Department of History

HIST 30009. Nigeria. 100 Units.

Nigeria is Africa's largest country by population, its largest economy, and one of the most diverse nation-states in the contemporary world. It is also a place of considerable poverty, wealth disparity, and political discord. How did Nigeria become this country of superlatives, good and bad? This course examines Nigeria's history over the last two centuries through primary sources - a period encompassing the Atlantic trade in enslaved people, British colonial rule, the era of decolonization, and the recent histories of military rule and democracy. Along the way, we will consider Nigeria's place in the broader history of modern Africa; how is Nigeria's experience consistent with the wider region, and how is it exceptional? What is gained and lost by looking at African history through the lens of a single country? What is the relationship between Nigeria and its vast international diaspora?

Instructor(s): Daly Samuel Fury Childs     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 20009

HIST 30509. Collecting the Ancient World: Museum Practice and Politics. 100 Units.

Where is this artifact from? Who does it belong to? How did it get here? Who's telling its story? Critical inquiry into the practice and politics of museums has reached a new zenith in contemporary discourse. From discussions of acquisition and repatriation to provenience (archaeological findspot) and provenance (an object's ownership history) and the ethics of curation and modes of display, museum and art professionals-and the general public alike-are deliberating on the concept of museums and the responsibilities of such institutions towards the collections in their care. This course will explore the early history of museums and collecting practices and their impact on the field today, with a focus on cultural heritage collections from West Asia and North Africa. We will first spend time on such topics as archaeological exploration of "the Orient," colonial collecting practices, and the antiquities trade, as well as the politics of representation and reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Next, we will look at critical issues presently facing museums, including ethical collection stewardship, provenance research, repatriation, community engagement, and public education. The course will be structured in a seminar format, with lectures devoted to the presentation of key themes by the instructor and critical discussion as a group. Meetings will include visits to the ISAC Museum at UChicago.

Instructor(s): K. Neumann     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 24815, NEHC 34815, HIST 20509, ARTH 34815, ARTH 24815

HIST 31103. We Other Victorians. 100 Units.

This course examines the construction of otherness, difference, and belonging in England during the long Nineteenth Century from a historical perspective. Each week students will study a different "other" by drawing on a variety of primary sources, including novels, autobiographies, government reports, legal documents, private correspondence, newspapers, and scientific publications. Special attention will be paid to how and why emerging social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology both contributed to and were themselves informed by, (1) broader discussions about cultural ethnicity, biological race, national identity, and modern society; as well as (2) changing conceptions of class, gender, race, religion, and illness. By working historically, students in this course will also develop a conceptual framework for studying otherness that transcends geographic and temporal boundaries. Students will learn about the socio-political, cultural, legal, scientific, and ideological construction of otherness in Victorian Britain while also developing a conceptual framework for studying otherness that transcends geographic and temporal boundaries. This course relies almost entirely on primary sources and is designed to help students develop the skills needed to complete an original research project independently.

Instructor(s): Kristine Palmieri     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 35202, KNOW 32201, HIPS 22202

HIST 31302. Radicals in Early Modern Britain. 100 Units.

Throughout the 1640s and 1650s it seemed to many in England that the world they had grown up in-a world characterized by patriarchy and hierarchy, by inequality and privilege, by an established church and a monarchical state-was being turned upside down. Against a backdrop of conflict between Parliament and Crown, a power vacuum had opened, and in this vacuum both organized radical groups and individual visionaries saw the opportunity to make a revolution. The goals of these radicals were diverse, and often in contradiction. Some wanted the creation of a strict republic, even a democracy; some sought the elimination of private property; others the abolition of marriage; still others the creation of a millenarian Fifth Monarchy led by King Jesus himself. What they shared was a common desire to remake England into a fundamentally different society, and a failure to achieve their goals. Or was it a failure? Today the voices of these radicals have disappeared from most histories of modern political thought. And yet this forgotten corpus of writing reveals a very different early modern world, with strains of communism, proto-feminism, and dissent that fed the imaginations of radicals for centuries, including many well beyond England. This seminar introduces students directly to the ideas of the seventeenth-century English radicals. They will engage with the history and historiography of the English Revolution, read a variety of primary sources, and complete a research paper.

Instructor(s): A. Johns     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 21302, HIST 21302, CHSS 31302

HIST 31406. Britain 1760-1880: The Origins of Fossil Capitalism. 100 Units.

Britain rose to global dominance after 1760 by pioneering the first fossil-fuel economy. This course explores the profound impact of coal and steam on every aspect of British society, from politics and religion to industrial capitalism and the pursuit of empire. Such historical investigation also serves a second purpose by helping us see our own fossil-fuel economy with fresh eyes through direct comparison with Victorian energy use. How much does the modern world owe to the fossil capitalism of the Victorians? Assignments include short essays that introduces students to primary sources (texts, artifacts, and images) and a longer paper that examines in greater depth a specific aspect of the age of steam.

Instructor(s): F. Albritton Jonsson     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 21406, CHSS 31406, CEGU 31406, CEGU 21406, HIPS 21406

HIST 31903. Medieval Christian Mythology. 100 Units.

Heaven and hell, angels and demons, the Virgin Mary and the devil battling over the state of human souls, the world on the edge of apocalypse awaiting the coming of the Judge and the resurrection of the dead, the transubstantiation of bread and wine into body and blood, the great adventures of the saints. As Rudolf Bultmann put it in his summary of the "world picture" of the New Testament, "all of this is mythological talk," arguably unnecessary for Christian theology. And yet, without its mythology, much of Christianity becomes incomprehensible as a religious or symbolic system. This course is intended as an introduction to the stories that medieval Christians told about God, his Mother, the angels, and the saints, along with the place of the sacraments and miracles in the world picture of the medieval church. Sources will range from Hugh of St. Victor's summa on the sacraments to Hildegard of Bingen's visionary "Scivias," the Pseudo-Bonaventuran "Meditations on the Life of Christ," and Jacobus de Voragine's "Golden Legend," along with handbooks on summoning angels and cycles of mystery plays.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 21903, MDVL 21903

HIST 32003. Perpetration of Mass Violence: Motivations and Dynamics of Participation in the Armenian Genoci. 100 Units.

The systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was planned and executed by a cadre of individuals. Although in recent decades historians have explored the biographies of leading figures in the Committee of Union and Progress and explored their roles in the destruction of the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, there is little systematic research on the motivations of and interactions among perpetrators. Furthermore, most active participants in the genocide on the local level are little known today. In this course, we will explore motivations of perpetrators and different forms of perpetration of violence during the Armenian genocide in a comparative perspective. We will investigate the lives and legacies of genocide perpetrators as well as their post-genocide careers who actively participated in the annihilation of Armenians and plunder of their wealth and cultural heritage. Our aim is to reconstruct the background, motivations, and actions of the perpetrators at the national, local and provincial levels, a largely understudied dimension of Armenian genocide history. Through social network analysis and micro-historical portraits, this course aims to shed light on the political and socio-economic factors that reinforced the foundations of a genocide in the making and demonstrate how the policies of Ottoman central authorities found fertile ground in provinces and districts across the empire.

Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20676, NEHC 30676, HIST 22003

HIST 32508. Fascism. 100 Units.

Developments in recent years have clearly shown a resurgent interest in "fascism". While it designates a phenomenon which might concern everyone, it is also a term used more often in the manner of an insult than a precisely defined concept. One might even say it is what W.B. Gallie once called an essentially contested concept-not because many claim it for themselves today, but on the contrary, because virtually everyone denounces it in their own specific way. In this course, students will consider what "fascism" means by engaging with several influential explanations of it. We will read and discuss more contemporary philosophical views (Stanley, Eco), historical perspectives and documents (Paxton), but also classic perspectives from political theory (Arendt), philosophy (Burnham), and critical theory (Horkheimer, Adorno, Pollock), as well as political economy (Neumann, Sohn-Rethel, Gerschenkron, Fraenkel, Kalecki). With an eye to its historical and contemporary applications, our purpose throughout will be to reconstruct the arguments which we will consider in order to develop a rigorous concept of "fascism". This course will be offered in English. Its only prerequisite is a non-dogmatic approach to reading and discussion.

Instructor(s): Daniel Burnfin     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 35823, PHIL 25823, GRMN 25823, PHIL 35823, HIST 22508, DEMS 25823

HIST 32509. Religion and Politics in Modern European History, 1789-1965. 100 Units.

The general theme of the colloquium is the relationship between religion and civil society in Central Europe, the United Kingdom, and France between 1740 and the end of World War II. We will use this broad theme to explore a variety of important issues in modern European history, including the history of the relationship of the church and state; the contribution of religious consciousness and culture to the construction of class, gender, and national identities; and the role played by religious movements in the creation of a liberal, adversarial political system and the formation of a bourgeois public sphere. Special topics will include the role of religious disputes in the formation of administrative reform agendas in the Eighteenth Century, the shifting patterns of religious practice that developed in the Nineteenth Century; the role of religiously-based political movements in the crisis of the Liberal state in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries; the ambivalent relationship of the churches to National Socialism and the Vichy regime; the role of organized religion in the reconstruction and transformation of the European state system at the conclusion of World War II; and patterns of religious renewal in Europe in the 1960s.

Instructor(s): J. Boyer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22509

HIST 32611. Paris from Victor Hugo to the Liberation, c. 1830-1950. 100 Units.

Starting with the grim and dysfunctional city described in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," the course will examine the history of Paris over the period in which it became viewed as the city par excellence of urban modernity through to the testing times of Nazi occupation and then liberation (c. 1830-1950). As well as focussing on architecture and the built environment, we will examine the political, social, and especially cultural history of the city. A particular feature of the course will be representations of the city-literary (Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Zola, etc.) and artistic (impressionism and postimpressionism, cubism, surrealism). We will also examine the city's own view of itself through the prism of successive world fairs (expositions universelles).

