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 0001-001 Making of the Modern World Andrew Starling CHEM B13 MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM How did the world we now live in come to be? Is globalization a recent development or does it have a history of its own? At what point can we say that a world economy emerged and what sort of relations of production and distribution linked it together? When did people start thinking and acting as citizens of nations rather than as subjects of rulers or members of religious or ethnic communities, and what were the consequences? How should we conceptualize the great revolutions (French, American, Russian, Chinese) that would determine the landscapes of modern global politics? This course is designed to help us think about the "making of the modern," not by means of an exhaustive survey but by exploring a range of topics from unusual perspectives: piracy, patriotism, prophecy; global struggles for political and human rights,drivers of war and peace, capitalism, nationalism, socialism, fascism, fundamentalism; communication and culture. History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0001001 World Global Issues
HIST 0100-001 Deciphering America Kathleen M Brown
Emma Hart 		BENN 419 TR 1:45 PM-2:44 PM This course examines American history from the first contacts of the indigenous peoples of North America with European settlers to our own times by focusing on a few telling moments in this history. The course treats twelve of these moments. Each unit begins with a specific primary document, historical figure, image, location, year, or cultural artifact to commence the delving into the American past. Some of these icons are familiar, but the ensuing deciphering will render them as more complicated; some are unfamiliar, but they will emerge as absolutely telling. The course meets each week for two 50-minute team-taught lectures and once recitation session. Course requirements include: in-class midterm and final exams; three short paper assignments; and punctual attendance and participation in recitations. Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
History & Tradition Sector 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0100001 American pre-1800, US
HIST 0200-001 The Emergence of Modern Europe Joshua Teplitsky FAGN 114 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course traces the formation of European society, politics and culture from its earliest days through the era of the Reformation, ca. 1000-1600 CE. Major themes will include: politics and power; law and the state; economics and trade; religion; learning and the rise of universities; social organization; everyday life. The reading and analysis of primary sources from each era will be important in understanding Europe's key features and development. History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0200001 European Europe, pre-1800
HIST 0290-401 The Soviet Century, 1917-1991 Benjamin Nathans COHN 402 MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM Out of an obscure, backward empire, the Soviet Union emerged to become the great political laboratory of the twentieth century. This course will trace the roots of the world's first socialist society and its attempts to recast human relations and human nature itself. Topics include the origins of the Revolution of 1917, the role of ideology in state policy and everyday life, the Soviet Union as the center of world communism, the challenge of ethnic diversity, and the reasons for the USSR's sudden implosion at the end of the century.Focusing on politics, society, culture, and their interaction, we will examine the rulers (from Lenin to Gorbachev) as well as the ruled (peasants, workers, and intellectuals; Russians and non-Russians). The course will feature discussions of selected texts, including primary sources in translation. REES0311401 Cross Cultural Analysis
History & Tradition Sector 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0290401 European Europe
HIST 0300-401 Africa Before 1800 Cheikh Ante Mbacke Babou
Taylor Prescott 		MCNB 286-7 MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM Survey of major themes and issues in African history before 1800. Topics include: early civilizations, African kingdoms and empires, population movements, the spread of Islam, and the slave trade. Also, emphasis on how historians use archaeology, linguistics, and oral traditions to reconstruct Africa's early history. AFRC0300401 Cross Cultural Analysis
History & Tradition Sector 		World Africa/Middle East, pre-1800
HIST 0450-401 Modern Latin America 1808-Present Ana Paula Nadalini Mendes
Kc O'Hara
Melissa Teixeira 		MOOR 216 TR 10:15 AM-11:14 AM This course examines central themes of Latin American history, from independence to the present. It engages a hemispheric and global approach to understand the economic and social transformations of the region. We will explore the anti-imperial struggles, revolutions, social movements, and global economic crises that have given rise to new national projects for development, or have frustrated the realization of such goals. Taking a historical perspective, we will ask: What triggers imperial breakdown? How did slaves navigate the boundary between freedom and bondage? Was the Mexican Revolution revolutionary? How did the Great Depression lead to the rise of state-led development? In what ways have citizens mobilized for equality, a decent standard of living, and cultural inclusion? And what future paths will the region take given uneasy export markets and current political uncertainty? LALS0450401 History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0450401 World Latin America/Caribbean
HIST 0550-601 History of Modern China Yi Ren WILL 421 T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM From an empire to a republic, from communism to socialist-style capitalism, few countries have ever witnessed so much change in a hundred year period as China during the twentieth century. How are we to make sense out of this seeming chaos? This course will offer an overview of the upheavals that China has experienced from the late Qing to the Post-Mao era, interspersed with personal perspectives revealed in primary source readings such as memoirs, novels, and oral accounts. We will start with an analysis of the painful transition from the last empire, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), to a modern nation state, followed by exploration of a century-long tale of incessant reform and revolution. The survey will focus on three main themes: 1) the repositioning of China in the new East Asian and world orders; 2) the emergence of a modern Chinese state and nationalistic identity shaped and reshaped by a series of cultural crises; and finally, 3) the development and transformation of Chinese modernity. Major historical developments include: the Opium War and drug trade in the age of imperialism, reform and revolution, the Nationalist regime, Mao's China, the Cultural Revolution, and the ongoing efforts of post-Mao China to move beyond Communism. We will conclude with a critical review of the concept of "Greater China" that takes into account Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora in order to attain a more comprehensive understanding of modern China, however defined, at the end of the last century. EALC0730601 History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0550001
