Expanded Course Descriptions

The Department of History scheduled these undergraduate courses for FALL QUARTER 2023. This list and descriptions are subject to change, so please check back often.

Registration appointment times available on Schedule Builder and myucdavis.

 

  • Lower Division
  • HIS 2Y: Introduction to the History of Science & Technology (World) - Professor Stolzenberg (cross-listed with STS 2Y)
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s).     Introduction to topics and methods of the history of science and technology. Emphasis on understanding the role of science and technology in the modern world through a long-term historical perspective. (Same course as STS 002.) GE credit: AH, SL, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 2017 Fall Quarter.
    Description: This class explores the history of the investigation of nature and its technological manipulation, focusing on three case studies: (1) Alchemy and Chemistry from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (2) Evolution and Energy in the Age of Empire (3) Science, Technology, and the Cold War. Course material is non-technical and accessible to students from all majors. Required text: Course Reader. This course fulfills the GE for Scientific Literacy (SL) as well as AH, SS, WC, and WE.

    HIS 7A: History of Latin America to 1700 (Latin America) - Professor Reséndez
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Introduction to the history of Spanish and Portuguese America from the late pre-Columbian period through the initial phase and consolidation of a colonial regime (circa 1700). Topics include conquest, colonialism, racial mixture, gender, and labor systems. GE credit: AH, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 2004 Fall Quarter.
    Description: This is an introduction to the history of Spanish and Portuguese America from the late pre-Columbian period through the initial phase and consolidation of a colonial regime (circa 1700). The lectures, readings, and discussion sections offer a broad overview of the indigenous roots and realities of the hemisphere, the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of this region, and the emergence of colonial regimes in the 16th and 17th centuries. It will explore the contrasting experiences of Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans and their mixed descendants in an evolving colonial world. Key topics will include the disruptions and continuities of the major indigenous civilizations of the continent, colonialism, racial mixture and race relations, gender, labor systems, identity, religion, and environmental transformation. This is the beginning of a three-course sequence devoted to the history of Latin America. Each course can be taken independently. Your final grade will be determined by:

    1) Midterm Exam (20%)
    2) Final Exam (20%)
    3) Participation (class and section) (20%)
    4) Two In-class essays (40%)

    HIS 8: History of Indian Civilization (Asia) - Professor Sen
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s).     Survey of Indian civilization from the rise of cities (ca. 2000 B.C.) to the present, emphasizing themes in religion, social and political organization, and art and literature that reflect cultural interaction and change.
    Description: This course is a panoramic tour of Indian history from the dawn of the ancient cities of the Indus valley to the rise of the first kingdoms and empires of the Gangetic floodplains and the peninsular south. It explores the history of the Turco-Mongol and Afghan empires, the ascendency and fall of the great Mughal Empire, the advent of the East India Company and the expansion of British rule in India, and long struggle for independence toward the creation of the Independent nation-state.

    HIS 9A: History of East Asian Civilization (Asia) - STAFF
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s).     Surveys traditional Chinese civilization and its modern transformation. Emphasis is on thought and religion, political and social life, art and literature. Perspectives on contemporary China are provided. GE credit: AH, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 1997 Winter Quarter.

    HIS 10B: World History, c. 1350-1850 (World) - Professor Harris
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s).     Major topics in world history from the 14th century to the beginning of the 19th century. Topics will vary but may include: oceans as systems of human communication and conflict; the global consequences of "industrious revolutions" in Europe and Asia, etc. GE credit: AH, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 2001 Winter Quarter.
    GE Topical Breadth and Core Literacies: This course is qualified for the following GE Topical Breadth Components: Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. It is also qualified for the following GE Core Literacies: World Cultures and Writing Experience.
    Description: HIS 10B is an introduction to the large-scale structures and processes that transformed the world between the mid-fourteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries. These five centuries marked an era in which cross-cultural contacts between the peoples of the world increased dramatically, laying the foundations for today’s global connectedness. We will explore these interactions and their effects on peoples and cultures around the world. Because this course is truly global, coverage cannot be comprehensive. Instead, we will take a topical and chronological approach, focusing in on major events and trends through the broad and interrelated themes of networks, such as ocean systems, cultural zones, empires, and long-distance trade; identities, including national affiliations and cultural, religious, and ethnic identifications; and cross-cultural interaction, including global religions, colonial and creole cultures, and the complicated interrelations of tradition and change. Together, the lectures, readings, discussions, and assignments will explore these themes at both the macro and micro levels, considering global trends and changes and their effects at the regional and local levels.

