History
The Department of History introduces students to the richness and complexity of the human experience. The discipline of history trains students to understand history as process: to research, analyze, synthesize, and critically evaluate evidence. To the historian, factual information is never an end in itself, but a means to understand how the conditions of our own day evolved out of the past. Those who major or minor in history receive a broad preparation for entrance into graduate school and the traditional professions of law, government, foreign service, journalism, business, and teaching. The department participates in interdisciplinary programs, including American studies, Asian studies, Black studies, Environmental studies, Judaic studies, Latin American and Caribbean studies, International studies, Russian and East European studies, Women, Gender and Sexuality studies, and University honors. Students who attain high standards of scholarship are sponsored for membership in the department's Psi Theta Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the International Honor Society for History, and participate in the special programs under its auspices.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- Demonstrate a deep understanding of history delineated by geographical, chronological, and thematic fields, considering multiple perspectives such as the views of marginalized peoples and elites.
- Develop a sense of history as a continuum and as a process in which forces interact dynamically with one another.
- Interpret secondary and primary sources through a careful and critical reading.
- Synthesize historical material across a broad spectrum in preparation for lifelong learning. Develop an appreciation for the richness of the past.
- Demonstrate clarity in written form and expression: discern, critique, and develop research questions, arguments and effective use of evidence.
Core History Courses
The Magis Core curriculum requires students to take one history course at the 1000 level. Students then have the option of taking a 2000-level history course to fulfill a Tier II Exploration requirement.
HIST 1100 Origins of the Modern World Since 1500 3 Credits
This course, which examines the history of Europe and its relationship to the world from the end of the Middle Ages through the 19th century, emphasizes the cultural, social, economic, and political forces and structures that led to the development of commercial and industrial capitalism, and the effects of this development on Europe, the New World, Asia, and Africa. Topics include the Renaissance and Reformation; the Transatlantic Slave Trade; European expansion and colonialism; the development of strong nation states; the Enlightenment; the Industrial Revolution and conflicting ideological and political responses; changing social, family, and gender relationships; and the increasing interaction of Europeans and non-Europeans. Critical analysis of primary and secondary sources develops skills in historical methodology that are of great value in many other academic pursuits. Written assignments and class discussions enhance these skills.
HIST 1102 China, Japan, and Europe 3 Credits
How can we provide a non-Eurocentric explanation of the rise of the modern world that has European and American features? We can do so by examining the encounters between the West and other parts of the world and by beginning and ending the story of the rise of the modern world not in Europe but elsewhere. This course surveys the history of Europe and the Atlantic world and their encounters with East Asia from the 1400s to the 1800s.
HIST 1103 Europe, Russia, and the World, 1300-1918 3 Credits
This course examines the history of Europe and Russia and their relationship to the wider world from the end of the Middle Ages through World War I. Emphasis is placed upon cultural, social, economic, and political movements and the process of social and political change in Europe and Russia.
HIST 1104 War and Conflict in Western History, 1490-1989 3 Credits
In this course we shall explore the political, social, religious, economic, and technological history of the western world by focusing on a single theme: war. By studying the conflicts that ravaged Europe and the world from ancient times to the later 20th century, we shall discover that war as an historical subject is much more than simply battles and tactics. What causes war? Religion? Politics? Economics? Social structures? The answer is "all of the above, intertwined."
HIST 1105 Utopian Ideas and Practice Since 1500 3 Credits
This course is a history of past futures: what people imagined would, could, or should happen once humanity overcomes all social ills and superstition. Utopian ideas and projects have varied greatly across the past five centuries of European and American history, as we will see. We will compare them according to specific criteria (who could join?), and more broadly, by the societies that inspired them. The course moves from early modern Christian utopians (Heavens on Earth), to peaceful, secular groups in the nineteenth century (Liberty vs. Equality), to the twentieth century’s “age of extremes” (Secular Millenarians). Texts and films range from comedy (Thomas More’s 1516 ur-text, Utopia) to societies that we today regard as dystopias (the USSR). The course is asynchronous, but for a handful of zoom discussions with the professor, and recorded discussions with group members.
HIST 1106 Empires in World History 3 Credits
This course is an introduction to the history of the modern world since 1500. Using a World History approach, we will explore the dramatic transformation of human societies over the past five centuries as a global process produced through the interactions of the West and "the rest." The course focuses on the role of empires, imperialism, and colonialism in shaping world history.
HIST 1107 The Silk Road: Crossroads of Civilizations 3 Credits
This course introduces the civilizations on the Silk Road from ancient times to medieval times, the reign of the Mongol Empire, and from then to the present. It explores how the Silk Road has been a network of trade routes connecting China and Central Asia with the Middle East and Europe, and why today “The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” is at the center of attention in a more global context. This course approaches the content through interdisciplinary methods to provide a more comprehensive introduction to the civilizations on the Silk Road.
HIST 1110 Modern Europe: From Humanism to Hitler 3 Credits
This course surveys the history of modern Europe from the late Middle Ages up to the year 1945. Beginning with the cultural and religious upheavals of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and Wars of Religion, it proceeds to examine the political transformations wrought by Absolutism, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars. It then examines the emergence of modern political ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, and socialism, the development of nationalism and imperialism, the outbreak of World War I, the eruption of the Bolshevik Revolution, the interwar emergence of Fascism and Nazism, and the eruption of World War II.
HIST 1112 Germany Between Dictatorship and Democracy 3 Credits
This course examines the turbulent history of modern Germany from the Second German Empire, or Kaiserreich, to the present day Federal Republic. For much of this period, Germany played a pivotal, and indeed fateful, role in European and world affairs.
HIST 1128 Renaissance England 3 Credits
This course examines England from the later Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, during which time the essentials of the modern British state were formed. Particular emphasis will be given political and religious developments, including changes in the nature of monarchy and its relationship to feudalism, the growth of royal administration and the judiciary, the changes in warfare, the rise of Parliament, the role of the Church, and the impact of the Protestant Reformation. Also examined will be changes in economic and social patterns, as England went from an isolated half-island to a budding imperial power and center for trade.
