131 courses with the subject HIST, 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.
HIST 001AFirst-Year Seminar: History and the Digital Turn: Slavery and Resistance1
This freshman seminar focuses on vibrant new developments at the intersections of the digital humanities and the study of slavery. Students will encounter early histories of Black life in the era of slavery through a variety of digital humanities projects. They will grapple with debates in the history of slavery as they relate to the digital humanities and hone their analytical skills through critiques of digital humanities projects and by planning their own. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Migration, Diaspora, and Space Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, LALS. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Migration, Diaspora, and Space
HIST 001BFirst Year Seminar: Human Rights as History: From Haiti to Nuremberg1
This course takes the subject of human rights and sets it into historical motion, starting with the French Revolution and ending with the 21 st century. Concentration: Culture and Identity; Domination and Resistance Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for PEAC
HIST 001CFirst-Year Seminar: Why College? The Past and Future of Liberal Arts1
Look past the brochures and the info sessions and ask: what is college in the early 21st Century, how did it get that way? Why do people go to college? Should they? This class examines the histories and meanings of higher education. Concentration: Culture and Identity Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit.
HIST 001DFirst-Year Seminar: 1857: The Indian Mutiny in Global History1
Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations
HIST 001EFirst-Year Seminar: Global History of Science1
This seminar explores the formation of modern science as a global phenomenon. We will trace the practices and discourses that helped to define both science (as a form of knowledge-making) and the sciences (as distinct disciplines) from the 18th-20th century. Concentrations: Empires and Nations; Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Empires and Nations; Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST 001FFirst-Year Seminar: The Golden Age of Piracy1
This course explores the profound intertwinings of myth and reality in the golden age of piracy, a period that is centered in the early 18th century. Concentration: Capitalism; Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentration: Capitalism; Domination and Resistance. Fall 2027 Azfar.
HIST 001IFYS: Star Wars and Culture Wars: The US in the 1970s1
A cultural history of society, politics, and popular culture in the United States in the 1970s, asking why we can trace so much of our 21st-century world to that singular decade. Topics will include the Vietnam War, antiwar movement and draft resistance, Watergate, the energy crisis and the beginnings of climate change denial, the birth of the personal computer, feminism, reproductive freedom, gay liberation, race and debates over affirmative action, the rise of the “religious right” and neoliberalism, disco, punk rock, hip hop, Blaxploitation films, disaster films, and the movies of Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Altman, and more. This seminar will focus on analysis of primary sources and alternative methods of communicating history. Concentrations: Culture and Identity Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity
HIST 001JFirst-Year Seminar: London Beyond Control: From the Plague Year to the Public Sphere1
The Great Plague of London (1665), Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722), and the avalanche of imitations inspired by the latter in 2020 will all serve as points of entry into plague as a cultural crisis of modernity that has spawned (and continues to spawn) a vast corpus of new imaginaries of the relationship between self and society, risk and immunity, fact and fiction, private and public, law and justice, freedom and sovereignty. Concentration: Migration, Diaspora, and Space Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST
HIST 001NFirst-Year Seminar: Chinatowns: Then & Now1
ASAM 001 Chinatowns have long been a fixture of urban life, serving as a haven for workers fleeing anti-Asian violence, a home for immigrant families, and a hub for tourism. This course will focus on the histories and contemporary conditions of Chinatowns in major U.S. cities, though we will also discuss the development of suburban Chinatowns and Chinatowns around the world. We will explore questions including: what spurred the development of Chinatowns? What purpose do they continue to serve, and for whom? What has been their role in Asian American, American, and urban history? Concentration: Culture and Identity; Migration, Diaspora, and Space Social Sciences. Writing. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Concentration: Culture and Identity; Migration, Diaspora, and Space Spring 2027. Truong. Spring 2028 Truong.
HIST 001PFirst Year Seminar: History through the Lens: Latin America, Latinos, Photography, and the Present1
This course uses photographs to explore key processes in the making of modern Latin America, such as urbanization, industrialization, migration, labor, race, ethnicity, gender, disease, sports, leisure, music, food, politics, religion, and the environment. Concentrations: Empires and Nations Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Empires and Nations
Explores the relationship between the creation of personal and collective memory and the production of history. The seminar will examine the tensions between memory and history in U.S. history. Concentrations: Empires and Nations Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Empires and Nations Fall 2027 Dorsey.
HIST 001SBreaking The Internet: Slavery,Resistance, and the Digital Humanities1
Cross listed with BLST 001S. “Breaking The Internet: Slavery, Resistance, and the Digital Humanities,” is a first year seminar that considers vibrant new developments at the intersections of the digital humanities and the study of slavery. Students will encounter early histories of Black life in the era of slavery through a variety of digital humanities projects. They will grapple with debates in the history of slavery as they relate to the digital humantiies, consider the ethics of knowledge production about the history of slavery, and hone their analytical skills through critiques of digital humanities projects and by designing one. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Migration, Diaspora, and Space; Domination and Resistance
HIST 001UFirst-Year Seminar: Defining an “Us”: Nationalism, Culture, and Identity in Modern Europe1
This course examines how populations come to see themselves as part of a single community. That community, in some instances called a nation or nation-state (or even an empire), can demand loyalty. It can also be exclusionary, sometimes with violent outcomes. We will examine the emergence of cultural and national identities in 19th- and 20th-century Europe through thematic investigations of four intertwined ways such identities might be forged: land, language, symbols, and blood. Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Empires and Nations Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Fall 2026. Brown.
