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
Prerequisite(s): This course fulfills the following requirements in the ARTH major and minor: Theory and Historiography, Asian, premodern (pre-1800), and African
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34815, NEHC 34815, ARTH 24815, NEHC 24815, HIST 20509

HIST 31006. The Present Past in Greece Since 1769. 100 Units.

This discussion-based course will explore how conceptions of the ancient past have been mobilized and imagined in the political, social, and cultural discourses of modern Greece from the lead up to the War of Independence through to the present day. Among the themes that will be addressed are ethnicity and nationalism, theories of history, the production of archaeological knowledge, and the politics of display.

Instructor(s): J. Hall     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 31915, HIST 21006, ANCM 31915, CLCV 21915

HIST 31012. The Ancient Silk Road and World of the Indian Ocean. 100 Units.

An investigation of an interconnected Afro-Eurasian world in antiquity. This course explores trade routes and cultural exchange conducted by land (the so-called "Silk Road") and sea (the western Indian Ocean) from the Bronze Age through the early centuries CE. Students will learn how ancient political economies interlock, encounter the ideologies and faiths born of the exchange of ideas, trace the movement of commodities across vast distances, and celebrate the human agents that facilitated these connections across space and time.

Instructor(s): J. Simmons     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 21012

HIST 31103. We Other Victorians. 100 Units.

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

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

HIST 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: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 32604

HIST 31601. Eastern Christianity: The First Thousand Years. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to Eastern Christianity from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages. We will start with contextualizing Eastern Christianity's diverse, global, and multilingual trajectories. We will then turn to review select themes of Eastern Christian history. We will cover the shaping of orthodoxy in the Byzantine world in the contexts of both inter-religious debates and intra-Christian concerns over heresy. We will explore the Christological Controversies of Late Antiquity, which continue to fracture Eastern Christianity until this very day. We will review the rise of Islam, its divergent Eastern Christian responses, and its broader theological, social, and cultural implications on medieval Middle Eastern religions. The translation movements under the ʿAbbasids will occupy us next and will further reveal the contributions of Eastern Christians to the intellectual and religious landscapes of the medieval Middle East. We will conclude with Eastern Christianity's position in the Middle Eastern world between the Crusades and the Mongol conquests, historical developments whose reverberations can still be felt in the present-day world where many Eastern Christian communities are spread across an increasingly global diaspora.

Instructor(s): Omri Matarasso     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20122, CLCV 20120, RLST 20120, MDVL 20120, HCHR 30120, HIST 21601, CLAS 30120, NEHC 30122

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 32010. State Formation in Britain and America. 100 Units.

The course explores the dynamics and consequences of state formation in both Britain and America.  The course looks at critical moments - founding moments, second founding moments, the rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and the consequences of Brexit and Trump's elections.  It will also address some key themes such as empire, race, and economic development.

Instructor(s): Steve Pincus, Desmond King     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 32000, PLSC 22000, HIST 22000

HIST 32202. Italian Renaissance: Petrarch, Machiavelli, and the Wars of Popes and Kings. 100 Units.

Florence, Rome, and the Italian city-states in the age of plagues and cathedrals, Petrarch and Machiavelli, Medici and Borgia (1250-1600), with a focus on literature, philosophy, primary sources, the revival of antiquity, and the papacy's entanglement with pan-European politics. We will examine humanism, patronage, politics, corruption, assassination, feuds, art, music, magic, censorship, education, science, heresy, and the roots of the Reformation. Writing assignments focus on higher level writing skills, with a creative writing component linked to our in-class role-played reenactment of a Renaissance papal election (LARP). First-year students and non-History majors welcome.

Instructor(s): A. Palmer     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Graduate students by consent only.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 22204, SIGN 26034, ITAL 32202, KNOW 12203, RLST 22203, CLCV 22216, MDVL 12203, HIST 12203, ITAL 16000, RENS 12203

HIST 32213. Seminar: Without a Label: The emergence of modern Jewish self in the 19th century. 100 Units.

How does one come to comprehend and mediate themselves in a society that does not presuppose their existence as autonomous, dignified subjects? As Europe was transitioning from absolutist monarchies to nation-states, Jewish communities were trying to reinvent themselves in a world where their very existence challenged the new premises about a "proper" society. In between, there were individuals who tried to understand their Jewishness in this new, changing reality. The course will concentrate on modernized Jewish individuals, predominantly in Central and Eastern Europe, who fashioned new models of modern Jewish existence in the 19th century. Paradoxically, their literature was written in languages and through literary models that weren't adjusted to convey the story of Jewish modernity. During the course, through detailed analysis of the literature and the existential conditions of the Jews, we will discuss the dynamics of modern self-fashioning and the role of literature in this process.

Instructor(s): S. Natkovich     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 23413, HIST 22213

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, REES 24426, GNSE 24426, HIST 22315, GNSE 34426

HIST 32409. Studying Medieval History. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to the study of medieval European history as a dynamic exercise in crafting and evaluating theories and narratives in conversation with the primary sources. We will consider why the Middle Ages have played the role that they do in modern historiography; ways in which the Middle Ages underpin major theoretical movements in the social sciences; and how medieval historians have challenged these theorizations. We will begin with an overview of the periodization of the Middle Ages from Late Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages, visit Special Collections to meet some of the primary sources, and test what we have learned against some of the main arguments about what happened to transform ancient Rome into early modern Europe.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22409, MDVL 22409

HIST 32410. Europe in the High Middle Ages. 100 Units.

In the centuries following the turn of the first millennium, Europe went from a backwater of the fallen Roman Empire to an urbanized center of intellectual, cultural, political, and economic development. Drawing on primary sources, digital mapping, visual images, and architecture, this course traces this development across multiple domains, including law, religion, government, and commerce. Highlights include the origins of the kingdoms of France, Germany, and England; the monastic revival and the formation of the friars; the twelfth-century Renaissance and its scholastic fruits; and the rise and fall of the Crusades. Course requirements will include developing innovative formats of information display, as well as a short research paper on a topic of your choice.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22410

HIST 32411. Debt, Spirituality, and the Marketplace. 100 Units.

Debt and the forgiveness of debts are central to the mystery of Christianity, as medieval theologians like Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas made clear. This course considers the medieval response to the problem of debt within its doctrinal, commercial, and institutional context. Themes include the role of slavery, money, markets, and usury in the development of the medieval economy; the response of heretics and friars like the Franciscans and Dominicans to this economy; and the language of debt as it appears in liturgy and prayer. A primary goal of the course is to reconsider the relationship between the economic and spiritual power of debt, the ways in which debt enables and enslaves, and the reason for the petition in the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," as necessary for salvation. Course requirements will include intensive reading in primary sources and relevant scholarship, as well as a final research paper.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 22411

HIST 32413. Medieval Latin. 100 Units.

We shall focus on prose and poetry from the Carolingian Renaissance that reflects the age's revived emphasis on a classical forms and grammar.

Instructor(s): M. I. Allen     Terms Offered: Winter. Winter 2027
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 33327, HIST 22413, LATN 38327, RLST 13327, LATN 28327

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

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

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

HIST 32707. The Industrial Revolution. 100 Units.

Britain's Industrial Revolution is the most important event in human history after the invention of agriculture. It is also one of the most contested topics in history. Why was Britain the first country to industrialize? How did new industries like cotton textiles become so innovative? What role did empire and slavery play in shaping industrialization? Without assuming any prior knowledge of history, this lecture course introduces students to the debates about the Industrial Revolution from a global and comparative perspective. Major topics will include technology, energy, infrastructure, agriculture, labor, gender, consumption, finance, trade, empire and the state.

Instructor(s): F. Albritton Jonsson     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 32707, HIPS 22707, HIST 22707, LLSO 22707

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

This is the third class 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
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): THEO 30300, HCHR 30300

HIST 33101. Media Revolutions Then and Now. 100 Units.

Media Revolutions Then and Now" explores how the Protestant Reformation and innovations in printing technology coincided to catalyze a sweeping revolution that paved the way for media culture as we know it today. The seminar aims to interrogate traditional narratives that center on printing technology as the driving force of the Reformation, and instead shows how essential religious thought and practice were for the emergence and success of modern media. We will highlight how Reformers like Martin Luther not only provided content but also a theological legitimacy that sustained the print industry, thereby transforming print from a nascent technology into a powerful tool for religious and cultural change. Central to this historical and critical interrogation is the notion of the Reformation as the first modern media event, showcasing how this interplay of theology and technology laid the foundation for our modern media landscape. Accompanying an exhibition at Regenstein's Special Collections which is running through the winter quarter, the seminar draws not only on the displayed items but also the library rich holdings in early prints. Students will be encouraged to put their own understanding and experience of contemporary media ecologies in dialogue with media ecosystem of the early Gutenberg Galaxy.

Instructor(s): T. Golan and C. Wild     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Fulfills the following categories in the ARTH major and minor: European and American, pre-modern (pre-1800)
Equivalent Course(s): CDIN 30908, CDIN 20908, GRMN 35908, RLVC 30908, HIST 23101, RLST 28708, ARTH 30908, ARTH 20908, GRMN 25908, MADD 15908

HIST 33414. Central Europe, 1740 to 1918. 100 Units.

