Taking the events of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath as a point of departure, this course will begin by investigating in parallel histories of two sibling religious societies: Islam and western Christendom. It will outline the European antecedents of American understandings and misunderstandings of the Muslim world down to World War I in comparison with Muslim experiences with, and selective efforts to appropriate, aspects of European society and thought over the same period. Field(s): INTL

This course presents and at the same time critiques a narrative world history from 1500 to the present. The purpose of the course is to convey an understanding of how this rapidly growing field of history is being approahced at three different levels: the narrative textbook level, the theoretical-conceptual level, and, through discussion sections, the research level. All students are required to enroll in a weekly discussion section. Graded work for the courses consists of two brief (5 page) papers based on activities in discussion sections as well as a take-home midterm and final examination. Graduate students who enroll in the course must take a discussion section conducted by the instructor and can expect heavier reading assignments. Field(s): INTL

Dedicated to four main topics on human rights: 1) long-term origins; 2)short-term origins; 3) evolution through the present; 4) moral defenses and ideological criticisms Field(s): INTL

Empires have been consistent - but ever changing - forms of rule in the modern world. This course explores how empires and imperialism have connected the world by forging new forms of politics and culture from 1850 to 2011. It examines key dimensions of imperialism such as nationalism, capitalism, racism, and fascism in Asia, Europe, Africa, and America. Based largely on primary sources - novels, memoirs, official documents, and visual arts, including photographs and film - the course presents imperialism both as experienced in different societies and also in its global interconnectedness. Field(s): INTL

How is the rapid development of global computer networks, digital media, and massive data archives changing the way we study history and culture? We now have access to unprecedentedly large and rich bodies of information generated from the digitization of older materials and the explosion of new content through social media. Machine learning and natural language processing make it possible to answer traditional research questions with greater rigor, and tackle new kinds of projects that would once have been deemed impracticable. At the same time, scholars now have many more ways to communicate with one another and the broader public, and it is becoming both easier - and more necessary - to collaborate across disciplines. Students in this course will begin by learning about some of the core concepts and practices of traditional literary, cultural, and historical analysis, and then consider how they might be transformed. They will explore tools and techniques that include data curation, named-entity extraction, part-of-speech tagging, topic modeling, sentiment analysis, machine and crowd-source translation, social and citation network analysis, and text visualization. The course will take shape as an intensive workshop, where we will gain and share methodological expertise, and begin to think big about digital archives, information architectures, live data, and large-scale textual corpora. The course is open to students at all levels of technical skill and with a variety of research interests. Expect to form groups led by graduate and faculty researchers, to work collaboratively, and to actively shape the trajectory of the course. Field(s): INTL

Social environment, political and religious institutions, and the main intellectual currents of the latin West studied through primary sources and modern historical writings. Field(s): MED

The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Greek Civilization all around the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. This course will examine the Hellenised (greek-based) urban society of the empires of the Hellenistic era (ca. 330-30BCE) Field(s): ANC*

Social structure, class, slavery and manumission, social mobility, life expectation, status and behavior of women, Romanization, town and country, social organizations, education and literacy, philanthropy, amusements in the Roman Empire, 70 B.C. - 250 A.D. Field(s): *ANC

Urban history of 20th century cities in the Americas and Europe. Examines the modern city as ecological and production system, its form and built environment, questions of housing and segregation, uneven urban development, the fragmentation of urban society and space. Course materials draw on cities in the Americas and Europe. Field(s): INTL

This seminar examines major texts in social and political theory and ethics written in Europe and the Mediterranean region between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries CE. Students will be assigned background readings to establish historical context, but class discussion will be grounded in close reading and analysis of the medieval sources themselves. Field(s): MED

This course interrogates the function of art and artists within modern capitalist societies. We will trace the cultural productions, internal dynamics, and social significance of bohemian communities from their origins in 1840s Paris to turn of the century London and New York to interwar Los Angeles to present day Chicago. Students will conduct research exploring the significance of some aspect of a bohemian community. Field(s): US

A seminar exploring the nature and implications of Tibetan visual and cultural material in historical context, with biweekly visits to NYC area museum collections. Topics include object biographies, Buddhist art & ritual objects, Tibetan arms & armor, clothing & jewelry, rugs & furniture. As we explore the incredibly rich Tibetan material resources of New York City's museums, students will have the opportunity to encounter first hand objects from Tibet's past. While the class as a whole will survey a wide variety of materials‑‑from swords & armor to Buddhist images & ritual implements, from rugs & clothes to jewelry & charms-students will select one or two objects as the subject of their object biographies. There will also be opportunities to explore the process and motivations for building collections and displaying Tibetan material culture. Field(s): EA

Emergence of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary mass political movements; European industrialization, nationalism, and imperialism; 20th-century world wars, the Great Depression, and Fascism. Field(s): MEU

Astrology, alchemy, and magic were central components of an educated person's view of the world in early modern Europe. How did these activities become marginalized, while a new philosophy (what we would now call empirical science) came to dominate the discourse of rationality? Through primary and secondary readings, this course examines these "occult" disciplines in relation to the rise of modern science.

Group(s): A

Field(s): *EME

Introduction to the cultural, social, and intellectual history of the upheavals of astronomy, anatomy, mathematics, alchemy from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Field(s): EME

The course explores selected questions in early modern Ukrainian history. It concentrates on the evolution of Ukrainian identity, culture, and political aspirations. These developments are placed in the context of the states that ruled Ukrainian lands and the diverse populations and non-Ukrainian cultures and political movements on these territories. Field(s): MEU

The making and re-making of Central Europe as place and myth from the Enlightenment to post-Communism. Focuses on the cultural, intellectual, and political struggles of the peoples of this region to define themselves. Themes include modernization and backwardness, rationalism and censorship, nationalism and pluralism, landscape and the spatial imagination. Field(s): MEU

The development of Germany has influenced the history of Europe and, indeed, the world in the 20th century in major and dramatic ways. Most historians agree that the country and its leaders played a crucial role in the outbreak of two world wars which cost at least 70 million lives. Germany experienced a revolution in 1918, hyperinflation in 1923, the Great Depression after 1929, and the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. Between 1939 and 1945 there followed the brutal conquest of most of its neighbors and the Holocaust. Subsequently, the country became divided into two halves in which emerged a communist dictotorship, on the one hand, and a Western-style parliamentary-representative system, on the other. The division ended in 1989 with the collapse of the Honecker regime and the unification of East and West Germany. No doubt, Germany's history is confused and confusing and has therefore generated plenty of debate among historians. This course offers a comprehensive survey of the country's development from around 1900 to 2000. It is not just concerned with political events and military campaigns, but will also examine in considerable detail German society and its structures, relations between women and men, trends in both high and popular culture, and the ups and downs of an industrial economy in its global setting. The weekly lectures and section discussions are designed to introduce you to the country's conflicted history and to the controversies it unleashed in international scholarship.

Group(s): B

Field(s): MEU

The history of Britain at the height of its global power. Particular attention will be paid to contestations over political power, and to the emergence of liberal economic and political institutions and ideas. Field(s):MWE

The shaping of European cultural identity through encounters with non-European cultures from 1500 to the postcolonial era. Novels, paintings, and films are among the sources used to examine such topis as exoticism in the Enlightenment, slavery and European capitalism, Orientalism in art, ethnographic writings on the primitive, and tourism. Field(s): MEU

A big picture perspective on the period 1945-2005, the course moves from the New Europe arising from the catastrophe of the Great Depression, Nazi-fascism, and World War II to the New Europe arising out of the contrary forces of globalization. Lectures illuminated by East-West and TransAtlantic comparisons, films, memoirs, and discussions.

Group(s): B

Field(s): MEU

Course enables students to focus on remote past and its relationship to social context and political and economic structures; students will be asked to evaluate evidence drawn from documents of the past, including tracts on diet, health, and food safety, accounts of food riots, first-hand testimonials about diet and food availability. A variety of perspectives will be explored, including those promoted by science, medicine, business, and government. Field(s): MEU

This course examines the political culture of eighteenth-century France, from the final decades of the Bourbon monarchy to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Among our primary aims will be to explore the origins of the Terror and its relationship to the Revolution as a whole. Other topics we will address include the erosion of the king's authority in the years leading up to 1789, the fall of the Bastille, the Constitutions of 1791 and 1793, civil war in the Vendée, the militarization of the Revolution, the dechristianization movement, attempts to establish a new Revolutionary calendar and civil religion, and the sweeping plans for moral regeneration led by Robespierre and his colleagues in 1793-1794. Field(s): MEU

The major intellectual and social acommodations made by Americans to industrialization and urbanization; patterns of political thought from Reconstruction to the New Deal; selected topics on post-World War II developments. Field(s): US

The develoment of constitutional doctrine, 1787 to the present. The Constitution as an experiement in republicanism; states' rights and the Civil War amendments; freedom of contract and its opponents; the emergence of civil liberties; New Deal intervention and the crisis of the Court; the challenge of civil rights. Field(s): US

A survey of the economic and social history of British North America (with excursions into French, Dutch, and Native American communities) from 1607 to 1763. Major themes will include immigration, community structures, the household economy, slavery and other labor systems, and the cultural transformation of the colonies in the eighteenth century. Group(s): A, D

This course examines the cultural, political, and constitutional origins of the United States. It covers the series of revolutionary changes in politics and society between the mid-18th and early 19th centuries that took thirteen colonies out of the British Empire and turned them into an independent and expanding nation. Starting with the cultural and political glue that held the British Empire together, the course follows the political and ideological processes that broke apart and ends with the series of political struggles that shaped the identity of the US. Using a combination of primary and secondary materials relating to various walks of life and experience from shopping to constitutional debates, students will be expected to craft their own interpretations of this fundamental period of American history. Lectures will introduce students to important developments and provide a framework from them to develop their own analytical skills. Group(s): DField(s): US

The develoment of constitutional doctrine, 1787 to the present. The Constitution as an experiement in republicanism; states' rights and the Civil War amendments; freedom of contract and its opponents; the emergence of civil liberties; New Deal intervention and the crisis of the Court; the challenge of civil rights. Field(s): US

The coming of the Civil War and its impact on the organization of American society afterwards. Group(s): D

American politics, society, and culture from the aftermath of World War I through the Great Depression and World War II. Field(s): US

Although images of the frontier and of the west have long dominated the popular imagination of American history, in fact the United States urbanized rapidly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and 80 percent of the national population now lives in metropolitan areas of more than a million people. How did big cities respond to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, transportation, housing, open space, and recreation? The course will feature frequent field trips voa ferry, foot, and bus. Field(s): US

Since the emergence of a field called "women's history" in the early 1970s, the amount of information we have gathered about women has mounted astronomically. Historians have discovered the presence of women in every aspect of American life and culture. In more recent years they have begun to ask a different kind of question. Does it matter? If so, how? What is a gender analysis and how, if at all, does it alter the way we look at our past? How does the new knowledge we have acquired change our understanding of America's past? Or does it? This course is intended to introduce you to some of the newest questions now being asked by historians of women and gender and to some of the intriguing information we have uncovered about women in the American past. Along the way, we will explore how this material shapes our interpretations of U.S. history and examine the relationship between the history of women and the history of gender. Readings are organized roughly chronologically, moving through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and rotating around encounters with some of the most salient ideas in American life, including: Liberty, Democracy, Equality, Individualism, and Nationalism. At each juncture we will ask how introducing a gendered perspective changes our perceptions of the past.

