History

An introduction to the history of the modern world, this course traces the global processes that connected regions with each other from the time of Genghis Khan to the present. The major themes of the course include the environmental impact of human development, the role of wars and empires in shaping world power, and the transformations of global trade, finance, and migration.

General introduction to major themes in the cultural, intellectual, and institutional history of China and Japan, with some attention to Korea and Southeast Asia. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An introduction to the history of modern East Asia, examining the inter-related histories of Korea, Japan, and China since 1800 and their relationships with the wider world. Major topics include: trade, cultural exchanges, reform and revolution, war, colonialism, Cold War geopolitics, socialism. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course is designed to introduce the culture and history of Japan, and to examine how one understands and interprets the past. In addition to considering how a culture, a society, and a state develop, we will try to reconstruct the tenor of life in "ancient" and "medieval" Japan and chart how patterns of Japanese civilization shifted through time.

This course will focus on the history of the later Roman Empire, a period which historians often refer to as "Late Antiquity." We will begin our class in pagan Rome at the start of the third century and end it in Baghdad in the ninth century: in between these two points, the Mediterranean world experienced a series of cultural and political revolutions whose reverberations can still be felt today. We will witness civil wars, barbarian invasions, the triumph of Christianity over paganism, the fall of the Western Empire, the rise of Islam, the Greco-Arabic translation movement and much more.

The course deals with four main topics: the Greek city-state, the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, the formation of medieval European society, and the Renaissance and Reformation. Emphasis will be laid on those social, political, intellectual, and religious developments that contributed most directly to forming modern European civilization. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The emergence of modern societies from the Europe of the Old Regimes. Emphasis on problems and themes, including the French and Industrial Revolutions, nationalism, science and its discontents, popular culture, the mass movements of revolution and war. Intended as an introduction to Europe for students with little background in history. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course will explore the major issues that have shaped the Caribbean since 1791, including: colonialism and revolution, slavery and abolition, migration and diaspora, economic inequality, and racial hierarchy. We will examine the Caribbean through a comparative approach--thinking across national and linguistic boundaries--with a focus on Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. While our readings and discussions will foreground the islands of the Greater Antilles, we will also consider relevant examples from the circum-Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora as points of comparison. AAS Subfield: GRE

A formative episode in Western civilization: the Greeks from the rise of the city-state, through the conflict between Athens and Sparta, to the emergence of Macedon in the fourth century B.C. Emphasis on cultural history, political thought, and the development of techniques of historical interpretation through analysis of original sources (Herodotus, Thucydides, and others). Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The Greek experience from Alexander the Great through Cleopatra. An exploration of the dramatic expansion of the Greek world into the Near East brought about by the conquests and achievements of Alexander. Study of the profound political, social, and intellectual changes that stemmed from the interaction of the cultures, and the entrance of Greece into the sphere of Rome. Readings include history, biography, religious narrative, comedy, and epic poetry. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A study of the causes and unforeseen consequences of one small city-state's rise to world-empire, primarily through the analysis of ancient sources (including Livy, Polybius, Caesar, and Cicero) in translation. Emphasis on the development of Roman society and the evolution, triumph, and collapse of the republican government that it produced. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A study of the profound transformation of Rome by the multicultural empire it had conquered, ending with the triumph of Christianity. Emphasis on typical social and cultural institutions and on the legacies of Rome to us. Ancient sources in translation include documents, histories, letters, and novels. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Over the past 3,000 years, texts written in Greek played a central role for how people in Western Eurasia understood themselves, their society, their values, and the nature of the universe. Over the same three millennia, the Greek language played a central role in a variety of political communities, including ancient Athens, the empire of Alexander, the Roman empire, Byzantium, and the modern nation state of Greece. In this course, we will trace the history of these two phenomena: the political life and fortunes of Greek speakers and the cultural life of texts written in Greek, seeking to understand the relationship between the two.

