Summer 2024 Courses
Course Descriptions
115.02, 30162 ONLINE, Mikati - Summer II (July 8 - August 6)
Intertwined Histories: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This course presents an historical survey of pre-modern civilizations and cultures through a study of the role played by religion in the rise and shaping of cultures and societies. The primary focus will be on the historical environment and central traditions of three of the main world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their near eastern environment from their inception to circa 1500 C.E.
115.03, 30087 ONLINE, Boucher - Maymester (May 13 - May 29)
Pre-Modern History: Imagining and Describing the Edge of the Known World. This course will survey the history of various societies from Antiquity to 1492. While the material will help you develop a basic understanding of the pre-modern world and its history, the course will focus on the following question: How did various societies at the time imagine and describe regions located on their geographic periphery? As this class will show, pre-modern descriptions of distant lands often reveal more about the societies that produced them than about the places they intended to describe. Whether they were Ancient Greek poets or Medieval Irish monks, for instance, authors injected in these descriptions the values, anxieties, and fantasies that were common in their cultures of origin. As such, these texts provide revealing insights about past societies and the only means to appreciate them is to understand them in the historical and cultural context in which they were written.
115.04, 30091 ONLINE, Mikati - Summer I (June 3 - July 2)
Intertwined Histories: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This course presents an historical survey of pre-modern civilizations and cultures through a study of the role played by religion in the rise and shaping of cultures and societies. The primary focus will be on the historical environment and central traditions of three of the main world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their near eastern environment from their inception to circa 1500 C.E.
116.01, 30684 ONLINE, Ingram - Summer II (July 8 - August 6)
The U.S. and the World in the American Century. Why did American automaker Henry Ford spend millions to build a town in the Amazon rainforest? How did the U.S. and the Soviet Union go from being allies to enemies in the span of just a few short years? What was African decolonization and how can it help us to better understand the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam War? Each week in this course, we will tackle questions like these. Using lectures, books, archival materials, and active discussion sessions, we'll learn to think critically about the U.S.'s role as a global power from the late nineteenth century to the present.
116.02, 30003 MTWRF 8:30-12:00 & ONLINE, Cropper - Maymester (May 13 - May 29)
The History of Stuff: A Global History of Consumption. Every day, Americans consume and discard goods they purchased from the supermarket, the local café down the street, large retailers like Walmart and Home Depot, and upscale electronic stores that offer the newest Apple or Google products. While these commodities—from smartphones and televisions to plastic bottles and snack food—have become commonplace in our culture, we rarely take the time to step back and think about where all this “stuff” actually comes from, let alone the deep historical processes that have made these products so ubiquitous in contemporary society. This course takes up this task by conducting a global history of consumption and waste from 1600 to the present, and it will examine how the diffusion of “stuff” throughout the globe has long shaped processes of cultural, social, economic, and environmental change over time.
116.03, 30097 ONLINE, Ingram - Maymester (May 13 - May 29)
The U.S. and the World in the American Century. Why did American automaker Henry Ford spend millions to build a town in the Amazon rainforest? How did the U.S. and the Soviet Union go from being allies to enemies in the span of just a few short years? What was African decolonization and how can it help us to better understand the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam War? Each week in this course, we will tackle questions like these. Using lectures, books, archival materials, and active discussion sessions, we'll learn to think critically about the U.S.'s role as a global power from the late nineteenth century to the present.
116.04, 30117 ONLINE, Steere-Williams - Summer I (June 3 - July 2)
Epidemics and Revolutions: Disease in Modern Society. In this introductory course we will ask the fascinating historical question of how the social experience and cultural understanding of disease has shaped modern global history. We will explore how both chronic and infectious diseases have played a fundamental role in the development of modern modes of governance, public health, modern technologies, and a global economy. We will also examine how disease illuminates social attitudes about class, race, and colonialism in the period from the Enlightenment to the present. Using diverse examples such as cholera outbreaks in Europe, bubonic plague in India, syphilis in Africa, yellow fever in North America and the Caribbean, and HIV/AIDS across the globe, this course demonstrates that the historical analysis of disease is integral to understanding both ‘modernity’ and ‘globalization’.
116.05, 30285 ONLINE, Ingram - Summer I (June 3 - July 2)
The U.S. and the World in the American Century. Why did American automaker Henry Ford spend millions to build a town in the Amazon rainforest? How did the U.S. and the Soviet Union go from being allies to enemies in the span of just a few short years? What was African decolonization and how can it help us to better understand the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam War? Each week in this course, we will tackle questions like these. Using lectures, books, archival materials, and active discussion sessions, we'll learn to think critically about the U.S.'s role as a global power from the late nineteenth century to the present.
