HIST - History

This course begins with the emergence of modern humans in the Paleolithic era and concludes in 1500 with the beginning of the Early Modern Period. It is the story of early human responses to the natural environment and how they exploited it for survival as well as how it determined the parameters of early civilizations. It explores the political, economic, social, cultural, artistic, and ethical relationships and institutions people fashioned to provide order and purpose in their lives. Early human encounter with the natural world encouraged beliefs in the supernatural and eventually gave birth to formalized religious faiths and institutions. These issues will be explored through an examination of the diversity of early, classical, and medieval civilizations, their contribution to the human experience across the globe, and our shared community.

This course begins with the Early Modern Period in 1500 when the voyages of discovery linked world trade routes and transformed human encounters and civilizations. A basic question the course explores is how and why the West came to dominate the modern world. The causes are traced to ancient Greek humanism, rationalism, and trust that natural laws governed the universe. Renaissance Europe revived these values and laid the foundation for one of the world's most transformative events - the scientific revolution. the Age of Reason and Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries applied natural law to politics, economics, and social institutions and toppled feudal monarchies and aristocracies and ushered in an era of individual human rights.These movements spawned the creativity of the Industrial Revolution and a capitalist economic system which provided the West with political, economic, and military might to lay the foundation for modern imperialism, racism, and global warfare. Western modernization forced other world civilizations to reckon with these transformations. Old values and modern demands continue to be negotiated on the global stage in a multi-polar world. The course concludes with a return to a theme from Global History 1 - human use and abuse of planet earth and speculations on the future of humanity.

This course provides students with the opportunity to study topics of interest to historians. Subject matter will vary.

This survey begins with the early context of three cultures - Native American, European and African - and concludes with the Civil War era.

This survey covers the period from the Civil War to the present.

Students are introduced to and practice the methods of historical writing which include proper citation, thesis development, library/archival research skills, the use of primary and secondary historical sources, numeracy/statistics interpretive skills, and improved writing skills. Students will be introduced to schools of historical interpretation. This is a requirement for history majors.

A survey of the region's indigenous cultures, the Spanish colonial period, independence movements and development in the 20th century is presented.

Students study the land, people, and state from before the coming of the Europeans to the present.

This course provides a survey of African history, early civilizations, kingdoms and empires, the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, independence and current issues.

A survey of the history of the Indian subcontinent is presented, including early civilization, the colonial period, independence and current issues.

This course will cover global topics with interdisciplinary perspectives. Examples are World War II in a Global Context, World History of Women, and Global Environmental History.

Students explore what is now the United States from pre-Columbian times until the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, with a focus on the Spanish, French and English colonial experience, the rise of slavery, Native American-European American relations and the break with England.

This course provides a study of the origins, course, and first generation effects of the American Civil War.

This study of the United States from 1877 to 1941 focuses on the ways that industrialization reshaped American society and the ways that labor, Populist, Progressive, and New Deal reformers responded to those changes. The American Empire, the rise of segregation and the cultural impact of World War I are also explored.

Students examine World War II and contemporary U.S. social, economic and political history, with focus on the Cold War and its end, the Civil Rights movement, and current issues.

This course traces the evolution of places, peoples, and systems identified with urban America. Analysis considers cities from the perspectives of geography, demography, economics, politics, and culture. Special attention is given to New York City and Chicago.

This course investigates the non-academic applications of history with particular emphases on oral history, archival methods, museum studies, and preservation. This course provides exposure to an array of applications of historical study.

A study of the development of U.S. military policy and its execution, significant military actions and strategies, and their impact on America's foreign and domestic life is provided. There are also opportunities for several field opportunities.

Students learn about the people who have held the office, constitutional and national issues, and the institution of the presidency from Washington to the present.

This course provides a social, cultural and intellectual study of the African-American experience from colonial slavery through the Civil War.

A social, cultural, and intellectual study of the African American experience, from the Civil War to the present.

This study of the indigenous peoples of North America focuses on what is now the United States and the period from 1750 to 1900.

This course begins with the colonial period and explores the racial, ethnic, and religious diversity of the American colonies, and the impact of the American Revolution on the new country's self-definition.  It will then continue into the 19th and 20th centuries and examine how immigration continued to transform American political, economic, and social systems and identity.

This course presents an overview of the history of American women with particular attention to the issue of cultural diversity from the perspectives of the construction of gender roles, interactions of men and women within culturally prescribed boundaries, and challenges to patriarchal structures. The student will explore the relationships among gender, class, and ethnic and racial diversity. This course is one of the "foundational courses" for the Women's Studies Minor.

