(Offered as HIST 370 [AS] and ASLC 370 [J].) Japan emerged as the only non-Western multi-ethnic empire in the second half of the nineteenth century.  Comparing that empire to others across the globe, this course will consider how Japanese imperialism facilitated the complex circulation of goods, ideas, people and practices in modern Asia.  We will ask how that complex circulation shaped Japan, as well as the colonial modernities of Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria.  Topics will include the formation of a regional imperial order in Asia, colony and metropole relations, gender and

(Offered as HIST 321 [EU^P] and EUST 321) The economic history of pre-modern Europe is usually understood as the singular and exceptional rise of the first modern economy. Yet recent research in economic history and shifts in the world economy have provided new perspectives to reconsider the rise of the European economy.  From this long-term and global viewpoint, the story of Europe’s economic take-off becomes the remarkable story of a backwater that became mainstream.

(Offered as HIST 319 [^c], ASLC 320 [WA] and RELI 322.) Conceptions of the religious and the secular that continue to resonate today assumed global significance in the course of the nineteenth century as colonial empires and nascent nation-states negotiated how they would govern heterogeneous populations and interact with each other.

This course offers an opportunity for history majors to reflect upon the practice of history. How do we claim to know anything about the past at all? How do historians construct the stories they tell about the past from the fragmentary remnants of former times? What is the connection of historians’ work to public memory? How do we judge the truth and value of these stories and memories? The course explores questions such as these through readings and case studies drawn from a variety of places and times. Two class meetings per week.  

(Offered as HIST 276 [AS] and ASLC 276 [C].) China--the modern nation--was born of revolution. Before the revolution there was China--the civilization--with its long and complex history. Modern historians, Western and Chinese alike, have tended to describe this history as “traditional,” leaving the modern condition to be defined by what happened in the West. In this course we will suspend this modern prejudice while asking a variety of questions on some specific topics. How did ancient laws and rituals come to define the relations between imperial states and local societies?

[US] This course will study the evolution of American foreign policy since 1989.  We will examine the theory and practice of diplomacy under the first President Bush, President Clinton, the second President Bush, and President Obama.  At the heart of the course will be a consideration of the extent to which the United States has attempted and been able to sustain the unipolar power position in world politics that the United States gained with the collapse of the Soviet Union. One two-and-a-half-hour meeting per week.

(Offered as HIST 242 [US^P], ARCH 242, and AHRA 133.) Using architecture, artifacts, visual evidence and documentary sources, the course examines social and cultural forces affecting the design and use of domestic architecture, home furnishings, and domestic technology in the eastern United States from 1600 to 1960. In addition to providing a survey of American domestic architecture, the course provides an introduction to the study of American material culture.

(Offered as HIST 236 [EU] and EUST 238.)  The Cold War indelibly shaped the second half of the twentieth century.  Spies seemed ubiquitous; nuclear annihilation imminent.  Films such as Red October and the James Bond series forged a Western image of the Soviet Union.  But how were these decades experienced behind the Iron Curtain?  This class explores Soviet history between the end of World War II and the collapse of the USSR.  We will study the roots of the Cold War; the politics of de-Stalinization in the USSR; the unfolding of Soviet influe

[^C] Disease has always been a part of human experience; doctoring is among our oldest professions. This course surveys the history of Western medicine from antiquity to the modern era.

[^C] This course introduces students to the history of the Jews from the 16th century to the present. Jews--a small group, lacking a stable geographical or political center for most of modern history--have played a remarkably central role in world events.  Jewish history exemplifies questions of tolerance, intolerance, and diversity in the Modern Age.