The purpose of this course is to provide a general introduction to major themes in the political, social, and international history of Germany and of the Hapsburg Empire from 1740 until 1914. The course will be evenly balanced between consideration of the history of Prussia and later of kleindeutsch Germany, and of the history of the Austrian lands. A primary concern of the course will be to identify and to elaborate key comparative, developmental features common both to the German and the Austrian experience, and, at the same time, to understand the ways in which German and Austrian history manifest distinctive patterns, based on different state and social traditions. There is no language requirement, although students with a command of German will be encouraged to use it.

Instructor(s): J. Boyer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor; third- and fourth-year undergraduates & first-year graduate students who have not yet had a general introduction to eighteenth- & nineteenth-century Central European history.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23414

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 26070, REES 36073

HIST 33617. Identities Decolonized: Eastern European Architecture and Art. 100 Units.

This course re-examines the cultural heritage of Eastern Europe. This goal is driven by recognition that the region has been deeply influenced by historical and political forces, often resulting in the suppression or distortion of diverse cultural identities. The course explores architecture and art through the concept of decolonization of identities after the long-standing influence of the Soviet Union. This influence led to the suppression of local traditions and the imposition of a monolithic cultural identity, architectural style, and art in the region. The topics will cover the cases of artists forced into exile by the socialist regime and working worldwide. "Identities Decolonized" will investigate the post-1991 era, analyzing how artists and architects have competed with inherited legacies, reasserted national identities, and navigated global artistic trends. The course examines architecture as a decolonizing tool. The course also explores arts and crafts in the Soviet Union, the appropriation of ethnic crafts and symbols by Soviet design and mass production, and the revival of arts and crafts in the post-Soviet period. This course is designed to foster critical thinking about identity, representation, and the power dynamics through the lens of art and architectural history.

Instructor(s): O. Chabanyuk     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 23617, REES 33617, REES 23617, HIST 23617

HIST 33618. Modern Ukraine Through Culture. 100 Units.

The 2022 escalation of Russia's war on Ukraine to a full-scale invasion was a wakeup call which exposed how little had been known about Ukraine globally. While for many in the world Ukraine's ongoing resistance has been a surprise, for those familiar with Ukraine's history in the 20th and 21st century, the resistance is rooted in Ukraine's longer culture of civic mobilization and Ukraine's complex relationship with Russia. In this course, we revisit major political and cultural events of the 20th and 21st centuries that have shaped today's Ukraine: the revolutionary period of 1917-1921 to the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe, to the Orange and Maidan revolutions. One third of the course focuses on Russia's war on Ukraine starting with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas. While addressing major historical turning points, the course engages literary texts (poems, novels, memoirs), films (feature, short, documentary), and other forms of cultural production (visual artwork, music, multimodal digital projects), testimonies and historical debates. No prior knowledge of Ukraine or knowledge of Ukrainian language is required. The assignments include a choice between a traditional paper or a critical-creative project (video essay, poster, other creative forms).

Instructor(s): Darya Tsymbalyuk     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 23310, MAPH 33310, HIST 23618, REES 23310, REES 33310

HIST 33619. The Third Way: Yugoslavia and the Making of the Non-Aligned Movement. 100 Units.

This course explores a history of internationalism that largely receded from view after the collapse of socialism in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. At its center stands socialist Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, whose dramatic break with Stalin opened space for a distinctive vision of global cooperation beyond the Cold War binary. The course traces Yugoslavia's pivotal role in the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement, from the 1955 Bandung Conference to the 1961 Belgrade Summit, examining how the country positioned itself between East and West while forging political, economic, and cultural alliances with newly decolonized states across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Through case studies of developmental aid, medical missions, cultural exchange, and military support, students will explore how a relatively small socialist state sought to express solidarity with anticolonial struggles while simultaneously expanding its global influence. Special attention is given to Yugoslavia's engagement with Africa, where Tito's image as a different kind of European-shaped by antifascist struggle, fragile sovereignty, and a non-racialized vision of internationalism-was often met with fascination and respect. Situating the Non-Aligned Movement within broader histories of Cold War internationalism and postcolonial globalization, the course invites students to rethink global connections and to consider alternatives to the bipolar political order of the twentieth century.

Instructor(s): Nada Petkovic     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 21205, REES 31205, MAPS 21205, MAPS 31205, HIST 23619

HIST 33701. Soviet-Era Architecture in Ukraine. 100 Units.

This course discusses architecture in Ukraine during the 20th century with a focus on Architecture of Ukraine in Soviet Era. The course explores various influences that shaped Soviet Ukrainian architecture. The course highlights foreign expertise and the flow of technologies from the US and Europe during early Soviet industrialization in eastern Ukraine. Soviet politics and economy shaped the conceptualization of planning, standardization, and the urban environment. The course will analyze the architecture of the 1930s in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, and Dnipro that marked the development of constructivism in the region. The course covers the architecture of eastern and western Ukraine from constructivism and Ukrainian modern to Stalinist architecture to post-modernism and post-Soviet architecture. We will emphasize the value of architectural monuments in Ukraine as UNESCO heritage sites. This study of architecture in Soviet Ukraine will convey an understanding of the current situation in architecture in this region. The course comprises the workshops History of Architecture Beyond the Classroom: Archival materials study; Special Collections materials study; Talks with invited speakers - mainly online with Ukrainian historians and architects.

Instructor(s): O. Chabanyuk     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course requires students to plan three Fridays for museum/library visits: Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago, Newberry Library and UChicago Library.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 23701, HIST 23701, REES 33701, ARCH 23701

HIST 33807. History of the Jews in the Russian Empire (1772-1918) 100 Units.

Following the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772, 1793, 1795), the Russian Empire transformed from a country with almost no Jewish population to the home of the largest Jewish community in the world. This transformation, as well as additional territorial expansions of the Empire, left its imprint on modern Jewish culture globally and participated in the shaping of multiple modernities in areas that today belong to Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus, and the Russian Federation (all of which possess territories formerly belonging to the Commonwealth), but also in the Republic of Moldova (annexed from the Ottoman Empire), Caucasus areas annexed from Persia, and the Republic of Georgia. During the course, we will review major landmarks in the tempestuous history of the Jewish community in the Russian Empire. The discussions will unfold along two interconnected trajectories: the relationships between Jewish traditional patterns of organization and the innovations induced by Russian conditions, as well as the influence of various aspects of those conditions (legal, social, political, cultural) on Jewish life. In addition to historical and theoretical literature, we will read multiple primary sources, including belle-lettres, autobiographies, archival documents, and more.

Instructor(s): S. Natkovich     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 33807, REES 23807, HIST 23807, JWSC 23807

HIST 34009. Invasion Culture: Russia through its Wars. 100 Units.

This course looks at contemporary culture through Russia's invasions, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Broadly, this course explores how war shapes cultural life. How do the policies and strategies of war, and the art and literature of wartime, convey ideas about power and the state, traditional vs. modern values, civilizational mission vs. cultural pluralism? Beyond Russian literature and film, we consider voices from Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Chechnya, Syria, Belarus, and Ukraine, asking, How are Russia's wars fought and resisted in the domain of culture?

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): REES 34425, MAPH 34425, HIST 24009, CMLT 24425, REES 24425, GLST 24424

HIST 34010. Word, Image, Ritual: Early Russian Culture in Its Historical Context. 100 Units.

The course examines elements of Pre-Modern Russian material and non-material culture through a selection of Old Russian (early East Slavic) texts and church buildings. Topics will include hesychasm, iconography and fresco painting, church architecture, epic songs, chronicles, lives of saints, and Novgorodian birch bark documents, explored in their historical and social contexts. All readings are in English.

Instructor(s): Yaroslav Gorbachov     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 33118, HIST 24010, REES 23118

HIST 34111. Zen Before Zen: Chan Buddhism in China. 100 Units.

This course is part of a two-sequence series, to be followed by a course on Japanese Zen Buddhism taught by Professor Stephan Licha in Winter 2027. This course will consist of the close reading (in English translation) and discussion of both the Indian Buddhist scriptures and indigenous Chinese sources that form the core of the tradition spanning Chan and Zen, with a few secondary descriptions of Chan institutions and cultural influences. Our focus will be on the development of ideas concerning the nature of sentience and the implications this has for understanding the existential predicament of sentient beings, touching on central themes of dependent co-arising, non-self, Emptiness, consciousness-only, Buddha-nature and original enlightenment, and the methods of realization (doctrinal, non-doctrinal, and indeed anti-doctrinal) proposed to redress this existential predicament at each stage of Chan history. This will be done both with an eye to the historical continuity of these sometimes seemingly contradictory forms thought and practice, and also to extract from them whatever transhistorical philosophical and spiritual valences we care to derive from the texts.

Instructor(s): Brook Ziporyn     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22401, EALC 22401, MDVL 22401, DVPR 32402, HREL 32400, EALC 32401

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

HIST 34217. Taiwan Across Time and Straits. 100 Units.