Instructor(s): C. Jones     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Students taking FREN 22620/32620 must read texts in French.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22611, FREN 22620, ARCH 22611, ENST 22611, FREN 32620

HIST 33067. Multi-Ethnic Histories of Ukraine. 100 Units.

This course explores the history of Ukraine from the early modern period until today. We will learn something about the Ukrainian nation and state, but we will also explore Ukraine as an historic place of encounter where Yiddish, Polish, Ukrainian, German, and Russian culture (among others) met; where Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews lived side by side; and where competing ideas about what it means to be "eastern" or "western" have coexisted. Using a pedagogy of reconciliation, we will try to come to terms with a complex past that includes myriad episodes of meaningful exchange as well as destructive conflicts and horrific violence.

Instructor(s): F. Hillis     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23067

HIST 33103. East Central Europe, 1880-Present. 100 Units.

The past 150 years have brought democratization, mass politics, two violent world wars, and no less than four different political regimes to the lands between Germany and the Soviet Union. The focus of this course will be on the forces that have shaped Eastern European politics and society since the 1880s. How and why was a multinational and multilingual empire transformed into self-declared nation states? How has mass migration reshaped East European societies? What were the causes and consequences of ethnic cleansing in East Central Europe? How did the experience of total war transform the states and societies? How did citizens respond to and participate in the construction of socialist societies after the Second World War? And finally, what changes and challenges has the transition from socialism to capitalism brought to the region since 1989? The course will focus on the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states, particularly Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary, with occasional discussion of the former Yugoslavia and Romania. Assignments: Three short papers (5-6 pages).

Instructor(s): T. Zahra and J. Mead     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Assignments: three short papers (5–6 pages).
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23103

HIST 33407. Comparative Kingship: Rulers in 12th-Century Europe. 100 Units.

The purpose of this course is to examine the different forms that kingship took in the Latin Christian kingdoms of Europe during the twelfth century. In the first half of the course, we will read and discuss a broad range of primary and secondary sources that will give us the opportunity to analyze critically kingship in England, France and Germany (the Holy Roman Empire). In the second half of the course, we will broaden our discussion to consider how other kingdoms in Europe-including Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Sicily, Aragon and Castile-do and do not conform to more general models of 12th-century European kingship.

Instructor(s): J. Lyon     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23407, MDVL 23407

HIST 33521. The Future of Israel. 100 Units.

This class considers key aspects of contemporary Israeli society, culture and politics, and examines their potential future trajectories. Within this framework, we will discuss the historical background of various developments in contemporary Israeli ideologies, experiences, fears and ambitions. In analyzing the evolution and impacts of the tensions that characterize Israeli society and culture today, we will examine various potential resolutions for these tensions. The sources we will discuss in class include official policy statements, speeches, and public opinion polls, alongside visual arts, films, science fiction literature and popular music. The diversity of sources reflects the diversity of voices-of beliefs, aspirations and self-perceptions-within the Israeli society. The acknowledgement of this diversity would not allow us to predict the future, but it would grant us with solid foundations for the understanding of the current challenges, of possible future trajectories, and their long-term implications.

Instructor(s): O. Ashkenazi     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23521, JWSC 23521

HIST 33522. German-Jewish Visual Culture. 100 Units.

Ever since Jewish emancipation in the second half of the nineteenth century, German-Jewish culture evolved through the experience of intercultural encounters, acculturation, dissimilation, migration, and persecution. After 1933 this endeavor has been transplanted and fostered outside of Germany as well. The course focuses on the ways German-Jewish visual culture negotiated the varying experiences of Jews in Germany and in migration, contemplated Jews' agency in the face of uncertainty and crisis, and assigned meaning to views, beliefs and fears. In considering sources such as films, photographs, and comic books that were produced by Jews in Germany and German-Jews abroad, we will explore some often-overlooked yet fundamental aspects of German Jewish history and its perception by various contemporaries. Contrary to traditional scholarship on German-Jewish culture, this course will go beyond the paradigm of the nation-state to highlight the transnational encounters, interrelations and influences that shaped the German-Jewish experience and its negotiation in visual imagery.

Instructor(s): O. Ashkenazi     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 23522, HIST 23522

HIST 33615. Post-Soviet Ukraine. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the cultural life of Ukraine after the Soviet collapse. In a guided process, students will co-facilitate this syllabus, deciding on topics and readings in (translated) Ukrainian literature and film as well as the history of Ukraine. Possible topics include: memory of Soviet wars, the capitalist transition, Chornobyl, artistic movements, subcultures, the Maidan Revolution, Russia's war, language politics, ethnicities, and gender relations. Reading options include Andryukhovich, Zabuzhko, Plokhy, Zhadan. No prior knowledge required.

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 26070, REES 36073, HIST 23615

HIST 34109. The Globalization of Japanese Religions: From the 19th Century to the Present. 100 Units.

This course will explore the processes that led to the present situation of Japanese religions both within and outside of Japan. It focuses on the encounter and exchanges between Japanese and non-Japanese actors in order to question overly simplified models of globalization and modernization from the point of view of a global history of religions. We will first consider the formation of the concept of "religion" itself in the second half of the nineteenth century in both Europe and Japan. Building on these considerations, we will consider a selection of primary sources to trace the main developments of Japanese religious traditions and institutions into the present. Particular attention will be paid to both the inculturation of "foreign" religious traditions in Japan and the spread of "Japanese" religious traditions outside of Japan. If possible, the course will also incorporate field trips to Japanese religious groups in the Chicago area.

Instructor(s): Stephan Licha     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 31500, HREL 31500

HIST 34122. Buddhist Meditation: Tradition, Transformation, Modernization. 100 Units.

From the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta of the Pāli canon to the "mindfulness" boom of recent years, Buddhism and meditation often appear inseparable. The aim of this seminar is to historicize and critically question this seemingly natural intimacy, for while it certainly cannot be denied that the various Buddhist traditions have always had on offer a plethora of techniques for mental (and physical) cultivation, it is far from clear how or even if all these could be subsumed under the in its current usage relatively recent category of "meditation". Drawing on Buddhist meditation literature from various traditions, historical periods, and literary genre, in this seminar we will take up a twofold question: First, how has the encounter with Buddhist techniques of cultivation shaped the modern understanding of "meditation", and second, up to which extend, and at what cost, has this very modern understanding conversely conditioned us to see Buddhism as a "meditative religion" par excellence?

Instructor(s): Stephan Licha     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 34600, RLST 24600, EALC 24609, HREL 34600, SALC 24600, EALC 34600, HIST 24122

HIST 34306. New Histories of Chinese Labor. 100 Units.

Past scholarship has often reduced the history of Chinese labor to the history of the Chinese labor movement or the history of the Communist Party in its function as "the leading core" of the proletariat. The factory proletariat, of course, was never more than a small segment of the Chinese labor force - less than five percent under the Republic, less than ten in the People's Republic. Recent work has been more inclusive, looking at work outside the formal sector, in agriculture, handcrafts, and service industries; at the work of women in formal employment and at home; at sex work and emotional work; at unemployment and precarious work; at the work of internal migrants; at Chinese workers abroad; at coerced work in private industry (the 2007 "kiln slaves' incident"); and at carceral labor in Xinjiang and elsewhere. Most of the readings will deal with work in the Mao and post-Mao years, right up to the present. We will combine readings on Chinese labor history with more general texts on the relationship between productive and reproductive work, wage work and non-wage work, male and female work, autonomous and heteronomous work. The guiding question throughout the course is if a new Chinese labor movement is necessary, possible, or probable, and if it is not, under which conditions it might become so.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34455, HIST 24306, EALC 24455

HIST 34511. Social and Economic Institutions of Chinese Socialism, 1949 to 1980. 100 Units.

The socialist period (for our purposes here, c. 1949-1990) fundamentally transformed the institutions of Chinese social and economic life. Marriage and family were redefined; rural communities were reorganized on a collective basis; private property in land and other means of production was abolished. Industrialization created a new urban working class, whose access to welfare, consumer goods, and political rights depended to a large extent on their membership in work units (danwei). Migration between city and countryside came to a halt, and rural and urban society developed in different directions. This course will focus on the concrete details of how this society functioned. How did state planning work? What was it like to work in a socialist factory? What role did money and consumption play in a planned economy? Our readings are in English, but speakers of Chinese are encouraged to use Chinese materials (first-hand sources, if they can be found) for their final papers.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24511, EALC 32451, EALC 22451

HIST 34518. Women and Work in Modern East Asia. 100 Units.

Worldwide, women do about 75 percent of the world's unpaid care and domestic work. They spend up to three hours more per day cooking and cleaning than men do, and anywhere from two to ten hours more per day looking after children and the elderly. Women's underpaid work at home and in industry subsidized the early stages of industrialization in nineteenth-century Britain, early twentieth-century Japan, and contemporary China, and women's unpaid contributions to their households enable employers worldwide to keep wages low. We know, at least in outline, how women came to carry double burdens in Europe and North America, but little research has been done so far about this process in East Asia. In this course, we will discuss when and how China, Japan, and Korea developed a division of labor in which most wage work was gendered male and reproductive work was marked female. Are current divisions of labor between men and women rooted in local cultures, or are they the result of industrial capitalist development? How do divisions of labor differ between the three East Asian countries, and how did developments in one East Asian country affect others?

Instructor(s): Jacob Eyferth     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30121, EALC 24501, GNSE 20121, EALC 34501, HIST 24518

HIST 34519. Li Zhi and 16th Century China: The Self, Tradition, and Dissent in Comparative Context. 100 Units.