HIST 1128X Renaissance England 3 Credits
Corequisite(s): ENGL 1410X.
This course examines England from the later Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, during which time the essentials of the modern British state were formed. Particular emphasis will be given political and religious developments, including changes in the nature of monarchy and its relationship to feudalism, the growth of royal administration and the judiciary, the changes in warfare, the rise of Parliament, the role of the Church, and the impact of the Protestant Reformation. Also examined will be changes in economic and social patterns, as England went from an isolated half-island to a budding imperial power and center for trade. This course is linked with ENGL 1410X and fulfills the requirements for the interdisciplinary signature element within the Magis Core.
HIST 1146 Women's History as U.S. History 3 Credits
This course is an introduction to the discipline of history through a survey of American women's experiences from the pre-colonial era to the 1960s. Weighing the impact of gender with race and class on everyday life, we explore the intersectional features of identity from multiple perspectives.
HIST 1188 Colonial Latin America, 1492-1800 3 Credits
The course examines Indian cultures, Portuguese and Spanish institutions, and values on the eve of the conquests, including the clash of cultures and interests, and three ensuing centuries of New World dialectics: conquistadores, viceroys, colonists, priests, friars, Indian caciques and peasants, black slaves, and free mulattoes mutually interacting and forming, by 1800, a new civilization composed of varying hybrid cultures from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego. The course also considers the Iberian colonies on the eve of the 19th-century revolutions for independence. Previously HIST 2288.
HIST 1189 Modern Latin America, 1800-Present 3 Credits
This course introduces students to the concrete actors and events that have shaped politics, culture, and society in Latin America from the nineteenth century wars of independence to the present. Through scholarly readings, primary source documents, literature, music, and film, we will explore the imprint of Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule, the struggles to consolidate nation-states, the efforts to "modernize" in the late nineteenth century, and the extremes that Latin America experienced during the twentieth century. Among the varied topics to be explored in detail will be labor and slavery, citizenship, changing gender roles, urbanization, mass politics and social revolution, and transitions from dictatorship to democracy. The course will also include a consideration of Latin America's changing relationship with the outside world, and particularly with its powerful neighbor to the north. Previously HIST 2289.
HIST 2201 History of Western Science 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course is an introduction to the history of western science from antiquity to the present. Science informs our understanding of and interaction with every aspect of the world around us. In this course we will explore the historical paths that brought us to our contemporary understanding of the core sciences. We will examine scientists and their science within the broader historical contexts that shaped their lives and work. We will think critically about how scientific knowledge is created and the way society has used and abused scientific information.
HIST 2202 Health and Healing in America, 1650-1980: History of Western Medicine 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines major themes and problems in the history of health and medicine in America. Students will explore the changing conceptions of health, illness, and disease from the colonial period through the 20th century in the U.S. Students will analyze the economic, political and cultural forces that helped shape the activities of patients and medical practitioners within an evolving medical marketplace. This course will introduce students to the perspectives of a wide range of sufferers and healers. Students will examine how medical theories, gender, race, class, and ethnicity have shaped the history of medicine in complex ways.
HIST 2203 European Society in the Middle Ages 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the social history of Europe from the barbarian migrations of the fifth century until the end of the Hundred Years War. From feudalism and the concept of courtly love, to the bitter power struggles of popes and monarchs, the course emphasizes emerging institutions, secular and religious, that came to define Western Europe in this and subsequent ages and to provide its most enduring rifts and hatreds. The course offers in-depth consideration of the role of women in medieval society, the persecution of Jews and other minorities, the Crusades, and the Black Death, with particular focus on their impact on the lives of average Europeans. Students read from primary and secondary sources.
HIST 2205 Anti-Semitism: Medieval to Modern 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course surveys the history of Jewish-Christian interaction in Europe from late antiquity until the Dreyfus Affair, with emphasis on the 10 centuries between the ninth and the 19th. Using primary and secondary sources, literature, and film, students explore the complex relationships between Jews and Christians in these years, including often overlapping instances of persecution, segregation, disputation, coexistence, assimilation, and cooperation. The major political events, social shifts, and intellectual trends that profoundly altered European society in this extended period provide the backdrop against which the changing lives of Jewish and Christian Europeans are studied.
HIST 2210 The Third Reich 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the origins and legacy of the Nazi dictatorship during the years 1933-1945. We begin by analyzing the factors that facilitated the Nazis' rise to power including the long-term peculiarities of German history, the short-term crises of the years 1918-33, and the relationship between Hitler and the German people. Thereafter, the course examines the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the Third Reich during the years, 1933-39, before turning to Hitler's unleashing of World War II and the Holocaust in the years 1939-45. The course concludes by surveying the Nazi era's lingering legacy in postwar German and European memory.
HIST 2212 Modern Germany: From Reich to Republic 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the turbulent history of modern Germany from the Second German Empire, or Kaiserreich, to the present-day Federal Republic. Themes include the destabilizing emergence of Germany as a great power in the late 19th century, the outbreak of World War I, the collapse of the Empire, and the revolutionary upheaval of 1918 to 1919. The course examines the birth of the ill-fated Weimar Republic, the rise of Nazism, and the establishment of the Third Reich before moving to Hitler's unleashing of World War II, his genocidal campaign against the Jews, and Germany's ensuing wartime devastation, occupation, and division. The course concludes with an examination of the postwar political, social, and cultural development of West and East Germany through the nation's unification in 1990.