HIST 001VFirst-Year Seminar: History in the Making: Autocrats, Activists, and Artists in a Changing Middle East1
This course will examine recent political, social, and cultural transformations in the Middle East and the various historical developments that have led to them. Through an exploration of the current landscape of the region, we will use contemporary events as a window onto the past, investigating how history has shaped our world today. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for PEAC. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance
HIST 001WFirst-Year Seminar: Migration and the Making of Modern Germany1
This First-Year Seminar examines the history of modern Germany through the lens of migration. From the formation of the German Empire in 1871 through the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, migrants have been at the center of the politial, cultural, social, and economic conflicts that have forged the modern German state. Over nearly 150 years, Germany underwent three major transformations. First, it shifted from a region of mass emigration to become the world’s second-largest immigration destination by 1914. Then, during the interwar period, its fledgling democracy gave way to a genocidal ethnostate. Finally, the post-1945 era saw an ethnically cleansed and ideologically divided nation evolve into today’s multicultural Federal Republic, where one in five citizens claims an “immigrant background.” As we analyze the many clashes over race, gender, class, religion, family, mobility, and national identity that attended these movements, we will explore a variety of approaches to studying migrations historically. Key topics include mass emigration and colonial expansion; settler colonialism and the migration of colonial subjects to the German metropole; the rise of modern antisemitism, refugees, genocide, and ethnic cleansing; anti-imperialism and educational migration from the Global South; “guest workers” and Afro-German history; as well as asylum-seeking and ongoing debates about the role of Islam in German society. This writing course will engage a wide array of primary and secondary sources, ranging from academic monographs and article to autobiographies, films, letters, police reports, novels, visual media, and video games. Concentration: Culture & Identity and Migration, Diaspora and Space. Writing Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, ISLM, and GLBL. Concentrations: CULTID, MDS
HIST 001XFirst-Year Seminar: Crime and Punishment in America1
The problem of mass incarceration has redefined our cities, undermined our labor movement, and shaped our national politics for the last thirty years. Yet few historians have focused on the racial, economic, and political implications of this major force in our social order. This seminar will explore the historic roots of crime and punishment in American life. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit.
HIST 001YFirst-Year Seminar: The History of the Future1
In this seminar, we will trace the history of the idea of “the future,” concentrating on 19th- and 20th-century experience. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST 001ZFirst-Year Seminar: Medieval Origins of Racial Capitalism1
The first few chapters of Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism - the book which introduced the concept of “racial capitalism” to the American academy and public culture - will provide the structure in this first year seminar for a deeper inquiry into the medieval roots of “racial capitalism”, a concept that is now central to the humanities and social sciences. The question of what this means for contemporary debates about the dynamics of modern racisms - including but not restricted to anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and settler colonialism - will serve as the basis for the final project which will be structured around the modern period of Robinson’s study. Concentrations: Capitalism; Culture and Identity; Domination and Resistance; Empire and Nations. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Capitalism; Culture and Identity; Dominations and Resistance; Empire and Nations. Spring 2027. Azfar.
Centered on the history of religious war and toleration in Early Modern Europe (15th to 18th centuries), the course begins with the Crusades, and ends with the French and American Revolutions. MDST and GLBL-paired. Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for MDST, GLBL-paired. Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations Spring 2028 Azfar.
HIST 002BComparative Empires: Mughals, Ottomans and Hapsburgs1
Using primary sources, art, recent scholarship, and film, this course explores the origins of the modern world in Europe and its colonies between the 15th and 18th centuries. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations
HIST 002FEarly Modern Europe: Rethinking the Scientific Revolution1
The course is an overview of the Scientific Revolution in Europe and an exploration of a scholarly debate that grows every year in its contemporary relevance. Concentration: Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. 1 credit.
HIST 002XBritish History, 1066-1720: From the Crusades to the South Sea Bubble1
This survey course will trace the history of medieval and early modern Britain from the Crusades to the eighteenth century. In addition to covering major events, the course will explore how the histories of sex, race, class, gender, climate, science, technology, empire, art, culture, capitalism, religion and philosophy shape and are shaped by British histories of wars, rebellion, state-building and imperial expansion. Concentration: Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: History
HIST 003AModern Europe, 1789 to 1918: Radicals and Revolutions1
This course surveys European history from the French Revolution to the aftermath of World War I. We will explore the radical and revolutionary movements that remade European society from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century. We will analyze how new social relations, cultural norms, and technoglogies abetted repeated attempts to dismatle existing political orders and social hierarchies and bring new ones to life. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GMST; GLBL - Paired. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Fall 2027 Brown.
HIST 003BModern Europe, 1918 to the Present: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, Culture Wars1
This course examines historical themes including modernity, fascism, racializing ideology, student activism, citizenship, and revolution. Through close analysis of primary and secondary readings, we will debate where we can locate “Europe” in the 20 th century and how we define the boundaries of the century itself. Key historical actors and important years (Stalin, 1968, 1989…) will be emphasized, but we will also interrogate broader themes and ideas (decolonization, sexuality, postwar retribution). Recommended for teacher certification. Concentration: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GMST, GLBL-Paired. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Spring 2027. Brown.
Drawing on literature, cinema, newspapers, cartoons, music, official documents, and historical essays, this survey course examines the colonial incorporation of the region into the Atlantic economy; the neo-colonial regimes of the 19th and 20th centuries and their diverse and convergent historical paths; and the challenges and opportunities of earlier and current globalization trends. Emphasis on changes and continuities over five centuries exploring revolutionary, reformist, and conservative agendas of change as well as gender, class, racial, and religious issues. Concentrations: Capitalism, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS, GLBL-paired. Concentrations: Capitalism, Empires and Nations
In this thematic survey of American culture and society from the colonial era through the American Civil War and Reconstruction, student interpretation of primary-source documents will be emphasized. Recommended for teacher certification. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit.
The history of the 20th- and 21st-century United States has been marked by the tension between the ideal of democracy and the expansion of American empire. Through analysis of primary and secondary sources, including film, music, images, and literature, this course surveys American history from the end of Reconstruction to the recent past. We will focus on the development of the “American century” and examine how the emergence of the U.S. as a world power has influenced domestic politics and social movements. Recommended for teacher certification. Concentration: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentration: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Fall 2027 Truong.
This survey class introduces students to Middle Eastern history from the late eighteenth century to the present. We will cover the major political, social, and cultural developments in the region during this period and examine how Middle Eastern societies and cultures have been represented over the last two centuries. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ISLM, GLBL-Paired. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Fall 2026. Shokr. Spring 2028 Shokr.
