U16 Hist 101 Western Civilization

This course is an introduction to history as a discipline, and an analysis of Western civilization from its prehistoric origins to the seventeenth century. We will begin with an examination of the three historical cultures from which this civilization was to draw many of its traditions: the Near East, Greece, and Rome. The course will go on to discuss the adoption of these traditions by the Celtic and Germanic peoples; the formation of kingdoms which would prefigure contemporary European nations; and the development of the culture of Latin Christendom. We will examine external interaction between Latin Christendom and its Slavic, Byzantine and Islamic neighbors, the resurgence of interest in classical culture, the effects of famine and pandemic, and challenges to secular and religious authority. Students in these fields will become more aware of how human values, ideas of justice, and methods of interpretation influenced and have been influenced by time, culture and personal perspective.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 102 Western Civilization II: 1650 to the Present

This course examines social, cultural, economic, and political developments in European society from the seventeenth century to the present. Students will explore roughly three-and-a-half centuries of European history, investigating, among other topics, the Scientific Revolution; the European Enlightenments; the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon's empire; the Industrial Revolution; the two world wars and the Holocaust; the Cold War; and decolonization. We will interrogate Western notions of "progress" and pay significant attention to the ways in which ideology, religion, and nationalism appreciably shaped the lives of people living in Europe in the early modern and modern eras.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 116 The Creation of Modern Japan 1568-1945

This course explores the creation of modern Japan from the founding of the Tokugawa Shogunate through World War II. A political and historical narrative will be complemented by a strong emphasis on Japanese cultural expressions. Alongside primary historical sources, our reading will include Amy Stanley's fascinating account of a woman's life in 19th-century Tokugawa Japan, "Stranger in the Shogun City." We will also discuss Yukio Mishima's novel on Japanese culture at the cusp of modernity, "Spring Snow," and Eri Hotta's "Japan 1941," which enlivens some of the decision-making behind Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. We will also read selections of poetry as a window into the Japanese aesthetic. By balancing historical narrative with cultural expressions, the course develops a robust understanding of change over time in modern Japan.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD

U16 Hist 117 History of Death & Mourning in America

Death may be the great equalizer, but our approaches to death and mourning differ according to time and circumstances. Through an examination of the ways Americans have commemorated and thought about the dead, students will gain a greater understanding of the changing cultural history of the United States. This course examines the intersection of war, religion, urbanization, and industrialization as they are reflected in both mourning and in "cities of the dead" and the ways Americans have interacted with them.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLH

U16 Hist 162 Freedom, Citizenship and the Making of American Culture

This course offers a broad survey of American history from the era before European settlement of North America to the late twentieth century. The course explores the emergence and geographic expansion of the United States and addresses changes in what it meant to be an American during the nation's history. Tracing major changes in the nation's economic structures, politics, social order and culture, the course chronicles, among other issues, changes in the meanings of freedom, citizenship, and American identity. Introductory course to the major and minor.
Same as L22 History 163

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SD Arch: HUM Art: CPSC, HUM BU: HUM EN: H

U16 Hist 163 Introduction to the History of the U.S.

This course explores four centuries of struggles for freedom, equality, and citizenship in American life and culture. The course will begin before European settlement in the Western Hemisphere and continue on through to contemporary life in the United States. In addition to developing a keen understanding of American history, this course will help you develop critical thinking and writing skills that can be brought to any field of study. Learning history is not about rote memorization. It is about examining and synthesizing a wide range of historical evidence and data in order to better understand the past and the world we live in today.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 164 Introduction to World History

This course introduces students to key themes and concepts in world history through selected topics. Recent topics include "China/Silk Road" and "Empires." For the course scope and topic in a given semester, please see that semester's course listings.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 1641 Introduction to World History: The Second World War in World History

This course introduction to World History uses World War II as a lens to examine the methodologies, approaches and sources historians employ to understand and analyze historical periods. The class will explore the global connections and interactions which characterize World History. The emphasis of this course will be on digging into topics traditionally neglected: the impact of the war on race, gender, family and children; daily life; and daily ethical decision making.

Credit 3 units. Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 209 America to the Civil War

The American experience from the age of Columbus to that of Lincoln; development of distinctive American patterns of thought, culture, society, politics, and religion. Topics include efforts to cope with the wilderness; colonial maturity and the development of revolutionary ideology; defining the American character; literature and art for a new republic; the impulses of religion, idealism, and perfectionism.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 210 U.S. History Since 1865

This is a course in modern American history. We begin with Reconstruction after the Civil War, with the transition of the United States from an agricultural nation to an urban industrial one. We will investigate changes in technology, urban growth, and immigration, and new ideas of government and nationalism as the United States achieves its position as a world leader through World War I and II, the Cold War, and the global world of the twenty-first century.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 213 The Short 20th Century: Europe, 1914-1991

This course covers the two world wars; fascism, nazism and communism; postwar recovery and the Cold War, and the loss of empire. We will pay significant attention to the ways in which religion, ideology, and nationalism appreciably shaped the lives of people living in Europe during an era of total war, competing ideologies, and decolonization, focusing on what historians often call "the short 20th century," from 1914 to 1991.

Credit 3 units.