    HIS 10C: World History III (World) - STAFF
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s).     Major topics from world history of the 19th and 20th centuries, emphasizing the rise and fall of Western colonial empires; Cold War and the superpowers; the spread of the nation-states; and process of globalization.
     

    HIS 015A: Africa to 1900 (Africa) - Professor Decker 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Introduction to African history to 1900. Origins and impact of early human history, precolonial states and societies, slavery and the slave trade, religious and cultural movements, and the foundations of European colonialism. GE credit: AH, SS, WC. 
    Description: With 55 countries, over a billion people, thousands of languages, and a geographic area that surpasses the United States, China, and Europe combined, the defining characteristic of the continent of Africa is its diversity. History 15A introduces students to key shifts in African history up to 1900, including major states and societies, the spread of world religions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the onset of European colonialism. Course lessons highlight particular primary sources for African history, including oral traditions, oral histories, travel accounts, archaeological ruins, letters, newspapers, memoirs, poetry, and graphic history.

    HIS 17A: History of the United States (United States) - STAFF
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). The experience of the American people from the Colonial Era to the Civil War. GE credit: ACGH, AH, DD, SS, WE. Effective: 1997 Winter Quarter.

    HIS 17B: History of the United States (US) - STAFF
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s).     The experience of the American people from the Civil War to the end of the Cold War. Not open for credit to students who have completed HIS 017C. GE credit: ACGH, AH, DD, SS, WE. Effective: 1997 Winter Quarter.

    HIS 80: The History of the United States in the Middle East (United States) - Professor Tezcan
    Lecture—2 hour(s). History of the United States in the Middle East from 1900 to the present. Examination of U.S. foreign relations toward the Middle East, their regional ramifications and domestic repercussions. GE credit: ACGH, AH, SS, WC. Effective: 2018 Spring Quarter.
    Description: After September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush delivered an address to the American people asking, “Why do they hate us?” The question – and his answer – resonated with a popular “Clash of Civilizations” thesis that argues that conflict between Islam and the West is inevitable for the long-term.
    Aiming for a deeper understanding of the stories that fill the headlines, this course interrogates that proposition by looking at the long history of United States involvement in the Middle East, from the Barbary pirates to recent beheadings, from missionaries to missiles, from Cold War concerns to moments of cultural exchange, to today’s presidential race.
    Textbook: Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005). Digital copies of additional reading assignments will be available on Canvas.
    Grading: Quizzes: 30%; mid-term: 35%; final exam: 35% Quizzes will be online during class time, based on the lecture on the day of the quiz.
  • Undergraduate Seminars
  • HIS 102D:  Modern Europe to 1815 (Europe) - Professor Stuart
    Seminar—3 hour(s); Term Paper.     Limited enrollment. Designed primarily for history majors. Intensive reading, discussion, research, and writing in selected topics in the various fields of history. Modern Europe to 1815. May be repeated for credit. GE credit: WE. Effective: 1997 Winter Quarter.
    Topic: History of Homicide in Early Modern Europe
    Description:     In this class, we explore the history of murder, “real” and imagined, from the Middle Ages through the Nineteenth Century. Throughout the Middle Ages most condemned criminals were executed for theft, not murder. Murderers frequently avoided punishment by reaching private settlements with their victims’ families. Only over the course of the sixteenth century was murder effectively criminalized and a new consensus emerged that murderers should be punished by death. We explore how changes in law, politics and culture brought about this change. Even after criminalization, murder did not equal murder. The outcome of murder trials was shaped by notions of gender, class and religious doctrine. We pay particular attentions to the intersection of homicide and gender. We examine the role of forensic medicine in the detection of murder and in the application of the insanity defense. Early modern people viewed suicide as “Self-Murther.” We study the criminalization of suicide in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and its decriminalization in the nineteenth century. We study the imaginary murders associated with the blood libel to trace how a narrative developed in the thirteenth century and adapted over the centuries to remain relevant in the modern era. We study the history of capital punishment and its development from a “theatre of horror” in the early modern period to a “civilized,” “humane” practice in the nineteenth century.
     