HIST 2213 In the Wake of Destruction: Europe Since World War II 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course surveys the major political, social, and cultural trends that have swept Europe since 1945. Themes include the struggle to reconstruct a stable political order in the immediate aftermath of WWII, the conservative retrenchment of the 1950s, the New Left radicalism of the 1960s, the neo-conservative reaction of the late 1970s and 1980s, the alleged "end of history" following the revolutions of 1989, and Europe's political future in the post-9/11 age of globalization. Against the backdrop of these political trends, we examine how the trauma of war, the achievement of economic prosperity, the upsurge in anti-establishment radicalism, the emergence of a multicultural European society, and fears of decline have affected a wide range of cultural realms, spanning literature, philosophy, art, architecture, and film.
HIST 2214 Modern Jewish History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course surveys the history of the Jewish people from the middle of the eighteenth century up to the present day. Following a brief survey of the ancient and medieval periods, we will examine the social, political, and cultural changes brought about by the dawning of the Jewish Enlightenment, the struggle for political emancipation, and the pursuit of religious reform in Western and Eastern Europe. We will then examine modern anti-Semitism, Zionism, the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel. The course concludes by surveying the history of American Jewry.
HIST 2215 Ireland: Middle Ages to the Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines political, religious, economic, and social developments in the Irish island from early medieval times to the present day. Topics include Celtic culture and civilization, the coming of Christianity, the Viking and Norman invasions, the English conquests in the 16th and 17th centuries, the 18th-century Protestant ascendancy, the subsequent struggle for Catholic emancipation and home rule, the Potato Famine of 1845 to 1850, the struggle for independence during the early 20th century, the ultimate establishment of the Irish republic, the current problems in Northern Ireland, and the historical ties between Ireland and the United States.
HIST 2216 Rise of the British Empire 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the history of Britain and of British overseas expansion between 1400 and 1800: the Tudor-Stuart conquest of Ireland; the establishment of the North American colonies and West Indian plantations; the growth of British power in India during the 18th century, the loss of the Thirteen Colonies, and the beginnings of British rule in Canada. Students study the causes and effects of imperial expansion from the standpoints of British political development, British society, English-speaking colonists, African slaves, and Native Americans.
HIST 2217 Britain and Its Empire Since 1800 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the history of Britain and the British Empire from its great 19th-century expansion into Africa and Asia to its eventual crumbling under the impact of 20th-century independence movements and global war. Students compare the various independence movements, from the relatively peaceful transitions of Canada and Australia to the more violent ones by Ireland, South Africa, and India. The course finishes with an examination of the current racial and cultural conflicts that beset Britain's former colonies, with particular focus upon Ireland and South Africa.
HIST 2220 Ancient African Civilizations 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This class introduces the civilizations of the ancient Nile Valley, Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia. It also provides an introduction to the transformation and survival of those civilizations into the medieval and modern worlds. Lectures will cover the social and political history of Pharaonic Egypt; the transformations of Egypt under Greco-Roman rule; the emergence of independent Nubia; the birth of a centralized and literate society in the Ethiopian highlands; the Christianization of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia; the survival of Nubia and Ethiopia as independent medieval powers; and the historical memory of modern Copts, Nubians, and Ethiopians.
HIST 2221 Hellenistic World, 336-30 BCE 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The course examines the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East from the late fourth to late first centuries BC. Focus is on: the career of Alexander the Great; the Greek kingdoms that emerge after the collapse of his empire; the interaction between local cultures and religions, e.g. Egypt, ancient Judaism, and Greek civilization; the social history of daily life in conquered lands under Greek rule; and the transformations in the Hellenistic world with the arrival of Roman rule. Crosslisted with CLST 2221.
HIST 2222 The Roman Revolution 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This comprehensive study of the political, social, artistic, literary, and military transformation of Rome from the middle of the second century BCE through the reign of Augustus gives special attention to Rome's response to the cultural and governmental challenges imposed by its growing empire and how its responses forever changed the course of Western civilization. Crosslisted with CLST 2222.
HIST 2223 Roman World in Late Antiquity, 284-642 CE 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The course examines the Mediterranean world from the third to seventh centuries CE. Focus is on: the collapse of the Roman Empire in western Europe; the dramatic upheavals caused by the arrival in the Roman Empire of the Visigoths, Vandals, and other barbarian tribes; the survival of the Byzantine East through the early Islamic conquests; the rise of Christianity from a persecuted religion to the official religion of the Roman Empire; and the accompanying cultural transformations, including the rise of monasticism and the importance of the holy man. Crosslisted with CLST 2223.
HIST 2224 Byzantine World 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course is an introduction to political and social history of Byzantine Empire. It also highlights Byzantium's role as a bridge between Greco-Roman antiquity and modern European civilization. Course lectures will cover Byzantium's origins in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Byzantium's middle period as a major Mediterranean power, and its late period as an increasingly shrinking city-state. The course will also introduce students to some of the major Byzantine historians and to methods of analysis using these sources, and train students to form historical arguments based on these analyses. Crosslisted with CLST 2224.
HIST 2225 Ancient Economics 3 Credits
This course explores the economic history of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean from the eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE. It focuses primarily on a close reading of the relevant primary sources – particularly literary, epigraphic and numismatic – providing insight into both the functioning of the ancient economy and Greco-Roman beliefs about and values concerning that economy. It also invites students to engage in the modern debate about the nature of the ancient economy, and asks them to consider whether that economy was a so-called “primitive” economy, or fundamentally like the modern economy, adjusting simply for scale. This course analyzes ancient evidence for Greco-Roman accounting techniques; debt mechanisms; price formation; coinage; travel and trade; markets and demand; and other aspects of ancient economic behavior.
HIST 2228X Renaissance England 3 Credits
Corequisite(s): ENGL 1410X.
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines England from the later Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, during which time the essentials of the modern British state were formed. Particular emphasis will be given political and religious developments, including changes in the nature of monarchy and its relationship to feudalism, the growth of royal administration and the judiciary, the changes in warfare, the rise of Parliament, the role of the Church, and the impact of the Protestant Reformation. Also examined will be changes in economic and social patterns, as England went from an isolated half-island to a budding imperial power and center for trade. This course is linked with ENGL 1410X and fulfills the requirements for the interdisciplinary signature element within the Magis Core.
