This page allows you to search a particular semester's course offerings in History and filter them by Major/Minor requirement. We also invite you to explore Penn History courses on the Pathways App. This fun, game-like platform allows you to see connections between History courses, so that you can better sequence them. It also encourages you to ask “how can History help us answer big questions?” Give it a try!

Title Instructors Location Time Description Cross listings Fulfills Registration notes Major Concentrations Major/Minor Requirements Fulfilled
HIST 216-401 Religion & Colonial Rule in Africa Cheikh Ante MBAcke Babou VANP 305 R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM AFRC215401 Benjamin Franklin Seminars Diplomatic, World Africa/Middle East, Research, Seminar
HIST 230-302 War and Conquest in Medieval Europe Ada M Kuskowski BENN 224 R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This course will focus on wars of conquest in the medieval period. The code of chivalry demanded that knights not only display great prowess in battle, but also adhere to Christian virtue. How did these square in practice? What constitutes acceptable violence and military intervention? We will seek to understand the medieval mentality of warfare in order to think about the place of war in society, how war was justified, why war was fought, and how it was fought. War, however, cannot be separated from its goals. We will thus go beyond the battlefield to look at how conquest of territories was cemented with the establishment and enforcement of a new order. Themes will include the rise of knighthood, ideas of just war, crusade, laws of war, territorial control and colonization. The course will also include two fabulous field trips to visit Penn’s manuscript collection and the arms and armor collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. European, Intellectual Europe, pre-1800, Research, Seminar
HIST 231-402 Civil Rights Movement Mia E Bay VANP 305 T 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This course traces the history of the Civil Rights Movement from its earliest stirrings in the 1st half of the twentieth-century to the boycotts, sit-ins, school desegregation struggles, freedom rides and marches of the 1950s and 1960s, and beyond. Among the question we will consider are: What inspired the Civil Rights movement, when does it begin and end, and how did it change American life? Readings will include both historical works and first-hand accounts of the movement by participants. AFRC229402 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST231402 American Research, Seminar, US
HIST 233-401 Feminism in the Americas Ann C. Farnsworth-Alvear PWH 108 R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM Students in this seminar will choose their own research topic in the history of feminism. With guidance and support each person will produce a twenty-page paper based on intensive work with primary sources. Readings will range across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. We’ll take a long view, beginning in the sixteenth century, and use an expansive frame. Our purpose will not be to decide who was or wasn’t ‘a feminist’ but instead to try to understand actors within their contexts. Readings include scholarship on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Sojourner Truth, the struggle for voting rights across national lines, opposition to dictatorship, and organizing against racism and homophobia. *For History Majors and Minors: Geographic requirement fulfilled by this seminar is dependent on research paper topic. AFRC234401, GSWS233401, LALS233401 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST233401 American, Gender, World Latin America/Caribbean, Research, Seminar, US
HIST 233-403 Piracy and the Law in the Atlantic World, 1560-1850 Casey Schmitt MEYH B5 T 03:00 PM-06:00 PM From Jack Sparrow to Captain Morgan, pirates are a celebrated part of American popular culture. But, before Hollywood romanticized peg legs, eye patches, and rum, early modern mariners lived short and often brutal lives struggling against the changing crosswinds of prevailing European power structures. Despite popular conceptions of pirates, defining who constituted a pirate and what acts could be considered piratical was complicated and shifted over time. This course uses piracy as a lens onto the construction of power, the law, and the early modern state from 1450 through 1800. We will explore the concept of piracy as both a complex social function and as a political statement among Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. Our readings will address topics such as the creation of legal and illegal maritime activity, piracy and the development of international law, the challenges posed by piracy to gender norms, the use of race as a method of inclusion and exclusion among pirate crews, and how public memory of piracy shapes current debates about global economics. LALS233403 Diplomatic, World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800, Research, Seminar
HIST 273-401 Penn Slavery Project Res Alexis Neumann
Kathleen M Brown 		MCES 105 R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This research seminar provides students with instruction in basic historical methods and an opportunity to conduct collaborative primary source research into the University of Pennsylvania's historic connections to slavery. After an initial orientation to archival research, students will plunge in to doing actual research at the Kislak Center, the University Archives, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company, and various online sources. During the final month of the semester, students will begin drafting research reports and preparing for a public presentation of the work. During the semester, there will be opportunities to collaborate with a certified genealogist, a data management and website expert, a consultant on public programming, and a Penn graduate whose research has been integral to the Penn Slavery Project. AFRC277401 American Research, Seminar, US
HIST 400-301 Senior Honors Antonio Feros COLL 315A M 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Open to senior honors candidates in history who will begin writing their honors thesis during this seminar. Permission Needed From Department Research, Seminar