HIST 0560-401 Modern Japanese History Frederick R Dickinson
Zhaoyuan Yu 		MCNB 286-7 MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM This course will survey the major political, economic, social and intellectual trends in the making of modern Japan. Special emphasis will be given to the turbulent relationship between state and society from 1800 to the present. EALC0750401 History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0560401 World East/South Asia
HIST 0721-401 Ancient Rome Campbell A Grey ARCH 208 MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM At its furthest extent during the second century CE, the Roman Empire was truly a "world empire", stretching from northern Britain to North Africa and Egypt, encompassing the whole of Asia Minor, and bordering the Danube in its route from the Black Forest region of Germany to the Black Sea. But in its earliest history it comprised a few small hamlets on a collection of hills adjacent to the Tiber river in central Italy. Over a period of nearly 1500 years, the Roman state transformed from a mythical Kingdom to a Republic dominated by a heterogeneous, competitive aristocracy to an Empire ruled, at least notionally, by one man. It developed complex legal and administrative structures, supported a sophisticated and highly successful military machine, and sustained elaborate systems of economic production and exchange. It was, above all, a society characterized both by a willingness to include newly conquered peoples in the project of empire, and by fundamental, deep-seated practices of social exclusion and domination. This course focuses in particular upon the history of the Roman state between the fifth century BCE and the third century CE, exploring its religious and cultural practices, political, social and economic structures. It also scrutinizes the fundamental tensions and enduring conflicts that characterized this society throughout this 800-year period. ANCH0102401, CLST0102401 History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		European Europe
HIST 0725-401 National Antiquities: Genealogies, Hagiographies, Holy Objects Julia Verkholantsev WILL 301 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Human societies have always wanted to know about their origins, the reasons for their customs, the foundations of their social institutions and religious beliefs, and the justification of their power structures. They have conceived of creation myths and of origins stories for their communities in order to position themselves within the past and present of the natural and human worlds. The newly Christianized kingdoms of Medieval Europe faced the challenge of securing a place in the new vision of universal Providential history, and they inscribed their own histories into the narratives they knew from the authoritative sources of the time - biblical genealogies and heroic stories inherited from the poets of classical antiquity. The deeds and virtues of saintly kings and church hierarchs provided a continuity of historical narrative on the sacred map of time and space. In the 19th century, while interest in medieval antiquity as a source of inspiration for political and cultural renewal brought about a critical study of evidence, it also effected reinterpretation and repurposing of this evidence vis-a-vis a new political concept - that of a nation. This seminar will focus on central, eastern and southeast European nations and explore three categories of "national antiquities" that have been prominent in the workings of their modern nationalisms: (1) stories of ethnogenesis (so-called, origo gentis) that narrate and explain the beginnings and genealogy of peoples and states, as they are recorded in medieval and early modern chronicles, (2) narratives about holy people, who are seen as national patron-saints, and (3) material objects of sacred significance (manuscripts, religious ceremony objects, crowns, icons) that act as symbols of political, cultural and national identities. Our approach will be two-fold: On the one hand, we will read medieval sources and ask the question of what they tell us about the mindset of the authors and societies that created them. We will think about how the knowledge of the past helped medieval societies legitimize the present and provide a model for the future. On the other hand, we will observe how medieval narratives and artifacts have been interpreted in modern times and how they became repurposed - first, during the "Romantic" stage of national awakening, then in the post-imperial era of independent nation-states, and, finally, in the post-Soviet context of reimagined Europe. We will observe how the study of nationalistic mentality enhances our understanding of how the past is represented and repurposed in scholarship and politics. REES1174401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0725401 European Europe
HIST 0751-401 Japan: The Age of the Samurai David Spafford WILL 29 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Who (or what) where the samurai? What does it mean to say that Japan had an "Age of the Samurai"? In popular imagination, pre-modern Japan has long been associated with its hereditary warrior class. Countless movies have explored the character and martial prowess of these men. Yet warriors constituted but a tiny portion of the societies they inhabited and ruled, and historians researching medieval Japan have turned their attentions to a great range of subjects and to other classes (elite and commoner alike). This class is designed to acquaint students with the complex and diverse centuries that have been called the "Age of the Samurai"-roughly, the years between ca. 1110 and 1850. In the course of the semester, we will explore the central themes in the historiography of warrior society, while introducing some of the defining texts that have shaped our imagination of this age (from laws to epic poems, from codes of conduct to autobiographies). EALC1746401, EALC5746401 Cross Cultural Analysis World East/South Asia