HIST 2230 Early Modern France 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course covers the political, social, and cultural development of France from the 16th-century Wars of Religion to the ascension of Napoleon I in 1804, with an emphasis on the effects of revolutionary change on daily life (including the role of women, popular piety, the church and religious dissent, and labor relations), and on the impact of new political languages beyond the borders of France itself. Source readings, from the salon writings of the Bourbon court to the raucous songs of the streets of Paris, aid in considering if a French identity was formed during the period.
HIST 2235 Race in the Americas 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This team-taught course explores the construction of race throughout the Americas. Course readings and assignments focus on Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, among others. These places are emphasized as sharing overlapping concerns with the US, based on geography, common histories, and patterns of migration. We use an interdisciplinary approach integrating theory and research methods from history, sociology, politics, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Black Studies. We explore essential questions related to difference that all human societies have encountered over time. We deepen our understanding of why we categorize people, how we label them, and who decides. Crosslisted with SOCI 2135.
HIST 2237 American Prophetic Tradition 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course explores the experiences of individuals and social movements throughout U.S. history, who from a variety of religious and philosophical traditions found meaning in their lives and made an impact on U.S. society. Individuals range from Mary Dyer and Roger Williams to Lucretia Mott, Walter Rauschenbusch, Dorothy Day, John Cardinal Murray, and Jonathan Kozol, from the abolitionists to the anti-war movement.
HIST 2239 20th Century United States 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The course surveys developments in American social, political, and economic life since 1900. Major themes include problems of advanced industrial society, the growing government role in the economy, America's growing role in the world, and social movements of the 1930s and 1960s. Ethnic and cultural diversity within American society receive attention.
HIST 2240 The Personal Is Political: Women's Activism in the 1960s 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Little fanfare and much derision accompanied the re-emergence of a women's movement in the mid-1960s. Within less than a decade, massive changes were underway. From the dismantling of gendered employment ads to the identification of domestic violence as a crime, few argued that Second Wave Feminism was meaningless. Students in this course discuss the depth and range of women's grass roots activism as well as the features of a social movement; they trace the development of consciousness, the growth of different ideologies, and the formation of agendas. The course also explores movement fault lines such as the fictive category of woman, racism, and "structurelessness," in addition to the difficulties of sustaining coalition. From the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 to the Houston Conference 22 years later, students encounter the women who illuminated the political nature of issues once relegated to the private arena. Course material includes extensive use of autobiography.
HIST 2242 Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in U.S. History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This thematically arranged intensive reading, writing, and discussion seminar on the history of U.S. immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries situates the United States within the context of global migration patterns and economic development. Students investigate patterns of migration and community settlement, family strategies of survival and adaptation, and immigrant cultures. They analyze how successive groups of immigrants were received by U.S. society by examining the origins and effects of recurrent waves of racism, nativism, and ethnic and class antagonism that pervade American history.
HIST 2244 American Constitutional and Legal History II: 1900 to Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the latter portion of the Fuller court, Imperialism and the Constitution, governmental efforts to restore economic competition, the police power, economic reform, progressivism, the tradition of national supremacy, new turns in civil liberties, the New Deal and the old Supreme Court, civil rights and the incorporation theory of the 14th amendment, and new roads back to legal conservatism.
HIST 2245 Feminism in the United States 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Participants study feminism based on the premise that it is a multi-faceted struggle for women's autonomy and self-determination. The course focuses largely on the United States, birthplace of the first organized women's movement; however, it periodically expands its view beyond the United States for purposes of comparison. Students analyze the development of the feminist movement as well as feminist theory during the 19th and 20th centuries and explore the discourse on gender mediated by race and class, and its impact on women's lives. Using primary and secondary sources, students work toward a historical definition of feminism.
HIST 2247 Family and Sexuality in U.S. History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the growing scholarship in the fields of family history and sexual history in America. Students will explore the changing meanings of family, love, intimacy, emotions and sexuality from the colonial period through the 20th century in the U.S. Students will analyze the economic, political and cultural forces that helped shape sexual and family history. This course will introduce students to a wide range of American families and sexualities in history, examining how race, class, and ethnicity have made familial formation, sexual behavior and personal identity richly varied and complex.
HIST 2251 The American Century: The United States and the World Since 1900 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the development, crises, and turning points in U.S. relations with the world from Woodrow Wilson to the present, exploring issues such as U.S. reactions to the Russian Revolution, World War I, isolationism and the coming of World War II, the Grand Alliance, the origins and development of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, the Vietnam War, the United States and Latin America, U.S./Soviet relations, the Middle East and Persian Gulf crises, and the post-Cold War world.
HIST 2253 Early America to 1800 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This study of the foundations of American civilization compares the colonial systems of Spain, France, and England. The course stresses the development of the British colonies in New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the South, with special emphasis on such topics as Puritanism, the Great Awakening, and the Enlightenment in America. The course continues through the American Revolution and the early United States to 1800. The role of outsiders (free and enslaved Africans, women, and American Indians) is stressed.
HIST 2257 Who Built America? Working People in America 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course explores the history of working people's lives and social movements in the U.S. from the pre-industrial era, through the Industrial Revolution, to today's "post-industrial" society. This is not an Industrial Relations course. We look at three broad areas of historical change: 1) work itself; 2) the making and re-making of the American working class; and 3) the definitions of social justice that working people constructed for themselves and that informed their social movements. Our goal is to understand how and why the "Labor Question" was at the heart of American reform movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. Special attention will be given to the experiences of women, African Americans, and other racial and ethnic groups.
HIST 2262 African-American History, 1619 to 1865 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the role that Africans played in the building of America after their forced migration to these shores. It emphasizes the rise of the plantation system, the cultural transformation of Africans into African-Americans, and the essential roles that slaves and slavery played in the emergence of the United States as an independent nation and its political and economic consolidation into a modern nation-state. Slaves and free blacks figure in this history, not just as tools and backdrop, but as social and political actors, rebels, and major builders of American civilization.
