Autumn 2025 Undergraduate Courses


African History


History 2302 History of Modern Africa, 1800-1960s

Instructor: Sikainga, Ahmad
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm
Second Session

Description
Thematic survey of African History from 1800 to the 1960s.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3307 History of African Health and Healing

Instructor: McDow, Dodie
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
This course explores approaches to health and healing in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 150 years.  By using a historical perspective on health and healing, we see why specific diseases emerge, why they persist, and what their consequences are for African societies.  Diseases we will consider include cholera, sleeping sickness, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, among others.  The course is also interested in African experiences of being unwell. 
 
While students will gain some biological or technological understanding of diseases and causes of illness, the course focuses on the wider social or economic consequences that promote disease and illness.  By investigating illness, we can consider the ways that different governments (colonial and post-colonial) have attempted to control disease and control the people disease affected; the rise and elaboration of tropical medicine as a field; and the impact of colonial and post-colonial policy on land use, ecology, and human settlement.  In addition, by thinking about health and what makes one healthy, we can find insights into societal values, and look at the overlapping and contradictory therapeutic traditions (grounded in both popular and biomedical treatments) that African people have used to regain health.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies


History 3308 History of US-Africa Relations, 1900-Present

Instructor: Kobo, Ousman
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
History of the United States’ relations with Africa since World War I. Sometimes this course is offered in a distance-only format.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies


History 3312 Africa & World War II

Instructor: Sikainga, Ahmad
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm
Second Session

Description
This course will focus on the oft-neglected African dimension of WWII. The course will explore the importance of Africans as soldiers and producers; the effects of WWII on class, race, and gender relations within the continent; and the importance of WWII in provoking crises in colonial empires and transforming the nature of political mobilization across the African continent.

General Education
GEL Historical Study


History 3314 From Rubber to Coltan: A Long History of Violence and Exploitation in Central Africa

Instructor: Van Beurden, Sarah
Days/Times: MW, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
What does your cellphone have to do with conflict in central Africa? And what did the rubber boom of the late 19th century have to do with colonial violence in the same region? And how are these related? This course will help you understand how the past has shaped the present in central Africa, and how global economic systems are connected to localized violence.
 
The Great Lakes region in Central Africa is home to some of the world’s most prized economic resources. Based on an economy ravaged by the slave trade, a 19th century colonial extractive system emerged that focused first on ivory, later on rubber, and expanded in the 20th century to include diamonds, copper, gold, uranium, and lately coltan, crucial for the development of cellphone and computer technology. After a tumultuous decolonization, the region became home to some of the more violent conflicts of the past decades, including the Rwanda Genocide and the ongoing conflict in Eastern Congo.
 
This course will explore how the histories of economic exploitation, political authoritarianism, and the supposedly ethnic conflict in this region are intertwined, and how seemingly local conflicts have global roots. The first two modules of this course focus on the colonial history of the area, which was colonized in the late 19th century by the Belgian king Leopold II (Congo), Germany (Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania) and the UK (Uganda). The second part of the course will focus on the post-colonial history of the region, starting with the reign of the military dictator Mobutu and the continued economic exploitation of the Congo, to the Rwanda genocide, the UN missions in the region, the Great War of Africa, and the continuing conflicts in eastern Congo. We will explore the role of conflict minerals, international media reporting on the conflict (particularly on the violence against women), and the role of guerrilla groups such as M23 in the conflict.
 

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies


History 4325 Seminar in African History

Instructor: Kobo, Ousman
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in African History. 

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African American History

History 2081 African American History from 1877

Instructor: Fontanilla, Ryan
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description 
The study of the African American experience in the United States from the era of Reconstruction through the present. 

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity


History 3086 Black Women in Slavery and Freedom

Instructor: Hammack, María
Days/Times: TR, 3:55-5:15pm

Description
Traces the experiences and struggles of African American women from slavery through the Civil Rights/Black Power era.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, and Immobility

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American History

History 1152 American History since 1877

Instructor: TBD
Days/Time: TBD 

Description
The political, constitutional, social and economical development of the United States from the end of Reconstruction to the present.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2046 Christianity and Liberation in the USA

Instructor: Brakke, David
Days/Times: TR 12:45pm – 2:05pm

Description 
This course explores the various ways in which Christians in the USA developed new practices and theologies to reflect their differing experiences of marginality based in race, ethnicity, and gender and to foster resulting movements of liberation. We will survey the histories of how African Americans, women, Hispanic/Latinx Americans, Asian American, and Native Americans interacted with Christianity as the context for the emergence of liberation theologies and movements in the late twentieth century. After focusing on race, gender, and ethni2city in turn, we will then consider how these marginal positionalities intersect in womanist, Latina, and LGBTQ+ theologies of liberation. We will attend especially to how the categories of race, ethnicity, and gender function within these Christian movements.

General Education
GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity


History 2750 Natives and Newcomers: Immigration and Migration in U.S. History

Instructor: Rivers, Daniel
Days/Times: WF, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
General survey of (im)migration history in the U.S. from precolonial times to the present. Topics include cultural contact, economic relations, citizenship, politics, family, and sexuality.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3013 Civil War and Reconstruction

Instructor: Cashin, Joan
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description
The causes, character, and consequences of America’s inter-sectional war and the post-war settlement.

