(Offered as HIST 234 and EUST 234) This class is an introduction to the history of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945. Through readings and class discussion, we will cover topics such as the Holocaust, Nazi ideology and aesthetics, daily life in the Third Reich, women under Nazism, Nazi foreign policy and World War II, and the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial.  In addition, we will discuss themes that range well beyond the Nazi dictatorship: What is the relationship between aesthetics and politics?  How do dictatorships function?  What constitutes political resistance?

(Offered as HIST-233 and BLST-233 [US].) This course explores racial capitalism through the lenses of history and economics. Racial capitalism understands racism, slavery, segregation, and imperialism as key to how the economic system of capitalism enables the creation of profit for some via the racialized exploitation of others.

(Offered as HIST 230 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.

(Offered as HIST-222 and POSC-222) The rise of the Far-Right at home and abroad in the last decade has taken much of the world by surprise, and calls for a reconsideration not only of its future but also of its history. Since WWII most of historical studies of the Far-Right have focused on the history of fascism, from proto-fascism to neo-fascism. in the twenty-first century; however, the Far-Right emerges as a much broader phenomenon, in chronology, in geography, and in attributes.

(Offered as HIST 216, LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216 [History of Art: Americans/Europe]) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his.

(Offered as HIST 216, LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216 [History of Art: Americans/Europe]) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his.

(Offered as HIST 181 and BLST 121 [A])  This course focuses on the long twentieth century in Africa, from the onset of colonial rule in the 1880s to the present moment of global engagement. We have three major questions that we will be pursuing throughout the semester. The first concerns various images of Africa and Africans, conceived in the West and then exported back into African societies. Can we distinguish the image from the reality, the myth from the reportage?

(Offered as HIST 172 and ASLC 172.) This survey offers students a deep historical perspective on today’s China and Chinese society. It examines the matrix of the internal and external forces and movements that have shaped modern China from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. During this period, people in China have experienced the most tumultuous and traumatic events in its transformations toward modernity; few countries have gone through as many dramatic changes as China in the last two centuries.

(Offered as HIST 164 and SWAG 164.) Long before terms such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender were coined, people challenged gender norms and engaged in same-sex sex, love, and relationships. This course introduces students to the dynamic, contested, inspiring, and sometimes quite challenging histories of this wide-ranging group of queer and trans people in the first 250 years of American history. We will learn about the lives, loves, values, and occupations of a racially and geographically diverse group of people.

(Offered as GERM 208, ENGL 275, and EUST 208) This course explores relationships to place, home, landscape, and belonging in Yiddish literature. From the Biblical Exodus to the Displaced Persons camps of post World War Two Europe, Jewish experience has been defined by exile, diaspora, displacement, and migration. A millennium before the “land of Israel” was a political reality, it was a spiritual longing for Jewish communities throughout Europe, for whom life in “exile”, in the diaspora, was an ongoing trial that would only end with the coming of Messiah.