G – Global Perspectives PE – Perspectives/European PN – Perspectives/Non European PCI – Perspectives/Comp, Intl R – Race & Inclusion TH – Textual & Historical Perspectives WT – Western Traditions T1 – Writing Tier-1 T2 – Writing Intensive SLA Tier -2
1000 LEVEL COURSES
HIST 1500 Eating and Drinking in History (Moore) TH, T1
This course will take an overarching approach to eating and drinking, including modules on cultural relationships with alcohol; labor and food production; and commodity chains and trade. Students will help develop the topics for the second half of the course, allowing them to be involved in the direction and focus of the course itself.
HIST 1520 Pain & Torture Through History (Pollock) G, TH, T1
A seminar course for first year students designed to introduce college level reading, discussion and writing. The UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1987 unequivocally banned the use of torture. Nevertheless, torture still occurs, even in the 130 countries that ratified the agreement. There is a great deal of controversy about what constitutes torture and some claim that it is justified in special situations like the War on Terror. This course will examine the goals and methods of torture through history, as it moved from a focus of inflicting pain to the use of psychological torture and sensory deprivation. We will explore how to study pain in history - does pain exist as an entity; unravel the changing relationships between the state, law, and torture; look at the torturers themselves - who they are, how they learn the techniques, and the effects on them. We will also consider what it says about us when we pursue "enhanced" quasi-torture interrogation techniques.
HISU 1910 New Orleans History- 300 yrs + (Clark) R, TH, T1
This lecture course surveys the 300+ year history of New Orleans, with a special emphasis on the city’s social and cultural contributions, including: food, music, art, literature, civil rights, and the best place in the nation to catch a sneak preview of what the end of the world might look like. to skin color in the region? Specific topics we will discuss include the history of slavery in the Islamic world, European imperialism, depictions of racial and ethnic difference in media, and present-day connotations of difference in the region.
HISU 1910 Circus! Am History & Identity (Parker) R, TH, T1
2000 LEVEL COURSES
HISE 2250 Russia Since 1825- Present (Ramer) G, TH, WT, T1
Russia from 1825 to the Present. This course examines Russian culture, politics, and society from the early nineteenth century through to the present day. The period witnessed dramatic transformations: the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917; Stalin’s social and cultural transformations, including its human cost; the Second World War; and the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower in the Cold War era. The course concludes with by pondering the reasons for the Soviet Union’s collapse, Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, and the nature of today’s Putin regime.
HISE 2420 The Age of Reformation (Boyden) G, TH, WT, T1
Lectures, readings, discussion, and writing assignments will examine the transformation of Western Christendom from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, with particular emphasis on the state of the late-medieval Church, the various streams of the Protestant Reformation, Catholic responses to the reformers, and the wars and political consequences generated by religious division.
HISE 2910 Modern Britain (Pollock) TH, T1
Britain since 1760: Britain as the first modern industrial economy & the political & social consequences; the empire & Britain’s expanding role in the world; the consequences of the two world wars; & debates over Britain’s decline since 1945.
HISE 2911 Old/New Fascism (Otte) G, TH, T1
This course addresses the vexing questions of what fascism is, whether it was a global phenomenon, and whether it has been historically banished. The semester begins with a consideration of conceptual issues related to nationalism, modernity, and fascism. We will address case studies, noting comparative continuities and regional peculiarities. The countries that will receive the most attention are Germany, France, Italy, and Spain with additional (comparative) attention to a great variety of other countries (Hungary, Poland, US). The course will include an examination of the links between fascism, art and performance, and the applicability of the term “fascism” to contemporary (populist) movements in Europe and beyond.
