(Offered as HIST 283 [AF/TE/TR/TS^P] and BLST 322) The transition from white-minority rule in South Africa in 1994 seemed to usher in a new era of independence and democracy in the troubled country. The last bastion of white-supremacist colonial rule had fallen. But that transition has not lived up to the high expectations of South Africans. Although many more people now have a political voice, government institutions and significant economic institutions have remained mostly unchanged.

(Offered as HIST 273 [AS/TC/TS] and ASLC 273 [SA]) The Ramayana is one of the most famous stories in the world. It is a fascinating narrative of intrigue, exile, love, loss, violence, and redemption and is especially well known by people in or connected to South and Southeast Asia. They would have seen, heard, or read versions of the story of Rāma, Sītā, and the battle with Rāvaṇa at some point in their lives. What is less known is that all these stories refer back to Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa, the first and most prestigious Ramayana story written in Sanskrit around 2500 years ago.

(Offered as HIST 268 [LA/TE/TR/^P], BLST 268 [CLA] and LLAS 268) Students will gain in-depth knowledge of the experiences of Africans and their descendants, slave and free, from the time the first captives were brought to Hispaniola in 1503 until the time of abolition in Cuba in 1886 in this course. Regions to be covered include the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, and the Andean and Southern Cone regions.

(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment?

(Offered as HIST 264 [LA/TC/TE/TR/^P] and LLAS 264)  Over the course of three centuries, massive migrations from Europe and Africa and the dramatic decline of indigenous populations in South and Central America radically transformed the cultural, political, economic, and material landscape of what we today know as Latin America. This course will investigate the dynamism of Latin American societies beginning in the ancient or pre-conquest period and ending with the collapse of European rule in most Spanish, Portuguese, and French speaking territories in the New World.

(Offered as HIST 234 [EU/TE/TR] and EUST 234) The National Socialist regime that governed Germany under Adolf Hitler from 1933-45 raises numerous historical questions that remain pertinent today: How does a political system move from democracy to dictatorship? How can an advanced economy, a diverse society, and a vibrant culture with an artistic avantgarde beget a regime bent on aggressive war, rapacious expansion, and genocide? Why didn't more people resist Nazism?

(Offered as HIST 223 [EU/ME/TC/TS/^C/^P] and SWAG 223) 

(Offered as POSC 214 and HIST 215 [US/TE]) The goal in this course is to examine the geopolitics which lies at the intersection of international relations and foreign policy. But what is geopolitics and why is it as often berated as it is embraced by American politicians and policy elites alike? Over the past two centuries, what part has geopolitics played in the currents of world politics and in the conduct of American foreign policy? What role has geopolitics played in the post-Cold War era, after the demise of the Soviet Union and the ostensible triumph of liberal capitalism?

(Offered as HIST 190 [ME/TC/TE^P] and ASLC 126) This course surveys the history of the Middle East from the outset of the Islamic period to the beginning of the modern period. It is divided into the following segments: the formative period of Islam, the classical caliphates, the classical courts, the Mongols, and the great empires of the Ottomans and the Safavids.

(Offered as HIST 175 [AS/TC^P] and ASLC 225) Contrary to images of a uniform and stable culture, the Japanese archipelago possesses a history marked by fragmentation, violent conflict, and dynamic cultural change. This course traces that history from the beginnings of human history on the archipelago to the establishment of one of the most stable and peaceful regimes in human history, the Tokugawa shogunate. Our survey will be organized around a central riddle: why was it so difficult to produce a stable, unified polity on the Japanese archipelago?