Course Descriptions

An introductory graduate readings course in American historiography. The class examines the leading schools of historical opinion from the founding of American society through the modern era.

Prereq: HIST 801

This course will introduce graduate students to the history profession and to the tools and methods used by historians.

This graduate course examines contemporary issues and practices in the field of public history. The format of this course will vary depending on the topic, instructor, and the needs of the students. May be repeated with each new offering.

HIST 848: Age of Eisenhower will explore readings and topics that situate the 1950s into larger national and global exchanges. By examining the dynamic relationships between American society, culture, politics, and international affairs, this course will provide students with a deeper understanding of how the early Cold War era made and remade American culture and life throughout mid-twentieth century. The Age of Eisenhower will also introduce you to the most influential monographs and scholars on this era as well as the newer works.

This course surveys the social, political, economic, and cultural histories of agriculture in North America in the modern era. Agricultural History will explore readings and topics that also situates the field into larger international and global exchanges. By examining these dynamic relationships Agricultural History aims to provide students with a deeper understanding of how farm and food history intersects with other sub-specialties such as medicine and health history as well as military, foreign relations, and environmental histories. Agricultural History will also introduce you to the most influential monographs and scholars of the field as well as the newer works.

This graduate readings course will provide a broad historiographic overview of the American West from pre-European contact to about 1900. We will cover an array of traditional Western topics such as territorial expansion, exploration, fur trade, cattle frontier, mining, law and order, and homesteading. This course will also cover themes from the New Western history, including Native peoples, borderlands, race and gender, and environmental history. Students will become familiar with pioneering historians in the field such as Frederick Jackson Turner, Walter Prescott Webb, and Herbert Eugene Bolton and New Western historians such as Patricia Limerick, Elliott West, and Ann Hyde. The goal of this course is to introduce students to multiple perspectives and interpretations about the many people who have lived in and experienced the American West.

This online graduate course is an introduction to the field of colonial American history. Over the course of the semester, we will read foundational works in the field and consider how historians have gradually expanded the definition of colonial America to include new peoples, places, and subjects. After examining the work of the influential Consensus historian Perry Miller and one of his students, Bernard Bailyn, we will turn to three different subfields: histories of African American slavery, accounts of Native-European encounters, and histories of gender in colonial America. 

This course is designed to meet two goals: to teach students to think critically about the production, consumption, and transmission of local and community-level history, and to prepare them to become public scholars in their communities. It will teach students to conduct local historical research and to present that research and knowledge to public audiences. But more importantly, it will challenge them to critically consider local historical memory and notions of “heritage,” how people construct a sense of identity and place in their communities, how historical knowledge shapes civic engagement, and how people have used history at the local level to influence power relations. Course assignments encourage students to contextualize local historical events, conduct local historical research, envision how to lead their own communities to become more inclusive and comprehensive in their historical interpretation, and write for public audiences. 

An on-line graduate reading and research course. Through assigned readings, written reviews, research papers, and group discussions, students will explore critical issues in American Constitutional History. Special attention will be devoted to the development of the U.S. Constitution and the ongoing historiographic debate about its origins, nature, and continuing influence. Additional attention will focus on critical constitutional questions and Supreme Court decisions throughout American history.

The American frontier is oftentimes synonymous with crime, violence, and disorder. Images of gunfighters on dusty cow town streets, gun toting law officers, and vigilantes hanging a ruffian from a tree are common images of frontier America. This course will explore the history and legacy of American frontier law and order. Students will read classic books, recent scholarship, and view Hollywood films to try and uncover whether or not the American frontier deserves to be labeled as a region where crime and violence prevailed over law and order. Students will have weekly readings, asynchronous discussions, and a variety of writing assignments.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a broad range of the scholarly literature on the Gilded Age. Readings have been chosen because of their importance in shaping thought on a subject related to the history of the Gilded Age, or they are important for other reasons.

The goals and objectives of this course are: 

To create a community experience of discussion, analysis, critical thinking, and writing about the essential themes, personalities, and events that defines the history of the Hispanic communities of the Americas and their relationship to the United States.  

To facilitate and assist students in building an academic resource base in this area of study which they will be able to use for future academic work.