HIST 0755-401 History, Culture, and Religion in Early India Shaashi Ahlawat BENN 401 TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course surveys the culture, religion and history of India from 2500 BCE to 1200 CE. The course examines the major cultural, religious and social factors that shaped the course of early Indian history. The following themes will be covered: the rise and fall of Harappan civilization, the "Aryan Invasion" and Vedic India, the rise of cities, states and the religions of Buddhism and Jainism, the historical context of the growth of classical Hinduism, including the Mahabharata, Ramayana and the development of the theistic temple cults of Saivism and Vaisnavism, processes of medieval agrarian expansion and cultic incorporation as well as the spread of early Indian cultural ideas in Southeast Asia. In addition to assigned secondary readings students will read select primary sources on the history of religion and culture of early India, including Vedic and Buddhist texts, Puranas and medieval temple inscriptions. Major objectives of the course will be to draw attention to India's early cultural and religious past and to assess contemporary concerns and ideologies in influencing our understanding and representation of that past. RELS0003401, SAST0003401 History & Tradition Sector
Cross Cultural Analysis 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0755401 World East/South Asia
HIST 0810-401 The City Nina A Johnson
Michael P Nairn 		CANCELED Course will focus on Baltimore using The Wire and its sequel, We Own This City, as core texts. Following the trajectory of The Wire, the course will explore the history and development of the city and its institutions with a thematic focus on the impacts of the War on Drugs and policing on Baltimore’s African American community, urban revitalization, violence and community trauma, and the role of the carceral state in American cities. URBS0210401 Humanties & Social Science Sector https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0810401
HIST 0810-402 The City Nina A Johnson
Michael P Nairn 		MCNB 150 M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Course will focus on Baltimore using The Wire and its sequel, We Own This City, as core texts. Following the trajectory of The Wire, the course will explore the history and development of the city and its institutions with a thematic focus on the impacts of the War on Drugs and policing on Baltimore’s African American community, urban revitalization, violence and community trauma, and the role of the carceral state in American cities. URBS0210402 Humanties & Social Science Sector https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0810402 American US
HIST 0811-401 Faculty-Student Collaborative Action Seminar in Urban University-Community Rltn Ira Harkavy
Om R Manghani
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, URBS1780401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. Perm Needed From Instructor https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0811401
HIST 0823-001 Portraits of Russian Society: Art, Fiction, Drama D. Brian Kim WILL 218 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course covers 19C Russian cultural and social history. Each week-long unit is organized around a single medium-length text (novella, play, memoir) which opens up a single scene of social history birth, death, duel, courtship, tsar, and so on. Each of these main texts is accompanied by a set of supplementary materials paintings, historical readings, cultural-analytical readings, excerpts from other literary works, etc. The object of the course is to understand the social codes and rituals that informed nineteenth-century Russian life, and to apply this knowledge in interpreting literary texts, other cultural objects, and even historical and social documents (letters, memoranda, etc.). We will attempt to understand social history and literary interpretation as separate disciplines yet also as disciplines that can inform one another. In short: we will read the social history through the text, and read the text against the social history. REES0110001 Humanties & Social Science Sector https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0823001 European, Intellectual Europe
HIST 0824-401 Russia and the West D. Brian Kim COHN 392 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course will explore the representations of the West in eighteenth- and nineteenth- century Russian literature and philosophy. We will consider the Russian visions of various events and aspects of Western political and social life Revolutions, educational system, public executions, resorts, etc. within the context of Russian intellectual history. We will examine how images of the West reflect Russia's own cultural concerns, anticipations, and biases, as well as aesthetic preoccupations and interests of Russian writers. The discussion will include literary works by Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leskov, and Tolstoy, as well as non-fictional documents, such as travelers' letters, diaries, and historiosophical treatises of Russian Freemasons, Romantic and Positivist thinkers, and Russian social philosophers of the late Nineteenth century. A basic knowledge of nineteenth-century European history is desirable. The class will consist of lectures, discussion, short writing assignments, and two in-class tests. COML2020401, REES0190401 Humanties & Social Science Sector https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0824401 European, Intellectual Europe
HIST 0830-401 Introduction to the Middle East Paul M Cobb BENN 244 TR 8:30 AM-9:59 AM This is the second half of the Near East sequence. This course surveys Islamic civilization from circa 600 (the rise of Islam) to the start of the modern era and concentrates on political, social, and cultural trends. Although the emphasis will be on Middle Eastern societies, we will occasionally consider developments in other parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and Spain, where Islamic civilization was or has been influential. Our goal is to understand the shared features that have distinguished Islamic civilization as well as the varieties of experience that have endowed it with so much diversity. NELC0002401 Cross Cultural Analysis
History & Tradition Sector 		World Africa/Middle East
HIST 0852-401 East Asian Environments Wenjiao Cai CANCELED Home to vibrant economies and societies, East Asia is undergoing profound environmental transformations. These developments, crucial for understanding the crises of our time, have deep roots in the past. This seminar course investigates key topics in East Asian environmental history over the last three millennia as we think about the region’s role in the global ecological future.