U16 Hist 2161 The American South in Black and White

This course explores the history of the American South from the colonial era to the present, focusing on the interplay between black and white cultures. Topics include Southern plantation life, the Civil War, Jim Crow, Southern music, and the Civil Rights Movement. Using film, photography, and other media, the course also considers representations of the South in popular culture. Particular attention is paid to how images and stereotypes of the South have evolved--and to how the region's history has influenced the nation as a whole.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 217 The Italian Family from the Renaissance to Today

The Italian family, which is the basic building block of the Italian society and state, has been extremely resilient yet continually evolving. This course focuses on the institution as well as the roles of women, men, children, and servants from the Renaissance (15th century) until today. We will discuss the historical roles of mothers vs. fathers, shared family time and resources, family-run workshops, and how couples planned, named and educated their offspring. We will examine how the family can be experienced in a variety of ways, including the form of the papal famiglia and all-male households headed by cardinals. Finally, we will see how divorce legislation (1970) destroyed the notion of eternal family solidarity. The family is still being shaped as Italians recently legalized same-sex civil unions (2016), forcing them to define what a family is and what rights its members should enjoy. We will consider Pope Francis' role in discussions of Italian and global family life in a nation that hosts thousands of migrant families, too.

Credit 3 units.

U16 Hist 218 The Crusades

In 1095, Pope Urban II urged Christian princes to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim rule. Four years later, after enduring great hardships, the knights who had answered Urban's call conquered the city of Jerusalem. This first crusade and its accomplishments shaped the way future crusades were conducted as well as the way in which historians have both understood and framed the idea of a "crusade" as an armed pilgrimage to the holy land sanctioned by the papacy. However, the language of "crusade" was also invoked in campaigns against other enemies of Christendom: the long struggle to reconquer Spain from its Muslim rulers, the wars waged against pagan peoples along the Baltic Sea, and campaigns undertaken against Christian heretics and political foes of the papacy. This course aims to explore the idea of "crusade" and "crusading" over the course of the Middle Ages. We will examine the causes, immediate effects, and long-term consequences of the crusades and to trace the lasting memory of crusading ideology throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. By the end of this course, students will understand the major themes and ideas that made up the medieval crusades and how those themes and ideas changed over time.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 2216 Books and Bodies

Books and Bodies is a five-week course held in the Special Collections department of the Bernard Becker Medical Library. The course explores how changes in medical knowledge and print technology have influenced depictions of the human body from the 15th through the 19th centuries. Each week students will explore an aspect of print and medical history by examining the library's rare materials and carrying out exercises that require them to make use of the library's resources. The course will not only provide students with an overview of the development of anatomical illustration, but will also provide them with an understanding of special collections research. This course counts toward the Medical Humanities minor.

Credit 1 unit.

U16 Hist 2652 Spain's Golden Age

The Spanish Empire stretched across Europe and the New World. Beginning with the unification of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in 1469 and ending with the death of Philip IV in 1665, this course explores the ways in which Spaniards, Africans, and Indians -- both male and female -- were involved in and affected by the Imperial endeavor. The course also investigates the experiences of religious minorities (e.g., Jews, Muslims, Protestants) within the home country. Students will evaluate the successes and failures of the period through close studies of several major spiritual, artistic, and literary figures and their works. We will also explore the dynamics between political, domestic, and religious policy on the mainland and in the colonies, with particular focus on the operations of the Spanish Inquisition.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 300 Independent Study

Requires approval from instructor, dept coordinator and director in University College.

Credit variable, maximum 4 units.

U16 Hist 3016 Slavery and Freedom in Latin America and the Caribbean

This course surveys the history of slavery and freedom in the Atlantic world of Latin America and the Caribbean. It focuses on slavery as an economic system and the relations of power it created. The course moves forward chronologically, with each week organized according to a particular theme and geography. Students will learn how British, French, Spanish and Portuguese settlers established slavery in the new world; how different social and legal practices developed around particular labor patterns and commodity production; how the enslaved endured and resisted enslavement; and what it meant to be free in a slave society.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HLA, HSM

U16 Hist 301T Historical Methods: Transregional History

This is a small-group reading course in which students are introduced to the skills essential to the historian's craft. Emphasis will be on acquiring research skills, learning to read historical works critically, and learning to use primary and secondary sources to make a persuasive and original argument. See Course Listings for current topics. Required for history majors. Preference given to History majors; other interested students welcome.
Same as L22 History 301T

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H

U16 Hist 3022 Religion and Politics in Early America

This course is a 16-week fully online class that investigates the intersections between religion and politics in America from the Colonial Era through the long 19th century. The course material is delivered directly by the instructor in the form of audio lectures with accompanying PowerPoint presentations. Thus, students will have an ongoing conversation with the individual professor, although somewhat a distance. Content is divided into topical sections: Christian Foundations, Modern Evangelicalism, Anti-Catholicism & Religious Pluralism, Second Disestablishment, and Separation of Church & State.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3031 Wining and Dining in the Classical World: Food Culture in Classical Antiquity

The focus of this course will be food culture in Greek and Roman societies from the Archaic to the late Roman period. However, foodways from adjacent contemporary cultures will also be briefly examined. Sources will include textual evidence, as well as ethnographic studies of ancient people, iconographic and archaeological evidence, specifically osteological and botanical remains from archaeological sites. Experimental studies will be conducted in class to augment the learning experience of students.
Same as U02 Classics 3031

Credit 3 units.

