Department of History

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): ARTH 24815, NEHC 34815, NEHC 24815, HIST 20509, ARTH 34815

HIST 30803. Aristophanes's Athens. 100 Units.

The comedies of Aristophanes are as uproarious, biting, and ribald today as they were more than 2,400 years ago. But they also offer a unique window onto the societal norms, expectations, and concerns as well as the more mundane experiences of Athenians in the fifth century BCE. This course will examine closely a number of Aristophanes' extant plays (in translation) in order to address topics such as the performative, ritual, and political contexts of Attic comedy, the constituency of audiences, the relationship of comedy to satire, the use of dramatic stereotypes, freedom of speech, and the limits of dissent. Please note that this course is rated Mature for adult themes and language.

Instructor(s): J. Hall     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANCM 33900, HIST 20803, FNDL 23608, LLSO 20803, CLAS 33608, CLCV 23608

HIST 30902. Empires and Peoples: Ethnicity in Late Antiquity. 100 Units.

Late antiquity witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of peoples in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Vandals, Arabs, Goths, Huns, Franks, and Iranians, among numerous others, took shape as political communities within the Roman and Iranian empires or along their peripheries. Recent scholarship has undone the traditional image of these groups as previously undocumented communities of "barbarians" entering history. Ethnic communities emerge from the literature as political constructions dependent on the very malleability of identities, on specific acts of textual and artistic production, on particular religious traditions, and, not least, on the imperial or postimperial regimes sustaining their claims to sovereignty. The colloquium will debate the origin, nature, and roles of ethno-political identities and communities comparatively across West Asia, from the Western Mediterranean to the Eurasian steppes, on the basis of recent contributions. As a historiographical colloquium, the course will address the contemporary cultural and political concerns-especially nationalism-that have often shaped historical accounts of ethnogenesis in the period as well as bio-historical approaches-such as genetic history-that sometimes sit uneasily with the recent advances of historians.

Instructor(s): R. Payne     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): MDVL 20902, CLAS 33718, HIST 20902, NEHC 30802, CLCV 23718, NEHC 20802

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): KNOW 32201, CHSS 35202, HIPS 22202

HIST 31206. The Reformation in Britain, 1450-1660. 100 Units.

The Reformation in Britain is one of the most contested areas in early modern history. Was it mostly a political event, triggered by Henry VIII's desire for a divorce? Was it an organic movement from the ground up, inspired by the enthusiasm of ordinary believers in the same way as many reform movements in continental Europe? Did it have a distinctive theology of its own: can we call this 'Anglicanism'? Should we be studying the 'British Reformation' on its own terms at all, or should it be viewed simply as an offshoot of the continental European Reformations? And did the puritans really want to cancel Christmas? This course will give students a thorough grounding in the Reformation in Britain c.1450-1660, paying especial attention to the complex historiographical issues that still plague the topic to this day. Students will have the opportunity to study a range of key primary texts from the era, from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs to the letters of Queen Elizabeth I, as well as to examine the modern-day legacies of English reform.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 32604, HIST 21206, RLST 22604

HIST 32000. Money in Medieval Europe. 100 Units.

This course will investigate the history of minting and money in Europe from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages (ca. 1500). Topics will include the sourcing of silver and gold for coinage, the different monetary regimes in the different kingdoms of Europe, and the development of European banking systems from the thirteenth century onward. This course is open to all College students, and no prior knowledge of medieval European history is required. Grades will be calculated on the basis of class participation, two short papers and a final exam.

Instructor(s): J. Lyon
Equivalent Course(s): MDVL 22002, HIST 12000

HIST 32211. Magic in Early Modern Europe. 100 Units.

Magic was a constant element in early modern European culture. Almost all people in this period, from peasant to prince, accepted it as a real and powerful presence in their lives. They respected its credibility and practices in general, even if they might question particular claims. In this course we address why it was so ubiquitous, what it involved, and why, in the end, it seemed to decline. The course will introduce students to the major arguments that historians in this field have advanced, and provide critical perspectives on the interpretation of the range of practices falling under the term "magic," from witchcraft and necromancy to alchemy. Among the topics likely to be discussed are demonology, natural magic, astrology, the witch craze, the roles of memory, orality, and literacy in sustaining and qualifying magical cultures, and the relationships between magic, medicine, and science.

Instructor(s): A. Johns     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Assignments: short papers, long papers, in-class presentations, alternative projects.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22211, HIPS 22211, CHSS 32211

HIST 32315. The Witch Craze in 17th-Century Europe: Scotland, Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and Moravia. 100 Units.

In this course, we look carefully at the reasons for and repercussions of the "witch craze" in the long 17th-century, focussing on primary texts such as trial reports, legal literature, pamphlets, woodcuts, scholarly dissent, and other paraphernalia. The course follows a sweep of the craze from Lancashire in Scotland, where trials began in the 1590s, to Poznań in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to the Russian village of Lukh on the outskirts of Moscow, where between 1656 and 1660 over twenty-five individuals, most of them male, were tried and several executed, and finally to Northern Moravia under Habsburg rule where inquisitor Hetman Boblig presided over the burning of almost 100 "witches." In each region, trials followed different customs-Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic-and answered to different legislative discourse-ecclesiastical, laic, secular-yet all can be said to be the product of a common desire and collective fear. To supplement our understanding of the multifaceted anxieties that are expressed in works such as King James' Daemonologie (1597), and to ask more questions of the intersectional phobias around gender, sexuality, religion, and class (rural-urban; colony-metropole), we take up theory from Foucault, Federici, and Mbembe, and others.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): REES 34426, GNSE 34426, REES 24426, GNSE 24426, HIST 22315

HIST 32402. Anglo-Saxon England. 100 Units.

