Courses

This course provides an introduction to the global history of exploration. We will examine the scientific and artistic aspects of expeditions, and consider how scientific knowledge–navigation, medicinal treatments, or the collection of scientific specimens–helped make exploration, and subsequently Western colonialism, possible. We will also explore how the visual and literary representations of exotic places shaped distant audiences’ understandings of empire and of the so-called races of the world. Art and science helped form the politics of Western nationalism and expansion; this course will explore some of the ways in which their legacy remains with us today.

Food, health, medicine, public policy and the built environment… all were transformed as Britain industrialized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This course explores how cultural, social and economic changes shaped the culture of food consumption during this transitional period. We also explore changing ideas in medical history and public health from the early modern to modern period. We will consider how our historical understanding can inform our views of the present through an academic civic engagement project that will connect students to Northfield communities.

Why did barbarians invade? Traders trade? Pilgrims travel? Vikings raid? Medieval Europe is sometimes caricatured as a world of small villages and strong traditions that saw little change between the cultural high-water marks of Rome and the Renaissance. In fact, this was a period of dynamic innovation, during which Europeans met many familiar challenges–environmental change, religious and cultural conflict, social and political competition–by traveling or migrating to seek new opportunities. This course will examine mobility and migration in northern Europe, and students will be introduced to diverse methodological approaches to their study by exploring historical and literary sources, archaeological evidence and scientific techniques involving DNA and isotopic analyses.

This course examines the often fraught, complicated relationship between music and politics from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth. Our field of inquiry will include all of Europe, but will particularly focus on Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. We will look at several composers and their legacies in considerable detail, including Beethoven, Wagner, and Shostakovich. While much
of our attention will be devoted to "high" or "serious" music, we will explore developments in popular music as well.

“Colossus of the North” or “Good Neighbor”? While many of its citizens believe the United States wields a benign influence across the globe, the intent and consequences of the U.S. government’s actions across Latin America and Latin American history offers a decidedly more mixed picture. This course explores the history of Inter-American relations with an emphasis on the twentieth century and the Cold War era. National case studies will be explored, when possible through the lens of declassified U.S. national security documents. Latin American critiques of U.S. involvement in the region will also be considered.

Indigenous presence in North America pre-dates the United States by millennia and persists in spite of colonial attempts to eliminate Indigenous peoples. As Part I of the Indigenous Histories in the United States survey, we begin with Indigenous Knowledges of place, time, and identity since time immemorial. We then move through thousands of years of stories of diplomacy, captivity, colonialism, resistance, removal, and reconstitution. We conclude in the mid-1880s, a drastic period of change for lands, humans, and more-than-human relations. This course takes an ethnohistorical approach which centers Indigenous perspectives and draws on History, Indigenous Studies, and Anthropology.

This course explores developments in European history in a global context from the final decade of the nineteenth century through to the present. We will focus on the impact of nationalism, war, and revolution on the everyday experiences of women and men, and also look more broadly on the chaotic economic, political, social, and cultural life of the period. Of particular interest will be the rise of fascism and communism, and the challenge to Western-style liberal democracy, followed by the Cold War and communism's collapse near the end of the century.

Why do people migrate? Is there an East Asian pattern of migration that distinguishes itself from Euro-American ones? This course examines many faces of migration (voluntary to forced; downward to upward) across maritime frontiers evolving from the fifteenth century to the present. It explores various dynamics of on-the-spot human encounters in both sending and receiving societies. Topics include migratory networks, niche economies, colonial mapping and settlements, gendered frontiers, redefinition of health and hygiene, opium regimes, and conflicts and collaboration. Students will have hands-on experience in working with many different kinds of evidence and learning about the process of writing histories.

This course focuses on some of the principal challenges that Latin Americans have confronted over the first two centuries of post-colonial existence (ca. 1820-2020). Case studies will highlight themes and concerns still pertinent today, such as: political instability and authoritarianism, economic underdevelopment and poverty, neo-colonial challenges to national sovereignty, deeply ingrained socioeconomic and racial inequalities, and popular struggles to attain meaningful political, economic, and cultural rights, among others.