    HIS 102M: United States Since 1896 (US) – Professor Olmsted 
    Seminar—3 hour(s); Term Paper.     Limited enrollment. Designed primarily for history majors. Intensive reading, discussion, research, and writing in selected topics in the various fields of history. United States since 1896. May be repeated for credit. GE credit: WE. Effective: 1997 Winter Quarter. 
    Topic: Conspiracy Theories in the United States 
    Description: Even paranoids have real enemies, the saying goes. In this course, we will analyze conspiracy theories in recent U.S. history -- what they are, how they have changed, and what they tell us about our society. We will address these questions: What were (and are) some of the most widely believed conspiracy theories?  Why are some conspiracy theories believed by wide segments of the American public, and others believed only by particular groups of Americans?  Have the types of conspiracy theories changed over the past hundred years? 
    Grading: 50 percent research paper; 50 percent class participation 

     

    HIS 102R: Muslim Societies (World) - Professor Fahrenthold
    Seminar—3 hour(s), Term Paper. Designed primarily for history majors. Intensive reading, discussion, research, and writing in selected topics in the various fields of history. Muslim Societies. May be repeated for credit. GE credit: WE. Effective: 1997 Winter Quarter. 
    Course Schedule: R 1:10pm-4:00pm in SSH 2202. CRN: 52214.
    Topic: Migration and the Modern Middle East
    Description: This seminar course examines the history of migration, diaspora, and displacement within and from the modern Middle East in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Middle Eastern refugee has become a central figure in debates on migration, asylum, and the right to belong. Stereotyped as rootless, homeless, and threatening, these migrants are too often depicted as lacking histories. This course considers: what makes a history written by, about, and for displaced people powerful? How can writing from the perspectives of refugees challenge core debates in the discipline? Meeting weekly, we read/discuss books about immigrants, refugees, and displaced people from the Middle East. We will pay special attention to histories of Middle Eastern immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the Americas. In addition to books/articles, we will explore oral history testimonies given by Arab American, Chaldean, and other Middle Eastern diaspora groups. Students will prepare research essays related to migration/refugees in one Middle Eastern context.
    Readings: as a seminar course, this course is reading intensive. Expect 5-6 books, articles, and a selection of oral history interviews. Please contact Dr. Fahrenthold for details.
    Nadim Bawalsa, Transnational Palestine: Migration and the Right of Return Before 1948
    Dawn Chatty, Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East
    Sarah Gualtieri, Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California
    Grading: as a seminar, our class time is devoted to close discussion of assigned materials. Students will be graded on seminar contributions: oral participation and occasional oral presentation of readings (30%); and the preparation of a research project relying on course materials on a topic of student’s choice: two midterm essays (20% each) building to the completion of a final essay of 10-12 pages (30%). No exams.

  • Upper Division
  • HIS 109: Environmental Change, Disease & Public Health (World) - Professor Davis (cross-listed with SAS 109)
    Lecture/Discussion—3 hour(s); Project (Term Project). Analysis of environmental changes from pre-history to the present and their influence on disease distribution, virulence and public health. Focus on critical study of many human-driven environmental changes and the accelerated transformation/spread of pathogens under globalization. Not open for credit to students who have taken HIS 109B. (Same course as SAS 109.) GE credit: SE, SL, SS, WC. Effective: 2016 Fall Quarter.
    Fulfills the GE Science & Engineering; Social Science; & Scientific Literacy requirement.
    Description: This course analyzes environmental change at multiple scales and how these changes have influenced public health over time. It takes as a starting point that the “environment” includes not only deserts, mountains, plains and rivers, but also slaughter houses, hospitals and our own and other animal bodies. The changes that have taken places in these varied environments have included the obvious like deforestation and the damming of rivers and the not so obvious like creating antibiotic resistance, and creating the conditions for super contamination of large quantities of food with pathogenic organisms such as E.coli 0157:H7, Listeria, and salmonella. Furthermore, these transformations may be changing our epigenomes with what we eat, drink and breathe in ways that induce illness. All of these changes have had impacts on human health. Many of these environmental changes have been driven by human action over the last several millennia. The pace and scope of such changes have become quicker and more pervasive during our era of “globalization.” It is critical to understand these changes in order to build a more sustainable future for people and the planet.
    This is a 10 Day Drop Course and is not a writing course.