Field(s): US

This course examines major themes in U.S. intellectual history since the Civil War. Among other topics, we will examine the public role of intellectuals; the modern liberal-progressive tradition and its radical and conservative critics; the uneasy status of religion ina secular culture; cultural radicalism and feminism; critiques of corporate capitalism and consumer culture; the response of intellectuals to hot and cold wars, the Great Depression, and the upheavals of the 1960s. Fields(s): US

The history of work, workers, and unions during the 20th century. Topics include scientific management, automation, immigrant workers, the rise of industrial unionism, labor politics, occupational discrimination, and working-class community life. Field(s): US

Major expressions of American radicalism, ranging from early labor and communitarian movements to the origins of feminism, the abolitionist movement, and on to Populism, Socialism, and the "Old" and "New" lefts. Field(s): US

The social, cultural, economic, political, and demographic development of America's metropolis from colonial days to present. Slides and walking tours supplement the readings (novels and historical works).Field(s): US

An exploration in global context of science and technology in the United States and their dynamic roles in the larger society from the colonial period to recent years. Attention will be given to key figures and their contributions to the earth, physical, and biological sciences and to innovators and their achievements. Among the major topics covered will be exploration, the agricultural, industrial, and information economies, the military and national defense, religion, culture, and the environment. Field(s): US

A survey of African-American history since the Civil War. An emphasis is placed on the black quest for equality and community. Group(s): D

Formerly listed as "Explorations of Themes in African-American History, 1865-1945"

Field(s): ANC

Medieval Jews and Christians defined themselves in contrast to one another. This course will examine the conditions and contradictions that emerged from competing visions and neighborly relations. It is arranged to comprehend broad themes rather than strict chronology and to engage both older and very recent scholarship on the perennial themes of tolerance and hate. Field(d): JWS/MED

The political, cultural, and social history of the State of Israel from its founding in 1948 to the present.

Group(s): C

Field(s): ME

This course is a survey of African history from the 18th century to the contemporary period. We will explore six major themes in African History: Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, Colonialism in Africa, the 1940s, Nationalism and Independence Movements, Post-Colonialism in Africa, and Issues in the Making of Contemporary Africa. Students who take this course may also take Introduction to Africa Studies: Africa Past, Present, and Future. Field(s): AFR

Critically surveys how the coincidence of the development of audiovisual mass culture and the rise of the United States as a world power was decisive for the history of each across the twentieth century. Special attention will be paid to film and television as domestic ideology and international propaganda. Field(s): LA/US

This undergraduate lecture course explores the events and currents that shaped the course of modern Egyptian history over the last two centuries. It ranges from the mid-18th century to present and covers such themes as Egypt under Ottoman, French and British rule; Egypt's dynastic rule, and its relation to neighbouring states in the 19th century; nationalism, modernism and feminism, and the role of cinema, literature and the politics of ideas in the 20th; and, finally, the regimes of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and their relation to the region and the wider world. Field(s): ME

A survey of East African history over the past two millennia with a focus on political and social change. Themes include early religious and political ideas, the rise of states on the Swahili coast and between the Great Lakes, slavery, colonialism, and social and cultural developments in the 20th century. Field(s): AFR

This course offers a survey of main themes in West African history over the last millenium, with particular emphasis on the period from the mid-fifteenth through the twentieth century. Themes include the age of West African empires (Ghana, Mali, Songhay), re-alignments of economic and political energies towards the Atlantic coast, the rise and decline of the trans-Atlantic trade in slaves, the advent and demise of colonial rule, and internal displacement, migrations, and revolutions. In the latter part of the course, we will appraise the continuities and ruptures of the colonial and post-colonial eras. Group(s): CField(s): AFR

The lecture class is an interdisciplinary exploration of the history of the African continent during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Its focus is the intersection of politics, economics, culture and society. Using colonialism, empire, and globalization as key analytical frames, it pays special attention to social, political and cultural changes that shaped the various African individual and collective experiences.Field(s): AFR

Focus on the history of modern India, using the life and times of Mohandas Gandhi as the basis for not only an engagement with an extraordinary historical figure, but also for a consideration of a great variety of historical issues, including the relationship between nationalism and religion, caste politics in India and affirmative action policies in the United States today, and racism as encountered by Gandhi in relation to colonialism and the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. Field(s): SA

Examines how women experienced empire and asks how their actions and activities produced critical shifts in the workings of colonial societies worldwide. Topics include sexuality, the colonial family, reproduction, race, and political activism. Field(s): SA

This survey lecture course will provide students with a broad overview of the history of South Asia as a region - focusing on key political, cultural and social developments in the last two millennia. There will be an emphasis on using primary sources (in translation), especially epigraphic, and material artifacts. Our key concerns will be on the political, cultural and theological encounters of varied communities, the growth of cities and urban spaces, the local and global networks of trade and migrations and the development of an Indo- Persian milieu across South Asia. The survey will begin, in earnest, from the mid 6th CE polities and the subsequent formation of various Arab-Turkic principalities. The development and growth of hybrid polities such as Delhi Sultanate, Vijayanagar will be one key concern. The emergence of Indic traditions such as Sufic, Bhakti movements as well as forms of governance, scriptural communities, and new elite structures during the 1300-1600 CE period will be another major focus. Near the end of our course, we will look forward towards the establishment and growth of the Mughal Empire and the arrival of European trading companies and accompanying colonial powers. Keywords for the course are: space, historiography, regionalism, world systems, political theologies, Vernacularization, courtly and sacral cultures, urbanism, colonialism. Field(s): SA

This is the second of a two-semester survey focusing on the historical evolution of the cultures, polities, and societies in the Indian sub-continent from the early modern to the postcolonial periods. The chronological scope of this sequence is the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. We begin with the rise (and demise) of the Mughal empire, followed by inquiries into the nature of the eighteenth century "transition" to European rule, take up questions of colonial rule and anticolonialism, and end, finally, by exploring debates about violence, secularism, and democracy in postcolonial South Asia. We will focus in particular on the flowing themes: non-Western state formation; debates about colonial economy and underdevelopment; the structure and ideology of anticolonial thought; organized challenges to the nation-form by political minorities-Muslims, untouchables, and women; and contemporary debates about religion, rights, and violence. The class relies extensively on primary texts, and aims to expose students to multiple historiographical perspectives for understanding South Asia's past. Field(s): SA

Issues pertaining to Korean history from its beginnings to the early modern era. Group(s): A, CField(s): EA

This course challenges the long-standing association of fashion with the West. We will trace the transformation of China's sartorial landscape from the premodern era into the present. Using textual, visual, and material sources, we will explore: historical representations of dress in China; the politics of dress; fashion and the body; women's labor; consumption and modernity; industry and the world-market. We will also read key texts in fashion studies to reflect critically on how we define fashion in different historical and cultural contexts. Our approach will be interdisciplinary, embracing history, anthropology, art, and literature. Field(s): EA

The seminar will combine cultural with economic history, but with more stress on the former. The aim is to investigate the meaning of being rich and being poor among the Greeks and Romans, that is to say in a pre-industrial society, with special attention to methods of research. We shall discuss among other topics ways of getting rich, contempt for wealth, safety nets, ostentation, consumption choices, bribery, markers of well-being - and money. The time period will extend from Homer to about 250 CE. Prerequisite: a college course in Greek and/or Roman history. Field(s): *ANC

This is a fifteen-week undergraduate seminar. It is designed to provide an introduction to the late antique period of the three great civilizations of the ancient Nile Valley, Egypt, Ethiopia and Nubia. Course material will cover the social and religious history of Egypt under Roman rule; the collapse of the ancient Nubian civilization of Meroe; the emergence of its independent successor kingdoms; the birth of a centralized and literate society in the Ethiopian highlands; the Christianization of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia; and the survival of all three civilizations in the early medieval period, Egypt under Islamic rule and Nubia and Ethiopia as independent powers. Field(s): ANC*

This course will examine the role of love and hate and their changing place in the culture of the elite groups from Late Antiquity to the twelfth century. Medieval chronicles, poems, letters and legal texts, both religious and civil, will be used, deconstructed and decoded with a special attention to gender and to the emotional relations between men and women. Field(s): MED

The course will examine the relation between a rich and urban elite and artistic creativity during The Low Countries' several and successive 'Golden Ages'. Therefore, the course will address the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, Antwerp and Brabant from c. 1480 to c. 1580, and the southern Low Countries as a whole from c. 1380 to c. 1480. The following questions will be considered: Who were the sponsors, and why did they invest in specific artistic genres? Why did the gravity centers regularly shift to a neighboring region, from south to north? What were the reasons for the dynamics in the system as a whole, which surely also have political dimensions? All these questions will be discussed for the period from the 13th to the 16th-early 17th century, keeping in mind that these patterns may have a more general character. Field(s): EME

In this course we will examine theoretical and historical developments that framed the notions of censorship and free expression in early modern Europe. In the last two decades, the role of censorship has become one of the significant elements in discussions of early modern culture. The history of printing and of the book, of the rise national-political cultures and their projections of control, religious wars and denominational schisms are some of the factors that intensified debate over the free circulation of ideas and speech. Indexes, Inquisition, Star Chamber, book burnings and beheadings have been the subjects of an ever growing body of scholarship. Field(s): EME

How did Western scholars/missionaries/anthropologists/colonial officials understand the strange world of India they found themselves in? The religion was unrecognizable by the terms of a Western understanding: it was not congregational, confessional, or recognizably scriptural. Culturally, Indian society was deeply hierarchical, divided by a system called "caste" which was both scriptural and not. Furthermore, religion and caste contributed centrally to the understanding of "culture" a term invoked interchangeably with "tradition." The divide between caste, religion, and culture, at the same time the difficulty of implementing that divide baffled Western scholars and missionaries of the late medieval period, but also later (19th century) colonial officials and anthropologists. Knowledge about India was centrally produced by these various gatherers and compilers of information on India, and in this course we begin with early accounts of missionary activities, and will work our way through the writings of political theorists, sociologists, anthropologists, in order to arrive at an understanding of the interdisciplinary and anthropological history of India. Field(s): SA

This course explores manners of conceiving and being a self in early modern Europe (ca. 1400-1800). Through the analysis of a range of sources, from autobiographical writings to a selection of theological, philosophical, artistic, and literary works, we will address the concept of personhood as a lens through which to analyze topics such as the valorization of interiority, the formation of mechanist and sensationalist philosophies of selfhood, and, more generally, the human person's relationship with material and existential goods. This approach is intended to deepen and complicate our understanding of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and other movements around which histories of the early modern period have typically been narrated. Field(s): EME

A survey of the relationships between medical expertise and human dietary habits from Antiquity to the present, giving special attention to the links between practical and moral concerns and between expert knowledge and common sense. Field(s): EME

The course explores the dramatically changing human landscape of modern Poland through personal narratives (diaries, letters, memoirs) and social documentation (autobiography contests, life-record method, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive in the Warsaw ghetto). The course serves as an introduction to key personal experiences of the Poland's twentieth century: social distress, emigration and forced dislocation, genocide, and political violence. We will reflect critically on the main categories of "the era of the witness," such as personal experience and literary responses to it, testimony, memory and eye-witnessing. The course aims to broaden, both historically and conceptually, our understanding of the witness as an iconic figure of the twentieth-century atrocities by including the East Central European tradition of personal writing and social documentation of the interwar and postwar periods. Field(s): MEU