General Education
GEL Historical Study


History 3014 Gilded Age to Progressive Era, 1877-1920

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description
Advanced study of U.S. social, political, cultural, foreign policy history from 1877-1920: Industrialization; immigration; urbanization; populism; Spanish-American War; progressivism; WWI.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3014 Gilded Age to Progressive Era, 1877-1920

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
Advanced study of U.S. social, political, cultural, foreign policy history from 1877-1920: Industrialization; immigration; urbanization; populism; Spanish-American War; progressivism; WWI.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3015 From the New Era to the New Frontier, 1921-1963

Instructor: Stebenne, David
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
Examination of the major political, economic, social and cultural changes in the USA from the end of World War I through the early 1960’s.  Emphasis on the polarized nature of American life in the 1920’s; the seismic shocks brought by the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War; how they helped propel the revival of a much bigger middle class and the decline of social polarization during the 1950's; and the problems that new social system began to create.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations


History 3016 The Contemporary U.S. since 1963

Instructor: Elmore, Bart
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
Advanced study U.S. political, economic, social, and cultural changes since 1963: political polarization; post-industrial economy/consumer economy; civil rights, feminism, environmentalism, Vietnam, détente, and globalization.

General Education
GEL Historical Study


History 3017 The Sixties

Instructor: Steigerwald, Dave
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Examination of postwar America's pivot point, focusing on civil rights; liberal, radical, and conservative politics; sweeping social, cultural, and economic change; and the Vietnam War

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3030 History of Ohio

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description
Survey of economic, social, political development of the geographic area that became Ohio from Native Americans to present.

General Education
GEL Historical Study


History 3040 The American City

Instructor: Howard, Clay
Days/Times: MWF, 1:50-2:45pm

Description
History of the American city (urban-suburban) from colonial times to the early 21st century.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Lived Environments


History 3070 Native American History from European Contact to Removal, 1560-1820

Instructor: Newell, Margaret
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Major issues and events in Native American history from before the European invasion and colonization through the early 1820s.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, and Immobility


History 3083 Civil Rights and Black Power Movements

Instructor: Jeffries, Hasan
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
Examines the origins, evolution, and outcomes of the African American freedom struggle, focusing on the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3084 Citizens Behind Bars: Black Leadership and the Politics of Liberation in African American History

Instructor: Cook, DeAnza
Days/Times: Wednesdays, 5:30pm-8:15pm @ the Ohio Reformatory for Women

This offering of History 3084 is a class with students from Ohio State and students from the Ohio Reformatory for Women, a state prison. The class meets once a week at the prison facility in Lancaster. An application for this course is required: https://opeep.osu.edu/courses-0

Description
Every day more human beings are locked inside of jails, prisons, or secured facilities across the United States than in any other country on the planet. This course explores the history of citizenship in captivity and the legacy of liberatory movements led by incarcerated citizens in the US from the era of settler colonization and slavery to the present age of mass incarceration.

General Education
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3086 Black Women in Slavery and Freedom

Instructor: Hammack, María
Days/Times: TR, 3:55-5:15pm

Description
Traces the experiences and struggles of African American women from slavery through the Civil Rights/Black Power era.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, and Immobility


History 3706 Coca-Cola Globalization: The History of American Business and Global Environmental Change 1800-Today

Instructor: Elmore, Bart
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
Coca-Cola is everywhere. Today, the company sells over 2.2 billion servings of its products daily to customers in over 190 countries worldwide. The company has bottling plants in every corner of the globe from Australia to Zimbabwe. This is remarkable considering the company started out as a “brain tonic” first sold for just five cents in a small Gilded Age Atlanta pharmacy in 1886 by a sick and cash-strapped businessman named John Pemberton. So how did the company do it? That’s one of the big questions we will ask in this global environmental history course.
 
History 3706 offers an introduction to the fields of environmental history and business history. It is organized chronologically, beginning with the railroad revolution of the nineteenth century and ending in the twenty-first century. It chronicles the rise of some of America’s biggest multinational corporations and examines how these firms, working with governments and other institutions, shaped global ecological change between 1800 and 2017. It also considers the social and political responses to these environmental changes. 

The questions we will ask in this course are not simple, and they will require us to re-imagine well-told stories from a new, ecological perspective. How did Coca-Cola acquire the natural resources it needed to end up all over the world? Can history tell us whether global climate change is real? Are Californians going to run out of water? We will deal with these and other intriguing questions as we explore the history of America in the world through the lens of environmental history.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 4015H Honors Seminar in Modern U.S. History

Instructor: Stebenne, David
Days/Times: M, 9:35am-12:20pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Modern U.S. History.

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Ancient Mediterranean History


History 2221 Introduction to the New Testament: History and Literature

Instructor: Harrill, Bert
Days/Times: MWF, 10:20-11:15am

Description
This course provides students with a basis for critical thinking about the most influential writings in the intellectual and cultural history of world civilization.  What we call the "New Testament" is a not a single book but an anthology reflecting the work of various ancient authors. We examine how a small group of Jews connected to a prophet named Jesus of Nazareth became a separate religion with its own rituals and literature about a "Son of God." To this end, we study the earliest known Christian literature, the letters of the Apostle Paul, the production of "gospels" about the life of Jesus, and the formation of early churches. We also explore biblical scholarship as an academic field within the study of history, and why every educated person ought to know about its findings.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Literature, GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3210 Archaic Greece

Instructor: Anderson, Greg
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
This is the first half of a two-course sequence that surveys the history of ancient Greece (the second half will be offered in Spring semester--it is not necessary to take both courses).  The course examines the formation of Greek culture, from the Neolithic era (ca. 7000-3000 BC) all the way down to the year 480 BC. We will explore major political developments, including: the rise and mysterious demise of the Mycenean kingdoms of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1100 BC); the subsequent emergence of small, village-based chiefdoms; and the first city-states in the Dark Age (ca. 1100-700 BC); the creation of written laws, political institutions, and, ultimately, the world's first citizen-states in the Archaic Age (ca. 700-480 BC); and the momentous wars against the Persian empire in the early fifth century.  Along the way, we will also explore various social and cultural phenomena associated with these political developments.  Here, particular attention will be paid to the many innovations of the Archaic Age in art, architecture, sports, literature, and philosophy, as well as to broader social issues, such as the place of women and slaves in Greek society.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3215 Sex and Gender in the Ancient World

