Schedule of Classes

This course explores the social, political, and cultural history of violence, crime, criminal law, policing, and punishment in the United States from the Colonial period to the present.

Surveys the transnational history of the Americas and the United States to 1877. Emphasizes globally significant trends and systems such as colonialism, mercantilism, nationalism, and the slave trade. Investigates the relevance of systems and their supporting beliefs to the growth and limits of democracy.

Russian and Soviet history from its origins to the present. Major features of pre-modern, modern, and contemporary Russian civilization.

The course examines the history of the African continent from antiquity to modernity within an interregional and global context. Africa spans the northern and southern hemispheres, and includes a diversity of geographical zones that shaped associated varying political and economic organization. Focus will be on regional developments, interregional interactions across Africa, and global interactions in the Indian, Mediterranean, and Atlantic Worlds, culminating in European colonization and the challenges African nation states face post-independence in a post-colonial world.

Social-cultural, political, economic, and diplomatic aspects of U.S. history since 1945.

U.S. history 1830-1877: events and developments leading to civil war, the war itself, and efforts to reconstruct the Union after 1865.

Topics of special interest which may vary each time course is offered. Topic stated in current Schedule of Classes. May be repeated under a different topic for a maximum of 6 hours credit.

Investigates the historical development, change, and expression of gender ideals that Americans have labeled manhood, manliness, or masculinity. Incorporates methodologies from history, gender studies, literary studies, and the social sciences to explore how disparate gender ideals have articulated with distinctions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation. Applies an interdisciplinary approach to provide students with an awareness of the historically and culturally contingent nature of masculinity and how notions of masculine ideality have reinforced or challenged structures of privilege and exclusion. Develops skills of interdisciplinary gender analysis in the study of historical documents and artifacts.

Social, economic, and political development of Mexico since independence. Contemporary problems facing a developing country which has already experienced one social revolution.

Analytical and comparative survey of the formative stages of early non-Western civilizations in five geographical regions. The basic cultural patterns and geographical patterns that emerged between approximately 3500 BCE and 1500 CE will be studied, compared, and related to present developments.

An analytical survey of European history since 1900. Background information on the period before 1914; the First World War and its effects; the rise of fascist, communist, and conservative dictatorships in the 1920s and 1930s; the Second World War and Nazi genocide; major institutions and problems during the Cold War division of Europe; revolutions of 1989-91 and their aftermath.

Digital Humanities (DH) is the application and creation of computing and digital tools and formats to and for questions and problems in the humanities disciplines. Students will approach the field through an introduction to its historical development and an examination and evaluation of current projects within the field that demonstrate how the humanities can utilize and shape digital media.

Origins and course of Nazi genocide against Europe's Jews during the Second World War. Discussion of the Nazis' five million other victims. Survival and resistance. Comparisons with other examples of modern genocide.

An analysis of the interaction between science, technology, and society since the 1600s. The first part addresses the Scientific Revolution, the second the Industrial Revolution, and the third the contemporary scientific and industrial revolutions. In the third part of the course, the examples of the earlier scientific and industrial revolutions, insofar as they affected religious views, daily living conditions, and the meaning of philosophy and science, provide material for comparison as a means of understanding the contemporary situation. Particular attention is given to how social values and assumptions determine the direction of scientific and technological developments.

Directed reading by qualified students with faculty guidance. For history majors primarily. May be repeated for maximum of 6 hrs. credit.

Special study of individual topics in history with faculty supervision. For history majors primarily. May be repeated for maximum of 6 hrs. credit.

Research paper required employing primary sources in European history. May be repeated under different topic for maximum of 6 hours.