This lecture course surveys the history of the island of Taiwan from the 16th through 21st Centuries. Beginning during the period of European mercantile expansion, we explore the successive regimes that have sought to control the island, as well as the historical arguments and narratives that constitute the cultural identity of this diverse and contested place. The course also seeks to understand Taiwan's place as a seafaring part of the Pacific world and to consider legacies of different layers of colonial encounter. Concluding in the 21st century the course engages with questions of contemporary sovereignty, social movements, political party formation, as well as economic and technological innovation. Students can anticipate reading across disciplinary genres and learning how to develop evidence based historical arguments through brief writing assignments.

Instructor(s): J. Ransmeier     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 24217, HIST 24217, EALC 34217

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): RLST 23202, EALC 33202, DVPR 33202, FNDL 23202, HREL 33202, EALC 23202, HIST 24519

HIST 34612. Chinese Frontier History, circa 1600-Present. 100 Units.

A study of frontier regions, migration, and border policies in Qing (1644-1912) and twentieth-century China, focusing on selected case studies. Cases will include both actual border regions (where the Qing/China was adjacent to some other polity it recognized), ethnically diverse internal frontiers, and places where migrants moved into previously uninhabited regions (e.g., high mountains). Topics include the political economy and geopolitics of migration and frontier regions, the formation of ethnic and national identities in frontier contexts, borderland society (e.g., marriage, social stratification, and social mobility), and the environmental effects of migration.

Instructor(s): K. Pomeranz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24612, EALC 34712, EALC 24712

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

HIST 35027. Infrastructure Histories. 100 Units.

Dams, sewers, container ships, water pipes, power lines, air conditioning, and garbage dumps: the critical infrastructures that enable modern life are so often invisible, except when they fail. This course explores the historical role of infrastructure as a set of planet-spanning systems of resource extraction and crucial conduits of social and political power. Looking at cases from apartheid South Africa and the Suez Canal to Mumbai and Chicago itself, we will consider the relationship of infrastructure with capitalism, settler colonialism, and postcolonial development. We will see how forms of citizenship and exclusion have been shaped and negotiated via wires, leaky pipes, and improvised repairs, and we will consider perhaps the biggest question of all: In this age of ecological crisis, do energy-guzzling infrastructural systems have a strange form of more-than-human agency all of their own?

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 35027, ARCH 25027, CEGU 25027, HIST 25027, CHSS 35270, HIPS 25270

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): CHST 28800, GISC 28800, CEGU 28800, HIST 25121, GISC 38800, ARCH 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): 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, CHSS 35205, HIST 25205

HIST 35300. American Revolution, 1763 to 1789. 100 Units.

This lecture and discussion course explores the background of the American Revolution and the problem of organizing a new nation. The first half of the course uses the theory of revolutionary stages to organize a framework for the events of the 1760s and 1770s, and the second half of the course examines the period of constitution making (1776-1789) for evidence on the ways in which the Revolution was truly revolutionary.

Instructor(s): E. Cook     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25300, DEMS 25300

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): CHSS 39001, SALC 39000, HIPS 27010, KNOW 39000

HIST 35428. Print, Media Transformation and the Beginnings of Mass Communication. 100 Units.

Printing is one of the truly transformative communication technologies, but in the fifteenth century it was by no means certain it would succeed or even survive. One thing that we will learn in this course, is that new media are always accompanied by a deluge of optimistic prophecy, and this was the case with printing just as much as with the internet. New technologies do not destroy what went before: instead they take their place in an ever-richer communication nexus. This course will examine all aspects of this fragile trade, authors and readers, booksellers, printers and publishers, along with the numerous strategies pursued by members of the book trade to find their audience. It will engage with how the new tools at the disposal of book historians are transforming our understanding of the early modern print world. It takes the story through to the new technologies of the last two centuries, and how the knowledge revolution made possible through new technology and the provision of universal educational transformed the book world. This course will be taught in Special Collections.

Instructor(s): Andrew Pettegree     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 28826, ENGL 28826, SIGN 28826, GRMN 38826, CMLT 38826, HIST 25428, ENGL 38826, CMLT 28826

HIST 35611. Iran: An Ancient Empire. 100 Units.

An examination of the emergence and evolution of the Iranian Empire in late antiquity, the most enduring territorially extensive political system in ancient West Asian history. Its name, Ērānšahr, signaled the centrality of Zoroastrianism to its conception and organization. The course will therefore focus on the role of the religion, as a complex of ideas and institutions, in the shaping of Iran's society, culture, political economy, and imperial infrastructure. It will also consider the development of Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Manichaeism within the empire's confines. The course will pay special attention to the legacy of Iran in the medieval and modern Middle East, arguably equivalent to Rome's in the West.

Instructor(s): R. Payne     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30721, HIST 25611, NEHC 20721

HIST 35700. Imperial Ways of Knowing: Mughals and Ottomans. 100 Units.

This course explores the interplay between knowledge, history, and power by focusing on two non-Western empires: the Mughals and the Ottomans. The course will proceed thematically, and touch on a range of topics, such as, science, archives, religion, economy, food, textiles, and military affairs. How were knowledge and empire mutually dependent in the Middle East and South Asia? What did imperial powers want to know, what kinds of knowledges did they produce, and to what ends? How was knowledge transmitted, distributed, and received? As historical knowledge, how do we come to know what we know about these empires? We will also consider the divergent histories of each empire's interaction with European powers. Students will thereby critically reflect on our own ways of knowing and claims to knowledge about the past in historical imperial contexts. No prior knowledge of Middle Eastern or South Asian history is required for the course. This course meets the Knowledge Formation MAPSS certificate requirement.

Instructor(s): Murat Bozluolcay, S. Prashant Kumar     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30070, KNOW 36055, NEHC 20070

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

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 35908. Modern Middle East: Three Centuries of Syrian History. 100 Units.

This course uses the vantage point of Syria to survey the history of the Middle East, from the eighteenth century to today. The course will take us from the province of Damascus in the Ottoman Empire to the millions of Syrians in the West in the twenty-first century to understand the changing nature of where Syria is and what being a Syrian meant throughout these three centuries. As this course will reveal, the interlocutors of this question included rioting craftsmen and Janissaries, a local US vice-consul in Damascus, the nomads of the Syrian desert, émigré Syrian critics of the Ottoman Empire, agronomists invested in national economy, men of business as well as those of religion, and an authoritarian regime and a people who rose against it. As we unravel the social, political, economic, and intellectual processes that shaped the Syrian identity, we will cover milestone events such as the infamous interconfessional massacres of 1860, the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Baathist coup of 1963, or the Syrian Revolution in the context of the Arab Spring of the early 2010s. The course material will include scholarly texts as well as excerpts from Syrian texts, novels, and films in translation.

Instructor(s): Murat Bozluolcay     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20116, NEHC 30116, KNOW 36085, HIST 25908

HIST 35909. Histories of Environment and Technology in the Modern Middle East. 100 Units.

Over the past decade, the field of Middle East history has undergone a surge of scholarly interest in a broad range of "new materialisms." Alongside, and sometimes in conversation with, a marked revival of political economy, this new work has explored, in multiple directions, the mutual constitution and co-evolution of social formations in the region with the tangible materials of the world around them. After revisiting a number of earlier, classic works that examined similar questions under different guises, this course will cover a range of new studies that represent the diversity and promise of these new approaches to histories of environment and technology.

Instructor(s): A. Jakes     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 25909, NEHC 35909, CEGU 25909, CEGU 35909, HIST 25909

HIST 35910. Afghanistan in Global History. 100 Units.

From the consolidation of European imperial control in South and Central Asia through the present day, Afghanistan has featured in the global imagination of empire. It has been called a "buffer state," "the graveyard of empires," and the land of the "great game." But how have Afghans experienced these global historical currents in their homeland? In this course, we trace the history of global and imperial engagement with Afghanistan, as well as Afghans' own articulations of their history, society, and culture, with particular attention to Afghan experiences of British, Soviet, and US intervention. We ask how external global powers imagined Afghanistan and sought to use that imaginary to establish regional authority. Equally, we study how Afghans responded to global geopolitical claims and developed their own historical narratives that exceed the simplified narratives developed by many global powers.

Instructor(s): Amanda Lanzillo     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 32707, GLST 22707, HIST 25910, NEHC 32727, NEHC 22727, SALC 22707

HIST 36105. International Migration in the Americas. 100 Units.

All the countries in the Americas have a long history as highly mobile. TheUS has been, by far and for several decades, the main magnet for international moves worldwide with more than 50 million migrants living today in the country. Canada has one of the largest proportions of foreign-born population, above 20%. Mexico is the country with the second largest stock of nationals living in another country, close to 12 million. In the cases of Jamaica and El Salvador, one of every four nationals live abroad. Central and South America have also experienced a variety of international movements related to political, environmental and economic events. The region as a whole combines documented and undocumented moves, an important flow of return migration, adult- only and family migrations, temporary-labor programs and the settlement of large communities of migrants, especially in cities. In addition, in the history of the continent one can trace rapid shifts in countries traditionally of destination to countries of origin. The case of Venezuela, where more than 7 million (20% of its population) have migrated in the last decade, illustrates well how the population in the Americas uses migration as a rapid response to economic or political shocks (Giorguli, García-Guerrero and Masferrer, 2022). This course seeks to look at the international mobility of the continent in a comprehensive way and to discuss about the management of migration and scenarios for the future.