    HIS 114: Histories of 20th Century Partition (World) - Professor Fahrenthold
    Lecture/Discussion—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Politics of territorial separation in Ireland; Greece/Turkey; India/Pakistan; Palestine/Israel; the U.S./Mexico border, etc. Partition as a focus area in international governance; on refugee migration; race; problems of national citizenship; and the politics of hard borders. Not open for credit to students who have previously completed an upper division history course in histories of 20th Century Partition. GE credit: AH, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 2021 Fall Quarter.
    Description: "When Borders Cross Us: Comparative Histories of Partition" is a comparative course on experiences of partition in the 20th-21st centuries. We will closely examine partition politics in Ireland; Greece/Turkey; India/Pakistan; Palestine/Israel; and the U.S./Mexico border. Special attention will be paid to issues of international governance (how bodies like the League of Nations/United Nations/UNRWA participate in territorial separation); partition’s implications for forced migration; refugee provisions; and problems of national citizenship. In a world with multiplying, increasingly militarized borders, what does it mean to be a (re)moveable person under the law? How do territorial concepts of the nation-state produce the figure of the refugee, and how does refugee politics shape our own conceptions of citizenship? We will also deal with the emergence of border walls, and the politics of hard borders across the five case studies. Consulting readings, primary materials, and podcasts, students will prepare midterm (2) and final (1) essays analyzing border disputes of their choosing.
    By the end of this course:
     - Students will assess the relationship between partition and forced migration across multiple historical contexts.
     - Students will deeply analyze how partition has impacted the politics, societies, and cultures in one primary case study.
     - Students will prepare 2,500-4,000 of historical analysis on the topic of Partition (Writing Experience credit).  
    Representative Readings (please email Dr. Fahrenthold for syllabus, additional articles to appear on Canvas):
     - Bruce Clark, Twice a Stranger: the Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey
     - Jason De Leon, The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail
     - Robert Lynch, The Partition of Ireland, 1918-1925
     - Shira Robinson, Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State
     - Laura Robson, States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East
     - Uditi Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition
     

    HIS 116: African History: Special Themes (Africa) - Professor Decker
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Themes of African history, such as African states and empires, slave trade, relationship of Egypt to rest of Africa, Bantu origins and migrations, and French policy of Assimilation and Association. Prerequisite(s): HIS 015. GE credit: Arts & Humanities (AH) or Social Sciences (SS); World Cultures (WC); Writing Experience (WE). recommended.
    Topic: The History of International Development in Africa
    Description: This course explores the impact of international interventions in Africa, and Africa’s premier place as a target of the development discourse, from the nineteenth century to the present. We will discuss global and local ideas of civilization as well as colonial and postcolonial interventions in agriculture, technology, industrialization, nutrition, education, and health. We will also examine the ways in which indigenous ideas and practices of modernity and progress have both challenged and shaped international development.

    HIS 127A: Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Europe) - Professor Harris
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Extensive Writing.     Popular culture in 15th-18th century Europe. Topics may include food and festivals, literacy and religious beliefs, jokes and stereotypes, death and magic, as means of examining social status, gender, race, state power, local and national communities, religious change and conflict. GE credit: Arts & Humanities (AH); World Cultures (WC).
    Description: Battles and high politics, the doings of kings and queens—these are some of the traditional topics of early modern European history. But what of the woman or man on the street? How did peasants and artisans, beggars and merchants live during these centuries of religious, political, and social upheaval? This course explores aspects of popular culture among the peoples of western Europe during these key centuries. Through a wide array of ideas and practices, from food and festivals to reading practices and religious beliefs to insults and stereotypes to death and witchcraft, we will examine the ways in which early modern Europeans understood themselves and their world. Along the way, we’ll learn about hierarchies of power, status, and gender; about the expanding power of the state; about Catholic and Protestant Christianity; and much more. Our readings will be similarly broad-ranging. We’ll bring these centuries alive through a host of 15th-, 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-century sources, such trial records, broadsheets, letters, songs, and other materials, as well as recent studies by modern historians. Assignments help students hone their analytic and writing skills through periodic reading responses and several papers.

