Expanded Course Descriptions

The Department of History scheduled these undergraduate courses for SPRING QUARTER 2025. 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 004B — History of Western Civilization (Europe) - Professor Stuart
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). History of western civilization from the Renaissance to the 18th century.
    Description: We study European society, politics, and culture from the late Middle Ages through the early modern centuries, from the Black Death to the eve of the French Revolution. From 1348 to 1789 Europe experienced mass pandemics, the spread of world-changing new technologies like gun powder and the printing press, the development of the early modern state, the fracturing of the “universal Christendom” and the emergence of competing religious confessions, religious wars and wars of expansion, the rise of Colonial empires and international trade, the rise of science, the Age of Enlightenment and secularization. These were centuries of enormous contradiction: the “Scientific Revolution” was contemporaneous to the European witch-hunt that led to the execution of tens of thousands for the crime of “harmful magic.” In 1685 the French King Louis XIV outlawed witch-hunting, and yet he continued to practice the “King’s touch,” a miraculous healing ritual in which French and English Kings cured people through the laying on of hands. These are just some of the cross-currents and paradoxes of the early modern centuries that we will explore this quarter.

    HIS 4C: History of Western Civilization (Europe) - Professor Zientek
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Development of Western Civilization from the 18th century to the present.

    HIS 7C: History of Latin America 1900-present (Latin America) - Professor Schlotterbeck
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Latin America since the beginning of the 20th century. Themes include export economies, oligarchic rule, crises of depression and war, corporatism, populism, revolution and reform movements, cultural and ethnic issues, U.S.-Latin American relations, neo-liberal restructuring.
    Description: In his 1891 essay “Nuestra América”, Cuban writer José Martí identified the entire Western Hemisphere as “Our America.” Yet today, the term “America” has become synonymous with the United States of America. How and why did this happen? 

    This course seeks to answer this question by tracing Latin America’s history from the Spanish-Cuban-American War to the present. In a 20th century marked by the United States’ expanding presence in Latin America, we will explore the rise of dependent nationalism, different attempts at state-directed development, and the return of free market policies. Key themes include questions of democratic representation, the struggles by many sectors for political, social, and economic inclusion, and the ways in which these struggles have been repressed, accommodated, absorbed, or ignored. Finally, we will apply our knowledge of historical processes to understand current conflicts and social and political aspirations in Latin America. 

    This is the third course in a three-part survey devoted to the history of Latin America. Each course can be taken independently and no prior knowledge of Latin America is required.

    HIS 13: Global Sexualities (World) - Professor Decker/Materson
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Discussion 1 hour(s). Global history of sexualities, including comparative study of gender, marriage, and fertility before 1800, followed by the modern history of sexualities worldwide as it intersects with imperialism, race, population control, law, and globalization.
    Description: This course offers a survey of the global history of sexualities. We will investigate the theoretical concepts and constructs related to sex, sexuality, gender, marriage, and reproduction. We will also delve into case studies on global sexualities as they intersect with the histories of slavery, imperialism, race, population control, law, and globalization. 

    HIS 15B: Africa Today (Africa) 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Survey of major themes in colonial and postcolonial sub-Saharan African history, including colonialism, decolonization, nationalism and politics, economic history and labor, urbanization, popular culture, gender, marriage, and family life.

    HIS 17A: History of the United States (United States) - Professor St. John
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). The experience of the American people from the Colonial Era to the Civil War. 
    Description: This class will provide a broad introduction to the history of the territory that is now the United States from the first encounters between Americans and Europeans through the mid-nineteenth century and the crisis of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Don’t let the course title fool you; this is not just a history of the United States (which, of course, did not begin to become a nation until 1776). In addition to focusing on the first century of U.S. history, this course will go back hundreds of years to briefly touch on North America before the arrival of Europeans before exploring how European colonists, Indigenous Americans, and enslaved Africans created a new world together on the continent. We’ll then move on to discuss the founding of the United States and the development, near collapse, and rebuilding of the nation in the years leading up through the Civil War and Reconstruction. The course will introduce students to some of the central themes in American history and how historians have developed this understanding by analyzing primary source material and assembling narratives. Course themes include imperialism and colonization, slavery and labor regimes, trade, resource extraction, and the emergence of capitalism, family and community formation and the evolution of American cultures, the rise of nation-states and the dispossession of Native polities, and politics and the ideology of freedom and democracy.  
    This is a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time, but the class will seek to balance the big picture of American history with the texture of individual experiences and day-to-day life.  
    In addition to introducing some of the central figures and events in American history, this course is intended to help students hone a range of skills in critical reading and thinking, written and oral communication, and historical analysis and writing.

