Courses
Spring 2024
HIST 63350 The Ancient World through Early Modern Eyes – Ingrid Rowland
In this seminar, we will trace the various ways in which early modern Europeans looked to antiquity for inspiration in their own present, and try to find new ways to examine that legacy. The writings, institutions, and physical remains of ancient Greece and Rome were fundamental to the formation of early modern European culture. "Renaissance" may be a modern term, but sixteenth-century Italians referred constantly to a "rebirth" of literary and artistic achievement. They had no intention of giving up medieval improvements to life like paper and compasses and Hindu-Arabic numerals: rather, they were convinced that better familiarity with the ancients could inspire new solutions to present problems, from the structure of the universe, to the principles of good government, to the criteria by which to judge a valid work of art, architecture, or literature. Their idea of "antiquity" went beyond Greece and Rome to include the ancient Hebrews, Egyptians, Etruscans, Goths, Batavians, Britons, Phoenicians, Ethiopians, Indians, and Chinese. Like human nature, "antiquity" in the early modern period was a two-edged sword. The Roman Empire provided a brutal model of aggression and exploitation (and environmental destruction); as the ancient Roman author Tacitus famously noted: "They create a desert and call it peace." Rome was also, however, a model of inclusion that eventually spanned three continents. Antiquity also provided marvelous opportunities for early modern forgers and impostors, some of whom exerted remarkable influence before their exposure as frauds.
HIST 83002 The Historical Profession – Alexander Martin
This seminar serves as an introduction to balancing the range of professional commitments pursuant to a career as an academic historian. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, classroom and student problems, conduct, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. All second-year graduate students in history are required to pass this course in the fall semester as they become teaching assistants. Attendance, preparation, and participation are required.
HIST 83110 Genealogies of Islamic Thought: Counterpoints in the History of Ideas – Ebrahim Moosa
The course examines key writings in the history of Islamic thought. Using a variety of theoretical approaches ranging from writings by Ibn Khaldun, Marshall Hodgson to Michel Foucault, this advanced course examines the conditions under which multiplicities of Islamic knowledge, discourses and domains of power had been formulated over time. The course will utilize Hodgson's The Venture of Islam and Ibn Khaldun's, Muqaddima as the two main texts. Several other readings authored by scholars ranging from Iqbal, Fazlur Rahman, Jabri, Laroui in addition to theorists like Collingwood, Koselleck and Asad will be studied. The goal of the course is to engage in a textured and fine grain reading of how Muslim domains of knowledge and ideas were formulated over time.
HIST 83204 Pro-Seminar in the Late Middle Ages, 1250-1500 – Daniel Hobbins
"Any historical period called ‘late' is headed for interpretive trouble, and one called ‘late medieval' is probably doomed." So John Van Engen began his reflections on the late medieval Church. The same historiographical problem appears in the title of an important article by Howard Kaminsky, "From Lateness to Waning to Crisis." This class faces a great challenge: how to make sense of a period for which the master narrative of "lateness" is compounded by the lack of any compelling counter-narrative. The enduring influence of Johan Huizinga's Autumn of the Middle Ages (available in a new English translation since 1996) is clear to anyone with a passing knowledge of the field. This course cannot supply a counter-narrative, but it will provide students with an overview of the major themes in late medieval history, and thus with the tools to reevaluate the master narrative of lateness and crisis for themselves. Practically, it can also serve as good preparation for a general field exam in late medieval history. The class requires a heavy reading load, and students should come prepared to discuss the readings. Beyond weekly reports, students will have two major assignments and several shorter papers. Assigned readings are in English, both books and articles. Of course the reality is that the scholarship is deep in all of the major European languages, and the bibliography on many topics (e.g. the Black Death, the late medieval Church) almost impossibly large and ongoing.
HIST 83604 Colloquium: US History since 1890 – Darren Dochuk
The colloquium is an intensive survey of recent historical writing on the United States from the late nineteenth century forward. Topics will include Progressive reform, gender and the early 20th century State, the culture of consumption, the new environmental history, the meaning of bohemia, the character of New Deal liberalism, the origins of the cold war and the shifting nature of American race relations.
HIST 93330 Historical Writing in the Byzantine Empire – Alexander Beihammer
Historiography is one of the primary genres of Byzantine literature. No doubt, authors like Michael Psellos, Anna Komnene, or Niketas Choniates count among the most accomplished historians of the medieval Mediterranean world, being read and appreciated far beyond the field of Byzantine studies. The late antique genres of secular political and ecclesiastical history writing persisted, merged, and developed in various forms throughout the Byzantine millennium and found continuators even after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. We thus have an almost unbroken sequence of historical works providing the essential information for all significant developments in the empire’s political affairs. However, historical narratives were not confined to these texts. They can be found in many other genres of Byzantine literature, such as encomiastic speeches and poems, letters, saints’ lives, foundation charters of monasteries, and legal documents. All these text types significantly deepen our understanding of Byzantine historical thought. This course explores how the Byzantines thought about and made sense of their past in different periods and historical circumstances. It focuses on authors and their social and intellectual environment on the one hand and problems of source criticism on the other. Thus, we will discuss the socioeconomic circumstances in which historical narratives were produced and the living conditions and experiences that shaped approaches to and perceptions of historical events and actors. Analyzing literary conventions, rhetorical devices, and historical concepts will lead us to possible ways of deciphering modes of expression and uncovering underlying realities. This course invites not only advanced students of Byzantium but also those who would like to learn more about Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean through some of its most appreciated primary sources in modern translations.
