69 courses with the subject HIS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
HIS 123Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class in Early America3
Race, class, and gender are critical social categories for understanding America’s history from 1600 to 1877. The course content focuses on these categories as relationships of power and the bases of social identity. We will take a comparative view through the experiences of Native American, white, black, and immigrant women and men in Early America
This course examines the history of the United States with a focus on the nation’s complicated relationship with psychoactive substances. The course will examine political, social, and economic aspects of a range of ‘drug’ substances including: alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, coca, opium, cannabis, psychedelics, pharmaceuticals and more, and their role in shaping the history of the United States.
HIS 135Introduction to The African Diasporic Experience3
The contours of this course are threefold. First, this course provides an introduction to the evolution of Africana Studies. This means that we will examine historical origins leading to the emergence of African American history and by extension, Afro-American Studies, Black Studies, or Africana Studies as a field of scholarly inquiry, this will include a critical examination of local student activists’ struggles on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus from the 1960s to the 1980s. Second, this course is a general survey that examines the board arc of a multidisciplinary history regarding the African Diasporic experience beginning with themes that include but are not limited to: Africa and the origins of civilization, images of Africans before the advent of global systems of slavery, i.e. the trans-Atlantic slave system and the Islamic slave trade, the development of African American cultures in the Americas, the Haitian Revolution, the Age of Imperial Colonialism, the Jim Crow Era, and other relevant themes from challenges to racial segregation during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements to institutional racism within the American criminal justice system and the Black Lives Matter movement of the 21st century
This class examines the history of the African Diaspora in Latin America beginning with the encounters in the Atlantic World and Caribbean in the fifteenth Century. Following the Conquest of indigenous civilizations of the Americas in the sixteenth Century, the course examines the trans-Atlantic slave trade with a focus on colonial Latin America. The histories of Afro-Latin American populations were generally overlooked until quite recently, so this class will examine the sistema de castas (casta system) in colonial Latin America that contributed to the erasure of Afro-Latin American cultural, political, and economic contributions to the region’s cultures. The negative associations of blackness influenced national narratives of mestizaje (racial mixing) that shaped national identities during nineteenth-century independence movements, contributing to Afro-Latin American invisibility and racial exclusion through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Students will read recent work by historians as well as primary source materials that highlight the African Diasporic experience in Latin America, with a focus on the Caribbean and South America. The course will thus provide key insights into the narratives of Afro-Latin American invisibility while highlighting Afro-Latin American historical agency, contributions to national cultures and politics, and resistance to systems of oppression. Permission of instructor is required before enrollment.
This course surveys the history of the countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. We will focus on cross-cultural interaction and the factors that drive political, economic, social, and cultural exchange including East Asian Philosophies, Chinese influence in the Asian world, the West’s changing role in Asia, and the ‘Asian Century.’
Exploration of the interplay between healthcare and social issues in America since the Civil War. The course illuminates the interaction between medical science and the way attitudes toward medicine and medical providers have evolved.
Historical survey of U.S. refugee policy and the experiences of many refugees in America, from their pre-refugee days through the traumatic experiences that forced them to flee their homes, to life in refugee camps, and finally as they endure the challenges of resettlement in the United States. Special emphasis on contemporary experiences of refugees in America, from 1990 to present, and the contemporary global refugee crisis. Major themes are race, gender, religion, ethnicity and sexuality.
Social history focuses on the lived experiences of ordinary people of the past. This approach offers deep understanding of life in early America, the formation of the United States, change over time, and persistent themes and dynamics that echo into the present day. Early American social history constitutes the course content in two respects. First, our study of the past will be organized around the analytical categories of race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality, as relationships of power and as windows on American history. Second, the material will serve as a fruitful vehicle for learning and applying introductory historical methods that are essential in studying and reconstructing the past. These methods will begin to cultivate in you the indispensable perspective that is fundamental to pursuing any rational line of inquiry, as well the ability to reach compelling, empirical conclusions. A historical perspective and the work that you accomplish in History 223 will contribute to your preparation for history courses at the 300-500 levels.