To facilitate and assist students in creating their own analytical framework for discussing Hispanic immigration and Hispanics in America.   

This graduate-level online readings course is designed to introduce students to the major themes, debates, and issues in the dynamic field of historic preservation. More than simply saving old places, historic preservationists today believe in the power of historic places to influence our sense of community, inspire creativity, promote sustainability, support local economies, and provide connection to the pasts around us. At the same time, a critical look at historic preservation’s own history reveals systemic issues and inequalities that should encourage us to think about how our historic places might work to better reflect the fullness and complexity of American history. The readings for this course are chosen to both demonstrate the importance of historic preservation and promote critical reflection on its practice, historically and in the present.

In this graduate readings course, we will assess the growing body of work on Native American history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and particularly the work of historians who have investigated indigenous borderlands: places where Native peoples encountered one another and the agents of the Spanish, French, and British empires. The selected readings focus on different sites of Indian-European encounter—from coastal New England to Nevada’s Great Basin—and the people who negotiated early American borderlands, including Native captives, interpreters, and navigators. 

Scholars have recently shown how Native American nations were not simply subjects of European colonialism but also expansive powers that governed and collected tribute from other Native peoples and Europeans alike. Like European nations and empires, Indigenous polities defined borders, conquered new territories, and developed protocols of border crossing and travel through foreign lands. In this course, we will study Indigenous powers in North America between the rise of Cahokia and the Lakota struggle against the U.S. Army.

The course will begin in the twelfth-century Mississippi Valley, where Cahokian peoples built enormous mounds, developed large agricultural surpluses, and received tribute from distant people who conducted pilgrimages to their cities. The leaders of the Cahokia polity wielded economic, political, and spiritual power. Following the collapse of Cahokia, different Indigenous polities emerged as agents of power, including the Iroquois in New York. We will consider the language and categories that historians have used to describe the political structure of the Iroquois, including "empire," a term that historians have also applied to the Comanches, who enlisted horses to become the dominant power in the southern plains in the eighteenth century. The course will conclude by addressing the conflicts of the 1860s and 1870s, when the dominant power of the central and northern Great Plains—the Lakota Sioux—resisted American expansion.

Traditionally college courses on the American West ended at 1890, the year the US Census concluded that the frontier period had ended. Noted historian Frederick Jackson Turner first promoted this ending point in his 1893 Frontier Thesis essay and then generations of historians perpetuated it in the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1960s but coming of age in the late 1980s and 1990s, New Western Historians refuted the 1890 end date and began revising the ideas of the Turnerians. Consequently, new areas of research opened to historians that included the exploration of race and gender, urbanization, environmental issues, federal government power and expansion, the impact of depression and war, persistence and resilience of Native peoples, and a host of other non-traditional western themes.

Note: The History Department provides a two part sequence on the American West. Part I (The American West) covers the years from before European contact to roughly 1890. Part II (The Modern West) covers the years from 1890 to the present. Students who are specializing in the American West as an examination field or thesis area should take both courses. Other students may take one or the other. Part I is not a prerequisite for taking Part II.

This course is an introduction to formative work in the field of Native American history. Since the 1970s, scholars have been expanding the archival and methodological reach of Native American history to include indigenous sources and comparative perspectives about the experience of colonialism. The selected readings represent Native histories across North America—from New York to Seattle—and address experiences of indigenous individuals, families, kinship groups, and nations.

We will begin with foundational works in the field of Native American history that address the different dimensions of indigenous power and the ways in which Native peoples managed natural resources. Turning to the nineteenth century, we will analyze how historians have explained the environmental and biological costs of colonialism and the violence of dispossession and removal. The semester concludes with the work of historians who have drawn from interviews and aspects of material culture to convey indigenous experiences through the twentieth century and up to the present day.

A graduate readings course examining major historiographic issues in key periods and topics in American history. Topics will include (but are not limited to) Colonial America, the Early Republic, Civil War and Reconstruction, Gilded Age/Progressive America, Western and Native American history, the Great Depression, World War II, Environmental history, the Cold War, Civil Rights, and Recent America.
 