In this course we will examine key aspects of the history of the Soviet Union through stories and representations, dividing it for this purpose into three main periods: The time of origins, foundations, and foundational myths (between the October Revolution in 1917 and the onset of Stalinism at the end of the 1920s), the period of Stalinist re-founding (until the mid-1950s), and the post-Stalin period with its search for alternatives within Soviet Socialism/Communism. Finally we will also look at the narrative and representational legacies of the Soviet Union. We will not restrict ourselves to official or public stories or those that could be published under Soviet rule. Instead the course seeks to integrate narratives from widely different sources and genres, including high culture, party-state propaganda (literary and visual), self-representations, and conformist as well as alternative or dissident voices, memoirs, diaries and novels. Field(s): MEU

A seminar reviewing some of the major works of Russian thought, literature, and memoir literature that trace the emergence of intelligentsia ideologies in 19th- and 20th-century Russia. Focuses on discussion of specific texts and traces the adoption and influence of certain western doctrines in Russia, such as idealism, positivism, utopian socialism, Marxism, and various 20th-century currents of thought. Field(s): MEU

The Soviet Union ceased to exist within living memory. Its dissolution largely coincided with the end of much of the post-World-War-Two international order, whether called Cold War or Détente. We are still living through the reverberations of these two "ends of history." One consequence is that our perspective on Soviet history has been changing and will continue to change. This course will introduce its participants to what is new about the Soviet past. It will combine approaches that are mostly still new when applied to Soviet history (subaltern studies or the history of sexuality, for instance), topics that are largely new (capitalism, for instance), and topics that are traditional (revolution or Communism, for instance), which we will seek to look at in a fresh way. Focusing on what is new does not mean to exclude the "classics"; in fact, sometimes it means to return to them. Field(s); MEU

This class focuses on the history of the Soviet Union and Russia between the death of Stalin/the end of totalitarianism and the present. It spans the turning-point date of 1991 when the Soviet Union abolished itself and was replaced by successor states, the most important of which is Russia. Not ending Soviet history with 1991 and not beginning Russian history with it either, we will seek to understand continuities as well as change. We will also draw on a diverse set of texts (and movies), including history, political science, journalism, fiction, and memoirs, feature and documentary movies. Geographically weighted toward Russia (and not the other also important successor states), in terms of content, this class concentrates on politics and society, including, crucially, the economy. These concepts, however, will be understood broadly. To come to grips with key issues in Soviet and Russian history in the historically short period after Stalinist totalitarianism, we will have to pay close attention to not only our analytical categories, but also to the way in which the political and the social have been understood by Soviet and Russian contemporaries. The class will introduce students to crucial questions of Russia's recent past, present, and future: authoritarianism and democratization, the role of the state and that of society, reform and retrenchment, communism and capitalism, and, last but not least, the nature of authority and legitimacy. Field(s): MEU

This seminar is dedicated to studying the historical developments of Europe in the Cold War, from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We will examine the major shifts in contemporary European history as they relate to Cold War conflicts and competitions, including the Yalta and Potsdam meetings; Marshall Plan reconstruction; the workings of NATO; the Prague Spring; non-proliferation movements; and Eurocommunism trends. We will consider a wide range of historical perspectives, including but not limited to political, geographic, economic, cultural, and military frameworks.

Field(s): MEU

Examination of European understandings of human senses through the production and reception of art, literature, music, food, and sensual enjoyments in Britain and France. Readings include changing theories concerning the five senses; efforts to master the passions; the rise of sensibility and feeling for others; concerts and the patronage of art; the professionalization of the senses. Field(s): MEU

In this seminar we will examine the immediate impact and the longer-running legacies of the Second World War in the Netherlands, with reference to several other Western European nations (France, Belgium). The 'Long War' will relate to the Second World War as history in the first place, discussing the place of the occupied nation(s) in 'Hitler's Empire' (Mark Mazower). We also will take into account that the end of the war in Europe was followed by new kinds of external conflicts with strong internal repercussions: the Cold War and the first wave of European decolonization. The perspective will focus on the nation-states, endangered in its very existence by oppressive foreign occupation, subsequently in need of rebuilding and reinventing themselves against many odds. The second element of the seminar is the legacy of the 'Long War', stretching over the generations to the present day. The Long War has been subject to a never-ending series of controversies in the public sphere that have profoundly influenced the historiography of the war in the different nations. In the course, we will explore the interconnections between politics of memory, historiography and cultural interpretations of the embattled past (films, novels, televised documentaries in particular). Field(s): MEU

The seminar will attempt to offer a historical context for evaluating contemporary discussions of the role of the UN and the nature of international relations. It will cover the formation and metamorphoses of the United Nations itself, exploring in particular its role in the Cold War and in the decolonisation process. We will look too at why some international organisations [the IMF] appear to have flourished while others failed. Among the topics to be covered are the changing role of international law, sovereignty and human rights regimes, development aid as international politics, the collapse of the gold standard and its impact. We will end by looking at the politics of UN reform, and new theories of the role of institutions in global affairs, and ask what light they shed on the future of international governance now that the Cold War is over. Students will be expected to read widely in primary as well as secondary sources and to produce a research paper of their own.

Field(s): MEU/US

Explores how conceptions of desire and sexuality, gendered and raced bodies, shaped major events and processes in modern Europe: the Enlightenment and European empires; political and sexual revolutions; consumption and commodity fetishism; the metropolis and modern industry; psychoanalysis and the avant-garde; fascism and the Cold War; secularization,and post-socialism. Featuring: political and philosophical tracts; law, literature and film. Field(s): MEU

This seminar deals with how Americans have treated and understood the natural world, connected or failed to connect to it, since 1800. It focuses on changing context over time, from the agrarian period to industrialization, followed by the rise of the suburban and hyper-technological landscape. We will trace the shift from natural history to evolutionary biology, give special attention to the American interest in entomology, ornithology, and botany, examine the quest to save pristine spaces, and read from the works of Buffon, Humboldt, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Darwin, Aldo Leopold, Nabokov, among others. Perspectives on naming, classifying, ordering, and most especially, collecting, will come under scrutiny. Throughout the semester we will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the environmentalist movement, confront those who thought they could defy nature, transcend it, and even live without it. Field(s): US

This reading seminar will examine the history of colonial North America from the sixteenth through mid-eighteenth centuries. Employing a comparative Atlantic framework to study Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlements in North America, this course will explore key themes of conflict and community in the societies that developed during this era. Readings will include some of the most important recent literature in the field and cover topics such as European-indigenous relations, race and slavery, religious culture, and gender construction. This seminar requires two response papers, a final historiographical essay, and class participation, including an oral presentation. Field(s): US

In this seminar we will examine interdisciplinary approaches to the writing of history using archival material. We will look at how knowledge is organized, stored, described, accessed, and replicated through the use of digital and material objects held in archives. The seminar takes as its point of departure the University of Michigan Sawyer Seminar's conception of archives "not simply as historical repositories but as a complex of structures, processes, and epistemologies situated at a critical point of the intersection between scholarship, cultural practices, politics, and technologies." Among the topics we will explore are how archives and archiving intersect with the production of knowledge, with social memory, and with politics. This is a U.S. history course. While the theoretical approaches we will study are, of necessity, interdisciplinary, the application of them will be to archival material related to U.S. history. This seminar requires participants to commit substantial time outside of class working with unpublished materials in Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) both for reading assignments and as part of a final project. Field(s): US

The period known as the "Progressive Era" in the United States witnessed major transformations in American society. We will examine currents of social change and reform in the terms of mass immigration, urbanization, and industrialization; commercialized culture; Jim Crow segregation; and U.S. projects on the world stage. The seminar will include history, historiography, and a term paper based on original research in archival and other primary materials. Closed to first-year students. Field(s): US

This course interrogates the function of art and artists within modern capitalist societies. We will trace the cultural productions, internal dynamics, and social significance of bohemian communities from their origins in 1840s Paris to turn of the century London and New York to interwar Los Angeles to present day Chicago. Students will conduct research exploring the significance of some aspect of a bohemian community. Field(s): US

This seminar provides an intensive introduction to the history of the Atlantic slave trade. The course will consider the impact of the traffic on Western Europe and the Americas, as well as on Africa, and will give special attention to the experiences of both captives and captors. Assignments include three short papers and a longer research paper of 20 to 25 pages. Field(s): INTL

In the decades since the publication of Silent Spring and the rise of the environmental movement, public awareness of the impact of industrial products on human health has grown enormously. There is growing concern over BPA, lead, PCBs, asbestos, and synthetic materials that make up the world around us. This course will focus on environmental history, industrial and labor history as well as on how twentieth century consumer culture shapes popular and professional understanding of disease. Throughout the term the class will trace the historical transformation of the origins of disease through primary sources such as documents gathered in lawsuits, and medical and public health literature. Students will be asked to evaluate historical debates about the causes of modern epidemics of cancer, heart disease, lead poisoning, asbestos-related illnesses and other chronic conditions. They will also consider where responsibility for these new concerns lies, particularly as they have emerged in law suits. Together, we will explore the rise of modern environmental movement in the last 75 years. Field(s): US

How have Americans used culture as a means of responding to, interpreting, and memorializing periods of social, economic, and political crisis? Do these periods create breaks in cultural forms and practices? Or do periods of significant upheaval encourage an impetus to defend cultural practices, thereby facilitating the ?invention of tradition?? How are the emotional responses produced by critical moments?whether trauma, outrage, insecurity, or fear?turned into cultural artifacts? And, finally, how are cultural crises memorialized? This course focuses on Americans? cultural responses to the lynching of black Americans in the era of World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II to answer these questions. We will examine a wide range of individual and collective cultural expressions, including anti-lynching plays and songs, WPA programs, the 1939 World?s Fair, war photographs and radio broadcasts, the zoot suit and swing culture, and the military?s effort to preserve culture in European war areas. Field(s): US

An examination of the years from the end of World War II to the beginning of the 1960s, focusing on three areas: the Cold War, the "Affluent Society," and the "Haunted Fifties," It includes both works of history and works of literature. Field(s): US

This course explores critical areas of New York's economic development in the 20th century, with a view to understanding the rise, fall and resurgence of this world capital. Discussions also focus on the social and political significance of these shifts. Assignments include primary sources, secondary readings, film viewings, trips, and archival research. Students use original sources as part of their investigation of New York City industries for a 20-page research paper. An annotated bibliography is also required. Students are asked to give a weekly update on research progress, and share information regarding useful archives and websites.Field(s): US

This course examines the history of childhood and how it can refine contemporary psychological and legal thinking about children and inform current debates about the young. The class's approach will be highly interdisciplinary, drawing upon the insights and methods of anthropology, art history, biology, demography, developmental psychology, law, literature, philosophy, and sociology. We will examine childhood both as lived experience-shaped by such factors as class, ethnicity, gender, geographical region, and historical era-and as a cultural category that adults impose upon children. The class will also place a special emphasis on public policy, covering topics such as adoption, child abuse and neglect, children's rights, disability, juvenile delinquency, schooling, and social welfare policies. Field(s): US

Prerequisites: Previous course work in African-American history or social science; United States social history; or sociomedical sciences required.