Instructor: Sessa, Tina
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
Introductory survey of women, gender, and sexual relations in the ancient Mediterranean world, especially Greece and Rome.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity


History 3218 Paul & His Influence in Early Christianity

Instructor: Harrill, Bert
Days/Times: WF, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
Paul is the most powerful human personality in the history of the Church.  His letters are the foundations on which later Christian theology is built.  This course introduces the critical study of Paul's literary work as primary sources for reconstructing the development of the Christian movement.  We explore how the figure changed over time.  We look at the significance of Paul's life and the competing ways its story was retold, appropriated, or resisted.  The student will study the Pauline literature closely and will read important secondary treatments of Paul, including areas of controversy in the interpretation of his life and thought.  The course presupposes no prior coursework on the Bible or in the academic study of religion. 

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Literature, GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3222 The Roman Empire, 69-337 CE

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: TBD

Description
An advanced survey of Rome's imperial history from the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty to the death of Constantine.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3232 Solving Crime in Medieval Europe

Instructor: Butler, Sara
Days/Times: WF, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
This course explores the interaction between the development of criminal law and social change in the late medieval period from a comparative perspective, examining primarily the English common law, but also the continental courts of law. Topics such as trial by ordeal; forensic medicine; homicide; sex crimes; clerical criminals; treason; sanctuary; and fear-mongering, will be explored.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations


History 4217 Seminar in Late Antiquity

Instructor: Sessa, Tina
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Late Antiquity. 

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Asian History
 

History 2402 History of East Asia in the Modern Era

Instructor: Reed, Christopher
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
History 2402 is an introductory and explicitly comparative survey of early modern and late modern East Asian history that focuses on China, Korea, and Japan. It thematically examines the major political, social, economic, and military contexts and processes that shaped East Asia from 1600 up to the late 20th century. To do so, History 2402 extends, chronologically and to some extent spatially, topics some of you may have covered in History 2401 (which is not a required introduction to this course) and adds some new ones.
 
The basis of comparison is the three countries of East Asia themselves. The course is aimed at students with no background. There are no formal prerequisites other than good reading and writing skills for this course nor for success in it. Further, almost any humanities or social science course you’ve taken will help you succeed in this course.
 
China is the focus of much of the first third of the course, Korea of the second third, and Japan of much of the final third. The lectures will devote equal time to each of the three countries while including some comparative topics involving all three. 

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies

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Diplomatic/International History
 

History 3501 U.S. Diplomacy, 1920-Present

Instructor: Parrott, Joe
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
Since 1920, the United States has played a dominant role in international affairs due to its massive economy, unrivaled military, and global cultural influence. Historians have often referred to this era as “the American century,” a term coined by Time Magazine publisher Henry Luce in February of 1941. However, Luce’s editorial was as much a call to action as it was an accurate description: as late as 1941, the nation was still debating its desired role in world affairs. Far from a dedicated superpower, the United States was and remains a country whose foreign relations are hotly contested. The nation has struggled to discern a consistent path between opposing tendencies of democracy, empire, isolationism, internationalism, national security, and the role of defense in daily life. At the same time, many countries have militantly resisted projections of American power. 

In this course, we will explore a sampling of these contests and the sometimes contradictory foreign policies they produced. While focusing on the specific policy history of the United States, we will also assess the impact American actions have had across the globe, foreign responses to the United States, the changing contexts that transformed official thinking, and the decentralization of the international system. The course will ultimately seek to have you engage directly with the ways U.S. foreign policymaking has affected and responded to global and domestic events, and what this means for the future of American foreign affairs. 

Please note, this is an upper level history course and will require your active engagement with a larger amount of regular weekly reading and viewing assignments.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 4525 Seminar in International History

Instructor: Parrott, Joe
Days/Times: F, 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in International History 

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Environment, Health, Technology, and Science
 

History 2700 Global Environmental History

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: TBD
Second Session

Description
Global overview of the ecology of the human condition in past time, stressing climate change, earth systems, technology, energy, demography, and human cultural-economic revolutions.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEL Social Science: Human, Natural and Econ Resrcs, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GEN Foundation: Social and Behavioral Sciences


History 2701 History of Technology

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
Survey of the history of technology in global context from ancient times.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Lived Environments


History 2702 Food in World History

Instructor: Otter, Chris
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
Food is implicated in all dimensions of human existence. It is a biological necessity, without which human beings slowly die. Control over food supplies is a basic function of all organized societies and polities. Shared food traditions and tastes shape cultural identities of particular groups. Human history can be told as a history of how food has been produced, distributed and consumed. This course offers a synoptic, global history of food. It begins with the history of fire and the Neolithic revolution (c.10,000 BCE) and the foundations of agriculture and ends with the recent wave of global “food crises” (late 1940s, early 1970s, early 2000s). In between, it explores the formation of food cultures in Europe, Asia and South America, and development of an integrated world food system from the sixteenth century. It examines the “nutrition transition” – the rise of a food complex built around animal proteins, dairy products, sugar and refined wheat – which began in the west in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is currently spreading across much of the rest of the world. It looks at the rise of the modern food industries, agribusiness, the green revolution, industrialized food production, fast food and the development of modern dietary anxieties and pathologies. It also examines the persistence of famines and global hunger over the past two centuries.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 2702 Food in World History

Instructor: Cahn, Dylan
Online, asynchronous

Description
Survey of the history of food, drink, diet and nutrition in a global context.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 2702 Food in World History

Instructor: Cahn, Dylan
Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
Survey of the history of food, drink, diet and nutrition in a global context.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 2703 History of Public Health, Medicine and Disease

Instructor: Jones, Marian Moser
Days/Times: MWF, 9:10-10:05am

Description
Survey of the history of public health, disease and medicine in a global context.   