This course explores the history of the Midwest and its role in United States history. It draws on the region’s broad social, political, cultural, and civic movements to understand how the Midwest emerged as a distinctive region. Through readings of influential and innovative historical works students will deepen their understanding of the region’s history and the conflicts and contests that shaped its political, cultural, and social compositions. We will consider the varied and overlapping narratives of the Midwest to not only better understand this region, but also its larger impact on the United States and the world.

The course will introduce students to the theory and practice of historic interpretation at historic sites and museums. Using readings, assignments, peer review, site visits, and discussion boards, students will learn about crafting high quality interpretive narratives grounded in sound scholarship while obtaining usable skills for the public history profession. Students will be exposed to literature that introduces them to the philosophy of interpretation as well as provides them with practical case studies and exercises that will prepare them for work in the field. Quality interpretation for historical resources involves sound scholarship and collaboration between academics, working professionals, and the general public, so students will be asked to conduct research using both primary and secondary literature as well as collaborate with partners and consider their potential audiences. 

This graduate readings course explores the political, social, cultural, and environmental history of America’s national parks and monuments. Selected readings introduce students to the origins of the National Park idea and then examine how the National Park Service has responded to the challenges of the past century. Topics covered include: the struggle to preserve natural and cultural resources, the influence of tourism and modernity on the parks, the politics of displacement and representation, and the ongoing practice of public history within the National Park Service system.

The 1970s may be one of the most misunderstood, overlooked, and readily dismissed decades of the 20^th century. Ask people who lived through those years for their impressions and they will likely recall with displeasure gasoline shortages, polyester leisure suits, and disco. Others may lament the collapse of postwar liberalism or the “Movement,” that collective burst of activism for expanded rights and social justice that defined the 1960s. Many people still scorn the decade for inner city turmoil, environmental problems, and economic distress. This course will revisit and complicate some of those lingering perceptions about the 1970s. Course readings will examine sweeping political changes stemming from labor struggles, ongoing racial tension, foreign policy, and backlash against the dramatic social changes wrought in the 1960s. At the same time, they will also examine the advancement of human and environmental rights, particularly as they expanded due to localized grassroots movements. Finally, course readings consider cultural phenomena that linked 1960s countercultural movements to the popularization of organic food, “green” technology, and, oddly enough, evangelical Protestantism.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of oral history.  The first portion of the course will engage scholarship related to oral history, particularly works emphasizing the history of the field, oral history as methodology, tools for conducting oral history, and individual and collective memory. Readings will prompt students to think about how individual and public memories are constructed and shaped over time as well as the dynamic relationship that occurs during the interview process between interviewer and interviewee. The course will pay particular attention to ethical and legal considerations related to the practice, including IRB oversight, intellectual property, and bias. Finally, students will be expected to complete an oral history interview with a person of their choice, employing skills that they learn during the practicum section of the course. 

 Historians of the American West have long debated over the relationship between the American West and the Pacific Ocean. Many scholars argue that the West stops at the Pacific while another group extends the West into the Pacific Ocean to include Hawaii, Alaska, and maritime cultures. This course will explore the American relationship with the Pacific Ocean by addressing themes such as indigenous societies, European exploration and colonization, extractive economies, tourism, federal government presence and dependence, and Native dispossession.

This course is an introduction to recent, influential work in Plains Indian history. Readings span the length of the Great Plains, from the Texas borderlands to the U.S.-Canada border; multiple centuries, from the 1200s to the present day; and different methodological approaches, including environmental history, relations of gender, material cultures, and public memory. Throughout the semester, we will explore core questions in the field as well as the terrain between history and other disciplines, including archaeology, art, and the natural sciences.

We will begin with two works that reconstruct the ancient histories of Plains Indians through oral histories, archaeological evidence, and environmental research. Turning to the nineteenth century, we will analyze how historians have explained the environmental and biological costs of colonialism and the violence of dispossession and removal. The semester concludes with the work of historians who have drawn from interviews and aspects of material culture to convey indigenous experiences through the twentieth century and up to the present day.

            The assigned readings have not only influenced scholars in other fields but also reached beyond the academy to speak to the wider public. They have reshaped, and in some cases challenged, how educators, curators, and journalists communicate Plains Indian history in classrooms, museums, and media forums. We will consider how these historians wrote for multiple audiences and incorporated evidence into compelling narratives. Readings will hopefully provide models for your own research and writing in Plains Indian history as well as opportunities to discuss ways of working with contemporary indigenous communities.