U16 Hist 3068 An Inconvenient Truth: The Human History of Climate Change

Although global warming is unprecedented in its origin and potential consequences for human beings, climate change itself is actually nothing new. For thousands of years, entirely natural influences have altered Earth's climate in ways that shaped human history. The 18th-century advisors to the king of France were warning that deforestation would have an adverse effect on rainfall. The Little Ice Age that began in the 16th century altered settlement patterns, forced new trade networks, and encouraged innovations in agriculture. In this course, we will examine the longer history of climate change and how it has been addressed as a scientific, political, and environmental issue. We will look at such climate phenomena as the discovery of the Green House Effect, El Niño events in the late 19th century, and glacial melting in the 20th century. This course will also introduce students to the field of environmental history and explore how the methods of this field of inquiry challenge traditional historical categories. We will consider the following questions: What happens when time is no longer bound by the written word and is understood in geological terms? How does history play out when the actors driving the action of the story are non-human? How might historians geographically frame their narratives when the subject matter is rarely bound by the political borders of human communities?

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HTR

U16 Hist 3077 Civil Liberties in Wartime

This course will examine the history of American civil liberties in times of war and international tension. The class will begin by examining how English political traditions, Enlightenment philosophies, and the experience of the American Revolution helped to forge American principles of civil liberty as defined in the Bill of Rights. Students will explore how the experience of war and international conflict places these principles under stress, focusing in particular on the following episodes: the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts; the Civil War; the American governance of the Philippines; the two World Wars; the Cold War; and the response to terrorism.

Credit 3 units.

U16 Hist 3142 African Civilization from 1800 to the Present Day

Course is an in-depth investigation of the intellectual and material cultures
Same as U84 AFAS 322

Credit 3 units. Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: IS EN: H UColl: HAF, HSM

U16 Hist 3153 Women and Slaves in Classical Antiquity

This course investigates the lives of women and slaves in ancient Greece and Rome. It will explore not only the limitations imposed on women and slaves by the ruling male citizenry, but also the power and privileges each group exercised. We study how the society and economy formed the roles of women and slaves, how women and slaves were portrayed in literature and the arts, and how writers from Classical antiquity influenced later generations beyond the Roman Empire.
Same as U02 Classics 3151

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSP

U16 Hist 3154 The Syrian Conflict in Historical Context

This course examines Syria and its on-going civil war through the lens of historical forces that forged the region's heterodox communities. It will identify the region's Christian and Islamic inheritances. It will investigate the history of great power tensions over Syria. It will explore New Silk Road economic development corridors. It will assess Russia's historic interests in the region. Finally, it will debate the implications of an emerging Kurdish homeland in Northern Syria and beyond. Topics include: Kurdish question, Sykes-Picot Agreement, New Cold War, Silk Road infrastructure corridors.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HME

U16 Hist 3165 The Classic Dynasties of China

The Classical Dynasties of China takes as its focus the period in Chinese history when cultural and political patterns were established. After a brief survey of the earliest periods of Chinese history the course moves from the T'ang through the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Extensive primary sources from each dynasty will be supplemented by a set of historical works we will read and discuss. The sources and books will address social and cultural development along with diverse aspects of daily life. The class concludes with an examination of the elements of decline evident in the late Qing and an exploration of the major themes of Chinese history that we have discovered in our semester study.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HEA, HSP

U16 Hist 3167 China and Japan 1800 to 1949

This course focuses on China and Japan's encounters with the West in the 19th century and how that contact helped shape both nations' destinies in the first half of the 20th century. To resist Western intrusion, China and Japan ultimately had to transform themselves while attempting to preserve their cultural identity. China struggled for much of this time to find the correct formula for resistance, while Japan became a superpower only to plunge itself and China into the cataclysm of World War II. In this course, we examine why each followed the path it chose, the profound consequences of those decisions, and the personalities and events associated with the road through modernization and Westernization and to World War II.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HEA, HSM

U16 Hist 3168 The Creation of Modern Japan, 1568-1945

This course will explore the development of modern Japan from the Tokugawa Shogunate through the Meiji Restoration and culminate in Japan's role in World War II. Alongside the history of this period, we will explore cultural expressions of the time occurring in Japan in the areas of gender, ethnicity and class. The course readings will consist of Japanese fiction, drama and poetry in translation.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HEA, HSM, HSP

U16 Hist 3192 Modern South Asia

This course will cover the history of the Indian sub-continent in the 19th and 20th centuries. We shall look closely at a number of issues including colonialism in India; anti-colonial movements; the experiences of women; the interplay between religion and national identity; and popular culture in modern India. Political and social history will be emphasized equally.

Credit 3 units. Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: CD, HSA, HSM, OLI

U16 Hist 3193 Roman History: The Dominate

If we mark the beginning of Roman history by the foundation of the city on the Tiber and continue that narrative until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, we see a grand political experiment without parallel in world history. Persian historians would have been hard pressed to match these boasts. This course focuses on one segment of that history: the Later Roman Empire, beginning with the accession of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, to the outbreak of a calamitous war between rival superpowers Rome and Persia in the early seventh century of the Christian era. That conflict destroyed the classical world of the Eastern Mediterranean basin, and it paved the way for the rise of Islam in the region and beyond.
Same as U02 Classics 3193

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSP, OLI

U16 Hist 3264 Later Medieval Ages: 1100-1500

This course is an introduction to history as a discipline, and in particular the study of medieval history. Students will demonstrate understanding of church reform; new forms of spirituality and the challenge of heresy; new forms of schools and learning; the origins of national monarchies; the crusades; chivalry; courtly love and the role of women; the rise of towns; church and state relations; the Black Death and its effects into the fifteenth century.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSP

U16 Hist 3301 Motherly Women and Conquering Men: Gender Stereotypes and the Atlantic World

We give a lot of thought to gender and power today-who makes more money, who occupies leadership roles, who gets interrupted. But challenges to the idea that physical anatomy and one's position in the world are permanently linked are much older. Rather, when Portuguese and Spanish sailors began exploring the Atlantic Ocean in the 1400s, they discovered different visions of what it meant to be male and female. This course looks at the results of this exchange, assessing how European encounters with new ideas of gender and sexuality in Africa and the early Americas, 1400 to 1800, created new opportunities and entrenched expectations for both colonizers and colonized.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HSP, HTR, OLI

U16 Hist 3302 Monsters and Marvels: Explaining the Unknown in the Early Modern World.