An overview of the history of the Middle East from the rise of Islam to the present day with a focus on the "core" of the Middle East, i.e., the region defined by present-day Turkey and Egypt to the west, Iran to the east, and Arabia to the south. Issues raised include difficulties in the study of foreign cultures, religion and society, the interplay between local and global processes, identity formation, and the Middle East in the broader world. One lecture, two classes.

In this seminar, students encounter the theoretical canon and keywords, which shape the contemporary discipline of African American Studies. Accessing a range of interdisciplinary areas, situated primarily in the United States, students will learn to take a critical posture in examining the patterns and prat order and transform Black subjects and Black life.

We will begin in 476 with the fall of Rome and will end in 1453, with the fall of New Rome (Constantinople). In between, we will trace the different trajectories that the area stretching from Iceland to Iran traveled along over the course of this fateful millennium. We will meet Northern barbarians, Arab armies, Vikings, Crusaders, Mongols, and the Ottomans; we will witness the birth of Islam and medieval Islamic civilization; Charlemagne's creation of the Western Roman empire; will see clashes between Popes and rulers and Caliphs and Muslim religious authorities. We will do all this and more, all the while asking: What were the Middle Ages?

Where does medicine begin in the West? In this course, we will go back to the earliest medical texts written in ancient Greece that try to give an account of disease as a natural phenomenon that happens inside the biological body. Our aim is not simply to reconstruct the theories of health and disease that these authors put forth. It is also to see the kinds of questions and problems that arise when healers take responsibility for the care and treatment of bodies.

This course offers a chronological and topical overview of one of the world's most diverse and contested spaces. Sketching the deep linkages between East Africa, the Subcontinent and Southeast Asia, short focused readings and in-depth precepts will highlight such issues as the spread of Buddhism and Islam, the rise of colonialism, the importance of nationalist and third-worldist movements, the struggles for exclusive ethno-religious enclaves and the consequences for diasporic communities with ever-tightening links to the Americas, Europe and Australasia.

An introduction to the history of the Middle East from the late eighteenth century through the turn of the twenty-first, with an emphasis on the Arab East, Iran, Israel, and Turkey.

This course offers an introduction to the major themes, critical questions, and pivotal moments in post emancipation African American history. Traces the social, political, cultural, intellectual, and legal contours of the black experience in the United States from Reconstruction to the rise of Jim Crow, through the World Wars, Depression, and the Great Migrations, to the long civil rights era and the contemporary period of racial politics. Using a wide variety of texts, images, and creative works, the course situates African American history within broader national and international contexts. AAS Subfield: AACL

This course introduces students to the multiple and varied experiences of people of Asian heritage in the United States from the 19th century to the present day. It focuses on three major questions: (1) What brought Asians to the United States? (2) How did Asian Americans come to be viewed as a race? (3) How does Asian American experience transform our understanding of U.S. history? Using newspapers, novels, government reports, and films, this course will cover major topics in Asian American history, including Chinese Exclusion, Japanese internment, transnational adoption, and the model minority stereotype.

The course focuses on unconventional historical sources and approaches including oral, spatial, computational, and digital history. Conventional written sources typically reflect the biases of a small elite. Oral history can be used to recapture the history of individuals, groups, and phenomena that written sources have erased. Spatial history (through the use of Geographic Information Systems or GIS), digital history, and computational history greatly enrich the study of the past by adding new types of data and by offering platforms to integrate a great variety of sources in new multi-dimensional, multi-media, and interactive formats.

In telling histories of East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, various groups of nomadic people often loomed large in the background and served as the foil to the travail of their sedentary neighbors. In this course we put the nomadic peoples of Inner Asia front and center, and ask how the nomadic way of life and mode of state building served as agents of change in pre-modern Eurasia.

An intensive introduction to concepts, methods, and issues in American history, especially recommended for prospective concentrators. The problems investigated in the course (the Revolution, class and cultural relations, literature and society, and others) will vary. Emphasis will be on the framing of historical questions and immersion in the actual sources of history. One lecture, two classes.