117.01, 30683 ONLINE, Jones - Summer I (June 3 - July 2)
Race and Religion in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Religious violence and toleration were pressing concerns in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, just as they are today. This course will explore how medieval conceptions of religion and access to rights were tied to the development of medieval society. Ideas about nation and race will be studied through examples of violence, toleration, and conversion, laying the foundations for long-term discussions about rights and tolerance. The ways that this history is used and misused in the modern world will also be examined as we separate fact from fiction. The course will begin with examples of conflict, coexistence, and resistance between and among Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Middle Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean worlds, and continue through the consolidation of political rule, the European expulsions of Muslims and Jews, and the fracturing of Latin Christendom in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, culminating in the debates over the natural rights and self-determination of indigenous peoples and the enslaved in the New World. This course meets both the Pre-Modern History and the Global Race, Equity, and Inclusion General Education Requirements.
118.01, 30679 MTWRF 8:30-12:00 & ONLINE, Slater - Maymester (May 13 - May 29)
Gender, Race, and Sexualities in the Rise of Western Civilization, 1750-Present. Over the course of the semester we as a class will be discussing the role of women, gender, race, and sexualities in relation to the rise of the Enlightenment and ideas of equity. The focus will be on gendered and racial liberties. Studying the various roles of women and their relationships to men provide a unique lens through which to understand the application of Enlightenment philosophy on Europe and North America. The breadth of this course prohibits depth in all areas, but we will specifically engage questions related to politics, society, culture, the arts, and war, as well as the history of modern sexualities. This class is intersectional, so we will also be addressing issues of class and race consistently. There will be graphic and sensitive material. You will be expected to engage a variety of works and ideas, contributing your own ideas and observations.
118.02, 30680 MTWRF 8:30-12:00 & ONLINE, Slater - Summer I (June 3 - July 2)
Gender, Race, and Sexualities in the Rise of Western Civilization, 1750-Present. Over the course of the semester we as a class will be discussing the role of women, gender, race, and sexualities in relation to the rise of the Enlightenment and ideas of equity. The focus will be on gendered and racial liberties. Studying the various roles of women and their relationships to men provide a unique lens through which to understand the application of Enlightenment philosophy on Europe and North America. The breadth of this course prohibits depth in all areas, but we will specifically engage questions related to politics, society, culture, the arts, and war, as well as the history of modern sexualities. This class is intersectional, so we will also be addressing issues of class and race consistently. There will be graphic and sensitive material. You will be expected to engage a variety of works and ideas, contributing your own ideas and observations.
221.01, 30685 MTWRF 10:00-11:45 & ONLINE, Slater - Summer II (July 8 - August 6)
History of American Women. This course provides a thorough exploration of women’s role in British North America in the colonial period, as well as American women from Independence to the present. Topics include historiography to better understand how historians approach this topic, but the majority focus on how women engaged in daily life, culture, political systems, and forms of protest. Covering roughly 1600-present, this overarching survey also includes the roles of women from African American, Native American, and other racial minorities as well as those who identify with elements of the queer community. Students are expected to read critically several articles, primary materials, 3 monographs, and a textbook and participate actively in conversation. This course combines both lecture and discussion and assessment is based on written exams, source analysis, participation, and exams.
261.01, 30682 MTWRF 8:30-12:00 & ONLINE, Covert - Maymester (May 13 - May 29)
Latin American History through Film. This course examines the portrayal of Latin America in film. We will analyze cinematic representations of race, class, gender, imperialism, religion, and power as well as stereotypes of Latin American politics and culture. Students will develop an understanding of Latin America’s historical trajectory through class lectures, assigned readings, and film content, but they will also learn how to analyze films and other primary sources as a way to understand the political and social contexts in which those sources were produced.
291.01, 30681 ONLINE, Steere-Williams - Maymester (May 13 - May 29)
Disease, Medicine, & History. This course investigates the changing meanings and entanglements of medical science, public health, and medical practice from the 18th century. We will examine ideas about the body and disease, the changing role and image of medicine in American and European life. Key themes we will examine include alternative medicine, the growth of medicine’s cultural authority, medical professionalization, the rise of public health, hospital care, and imperial and colonial medicine. We will probe these issues through the lenses of class, race, gender, age, lifestyle, and place in terms of health. Though the focus of the class is on the western medicine, throughout the course we will be making transnational and global comparisons. Your overall assessment in this class depends on your class participation and writing. You will work to sharpen your verbal and argumentative skills in frequent class discussions, and your writing skills through the formal study of some practical problems of expository writing and by revising essays that you write on topics raised in our historical discussion.