This course explores the recent historiography of the Populist movement.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to a broad range of the scholarly literature on the Progressive Era. Readings have been chosen because of their importance in shaping thought on a subject related to the history of the Progressive Era, or they are important for other reasons.

This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the theory and practice of public history. A growing body of scholarship on public history has emerged over the past few decades, seeking to develop a better understanding of the underlying principles of the field and the challenges of doing history in public. This class will expose students to both classic as well as new scholarship on public history, explore several key issues facing the practice of public history today, and offer hands-on, practical experience through the preparation of a grant proposal and the completion of a real-world public history project.

This course is designed to equip students with knowledge and skills needed to become public history administrators. The course material will necessarily vary in content, ranging from “how-to” guides and reflections from public history professionals to theoretical essays designed to prompt discussion about major issues facing the field. Monographs and case studies will introduce students to the history of museums and historic sites in America, ethical considerations, digital history, legal questions, and career options. Students will also learn about grant writing and fundraising, perhaps one of the least glamorous but most important aspects of a public historian’s work. While the content leans toward museum work, the readings lend themselves well to other areas of public history. The course also draws upon more general examinations of non-profit management, participatory philosophies, collaborative community research, and entrepreneurship so that students will be equipped with skills and ideas that will help them succeed in the professional realm.

This course surveys the social, political, economic, and cultural histories of technologies and science in the modern era. Science and Technology will explore readings and topics that situate both fields into larger international and global exchanges. By examining the dynamic relationships between science, technology, and society, this course will provide students with a deeper understanding of how these histories intersect with other sub-specialties such as medicine and health history as well as military, foreign relations, and environmental and agricultural histories. Science and Technology will also introduce you to the most influential monographs and scholars of both fields as well as the newer works.

This course will examine the origins, development, and significance of sports, athletics, recreation, and leisure in the US from the colonial era to the modern age. Students will be introduced to the major sports historians and the primary historiographical arguments in the field. While we will briefly explore the origins of modern-day sports such as baseball, football, and basketball, the primary focus of the course will be the relationship of sports to larger historical themes such as modernization and urbanization, race and gender, and economics and politics.

This class will acquaint students with the history of the Age of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that spread throughout Europe and its colonies during the 1700s. Based upon the premise that all men possessed reason and would organize the world in a rational manner, the Enlightenment posed significant challenges to the status quo. For Europeans living during the eighteenth century, this period brought profound changes in the organization of societies, economies, militaries, and political and religious systems. Students will analyze and discuss Europe during the eighteenth century to investigate the nature of the Enlightenment and its impact throughout Europe.

The British Empire was the world’s largest empire. By 1900 it encompassed one quarter of the globe and accounted for a fifth of the world’s population. This course explores cultural, political and economic themes of this vast empire. The topics covered in this course include – How was this empire created? The role of race in the Empire, the global trading empire, the role of the Indian Raj, the British African Empire, and the demise of British imperialism. In doing so the course seeks to establish how Britain shaped and in turn was shaped by its empire.

This course is a broad survey of the main political, military and religious features of the Byzantine Empire from roughly 330 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.  The course will be run largely through discussion boards and three ten-page unit essays.  The main readings for each week are supplemented by three primary sources in translation to help students better understand the periods that we will be moving through rather quickly.

