Expanded Course Descriptions

The Department of History scheduled these undergraduate courses for WINTER QUARTER 2027. 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 007B: History of Latin America, 1700-1900 (Latin America) - Professor Walker
Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Latin America from colony to republic. The nature of Iberian colonialism, the causes for independence, the creation of nation states, the difficulties in consolidating these nations, and the rise of Liberalism and export economies in the 19th century.
Description: History 7B covers Latin American from 1700 to 1900. Among the topics we will study are slave uprisings, the mass rebellions of the eighteenth century, the wars of independence, nationalism and caudillos, and export economies. The course focuses on social history how different groups lived and shaped these processes.
Grading: Participation, mid-term and final exams, 2 papers
Readings:
- Sandra Lauderdale Graham, Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society
- William Beezley, Judas in the Jockey Club
- Charles Walker, Witness to the Age of Revolution: The Odyssey of Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru
- Richard Warren, Vagrants and Citizens: Politics and the Masses in Mexico City
HIS 008: 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 10C: World History III (World) - Professor Dickinson
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 012: Food & History (World) - Professor Resendez
Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Survey of the ways humans have fed themselves from the dawn of humanity to the present. Transformation of plants and animals into food, cooking into cuisine, and ceremony into etiquette.
Description: This course will survey how humans have fed themselves from the time they were hunter gatherers to the present and study how new feeding patterns have transformed cultures, economies, and societies. We trace the transformation of plants and animals into food, cooking into cuisine, ceremony into etiquette, and home cooking into national cuisine. In short, the course will examine the social and political implications of food and its consumption on a global scale from pre-history to the twentieth century.

HIS 17B: History of the 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.

HIS 072A: Women & Gender in America, to 1865 (US) - Professor Hartigan-O'Connor
Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). History of women and gender in America through 1865, emphasizing intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality. Topics include interracial marriage, slavery, witchcraft, meanings of motherhood, war, domestic labor, moral reform, women’s rights, migrations, the effects of commercialization and industrialization.
Description: This course is an introduction to the history of early American women—as a group, as individuals, and as members of different classes, races, and ethnic communities. Using the themes of production and reproduction (work and sex), we will explore both the daily lives of women and the changing concepts of “woman” and “womanhood” over time and region. Through primary sources, films, and scholarly literature, we will meet Indigenous traders, accused witches, “true women,” enslaved mothers, and western missionaries. The course will pay particular attention to the interactions between groups of women and the significance of gender in determining the experiences of people across North America, using comparisons among groups, individuals, regions, and across time wherever possible.
HIS 80: History of the United States in the Middle East (US) - 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 which 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 Gaza.
Grading: Quizzes: 20%; mid-term: 40%; final: 40%; Quizzes will be online during class time, based on the lecture on the day of the quiz.
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.
Undergraduate Seminars
HIS 102D: Modern Europe to 1815 (Europe) - Professor Stuart
Learning Activities— 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. Modern Europe to 1815.
Topic: Love, Sex and Gender in Premodern Europe
Description: We study ideas about love, sex and gender as they impacted people’s lived experience from late antiquity through the eighteenth century. In the Middle Ages a couple did not need clergy or witnesses to get married. They could simply consummate the marriage by having sex. State and church set out to suppress such clandestine marriages by the sixteenth century, in order to impose control over the sexuality of their subjects. Sex out of wedlock, prostitution, and same-sex relationships, widely tolerated in late antiquity and the Middle Ages became criminalized in the early modern period. We explore how and why these changes occurred and how they intersected with religion, class, ethnicity, religion and class. Why did early modern people believe that Jewish men menstruated? Why was sex with Satan a necessary legal element of the crime of witchcraft? Why were Renaissance medical textbooks full of examples of women spontaneously turning into men, but a man turning into a woman was considered medically impossible? How was the emergence of a modern “gay” identity in the late eighteenth century related to the development of the modern heterosexual male, which happened at the same time?
Requirements:
- Detailed discussion of assigned readings in class.
- Weekly response papers.
- Primary-source based term paper.

HIS 102M: Undergraduate Proseminar in History: United States Since 1896 (US) - Professor Materson
Learning Activities— 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: Puerto Rico, US Colonialism, and Memory
Description: Puerto Rico is an “unincorporated territory” of the United States that the Supreme Court categorized with the oxymoron of “foreign in a domestic sense.” The residents of Puerto Rico are US citizens without federal voting rights. During the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans migrated to cities such as New York, Chicago, and Orlando, making Puerto Ricans the second largest Latinx population in the United States. Students in this course will study this history of Puerto Rico under US rule to understand the colonial structures and lived experiences of such governing categories like “foreign in a domestic sense.” They will also read about the many forms of political and cultural resistance that have shaped identities and popular culture in the archipelago and the diaspora. Topics covered include militarization, reproductive rights and justice, public memory and memorialization, and the contemporary crises of displacement, gentrification, and femicide.