The 16th century Chinese iconoclast Li Zhi (Li Zhuowu) has been rightly celebrated as a pioneer of individualism, one of history's great voices of social protest, an original mind powerfully arguing for genuine self-expression, and more. He was a Confucian official and erudite in the classics, yet in his sixties he takes the Buddhist tonsure, and late in life befriends the Jesuit Matteo Ricci. He sought refuge in a quiet monastery devoting his life to scholarship, yet invited constant scandal. His A Book to Burn "sold like hotcakes," and attracted enough trouble that reportedly readers would surreptitiously hide their copies tucked up their sleeves, and was later banned by the state soon after his death. In this seminar, we will place Li both within the context of the history of "Confucian" thought, and within the literary, religious, and philosophical conversations of the late Ming. Using his writings as a productive case study, we will think about topics including "religion," tradition and innovation, "spontaneity" and "authenticity," and the relationship between "classics" and commentaries. Throughout, we will bring our discussions into comparative analysis, considering views of thinkers and traditions from other times and places. Chinese not required; for those interested, we will read select essays of Li's in Chinese and students may choose translation as a final project.

Instructor(s): Pauline Lee     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 23202, EALC 23202, RLST 23202, HREL 33202, EALC 33202, DVPR 33202, HIST 24519

HIST 34613. God of Manga: Osamu Tezuka's "Phoenix," Buddhism, and Post-WWII Manga and Anime. 100 Units.

How can the Buddhist axiom "All Life is Sacred" describe a universe that contains the atrocities of WWII? Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and father of modern Japanese animation, wrestled with this problem over decades in his science fiction epic Phoenix (Hi no Tori), celebrated as the philosophical masterpiece of modern manga. Through a close reading of Phoenix and related texts, this course explores the challenges genocide and other atrocities pose to traditional forms of ethics, and how we understand the human species and our role in nature. The course will also examine the flowering of manga after WWII, how manga authors bypassed censorship to help people understand the war and its causes, and the role manga and anime have played in Japan's global contributions to politics, science, medicine, technology, techno-utopianism, environmentalism, ethics, theories of war and peace, global popular culture, and contemporary Buddhism. Readings will be mainly manga, and the final paper will have a creative option including the possibility of creating graphic work.

Instructor(s): A. Palmer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24613, MAAD 14613, RLST 28613, FNDL 24613, KNOW 24613

HIST 34706. Edo/Tokyo: Society and the City in Japan. 100 Units.

This course explores the history of one of the world's largest cities from its origins as the castle town of the Tokugawa shoguns in the early seventeenth century, to its transformation into a national capital and imperial center, and concludes in the postwar era as Tokyo emerged from the ashes of World War II to become a center of global capital and culture. Our focus will be on the complex and evolving interactions between the natural and built environments of the city and politics, culture, and social relations.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 34706, CRES 24706, EALC 34706, EALC 24706, ENST 24706, HIST 24706, ARCH 24706

HIST 34921. Darwinism and Literature. 100 Units.

In this course we will explore the notion that literary fiction can contribute to the generation of new knowledge of the human mind, human behavior, and human societies. Some novelists in the late 19th and early 20th century provided fictional portrayals of human nature that were grounded into Darwinian theory. These novelists operated within the conceptual framework of the complementarity of science and literature advanced by Goethe and the other romantics. At a time when novels became highly introspective and psychological, these writers used their literary craftsmanship to explore and illustrate universals aspects of human nature. In this course we read the work of several novelists such as George Eliot, HG Wells, Joseph Conrad, Jack London, Yuvgeny Zamyatin, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Italo Svevo, and Elias Canetti, and discuss how these authors anticipated the discoveries made decades later by cognitive, social, and evolutionary psychology.

Instructor(s): D. Maestripieri     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Distribution requirements: Undergraduate: A; Graduate: 1
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 37861, CHDV 27861, HIPS 24921, KNOW 21418, KNOW 31418, CHSS 34921, HIST 24921

HIST 35104. History and Philosophy of Biology. 100 Units.

This lecture-discussion course will consider the main figures in the history of biology, from the Hippocratics and Aristotle to Darwin and Mendel. The philosophic issues will be the kinds of explanations appropriate to biology versus the other physical sciences, the status of teleological considerations, and the moral consequences for human beings.

Instructor(s): R. Richards     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): For students taking PHIL 23405, the course is (B) (II).
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25104, PHIL 33405, KNOW 37402, HIPS 25104, PHIL 23405, CHSS 37402

HIST 35200. Explorations of Mars. 100 Units.

Mars is more than a physical object located millions of miles from Earth. Through centuries of knowledge-making people have made the "Red Planet" into a place that looms large in cultural and scientific imagination. Mars is now the primary target for human exploration and colonization in the Solar System. How did this happen? What does this mean? What do we know about Mars, and what's at stake when we make knowledge about it? Combining perspectives from the social sciences and humanities, this course investigates how knowledge about Mars is created and communicated in not only science and technology fields but across public culture. A major focus will be learning how Mars has been embedded within diverse social and political projects here on Earth. Through reading-inspired group discussions and instructor-led experiential research projects, the course will move from the earliest visual observations of Mars to recent robotic missions on the planet's surface. In doing so, this seminar will critically grapple with evolving human efforts to make Mars usable. No prior knowledge of Mars is required.

Instructor(s): Jordan Bimm     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 26070, KNOW 36070, ENST 26070

HIST 35205. The Scientific Image. 100 Units.

This course explores the broad field of scientific image-making, focusing in particular on problems of formalism, abstraction, and realism. What makes a "good" scientific image? What kind of work do scientific images do? What philosophical, ideological, and political constraints underwrite attempts to render the complexity of events and entities in the world in stylized visual vocabularies? And how might we approach the work of aesthetics and style in image-making? We will examine these questions through a survey of several contemporary scholarly frameworks used for thinking about problems of representation in scientific practice, and will attend to such image-making practices as graphing, diagramming, modeling, doodling, illustrating, sculpting, and photographing, among other methods.

Instructor(s): M. Rossi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 35205, HIST 25205, HIPS 25505

HIST 35206. Global Science. 100 Units.

Is all science global, and if so, how did it get that way? Are some sciences more global than others? What has been at stake historically in describing scientific activity as variously local, transnational, international, or global, and how have these constructions influenced the historiography of the field? In this seminar, we will explore different approaches to writing and examining scientific knowledge production as a global phenomenon, as well as considering different historiographic attempts at grappling with science's simultaneously local and global qualities, poly-vocal nature, and historical coproduction with global political and economic power.

Instructor(s): E. Kern     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 35301, HIPS 25316, HIST 25206

HIST 35305. Counterhistories of Mathematics and Astronomy. 100 Units.

Mathematics and astronomy are often taught as packaged universal truths, independent of time and context. Their history is assumed to be one of revelations and discoveries, beginning with the Greeks and reaching final maturity in modern Europe. This narrative has been roundly critiqued for decades, but the work of rewriting these histories has only just begun. This course is designed to familiarize students with a growing literature on the history of mathematics and astronomy in regions which now make up the global south. It is structured as a loosely chronological patchwork of counterexamples to colonial histories of mathematics and astronomy. Thematic questions include: How were mathematical and astronomical knowledge conjoined? How were they embedded in political contexts, cultural practices, and forms of labor? How did European scientific modernity compose itself out of the knowledges of others? Where necessary, we will engage with older historiographies of mathematics and astronomy, but for the most part we will move beyond them. No mathematics more advanced than highschool geometry and algebra will be assumed. However, those with more mathematical preparation may find the course especially useful.

Instructor(s): Prashant Kumar     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ASTR 39000, SALC 39000, HIPS 27010, CHSS 39001, KNOW 39000, ASTR 29000

HIST 35511. A History of Cell and Molecular Biology. 100 Units.

This course will trace the parallel histories of cell and molecular biology, primarily in the 20th century, by exploring continuities and discontinuities between these fields and their precursors. Through discussion, attempts will be made to develop definitions of cell and molecular biology that are based upon their practices and explanatory strategies, and to determine to what extent these practices and strategies overlap. Finally, the relevance of these definitions to current developments in biology will be explored. The course is not designed to be comprehensive, but will provide an overall historical and conceptual framework.

Instructor(s): K. Matlin     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): This course does not meet the requirements for the Biological Sciences Major.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25511, HIPS 25902, CHSS 34300

HIST 35705. Everyday Life in the Early Islamic Period. 100 Units.

How did people live in the early Islamic period? How did they work and study? What do we know about their relations with family members, loved ones, and neighbors? How did they relate to the administration and to people who ruled them? Did they get together to celebrate religious festivals? Did they have parties? What sources do we have to learn about their habits, routines, and feelings? What can we learn about every-day struggles, and how much do these differ from our own? This course aims to introduce undergraduate and early graduate students to the study of social history through a combination of literary and documentary sources from the early centuries of Islam. We will learn about both opportunities and limits of studying history from the "bottom-up."

Instructor(s): CECILIA PALOMBO     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20024, NEHC 30024, RLST 20324, ISLM 30024, HIST 25705

HIST 35710. Revolution and Piety in Islam. 100 Units.

This course examines religious responses to major political upheavals in Islamic history, from the Abbasid revolution to the age of European expansion. Topics include the Mongol destruction of the caliphate in 1258 and the opening and closing of confessional boundaries; the formation of regional Muslim empires in the 16th century; Ibn Arabi, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn Khaldun; the development of alternative spiritualities, mysticism, and messianism in the fifteenth century; trans-confessionalism, antinomianism, and the articulation of sacral sovereignties in the sixteenth century; the pious responses to European colonialism . All work in English.

Equivalent Course(s): ISLM 30113, HIST 25710, NEHC 30113, NEHC 20113, RLST 21113

HIST 35803. The Economy by Other Means": New Approaches to the Economy of the Late and Post-Ottoman Middle East. 100 Units.