This course is a general survey of modern sub-Saharan African history from the nineteenth century to today through primary and secondary sources and works of fiction. The course will challenge recurring colonial stereotypes of modern Africa and its peoples as inherently chaotic, unchanging, poor, diseased, corrupt and conflict-ridden. It starts with an overview of the cultural developments in Africa before 1800, including African slave systems and the Atlantic Slave Trade. It then turns to European conquest of Africa and the dynamics of colonial rule, following which we explore how the rising tide of African nationalism, in the form of liberation movements, ushered out colonialism. Finally, we examine the problems of independent African nations as they grapple with neo-colonialism, China's presence in Africa and a changing global epidemiology in the face of HIV/AIDS and the Covid-19 pandemic.

This course will offer reading and discussion of historical materials related to HIST 201 in their original Latin.

This course explores the history of enslavement in the Atlantic World, including West Africa, South America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. The course examines the intersecting themes of power, labor, law, race, gender, sexuality, and resistance. It will consider how these themes each shaped the construction of different institutions of enslavement while simultaneously focusing on the experiences of the enslaved who lived and died within in these systems. Using a comparative methodology, we will ask canonical questions, such as what constitutes a slave society and which forms did resistance, rebellion, and revolution by enslaved people take.

How have animals shaped human societies and cultures, and how have humans in turn influenced the lives of animals? We will examine several historical contexts, cultures, and regions to gain a global understanding of the complexities of human-animal interactions. Other historical topics may include the ethical and political implications of these relationships as well as the impact on human societies and the environment of animal husbandry, wildlife conservation, and the display of exotic animals. Students will write a 25- to 30-page paper based on primary research and will read and critique each other’s papers. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

Founded as La Nouvelle-Orléans in 1718, New Orleans was an imperial arena for France, Spain, and the US. It has a unique, diverse heritage, and its motto, “Let the Good Times Roll,” champions joy for life. The Big Easy is a distinct space for African, African American, and Caribbean histories and cultures. Through the 20th century, one third or more of the city’s population has been Black. This course uncovers NOLA’s Black and Creole populations' lives from the 1700s to Hurricane Katrina, including enslaved people's resistance, cultural expressions (such as music, carnival, cuisine, and religious practices like Voodoo), environmental challenges, race, class, and gender.

The Byzantine world (eighth-fifteenth centuries) was a zone of fascinating tensions, exchanges, and encounters. Through a wide variety of written and visual evidence, we will examine key features of its history and culture: the nature of government; piety and religious controversy; art and music; the evolving relations with the Latin West, Armenia, the Slavic North and West, and the Dar al-Islam (the Abbasids and Seljuk and Ottoman Turks); gender; economic life; and social relations.Extra Time for special events and a group project (ecumenical council).

In the spring of 1453, the inhabitants of the city of Constantinople found themselves besieged and eventually conquered by the rising power of the Ottoman Turks. The density and variety of the surviving historical evidence offer a distinctive opportunity to explore and to understand the ways in which people, structures, interests, beliefs, and circumstances interacted to bring about this transformative event. The contemporary and, at times, eyewitness nature of the sources also pose profound questions about historical analysis, narrative, explanation, and story-telling. In this collaboration between the History department and the Theater program, we will develop our own historically informed narratives along with performances that do justice to the events' many facets and implications. 

From plague protocols and smallpox vaccinations to community care provisions for vulnerable populations, England and its neighbors have been at the forefront in addressing health challenges through public policy.  This course moves from the 16th through the 19th century, tracing ways in which scientific and political developments in history shaped changing attitudes and actions towards health and welfare challenges throughout the lifecourse.