HISL 2110 Colonial Latin America (Richards) G, TH, T1
The year 1492 marked a major watershed in global history, as Europeans began a process of colonial expansion in the Americas that would continue for several centuries. This course explores the long and complex colonial history of Latin America that began in 1492 and ended in most of the region in the 1810s and 1820s. Main themes include the long processes of material and spiritual conquest; indigenous resistance and accommodation; the Columbian Exchange of plants, animals, and diseases; the creation of colonial economies of extraction and regional articulation; the rise of mixed-race societies; and the development of colonial institutions of church and state. The course also treats the expansion of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, along with the rise of resistance movements and frontier challenges to colonial rule. We end with the responses to new crown demands in the eighteenth century and the collective struggle for independence that began in 1808.
HISL 2820 Modern Brazil (Cruz) G, TH, T1
Brazilian history from 1822, including the first and second empires and the republic. Attention is given to the liquidation of slavery, the replacement of imperial values by the establishment of the republic, and the military question.
HISL 2850 Central America Radicals (Wolfe) G, TH, T1
Central Americans have engaged in some of the most important radical and democratic movements of the 20th century. Especially after the triumph of the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979, Central America became the news story of the 1980s. Radical movements and civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador intensified over this decade. While some saw these battles as the "twilight struggle" of the so-called Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, a battle over a supposed Soviet beachhead in "our backyard" these events have a much longer legacy. dating at least to the late-nineteenth century and involving domestic issues as much as international ones.
HISL 2910 Modern Latin America (Sanchez) TH, T1
This course explores Latin America from its raucous independence movements, through democratic, dictatorial, and revolutionary transformations between the 1820s and the 21st century. How the former colonies became independent states is equally crucial to understanding current conflicts and aspirations.
HISL 2911 Environmental Hst of Lat Am (Lane) G, TH, T1
This course examines key topics in the environmental history of Latin America from 1492 to the present, including water management, deforestation, mono-cropping, livestock grazing, mining, and urbanization.
HISU 2605 Twentieth Century America (Plunkett) R, TH, T1
A survey of twentieth century U.S. history, focused on politics, culture, and the environment. Topics include immigration, imperialism, suffrage, Jim Crow, the Great Depression, the New Deal, world wars, the Civil Rights Movement, conservatism, the War on Terror, climate change, and America's future.
HISU 2620 The New South, 1865-Present (Sparks) R, TH, T1
An examination of the economic, political, cultural, and intellectual forces that have shaped the American South since the Civil War. Central themes include the rise of sharecropping and tenancy, the struggle for civil rights, the emergence of two-party politics, and the metamorphosis of popular values and social norms triggered by the events of the 1960s. The course will explore the paradox of continued self-conscious regional identity in the face of constant internal change. Optional Service Learning
HISU 2650 US Immigration History (Lipman) R, TH, T1
In this class students will gain a solid foundation in mid-19th and 20th century immigration in the United States and grapple with the following themes: immigrant community formation, the interplay between immigration and American labor, the changing immigration law, the intersection of immigration and U.S. racial formations, and the prominence of immigrant narratives in American culture. The course will also ask that students grapple with contemporary problems and recognize the historic antecedents and struggles behind today's current events.
HISU 2911 Hist of the Digital Revolution (Isaacson) TH, T1
This course will explore the digital revolution from the 1830s to the present, beginning with Ada Lovelace and the conception of a general-purpose computer and culminating with the creation of social networks, the sharing economy, and artificial intelligence. It will focus on how disruptive businesses were spawned by the three inventions that combined to create the digital age: the computer, the microchip, and the internet.
3000 LEVEL COURSES
HISA 3170 Medieval Spain (Boyden) G, TH, T1
Readings, discussion, and essays examine the sweep of Iberian history from the late Roman empire until the early 16th century, with particular attention to the Visigothic monarchy, the society and culture of Islamic al-Andalus, the reconquest and development of the Christian kingdoms of Castile-León, Portugal, and Aragon, and the interaction of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in peninsular society. The development of a distinctive Castilian culture, later transplanted in large part to Spanish America, will be studied through close attention to legal codes, domestic arrangements, military organization, the Inquisition, and the classics of medieval Castilian literature.