Questions around political economy and capitalism are once again gaining prominence in Ottoman and Middle East studies. Whereas these questions have been fundamental to the traditional confines of economic history and political economy, this new engagement takes its cue from a different and diverse pool of fields. As one observer recently put it, an emerging body of literature engages with "the economy by other means." This course takes stock of these still-uncharted means by bringing together and examining a selection of recently published books treating economic themes in the late Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Middle East up to the midtwentieth century. How do these books challenge, build on, and/or conform to the contours of economic modes of analysis? What do they contribute to our understanding of capitalism in the Middle East? What are the new archives they create for the study of economic life? How do they destabilize the conceptual repertoire of political economy? More importantly, in what ways do they change our view of the late Ottoman and modern Middle East? This course will take us from malaria in Anatolia to "men of capital" in Mandate Palestine; from legal battles on family inheritance in Ottoman Syria to the "colonial economism" of the British occupation of Egypt; from the late Ottoman culture of productivity to the rise of the Arabic novel during nahda.

Instructor(s): Murat Bozluolcay     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20866, NEHC 30866, KNOW 30866, KNOW 20866, HIST 25809

HIST 36101-36102-36103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I-II-III.

Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence is offered every year. This course introduces the history and cultures of Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean Islands).

HIST 36106. Tropical Commodities in Latin America. 100 Units.

This colloquium explores selected aspects of the social, economic, environmental, and cultural history of tropical export commodities from Latin America-- e.g., coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, henequen, rubber, vanilla, and cocaine. Topics include land, labor, capital, markets, transport, geopolitics, power, taste, and consumption.

Instructor(s): E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 36106, LACS 26106, HIST 26106, CEGU 26106

HIST 36305. Covid-19 and other epidemics in Latin American History. 100 Units.

This course is designed as an introduction to the history of epidemics and pandemics in Latin America from the XVI century to the present. Emphasis will be on using epidemics and pandemics as historical lenses to illuminate key dimensions of Latin America's society like discrimination, citizenship, authoritarianism, popular resilience and globalization. We will discuss the relationship between epidemics and pandemics and international commerce, analyze the role played by structural inequities and inadequate responses by governments in the intensification of disease outbreaks, and assess popular reactions to government's action and inaction. An organizing principle of several sessions will be "Necropolitics" (a concept originally coined by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe) applied to social studies of health. These studies indicate that it is misleading to consider epidemics and pandemics as equal-opportunity threats since widespread disease outbreaks are usually more acute and tragic for vulnerable populations. A distinctive feature of necropolitics and Covid-19 was a misplaced hope for "herd immunity", embraced by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, namely the natural protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune through previous infection, with the assumption that a large number of people had to die.

Instructor(s): Marcos Cueto     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 25132, HIST 26305, LACS 35132

HIST 36509. Law and Citizenship in Latin America. 100 Units.

This course will examine law and citizenship in Latin America from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. We will explore the development of Latin American legal systems in both theory and practice, examine the ways in which the operation of these systems has shaped the nature of citizenship in the region, discuss the relationship between legal and other inequalities, and analyze some of the ways in which legal documents and practices have been studied by scholars in order to gain insight into questions of culture, nationalism, family, violence, gender, and race.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): background in Latin American Studies, Latin American History, and/or legal history useful
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 36509, LLSO 26509, KNOW 36509, LACS 26509, HIST 26509

HIST 37006. Not Just the Facts: Telling About the American South. 100 Units.

The great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once observed: "The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live." This course concerns itself with the various ways people have striven to understand the American South, past and present. We will read fiction, autobiography, and history (including meditations on how to write history). Main themes of the course include the difference between historical scholarship and writing history in fictional form; the role of the author in each and consideration of the interstitial space of autobiography; the question of authorial authenticity; and the tension between contemporary demands for truthfulness and the rejection of "truth."

Instructor(s): J. Dailey     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Open to upper-level undergraduates; graduate students by consent of instructor.
Note(s): Assignments: three short papers.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27006, LLSO 25411, AMER 27006, RDIN 27006, AMER 37006

HIST 37014. American Legal History, 1607-1870. 100 Units.

This course examines major themes and interpretations in the history of American law and legal institutions from the earliest English settlements through the Civil War. Topics include continuity and change between English and American law in the colonial period; the American Revolution; changing understandings of the U.S. Constitution; the legal status of women and African Americans; federalism; commerce; slavery; and the Civil War and Reconstruction. The student's grade will be based on a take-home final examination.

Instructor(s): A. LaCroix     Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 37119. Radical America. 100 Units.

This course explores various sorts of radicalisms in America (religious, political, sexual, environmental) from the eighteenth century to the present.

Instructor(s): J. Dailey
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27119, HMRT 29861

HIST 37201. Interrogating the Archive(s): Research Methods for Historical Thinking. 100 Units.

This seminar interrogates the concepts, theories, and practices of the archive from a historical perspective. History is in many ways a discipline defined by a set of questions rather than a singular approach. We will begin by analyzing how historians do the work of interpreting sources to construct historical narratives and arguments. Examining archival theory, its lapses, and its possibilities, we will determine what characteristics make an archive and how we can historicize it as an object of inquiry in its own right. We will then tackle a representative sample of the types of sources and archives you are most likely to engage as a researcher. Looking at how people have archived written ephemera, material culture, photographs, film, music, urban space, and the internet, we will pair the specific theoretical concerns of a given source type's archiving with practical examples of how historians have explicitly mediated, transcended, or succumbed to the experience of the archive: its structure, its customs, its absences, and more. You will gain an understanding of the mechanics of archival work for a historian as well as an appreciation for the complexity of historical thinking. By the end of the quarter, you will learn how to reconcile archival theory with the realities of research and the practice of history in order to become better, more ethical, and more rigorous researchers.

Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Undergraduate Consent Required
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 37201

HIST 37202. World War II: Knowledge, Power, and Decisions. 100 Units.

World War II claimed tens of millions of lives and mobilized the economic, political, and moral resources of every inhabited continent. A reasonable observer could call it the most complex event in history; the Regenstein Library lists 38,382 entries on the topic, in 78 languages. Yet for all its immensity the conflict unfolded in just 2,194 days. That is to say: writers with the benefit of hindsight have produced more than 17 books or reports for every day that the war lasted. How did people make sense of it in real time? This course focuses on problems of information and decision-making in the global catastrophe of the 1940s, with attention to the formation, authentication, and contestation of knowledge that informed the choices of everyone involved-from the commanding heights of Franklin Roosevelt's "map room" to the desperate calculations of refugees. Topics will include the assessment of totalitarian threats in the western democracies, the "socialist calculation problem" in the context of total war mobilization, censorship and propaganda, and the nature of moral knowledge.

Instructor(s): McCallum, John     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 31510

HIST 37408. Transatlantic Crossings: Everyday Race and Racism in the 20th Century. 100 Units.

In this course we will explore the "work" race does on both sides of the Atlantic, focusing mainly on the period from the turn of the 20th century to the present. Topics covered will include: national variations in how "race" and racial identity have been defined and invoked, including policies on the naming, gathering and use of racial statistics; the fundamental rupture in ideas about race and transatlantic relations during and following the Great War and its impact on popular culture during the interwar period; the transatlantic resurgence and challenges to "scientific racism," focusing especially on how it was manifested in the politics and practices of biological reproduction and adoption; the social reproduction of racial ideas and identities manifested in children's books, toys, films, and sports; and how sports and the media shape and are shaped by racial ideologies. We will explore these topics as relatively autonomous developments within the nation-states composing the Atlantic world, while noting the transatlantic transfers, connections, and influences that both strengthened and challenged them. Our readings and discussions will focus heavily on the U.S. and France, but where pertinent comparative references will be made to Great Britain, Germany, and Brazil.

Instructor(s): Leora Auslander     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 21100, RDIN 31100, HIST 27408

HIST 37415. Creating a Different Image: Black Women's Filmmaking of the 1970s-90s. 100 Units.

This course will explore the rich intersections between African American women's filmmaking, literary production, and feminist thought from the 1970s to the early 1990s, with an emphasis on the formation of a Black women's film culture beginning in the 1970s. We will examine the range of Black feminisms presented through film and the ways that these films have challenged, countered, and reimagined dominant narratives about race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. We will explore the power and limitations of filmmaking as a mode of Black feminist activism; the range of Black feminisms presented through film; and the specific filmic engagements of well-known Black feminist critics such as bell hooks, Toni Cade Bambara, and Michele Wallace. As many Black feminist writers were engaged with filmmaking and film culture, we will look at these films alongside Black women's creative and critical writing from the period. Approaching filmmaking in the context of Black feminist thought will allow us to examine the possibilities of interdisciplinary approaches to film studies broadly, as well as to think specifically about the research methods and theories that are demanded by Black women's filmmaking in particular.

Instructor(s): Allyson Field     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): This course is open to graduate and undergraduate students from across the disciplines; our conversations and presentations of the films will both depend on and be energized by different disciplinary perspectives.
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24. Please email Professor Field at anfield@uchicago.edu before enrolling. Course Description Continued: We will discuss the form, aesthetics, and politics of individual films and we will examine larger efforts by artists and activists to build a Black women’s film culture, asking such questions as: What does a film history of Black feminism look like, and what scholarly and creative methods does such a history demand? To begin to answer these questions, we will revisit the 1976 Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts—believed to be the first ever Black women’s film festival—organized by Michele Wallace, Faith Ringgold, Patricia Jones, Margo Jefferson, and Monica Freeman. The class will collectively participate in a homage series inspired by the 1976 festival, featuring work by filmmakers from the original festival such as Monica Freeman, Madeline Anderson, Michelle Parkerson, Ayoka Chenzira, Carol Munday Lawrence, Edie Lynch, and Camille Billops; as well as others including Julie Dash, Zeinabu irene Davis, Maya Angelou, and Yvonne Welbon. The weekly course screenings will be open to the public and students will gain experience in the public presentation of films by actively engaging in public-facing aspects of film exhibition (writing program notes, delivering introductions, participating in discussions, etc.). The class will culminate with a two-day symposium that will bring together around 35 Black feminist filmmakers and artists, including a number from the 1976 festival, to revisit the threads and legacies of the original event and discuss the present and future of Black women’s film practices.
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 31025, HIST 27415, GNSE 20128, GNSE 30128, CMST 31025, CRES 21025, CMST 21025, HMRT 21025, KNOW 31025

HIST 37506. Changing America in the Last 100 Years. 100 Units.

