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 232-401 Migration and Refugees in African History Cheikh Ante MBAcke Babou COLL 217 W 01:45 PM-04:45 PM This seminar will examine the experiences of recent African emigrants and refugees within and from the continent Africa from a historical and comparative perspective. We will look at the relations of overseas Africans with both their home and host societies, drawing on some of the extensive comparative literature on immigration, ethnic diasporas, and transnationalism. Other topics include reasons for leaving Africa, patterns of economic and educational adaptation abroad, changes in gender and generational roles, issues of cultural, religious, and political identity, and the impact of international immigration policies. Students will have the opportunity to conduct focused research on specific African communities in Philadelphia or elsewhere in North America, Europe, or the Middle East. We will employ a variety of sources and methodologies from different disciplines--including newspapers, government and NGOs, literature and film, and diaspora internet sites--to explore the lives, aspirations, and perceptions of Africans abroad. History Majors may complete the research requirement if their paper is based on primary sources. Students not seeking credit for the research requirement may write papers drawing on secondary sources exclusively. Class will consist of a combination of lectures (including several by invited guests), discussions, video screenings, and presentations by students of their research in progress. AFRC233401 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2022A&course=HIST232401 World Africa/Middle East, Research, Seminar
HIST 234-301 Capitalism and Humanitarianism Marc R Flandreau COLL 318 R 12:00 PM-03:00 PM Reviewing David Brion Davis’ Problem of Slavery in Western Culture for the New York Review of Books in 1967, the great ancient historian Moses Finley concluded that Davis’s book was “one of the most important to have been published on the subject of slavery in modern times.” Yet he found the book inconclusive on the “decisive question” of why slavery was finally abolished in the West. “Nothing is more difficult perhaps than to explain how and why, or why not, a new moral perception becomes effective in action,” Finley wrote. Almost 50 years after this statement was made, the complicated processes that are being played out at the heart of capitalism, mobilizing both ethical issues and the pursuit of profit are still imperfectly understood, yet more fascinating than ever. This course’s working hypothesis is that, from a better understanding of the entanglements of capitalism and humanitarianism a better understanding of the nature of the “material civilization” can be achieved. For this purpose, the course does provide a multi-pronged approach including sessions discussing analytical arguments about the reasons for the entanglements of capitalism and humanitarianism, sessions devoted to historical turning points and sessions devoted to case studies and the exploration of specific mechanisms whereby capitalism and humanitarianism connect with one another. I wish in particular to try and make students aware of the problem of “quality” and its social construction, which is found at the heart of both capitalism and humanitarianism. By awakening them to this question, I also hope to provide an engaging way to understand the importance of economics in cultural history. Last, while the course will make verbal references to work on more recent periods, the focus is on a time frame that ends with World War I. This seems warranted given that the purpose is to unpack the entanglements of finance and humanitarianism “as they got intertwined.” Nota Bene, some a few non-mandatory readings in French.
 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2022A&course=HIST234301 Economic, World Research, Seminar
HIST 234-302 Uses and Abuses of History Lee V Cassanelli WILL 301 W 03:30 PM-06:30 PM This course is designed for junior and senior history majors in any regional or thematic concentrations. Using case studies from around the world, it will explore the roles of history and historians in shaping national and ‘ethnic’ outlooks and identities; in offering ‘lessons’ to guide policy makers in a variety of diplomatic, political, and social contexts; and in contributing to the numerous controversies surrounding the most appropriate ways to remember and represent painful events in a society’s past.

Because nations, regimes, and interest groups invariably want to believe that ‘history is on their side,’ they typically produce partisan narratives which use historical evidence selectively and subjectively. How effective have historians been—or can they be—in countering egregious ‘myths’ about the past, in uncovering ‘silences’ in the historical record, and in acknowledging that the same ‘objective’ events can leave different memories and carry different meanings for the various parties involved. Does fuller knowledge of the past constrain or empower our capacities to deal with challenges in the present and future?

In examining these and other ‘meta-questions’ through a series of specific case studies, you will almost certainly learn something about contested histories in parts of the world you may not be familiar with, but which should help you situate your own regional interests in a wider comparative framework. During the last five weeks of the course, students will have an opportunity to research a topic of their choice and to present their findings to the class. 		Intellectual Research, Seminar
HIST 238-401 Modern Spain: Civil War and Postwar, 1930-1970 Antonio Feros COLL 315A TR 03:30 PM-05:00 PM This RESEARCH SEMINAR is divided into three parts. Part I centers on the Spanish CIVIL WAR, 1930-1939. The beginnings of the conflict, the main causes and motivations, the debates in the international arena, the main events and ideologies, some of the main characters, personal experiences (men and women) during the war, violence and repression. Part II focuses on the consequences of the Civil War (1939-1970), both from internal and international perspectives - the constitution of the Francoist regime and its internal politics; the repression of political dissidence; the situation of the Francoist regime during WWII and during the Cold War, how political and cultural dissidence started under Franco's regime, the social history of Spain, and the construction of the historical memory of the Civil War. Part III, Research and Writing: this course is designed to model the research and writing process professional historians use, beginning with a paper proposal and bibliography of primary documents and secondary sources. It then proceeds through the various stages of the research process to produce drafts of the essay and finally the finished essay. All written work is for peer review. LALS238401 https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do?webService=syllabus&term=2022A&course=HIST238401 European Europe, Research, Seminar