Students will gain a solid knowledge and understanding of the health issues facing African Americans since the turn of the twentieth century. Topics to be examined will include, but will not be limited to, black women's heath organization and care; medical abuses and the legacy of Tuskegee; tuberculosis control; sickle cell anemia; and substance abuse. Group(s): DField(s): US Formerly listed as "History of African-American Health and Health Movements"

This seminar examines the transformation of American society from national independence to the Civil War, paying particular attention to changes in agriculture, war, and treaty-making with Indian nations, the rise of waged labor, religious movements, contests over slavery, and the ways print culture revealed and commented on the tensions of the era. The readings include writings of de Tocqueville, Catherine Beecher, and Frederick Douglass, as well as family correspondence, diaries, and fiction. Students will write a 20 page research paper on primary sources. Field(s): US

In this seminar we will use readings from the interdisciplinary study of memory (theory) to examine published and unpublished American letters, diaries, and autobiographies (practice). With regard to memory, we will be concerned with what is remembered, what is forgotten, and how this process occurs. We'll explore concepts including collective/shared memory, commemoration, documentation, trauma, nation, autobiography, nostalgia, etc., and we'll test this theory against written narratives of the self. The goals of the seminar are to explore theoretical concepts of memory, apply them to written examples of memory, and to develop proficiency in the use of these skills inside and outside an academic environment. This is a history course and many of the narratives we will read are American 19th-century texts. These will include, but not be limited to, those on the experience of the Civil War. The course requires participants to commit substantial time outside of class working with unpublished materials in Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library for assignments and as part of a final project. Field(s): US

The seminar will focus on traditional Jewish life, in the Eastern European towns known as shtetlekh, from the early modern period until late 19th century. Through study of various primary sources, mainly memoirs, autobiographies, stories and poetry, we will portray the everyday life, especially childhood and adolescence, and the confrontation between tradition and modernity. Field(s): JEW

This course analyzes Jewish intellectual history from Spinoza to 1939. It tracks the radical transformation that modernity yielded in Jewish life, both in the development of new, self-consciously modern, iterations of Judaism and Jewishness and in the more elusive but equally foundational changes in "traditional" Judaisms. Questions to be addressed include: the development of the modern concept of "religion" and its effect on the Jews; the origin of the notion of "Judaism" parallel to Christianity, Islam, etc.; the rise of Jewish secularism and of secular Jewish ideologies, especially the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), modern Jewish nationalism, Zionism, Jewish socialism, and Autonomism; the rise of Reform, Modern Orthodox, and Conservative Judaisms; Jewish neo-Romanticism and neo-Kantianism, and Ultra-Orthodoxy. Field(s): JWS

A seminar on the historical, political, and cultural developments in the Jewish communities of early-modern Western Europe (1492-1789) with particular emphasis on the transition from medieval to modern patterns. We will study the resettlement of Jews in Western Europe, Jews in the Reformation-era German lands, Italian Jews during the late Renaissance, the rise of Kabbalah, and the beginnings of the quest for civil Emancipation. Field(s): JWS/EME

Latin American societies have long been characterized by some of the most dramatic economic and social inequalities--of class, income or resource distribution, race, ethnicity, color, gender, and geography --anywhere in the world. This seminar examines patterns of inequality from different disciplinary perspectives, both historically and in the present. We examine not only causes and proposed remedies but how scholars have defined inequality as an intellectual problem in the first place. Field(s): LA

An exploration of Cuba's late colonial period, wars of independence, republican/neocolonial period, 1933 and 1959 revolutions, and eras under the governments of Fidel and Raúl Castro, including recent history. Topics considered will include: Cuban sovereignty; the agricultural basis of the Cuban economy under colonialism and neocolonialism; enslaved labor and abolition; social and political struggles, both nonviolent and armed; the development of Cuban nationalisms, with an emphasis on the roles of race, diaspora, and exile in this process; Cuban-U.S. relations over many decades; and Cuba's role as a global actor, particularly after the 1959 revolution. Field(s): LA

This course focuses on the cases of Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay to explore the complex relationships between social conflict, youth counterculture, and leftist radicalism which characterized the 1960s all over the region. In-depth reading and discussion of a number of relevant primary sources and available scholarship in English will build a foundation for thinking through these issues. In the first part of the class, we will analyze the political mobilization and cultural modernization in the framework of the conflicts that shaped the Cold War in the subcontinent. After this general introduction, we will focus on 1968 to examine the impact of countercultural ideas and practices on different political traditions, particularly student and leftist politics. Next we will analyze the rise and fall of the New Left, which challenged the ideological commitment, political strategies, and conservative cultural politics of the traditional left. Discussion will incorporate conventional views and recent academic debates on this shift in the region, which also addressing the spiraling of state repression that forced both old and new groups to reconsider strategies in the three countries under examination. Finally, students will be encouraged to assess how all of these events and themes echoed in social memory through cultural representations and their increasing power to either legitimize or discredit political positions. Field(s): LA

Focusing on the cases of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, this course examines the birth and development of the movements that protested human rights violations by right-wing authoritarian regimes in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In the first part of the class, we will explore some of the basic concerns that historians, political theorists, and social scientists have raised about authoritarian regimes in late twentieth-century South America. We will aim at concocting a working definition of authoritarianism, discussing the emergence of a new authoritarian model in the Southern Cone and examining the specific challenges confronted by the human rights movements. After this brief survey, the class will focus on the different ways of dealing with the repressive, legal, and political legacies of these regimes. We will analyze the first efforts at denunciation launched by political exiles and transnational human rights groups, as well as the formation of groups of victims' relatives that aimed at exposing ongoing abuses in their countries. We will also study the role of human rights claims during the transitional periods and the ways in which the post-transitional democratic governments faced these calls for accountability. The course will make a basic distinction between concrete legal actions taken to punish those accused of human rights violations, where the state was called to play a decisive role, and more disorganized efforts to know what happened and spread this knowledge to the society at large. We will explore this distinction, discussing how different actors posed their claims and constructed narratives to account for human rights violations and past political violence. This exploration will include the existing literature on justice and truth telling in the politics of transition, as well as scholarship on social memory and historical commemorations. Field(s): LA

This course will examine some of the problems inherent in Western historical writing on non-European cultures, as well as broad questions of what itmeans to write history across cultures. The course will touch on therelationship between knowledge and power, given that much of the knowledge we will be considering was produced at a time of the expansion of Western power over the rest of the world. By comparing some of the "others" which European historians constructed in the different non-western societies they depicted, and the ways other societies dealt with alterity and self, we may be able to derive a better sense of how the Western sense of self was constructed. Group(s): C Field(s): ME

Unlike European history, which divides into generally agreed upon eras and is structured around a clear narrative of religious and political events from Roman times down to the present, the broad sweep of Islamic and Middle Eastern history appears in quite different lights depending on who is wielding the broom. Theories of Islamic history can embody or conceal political, ethnic, or religious agendas; and no consensus has gained headway among the many writers who have given thought to the issue. The study of theories of Islamic history, therefore, provides a good opportunity for history majors to explore and critique broad conceptual approaches. A seminar devoted to such explorations should be a valuable capstone experience for studnets with a special interest in Islam and the Middle East. One or two works will be read by the entire class each week, and two students will be assigned to lead the discussions of the week's readings. Grades for the course will be based half on class participation and half on a 15-page term paper devoted to a topic approved by the instructor.

Field(s): ME

In this seminar we will put the histories of the modern Balkans and Middle East in conversation by seeing them through the lens of the "post-Ottoman world." Moving beyond the national histories of countries such as Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, we will examine the common dilemmas and divergent paths of a variety of groups, institutions, and individual figures throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Field(s): ME

In this colloquium we will examine what the Cold War meant in a Latin American context and how historians today are interpreting it. We will primarily be focusing on new conceptual frameworks and historiographical trends thathave emerged in the last decade as a result of archival openings, oral histories and the publication of memoirs. Although it would be helpful to have a background in US-Latin American relations and/or Latin American history it is not a prerequisite of the course. Because the colloquium is largely structured chronologically, students will gain an understanding of events, turning points, and developments in Latin America throughout the twentieth century that will allow them to understand the region's past. It worth underlining that this is not a course about US interventions in the region, although the United States often contributed to the way in which the Cold War in Latin America unfolded. Instead, we will be focusing squarely on Latin American perspectives and looking at what the Cold War meant to those inside the region. Specifically, we will be addressing the role of ideology and ideological struggles in twentieth-century Latin America; how these ideas responded to the challenges of modernity and development; why Marxism was popular in the region and how it was interpreted; the extent to which it influenced nationalists and revolutionaries; and who opposed it, why, and how. Throughout the semester we will be focusing in on international and intra-regional dimensions to the conflict as well as transnational stories of exile and movements. Students will therefore also be exploring how events in one part of Latin America impacted upon people in other areas of region either directly or indirectly. In this respect, we will be paying particular attention to the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz inGuatemala, the Cuban Revolution's impact on revolutionary and counter- evolutionary trends in Latin America in the 1960s, the significance of the Brazilian coup of 1964 and the subsequent influence that Brazil's military regime had in shaping politics the Southern Cone. The colloquium is also designed to allow students to examine how Latin American populations, parties, leaders and exiles interacted with their contemporaries in other parts of the world and to draw comparisons. Field(s): LA

This seminar focuses on how the discovery and exploitation of petroleum at the turn of the 20th century has shaped the formation and consolidation of Arab states of the Persian Gulf, permanently changing the geo-political and social landscape of the Arabian Peninsula. We will study economic, social, and political formations across the Gulf on the eve of the discovery of oil and the attendant transformations that accompanied its exploitation. We will also pay close attention to the role that imperial rivalries and foreign oil companies played in shaping the Gulf states, their economies, systems of rule, foreign relations, borders, and built environment. We also study the populist, anti-imperialist movements of the mid-twentieth century in the context of the ?Arab Cold War.? Saudi Arabia has received more academic attention than the other Gulf states and thus takes up a larger part of the course, but we will also cover Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Oman. We will read historical, anthropological, literary and political economy studies and oil firm histories, drawing on works on Yemen, Iraq, Iran and the US, to follow transformations in political, social and economic life in this understudied region that has played a central role in world politics and economy since the 1900s. Field(s): ME

An exploration of the historiography of contemporary (post-1960) Africa, this course asks what African history is, what is unique about it, and what is at stake in its production. Field(s): AFR

This course charts the history of health and healing from, as far as is possible, a perspective interior to Africa. It explores changing practices and understandings of disease, etiology, healing and well-being from pre-colonial times through into the post-colonial. A major theme running throughout the course is the relationship between medicine, the body, power and social groups. This is balanced by an examination of the creative ways in which Africans have struggled to compose healthy communities, albeit with varied success, whether in the fifteenth century or the twenty-first. Field(s): AFR

The central themes of the course will be changes and continuities in gender performance and the politics of gender and sexual difference within African societies; social, political, and economic processes that have influenced gender and sexual identities; connections between gender, sexuality, inequality, and activism at local, national, continental, and global scales. Readings will include key works in African gender history and the history of sexuality, along with texts, broadly construed, on gender, sexuality, and governance from other disciplines or focusing on other parts of the world. The main objective of the course is to introduce students to significant debates in the study of gender and sexuality in the African History field. Emphasis will be placed on the theoretical and methodological approaches that have informed scholarship on gender and sexuality in African History. Field(s): AFR

In this course we will explore in a critical manner the concept of poverty in Africa. The emphasis is on historicizing categories such as poverty and wealth, debt and charity and on the ways in which people in Africa have understood such categories. As such the course takes a longue durée approach spanning over a millennium of history, ending with contemporary understandings of poverty. Field(s): AFR