The kingdom seized by William the Conqueror in A.D. 1066 had been centuries in the making. Founded by pagan warlords following the retreat of the Roman legions, the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons were already old when missionaries arrived from Rome in A.D. 597, bearing icons and Gospel books. What happened when their kings converted to Christianity? How did their language, law, politics, culture, society, and economy change? What roles did monks, warriors, women, merchants, and poets have in crafting a kingdom so richly endowed that William coveted it as his prize? This course charts the making of Anglo-Saxon England through close readings of primary sources, including histories, epic poems, liturgies, and laws, alongside archeological surveys and works of art. Special attention will be given to the links that the Anglo-Saxons cultivated both with Rome and cultures even further south and east.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22402, MDVL 22402

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 32510. Get Cultured in Nine Weeks: Historical Perspectives on Art and Education. 100 Units.

Get Cultured in Nine Weeks: Historical Perspectives on Art and Education: What does it mean to 'get cultured'? Why-and how-do we do it? Does an education in the arts and letters make us more moral, more intelligent, more resistant to authority-or perhaps more submissive? These questions are at the center of debates about the place of cultural learning in the contemporary world, but our century was not the first to think critically about the social and political functions of this form of education. This course investigates how students, educators, writers, and artists conceptualized the aims and means of becoming cultured from the 1700s forward, focusing on European history and connecting it to the concerns of the present. We will pay particularly close attention to both formal and informal means of cultural education, and to the ways in which these practices have been understood to produce social structures of class, gender, and race. Readings will draw from the fields of history, literature, philosophy, sociology, and art history. At the end of the quarter, students will be asked to design their own fantasy syllabus for "getting cultured in nine weeks."

Instructor(s): Sophie Salvo and Alice Goff     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 36225, HIST 22510, GNSE 36255, GNSE 26255, GRMN 26225

HIST 33005. History of Christian Thought III. 100 Units.

This is the third course in the History of Christian Thought sequence, covering foundational Reformation-era thinkers from Catholic, Protestant, and 'radical' traditions. We will cover 1) the rise of Christian humanism in the Northern European Renaissance; 2) key texts and ideas within the German Lutheran, Swiss Reformed, and Genevan (Calvinist) Reformations; 3) important developments within Counter-Reformation thought, including the rise of the Jesuit Order, Spanish Catholic mysticism, as well as shifts within Catholic understandings of temporal and spiritual authority; and 4) seminal writings within Baptist, rationalist and anti-trinitarian thought. Classes will be based closely around the readings of primary texts representing important intellectual and theological developments, while remaining grounded thoroughly within the historical context of the period and paying attention to the debates historians have had over their influence, significance, and legacy.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students. Undergraduates may petition the instructor to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 30300, THEO 30300

HIST 33006. Looting, Plunder, and the Making of Modern Europe. 100 Units.

At the end of the eighteenth century Europeans recognized the seizure of enemy property to be a time-honored practice of warfare and subjugation. At the same time, however, new ideas about human rights, cultural heritage, and international law began to reshape the place of looting in the exercise of power. This course will take up the history of looting in European cultural and political life from the late eighteenth through the twentieth centuries as a tool of nationalism, imperialism, totalitarianism, and scholarship. How was looting defined, who defined it, and what kinds of ethical and legal codes governed its use? How was the seizure of personal property, cultural artifacts, and sacred objects legitimized by its practitioners and experienced by its victims? In what ways did looting change the meaning of objects and why? How do we understand looting in relationship to other forms of violence and destruction in the modern period? While the focus of the course will be on Europe, we will necessarily be concerned with a global frame as we follow cases of looting in colonial contexts, through migration, exploration, and during war. Course materials will including primary texts, images, objects, and historical accounts.

Instructor(s): A. Goff     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Assignments: one short paper, one long paper, short alternative assignments, and an in-class presentation.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23006

HIST 33523. History of the Jewish Present in the US, France, and Israel and Palestine. 100 Units.

The contemporary Jewish situation in Israel and Palestine, the US, and France as seen through historical, sociological, anthropological, political science, and cultural religious studies lenses. Central concerns include politics, society, conflict, and Jewish-Palestinian entanglements and mutual formation in Israel and Palestine; space, place, power, poverty, and wealth in contemporary Jewish life; questions of community-society relations in American and French societies riven by questions of race and racism and intercommunal tensions as well as enduring questions of democracy and inequality; divergent Jewish identities and the ideas, histories, and affects that shape them with special attention to mizrahiut; Jewish religious revival with particular attention to various forms of Orthodox, pietistic, mystical, and illiberal religiosity on the one hand and the impacts of feminism and other liberation movements on the other; Jewish culture and literature in Israel and the diaspora in a post-secular age; rising disagreements over Zionism, identity, politics, and the Jewish future roiling Jewish communities.

Instructor(s): K. Moss     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 12011, HIST 23523

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): HIST 23615, REES 36073, REES 26070

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): EALC 34600, RLST 24600, SALC 24600, SALC 34600, HIST 24122, EALC 24609, HREL 34600

HIST 34123. History of Food in Japan. 100 Units.

