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 216-301 History of Private Life in China Si-Yen Fei VANP 526 M 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Benjamin Franklin Seminars https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST216301 Gender, World East/South Asia, pre-1800, Seminar
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 230-301 History, Memory,And Nostalgia in Modern Europe Alex Chase-Levenson VANP 402 W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Karl Marx compared history to a nightmare weighing on the brains of the living, but it can also be a refuge, a source of inspiration, and a constant companion. In this course, we will consider our own relationship to the past as we navigate the boundaries and intersections of history, memory, and nostalgia. Reading will consist of plays, novels, music, film, television, and painting. From the traumas of the Holocaust and of Stalinism to the conflicted memory of empire, from preservation to imagination, we will consider a wide array of methods through which Europeans have engaged their past over the last two hundred and fifty years. How does the academic study of the past relate to individual and collective memories of it? If "living in the past" seems often seems counterproductive, and yearning for it often seems reactionary, in what ways can nostalgia be a force of progress? We will consider these questions as we study topics such as the birth of heritage movements in the nineteenth century, the formation of national museums, representations of war and violence, legacies of imperialism, and the history of memory after the cataclysms of the twentieth century. *Students may opt to write a longer research paper to fulfill the History Major research requirement.* https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST230301 European 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 230-401 Reflections On the Jewish Historical Experience David B. Ruderman DRLB 4C4 W 03:30 PM-06:30 PM Tour the Jewish world from the 15th century to the present with Professor Ruderman, as he teaches his final seminar at Penn after a forty-five-year scholarly career! This course will give students the opportunity to read, think, and debate some of the major themes in Jewish intellectual and cultural history, including: Jewish cultural formation in Renaissance and Baroque Italy; The history of Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern and modern Europe; the Jewish engagement in medicine, science, and the natural world in the age of “scientific revolution”; the periodization of Jewish history in the early modern period; the messianic idea in Judaism; and the dialectical relationship of memory and history in Jewish culture. The seminar will devote time to reading and discussing some of the major historical treatments of these subjects as well as a limited selection of primary sources in English translation that illuminate these larger themes. JWST230401 European, Intellectual, Jewish, World Africa/Middle East, Europe, pre-1800, Seminar
HIST 231-301 Life Stories in America, 1730-1830 Robert St.George COLL 311A R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This seminar explores the social and cultural history of early America by focusing on the lives of specific individuals, ranging from Jesuit priests in early Quebec to Philadelphia politicians to Saramaka slaves to Maine midwives. As we critically examine biography and autobiography as two of history's most powerful narrative frames, we will concentrate on the spaces and places in the social landscape that shaped individual understandings of work, sense of self, gender, beliefs, and political power, and why. Hist 231- Life Stories in Early America, 1730-1830 2.pdf92.23 KB https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST231301 American pre-1800, Seminar, US
HIST 231-302 The State of the Union Is Not Good: the US in Crisis in the 1970s Randall B Cebul VANP 302 W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Vietnam. Watergate. Deindustrialization. Inflation. Disco. These events and forces only begin to scratch the surface of the social, cultural, political, and economic transformations that remade American life in the 1970s and which, by 1975, forced President Gerald Ford to concede “that the state of the union is not good.” Beyond these familiar topics, this reading seminar will explore a range of developments that are crucial for understanding why the 1970s was perhaps the pivotal decade in making modern American politics, economics, and culture. Topics will include the fate of the Civil Rights movement and the war on crime; the rise and impact of second wave feminism; the rise of the modern conservative coalition (e.g., its religious, economic, and white working-class components); the emergence of the finance economy; the reorientation of organized labor and the remaking of the Democratic Party; the explosion of “therapeutic” cultures of self-help, individualism, and entrepreneurialism; and the rise of the Sunbelt as the nation’s dominant cultural, political, and economic region. https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST231302 American Seminar, US