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Health and Well-being


History 2704 Water: A Human History

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
History of human use and understandings of water from ancient to modern times, with case studies taken from different geographic locations. Sometimes this course is offered in a distance-only format.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 2710 History of the Car

Instructor: Eaglin, Jennifer
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
The car has shaped the world we live in today. Ideas of capitalism, technology, and consumerism are inherently linked to its creation and expansion in modern society. This course will examine the development of the car in the 20th century, first in the United States and then how its global expansion has come to define global society today.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Lived Environments


History 2911 The Climate Crisis: Mechanisms, Impacts, and Mitigation

Instructor: Harris, Jim
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Examination of the basic science of climate change, of the ability to make accurate predictions of future climate, and of the implications for global sustainability by combining perspectives from the physical sciences, the biological sciences, and historical study. Team-taught with faculty members in EarthSc and EEOB.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Natural Science: Biological Science, GEL Natural Science: Physical Science, GEN HIP: Interdisciplinary and Integrated Coll Tch, GEN Theme: Lived Environments, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 3706 Coca-Cola Globalization: The History of American Business and Global Environmental Change 1800-Today

Instructor: Elmore, Bart
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
Coca-Cola is everywhere. Today, the company sells over 2.2 billion servings of its products daily to customers in over 190 countries worldwide. The company has bottling plants in every corner of the globe from Australia to Zimbabwe. This is remarkable considering the company started out as a “brain tonic” first sold for just five cents in a small Gilded Age Atlanta pharmacy in 1886 by a sick and cash-strapped businessman named John Pemberton. So how did the company do it? That’s one of the big questions we will ask in this global environmental history course.
 
History 3706 offers an introduction to the fields of environmental history and business history. It is organized chronologically, beginning with the railroad revolution of the nineteenth century and ending in the twenty-first century. It chronicles the rise of some of America’s biggest multinational corporations and examines how these firms, working with governments and other institutions, shaped global ecological change between 1800 and 2017. It also considers the social and political responses to these environmental changes. 

The questions we will ask in this course are not simple, and they will require us to re-imagine well-told stories from a new, ecological perspective. How did Coca-Cola acquire the natural resources it needed to end up all over the world? Can history tell us whether global climate change is real? Are Californians going to run out of water? We will deal with these and other intriguing questions as we explore the history of America in the world through the lens of environmental history.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Theme: Sustainability


History 3708 Vaccines: A Global History

Instructor: Harris, Jim
Days/Times: MTWR, 11:30am-12:25pm

Description
This course examines the history and biology of vaccines. We explore the discovery and development of vaccines, along with the political and cultural controversies that have surrounded them for centuries. Team-taught course with faculty member in Pharmacy.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN HIP: Interdisciplinary and Integrated Coll Tch, GEN Theme: Health and Well-being


History 3711 Science and Society in Early Modern Europe

Instructor: Goldish, Matt
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
A survey of the history of science and its place and relationship to European society in the early modern period.  Students will understand the various strands that constitute the scientific revolution in early modern Europe, modern intellectual history, how revolutions in thought occur, and will practice analytical and communications skills in working with both secondary and primary sources.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Number, Nature, Mind


History 4705 Seminar in the History of Environment, Technology, and Science

Instructor: Breyfogle, Nicholas and Eaglin, Jennifer
Days/Times: M, 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Environmental History, Technology and Science.


History 4706 Chronic: Illness, Injury, and Disability in Modern History

Instructor: Moore, Erin
Days/Times: TR, 3:55-5:15pm

Description
This seminar explores the emergence of "chronic" - the disease category and the illnesses it names - over the course of the 20th century. We consider the political economic, environmental, and techno-social conditions that gave rise to chronic illness in modern history, and consider factors including public health policy, the pharmaceutical industry, activism, pop culture, and more.

General Education
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being

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European History
 

History 1212- European History II

Instructor: TBD
Days/Time: Online, Asynchronous

Description
This class introduces students to the political, economic, social, and cultural history of modern Europe from roughly 1500 to the present. This course contextualizes European history within a global frame. We will study the major changes of the modern period, including:  the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the emergence of new models of states and empires; the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment; the Age of Revolutions, democracy, and human rights; the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and popular politics; the First World War, technology, and diplomacy; World War II and the Holocaust; the Cold War and the collapse of communism; decolonization and globalization; and life in Europe today. This survey course also focuses on how these larger trends were experienced by people. Readings, lectures, and films will highlight how these moments in modern European history were lived.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2202 Medieval History

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description 
Survey of medieval history from the late Roman Empire to the early sixteenth century. Sometimes this course is offered in a distance-only format.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2206 History of Paris

Instructor: Bond, Elizabeth
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
A history of Paris, France, as told through the human stories of its diverse inhabitants and shaped by the collective memories and stories surrounding the legendary City of Lights. Using a social and cultural history of the city, the course will examine and analyze the rich, complex, and multi-faceted environments that have shaped life in Paris for more than two millennia.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Lived Environments


History 2475 History of the Holocaust

Instructor: Judd, Robin
Days/Times: WF, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
It has been over seventy years since the Allies liberated the last of the Nazi camps and, yet we continue to debate the Holocaust’s history.  How did the Nazis rise to power? When did the Nazi government begin to plan for the Final Solution? Who was culpable in planning and executing the genocide? This course will peel away at some of these questions. Together we will examine the state-sponsored murder of millions of Jews and non-Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.  We will study the individuals, institutions, historical events, and ideologies that allowed for the Holocaust to occur.
 
