COURSES
Spring 2022 Course Descriptions: 500-700 Level
Please check Genie for updates and your email for updates from your instructors. Changes to the schedule continue to be possible as our world changes.
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE! Always check the University online schedule for the latest changes.
HIS 502 - "Slavery in the Americas"
14815 W 4:00-6:50
Watson Jennison
Comparative analysis of slavery and race relations in South and Central America, the Caribbean, British North America, and the United States, 1501-1888. Cross-listed with HIS 403.
HIS 534 - "Hamilton's America: Race & Gender in the Revolutionary Era"
10836 TR 3:30-4:45
Mandy Cooper
The Broadway musical "Hamilton" has popularized the study of Alexander Hamilton and the rapidly changing world in which he lived. Yet, it has also raised questions regarding the central ideas, acts, and figures of the founding of the United States. This class focuses on a central question in the history of the American Revolution: "a revolution for whom?" We will move beyond the Founders to examine the Revolution from the perspective of women, Native Americans, African Americans, and loyalists, beginning in the late colonial period and continuing through the early American Republic. Finally, we'll examine the stories that we continue to tell of the American Revolution, questioning who takes center stage in those stories—and why that matters. Crosslisted with HIS 434.
HIS 542 - "Violence in the Middle Ages"
10663 MW 2:00-3:15
Richard Barton
This course examines the meaning and consequences of violence during the Middle Ages. It is not a course in military history, nor will it focus simply upon a string of violent episodes. Rather, it attempts to get into the medieval mentality of violence. We will move topically through a selection of primary sources (Gregory of Tours, Galbert of Bruges, Saga of Njall, Raoul of Cambrai, etc) and scholarly analyses of war and peace, feuding, dispute resolution, chivalry, and lordship. As we do so we shall attempt to grapple with some fundamental questions: how did medieval people define 'violence', if they did so at all? How did violence differ from 'force'? Did medieval people consider violent acts to be necessarily bad? If so, under what circumstances? Were certain social orders and/or institutions more or less associated with violence? That is, was violence a component of lordship? To what degree was violence a subjective category imposed by authors, and to what degree was it universal? This course will investigate these and many other questions pertaining to medieval representations of force, violence, and social norms. Crosslisted with HIS 442.
HIS 544 - "Cities and Their Dwellers, 1400-1700: From Paupers to Patricians (and Everyone In-Between)"
10664 TR 2:00-3:15
Jodi Bilinkoff
The period following the end of the Middle Ages was an age of demographic growth, economic expansion, and cultural flourishing throughout western Europe, especially in its urban centers. Indeed, it is hard to think of Shakespeare apart from his London, or Michelangelo without Florence. Scholars have identified the cities of early modern Europe as the sites of innovations as varied and significant as the invention of the printing press, the administration of overseas empires, the Protestant Reformation, the emergence of modern banking, and the Scientific Revolution. In this course we will explore these and other aspects of urban life in Europe between roughly 1400 and 1700. In the process we will encounter some famous political and religious leaders, intellectuals, and artists, as well as the ordinary men and women who constructed the walls and buildings, prepared food, kept legal records, raised children, policed crime, and delivered the goods and services of every sort that kept cities functioning. We will inquire, as well, whether all social groups benefitted equally from the urban experience. In addition to readings in common, each student will choose a city to research for written and oral reports due at the end of the semester. Crosslisted with HIS 444.
HIS 568 - African History and Cultures Through Film
10665 T 4:00-6:50
Colleen Kriger and Cybelle McFadden, (LLC)
In this course we analyze the multiple mappings of 'race,' gender, class, and sexuality in recent Francophone Cinema. Along the way, we examine Africa's precolonial and colonial histories, struggles for independence, and the legacies of these histories in the current post-colonial period. Focusing on the ways in which Africa and Africans have been portrayed in a variety of film genres takes us directly into issues of content – that is, messages conveyed in film about Africa and Africans – and the ways in which those messages are conveyed in order to decode them. Thus we will be identifying stereotypes about Africa in film, and discussing where those stereotypes have come from, in what forms they persist over time, and how politically aware and engaged filmmakers have responded to them. What are the historical, social, economic, political, and cultural forces at play in the production of African films and in their content? What are the challenges of imagining Africa on its own terms and not in relation to the West, especially the former colonial power? How are interactions with the West negotiated? Finally, we will consider how some films and their circulation may change perceptions of Africa both from within and outside the continent. Cross-listed with HIS 469 and LLC 468 and 568. All films will be subtitled in English.
All 600-700 level History courses are for admitted graduate students only. Prerequisite: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or written permission of instructor if you are a graduate student in another department.