    HIS 132: Crime & Punishment in Early Modern Europe (Europe) – Professor Stuart 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper    . Deviance and crime in early modern Europe, contrasting imaginary crimes, e.g. witchcraft, with "real" crimes such as highway robbery and infanticide. Examines impact of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and class in processes of criminalization. GE credit: AH, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 1997 Fall Quarter. 
    Description: In the sixteenth century, you would be executed for throwing dung at a statue of the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, this might be considered offensive, but you will no longer be prosecuted for the capital crime of “blasphemy.” In other words, the definition of crime and the classification of criminals changes over time. In this class we explore when, how, and why this happened from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries. We will contrast "real" crimes such as vagrancy and theft with imaginary crimes such as Jewish ritual murder and witchcraft. One segment of the course covers prostitution, infanticide and witchcraft as specifically female crimes. We will examine to what extent it is possible to relate long-term changes in the incidence and prosecution of particular crimes to changes in economy, social structure, government, religion and culture. We will discuss changes in the nature and purposes of punishment in the early modern period, as public rituals of execution and other bloody punishments to the body were replaced by the penalty of imprisonment in the eighteenth century. View additional images at the class Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/History.132.S2018/ 

    HIS 138C: Russian History: The Rise & Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917 to Present (Europe) - Professor Campbell 
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Emergence of the Soviet Union as a socialist system and a Great Power; the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of independent nation states in its place. GE credit: Arts & Humanities (AH) or Social Sciences (SS); World Cultures (WC); Writing Experience (WE).
    Description: This course traces the emergence of the Soviet Union as a socialist system, its rise to global prominence, and its eventual decline and collapse.  We will pay particular attention to the multi-ethnic nature of the Soviet state – taking seriously the changing relationship of the union as a whole with its component republics.  Other key topics will include the tension between the ideals and outcomes of the October Revolution; the relationship between Leninism and Stalinism; the extent to which the USSR may be described as a “totalitarian” state; and the legacy of the Soviet era in Russia and other post-Soviet states. 
    Readings:  
     - Nicholas Riasanovsky and Mark Steinberg, A History of Russia, 8th ed. (optional)  
     - Ronald Suny, The Structure of Soviet History  
     - Fedor Mochulsky, Gulag Boss:  A Soviet Memoir  
     - Svetlana Alexievich, Zinky Boys  
     - Tony Wood, Russia without Putin  
     - Additional primary and secondary source readings available on Canvas 

    HIS 146A: Europe in the 20th Century (Europe) - Professor Dickinson
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Survey of the history of Europe from 1919 to 1939.
    Description: This course will cover the history of Europe in the first part of the twentieth century, from the 1890s through to the outbreak of World War II.  Lectures and the course textbook will examine the broad pattern of the evolution of European societies and the European states in these decades, focusing on political, social, and cultural change.  The first few weeks of the course will focus on long-term trends and changes in the decades around 1900.  Our understanding of the problems and potentials of European civilization in this period will then serve as a basis for understanding the violent upheavals of the first decades of the twentieth century, from 1914 to 1939.   Our readings--in addition to the textbook--will be drawn from primary documents written during the period, and from scholarly articles examining particular aspects of European social and cultural history.  The documents will focus on the daily lives of particular Europeans, on key moments of political conflict, and on key ideas that shaped the thinking and expectations of Europeans in this period.  These readings will focus on the ways that individual Europeans' lives "fit into" the broader sweep of history and social development, and on ways in which they experienced and thought about moments of crisis in the development of their societies.  The articles we will read will present close analysis of particular aspects of the broader trends and grander events discussed in lectures and in the textbook. Readings from the course will include a textbook, some scholarly articles by historians, and selections from several autobiographies, from several novels and short stories, from a number of scholarly monographs, and from a number of works of political and social philosophy. 
     