Focusing on China, Korea, and Japan, we will explore not only how East Asian societies shaped and were shaped by the natural world they inhabited, but also how an environmental perspective helps us view issues such as economic development, ethnicity, state-building, urbanization, and colonialism in a new light. In examining narratives of ecological change in East Asia, we will gain a deeper understanding of the region and the role of the environment in history and historiography. 		EALC1702401 World East/South Asia
HIST 0853-401 Adivasis/Indigenous Peoples & British Colonialism in India Bhangya Bhukya MUSE 329 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Modern Western colonialism impacted the world in many ways. However, each country and community has had a different encounter and experience with colonialism. For the Adivasis (indigenous peoples) of India, it was catastrophic and marked a new phase in their history. The pre-colonial symbolizes a period of freedom in the hills and forest, whereas the colonial era symbolizes state coercion, eviction from land and the end of free movement in the forest. The proposed course discusses Adivasis' encounters with the British colonial state. The course examines Indian history from the perspectives of Adivasis and contrasts these with dominant paradigms of Indian history. In this way, the course allows students to understand India from a different perspective.
Under British colonialism, the diverse ethnic self-governing communities were imagined as primitive, uncivilized, barbaric, violent, backward and childlike people. The course discusses how such constructions impacted Adivasi social life and development. It traces how the expansion of the colonial state in forests and hills put an end to self-rule and induced massive migration from the plains of India and asks how Adivasi areas were integrated into the colonial economy. How did the colonial state use revenue and forest policies and regulations to bring these areas under its control? How did commercialization of agriculture and forest conservation work to further marginalize Adivasis? The course also examines how Adivasi knowledge of cultivation and forest conservation were viewed by the colonial state and asks why the colonial state encouraged caste-Hindu peasant migration into Adivasi areas. Finally, it traces the ways that colonial intervention has resulted in a series of contestations, acts of resistance, and insurgencies by Adivasi groups? Tracing forms of Adivasi resistance, the course puts these into conversation with intellectual history, emphasizing the role of rumours, myths, and orality, which provided the basis for the new insurgent consciousness that spread throughout Adivasi communities.
Adivasi resistance movements have been documented and analyzed by colonial rulers and anthropologists. Colonial discourses were successful in criminalizing Adivasi politics. Ironically, many colonial-era discourses concerning Adivasis have been perpetuated within the post-colonial academy. The anti-colonial struggles of Adivasis were constructed as sporadic, spontaneous, unorganized and apolitical. The inauguration of the Subaltern Studies Project has reversed such arguments and attempted to provide ideological integrity to Adivasi politics. Students will be introduced to important literature on Adivasi anti-colonial insurgent consciousness and will be encouraged to think critically about the concepts and theories of subaltern politics. Assigned readings include texts by James Scott, Ranajit Guha, David Arnold, David Hardiman, Ajay Skaria, Dhanagare, Ramachandra Guha, Biswamoy Pati, Alpa Shah, Crispin Bates, Jangkhomang Guite and Bhangya Bhukya. One aim of the course is to sensitize the students to how the political and cultural mobilizations by subalterns have contributed to the shaping of democracy. 		ANTH2109401, ANTH5239401, SAST2239401, SAST5239401, SOCI2974401 World
HIST 0860-401 Introduction to Korean Civilization So-Rim Lee ANNS 111 MW 1:45 PM-2:44 PM What is Korean civilization—is it a singular notion, or are there many that became what we know as South and North Korea today? How have Koreans interpreted and represented their own cultures, traditions, and history through the years? This introductory course offers a broad chronological survey of Korean history, arts, and culture from its early days to the present moment. Our readings will include a selection of literature—from foundation myths, poetry, to modern fiction—as well as royal edicts and political manifestoes and op-eds. Alongside the readings, we will also engage with multimedia resources including various artwork, film, and music. Through these cultural texts, we will explore the political, economic, and social order of different historical eras and identify major currents and events on the Korean peninsula such as shifting political climates, class struggles, gender dynamics, and complex relations with its East Asian neighbors and the West. We will also be treated to guest lectures from the interdisciplinary Korean studies scholars affiliated with the James Joo-Jin Kim Center for Korean Studies at Penn. By the end of the semester, students will become familiar with the many continuities and breaks that constitute Korean culture from ancient to modern times and gain good insight into where it might be headed in the future. No prior knowledge of Korea or the Korean language is required. EALC0060401 Cross Cultural Analysis
History & Tradition Sector 		World East/South Asia
HIST 0871-401 The Material Past in a Digital World Jason Herrmann MUSE 329 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM The material remains of the human past -objects and spaces- provide tangible evidence of past people's lives. Today's information technologies improve our ability to document, study, and present these materials. But what does it mean to deal with material evidence in a virtual context? In this class, students will learn basic digital methods for studying the past while working with objects, including those in the collections of the Penn Museum. This class will teach relational database design and 3D object modeling. As we learn about acquiring and managing data, we will gain valuable experience in the evaluation and use of digital tools. The digital humanities are a platform both for learning the basic digital literacy students need to succeed in today's world and for discussing the human consequences of these new technologies and data. We will discuss information technology's impact on the study and presentation of the past, including topics such as public participation in archaeological projects, educational technologies in museum galleries, and the issues raised by digitizing and disseminating historic texts and objects. Finally, we will touch on technology's role in the preservation of the past in today's turbulent world. No prior technical experience is required, but we hope students will share an enthusiasm for the past. ANTH1303401, ARTH0127401, CLST1303401 Cross Cultural Analysis https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0871401