    HIS 17B: History of the United States (United States)
    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.
    Description: This course provides an introduction to the history of the United States since the Civil War. We will explore social, economic, cultural, and political changes on the domestic front as well as the nation’s expansion abroad. Course topics include industrialization, immigration, race relations, the role of the federal government, foreign policy, reform, and social protest movements. As a survey, the course is designed to introduce key themes and events in modern American history, and to develop students’ critical thinking, writing, and reading skills.

  • Undergraduate Seminars

  • HIS 90: Research in History - Professor Kim
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Extensive Writing. Designed primarily for history majors. Intensive reading, discussion, research, and writing in selected topics in the various fields of history. Emphasis on primary sources and archival research.
    Topic: Cultural Expression and Gendered Identities in Japan   
    Description: This quarter’s History 90 focuses on cultural expressions of gender— in the media and venues as diverse as cinema, TV, comic books and literature— and its relationship to identity formation in Japan.  The time period covered is roughly between 1919 and 2024. In the course, we will cover such topics asmilitarism and masculinity, feminism and misogyny, relationship between biopower and social life, population “crises” due to the alarms sounded about declining birthrates (especially loud in East Asian nations), the differences between “classic” and “new” women’s movements, responsibilities of care and social services, same-sex relations, transgender identities and many more.  
    Readings: 
    - Sabine Fruhstuck.  Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
    - Anne Walthall & Sabine Fruhstuck, eds.  Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011)
    - Hiratsuka Raicho.  In the Beginning, Woman was the Sun (Columbia University Press, 1992

    HIS 102E: Europe Since 1815 - Professor Zientek 
    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. Europe since 1815.
    Topic: Experience of War in the 20th and 21st Centuries

    HIS 102M: United States Since 1896 - Professor Tsu
    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. United States since 1896.
    Topic: History Lab: Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
    Description: Located between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, Yolo County, home of UC Davis, was one of California’s original 27 counties dating to 1850. Although diverse communities of Indigenous peoples, Asian Americans, Latino/as, and African Americans have long inhabited the county, there is scant historical research or broad public awareness about their histories. In this seminar, we will examine the region’s rich local history and develop educational resources and public history exhibitions on the histories of underrepresented groups in Yolo County. We will conduct research and learn from curriculum experts, teachers, archivists, and curators. This course is designed especially for history majors interested in pursuing careers in K-12 education and public history. 

    HIS 102X: Comparative History - Professor Walker 
    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. Comparative History, selected topics in cultural, political, economic, and social history that deal comparatively with more than one geographic field.
    Topic: Comics, Graphic Novels, and History: Reading, Analyzing, and Creating Visual Narratives       
    Description: This seminar explores how comics and graphic novels serve as powerful mediums for writing, reading, and understanding history. Through the study of works like Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Rebecca Hall’s Wake, and selections from the Oxford University Press Graphic History Series, students will examine the intersection of visual storytelling and historical narrative. The course emphasizes critical analysis of style, content, and artistic interpretation, culminating in a creative final project where students script and outline their own graphic history based on personal, contemporary, or historical inspiration. This hands-on approach invites students to engage deeply with the ways visual narratives can shape our understanding of the past and present.
     

  • Upper Division

  • HIS 100: Selected Topics in History - Professor Kim
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Selected Topics in History may be organized around a particular geography (e.g., the Balkans), a chronological framework (e.g., the 1960s around the world) or a thematic approach (e.g., the rise of ethnic or racial identities in a particular region).
    Topic: Japan and Korea in the Modern World: Conflicts, Exchanges and Connections 
    Description: This quarter’s History 100 will examine the relationship between Japan and Korea roughly from the terminal phase of early modern period (mid-19th century) to today (2024). The Japanese colonial domination of Korea from 1910 to 1945 left a legacy of anti-Japanese sentiments and discourse that basically colored the understanding of their ethnic identity as “Koreans” and their own modern historical experience among the subsequent generation of Koreans. 

