Ancient Rome and its empire can be viewed both as a measure of human achievement and a cautionary tale of the corrupting effects of unbridled power. This course covers the history of Ancient Rome from its mythologized beginnings (753 BCE) to the rise and spread of Christianity under the Emperor Constantine (312 CE).

This course will explore the history of colonial and post-colonial encounters with various 'tribal' communities in South Asia. In colonial and post-colonial settings, the tribe has served as a category for military surveillance and pacification, legal regulation, economic development, and political resistance. Drawing mainly on examples from South Asia and engaging theoretical frames from the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Canada, we will consider how colonial and post-colonial governments, missionaries, and tribal populations themselves have invoked tribe.

This seminar investigates the processes through which borderlands were imagined and ethnicities were made in twentieth-century China. Drawing from texts and films about and by the people living on the borderlands, students in the seminar are to explore the intersecting relation between the two pressing issues and how Chinese states dealt with them. Furthermore, how did all these concerns originate? To that end, the seminar begins by examining how the central state in early modern China formed a multicultural empire in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

This course asks: what are cities in the history of modern East Asia? Cities were cosmopolitan, centers of commerce, and sites of social movements in late imperial China, Tokugawa Japan, and late Chosǔn Korea. How did the roles of cities change in the nineteenth century when East Asia became more integrated into the global system? How was urban life affected in the first half of the twentieth century when the central states dealt with domestic turmoil and external pressures? How did the state work to redefine cities and urban culture in the postwar era?

One of the most significant shifts in global history is the incorporation of the New World into the Afro-Eurasian trading system. Slowly, but surely, the Mediterranean declined as a hub of inter-continental trade, and the Atlantic Ocean gained ground. On West Africa's Shores analyzes this world-historical pivot from the perspective of West Africa. Beginning with the rise of the Ghana Empire, we study trans-Saharan cultures of exchange, the societies of West Africa's Middle Ages, and the ways that the trans-Atlantic slave trade transformed the region.

What is money? Is it the same in all times and places? If money could speak, what stories would it tell of the past? This course is about the history of money and money as an object of history. Using primary and secondary sources, students will learn about the social, political and cultural meaning of money at different times in the history of the western world. In addition, students will interpret the history of money using a variety of coins and money-related objects held in the MHC Art Museum.

This course considers the historical evolution of women's private lives, public presence, and political engagement within and beyond the borders of the United States, from the 1890s to the present. How have U.S. racism, consumer capitalism, immigration, and changing forms of state power shaped women's experiences and possibilities? How have regimes of gender, sexuality, bodily comportment, and reproduction evolved in relation to national and global changes? Emphasis will be placed on the experiences and perspectives of working-class women, women of color, and colonized women.

The United States emerged from the Second World War as the most powerful nation on earth. This course explores American political, cultural, and social life in the postwar era, with an eye toward helping students gain a firmer understanding of contemporary issues and conflicts in our nation and around the world.

This course challenges students to consider how and why, following Ralph-Michel Trouillot, certain voices get "silenced" in the historical record. We study how women have both shaped history and been subject to its forces, though often in unexpected ways. This course is unique because we learn about women in 18th, 19th and 20th century West Africa through their own words. Students will encounter more than a dozen real and fictional African women: mighty queens, snide co-wives, shrewd traders, ingenious slaves, brilliant writers, and fierce activists.

This seminar focuses students on researching and writing the history of their own families, going back at least two generations. Along with digging into the specifics of family history, students will explore the key historical contexts for the decisions and choices made in the past, e.g. immigration (both voluntary and forced), war, economic conditions, political movements, professional and entrepreneurial opportunities. Kitchen Table History asks that we interrogate critically the stories and lessons learned from family members, using the widest array of historical sources.