HIST 231-303 Melting Pot, Mosaic, Or Wall? Immigration and Diversity in American History Richard Scott Hanson WILL 3 M 02:00 PM-05:00 PM The 2016 presidential election brought a great deal of attention to immigration and immigrants in American society. Much of this debate perpetuated harmful stereotypes, dangerously stoked fears about outsiders, and echoed a nativist rhetoric that many believed had disappeared from public discourse. The debate also ignored how current discussions are deeply rooted in century-long conversations about who is allowed into the country and what it means to be an American. Indeed, anti-immigrant rhetoric and immigrant surveillance, detention, and deportation have been a defining feature of American politics and state and federal policy since the 19th century. This course seeks to provide historical context to current debates over immigration reform, integration, and citizenship. Many Americans have a romanticized idea of the nation’s immigrant past. In fact, America’s immigration history is more contested, more nuanced, and more complicated than many assume. Then, like now, many politicians, public commentators, critics, and media organizations have greatly influenced Americans’ understanding of immigration and the role that immigrants play in U.S. society. The syllabus follows a chronological overview of U.S. immigration history, but it also includes thematic weeks that cover salient issues in political discourse today such as xenophobia, deportation policy, and border policing. The course consists of lecture/discussion, Canvas assignments, quizzes, and one research paper. https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST231303 American Seminar, US
HIST 231-304 Fake News and American Democracy Bruce K Lenthall R 03:00 PM-06:00 PM At separate moments, Thomas Jefferson famously declared both that newspapers were crucial to sustain a nation and that a person who never looked at a newspaper was better informed than a regular reader of the press. The ideal of an informed citizenry occupies a central spot in our understanding of the democratic project in the United States, and, consequently, the news and the news media play a vital role. But the news may also be a means to manipulate and distort, not simply inform. As Americans on both the Left and Right wonder today, what happens to our democratic prospects when public information and the media are unreliable? In this class we will consider the history of fake news in the United States and its implications for democracy and citizenship. We will dig into an array of episodes – from the Jefferson-Hamilton debates in the press to battles over what could be printed about slavery; from McCarthyism to the ways in which different racial and ethnic groups often engaged with different accounts of the news. We will examine in depth the moment of a global rise in fascism and America’s best-known news hoax, the “War of the Worlds” radio program. Throughout, we will explore the importance of the different media that conveyed news in the past – and think about what that means for us in the present moment as news travels through new channels. American Seminar, US
HIST 231-401 Amer Expansion-Pacific Eiichiro Azuma BENN 17 W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM This class will focus on America's expansion into the Pacific around the turn of the century with the acquisition of Hawaii and the Phillipines. It can deal with various issues, including the meaning of "frontier," colonialism, development of capitalist economies in the region, diplomacy, racism, migration, an American brand of Orientalism in encountering the "natives" and "heathens,"and histories of the West and the Pacific Islands in general. ASAM203401 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST231401 American, Diplomatic, World East/South Asia, Seminar, US
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 232-401 Israel and Iran: Historical Ties, Contemporary Challenges Alon Tam
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet 		COLL 217 T 01:30 PM-04:30 PM Israel and Iran have longstanding ties and connections that predate the contemporary feuds in which they are currently engaged. Iranian Jews rank as some of the oldest communities of the Middle East, and their history dovetails with the ancient Iranian past. This course will explore the historical roots of Jewish communities in Iran, with a focus on the post-18th century period, and will end with conversations that contributed to the diplomatic impasses faced by both countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Films, novels, memoirs, and other historical accounts will be incorporated alongside secondary works to give students an opportunity to consider the complexities of this relationship. NELC282401 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST232401 World Africa/Middle East, Seminar