HIS 102Q: Undergraduate Proseminar in History: India (Asia) - Professor Anooshahr
Learning Activities— 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. India.
Description: This course will examine recent approaches to the history of the Mughal Empire which ruled India from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It ruled over the second wealthiest economy in the world in its day and produced some of most famous works of art and architecture in human history. The reading for each week is organized by methodology or theme. Students are not expected to master the all the various detail covered in these books. Rather, the goal is to begin to be able to summarize and evaluate arguments and methodologies in Mughal history and to become familiar with some basic historical patterns.

HIS 102X: Undergraduate Proseminar in History: Comparative History - Professor Fahrenthold
Learning Activities— 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: Histories of Campus Protest: Academic Freedom From Below
Description: How do student movements reshape the university from within? This Winter join a collaborative research project investigating the powerful history of campus activism across the University of California. We discuss the history of insurgent knowledge traditions, study social movements on campus, and write about student mobilizations past and present. Covers 1960 to present. Students will conduct hands-on archival research, meeting leading historians of social movements, write new histories of campus activism, and develop findings into a digital exhibit. This course runs in tandem with the Mellon Sawyer Seminar, "Academic Freedom from Below." Intensive research and writing.
Upper Division
HIS 100: Selected Topics in History - Professor Kim
Learning Activities— 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: TBD
Description: TBD

HIS 113: History of Modern Palestine/Israel (World) - Professor Fahrenthold
Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Cultural, social, and political histories of Palestine and Israel from the Ottoman Empire to the present. Topics include Zionist and Palestinian national movements; colonialism and the British Mandate; immigration, settlement, and refugees; the development of modern Israeli cultures; questions of statehood and multiculturalism; conflict and regional minority populations.
Description: What does it mean to decolonize history? This course examines the modern history of Palestine and Israel, challenging representations of the region as mired in conflict to consider how these histories have been thought about and constructed for a century. We explore Palestinian and Israeli histories in the 20th-21st centuries, including settler colonialism, nationalism, exile, refugees, sectarianism, diaspora politics, and genocide. The course consults first-hand accounts from Palestinian and Israeli archives and scholars to situate the land, its past, and its present in context. Two essays, exams.
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.
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
HIS 136: Scientific Revolution (Europe) - Professor Stolzenberg
Lecture/Discussion—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Rise of modern science in Europe, 1500–1750. Transformation of ideas about nature, knowledge, medicine, and technology in the age of Copernicus, Vesalius, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton.
Description: What does it mean to understand nature in modern—and pre-modern—ways? Today we take for granted that science involves mathematical laws, experimentation, discovering new phenomena, and the creation of technologies that provide power over nature. None of these was true about European natural science in 1500. All had become widely accepted by 1700. This class treats the transformation of European ideas about nature, knowledge, and technology during the age of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. We will explore the intellectual culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to examine issues such as scientific methods, instruments and experimentation, science and religion, and the control of nature. Topics include astronomy, physics, chemistry/alchemy, natural magic, medicine, and natural history. Evaluation is based on in-class exams, journal, and quizzes. This course satisfies GE requirements for AH, SS, and WC. There are no prerequisites, and no prior knowledge is necessary.
Readings: Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences, and course reader.
HIS 142A: History of the Holocaust (Europe) – Professor Shanes
Lecture 3 hour(s). 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 introduces students to the people who endured, stood-by, and perpetrated the crimes of the Nazi regime against European Jews and others during WWII. You will learn how the Nazis came to power and how and why the Nazis and their collaborators were able to carry out a program of persecution and ultimately extermination against their chosen enemies. You will also gain an understanding of the everyday experiences of victims of the Holocaust in order to appreciate the limited options for survival and resistance available to them. Assessment is based on two in-class midterms, a final exam, and weekly on-line quizzes
HIS 146B: Europe in the 20th Century (Europe) - Professor Dickinson
Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Survey of the history of Europe since 1939.
Description: This course will cover the history of Europe in the second part of the twentieth century, from World War II through to the present. 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 the dramatic events of WWII and its aftermath. The second half of the course will be devoted to the profound processes of transformation that have reshaped European societies since the 1950s, including in economics, politics, culture, and social life. 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, scholarly articles by historians, and selections from autobiographies, historical documents related to specific topics, from scholarly monographs, and from a number of works of political and social philosophy. Each student will be asked to write two short essays (6-8 pages), the first counting for 30% and the second for 40% of the course grade; take a midterm test counting for 10% of the grade; and a final test, counting for 20% of the course grade. Each student will also write six ungraded one-page thought papers (which serve as preparation for writing the two essays).

