History

Degrees and Certificates

Classes

HIS 1040 : Themes Pre Mod World History

Comparative exploration of at least three different pre-modern civilizations (pre-1750). Cultural contact and exchange; pre-modern economies, state formation; political institutions; and social structures; religion and culture; art, architecture and literature.

Credits

3

HIS 1050 : Themes in Modern World History

Investigation of history of diverse nations and regions since 1500. Political, technological, and economic revolutions; modern state formation; cross-cultural conflict and exchange; social movements; environmental transformation; rise of global economy.

Credits

3

HIS 2000 : Investigating U.S. History I

In-depth study of American history from the pre-Columbian period to the Civil War and Reconstruction, with a particular emphasis on engaging historical problems as a process of inquiry and interpretation. Designed especially for history majors and future teachers, but open to all students.

Credits

3

HIS 2001 : Investigating US History II

In-depth study of American history from the end of Reconstruction to the present, with a particular emphasis on engaging historical problems as a process of inquiry and interpretation. Designed especially for history majors and future teachers, but open to all students.

Credits

3

HIS 2151 : Colonial America

The political, economic, social, and intellectual life of the American colonies and the clash of racial and ethnic groups in America to 1763.

Credits

3

HIS 2161 : Revolutionary & Fed Amer

The colonial resistance to Great Britain; the making of the Constitution; and the continuing struggle, to 1810, to define the meaning of the Revolution.

Credits

3

HIS 2171 : Building a Nation 1800-50

The development of the Republic from the presidency of Jefferson through the Mexican War; revolutions in transportation and commerce, struggles of nationalism and sectionalism; issues of race and gender and the ferment of reform.

Credits

3

HIS 2181 : Civil War & Reconstruct

A study of the causes of a war in which Americans fought Americans; the war's evolving nature and eventual outcome; the fight over the meaning and the extent of reconstruction; and the long term political, economic, and social consequences of the war and the end of slavery.

Credits

3

HIS 2191 : Pursuits of Power, 1876-1920

Causes and results of industrialization and urbanization; responses to economic and social change, including popular protest movements; nationalism following the Civil War; U.S. imperial ambitions.

Credits

3

HIS 2202 : United States since 1945

Major problems and domestic developments in the United States since 1945: reconversion, Cold War, the "Good Society" of the 1950s, turmoil of the 1960s, Vietnam War and its aftermath, contemporary challenges and problems.

Credits

3

HIS 2252 : U.S. For Rel 1914 - Present

Diplomatic history from World War I to the present, including involvement in European and Asian struggles, cooperation in international organizations.

Credits

3

HIS 2265 : American Military History

The wars of America from their European antecedents to 1900; relations between the military and society; role of the military in national development.

Credits

3

HIS 2272 : History of Amer Capitalism

American economic growth from the colonial era to the present and its impact on political, social present and cultural life, including American industrialization; rise of the corporation; military-industrial complex; capital-labor relations; globalization of American capitalism.

Credits

3

HIS 2274 : History of American Medicine

The evolution of American Medicine from the colonial period to the present day. Topics include the rise and fall of heroic medicine, the demise of scientific medicine, the growth of modern surgery, the evolution of medical practice.

Credits

3

HIS 2276 : American Environmental Hist

Social, cultural and economic forces that reshaped the American landscape from the colonial era to the present; the place of nature in American thought and society; and the evolution of environmental politics in the 20th century.

Credits

3

HIS 2278 : Native American History

Study of American Indians from pre-Columbian times to the present, including land use practices, social customs, gender relations, U.S. government removal and assimilation policies, post-colonial political economy, and contemporary issues of cultural identity and sovereignty.

Credits

3

HIS 2280 : Catholic Church in America

Development and shaping of the Roman Catholic Church by diverse cultures of Catholicism from 1500 to the present. The first contact of Europeans and Native Americans; growth through European immigration; challenges facing the modern, multicultural Church of the present day.

Credits

3

HIS 2281 : Immigration in Amer Hist

Population factors in the development of the American nation; the processes of migration, assimilation and intergroup relations and their effects in society and politics; intensive study of selected ethnic groups.

Credits

3

HIS 2286 : Irish-American Saga

Pre-famine Irish emigration to North America; the famine; post-famine movement; Irish-American labor, politics, urban and suburban developments.

Credits

3

HIS 2292 : African Amer His since Emancip

Themes of resistance and creativity with the development of the African-American communities in the era following the Civil War. Reconstruction, Northern migration, Jim Crow and segregation, and protest thought and Civil Rights.