Instructor(s): Giorguli Saucedo, Silvia Elena     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 32500, LACS 22500, HIST 26105

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): CEGU 26106, CEGU 36106, LACS 36106, HIST 26106, LACS 26106

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

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

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

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): LACS 25135, LACS 35135, HIST 26309

HIST 36310. The U.S. - Mexico Borderlands. 100 Units.

This course examines the US-Mexico Borderlands from a time before political borders to the contemporary moment. As a vast geographical and conceptual space of cooperation and antagonism, the borderlands that include what is today the southwestern United States and northern Mexico comprise a crucial site to interrogate the formation and limits of colonial imposition, national identity, state power, racial segregation, environmental transformation, and capitalist expansion. In this course, we will map the history of the Mexico-US borderlands by drawing from testimony, fiction, images, cartography, music as well as scholarship that centers the experiences of those who have lived in and moved through this territory. This course is open to all.

Instructor(s): Schwartz Francisco, Diana     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 28900, LACS 38900, GLST 28900, LACS 28900, HIST 26310, CEGU 38900

HIST 36330. Making the Maya World. 100 Units.

What do we know about the ancient Maya? Pyramids, palaces, and temples are found from Mexico to Honduras, texts in hieroglyphic script record the histories of kings and queens who ruled those cities, and painted murals, carved stone stelae, and ceramic vessels provide a glimpse of complex geopolitical dynamics and social hierarchies. Decades of archaeological research have expanded that view beyond the rulers and elites to explore the daily lives of the Maya people, networks of trade and market exchange, and agricultural and ritual practices. Present-day Maya communities attest to the dynamism and vitality of languages and traditions, often entangled in the politics of archaeological heritage and tourism. This course is a wide-ranging exploration of ancient Maya civilization and of the various ways archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, historians, and indigenous communities have examined and manipulated the Maya past. From tropes of long-hidden mysteries rescued from the jungle to New Age appropriations of pre-Columbian rituals, from the thrill of decipherment to painstaking and technical artifact studies, we will examine how models drawn from astrology, ethnography, classical archaeology and philology, political science, and popular culture have shaped current understandings of the ancient Maya world, and also how the Maya world has, at times, resisted easy appropriation and defied expectations.

Instructor(s): Sarah Newman     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 26330, LACS 36330, LACS 26330, HIST 26330, ANTH 36330, ANTH 26330

HIST 36409. Revolution, Dictatorship, & Violence in Modern Latin America. 100 Units.

This course will examine the role played by Marxist revolutions, revolutionary movements, and the right-wing dictatorships that have opposed them in shaping Latin American societies and political cultures since the end of World War II. Themes examined will include the relationship among Marxism, revolution, and nation building; the importance of charismatic leaders and icons; the popular authenticity and social content of Latin American revolutions; the role of foreign influences and interventions; the links between revolution and dictatorship; and the lasting legacies of political violence and military rule. Countries examined will include Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Mexico. Assignments: Weekly reading, a midterm exam or paper, a final paper, participation in discussion, and weekly responses or quizzes.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Some background in Latin American studies or Cold War history useful.
Equivalent Course(s): DEMS 26409, LACS 36409, HIST 26409, HMRT 26409, LACS 26409

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): DEMS 26500, LACS 26500, LACS 36500, HIST 26500

HIST 36616. From Bollywood to Made in Heaven: Marriage and Sexuality on Indian Screens. 100 Units.

From reality shows like Indian Matchmaking and Made in Heaven to the meme of the "Big Fat Indian Wedding" to the preoccupations of Bollywood films like DDLJ and Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani and crossover ones such as Monsoon Wedding, marriage is an obsession in South Asian culture. Focusing on Hindi cinema, this course will explore the socio-political dynamics of this cultural focus on marriage and couple formation. With examples ranging from classical Hindi films from the 1950s-60s to the star-studded melodramas of 1970s and 1980s and the "new Bollywood" era (post-1991), this cinema exhibited and analyzed the central dynamics of marriage: sexual compatibility, fidelity, reproductive futures, and so on. Debates around class, caste, diaspora, and sexuality are equally anchored in issues of marriage and couple formation. In this course, we ask why it is that marriage-its success and failure-has been so central to Indian on-screen identities. Even as screens multiply-on computers, cell phones, and in the multiplex-marriage continues to dominate. No prior knowledge of Indian languages is required, but you must enjoy watching and talking about movies and popular culture.

Instructor(s): Rochona Majumdar     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 30122, HIST 26616, SALC 20122, CMST 20122, CMST 30122, GNSE 20142, GNSE 30142

HIST 36708. Introduction to Islam in South Asia. 100 Units.

This survey course introduces students to the rich, complex, and interdependent history of Islam in South Asia. Progressing chronologically, we will begin with the prehistory of Islam in the subcontinent, then proceed from the early Islamic period through the rise of Muslim empires and states to the British-colonial period, and end with the postcolonial twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Along the way, we will encounter and discuss important historical moments, major ideas, key figures and movements, and literary and artistic works to gain insight into the continuities, changes, and many forms of diversity that have characterized the history of Islam in South Asia through the centuries. Among our many goals will be to develop tools to think critically about the ways in which Islam in South Asia is represented in our time. Course readings include secondary scholarship and primary sources in translation. No prior knowledge of Islam or the history of South Asia is required. Students are welcome and encouraged to contact the instructor, Gregory Maxwell Bruce (gmbruce@uchicago.edu), with questions.

Instructor(s): Gregory Max Bruce     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 22708, HIST 26708, ISLM 32708, SALC 32708, RLST 22708

HIST 36907. Into the Unquiet Woods: The Environmental History of South Asia. 100 Units.

Today South Asia is the world region perhaps most acutely threatened by climate change, air pollution, water scarcity, and extreme weather. At the same time, the Indian subcontinent has long been the source of the most vibrant and innovative research in environmental history beyond the West. Drawing on this rich body of scholarship, this course explores the deep historical roots of South Asia's contemporary environmental crises. How have the Asian monsoon, the Indian Ocean, and the Himalayas shaped human history? What were the environmental consequences of British colonial rule? How have South Asian intellectuals and protesters pushed forward the boundaries of green thought and political action, from M. K. Gandhi to the "tree hugging" Chipko movement and anti-dam activists of the 1970s and 1980s? We will investigate both the South Asian avatars of classic topics in environmental history (like the plantation, mineral extraction, industrialized agriculture, and chemical toxicity) as well as place-specific issues like the environmental history of caste and Hindu nationalism. On the way, we will pay particular attention to how historians have wrestled with the conceptual and aesthetic challenges of incorporating non-human agency at diverse scales, from El Niño and unruly rivers to opium poppies and mollusks.

Instructor(s): E. Chatterjee     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 26907, SALC 26907, SALC 36907, CEGU 36907, CEGU 26907, CHSS 36907, HIPS 26907

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): DEMS 27001, HIST 27001

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

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

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

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 37018. Slavery and Capitalism. 100 Units.

What was the relationship between slavery and the industrial revolution? Was slavery capitalist? If slavery was profitable, then why was it abolished? These questions have remained the subject of intense controversy for nearly a century. In this seminar, students will read across disciplines and geographic subfields, putting Black radical historians in conversation with cliometricians and the cotton South next to Brazilian coffee plantations. Throughout the course, we will grapple with the political stakes of these questions and their implications for the modern world. In a final paper, students will develop their own position in the debate and suggest directions for further research.

Instructor(s): S. Payne     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27018

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): Alexander Hofmann     Terms Offered: Winter
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): GNSE 20128, HIST 27415, HMRT 31025, CMST 21025, KNOW 31025, GNSE 30128, CMST 31025, HMRT 21025

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): HIST 27419, RLST 25800, THEO 45800, AMER 45800, RDIN 25800, RDIN 45800, AMER 25800

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): SCTH 20686, SCTH 30686, HIST 27504

HIST 37605. United States Legal History. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the connections between law and society in modern America. It explores how legal doctrines and constitutional rules have defined individual rights and social relations in both the public and private spheres. It also examines political struggles that have transformed American law. Topics to be addressed include the meaning of rights; the regulation of property, work, race, and sexual relations; civil disobedience; and legal theory as cultural history. Readings include legal cases, judicial rulings, short stories, and legal and historical scholarship.

Instructor(s): A. Dru Stanley     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course will not overlap with Law and Society in Nineteenth Century America (HIST 27612/LLSO 29714); it will be substantially different.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 27605, GNSE 37605, HMRT 37605, HMRT 27061, DEMS 27605, AMER 27605, LLSO 29704, HIST 27605

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): RLST 22418, HIST 27609, AMER 32418, HCHR 32418, RAME 32418, AMER 22418, FNDL 22418

HIST 37716. Religion and American Capitalism. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to the intersection of religion and capitalism in the United States. Through a variety of primary and secondary readings, we will explore how religious people and institutions have interacted with, affirmed, and challenged American capitalism. We will pay particularly close attention to the alternative moral economics envisioned by religious communities in the United States.