    HIS 115C: History of Southern Africa from Exploration to the Rainbow Nation(Africa) - Professor Decker 
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Southern Africa from 1500 to the present. Origins and impact of precolonial states and societies, European colonization, industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, apartheid, and changes in religions, politics, economics, gender, and culture.
    Description: This course is a survey of the history of southern Africa from 1500 to the present. We will explore African states and societies, European colonization, the discovery of diamonds and gold, segregation and apartheid, African nationalism, and recent politics. South Africa will be the primary focus, but the course will periodically delve into the histories of neighboring countries, such as Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Students will read and discuss scholarly works, memoirs, the writings of political leaders, and other primary sources. For the final term paper, students will write an argumentative paper based on analysis of primary sources from southern African history.
    Reading: 
    - Iris Berger, South Africa in World History (Oxford University Press, 2009)  
    - Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography (Free Press, 1998) 

    HIS 120: World War II (World) - Professor Kelman/Rauchway
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Extensive Writing. The Second World War from 1931 to 1945 in all of its theaters. Causes, conduct, and consequences of the war including military, political, economic, social, and cultural factors, with special emphasis on battlefield strategy and mobilization of the home front.

    HIS 125: Topics in Early Modern European History - Professor Stuart
    Discussion/Laboratory 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Social and cultural history, 1300-1800. Topics such as medieval and Renaissance Italy, early modern Italy, Ancient Regime France, family and sexuality, and material culture and daily life.
    Description: About 50,000 people perished in the European witch-hunt, mostly in the century between 1560 and 1660. We explore the particular set of circumstances that encouraged these “burning times” in the era of the baroque. We study earlier prosecutions of heretics and Jews as a kind of model for the witch trials that followed. Prosecutions of Jews focused mostly on men, but most victims of the witch-hunt were older, post-menopausal woman. What were the gender stereotypes that led to this particular construction of the witch? About 15 % of accused witches were men, however. What made these men vulnerable to witchcraft accusations? Did warlocks practice a different, masculine magic? At the same time as thousands of witches were dying at the stake, more and more Europeans believed themselves to be victims of demonic possession. We compare the roles of witches and demoniacs and study rituals of exorcism.  Children played a problematic role in the witch-hunts. Witchcraft often served as an explanation for high infant mortality, and children featured prominently among the accusers of witches. But after 1680, children took on a new role: as perpetrators of witchcraft. We will explore the paradox that on the eve of the Enlightenment, the so-called “Age of the Child” that recognized childhood as a special stage of life that needed to be protected and nurtured, children were accused of—and executed—for witchcraft more than ever before.  Finally, we ask when, how, and why the witch-hunts ended. People didn’t stop believing in witchcraft—why did they stop burning witches?

    HIS 131B: European History During the Renaissance & Reformation
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Survey of European society, politics, and culture from the late 15th through the early 17th centuries, with particular focus on the Italian and Northern Renaissance, on the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Counter Reformation.

    HIS 138B: Reform & Revolution in Tsarist Russia, 1825-1917 (Europe) - Professor Campbell
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Processes of state reform and social change in the 19th century; failure of reform and collapse of the Russian Empire; the revolutions of 1917.
    Description: Could the October Revolution have been avoided? In this course, we’ll find out. Russia in 1825 was a colossus with feet of clay. More than a century after Peter the Great’s reforms, the country had played a leading role in the defeat of Napoleon, and maintained a central role in European politics. Yet some of its elites looked longingly at the political reforms that western Europe was experiencing while Russia remained an autocracy; the system of serfdom, which bound tsar and nobility together, also acted as a brake on the country’s economic development. In short, impulses for change existed within and outside of Russia’s political order. The near-century between 1825 and 1917 was defined by the twin poles of reform and revolution. In this course, we will explore Russia’s efforts to transform itself, placing it on a continuum with other European states rather than treating it as an exceptional case. We’ll also study the ways in which reformers, reactionaries, and revolutionaries influenced one another, and the ways that their competing visions of Russia’s future evolved. No prior knowledge of Russian history, culture, or language is assumed. 
    Readings:
         - Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General
         - David Moon, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, 1762-1907
         - Olga Semenova-Tian-Shanskaia, Rural Life in Late Tsarist Russia
         - Additional readings on Canvas