This course examines the economic and social forces that have transformed the critical character and performance of the major regions of the United States since the 1920s, and how the interactions between regions has profoundly shifted. The course completes the historical sweep of American geographical development following on from the Autumn course, Historical Geography of the United States, but can be taken as an independent course. Emphasized are the ways in which socio-cultural, technological and economic changes have played out differently across continental space, and produced variable environmental consequences. An all-day field trip in the Chicago region visits sites that reflect some of the larger forces at work at the intra-regional scale.

Instructor(s): Michael Conzen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 22101, GEOG 32101, ARCH 27506, HIST 27506, CHST 22101, CEGU 22101

HIST 37718. Beyond the Culture Wars: Social Movements and the Politics of Education in the U.S. 100 Units.

Passionate conflicts over school curriculum and educational policy are a recurring phenomenon in the history of US schooling. Why are schools such frequent sites of struggle and what is at stake in these conflicts? In this discussion-based seminar, we will consider schools as battlegrounds in the US "culture wars": contests over competing visions of national identity, morality, social order, the fundamental purposes of public education, and the role of the state vis-à-vis the family. Drawing on case studies from history, anthropology, sociology and critical race and gender studies, we will examine both past and contemporary debates over school curriculum and school policy. Topics may include clashes over: the teaching of evolution, sex and sexuality education, busing/desegregation, prayer in schools, multiculturalism, the content of the literary canon, the teaching of reading, mathematics and history, and the closure of underperforming urban schools. Our inquiry will examine how social and political movements have used schools to advance or resist particular agendas and social projects.

Instructor(s): Lisa Rosen     Terms Offered: Spring 2022-23
Equivalent Course(s): EDSO 33011, CHDV 33011, PBPL 23011, HIST 27718, EDSO 23011, CHDV 23011, SOCI 30588, SOCI 20588

HIST 37719. The Christian Right. 100 Units.

From the Gilded Age to the age of Donald Trump, conservatives Christians have played a major role in shaping American politics and culture. This course will use primary and secondary sources to explore the development of the Christian Right in the United States. We will answer essential questions about the movement: Who joins it? Who leads it? And who funds it? We will examine how conservative Christians approach not only "moral" issues like abortion but also issues like economic regulation and foreign policy. Finally, we will seek to answer the question: What is the future of the Christian Right in an increasingly diverse America?

Instructor(s): William Schultz     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 35700, AMER 22667, HCHR 35700, RAME 35700, HIST 27719, RLST 22667

HIST 38006. Fundamentalism. 100 Units.

Is fundamentalism a useful term that allows us to compare anti-modern movements across a range of religious traditions? Or is it a hopelessly problematic term that lumps together vastly different phenomena? This course will use the troubled career of "fundamentalism" as a window onto the modern history of religion-and the people who study it. We will begin by focusing on the origins of fundamentalism: as a description of the political mobilization of conservative Protestants in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. From there, we will broaden our perspective, considering how the term "fundamentalist" has been applied to Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu movements, as well as to secular phenomena like Marxism and nationalism. At each step of the way we will consider not only "fundamentalism" itself but also the people who study it and those who mobilize against it. Ultimately, we will ask: is fundamentalism an idea whose time has come again, or one whose time has come and gone?

Instructor(s): William Schultz     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 41440, RAME 41440, HIST 28006, AASR 41440, RLST 21440

HIST 38307. Populism in the United States: Past and Present. 100 Units.

This course will explore the long history of populism in the United States, a history that raises fundamental questions about the nature of US politics, law, and society. These include ongoing disputes over the ownership and control of wealth; the rights and duties of individuals to each other as well as to the commonweal; the relationship of citizens to their nation; reigning definitions of justice and the good life; and the currency of racism, jingoism, paranoia, antisemitism, and demagoguery in US democratic politics. Such large subjects will be engaged through an historical investigation, beginning with the War of Independence. The course will finish by examining the putative re-emergence of "populism" in recent years, particularly since the financial crisis of 2008, to include global comparisons.

Instructor(s): J. Levy and M. Zakim     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 28307, HIST 28307, CCCT 28307

HIST 38308. Science, Governance, and the Crisis of Liberalism. 100 Units.

In the era of "post-truth" it has become common to link a crisis of scientific authority with a crisis of liberalism. Democracies around the world are under threat, this reasoning goes, in part because of an attack on scientific truth. But what does liberalism - as political culture and as a form of governance - need (or want) from science? Depending where you look, the answer might appear to be facts, truth, a model 'public sphere,' an ethic of objectivity, tactics for managing risk and uncertainty, or technologies of population management (to name a few). In addition to exploring the complex historical relationship between science and liberalism in the modern era, this course will critically assess how the history of science and the history of political thought have theorized truth and governance. We will examine what models of "coproduction" and "social construction" - nearly ubiquitous in the historiography of modern science - fail to capture about the histories of science and state power. We will also think about how political and intellectual historians' theories of truth and mendacity in politics might be enriched by more attention to scientific knowledge in both its technical and epistemological forms. This course focuses on 19th- and 20th-century Europe and the United States in global perspective, and readings will draw from political theory, history, economic thought, the natural and human sciences, and critical theory.

Instructor(s): Isabel Gabel     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 32204, CHSS 32504, HIPS 22204, HIST 28308

HIST 38608. The Nuclear Age. 100 Units.

This seminar examines the history of nuclear science, technology, and politics since World War II. The invention of atomic weapons transformed the international security landscape in the middle of the last century, yet most nuclear arms have never been deployed in conflict. This course encourages students to consider the roles of ideas, knowledge, culture, and secrecy in the development and deployment of technologies often considered as quintessentially material. It asks how nuclear science and technology both reflected and informed social landscapes, intersecting in crucial, often surprising ways with issues of gender, race, and class. What kinds of people in which places have had access to atomic knowledge, and to what ends? Ranging across national contexts and through social layers that intersect with nuclear industries, we will consider the perspectives of victims / survivors, scientists, workers, environmentalists, miners, diplomats, and other people. Students will encounter a multifaceted approach to the Nuclear Age, including how its promise and peril have been represented and contested, into the present time.

Instructor(s): Benjamin Goossen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 32200, CHSS 34200

HIST 38800. Historical Geography of the United States. 100 Units.

This course examines the historical and geographical roots of American regional diversity and national spatial organization, from 1500 to 1920, and asks why American regions have developed and retained distinctive characteristics-and what consequences this has had for contemporary society. These issues are pursued through an examination of colonization processes, economic development, spatial differentiation, settlement patterns and the changing role of cities. The emphasis is on the kind and quantity of European cultural transfer, physical changes wrought by colonization, the modification of natural environments, the conquest of distance, and the general approach of American society to the uses of space. This course requires no prerequisites. There will be an all-day field trip in the Chicago region.

Instructor(s): Michael Conzen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Restricted to 3rd and 4th years This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. This course offered in the Autumn Quarter of even-numbered years
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28800, GEOG 31900, CEGU 21900, CHST 21900, ENST 21900

HIST 38814. Theme Park America. 100 Units.

Since the colonial era, Americans have obsessively created recreational themed spaces that manifested historical myths and memories in the built environment. This course considers the evolution, functions, and ethics of the American desire to visit the past as a form of leisure. Starting with early themed spaces such as world's fairs, amusement parks, and cityscapes, we examine how scholars have read cultural phenomena for their radical contemporary significance. We then apply these tools to examine how Disneyland combined, redefined, and heightened its themed space antecedents and to what ends. We will learn how to decode Disneyland's messages about race, gender, capitalism, and the American experience that are embedded within the park's design, architecture, attractions, shows, sounds, and smells. How did such views of the past, present, and future speak to the social, political, and economic needs and wants of Cold War Americans, and why do they continue to resonate today? How should we understand themed spaces as a lens for U.S. history as experienced by contemporary Americans? By interrogating the themed space form, we will explore the nature of historical memory, the responsibilities of public history, and the ethics of constructing a recreational past. In doing so, we will learn how to take the seemingly frivolous matters of history seriously-and the dire stakes for doing so.

Equivalent Course(s): CHST 28814, MAAD 18814, MAPS 33550, HIST 28814

HIST 38815. American Spectacle. 100 Units.

Spectacles have shocked, awed, delighted, and horrified Americans for centuries-seemingly all at once. This class reexamines American history through the lens of spectacle in its many guises: the scientific, violent, technological, and political. We explore how these various iterations have not only coexisted over time but also intersected, reinforced, and-at times-complicated each other. We will ask how these overlapping spectacles shaped and continue to shape the United States by underwriting and innovating race, class, gender, and statecraft. Is spectacle foundational to the United States? How does it bridge individual lived experience and sociopolitical and economic abstractions? Running from the early modern Atlantic World to the present, we conclude by asking whether the digital age has made spectacle ubiquitous, and at what cost.

Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 21450, MAAD 28815, HIST 28815, MAPS 31450

HIST 39001. Black Gods of the Black Metropolis. 100 Units.