Historians recently have seized upon the idea of a "Global Renaissance," suggesting that the radical changes we associate with Europe from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries were the actual results of a first wave of global exchange between Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. This courses traces the ways Europeans made sense of these new contacts, from inventing monsters and eating mummies, to amassing unicorn horns and using indigenous maize in religious rites. It asks students to reflect on how habits for collecting and verifying knowledge have changed across time and how we still deal (fake news!) with stories that seem too marvelous or unfamiliar to be true.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSP, HTR, OLI

U16 Hist 3304 Race in the Age of Exploration

We talk a lot about racialized identities and experiences in the 21st century, but discussions about differences perceived in skin tone, ethnic ancestry, and birthplace are nothing new to the modern world. This course explores an important segment of early conversations on race, focusing on the impact of European ventures to the Asian, African, and American continents between the 12th and 18th centuries and interactions with the diverse peoples encountered therein. Students will look at the ways that struggles for control in this global age shifted historical concepts of difference from being fluid and cultural to entrenched and biological, with the effects still felt today.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HSP, HTR, OLI

U16 Hist 3309 Facing East: an Indigenous View of Early North America

When Europeans arrived in North America in and after 1492, they were surprised to find civilizations with advanced political and military alliances, trade networks, communication systems, and artistic traditions. In fact, despite efforts to minimize these accomplishments, it was largely due to aid from indigenous persons that Europeans survived and prospered in the New World.This course looks in detail at how indigenous men and women shaped colonial North America and the early United States. Together, we will assess themes such as first encounters, trade, war and diplomacy, family formation, religion and concepts of race and difference. We also will revisit wellknown events like the 1519 Spanish landing in modern-day Mexico, the 1614 marriage of Mataoka (or Pocahontas) to an Englishman, and the American Revolution from an indigenous point-of-view. Ultimately, we will consider how indigenous Americans used both calculated assimilation and expressions of cultural independence to identify a place for themselves within the post-1492 world.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HSP, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3323 Jews and Christians in Nazi Germany

This course examines how religion, culture, and ideology shaped the lives of Jews and Christians living in Germany during the Third Reich. We will examine the reactions of German Protestants and Catholics to the Nazi regime's oppression of Germany's Jewish population and attempt to annihilate European Jewry. We also focus on the experiences and reflections of German Jews living in these desperate times.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSM, OLI

U16 Hist 3325 The 20th Century: The Age of Genocide

This course will explore some of the darkest and most difficult to understand topics in recent human history: the Holocaust and other genocide events of the 20th century. From World War II to Rwanda, humans in the 20th century have demonstrated a terrifying capacity to inflict violence upon specific groups of people. The global occurrence of these events indicates that they are limited to no single region, religion, political system, or ideology. This course will explore the complex historical factors that produced genocides. Particular cases examined will vary from year to year, but will include, for example, Armenia, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, and the Nazi genocide of the Jews, Sinti, and Roma. Themes addressed may include gender and genocide, genocide prevention and intervention, justice and genocide, and memory and memorialization. We will also examine the stories of those who fought repressive regimes and spoke out against genocidal leaders, seeking to understand how confronting these issues in the past may help us to confront human cruelty in the present.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HEU, HSM, OLI

U16 Hist 3473 The American Wars in Asia and the Pacific, 1898-1975

This course will examine the causes, conduct, and consequences of four wars that the United States has fought in Asia since 1898: the Philippine-American War; the Pacific theater in World War II; the Korean War; and the Vietnam War. We will focus on the political, diplomatic, and military aspects of these conflicts and explore how these wars shaped the history of Asia and the United States. The course provides an opportunity for students to conduct their own research and to hone their analytical and writing skills.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3510 The History of the Civil Rights Movement: Jamestown to Ferguson

This course examines the origins, evolution, and impact of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement beginning with the North American slave trade in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, through civil disobedience and race riots in the mid-twentieth century, to the response, locally and nationwide, to Michael Brown's violent death in Ferguson. Special emphasis is placed on tracing its impact and continuing legacy on contemporary ideas and social policies about race, ethnicity, culture and national origin.