An intensive introduction to the methods and practice of history, designed to prepare students for future independent work through the close reading of sources on three different topics in European history. This year these will be: 1) the Galileo affair; 2) the trial and execution of Louis XVI; and 3) the trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. The class combines lecture with discussion, to introduce students to the basic vocabulary of European historiography and to develop their skills in the interpretation and analysis of documents, the framing of historical questions, and the construction of effective arguments.

An intensive, documents-based introduction to methods and issues in Asian history, focusing on topics that embed Asia in the wider context of world history. Especially recommended for prospective concentrators. The problems investigated (Marco Polo in Asia, Jesuits in China, Russo-Japanese War, Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, etc.) will vary. Emphasis will be on interpreting primary sources, framing historical questions, and constructing historical explanations. Two 90-minute classes.

This class explores medieval Islamic history through everyday documents from Egypt: letters, decrees, contracts, court records, and accounts. We will read a wide range of documents in translation, learn to understand them, and use them to evaluate politics, religion, class, commerce, material history, and family relationships in Egypt from just before the Islamic conquests until just before the Ottoman era. We will also consider documents themselves, as historical artifacts and as historical evidence. Why did medieval people produce and preserve written records? And what does history look like when told through documents?

The emergence and development of natural philosophy in ancient Greece, with consideration of its Egyptian and Babylonian background and its subsequent articulation and modification in the medieval worlds of Islam and Western Europe. Emphasis is placed on the interplay of science and culture. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Beliefs about the nature of the universe, the Earth, and even the human body changed drastically during the early modern period. This course examines this transformation of natural knowledge as a process of both social and intellectual reorganization. Explores how Europeans developed a new mechanistic science for astronomy, physics, and medicine with a dynamic culture of new institutions and technologies. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The evolution of science since Newton. Emphasis is placed on the major developments of scientific theory and practice since the chemical revolution of the late 18th century. Topics considered will also include: the development of science as a discipline; the connections between science and mathematics, philosophy, and technology; and the emergence of science as an integral part of modern societies. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Science and technology have literally changed the world. This course examines how, with an emphasis on understanding the place of scientific knowledge in the history of European exploration and expanding global power. How did the sciences go out into the world? How did certain disciplines and practices take shape in global interactions since 1400? How does knowledge become universal? What instruments, institutions, and activities made this possible? Two 90-minute classes.

This course will introduce students to technology in U.S. history, from the Colonial Era through the Twentieth Century. Throughout, we will consider how people designed, made, and used technologies in order to accomplish work, to organize society, and to make sense of their world. Warfare and agriculture; transportation and communication networks; plantations and factories; media, money, and information systems; engineers and other kinds of technologists: all will be explored, examined, and analyzed in order to understand the role of technology in making the nation.

The principal themes of Iberian imperialism and colonial society from preconquest to the eve of independence. The main issues to be covered will be: Amerindian civilization, the conquest of the Americas, social and cultural change, and evolving economic relations. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey of Latin America from the wars of independence to recent struggles for democracy. The focus will be on state formation in the 19th century, relations with the world economy, and changing patterns of social and political life in the 20th century. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

In these topics courses, students encounter the intellectual tradition and cultural practices that inform the emergence and development of African American studies as a field of study in the academy. Focusing on aesthetic repertoires and historical dynamics situated primarily in the United States, students learn how to examine the patterns and practices that have defined and transformed Black people's lives. Courses in the AACL subfield are typically cross-listed with English, History, Religion, American Studies, and the Lewis Center for the Arts.

The course follows the major themes and issues surrounding the history of Mexican Americans in the United States. It seeks to explain the historical origins of the continuing debates over land ownership, assimilation expectations, discrimination, immigration regulation, and labor disputes. The course focuses primarily on the US citizens created after the Mexican American War and Mexican immigrants to the US. It looks transnationally at Mexico's history to explain US shifts in public opinion and domestic policies. While the course examines the impact of Mexican Americans in many regions of the country, it will focus on those in the Southwest.