We will begin our study with an analysis of historical factors that predated the Nazi rise to power. After we study the histories of antisemitism and early 20th century Europe, we will consider how the Nazis assumed and consolidated power during the early 1930s. The next segment of the class will examine the crucial period of 1933-1938, paying close attention to the erratic anti-Jewish and anti-Roma policies of the era and the myriad of responses to them.  In the third portion of the course, we will explore the Final Solution.  We then will consider the Holocaust’s aftermath and legacy in Germany, Israel, and the United States. At the end of the semester, we will discuss the contemporary rise of antisemitism and xenophobia.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3245 The Age of Reformation

Instructor: Brakke, David
Days/Times: T, 3:55-5:15pm

Description
The history of the Protestant, Catholic, and Radical Reformations of 16th and early 17th century Europe.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World, GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations3245History 3247 Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1450-1750)

Instructor: Goldish, Matt
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description 
Investigation of the history of European witchcraft, focusing on intellectual, religious, and social developments and on the great witchcraft trials of the early modern period.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations


History 3250 Subjects to Citizens: A History of Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe

Instructor: Bond, Elizabeth
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description 
A survey of European but especially French history from the crisis of the Old Regime to the end of the wars of the French Revolution.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3254 Europe Since 1950: From the Iron Curtain to Fortress Europe

Instructor: Dragostinova, Theodora
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
This upper-level course explores the post-World War II history of Europe through the examination of several discreet themes: the rebuilding of the continent after the war; the origins and development of the Cold War in Europe; the end of European empires and the Cold War in the Third World; immigration and the making of multicultural Europe; protest movements and youth counterculture; European economic and political integration during and after the Cold War; and changes in historical memory and European identities over time. Tracing developments in Western and Eastern Europe comparatively, the class interrogates the shifting meanings of West, East, and Europe from the Cold War until today, with a focus on migration, mobility, and immobility and their diverse manifestations.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Migration, Mobility, and Immobility


History 3265 20th-Century German History

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
Exploration from 1914 to the present of German cultural, economic, political, and social history.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3282 History of the Soviet Union

Instructor: Hoffmann, David
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
History of the Soviet Union from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of communism in 1991.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations


History 4255 Seminar in Modern European History

Instructor: Kern, Stephen
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Modern European History.

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Jewish History


History 2453 History of Zionism and Modern Israel

Instructor: Yehudai, Ori
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
This course explores the history of the Jewish state from the rise of the Zionist movement to the present. It begins by examining the social and ideological roots of Zionism in late 19th-century Europe, proceeds with the development of the Jewish community in Palestine under Ottoman and British rule, and then turns to the period following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Among the issues to be discussed are Jewish-Arab relations, immigration, the encounter between European and Middle Eastern Jews, the creation of a new Hebrew identity, the interaction between religion and state, the impact of the Holocaust, and Israel’s international status. Course materials include secondary historical sources, a variety of primary documents, short stories and films.  

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2475 History of the Holocaust

Instructor: Judd, Robin
Days/Times: WF, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
It has been over seventy years since the Allies liberated the last of the Nazi camps and, yet we continue to debate the Holocaust’s history.  How did the Nazis rise to power? When did the Nazi government begin to plan for the Final Solution? Who was culpable in planning and executing the genocide? This course will peel away at some of these questions. Together we will examine the state-sponsored murder of millions of Jews and non-Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.  We will study the individuals, institutions, historical events, and ideologies that allowed for the Holocaust to occur.
 
We will begin our study with an analysis of historical factors that predated the Nazi rise to power. After we study the histories of antisemitism and early 20th century Europe, we will consider how the Nazis assumed and consolidated power during the early 1930s. The next segment of the class will examine the crucial period of 1933-1938, paying close attention to the erratic anti-Jewish and anti-Roma policies of the era and the myriad of responses to them.  In the third portion of the course, we will explore the Final Solution.  We then will consider the Holocaust’s aftermath and legacy in Germany, Israel, and the United States. At the end of the semester, we will discuss the contemporary rise of antisemitism and xenophobia.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3480 Israel/Palestine: History of the Present

Instructor: Yehudai, Ori
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
The course will enable students to reflect on the ways in which the past informs interpretations of the present and the ways in which the present informs interpretations of the past. The course will adopt a broad definition of the "present", investigating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily against the background of the collapse of the Oslo peace process in the early 2000s.

General Education
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

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Latin American History
 

History 3100 Colonial Latin America

Instructor: Delgado, Jessica
Days/Times: TR, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
Mayan, Aztec, and Incan Empires; the Spanish and Portuguese conquests and the transplanting of Iberian institutions; the Baroque period; the Bourbon Century and the Enlightenment.

General Education
GEL Historical Study


History 3106 History of Mexico

Instructor: Smith, Stephanie
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
This course offers an intersectional study of the history of Mexico, highlighting the importance of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity from the precolonial era to the present day. Throughout the semester we will examine patterns of conflict and negotiation, including ways in which everyday people participated in and influenced cultural and political events. The roles of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity will be analyzed throughout the lectures and assignments, as will Mexico’s transcultural interactions. Additionally, the course will consider Mexico’s rich culture, including movies, literature, and artists. 