Credit 3 units. UColl: ACH, ACS, HSM, HUS, ML

U16 Hist 3520 "Happy Wars and Sad Love Songs": A History of Ireland

Through a broad range of primary sources--including imaginative literature and music--this course examines Ireland's relations with, and contributions to, the wider history of the British Isles and Europe, as well as the consequences of the Irish diaspora in the modern era. The course is arranged thematically and chronologically, and lessons address the major trends in the history of Ireland from earliest times to the present day, with roughly two-thirds of the semester focusing on the last two and a half centuries.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSM

U16 Hist 3529 Global Perspectives on the American Civil War

The Civil War is widely understood to be the turning point of American history. But scholars are only beginning to address the scope and character of its impact on world history. This course treats the American Civil War as a global event. It places the war to preserve the Union and end slavery in the wider context of the long nineteenth century, one that encompasses various histories of slavery, antislavery, capitalism, nationalism, state-building, and empire as they collectively gave birth to the modern world. As Union and Confederate troops collided parallel contests over democracy and the rights of labor gripped Europe.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HSR, HTR

U16 Hist 3610 Women and Gender in Renaissance Italy

This course allows students to gain a solid knowledge of and appreciation for the experience of women who lived in early modern or "Renaissance" Italy. We will explore what is distinctive about the Renaissance era for women, underline the unique contributions that women made to early modern Italian society and culture, and discuss how their roles and participation in their world differed from those of the men with whom they interacted.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSM, OLI

U16 Hist 3620 Research Seminar: Liberals and Conservatives in Recent American History

This course explores the interplay of modern American liberalism and conservatism, the two ideologies/political worldviews that have defined U.S. politics since the 1930s. It is impossible fully to understand one without also studying the other. Modern liberalism became a political force during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, while modern conservatism emerged as a viable movement during the early Cold War years and came of age during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Looking at political thought, grassroots activism, and electoral politics, the course will trace the evolution of both political perspectives, along with their frequent intersections, from the New Deal years up to the present. Students will engage primary sources and recent scholarship, and special time will be dedicated to putting the current political moment (including the 2020 election) in context.

Credit 3 units. UColl: ACH, ACS, HSM, HSR, HUS

U16 Hist 3633 Creating a National Memory, 1790-1840

In this course, we will analyze differences between history as the best evidence suggests it occurred and culturally constructed version of the past. We will explore the forgotten, sometimes bizzare (in retrospect, often humorous) "bodily turn" in American memory culture from 1790 through 1840, when patriotic Americans collected historical artifacts, including bodily relics, of their country's dying Revolutionary war heroes. Topics include: African-American Revolutionary War veteran's memories; the popular science of memory in the early republic; influential theologies of memory; the pedagogy of memory; feminist linkage of politics to memory; and traveling "freak shows." Instructor will email registered students with instructions. Students will engage recent scholarship along with numerous primary sources. Course fulfills Research Seminar requirement for the History major in University College.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSR, OLI

U16 Hist 3635 American Forgiveness: Reconciliation, Reparation, and Pardon in U.S. History

How has the very meaning of "forgiveness" evolved in American history, and why? Can understanding the history of forgiveness in American culture usefully inform present efforts at forgiveness and reconciliation in American culture? Topics include: forgiveness of loyalists and of Britain after the Revolution; imperfect racial and regional reconciliation after the Civil War; intergenerational tensions and forgiveness in American history; influential theologies of forgiveness; altered views concerning bankruptcy and debt forgiveness; political scandals and forgiveness; the history of "restitution" as an aim in the American justice system; grievances and forgiveness involving U.S. treatment of Native American nations, and with respect to the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II; forgiveness as a theme of the Civil Rights movement; President Gerald Ford's pardoning of President Nixon; changing divorce and adultery laws, etc.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLH, OLI

U16 Hist 3638 Debating U.S. History: Museums, Monuments and Public Memory

Americans have long been fascinated with physical markers of their history, and debates over the significance of past persons, places and artifacts have gained added weight in visions of the country's political, social and cultural future within the last 30 years. For example, when the New Orleans City Council sought to remove three Confederate monuments in 2017, it couldn't find contractors willing to risk public scorn. Two monuments were taken down in the middle of the night by masked workers, and the third removal was accompanied by a speech that earned Mayor Mitch Landrieu national attention (and gossip about his potential as a 2020 presidential candidate). This course looks at the ways in which public history as a field has developed in the United States, including how processes like collecting, cataloguing, researching, interpreting and teaching have an impact on popular interactions with past events. Students will assess key and heated reflective moments in American public history-like a 1994 slave auction at Colonial Williamsburg and the proposed 1995 Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian-as well as consider how historical persons, places and events are represented in their communities. This course, ultimately, will reflect on the power and responsibility inherent in remembering the past.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3639 The World in Crisis: 1914-1945

This course examines the first half of the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the years between 1914 and 1945, and the extent to which the period realized or rejected ideals and expectations of the previous 100 years. After a brief overview of 19th-century western concepts of liberalism and progress, we will consider the disruption and violence of two world wars in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Africa. In addition, we will consider the course and consequences of civil war and revolution, famine and disease, rising and falling empires, worldwide economic instability, new nation states and population resettlements, and emerging rival political ideologies. Among other things, we will challenge the suitability of the label "interwar period" for the years from 1918 to 1939.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HTR

U16 Hist 3641 A Social History of World War I: Reconsidering the Great War in Global Context

World War I changed the course of world history. It brought about the disintegration of four vast empires and seriously undermined the stability of two others. At the same time, World War I confirmed the arrival of the United States onto the world stage and re-drew the political and territorial frontiers of central and southeast Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific. We will place the First World War in a global context, examining it from social, political, economic, and military viewpoints, and consider its continuing legacy into the 21st century.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM

U16 Hist 3644 World War II in Global Perspective

This course will examine the origins, conduct, and consequences of the Second World War. Topics include political, diplomatic and military strategies, the experience of civilian populations, and the role of resistance movements. The course will also explore how the war reshaped the politics and culture of peoples around the world--fueling nationalist movements in Asia and Africa and transforming attitudes towards military conflict in Europe. The course provides an opportunity for students to conduct their own research into historical topics and to hone their writing skills.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HTR