Instructor(s): William Schultz     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 40200, AMER 40200, RAME 40200

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): SOCI 30588, CHDV 33011, RDIN 23011, EDSO 23011, RDIN 33011, CHDV 23011, SOCI 20588, EDSO 33011, PBPL 23011, HIST 27718

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: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 35700, HCHR 35700, RAME 35700

HIST 37722. Histories of Everyday Life. 100 Units.

Butts, birth certificates, pockets, cigarettes, parking spaces, franchises, light, shade, muzak: these are just a few of the seemingly banal things we come into contact with each day without much critical thought. And yet, each has become a conduit for how we see and make meaning from the world, especially in regards to race, gender, economics, and ecology. This course will examine the everyday for its radical meanings across corporeal, social, urban, and political landscapes.

Instructor(s): Alexander Hoffmann     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 32201, HIST 27722

HIST 37727. The American Frontier from the Puritans to the Planet Mars. 100 Units.

This course explores the idea of the frontier in American history and culture from the Puritans' "howling wilderness" to the "final frontier" of the Space Age. Settlers imagined the frontier in a variety of ways: a dangerous wasteland designed to test their faith, a zone of violence against Indigenous peoples, a process of technological progress and expanding democracy, an opportunity to establish racial supremacy and revitalize colonized peoples, and an infinite space for the spread of humanity among the stars. In each case, the ways that people imagined the future were central to how they understood themselves. We will emphasize the ways that these ideas of the frontier shaped encounters between settlers and Indigenous peoples, the ways that settlers imagined themselves becoming "indigenous" in places to which they were alien, and the enduring effect of these ideas on American culture.

Instructor(s): M. Kruer     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27727

HIST 37728. Elites: Ruling Classes in the Modern World. 100 Units.

What can we learn about societies in the past and present from the study of those at their top? What do ruling classes do when they rule? In modern history, what have been the different types of ruling groups that have appeared? What have been the sources of their power? In what ways, for example, do capitalist elites differ from their feudal predecessors? How do colonial elites negotiate the complexities of dominating a society that is itself dominated from the outside? How did the master class in slave societies differ from other capitalist elites? How have ruling groups tried to organize themselves, secure their unity, control the state, suppress thier challengers, and disseminate their ideas and culture through the wider society? When have they failed to do this? And what are the consequences of an elite that no longer exercises its leadership responsibly? A fish, they say, rots from the head. We will read histories for the first two thirds of the quarter, and then turn at the end to contemporary sociology of elites.

Instructor(s): G. Winant     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27728

HIST 37801. Christianity and/as Virility. 100 Units.

This class will focus on the notion of virility seen as a distinctive modern Christian habitus. We will begin with an explorative reading of Kristen Kobes du Mez' Jesus or John Wayne, as we try to understand how American Christians tap into a kind of understanding of gender, of masculinity, and especially of virility. Going from the contemporary American situation to the past, we will focus on early Christian situations of gender-bending and on medieval practices of bridal mysticism before landing in early modernity. We will see how from there certain developments are being accepted and others are being denied, leading us to end up in the world of Jesus or John Wayne. The final questions revolve around whether this situation is typically American, whether it is inevitable or whether there are workable sociological and theological alternatives that can also be credibly called Christian?

Instructor(s): Willemien Otten     Terms Offered: not offered 25-26
Note(s): Undergraduates must petition to enroll. This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): THEO 36901, HCHR 36901, GNSE 36901

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

HIST 38206. Living Through the Civil War Era. 100 Units.

The American Civil War was much more than battles: it was an event of mass death, dislocations, social subversions, and destruction of built and natural environments that was unprecedented in U.S. history. This course explores how we might understand the cataclysm of the Civil War and the promise and violent overthrow of Reconstruction first and foremost as human events. What did this period look like in the streets, on the battlefields, along "the frontier," and within the households of free and enslaved peoples? How did ordinary people living through and shaping this era register and wrestle with the seismic shifts happening around them in real time? How did a war for preservation become one for emancipation, and, simultaneously settler colonialism? This is neither a strict political nor military history of the Civil War Era. Instead, it is a course where Lee and Grant are peripheral to the voices of those people whose lives were drastically changed by their successes and failures. Following recent works by historians paired with primary sources from those who instigated, fought, endured, won new liberties through-and discovered new terrors in-the Civil War and Reconstruction, we will explore how historical actors experienced this period as lurches forward and backward-often at the same time.

Instructor(s): Alexander Hofmann     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 38206, HIST 28206, MAPS 28206

HIST 38302. The American Founding, 1763-1789. 100 Units.

This course examines the founding of the United States from the global crisis of the British Empire following the Seven Years' War to the launching of the new national government in 1789. The architects of the American republic believed they were laying the foundations not only of a new political regime but also of a new world. As Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense asserted in 1776, American independence would "begin the world over again." The lectures consider the revolutionary origins of the United States in the long-term context of three centuries of world history commencing with Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492. Course readings consist of primary sources ranging from major works of Enlightenment social and historical theory to political pamphlets, newspaper opinion pieces, and parliamentary debates. This is a lecture course; the assignments consist of two take-home essay exams and a paper.

Instructor(s): J. Vaughn     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): DEMS 28302, HIST 28302

HIST 38308. Science and 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 institutional 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). This course turns to the historical relationship between science and liberalism in modern Europe to explore how science and political culture have together produced our current ideal of truth and asks what historians in particular can contribute to these fraught contemporary debates.

Instructor(s): I. Gabel     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 22204, HIST 28308, CHSS 32504

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

HIST 38815. American Spectacle. 100 Units.

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

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

HIST 39002. Envisioning Freedom. 100 Units.

Did the emancipation of millions of African-descended people from the bonds of chattel slavery-beginning with the 1791 slave rebellion in Haiti and ending with Brazilian abolition in 1888-mark the beginning of an irrevocable march towards Black freedom? Or was it merely an evolution in the continuing exploitation of Black people throughout the Americas? This course scrutinizes the complex economic, political, ideological, social, and cultural contexts that caused and were remade by emancipation. Students are asked to consider emancipation as a global historical process unconstrained by the boundaries of the modern nation-state, while exploring the reasons for and consequences of emancipation from a transnational perspective that incorporates the histories of the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. By focusing on the ideological ambiguities and lived experiences of enslaved people, political actors, abolitionists, religious leaders, employers, and many others, this seminar will question what constitutes equality, citizenship, and freedom. Finally the course will explore what role emancipated slaves played in shaping the historical meanings and practices of modern democracy.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 29002, HIST 29002, RDIN 39002, LACS 29002, LACS 39002

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, ANTH 46452, SOCI 20598, MAPS 33505, 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): Deirdre Lyons     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 46455, MAPS 33555, HIST 29107, ANTH 26455

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

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): ANTH 39109, RDIN 29109, GNSE 23174, MAPS 39109, RDIN 39109, HIST 29109, GNSE 39109, SOCI 30346, ANTH 29109

HIST 39110. Law and Legality in the Colonial World. 100 Units.

This seminar examines the myriad legal encounters which irrevocably shaped colonization around the globe. We will explore law as both a precursor to and instrument of colonization for a range of European empires in the early modern and modern periods. The course will also detail strategies of legal action among a range of colonized subjects including indigenous peoples of the Americas, Asia and Africa. With an eye to diverse theories of law across empires, we will discuss how key colonial legal institutions-including courts and penal spaces-molded both social life and cultural customs. Through an array of case studies, we will further examine themes of the nature of legal protagonism, sovereignty and its evolution, competing jurisdictions, and internationalism and its discontents. Each student will be asked to complete an analysis of a legal primary source of their choosing, as well as a longer historiographical essay pertaining to the course materials.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29110

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): HIST 29201, LACS 39201, 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
Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 39327, SCTH 39304, SCTH 29304, CCCT 29327, 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): HIJD 35806, THEO 35806, JWSC 27940, RLST 25806, NEHC 25806

HIST 39406. Embodied Histories. 100 Units.

When does history require "more than words"? Are there histories that our bodies express that are not easily accessible through texts? This course explores relationships between the body, movement, and history, with a focus on dance. Co-taught by a dancer (Meredith Dincolo) and historian (Tara Zahra) we will combine weekly studio practice and seminar-style discussion. Subjects will include how human bodies archive history and can serve as sources for historians, the history of embodied knowledge, and the challenges of archiving and reconstructing dance. We will also consider how social and concert dance represent and reflect history. Assignments will include readings as well as viewing choreographic works on video; discussion of texts and videos; writing analyses of dances informed by the readings; attending relevant performances in Chicago and participating in a weekly studio-based class session in which we explore, through movement, the themes under consideration that week. Finally, each student will complete a final project in which they develop and share an embodied biography or personal history. You do not need to have any dance experience to take this course, but you must be willing to move!

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

HIST 39505. Epistemic Virtues. 100 Units.

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

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

HIST 39522. Europe's Intellectual Transformations, Renaissance through Enlightenment. 100 Units.

This course will consider the foundational transformations of Western thought from the end of the Middle Ages to the threshold of modernity. It will provide an overview of the three self-conscious and interlinked intellectual revolutions which reshaped early modern Europe: the Renaissance revival of antiquity, the "new philosophy" of the seventeenth century, and the light and dark faces of the Enlightenment. It will treat scholasticism, humanism, the scientific revolution, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, Diderot, and Sade.