Several themes considered during the course are: 1. The rich diversity of Mexico’s pre-Columbian indigenous societies, including the importance of gender and women’s diverse roles; 2. The complex interactions between the Spaniards and the indigenous populations of Mexico, including systems of oppression but also resistance; 3. The colonial era, including the hierarchical social systems based on ethnicity, as well as the roles of women, including Sor Juana and indigenous women; 4. The struggle for Independence and an analysis of Mexico’s indigenous participation; 5. The 19th century breakdown into chaos, the modernizing “Porfirian” dictatorship, and the horrific loss of indigenous land; 6. The Mexican Revolution, including an in-depth study of women’s diverse roles in the battles; 7. Mexico’s dynamic postrevolutionary art scene, with a focus on women artists and Frida Kahlo; 8. The rise of the country’s one-party state, the return of indigenous land under President Cárdenas, and struggle for women’s right to vote; 9. The 1968 student movements, including women’s participation; 10. Mexico’s ongoing efforts for just economic development, and the continuing movement for inclusion by Mexico’s indigenous population; 11. Mexico’s border with the United States, including the movement of peoples and resulting restructuring of gender norms within Mexico, as well as a discussion of the racial and ethnic assumptions surrounding current discussions on the immigration today; 12. Mexico’s current issues, including Mexico’s 2024 presidential election with two women candidates. 

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity


History 4125 Seminar in Latin American History

Instructor: Smith, Stephanie
Days/Times: Online, R, 3:55-6:40pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Latin American History.

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Middle Eastern History


History 2353 The Middle East Since 1914

Instructor: Akin, Yiğit
Days/Times: MW, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
This course presents a foundational overview of the political, social, economic, and cultural history of the Middle East from the late-nineteenth century to the present. It aims to go beyond the simplistic generalizations and stereotypes about the region and its people by introducing students to the complexities of the Middle East’s modern history and its present. The course also aims to enable students to adopt an informed and critical perspective on the region’s current conflicts and challenges. Among other issues, we will pay particular attention to the following topics: nineteenth century reformism; economic dependency, imperialism, and anti-imperialism; nationalism and nation state formation; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; women’s experiences; U.S. involvement in the region; the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the rise of Islamist movements; and recent upheavals in the Middle East. This course offers students the chance to explore these issues through a variety of media—academic works, film, fiction, and other primary sources. 

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3480 Israel/Palestine: History of the Present

Instructor: Yehudai, Ori
Days/Times: TR, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
The course will enable students to reflect on the ways in which the past informs interpretations of the present and the ways in which the present informs interpretations of the past. The course will adopt a broad definition of the "present", investigating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily against the background of the collapse of the Oslo peace process in the early 2000s.

General Education
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 4375 Seminar in Islamic History

Instructor: Akin, Yiğit
Days/Times: W, 10:00am-1:00pm

Description
This research seminar focuses on the late ninetieth- and early twentieth centuries in the Middle East, a critical period in the region’s modern history, which saw a number of wars, revolutions, and a genocide. We will examine these development as transformative moments in the region’s politics, society, and culture. Collectively, they left behind profound legacies for the region and its people. Throughout our seminar, we will read notable examples of the recent scholarly literature on these wars, revolutions, and genocide and become familiar with key historical debates on them. Our readings and discussions will not only focus on the intellectual, political, and military elites but we will also examine how non-elite individuals and groups influenced the course of this tumultuous period war and how they were affected by it. 

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Military History

History 2550 History of War

Instructor: Grimsley, Mark
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description
“History of War” is an introduction to the salient concepts and problems involved in the study of military history.  Although it examines war from prehistoric times to the present, the course is thematic rather than strictly chronological—less a survey of wars and military developments per se than an examination of the major concepts involved in the study of war.  In addition, the course focuses extensively on the warrior codes of various cultures (Greek, Roman, Japanese, Native American, etc.).  The study of the warrior code will include a practical exercise on incorporating the warrior ethos into one’s own life. Students will achieve an understanding of the causes, conduct, and consequences of war, as well as how various societies—past and present, western and nonwestern—have understood and practiced war.  They will also hone their skills at critical writing and analysis, and gain greater insight into the way historians explore the human condition.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2550 History of War

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
A survey of the main concepts and issues involved in the study of war in world perspective, using case studies from prehistoric times to the present.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3270 History of World War I

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
A global history of World War I, with a particular focus on citizenship. As the first war in history waged by enormous citizen-soldier armies, this course considers citizenship within this paradigm-shifting conflict that would transform the global balance of power and power dynamics, as well as alter cultural and societal attitudes and practices both inside and outside of Europe.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3551 War in World History, 1651-1899

Instructor: Grimsley, Mark
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description
This course is an introduction to the salient concepts and problems involved in the study of military history from the mid-17th century to the turn of the 20th century. The most significant development during this period was the rise of the West (Europe and its settler societies, such as the United States) to global dominance.  Consequently it will be a prominent course theme.  We will also give extended attention to the ways in which the Age of Democratic Revolution (circa 1760-1800) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) profoundly influenced military affairs in Europe and the United States.

In addition, students will achieve an understanding of ways in which Europeans were influenced by warrior codes stretching back to ancient Greece.  The course contends that the martial warrior ethos translates metaphorically into civilian life.  Students will therefore undertake a Personal Challenge Assignment to achieve a better grasp of the warrior ethos.  Students may choose any challenge they find meaningful; for example, weight control, regular exercise, and overcoming procrastination.

General Education
GEL Historical Study


History 3552 War in World History, 1900-Present

Instructor: Cabanes, Bruno
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
The past hundred years have changed the nature of war. Industrial warfare and global conflicts led to an inexorable intensification of violence. From trench warfare in World War I to ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, the total number of deaths caused by or associated with war has been estimated at the equivalent of 10% of the world’s population in 1913. In the course of the century, the burden of war shifted increasingly from armed forces to civilians, to the point where non-combatants now comprise some 80 or 90% of war victims. This lecture course investigates the blurring of distinction between combatants and non-combatants, as well as the experiences of ordinary men and women who lived through the wars of the 20th Century. It covers events such as World War I, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and topics such as the experience of captivity, sexual violence in wartime, children in war, or genocides.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Traditions, Cultures, & Transformations


History 3561 Citizenship and American Military History: 1902 to the Present

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: TBD

Description
This course examines how uniformed service impacted Americans' conception of citizenship from the aftermath of the Spanish-American War through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland on September 11, 2001.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 3590 Wars of Empire and Decolonization

Instructor: Walker, Lydia
Days/Times: WF, 12:45-2:05pm

Description
This course examines the means, methods, challenges and results of military encounters between modern imperial powers and indigenous forces they met on the battlefield.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 5550 Special Topics in Military History

Instructor: Walker, Lydia
Days/Times: W, 9:35am-12:20pm

Description
TBA

General Education

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Seminars


History 2800 Introduction to the Discipline of History

Instructor: Kern, Stephen
Days/Times: MW, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Investigation of the methods and analytical approaches historians use to understand the past.