HIST 2263 Inventing Themselves: African-American Women in U.S. History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
At the intersection of race, gender, and class, African-American women often challenged the codification of blackness and femaleness as well as a limited conception of class consciousness. From the diaspora to the present, they created forms of resistance, devised survival strategies, and transmitted cultural knowledge while defying racial/gender stereotypes. The multiple roles assumed by African-American women during their struggle from slaves to citizens in the United States represent a complex study of the relational nature of difference and identity. This course focuses on African-American women as subjects and agents of pivotal importance within the family, community, and labor force.
HIST 2264 African-American History, 1865 to Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the role people of African descent played as freed people and free people during Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the 20th century. It emphasizes the Southern origins of African America, the politics and economic activism of common people, and the recurring theme of struggle against racial injustice.
HIST 2265 History of the Indian Subcontinent: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Democracy, c.1857 to Today 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Faced with unrivaled questions of diversity, poverty, and scale, South Asia has been a crucial laboratory in the making of political modernity. India, with a population numbering over a billion, is the world's largest democracy. Pakistan was the world's first Muslim "homeland" and "nation." Beginning with an examination of the colonial period, this course reconsiders partition, and then follows the postcolonial trajectories of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. We explore innovative and divergent imaginations of the future, and of democracy in particular. We encounter Hindu nationalists, communists, socialists, liberals, anarchists, Islamists, and Muslim nationalists, revolutionaries, and the inescapable Mahatma Gandhi.
HIST 2266 Gandhi and Non-Violent Revolution in the 20th Century 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course explores the history of the modern world through one of modernity's greatest critics, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was the preeminent leader of India's anti-colonial freedom struggle from the British Empire, as well as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Through an exploration of Gandhi and his world, students will examine nationalism, democracy, capitalism, and imperialism and colonialism. We will use Gandhi as a point of departure for debates about the meaning of freedom, justice, and modernity itself. The course situates Gandhi's life in an age of transformation that was foundational to the modern world.
HIST 2270 History of Global Humanitarian Action 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course, an intermediate (second core) history course, surveys the history of global humanitarian action in the face of famine, war, plague, natural disaster, refugees and other crises, since the middle of the nineteenth century. We will focus on intervention by European powers, the United States, the international community, and non-governmental actors. Special focus in case studies will be on 20th century war, famine, and genocide. Each student will research a case study with a focus on potential points of life-saving intervention.
HIST 2271 Introduction to Russian History, Culture, and Civilization 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This intermediate level history and culture course will introduce students to the multiple facets of Russian identity. Embracing the period from East Slavic settlements in the ninth century to contemporary Russia under Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev, the course will survey major themes that contributed to the creation of the Russian archetype. The idiosyncrasies of Russia's geographic location, the enduring presence of Russian Orthodoxy, the complex relationship with the West, debates about "Russianness" among the Russian intelligentsia and the context of the Soviet Union and its disintegration, will be explored through literary texts, film, and significant works of art.
HIST 2272 Russia, 700-1700: History and Myth 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course is a survey of the eastern forest-steppe frontier of Europe (the territory of what is now Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) from its first pagan rulers up to Russian Tsar Peter the Great, covering such themes as Russian Orthodoxy, the Mongol invasion, the growth of the Russian State, and the founding of the Russian empire.
HIST 2273 History and Culture of Central and Eastern Europe Since 1945 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This core history course explores the extraordinary story of accommodation, resistance, and oppression in Central and Eastern European societies during the second half of the 20th century and the crucial role that cultural and intellectual forces played from the period of fascist and wartime occupation, through the communist period to the overthrow of communism and the development of new societies in the period 1985 to the present. The course interweaves film from Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and Hungary, historical texts and documents, and memoirs and writings of key dissident intellectuals, such as Vaclav Havel.
HIST 2274 Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Global Crises 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines, using topical, geographic, and critical approaches, the interaction of the United States and western Europe with the rest of the world in the 20th century, giving considerable attention to non-Western perspectives such as those of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Arab world, Russia, and Eastern Europe. The course also includes an introduction to the history of U.S. foreign relations, international organizations, social change in the developing world, and world systems theory.
HIST 2275 Russia's Road to Revolution 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Topics in this course include the modernization of Russia since Peter the Great; the impact of Western culture in the 18th century; Catherine the Great as reformer; intellectual protest against autocracy and serfdom; revolutionary ferment: Slavophiles and Westerners; from populism to Marxism-Leninism; the revolution of 1905; the industrialization of Russia to 1914; and the revolutions of 1917.
HIST 2276 St. Petersburg in Russian History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Students explore the history of Russia from Peter the Great to the present through the political, social, and cultural heritage of Peter's city, St. Petersburg: Russia's "window on the west." St. Petersburg served as imperial Russia's capital from 1703 to 1918. After the consolidation of Soviet power, St. Petersburg (as Leningrad) continued to play a key role in 20th-century Russian social, political, and cultural history. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the rebirth of St. Petersburg as a cultural center. The course emphasizes historical sites and cultural accomplishments of St. Petersburg through the use of slides, video, and music.
HIST 2277 The Global Cold War 3 Credits
Conventional portrayals of the Cold War split the period into two blocs and three worlds, with a clearly marked start and finish. They frame it as a time of peace in nuclear-armed Europe and the United States, and proxy wars at the margins, in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. This course challenges these characterizations by comparing ideologies, diplomacy, technologies, and popular cultures via media from six continents, beginning in the 1920s and ending in the 2020s. We examine the Soviet- and US-led blocs as dynamic rather than monolithic alliances, and compare caricatures of the docile “Third World” to the reality of self-advocacy and struggle across the Global South.