Instructor(s): A. Palmer     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Students taking FREN 29322/39322 must read French texts in French.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29522, FREN 39322, FREN 29322, HCHR 39522, SIGN 26036, RLST 22605, KNOW 29522, KNOW 39522

HIST 39901. Historical Methods for the Social Sciences. 100 Units.

This interdisciplinary methods course, which is primarily geared toward MA students in the social sciences embarking on thesis projects, explores the problems, questions, pragmatic concerns, and challenges that arise in "doing history," as well as the various historical methods that might be employed in all manner of social science research. We will read a range of scholarship from history, anthropology, sociology, and theory to think about how various historical methods-working with archival sources, materiality, crafting narrative, and problematizing incomplete data, marginalization, and other limitations-can be applied in history and other social science disciplines. This course counts for the MAPSS methods requirement.

Instructor(s): Lyons, Deirdre     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 31498

HIST 39919. Urban and Architecture History: Industry, Construction, Modernity, Domesticity. 100 Units.

This course explores the historical development of Western cities, examining how industry, construction, modernity, and domesticity shaped the built environment in the 19th and 20th centuries from a global perspective. The course deals primarily with North American and European cities. The course examines the impact of politics, society, and technological transfer on urban development and architecture. Politics and the economy have shaped concepts of planning, standardization, and urban environment. We will explore the industry through detail, standardization, prefabrication, and style. The course will analyze the history of construction, technologies, and global vs local architecture. Students will gain an understanding of the development of modernity by considering the theory of modernism and the works of modernist architects, the ideology of a new socialist modernity, and post-modernist cityscapes. Finally, the course explores the built environment and the creation of domesticity at the interplay of home, neighborhood, community, social housing, and the collective, emphasizing the value of global habitat through the lens of industrial production and construction. The course comprises the workshops History of Architecture Beyond the Classroom: Archival materials study; Special Collections materials study; Talks with invited speakers.

Instructor(s): O. Chabanyuk     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course requires students to plan two Fridays for museum/library visits: Newberry Library and UChicago Library.
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 29919, HIST 29919

HIST 39920. Histories from the Margins. 100 Units.

Scholars have long been interested in the question of how to reconstruct the lived historical experiences of "ordinary," marginalized, or otherwise "unknown" people. Doing "history from below" marked an important turn in social history that generated new questions about and approaches to reconstructing the lives, histories, and cultures of people who were consigned to the peripheries of (or absent altogether from) historical records. While radical, this approach over-emphasized binary relations of power. Thinking about "histories from the margins," however, opens up new questions about how power, oppression, and marginalization cut across intersecting categories-such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and colonialism. This course will adopt a thematic and broadly comparative approach from scholarship on the Americas (including Latin American and the Caribbean) and western Europe to explore how scholars have conceptualized the social worlds of everyday people-including microhistory, capitalism, slavery, colonialism, race, class, gender and sexuality, and inequality.

Instructor(s): Deirdre Lyons     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 21650, RDIN 21650, HIST 29920, MAPS 21650, LACS 31650, RDIN 31650, MAPS 31650, GNSE 21523, GNSE 31523

HIST 40401. Who is Roman? 100 Units.

This seminar will study claims to Roman identity across cultures, regions, and periods. Who belonged to the Roman community at any time and who was excluded? How did foundation narratives, asylum, conquest, the expansion of citizenship, notions of ethnicity, processes of assimilation, and the passage of time shape the contours of groups who saw themselves as Roman? Literature in many genres and languages, and over many centuries, addresses these questions. The course will not be limited to the ancient Roman experience but will expand to include claims in the medieval West and especially the eastern Roman empire, aka Byzantium. A self-defined Roman community persisted there longer than elsewhere, in fact down to the present. Selected claims to be the new Romans in the medieval and modern West will also be examined. Students will read and discuss original sources (in Greek and Latin, depending on their language skills) and modern scholarship. MA students and undergraduate students (by instructor permission) are welcome. The seminar will include substantial reading of original texts, and will result in an extended research paper, to be completed in the Winter term.

Instructor(s): A. Kaldellis, M. Lowrie     Terms Offered: Autumn. 26-27
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 43226

HIST 40402. Who is Roman? II. 100 Units.

This seminar will study claims to Roman identity across cultures, regions, and periods. Who belonged to the Roman community at any time and who was excluded? How did foundation narratives, asylum, conquest, the expansion of citizenship, notions of ethnicity, processes of assimilation, and the passage of time shape the contours of groups who saw themselves as Roman? Literature in many genres and languages, and over many centuries, addresses these questions. The course will not be limited to the ancient Roman experience but will expand to include claims in the medieval West and especially the eastern Roman empire, aka Byzantium. A self-defined Roman community persisted there longer than elsewhere, in fact down to the present. Selected claims to be the new Romans in the medieval and modern West will also be examined. Students will read and discuss original sources (in Greek and Latin, depending on their language skills) and modern scholarship. This is a continuation of CLAS 43226. This quarter is reserved for the researching and writing by students of article-length seminar papers, and we will meet regularly to workshop the papers-in-progress.

Instructor(s): A. Kaldellis, M. Lowrie     Terms Offered: Winter. 26-27
Prerequisite(s): CLAS 43226
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 43227

HIST 40405. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. 100 Units.

Thomas Aquinas is an encyclopedic medieval thinker but today he is also a consummate theological authority, especially in Catholicism. In that sense it seems that Aquinas is not just a historical authority but also normative one. In this class we will focus on the historical Aquinas, to see how his thought developed arriving at what he thought and why. Where applicable, we will try to separate Aquinas from received recent tradition but also from other early Christian or medieval examples like Augustine or Bonaventure from whom he may depart. The aim is to catch and come to an understanding of Aquinas as the historical authority before he grew into the consummate one.

Instructor(s): Willemien Otten     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 48400, THEO 48400

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 41301. Theology, Society, and Culture in Early Modern Europe. 100 Units.

This course will give students a thorough grounding in Reformation-era Europe. It focusses both on the Reformation as a theological phenomenon, giving ample space to the key arguments and ideas of famous Protestant reformers (Luther; Zwingli; Calvin), while also taking seriously the impact that reform movements had on contemporary society, including attitudes to gender, sexuality, politics, economics, and visual/material culture. It will cover the reformations and renewals undergone by Catholicism in the same period, and discuss the key arguments, questions, and concerns which have preoccupied historians of the Reformation since the nineteenth century. Students will have the opportunity to read and engage with famous texts from the period (for instance Erasmus's On Free Will; Luther's 95 Theses; Calvin's Institutes) as well as lesser-known but still influential works (e.g. the poetry of the female Italian humanist Olympia Fulvia Morata and the writings of early Jesuit missionaries to China and Japan), in addition to historically significant documents (such as contemporary witchcraft confessions and extracts from Reformation demonologies). Finally, there will be time devoted to unpacking the complex legacies of the Reformation and the 'unintended consequences' attributed to it, focusing especially on the afterlives of Max Weber's analyses.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Undergraduates must petition to enroll. This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 41500

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 realised 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
Note(s): There will be opportunities for students with Latin and/or Hebrew to make use of those languages. This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HIJD 42800, HCHR 42800

HIST 42403. Three Late Medieval Mystics: Bonaventure, Aquinas, Eckhart. 100 Units.

This course will bring three medieval authors together by seeing them as mystics: the Franciscan Bonaventure, the Dominican Thomas Aquinas and the Dominican Eckhart. All of them taught in Paris, and were at the university there. We'll try to find out what qualifies them as mystics: is there a gender component, is there a distance to academic life, is there a holism to the thought expressed and what, if any, are the connections between them? In sum, what is there to gain in the understanding of their work by calling them mystics?

Instructor(s): Willemien Otten     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Knowledge of Latin and German would be helpful but is not required.
Note(s): Undergraduates must petition to enroll. This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 44400, THEO 44400

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

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

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

HIST 43205. The Contours of Twentieth Century Thought II: Classical Theology Under Siege. 100 Units.

This is the second course in a sequence I began in the fall of 2023: Contours of Twentieth Century Thought I: Between Dialectical Thought and Analogical Imagination (HCHR/THEO 40401, HIST 66701). This is the second of what I intended as a two-sequence course on twentieth-century theology. After the focus on a number of Catholic and Protestant pre- and post-war theologians, who struggle with the legacy of the Enlightenment and the need to reconceptualize theological thought in a fast secularizing and globalizing world, the second course of the sequence aims to delve deeper into liberation theology, the impact of feminism and civil rights, the effect of postmodernism and postsecularism, and the rise and fall of Radical Orthodoxy.

Instructor(s): Willemien Otten     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Some German and/or French and/or Spanish would be good but is not required.
Equivalent Course(s): THEO 40402, HCHR 40402

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): Adrian DS Johns     Terms Offered: Autumn. Offered in Autumn 2026
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 32305, KNOW 31408, CHSS 32000, HIPS 22001, SOCI 40137, HLTH 22001

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): RLST 20122, NEHC 30022, ISLM 30022, 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, SALC 20106

HIST 47005. Proseminar in Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity: Core Methods. 100 Units.