Explores the intersections between imagining and materiality in Bombay/Mumbai from its colonial beginnings to the present. Housing, slums, neighborhoods, streets, public culture, contestation, and riots are examined through film, architecture, fiction, history and theory. It is an introduction to the city; and to the imaginative enterprise in history. Field(s): SA

Field(s): EA

Major cultural, political, social, economic and literary issues in the history of this 500-year long period. Reading and discussion of primary texts (in translation) and major scholarly works. All readings will be in English.Major Cultures Requirement: East Asian Civilization List B. Group(s): A, C

Introduces the cultural, political, social, and economic history of the Japanese archipelago from earliest times through the 16th century C.E. A variety of primary source materials in translation and a sampling of English-language secondary sources. Loosely organized around particular places or spaces of premodern Japan, and emphatically not a comprehensive survey. Field(s): EA*

This seminar, directed at undergraduates, explores the emergence of Japan as an imperialist world power during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will consider the development of Japanese colonialist ideologies and structures of rule within the context of an East Asian region transformed by Western imperialism. The course will draw upon the relative abundance of materials on the history of Japan-Korea relations to focus special attention to the case of Japan's colonization of Korea. In their individual research projects and presentations, however, students will be encouraged to explore the great variety of topics and problems to be found in the Japanese colonial and postcolonial experience throughout East Asia. Field(s): EA

An undergraduate seminar in the social and cultural history of Chinese religion, organized roughly chronologically, built as much as possible around translated Chinese religious texts, and paying special attention to the question of the relationship between the human and divine worlds. We'll be looking at how Chinese ideas about that relationship have changed over time, and at other important aspects of how the Chinese saw the spirit world--Why did ancestors become less important and gods more important over the course of Chinese history? Did the Chinese really picture their gods as bureaucrats like those in their own earthly government?--and so on. Group(s): A, CField(s): EA

Intensive examination of the legal, economic, cultural, and political forces that shaped the Chinese economy in the late imperial and Republican periods. Group(s): C

An introduction to chines Legal history and the role of law in Chinese society and culture with a focus particularly on Qing period. Issues covered include civil and criminal law, formal and informal justice, law and the family, law and the economy, law and literature, and the question of a rule of law in China. Field(s): EA*

Intended for history majors this course raises the issues of the theory and practice of history as a discipline. Considers different approaches to the study of history and offers an introduction to research and the use of archival collections. Special emphasis on conceptualization of research topics, situating projects historiographically, locating and assessing published and archival sources. Field(s): METHODS

Prerequisites: Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required. Preference to JUNIOR and SOPHOMORE Majors. Fulfills General Education Requirement (GER); Historical Studies (HIS).

Confronts a set of problems and questions attached to the writing of good history by examining the theories and methods historians have devised to address these problems. Its practical focus: to prepare students to tackle the senior thesis and other major research projects. The reading matter for this course crosses cultures, time periods, and historical genres. Fulfills all concentrations within the history major. Field(s): METHODS

This course will consider how experiences of the natural world and the meaning of "nature" have changed over the past three centuries. We will follow the development of the environmental sciences and the origins of environmentalism. The geographical focus will be Europe, with attention to the global context of imperialism. Field(s): INTL

This seminar seeks to analyze the ways by which medicine and culture combine to shape our values and traditions. To this end, it will examine notable literary, medical, and social texts from classical antiquity to the present. A, B, D

An introduction to the historical origins of forecasting, projections, long-range planning, and future scenarios. Topics include apocalyptic ideas and movements, utopias and dystopias, and changing conceptions of time, progress, and decline. A key theme is how relations of power, including understandings of history, have been shaped by expectations of the future. Group(s): ABCD

This course will consider the evolution of human-animal relations on a global basis over the entire course of human history. Student papers will engage specific topics from different times and places. Field(s): INTL

Many people in our time think some of the highest ethical purposes today were achieved in the struggle to establish the International Criminal Court in 2002, and continue to be at stake in the institution's first steps. Why do people think so, and of what use are the tools of history (assisted by theory) to put this belief in perspective? Answering this question is the main purpose of this course, which presupposes covering the court's origins and several dimensions of its doctrines and workings during its short existence. A main theme is the politics of law, and whether Judith Shklar's brilliant account of legalism is defensible. Field(s): INTL

This course will address critical turning points in the world history of wheeled transport, starting with the time, place, and rationale for the first appearance of wheels; moving onto the diffusion of wheeled transport to other parts of the world; and thence to the emergence of modern wheeled transport out of technological innovations that became evident in eastern Europe in late medieval times. Student papers may be devoted either to these early historical developments, or to episodes in motor-driven vehicular history from more recent times. Field(s): INTL

This course presents and at the same time critiques a narrative world history from 1500 to the present. The purpose of the course is to convey an understanding of how this rapidly growing field of history is being approahced at three different levels: the narrative textbook level, the theoretical-conceptual level, and, through discussion sections, the research level. All students are required to enroll in a weekly discussion section. Graded work for the courses consists of two brief (5 page) papers based on activities in discussion sections as well as a take-home midterm and final examination. Graduate students who enroll in the course must take a discussion section conducted by the instructor and can expect heavier reading assignments. Field(s): INTL

Dedicated to four main topics on human rights: 1) long-term origins; 2)short-term origins; 3) evolution through the present; 4) moral defenses and ideological criticisms Field(s): INTL

Empires have been consistent - but ever changing - forms of rule in the modern world. This course explores how empires and imperialism have connected the world by forging new forms of politics and culture from 1850 to 2011. It examines key dimensions of imperialism such as nationalism, capitalism, racism, and fascism in Asia, Europe, Africa, and America. Based largely on primary sources - novels, memoirs, official documents, and visual arts, including photographs and film - the course presents imperialism both as experienced in different societies and also in its global interconnectedness. Field(s): INTL

Overview of human migration from pre-history to the present. Sessions on classical Rome; Jewish diaspora; Viking, Mongol, and Arab conquests; peopling of New World, European colonization, and African slavery; 19th-century European mass migration; Chinese and Indian diasporas; resurgence of global migration in last three decades, and current debates.

Group(s): ABCD

Field: INTL

*same as HIST BC3980

How is the rapid development of global computer networks, digital media, and massive data archives changing the way we study history and culture? We now have access to unprecedentedly large and rich bodies of information generated from the digitization of older materials and the explosion of new content through social media. Machine learning and natural language processing make it possible to answer traditional research questions with greater rigor, and tackle new kinds of projects that would once have been deemed impracticable. At the same time, scholars now have many more ways to communicate with one another and the broader public, and it is becoming both easier - and more necessary - to collaborate across disciplines. Students in this course will begin by learning about some of the core concepts and practices of traditional literary, cultural, and historical analysis, and then consider how they might be transformed. They will explore tools and techniques that include data curation, named-entity extraction, part-of-speech tagging, topic modeling, sentiment analysis, machine and crowd-source translation, social and citation network analysis, and text visualization. The course will take shape as an intensive workshop, where we will gain and share methodological expertise, and begin to think big about digital archives, information architectures, live data, and large-scale textual corpora. The course is open to students at all levels of technical skill and with a variety of research interests. Expect to form groups led by graduate and faculty researchers, to work collaboratively, and to actively shape the trajectory of the course. Field(s): INTL

Rome and its empire, from the beginning to late antiquity.

Field(s): ANC

Social environment, political and religious institutions, and the main intellectual currents of the latin West studied through primary sources and modern historical writings. Field(s): MED

The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Greek Civilization all around the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. This course will examine the Hellenised (greek-based) urban society of the empires of the Hellenistic era (ca. 330-30BCE) Field(s): ANC*

Urban history of 20th century cities in the Americas and Europe. Examines the modern city as ecological and production system, its form and built environment, questions of housing and segregation, uneven urban development, the fragmentation of urban society and space. Course materials draw on cities in the Americas and Europe. Field(s): INTL

This seminar examines major texts in social and political theory and ethics written in Europe and the Mediterranean region between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries CE. Students will be assigned background readings to establish historical context, but class discussion will be grounded in close reading and analysis of the medieval sources themselves. Field(s): MED

This course interrogates the function of art and artists within modern capitalist societies. We will trace the cultural productions, internal dynamics, and social significance of bohemian communities from their origins in 1840s Paris to turn of the century London and New York to interwar Los Angeles to present day Chicago. Students will conduct research exploring the significance of some aspect of a bohemian community. Field(s): US

A seminar exploring the nature and implications of Tibetan visual and cultural material in historical context, with biweekly visits to NYC area museum collections. Topics include object biographies, Buddhist art & ritual objects, Tibetan arms & armor, clothing & jewelry, rugs & furniture. As we explore the incredibly rich Tibetan material resources of New York City's museums, students will have the opportunity to encounter first hand objects from Tibet's past. While the class as a whole will survey a wide variety of materials‑‑from swords & armor to Buddhist images & ritual implements, from rugs & clothes to jewelry & charms-students will select one or two objects as the subject of their object biographies. There will also be opportunities to explore the process and motivations for building collections and displaying Tibetan material culture. Field(s): EA

Emergence of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary mass political movements; European industrialization, nationalism, and imperialism; 20th-century world wars, the Great Depression, and Fascism. Field(s): MEU

Introduction to the cultural, social, and intellectual history of the upheavals of astronomy, anatomy, mathematics, alchemy from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Field(s): EME

The making and re-making of Central Europe as place and myth from the Enlightenment to post-Communism. Focuses on the cultural, intellectual, and political struggles of the peoples of this region to define themselves. Themes include modernization and backwardness, rationalism and censorship, nationalism and pluralism, landscape and the spatial imagination. Field(s): MEU

The shaping of European cultural identity through encounters with non-European cultures from 1500 to the postcolonial era. Novels, paintings, and films are among the sources used to examine such topis as exoticism in the Enlightenment, slavery and European capitalism, Orientalism in art, ethnographic writings on the primitive, and tourism. Field(s): MEU

A big picture perspective on the period 1945-2005, the course moves from the New Europe arising from the catastrophe of the Great Depression, Nazi-fascism, and World War II to the New Europe arising out of the contrary forces of globalization. Lectures illuminated by East-West and TransAtlantic comparisons, films, memoirs, and discussions.

