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 0811-401 Faculty-Student Collaborative Action Seminar in Urban University-Community Rltn Ira Harkavy
Theresa E Simmonds 		This seminar helps students develop their capacity to solve strategic, real-world problems by working collaboratively in the classroom, on campus, and in the West Philadelphia community. Students develop proposals that demonstrate how a Penn undergraduate education might better empower students to produce, not simply "consume," societally-useful knowledge, as well as to function as caring, contributing citizens of a democratic society. Their proposals help contribute to the improvement of education on campus and in the community, as well as to the improvement of university-community relations. Additionally, students provide college access support at Paul Robeson High School for one hour each week. AFRC1780401, AFRC1780401, AFRC1780401, URBS1780401, URBS1780401, URBS1780401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. American US
HIST 0812-401 Perspectives on Urban Poverty Robert P Fairbanks MCNB 286-7 M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to 20th century urban poverty, and 20th century urban poverty knowledge. In addition to providing an historical overview of American poverty, the course is primarily concerned with the ways in which historical, cultural, political, racial, social, spatial/geographical, and economic forces have either shaped or been left out of contemporary debates on urban poverty. Of great importance, the course will evaluate competing analytic trends in the social sciences and their respective implications in terms of the question of what can be known about urban poverty in the contexts of social policy and practice, academic research, and the broader social imaginary. We will critically analyze a wide body of literature that theorizes and explains urban poverty. Course readings span the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, urban studies, history, and social welfare. Primacy will be granted to critical analysis and deconstruction of course texts, particularly with regard to the ways in which poverty knowledge creates, sustains, and constricts meaningful channels of action in urban poverty policy and practice interventions. SOCI2944401, SOCI2944401, URBS4200401, URBS4200401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. American, Economic US
HIST 1110-001 Hamilton's America: US History 1776-1804 Vanjessica Gladney
Sarah L H Gronningsater
Jennifer Whitney Reiss 		LLAB 10 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM In this course, students will learn about the political, constitutional, and social history of the United States from 1776 (the year the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain) to 1800 (the year Thomas Jefferson won the presidency in a heated partisan election for the presidency). Alexander Hamilton, an influential American statesman during this time, will be our guide to the many events and transformations that occurred during these years. The course is not, however, a biographical course about Hamilton. Topics covered include: the politics of independence, the Revolutionary War, the development of state and national republics, the creation of the U.S. Constitution, the role of ordinary people in the politics of the time period, the problem of slavery in the new nation, Native American power and loss, diplomatic affairs, and the rise of partisan politics. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202230&c=HIST1110001 American pre-1800, US
HIST 1121-401 The American South Maria Hammack
Ana Paula Nadalini Mendes 		MCNB 150 MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM Southern culture and history from 1607-1860, from Jamestown to seccession. Traces the rise of slavery and plantation society, the growth of Southern sectionalism and its explosion into Civil War. AFRC1121401, AFRC1121401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
History & Tradition Sector 		American pre-1800, US
HIST 1127-401 Afro-American History 1550-1876 Mia E Bay
Alexandra Sanchez Rolon
Niiaja Wright 		FAGN 116 TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This course examines the experiences of Africans and African Americans in colonial America and in the United States to 1865. We will explore a variety of themes through the use of primary and secondary sources. Topics include: the development of racial slavery, labor, identity, gender, religion, education, law, protest, resistance, and abolition. AFRC1176401, AFRC1176401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
History & Tradition Sector 		American pre-1800, US
HIST 1153-401 Transformations of Urban America: Making the Unequal Metropolis, 1945 to Today Randall B Cebul
Dominique Wilkerson 		COLL 314 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM The course traces the economic, social, and political history of American cities after World War II. It focuses on how the economic problems of the industrial city were compounded by the racial conflicts of the 1950s and 1960s and the fiscal crises of the 1970s. The last part of the course examines the forces that have led to the revitalization and stark inequality of cities in recent years. URBS1153401, URBS1153401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
Society Sector 		American, Economic US
HIST 1155-401 Introduction to Asian American History Eiichiro Azuma
Zhaoyuan Yu 		COHN 402 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course will provide an introduction to the history of Asian Pacific Americans, focusing on the wide diversity of migrant experiences, as well as the continuing legacies of Orientalism on American-born APA's. Issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality will also be examined. ASAM0102401, ASAM0102401 History & Tradition Sector
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202230&c=HIST1155401 American, World US
HIST 1169-401 History of American Law Since 1877 Sarah B Gordon COHN 402 MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course covers the development of legal rules and principles concerning individual and group conduct in the United States since 1877. Such subjects as regulation and deregulation, legal education and the legal profession, and the legal status of women and minorities will be discussed. AFRC1169401, AFRC1169401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. American, Intellectual US
HIST 2151-301 History of Baseball, 1840 to the present Sarah L H Gronningsater VANP 627 R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This course explores the history of baseball in the United States. It covers, among other topics, the first amateur clubs in the urban North, the professionalization and nationalization of the sport during and after the Civil War era, the rise of fandom, baseball’s relationship to anxieties about manhood and democracy, tensions between labor and management, the Negro Leagues, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Nisei baseball during World War Two, Jackie Robinson and desegregation, and the Latinization of baseball. The history of baseball is, in many respects, the history of the United States writ large as well as the history of the myths that Americans tell about themselves. American Seminar, US
HIST 2154-301 The State of the Union is not Good: The US in Crisis in the 1970s Randall B Cebul VANP 402 W 1:45 PM-4:44 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. American Seminar, US
HIST 3173-401 Penn Slavery Project Research Seminar Kathleen M Brown MCES 105 T 1:45 PM-4:44 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. AFRC3173401, AFRC3173401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202230&c=HIST3173401 American Research, Seminar, US