This course explores the world of Early Medieval England from Rome's decline through the Norman Conquest (c.400-1066) through its material culture. These six centuries witnessed dramatic transformations, including waning Roman influence, changing environmental conditions, ethnic migrations, the coming of Christianity, the rise of kingdoms, and the emergence of new agricultural and economic regimes. We will look beyond the kings and priests at the top of society by analyzing objects people made and used, buildings they built, and human remains they buried alongside primary and secondary written sources. Students will practice writing history from, and experiment with (re)making, early English "things."

This course examines Japanese and European history from c. 1500 to 1900, tracking the disparate ways in which these regions changed over this time period and highlighting their entanglement. We will focus on three modules, each centered on the era when European global expansion was at its peak and when Japan was isolationist. We will explore developments in regional and global trade networks and state and financial institutions, in addition to news networks, the world of publishing, and the social world of intellectual exchange. Finally, the course compares changing views and practices in the fields of science and medicine.

Working with evidence is what allows historians to encounter past societies and people. What kind of evidence we have and our approaches to interpreting it shape the questions we can ask and the interpretations we can offer. This course will provide interested students with hands-on experience in working with various kinds of evidence and learning about the process of writing histories with a focus on the origins and developments of the Chinese Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. Themes will include practices and reflections on personality formation, knowledge and power, class and nation, legitimatization of violence, and operations of memory.   

What stories do pictures and voices tell? What roles did Carleton people play in the making of the twentieth century China during WWII, the Chinese Civil War, and the Communist revolution? What are the reflux effects of select Carls’ experiences in China under transformation? How do Carls project their voices and images to their audiences? The Gould Library Archives Carleton-in-China Collection consists of photographs, film footage, field reports, interviews, and public lectures. Students will be introduced to a wide range of visual and aural methods (e.g., oral history, deep mapping) to help complete a research paper based on their archival work. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

British departure from the Indian subcontinent led to the creation of two new nation-states, India and Pakistan, sparking one of the greatest migrations in history. Millions perished en route. Those who survived were scarred for life. Only fiction writers of the time had the courage to narrate the horrors of partition. Since then literary, artistic and cinematic treatments of this conclusive moment in Indian history have shaped collective memories of 1947. This course explores how artistic representations of partition intersect with official narratives. Open to all students; an excellent complement for students enrolled in HIST 262: Borders Drawn in Blood.

India’s independence in 1947 was marred by its bloody partition into two nation states. Neighbors turned on each other, millions were rendered homeless and without kin, and gendered violence became rampant, all in the name of religion. Political accounts of Partition are plentiful, but how did ordinary people experience it? Centering the accounts of people who lived through Partition, this course explores how divisions and differences calcified, giving birth to national and religious narratives that obscure histories of intersecting identities. With right wing Hindu nationalism ascendant in India and Islamic nationalism in Pakistan on the rise, Partition alas is not over. 

Indian cuisine is today famed worldwide and known for its complex diversity. This course will explore food as a gateway through which to understand a broader history of society, economy and politics in the Indian subcontinent. An analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of food and spices, beginning in the ancient era and ending in contemporary times, will allow us to examine community formation, patterns of wealth distribution, and state-building strategies. We will look at topics including farming and the environment, medical and religious systems, culture, caste, and colonialism.

This course examines imperial rule in the Andes under both Inca and Spanish rule. Indigenous intermediaries will be highlighted throughout, including the ethnic lords (kurakas) who mediated the competing interests of their communities and the state, as well as the indigenous and mestizo writers who drew from Andean and European traditions to craft a new kind of history of the Andes and the Inca dynasty. Visions of the Inca past and the strategies of survival developed by ethnic lords and communities during Spanish rule will inform our study of the Great Andean Rebellion, which foreshadowed the Latin American wars of independence by a generation.