Group(s): B

Field(s): MEU

This course surveys the main currents of British history from 1867 to the present, with particular attention to the changing place of Britain in the world and the changing shape of politics. Group(s): BField(s): MWE

Course enables students to focus on remote past and its relationship to social context and political and economic structures; students will be asked to evaluate evidence drawn from documents of the past, including tracts on diet, health, and food safety, accounts of food riots, first-hand testimonials about diet and food availability. A variety of perspectives will be explored, including those promoted by science, medicine, business, and government. Field(s): MEU

This course examines the political culture of eighteenth-century France, from the final decades of the Bourbon monarchy to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Among our primary aims will be to explore the origins of the Terror and its relationship to the Revolution as a whole. Other topics we will address include the erosion of the king's authority in the years leading up to 1789, the fall of the Bastille, the Constitutions of 1791 and 1793, civil war in the Vendée, the militarization of the Revolution, the dechristianization movement, attempts to establish a new Revolutionary calendar and civil religion, and the sweeping plans for moral regeneration led by Robespierre and his colleagues in 1793-1794. Field(s): MEU

The major intellectual and social acommodations made by Americans to industrialization and urbanization; patterns of political thought from Reconstruction to the New Deal; selected topics on post-World War II developments. Field(s): US

The develoment of constitutional doctrine, 1787 to the present. The Constitution as an experiement in republicanism; states' rights and the Civil War amendments; freedom of contract and its opponents; the emergence of civil liberties; New Deal intervention and the crisis of the Court; the challenge of civil rights. Field(s): US

This course examines the cultural, political, and constitutional origins of the United States. It covers the series of revolutionary changes in politics and society between the mid-18th and early 19th centuries that took thirteen colonies out of the British Empire and turned them into an independent and expanding nation. Starting with the cultural and political glue that held the British Empire together, the course follows the political and ideological processes that broke apart and ends with the series of political struggles that shaped the identity of the US. Using a combination of primary and secondary materials relating to various walks of life and experience from shopping to constitutional debates, students will be expected to craft their own interpretations of this fundamental period of American history. Lectures will introduce students to important developments and provide a framework from them to develop their own analytical skills. Group(s): DField(s): US

The develoment of constitutional doctrine, 1787 to the present. The Constitution as an experiement in republicanism; states' rights and the Civil War amendments; freedom of contract and its opponents; the emergence of civil liberties; New Deal intervention and the crisis of the Court; the challenge of civil rights. Field(s): US

American politics, society, and culture from the aftermath of World War I through the Great Depression and World War II. Field(s): US

Although images of the frontier and of the west have long dominated the popular imagination of American history, in fact the United States urbanized rapidly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and 80 percent of the national population now lives in metropolitan areas of more than a million people. How did big cities respond to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, transportation, housing, open space, and recreation? The course will feature frequent field trips voa ferry, foot, and bus. Field(s): US

The aim is to provide an empirical grasp of U.S. foreign relations and to put in question the historiographical views of the periods and critical events that have come up to make that history. Emphasis will be put on determining how "the United States" has been grasped in relation to the world and how historiography has in turn grasped that retrospectively. Group(s): DField(s): US

The history of work, workers, and unions during the 20th century. Topics include scientific management, automation, immigrant workers, the rise of industrial unionism, labor politics, occupational discrimination, and working-class community life. Field(s): US

Major expressions of American radicalism, ranging from early labor and communitarian movements to the origins of feminism, the abolitionist movement, and on to Populism, Socialism, and the "Old" and "New" lefts. Field(s): US

A survey of the history of the American South from the colonial era to the present day, with two purposes: first, to afford students an understanding of the special historical characteristics of the South and of southerners; and second, to explore what the experience of the South may teach about America as a nation.

Group(s): D

Field(s): US

An exploration in global context of science and technology in the United States and their dynamic roles in the larger society from the colonial period to recent years. Attention will be given to key figures and their contributions to the earth, physical, and biological sciences and to innovators and their achievements. Among the major topics covered will be exploration, the agricultural, industrial, and information economies, the military and national defense, religion, culture, and the environment. Field(s): US

A survey of African-American history since the Civil War. An emphasis is placed on the black quest for equality and community. Group(s): D

Formerly listed as "Explorations of Themes in African-American History, 1865-1945"

Medieval Jews and Christians defined themselves in contrast to one another. This course will examine the conditions and contradictions that emerged from competing visions and neighborly relations. It is arranged to comprehend broad themes rather than strict chronology and to engage both older and very recent scholarship on the perennial themes of tolerance and hate. Field(d): JWS/MED

Explores the interaction between the changing makeup of Jewish immigration, the changing social and aconomic conditions in the United States, and the religious, communal, cultural, and political group life of American Jews. Group(s): D

This course is a survey of African history from the 18th century to the contemporary period. We will explore six major themes in African History: Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, Colonialism in Africa, the 1940s, Nationalism and Independence Movements, Post-Colonialism in Africa, and Issues in the Making of Contemporary Africa. Students who take this course may also take Introduction to Africa Studies: Africa Past, Present, and Future. Field(s): AFR

Critically surveys how the coincidence of the development of audiovisual mass culture and the rise of the United States as a world power was decisive for the history of each across the twentieth century. Special attention will be paid to film and television as domestic ideology and international propaganda. Field(s): LA/US

This undergraduate lecture course explores the events and currents that shaped the course of modern Egyptian history over the last two centuries. It ranges from the mid-18th century to present and covers such themes as Egypt under Ottoman, French and British rule; Egypt's dynastic rule, and its relation to neighbouring states in the 19th century; nationalism, modernism and feminism, and the role of cinema, literature and the politics of ideas in the 20th; and, finally, the regimes of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and their relation to the region and the wider world. Field(s): ME

A survey of East African history over the past two millennia with a focus on political and social change. Themes include early religious and political ideas, the rise of states on the Swahili coast and between the Great Lakes, slavery, colonialism, and social and cultural developments in the 20th century. Field(s): AFR

This course offers a survey of main themes in West African history over the last millenium, with particular emphasis on the period from the mid-fifteenth through the twentieth century. Themes include the age of West African empires (Ghana, Mali, Songhay), re-alignments of economic and political energies towards the Atlantic coast, the rise and decline of the trans-Atlantic trade in slaves, the advent and demise of colonial rule, and internal displacement, migrations, and revolutions. In the latter part of the course, we will appraise the continuities and ruptures of the colonial and post-colonial eras. Group(s): CField(s): AFR

Examines how women experienced empire and asks how their actions and activities produced critical shifts in the workings of colonial societies worldwide. Topics include sexuality, the colonial family, reproduction, race, and political activism. Field(s): SA

This is the second of a two-semester survey focusing on the historical evolution of the cultures, polities, and societies in the Indian sub-continent from the early modern to the postcolonial periods. The chronological scope of this sequence is the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. We begin with the rise (and demise) of the Mughal empire, followed by inquiries into the nature of the eighteenth century "transition" to European rule, take up questions of colonial rule and anticolonialism, and end, finally, by exploring debates about violence, secularism, and democracy in postcolonial South Asia. We will focus in particular on the flowing themes: non-Western state formation; debates about colonial economy and underdevelopment; the structure and ideology of anticolonial thought; organized challenges to the nation-form by political minorities-Muslims, untouchables, and women; and contemporary debates about religion, rights, and violence. The class relies extensively on primary texts, and aims to expose students to multiple historiographical perspectives for understanding South Asia's past. Field(s): SA

This course challenges the long-standing association of fashion with the West. We will trace the transformation of China's sartorial landscape from the premodern era into the present. Using textual, visual, and material sources, we will explore: historical representations of dress in China; the politics of dress; fashion and the body; women's labor; consumption and modernity; industry and the world-market. We will also read key texts in fashion studies to reflect critically on how we define fashion in different historical and cultural contexts. Our approach will be interdisciplinary, embracing history, anthropology, art, and literature. Field(s): EA

The seminar will combine cultural with economic history, but with more stress on the former. The aim is to investigate the meaning of being rich and being poor among the Greeks and Romans, that is to say in a pre-industrial society, with special attention to methods of research. We shall discuss among other topics ways of getting rich, contempt for wealth, safety nets, ostentation, consumption choices, bribery, markers of well-being - and money. The time period will extend from Homer to about 250 CE. Prerequisite: a college course in Greek and/or Roman history. Field(s): *ANC

This is a fifteen-week undergraduate seminar. It is designed to provide an introduction to the late antique period of the three great civilizations of the ancient Nile Valley, Egypt, Ethiopia and Nubia. Course material will cover the social and religious history of Egypt under Roman rule; the collapse of the ancient Nubian civilization of Meroe; the emergence of its independent successor kingdoms; the birth of a centralized and literate society in the Ethiopian highlands; the Christianization of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia; and the survival of all three civilizations in the early medieval period, Egypt under Islamic rule and Nubia and Ethiopia as independent powers. Field(s): ANC*

This course will examine the role of love and hate and their changing place in the culture of the elite groups from Late Antiquity to the twelfth century. Medieval chronicles, poems, letters and legal texts, both religious and civil, will be used, deconstructed and decoded with a special attention to gender and to the emotional relations between men and women. Field(s): MED

The course will examine the relation between a rich and urban elite and artistic creativity during The Low Countries' several and successive 'Golden Ages'. Therefore, the course will address the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, Antwerp and Brabant from c. 1480 to c. 1580, and the southern Low Countries as a whole from c. 1380 to c. 1480. The following questions will be considered: Who were the sponsors, and why did they invest in specific artistic genres? Why did the gravity centers regularly shift to a neighboring region, from south to north? What were the reasons for the dynamics in the system as a whole, which surely also have political dimensions? All these questions will be discussed for the period from the 13th to the 16th-early 17th century, keeping in mind that these patterns may have a more general character. Field(s): EME

In this course we will examine theoretical and historical developments that framed the notions of censorship and free expression in early modern Europe. In the last two decades, the role of censorship has become one of the significant elements in discussions of early modern culture. The history of printing and of the book, of the rise national-political cultures and their projections of control, religious wars and denominational schisms are some of the factors that intensified debate over the free circulation of ideas and speech. Indexes, Inquisition, Star Chamber, book burnings and beheadings have been the subjects of an ever growing body of scholarship. Field(s): EME

This course explores manners of conceiving and being a self in early modern Europe (ca. 1400-1800). Through the analysis of a range of sources, from autobiographical writings to a selection of theological, philosophical, artistic, and literary works, we will address the concept of personhood as a lens through which to analyze topics such as the valorization of interiority, the formation of mechanist and sensationalist philosophies of selfhood, and, more generally, the human person's relationship with material and existential goods. This approach is intended to deepen and complicate our understanding of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and other movements around which histories of the early modern period have typically been narrated. Field(s): EME

A survey of the relationships between medical expertise and human dietary habits from Antiquity to the present, giving special attention to the links between practical and moral concerns and between expert knowledge and common sense. Field(s): EME

The course explores the dramatically changing human landscape of modern Poland through personal narratives (diaries, letters, memoirs) and social documentation (autobiography contests, life-record method, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive in the Warsaw ghetto). The course serves as an introduction to key personal experiences of the Poland's twentieth century: social distress, emigration and forced dislocation, genocide, and political violence. We will reflect critically on the main categories of "the era of the witness," such as personal experience and literary responses to it, testimony, memory and eye-witnessing. The course aims to broaden, both historically and conceptually, our understanding of the witness as an iconic figure of the twentieth-century atrocities by including the East Central European tradition of personal writing and social documentation of the interwar and postwar periods. Field(s): MEU

In this course we will examine key aspects of the history of the Soviet Union through stories and representations, dividing it for this purpose into three main periods: The time of origins, foundations, and foundational myths (between the October Revolution in 1917 and the onset of Stalinism at the end of the 1920s), the period of Stalinist re-founding (until the mid-1950s), and the post-Stalin period with its search for alternatives within Soviet Socialism/Communism. Finally we will also look at the narrative and representational legacies of the Soviet Union. We will not restrict ourselves to official or public stories or those that could be published under Soviet rule. Instead the course seeks to integrate narratives from widely different sources and genres, including high culture, party-state propaganda (literary and visual), self-representations, and conformist as well as alternative or dissident voices, memoirs, diaries and novels. Field(s): MEU

A seminar reviewing some of the major works of Russian thought, literature, and memoir literature that trace the emergence of intelligentsia ideologies in 19th- and 20th-century Russia. Focuses on discussion of specific texts and traces the adoption and influence of certain western doctrines in Russia, such as idealism, positivism, utopian socialism, Marxism, and various 20th-century currents of thought. Field(s): MEU