Credits

3

HIS 2294 : His of Childhood in US

The experience of childhood in America, including topics such as the invention of adolescence; child abuse and protection; child labor; compulsory schooling and immigrant assimilation; juvenile delinquency; age of consent; dating; children in the movies; children as consumers; and youth culture and rebellion.

Credits

3

HIS 2296 : History of American Women

The study of the influence of region, race, and ethnicity on gender definitions in America; and the impact of those ideas in shaping women's lives, sexuality, housework and wage labor, and access to power and politics, from the colonial period to the present.

Credits

3

HIS 2303 : History of Philadelphia

An investigation of the city's past and present through reading historical accounts and exploring today's city. Changes and continuity in politics, economy, and social composition from 1682 to today, with particular attention to social structures and the changing physical environment of the city.

Credits

3

HIS 2309 : Artifacts in History

Cultural history as revealed through artificats, including everyday objects, decorative arts, and architecture; issues and controversies related to museum exhibits; the role of the Internet in material culture studies.

Credits

3

HIS 3006 : Medieval Europe 500-1500

The evolution of the European West from its classical origins. The influence of Christianity upon the development of European institutions and culture. Relations and mutual influences of the European West with its neighbors, the new world of Islam in the Near East and North Africa, and the Christian Byzantine East of Europe and Russia.

Credits

3

HIS 3007 : Early Mod Europe 1500-1750

The rise of Protestantism; the emergence of national monarchies; the growth of science and technology; colonial expansionism and the impact of the New World on the West; the clash of cultures with Islam and other civilizations on the peripheries.

Credits

3

HIS 3011 : Greek Civilization

The rise of Greek civilization from Mycenaean times to the Macedonian conquest of Greece by the father of Alexander the Great: Homer, the emergence of the polis, the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, and the flowering of Greek culture at Athens during the 5th and 4th centuries.

Credits

3

HIS 3014 : Medit Wrld Alexander to Caesar

The interaction of cultural forces between the conquests of Alexander the Great and the consolidation of Roman rule under Caesar; Hellenistic civilization, the rise of Rome in Italy, Rome and the Greek world, and the fall of the Roman Republic.

Credits

3

HIS 3017 : The Roman Empire

The achievement of the Pax Romana from the reforms of Augustus to the break-up of the western Empire in the fifth century A.D. Topics treated include life in the provinces, the romanization of indigenous peoples, the legions and society, culture and decadence in the capital, and the rise of Christianity.

Credits

3

HIS 3018 : Pagans, Jews, and Christians

Society and religion between Alexander the Great and the coming of Islam. The classical pantheon, domestic religion, magic, the imperial cult; the variety of Judaism in Palestine and the Diaspora, Judaism and the state; the rise of Christianity, the persecutions, Constantine and the conversion of the empire.

Credits

3

HIS 3019 : The Fall of Rome

The end of the ancient world -- ancient sources and modern theories. A multi-faceted analysis of Mediterranean society from AD 200 - 750: politics, economy, religion, urban life, art, social relations, literature.

Credits

3

HIS 3108 : The Crusades

The medieval conflict between the rival cultures and religions of Christendom and Islam.

Credits

3

HIS 3115 : The High Middle Ages

The major western European institutions that took form during the classical period of medieval civilization and were bequeathed to modern European society.

Credits

3

HIS 3121 : The Renaissance

The decline of society in the Late Middle Ages and the emergence of commercial capitalism; the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire and the evolution of city-states and new monarchies in the fifteenth century; the crisis of the Papacy and the emergence of humanism; the Italian universities in the Late Middle Ages and the development of new tastes in literature, art, and architecture.

Credits

3

HIS 3131 : The Reformation

Catholic, Protestant, and popular reform theories and religious upheaval, and the revolution of the common people in the 16th century, with emphasis on the material "structures of everyday life" and the economic, social, and political background of the "crisis of feudalism" and critique of the church and early modern state.

Credits

3

HIS 3142 : The Enlightenment

The cultural transition of traditional Western Christendom to modernity in the 18th Century, including its clash with religion; emphasis on scepticism and empiricism; rehabilitation of natural desires and emotion; efforts to re-engineer human society; new perceptions of economics, crime and punishment, and aesthetics; creation of a reading public; role in the American founding; impact upon issues of gender and race.

Credits

3

HIS 3151 : Eur Nationalism 1800-present

Constructing nations and nationalism in Europe from the Napoleonic wars to post-Yugoslavia; competing conceptions of nationality (on the basis of race, gender, politics, culture, etc.) and resulting conflicts.