HIST 93406 Nationalism: Theories, Approaches, and Historiography – John Deak
This course will introduce students to the study of nationalism in a broad theoretical context. Then we will turn to specific case studies (consisting of classics and more recent approaches to nationalism, national history, and national identity. Topics will inlcude civic and state-oriented views of nationalism, as well as ethnic-group / movement centered ideas and books. Toward the end of the course, we will critically examine ideas such as “national indifference” and “transnationalism” (current fashionable words in historians’ discourse) to see where nationalism studies has gone and where it might be going. Though the professor is a historian of modern Europe and many of the case studies will come from this context, the course will be designed so that students of other regions can benefit from the approaches, problems (both practical and theoretical) as well.
HIST 93609 United States Women’s and Gender History - Emily Remus
This graduate seminar explores the history of women, gender relations, and ideas of sex difference in the United States, reaching from the colonial era to the late twentieth century. Issues of work, rights, citizenship, race, marriage, and sexuality take center stage as we explore the social, political, and cultural forces that shaped women's lives and the aspirations of those who sought to transform gender ideals and relations in the United States. The course is designed to introduce students to important questions, methodological approaches, and historiographical debates in the field through classic as well as cutting-edge scholarship. Our primary concern will be the United States, but we will take brief comparative glances to other nations and regions of the world.
HIST 93909 Modern Latin America – Jaime Pensado
This seminar introduces graduate students to the modern history of Latin America, from independence to the present. We will question the idea of “Latin America”—as a teaching category of analysis in relation to the “West” and the “Global South”—and study a selected number of themes that have shaped our understanding of the region, from liberalism and rising notions of state formation to competing interpretations of anti-imperialism, mestizaje, revolution, populism, conservatism, Catholicism, feminism, the Cold War, and neoliberalism. While an effort will be made in covering various countries in the region, the attention will be placed instead on some of the most recent scholarship on the modern history of Latin America. We will read and discuss the methodological differences in this expanding literature, question the limitations that continue to center a US-based position in the study of the region, and place our discussions in conversation with key primary documents, including manifestoes, speeches, short films, and literary texts that represent competing ideological perspectives as well as various points of view on class, gender, ethnicity, and race. Upon completion of the course, students will be well prepared to teach a Latin American history survey, map out the various methodological approaches that scholars of the region have developed over the years, explore a focused theme for their doctoral dissertation projects, and identify the foundational texts for their Ph.D exams, not only in history, but also in Romance Languages, Literature, and other disciplines.
Cross-list Courses
Hist 83025 Historical Epistemology – Tom Stapleford
What would it mean to approach intellectual history not as the study of ideas per se but as the study of underlying changes that made the emergence of new concepts possible? Does intellectual history demand a different methodological framework than, say, social history or political history? Can we write a history of rationality itself? These are some of the questions posed by "historical epistemology," a tradition of joint historical and philosophical analysis that began in France and spread to Anglo-American circles in the late twentieth century. We will explore this perspective through the work of some of its key practitioners and intellectual ancestors, including Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, Ian Hacking, and Lorraine Daston, among others. A major part of the course will be dedicated to the early- to mid-career work of Michel Foucault, who became a core vehicle for bringing this approach to Anglo-American historians.
HIST 83501 From Luther to Scheler – Ulrich Lehner
This seminar aims to introduce students to various discourses that have influenced modern theology. We will cover topics such as how to interpret texts, assess them, and understand the context and assumptions within them. The seminar title may seem confusing since it connects an Augustinian friar and a Cologne philosopher. However, they both recognize the importance of the emotional, intuitive, and a-logical aspects of humanity and reflect on inner life. We will discuss devotio moderna and its influences, Erasmus, the Augustinian reform movement under Staupitz, and Luther himself. The second area we will explore is the theology developed after the Reformation. We will discuss approaches to Scripture and Revelation, changes in the understanding of faith, and how theologians analyze and prepare for faith. The third area of inquiry will focus on the question of certitude in matters of faith. We will examine how theologians negotiate ambiguity and manage certitude. We will also discuss the theological notes and how they assign levels of authority to church teachings. Fourth, we will explore the developments that led to the creation of the Enlightenment and what it was. We will cover Enlightenment thought and how it influenced the recovery of intuition in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Scheler. Lastly, we will examine how to deal with accounts of miracles or the impossible such as bilocations or levitations. While I have not yet determined the entire syllabus, I am considering using selections from various books, eg.: Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life; Luther, Rejection of monastic vows; Erasmus, Enchiridion; A. Arnaud, The Necessity of Faith in Jesus Christ; Tutino, Credulitas; C. Eire, They Flew; H. Plessner, Limits of Community; Henry Holden, Analysis of Faith; M. Scheler, Of the Eternal in Man; M. Scheler, Resentment; The idols of self-knowledge; Dilthey, Introduction to the Human Sciences; Schleiermacher, Reden; R. Otto, The Holy; Chadwick, From Bossuet to Newman; M. Hunter, The Decline of Magic; Kripal, Superhumanities
Fall 2023
HIST 83000 The Historian’s Craft – Alexander Martin
This seminar introduces students to the theoretical and practical foundations of the discipline of history. Students read a broad range of scholarly writings, complete several written and oral assignments, and write a historiographic paper on a topic in their area of specialization. This course is required for all first-year students
HIST 83002 The Historical Profession – Alexander Martin
This seminar consists of occasional workshops to explore the range of challenges and opportunities facing academic historians in their career in graduate school and beyond. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. This course extends over two semesters and is required for all second-year students.
