested by individuals of multiple classes, races, genders.

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

HIS 168 - Africa to 1800

Introduction to the major civilizations and cultures of Africa from prehistoric times through the Transatlantic slave trade, examining changes in economy, ecology, and societies as Africa became involved in the global economy. 

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

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 - Making Modern South Asia

This course is a historical introduction to the history of South Asia, from the end of the Mughal empire  through to decolonization. It is a survey of major social and political struggles throughout the British colonial period threaded through historical debates about about religious reform, political representation in an colonial context,  the political economy of empire, the limits of law, environmental justice and the reproduction of caste society. In order to understand the complexity of the social and political discourse of the period (roughly 1818-1947), we will read primary texts, including autobiographies, speeches, dialogues, treatises, ethnography, and literary fiction. We will analyze, among other things, what was at stake in formulations of “tradition” and “modernity.”

As the course progresses into the era of decolonization, we will examine the legacies of these contestations in shaping the nation-states of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Nepal through to the early 21^st century. The course will be oriented though India in the post-1947 period while being alert to the spatialized historical legacies that shape India’s overbearing role in the geopolitics of the modern subcontinent. How do concepts such as gender, caste, religion, indigeneity and nation change over time? Using film and digital resources, we will draw on representations of South Asian culture and history to complement our analyses throughout the semester.

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 - Modern East Asia

What economic, social, and political challenges did individual East Asian states-and the East Asian region as a whole-face between 1850 to the present? To address this question, this course traces the modern history of political, economic, social, and cultural change in China, Japan, and Korea. Particular consideration will be paid to state building, women’s roles in society, economic development, colonialism, social change, war, revolution, nationalism, communism, globalization, and environmental issues. Each state will be examined not just in the context of its own historical development, but also as part of the broader East Asian region.   

Counts as an elective in the History major and minor.
Satisfies a requirement for the East Asian Studies major and minor.
Satisfies the 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 222 - Food and Empire

Food - its production, its consumption, and ideas about it - has inspired global trade, cultural encounters, environmental change, and systems of slavery and labor.  This course explores the relationship between food and empire, focusing on the connections between consumption, taste, power, identity, exchange, and culture in a range of British colonial contexts.  

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

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 254 - Unsettled Refugees

This course introduces students to Critical Refugee Studies, which is a multidisciplinary field that incorporates both the humanities and the social sciences. Critical Refugee Studies subverts the dominant narrative that regards the figure of the refugee as simply an object to be rescued. Instead, Critical Refugee Studies reconfigures the refugee as the paradigm through which a larger set of problems can be made more intelligible. In this class, refugees are understood to be complex historical actors whose movements and actions reveal processes and legacies of imperialism, colonialism, militarism, displacement, and resettlement. The literature, documentaries, and podcasts that we will be reading, watching, and listening to in this course will focus on how particular populations of displaced people negotiated their refugee status to critique and make demands of the various nation-states and international organizations with which they interacted. In addition, this class will be attuned to how refugees, with limited resources, were able to create social networks and cultural productions that enabled them to act and remember collectively.

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

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 Public Health major and minor requirement.
Satisfies the Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement 

HIS 271 - History of Science and Technology in Modern South Asia

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies South Asian Studies minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.
Satisfies Cultural Diversity Ways of Knowing 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 - Inventing India: Nationalism, Myth & Politics

Nationalism is an old fashioned topic which has seen a resurgence in public political discourse in recent years from the United States to India, Russia or the United Kingdom. Debates about what constitutes an “authentic past” are front and center again as battles over who is an “authentic” claimant to national identity are played out in social media, news channels, and in the violence experienced by those who do not adhere to the version of “authentic identity” in vogue at any given moment. Experts chart a global turn towards a revanchist ethno-religious nationalist conservatism. The long history and complexity of the question in India make it an excellent case study for how to historicize the “nation” concept and trace the the often contradictory valences of “nationalism” as a lived ideological framework. This course will equip students from across the social sciences to analyze the new global context of the renewed relevance of nationalism. Students will learn the skills that historical methodology offers for making sense of the world around them by focusing in on the specific historic context of the “nation” concept in India and the ways in which it is shaping contemporary everyday life in India, diasporic identity abroad and shaping the international political frame for engaging India as an important element of the global international order at a time when “decolonization” has become important as a political rhetoric.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Statisfies the Historical Thought Requirement.
Satisfies the Cultural Diversity Requirement.
Satisfies a South Asian Studies interdisciplinary minor requirement.

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 1900

The history of women in what is now the United States, beginning prior to European colonization and ending after the at the turn of the twentieth century.  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 1900

The history of women in the United States from 1900 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.

Prerequisites & Notes
Requires instructor permission.

Spring break trip commitment-
Current expectations are that the course will include a trip to Crusader sites in Israel during spring break, funded by the History Department. Students enrolled in the course should be prepared to commit their spring break to that trip.

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 334 - World War II in European History and Memory, 1939-1990

The devastation of Europe following World War II almost defies comprehension: between 35 and 40 million Europeans killed; millions more missing, homeless, or displaced; and entire countries in ruins. In this course, we will explore how the war transformed three combatant nations in particular: France, Germany, and the Soviet Union. In each country, we will examine the conflict as it was experienced by everyday citizens, both civilians and soldiers alike. We will then turn our attention to the postwar period, and examine how the war’s memory has shaped politics and culture in Europe ever since.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought 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 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 353 - Asian American History

This is a survey course of Asian American history from the founding of the United States to the present day. We will explore the histories of Asian Americans within regional, national, and global contexts. Central questions that we will address are: What forces have driven Asians to migrate to the United States? How have Asians figured in U.S. racial formations? What factors have unified and stratified Asian American communities? How have Asian Americans struggled for democracy and justice?

Satisfies the Cultural Diversity graduation requirement.
Satisfies the Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.
Satisfies a requirement for the History major and minor.

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