    HIS 142A: History of the Holocaust
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Topics include comparative genocide, medieval and modern antisemitism, modern German history, the rise of Nazism, Jewish life in Europe before the Nazi period, and the fate of the Jewish communities and other persecuted groups in Europe from 1933-1945.                                                                                 
    Description: This course focuses on the history of the Holocaust, focused from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. Our work will focus not only on what happened, but also how and why it happened. We will therefore explore the Holocaust as an event in German and Jewish history and within the context of European modernity and global practices of mass violence. Through this work, we will investigate systems of exclusion, expulsion, colonial conquest, and mass murder. We will also look at individual choices, interrogating the choices of oppressors and exploring the strategies for resistance practiced by those targeted for persecution (primarily European Jews, but also Poles, Czechs, Russians, ethnic and religious minorities across Europe, queer and gender-non-conforming people, people with disabilities, and political opponents).
    Reading: 
    - Doris L. Bergen, War and genocide: a concise history of the Holocaust, 4th edition
    - Additional books and articles TBD.

    HIS 147B: Modern European Intellectual History: 1870-1920 (Europe) - Professor Saler
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Cultural and intellectual watershed of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Emergence of modern art and literature; psychoanalysis and the new social sciences. Focus on the work of Baudelaire, Wagner, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber and Kafka.
    Description: This course will examine European thought and culture at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Between 1870-1920, we see the emergence, or notable expansion, of the social sciences, psychoanalysis, aesthetic modernism, existentialism, socialism and feminism. A key development was the concept of “fictionalism,” which emphasized the constructed nature of knowledge, from the physical sciences through the arts. Topics include the new philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson; modernism in the arts (Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Symbolism, including the thought and works of Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky); the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, the fiction of Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka, the plays of Henrik Ibsen); the rise of the social sciences (particularly the sociologies of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber); and the critical expansion of Feminism and Socialism.

    HIS 159: Women & Gender in Latin American History
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Extensive Writing. Roles of women and men in the history of Latin America, with an emphasis on the intersection of gender with racial and class categories. Introduction to the theoretical premises of women’s and gender history.

    HIS 161: Human Rights in Latin America
     Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper.  History of the origins, denial and protection of Human Rights in Latin America. Emphasis on dictatorships, political violence, social resistance, democracy, justice, accountability, truth commissions, memory. 
    Description: This course examines the origin of the concept of human rights globally and its impact and development in Latin America. We will pay particular attention to certain countries such as Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, and Mexico, among others. Students will be allowed to develop their own interests in a final paper. Key topics include the Cold War; violence and memory; environmentalism; femicides, and truth commissions and justice. 

    HIS 168: History of Inter-American Relations (Latin American) - Professor Walker
    Lecture—3 hour(s). Diplomatic history of Latin America since independence, intra-Latin American relations, relations with the United States, participation in international organizations, and communism in Latin America
    Description: This course examines the relations between the United States and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as current issues. We will pay particular attention to the reasons why these relations have been characterized by misunderstanding, mistrust, and tension. While focusing on a few crucial moments such as the Guatemalan and Cuban Revolutions, we will also look at how the United States media has depicted Latin America (Disney Cartoons) and its people as well as the contemporary problems in U.S.-Latin American relations, particularly the border or la frontera.
    Reading: 
    - Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History 
    - Jonathan Blitzer, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
    - Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow

    HIS 178: Water in the West: Environment & Politics in America's Arid Lands (United States) - Professor Warren
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Extensive Writing. Politics and environmental consequences of water development in the arid western United States since 1848, with emphasis on California and western rivers, including the Colorado, Columbia, Missouri, and Mississippi. Irrigated settlement, the making of state and federal water law and bureaucracy, urban vs. rural competition, Native water rights, growth of irrigation technologies, groundwater overdraft, wildlife impacts. 

    HIS 179: Asian American History, 1850-Present (United States) - Professor Tsu
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Historical experience of people of Asian ancestry in the United States from the mid-19th century to the present. Migration, labor, community formation, race relations, women and gender, popular culture.
    Description: This course provides an overview of Asian American history from the nineteenth century to the present. It examines topics including early Asian migration and settlement, the rise of anti-Asian movements, community formation, gender and sexuality, U.S. imperialism, World War II and Cold War, the emergence of a panethnic Asian American movement, post-1965 migration, refugee experiences, and key contemporary issues. We will consider how Asian Americans have resisted and defined their identity and sense of belonging in the United States.