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 233-402 Indigenous History of Mexico From the Aztecs To Present Marcia Susan Norton MCES 105 W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM This course will explore the history of indigenous peoples of Mexico from roughly 1400 to the present. Mesoamerica – the cultural region that encompassed what is today Mexico and much of Central America – in the fifteenth century saw the ascendance of the Aztec Empire in central Mexico (and beyond) and the continued independence of numerous Mayan communities. We will begin by looking at a diverse range of sources produced by the linguistically diverse people in these areas, particularly focusing on the “codices,” as the painted deer hide books that recorded history and ritual knowledge are known. Reading sources (in translation) by both European and indigenous languages (primarily Spanish, Nahuatl, and Maya), we will look at the divergent ways that Native communities and individuals responded to Spanish wars of conquest and how they responded to colonialism. The final part of the will look at the impact of Mexican independence and Revolution in the nineteenth century through the present, as well as the ongoing indigenous Mesoamerican diaspora to locales throughout the United States. In addition to written primary and secondary sources, we will consider a diverse array of visual sources – taking advantage of the spectacular holdings of the Penn museum – and contemporary cinema. LALS233402 Cultural Diversity in the US World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800, Seminar
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 234-301 Decades of Extremes: Protectionism, Fascism, Imperialism, 1917-1945 Melissa Teixeira COHN 204 M 05:00 PM-08:00 PM The rise of Fascism in Italy, the Russian Revolution, anti-colonial struggles in India, the New Deal in the United States, the Spanish Civil War, and the emergence of populist Juan Perón in Argentina. These events – as distinct as they are – all responded to the crisis of the global economy following World War I. These were decades of ideological extremes: liberal democracy pitted against fascism, socialism versus capitalism, imperialist expansion in some parts of the world and struggles for self-determination in others. What did the world look like in 1917, and why did it give rise to such revolutionary politics? This course studies the ideological conflicts and economic crises of the interwar decades (1917-1945) through firsthand accounts produced by intellectuals, economists, dictators, and ordinary citizens. We will read from the 1917 Soviet Constitution, George Orwell’s personal account of the Spanish Civil War, and Mussolini’s writings to understand the revolutionary visions at stake. We will debate alongside John M. Keynes and Friedrich Hayek to engage one of the driving questions to arise in these years: what is the role of the state in economic life? We explore the policy experimentation that arose in response to this crippling economic situation, from the New Deal in the United States to the rise of populism in Latin America. Finally, we consider how these interwar struggles explain the outbreak of World War II, an extreme experience of totalitarianism, destruction, and genocide. The key concepts we explore – fascism, imperialism, protectionism, capitalism, socialism, authoritarianism, liberalism – are of enduring relevance. What lessons – if any – can we learn from these interwar decades of extremes? Economic, Intellectual, World Seminar
HIST 248-401 Haitian Revolution Yvonne E Fabella DRLB 2C6 R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM In August 1791, enslaved Africans on the northern plain of Saint Domingue (colonial Haiti) rose up in a coordinated attack against their French colonial masters, launching the initial revolt in what would come to be known as the Haitian Revolution. In the years that followed, their actions forced the abolition of racial discrimination and slavery throughout the French Empire. When Napoleon Bonaparte threatened to return slavery to Saint Domingue, they waged a war for independence, declaring Haiti the world's first "Black Republic" in 1804. This seminar will examine some of the major themes and debates surrounding Haiti's colonial and revolutionary history. We will begin by considering the colonial paradox: France's leading role in the intellectual movement called the "Enlightenment" coincided with its ascent as a slaveholding colonial power. The seminar will also explore parallels and points of connection between the revolutionary movements in France and Saint Domingue: how did increasingly radical ideas in France shape events in the Caribbean? Likewise, how did west African traditions and political ideologies influence insurgents and their leaders? And how, in turn, did revolution in the Caribbean impact the revolution in France? Finally, we will ask how the Haitian Revolution influenced ideas about liberty, sovereignty and freedom throughout the Atlantic World. We will read a combination of primary and secondary materials each week. A final research paper will be required of all students. AFRC248401, LALS248401 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2019C&course=HIST248401 Diplomatic, World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800, 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