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 230-301 Capitalism and Charity: the Long, Complicated Connection Thomas M. Safley COLL 315A T 01:30 PM-04:30 PM Capitalism and charity seldom appear in the same sentence, much less the same title. They seem diametrically opposed. While capitalism is commonly understood as “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit”, according to Merriam-Webster, charity refers to “generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering, also aid given to those in need”. The former implies self-interest, while the other breathes common interest. Yet, the two are closely, dynamically connected. As capitalism has emerged and evolved historically, so has charity changed to meet new circumstances and find new legitimations. From simple charity in the form of indiscriminate alms-giving have emerged “poor relief”, “work relief”, “social welfare” and, more recently “effective altruism” to name but a few permutations. Charity as a personal, face-to-face interaction between rich and poor has become cloaked in varieties of impersonal programs and institutions. This research seminar will explore the tensions (and synergies) between capitalism and charity over time. Through readings and discussions of primary sources, students will come to understand something of this historical dynamic. By completing independent research projects, they will contribute to that understanding as well. https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2020A&course=HIST230301 Economic, European Europe, Research, Seminar
HIST 231-301 Liberalism in the Twentieth Century Randall B Cebul COLL 314 T 01:30 PM-04:30 PM At a moment when American liberalism is embattled and in a profound state of flux, this research seminar explores the development of the political ideology of the Democratic Party since its first modern articulation in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. In addition to examining key moments of reform, expansion, and reimagining through the Cold War, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and under Bill Clinton’s New Democrats, students will explore the ways in which liberals and liberalism have both succeeded and often failed to meaningfully incorporate the interests of a diverse array of Americans including women, organized labor, African Americans, immigrants, rural constituencies, immigrants, and LGBTQ citizens. Over the course of the semester, students will develop a significant piece of original, primary source-based, historical research on a theme of their choosing within the modern history of liberalism, broadly construed. https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2020A&course=HIST231301 American Research, Seminar, US
HIST 233-402 Taking Off: How Some Economies Get Rich Melissa Teixeira MCES 105 W 03:30 PM-06:30 PM What makes an economy grow? This question has been asked – and answered – many times over in the modern era. From Adam Smith’s classic Wealth of Nations (1776) to today’s political leaders, many have debated the ingredients necessary for a nation to prosper, or policies to promote growth. Some point to the need for fiscal responsibility, others an educated labor force, or to tariffs, natural resources, and the right laws. This seminar explores the deep history of this problem of economic growth. Students will read works by economists, social scientists, and historians that present different theories for why some nations develop faster than others. With case studies from across the globe, we will tackle topics like why Europe industrialized first, or the paradox of why the abundance of natural resources does not necessarily contribute to long-lasting economic development. This course also asks students to think critically about the metrics used to measure “success” and “failure” across nations, as well as how such comparisons between societies have been mobilized to legitimize imperial expansion, human exploitation, environmental destruction, or political repression. By discussing how governments, corporate interests, and individual actors have implemented strategies to increase national wealth, students will also be asked to grapple with some of the consequences of economic growth for the environment, human welfare, and social inequality. *Students may fulfill one geographic requirement for the History major or minor with this course. The specific requirement fulfilled will be determined by the topic of the research paper. LALS233402 Permission Needed From Instructor https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2020A&course=HIST233402 Economic Research, Seminar
HIST 233-404 Abolitionism: A Global History Roquinaldo Ferreira VANP 305 R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This class develops a transnational and global approach to the rise of abolitionism in the nineteenth century. In a comparative framework, the class traces the rise of abolitionism in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, examining the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade, the rise of colonialism in Africa, and the growth of forced labor in the wake of transatlantic slave trade. We will deal with key debates in the literature of African, Atlantic and Global histories, including the causes and motivations of abolitionism, the relationship between the suppression of the slave trade and the growth of forced labor in Africa, the historical ties between abolitionism and the early stages of colonialism in Africa, the flow of indentured laborers from Asia to the Americas in the wake of the slave trade. This class is primarily geared towards the production of a research paper. *Depending on the research paper topic, History Majors and Minors can use this course to fulfill the US, Europe, Latin America or Africa requirement.* LALS233404, AFRC234404 World Research, Seminar
HIST 234-304 Trade, Travel, and War in the Modern Mediterranean Alex Chase-Levenson COLL 315A W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM The Mediterranean Sea links together many societies, cultures, cuisines, and economies. Long after the Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance, the Middle Sea continued to function as a cohesive geographic and cultural space. Contacts and conflicts in the Mediterranean shed light on the major themes of modern history: relations between East and West, encounters among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, brutal wars of imperial expansion, economic migration, catastrophic epidemic disease, and the birth of a globalized economy. We’ll read travel narratives by French scholars who helped Napoleon invade Egypt, and we’ll investigate how the Egyptians responded. We’ll study how Mediterranean nationalism began the First World War. We’ll look at the first massive Mediterranean migrant crises and compare them with the news we’re hearing today. Studying trade, travel, and war in the modern Mediterranean will provide students with a unique lens on European, Middle Eastern, North African, and Global history. **Students can get credit for the Europe or Africa/Middle East requirement depending upon their research paper topic.** https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2020A&course=HIST234304 Diplomatic, Economic, European, World Africa/Middle East, Europe, Research, Seminar
HIST 241-401 Performing History Robert St.George COLL 311A R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This seminar concentrates on the ways that various peoples in the world make their history by means other than relying on written texts alone. Over the course of the semester, we therefore may be examining such different public events and civic rituals as parades, political and religious processions, local historical pageants, carnivals, historic preservation, museums, military reenactments, and history theme parks. The emphasis in each of these forms, places, and semiotic processes will be on their identity and function as key performances that transform consciousness, shift individuals alternately into both actors and spectators, reframe the everyday as the metaphysical, and intensify the status of cultural values in the histories they present to view. Course requirements: a seminar paper, the topic of which you will discuss with me no later than week five of the course; and a working annotated bibliography and statement of your paper's main thesis. I will say more about these assignments as they approach. ANTH241401, ARTH395401 American Research, Seminar, US
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.

Please see the Penn Slavery Project's website here: http://pennandslaveryproject.org/ 		AFRC277401 American Research, Seminar, US