Although food is an essential part of human existence, it has only recently become the object of historical analysis, and historical research has drawn attention to its significance in relation to issues of health, gender, class, technology, and culture. This course explores the history of food in Japan in the period from c. 1600 to the postwar era. Topics to be examined include changing practices of consumption and production, medical discourse and conceptions of a proper diet, the impact of introduction of new foods and new methods of preparation, the rise of nutritional science, the development of a "national cuisine," and the impact of war and defeat upon food culture.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34123, EALC 24123, HIST 24123

HIST 34124. Post-empire: Japan and East Asia. 100 Units.

This course is on the post-imperial and postcolonial history in East Asia. After Japan declared defeat on August 15th, 1945, the empire has officially ended. Yet, the aftermath and afterlife of Japan's empire still deeply influenced the social and political environment in this region. How did the post-imperial connections shape Japan and its Asian neighbors? How did different actors react to this sudden change of political environment? This course pays close attention to the imperial and post-imperial continuity and changes.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34124, EALC 24124, HIST 24124

HIST 34206. Medicine and Culture in Modern East Asia. 100 Units.

This course will focus on the cultural history of medicine in China, Japan, and Korea from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1980s. We will be concerned with tracing the circulation of new medical knowledge and understanding its cultural and social implications. Topics to be explored include the introduction of "Western medicine" and its impact for "traditional" medicine; the struggles over public health, gender, medicine, and modernity; consumer culture; and medicine. No knowledge of an East Asian language is required, but those with reading skills will be encouraged to utilize them.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 34206, HIPS 24206, EALC 26201, HIST 24206, EALC 36201

HIST 34215. The History of the Book in East Asia: From Bamboo to Webtoon. 100 Units.

This seminar offers an overview of the development and history of the "book" and its physical forms, broadly conceived, in East Asia from ancient times to the present. Drawing on recent scholarship, selected primary sources, and rare books housed within the library system, this course familiarizes students with the evolution of the book and methods of book production in China, Korea, and Japan, the principles and practices of material bibliography and the application of such to physical and digital objects, and selected topics salient to the social and cultural meanings of books: authorship, the book trade, reading, censorship, and more. Assignments include a short paper, a short presentation, and a longer final paper. All readings in English, but knowledge of East Asian history or languages helpful.

Instructor(s): G. Reynolds     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34225, HIPS 24215, CHSS 34215, HIST 24215, EALC 24225

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): HIST 24306, EALC 24455, EALC 34455

HIST 34504. Environment and Economy in Late Imperial and Modern China. 100 Units.

An introduction to the literature on economic and environmental change from China's 18th century "prosperous age" to the unprecedented growth of the post-1978 period. Major topics include land use, irrigation, and agriculture; consequences of commercialization and commoditization; mining, logging, herding, and "frontier" development; state/society relations, and differing modes of state extraction and regulation; demographic change and changes in living standards; property rights, class relations, spatial inequalities; and changing responses to "natural" disaster. This is a reading and discussion course, with written assignments focused on ensuring mastery of the literature; interested students may substitute a research project for the historiographic papers, but only after clearing this with the instructor.

Instructor(s): K. Pomeranz     Terms Offered: Spring

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, GNSE 20121, EALC 34501, EALC 24501, 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): DVPR 33202, EALC 23202, HREL 33202, EALC 33202, FNDL 23202, HIST 24519, RLST 23202

HIST 34615. History of Energy in East Asia. 100 Units.

This course discusses the history of major energy sources in East Asia with a focus on coal, hydropower, and nuclear power plant. We pay close attention to both the technological side of the history of energy and how different energy sources interact with the social and political environment in Japan, China, and Koreas.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24615, EALC 24615, CEGU 24615, HIPS 24615, CHSS 34615, EALC 35615

HIST 34812. East Asian Science and Technology: Ways of Knowing. 100 Units.

This course is the first half of the East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine series. The second part of the course will be offered in the spring quarter by Professor Jacob Eyferth. In this series, we will read major works on the history of STM in East Asia and constantly are in conversation with studies of this history in the globe.

Instructor(s): Y. Dong     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 35812, EALC 25812, HIST 24812, HIPS 24812, CHSS 31812

HIST 34813. East Asian Science and Technology: Ways of Making. 100 Units.

This is the second part of the East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine series. In this series, we will read major works on the history of STM in East Asia and constantly are in conversation with studies of this history in the globe.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24813, HIPS 24813, EALC 34813, EALC 24813, CHSS 34813

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): HIPS 24921, CHDV 27861, HIST 24921, CHSS 34921, CHDV 37861, KNOW 21418, KNOW 31418

HIST 35121. History of Cartography. 100 Units.

This course offers a grand overview of the key developments in mapmaking throughout history worldwide, from pre-literate cartography to the modern interactive digital environment. It looks at the producers, their audience, the technologies and artistic systems used, and the human and global contexts in which they developed. The course also features experiential learning components with field trips to map collections at Regenstein Library and Newberry Library.

Instructor(s): Yue Lin     Terms Offered: Autumn 2024–25
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25121, CHST 28800, CEGU 28800, ARCH 28800, GISC 38800, GISC 28800

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): ENST 26070, KNOW 36070, HIPS 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: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 25505, HIST 25205, CHSS 35205

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: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 39000, HIPS 27010, KNOW 39000, CHSS 39001, ASTR 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): HIPS 25902, CHSS 34300, HIST 25511

HIST 35613. Saints and Sinners in Late Antiquity. 100 Units.