HIS 624 - History of American Landscapes and Architecture
14101 T 2:00-4:50
Christopher Vann (Interior Architecture Department)
Examination of the social and cultural forces affecting the design and use of landscapes and buildings in North America from the colonial period through the mid-twentieth century. Prerequisites: Admission to a graduate program in history or interior architecture, or permission of instructor. Notes: Same as IAR 624.
HIS 626 - The Practice of Public History
10838 M 2:00-4:50
Anne Parsons
This course introduces students to the various ways people work and thrive within public history institutions. The course revolves around the theories and practices involved in building relationships with colleagues, audiences, and community partners. Students learn how to write a mission statement, draft a budget, and apply for grants. At the same time, the class engages with the broader issues that underpin these decisions, such as institutional purpose, infrastructural dynamics and sources of financial support. The course culminates in a collaborative class project to conceive of and plan for a public history project to go up in Fall 2022. (Same as IAR 626.)
HIS 631 - Digital History
10839 W 5:30-8:20
Erin Lawrimore
This seminar explores the possibilities and challenges of doing history in digital spaces. Students will gain hands-on training in tools and practices and will design original digital public history projects. Prerequisites: Restricted to graduate students in the History/Museum Studies or PhD Program, unless by written permission of the instructor.
See the M.A. FAQ for more information about the following:
HIS 690 - Internship
HIS 692 - Advanced Topics
HIS 697 - Independent Study
HIS 699 - Thesis
Written permission is required to register for these courses.
HIS 702 - Colloquium in American History
Issues of historical interpretation from Reconstruction to the present.
10843 702-01 R 5:30-8:20
Thomas Jackson
10844 702-02 T 2:00-4:50
David Wight
HIS 704 - Seminar in History
Individual Graduate Faculty
Research and writing on selected topics in history. M.A. students.
HIS 709-01 - Introductory Research Seminar
10845 T 2:00-4:50
Lisa Tolbert
This course is designed as an advanced introduction to professional research practice. You will develop your own research project based on your individual interests. But this course will not operate as if you were pursuing a set of unrelated independent studies. Though your topics will differ widely, you will all be facing similar research and writing problems: finding primary sources, understanding what your evidence means, presenting your findings in an interesting and compelling interpretation. Thus the subject of this course is not based on any particular historical period or topic, rather it is the historical method—the process of historical investigation, and particularly the role of writing in the research process. We will follow the approach of Booth, Colomb, and Williams, who explained in The Craft of Research that "writing is not just the last stage of a research project but from its beginning a guide to critical thinking." Your primary goal in this course is to write a compelling proposal for an original research project. You will develop the proposal in stages and, as in any professional grant competition, peer review will be an important part of the research process in the course.
HIS 709-02 - Introductory Research Seminar: "Germany in the Modern World"
10846 R 2:00-4:50
Teresa Walch
Within a span of less than fifty years in the early 20th century, Germany perpetrated two genocides and largely instigated two world wars. This incredibly violent history prompted some historians to suggest that Germany had followed a "special path" into modernity. But more recent studies have challenged this interpretation, instead underscoring Germany's similarities with other Western nations and illuminating a wealth of global linkages between Germany and the wider world. This course will introduce students to methodologies of researching and writing global and transnational histories through the lens of German history. We will examine Germany's transnational connections—economic, political, cultural, and ideological—in several historical eras during the past century. This approach to history will help students consider when best to center, or decenter, the "nation-state" as an analytic category in historical research. After an introduction to the methodologies and course themes, students will independently design and write an original research paper based on primary sources.
HIS 715 - Atlantic World Selected Topics: "Britain's Empire"
10850 T 5:30-8:20
Jill Bender
This graduate-level reading seminar explores the rise and fall of Britain's modern empire, from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. We will pay particular attention to recent trends in the historiography, as scholars have drawn Britain and its disparate colonies together into one analytical frame. Major course themes will include agency, colonial resistance, and global power.
HIS 716 - Graduate Colloquium in World History
10851 M 4:00-6:50
Linda Rupert, Richard Barton, Jeff Jones, Denisa Jashari
Introduction to World history, the historiography of World studies, and comparative, cross-cultural approaches to historical research.
HIS 721 - Public History Capstone II
10853 R 2:00-4:50
Torren Gatson
This course is part of a two-semester sequence in which students design and execute original, research-driven, independent-study history projects for public audiences, usually with a community or institutional partner. In this semester, students complete detailed development and produce and publicly present their projects. Restricted to graduate students who have completed HIS 720.
100-400 Undergraduate Level Courses | History Major Advising Center | University Catalog | Courses