The study of Cold War history has changed greatly. Only two decades ago historians and political researches had to limit themselves to the analysis of Western sources. As a result, Western policy occupied the main place in their research. It was very difficult to come to objective judgments about the Soviet Union and the entire Communist Bloc. With the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc in the early 1990s the Eastern European archives opened and historians had an opportunity to study previously secret documents. As a result, a number of books, volumes of documents, and articles discussing numerous aspects of the post-World War II history of Eastern Europe appeared. This class will provide a survey of the recent literature on Eastern Europe from 1945 to the accession of the Eastern European countries to the European Union. Just as the collapse of the region's communist regimes took social scientists by surprise in 1989, so too has the divergence of political and economic trajectories since. In some countries, democratic institutions were swiftly consolidated. In others, free elections produced "illiberal democracies." Likewise, in the economic sphere, outcomes have varied widely: while some governments quickly managed difficult reforms and laid the conditions for growth, others faced extended economic stagnation. Finally, a number of the region's states have joined the European Union and NATO, a process that, arguably, has deepened democracy and cemented economic reforms while simultaneously rousing fears of NATO once again in today’s Russia. Our survey of political and economic developments in this region will cover democratization and political participation; privatization and macroeconomic reform; nationalism and ethnic conflict; as well as regional integration. Though we will cover the whole region, the countries that will receive primary consideration are East Germany, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. The purpose of this course is to introduce graduate students to some of the best and most controversial recent historical writings on post-1945 Eastern Europe.  The goal is to offer an overview of the period with an emphasis on a few key issues that have sustained recent scholarly interest.  We will examine how historians reevaluate some old questions today and we will have an opportunity to analyze new and old historiographical questions in depth.

This course will compare issues relating to the theory and practice of Marxist regimes.  We will use policies as developed in the Soviet Union as our basis for comparison, focusing on the cult of personality, persuasion and culture vs violence and repression, and policies directed at the peasants and at women.  In the process, we will also consider the balance in each country between ideology, pragmatic political considerations, and historical traditions as well as the ability of ordinary citizens to influence policy. Then each student will choose another communist country to research and will write a 20-25 page paper comparing the application of any one of those policies in that country and in the Soviet Union.  During the second part of the semester, students will share articles on their chosen country’s policies with colleagues. 

This class will examine cultural practices regarding cemeteries and death in Europe, the United States and in global perspective. It considers historical explanations for how individuals and societies have dealt with death and the disposal of human remains over time and space. Among other topics, the course will address issues of cemetery organization, structure and management, grave marker design, health and sanitation concerns, burial rituals and practices, body disposal and funeral options. 

The history of the postwar period in Europe has changed dramatically over the last quarter century.  The end of the Cold War brought an end to the era that began with the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and prompted a consideration of the postwar period outside the context of superpower domination. The fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany made it possible to think about the period from the 1940s to the 2000s with a greater sense of historical distance. Developments after 1990 brought issues to the fore that had been obscured by Cold War era politics.  A new generation of historians turned their attention to a variety of new subjects: gender, identity, culture, youth, post-colonialism, immigration, and the environment.  Problems and success related to European integration, the resurgence of nationalism in Eastern Europe, and the rise of xenophobic right-wing movements in Western Europe have shifted the focus of postwar scholarship toward a new set of contradictions and dilemmas.  Most importantly, the opening of the archives of the former Soviet Bloc countries, and the greater availability of archival material in Western archives related to the 1940s and 1950s, has allowed historians to reexamine conventional interpretations, and have drawn a growing number of researchers to the field.

The purpose of this course is to introduce graduate students to the best and most controversial recent historical writing on postwar Europe.  The goal is to offer an overview of the period with an emphasis on a few key issues that have sustained recent scholarly interest.  We will examine how old questions are being written about today and we will have an opportunity to analyze new and old historiographical questions in depth. 

This class will investigate the ways in which gender and war have intersected  in the region and era of modern Europe from the 18^th c to the present.  Among the topics to be considered will be women in the military, as victims, peace activists, and as proponents of war in the Napoleonic Wars, the First and Second World Wars, and the wars of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.  We will also consider how war affects men, including such topics as why men fight or choose not to, cross dressers in the military, and the question of gay/lesbian soldiers in the military.  

This course surveys the social, political, economic, and cultural histories of global pandemics in the modern era. Global Pandemics will explore readings and topics that the history of infectious diseases into larger international and global exchanges. By examining the dynamic relationships between science, infectious disease, and society, this course will provide students with a deeper understanding of how these histories intersect with other sub-specialties such as medicine and health history as well as military, foreign relations, and environmental and agricultural histories. Global Pandemics will also introduce you to the most influential monographs and scholars of both fields as well as the newer works.