HIST 007ABlack Atlantic History I: Slavery and Revolutions1
Cross listed with BLST 007B This introductory course centers the lived experiences of people of African descent in the Americas and the wider Atlantic World during the period between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. We will examine the histories of slavery and freedom, gender and sexuality, marronage, revolt, and revolution through the perspectives of enslaved and free people of African descent who lived through this turbulent time and profoundly shaped the histories of North America, the Caribbean, and South America. Recommended for teacher certification. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, GSST, LALS. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance
This introductory course centers the lived experiences of Black people in the U.S. and the wider Americas during the period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will be covering people of African descents’ pivotal social justice movements, freedom struggles, and cultural movements in the U.S. and beyond, inclusive of their experiences of mass migrations within the U.S. and to the U.S. from the Caribbean and South America, Africa, and to a lesser extent, Europe. Recommended for teacher certification. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Eligible for BLST, GSST, LALS, and GLBL-paired. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Spring 2027. Mitchell.
HIST 008AWest Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade, 1500 to 18501
This survey course focuses on the origins and impact of the slave trade on West African societies. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, GLBL-Paired. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Fall 2027 Burke.
HIST 008BMfecane, Mines, and Mandela: Southern Africa from 1650 to the Present1
This course surveys southern African history from the establishment of Dutch rule at the Cape of Good Hope to the present day, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries. Concentration: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST. Concentration: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations
HIST 008CFrom Leopold to Kabila: The Bad Twentieth Century in Central Africa1
Cross-listed with BLST 006C This course is a survey covering the history of Central Africa from the onset of the “Scramble for Africa” in the 19th Century, the era of European colonial rule, the process of decolonization, and postcolonial struggles including the Rwandan genocide, warfare in Eastern Congo, and the violent extraction of industrial raw materials. Students will also discuss current events in Central Africa in relationship to the history covered in the course. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Migration, Diaspora and Space Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Migration, Diaspora and Space Fall 2026. Burke.
This course surveys the history of premodern China. Thematic focus and content will vary. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Spring 2027. Chen.
HIST 009BModern China: Reformers, Revolutionaries, and Rebels1
This course is an introduction to the intellectual, social, and economic forces that shaped the history of modern China. We will rely heavily on primary sources as we try to reconstruct the plural, contradictory, and fluid ways in which Chinese intellectual and political leaders viewed themselves as “modern.” Concentration: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Fall 2027 Chen.
ASAM 010 This course explores how “Asian America” came to be. We will begin with the historical experiences of Asians in the U.S., examine the origins of the term “Asian American” in the movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and consider its current contested usage as a demographic category. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Fall 2026. Truong.
HIST 014Sex, Lies and Revolution: Democracy in Anglo-America, 1642-17761
This course locates the history of sexuality in the history of British political thought and culture from the English Civil War to the American Revolutionary era. The regicide of Charles I, the liberal assault on the family state, the public sphere, the rage of party, the joint stock company in the Financial Revolution, the Law of Nations, the balance of empire and racial capitalism in the Seven Years War will be linked through works of scholarship and a wide range of primary sources - art, theater, political philosophy, news, libels, broadside, opera, literature, diplomatic correspondence, peace treaties and constitutions - to revolutionary shifts in the social, political, culture and legal history of sexuality during this period. Concentrations: Empires and Nations; Gender and Sexuality Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Empires and Nations; Gender and Sexuality
Method/Theory. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Science, Medicine, and Environment
Centered on Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651), this course will trace a counter-history of Western political thought starting with the Ancients and ending in the present moment when Hobbes’ famous mythical entity-at once machine, monster, and idol-continues to inspire paradigm shifts in the humanities and social sciences. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations
HIST 021London Beyond Control: Sex, Fiction, and the Law1
The Great Plague of London (1665), Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722), and the avalanche of imitations inspired by the latter in 2020 will all serve as points of entry into plague as a cultural crisis of modernity that has spawned (and continues to spawn) a vast corpus of new imaginaries of the relationship between self and society, risk and immunity, fact and fiction, private and public, law and justice, freedom and sovereignty.
Prior course in the Humanities or instructor approval. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 021AQueering Britain: History, Film, Art and Literature from the Roman Conquest to the Brexit Era1
How can the history of queer Britain change how we think about British history - the litany of invasions and conquests, the powerful queens, the rebellious parliaments, the rising and falling company states? In answering this question, this course locates British queer history and the larger project of queering history in a field of contested cultural memory that also encompasses literature, film, and television. Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Gender and Sexuality. GSST Eligible. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Culture and Identity. Spring 2027. Azfar.
The course will hone into the tensions that surround the project of liberal empire by focusing on their articulation and contestation in Europe, America, and India during the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century. Case studies of specific topics like antislavery boycotts and the impeachment trials of colonial governors will be used to delve into the role of Enlightenment and empire in the invention of race, sex, science, knowledge, liberty, capitalism, and ideologies of humanitarianism. Concentration: Domination and Resistance
Department prereq of previous history course; no first-years without permission of the instructor. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 023BClimate Enlightenments
ENVS 026 This course is a comparative intellectual history of climate change. The first half of the course will trace a genealogy of “climate science” starting with the Enlightenment. The second half of the course will explore alternative frameworks - Indigenous, subaltern, theological, theosophic and poetic - for thinking about climate as a site of human action. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment
Previous course in the department or social sciences, AP/IB credit, or permission of the instructor. Social Sciences. Eligible for ENVS. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment Fall 2027 Azfar. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 024Witch-hunting in the Early Modern World1
Starting with an overview of major themes in the separate but related histories of capitalism and witch-hunting, this course is centered around Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici: a book that lies at the intersection of these topics. Themes to be explored include gender, science, religious war, state-building, climate change, peasant revolts, “primitive accumulation,” and the historical narrative of modernity. Concentration: Domination and Resistance
This course is not open to first-year students. Social sciences. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 024BWitchcraft, Heresy, and Inquisition: Knowledge & Power from the Medieval to the Modern Era1
Witch-hunting is often associated with a medievalism that modern science, capitalism and reason are meant to have vanquished, but in fact it was not until the seventeenth century that the Europe “witch-craze” peaked. This course will explore the work of scholars who have linked the rise of witch-hunting and the intertwined histories of heresy and possession to ostensibly modern processes of state-building, science, capitalism, legal rationalism, psychiatry, global fiscal-military crisis, environmental mass destruction, imperial violence and bureaucratic expansion. We will look at how Marxist, feminist, quantitative, literary, psychoanalytic, psycholinguistic, and traditionally historicist interpretive frameworks have continually sharpened the picture that appears in the archives, resulting in a body of scholarship that continually surprises, elucidates and unsettles our conception of power. Eligible for: GSST and MDST. Concentration: Method Theory, Gender and Sexuality, Domination and Resistance. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST and MDST. Method Theory. Concentration: Gender and Sexuality, Domination and Resistance. Fall 2026. Azfar. Catalog chapter: History Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 025Colonialism and Nationalism in the Middle East1
This upper-level course will explore the vast and ever-growing scholarly literature on colonialism and nationalism in the Middle East. It will cover both key theoretical works that have helped to shape this body of historical writing as well as important monographs that exemplify particular approaches to the topic. Concentrations: Empires and Nations
Department prereq of a previous history course, AP credit, or permission of instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-paired, INTP, ISLM. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Empires and Nations Spring 2027. Shokr. Fall 2027 Shokr. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 026Frontiers of Capitalism1
This course explores key questions about power, agency, and historical change that are raised by the study of capitalism in the non-Western world. In the process, it investigates how geographic, social, cultural, and ecological differences have been produced features of capitalist environments outside of Europe over the last 500 years. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Capitalism, Empires and Nations.
