[ME] This course will survey the history of Israel from the pre-state origins of Zionism in the late nineteenth century to the present. It will explore political, military, social and cultural history. We will seek a better historical understanding of many of Israel’s ongoing challenges, such as the place of religion in civil life, the state’s relation to world Jewry, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. We will pay special attention to contested identities and inner debates within Zionism and Israel, highlighting different and occasionally opposing visions of a Jewish homeland.

(Offered as HIST 284 [AFP] and BLST 211 [A]) The African continent has been called by one historian the social laboratory of humanity.  Art, trade, small-scale manufacturing, medical knowledge, religion, state systems, history and legend all flourished before the formal political take-over of the continent by European powers in the late nineteenth century. It is this varied history of states and cultures in the period before 1885 that this course will examine.

(Offered as REL 281 and HIST 281)  A study of eminent Muslim reformers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, hailing from diverse Islamic cultures and geographical locations including South Asia, West Africa, Egypt, Arabia, Iran, Central Asia, and the Ottoman Empire. We will examine ways in which religion intersected with social and political reform projects, explore thematic conversations among these reformers that transcend time and place, and look at ways in which many of these issues continue to resonate to the present day. 

(Offered as BLST 201 [D] and HIST 267 [LA^p/AF^p])  The formation of "the Black Atlantic" or "the African Diaspora" began with the earliest moments of European explorations of the West African coast in the fifteenth century and ended with the abolition of Brazilian slavery in 1888.  This momentous historical event irrevocably reshaped the modern world.  This class will trace the history of this transformation at two levels; first, we examine large scale historical processes including the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the development of pl

[LA] In this course we will focus on the links between environmental impacts (such as environmental degradation, desertification, soil “exhaustion,” species extinction, genetic simplification, oil extraction, biotic invasions, deforestation, pesticide contamination, and animal grazing) and human problems (such as colonial and imperial domination, declining subsistence, defense and violation of civil rights, income inequality, scientific racism, regional underdevelopment, incomplete capitalist transformation, social marginalization, and political violence).

(Offered as HIST 258 [ME] and ASLC 258) In 2011, the Middle East was convulsed by revolutions. Some, like Syria's, are still raging; others, as in Egypt, appear to be in remission.  Some states, particularly monarchies, seem to have proved immune. This course will ask why these revolutions erupted, why they did so in 2011, and why some states were transformed and others were not.  It will also explore the development of Israel’s political economy since independence.

(Offered as AMST-255 and HIST-255 [US])  This course explores the history of higher education in the United States from the nation’s formation to the present.  Four themes are woven thought a roughly chronological structure.  First, readings outline the competing purposes Americans envisioned for colleges and universities.  Students analyze debates between proponents of broad training in the liberal arts and supporters of more narrow occupational preparation as well as disagreements over the appropriate relationship between research and teaching.

(Offered as HIST 253, POSC 253 [SC], and RUSS 253) For decades Moscow was the quintessential posting for any American correspondent with ambition. The magazines, the papers, the radio, and then the television networks sent their best to live and work in what were usually trying conditions, to try to conjure for the American media consumer a likeness of a country as fascinating as it was feared. The correspondents succeeded and failed with some regularity.

This course will explore the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Through a deep engagement with his published work and public rhetoric, relevant secondary literature, and personal papers, students will locate the civil rights leader within the broader upheavals of mid-century America. As such, the course serves as an introduction to modern US history, the black freedom struggle, and the archive of civil rights. Moving beyond mythology, this course will emphasize his connections to American liberalism, the labor movement, the black prophetic tradition and human rights.

(Offered as HIST 230 [EU/P] and EUST 230) Often viewed as one of the defining events in modern history, the French Revolution has been debated and discussed, derided and celebrated by generations of politicians, cultural commentators, and historians. This course enters into this on-going conversation by examining the nature of the revolutionary process as it unfolded in late eighteenth-century France and its empire.