Between the third and seventh centuries, Christian communities came to flourish throughout the Middle East and neighboring regions in the Roman and Iranian empires as well as the kingdoms of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Ethiopia. This course will examine the development of Christian institutions and ideologies in relation to the distinctive social structures, political cultures, economies, and environments of the Middle East, with a focus on the Fertile Crescent. The makers of Middle Eastern Christianities were both saints and sinners. Holy men and women, monks, and sometimes bishops withdrew from what they often called "the world" with the intention of reshaping society through prayer, asceticism, and writing; some also intervened directly in social, political, and economic relations. The work of these saints depended on the cooperation of aristocrats, merchants, and rulers who established enduring worldly institutions. To explore the dialectical relationship between saints and sinners, we will read lives of saints in various Middle Eastern languages in translation.

Instructor(s): R. Payne     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30600, RLST 21613, HIST 25613, HCHR 31613, NEHC 20600

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 30024, HIST 25705, ISLM 30024, RLST 20324, NEHC 20024

HIST 35714. Islamic Intellectual History. 100 Units.

The course introduces students to current methodological trends in the Western study of intellectual history and then examines debates and discourses in the field of Islamic intellectual historiography, with a focus on selected examples. Students will develop and present individual original research projects.

Instructor(s): Ahmed El-Shamsy     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25714, NEHC 30204, NEHC 20204

HIST 35907. Urban Life, Housing Policy, Neoliberalism, and Israeli Society. 100 Units.

This course explores Israeli society through the lens of urban studies. It examines the profound transformations that have occurred in Israel's urban and spatial policy over 70 years and asks how the Israeli case illuminates global trends comparatively. Foci include: the dramatic shift in Israel's urban policy from state-driven to neoliberal logics; uniqueness and comparability of Israel's urban policy; impacts of major global crises (the 2007/8 economic crisis; Covid-19; climate change); urban policy's impacts on different population groups within Israel: Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, secular and Orthodox, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews, Ethiopian Jews. We will also discuss possible impacts of the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 and the ensuing war.

Instructor(s): R. Hananel     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25907, JWSC 25907

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 26106, CEGU 26106, HIST 26106, LACS 36106

HIST 36220. Brazil: Another American History. 100 Units.

Brazil is in many ways a mirror image of the United States: an almost continental democracy, rich in natural resources, populated by the descendants of three continents, shaped by colonialism, slavery, and sui generis liberal capitalism. Why, then, has Brazil's historical path been so distinct? To explore this question, this course will focus on the history of economic development, race, citizenship, urbanization, the environment, popular culture, violence, and the challenge of democracy. Assignments: Weekly reading, participation in discussions, weekly journal posts, and a final paper.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Some background in Latin American or Brazilian studies useful.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 26220, HIST 26220, LACS 36220

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 35132, HIST 26305, LACS 25132

HIST 36309. The Economic History of Latin America. 100 Units.

The course explores Latin America's historical evolution, analyzing the factors that have promoted or limited its economic development from the 16th century to the present. It seeks to familiarize students with the main debates on the economic history of the region, including the most recent literature. Despite its diversity, Latin American countries share several common traits, linked to its past, that have resulted in lower levels of income and greater poverty than the Global North, and very high inequality by international standards. This course aims to acquaint students with Latin America's diversity and, at the same time, identify its common characteristics. The course will delve into the following traits, that although unevenly distributed through the region, have shaped Latin America's economic development: indigenous legacies, colonial extraction, slavery, European migration, political fragmentation and instability, integration into the global economy through commodities' exports, low educational levels, poor innovation and financial development, limited industrialization, and frequent macroeconomic crises.

Instructor(s): Aurora Gómez Galvarriato     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 26309, LACS 25135, LACS 35135

HIST 36500. History of Mexico, 1876 to Present. 100 Units.

From the Porfiriato and the Revolution to the present, this course is a survey of Mexican society and politics, with emphasis on the connections between economic developments, social justice, and political organization. Topics include fin de siècle modernization and the agrarian problem; causes and consequences of the Revolution of 1910; the making of the modern Mexican state; relations with the United States; industrialism and land reform; urbanization and migration; ethnicity, culture, and nationalism; economic crises, neoliberalism, and social inequality; political reforms and electoral democracy; violence and narco-trafficking; the end of PRI rule; and AMLO's new government.

Instructor(s): E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Assignments: two essays
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 36500, CRES 26500, HIST 26500, LACS 26500

HIST 36511. Cities from Scratch: The History of Urban Latin America. 100 Units.

Latin America is one of the world's most urbanized regions and its urban heritage long predates European conquest. Yet the region's urban experience has generally been understood through North Atlantic models, which often treat Latin American cities as disjunctive, distorted knockoffs of idealized US or European cities. This class interrogates and expands those North Atlantic visions by emphasizing the history of vital urban issues such as informality, inequality, intimacy, race, gender, violence, plural regulatory regimes, the urban environment, and rights to the city. Interdisciplinary course materials include anthropology, sociology, history, fiction, film, photography, and journalism produced from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some coursework in Latin American studies, urban studies, and/or history
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 26511, LACS 26510, CEGU 26511, LACS 36510, HIST 26511, ARCH 26511

HIST 37001. Law and Society in Early America, 1600-1800. 100 Units.

This colloquium considers law, legal institutions, and legal culture within the lived experience of colonial and revolutionary America. It will emphasize the interaction of social development and legal development and will explore the breadth of everyday experience with legal institutions like the jury, with courts as institutions for resolving disputes, and with the prosecution of crime.