This course examines the history and significance of the shifting and emergent forms of African American religious culture in the wake of the Great Migration (c.1915-1970). Focusing, initially, on how this process unfolded in Chicago, the course will both introduce select figures, movements, institutions, and popular cultures that emerged in the period, and consider to what ends they have been represented. Together, we will read both indispensable classics and innovative new works on the subject and consider how they have approached and addressed themes of, among others, race, space, class, gender, and sexuality. In addition, this course aims to emphasize how the so-called era of the "sects and cults" has and continues to raise important questions about the archives, representation, and narration of African American religion.

Instructor(s): Matthew Harris     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 33001, RDIN 33000, RAME 33000

HIST 39006. Slavery and Emancipation: Caribbean Perspectives. 100 Units.

This graduate-level reading colloquium explores the interpretive problems and perspectives critical to understanding the historical dynamics of slavery and emancipation in the Caribbean. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, over five million African men, women, and children were trafficked to the Caribbean as enslaved captives. During this period, Africans and their descendants, as well as the tens of thousands of slaveholders, indentured laborers, Indigenous peoples, and free people in the region, forged the political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics that arguably made the Caribbean the birthplace of the modern world. Through course readings in foundational and emerging scholarship, we will examine how slavery and emancipation underlined crucial historical transformations and problems in the Caribbean, with attention to their global repercussions. Students will also have the opportunity to draw comparisons with other regions in the Atlantic World. Upper-level undergraduates may enroll with instructor consent.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 33505, ANTH 26452, SOCI 30598, SOCI 20598, HIST 29006, ANTH 46452

HIST 39105. Gendering Slavery. 100 Units.

This reading seminar will introduce students to the key questions, methods, and theories of the burgeoning field of gendered histories of slavery. Global in scope, but with a focus on the early modern Atlantic world, we will explore a range of primary and secondary texts from various slave societies. Assigned monographs will cover a multitude of topics including women and law, sexualities, kinship, and reproduction, and the intersection of race, labor, and market economies. In addition to examining historical narratives, students will discuss the ethical and methodological implications of reading and writing histories of violence, erasure, and domination. Learning to work within and against the limits imposed by hegemonic forms of representation, the fragmentary nature of the archive, and the afterlives of slavery, this course will examine how masculinity and femininity remade and were remade by bondage.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29105, LACS 29106, CRES 29105, GNSE 20131, LACS 39106

HIST 39107. Empires and Colonies of the Atlantic World. 100 Units.

This graduate-level reading colloquium explores classic and emerging scholarship that examines the rise and consolidation of European overseas empires and colonies in the early modern Atlantic world (c.1400-1850). While we will analyze transatlantic European imperial structures, the course will pay particular attention to the perspectives of the colonized peoples (such as enslaved and freed people of African descent, creole populations, and Indigenous peoples) and places (such as the Caribbean, West Africa, Latin America, and North America) in the Atlantic World. Among the thematic topics we will discuss include: colonization; the rise of slavery and the slave trade; cross-cultural and political connections; the consolidation of race; gender, sexuality, and the family; the environment; the plantation complex; work and economy; social life; anti-colonial and anti-slavery struggles, revolution; abolition; and the reconstitution of colonial and imperial structures after slave emancipation. Upper-level undergraduates may enroll with instructor consent.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 33555, HIST 29107, ANTH 26455, ANTH 46455

HIST 39403. The Political Theologies of Zionism. 100 Units.

The relationship between nationalism and religion has throughout history been a stormy one, often characterized by antagonisms and antipathy. In this course we will examine from various aspects the complex nexus of these two sources of repeated ideological and political dispute within Judaism, and more specifically within Zionism as its political manifestation. Zionism has mostly been considered a secular project, yet recently, Zionist theory is scrutinized to identify and unearth its supposedly hidden theological origins. In nowadays Israel, a rise in religious identification alongside an increasing religionization of the political discourse calls for the consideration of new theopolitical models of Zionism applicable in a post-secular environment. The aim of this course is to explore this complex intertwining of politics and religion in Israel from both historical and contemporary perspectives. The first part of the course will outline the theoretical foundation of post-secular and political-theological discourses. The second part will address the explicit and implicit political theologies of Zionism. The third part will outline contemporary aspects of political-theological thought in Israel, and their actual appearance in the political sphere.

Instructor(s): David Barak-Gorodetsky     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 25806, RLST 25806, JWSC 27940, THEO 35806, HIJD 35806

HIST 39406. Dance as History. 100 Units.

This course explores the relationship between dance and history. Rather than investigating the history of dance, we will focus on how incorporating dance can alter the practice of historical research and representation (including public history), and on how history has informed classical and contemporary concert dance since the late 19th century. Through our weekly studio practice we also hope to develop new ways of representing and embodying history through dance. The course will examine the traditional, historical language of storytelling in certain disciplines of dance, and will seek to create a refreshed, relevant language of gesture and intention in the studio that might effectively convey narrative. Our focus will be European and American classical, modern, and contemporary concert dance since the 19th century, but students are welcome to explore other genres, cultural contexts, and moments in their research and in discussion. Assignments will include readings as well as viewing existing choreographic works on video; discussion of these texts and videos; engaging in conversation with contemporary choreographers, writing analyses of dances informed by the readings; attending relevant performances in Chicago, and participating each week in a studio-based class session in which we explore, through movement, the themes under consideration that week. You do not need to have any dance experience to take this course, but you must be willing to move.

Instructor(s): T. Zarah and M. Dincolo     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29406, CHST 29406, TAPS 26275, TAPS 36275

HIST 39505. Epistemic Virtues. 100 Units.

Epistemic virtues are to the pursuit of scientific and scholarly truth what moral virtues are to the pursuit of the ethically good: personal qualities more likely (though never certain) to advance these goals and therefore ones instilled and praised by the communities dedicated to such pursuits. In both the contemporary humanities and the sciences, epistemic virtues include rigor, precision, objectivity, and productivity; in past epochs, certainty ranked high. As in the case of moral virtues, various epistemic virtues can not only coexist with or even support but also come into conflict with one another, raising the question: how to adjudicate their competing claims? Using historical and contemporary case studies, this seminar will explore a range of epistemic virtues in both the humanities and sciences. The aim is to reflect on commonalities and differences across the disciplines and on the ways in which ethics and epistemology converge. (Co-teaching with Lorraine Daston.)

Instructor(s): Glenn Most & Lorraine Daston     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): All students require instructors’ permission.
Note(s): The seminar will take place on Monday/Wednesday, 09:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.*, during the first five weeks of the term (March 20 – April 19, 2023)
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 35994, CLCV 23722, SCTH 35994, CHSS 35994, PHIL 25994, CLAS 33722, HIPS 25994

HIST 39800. Archaeology for Ancient Historians. 100 Units.

This course is intended to act not as an introduction to Classical archæology but as a methods course illuminating the potential contribution of material cultural evidence to ancient historians while at the same time alerting them to the possible misapplications. Theoretical reflections on the relationship between history and archaeology will be interspersed with specific case studies from the Græco-Roman world.

Instructor(s): J. Hall     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 31700, ANCM 31700, HIST 20901, CLCV 21700

HIST 41102. Reading Archival Documents from the People's Republic of China. 100 Units.

This hands-on reading and research course aims to give graduate students the linguistic skills needed to locate, read, and analyze archival documents from the People's Republic of China. We will begin by discussing the functions and structure of Chinese archives at the central, provincial, and county level. Next we will read and translate sample documents drawn from different archives. These may include police reports, personnel files, internal memos, minutes of meetings, etc. Our aim here is to understand the conventions of a highly standardized communication system - for example, how does a report or petition from an inferior to a superior office differ from a top-down directive or circular, or from a lateral communication between adminstrations of equal rank? We will also read "sub-archival" documents, i.e. texts that are of interest to the historian but did not make it into state archives, such as letters, diaries, contracts, and private notebooks. The texts we will read are selected to cast light on the everyday life of "ordinary" people in the Maoist period. The target group for the course are graduate students and advanced undergraduates with good Chinese reading skills.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): advanced Chinese reading skills
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 41102

HIST 42804. Wittgenstein and Modern Social Thought. 100 Units.

This course explores the reception of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. In particular, it will focus on the gradual publication parts of Wittgenstein's Nachlass, and the effect of these writings on disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, political theory, psychology, history of science, and anthropology. Topics covered include: the controversial editorial practices of Wittgenstein's literary executors; the creation of various 'schools' of Wittgensteinian philosophy in Britain and the United States; the waves of Wittgenstein interpretation since World War II; and the attempt to apply Wittgenstein's thought to historical, ethnographic, and ethical inquiry. Alongside texts written by Wittgenstein himself, we will read works by such figures as John Rawls, Thomas Kuhn, Clifford Geertz, Veena Das, and Quentin Skinner.

Instructor(s): Joel Isaac     Terms Offered: Spring. Spring 2024
Prerequisite(s): Consent is required for Undergraduates.
Equivalent Course(s): SCTH 40133, SCTH 20685

HIST 44906. Introduction to Science Studies. 100 Units.

This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of science, medicine, and technology. During the twentieth century, sociologists, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists raised original, interesting, and consequential questions about the sciences. Often their work drew on and responded to each other, and, taken together, their various approaches came to constitute a field, "science studies." The course furnishes an initial guide to this field. Students will not only encounter some of its principal concepts, approaches and findings, but will also get a chance to apply science-studies perspectives themselves by performing a fieldwork project. Among the topics we may examine are: the sociology of scientific knowledge and its applications; actor-network theories of science; constructivism and the history of science; and efforts to apply science studies approaches beyond the sciences themselves.

Instructor(s): Michael Paul Rossi     Terms Offered: Winter. Offered in Winter 2024
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 40137, CHSS 32000, HLTH 22001, HIPS 22001, ANTH 32305, KNOW 31408

HIST 46606. Research Themes in South Asian Studies: Textual Transformations - From Manuscript to Print. 100 Units.