HIST 0877-401 Modern Biology and Social Implications John Ceccatti COHN 337 TR 7:00 PM-8:29 PM This course covers the history of biology in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving equal consideration to three dominant themes: evolutionary biology, classical genetics, and molecular biology. The course is intended for students with some background in the history of science as well as in biology, although no specific knowledge of either subject in required. We will have three main goals: first, to delineate the content of the leading biological theories and experimental practices of the past two centuries; second, to situate these theories and practices in their historical context, noting the complex interplay between them and the dominant social, political, and economic trends; and, third, to critically evaluate various methodological approaches to the history of science. STSC1151401 Natural Sciences & Mathematics Sector
HIST 0878-401 Science, Labor and Capital Bekir H Kucuk COHN 337 M 8:30 AM-11:29 AM This course looks at the intertwined history of science, labor and capital since the fifteenth century. Starting with the surge of patents for labor-saving devices in fifteenth century Italy and coming all the way down to the contemporary neoliberal university, the culture of science and the cultures of labor and capital have always remained in intense conversation. The first half of the course will focus on the early relations between science, labor and capital. We will discuss patterns of employment for scientists, the relationship between manual work and intellectual work, the scientific aspects of commercial capitalism as well as the debates on the transition to capitalism. The second half of the course will focus on the period from the nineteenth century to the present. We will talk about colonialism and science, the social ascendance of the scientist in relation to the technician, as well as the political economy of contemporary science and of the contemporary university. This is a seminar course and will require regular participation. Some knowledge of the existing literature on capitalism, especially the writings of Ellen Wood and E.P Thompson, are recommended but not required. STSC3088401
HIST 0879-401 Global Queer History Javier Samper Vendrell BENN 344 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Sexuality has a history that is both geographically and culturally specific. For this reason, this course aims to destabilize familiar sexual categories and identities by exploring how it was (and is) to be queer in different parts of the world. We will historicize sexual orientation as a category anchored in Western medical and legal discourses; we will link the history of sexuality with that of capitalism, colonialism, and racism; and we will evaluate the idea of “Gay Imperialism” and how it is resisted around the world. The course is not comprehensive either chronologically or geographically. Instead, it considers some key topics in the history of queer sexualities; it provides a general historiographical background; and it introduces a toolbox for doing critical queer history with a global perspective. Finally, we will address how contemporary LBGTQ+ issues around the world can be put into historical perspective, and why queer history is essential for achieving the goals of social justice. GSWS2879401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST0879401 Gender, World Global Issues
HIST 1119-401 History of American Law to 1877 Emma C Curry-Stodder
Sarah L H Gronningsater
Lauren Meyer
Francis A Russo 		ANNS 110 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM The course surveys the development of law in the U.S. to 1877, including such subjects as: the evolution of the legal profession, the transformation of English law during the American Revolution, the making and implementation of the Constitution, and issues concerning business and economic development, the law of slavery, the status of women, and civil rights. AFRC1119401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1119401 American, Intellectual pre-1800, US
HIST 1165-401 History of American Education Jonathan L Zimmerman BENN 244 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course will examine the growth and development of American schools, from the birth of the republic into the present. By 1850, the United States sent a greater fraction of its children to school than any other nation on earth. Why? What did young people learn there? And, most of all, how did these institutions both reflect and shape our evolving conceptions of "America" itself? In an irreducibly diverse society, the answers were never simple. Americans have always defined their nation in a myriad of contrasting and often contradictory ways. So they have also clashed vehemently over their schools, which remain our central public vehicle for deliberating and disseminating the values that we wish to transmit to our young. Our course will pay close attention to these education-related debates, especially in the realms of race, class, and religion. When immigrants came here from other shores, would they have to relinquish their old cultures and languages? When African-Americans won their freedom from bondage, what status would they assume? And as different religious denominations fanned out across the country, how would they balance the uncompromising demands of faith with the pluralistic imperatives of democracy? All of these questions came into relief at school, where the answers changed dramatically over time. Early American teachers blithely assumed that newcomers would abandon their old-world habits and tongues; today, "multicultural education" seeks to preserve or even to celebrate these distinctive patterns. Post-emancipation white philanthropists designed vocational curricula for freed African-Americans, imagining blacks as loyal serfs; but blacks themselves demanded a more academic education, which would set them on the road to equality. Protestants and Catholics both used the public schools to teach their faith systems until the early 1960s, when the courts barred them from doing so; but religious controversies continue to hound the schools, especially on matters like evolution and sex education. How should our public schools address such dilemmas? How can the schools provide a "common" educaiton, as Horace Mann called it, melding us into an integrated whole while still respecting our inevitable differences? EDUC5453401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1165401 American US