The Soviet Union ceased to exist within living memory. Its dissolution largely coincided with the end of much of the post-World-War-Two international order, whether called Cold War or Détente. We are still living through the reverberations of these two "ends of history." One consequence is that our perspective on Soviet history has been changing and will continue to change. This course will introduce its participants to what is new about the Soviet past. It will combine approaches that are mostly still new when applied to Soviet history (subaltern studies or the history of sexuality, for instance), topics that are largely new (capitalism, for instance), and topics that are traditional (revolution or Communism, for instance), which we will seek to look at in a fresh way. Focusing on what is new does not mean to exclude the "classics"; in fact, sometimes it means to return to them. Field(s); MEU

This class focuses on the history of the Soviet Union and Russia between the death of Stalin/the end of totalitarianism and the present. It spans the turning-point date of 1991 when the Soviet Union abolished itself and was replaced by successor states, the most important of which is Russia. Not ending Soviet history with 1991 and not beginning Russian history with it either, we will seek to understand continuities as well as change. We will also draw on a diverse set of texts (and movies), including history, political science, journalism, fiction, and memoirs, feature and documentary movies. Geographically weighted toward Russia (and not the other also important successor states), in terms of content, this class concentrates on politics and society, including, crucially, the economy. These concepts, however, will be understood broadly. To come to grips with key issues in Soviet and Russian history in the historically short period after Stalinist totalitarianism, we will have to pay close attention to not only our analytical categories, but also to the way in which the political and the social have been understood by Soviet and Russian contemporaries. The class will introduce students to crucial questions of Russia's recent past, present, and future: authoritarianism and democratization, the role of the state and that of society, reform and retrenchment, communism and capitalism, and, last but not least, the nature of authority and legitimacy. Field(s): MEU

Examination of European understandings of human senses through the production and reception of art, literature, music, food, and sensual enjoyments in Britain and France. Readings include changing theories concerning the five senses; efforts to master the passions; the rise of sensibility and feeling for others; concerts and the patronage of art; the professionalization of the senses. Field(s): MEU

In this seminar we will examine the immediate impact and the longer-running legacies of the Second World War in the Netherlands, with reference to several other Western European nations (France, Belgium). The 'Long War' will relate to the Second World War as history in the first place, discussing the place of the occupied nation(s) in 'Hitler's Empire' (Mark Mazower). We also will take into account that the end of the war in Europe was followed by new kinds of external conflicts with strong internal repercussions: the Cold War and the first wave of European decolonization. The perspective will focus on the nation-states, endangered in its very existence by oppressive foreign occupation, subsequently in need of rebuilding and reinventing themselves against many odds. The second element of the seminar is the legacy of the 'Long War', stretching over the generations to the present day. The Long War has been subject to a never-ending series of controversies in the public sphere that have profoundly influenced the historiography of the war in the different nations. In the course, we will explore the interconnections between politics of memory, historiography and cultural interpretations of the embattled past (films, novels, televised documentaries in particular). Field(s): MEU

Explores how conceptions of desire and sexuality, gendered and raced bodies, shaped major events and processes in modern Europe: the Enlightenment and European empires; political and sexual revolutions; consumption and commodity fetishism; the metropolis and modern industry; psychoanalysis and the avant-garde; fascism and the Cold War; secularization,and post-socialism. Featuring: political and philosophical tracts; law, literature and film. Field(s): MEU

This seminar deals with how Americans have treated and understood the natural world, connected or failed to connect to it, since 1800. It focuses on changing context over time, from the agrarian period to industrialization, followed by the rise of the suburban and hyper-technological landscape. We will trace the shift from natural history to evolutionary biology, give special attention to the American interest in entomology, ornithology, and botany, examine the quest to save pristine spaces, and read from the works of Buffon, Humboldt, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Darwin, Aldo Leopold, Nabokov, among others. Perspectives on naming, classifying, ordering, and most especially, collecting, will come under scrutiny. Throughout the semester we will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the environmentalist movement, confront those who thought they could defy nature, transcend it, and even live without it. Field(s): US

This reading seminar will examine the history of colonial North America from the sixteenth through mid-eighteenth centuries. Employing a comparative Atlantic framework to study Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlements in North America, this course will explore key themes of conflict and community in the societies that developed during this era. Readings will include some of the most important recent literature in the field and cover topics such as European-indigenous relations, race and slavery, religious culture, and gender construction. This seminar requires two response papers, a final historiographical essay, and class participation, including an oral presentation. Field(s): US

In this seminar we will examine interdisciplinary approaches to the writing of history using archival material. We will look at how knowledge is organized, stored, described, accessed, and replicated through the use of digital and material objects held in archives. The seminar takes as its point of departure the University of Michigan Sawyer Seminar's conception of archives "not simply as historical repositories but as a complex of structures, processes, and epistemologies situated at a critical point of the intersection between scholarship, cultural practices, politics, and technologies." Among the topics we will explore are how archives and archiving intersect with the production of knowledge, with social memory, and with politics. This is a U.S. history course. While the theoretical approaches we will study are, of necessity, interdisciplinary, the application of them will be to archival material related to U.S. history. This seminar requires participants to commit substantial time outside of class working with unpublished materials in Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) both for reading assignments and as part of a final project. Field(s): US

An overview of the role of religion in American society, from Columbus through the eve of the Civil War. Includes scholarship on Europeans, Native Americans, and African Americans. Major themes include forms of religious knowledge, religion and cross-cultural relations, conversion, confessional conflict, resistance movements, religion and social change, evangelism, witchcraft, and women and religion.

Group(s): A, D

Field(s): US

The period known as the "Progressive Era" in the United States witnessed major transformations in American society. We will examine currents of social change and reform in the terms of mass immigration, urbanization, and industrialization; commercialized culture; Jim Crow segregation; and U.S. projects on the world stage. The seminar will include history, historiography, and a term paper based on original research in archival and other primary materials. Closed to first-year students. Field(s): US

Limited enrollment. Priority given to senior history majors. A remarkable array of Southern historians, novelists, and essayists have done what Shreve McCannon urges Quentin Compson to do in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom--tell about the South--producing recognized masterpieces of American literature. Taking as examples certain writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, this course explores the issues they confronted, the relationship between time during which and about they wrote, and the art of the written word as exemplified in their work.

Group(s): D

Field(s): US

This course interrogates the function of art and artists within modern capitalist societies. We will trace the cultural productions, internal dynamics, and social significance of bohemian communities from their origins in 1840s Paris to turn of the century London and New York to interwar Los Angeles to present day Chicago. Students will conduct research exploring the significance of some aspect of a bohemian community. Field(s): US

This seminar provides an intensive introduction to the history of the Atlantic slave trade. The course will consider the impact of the traffic on Western Europe and the Americas, as well as on Africa, and will give special attention to the experiences of both captives and captors. Assignments include three short papers and a longer research paper of 20 to 25 pages. Field(s): INTL

In the decades since the publication of Silent Spring and the rise of the environmental movement, public awareness of the impact of industrial products on human health has grown enormously. There is growing concern over BPA, lead, PCBs, asbestos, and synthetic materials that make up the world around us. This course will focus on environmental history, industrial and labor history as well as on how twentieth century consumer culture shapes popular and professional understanding of disease. Throughout the term the class will trace the historical transformation of the origins of disease through primary sources such as documents gathered in lawsuits, and medical and public health literature. Students will be asked to evaluate historical debates about the causes of modern epidemics of cancer, heart disease, lead poisoning, asbestos-related illnesses and other chronic conditions. They will also consider where responsibility for these new concerns lies, particularly as they have emerged in law suits. Together, we will explore the rise of modern environmental movement in the last 75 years. Field(s): US

For the past century and a half, New York City has been the first home of millions of immigrants to the United States. This course will compare immigrants' encounter with New York at the dawn of the twentieth century with contemporary issues, organizations, and debates shaping immigrant life in New York City. As a service learning course, each student will be required to work 2-4 hours/week in the Riverside Language Center or programs for immigrants run by Community Impact. Field(s): US

This seminar features extensive reading, multiple written assignments, and a term paper, as well as a likely trip to Gettsyburg. It focuses on the Civil War and on World Wars I and II.

Group(s): D

Field(s): US

This course explores critical areas of New York's economic development in the 20th century, with a view to understanding the rise, fall and resurgence of this world capital. Discussions also focus on the social and political significance of these shifts. Assignments include primary sources, secondary readings, film viewings, trips, and archival research. Students use original sources as part of their investigation of New York City industries for a 20-page research paper. An annotated bibliography is also required. Students are asked to give a weekly update on research progress, and share information regarding useful archives and websites.Field(s): US

This course examines the history of childhood and how it can refine contemporary psychological and legal thinking about children and inform current debates about the young. The class's approach will be highly interdisciplinary, drawing upon the insights and methods of anthropology, art history, biology, demography, developmental psychology, law, literature, philosophy, and sociology. We will examine childhood both as lived experience-shaped by such factors as class, ethnicity, gender, geographical region, and historical era-and as a cultural category that adults impose upon children. The class will also place a special emphasis on public policy, covering topics such as adoption, child abuse and neglect, children's rights, disability, juvenile delinquency, schooling, and social welfare policies. Field(s): US

Prerequisites: Previous course work in African-American history or social science; United States social history; or sociomedical sciences required.

Students will gain a solid knowledge and understanding of the health issues facing African Americans since the turn of the twentieth century. Topics to be examined will include, but will not be limited to, black women's heath organization and care; medical abuses and the legacy of Tuskegee; tuberculosis control; sickle cell anemia; and substance abuse. Group(s): DField(s): US Formerly listed as "History of African-American Health and Health Movements"

This seminar examines the transformation of American society from national independence to the Civil War, paying particular attention to changes in agriculture, war, and treaty-making with Indian nations, the rise of waged labor, religious movements, contests over slavery, and the ways print culture revealed and commented on the tensions of the era. The readings include writings of de Tocqueville, Catherine Beecher, and Frederick Douglass, as well as family correspondence, diaries, and fiction. Students will write a 20 page research paper on primary sources. Field(s): US

The seminar will focus on traditional Jewish life, in the Eastern European towns known as shtetlekh, from the early modern period until late 19th century. Through study of various primary sources, mainly memoirs, autobiographies, stories and poetry, we will portray the everyday life, especially childhood and adolescence, and the confrontation between tradition and modernity. Field(s): JEW

This course analyzes Jewish intellectual history from Spinoza to 1939. It tracks the radical transformation that modernity yielded in Jewish life, both in the development of new, self-consciously modern, iterations of Judaism and Jewishness and in the more elusive but equally foundational changes in "traditional" Judaisms. Questions to be addressed include: the development of the modern concept of "religion" and its effect on the Jews; the origin of the notion of "Judaism" parallel to Christianity, Islam, etc.; the rise of Jewish secularism and of secular Jewish ideologies, especially the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), modern Jewish nationalism, Zionism, Jewish socialism, and Autonomism; the rise of Reform, Modern Orthodox, and Conservative Judaisms; Jewish neo-Romanticism and neo-Kantianism, and Ultra-Orthodoxy. Field(s): JWS

A seminar on the historical, political, and cultural developments in the Jewish communities of early-modern Western Europe (1492-1789) with particular emphasis on the transition from medieval to modern patterns. We will study the resettlement of Jews in Western Europe, Jews in the Reformation-era German lands, Italian Jews during the late Renaissance, the rise of Kabbalah, and the beginnings of the quest for civil Emancipation. Field(s): JWS/EME