U16 Hist 3645 Pursuing Happiness in America

This course considers how and why Americans' beliefs about the nature and sources of happiness have changed. Topics include colonial American preacher Jonathan Edwards's theology of joy; early American political revolutionaries' reasoning on the universality of human "pursuit of happiness"; and subsequent revolutions in economy, sentiments, sexuality, psychology, and pharmacology over the following two centuries.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3648 Working Class: Labor in American History

This course explores how working men and women shaped the history of the United States. The course begins with the various forms of indentured and enslaved labor in the colonial era, continues through the rise of industrial capitalism in the Gilded Age, and concludes with the "postindustrial" days of the early 21st century. Students engage the social, political, economic, and environmental transformations of working life in America, including issues of race, class, gender, immigration, urbanization, industrialization, trade unions, technology, and globalization.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3665 The Politics of Secrecy in America, 1790-Present

From fears of secret machinations by British colonial ministers that underwrote the American Revolution to conspiratorial theories about the intent of Lincoln and his "Black Republicans" that precipitated southern secession in 1860 and 1861 to contemporaneous conspiracy theory about the 2000 and 2004 elections, the 9/11 attacks and the present "War on Terror," secrets--real and imagined--have dramatically influenced political attitudes, beliefs and practices in American history.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3666 The History of Eating in America from Colonial Times to the Present

This course is a history of the myriad ways that Americans have used food to mark class, gender, style, region, patriotism, dissent, politics, and personality, from the "starving time" in colonial Jamestown to today's "Fast Food Nation." Topics include the Boston Tea Party, African-American foodways, race and assimilation in regional food cultures, "clay-eaters" in antebellum America, the creation of food-regulation agencies in the late nineteenth century, cooking as a gendered activity and the rise of "dieting."

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3671 Liberals, Conservatives, and American Presidents - from Roosevelt to Reagan to Obama

As the nation chooses a new president, the events of the Obama years - recession, recovery, divided government, profound social changes, and renewed fears - already are crying out for historical perspective. This course offers such perspective by exploring the political worldviews that have defined U.S. politics since the 1930s, along with the presidential administrations that have shaped their development. Modern liberalism became a force during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Modern conservatism came of age with the election of Ronald Reagan. By tracing the evolution of liberalism and conservatism, this course offers a chance to compare the Obama presidency with past administrations and to put the unfolding presidential campaign in context.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3679 Immigrant America

The United States may be known as a "nation of immigrants" and "melting pot," but debates over who to welcome across its borders--and who is a threat--are as old as the country itself. This course traces national discussions over immigration from the first 1790 Naturalization Act to the era of Donald Trump, asking how our country and its citizens have encouraged and deterred foreignborn settlers as well as how immigrant Americans responded to these opportunities and challenges.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3682 The Cold War and the Modern Spy

This course studies the Cold War through the lens of modern espionage. We begin by studying how technology developed in World War I, such as the use of codes and code-breaking machines, enabled the growth of intelligence organizations with the goal of collecting information against the Germans. World War II spawned a new age of electronic surveillance, spies and counterspies, as tensions increased between democratic and communist allies. We will examine the creation of the CIA and KGB; NATO and the Warsaw Pact; the use of secret tunnels; aerial and satellite reconnaissance; embedded spies and moles; the 'Atomic Spy'; and the use of military intelligence in government covert activities.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HTR, OLI

U16 Hist 3683 Christmas in American History: Colonial Times to the Present

This January intercession course will explore the history of Christmas and its discontents in America, from colonial times to today. Topics will include: early Puritan opposition to a distinct Christmas holiday; indifference toward the holiday in much of the colonial Chesapeake; the association of Christmas celebrations with pranks in the early-national United States; the rise of a consumer-centered Christmas in the nineteenth century; harrowing celebrations of Christmas in times of tragedy and war (from George Washington's crossing of the Delaware in 1776 to the 1972 Christmas bombing in Vietnam); the music, television, and filmography of Christmas in America from the late nineteenth century; and histories of inclusion and marginalization by non-Christians, atheists, and agnostics. The course will also look at celebrants of other religious and cultural winter holidays etc., along with ongoing cultural and political battles over the "secularization" of Christmas, with historical roots extending all the way back to Benjamin Franklin's lament in 1743: "How many observe Christ's birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments."

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLH, OLI

U16 Hist 3684 Winter in America: A Social and Environmental History

This course looks closely at winter in North America from the Little Ice Age of c.1550-1700 through to today's era of melting glaciers in Greenland. Topics include: interest in the winter solstice in ancient Cahokia; telling references to winter weather in the writings of the United States' founding generation, and in nineteenth and twentieth-century newspapers; the social history of how the appearance of "snowmen" evolved; epic snowball fights from the era of the American Revolution through the Civil War and beyond; differing experiences of snowstorms in rural and urban areas, and by race, gender, and class; the history of "snow days" in American schools; and the remarkable story of Vermont's "Snowflake Man," farmer Wilson Bentley, whose microphotographs of snowflakes, taken between 1885 and 1931, are still studied by environmental historians and artists.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HUS, OLH

