History Seminars 2027–28 (Note: List is subject to change)
Fall 2027
HIS 314.01 The U.S. Civil War in History and Memory
Students in this seminar will complete major research projects about the U.S. Civil War and/or its presence in public memory. The Civil War was a major watershed event, and students will study a number of important recent trends and debates in its historiography before defining their own topics of research. We will consider new approaches to analyzing the military, economic, social, gender, and racial dimensions of the war as well as topics such as popular culture, geography, immigration, and transnational history. In addition to studying the war itself, students will also consider how Civil War commemorations continued to shape U.S. history and culture during Reconstruction and beyond. Prerequisites: HIS 100 course and one 200-level U.S. History course. 4 credits. PURCELL
HIS 334.01 Decolonization
In the decades following World War II, more than a quarter of the world's land mass and population were converted from colonies into nation states with surprising speed. But did the end of empire constitute a meaningful transformation or merely the change of a flag? And was the transfer of power as orderly as the imperial powers liked to claim? In this seminar we will explore the timing, causality, character, experience, and impact of the postwar crumbling of the imperial world order. Opening units will investigate recent debates about the more violent clashes over British decolonization in South Asia, East Africa, and the British Isles; students will then develop research projects in these areas or in other national, colonial, or geographic contexts (as appropriate to academic background and language skills). Prerequisites: HIS 100 and HIS 235, 236, 237, 262, 266, 295 (Mysterious Metropolis, GIL S27), 295 (Technology & Colonialism in the Middle East & Global South, F26), or 295 (Gender in the Indian Subcontinent, S25). 4 credits. PREVOST
HIS 378.01 US-East Asian Relations
Civilizations do not clash; empires do. This seminar examines the modern history of U.S.–East Asian relations through the interplay of imperial ambitions, national projects, commercial interests, and cultural exchange. Focusing on China, Japan, Korea, and the United States, we ask how struggles over power and sovereignty shaped an increasingly interconnected Pacific world. How did East Asian societies pursue their own visions of modernity within—and against—an expanding American presence? How did growing economic and cultural connections coexist with racial exclusion and political conflict? How did education, popular culture, family formation, and trade reshape relations among these societies? Through these questions, we examine how governments, businesses, institutions, and individuals both sustained and challenged relationships across the Pacific.
Prerequisites: HIS 100 Course and any 200-level HIS course, and by permission. 4 credits. LUO
Spring 2028
History 35X Black Classics
Intellectual history, focus on “history of a book”
Prerequisites: HIS 100 course and one 200-level history course. ALMOHSEN
History 336.01 The Metropolis
This seminar takes as its starting point the phenomenon of radical urbanization in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through the lens of comparative case studies in and beyond Europe, we consider the unintended consequences of these unprecedented and unpredictable growth spurts. How did life in cities upend traditional social roles and rules? What kinds of new possibilities — physical, psychological, imaginative — did previously isolated and often marginalized people explore? How did city dwellers build new communities and create new identities? Working collaboratively, students develop research projects centered in any urban context(s) since the 18th century. Prerequisites: HIS 100 course and one 200-level history course. 4 credits. MAYNARD
History 342.01: Stalinism
This seminar will examine the political, social, and cultural history of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, with a particular focus on the 1930s. The first half of the course will feature a series of common readings on topics such as the rise of Stalin's dictatorship, the Great Terror of the 1930s, and the drive to collectivize Soviet agriculture and industrialize the economy; we'll discuss the nature of everyday life and social identity under Stalin, look at the impact of propaganda and revolutionary ideology on the values and mindset of the population, and debate whether Stalinism represented the continuation of the revolution or a divergence from its ideals. After looking at a set of representative primary sources (such as oral histories, memoirs, and diaries), students will then produce a research paper in the second half of the semester, delving into some aspect of Soviet society and politics under Stalin. Prerequisite: HIS-100 and HIS-242 or 244. 4 credits. COHN