HIST 83005 Research, Writing, Publishing – Darren Dochuk
In this seminar, required for second-year history graduate students, students will focus on three skills that are crucial for the professional historian: research, writing, and publishing. Through engagement with core texts in historical methodology and exemplary texts in their fields, students will acquire an understanding of professional standards and strategies in our guild. They will also be required to complete two major writing assignments. First, they will complete a full first draft of their dissertation proposal. Second, they will complete a draft of an article or conference presentation that they intend to submit to a major journal or conference in their field. Students will complete these projects in consultation with the course instructor and their advisors, and through regular workshop sessions in collaboration with their peers.
HIST 83605 Colloquium: US History to 1865 – Katlyn Carter
This colloquium is designed to acquaint graduate students with colonial North American / United States history and historiography from roughly 1450 to 1865. The course will revolve around discussion of common assigned readings. Essays and other scholarly undertakings, based on these readings, will also be required.
HIST 83670 Historiography of Modern Russia – Semion Lyandres
This seminar will introduce students to the major historiographical questions and scholarly interpretations of modern Russia, from the reign of Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs, beginning at the end of the 19th century to the collapse of the communist dictatorship and the disintegration of the Soviet Empire under Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980-early 1990s. We will pay particular attention to the following issues: the results of the extremely rapid transformation of the economy and society; the limits of state power; youth and revolution; Stalinist political culture; nationalism, ethnicity, and empire; terror and repression; Marxist ideology and the Leninist legacy; the "cult of personality" and everyday life; and comparisons with other modern dictatorships.
HIST 83680 Archives and Power: Race, Gender, Slavery – Karen Graubart
This seminar is an introduction to the ways that historians approach and use archives, which are not mere repositories of information but professional institutions that manage limited extant documentation in proscribed ways. For historians of minoritized populations -- Indigenous peoples, those enslaved in the Atlantic trade, non-elite women -- historical documentation might ignore, elide, or misrepresent subjects, and archives and libraries might do little to change that visibility. We will look at the vigorous academic critique of archives as sites of power -- from Michel-Rolph Trouillot to Black scholarship on digital archiving and beyond -- as well as visit museums, archives, landscapes, and libraries to have dialogues with professionals about those challenges. Most course content will draw from the Latin American and Caribbean experience, and will emphasize the histories of enslavement, gender, Black subjectivity, and Indigenous peoples.
HIST 93605 Histories of Global Development and Capitalism – Nikhil Menon Shivram
We live in a world where much of the planet's population either lives in "developing economies" and/or in capitalist economies of different stripes. Whether at meetings of the World Trade Organization or the United Nations, the question of inequality (within nations, and between global North and South) continues to frame international politics. This graduate course will provide historical explanations of how we arrived at this juncture. It will do so by examining a range of historically minded scholarship on the subject of capitalism and development in the modern world. The themes covered will include debates over the causes of the "Great Divergence" in wealth between the West and the rest of the world; slavery and capitalism; the effects of colonialism in Africa and Asia on development; the nature of postcolonial development in the twentieth century; the influence of the Cold War on international institutions and social science; the rise of neoliberal thought; and finally, contemporary debates about globalization.
Cross-list Courses
HIST 60020 Critical Theory – Ernesto Verdeja
This graduate seminar focuses on the work of the Frankfurt School, a highly influential group of twentieth century intellectuals who sought to investigate the unique challenges posed by capitalism, totalitarianism, modern bureaucracy, and mass politics. Influenced by Hegel, Marx, Weber, Nietzsche and Freud, they drew from a wide array of disciplines and theoretical approaches in an effort to diagnose the pathologies of modernity. Their studies, known as "Critical Theory," were among the first that can be properly labeled interdisciplinary, encompassing insights from philosophy, aesthetics, political science, psychology, sociology and economics, among other fields. We will read the works of Georg Luka´cs, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Ju¨rgen Habermas, as well as more recent critical theorists. The seminar will consider the strengths and limitations of Critical Theory through close readings of the school's key texts. Some familiarity with ‘modern' social theory, particularly Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Weber, is useful but not necessary.
HIST 60210 Theology & Modernity – Ulrich Lehner
This course is intended for MTS students and makes them acquainted with major developments of early modern and modern theological and philosophical thought, roughly from the Reformation to the 20th century. Figures who will be discussed include Erasmus, Spinoza, Teresa of Avila, Kant, and topics like "theories of modernity" (e.g. Hartmut Rosa).
HIST 63041 Rabbi, Priest, Imam, & Infidel – Thomas Burman
Medieval religious professionals--Rabbis, Priests, and Imams--often found themselves engaging with the beliefs and texts of religious others, whether they were opponents within their own faith traditions or outside it. Moreover, a vast literature of religious polemic and apologetic survives from this period in many languages. This course will explore a number of such works, as well as influential recent scholarship on apologetic and polemic. Students will write a twenty to thirty page research essay.
HIST 83215 Islamic Origins – Gabriel Reynolds
In 1851 the French scholar Ernest Rénan wrote: "one can say without exaggeration that the problem of the origins of Islam has definitely now been completely resolved." In 2023, however, scholars are more divided than ever over the question of Islamic origins. Rénan's confidence stemmed from the appearance in his day of medieval Muslim biographies of Muhammad, which in their detailed descriptions of the Muslim prophet seemed to offer reliable historical data. Yet they are also late sources. The earliest Islamic biographies date from approximately 150 years after the traditional death date of Muhammad (632). Otherwise scholars work with the Quran—a text marked by Biblical allusions and religious exhortation, not historical narratives—with the early Greek, Syriac and Armenian literature (primarily Christian) that alludes to the rise of a new religious movement in the Near East, and with the pre-Islamic and early Islamic rock inscriptions in and around the Arabian peninsula. All four sources—classical Islamic sources, the Quran, early non-Muslim literature, and epigraphy —present particular interpretive challenges. In this seminar we will address the question of Islamic origins by appreciating the particular types and functions of these sources. At the same time we will examine the debate over these sources in recent scholarship, with particular attention to the theories of those who argue that the origins of Islam are closely related to the development of Christianity in the Late Antique Near East. This seminar is an examination of a movement (Islam) that is closely connected to Christianity, and of a text (the Quran) that itself claims to present the proper interpretation of Biblical narratives. Students are not assumed to have any special background in Islamic Studies or Arabic. They will be asked, however, to read carefully and to engage in active class discussion.