HIST 2278 Cultural History of China's Relations with the United States 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
International relations are often conceptualized as power rivalry, stressing conflicts and collaboration among nations in international politics and political economy. In this course the Chinese-American relations are viewed as a history of people and cultural exchange, not just a top-down history of diplomacy and politics. Using culture rather than politics or economics as a reference point, this course exams China-US relations since the 19th century to the present from the interaction of cultural exchanges between the Chinese and Americans. Topics include: Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Messengers of the 19th century from both, China and United States, The Internationalization of China and United States: Educators of the 1920s, the Journalists of the 1930s and 1940s, Literature Imagination in China and United Sates, and Popular Culture and Sino-American Relations. The format of the course includes lectures, group discussions, debates and audio-visual presentations.
HIST 2279 China from the Classical Time to the 1800s 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
To many people China is one of the most mysterious and intriguing civilizations. Its fascinating concepts of philosophy, government, religion, art, and science that formed several thousand years ago continue to influence the modern world. This course examines the history, culture, self-image, worldview, and the ideas and institutions that shaped China and its people from the classical time to the 1800s. It is difficult to cover several thousand years of Chinese civilization in one semester. However, after this course, students should emerge with basic knowledge of Chinese culture and people. This course is an analytical survey of major topics and themes in Chinese history and culture. The format of the course includes lectures, group discussion, debate, and audio-visual presentation.
HIST 2280 The West and the Middle East 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines Western and Middle Eastern relations from the 18th century to the present, relating recurring upheavals of the Middle East, including conflicts between ethnic-religious groups and economic classes, to structural transformations that have developed across two centuries. Topics include Western colonization and conquest; Middle Eastern nationalism; the Arab-Israeli conflict; the economics and politics of oil; and the Islamic revival.
HIST 2281 Portrait of the Arabs 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This interdisciplinary course provides a broad introduction to Arab culture and society in the past and present, using novels, poetry, films, and scholarly studies to investigate contemporary issues and their relationship to a complex historical legacy. Topics include the formation of Arab identity; the relationship of city and countryside; women and the family; literature; the arts and architecture; and nation building.
HIST 2283 Women in the Middle East and Central Asia From Ancient Times to 1600 3 Credits
This course offers an introduction to women's status and roles in the Middle East and Central Asia from ancient times to 1600. It explores continuity and change in the role and status of women in primary sources including scriptures and historical documents and secondary sources. It examines social changes shaping women's lives within their families and in society and politics. It also examines how women navigated and influenced their societies' structures and norms.
HIST 2284 20th Century Russia 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course covers such major themes as the impact of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions; Lenin, War Communism, and the new economic policy; Stalin, collectivization, and the Great Purges; the Russian war experience and the Cold War; Khrushchev, reform, and de-Stalinization; Brezhnev, stagnation, and detente; Gorbachev, glasnost, perestroika, and political and economic crisis; the Revolution of 1987 to 1991; and post-Soviet Russia.
HIST 2285 Modern China: 1800 to Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the major developments in modern Chinese history from about 1800 to the present to show China's transformation from a semi-colonial country in the 19th century to a major player in world affairs today. Topics include the Opium Wars, the impact of imperialism on China and China's response to it, the revolutionary movements of the first two decades of the 1900s, the rise of nationalism and Chinese Communism, the anti-Japanese War, the history of the People's Republic of China, the current economic reform movement and social changes, and China's role in the new world order.
HIST 2286 Rise of Modern Japan: 1800 to Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the transformation of Japan from the late Tokugawa period in the 1800s to the emergence of Japan as a post-industrial society. It focuses on historical forces and events, and on the efforts of Japanese women and men that have shaped Japan's transition from a late developing industrial nation during the Meiji period (1868-1912) to a great economic power in the 20th century. The dramatic social, political, economic, and cultural changes of the 1980s and 1990s receive attention. Students compare Japan's path to modernization with that of the West.
HIST 2288 Colonial Latin America, 1492-1800 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The course examines Indian cultures, Portuguese and Spanish institutions, and values on the eve of the conquests, including the clash of cultures and interests, and three ensuing centuries of New World dialectics: conquistadores, viceroys, colonists, priests, friars, Indian caciques and peasants, black slaves, and free mulattoes mutually interacting and forming, by 1800, a new civilization composed of varying hybrid cultures from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego. The course also considers the Iberian colonies on the eve of the 19th-century revolutions for independence.
HIST 2290 The History of the US-Mexico Border 3 Credits
This course examines the history of the US-Mexico border and the movement of people and goods across it. Beginning in the 1800s, the course proceeds chronologically and thematically through three units that explore: 1) the hardening of the US-Mexico border in the nineteenth century; 2) the age of mass migration and labor in the twentieth century; and 3) the steady militarization of the border up to the present. Through critical reflection and historical investigation, students will gain an understanding of the history of the border and the vital role that it has played in US, Mexican and Central American life.
HIST 2297 Power, Politics, History: U.S.-Latin American Relations from the 1800s to the Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
In this course, students examine the political, economic, social, and cultural repercussions of US-Latin American relations from the mid-19th century to the present. We will study cases of overt US political intervention and conflict, as well as less dramatic but ongoing forms of influence. While we will seek to understand what has led the United States to intervene so frequently in Latin America, our work will also pay close attention to the multiple ways that social actors throughout the Americas have constructed their national and cultural imaginaries across time, and in dialogue with one another.
HIST 2298 Historical Geography 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Historical geography applies the tools of geography to the phenomena and events of the past. Maps, statistics, and an understanding of how people interact with the physical world allow the historical geographer to achieve a new perspective on historic events. This class will be grounded primarily in the historical geography of North America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, and will also consider the general topics of history of place, change over time, the nature and uses of maps, and spatial analysis.
HIST 3303 What If? Alternate History and the Historical Imagination 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
What if the American Revolution had failed? What if the South had won the Civil War? What if Hitler had never been born? This seminar investigates why these and other counterfactual questions have increasingly been posed in works of Western popular culture in the last generation. In exploring the recent emergence of counterfactual history as a cultural phenomenon, we examine a wide range of speculative novels, films, television shows, comic books, plays, and historical essays in comparative analytical fashion. In the process, we attempt to arrive at general conclusions about how counterfactual narratives help us better understand the roles of causality and morality in history, as well as the broader workings of collective memory.