This second graduate proseminar section engages with new approaches to research in fields of race, diaspora and indigeneity, including archival speculation, art as argument and evidence, geography and environment as critical epistemologies, intermodal investigation (sovereignty and survivance, technology and mythologies, semantics and sensoria of both domination and resistance), communally responsible research, and the dialectics of trauma and futurism. The class will be a mix of survey, practice and consultation with partners, meant to bring students close to the methodological experiments RDI faculty and partners utilize in their work.

Instructor(s): Jodi Byrd     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Instructor consent required
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 40200, RDIN 40200

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instructor(s): Curtis Evans     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RAME 35050, AMER 21995, RLST 21995, HCHR 35050, AMER 35050

HIST 47505. America's 'Enlightenment Puritan'? Readings in Cotton Mather (1663-1728) 100 Units.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728) is one of colonial New England's most fascinating and yet elusive thinkers. Historians have long struggled to categorise him: he is simultaneously one of the top candidates for the (fraught) title of America's 'last puritan', and one of several candidates for the (equally fraught) title of America's 'first evangelical.' He was a man whose profound belief in the reality and societal danger of witchcraft implicated him in the now-famous Salem Witchcraft Trials, while also being an accomplished scholar of medicine who made enormous efforts to advocate for smallpox inoculations (an idea he first learnt about from his slave Onesimus). He was at once a vocal proponent of Enlightenment science and philosophy, while also cleaving hard - even by contemporary standards - to belief in conservative scriptural doctrines and the imminence of the Apocalypse. This seminar introduces students to the life and thought of Cotton Mather through a carefully curated selection of his prodigious output, intended to cover some of the most complex - and contested - aspects of his intellectual world.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Undergraduates may petition to enroll. This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 41728, RAME 41728, HCHR 41728

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): AMER 22110, HCHR 42200, RLST 22110, RAME 42100, HIST 27510, AMER 42100, 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, ANTH 34611, ARTH 47603, RDIN 47603, 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): ANTH 34612, ARTH 47604, RDIN 47604, CHSS 67604, SOCI 50127

HIST 49306. Priesthood, Philosophy, and Power. 100 Units.

This course will explore the central themes of Power, Philosophy, and Priesthood. From the Pastoral Epistles, with their division between episkopos and paratheke, through the "upstarts" (a term invented by Robert Bellah) that characterizes the power and community-building skills of third and fourth-century bishops like Tertullian, Cyprian and Gregory of Nazianzen, through some medieval figures and on to a German philosopher like Kant, this course will focus on the ways in which power is given to priests, and received by them. The course will set up a dialogue between early Christian and medieval sources about the priesthood and later writings about it by Weber, Kant, and Foucault. We will try as much as possible to read these sources "side by side," joining the historical and the theoretical/theological sides. The theme of gender will be added in, as it compounds any simple narrative that could be constructed.

Instructor(s): Willemien Otten     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 48900, THEO 48901

HIST 49307. Thinking like a Computational Social Scientist. 100 Units.

The movement of much of our social lives online has created exciting new opportunities for social science research. This course provides a broad survey of computational methods used to make sense of this data. Students will learn how to collect online data and analyze this data using contemporary techniques from natural language processing, supervised/unsupervised machine learning, and generative AI. Students will also cultivate analytical skills through formal paper presentations, oral exams, and an original research project. The course will be taught in Python. This is an intuitive introduction without prerequisites, although previous experience with probability, statistics, and/or programming will be helpful. This course has a shared lecture on Thursdays and a separate graduate and undergraduate sections on Tuesdays(required).

Instructor(s): B. Koch     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): MACS 30267, PSYC 28520, SOCI 20602, PSYC 38520, SOCI 40267, DATA 20602, MACS 20267

HIST 49900. Brauer Seminar: Settler, Scholar, Soldier, Scribe: Knowledge and Power in the Early Modern World. 100 Units.

The spread of global empires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provided the material and political conditions for the intellectual developments of the early modern world. These developments included: a sense of novelty and experimentation, the rise of vernacular and lay learning, new forms of historicity, critical questioning of received traditions and sources of authorities, and creative re-imaginings of social norms and customs. Many of these developments are today viewed as critical to the formation of modernity. Nearly all of them were underwritten by imperial conquest and the concomitant world-systems of race, caste, and religion. This seminar explores the entanglements of knowledge and power across the early modern world. Readings focus on taxonomic traditions, histories of science, missionary and military systems of knowledge, mobility and migration, and ethical self-formation. Consent Only: Course admission is based on application. There is a stipend for admitted students. More information about Brauer Seminar classes can be found here: https://divinity.uchicago.edu/martin-marty-center/brauer-seminar.

Instructor(s): Anand Venkatkrishnan and Kirsten Macfarlane     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Consent Only.
Equivalent Course(s): HCHR 40000, HREL 40000, SALC 49800

HIST 49918. The Limits of History. 100 Units.

Social scientists ultimately need three things: curiosity, intuition, and imagination. This course examines how recent historians (and other scholars using historical approaches) have wielded these more ethereal qualities in creative ways to write histories of topics once thought to be beyond the realm of possibility and history. We will explore histories of the silenced, the unseen, the impossible, and the paths not taken in texts that have reshaped the field. In the process, we will ask, how do we push fields forward while remaining true to some disciplinary guiding light? Indeed, does discipline even matter anymore, or is it just a means of hamstringing innovative scholarship? What "counts" as history, who decides, and why? How far can we go before "history" breaks down? By investigating how these scholars have pushed for a more expansive sense of history, we will come away with inspiration for how we might approach our own research anew.

Instructor(s): Alex Hofmann     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course will fulfill the MAPSS methods requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29918, MAPS 41600, MAPS 21600

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, RDIN 50103

HIST 50104. Decolonization and Independence in Africa. 100 Units.

This course focuses on decolonization and independence in twentieth-century Africa. It examines diverse conceptualizations of political liberation that Africans in different political and economic locations articulated both in struggles against colonial regimes and in the early years of independence. We will trace the interplay between ideas and the political, social, and economic processes through which different actors worked to realize their visions of decolonization. The course will consider colonial legacies in different parts of the continent, and the internal and external forces that shaped the trajectories of early independent states. Texts for the course will include historical and other scholarly monographs, primary documents, music, film, and art.

Instructor(s): T. Thipe     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 50104

HIST 50105. Colonial Rules of Law. 100 Units.

Did European colonialism have a rule of law? How did law work in colonial situations? Was it always on the side of the oppressor? This course examines the legal dimensions of colonization and colonial rule in Europe, Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, focusing on the British and French empires from 1750-1960. Using court records, reported law, and secondary sources, students will learn to conduct original research in legal history. Topics of study will include sovereignty, migration, resistance and collaboration, race, gender and sex, and public administration. All are welcome, particularly those with an interest in law.

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

HIST 50304. The Monsoon Seas: Approaches to the Indian Ocean from Prehistory to the Portuguese. 100 Units.

An exploration of the Indian Ocean, focusing in particular on its long, connective history from the earliest times to the arrival of the Portuguese. Across this extensive chronology, students will gain familiarity with the diverse bodies of evidence (textual and material), methodologies, and theoretical approaches involved in this area of research. Each week will address a different overarching question central to the study of trade across the Indian Ocean: how did merchants organize across vast distances? Which technologies (nautical or otherwise) facilitated maritime movement? What can objects far from home tell us about an interconnected world and how it changes over time? How do we reconcile textual and material evidence? To what extent were the various waterways of this ocean distinct entities? How can we assess the Indian Ocean's role in human history?

Instructor(s): D. Kennet & J. Simmons     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30304

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 51503. Empire, Political Economy, and International Conflict. 100 Units.

This course puts into conversation discussions about Revolution, Empire and Radicalism in the British historiography.  It investigates debates about slavery and abolition, class formation, economic development, and political reform in terms of these themes.  Readings will include classic works like EP Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class and Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery alongside more recent discussions about abolition, industrialization, parliamentary reform, imperial reconfiguration, the English Revolution and other topics.

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

HIST 51504. Britain's Revolutions: Modernity and Empire. 100 Units.

This graduate colloquium will explore the relationship between empire and Britain's three great revolutions: the revolution of 1640-1660, the revolution of 1688-89, and the American Revolution. It will explore the relationship between those developments and the emergence of the imperial state and the colonies in North America, the West Indies, Europe, and South Asia. It will also explore the relationship between the Empire and Britain's precocious industrial development.

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

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 54700. Colloquium: European Cultural History, 19th-20th Centuries. 100 Units.

This colloquium surveys key approaches to and topics in European cultural history. We will read "old" and "new" cultural histories; reflect upon cultural history's distinction from, and relationship to, other genres of historical writing; and consider a range of sources historians have used to write about culture. Our topics include power and ritual, everyday life, subjectivity, memory, popular culture and the media, generations and subcultures, cross-cultural interactions, cultural revolutions and culture in revolutionary times.

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

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: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 56302

HIST 56303. China: From Empire to Nation State? 100 Units.

