(Offered as AMST-328, EDST-328, and HIST-328 [US/TR/TS])  Children’s literature has a diversity problem. A 2018 study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that of more than 3000 children’s books published that year, roughly 50% featured main characters who were White. Only 10% featured Black characters, 7% featured Asian / Pacific Islander characters, and 5% featured Latinx characters.

(Offered as HIST 283 [AF/TE/TS/P] and BLST 322) The transition from white-minority rule in South Africa in 1994 ushered in a new era of independence and democracy in a troubled country whose name had become synonymous with “apartheid.” The last bastion of white-supremacist rule in Africa had fallen. But that transition has not lived up to the high expectations of South Africans as many of the ruling structures built by the colonial and then apartheid regimes have endured.

(Offered as HIST 279 [AS/TC/TE/TR/TS] and ASLC 279 [SA].)The Indian subcontinent, the home of more than a billion people, has a rich and dynamic history. This 200-level survey is a history of the making of modern South Asia with a focus on India. Spanning the period from the sixteenth century to the present, the course introduces students to the history, politics, culture, and societies of the Indian sub-continent.

(Offered as HIST 236 [EU/AS/TE], EUST 238, and RUSS 237) 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 course explores Soviet history between the end of World War II and the collapse of the USSR.

(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire.

(Offered as POSC 218, HIST 218 [AS/TR], & ASLC 218)  As one of the world’s great powers, China has had a profound impact on the developing world. Through financial, military, and political means, China has shaped the economies, cultures, and environments of nations throughout Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This course examines the historical and political aspects of this influence with the aim of better understanding the implications of China’s global presence.

(Offered as BLST 208 [A/D] and HIST 211 [AF]) As the crisis of the postcolonial nation-state deepens in the context of globalization and statism in African countries especially in the last three decades, African societies have experienced significant migration of skilled and unskilled workers.  These migration flows are raising new questions about the nature of politics, economics, and culture in various African national and transnational contexts.  To explore the political, social, and economic consequences of these waves of migration in African states and among countries receivi

(Offered as BLST 210 [A] HIST 210 [AF] and RELI 220) The course will examine the central role of Christianity and Islam in pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial African societies.