Intellectual and cultural aspects of American religion from the 17th century through the early republic, with the Revolution as a focal point. Special attention to early Protestant traditions (Anglican, Puritan, Quaker, and Methodist, among others), African American religious traditions, the Great Awakening, the Enlightenment, and the transformation of religion through the Revolution. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey course that begins with an overview of the continent at the end of the third century A.D. and ends with the death of Moshoeshoe in the 19th century. Focuses on several great themes of African history: long-distance trade, state formation, migration, religious conversion to either Islam or Christianity, forms of domestic slavery, and the impact of the slave trade. Two 90-minute classes.

The impact of European colonial rule on the traditional societies of Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the dominant themes will be the emergence of the intelligentsia in colonial areas as proponents of nationalism. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Beginning with a brief precolonial regional overview, the course examines European occupation following 1652; explores slavery, the frontier, intergroup relations, the growth of nationalism, the Boer War and unification, African resistance movements, the structure of politics, constitutional developments, and debates over race and class; and ends with the 1980s constitutional crisis. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An exploration of three major themes in the history of India's emergence as a nation-state: colonial socio-economic and cultural transformations, the growth of modern collective identities and conflicts, and nationalism. Topics covered include: trade, empire, and capitalism; class, gender, and religion; Gandhi, national independence, and partition; and postcolonial state and society. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course will at different times deal with particular currents of literature and thought in the 18th century, or with individual authors. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The history of Japan during the period of Samurai rule. Distinctive features of Tokugawa society and culture from the foundation of the regime in 1600 to its decline in the 19th century, the opening of Japan to Western contact, the course of economic development, and the consolidation of the Meiji State. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An analysis of change and continuity in modern Japanese society, with emphasis on industrialization, social discontent, parliamentary democracy, war, defeat, the "economic miracle," and Japanese preoccupation with national identity in a Western-dominated world. Divided between the prewar and postwar periods. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

China between the 1570s and the 1860s, from its early involvement in the new world economy to the crises of the Opium War era. Emphasis on the history and culture of the Qing empire, its success and challenges, with attention to family and society, religion, art, and literature. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

China's transformations and continuities from the civil wars of the mid-19th century to the economic reforms of the 1980s. Topics include the opium crisis, the impact of natural disasters, the fall of the imperial dynasty, China's struggle with Western and Japanese imperialism, and experiments in government and society on mainland China and Taiwan since 1949. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A period, problem, or theme in ancient history or religion with critical attention to the ancient sources and modern discussions. The topic and instructor vary from year to year. Format will change each time, depending on enrollment.

A period, problem, or theme in ancient history or religion with critical attention to the ancient sources and modern discussions. The topic and instructor vary from year to year. Format will change each time, depending on enrollment.

Major classical historians, especially Herodotus and Thucydides, are studied in connection with the theory and practice of the art or science of history. Lectures and preceptorials treat the development of historical writing and its relationship to philosophy, politics, literature, and science, and problems such as that of fact and interpretation in historical writing. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This class analyzes how different cultures imagine monsters and how these representations changed over time to perform different social functions. As negative objectifications of fundamental social structures and conceptions, monsters are a key to understand the culture that engendered them. This course has three goals: it familiarizes students with the semiotics of monsters worldwide; it teaches analytical techniques exportable to other topics and fields; it proposes interpretive strategies of "reading culture" comparatively beyond the stereotype of "the West and the Rest."

An analysis of political, economic, and social institutions with emphasis on the problems of continuity and change, the factors allowing for and limiting Ottoman expansion, and Ottoman awareness of Europe. Two 90-minute classes.

This course introduces students to the ways that policy, design, and citizen activism shaped affordable housing in the United States from the early 20th century to the present. We explore privately-developed tenements and row houses, government-built housing, publicly-subsidized suburban homes and cooperatives, as well as housing developed through incentives and subsidies. Students will analyze the balance between public and private, free market and subsidy, and preservation and renewal. Close attention will be paid to the role of race in structuring the relationship between policymakers, property owners, renters, and homeowners.

