Social networks, multimedia, the rapid transmission of information across cultural boundaries and geographic distances: the twenty-first century can seem like a brave new world for communication. Yet the peoples of the Americas have long been involved in creative ways of connecting with each other. This course surveys the history of communication in early America, from wampum beads to oral traditions, speeches to incendiary political pamphlets, comets to newspapers, inscribed rocks to Neoclassical poetry.

This course will explore the history of South Asia between the eighteenth century and the present. Using a combined chronological and thematic approach and against a historical canvas that engages such diverse issues as gender, political economy, conquest, resistance, state formation, economic exploitation, national liberation, and identity politics, the aim of this course is to interrogate the impact of British colonialism and South Asian nationalisms on the state, society, and people of the subcontinent.

(Writing-enriched course) This course examines processes of change that have shaped modern Africa. It seeks to provide both the information and the conceptual tools necessary for an informed interpretation of African affairs presented (and not presented) by popular media. Using fiction, historical narratives, and a wide range of interdisciplinary sources, the class examines nineteenth-century interactions of Africans and Europeans and the nature of colonial conquest, economic and social change during the colonial period, and the emergence of postcolonial African societies.

This lecture course examines the formation of European society and culture during its transition from principalities and fiefdoms to early modern states, from feudalism to capitalism, from serfdom to both free and slave labor; the course will examine too many classic terms historians have used to distinguish crucial aspects of this period: the Renaissance, world explorations, the Reformation and Counter Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the rise of absolutism and struggle for constitutionalism, the Thirty Years War, the witch-persecutions, and the birth of European overseas empires.

Surveys the major movements and developments in Europe during the era of European expansion and dominance--from the devastations of the Thirty Years War to the Second World War--and up to the current era of European Union. Topics include: the French Revolution and the birth of nationalism; the scientific and industrial revolutions; the modern history of international relations; imperialism, fascism, the Holocaust, the two World Wars, and the present and potential roles of Europe at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

This class introduces the history of the United States from Reconstruction to the present. Our themes include: America's evolving relationship to the world; the evolution of racial, gendered, and class identities through work, politics, and culture; the growth of the federal government; and the changing meaning of politics and citizenship through social protest: the Old Left and the New Left, the Civil Rights movement, Women's and Gay Liberation movements, the New Right and the rise of the evangelical movement.

This course probes the characteristics of imperial rule, as well as the differences between one empire and another. The course asks: What are empires, and what animates them - economic exploitation, power politics, and/or cultural commitments? How do empires impose and maintain their authority, and what is their impact on centers and provinces, and on elites and the common people? How do empires deal with the heterogeneous peoples, religions, races, and cultures they conquer and incorporate into their fold?

This lecture/discussion course examines family, gender, wealth, territorial control, and empire in the age of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, when political power concentrated in the web of influential families throughout Europe and the New World connected by blood, land, wealth and influence. This course studies the strategies, maneuverings, and consequences of Europe's major dynasties (Habsburgs, Stuarts, Bourbons, Romanovs and others) in their quest for hegemony and empire in early modern Europe and the wider world.

This course will examine the social, cultural, political, and economic history of African Americans from emancipation and Reconstruction through the present. Emphasis will fall on postwar southern social and economic developments, the rise of segregation, northern migrations, black class stratification, nationalism, the twentieth-century civil rights movement, and current trends in African American political, social, and economic life.

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.