Spring 2023
HIST 83002 The Historical Profession – Alexander Martin
This seminar serves as an introduction to balancing the range of professional commitments pursuant to a career as an academic historian. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, classroom and student problems, conduct, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. All second-year graduate students in history are required to pass this course in the fall semester as they become teaching assistants. Attendance, preparation, and participation are required.
HIST 83701 Protest Movements in the United States – Joshua Specht
This course examines the historiography of protest movements (broadly conceived) in American history during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to conceptualizing the origins and dynamics of such movements, we will emphasize how they fit into (and reshape) social, political, economic, and environmental contexts. In terms of readings, the course will emphasize recent books, with guidance on, and options to read, the classic texts. Topics covered will include abolitionism, populism, suffrage, civil rights, consumer rights, the religious right and the Moral Majority, and more.
HIST 93290 Byzantium and the Crusades – Alexander Beihammer
This course explores crucial aspects of the encounter between the Latin West, Byzantium, and the Muslim East in the time of the crusades between the eleventh and the fourteenth century. While students are given the opportunity to become familiar with the political, economic, and social developments of the Eastern Mediterranean/Levant during the period in question, the main focus lies on the analysis of primary sources referring to topics of cross-cultural encounter, exchange, and perception. In an interdisciplinary approach, we will scrutinize and compare Latin, Byzantine, and Arabic texts with respect to their intellectual and ideological context and the ways medieval authors representing the three spheres perceived and conceptualized the other in their historical writings. This course invites graduate students who are interested in the medieval West, Byzantium, or Islam to work together by juxtaposing and comparing the particularities of each sphere and thus to arrive at new insights and conclusions.
HIST 93305 Empires and Colonies in the 20th Century – Rebecca McKenna, Paul Ocobock
In this team-taught graduate seminar, we will explore the formations of empires and the everyday lives of colonized peoples from the late nineteenth century to the present. Its geographic span will be wide. We will pursue imperial power as it stretched across the globe, observe colonial contests over that power, and witness its collapse and renovation in the late twentieth century. We will examine different approaches to imperialism, colonialism, and globalization, including cultural, political, economic, and intellectual histories. This course will also serve as an introduction to a wide variety of historical methods. Students will be expected to write a substantial research paper based on primary research.
HIST 93351 Topics in Early Modern European History – Brad Gregory
A colloquium to acquaint graduate students with significant scholarship on early modern Europe, in its political, social, cultural, and religious contexts. Students will lead class discussions, write book reviews, and produce a historiographical essay on a topic of their choice. Reading ability in languages other than English desirable but not required.
HIST 93362 Perspectives on Religion and Politics – Sarah Shortall
From the rise of ISIS to the recent legal wrangling over religious exemptions to the contraception mandate under Obamacare, it is clear that religion and politics remain deeply intertwined in the contemporary world. This has yielded a robust scholarly and theoretical literature exploring the past and present role of religion in public life. This course introduces graduate students to the key texts in this literature, which will be of use to those pursuing historical work on the relationship between religion and politics—particularly in the early-modern or modern era. Intentionally broad in scope, the course is designed to speak to graduate students with a variety of geographical, temporal, and confessional specializations. As such, it will focus less on substantive historical questions and more on the development of the conceptual tools needed to guide further historical study. We will read classic works of theory by philosophers and theologians, as well as more recent works by historians and scholars from cognate disciplines who have made key contributions to the field. Themes to be explored include secularization, political theology, totalitarianism, religious freedom and human rights, the role of gender and colonialism, and the relationship between religion and law. We will read works by Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Kantorowicz, Eric Voegelin, Marcel Gauchet, Jürgen Habermas, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Saba Mahmood, Joan Scott, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, and Robert Orsi, among many others.
Cross-list Courses
HIST 60212 Images of Church & Church Reform – Ulrich Lehner
Catholic conceptions of 'church' between 1450 and Vatican II. This course will familiarize students with a rich, much neglected tradition of theology and church history.
HIST 83700 Global Catholicism – Paul Kollman
Borrowing from a description of the field of world Christianity, the course will "investigate and seek to understand [Catholic] Christian communities, faith, and practice as they are found on six continents, expressed in diverse ecclesial traditions, and informed by the multitude of historical and cultural experiences." We will explore "both the diversity of local or indigenous expressions of [Catholic] Christian life and faith throughout the world, and the variety of ways these interact with one another critically and constructively across time and space." (Journal of World Christianity I:1, 2008). We will also consider how the Catholic Church interacts with other Christians and other religious bodies. As much as possible given the enrollment, this course will be run as a graduate seminar. Expectations include seminar-style engagement, brief reflections on weekly readings, and either 3 shorter interpretive essays or (with the instructor's permission; primarily for doctoral students) a longer research paper. If undertaken, the longer paper may stress either theological, historiographic, or historical questions, including the possibility of a review essay on literature on a given topic (such as a relevant theme or region/country), as well as other possibilities cleared with the course instructor.