Previous course in the department or instructor approval. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL core. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Capitalism, Empires and Nations Spring 2027. Shokr. Spring 2028 Shokr. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 027Living with Total War: Europe, 1914-19191
This research seminar examines the experience of Europeans in the trenches, under military occupation, and at home in the turbulent years during and immediately following the First World War. Optional language attachments: German, French, and Russian. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for PEAC
HIST 028Aux Armes! History and Historiography of the French Revolution1
We examine the sites of the Revolution and its afterlives, using everything from primary source documents to household objects. We will explore a range of ways of practicing history. This will lead to discussions of nationalism, identity, rights regimes based on gender or race, and inequalities stemming from material or legal conditions. Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Domination and Resistance
Previous History course. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Capitalism, Culture and Identity Fall 2026. Shokr. Fall 2027 Shokr. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 030Glory Days? Western Europe’s Postwar 1945-19751
Though sometimes called the trente glorieuses (glorious thirty), the decades after World War II witnessed upheaval in Western Europe. We will analyze these years, which witnessed the Marshall Plan, decolonization, and student protest. We will interrogate how to define a Western European space, with an eye toward empire, European integration, and the Cold War. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Empires and Nations
HIST 030ASex, Scandals, and Criminal Affairs in European History1
This course takes histories of crime and scandal as windows through which to analyze broader society in nineteen and twentieth-century Europe. Examining famous (and infamous) scandals and trials, alongside lesser-known affairs, students will consider how age, gender, class, and race, among other factors, impacted public opinion, newspaper coverage, and trial outcomes. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Eligible for GSST. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Gender and Sexuality Fall 2027 Brown.
HIST 031France in Algeria, France and Algerians, 1830-present1
As European states enact xenophobic migration policies and the children and grandchildren of migrants level demands for their rights in Paris and elsewhere, the imperial roots of contemporary European crises have never appeared more relevant. This course interrogates the history and aftermath of France’s years in Algeria, looking at topics including settler colonialism, resistance and anti-imperial nationalism, and citizenship debates. Studying the period from 1830 (France’s initial invasion) to the present (sixty years of Algerian independence), students will analyze European and colonial histories and come away with a broader vocabulary for discussing imperialism and analyzing its legacy. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations
Department prereq of a previous history course, or permission of instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, ISLM, PEAC. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Spring 2027. Brown. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 032Holidays in the Empire1
From seedy bars to holy sites, Europeans journeyed to colonized spaces to experience people and places they could never see at home. This class examines how European peoples participated in the imperial project through their travels. Students will analyze empire and tourism and produce digital content for a broad public. Students will write and help design content for a web site featuring interactive maps and analysis of these “holidays in the Empire.” Concentrations: Domination and Resistance
First-year students must receive permission of instructor. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 033Communism and the Environment1
This course focuses on the impact of ideology and politics on the environment in twentieth-century Russia. Readings include short stories, novels, monographs, articles, and documents. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ENVS. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST 034Varieties of Zionist Thought: Judaism, Nationalism, Antisemitism, and the Jewish Question1
(Cross-listed as RELG 060 ) This course focuses on political expressions of Jewish identity since the late nineteenth century through an exploration of the central texts of Zionist thought. It integrates biblical, rabbinic, and medieval Jewish texts about Jerusalem, the idea of Zion, and the centrality of the Land of Israel to provide historical context and background. We ask: what are the ways select Jewish sources from antiquity to modernity have grappled with varied attitudes toward land, political sovereignty, and national identity in the Diaspora. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GMST.