History 2800 Introduction to the Discipline of History

Instructor: Cashin, Joan
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Topic: Women in the Civil War

Description
This course is designed to introduce undergraduates to the historical method, that is, how historians write history.  We will learn how to distinguish between primary sources, which are generated by historical figures, and secondary courses, which are written by historians. 


History 2800 Introduction to the Discipline of History

Instructor: Hoffmann, David
Days/Times: Online, asynchronous

Description
Investigation of the methods and analytical approaches historians use to understand the past.


History 2800 Introduction to the Discipline of History

Instructor: Staley, David
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
Investigation of the methods and analytical approaches historians use to understand the past.


History 2800H Introduction to the Discipline of History

Instructor: Conklin, Alice
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
This course is designed for Honors history majors. History 2800H introduces history majors to the field of history, and particularly to the historian’s craft. We will look at the different purposes for studying history, a wide array of sources that are used in examining the past, and the diverse approaches to the past that historians embrace. Because the best way to learn what historians do is to practice the craft ourselves, we will spend the semester focusing on a modern global history that is, in fact, close at hand: that of “Ohio and the World.” Our readings will highlight related global and local developments six different dates: 1753, 1803, 1853, 1903, 1953, and 2003. Topics include the “French and Indian” War, racism and abolitionism, German immigrants’ participation in the American Civil War, the global women’s suffrage campaign in Ohio, 1960s student protests at Kent State, and more recent ties between Japan and Ohio manufacturing. We will use a combination of primary sources (archives, newspapers, images, political treatises, and maps) available in digital format or in local collections, such as the OSU rare book room and archives, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, and the Ohio History Connection, as well as secondary sources.


History 4015H Honors Seminar in Modern U.S. History

Instructor: Stebenne, David
Days/Times: M, 9:35am-12:20pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Modern U.S. History.


History 4125 Seminar in Latin American History

Instructor: Smith, Stephanie
Days/Times: Online, R, 3:55-6:40pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Latin American History.


History 4217 Seminar in Late Antiquity

Instructor: Sessa, Tina
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Late Antiquity.


History 4255 Seminar in Modern European History

Instructor: Kern, Stephen
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Modern European History.


History 4325 Seminar in African History

Instructor: Kobo, Ousman
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in African History.


History 4375 Seminar in Islamic History

Instructor: Akin, Yiğit
Days/Times: W, 10:00am-1:00pm

Description
This research seminar focuses on the late ninetieth- and early twentieth centuries in the Middle East, a critical period in the region’s modern history, which saw a number of wars, revolutions, and a genocide. We will examine these development as transformative moments in the region’s politics, society, and culture. Collectively, they left behind profound legacies for the region and its people. Throughout our seminar, we will read notable examples of the recent scholarly literature on these wars, revolutions, and genocide and become familiar with key historical debates on them. Our readings and discussions will not only focus on the intellectual, political, and military elites but we will also examine how non-elite individuals and groups influenced the course of this tumultuous period war and how they were affected by it. 


History 4525 Seminar in International History

Instructor: Parrott, Joe
Days/Times: F, 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in International History


History 4625 Seminar in Women’s/Gender History

Instructor: Rivers, Daniel
Days/Times: M, 12:30-3:30pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Women’s/Gender History


History 4705 Seminar in the History of Environment, Technology, and Science

Instructor: Elmore, Bart and Breyfogle, Nicholas
Days/Times: M, 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Environmental History, Technology and Science.


History 4705 Seminar in the History of Environment, Technology, and Science

Instructor: Eaglin, Jennifer
Days/Times: 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Environmental History, Technology and Science.


History 4706 Chronic: Illness, Injury, and Disability in Modern History

Instructor: Moore, Erin
Days/Times: TR, 3:55-5:15pm

Description
This seminar explores the emergence of "chronic" - the disease category and the illnesses it names - over the course of the 20th century. We consider the political economic, environmental, and techno-social conditions that gave rise to chronic illness in modern history, and consider factors including public health policy, the pharmaceutical industry, activism, pop culture, and more.

General Education
GEN Theme: Health and Well-being


History 4795 Seminar in History: An Introduction to Many Worlds History

Instructor: Anderson, Greg
Days/Times: T, 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Experts in a growing number of fields, from anthropology to international relations, now believe that humans across time and space have in fact lived in a “pluriverse” of many different worlds, not in a universe of just one. The seminar will introduce this exciting new idea, exploring its potentially momentous implications for the practice of History.

The main body of the course will be a kind of journey across history’s pluriverse, considering a series of case studies that immerse us in worlds profoundly unlike our own. They include the worlds of the ancient Greeks, the Chinese of the Ming era (1368-1644), the Aztecs, the Dogon and Mbuti of Africa, and Indigenous peoples of Amazonia, North America, and Scandinavia. Along the way, we will note some basic commonalities that seem to be shared by all of these non-modern worlds, perhaps helping us to explain their relative sustainability over time. How then might this journey change the way we view the very different world of our own modern experience, which has come to prevail across the globe over the past several centuries? And how might it also affect the way we imagine other possible futures?