HIST 1177-401 Afro-American History 1876 to Present Mia E Bay
Bonnie S Maldonado
Alexandra Sanchez Rolon 		CANCELED A study of the major events, issues, and personalities in Afro-American history from Reconstruction to the present. The course will also examine the different slave experiences and the methods of black resistance and rebellion in the various slave systems. AFRC1177401 History & Tradition Sector
Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. 		American US
HIST 1177-406 Afro-American History 1876 to Present Mia E Bay
Bonnie S Maldonado
Alexandra Sanchez Rolon 		FAGN 116 TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM A study of the major events, issues, and personalities in Afro-American history from Reconstruction to the present. The course will also examine the different slave experiences and the methods of black resistance and rebellion in the various slave systems. AFRC1177406 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S.
History & Tradition Sector
HIST 1180-001 U.S. Politics and Society since the 1960s: From Civil Rights to the Trump Right Randall B Cebul
Dominique Wilkerson 		LLAB 109 MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course explores significant political and social developments that shaped the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the United States, an era of declining faith in political institutions, ideological and partisan polarization, and accelerating inequality. The course will consider a variety of perspectives, developments, and movements across the political spectrum as well as others that defy easy ideological or partisan categorization. Topics will include the evolution of the post-1960s civil rights movement and the rise of mass incarceration; the rise and transformation of the religious right and the emergence of the populist right from the 1970s through the Tea Party and MAGA movements; the evolution of liberalism and the Democratic Party and its relationship to the left; the AIDS crisis and the LGBTQ movement; 9/11 and the war on terror; the financialization of the global economy and the causes and effects of the mortgage crisis of 2008; and bipartisan paths toward the emergence of “neoliberalism” and the concept of the "free market" as ways of reordering not just social and political commitments but perhaps even society itself. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1180001 American US
HIST 1191-001 The U.S. and the World since 1898 Amy C Offner FAGN 116 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This class examines the emergence of the U.S. as a world power since 1898, and considers both the international and domestic consequences of U.S. foreign relations. In one respect, the twentieth century was a strange time to become a global empire: it was the period when colonial systems centered in Europe, Russia, Japan, and Turkey collapsed, and new nations emerged throughout Africa and Asia. This class explores the changing strategies of military, economic, and political intervention that the U.S. pursued as colonization lost legitimacy. Within that framework, the class invites students to think about several questions: How did the idea and practice of empire change over the twentieth century? How did the United States relate to new visions of independence emerging in Africa, Asia, and Latin America? How did global interactions both inform and reflect racial ideology in the United States? Finally, how did international affairs transform U.S. politics and social movements? https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1191001 American, Diplomatic US
HIST 1201-001 Foundations of Law Ada M Kuskowski
Eleanor Webb 		COHN 402 MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course explores the history and conceptual underpinnings of modern law in the West. What exactly is law? What is its relationship with politics and religion? Where do our notions of constitutionalism come from? How have we come to think in terms of rights? Using a historical and comparative approach, we will examine legal thought and culture in the European West from the Greek concept of nomos to the main categories of law developed in Roman antiquity, concepts of constitutionalism and rights crafted in medieval Europe, the development of the two main legal traditions of Europe (Common Law and Civil Law), and the emergence of intellectual property, human rights discourse and modern international law. The course will blend intellectual, political and social history. We will study concepts and intellectual categories such as crime, proof, punishment and the public/private distinction alongside illustrative cases that either exemplified the law or pushed it forward, foundational documents such as Magna Carta, and political developments such as the Peace of Westphalia, credited with the birth of modern state sovereignty and modern international law. Together, these subjects form core foundations of how we think and do law today. European, Intellectual Europe, pre-1800