Even while still on the campaign trail, Spain’s conquistadors endeavored to describe Mexico's native societies to other Europeans. Thus began a centuries-long fascination with all things Mesoamerican, real and imaginary. This course explores how the Mesoamerican past has been imagined by indigenous and non-indigenous people. Potential subjects include Spanish conquistadors and missionaries, early Mexican nation-builders and artists, professional and pseudo-archaeologists, apocalyptic doomsayers, promoters of the Mexican tourist industry, and the counterculture and Chicano movements of the 1960s. Importantly, we will also consider how Mexico's indigenous groups have come to understand their own past from the time of Spanish rule to the present day.

This is a participation- and writing-intensive seminar that explores how gender and sexuality have been produced, reproduced, and transformed in the everyday lives of people in Africa over the past two hundred years. Our focus is both on agency and on structures of power, as we move from questions of labor, production, reproduction, marriage, and the state, to explorations of love and intimacy, masculinities and femininities. Among the broader historical topics we consider are: colonial reconfigurations of gender and domesticity; nationalism and the women’s question; postcolonial patriarchies; and histories of transgressive sexualities.

The African Revolution burst onto the world stage with Ghana’s independence in 1957. By 1960, it was in full swing, with seventeen countries winning independence in that year alone. In this course, we explore how writing–pamphlets, newspapers, memoirs, and personal letters–constructed that revolution, as part of a global Pan-African movement to build a non-racial, anti-nuclear, decolonial world. Although the African revolution was defeated in little over a decade, it has left an extraordinary documentary archive–scattered in fragments across the globe. That archive and its promise of a better world is what this course is about!

To many Americans, wild lands are among the nation’s most treasured places. Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon – the names alone stir the heart, the mind, and the imagination. But where do those thoughts and feelings come from, and how have they both reflected and shaped American culture, society, and nature over the last three centuries? These are the central issues and questions that we will pursue in this seminar and in its companion course, ENTS 307 Wilderness Field Studies: Grand Canyon (which includes an Off-Campus Studies program at Grand Canyon National Park). Recommended Preparation: HIST 205 is recommended, but not required.

In this advanced seminar, you will learn to research and write a compelling microhistory about early America (1607-1860) through legal documents such as depositions, complaints, accusations, confessions, and laws themselves. The archives of American law are rich with evidence about a diverse array of people, events, and places; your 20- to 25-page paper, based on your original research, will have many topics from which to draw. The seminar will include common readings with a variety of approaches to legal history as well as extensive peer review.

Recommended Preparation: At least one US History course and/or HIST 298.

How do historians find and use evidence of Ireland's history? Starting with an exploration of archaeological methods, and ending with a unit on folklore and oral history collections from the early twentieth century, the first half of the course takes students through a series of themes and events in Irish history. During the second half of the course, students will pursue independent research topics to practice skills in historical methods, and will complete either a seminar paper or a public history project.

This seminar explores how people in diverse times and places discussed, debated and decided the issues and ideals that shaped their lives, communities, and world. Particular attention will be paid to the role of institutions and individuals; communicative networks and textual communities; the forms and functions of polemical discourse; and the dynamics of group formation and stigmatization in the historical unfolding of conflict and consensus. Theoretical readings and select case studies will provide the common readings for the seminar. Each student will pursue a research project of 25 pages on this theme in a period and region of their choosing. 

What stories do pictures and voices tell? What roles did Carleton people play in the making of the twentieth century China during WWII, the Chinese Civil War, and the Communist revolution? What are the reflux effects of select Carls’ experiences in China under transformation? How do Carls project their voices and images to their audiences? The Gould Library Archives Carleton-in-China Collection consists of photographs, film footage, field reports, interviews, and public lectures. Students will be introduced to a wide range of visual and aural methods (e.g., oral history, deep mapping) to help complete a research paper based on their archival work. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

This course is designed to support majors in developing advanced skills in historical research and writing. Through a combination of class discussion, small group work, and one-on-one interactions with the professor, majors learn the process of constructing sophisticated, well-documented, and well-written historical arguments within the context of an extended project of their own design. They also learn and practice strategies for engaging critically with contemporary scholarship and effective techniques of peer review and the oral presentation of research. By permission of the instructor only.