HIS 235Methods and Key Themes in African American History Since Reconstruction3
This course shall be regarded as a community of scholars coming together to examine select topics of African American history and Black culture. In the process of this examination, students will be focusing on acquiring information, improving writing skills, and sharpening critical thinking ability. To attain these goals we will be involved in reading, discussing, and writing. As a result of our efforts students should learn to present their ideas, both orally and in writing, in a clear and precise manner. We begin with a critical examination on the evolution of historical writing of Black culture. It then proceeds with a critical examination of Black/White relations in the United States at the intersections of race, class, gender, and culture from the Abolition Era to the Black Lives Matter movement. While the readings will provide critical insight into the organic formation of institutional racism and structural inequality, adequate attention will be directed towards social, political, and economic responses exhibited by African Americans to overcome oppression during the long freedom struggle. The course will also provide historical, socio-political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural contexts as analytical tools to aid student analyses of major themes, questions and problems presented within the literature. Students will also be encouraged to find links between the past and the present.
This course is an exploration of the history and historiography of East Asia, including a methodological examination of the historian’s craft. Although intended for History Majors, all students are welcome.
This course explores how historical events shaped our perception and the study of Europe’s historical development. This course particularly explores the ties between historical moments, events, and people and their influence in shaping Europeans’ efforts to develop history into a professional field of study and as a tool to understand their progression as a culture.
This course explores the history of Russia, the Soviet Union, and present-day Russia. This will look at the history of the various peoples that make up Russia and Russia’s interactions with the world. It explores Russia’s unique place in European and world politics, society, and culture in an attempt to explain Russia’s often confrontational history with other states.
As a hot-button issue, immigration may seem like it belongs to the present day; however, it’s nothing new. Immigration has been a source of debate since America’s very beginnings. Likewise, migration within the country has its own complicated past. We will explore the dynamic history of human movement not only to and within America, but in comparison with international cases. Most centrally, we will study the experiences of diverse groups of national and regional newcomers and the history of U.S. immigration policy. By the end of this course, you will have a historical perspective on current matters related to U.S. immigration and migration.
HIS 314From Women’s Liberation to Hip-Hop Feminism: American Women, 1960-Present3
This is an advanced, comparative survey of American women’s history through the modern period, from the Second Wave Women’s Movement to today. Our emphasis will be on women in terms of intersectionality by race, class, sexuality, and other social identities. Central themes are power, work, family, and the body, among others.
HIS 323Civil Rights and African American Nationalism3
Development of civil rights and black power movements, and how liberal and nationalist ideology shaped the politics, economics, and culture of the African American community.
Students will combine research on local topics with hands-on-experience to create professional quality radio, television, and/or online productions, and/or traditional museum exhibits. Projects vary by semester. Same as JLM 325 .
African societies and European powers from 1870 to present. Africans’ resistance to and accommodation of colonialism; use of African labor; rise of African nationalism and independence movements; and post-colonial conditions.
Social, economic, and political history of Japan since Tokugawa times. Development of capitalism, modernization, ultranationalism and world war, the economic miracle and its aftermath, and popular culture.
The revolutionary transformations that have dominated the experience of 15th and 20th century China. Imperialism, nationalism, communism, cultural revolution, the ‘capitalist road,’ and China’s present ascent to world power status.
Japanese imperialism from 1895-1945 Modernization, expansion, the Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, imperialism and World War II in the Pacific theatre. Meets with HIS 547 .
How do we account for the economic rise of East Asia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? Did culture play a role in the economic and technological transformations of East Asia? Avoiding the stereotypes and dispelling the myths, this course will explore the links between business and technology on the one hand, and politics, culture, and society on the other.
This course is an exploration of significant cultural themes in Japanese history, such as class conflict and resolution, socialization, modernization, environmental degradation, the supernatural, and the nation at war, as portrayed in film, literature, and history. We use film as text on a greater journey to understand Japanese history and culture and experience the myriad ways that Japanese authors and directors view themselves and Japan.