HIST 035The Nationality Question in Russia, 1917 to the Present: Nation-Building, Empire, and Decolonization1
This course explores the history of Soviet nationalities during the communist and post-communist eras. We examine the paradox of nation-building in a polity committed to the end of national distinctions and explore the way various national minorities in the Soviet Union developed hybrid national and cultural identities. We focus on the experiences of Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Roma, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations
Antisemitism is a recurring feature of social and political life. While its persistence through time is clear to see, consensus over what constitutes antisemitism has frayed dramatically in the twenty-first century. This course invites students to critically examine a range of different approaches to the study of antisemitism, from Marxism to postcolonialism and from critical theory to queer theory. Students will also examine competing definitions of antisemitism and the politics that animate them. In investigating the intersections of antisemitism with race, whiteness, gender and class, students will also explore the changing relationship between opposition to antisemitism and anti-racism. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations
This course explores the various manifestations of fascism as an ideological, cultural, and political movement in Europe from 1919 to 1945. Special attention will be paid to Spain, Italy, Germany, Romania, and England. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GMST, PEAC, GLBL-Core
HIST 037The Holocaust: History, Representation, and Culture1
This course explores the roots of Nazism, the implementation of the Final Solution, the legacy of the Holocaust on European society, and the representation of the Holocaust through an interdisciplinary approach that relies on primary sources, historical scholarship, memoirs, poetry, painting, and film. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GMST, PEAC. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Domination and Resistance
HIST 038Angels of Death: Life under Lenin and Stalin1
This course explores the causes and consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution. Topics include the collapse of the tsarist regime, consolidation of communist rule, the rise of Stalin, and de-Stalinization. We explore the successes and failures of communism through a close reading of primary sources, memoirs, and monographs. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-paired. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance
This course explores the legacy of communism in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. We start with an exploration of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies and then turn to the impact of the policies of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin on the economy, culture, society, and politics of Russia since 1991. Concentrations: Capitalism, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Capitalism, Domination and Resistance
A research seminar in which students explore the history of antislavery, abolitionist, and emancipationist movements in North America. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST
The history of entertainment and cultural expression in the United States from early America to the contemporary era. Concentration: Culture and Identity
Previous course in the department or instructor permission. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for FMST. Concentrations: Culture and Identity Spring 2027. Dorsey. Spring 2028 Dorsey. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 046The American Civil War1
The social, cultural and political history of the event often called “the Second American Revolution.” This course examines the sectional conflict that prompted the Civil War, the secession crisis, the war years, and Reconstruction. Central themes of American history emerge-freedom, equality, self-determination, racial justice and injustice, economic and class conflict. This course will also explore the continued conflict of the Civil War in American memory and popular culture. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empires and Nations
Previous course in the department, AP/IB history credit, or permission of the instructor. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentration: Gender and Sexuality Spring 2027. Dorsey. Catalog chapter: History Department website: https://swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 050Healing in the Black Atlantic1
How have Black healers and communities conceived of health and healing throughout history? How has healing exceeded notions of individual physical well-being to include political action, collective care, spirituality, and social cohesion? Notions of health and healing and healing practices in the “Black Atlantic” (inclusive of Africa and the Americas) from the era of slavery to the present are the focus of this course. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for Eligible for BLST, GLBL-paired, GSST, LALS. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Science, Medicine, and Environment
This course recounts the struggle for freedom and national citizenship rights in the post-Civil War era. Black courage and determination secured hard won successes despite “splendid failures.” History, fiction, and film treatments will help students gain insights into “America’s second Revolution.”
A HIST or BLST course at Swarthmore or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 052History of Manhood in America1
Meanings of manhood and various constructions of masculine identity in America since the 18th century. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST
Cross listed with BLST 053. Through this course, students will read a variety of historians’ approaches to the study of the Black body from the earliest days of slavery through the present. Topics include representations of Black bodies in art and literature, Black people’s embodied experiences of pleasure and pain. Black people’s experiences of health, reproduction, suffering, and healing, the ways Black bodies have been controlled and how Black people resisted. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality, Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, GSST. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality, Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST 054Histories of Gender and Racial Capitalism1
What is racial capitalism? How have gender and racial ideologies structured capitalism throughout history? How have Black and Native American people endured and resisted the rise of capitalism in North American and the Caribbean? How has gender influenced their experiences and actions? This history course will explore these questions and more. We will take a thematic approach to the intertwined histories of race, gender, and capitalism from the earliest days of slavery to the present, with a focus on markets, property, and labor. Eligible for: BLST and GSST. Concentrations: Capitalism; Gender and Sexuality Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, GSST. Concentrations: Capitalism; Gender and Sexuality Fall 2026. Mitchell.
HIST 055The Black History of Public Health in Philadelphia1
Spring 2027 Semester: This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly program. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Science, Medicine, and Environment
Admission to the Tri-Co Philly Program or permission of instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality; Science, Medicine, and Environment Spring 2027. Mitchell. Catalog chapter: History Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 056Police, Prisons, & Protests1
Police violence and incarceration have been the subject of increasing scholarly and popular attention in past years, particularly since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the global uprisings against police brutality in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd. This course provides an introduction to histories of the carceral state in the U.S. How have police and prisons developed throughout U.S. history? Who has been policed and imprisoned? How have impacted communities responded to and resisted police violence and incarceration? We will address these questions through analysis of primary historical sources, scholarly literature, films, and case studies of contemporary activism. Concentrations: Dominations and Resistance.
Previous course in the department or instructor permission. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for PEAC, ESCH. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance Spring 2027. Truong. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 057History v. Hollywood1
A history course focused on analyzing the narrative of American History as imagined and created by cinematographers. Students will view both Hollywood classics as well as work by black filmmakers. Assigned readings will address themes of nationality, race, labor, gender, and political activism. This course is not open to first year students.
Department prereq of a previous history course Social sciences. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 060Nature, Art, and the Science of Power in Mughal India and Renaissance Europe1
What was the role that art and nature played in the “science of power” - both the theory and the practice of power - in India and Europe ca 1500 - 1700? Love, sex, fear, music, birds, gardens, palaces, paintings, maps, queens, pearls, languages, theologies and laboratories will provide comparative frameworks from which to examine how art and nature shaped the theory and practice of power in India and Europe between 1500 and 1700. Concentrations: Capitalism, Empires and Nations
Course is not open to first year students. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA, GLBL-Paired. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Migration, Diaspora, and Space Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 061Mapping Rivers: The Indus and the Ganges in Global History1
Starting and ending with the Indus and the Ganges, this course will explore global history through the lens of river history and the history of knowledge. Drawing on a wealth of new scholarship on river persons and the worlds they made through their interaction with human and non-human actors in Africa, Asia and the Americas, we will locate river maps of South Asia in an unfinished history of traveling knowledge systems - theology, geology, geography, cartography, hydrology, archaeology, engineering - produced by humans in their unfinished quest to understand and interpret the historical actions of river persons in all these places. Eligible for: ASIA, ENVS, GLBL-paired. Concentration: Science, Medicine, and Environment. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA, ENVS and GLBL-Paired. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment. Fall 2026. Azfar.