    HIS 156: Latin American Migration History (Latin America) - Professor Pérez Meléndez 
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper.     Migrations to, from, and within Latin America, with a focus on the period from independence to the present day. The historical development of settler colonialism, inter-regional migrations, rural-to-urban migration, migration promotion, restriction laws, naturalization, and sanctuary across Latin American scenarios. Research paper required.
    Description: Latin America represents the largest migrant-sending region for the U.S. Yet, besides border walls and detention camps that meet many of its people at the U.S., this macro-region has its own complex history of promoting, curtailing and managing migrations. Deportations along the U.S.-Mexico border find a convex mirror in northern Brazil, where Venezuelans can enter only to meet unspeakable violence. Preemptive repression of migrant caravans from Honduras or El Salvador now co-exists with “reformed” asylum policies such as those of Chile, meant to deter instead of protect Haitians, Senegalese, and other migrants seeking succor. This course examines how Latin American governments transformed human mobility into a phenomenon meant to be managed, profited from, and ultimately contained within the strict bounds of national territories. Besides inquiring into how Latin American migration regimes have conformed themselves through time, we will also study the persistence of human migrations, that is, migrants’ own efforts to counter official definitions of belonging and state-defined parameters of exclusion. Course lectures will survey historical migratory processes to, within, and from Latin America including the slave trade, the coolie trade, nineteenth-century colonizations, and the era of mass migrations. Class discussions will also assess multi-disciplinary approaches to more recent migrations, with a focus on methodological challenges of documenting mobility and defending human rights in times of crisis. 
     

    HIS 165: Latin American Social Revolutions (Latin America) - STAFF
    Lecture 3 hour(s).     Major social upheavals since 1900 in selected Latin American nations; similarities and differences in cause, course, and consequence. May be taught abroad. GE credit: Arts & Humanities (AH) or Social Sciences (SS); World Cultures (WC); Writing Experience (WE).
     

    History 166B: History of Mexico since 1848 (Latin America) - Professor Reséndez 
    Lecture/Discussion 3 hour(s).     History of Mexico from 1848 to the present.
    Description: This course will be devoted to the political, social, and cultural history of Mexico from independence to the present.  Using journalistic accounts, videos, fiction, and scholarly works we will probe into the lives of Mexico’s diverse population and show that the country’s seemingly contemporary challenges involving migration, drug wars, insurgency, corruption, political gridlock, and others are in fact deeply rooted in the past.  This is the second part of a two-quarter sequence devoted to the history and culture of Mexico. Although the two quarters cover consecutive historical periods, either may be taken independently. 
    Your final grade will be determined by: 
    1) A midterm (35%) 
    2) A final exam (35%). Both exams will consist of both short I.D. and essay questions, and the final will be cumulative, that is, it will test knowledge acquired through the entire quarter. 
    3) An assignment (20%). I will give more details in class. 
    4) Attendance and doing the required reading and participating in class (10%). We will discuss the readings in class. 

     

    HIS 188: America in the 1960s (US) - Professor Olmsted and Professor Rauchway 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Extensive Writing/Discussion—1 hour(s). Tumult and upheaval in American politics, culture, and society 1961-1969. Civil rights; Vietnam, the draft and the anti-war movement; rock and roll and the counterculture; modern feminism; modern conservatism; student movements; urban unrest and insurrection. GE credit: ACGH, DD, SS, WE. Effective: 2011 Fall Quarter. 
    Description: The 1960s saw the end of postwar liberalism and the beginnings of our own time, with the success of the movement for civil rights and the emergence of modern conservatism. At the start of the decade, the prosperous country's leaders told their citizens there was no limit to American ambition except Americans' own imagination and willpower. To a greater extent than ever before or since, the country focused on the well-being and concerns of young people, urging them to spread American ideals and values around the world and even beyond, into space. But the global appeal of America's culture and unprecedented power of its technology and industry could not stop the nation from getting mired in the Vietnam War. By the end of the decade, Americans increasingly questioned the legitimacy and purpose of their national ideals, facing an uncertain future of environmental degradation and racial conflict.  

    HIS 191H: Special Topics in Chinese History after 1800 (Asia) - Professor Chiang 
    Lecture—3 hour(s), Extensive Writing.     Topics in the history of China since 1800. Topics may be framed chronologically (e.g., The Republican Period (1911-1948)) or thematically (e.g., The Modern Evolution of Chinese Law).
    Description: This course provides an overview of Taiwan’s history, culture, society, and politics. Through close readings of primary, secondary, literary, and cinematic sources, we will approach Taiwan as a region filled with multiple actors and competing interests throughout its long history. Themes to be examined in depth include indigeneity, colonialism, nationalism, migration, democratization, ethnicity, class formation, and gender and sexuality.