HIST 83711 Qur’anic Exegesis - Mu’nim Sirry
This course will examine the history, interpretation, and translation of the Qur'an through a close reading of passages relating to polemical environments within which the Qur'an engages other religious communities, notably polytheists (mushrikūn), Jews (yahūd), and Christians (naṣārā). We will also read other parts of the Qur'an that have been understood as referring to certain theological, legal and mystical aspects of Islam. In the course of those readings, key questions of interpretation will be raised. The reading materials for this graduate seminar include both primary and secondary sources. Through a critical reading of primary texts from the genres of Qur'anic sciences (‘ulum al-qur'ān) and exegesis (tafsīr), we will compare the approaches of different exegetes and identify issues that have troubled them. To understand the exegetical tradition in its proper historical context, this course will also engage recent scholarship in the field of Qur'anic and tafsīr studies. NO BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE OF ARABIC IS REQUIRED.
HIST 90604 Modern Islamic Thought – Ebrahim Moosa
Understanding religious communities and their values are crucial to understanding human societies and global affairs. One particular group of interpreters of Islam, namely the traditional or orthodox religious scholars called the ulama and their institutions, are often hidden from contemporary accounts of Islam when in fact they are critical players. This course will provide historical contexts in order to explore how traditional Muslims navigate the discourses of modernity and how they resist it. We will read original texts in translation and secondary sources of descriptions of representatives of the orthodox tradition in regions of Asia, the Middle East and in the West. The course will pay particular attention to the institutions of learning known as madrasas, jami` and hawzas. Of course, the orthodox views are challenged by other Muslims and some of those debates will also be channeled in the class while the focus will remain on the Ulama. The course aims to equip students with analytical skills and the resources to understand how religious ideas impact religious communities and global affairs.
Fall 2022
HIST 83000 The Historian’s Craft – Alexander Martin
HIST 83000 The Historian’s Craft – Alexander Martin
This seminar introduces students to the theoretical and practical foundations of the discipline of history. Students read a broad range of scholarly writings, complete several written and oral assignments, and write a historiographic paper on a topic in their area of specialization. This course is required for all first-year students
HIST 83002 The Historical Profession – Alexander Martin
This seminar consists of occasional workshops to explore the range of challenges and opportunities facing academic historians in their career in graduate school and beyond. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. This course extends over two semesters and is required for all second-year students.
HIST 83005 Research, Writing, Publishing – Jon Coleman
In this seminar, required for second-year history graduate students, students will focus on three skills that are crucial for the professional historian: research, writing, and publishing. The class will center upon the research and writing of a publication-quality seminar paper (in consultation with a faculty adviser), and will be supplemented with the analysis of exemplary works in diverse genres and collaborative peer review.
HIST 83203 The Medieval Islamic World – Deborah Tor
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the major historiographical issues and modern scholarly interpretations of the medieval Islamic world, from the rise of Islam in the early 7th century until the Mongol conquests in the 13th. Such issues will include the rise of Islam and the official biography of the Prophet Muhammad; the early formation of the religion; the meaning and role of the Caliphate at different periods; the 'Abbasid Revolution; the respective role of the various ethnic groups, Arab, Persian and Turkish, in Islamic history; military slavery; the breakup of Islamic political unity and the rise of the autonomous Persianate dynasties; and the transition from Persian to Turkish political primary in the Seljuq period.
HIST 83270 Manuscript to Print - Daniel Hobbins, Margaret Meserve
Between 1200 and 1600, the worlds of European scholarship, politics, literature, and devotion were transformed by major developments in communications technology, from the invention of paper and the mass-production of manuscripts to the emergence of new formats like the pamphlet and broadside and the invention of printing with movable type. This course, co-taught by a medievalist and a Renaissance historian, will consider the technological and cultural developments of these centuries as a coherent whole, examining the emergence of new media and new modes of communication alongside related historical phenomena like the growth of cities and towns; the development of new institutions (the university, the chancery, the court); the revival of travel and new voyages of discovery; the growth of vernacular literatures and the revival of classical ones; advances in scientific knowledge; religious reform movements, and developments in warfare, diplomacy, and state formation. Key concerns will be the changes in written culture that preceded Gutenberg from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries; and the notion of a “printing revolution” and the evidence scholars use to argue both for and against such a model. Students will read both primary sources and secondary historiography, examine manuscripts and early printed objects in Rare Books and Special Collections, and pursue their own research. The course is open to graduate students in history, literature, and other fields focused on either the medieval or the early modern periods. Knowledge of Latin is helpful but not required.
HIST 83610 American Labor History – Daniel Graff
This graduate seminar explores the history of American work, workers, labor movements, and labor policies from the nation’s founding to the near present. It argues for the centrality of the Labor Question to the human experience: Who does the work? What are the terms? Who gets the fruits? Who makes the rules? The course adopts a chronological approach, probing continuities and changes in work at the levels of law, culture, and lived experience over two-plus centuries of US history. It also casts an expansive net in terms of workplaces: the focus will be on those who worked for others, whether that work was paid or unpaid; coerced, contracted, or consented to; or even considered work by contemporaries. Designed to introduce students to important questions and debates via classic and cutting-edge scholarship, the course aims to integrate labor history and historiography within the broader study of the American past, intersecting fields such as the history of capitalism, gender history, economic and social history, political history, religious history, and the histories of race and ethnicity.
HIST 83796 History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Since 1750 – Felipe Fernández-Armesto
The course will begin by reviewing the several distinct social contexts of late 18th century science, including its relations to technology and medicine. It will then trace the emergence of academic (or more properly, university-based) science, sanctioned by the state and characterized by the emergence of distinct professions, disciplines and/or ways of knowing in the 19th century. The second half of the course will be devoted to tracing these themes in the 20th century, giving particular attention to both theoretical transformations and to the relationships between scientific disciplines, between science and the state, and between science and technology. Assignments include review essays and a final exam. Graduate standing or permission of instructor required.