HIST 062History of Reading: From Papyrus to Generative AI1
In this course, we will study the technological and cultural history of the act of reading, tracing the changing meanings of and practice of reading. Topics discussed will include the origins of reading, the impact of the printing press, the rise of reading in mass culture and the spread of literacy, and arguments about the moral and political character of reading. We will spend the last quarter of the course discussing and debating the impact of generative AI on reading and education. Concentrations: Capitalism; Culture and Identity; Method/Theory. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Capitalism; Culture and Identity Spring 2027. Burke.
HIST 063History from Below: Oral History and Community-based Archives1
How do historians document the experiences of ordinary people and communities that have been left out of dominant narratives? This course introduces students to the practice of oral history and the construction of community-based archives as two ways scholars and practitioners have addressed silences and absences in historical record. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance
Previous course in the department or instructor permission. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Method/Theory. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance Fall 2026. Truong. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 063WLiving History: Archiving AIDS at William Way
HIST 064Cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Past and Present: Soccer, Tango, Politics, Nightlife and More in a Capitalist Periphery1
Drawing on a diverse range of sources, including ads, photographs, journalism, paintings, statistics, sociological essays, tano and rock lyrics, literature, and political pamphlets. This course will explore the social and cultural life of Buenos Aires past and present. Working with these sources along scholarly interpretations, the course examines the city’s multiple temporalities - each unfolding beyond the boundaries of political history. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-paired; LALS; Method/Theory; Concentrations: Capitalism; Culture and Identity Spring 2027. Armus.
This course examines how movements and activism shaped and were shaped by cities in the 20th-century U.S. We will engage with scholarship that examines the intersections of urban and social movement history, addressing topics including immigration and labor organizing, urban renewal and civil rights, and gentrification and queer liberation. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Migration, Diaspora, and Space
Previous course in the department, AP/IB history credit, or instructor permission. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-paired, Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Migration, Diaspora, and Space Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 065Cities of (Im)migrants: Buenos Aires, Lima, Philadelphia, and New York1
Why do people move? Who participates in the migration process? How do local political, cultural, and economic conditions and broader global capitalist forces shape individual/family decisions to migrate? What forces mold (im)migrants’ adjustments to the new cities? When do (im)migrant groups become communities? This course explores the adjustment of European immigrants in Buenos Aires, internal migrants in Lima, and Latinos in Philadelphia and New York and their roles in the making of modern metropolis. Concentration: Culture and Identity
HIST or LALS course. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS, GLBL-core Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 065AIssues and Debates in Modern Latin America1
Cross listed with LALS 065 Explores major problems and challenges Latin American nations have been confronting since the last third of the 19th century onward. Topics include the neocolonial condition of the region, nation and state builing process, urbanization, industrialization, popular and elite cultures, modernities in the periphery, and race, class and gender conflicts. Cross listed with LALS 065. Concentration: Culture and Identity. Social sciences. 1 credit Eligible for Cross listed with LALS 065. Concentration: Culture and Identity. Fall 2027 Almeida. Catalog chapter: History
HIST 066Making Sense of Being Sick: the Social Construction of Diseases in the Modern World1
Discussing Latin American, European, African, Asian, and North American cases, this course examines public health strategies in colonial and neocolonial contexts; disease metaphors in media, cinema, and literature; ideas about hygiene, segregation and contagion; outbreaks and the politics of blame; the medicalization of society; and alternative healing cultures. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Science, Medicine, and Environment
Introductory level history course at Swarthmore, AP credit, or instructor permission. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-core, INTP, LALS. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Science, Medicine, and Environment Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 067Digging Through the National Security Archive: South American “Dirty Wars” and the United States’ Involvement1
Focusing on 1970s Latin American dictatorships, this course’s aims are twofold: firstly, a critical examination of the available scholarship on the so-called “Dirty Wars” that produced the disappearance of thousands of citizens-particularly young people-in the context of state terrorism; secondly, an exploration of the relations between those Latin American dictatorships and the United States through a rigorous research exercise using the National Security Archive and other primary sources. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations
At least one course in history or professor permission. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS, PEAC. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 067TThe Pandemic of Cigarette Smoking: Habit, Addiction and Public Health in the Big Tobacco Archives1
This course examines the worldwide transformation of cigarette smoking from a celebrated and well-accepted habit into a medicalized, risky, and regulated practice. We will research the T ruth Tobacco Industry Documents Archive , an online repository with thousands of documents produced by the deceptive workings of big American tobacco corporations aiming at undermining the medicalization of the cigarette smoking habit worldwide. Individual or group research projects might deal with the Latin American region or other areas of the world. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Capitalism; Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST or LALS course. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-paired, LALS. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Capitalism; Science, Medicine, and Environment Catalog chapter: History Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 069History of TV in the Americas
LALS 069 FMST 059 This course chronicles the cultural history of television in the Americas from its experimental phase in the early 20 th century to present-day streaming wars. Over the course of the semester, we will analyze the relationship between television, culture, and politics to better understand the role of the medium in society. By taking a hemispheric approach, this course also emphasizes the transnational currents that shaped national identities on the screen and transmitted them across the Americas. It asks, does television shape the nation or reflect it? How has politics informed the development of television programming? How has television shaped the US understanding of Latin America/Latinx peoples? And vice versa? Social Sciences. Eligible for FMST, LALS.
This class looks at the last fifty years of African history, following the collapse and delegitimation of the first wave of African nationalist rule, to think about the meanings and nature of life in sub-Saharan Africa in the present moment. Students will look beyond and behind headlines about suffering and warfare to questions that attend on everyday life and ordinary experience. This is not a class about policy-making or international intervention, but instead about how recent African history looks and feels from an African-centered perspective. Eligible for BLST. Concentration: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations. Social sciences. 1 credit Eligible for BLST. Concentration: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations. Spring 2028 Burke. Catalog chapter: History
This course explores the history of craft and technology in China. Through an examination of different industries, including ceramics, weaving and dyeing, printing, and paper-making, we will engage with broader questions about the role of expertise, skill, and the production of technical knowledge in Chinese history. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment
This course traces the historical development of fashion systems and fashion theory, with a special focus on East Asia. Using textual, visual, and material sources, we will explore historical representations of dress, the politics of dress, fashion and the body, and consumption and modernity. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Method/Theory
A history course or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Method/Theory Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 079Nature and Power: Environmental History of East Asia
Concentration: Science, Medicine, and Environment Eligible for ENVS. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment Spring 2028 Chen. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
Bodies make history and bodies are subject to history’s movements. The history of the body, a relatively recent field of inquiry, encompasses the histories of science, gender, sexuality, race, and empire. This course will explore different chapters of that history, with a focus on Europe and the Atlantic World.