Credits

3

HIS 3161 : 20th Century Europe

Social, political, and cultural history of Europe from the fin de siecle to European unification; world wars and revolution, East-West divide, consumer society and popular protest.

Credits

3

HIS 3171 : Europe since 1945

Europe from the end of World War II to the European Union; postwar reconstruction; Cold War; the growth of consumer society; the collapse of the Soviet Empire; changing conceptions of European identity.

Credits

3

HIS 3200 : Medieval Britain and Ireland

The debts England owes to the Celtic, particularly the Irish, world; changed relations, from fruitful cultural exchange to antagonism, after the Norman Conquest of England. Irish missionary and educational importance; relations between Celtic peoples; why monarchy developed in England and Scotland, but not in Wales and Ireland.

Credits

3

HIS 3202 : Britain 1660-1815

Emergence of Britain as the preeminent global capitalist economy and political power from the glittering court of Charles II to Britain's loss of its American colonies and its victory over revolutionary France. Connections between political-economic developments and social and cultural change including industrialization; war, economic growth and state formation; smuggling, gin, and criminality; empire; domesticity, women and the novel, high and low art in London.

Credits

3

HIS 3218 : Topics in Irish History

Exploration of emerging topics in field of Irish History, including but not limited to the Act of Union, the impact of the Protestant Ascendancy, and the cultural, social and political history of the modern Irish state.

Credits

3

HIS 3221 : French Rev and Napoleon

Causes, nature and course of the French Revolution, including a study of its historical interpretation, and the Napoleonic aftermath of the Revolution.

Credits

3

HIS 3230 : Modern Germany

The German lands from 1800 to the present, changing conceptions of Germany and dilemmas of German history.

Credits

3

HIS 3240 : Russian History to 1861

The development of Russia from the "rude and barbarous kingdom" of Ivan the Terrible to the great European power ruled by Catherine the Great. The political, economic and social systems of Muscovite and eighteenth-century Russia; civil wars, peasant rebellions, and foreign invasions; the reforms of Peter the Great; female monarchs in the 18th century; enlightened absolutism under Catherine the Great.

Credits

3

HIS 3241 : Revolutionary Russia 1861-1939

Major political, economic and social changes in the Russian Empire from the war against Napoleon to World War I; reform from above and revolution from below; Russia's industrial revolution; social and cultural modernization; the institution of monarchy under the last Romanov tsars; Russia's expansion in the East.

Credits

3

HIS 3242 : Russia from Stalin to Putin

Russia from the 1917 Revolution to the present; the radical transformation of a state, economy and society in revolution and civil war, the Stalin dictatorship, the trial of World War II, and the patterns of reform and continuity in the post-Stalin and post-Soviet eras.

Credits

3

HIS 3351 : 19th c. European Cult & Soc

Social and cultural impact of industrialization, the evolution of mass society, changing conceptions of elite and popular culture; social conflict, revolution, and imperialism.

Credits

3

HIS 3360 : Women in the Pre-Modern West

Roles of women from ancient world to revolutionary France, including analysis of the status of women in Biblical, Greek, Roman, medieval, early modern and Enlightenment cultures and times. Themes of motherhood, women's work, women in literature and women's ways of exerting control over their lives.

Credits

3

HIS 3361 : Women in Modern Eur Soc

The changing roles of women in society and politics in Europe from the 18th to 20th centuries. Topics include women and the household economy; women and revolution; feminism and feminist movements; the rise of female professions; women's literature and feminist critical theory.

Credits

3

HIS 4041 : Hist Modern Middle East

The political, economic and social history of the Middle East with emphasis on the passing of imperial institutions and emergence of republics, trade and commerce, colonialism, and revolutionary movements.

Credits

3

HIS 4076 : Jewish History

The relation of the Jews to the historical process; the Jews in relation to the larger civilizations in which they have lived; Jewish intellectual and moral contributions; Jewish history in the Christian world; the Holocaust; formation of a Jewish homeland, Israel.

Credits

3

HIS 4090 : Women in the Middle East

Roles of Middle Eastern women from the seventh century to the present era. Women's lives and experiences, with emphasis on their influence and contribution to the economy, politics, literature and the arts. Attention to the effects of regional, ethnic, class, and religious differences on women's status and activities.

Credits

3

HIS 4120 : Emergence Modern Africa

The impact of 19th century European colonialism on Africa; the division of Africa into European dependencies; change and continuity in African culture; the emergence of independent African nation states after World War II; their difficulties and opportunities.