This course covers events in Russia from Peter the Great in 1613 up to the Revolution of February 1917.  Essentially, then, it covers the rise and fall of the Romanov Dynasty.  Among the key issues to be addressed will be the nature of Russian autocracy, the Westernizer/Slavophile Debate, serfdom and emancipation, the War of 1812 and Decembrist Revolt, the development of the intelligentsia and opposition, including anarchism, populism, liberalism, and socialism, nationalism and conservatism, and finally the Revolution of 1905, Duma, and First World War.

This Course covers the political history of later medieval England from the reign of Richard II to that of Richard III. The course does not deal with social, religious or economic issues except where these impinge on the high politics of the realm.

This course will examine the history of 19th century Britain. It will focus on the political and social developments of Britain at home and with a week on the development of the British Empire.  It will provide an in-depth look at the politics of repression during the Napoleonic Wars, to the pressures for Reform, the Great Reform Bill of 1832, Chartism, the Repeal of the Corn Laws and discussions of Free Trade, the Reform Bill of 1867 and 1885, the great ministries of Gladstone and Disraeli, the Indian Summer of the last decades of the century, the Arms Race and the descent into War in 1914.

This course examines the modern history of France from the Napoleonic era to contemporary France’s role in the European Union and globalization. Presently in its Fifth Republic since the Revolution of 1789, France has fundamentally reinvented its political system in vastly different ways in a struggle to resolve the unanswered questions of 1789 and meet the needs of the present. The French state and its people have lived under monarchies, republics, and empires, as well as a commune, a regime that collaborated willingly with the Nazis, and now a supranational entity known as the European Union. France’s social transformations have been equally dramatic as evidenced by the destruction of the ancient regime’s system of social estates and the creation of urban social classes; the forging of a national identity in an age of empire building; and the influx of immigrants from that empire’s overseas colonies in the late 20^th century. In this course, we will also examine what it has meant to be “French” in the modern era through a variety of lenses ranging from legal definitions of nationality, a transatlantic perspective and cultural constructions.

After almost seventy-five years, the rather short eleven years of Nazi rule in Germany remain one of the most intensively studied topics in European history. Most of the prevalent myths about Nazism, however, can be traced back to narratives the Nazis constructed about themselves. This course will explore the history of Germany between 1933 and 1945 by investigating National Socialism as a political, social, and cultural phenomenon, and by placing it within the larger framework of German history. We will concentrate on some of the most crucial questions surrounding this period: Why did the Nazi Party come to power? What were the sources of the Nazi regime's ideology? Why did the Nazis gain widespread popular support? What roles did women play in the Nazi dictatorship? When, why, and how did Nazi leaders decide to exterminate European Jewry? What motivated the murderers? How do we define "collaboration" or "resistance" in Germany between 1933 and 1945? The magnitude of the events has led some scholars to suggest that the Shoah defies explanation. The premise of this course, however, is that Nazi Germany and the Shoah can and, must be scrutinized by historians.
 
The purpose of this course is to introduce graduate students to some of the finest historical writing on Nazi Germany. The goal is to offer an overview of the period with an emphasis on a few key issues that have sustained recent scholarly interest. We will examine how old questions are being written about today and we will have an opportunity to analyze new and old historiographical questions in depth.

19^th Century Europe covers the long century between the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914.  The course emphasizes the revolutionary changes that created the modern era in Europe.  The topics covered include: the French Revolution & Napoleonic Wars, The Congress of Vienna, The Industrial Revolution, the Rise of Liberalism, Socialism, and Nationalism, the Revolutions of 1848, the Wars of Unification (Italy & Germany), The Second Industrial Revolution, Social & Political Change, the New Imperialism, and Great Power Diplomacy.

The purpose of this section of History 849 is to acquaint students with the history of The Reformation. Beginning in the early 1500s, the Reformation began as a movement among Catholic clergy to reform the church. It quickly developed into a new religious movement known as Protestantism that challenged not only accepted ideas about religion, but also brought profound changes to European politics and societies. Students will analyze and discuss the causes and nature of the Reformation, its impact throughout Europe, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

The purpose of this section of History 849 is to acquaint students with the history of The Renaissance. The Renaissance began in the Italian peninsula during the 1300s and gradually spread to northern Europe by the 1500s. This period saw the rise of the Italian city states, which were dynamic centers of trade and culture. These cities oversaw the development of new and radical ideas about politics, culture, and society. By the early 1500s, the Italian city states began to lose their economic and political influence as the center of the Renaissance gradually shifted to the royal courts of northern Europe. Students will analyze and discuss the nature of the Renaissance and its impact throughout Europe.