This course is not open to first year students. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST, INTP Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 080ASex, Religion, and the Law: From Islamic Spain to Early Modern Europe1
HIST 080BBiopower vs Necropolitics: Empires of Life and Death, 1622-20031
“Biopower” and “necropolitics” - two of the major buzz-words of our time - are often used interchangeably even though Achille Mbembe, who coined the term “necropolitics” (the politics of death) in a seminal article from 2003, was critiquing the idea of “biopower” (the politics of life) as it had been developed for decades in the work of Michel Foucault. This course locates these two concepts in the work of these two scholars. We will study the periods they reference - from the Jamestown Massacre in 1622 to the “War on Terror” in the early 2000s - and look as well at the work they have inspired. In the first two weeks of the class, we will use these concepts and historical readings to create an alternative timeline of imperial history. The final projects will explore how this alternate timeline can help us write better, deeper, and more convincing histories of the present.
A history, HU, political science, sociology, or anthropology course at Swarthmore or permission of the instructor. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GLBL-Core Catalog chapter: History Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 080CThe Whole Enchilada: Debates About World Histories
What happens when you try to write the history of everything? In this course, we will read classic works that attempt to provide a universal account of all of human history and some of the contradictions and problems that follow from this scope of narrative and analysis. We will also discuss whether universal history is inevitably tied to modern European thought and the rise of colonialism, and possible strategies for decolonizing global history. Readings will include the Book of Genesis, the work of Rashad al-Din and Ibn Khaldun, Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West , Janet Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony , Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature , and David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything. Eligible for GLBL-paired.
HIST 080DSocial Media and History: Workshopping r/AskHistorians
Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Method/Theory Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Method/Theory Access the class schedule to search for sections.
This course first asks: is there a “prehistory” of the digital worth considering? It then moves on to the earliest cultural forms and practices associated with digital technology in the 1970s and 1980s, including video game consoles, bulletin boards (BBSs), homebrew computing, and hacking, moving on from there up to 2014. Students will engage in original research about how the history of digital culture shapes contemporary practices. Concentrations: Capitalism, Culture and Identity Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for FMST. Concentrations: Capitalism, Culture and Identity
HIST 083What Ifs and Might-Have-Beens: Counterfactual Histories1
The course will focus on debates about and within the writing of counterfactual histories. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for INTP Fall 2027 Burke.
This course is an introduction to feminist approaches to science and technology within the fields of History of Science and Science and Technology Studies (STS). We will engage with feminist critiques of scientific knowledge and technologies while exploring past and present intersections between science, race, sex, and colonial/postcolonial politics. Concentrations: Method/Theory, Science, Medicine, and Environment
Preference given to students who have taken courses with ANTH, GSST, HIST, SOAN, and/or SOCI. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST. Method/Theory. Concentrations: Science, Medicine, and Environment Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 085The Rise and Fall of Apartheid1
This class is a close examination of South African history from the end of the 19th Century to the present day. We will look closely at the lively debate among historians about the primary causes for the creation of a formal political and social system centrally defined by racial segregation, apartheid, and at the reasons why this system ultimately failed and gave way to a new constitution built around equality and democracy. We will also ask why the legacy of apartheid has been so difficult to overcome. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Migration, Diaspora, and Space Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Migration, Diaspora, and Space Spring 2027. Burke.
HIST 086From Equiano to Oprah: Black Capitalism and Its Histories
In this course, we will examine how Black individuals and institutions from the 17th Century to the present have embraced, explored and inhabited capitalism and sought to relate it to Black political and social life. We will look at Black political projects that have advocated using capitalism as a key tool in achieving their objectives. We will study Black entrepreneurs in Atlantic slave societies, in the Americas after emancipation, and in colonial and postcolonial Africa, and the role of Black consumers in mass-market societies. We will also trace responses by white-dominated institutions and by black critics of capitalism to this history. Concentrations: Capitalism, Domination and Resistance Eligible for Concentrations: Capitalism, Domination and Resistance Access the class schedule to search for sections.
Cross-listed as ENVS 025 This course examines African history from an ecological and environmental perspective. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Science, Medicine, and Environment Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Science, Medicine, and Environment
Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Science, Medicine, and Environment 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Culture and Identity; Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST 090BSic Semper Tyrannis: Histories of Misrule1
This course is a global-scale engagement with the intellectual and cultural history of debates and critiques of tyranny and catastrophic incompetence by political rulers and authorities. We will look at how people have anticipated and defined tyranny before it happens, how they bear witness to it while it is occurring, and how intellectuals and societies apply the label after the fact to their own past. We will discuss and debate whether misrule is simply in the eye of the beholder or a label applied to political opponents, or whether there is some enduring definition with comparative value that has emerged from millennia of thinking about political power. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance; Empires and Nations Fall 2026. Burke.
HIST 090EOn the Other Side of the Tracks: Black Urban Community1
The study of the black community in the United States, from the end of the American Revolution to the end of the 20th century. This course investigates the link between racial identification and community formation, the strengths and weaknesses of the concept of community solidarity, and the role class and gender play in challenging group cohesiveness.
This course is not open to first-year students. A HIST or BLST course at Swarthmore. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 090PCreatively Adapting the Past1
This course is a workshop focused on the creative uses of historical themes, subjects, and evidence. Social sciences. 1 credit.