Instructor(s): E. Cook     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Upper-level undergraduates and early state graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27001

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 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 2024-25. 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): CRES 21025, CMST 21025, KNOW 31025, HMRT 21025, GNSE 20128, CMST 31025, GNSE 30128, HIST 27415, HMRT 31025

HIST 37419. Black Ownership of Wealth: A Theological Consideration. 100 Units.

Since Africans were brought to the Virginia Colony (August 1619), throughout slavery and segregation until today, black Americans (men and women) have always owned wealth. They have always had human agency. These black families accumulated wealth and offered a concurrent narrative and framing from the mainstream understanding of black Americans as victims. Who are these black families who remain mainly invisible from the dominant black story? What is material, financial wealth? Who has it? And how did they get it?

Instructor(s): Dwight Hopkins     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 25800, RLST 25800, RDIN 25800, AMER 45800, RDIN 45800, HIST 27419, THEO 45800

HIST 37420. African-American History: 1900-2000. 100 Units.

The Black experience in America is one that encompasses a wide variety of walks of life. Within this introductory undergraduate course, we will explore the 20th century experience of African Americans in Jim Crow segregation, migration, labor, medicine, world wars, civil rights, and black power. This course considers racial barriers in the built environment, with a particular emphasis on the city. We will use primary and secondary sources to construct conceptions of political struggle, economic rights, resistance, and freedom in African American life.

Instructor(s): Caine Jordan     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27420, RDIN 31200, RDIN 21200

HIST 37504. McCarthy's Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West. 100 Units.

Cormac McCarthy's 1985 masterpiece Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in the West has been described as 'the ultimate Western' and the greatest American novel of the twentieth century. Yet it is also a book that is infamous for its baroque prose style as well as its nightmarish depictions of violence and bloodshed. Our primary task in this course is to read Blood Meridian in its entirety. We will explore the novel's themes, including (but not limited to): war and the problem of evil; history and myth; violence and the sacred; violence and the carnivalesque; empire and conquest. But our reading will not be limited to Blood Meridian alone. We will read parts of some of McCarthy's other works, some of the books that McCarthy read in preparation for writing the novel, and some of the scholarship on

Instructor(s): Joel Isaac     Terms Offered: Winter. Winter 2025
Prerequisite(s): Open to Undergraduates
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27504, SCTH 30686, SCTH 20686

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): ARCH 27506, CHST 22101, GEOG 32101, ENST 22101, CEGU 22101, HIST 27506

HIST 37609. The Scopes Trial in Historical Perspective. 100 Units.

This course will explore in depth and in detail the 1925 Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, especially in light of its centennial. We will examine the transcript of the trial, newspaper editorials, cartoons, scholarly analyses, and various contemporary observations on the meaning and significance of the trial. Among the topics covered are the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the 1920s and its consequences, interpretations of the origins and tenacity of the anti-evolution campaign, and broader debates about science and religion and the contested authority of experts in American society. Though much of the historical analysis will focus on the 1920s, some attention will be paid to the implications of this highly publicized trial and what it came to signify about larger cultural, political, and religious divisions in the United States.

Instructor(s): Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 32418, HIST 27609, AMER 22418, RAME 32418, RLST 22418, HCHR 32418, FNDL 22418

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. Offered spring 2025
Equivalent Course(s): PBPL 23011, SOCI 20588, SOCI 30588, HIST 27718, CHDV 23011, EDSO 33011, EDSO 23011, CHDV 33011

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: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 35700, RAME 35700, AMER 35700, RLST 22667, HIST 27719, AMER 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): RLST 21440, HIST 28006, RAME 41440, HCHR 41440, AASR 41440

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, HIST 28308, HIPS 22204

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): CHSS 34200, KNOW 32200

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, CHST 21900, ENST 21900, GEOG 31900, CEGU 21900

HIST 38802. United States Labor History. 100 Units.

This course will explore the history of labor and laboring people in the United States. The significance of work will be considered from the vantage points of political economy, culture, and law. Key topics will include working-class life, industrialization and corporate capitalism, slavery and emancipation, the role of the state and trade unions, and race and sex difference in the workplace.

Instructor(s): A. Stanley     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Graduate students by consent of instructor
Note(s): Assignments: short papers and an in-class presentation
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 38802, HIST 28802, LLSO 28802, GNSE 28802

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.

Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 33550, HIST 28814, CHST 28814, MADD 18814

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.

Instructor(s): Hofmann, Alex     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 31450, MADD 28815, MAPS 21450, HIST 28815

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): RDIN 33000, AMER 33001, 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): HIST 29006, MAPS 33505, SOCI 20598, ANTH 46452, SOCI 30598, ANTH 26452

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): ANTH 46455, HIST 29107, ANTH 26455, MAPS 33555

HIST 39108. Atlantic Empires. 100 Units.

This course explores classic and emerging scholarship on European empires and colonies in the early modern Atlantic world (c. 1400s-1800s). We will examine the rise and consolidation of empires and colonies through comparative, trans, and circum-Atlantic approaches. Additionally, the course will pay particular attention to the perspectives of colonized peoples (such as enslaved and freed people of African descent, Creole populations, and Indigenous peoples). Geographically, the course will span the Atlantic World, including regions such as the Caribbean, West Africa, Latin America, and North America. Topics we will cover include the formation of empires and colonial systems; Atlantic slavery; the emergence of Atlantic ideologies of race; gender, and kinship; knowledge formation, environment, and disease; anti-slavery struggles, and the "Age of Revolution."