    HIS 193A: History of the Modern Middle East, 1750-1914 (Middle East) - STAFF
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. State and society within the Middle East from 1750 to 1914 under pressure of the changing world economy and European imperialism. Themes: colonialism, Orientalism, intellectual renaissance, Islamic reform, state-formation, role of subaltern groups.

  • Graduate Seminars

  • HIS 201S: Sources & General Literature of History: History of Science & Medicine - Professor Stolzenberg
    Seminar—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Designed primarily for students preparing for higher degrees in history. History of Science and Medicine.
    Topic: Science and Empire, 1500–1900
    Description: This class surveys the intertwined histories of science and empires, from the age of Columbus to the apogee of European colonialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Reading a combination of secondary and primary sources, we will investigate how empires shaped the development of scientific disciplines; how scientific knowledge and expertise served imperial projects; and how indigenous knowledge contributed to colonial science. The scientific dimension of European imperialism will be a major theme, of course, including the ideological function that the idea of “modern science” played in forming European/Western identity and justifying colonialism. At the same time, we will consider recent studies of science in non-Western imperial contexts, such as the Ottoman Empire, China, and Japan. The class aims to serve students from different fields; interested students are encouraged to contact Prof. Stolzenberg, so that he can tailor the syllabus accordingly. History students can count this class toward the minor in World History as well as Science and Medicine.

    HIS 201X: Sources & General Literature of History: World History - Professor Pérez Meléndez 
    Seminar—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Designed primarily for students preparing for higher degrees in history. (X) World History.
    Topic: US Colonialism in Puerto Rico: Legal, Environmental, and Social Histories from the US Occupation to the Call for Reparations 
    Description: This seminar will examine the intricate manifestations and impacts of US colonialism in Puerto Rico from the late nineteenth century to the present. Although it was once part of the Spanish monarchy and has been under US jurisdiction for 125 years, this insular territory often falls into a disciplinary limbo, proscribed from their fields by historians of the US and of Latin America alike for largely ideological and misguided reasons. Yet, as the readings and discussions in this seminar will reveal, Puerto Rico is a critical touchstone that interrogates disciplinary boundaries: as a laboratory for modernization, it became an exemplar of progress for the rest of Latin America; and as the poorest US jurisdiction in the present day, it serves as a cautionary tale against colonial dependence, and the ravages of finance and disaster capitalism.  
    The seminar will cover the social, political and environmental trajectory of the archipelago of Puerto Rico as one of several unincorporated territories defined by US Supreme Court Justice Edward White as “foreign in a domestic sense.” The seminar will begin with an overview of Puerto Rico in the nineteenth-century under Spanish dominion, before moving to the aftermath of US occupation by looking at land distribution changes, the natural disasters that consolidated US dominion, and the exceptional and unprecedented definitions of Puerto Rico and other newly acquired territories crafted by the “insular cases” of 1901-1922. Readings and research exercises will cover the emergence of regional planning in a colonial context and its relationship to the man-made impact of natural disasters; Malthusian-like reproductive and migratory policies developed in the 1940s-60s; and the social and environmental impacts of subsidized oil, pharmaceutical, and transgenic-crop industries since the 1970s. The seminar will feature guest presentations from authors covered in the readings, and will also address contemporary crises including the environmental ravages curtailing agricultural self-sustenance, the relationship between natural disasters and colonial subjugation, and the federal imposition of an extraconstitutional financial oversight board over local government in the midst of the island’s economic collapse. Ultimately, the seminar will explore new pathways for interpreting the Puerto Rican question and articulate possibilities for decolonial reparations. 

    HIS 202H: Major Issues in Historical Interpretation: United States - Professor Rauchway
    Seminar—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Fundamental issues and debates in the study of history. United States. Readings, papers, and class reports.
    Topic: 20th Century US History
    Description: For the full syllabus, please click here.

    HIS 203A: Research Seminar - Professor Campbell
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Tutorial 1 hour(s). Designed for students preparing for higher degrees in history. Individual research and analysis resulting in substantial research paper of publishable quality. Completion required of all Ph.D. candidates. The three courses must be taken in continuous sequence, ordinarily during second year.

    HIS 204: Historiography - Professor Sen
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Major issues in the philosophy and methodology of history.