HIST 3304 The Holocaust in History and Memory 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The Holocaust demands, yet stubbornly resists, historical understanding. This course addresses the Nazis' genocidal assault upon European Jewry and others by examining a wide range of factors that contributed to it. The course explores the roots of modern German anti-Semitism, the origins of Nazism, the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, the sharpening of anti-Jewish measures during the Third Reich, and the escalation of persecution following the outbreak of World War II that culminated in the so-called Final Solution. Students consider the legacy of the Holocaust after 1945 by examining the postwar struggle to preserve its lessons in memory, the difficulty in finding adequate cultural means of representing its extreme dimensions, and the challenge of understanding the lessons that the event left for the postwar world.
HIST 3313 Godless: Atheism and Skeptical Thought in the West 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The history of atheism, or whether atheism even has a history, is difficult to establish. Scholars have used a narrow definition of the term atheism to suggest its origins in the 18th century, or a broad definition to trace its antecedents back to classical antiquity. This course considers atheism within the tradition of skepticism, and leaves open for classroom debate the question of whether the thinkers studied; from Epicurus to Ingersoll, Diderot to Dawkins; represent a coherent tradition or merely a collection of radical challenges, each tied to its own time and place.
HIST 3315 Ireland Since the Famine 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course is an in-depth examination of political, social, religious, and economic developments in Ireland from 1850 to the present day. Up to 1921 the focus is on the entire island including Ulster. After 1921 the focus turns to the Irish Free State and later Republic (Eire), although developments in Northern Ireland are studied as they compare with the history of the southern republic and as they bear upon relations with it. Students examine the interaction of politics with religious and ethnic divisions, international relations, economic conditions, and cultural patterns, including education and social mores.
HIST 3323 England: Reformation to Revolution 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines the changes in church, state, and society that took place in the British Isles from the reign of Henry VIII to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. These centuries saw the unification of England, Ireland, and Scotland under a single government, the development of that government from feudal kingship into Parliamentary-based bureaucracy, and the shattering of medieval Catholicism into a variety of different churches and doctrines. The course also examines the structure of Tudor-Stuart society and the cultural changes resulting from the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
HIST 3325 Athenian Democracy and Empire 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This history seminar provides an in-depth exploration of classical Athens at the height of its power in the fifth century BCE. Its focus is on close reading of the primary sources describing the rise and fall of Athens in this period. It places particular emphasis on the parallel rise of Athenian democracy at home and the Athenian empire overseas. It places secondary emphasis on the nature of Athenian intellectual discourse in this period. A final research project will engage modern scholarly debates on the nature of fifth-century Athens. Crosslisted with CLST 3325.
HIST 3331 American Revolution and the New Nation 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
An examination of the coming of the American Revolution and the transition from colonial to national status, this course discusses the military struggle itself and provides an assessment of the political, social, and economic effects of the Revolution. Topics include the Confederation period, the forming of the 1787 Constitution, and the Federalist era. Figures such as John Adams, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Washington receive special attention.
HIST 3335 Civil War and Reconstruction 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The principal goal of this seminar will be to familiarize students with some of the most important aspects of the Civil War and Reconstruction period in the United States, including the close examination of some of the more important historiographical debates. Topics include: sectionalism, antebellum political parties, slavery, abolition, Civil War politics, Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction, and Redemption. Students will use primary and secondary resources to produce a significant research paper.
HIST 3346 Saints, Sinners, and Sisters: Women and Religion in American History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Why have women comprised the majority of American religious groups? What sorts of gender structures are central to religious groups in America? How have women's relationships to religious institutions changed over time? This course spans from the colonial era to the twentieth century; this course will focus on key periods in the formation of American women's relationship to religious ideas and institutions. Topics include: Native American women and colonialism; Puritan Women, Quakerism, Witchcraft Accusations, Evangelicalism American Catholic Life, Black Churches, Social Movements, Spiritualism, the Mormon Church, Jewish women in America, Fundamentalism, Muslim Women, Modern Witchcraft, Goddess Movements, and Buddhism.
HIST 3349 The 1930s in America 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This research seminar on the Great Depression and New Deal will use primary and secondary sources to focus on key events and different historical interpretations of the United States during this decade. The economic crisis defined the decade and propelled political, economic, social, and cultural changes. This era has immense relevance to today's political debates: the federal government's role in regulating the free market, the weakness of the labor movement, unemployment and the persistence of poverty, the increasing wealth gap, the increasing racial edge in these issues. All have their origins in the policies first forged during the New Deal.
HIST 3350 Introduction to Public History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course presents the field of Public History, which is the application of academic historical knowledge for presentation to the general public in a manner that enhances the public's understanding of historical change. It gives students the skills to think about and write local history, by exploring the bases for historical analysis through evaluation of primary-source documents and familiarity with secondary historical interpretations. Through service-learning projects, students will serve community partners such as the Fairfield Museum and History Center, the Bridgeport Public Library Historical Collections, and the Barnum Museum, by contributing historical research, designing exhibitions, and preparing curriculum lesson plans.
HIST 3356 History of the Cold War 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This intensive reading, writing, and discussion seminar focuses on the origins, deepening, and decline of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991, covering such issues as Lenin-Wilson ideological antagonism, the shift from Grand Alliance to Cold War, the arms race, the rise and fall of detente, and the collapse of the Cold War order in Europe and the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991. The course attempts to approach the topic by understanding both sides of the conflict, studying decisions, policies, and actions in a bilateral fashion.