Provides an introduction to Southeast Asia and its prominent place in global history NES 343 through a series of encounters in time, from Marco Polo in Sumatra to the latest events in such buzzing cities as Bangkok, Jakarta, and Hanoi. For the early modern period we will read various primary sources before turning to consider a series of diverse colonial impacts across the region (European, American, and Asian), and then the mechanisms underpinning the formation of some of the most vibrant, and sometimes turbulent, countries on the world stage. Two 90-minute classes.

A study of the emergence of a distinctive Western European civilization out of Christian, Greco-Roman, and Germanic institutions and ideas from the decline of the Roman Empire to about A.D. 1050. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An analysis of typical institutions, social and economic structures, and forms of thought and expression from about 1050 to about 1350. Emphasis is placed on the elements of medieval civilization that have influenced the subsequent history of European peoples. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The Crusades were a central phenomenon of the Middle Ages. This course examines the origins and development of the Crusades and the Crusader States in the Islamic East. It explores dramatic events, such as the great Siege of Jerusalem, and introduces vivid personalities, including Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. We will consider aspects of institutional, economic, social and cultural history and compare medieval Christian (Western and Byzantine), Muslim and Jewish perceptions of the crusading movement. Finally, we will critically examine the resonance the movement continues to have in current political and ideological debates

The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict up to 1967. Due to its contentious theme, it stresses historiographic problems and primary sources; also, it looks at Israeli and Palestinian societies as much as at the conflict between them. Questions include the ideological vs. practical roots of, and religious/secular elements in, Zionism and Palestinian nationalism; politico-economic links between the two societies; breaks in their social and/or ethnic composition; the effects of collective traumas and warfare on socio-political structures and gender; and the role of foreign powers and regional states. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The political and social history of France from Napoleon to the Fifth Republic. The impact of revolution, industrialization, and war on French society in the 19th and 20th centuries. Particular attention will be paid to movements of popular revolt and the efforts of elites--rural, bourgeois, and technocratic--to maintain control in the face of social ferment. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Examines the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, beginning with an examination of Balkan society under the Ottomans and continuing up through the establishment of nation-states in the 19th and 20th centuries. Case studies will include Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Themes covered: social organization, prenational politics, imperialism, cultural and economic elites, the Ottoman heritage. One lecture, two preceptorials.

This course surveys the breadth of Jewish experience from the era of the Enlightenment to the contemporary period. Tracing the development of Jewish cultures and communities in Europe and the United States against the background of general history, the course focuses on themes such as the transformation of Jewish identity, the creation of modern Jewish politics, the impact of anti-Semitism, and the founding of the State of Israel. Two 90-minute classes.

Eighteenth-century enlightened absolutism: reforms of Peter and Catherine the Great, shaping of national identity and a modern state. Nineteenth-century tensions between reform from above and revolution from below, with a focus on the political role of social groups and special attention to the origins of revolutionary conflict in 1905 and 1917. Two 90-minute classes.

The history of contemporary America, with particular attention to political, social and technological changes. Topics will include the rise of a new conservative movement and the reconstitution of liberalism, the end of the divisive Cold War era and the rise of an interconnected global economy, revolutionary technological innovation coupled with growing economic inequality, a massive influx of immigrants coupled with a revival of isolationism and nativism, a revolution in homosexual rights and gender equality coupled with the rise of a new ethos of "family values."

An examination of the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Empire. Topics include: the unfolding of single-party revolutionary politics, the development of Stalin's personal despotism, the violent attempt to create a noncapitalist society, the monumental war with Nazi Germany, and the nature of everyday life. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course explores why, since the late 18th century, Jews and non-Jews alike have asked if the Jews are a nation and why people answer differently, inviting students to think about the origins of nationalism and the relationship between nations and other groups - religions, 'races,' ethnicities, and states. Learn about those who insisted that the Jews are not a separate nation and consider the different motivations for rejecting the nationhood of the Jews. We will examine the varieties of Jewish nationalisms that arose at the end of the 19th century, including Diaspora nationalism, territorialism, and especially Zionism.