This course examines the development of the scientific attitude and the principles of scientific inquiry in the context of the history of ideas. Students trace science back to its Greek roots, examine Islamic and Chinese science and examine the particular nature of the western scientific tradition.

Why do we believe what we believe? Why do we think the way we do? What are the categories of our beliefs? How did we derive these categories? Starting with the Ancient Greeks and concluding with Post-Modernism, this course examines the intellectual history of Western thought.

This course traces the development of the British Empire from the 16th century until the present exploring the theme of modernization, globalization, and imperial dominance.

This course examines the Chinese people's struggle in the 19th and 20th centuries to reclaim their heritage by means of a revolution that is still not complete.

This course is a study of the Japanese response to Western intrusion and of Japan's world power status.

This course focuses on the interrelated history of the peoples of the Near East, with an introduction to ancient history and the rise of Islam, but with a concentration on modern times.

For the past five centuries, conflict in the Mediterranean has helped define the world's history. The primary focus of this course is the epic clash between Christian and Islamic forces starting in the 1500s. Subsequent events are considered through the same prism.

This course will survey the struggle of Muslim powers in the Middle East as they encounter the technically advanced and aggressive West.  As many states attempt to modernize, there emerges the struggle to adopt new ideas into the context of Islam.  The way in which this process occurs and the new identities and institutions that result are the essence of the course.

A broad survey of the circumstances and events that brought the United States into the Vietnam War will be presented. Discussions will deal with the various interpretations of the major issues involved in the war and its aftermath.

This course provides an overview of the development of the ancient civilizations of China, India, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world, with special emphasis on the Greco-Roman world.

Students explore the formation and development of institutions, material culture and mentalities from Germanic times through the Quattrocento.

A study of kingdoms, social orders, monarchs and rebels is provided from the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation through the Napoleonic era.

This course offers a study of politics and society with respect to the ways in which Europeans influence the world in economics and ideas.

The history of this small island off the coast of Britain is a paradigm of western and world history. Britain's first colony, Ireland's colonization set the pattern by which Great Britain would colonize the world. Ireland's history embodies the conflict between pre-modern societies and modernization. This course begins in the early Celtic period, treats of the bitter ideological conflicts and bloody battles of the Reformation, presents for discussion the darkest days of the Great Hunger and the effects of social Darwinist ideology on Irish identity, and finishes with an assessment of contemporary Ireland.

Students examine England and Great Britain as they emerged from civil wars, the Protestant Reformation and the absolute control of government by the monarch, causing it to rise as an economic, democratic and imperial power, as well as the monarch's subsequent fall to its present condition.

Beginning with the Roman view of Germans, this course traces the development of German culture and polity by examining German lives and ideas.

This course examines the creation of a unified Germany by Otto von Bismarck, the development of that nation through both world wars, and its dismemberment following Hitler's Third Reich.

Students explore two contrasting national patterns and cultural traditions.

Starting with Kiev, the state of Muscovy and the era of Tsar Peter the Great, this course then concentrates on Russian history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This course focuses on the history of the Baltic States, Poland, the Austrian Empire, Hungary, the Czechs and Slovaks, the Bulgarians and Rumanians and their struggle for statehood in both early and modern times.

The students learn about the great revolutions and the political ideologies of the modern period of which they are a part - liberalism, socialism, Marxism and Maoism - as well as conservative fundamentalism and anti-colonialism.

This series of courses is organized by topic, event, or era. Examples include History of Iran, History of Mexico, and History of American Sport.

Workshops are designed to enhance the study of History from various perspectives. Topics will vary. Credit may vary.

This internship provides an opportunity for supervised, history-related, work experience in non-academic settings.

Students undertake intensive study in an area jointly chosen by the student and a history faculty member and approved by the chairperson.

Concern for human impact on the natural environment has been growing over the past two centuries. This workshop will place the modern environmental movement in a deep history context by asking how humans have interacted with their environment over the past fifty thousand years. Should we see people as a part of nature or not? How have we both altered the ecosystems we lived in and found sustainable ways of living? What have been the turning points in the story, and the contributions of fascinating game-changers like Henry David Thoreau, John James Audubon, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and Rachel Carson? In the second half of the workshop we will shift from history to science as we examine the evidence for contemporary environmental threats and solutions. The workshop will involve a mix of lecture, discussion, small group presentations and film, and will be team taught by a member of the chemistry department.

Students will study at the advanced level the history of history (historiography) and the philosophy of history through examining the works of distinguished practitioners of the discipline. Students will continue to practice the methods of historical writing introduced in Historiography 1 and proceed to develop and write their Senior Capstone Research Paper in consultation with a faculty mentor. This course is required of majors and fulfills the Advanced Writing requirement for the major.