HIST 1203-001 Economic History of Europe I Thomas M Safley PCPE 200 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course concentrates on the economy of Europe in the Early Modern Period, 1450-1750. It was a time of great transition. Europe developed from an agriculturally-based to an industrially-based economy, with attendant changes in society and culture. From subsistence-level productivity, the European economy expanded to create great surfeits of goods, with attendant changes in consumption and expectation. Europe grew from a regional economic system to become part--some would say the heart--of a global economy, with attendant changes in worldview and identity. Economic intensification, expansion, globalization, and industrialization are our topics, therefore. Beginning with economic organizations and practices, we will consider how these changed over time and influenced society and culture. The course takes as its point of departure the experience of individual, working men and women: peasants and artisans, merchants and landlords, entrepeneurs and financiers. Yet, it argues outward: from the particular to the general, from the individual to the social, from the local to the global. It will suggest ways in which the economy influenced developments or changes that were not in themselves economic, shaped, and deflected economic life and practice. Humanties & Social Science Sector https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1203001 Economic, European Europe, pre-1800
HIST 1250-401 Belief and Unbelief in Modern Thought Warren G Breckman CANCELED "God is dead," declared Friedrich Nietzsche, "and we have killed him." Nietzche's words came as a climax of a longer history of criticism of, and dissent toward, the religious foundations of European society and politics. The critique of religion had vast implications for the meaning of human life, the nature of the person, and the conception of political and social existence. The course will explore the intensifying debate over religion in the intellectual history of Europe, reaching from the Renaissance, through the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, to the twentieth century. Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. These thinkers allow us to trace the varieties of irreligious experience that have emerged in modern European thought and their implications for both historical and philosophical understanding. Rather than drawing a straight line from belief to non-belief, however, we will also consider whether religion lingers even in secular thought and culture. COML1250401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1250401
HIST 1250-402 Belief and Unbelief in Modern Thought Warren G Breckman TOWN 313 MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM "God is dead," declared Friedrich Nietzsche, "and we have killed him." Nietzche's words came as a climax of a longer history of criticism of, and dissent toward, the religious foundations of European society and politics. The critique of religion had vast implications for the meaning of human life, the nature of the person, and the conception of political and social existence. The course will explore the intensifying debate over religion in the intellectual history of Europe, reaching from the Renaissance, through the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, to the twentieth century. Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. These thinkers allow us to trace the varieties of irreligious experience that have emerged in modern European thought and their implications for both historical and philosophical understanding. Rather than drawing a straight line from belief to non-belief, however, we will also consider whether religion lingers even in secular thought and culture. COML1250402 Cross Cultural Analysis European, Intellectual Europe
HIST 1260-401 Tolstoy’s War and Peace and the Age of Napoleon Griffin Creech
Peter I Holquist 		STNH AUD MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM In this course we will read what many consider to be the greatest book in world literature. This work, Tolstoy's War and Peace, is devoted to one of the most momentous periods in world history, the Napoleonic Era (1789-1815). We will study both the book and the era of the Napoleonic Wars: the military campaigns of Napoleon and his opponents, the grand strategies of the age, political intrigues and diplomatic betrayals, the ideologies and human dramas, the relationship between art and history. How does literature help us to understand this era? How does history help us to understand this great book? Because we will read War and Peace over the course of the entire semester, readings will be manageable and very enjoyable. COML1262401, REES1380401 Cross Cultural Analysis https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1260401 European, Intellectual Europe
HIST 1300-401 Gunpowder, Art and Diplomacy: Islamic Empires in the Early Modern World Oscar Aguirre Mandujano WILL 421 MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM In the sixteenth century, the political landscape of the Middle East, Central Asia, and India changed with the expansion and consolidation of new Islamic empires. Gunpowder had transformed the modes of warfare. Diplomacy followed new rules and forms of legitimation. The widespread use of Persian, Arabic and Turkish languages across the region allowed for an interconnected world of scholars, merchants, and diplomats. And each imperial court, those of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals, found innovative and original forms of expression in art and literature. The expansion of these Islamic empires, each of them military giants and behemoths of bureaucracy, marked a new phase in world history. The course is divided in four sections. The first section introduces the student to major debates about the so-called gunpowder empires of the Islamic world as well as to comparative approaches to study them. The second section focuses on the transformations of modes of warfare and military organization. The third section considers the cultural history and artistic production of the imperial courts of the Ottomans, the Mughals, and the Safavids. The fourth and final section investigates the social histories of these empires, their subjects, and the configuration of a world both connected and divided by commerce, expansion, and diplomacy. NELC3560401 Cross Cultural Analysis https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1300401 Diplomatic, World Africa/Middle East, East/South Asia, pre-1800
HIST 1360-405 Arab/Israeli Conflict in Literature and Film Eve M Troutt Powell COHN 493 W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This course will explore the origins, the history and, most importantly, the literary and cinematic art of the struggle that has endured for a century over the region that some call the Holy Land, some call Eretz Israel and others call Palestine. We will also consider religious motivations and interpretations that have inspired many involved in this conflict as well as the political consequences of world wars that contributed so greatly to the reconfiguration of the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and after the revelations of the Holocaust in Western Europe. While we will rely on a textbook for historical grounding. the most significant material we will use to learn this history will be films, novels, and short stories. Can the arts lead us to a different understanding of the lives lived through what seems like unending crisis? CIMS1360405, NELC0675405 Intellectual, World Africa/Middle East, Research, Seminar