U16 Hist 3685 New Year's Day in America, Colonial Period to Today

This January intersession course explores the fascinating, freighted social and cultural history of New Year's Day in America from colonial times to the present. Topics include the history of New Year's Day traditions, such as mummery, drinking, visitations, and religious observances as well as the broader history of how Americans across time have perceived and marked the day. New Year's Day in St. Louis, from the mid-19th century onward, is closely considered. Specific U.S. New Year's histories explored include New Year's 1800, as Americans learned of the death, days before, of George Washington; the politically charged presentation on New Year's Day 1802 of a 1,200-pound "Mammoth Cheese" to President Jefferson; President Lincoln's New Year's Day 1863 Emancipation Proclamation; the association, by 1900, of new technology with new years and centuries; the first Times Square New Year's ball drop in 1908; the Cold War tradition of offering friendly greetings on the U.S.-Soviet telecommunications hotline on New Year's Day, plus U.S./U.S.S.R. leaders' 1987 televised New Year's addresses to the peoples of their opposite's nations; and the year 2000's "Y2K" scare and foiled "millennium terror plot." The course will also consider this coming New Year's Day and a world besieged by the novel coronavirus, meme-makers, and other social media denizens preparing to count down to 2021.

Credit 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 3690 Sports in American History

This course examines American sports from the colonial period through the 21st century, with emphasis on the rise of organized sports institutions, as well as individual and team play, and their role in shaping and influencing American society and culture. Students also will examine the relationships of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion in sports. These issues will be discussed in the context of baseball, football, basketball, tennis, and soccer, as well as the Olympics and other international sport.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3703 The Apollo Moon Landings in History and Memory

This course explores historically not only the familiar accomplishments and adventures of the Apollo moon landings, but their once-classified cold-war contexts and purposes, including questions the missions raised: What is the proper place of "big science" and "big government" in a liberal democracy? Do scientific understandings threaten or complement religious and aesthetic ways of comprehending nature and humanity? As machines are made more sophisticated, do they augment, or upstage, the human beings who produce them? Can we explore nature scientifically without conquering it imperially?

Credit 3 units. UColl: ACH, HSM, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3712 America in the Gilded Age

This course spans American history from the end of Reconstruction (1877) to 1914. Its main focus is on the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of the period with particular emphasis on the role of the period in shaping modern-day America. This course utilizes the period to examine the development and impact of industrialization, urbanization, technology, and transportation on the United States; the rise of consumer culture; changing ideologies; and reform movements. Junior standing required.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3741 History of U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1920

This course explores the major diplomatic, political, legal, and economic issues shaping U.S. relations with the wider world from the 1920s through the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Same as L22 History 3743

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM, IS EN: H UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3744 The Eagle and the Bear: The Reputation of Russia in American Politics and Society

This course examines how Americans have regarded Russia from the era of George Washington to the present. We consider the various ways in which "Russia" has functioned as a symbol around and against which the U.S. defines itself and structures its policies, during times of both American attraction and repulsion.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3776 History of American Business, Management and Technology

This course is designed to introduce students to the study of the sociocultural aspects and elements in American Business, Management and Technology. Its primary focus and emphasis, therefore, is directed to understanding how the sociocultural elements and aspects of American business, management and technology have developed and evolved over time. This course will also examine how business and management have helped to influence and shape how American Society and Culture have developed and been influenced by these evolutions in business and management.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 3780 St. Louis History: A Regional Exploration

This course considers the development of St. Louis metropolitan history in light of its 250th anniversary and recent tumultuous years. It will explore how this river town grew into the fourth largest city and the evolution of its hinterlands divided into a hundred municipalities. The focus of the course will include the changing built environment and the influences of the landscape from the rivers to the red clay. It will give attention to the region's social history and the shifting status of race, class and ethnicity. Students will read primary and secondary sources to understand why the region looks the way it does today.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 380 African-American History since 1865

Examination of the economic, political, social, and cultural factors that shaped the African-American experience in the United States from the close of the Civil War to the present time.

Credit 3 units.

U16 Hist 3870 The History of the Holocaust

This course deals with the Nazi regime's attempt to annihilate European Jewry. Important points of focus are antisemitism, the Nazi world view, and the examination of pivotal events on the path to the "Final Solution." We will also address a number of significant debates in the historical literature about the Holocaust. Was Nazism a "political religion?" Should we compare the Holocaust to other genocides, or was it a historically unique event? Can or should we consider the Holocaust as an event separate from the Second World War? To what extent did antisemitism factor in the actions and beliefs of perpetrators of violence against Jews? How deep did support for Hitler and the Nazis run among the German populace?

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSM, OLI

U16 Hist 3890 St. Louis in American History: Pre-Columbus Cahokia to Today

This online interactive course explores greater St. Louis's place in American history from Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples to today. Topics include: the Cahokian Mounds, St. Louis as a site of imperial contest and conquest in colonial America, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Dred Scott cases, the Civil War, late nineteenth-century progressive and populist politics, the politics of race and imperialism at the 1904 World's Fair, riots, immigration, white-flight, sports, city planning, urban reform, and the construction and cultural meaning of the St. Louis Arch. Using self-supplied technology (e.g., smartphone, digital camera), students will personally or virtually visit several sites of historical significance in St. Louis and produce and share personal written reflections, photos, and videos. Students will consider analytically how those places may be experienced today as portals into the long history of greater St. Louis and be used to better comprehend American history generally.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 3920 History of the Mafia in Italy and the United States

