This course interrogates the intersection between current events and historical research. Exploring topics including race, debt, citizenship, democracy and reproductive justice, the course offers a comparative and transnational perspective of how historians and other historically focused scholars have approached topics that have dominated the recent news cycle, while thinking through the challenges and possibilities of doing historical research on subjects of contemporary importance. This is an R-designated course. Enrollment limited to 18.

Offered as HST 271 and REL 271. Was Jesus a revolutionary socialist? Or did he preach an ethic of self-help? Is it holy to be poor? Or is prosperity a moral duty? This course focuses particularly on the relationship between religion and capitalism in the realms of economic and moral ideas, labor and working class politics, business history, and grassroots social movements.

The cultural context of fascism. Readings from Nietzsche, Sorel, Wilde, Pareto, Marinetti, Mussolini and Hitler, as well as studies of psychology, degenerate painting and music. Both politicians and artists claimed to be Nietzschean free spirits. Who best understood his call to ruthless creativity? This is an R-designated course. Enrollment limited to 18.

This course introduces students to the history of the culture and history of the ancient Mediterranean world through the lens provided by Greek and Roman medical writers. The Greek Enlightenment in the sixth century B.C. ushered in a "scientific" approach to healing that continued to evolve throughout antiquity even as traditional methods retained their importance.

Analysis of the historical realities, social movements, cultural expression and political debates that shaped U.S. citizenship from the Declaration of Independence to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. From the hope of liberty and equality to the exclusion of marginalized groups that made whiteness, maleness and native birth synonymous with Americanness. How African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants and women harnessed the Declaration of Independence and its ideology to define themselves as citizens of the United States. Enrollment limited to 40.

Often seen as peripheral to the modern world, Africa and African peoples are often ignored in both popular and scholarly world histories traversing the last several centuries. This course aims to turn these narratives on their head by not only injecting African histories into world historical narratives, but by using these histories to detail Africa’s centrality to understanding the world.

Women’s experience and constructions of gender in the commonly recognized major events of the 20th century. Introduction to major thinkers of the period through primary sources, documents and novels, as well as to the most significant categories in the growing secondary literature in 20th-century European history of women and gender. Enrollment limited to 40.

This survey course examines Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the early medieval era, starting with the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Students study the turbulent nature of political and societal boundaries and the rise of Christianity in Europe before 900 AD, as well as the emergence of Islam as a religion and political power and its influence on the medieval European and Byzantine worlds. Students engage in the examination and discussion of early medieval notions of kinship, race, law and justice, popular piety, and political power. Enrollment limited to 40.

This introductory course looks comparatively at the histories of China, Japan and Korea from the late 18th century to the present. It examines the struggles of these countries to preserve or regain their independence and establish national identities in a rapidly emerging and often violent modern world order. Although each of these countries has its own distinctive identity, their overlapping histories (and dilemmas) give the region a coherent identity. The class also looks at how individuals respond to and are shaped by larger historical movements.

This introductory course looks comparatively at the histories of China, Japan and Korea from the late 18th century to the present. It examines the struggles of these countries to preserve or regain their independence and establish national identities in a rapidly emerging and often violent modern world order. Although each of these countries has its own distinctive identity, their overlapping histories (and dilemmas) give the region a coherent identity. The class also looks at how individuals respond to and are shaped by larger historical movements.