HIST 93030 Race and Gender in the Colonial Atlantic – Karen Graubart
This is an introduction for graduate students and advanced undergraduates to the study of race, gender, labor, sexuality, and other aspects of social history in the Iberian Atlantic world from 1492 to the early 19th century, with some comparison to the rest of the Atlantic. We will read classic and recent texts that explore the ways that conquest and colonization manifested, with special attention to Atlantic slavery, resistance, and interactions between native populations and European colonizers. We will also pay attention to new methods, including digital humanities and archival practices. Expectations include active participation in weekly seminar meetings, a variety of brief writing assignments, and a major paper that could be research- or analysis-based, on the student's topic of interest. Advanced undergraduates require instructor's permission and some background in the subject and historical methods.
HIST 93375 Religion, Law, and Secularization – Linda Przybyszewski
This course introduces graduate students to the major themes and historiographical questions of law, religion, and secularization with a focus on the United States in the context of the Modern North Atlantic World from the late 18th Century onward. Both religion and law have distinctive vocabularies, concepts, and traditions, and this course aims to examine and encourage historical writing that appreciates both fields equally. Readings will address the question of toleration and religious liberty in the British Empire, in the American colonies and the arguments over the historical significance and meaning of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in order to make sense of the amendment’s invocation in later debates; the problem of evolving definitions of terms, such as religious and secular, public and private, and the significance of the rise of federal power and imperial power within US; the different paths the US and European nations took in regards to religious disestablishment. Students will read historical case studies that examine judicial decisions, statutory law, legal treatises, and institutional practices. Students will be asked to read, respond to, and discuss common texts weekly, but individual research interests will guide further readings and writing.
HIST 93978 Problems in the History of Health – Evan Ragland
This course has two main aims: to introduce all students to the discipline of the history of medicine, and to assist each student to develop research projects and skills. Historians of medicine address the “problems” of constructing rich cultural and social conceptions of illness that also embrace individuals' embodied experiences and the variations of health and disease. We will read classic and recent works in the history of medicine on a variety of topics, from the framing of disease and diagnosis, to biology and medicine, health and disease from the margins, professionalization, policy, and medicine in relation to the histories of science, religion, and other aspects of cultures. The major assignment for each student will be a project that serves the student's own research interests, and can take the form of the study of the history and historiography of a disease over time, a research paper, a detailed syllabus, an annotated bibliography, a short translation, or other similar construction that advances the student's interests and progress toward goals. Since this course serves students first, meeting times and places are also something we may discuss and modify to improve students’ learning experiences.
Cross-list Courses
HIST 93280 Latin West and Byzantine East – Yury Avvakumov
On the basis of the reading and discussion of primary sources, this course highlights the main events, personalities, and topics in the history of relations between the Papacy and the Byzantine Church in the Later Medieval and Early Modern periods. The course is organized around the pivotal dates that determined the development of relations and the theological encounter between the two sides: 1054—the so-called “Great Schism between East and West”; 1204—the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople; 1274—the Union signed at the Second Council of Lyons; 1439—the union at the Council of Florence; 1453—the fall of Constantinople and the complete reorganization of the Greek Church under Ottoman rule; 1517—the beginning of the Reformation and its impact on the relations between the Papacy and Eastern churches; 1596—the union of the Kyivan Church with Rome in Brest. The course will focus on the ecclesiological self-understanding of conflicting Churches and their respective perception of a theological and cultural “other.” Special emphasis will be placed upon the developments within Latin theology that were inspired by the encounter with the Byzantines (ecclesiology, sacramental and moral theology, canon law). Students will also be introduced to the influences of Latin, particularly scholastic, theology on Byzantine humanists and defenders of union in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Spring 2022
HIST 83002 The Historical Profession – Darren Dochuk
This seminar serves as an introduction to balancing the range of professional commitments pursuant to a career as an academic historian. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, classroom and student problems, conduct, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. All second-year graduate students in history are required to pass this course in the fall semester as they become teaching assistants. Attendance, preparation, and participation are required.
HIST 83204 The Late Middle Ages – Dan Hobbins
“Any historical period called ‘late’ is headed for interpretive trouble, and one called ‘late medieval’ is probably doomed.” So John Van Engen began his reflections on the late medieval Church. The same historiographical problem appears in the title of an important article by Howard Kaminsky, “From Lateness to Waning to Crisis.” This class faces a great challenge: how to make sense of a period for which the master narrative of “lateness” is compounded by the lack of any compelling counter-narrative. The enduring influence of Johan Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages (available in a new English translation since 1996) is clear to anyone with a passing knowledge of the field. This course cannot supply a counter-narrative, but it will provide students with an overview of the major themes in late medieval history, and thus with the tools to reevaluate the master narrative of lateness and crisis for themselves. Practically, it can also serve as good preparation for a general field exam in late medieval history. The class requires a heavy reading load, and students should come prepared to discuss the readings. Beyond weekly reports, students will have two major assignments and several shorter papers. Assigned readings are in English, both books and articles. Of course, the reality is that the scholarship is deep in all of the major European languages, and the bibliography on many topics (e.g., the Black Death, the late medieval Church) almost impossibly large and ongoing.
HIST 83604 US History Since 1890 – Darren Dochuk
The colloquium is an intensive survey of recent historical writing on the United States from the late nineteenth century forward. Topics will include Progressive reform, gender and the early 20th century State, the culture of consumption, the new environmental history, the meaning of bohemia, the character of New Deal liberalism, the origins of the cold war and the shifting nature of American race relations.