The history of Western and Central Europe since World War I viewed from the perspective of Europe's rapidly changing role in world history. Europe's political, social, and economic adjustment to the Russian Revolution, to the emergence of America and Russia as superpowers, and to the loss of overseas imperial possessions. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Sets German history after the Napoleonic invasion in a context of international politics, and shows how the development of a peculiarly German idea of the nation was a response to pressures exerted by European political changes and by the European state system. Examination of how, after national unification in 1871, German domestic policy in turn affected the whole world: in German foreign policy before the First World War, in the aftermath of 1918, and during the Nazi dictatorship. Treatment of the separate courses of the two Germanies since 1945 and of their position in world politics. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A study of the development of the English Constitution to 1600, with special emphasis on the institutions and ideas that form the background for American constitutional history. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Thematic survey of the social, cultural, and political transformations in the lives of women and men in Britain from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Topics include Britain's rise and fall as the first "modern" society and imperial power; national identities and civil society, gender, and class; democracy and imperialism; Irish nationalism and contemporary culture. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An overview of European colonization in North America, covering New France, New Spain, New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake area, South Carolina, and the sugar islands. Special emphasis upon social structures, labor systems, race, gender, religion, political cultures, and the problem of imperial control from Jamestown through the Great Awakening of the 1740s. Particular attention will be paid to the various and changing encounters of Africans, Native American, and Europeans, and to the importance of slavery in the colonization process. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey of the causes, course, and consequences of the American Revolution, from the Seven Years War to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Topics include colonial protest and the crisis of the British empire; the politics of war and independence, including the significance of slavery; the relationships between war, society, and ideology; the roles of Loyalists and Native Americans; and patriot experiments in republican government. Particular attention will be paid to how gender, race, region, status, Indigeneity, and class shaped experiences of the revolutionary era. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey of society, culture, and politics in the United States from the ratification of the Constitution to the Compromise of 1850. Topics include the rise of cotton slavery, Northern capitalism and class formation, the politics of cultural change, Jeffersonianism, Jacksonian democracy, and the political economy of sectionalism. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The history of the place we now know as the U. S. West, from European contact to the mid-twentieth century. Primary focus on the struggles over access to land, resources, and power in old and new Wests, with particular attention given to the role of visual and popular culture in shaping the national imagination of the region. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Surveys the causes, issues, and consequences of the nation's bloodiest conflict. Topics include slavery and antislavery, Manifest Destiny, the growing sectional conflict, the clash of arms, the transforming impact of the Civil War, the transition from slave to free labor in the South, and postslavery race relations. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The rise of the modern corporate state in America. Primary focus on the development of big business in the years following the Civil War, accompanying social processes such as immigration and urbanization, and the political responses to these phenomena, particularly populism and progressivism. Other topics include labor, blacks and racism, women in progressive America, and the intellectual response to modernity. Concludes with the United States' entry into World War I. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The relations between the United States and other nations from 1776 to the present, treating political, economic, and military aspects of U.S. foreign affairs, with special attention to the art of diplomacy. Two lectures, one precept.

The history of modern America, with particular focus on domestic political and social changes. Topics include the Roaring 20s; the Great Depression and the New Deal; the homefront of World War II and the Cold War; the civil rights movement and the Great Society; the Vietnam War; the sexual revolutions; the Silent Majority, the Nixon administration, and Watergate. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

An examination of changing patterns of manhood and womanhood, with an emphasis on women's experience. Topics include housekeeping, child rearing, birth control, sexuality, work, feminism, and the role of gender in religious and political movements and economic development. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course explores African American history from the Atlantic slave trade up to the Civil War. It is centrally concerned with the rise of and overthrow of human bondage and how they shaped the modern world. Africans were central to the largest and most profitable forced migration in world history. They shaped new identities and influenced the contours of American politics, law, economics, culture, and society. The course considers the diversity of experiences in this formative period of nation-making. Race, class, gender, region, religion, labor, and resistance animate important themes in the course. AAS Subfield: AACL