The course requires no prior specialist knowledge, just an open mind, a curiosity about other ways of being human, and a willingness to consider alternatives.

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Women's Gender & Sexuality History


History 3620 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States, 1940-Present

Instructor: Rivers, Daniel
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
An overview of LGBT culture and history in the U.S. from 1940 to the present. Students will examine changes in LGBT lives and experiences during the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, as well as the intersections of race, sexuality, and class, and how these categories have affected sexual minority communities and broader US law and culture.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Social Diversity in the US, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity


History 3642 Women and Gender in Modern Europe (1750-1950): Diversity in Context

Instructor: Soland, Birgitte
Days/Times: TR, 2:20-3:40pm

Description
This course is designed as an introduction to the history of women and gender in Europe, from the late eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.  Several themes will be central to the course.  We will study the enormous social, political and economic upheavals Europe underwent in the 18th century, and how these upheavals also recast gender relations and produced new ideas about men and women and their respective roles and responsibilities.  We will also explore how women strove to shape and improve their lives under changing circumstances, and how relationships between women and men developed both inside the family and in society in general. Finally, we will look at how economic position, religion, sexuality, marital status, ethnic and national differences influenced women's experiences.    

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies, GEN Foundation: Race, Ethnicity & Gender Diversity


History 4625 Seminar in Women’s/Gender History

Instructor: Rivers, Daniel
Days/Times: M, 12:30-3:30pm

Description
Advanced research and readings on selected topics in Women’s/Gender History 

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World, Global, Transnational History


History 1682 World History from 1500 to the Present

Instructor: TBD
Days/Time: Online, asynchronous
Second Session

Description
Survey of the human community, with an emphasis on its increasing global integration, from the first European voyages of exploration through the present.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2650 The World Since 1914

Instructor: TBD
Days/Times: WF, 11:10am-12:30pm

Description
Global perspective on major forces that shaped the world since 1914. Provides students with factual knowledge and a critical interpretive framework for responsible global citizenship.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 2675 The Indian Ocean: Communities and Commodities in Motion

Instructor: McDow, Dodie
Days/Times: TR, 9:35-10:55am

Description
This course surveys the long history of the Indian Ocean as a vital arena of world history. We need the Indian Ocean to understand Mahatma Gandhi, Osama bin Laden, and Freddie Mercury. The Indian Ocean was a meeting point for the peoples and cultures of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia long before European colonization, and it has become a site of intense innovation in our global age. It helps of understand the history of East Africa, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia in relation to each other. Part of the story is based on the sea because the Indian Ocean is home to monsoon winds, Sinbad the sailor, and a long history of piracy from British "privateers" Davy Jones and William Kidd to more recent Somali freebooters. But it is also a story of landed empires and strategic port cities. We'll look at the production and circulation of commodities, from spices and textiles, to ivory and cloves, to opium and oil. Slaves and indentured servants crossed the Indian Ocean to work plantations in the past, and we can see new coerced labor regimes in the rise of Persian Gulf states. The Indian Ocean has been the home of Islamic scholarly networks and a focus in the global war on terror. Finally, the Indian Ocean is also an ideal place to study the history of environmental change: the dodo was hunted extinct on one of the ocean's islands in the 17th century, and global warming threatens island nations like the Maldives. In short, this is a course that will provide an introduction to a fascinating region.

General Education
GEL Historical Study, GEL Diversity: Global Studies, GEN Foundation: Historical and Cultural Studies


History 3676 Leadership in History

Instructor: Judd, Robin
Days/Times: WF, 9:35-10:55am

Description
From our nation’s capital to the town council, from business to faith, it is commonplace to hear that we live in a crisis, or absence, of leadership. But what does good leadership mean? And what is its inexorable connection to citizenship? This course employs the lessons, models, and narratives of history to consider different characteristics of leadership and analyze how those qualities might shape students’ own vision of what it means to be an informed citizen. We encourage students to apply historical thinking to answer the questions: What does citizenship, leadership, and followership mean? What responsibilities do we have as citizens to identify and protect the needs, objectives, and values of our communities? How should we act in order to be the kind of people we would wish to follow? Throughout the semester, students will analyze specific historical case studies, which will offer narratives of citizenship, community building and change-making. These case studies will encourage students to think critically, read thoughtfully, compare events across time and place, and articulate and advance ideas with clarity and a generosity of spirit -- all essential tools in becoming informed and active citizens. Moreover, they emphasize the ways in which making connections—to other persons, communities, and environments — shapes how people act as citizens.

General Education
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World


History 4795 Seminar in History: An Introduction to Many Worlds History

Instructor: Anderson, Greg
Days/Times: T, 2:15-5:00pm

Description
Experts in a growing number of fields, from anthropology to international relations, now believe that humans across time and space have in fact lived in a “pluriverse” of many different worlds, not in a universe of just one. The seminar will introduce this exciting new idea, exploring its potentially momentous implications for the practice of History.

The main body of the course will be a kind of journey across history’s pluriverse, considering a series of case studies that immerse us in worlds profoundly unlike our own. They include the worlds of the ancient Greeks, the Chinese of the Ming era (1368-1644), the Aztecs, the Dogon and Mbuti of Africa, and Indigenous peoples of Amazonia, North America, and Scandinavia. Along the way, we will note some basic commonalities that seem to be shared by all of these non-modern worlds, perhaps helping us to explain their relative sustainability over time. How then might this journey change the way we view the very different world of our own modern experience, which has come to prevail across the globe over the past several centuries? And how might it also affect the way we imagine other possible futures?

The course requires no prior specialist knowledge, just an open mind, a curiosity about other ways of being human, and a willingness to consider alternatives.

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