HIST 93220 The Pluralistic Middle Ages – Thomas Burman
This course will introduce students to a broad range of modern scholarship and medieval texts bearing on four aspects of Medieval European and Mediterranean cultural and intellectual history: 1) The movement of texts, ideas, and stories around the across religious, linguistic, and ethnic borders; 2) the role of frontier areas (Iberia, Asia Minor) in shaping and filtering those movements; 3) the cultivation across ethnic/religious/linguistic boundaries of a common (and self-conscious) European/Mediterranean cultural and intellectual tradition; and 4) the energetic, enduring practices (despite the three foregoing realities) of difference making that continued to divide people into distinct identities. Students will write a substantial primary-source/historiographic paper, as well as weekly blog posts.
HIST 93361 Empire and Borders – Rory Rapple
Across the modern world the frontiers of political states, marked out by borders, have been fixed by imperial powers through negotiation and coercion. The legacy of these borders remains of the utmost relevance although, until recently, many thought that globalization had reduced their significance. Nowadays the foreign policy commitments of Donald Trump, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union have all demonstrated the endurance of these borders, even in the Western ‘engine room’ of global capitalism. This should not surprise us. Much of the world has experienced political conflict stemming from border conflicts, forced partitions and the mismatch between ethnic population and modern state. This class seeks to scrutinize and explain the contexts that have brought us the interplay between the legacy of imperial power and modern borders in the Indian subcontinent, Africa, Ireland, the Balkans, Cyprus, Antarctica and the Middle East.
HIST 93375 War, Society, and the State – Ian Johnson
This course explores major historiographical debates in the field of military history, beginning with the early modern military revolution and the rise of the modern state, and concluding with sessions on the Vietnam War and late Cold War. Students will gain an understanding of the major debates that define the field of military history, as well as the broader category of war and society. Readings will include both traditional and new methodological approaches to the study of war. Graded assignments will include several historiographic review papers on areas of relevance to each student’s course of study, as well as a final research paper.
HIST 93601 The History of American Capitalism – Emily Remus
This graduate seminar explores the history of American capitalism, reaching from the colonial era to the late twentieth century. It focuses particularly on the social and cultural dimensions of capitalism as revealed through classic scholarship as well as cutting-edge contributions to the field. Although our primary focus will be on the American experience, we will take comparative glances to other nations and regions of the world. Over the course of the semester, we will consider how the development of capitalism shaped conceptions of selfhood, morality, citizenship, and freedom. We will also investigate how changes in market relations influenced human relationships and divisions of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and religion. The seminar highlights key turning points in American capitalist development: the market revolution and the spread of wage labor; the defeat of slavery; the rise of mass production and mass consumption; the emergence of corporate and managerial capitalism; deindustrialization and capital flight; the growth of the service economy; and globalization.
Cross-list Courses
HIST 93030 World Christianity: Historical and Theological Perspectives – Paul Kollman
This course explores the contours and implications of Christianity as a global reality. It will examine some of the rich explosion of scholarship that is now pouring forth on the recent and remarkable world-wide expansion of Christianity, while also putting such growth in a historical and theological perspective. The course readings will draw from fiction, theology, history, and the social sciences. In addition to sampling major general interpretations by scholars like Dana Robert, Mark Noll, Andrew Walls, and Lamin Sanneh, readings will concentrate on certain regions of startling change over the last century as well as places for which scholarship is burgeoning. Some of the course readings come from the standpoint of missionary activity, but more reflect new expressions of indigenous faith. Studies of Protestant, Catholic, and independent movements are included; readings come from a wide variety of Catholic, Protestant, and secular perspectives.
HIST 93264 Medieval Liturgies – Margot Fassler
The Medieval Christian Liturgy in the Latin West was a vast, multifaceted conglomeration that constantly shifted both in accordance with chronological developments and regional concerns. Although it was many things to many people, from those who knew it primarily through an oral tradition to those who were highly literate and were immersed in its production for hours a day, its power to shape the culture that sustained it was profound and absolute. The liturgy of the Latin West is related to and, of course, in many ways grows out of, liturgical practices that have their beginnings in Jerusalem in the 5th and 6th centuries. These traditions were formative in the Latin West, among the Greeks and Byzantine traditions, and then in the churches of the East. Our work will be to study the Roman rite in the period from the Carolingians forward, with an emphasis on the later Middle Ages. The seminar focuses on primary sources, liturgical books, both online and in special collections, and the tools needed to work with them and consult them for the particular disciplines of liturgical studies, the history of Christinity, medieval studies, paleography and codicology, medieval literature, biblical studies, sacred music, and art history.
HIST TBD Discourses on Modernity: From Reformation to the 20th Century – Ulrich Lehner
How did theologians wrestle with the manyfold challenges of modernity?
Texts from the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish tradition will be read.
Fall 2021
HIST 83000 The Historian’s Craft – Nikhil Menon
This seminar is designed to introduce students to theoretical and practical foundations of Historical Method. Students are required to complete several written and oral assignments and to write a short primary research paper on a topic selected in consultation with the instructor. Those students who prefer to write a more substantial primary research paper with their PhD advisors should consult with the instructor as soon as possible. This course is required for all first-year students.
HIST 83002 The Historical Profession – Darren Dochuk
This seminar serves as an introduction to balancing the range of professional commitments pursuant to a career as an academic historian. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but some of those covered include research, teaching, administrative responsibilities, classroom and student problems, conduct, publication, seeking employment, career alternatives, and time management. All second-year graduate students in history are required to pass this course in the fall semester as they become teaching assistants. Attendance, preparation, and participation are required.