HIS 147A: European Intellectual History: 1800-1870 (Europe) - Professor Saler
Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. European thought in the early industrial era. Shifting cultural frameworks, from romanticism to scientism; liberal and socialist reactions to social change. Focus on the work of Goethe, Hegel, J.S. Mill, Marx, Darwin and Flaubert.
Description: This course is designed to introduce several of the major themes and figures in 19th-century European Intellectual History. The themes we will examine include: the attempts to explore the interrelations between reason and feeling in the wake of the 18th-century Enlightenment; conceptions of the individual and society in the light of the French and Industrial Revolutions; conflicts between science and religion, and the mediating role of art as both "scientific" (Realism) and "religious" (Aestheticism), in response to mid-19th century critiques of traditional religion, particularly Darwinism.
Readings include: Goethe, Faust Part One; Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling; J.S. Mill, Autoniography; Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Flaubert, “A Simple Heart”; Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil.
Assignments and Grading: TBA

HIS 166B: History of Mexico since 1849 (Latin America) - Professor Reséndez
Lecture—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, 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.
HIS 173: Becoming an American: Immigration & American Culture (US) – Professor Tsu
Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Introduction to the wide range of immigrant experiences and cycles of nativism that have shaped American culture in the 20th century. From novels, memoirs and films, students will explore how external and internal immigration has created a multicultural society.
Description: An introduction to the wide range of immigrant experiences and cycles of nativism that have shaped American culture in the twentieth century. We will use a comparative framework to explore the history of immigrants and refugees from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Themes will include debates in immigration history, community, identity, racial formation, gender and family, immigration and refugee policy, and competing notions of citizenship.
HIS 177B: History of Black People & American Race Relations: 1860-Present (US) - Professor Parker
Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. History of black people and race relations from 1860-present. Emphasis on Civil War, Reconstruction, Segregation, Age of Accommodation, black nationalism, urbanization, civil rights, and changing ideology of race relations.
Description: This course traces the history of Black people in the United States from the Civil War era to the present, examining the central role of race in shaping American society, politics, and culture. We will explore key events, movements, and figures in African American history, including Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, and the ongoing struggles for racial justice. Through a critical analysis of historical documents, literature, film, and other media, we will investigate how race relations have evolved and how the Black freedom struggle has influenced the broader American experience. Topics include emancipation and its aftermath, racial violence and resistance, Black cultural expression, voting rights, mass incarceration, and the role of Black leadership in transforming the nation's racial landscape. By the end of the course, students will gain a deeper understanding of the historical roots of contemporary racial issues in the U.S.

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 195B: History of Modern Korea (Asia) - Professor Kim
Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion/Laboratory—1 hour(s). History of Modern Korea, from Yi dynasty period to 1990s. Covers the political and socioeconomic changes in 19th century, modernization under Japanese colonialism, postwar economic growth and effects of the Cold War.

HIS 194A: Aristocratic & Feudal Japan (Asia) – Professor Kim
Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper; Discussion. Broad survey of the cultural, social, religious, and political aspects of Japanese history from mythological times through the 16th century emphasizing comparison of the organizations, values, and beliefs associated with the aristocratic and feudal periods
Graduate Seminars
HIS 200A: First Year Research Seminar - Professor Materson
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 Shanes
Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Fundamental issues and debates in the study of history. Modern Europe. Readings, papers, and class reports.
Topic: Modern Jewish Historiography
Description: How and why have modern Jews engaged history? What meaning does history have for Judaism and Jewishness, and how has Jewish historiography reflected the changing position of Jews and Judaism? This course explores a range of Jewish historiographical writing in the modern period.
HIS 202H: Major Issues in Historical Interpretation: United States - Professor Parker
Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Fundamental issues and debates in the study of history. United States. Readings, papers, and class reports.
HIS 203B: Second-Year Research Seminar - Professor Shanes
Seminar 3 hour(s), Tutorial 1 hour(s). Prepare for higher degrees in history. Individual research and analysis resulting in substantial research paper of publishable quality. Completion required of all Ph.D. candidates. HIS 203A & HIS 203B must be taken in continuous sequence, ordinarily during second year.