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 39108, HIST 29108, ANTH 39208, MAPS 39108, RDIN 29108

HIST 39109. Sex, Gender, and Kinship: Colonial Perspectives. 100 Units.

This course analyzes the contested relationships between gender, sexuality, kinship, and western colonialism from the early modern period through the twentieth century. Drawing on historical case studies, feminist theory, and postcolonial studies, this course will cover a broad range of empires and colonies to explore the mutually constitutive relationship between colonization and ideologies and practices of gender, sex, and kinship. Analyzing case studies predominately from the Atlantic World (with attention to colonies elsewhere), we will explore topics such as the emergence of colonial gender ideologies, gender and colonial governance, family life and kinship strategies, the intersectionality of gender and sexuality with race and class, queerness and queer lives, the politics of sex work and reproduction, and gendered migrations across empires.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 39109, GNSE 39109, RDIN 39109, HIST 29109, RDIN 29109, GNSE 23174

HIST 39201. Puerto Rico. 100 Units.

An examination of the current situation of Puerto Rico in historical perspective. Assignments: Short papers, quizzes, midterm exam, final paper.

Instructor(s): D. Borges
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 39201, HIST 29201, LACS 29201

HIST 39327. The Global History of Money. 100 Units.

This lecture course offers a global history of money over the last five thousand years. The course will approach money from diverse perspectives, including economic, political, social, cultural, and other perspectives. Rather than attempting complete coverage, the class focuses upon three distinct and momentous eras of monetary history. First, is the role of money in ancient economies, leading up to the birth of coinage in ancient Greece. Second, there is the role of money in the global emergence of capitalism during the early modern period. Third, is our own era, which began with the turn to fiat money during the 1970s. The course will study different theoretical approaches to understanding money, from economics and other disciplines. However, no background in economics is assumed or acquired.

Instructor(s): J. Levy     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 29327, SCTH 29304, SCTH 39304, CCCT 39327, HIST 29327

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): RLST 25806, JWSC 27940, THEO 35806, NEHC 25806, HIJD 35806

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 25994, CHSS 35994, CLAS 33722, PHIL 35994, HIPS 25994, CLCV 23722, SCTH 35994

HIST 39909. Comparative Empires. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to major themes in the study of empires, and to primary sources illustrative of those issues. We aim to raise questions about the nature of empires, their techniques of rule, impact on their subjects, and the causes of their rise and fall. For the most part, this will be done through a series of studies of specific empires, which will become the basis for comparative discussions. The empires considered range across the planet, and across the last two millennia, but most will be concentrated in the 16th-19th centuries. Graduate and undergraduate students both welcome.

Instructor(s): S. Pincus & K. Pomeranz     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29909

HIST 39910. History of Modern Peace and Violence. 100 Units.

How was peace constituted as a modern category? Is there a history of peace? What do new approaches to large concepts-"Latin America," "Europe," "State," "Nation," "Global South," "Judeo-Christian"-tell us about peace and violence and about writing the past of peace and violence? The goal is to launch the wondering of future historians.

Instructor(s): M. Tenorio     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29910

HIST 39911. Global Legal History. 100 Units.

This course examines topics in legal history from the last two centuries, surveying new and canonical histories from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. In recent years legal history has taken a global turn, moving away from the state-focused approach that long characterized the field. We will consider some of the questions that have come out of that turn. What counts as a "legal" institution, and who decides? How do different legal traditions - Civil Law, Sharia, Common Law, custom - interact with one another? How did law buttress or challenge ideas about race? Law can be a shield or a weapon, sometimes simultaneously. What it does depends on who is using it, and for what purpose. Readings will include history and some legal philosophy. Students will use primary sources extensively, including court records. The course will address historical topics including the use of law in European imperialism; law and the afterlife of Atlantic slavery; colonial regimes of law; the role of law in nationalist movements; law in revolutionary regimes and communist states; and contemporary debates on law enforcement and policing.

Instructor(s): S. Daly     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 29911, HIST 29911

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 42305. Christianity and Judaism in Early Modern Europe. 100 Units.

Early modernity has long been recognized as a crucial stage in the history of Western Europe. Beginning with the Reformation and ending with the Enlightenment, it is to this period that historians have attributed the rise of modern political thought; the growth of religious toleration; as well as the formation of radically historical biblical criticism. Recently, however, historians have realized that many of these developments did not originate solely within Christian intellectual traditions, but from the exchanges, conflicts, and interactions between Christianity and Judaism, with a particularly important role granted to the phenomenon commonly known as 'Christian Hebraism'. This course will examine some of the most significant of these interactions with a focus on four areas: 1) interpersonal relations between Jews and Christians; 2) biblical criticism; 3) political thought; and 4) mysticism and Christian Kabbalah. It will explore questions such as how sixteenth-century Jewish writings fueled a seventeenth-century Christian crisis in the Bible's authority; why the ancient Jewish commonwealth became an unlikely source of inspiration for early modern political theorists; how to understand the relationship between Jewish mysticism and 'Christian Kabbalah'; and how interfaith millenarianism fed into debates over the readmission of Jews into England.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites, but there will be opportunities for students with Latin and/or Hebrew to make use of those languages.
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HIJD 42800, HCHR 42800

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 20685, SCTH 40133

HIST 44003. Lost Histories of the Left. 100 Units.