This course examines the changing structures of power in the Mafia, along with its relationship to politics and religion, from its beginnings in the Middle Ages to its influence today in the United States. Our study takes us to the roots of the Italian Mafia, the migration of Sicilians to the United States, the growth and decline of organized crime under fascism. We also look at the resurfacing of the Mafia during World War II, the rise of the Cosa Nostra and drug trafficking from Sicily to the United States, and the Mafia's arrival in the United States. The course concludes with a discussion of organized crime families and syndicates in a global context.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 395 History of Pre-Modern China

The history of pre-modern China is crucial to our understanding of China and the world today. While many of China's developments of the last two centuries mark its departure from a long-standing tradition, these developments were also continuations of long-term trends that had lasted for about a millennium. This course surveys certain major issues, themes, events, personalities, and patterns of "pre-modern China" from the Neolithic era to the early nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the period between 1000 and 1650. Arranged in chronological order, it covers milestone events such as the rule of the Mongols and the rise of the Ming Empire and also presents long-term social, economic, and culture changes such as the Tang-Song Transition and the "localist turn." Students will not only learn historical knowledge about China but also get familiar with the practice of history through close engagements with primary and secondary sources. Prerequisites: no.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HEA, HSP

U16 Hist 3972 Riots and Revolutions: A History of Modern France, 1789-Present

This course surveys the history of France from the Revolution of 1789 through the beginning of the twenty-first century. From the political revolution that kicked off the modern era of French history through the race riots of 2005, this history is punctuated by popular protest and political revolution. In this class we will examine the long history of the modern era through the lens of riots and revolution.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HEU, HSM

U16 Hist 3975 Dark Continent: Europe in the Age of Total War, 1914-1945

World War I led to the deaths of some 20 million people. Although this war has since been viewed as a senseless waste, at its outset, it was seen in a generally positive light: a war for defense against aggression, for the liberation of occupied territories, and for national glory. In this course, students will explore European politics, society, and culture during a period dominated by two world wars. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which religion, ideology, and nationalism appreciably shaped the lives of people living in an era of total war.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 399 Senior Honors Thesis

PREREQUISITES: Satisfactory standing as a candidate for Senior Honors and permission of thesis director.
Same as L22 History 399

Credit variable, maximum 4 units. A&S IQ: HUM, WI EN: H

U16 Hist 400 Independent Study

Credit variable, maximum 3 units. UColl: OLI

U16 Hist 4120 Slavery and Abolition: Global and Historical Perspectives

This course examines the related phenomena of slavery and abolition in world history. It adopts comparative historical methods to tentatively identify common or recurring features of slavery and other forms of unfree labor, as well as noting singular or unique contexts. The geographic and chronological scope of the course ranges from the pre-modern/classical world to the present, with particular emphasis on the European/American enslavement of Africans and their descendants from the 16th century onward and its abolition across the 19th century, and, in this particular context, still narrower attention on slavery and abolition in the USA. Consideration is chiefly historical, and the course draws on a range of interdisciplinary approaches including economics, colonial studies, and anthropology.

Credit 3 units. UColl: CD, HSP, HTR, OLI

U16 Hist 4141 Research Seminar: American Conspiracies

QAnon, 9/11 Truth, the Kennedy Assassination, Area 51, and the Salem Witch Trials - all will be covered in American Conspiracies. Why do Americans believe in the most unlikely explanations for mysterious or inexplicable phenomena? What do popular conspiracy theories reveal about American political culture? How has the structure of conspiratorial thinking in America changed over time and what has remained the same? How do we distinguish between true and false conspiracies? These questions will form the basis of our investigation of America's most popular conspiracies. Prerequisite: U.S. History Survey.

Credit 3 units. UColl: HSM, HSR, HUS, OLI

U16 Hist 4422 Reading Historical Figures: Cultural Analysis and Afterlives

Walt Whitman famously wrote, "If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles." Although we will not be looking under any bootsoles in this course, we will be looking for -- and finding -- U.S. historical figures everywhere in contemporary culture, from television and film to fiction, advertising, and social media. During the semester, Whitman will serve as our case study, and students will be asked to read his poetry and prose. However, our ultimate aim is more wide-reaching. This course approaches a broad question -- What is American identity now? -- from a specific point of reference: the afterlives of figures from the past who are increasingly important to our modern national identity. During the semester, each student will undertake their own research project centered on a figure from the past whose presence in American life looms large today, such as Audre Lorde, Che Guevara, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Baldwin, or Alexander Hamilton, among others.
Same as U89 AMCS 442

Credit 3 units. UColl: ACH, HSM, HUS

U16 Hist 4921 Decoding the City

Does the space between a house and the sidewalk tell you something about class? Does a vacant lot on a dead-end street record the forced relocation of thousands of black residents? Can street names narrate the relationship between the growth of the city and national narratives of immigrant assimilation, continental expansion and world wars? The answer to these questions is yes, but it is far from obvious. The built environment of an American city like St. Louis can seem opaque and silent, when actually it is laden with social, economic, political, gender and racial meanings. This course unpacks St. Louis' built environment by drawing broad historic and theoretical readings on urban space to specific local sites. Readings will assist students in the interrogation of actual places in St. Louis through field visits, so that the streets become unquiet and the embedded meanings in plain sight. This is a hybrid course, with an online discussion component and weekly field work sessions. Attendance at these field work sessions is mandatory. The course counts toward the American Culture Studies major for day students, and fulfills the Humanities and Social Science requirements for the M.A. Program in American Culture Studies.
Same as U89 AMCS 492

Credit 3 units. UColl: ACH, ACS, HSM, HUS, OLH