    HIS 183B: The History of the U.S West, 1865 to the Present (United States) - Professor St. John
    Learning Activities: Lecture 3 hour(s). Spread of the mining kingdom, the range cattle industry, Indian-military affairs, settlement of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Regions and political organization of the West.
    Description: This course will provide an introduction to the history of the U.S. West from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth century. During this period, the United States completed its conquest of the West’s Native inhabitants and its incorporation of the region’s land, people, and resources into the nation. By the end of the twentieth century, the West remained divided between rural regions still trapped in a colonial relationship to the nation’s power centers and major cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, and Los Angeles that shaped American political, economic, demographic, and cultural trends. This course will focus on the historical processes that have defined the West and its place within the United States. A vast and varied region stretching from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean, the West has both been characterized by its diversity and bound together by a shared regional identity and history. Fights over land, natural resources, federal power, racial and ethnic diversity, growth and economic development, and the public good are central to western history. Using films, monographs, memoirs, letters, and articles, we will explore the struggles for land, resources, identity, and power that have characterized the West and its role in the nation, as well as the relationship between the western past and the myths and stories that have secured the region’s prominent place in the American imagination.   

    HIS 184: History of Sexuality in America (US) - Professor Materson 
    Learning Activities: Lecture 3 hour(s), Extensive Writing. History of sexuality in America from pre-European through the late-20th century. Topics include birth control, marriage, sexual violence, prostitution, inter-racial relationships, heterosexuality and homosexuality, the feminist, gay, and lesbian liberation movements, AIDS, commercialization of sexuality.
    Description: Students in this course will consider how political, social, economic, and cultural processes have shaped the meaning and place of sexuality in America from the fifteenth century to the present. Themes include interpretations of procreative sex and recreational sex, the history of reproductive rights and justice, the constructions of heterosexuality and homosexuality, the commercialization and regulation of sexuality, transgender representations and identities, and role of sexuality in creating racial, gender, and class.                                                                                                                 Reading: 
    - Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution
    - Deirdre Cooper Owens, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
    - Ricardo J. Brown, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's: A Gay Life in the 1940s

    HIS 193B: History of the Modern Middle East, From 1914 (Middle East)
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Middle East from the turn of the 20th century to the present. Themes include the legacy of imperialism, cultural renaissance, the World Wars, nationalism, Palestine/Israel, Islamic revival, gender, revolutionary movements, politics of oil and war, cultural modernism, exile and diaspora.
    Description: This course explores the history of the Middle East from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. Rather than narrate the history of the twentieth century Middle East as a series of wars and conflicts, however, we will focus on the principal intellectual, cultural, political, and social factors that have shaped the countries of the Middle East. Themes include: legacies of colonialism; the late nineteenth century cultural renaissance known as the nahda; cultural modernism; anticolonial nationalism; postcolonial revolutionary movements; Islamic revival; gender; politics of oil and war; torture and state power; and the Arab uprisings. Our focus in the 20thcentury will be largely on the emergence of anti-colonial nationalist revolutions and post-colonial national regimes. Rather than a comprehensive survey of the history of the Middle East, the course will highlight certain countries with the purpose of critically addressing the themes that are dominant in both the scholarly and non-scholarly literature on the region.

  • Graduate Seminars
  • HIS 200B: First Year Research Seminar - Professor Fahrenthold
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Tutorial 1 hour(s). Preparation for higher degrees in History. Individual research and analysis resulting in a substantial research paper of publishable quality. Completion required of all Ph.D. candidates. HIS 200A and HIS 200B must be taken in continuous sequence, ordinarily during the first year.

    HIS 202C: Major Issues in Historical Interpretation: Modern Europe - Professor Saler
    Topic: Global Modernities

    HIS 202H: Major Issues in Historical Interpretation: United States
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Fundamental issues and debates in the study of history. United States. Readings, papers, and class reports.
    Topic: Environmental History 
    Description: This class explores topics in environmental history, including Native American histories, colonization, urbanization, histories of enslavement and freedom, animal histories, climate change, politics, labor and nature. 

    HIS 203C: 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.