This course offers an introduction to the theory and practice of book history and print culture studies, a relatively recent and vibrant field of inquiry in South Asian Studies. The course will explore some of the main theoretical approaches, themes, and methodologies of the history of the book in comparative perspective, and discuss the specific conditions and challenges facing scholars of book history in South Asia. Topics include orality and literacy, technologies of scribal and print production, the sociology of texts, authorship and authority, the print "revolution" and knowledge formation under colonial rule, material cultures of the book, the economy of the book trade, popular print, and readership and consumption. We will also engage with texts as material artifacts and look at the changing contexts, techniques, and practices of book production in the transition from manuscript to print.

Instructor(s): Ulrike Stark     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): This graduate course is open to advanced undergraduates (instructor consent required).
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 40106

HIST 47304. Narratives of American Religious History. 100 Units.

How do we tell the story of religion in America? Is it a story of Protestant dominance? Of religious diversity? Of transnational connections? Of secularization? This course examines how historians have grappled with such questions. We will read the work of scholars who have offered narratives explaining American religious history, including figures like Sydney Ahlstrom, Albert Raboteau, Mark Noll, Ann Braude, Catherine Albanese, and Thomas Tweed. This course will introduce students to key historiographical questions in the study of American religion, as well as to classic texts which have shaped the field's development.

Instructor(s): William Schultz and Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27304, KNOW 41315, HCHR 41315, RDIN 41315, AMER 21315, RDIN 21315, CRES 22315, AMER 41315, RAME 41315, RLST 21315

HIST 47305. Investment & Democracy in US history, 1860-2000. 100 Units.

This course will examine the agonistic co-evolution of democracy and capitalism in modern America through the lens of political battles over public and private investment since the Civil War. From the 1860s onward, democratic control of investment has increasingly been challenged by the concentration of economic clout in banks, railroads and other modern corporations, cartels, trusts, holding companies, multinationals, conglomerates, hedge funds, dark pools, and more. Yet the role of the government in shaping economic development has only grown more formative over time. Driven by party competition, interest groups, electoral pressures, and social movements, reformers found ways to push back: from antitrust laws, central banking, farm credits, and industrial democracy; to the regulation of securities, commercial and retail banking, and housing; to state capitalist schemes to develop entire regions through watershed management, engineer the defense and atomic sectors of the economy, or direct globalization through international aid and trade controls. The result was decidedly mixed, whether it was called "the mixed economy" or neoliberalism. Locked in an ever-escalating competition over initiative and control of public goods and private property, the advocates and enemies of a democratic political economy have remade the state, reshuffled society, and propelled America and the world into an agonistic global order.

Instructor(s): J. Sparrow     Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 47416. Black Religious Protest in the U.S. 100 Units.

This course examines African American religious protest against the American nation for its actual history and its ideals in view of black oppression. The course begins with David Walker's Appeal (1829) and ends with debates around Jeremiah Wright's "God damn America" sermon. The course situates black religious protest amidst discussions of the American Jeremiad, a particular critique of the nation in relation to the divine, American exceptionalism, and racial injustice. We attempt to trace continuity and discontinuity, hope versus pessimism, and visions of a more perfect union in these public critiques of the nation.

Instructor(s): Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22202, AMER 22202, AMER 42202, HIST 27416, RDIN 23202, HCHR 42202, RAME 42202

HIST 47500. Social Christianity in the US: Origins and Legacies. 100 Units.

This course is an intensive analysis of the origins, development, and historical significance of the Social Gospel (as it was called during its emergence) as a religious and social reform movement in America. We begin the course with one of the major works of Walter Rauschenbusch in the early 20th century. But we look at the development and influence of Social Christianity later and in the Civil Rights movement (and beyond) to grasp its enduring influence. Some attention will be devoted to the relationship between theological innovation, historical criticism of the Bible, and social reform. One of the aims of the course is to explore the impetus for social and political reform in light of a more expansive and this-worldly conception of Christian teaching on the Kingdom of God.

Instructor(s): Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students. Undergraduates must petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): RAME 45050, HCHR 45050

HIST 47510. Religion in the Enlightenment: England and America. 100 Units.

Study in the historiographies of the Enlightenment in England and in America, with special attention to the "trans-Atlantic" communication of ideas regarding the nature of the person, religion, and the role of the political order.

Instructor(s): Richard Rosengarten     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS or LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22110, RAME 42100, RLVC 42100, AMER 42100, HIST 27510, AMER 22110, HCHR 42200

HIST 47603. Public History Practicum I. 100 Units.

In this two-quarter course students will engage in the theory and practice of public history in partnership with organizations doing community-oriented work in a variety of areas. In the winter colloquium, we will read and discuss the theory and practice of public history as well as materials relevant to the projects you will pursue in the spring. In the spring practicum, you will work in groups of 3-5 directly with one of the partner organizations. All of the project-based work will be done collaboratively; working with partners means that there will be hard deadlines. Projects and coursework will be designed to be adaptable to current public health conditions. A showcase presentation of the projects is scheduled for the end of the spring quarter, by which time you will have become acquainted with current scholarship on public history and with experience in its actual practice. The final projects will be part of your portfolio and may be listed on your c.v.

Instructor(s): L. Auslander     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Students must take Public History Practicum I (HIST 47603) and II (HIST 47604) in sequence.
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34611, SOCI 50126, ARTH 47603, CHSS 67603, RDIN 47603

HIST 47604. Public History Practicum II. 100 Units.

In this two-quarter course students will engage in the theory and practice of public history in partnership with organizations doing community-oriented work in a variety of areas. In the winter colloquium, we will read and discuss the theory and practice of public history as well as materials relevant to the projects you will pursue in the spring. In the spring practicum, you will work in groups of 3-5 directly with one of the partner organizations. All of the project-based work will be done collaboratively; working with partners means that there will be hard deadlines. Projects and coursework will be designed to be adaptable to current public health conditions. A showcase presentation of the projects is scheduled for the end of the spring quarter, by which time you will have become acquainted with current scholarship on public history and with experience in its actual practice. The final projects will be part of your portfolio and may be listed on your c.v.

Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Students must take Public History Practicum I (HIST 47603) and II (HIST 47604) in sequence.
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 50127, RDIN 47604, CHSS 67604, ANTH 34612, ARTH 47604

HIST 51400. Colloquium: Global British Empire in a Comparative Perspective. 100 Units.

This colloquium will both introduce students to the literature on the British Empire in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries and the burgeoning, sophisticated, and interdisciplinary literature on comparative empires. We will discuss empires from the perspective of both the colonizers and colonized, discuss the virtues and limitations of the settler colonial paradigm, and consider empires beyond national history framings. Topics will range widely, including culture, society and political economy. This course is designed to be relevant both for students of Britain and its empire and those interested in thinking about empires more broadly. It will be a useful incubator for PhD research papers and for masters theses.

Instructor(s): S. Pincus     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open to MA and PhD students only

HIST 51501. Britain, Modernity, and Empire. 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): S. Pincus     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 51601. Material Histories of the Modern World, c. 1700 to the present. 100 Units.

This seminar explores the changing relationship between people and things in modern and contemporary history and introduces students to major historical interpretations, methods and sources. In the seminar, we will read classic as well as recent texts. Case studies will include the debate about the "industrious" and "consumer revolutions"; commodity biographies (sugar, tea, cotton); histories of comfort; town planning and mobility in 20th century Britain and Japan; food and diet in the British empire; waste in Republican Beijing; the material culture of the home in the Eastern Bloc; energy transitions and everyday life.

Instructor(s): F. Albritton Jonsson, F. Trentmann     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 51601, CHSS 51601

HIST 52901. East Central Europe. 100 Units.

This graduate readings course will cover major themes and approaches to the history of East Central Europe since the 19th century. Topics will include empire and post-imperialism, socialism and post-socialism; war and occupation; religious, linguistic, and national diversity; the environment and gender & sexuality. The course will form the basis for a graduate orals field in East European History.

Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 53101. Culture and Disaster. 100 Units.

Cultural life is often understood to be especially valuable in disastrous times. This course is devoted to understanding why in historical terms. To answer this question, we will consider past arguments for how a range of artistic and creative practices provide shelter from and solutions for a range of catastrophes, including war, genocide, environmental crises, economic collapse, epidemics, as well as disasters that register locally and interpersonally above all. We will also consider works of art and literature that have sought to address the disastrous contexts in which they were created. At the same time that we engage with this history of cultural optimism, however, we will give due attention to the pessimists. If disasters produce arguments for the value of culture, they often usher in periods of austerity, where life is reduced to essential functions. Where have such moments left art making, storytelling, archiving, performing, dreaming? When and why does cultural work not matter? Even more bleakly, when has cultural work been understood as a source of catastrophe itself? Readings will draw primarily from the field of modern Europe history in its global dimensions; students from other fields and disciplines at all stages of their graduate studies are most welcome. Throughout, we will have an eye to understanding how these histories bear on our own positions as writers, scholars, and artists working in disastrous times.

Instructor(s): A. Goff     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 53201. How to Read the Gospels. 100 Units.

What kind of texts are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Modern readers tend to approach the Gospels primarily as sources of biography for the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, but ancient and medieval readers saw in them something rather different. History, but also revelation. This course takes readers on a journey from the origins of the Gospels in oral storytelling through their basis in the ancient Temple tradition of prophecy to their patristic and medieval reading as a quarternity all pointing to the Majesty of the Lord. We will read commentaries by Origen, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bede, Rupert of Deutz, and Hildegard of Bingen, among others, to discover the way in which their reading of the Gospels was informed by their experience of liturgy and prayer, as well as the way in which the Gospels themselves informed their vision of Jesus as Christ. Course requirements will include writing model commentaries on the texts as well as the opportunity to create works of art (music, images, architectural plans). There will also be a final research paper on a particular commentator or theme.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 56602. Materials and Materiality. 100 Units.