HIST 090SSurveillance, Privacy, and Transparency: A History, A Debate, Some Futures1
An interdisciplinary course on the history and current development of surveillance and privacy, looking at technologies, practices, and ideologies. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Science, Medicine, and Environment Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for FMST, INTP. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Science, Medicine, and Environment
HIST 090TAfrican Nationalism and Postcolonialism: 1940-1980
In this course, we will examine the cultural, social and political history of the transition to independent Africa, including the exuberant decade that began with the independence of Ghana. We will read the key writings and speeches of major African nationalists and their African critics during that decade, including Nkrumah, Nyerere, Toure, Senghor, Fanon, Cabral and Mboya. The course will also examine the failures and challenges besetting nationalist leaders in the decade that followed, including the initial wave of military coups, the oil shock of the 1970s, the Biafran and Congo wars, and the impact of Cold War rivalries. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Migration, Diaspora, and Space Eligible for BLST, GLBL-paired. Concentrations: Empires and Nations, Migration, Diaspora, and Space
HIST 090XDivided America: History of the Culture Wars1
This course examines the origins of divisive cultural politics in America since the 1970s surrounding race, religion, gender & sexuality, education, and popular culture. Some of the topics addressed in the course include: the origins of the “religious right,” race and the debates over affirmative action, the “culture of poverty,” and mass incarceration, feminist and anti-feminist movements, sexual & queer politics, the HIV/AIDS crisis, public schools, and the history of “political correctness” and multiculturalism. Concentration: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance
Department pre-req of a previous history course Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for Concentration: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Catalog chapter: History Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 091Senior Research Seminar1
Students write a 25-page paper based on primary sources. Required of all majors, including honors majors. Writing course. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Brown. Mitchell. Fall 2027 Truong. Dorsey.
A single-credit thesis, available to all majors in their senior year after completion of HIST 091 , on a topic approved by the Department. The thesis should be 10,000 to 15,000 words in length (50-75 pages), and a presentation to members of the Department and students will be conducted upon completion of the thesis. Due April 30th or the final day of classes, whichever is first. May not be taken pass/fail.
HIST 091 1 credit. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 093Directed Reading0.5
Individual or group study in fields of special interest to the student not dealt with in the regular course offerings requires the consent of the department chair and of the instructor. HIST 093 may be taken for 0.5 credit as HIST 093A. 0.5 credit.
Concentrations: Space, Migration, and Diaspora, Domination and Resistance Social Sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Migration, Diaspora, and Space Spring 2028 Truong.
What does history owe to geography and, by extension, to cartography? The course will focus on a broad time frame, its focus will be on the inter-cultural and inter-imperial transfers of maps and legends in the period of the global Renaissance - medieval and early modern eras (roughly the 11 th to 18 th centuries). What can the history of remapping time tell us about how it might yet be remapped? Throughout the semester, we will also explore what delving into this history of history from the can teach us about the limitations as well as the potentials of the historical discipline as it exists in the 21 st century. Concentration: Method/Theory; Capitalism; Culture and Identity. Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for Concentration: Method/Theory; Capitalism; Culture and Identity. Spring 2028 Azfar.
Starting with the debate unleashed in Spain by the New World conquests of 1492, this course explores how Renaissance writers framed the prolem that continues to shape how international law treats questions of war, invasion, freedom, property, and occupation. At the heart of the course is the questions of how a more global and comparative approach to the intellectual history of the Renaissance can inform a more critically productive relationship to this whole body of thought. Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empire & Nations, Method/Theory
Instructor permission. Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for Concentrations: Domination and Resistance, Empire & Nations, Method/Theory Department website: http://swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 126Internationalism, Supranationalism, and Transnationalism in Modern Europe2
This honors seminar will analyze experiments and schemes for organizing the world, ranging from realized projects like the League of Nations and the World Health Organization to unrealized projects like the European Defense Community. We will discuss internationalism and transnationalism in a variety of forms, including Third Worldist solidarity and cultural projects like Eurovision. Emphasis will be placed on the goals of internationalism, tensions between internationalism and nationalism, and historiographical debates about international institutions’ legacies.
This seminar is intended for honors students in the department. Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for GLBL - Paired. Concentrations: Empires and Nations Catalog chapter: History Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 128Russia in the 19th and 20th Centuries2
This course focuses on the social, economic, political, and intellectual forces leading to the collapse of the autocracy and the rise of Stalin. Particular attention is devoted to the dilemmas of change and reform, and the problematic relationship between state and society. Social sciences. Writing course. 2 credits.
Instructor permission. Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for GSST. Concentration: Gender and Sexuality Fall 2026. Dorsey. Catalog chapter: History Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/history Access the class schedule to search for sections.
HIST 140The Colonial Encounter in Africa2
Students focus on the social, economic, and cultural dimensions of the colonial and postcolonial era in modern Africa. Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for BLST, DGHU, INTP
HIST 143Political Economy of the Middle East: Theory & History2
This honors seminar will survey existing literature on the political economy of the Middle East. We will read work from various subfields in Middle East history, including labor history, social history, agrarian history, histories of women and gender, histories of colonialism and decolonization, environmental history, and histories of economic thought. In doing so, we will engage both older traditions of historical and social scientific inquiry and more recent, theoretically innovative scholarship that is advancing a renewed interest in the study of political economy and assess the contributions and/or merits of different approaches. Concentration: Capitalism Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for GLBL-Paired. Concentration: Capitalism, Method/Theory.
This seminar explores the theoretical frameworks and multiple methodologies that have been applied to the study and interpretation of women and gender in late imperial and modern China (1700-1980s). Our primary aim is to understand the relationship between the construction of gender (in particular, the formation of “woman” and “man” as fixed and normative subjects) and the writing of Chinese history. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality, Method/Theory Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for ASIA, GSST. Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality, Method/Theory
HIST 148Issues and Debates in Modern Latin America2
Explores major problems and challenges Latin American nations have been confronting since the last third of the 19th century onward. Topics include the neocolonial condition of the region, nation and state building processes, urbanization, industrialization, popular and elite cultures, modernities in the periphery, and race, class, and gender conflicts. Concentration: Capitalism Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for LALS
HIST 149Reform and Revolutions in Modern Latin America2
The historical problem of change-political, economic, social, and cultural-in peripheral Latin America. It emphasizes nation-building capitalist ideas, populist experiences that produced deep reformist transformations, and revolutionary processes that started very radical and over time became moderate. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for GLBL-Paired, LALS, PEAC. Concentrations: Culture and Identity, Domination and Resistance Spring 2027. Armus.