HISC 3910 History of Women in China (DeMare) G, TH, T1
HISE 3260 Putin's Russia (Ramer) G, TH, T1, T2
The period between the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the present in Russia has witnessed dramatic changes in every dimension of Russian life, from political ideology and institutions to the transformation of economy, society, and broader culture. This seminar seeks to illuminate the nature of these transformative changes, focusing particular attention on Vladimir Putin's rise to power, the character of his rule, and the reasons for his popularity in Russia. The reasons for the growth in popular as well as state hostility to the West and Western culture forms a particularly important part of the course.
HIST 3910 Hist of Science & Technology (Cruz) G, TH, T1
HISU 3911 Louisiana Folk History (Parker) TH, T1, T2
4000 LEVEL COURSES
HISB 4210 Hist of Development in Africa (McMahon) G, TH, T2
This course explores the concept of "development" as it was brought to Africa by Europeans in the 19th century and how Africans have responded until the 21st century.
HISE 4140 Household Gender Sexuality (Pollock) G, TH, T1, T2
Advanced lecture course examining families in Western Europe from the renaissance to the eighteenth century: concept of family and household, marriage, childbirth and child care, servants, family relationships, construction of gender, women and the economy, as well as attitudes to and regulation of sexuality.
HISL 4910 Cuban Rev: History-Myth-Memory (García) G, TH
6000 LEVEL COURSES
HISE 6913 Postwar Cultures/Culture Wars (Otte) G, TH
This course explores the many ways daily life and political ideologies have intersected in the postwar period among ordinary European citizens in the era of the “iron curtain.” Discussions will range from leisure time activities, youth activism, and divergent food cultures to experiences of political violence and ethnic tensions. We will explore how the cold war produced significant differences in the moral and ethical value systems held up by Europeans on both sides of the Berlin Wall. We will also be interested in the persistence of these value systems long after the political regimes that produced them had collapsed.
HISL 6600 Peasants, Rebellion, & the State (Wolfe) G, PN, TH
As late as 1940, 80% of Latin America’s population lived in the countryside. Latin American elites sought to confine them to plantation labor for the US and European export markets. Rural people resented and resisted their exploitation, using community identity to organize themselves and participating as key actors in Latin American rebellions, social movements and revolutions. The emerging states in Latin America were certainly more powerful than any individual or rural community and in the historical record the voice of the state is heard more frequently than that of the peasant. A primary goal of this class will be an effort to see peasants as real historical actors, try consider this history from their perspective, and look at the challenges of doing so. How and why did peasants respond to the new states? Did they ignore change or challenge it? Did they passively accept change, rise up in rebellion, or walk a middle path between the two? Did they act or just react? In this seminar, we will consider these issues through in-depth case studies.
HISU 6350 Hist Gender Violence (Haugeberg) R, TH, T2
This course draws upon historical and theoretical literature, memoir, film, and fiction to examine the history of gender-based violence in the United States. Topics will include domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, forced sterilization, and violence against LGBTQ+ people. We will study power relations related to race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender. We will analyze resistance to violence, systems that enable violence, and the legal, medical, and social discourses that have resisted and enabled gender-based violence. This course does not have any pre- or co-requisites.
HISU 6910 Hollywood! (Fertel) TH, T2
HISU 6911 US Culture : US Capitalism (Teichgraeber) TH, T2
This seminar explores the question of why the industrialization of the American economy prompted an unprecedented wave of interest in building new cultural institutions, ranging from mass market advertising and department stores to museums, the national park system and universities.
HISU 6912 America on Trial (Sparks) TH, T2
From the Salem Witchcraft Trials to the O. J. Simpson case, celebrated court cases have captured public attention and left their mark on American history. Through an examination of some of the most significant court cases from the colonial period to the present, we will assess their impact on U.S. legal, social, and cultural history.
G – Global Perspectives PE – Perspectives/European PN – Perspectives/Non European PCI – Perspectives/Comp, Intl R – Race & Inclusion TH – Textual & Historical Perspectives WT – Western Traditions T1 – Writing Tier-1 T2 – Writing Intensive SLA Tier -2