HIST 3366 Gender, Culture, and Representation: Women in China and Japan, 1600 to Present 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
Are Chinese and Japanese women mere victims of a patriarchal society? Do socialist revolution and industrial modernization liberate women? This seminar examines those questions by studying the historical changes and continuities in the experience of women in China and Japan from approximately the 17th century to the present. The construction and representation of gender relations in China and Japan represent complex processes with many changes. Using verbal and visual texts, this course considers women's lives and their struggles to represent themselves in both societies as well as the historiography on those subjects.
HIST 3367 East Asia in 20th-Century American Wars 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
During the 20th century the United States fought three wars in East Asia: the Pacific War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. How did the East Asians perceive and react to the wars? How did the wars affect people's lives and societies in East Asia? How did the wars affect postwar relations between the United States and East Asia? Did race, culture, and ethnicity play significant roles in these wars? This course examines those questions by studying East Asia in the three American wars as an oral and social history. The course focuses on the human dimensions of the wars as experienced by those East Asians who fought and lived through them.
HIST 3368 Ideas in Action: Decolonization in World History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This seminar explores the intellectual history of decolonization, the multifaceted process marked by the collapse of longstanding European empires and the emergence of independent nation-states in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean in the mid-twentieth century. The central assumption of intellectual history is that ideas are key drivers of historical change. Conventional intellectual history courses engage with a narrow canon of European thinkers. This course approaches key figures from the colonial and postcolonial world, such as Gandhi and Fanon, as important ideological innovators integral to world history. Our main concern will be the intellectual ferment inaugurated as colonized peoples sought first to make sense of colonialism and then debated the meaning of, and means of achieving, freedom and liberation.
HIST 3371 Arab-Israeli Conflict 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The course traces the Arab-Israeli conflict from the end of the 19th century until the present, emphasizing the political and socioeconomic transformation of Palestine as Zionists and Palestinian Arabs struggled for political sovereignty in the same land. Topics include Anti-Semitism and the Birth of Zionism, the British Mandate, the creation of Israel, the relationship between Israel and the Arab states, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian resistance, Israel's war in Lebanon, diaspora politics, representations of the conflict in film and pop culture, and prospects for the future.
HIST 3372 Terrorism in History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This course examines terrorism as it has been perpetrated by individuals, political-military groups, and states of varying political ideologies. Topics include political violence in antiquity and medieval times; the French Revolution; terrorism, anarchism, and Marxism; terrorism and national liberation; and terrorism and religion.
HIST 3373 History of North Africa Since 1700 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
The region historically known as the Barbary Coast or North Africa today comprises five states: Mauritania and Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the north and the Sahara desert on the south, this region lay at the crossroads of European, African, and Middle Eastern civilizations. The course explores the countries' individual histories and inter-related regional topics such as piracy, Christian captivity narratives, the trans-Saharan slave trade, colonialism, national liberation and decolonization. Students investigate violence, power, identity, foreign domination, and the challenges these pose for the writing of history.
HIST 3383 Food, Consumption, and Commodities in Latin America, 1500 to the Present: From Chocolate to Cocaine 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This upper level research seminar examines food and commodities as a critical part of the social and cultural history of Latin America. Through historical texts, cookbooks, literature, film, and food tastings, we will explore the history of food production, commodification, and consumption in Latin America, while paying close attention to the ways that cuisine has shaped cultural identity, social difference, and nationalisms over time.
HIST 3385 Comparative Russian Revolutions 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
An intensive reading, writing and discussion seminar studying in some depth the background, origins, development, and outcomes of two Russian revolutionary periods of the 20th century: the interrelated upheavals of 1905 to 1917, resulting in the overthrow of the tsarist regime and its replacement by the Bolsheviks; and the reform, collapse, and transformation of the Communist government of the Soviet Union from Mikhail Gorbachev to the present. In the process of two in-depth examinations, the course explores contrasts among the social, economic, political, and cultural forces at work in the two revolutionary periods.
HIST 3391 The Meanings of History 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course.
This upper-division seminar for juniors and seniors analyzes the ideas of seminal Western and non-Western thinkers; historians and philosophers who have had a profound influence on historical understanding and the practice of historians. Topics include the following questions: What is history? To what extent has the understanding of history changed in various times, places, and cultures? Are "scientific" history and the discovery of objective truth possible? Do stable civilizational identities exist and what value do such concepts have for historical understanding? The course examines the contemporary political, social, and cultural relevance of these and comparable questions through intensive readings, discussions, and analytical papers.
HIST 3900 Special Topics (Shell) 3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course, junior standing.
This course offers an in-depth investigation of a significant historical problem or topic, conducted in a seminar format. The professor teaching the course chooses the topic.
HIST 3980 Internship 1-3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course, junior standing.
Majors work a minimum of eight hours per week during the semester at the Fairfield Museum and History Center, the Bridgeport Public Library Historical Collections, or a similar institution. An intern's work at these sites may include researching and mounting an exhibit, cataloging manuscript and artifacts collections, or organizing and conducting historical walking tours. Training in required skills is provided at the site. Under the supervision of a history department faculty member, interns write a research paper based on the work of the internship. Enrollment permission only.
HIST 3990 Independent Study 1-3 Credits
Prerequisite(s): One 1000-level history course, junior standing.
This course provides an opportunity for advanced students to develop critical reading skills and writing ability in a tutorial arrangement with a chosen professor. Normally, the course results in a serious paper of publishable quality in student-centered journals (15 to 20 pages). Students arrange for independent study during registration period of the semester prior to the one in which they wish to take the course by applying to a professor under whose direction they wish to study. All independent study must have the concurrence of the department chairperson. Students may take only two independent studies.
Professors
Greenwald
Li
McFadden
Rosenfeld
Ruffini
Associate Professors
Abbott
Adair
Behre, chair
King
Lawrence
Purushotham
Associate Professor of the Practice
Marsans-Sakly
Assistant Professors of the Practice
Hohl
Lord
Rutter
Visiting Assistant Professors
Awtrey
Kamali
Jurdem
Rowley
Lecturers
Heath
Palmer
Faculty Emeriti
Bucki
Coury
DeAngelis
Kazura
Petry