The seas which cover over seventy percent of our planet have often been termed the last great unexplored frontier. Yet since ancient times peoples have sought to master sea travel and control the flow of peoples and goods over them. Some of the greatest empires we have known have had their power based on their ability to control the seas around them. This course seeks to introduce students to different themes in the history of the evolution of sea power. From Mediterranean galleys to the aircraft carriers of the Cold War; from the Atlantic slave trade to the Indian Ocean spice trade; students will examine the close confluence of trade and naval power throughout human history.

The field of American slavery has been one of the most vibrant, and controversial, in the last fifty years. Inspired research has led to numerous classics of American historiography as well as dramatically shifting interpretations of the “peculiar institution” and its role in American life. Every aspect of the slave regime and the life of the slave has been closely examined. Students will delve into this impressive historiography by reading many of these works and by writing analytical essays focusing on the resulting interpretations. This is a readings course on the historiography of American slavery. The course will examine the origins of the slave institution in America, its expansion into new lands, and how it became such a controversial issue in American life and in the historiography of the topic. Major new works will be examined as well as several classics in the field.

This course covers events in Russia from approximately the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 until the death of Josef Stalin on March 5, 1953. While some time must, of course, be spent on the 1917 Russian revolution and the Lenin era, our main focus will be how Soviet politics and society changed during the Stalin years. Specifically, we will discuss such key events as the rivalry between Trotsky and Stalin, the Cultural Revolution, the Five Year Plan, Collectivization of the peasantry, The Purges, the Second World War, and Postwar Stalinism. We will pay special attention to historiographic debates regarding these events as well as to issues relating to the roles of women in society, class conflict, and the changing national policies, including especially the development of anti-semitism. Among the larger questions we will consider are the relationship between ideology and power in Soviet Stalinism, the connections between Stalinism and Leninism, and the role of terror, and finally the role played by Soviet citizens in implementing Stalin’s policies.

This class will acquaint students with the history of seventeenth-century Europe. The century opened with a series of rebellions, wars, and economic difficulties that have been classified as “the general crisis of the seventeenth century.” These events caused dramatic shifts in the nature of European politics, warfare, economics, and society. They also gave rise to more stable political systems in the form of absolute monarchies and centralized states. Students will analyze and discuss the causes and nature of the dramatic changes taking place during this period, as well as the consequences of these changes.

This course covers events in the Soviet Union from approximately the death of Josef Stalin in 1953 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.  While some time must, of course, be spent on both the earlier and later eras, our main focus will be how Soviet politics and society changed from the mid 1950s-through the 1980s under Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev.  Specifically, we will discuss such key events as de-Stalinization and the Thaw under Khrushchev, Economic Stagnation, corruption and the Dissident movement under Brezhnev, and Glasnost and Perestroika under Gorbachev. We will pay special attention to issues relating to the roles of women in society, class conflict, and the changing national policies, including the fate of the Jewish population.  Among the larger questions we will consider are the relationship between ideology and power, the use coercion, and the importance of consumer culture and the black market.

The purpose of this section of History 849 is to acquaint students with the history of the British Isles during the Tudor/Stuart period (1485-1714). This era was a dynamic period, which witnessed such events as the growth and development of Parliament, the Reformation, the Civil Wars, and the Glorious Revolution. Students will analyze and discuss the causes and nature of the dramatic political, social, religious, and economic changes taking place during this period, as well as the consequences that such changes had upon the peoples of the British Isles.

The purpose of this section of History 849 is to acquaint students with the history of the Vikings. The Vikings are popularly depicted as barbarians who rampaged across Europe causing massive social upheaval. However, they were also artists, poets, and merchants who explored and settled in areas throughout Europe and the North Atlantic. Students will analyze and discuss issues such as the nature of Vikings society and government, the nature of Viking raids, and the impact of Viking expansion both upon the Vikings’ homeland in Scandinavia and upon the rest of Europe. These readings and discussions will provide students with a strong foundation for future research in Viking era history.