When most Americans think about "the left," Marxism, Soviet state socialism, or European social democracy spring to mind. This class will explore alternative-but now largely forgotten-blueprints for revolutionizing the political and social order that emerged in the nineteenth century. We will pay special attention to utopian socialism, early anticolonial movements, the Jewish Labor Bund, and anarchism. Examining the intellectual underpinnings of these movements, their influence on the modern world, and the factors that led to their demise, we will also consider what lessons they can teach to those committed to realizing a better future today.

Instructor(s): F. Hillis     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Upper-level undergraduates with consent
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 24009, REES 44003

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): ANTH 32305, CHSS 32000, KNOW 31408, HIPS 22001, HLTH 22001, SOCI 40137

HIST 46000. Documentary Cultures in Early Islamicate Societies. 100 Units.

This Seminar for graduate students centers on the use of material and documentary sources for the study of early Islamic history (ca. 640-1000 CE), particularly looking at multiple religious groups, languages, and literary traditions. It will introduce the students to the study of documentary texts such as the Arabic papyri, the expansion of Arabic papyrology as a field, and the integration of literary and non-literary sources. Students will be encouraged and challenged to think of texts also as material objects. We will talk about sources and resources for the study of political, economic, social, and intellectual histories of the Islamicate world; in so doing, we will discuss also methods, problems, and perspectives.

Instructor(s): CECILIA PALOMBO     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30022, ISLM 30022, RLST 20122, NEHC 20022, MDVL 20022

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): RAME 41315, RDIN 21315, KNOW 41315, HIST 27304, RDIN 41315, AMER 21315, RLST 21315, CRES 22315, HCHR 41315, AMER 41315

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): HCHR 42202, HIST 27416, AMER 42202, RAME 42202, RLST 22202, RDIN 23202, AMER 22202

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): HCHR 45050, RAME 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, AMER 42100, RAME 42100, HIST 27510, AMER 22110, HCHR 42200, RLVC 42100

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): CHSS 67603, RDIN 47603, ARTH 47603, ANTH 34611, SOCI 50126

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): CHSS 67604, RDIN 47604, ARTH 47604, SOCI 50127, ANTH 34612

HIST 50103. The Land is Ours: Colonialism, Belonging, and Sovereignty in Africa. 100 Units.

This course centers land in thinking about the development of dominant political, economic, social, and cultural systems in Africa during and after colonialism. It examines how different actors have articulated their relationships to specific areas of land and established systems and institutions to structure these relationships. Looking at the colonial period, we will focus on competition between indigenous and colonial land tenure systems and the transformative effects of colonial land tenure systems on how people in Africa engaged in political, economic, and social life. Under independence, we will examine how African states used land as part of decolonization processes and the interplay between colonial and indigenous land tenure systems in how the citizens of independent African states have framed and exercised their claims to land. Texts for the course will include historical and other scholarly monographs, primary documents, photographs, and film.

Instructor(s): T. Thipe     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 50103

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 51502. Early Modern Britain and Its Empire. 100 Units.

This is a graduate colloquium designed to introduce PhD students, in the first instance, to the historiographic debates  that shape the discussion of early modern Britain and its Empire.  Topic may include the causes and consequences of the English reformation, the causes and consequences of England's Civil War, the causes and consequences of the Revolution of 1688, the origins of the British Empire, the rise of the imperial state, the timing, causes and consequences of Britain's economic takeoff, the causes and consequences of the American Crisis, and the colonial nature of Ireland and Scotland.

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

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 53202. Colloquium: Medieval Studies. 100 Units.

Since its beginnings as an academic field, medieval studies has been resolutely interdisciplinary. Scholars who conduct research on the Middle Ages routinely combine methods and theories drawn from a variety of disciplines, including history, art history, languages and literatures, music, and theology-to name only a few. This course will introduce graduate students to both classic historiography and important recent work in medieval studies. We will read scholarship that employs foundational methods in the field, including paleography and manuscript studies, as well as work inspired by more recent theoretical approaches.

Instructor(s): J. Lyon
Prerequisite(s): Upper-level undergraduates with consent of instructor.

HIST 53203. Hildegard of Bingen. 100 Units.

Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179) is difficult to categorize. Abbess, visionary, poet, playwright, preacher, physician, theologian, scriptual exegete, composer, Hildegard is best-known for her idiosyncratic use of imagery for the exploration of Christian doctrine, but only rarely are modern scholars equipped with the technical training to appreciate the various media in which she worked, nor are they typically versed in the cosmological and mathematical studies on which Hildegard's multi-media imagery depended. This course combines study of Hildegard's visionary writings with in-depth attention to the artistic, scientific, liturgical, and institutional context in which she worked. Particular attention will be given to her training in the verbal and mathematical arts, especially music, and to the role of the virtues in her calls for psychological and ecclesiastical reform. Course requirements will include exercises in various arts and a final research paper on select aspects of Hildegard's oeuvre.

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

HIST 56302. Law and Society, China and Beyond: Using Legal Sources. 100 Units.