HIS 355Afro-Latin American Invisibility and Centrality3
Despite the large presence of African descended people throughout the region of Latin America, little scholarship focused on this significant population until the twenty-first century. This course examines the historical and narrative process by which a white minority population rendered majority Afro-descended populations in Latin America invisible. Beginning with an overview of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the sixteenth through the nineteenth-centuries, the course then turns to the Haitian Revolution to examine how racial and social hierarchies shaped historical archives and thus historical narratives. The class will take a closer look at how historians have come to understand the realities of slavery as well as Black-Native relations in colonial Latin America. We will then analyze the constructions of national identities based on the similar myth of mestizaje (racial mixing) in a comparative lens, focusing on the myth of “racial democracy” in Brazil, and Afro-Latin American invisibility in Cuba, Mexico, and Argentina. Through a variety of recent scholarship on the topic as well as primary source materials, students will gain an understanding of the legacies of anti-Black racism in Latin America and how historians have overcome these challenges to assert the centrality of Afro-Latin American populations in shaping the region’s cultures and histories. Same as ANT 355 .
Many of us ‘know’ about samurai- Japanese warriors- from movies, novels and popular histories, but few truly know about the reality of warriors’ lives. By viewing Japanese warriors through history, literature, and film, we will uncover their sociopolitical origins, roles in society, and treatment in popular media.
This course uses film as a medium through which to examine the history of the African Diaspora in Latin America. Afro-Latin American populations lack adequate representation in popular media in the region, yet many films have drawn from literature and history to highlight their contributions to socio-political movements and cultural productions. Most of these films were produced and released in historical contexts that served a director’s political agenda, such as those produced by the Cuban Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) following the 1959 Revolution. Thus, the class examines the historical period conveyed in the films as well as the context in which the films were produced, providing the necessary context to analyze the directors’ intended messages to their contemporary audiences. The films examined in this course cast light on the significant, yet often ignored, history of Afro-Latin American people from the colonial period through the twenty-first century. Readings include literature on which the films are drawn, leading scholarship in the field of Afro-Latin American history, and film theory.
This course explores Greek and Roman foundations of Western Civilization. The course will explain the Greek and Roman legacies that shaped Western politics, religion, philosophy, culture, and society. Meets with HIS 564 .
HIS 365African American Urban Politics, Economy, and Policy in Historical Perspective3
This course provides an introduction to the political history and public policies that have significantly shaped, and continue to shape, the social and political life of African Americans and the urban environment. While the course will explore historical themes, it will be mostly contemporary in its temporal focus. Topics will include African American political thought, leadership, and Black political economy. We will explore voting, participation, party politics, and elective office: i.e. legislative and executive. Additional topics will explore challenges within housing and labor markets as well as issues of gender, class, and sexual identity at the intersections of Black politics. Finally, we will explore the role of race, drug policy, and criminal justice.
HIS 366Black Leadership, Organization, and Movements in Historical Perspective3
This interdisciplinary history course is dedicated to critical examination of Black political leadership and policy setting, i.e. how Black leaders and organizations catalyze movements that set, or attempt to set, the public agenda across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It does so by focusing on the theory and practice of the political behavior of individuals and institutions contextualized by constraints and opportunities presented by national politics. We operate from the thesis that African Americans have sought to influence the process of national agenda setting. That influence would eventually lead to the acquisition of public goods which would improve the general condition of the “Black community.” Our approach begins with agenda setting and moves to a historical review of various periods of Black political development. We then examine more closely Black political leadership in a number of various settings and historical periods.
HIS 367Central Europe and the Balkans: Its People and History3
This course covers the unique historical development of Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the present day. Geographically, it focuses on Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and the states of the former Yugoslavia. Lectures, readings, and discussions will emphasize the unique historical and social development of the people in these regions and how they shaped Europe’s historical evolution.
From Tsarist Russia on the eve of Bolshevik Revolution though rise, development and demise of USSR, to emergence of post-Soviet Russia. Emphasis on governmental structures and political processes. Same as POL 372 .