The purpose of this class is to introduce students to academic military history. The scholarly study of military history has waxed and waned over the centuries. Currently, and regretfully so, we are in a waning period. Given the conflict ridden state of the world as we know it, such scholarly study and debate is essential. This course will introduce students to the current state of military history studies. Students will also examine in detail the major themes in academic military history. Students will analyze the debates around “Ways of War”, “The Military Revolution” and “Colonial Warfare”. Together these discussions will serve to provide students with a firm foundation for ongoing research in academic military history.

The purpose of this section of History 849 is to acquaint students with the period of the Wars of Religion (1500-1650). This era saw numerous wars throughout Europe that changed the fundamental nature of European political, military, economic, religious, and social structures. Students will analyze and debate the European wide causes and impact of the era’s conflicts. They will also investigate specific conflicts, namely the French Wars of Religion, the Dutch Revolt, and the Thirty Years’ War to gain greater understanding of these conflicts’ impact upon specific regions of Europe.

This online course will cover the history of World War I from its root causes in the nineteenth century until the Paris Peace Conference, and beyond. During the term the major political, social, economic, cultural, and military aspects of the war will be explored in order to allow the student to understand how the Great War came to be such a significant event in the early twentieth century, and the ways in which it continued to cast a shadow long after the guns fell silent.

This course introduces graduate students to the theory and practice of public history. A growing body of scholarship on public history has emerged over the past few decades, seeking to develop a better understanding of the underlying principles of the field and the challenges of doing history in public. This class will expose students to both foundational as well as new scholarship on public history, explore several key issues facing the practice of public history today, and offer hands-on, practical experience through the preparation of a grant proposal and the completion of a real-world public history project.

This course introduces graduate students to the practice and methodologies of local and community history research. Students will be exposed to key readings and issues in local history scholarship, gain a strong understanding of the characteristics of quality local and community history, and become extensively familiar with the kinds of primary sources used to explore and interpret history at the local level. The course will culminate in a substantial project that results in the production of a real-world product for a community partner.

This course introduces graduate students to the major themes, debates, and issues in museums and material culture studies. Students will be exposed to key readings and issues in museum studies and material culture scholarship, gain a strong understanding of the history of museums and their evolving role among diverse groups of public audiences, and explore the principles and methods behind the use of material culture in a variety of public history settings. The course will culminate in a major artifact analysis assignment and a substantial project that results in the production of a real-world product for a community partner.

This graduate course introduces students to the major themes, debates, and issues in the dynamic field of historic preservation. Students will read several significant works on the history of historic preservation in the United States, the power of history and historic places to shape communities and a sense of place, relevant historic preservation laws and practices, and the many challenges facing historic preservationists in the twenty-first century. Guided by these readings, students will also conduct original research into a historic property and prepare a National Register nomination.

Internships are designed to provide students with hands-on experiences that will prepare them for the workplace. While tasks will vary according to the host institution, students should expect to gain a variety of new and resume-building experiences related to the organization, implementation, and administration of public history programs. Internships are vital for helping students to discover their own aptitudes and interests regarding the field of public history as well as providing them with opportunities for networking and enhancing their resumes. Thus students should treat internships as they would any professional opportunity.

Prereq: HIST 801 and HIST 803 and admission to the MA History program

A required course for graduate students pursuing the thesis option. Prepares students to conduct primary research, construct historical arguments, identify historiographical patterns, and begin the writing process.

This course serves as an alternative to the traditional thesis requirement and is designed as an opportunity for graduate-level public history students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities in public history practice. Students pursuing this option will be required to develop, complete, and defend a substantial, original public history project. Exact details will vary and should be developed in consultation with the student's advisor. Students may take this course for 3-6 credits per semester.

HIST 898: Environment and Warfare in the 20th Century will explore readings and topics that situate both environmental and military history into larger international and global exchanges. By examining the dynamic relationships between warfare and the environment, this course will provide students with a deeper understanding of how these histories intersect with other sub-specialties as well as more familiar accounts in military and foreign relations history.  Environment and Warfare in the 20th Century will also introduce you to the most influential monographs and scholars of both fields as well as the newer works. This class can apply to either the United States or Non-United States History course requirements.