HIST 83005 Research, Writing, Publishing – John Deak
In this seminar, required for second-year history graduate students, students will focus on three skills that are crucial for the professional historian: research, writing, and publishing. The class will center upon the research and writing of a publication-quality seminar paper (in consultation with a faculty adviser), and will be supplemented with the analysis of exemplary works in diverse genres and collaborative peer review.
HIST 83605 US History to 1865 – Jon Coleman
This colloquium is designed to acquaint graduate students with colonial North American/United States history and historiography from roughly 1450 to 1865. The course will revolve around discussion of common assigned readings. Essays and other scholarly undertakings, based on these readings, will also be required.
HIST 90100 Between the Last Ice Age and the Anthropocene – Brad Gregory
This is a graduate seminar concerned with the interconnectedness of political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural history, and with the inextricability of human beings from the natural world. Themes and emphases will vary each time it is taught but will span from the Neolithic period to the Anthropocene epoch. Books to be read will be chosen less because they lie in a specific field and more because they are good to think with; they are therefore likely to include some studies that illuminate the past by scholars in disciplines other than history. The overarching intention is to enhance students’ capacity to think about change over time and the past’s role in making the present, regardless of their particular fields.
HIST 93011 Modern Religious History – Tom Tweed and John McGreevy
Scholarly fields are like sustained conversations, and in this graduate seminar we hope to help you enter the ongoing discussion about the historical study of modern religion. Considering both classic approaches and recent innovations, we discuss a wide range of books dealing with the history of modern religion, beginning with global histories and then focusing more on the United States. The instructors hope to encourage reflection about what different spatial scales—local, national, and transnational—obscure and illumine. Along the way, we engage multiple approaches, including social, environmental, cultural, political, and intellectual history. We end the course by returning to historiographical issues and invite seminar participants to summarize their own thinking and propose how they think we should change the scholarly conversation in the years ahead.
HIST 93250 Byzantium and Islam – Alexander Beihammer
From the rise of Islam in the 7th century up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Byzantium stood always in close contact and interacted at multiple levels with the Muslim World. At first sight Byzantine-Muslim relations were dominated by warfare, conquest, and religious antagonism. The expansion of Islamic empires over Eastern Roman territories forms the centerpiece of a narrative presenting Byzantium as a bulwark of Christianity in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thus, the Arab caliphate seized North Africa and the Oriental provinces in the 7th century, the Seljuk Turks Asia Minor in the 11th century, and the Ottoman Turks western Anatolia and the Balkan Peninsula in the 14th/15th centuries. Yet there were many other aspects which played a crucial role in the encounter between Byzantium and Islam. Trade routes and diplomatic channels fostered the circulation of goods and knowledge. Shared borderlands, migrations, and spaces of coexistence facilitated numerous forms of cross-cultural communication, mutual influences, and the merging of traditions and institutions. Byzantine-Muslim relations certainly differed from the experiences of Spain, Sicily, and the Crusader States. Yet they form an important part of and left a deep imprint on the politico-cultural landscape of the pre-modern Mediterranean. This seminar explores diachronic developments of structures, institutions, and attitudes in Byzantine-Muslim contacts. Students will become familiar with key texts of the primary source material, will discuss a range of problems and questions poses by modern research, and will get an insight into recent trends and new methodologies in the fields of material culture and environmental history.
HIST 93903 The Global Sixties – Jaime Pensado
This graduate course examines the “Sixties” (c.1956-c.1976) with particular attention to politics, culture and religion. Attention will be given to the United States and Western Europe, but the emphasis will be primarily from the perspective (and influence) of the “Global South.” Work for the first part of the semester will consist of discussing the foundational texts, influential figures/ideas, and key events that shaped leftist as well as conservative movements during this period. Work for the second part of the semester will consist of evaluating key studies recently published in the field.
Cross-list Courses
HIST 93055 Christianity in Roman Africa – Robin Jensen
Examination of Christianity in North Africa from the third through the early seventh centuries in light of their social, political, and physical contexts. Research materials will include archeological and art historical materials, conciliar documents, legislation (both ecclesial and imperial), contemporary historical works, liturgical texts, sermons, and theological treatises.
HIST 93600 Gender and Material Culture – Sophie White
This interdisciplinary Seminar will use the lens of material culture to explore the intersections between gender, race, class. Material culture—the study of things and their meanings—offers a wide-ranging method for analyzing how objects become gendered, and in turn, how objects construct gender.
HIST 93971 The Politics of Science – Philip Mirowski
This course examines the increasing politicization of science, and the escalation of the enrollment of science in political controversies over the past century. Starting out with brief characterizations of major political theories such as liberalism, communitarianism, republicanism and neoliberalism, we then turn to the origins of the conviction that science was inherently “apolitical” rooted in the 1930s-50s in the philosophy, sociology and history of science, and in popular culture. The purported alliance of science with democratic structures is considered. Political controversies over Nazi science, Soviet science, atomic war and Cold War science are surveyed, followed by more recent controversies over the so-called “Science Wars,” the treatment of expertise, Foucault, feminism, and actor-network theory. The economics of science movement is treated as a reaction to the above. We then turn from theory to description of modern incidents of the relationship of science to politics, beginning with surveys of the history of science policy, controversies over biotechnology, global warming, intellectual property, the pharmaceuticals industry, and attempts by international agencies and NGOs to regulate the international diffusion of science. Readings: Mark Brown, Science in Democracy; May & Susan Sell, Intellectual Property Rights: A Critical History; Thomas McGarity and Wendy Wagner, Bending Science; Philip Mirowski, ScienceMart.