This graduate seminar uses the robust field of Chinese legal history as a starting point for an examination of how historians have used legal records and documents to craft historical narratives. Students of Chinese history will find that exploring the intersection of law and society in modern China through both primary and secondary texts, students will gain an overview of legal codes, the evolution of China's legal system under successive regimes, as well as an introduction to the diverse materials that might be considered sources for "legal" history. While historiographic questions from the China field will arise, the class will also consider legal history strategies employed by historians beyond the China field. We will engage with debates about the role of civil law: How might more contemporary legal practices be a legacy of law or custom? How do societies' definitions of crime change over time. What role does the law play in shaping social attitudes toward different behavior? Assignments: 1. Close readings of Primary Sources (in Chinese for graduate students from the China field, in translation for others). 2. Brief essays and presentations of historiography and the arguments made by legal and social historians using these sources. 3. A research project that calls upon legal primary sources relevant to the student's interest to make a historical argument. This course will provide a foundation for an orals field in Chinese or East Asian legal history.

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

HIST 57300. Colloquium: Environmental History. 100 Units.

This graduate colloquium provides an advanced introduction to the vibrant field of environmental history. We will trace the evolution of this rich historiography, from first-generation classics-often focused on the American West-through to the geographical and thematic diversification of recent years. The course will give a flavor of this diversity, touching too upon influential works in emerging subfields like animal history, climate history, enviro-tech, and evolutionary history. Throughout, we will study how historians have addressed new analytical and aesthetic challenges: negotiating the insights of the natural sciences, incorporating nonhuman agency, and writing history at the vast scales of deep time and the planetary. The course is ideal for PhD students preparing a general examination field and/or designing a research paper, but is open to MA students as well.

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 57300, CEGU 57300

HIST 58304. Histories and Theories of Politics in the Modern Middle East. 100 Units.

This reading-intensive course covers a range of key works within the larger literature of the field on the modern Middle East by focusing on one particular through-line in that history, namely the changing contours of the political over the past 250 years or so. Weekly topics will be organized chronologically and cover topics from the political and fiscal crises of the Ottoman Empire in the "age of revolutions" to the Arab uprisings of 2011. In covering this relatively long span of time, we will explore a range of major transformations in the meanings and practices of politics in the region. At the same time, we will examine a number of significant trends in both political theories about the Middle East and historical methods for studying political movements.

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

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 61203. Colloquium: The Soviet Union. 100 Units.

In this historiography course on the Soviet Union, we endeavor to balance the classics and new scholarship. Our topics include: experiences of the revolution from various perspectives; the politics of the avant-garde and the emergences of Soviet culture; approaches to the Soviet empire and Soviet nationality policy; the nature of the socialist economy; Soviet famines in a comparative perspective; political violence and the Stalinist terror; the Soviet Union in World War II; Soviet internationalism; dissent and cultural fragmentation; and Soviet reformism. This course will provide students with a strong foundation for comprehensive exams as well as comparative reference points on select topics.

Instructor(s): E. Gilburd     Terms Offered: Spring

HIST 62302. Seminar: Globalization and Its Discontents, Europe and the United States II. 100 Units.

The winter quarter is devoted to researching and writing a research paper.

Instructor(s): J. Levy and T. Zahra     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 62302, CCCT 62302

HIST 62304. Multidisciplinary Study of American Culture. 100 Units.

This proseminar surveys the advanced study of American culture as it is currently practiced at the University of Chicago. Seminar members read and discuss recent work by and then meet with faculty specialists from departments and programs in the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as from the the Divinity School, the Law School, and the Booth School of Business. Though interested in how different disciplines frame questions and problems, we will be attuned to convergences in themes, approaches, and methods. During the last half of our seminar meetings our authors will join us for a focused discussion of their work. Many of our guests will also deliver public lectures the day before visiting the seminar.

Instructor(s): Eric Slauter     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): This is a Scherer Center Seminar that is open to MA, PhD, and JD students.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 50001, RAME 48801, RLVC 48801, ENGL 55405, HCHR 48801

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 63104. Cities, Markets, Workers. 100 Units.

This colloquium will range worldwide in examining cities, markets in which they are embedded, and diverse workers at the heart of urban life.  Comparative in design, the course will explore concepts of urbanism, and classic and new works of historical scholarship.  Political economy, social experience, culture, and law all will be considered.

Instructor(s): A. Stanley & G. Winant     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 64701. Introduction to the Professional Practice of History. 100 Units.

This class endeavors to introduce students to the practice of history as both a professional discipline and an art. Building on the foundational knowledge of historiography that students acquired in the seminar, we will explore timeless classics of historical writing as well as cutting-edge recent work. We will also devote time to thinking about more practical aspects of graduate school and the historical profession, including how to plan one's graduate career and how to approach orals and the first stages of a dissertation project. The practical component of the class will be shaped around students' interests and their most urgent questions.

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

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 69200. Colloquium: Atlantic Slavery. 100 Units.

This colloquium will introduce graduate students to the major methodological and historiographical debates animating the study of slavery in the Atlantic world. Tracing an expansive period-from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries-we will explore the complex economic, political, ideological, social, and cultural contexts which made and were remade by early modern bondage. In addition, students will be asked to consider slavery as a global historical process, unconstrained by the boundaries of the modern nation-state, and involving most of Europe's major empires. Though assigned readings will principally focus on African slavery, the class will also engage histories of indigenous enslavement and other contemporaneous regimes of forced labor. Key discussions will include the role of African cultures in the Americas, Black-indigenous relations, bondspeople's manipulation of colonial institutions, the centrality of slavery to American economic development, the contentious politics of slavery during the Age of Revolutions, and enslaved people's theorizations of liberty and imperial subjecthood.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Open to MA and PhD students only.

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): F. Albritton Jonsson & R. Johnson     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): F. Albritton Jonsson & R. Johnson     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