Things have gathered more interest among scholars in both history and beyond. Considering this new focus on the materials and the materiality of things, some describe this trend as a "material turn" from the previous focus on cultural history and the analysis of discourses. How do historians in different areas write about things? What aspects of materiality do they focus on? In this course, we will explore the nascent "material turn" by diving into a few selected and representative works that look into the "thingness" behind materials. Instead of seeing this focus on materiality as separate from earlier approaches, this course hopes to incite discussions on how different scholarship's focus on materiality contribute to, engage with, and complicate other scholarship. The assignment for this course includes a combined book review of about 1000-2000 words that brings three recent books on electricity into a dialogue with each other. For the final project, students will write a research paper of about 20-25 pages long on a specific thing or a discussion of the materiality of their choice after consultation with the instructor.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 56602, CHSS 56602, EALC 56602

HIST 59500. Colloquium: Topics in Mexican History. 100 Units.

An examination of recent historiography on modern Mexico, in English and Spanish: questions, methods, sources, and scope.

Instructor(s): E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 59500

HIST 59900. Colloquium: Histories of Inequality in Latin America. 100 Units.

This course is devoted to the issue of inequality in Latin America's history and historiography. We will consider the role that inequality has played in shaping Latin American societies; we will also explore the ways in which political and intellectual constructions of inequality have impacted the development of Latin American historiography. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to historical methodology: the ways in which historians formulate their questions, the interaction of theory and research, and the nature of historical research. Issues covered will include colonialism, slavery, citizenship, social movements, and the Latin American manifestations of global inequalities.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 59900

HIST 60500. Colloquium: Angels and Demons. 100 Units.

From Enoch to Milton, angels and demons were central to the Christian understanding of creation, whether as the invisible intelligences of the celestial hierarchy or as the powers through which astrologers and magicians worked. This course will focus on reading primary sources from late antiquity through the seventeenth century for the study and importance of angels and demons, the roles which they played in Christian theology and devotion, the development of ideas of virtue and goodness, evil and sin, and the interactions they were believed to have had with human beings. Special attention will be given to both contemplation and magic, as well as the role of the Virgin Mary as Queen of Angels and terror of demons.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Open to MA and PhD students only.

HIST 60402. Colloq: Old Regime France. 100 Units.

This course is intended to give students of France, and more generally earlymodern Europe, a grounding in the history of the long eighteenth century. There were many "old regimes" in France--social, political, economic, juridical and cultural, to name just a few. We will examine how the absolutist state coped with, and in some cases stimulated, changes in these spheres from the 1680s until the final unraveling of 1788-89. We fill focus particular attention upon: economic transformations (or lack thereof) in agriculture, manufacturing and overseas trade; the ambivalent relationship between the Enlightenment and the state; the evolving relationship between elites; the rise of the public sphere. Comparative questions will be asked, and students studying other geographic areas are very welcome in this course. Primary readings will all be in English, with suggested readings in French.

Instructor(s): P. Cheney     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 61103. Readings in Modern Russian History. 100 Units.

This reading-intensive course will acquaint students with the major themes and interpretive problems of imperial Russian history. It aims to prepare students to sit for an oral exam in Russian history as well as to create a solid foundation on which students interested in modernity in other contexts may build. Topics to be discussed include: the culture of autocracy and the tradition of reform from above, the role of ideologies and identities in politics and society, the challenges of empire and nationalism, the struggle to establish a new order through war and revolution, and the role of the individual and collective in Russian society. Knowledge of Russian is not necessary.

Instructor(s): F. Hillis     Terms Offered: Winter

HIST 62403. Colloquium: History of Radicalism in the United States. 100 Units.

The United States has a robust history of radical social and political movements. Recognizing that radicalism is not confined to one end of the political spectrum, we will investigate moments of radical social and political change from the eighteenth century to the present, paying particular attention to struggles over democratic institutions (expansion, contraction, rejection of); white supremacy; violent resistance to state authority; freedom of expression; and the rights of minorities (racial, sexual, religious). Assignments TBD/flexible depending on student needs.

Instructor(s): J. Dailey     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 62602. Colloquium: American History II, from 1865. 100 Units.

This course is a companion to American History I. It explores major problems and methods in the historiography of the United States since the Civil War. The central goals of the course are to provide a thorough immersion in the major historiographical developments in the field of modern US history; to cultivate students' ability to analyze important works of history and to synthesize patterns of scholarly intervention; and to help students develop their own analytical agenda and successfully articulate it in oral and written form. It combines the "classics," including period-based debates, along with more recent topical concerns. Major interpretive themes knit together scholarly concerns under rubrics such as national and global capitalism; the environment; migration and urbanization; citizenship, the state, democratic politics, and its many discontents; and the ways in which all of these intersected with contested grassroots struggles over class, gender and sex, race and ethnicity, religion and ideology. Readings will also grapple with major events, periods, and patterns, including Reconstruction and its collapse, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, WWI, the volatile interwar period, WWII, the Cold War, the Vietnam era, the age of Reagan, and the post-Cold War world.

Instructor(s): J. Sparrow
Prerequisite(s): Open to MA and PhD students only.
Note(s): Assignments: book reviews, presentations, historiographic essay.

HIST 62610. Colloquium: Topics in US History. 100 Units.

This reading-intensive course focuses on topics in US history.

Instructor(s): J. Levy and A. Dru Stanley     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Open to MA and PhD students only by consent of instructor.

HIST 62705. Colloquium: Approaches to Atlantic Slavery Studies. 100 Units.

We are witnessing an outpouring of scholarship on Atlantic slavery even as some historians are increasingly critical of the archival method. This course uses select theoretical readings and recent monographs and articles to examine this conceptual and methodological debate. Topics to be examined include histories of women, gender, and sexuality; dispossession and resistance; urban and migration history; and interdisciplinary and speculative techniques.

Instructor(s): R. Johnson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 62705, RDIN 62705, LACS 62705

HIST 63006. Sovereignty and Indigenous Peoples. 100 Units.

This course investigates sovereignty and its entanglements with colonialism. It treats sovereignty as both an ideological construct and a set of political practices, with the operating hypothesis that modern concepts of sovereignty have evolved as part of a dialogue between European empires and Indigenous polities. Our approach will combine history (beginning in the early modern era, ca. 1500), political theory, and the interdisciplinary field of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS). Course readings will focus on the Americas but will include texts on west Africa and Oceania.

Instructor(s): M. Kruer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 63006

HIST 66701. The Contours of Twentieth Century Thought I: Between Dialectical Theology and Analogical Imagination. 100 Units.

Well into the twenty-first century it seems a good time to look back with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and take stock of the major theological developments of the twentieth century. Aside from the enormous impact of major historical events like the communist revolution and two World Wars, there is also the event of Vatican II and the civil rights struggle in the US. Throughout it all we see the profile of some extraordinary individual theologians (Barth, Lubac, Balthasar, Tracy a.o.) embedded in a larger story marking the end of some major theological movements (neo-scholasticism) and the beginning of others (dialectical theology and nouvelle théologie). This first of what is intended as a two-sequence course on twentieth-century theology will focus on the work of a number of Catholic and Protestant theologians, who struggle with the legacy of the Enlightenment and the need to reconceptualize theological thought in a fast secularizing and globalizing world.

Instructor(s): Willemien Otten     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Some knowledge of German and/or French will be helpful. This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): THEO 40401, HCHR 40401

HIST 67002. Colloquium: The Emergence of Capitalism. 100 Units.

This colloquium investigates the emergence of capitalism in the world as a whole between the early sixteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. We discuss the political and cultural, as well as the economic, sources of capitalism and explore Marxist, neoclassical, and cultural approaches.

Instructor(s): J. Levy & W. Sewell     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SCTH 67002, PLSC 67002, CCCT 67002

HIST 70001. The Departmental Seminar I. 100 Units.

The two-quarter History graduate seminar leads to the completion of the first-year research paper. The autumn quarter focuses on the craft of historical research and the art of critical discussion as students begin work on their individual projects. Students will consider what constitutes a good historical question, examine a wide range of research methods and analytical strategies, and explore how historians articulate the significance of their work. Weekly readings drawn from a mixture of important recent works and established classics of the discipline will encourage students to think and learn beyond their geographical, chronological, and methodological specializations. Assignments will ask students to experiment with novel questions, sources, and methods, while being geared toward laying the groundwork for a successful research paper. Upon completing the quarter, students should be prepared to begin writing.

Instructor(s): E. Gilburd & A. Johns     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructors; first-year History doctoral students only.

HIST 70002. The Departmental Seminar II. 100 Units.

The two-quarter History graduate seminar leads to the completion of the first-year research paper. The autumn quarter focuses on the craft of historical research and the art of critical discussion as students begin work on their individual projects. Students will consider what constitutes a good historical question, examine a wide range of research methods and analytical strategies, and explore how historians articulate the significance of their work. Weekly readings drawn from a mixture of important recent works and established classics of the discipline will encourage students to think and learn beyond their geographical, chronological, and methodological specializations. Assignments will ask students to experiment with novel questions, sources, and methods, while being geared toward laying the groundwork for a successful research paper. Upon completing the quarter, students should be prepared to begin writing.

Instructor(s): E. Gilbert & A. Johns     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): HIST 70001

HIST 90000. Reading and Research: History Grad. 100 Units.

Independent study with history faculty. Graduate students only.

Instructor(s): Arr.     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Summer Winter

HIST 90600. Oral Fields Preparation: History. 100 Units.

Independent study with history faculty to prepare for the history PhD oral-fields examination.

Instructor(s): Arr.     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Summer Winter