Few people would doubt that the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) was an empire, or that the People's Republic of China, occupying the vast majority of Qing territory, is a nation-state, or at least a national state. But what do those differences mean? Are there legacies of the Qing as empire that shape the way citizenship, legitimacy, and politics more generally work in the PRC? And how did "China" wind up roughly reproducing the Qing borders when it looked at many points during the late 19th and early 20th century as if it might lastingly splinter into multiple states? We will consider these issues through a series of weekly readings and discussions - mostly of works by historians, but also by historically minded political scientists, sociologists, and others. Students will have the option of writing 2 medium-length papers (7-10 pages) from a given list of choices, or of writing one longer paper on an historiographic or research topic selected in conversation with the instructor.

Instructor(s): K. Pomeranz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 56303

HIST 56600. Colloquium: Modern Japan. 100 Units.

This colloquium is intended for graduate students preparing for a field exam in Japanese history and others interested in reading recent scholarship on the social, political, and cultural history of modern Japan.

Instructor(s): S. Burns     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 56600

HIST 57100. Fossil Life. 100 Units.

Making human life safe and secure has been a political value at least since the early-modern period in Europe. Furthermore, the human desire for and their myths around the idea of immortality has a history that goes far beyond Europe and its ancient legends. It is only after the onset of industrialization and urbanization, however, that it has been possible for humanity to increase human longevity and to support growing number of human beings, thanks to new technology and fossil fuel energy. This course examines the historical causes of human flourishing and longevity along with its social and intellectual consequences. How did concerns with reproduction and public health shape the transition to modern society? Has the increase in longevity meant human alienation from death? Why are birth rates now plummeting across the world? Readings will draw on literature from various disciplines including history, anthropology, philosophy, science, and economics.

Instructor(s): F. Albritton Jonsson and D. Chakrabarty     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 57100, CEGU 57100, SALC 57100

HIST 57102. The Capitalocene in Theory and History. 100 Units.

In recent years, in the face of ever-more-spectacular manifestations of worldwide ecological crisis, public discourse about human relations with the rest of nature has coalesced around the master concept of "the Anthropocene." On this understanding, humankind has brought about a new geological epoch in which the human species has assumed a decisive role in transforming the planet Earth as a whole. This co-taught, reading-intensive course takes up an alternative proposition, namely that it is not human beings in general but a historically specific social formation characterized by its own distinctive ways of organizing nature that has precipitated the cascading crises of the present. More often criticized and rejected in existing scholarly literatures, this alternative concept-the Capitalocene-has to date been the subject of neither theoretical nor historical elaboration. Drawing together works from several different disciplines, the seminar will therefore seek to explore the potential and limitations of this alternative approach to our shared planetary condition. Readings will include Jason W. Moore, Nancy Fraser, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Andreas Malm, Kohei Saito, and Soren Mau. Course open to PhD students only. Others may enroll with instructors' permission.

Instructor(s): A. Jakes and N. Brenner     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 57102, CCCT 57107, SOCI 50142

HIST 57201. Introduction to the Historiography of Global Science. 100 Units.

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

Instructor(s): E. Kern     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 57201, CEGU 57201

HIST 57202. Modern Nature. 100 Units.

What does it mean to know the natural world, and how has that knowledge been used to shape, defend, critique, and expand the modern world? This course explores the intellectual, cultural, and political histories of "nature" and "modernity" in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It brings together literature on the rise of the biological and ecological sciences with the histories of industrialization, urbanization, capitalism, and colonialism to consider how nature and the natural been mobilized to diverse political and social ends-and how ideas about nature have shaped social and political outcomes in turn. We will also consider how "nature study" and the natural sciences were mobilized for projects of popularization, mass education, and mass politics and how concepts of nature and biocapital are mobilized in the present day.

Instructor(s): E. Kern     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 57202, CEGU 57202

HIST 57300. Colloquium: Environmental History. 100 Units.

This graduate colloquium provides an advanced introduction to the vibrant field of environmental history, and is particularly designed for PhD students seeking training in the field's increasingly diverse approaches. Alongside classic texts, we will discuss recent examples of methodologically innovative research. Some of these works contribute to emerging subfields like animal history, evolutionary history, climate history, ocean history, and Anthropocene history; others find novel uses for more established historical approaches, like commodity history, labor history, and urban history. Some rely on traditional archival sources, while others draw on oral history, archaeological and linguistic evidence, and insights borrowed from the natural sciences. Through close reading, we will examine how environmental historians have addressed new analytical and aesthetic challenges: negotiating relationships with science and scientists, incorporating non-human agency, and writing history at the unfamiliar scales of deep time, the pathogen, and the planetary. A happy side effect is that we will be reading some of the most vivid and eloquent historical work being penned today. Many (though far from all) environmental historians aim to reach broader audiences by experimenting with style and narrative. While encountering the conceptual and empirical range of environmental history as a discipline, we will also pay attention to the craft of writing history.

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

HIST 59700. Histories from Below. 100 Units.

Latin America's historiography has long been defined by an unusual degree of commitment to "history from below" -- defined variously as history that is rooted in the Global South; history that takes poor, Indigenous, Black, and working class people as its subjects; history with a political commitment to social change; or history that is committed to intensive, bottom-up archival methods. In this colloquium we will critically assess this multifaceted tradition, focusing especially on the links between historical method and historical argument, the impact of history from below on critical historiographical debates, and uneasy political exchanges about the place of history from below in larger conversations about inequality, imperialism, development, citizenship, environment, governance, and epistemology. Prior knowledge of Latin American history is not required.

Instructor(s): B. Fischer and E. Kourí     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 59700

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 61103. Readings in Modern Russian History. 100 Units.

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

Instructor(s): F. Hillis     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): REES 61103

HIST 61301. Cultural Cold War. 100 Units.

In this course we will consider culture wars amidst the Cold War. We will range across media and aesthetic schools to examine the entanglement of art and politics, culture and diplomacy, creativity and propaganda, consumerism and the avant-garde, nuclear aspirations and dystopian visions, artistic freedom and police operations. The course's basic premise is that, notwithstanding the bipolar world it created, the Cold War was a multisided affair, so our readings will extend beyond the United States and the Soviet Union to include various national contexts.

Instructor(s): E. Gilburd     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 61301

HIST 61902. History Wars in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia. 100 Units.

This course will focus on moments in modern public life when the past becomes a matter of explicit, and sometimes violent, contestation. The course will use mainly South Asian but also some comparative instances to introduce certain themes: historical discourse and the politics of recognition; the idea of historical wound; the difference and the relationship between "historical truth" and "historical wound"; the public and cloistered lives of the discipline of History in modern political formations.

Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 37905, CCCT 61902

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): ENGL 55405, RLVC 48801, AMER 50001, HCHR 48801, RAME 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 62705. Colloquium: Approaches to Atlantic Slavery Studies. 100 Units.

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

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

HIST 63202. Intellectual History and Theory. 100 Units.

The course will explore landmark scholarship in the history of ideas, as well as works of theory/method and treatises, tracts, cases, and stories that form a canon in the history of ideas, capaciously understood. Issues of sovereignty, selfhood, freedom and unfreedom, property, power, rights, and justice, among others, will be explored. An interpretative essay will offer the chance to probe a chosen problem or set of texts.

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

HIST 64403. Debates in the History of Work and Workers. 100 Units.

This course examines theoretical and empirical issues in the modern history of labor, conceived on a global scale. The class is organized around the development of major debates, including: skill, deskilling, and the labor process; gender and the labor of social reproduction; the spectrum between free and unfree labor; the science and measurement of work and the conception of the laboring body; race, ethnicity, and migration at work; the meaning and experience of labor in colonial societies; the meaning and experience of labor in socialist societies; and the relationship between labor processes and workers' ideology and political activity and organization. The class will strike a balance between reading historiographical and theoretical classics and new research that can be put into conversation with those classics.

Instructor(s): J. Eyferth and G. Winant     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CCCT 66403, EALC 64403

HIST 64404. Transnational Blackness. 100 Units.

This reading-intensive graduate colloquium examines race and the modern, global African diaspora. Given the breadth of the topic, the course necessarily centers select conceptual and methodological debates while offering some latitude for independent exploration. Themes to be covered include labor and class formation, colonialism, nationalism, diaspora, gender, migration and immigration, language, religion, sexuality, and aesthetics. This course is designed primarily for PhD students preparing a general examination field.

Instructor(s): R. Johnson     Terms Offered: Autumn

HIST 64614. History and Social Theory. 100 Units.

This course traces major debates in social theory, particularly but not exclusively Marxism, as they have worked their way through historical scholarship. Theoretical questions include: What is the relationship between economy, society, and culture? How are social classes formed, what relationship do they bear to other kinds of social groupings, and how do they become sources of political power? What is the nature and anatomy of the modern state, and how is it distinguished from or integrated into the rest of society? What are the different forms of organization of capitalism, and how do they relate to patterns of state formation, social inequality, and political conflict? From where do imperialism and colonialism arise, how do they work, and what are their consequences? We will pursue these and similar questions both in classic and more recent theoretical articulations, but also through efforts to give empirical answers through specific historical inquiries.

Instructor(s): A. Jakes & G. Winant     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): HCHR 40401, THEO 40401

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): M. Hicks & J. Sparrow     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): M. Hicks & J. Sparrow     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