Credits

3

HIS 4210 : Byzantine Civilization

The history and culture of the eastern Roman Empire from the founding of Constantinople in 330 by Constantine to its capture by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The emperor and his court, Byzantine art and architecture, monasticism, Byzantine women, the rise of Islam, the Latin west and the Crusades.

Credits

3

HIS 4320 : Modern East Asia

The political, economic and social history of Modern East Asia (China, Japan and Korea) with an emphasis on the impact of the West, the Japanese Empire and the development of modern institutions.

Credits

3

HIS 4325 : Modern China I, 1644-1912

Survey of Chinese history, 1644 to 1912, covering demise of last Chinese empire: the Qing empire. Topics include emergence of commercial society; Opium Wars, Imperialism, engagement with European world, and demise of the Empire and birth of modern Chinese nation.

Credits

3

HIS 4335 : Modern Japan

The social and political history of modern Japan (1868- Present); its dramatic rise to world power status, the long road to WW II, the impact of Allied Occupation; themes of cooperation and conflict in state-society relations.

Credits

3

HIS 4340 : Cult. of East Asian Capitalism

This course is a thematic historical survey focusing on the relationship between economic and non-economic processes -- social, cultural, and intellectual -- around the world the last three centuries. Readings are global in scope but will emphasize the historical experiences of East Asia, and in particular modern China and Japan.

Credits

3

HIS 4360 : History of Modern South Asia

History of Indian subcontinent from late Mughal period through British Empire, culminating in independence and partition in 1947. Emphasis on knowledge, power and state formation; resistance, revolution, and nationalism; gender and the role of women; and post colonial legacies.

Credits

3

HIS 4365 : Modern India and Pakistan

Modern history of the Indian subcontinent from late Mughal Empire to the present. Themes include: expansion of British power, anti-colonial nationalism, birth of India and Pakistan, and contemporary politics, economics, and culture in the region.

Credits

3

HIS 4405 : The Americas & Span Conquest

Incas, Mayas, Aztec and Mochica cultures in Ancient Latin America; indigenous cultural and military clashes with European invaders; the 16th-century political economy and subsequent theological debates regarding the humanity of Indians; social repercussions of an "incomplete" conquest.

Credits

3

HIS 4410 : Colonial Latin America

Establishment and maintenance of a Hapsburg colonial state; indigenous responses to religious and secular colonization; the creation of a multicultural society from African, indigenous, and Iberian peoples from the 1580s the 1780s.

Credits

3

HIS 4415 : Revolutionary Latin America

Latin America's revolutionary century from the beginnings of political revolt in the 1780s to the beginning of economic modernization in the 1880s. Social and economic impact of the Bourbon Reforms; indigenous revolts and slave rebellions; liberal revolutionary movements culminating in the political independence but economic dependence of Spanish America; slavery and abolition.

Credits

3

HIS 4420 : Contemp Lat Amer History

20th century economic inequalities, U. S. intervention and military dictatorships, cultural imperialism and immigration Communism in Latin America, human rights within a multiracial society.

Credits

3

HIS 4526 : Mod Science Art Invention

Interactions among science, technology and art that have shaped modern culture since the industrial revolution of the late 18th century. Special attention to the sources, styles, and contexts of creativity in various fields.

Credits

3

HIS 4527 : Frankenstein to Artificial Lif

The origins of artificial life forms by modern science, the perspective of involved scientists, literary observers, politicians and businessmen, and society as a whole. Topics include cloning, transplantation, artificial organs, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence.

Credits

3

HIS 4528 : Women in Mod Sci & Tech

Women in the development of modern (since 1600) science and technology, including gender issues shaping theories and research, the impact of innovation on women's lives, and women as professionsals and as creative workers.

Credits

3

HIS 4660 : World at War, 1939-1945

Visions and experiences of a global war; Nazism and a culture of total war; war and civilians; racism and the Holocaust; the atomic bomb; historical commemoration and memory.

Credits

3

HIS 4701 : The Cold War

The origins, conduct, and outcomes of the Cold War, and analysis of evolving interpretations of this conflict and its significance.

Credits

3

HIS 5001 : Junior Research Seminar

The junior research seminar introduces majors to research methods, sources, and historiography -- how historians have reconstructed, interpreted, and written about the past. By examining diverse interpretations and historical controversies, the seminars help students develop their abilities to critique historical arguments and develop their own arguments. The course prepares history majors for their Senior Research Methods course, HIS 5501.

Credits

3

HIS 5515 : Independent Research

An intensive research project under individual direction. Written permission of chair required.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

Written permission of chair required.