HIS 377Plague, Famine, Calamity and Response in European History3
This course explores moments in European History in which humanity found itself directly threatened by plague, pestilence, famine, and other natural calamities. We explore the causes and history of these moments, but also focus on the response to such tragic events both in their historical context as well as our present-day understanding of these events. The course begins in Antiquity but spends much of the course in the Modern Era and movements such as the Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and Urbanization create the “modern” society we all live in today. It is also during this period that we see the rise of new “schools” and “fields” designed to respond to the new challenges such as ecology, sociology, urbanology, and even modern medicine.
HIS 380North Africa, Islam, and the Middle East in Historical Perspective3
This interdisciplinary history seminar examines the colonial and postcolonial experiences of North Africa in context of the region’s close connections to Europe, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. Readings will cover Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya as well as their relationships to the history of French, Italian and Spanish colonialism. While the period of sustained European imperial control over North Africa began as early as 1830 in Algeria and as late as 1911-12 in Libya and Morocco, decolonization was almost complete in the region by the early 1960s. Throughout the semester, we will test the thesis that this “colonial moment” had far-reaching implications not only for postcolonial North African societies, but also for the European countries that imposed colonial rule. We will also explore the interconnectedness of economic, political, and cultural phenomena in North African history, e.g., the implications of labor migration for musical culture, and the interplay of religion and language in the construction of national identities. Finally, we will consider the ways in which portrayals of history and culture have been politically charged and hotly contested in both colonial and postcolonial contexts.
This course explores the rise, fall, and lasting impacts of Nazi Germany. Students will gain a better understanding of Nazism’s rise to power in Germany and their path toward the Holocaust. The course also explains the hows and whys Nazism’s influence continues in far-right movements in the present-day.
The primary objective of the seminar is to help the students enhance analytic ability for the study of the history and the political dynamics of the most intriguing system in the world: two Koreas. After a brief introduction to cultural background and history from approximately the late 1800s, the course will discuss the key historical phenomena that have been influential in Korea’s evolution until the division of the two Koreas. The course then examines and compares the major aspects and functions of political systems, processes, and changes (general patterns of similarities and differences) in both South and North Korea. Same as IST 383 and POL 383
This course explores the role of propaganda in shaping identity formation in Europe and the Western World. Beginning with the Protestant Reformation, the course focuses on the major historical events in Western Civilization that shaped the use of propaganda and led to its institutionalized use over the previous centuries including the French Revolution, the rise of Nationalism and Imperialism, the World Wars, Totalitarianism, the Cold War, and the rise of mass media. The class thereby explains the historical development and into recent events and students’ daily experiences.
This course explores the hows and whys of the causes behind the major European conflicts of the Twentieth Century. Particularly, using the First World War as one of its major focal points, the course explores how the origins, experience and aftermath of the First World War forever changed Europe and Western World through the remainder of the Twentieth Century and to the Present Day.
HIS 388African International Relations in Historical Perspective3
Undergraduate students interested in studying African history, relations between African societies and peoples as well as the global system of international relations from post-colonial Africa to the present will find this course interesting and challenging. In addition to the aforementioned arc of history, we will explore the following key topics and questions during the first four weeks of class: What is African international relations?; gender and international relations; Eurocentrism, racism, and international relations; governance and international relations in pre-colonial Africa, colonial dynamics, and the legacy of colonialism. These provide analytical contexts for understanding African de-colonialization and international relations. Core themes covered in the remainder of the class include the politics of post-independence, international alignments, the causes and effects of authoritarian rule, and Africa’s role in the global political economy. The course raises questions about the implications of the international community, to include the United States, and the shaping of Africa’s past. It continues with careful consideration of pressing current issues on the African continent, including state failure, the war on terror, U.S. foreign policy regarding Africa, and China’s growing economic and political footprint. Finally, the course ends with a central question: “Is Africa rising?”