From colonial settlement to the present, this course weaves a comprehensive history of American cities. Over centuries, cities have symbolized democratic ideals of "melting pots" and innovation, as well as crises of disorder, decline, crime, and poverty. Urban life has concentrated extremes like rich and poor; racial and ethnic divides; philanthropy and greed; skyscrapers and parks; violence and hope; downtown and suburb. The course examines how cities in U.S. history have brokered revolution, transformation and renewal, focusing on class, race, gender, immigration, capitalism, and the built environment. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course will serve as an intensive historical survey on the rise of mass popular culture and entertainment from roughly 1800 to 1980 and will investigate the ways multiethnic American popular culture (photography, rock 'n' roll, jazz, sports, film, radio, and other forms of multimedia and expressive culture) was influenced by and shaped the American political landscape, race relations, labor, gender, sexuality, technology, and urbanization. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

From "Chinese opium" to Oxycontin, and from cocaine and "crack" to BiDil, drug controversies reflect enduring debates about the role of medicine, the law, the policing of ethnic identity, and racial difference. This course explores the history of controversial substances (prescription medicines, over-the-counter products, black market substances, psychoactive drugs), and how, from cigarettes to alcohol and opium, they become vehicles for heated debates over immigration, identity, cultural and biological difference, criminal character, the line between legality and illegality, and the boundaries of the normal and the pathological.

An examination of the emergence of biology as a scientific discipline since 1750, focusing on the cultural context and social impact of changes in biological knowledge. Particular attention will be paid to changing conceptions of life and how interactions with the physical sciences have shaped the life sciences. We will also interrogate how ideas of biological difference intersected with the normative ordering of humans, particularly along axes of race and gender. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

The junior seminars serve to introduce departmental majors, in the fall of their junior year, to the tools, methods, and interpretations employed in historical research and writing. Students may choose from a range of topics; assignments to specific seminars are made on the basis of these choices at the beginning of the fall term. Seminar topics tend to be cross-national and comparative. All juniors must be enrolled in one of the seminars. One three-hour seminar.

For the first seventy-five years of U.S. history, anti-slavery parties were confined to the radical fringe of national politics. Yet just six years after it was founded in 1854, the Republican Party became the only third party organization in U.S. history to capture the Presidency.The triumph of this new, avowedly anti-slavery was unprecedented: "the revolution of 1860," some called it. But who exactly were these Republicans? How did they rise so far, so fast, and against such mighty obstacles? And what sort of world did they want to build? Using both primary and secondary sources, this seminar will explore these and other vital questions.

This course covers the history of Native Americans until 1838 (the end of forced Removal). It has two central goals: to emphasize the variety of Native American societies and cultures that existed (and exist) in North America, and to highlight the centrality of Native American history to North American history as a whole. Readings will include: the accounts of the travels of Cabeza de Vaca and of John Smith, the Jesuit Relations, the Life of Black Hawk, the journals of Lewis and Clark, several captivity narratives, and Cherokee documents written during Removal.

Research and reading on topics related to economic development and political change with attention to specific national contexts, such as authoritarian state and society in Argentina and Brazil; revolution and social change in Mexico, Cuba, and Chile; problems in Latin American foreign relations. One three-hour seminar.

This seminar examines Gandhi's political life extending from his campaign for the rights of Indians in South Africa to his role in the struggle for Indian independence from British rule. Focus on those historical processes that turned M. K. Gandhi into a major 20th-century figure--the Mahatma. Issues relating to imperialism and nationalism form the context in which the seminar looks at Gandhi's life and seeks to understand Gandhian ideology and its different--often conflicting--historical appropriations. One three-hour seminar.

This seminar situates cultural production in Ba`thist Syria (1970-present)--in terms of its conditions of creation, circulation and reception--within a broader framework, namely, the history of modern Syria. Through an exploration of historical debates in the scholarly literature on politics, aesthetics and culture, students will both contextualize and comment upon ongoing discussions surrounding contemporary Syria. The course engages with a wide range of media, from literature and drama to television and film. All readings are in English, although those with interests/abilities in French or Arabic will be encouraged to exercise them.