Latin American societies have long been characterized by some of the most dramatic economic and social inequalities--of class, income or resource distribution, race, ethnicity, color, gender, and geography --anywhere in the world. This seminar examines patterns of inequality from different disciplinary perspectives, both historically and in the present. We examine not only causes and proposed remedies but how scholars have defined inequality as an intellectual problem in the first place. Field(s): LA

An exploration of Cuba's late colonial period, wars of independence, republican/neocolonial period, 1933 and 1959 revolutions, and eras under the governments of Fidel and Raúl Castro, including recent history. Topics considered will include: Cuban sovereignty; the agricultural basis of the Cuban economy under colonialism and neocolonialism; enslaved labor and abolition; social and political struggles, both nonviolent and armed; the development of Cuban nationalisms, with an emphasis on the roles of race, diaspora, and exile in this process; Cuban-U.S. relations over many decades; and Cuba's role as a global actor, particularly after the 1959 revolution. Field(s): LA

This course focuses on the cases of Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay to explore the complex relationships between social conflict, youth counterculture, and leftist radicalism which characterized the 1960s all over the region. In-depth reading and discussion of a number of relevant primary sources and available scholarship in English will build a foundation for thinking through these issues. In the first part of the class, we will analyze the political mobilization and cultural modernization in the framework of the conflicts that shaped the Cold War in the subcontinent. After this general introduction, we will focus on 1968 to examine the impact of countercultural ideas and practices on different political traditions, particularly student and leftist politics. Next we will analyze the rise and fall of the New Left, which challenged the ideological commitment, political strategies, and conservative cultural politics of the traditional left. Discussion will incorporate conventional views and recent academic debates on this shift in the region, which also addressing the spiraling of state repression that forced both old and new groups to reconsider strategies in the three countries under examination. Finally, students will be encouraged to assess how all of these events and themes echoed in social memory through cultural representations and their increasing power to either legitimize or discredit political positions. Field(s): LA

Focusing on the cases of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, this course examines the birth and development of the movements that protested human rights violations by right-wing authoritarian regimes in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In the first part of the class, we will explore some of the basic concerns that historians, political theorists, and social scientists have raised about authoritarian regimes in late twentieth-century South America. We will aim at concocting a working definition of authoritarianism, discussing the emergence of a new authoritarian model in the Southern Cone and examining the specific challenges confronted by the human rights movements. After this brief survey, the class will focus on the different ways of dealing with the repressive, legal, and political legacies of these regimes. We will analyze the first efforts at denunciation launched by political exiles and transnational human rights groups, as well as the formation of groups of victims' relatives that aimed at exposing ongoing abuses in their countries. We will also study the role of human rights claims during the transitional periods and the ways in which the post-transitional democratic governments faced these calls for accountability. The course will make a basic distinction between concrete legal actions taken to punish those accused of human rights violations, where the state was called to play a decisive role, and more disorganized efforts to know what happened and spread this knowledge to the society at large. We will explore this distinction, discussing how different actors posed their claims and constructed narratives to account for human rights violations and past political violence. This exploration will include the existing literature on justice and truth telling in the politics of transition, as well as scholarship on social memory and historical commemorations. Field(s): LA

This course will examine some of the problems inherent in Western historical writing on non-European cultures, as well as broad questions of what itmeans to write history across cultures. The course will touch on therelationship between knowledge and power, given that much of the knowledge we will be considering was produced at a time of the expansion of Western power over the rest of the world. By comparing some of the "others" which European historians constructed in the different non-western societies they depicted, and the ways other societies dealt with alterity and self, we may be able to derive a better sense of how the Western sense of self was constructed. Group(s): C Field(s): ME

In this seminar we will put the histories of the modern Balkans and Middle East in conversation by seeing them through the lens of the "post-Ottoman world." Moving beyond the national histories of countries such as Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, we will examine the common dilemmas and divergent paths of a variety of groups, institutions, and individual figures throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Field(s): ME

In this colloquium we will examine what the Cold War meant in a Latin American context and how historians today are interpreting it. We will primarily be focusing on new conceptual frameworks and historiographical trends thathave emerged in the last decade as a result of archival openings, oral histories and the publication of memoirs. Although it would be helpful to have a background in US-Latin American relations and/or Latin American history it is not a prerequisite of the course. Because the colloquium is largely structured chronologically, students will gain an understanding of events, turning points, and developments in Latin America throughout the twentieth century that will allow them to understand the region's past. It worth underlining that this is not a course about US interventions in the region, although the United States often contributed to the way in which the Cold War in Latin America unfolded. Instead, we will be focusing squarely on Latin American perspectives and looking at what the Cold War meant to those inside the region. Specifically, we will be addressing the role of ideology and ideological struggles in twentieth-century Latin America; how these ideas responded to the challenges of modernity and development; why Marxism was popular in the region and how it was interpreted; the extent to which it influenced nationalists and revolutionaries; and who opposed it, why, and how. Throughout the semester we will be focusing in on international and intra-regional dimensions to the conflict as well as transnational stories of exile and movements. Students will therefore also be exploring how events in one part of Latin America impacted upon people in other areas of region either directly or indirectly. In this respect, we will be paying particular attention to the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz inGuatemala, the Cuban Revolution's impact on revolutionary and counter- evolutionary trends in Latin America in the 1960s, the significance of the Brazilian coup of 1964 and the subsequent influence that Brazil's military regime had in shaping politics the Southern Cone. The colloquium is also designed to allow students to examine how Latin American populations, parties, leaders and exiles interacted with their contemporaries in other parts of the world and to draw comparisons. Field(s): LA

This seminar focuses on how the discovery and exploitation of petroleum at the turn of the 20th century has shaped the formation and consolidation of Arab states of the Persian Gulf, permanently changing the geo-political and social landscape of the Arabian Peninsula. We will study economic, social, and political formations across the Gulf on the eve of the discovery of oil and the attendant transformations that accompanied its exploitation. We will also pay close attention to the role that imperial rivalries and foreign oil companies played in shaping the Gulf states, their economies, systems of rule, foreign relations, borders, and built environment. We also study the populist, anti-imperialist movements of the mid-twentieth century in the context of the ?Arab Cold War.? Saudi Arabia has received more academic attention than the other Gulf states and thus takes up a larger part of the course, but we will also cover Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Oman. We will read historical, anthropological, literary and political economy studies and oil firm histories, drawing on works on Yemen, Iraq, Iran and the US, to follow transformations in political, social and economic life in this understudied region that has played a central role in world politics and economy since the 1900s. Field(s): ME

This course charts the history of health and healing from, as far as is possible, a perspective interior to Africa. It explores changing practices and understandings of disease, etiology, healing and well-being from pre-colonial times through into the post-colonial. A major theme running throughout the course is the relationship between medicine, the body, power and social groups. This is balanced by an examination of the creative ways in which Africans have struggled to compose healthy communities, albeit with varied success, whether in the fifteenth century or the twenty-first. Field(s): AFR

The central themes of the course will be changes and continuities in gender performance and the politics of gender and sexual difference within African societies; social, political, and economic processes that have influenced gender and sexual identities; connections between gender, sexuality, inequality, and activism at local, national, continental, and global scales. Readings will include key works in African gender history and the history of sexuality, along with texts, broadly construed, on gender, sexuality, and governance from other disciplines or focusing on other parts of the world. The main objective of the course is to introduce students to significant debates in the study of gender and sexuality in the African History field. Emphasis will be placed on the theoretical and methodological approaches that have informed scholarship on gender and sexuality in African History. Field(s): AFR

In this course we will explore in a critical manner the concept of poverty in Africa. The emphasis is on historicizing categories such as poverty and wealth, debt and charity and on the ways in which people in Africa have understood such categories. As such the course takes a longue durée approach spanning over a millennium of history, ending with contemporary understandings of poverty. Field(s): AFR

Explores the intersections between imagining and materiality in Bombay/Mumbai from its colonial beginnings to the present. Housing, slums, neighborhoods, streets, public culture, contestation, and riots are examined through film, architecture, fiction, history and theory. It is an introduction to the city; and to the imaginative enterprise in history. Field(s): SA

Field(s): EA

Introduces the cultural, political, social, and economic history of the Japanese archipelago from earliest times through the 16th century C.E. A variety of primary source materials in translation and a sampling of English-language secondary sources. Loosely organized around particular places or spaces of premodern Japan, and emphatically not a comprehensive survey. Field(s): EA*

This seminar, directed at undergraduates, explores the emergence of Japan as an imperialist world power during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will consider the development of Japanese colonialist ideologies and structures of rule within the context of an East Asian region transformed by Western imperialism. The course will draw upon the relative abundance of materials on the history of Japan-Korea relations to focus special attention to the case of Japan's colonization of Korea. In their individual research projects and presentations, however, students will be encouraged to explore the great variety of topics and problems to be found in the Japanese colonial and postcolonial experience throughout East Asia. Field(s): EA

This course is designed primarily for majors in East Asian studies in their junior year; others may enroll with the instructor's permission. Major issues in the practice of history illustrated by critical reading of important historical works on East Asia. Group(s): A, CField(s): EA

An introduction to chines Legal history and the role of law in Chinese society and culture with a focus particularly on Qing period. Issues covered include civil and criminal law, formal and informal justice, law and the family, law and the economy, law and literature, and the question of a rule of law in China. Field(s): EA*

Intended for history majors this course raises the issues of the theory and practice of history as a discipline. Considers different approaches to the study of history and offers an introduction to research and the use of archival collections. Special emphasis on conceptualization of research topics, situating projects historiographically, locating and assessing published and archival sources. Field(s): METHODS

A global examination of the coming, course, and consequences of World War II from the differing viewpoints of the major belligerents and those affected by them. Emphasis is not only on critical analysis but also on the craft of history-writing.

Group(s): B, C, D

Field(s): INTL

Prerequisites: Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required. Preference to JUNIOR and SOPHOMORE Majors. Fulfills General Education Requirement (GER); Historical Studies (HIS).

Confronts a set of problems and questions attached to the writing of good history by examining the theories and methods historians have devised to address these problems. Its practical focus: to prepare students to tackle the senior thesis and other major research projects. The reading matter for this course crosses cultures, time periods, and historical genres. Fulfills all concentrations within the history major. Field(s): METHODS

This course will consider how experiences of the natural world and the meaning of "nature" have changed over the past three centuries. We will follow the development of the environmental sciences and the origins of environmentalism. The geographical focus will be Europe, with attention to the global context of imperialism. Field(s): INTL

This course will consider the evolution of human-animal relations on a global basis over the entire course of human history. Student papers will engage specific topics from different times and places. Field(s): INTL

Many people in our time think some of the highest ethical purposes today were achieved in the struggle to establish the International Criminal Court in 2002, and continue to be at stake in the institution's first steps. Why do people think so, and of what use are the tools of history (assisted by theory) to put this belief in perspective? Answering this question is the main purpose of this course, which presupposes covering the court's origins and several dimensions of its doctrines and workings during its short existence. A main theme is the politics of law, and whether Judith Shklar's brilliant account of legalism is defensible. Field(s): INTL

This course will address critical turning points in the world history of wheeled transport, starting with the time, place, and rationale for the first appearance of wheels; moving onto the diffusion of wheeled transport to other parts of the world; and thence to the emergence of modern wheeled transport out of technological innovations that became evident in eastern Europe in late medieval times. Student papers may be devoted either to these early historical developments, or to episodes in motor-driven vehicular history from more recent times. Field(s): INTL