HIS 395Black Women, Gender, and Black Transnationalism3
This seminar examines complex dynamics of Black transnationalism by focusing on the global visions; transnational activities; and transracial political alliances of African descendant peoples within the diaspora. While the course highlights key writings, speeches, and transoceanic travels of a diverse group of men and women, it also repositions Black women from the periphery to the center of the history of Black transnationalism. Additionally, this seminar seeks to examine various expressions and interpretations of Black transnationalism within the United States and globally from the eighteenth century to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the late twentieth century. As we move through the course we will engage two key questions: first how was Black women’s engagement in transnationalism similar to or different from that of their male counterparts?; and second to what degree did Black women integrate transnationalism with issues connected to women’s rights and/or feminist political concerns?
Continuation of History 455. Substantial piece of original research written to professional standards required. Same as HIS 656. Prerequisite(s); if any: Senior Standing and HIS 455 and 3 History courses at the 300 level or above.
HIS 465Race, Crime, and Punishment in Historical Perspective3
This course will mostly be a multidisciplinary historical examination on the dynamics of the American criminal justice system at the local, state, and federal levels. We will examine historical and contemporary studies that provide arguments about the connections between race, class, gender, poverty, urban communities, and the criminal justice system. More specifically, our readings and discussions will provide perspectives through which to understand not only how and why acts of police violence, questionable court proceedings, and unjust sentences routinely take place but also why and how they are often sanctioned by society at large. What historical and contemporary circumstances explain, and are necessarily connected to, the acquittal or lack of charges of the officers involved in the killings of Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddy Gray, Breonna Taylor, and so many others? What historical and contemporary circumstances explain the re-occurrence of police violence against communities of color? Such questions suggest recurring patterns that point to ways in which society and its institutions (re)produce representations and practices that often take race, age, class, and gender as markers of expected civic and/or criminal behavior.
HIS 480Race and Racism in Public Health and Medicine3
Beginning with the advent of the Trans-Atlantic Slave system to the present, this upper-level seminar examines the material bases for systemic, structural inequalities that shape the production of medical knowledge, distribution of medical services, and public health measures on global, national, and local scales. This course not only covers how race, as well as the intersecting categories of gender, class, sexuality culture, and nation, affects both the unequal distribution of diseases and unequal access to medical treatment, it will also consider the human rights and social justice consequences of these phenomena. It is a seminar in comparative medical and health history that looks at how the intersectionality of race, gender, class, sex, culture, and science have figured prominently in the management of disease and health. The course readings and assignments focus on the health status of “non-white” peoples with particular attention to the persistent disparities that people of color have experienced in health outcomes in the United States and other parts of the world. Of critical concern in this course is the contested question of organized medicine’s status as form of “social control” in modernizing societies. Another interpretive focus is the ways that the organization of medical care has confronted, or failed to confront, social justice in medical treatment and research as well as public health. The recognition of health disparities is itself historically constituted and represents certain cultural as well as socio-economic investment in seeing the gaps between “rich and poor,” “white and black,” as either malleable or intractable. Same as HLS 480 .
Individual reading or research in a historical topic of interest, with the program to be arranged by agreement between the student and his or her instructor. May be repeated. Prerequisite(s); if any: Upper level (junior or senior) status and Permission of Instructor.
Public history is history, designed to reach a wide audience, presented outside the classroom or a textbook. We examine monuments, museums, battlefields, oral histories, web sites, and movies. Some research is required at local institutions.
Development and functioning of ancient cities, with emphasis on the archeology of the ancient Near East. Importance of sedentism, agriculture, and imperialism for functioning of ancient cities.
Ancient religions of the Near East that led to development of Western religious traditions. Archaeological and anthropological perspectives on religions of Mesopotamia and the Levant, including the development of Judaism and early Christianity.
Japanese imperialism from 1895-1945 Modernization, expansion, the Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, imperialism and World War II in the Pacific theatre. Meets with HIS 347 .
This course explores Greek and Roman foundations of Western Civilization. The course will explain the Greek and Roman legacies that shaped Western politics, religion, philosophy, culture, and society. Meets with HIS 364 .
Individual reading or research in a topic of interest between the student and the instructor. Must be approved in advance by the appropriate graduate program director.