Why are some events from the past widely recalled, memorialized, and taught in school, while others are consigned to obscurity? How do acts of historical erasure play in processes of exclusion? How have acts of remembering figured in struggles for justice? Using scholarship, memoirs, visual art, and music, this course examines the relationship between "history" and "memory," focusing on the different ways that race and social power have shaped the relationship in the US and across the African diaspora. We will link representations of the past to debate about issues like public monuments, legal redress, and reparations. AAS Subfield: AACL, GRE

Catastrophe reveals the fragility of human society. This course examines a series of phenomena--plague, famine, war, revolution, economic depression etc.--in order to reach an understanding of humanity's imaginings of but also resilience to collective crises. We shall look in particular at how political forces such as empire have historically both generated and resisted global disasters. Material dealing with the especially fraught centuries at the transition between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period will be set alongside examples drawn from antiquity as well as our own contemporary era.

Studies of war and society rarely address environmental factors and agency. The relationship between war and environment is often either reduced to a simple environmental determinism or it is depicted as a war against nature and ecosystems, playing down societal dynamics. The seminar explores the different approaches to the war-environment-society nexus and highlights how and why the three spheres should be studied in conjunction. The objective is to assess how and why environmental and societal factors and forces caused and shaped the conflicts and how in turn mass violence shaped societies and how they used and perceived their environments.

The major Near Eastern and Balkan diplomatic crises, the main developments in internal Near Eastern history, and the Eastern Question as perceived by the Great Powers. The focus will be on the possible connections between diplomatic crises and the process of modernization. One three-hour seminar.

Considers the developing repertoire of ideas in China to the end of the Chin period, with key philosophical, political, ethical, and scientific concepts treated in terms of their social context and subsequent influence. One three-hour seminar. A prior course in East Asian studies is desirable but not required.

An introduction to the discipline of history aimed at, but not limited to, history majors. Through case studies, students will learn how historians of the last few generations have framed problems, found and interpreted evidence, and built arguments. Participants will both study the major recent movements in the discipline of history and reflect on and improve their own historical techniques. The course will culminate with an examination of history and memory in the early 21st century. Prerequisites: successful completion of the department's junior requirements or comparable work in another department. One three-hour seminar.

The prison is a growth industry in the U.S.; it is also a central institution in U.S. political and social life, shaping our experience of race, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and political possibility. This course explores the history of incarceration over the course of more than two centuries. It tracks the emergence of the penitentiary in the early national period and investigates mass incarceration of the late 20th century. Topics include the relationship between the penitentiary and slavery; the prisoners' rights movement; Japanese internment; immigration detention; and the privatization and globalization of prisons.

An in-depth exploration of a topic in American legal history. In some years the course will investigate an event, such as a famous or infamous trial or case. In other years the course will explore historical dimensions of a particular legal concept, such as "rights," "coercion," "dependency," the "family," or "property." One three-hour seminar.

The course examines the history of financial innovation and its consequences. It examines the evolution of trading practices, bills of exchange, government bonds, equities, banking activity, derivatives markets, and securitization. How do these evolve in particular state or national settings, how are the practices regulated, how do they relate to broader development? What happens as financial instruments are traded across state boundaries, and how does an international financial order evolve? What are the effects of international capital mobility? How is resulting conflict and instability managed, on both a national and international level?

This course critically examines the development of the southern Civil Rights Movement and the rise of the Black Power insurgency from the end of World War II through the end of the 1960s. We will examine historical research, oral histories, literature, documentaries and other kinds of primary and secondary documentation. AAS Subfield: AACL

An exploration of the complex relationship between the making of brain science and the human experiences of brain damaged people. Topics include iconic cases of brain damage like the railway worker Phineas Gage who survived an iron rod perforating his brain, the emergence and historical function of neurological case histories, the study of brain-damaged soldiers in WWI, the "neurological novels" of Alexander Luria, and the popular writings of Oliver Sacks.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.