HIST 1365-401 Bacteria, Bodies, and Empires: Medicine and Healing in the Eastern Mediterranean (15th-21st c.) Secil Yilmaz TOWN 311 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Bacteria, Bodies, and Empires is a survey course about the history of medicine in the Eastern Mediterranean from early modern period to the present. It addresses the major issues and questions concerning bodies, diseases, and medical institutions within the context of major historical developments in the world and region’s history. The course looks at how medicine, knowledge, and practices about diseases and bodies changed political and social conditions, as well as how socio-political changes defined and transformed people's perceptions of health, life, and the environment. Scholars have frequently examined the history of medicine in Eastern Mediterranean societies, either in relation to Islamic culture in the early modern period or, more recently, in relation to Westernization and modernization. By situating the history of medical knowledge and practices in the Eastern Mediterranean within global history, this course seeks to challenge these fixed paradigms and shed light on questions and research agendas that will unearth the encounters, connections, and mobility of bacteria, bodies, and medical methods among various communities. HSOC1362401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1365401 World Africa/Middle East, pre-1800
HIST 1370-401 African Environmental History Lee V Cassanelli COHN 337 F 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This new course will explore multiple dimensions of Africa’s environmental history, drawing upon literature in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. It is one component of a pilot project supported by Penn Global and directed by the instructor on ‘Local Histories of Climate Change in the Horn of Africa”, though we will cover topics and case studies from the entire continent. The course takes an historical perspective on environmental change in Africa, with an eye to engaging current debates on climate change and its impact on contemporary urban and rural communities. Students will read and discuss key works on the African environment, conduct their own literature reviews on selected topics, and prepare case studies of communities which have been impacted by severe climate events in the past half-century. The format combines lectures and seminar-style discussions, and we will draw upon the expertise of guest lecturers in a variety of disciplines which have contributed to the study of environmental change. AFRC1370401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1370401 World Africa/Middle East
HIST 1405-401 Indigenous Latin America 1400-1800 Marcia Susan Norton MCNB 410 MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM In 1492 Europeans began to colonize the Americas. Many colonizers sought to dispossess Indigenous people of their labor, land, and, sometimes, their lives, and often tried to impose their religion and cultural practices. Nonetheless, throughout Latin America Indigenous communities not only survived but adapted in creative, vigorous ways to the new social and ecological circumstances. In this course we will look at the diverse ways that Indigenous individuals and collectives avoided or adapted to colonial rule in Latin America between 1492 and 1800. We will particularly focus on Arawakan, Carib, Tupinamba, Nahua, and Andean histories. Readings will include both primary and secondary sources. LALS1405401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1405401 World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800
HIST 1610-401 Medieval and Early Modern Jewry Anne O Albert MCNB 286-7 TR 8:30 AM-9:59 AM Exploration of intellectual, social, and cultural developments in Jewish civilization from the rise of Islam in the seventh century to the assault on established conceptions of faith and religious authority in 17th century Europe, that is, from the age of Mohammed to that of Spinoza. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction of Jewish culture with those of Christianity and Islam. JWST1610401, NELC0355401, RELS1610401 Cross Cultural Analysis
History & Tradition Sector 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1610401 Jewish, World Africa/Middle East, Europe, pre-1800
HIST 1625-401 Era of Revolutions in the Atlantic World Roquinaldo Ferreira FAGN 110 MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This class examines the global ramifications of the era of Atlantic revolutions from the 1770s through the 1820s. With a particular focus on French Saint Domingue and Latin America, it provides an overview of key events and individuals from the period. Along the way, it assesses the impact of the American and French revolutions on the breakdown of colonial regimes across the Americas. Students will learn how to think critically about citizenship, constitutional power, and independence movements throughout the Atlantic world. Slavery and the transatlantic slave trade were seriously challenged in places such as Haiti, and the class investigates the appropriation and circulation of revolutionary ideas by enslaved people and other subaltern groups. AFRC1625401, LALS1625401 Diplomatic, World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800
HIST 1702-401 Introduction to Latin American and Latino Studies Ann C Farnsworth MCNB 395 MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM Designed to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of Latin American and Latino Studies, this is a seminar oriented toward first and second year students. Readings will range widely, from scholarly work on the colonial world that followed from and pushed back against the "conquest"; to literary and artistic explorations of Latin American identities; to social scientists' explorations of how Latinos are changing the United States in the current generation. LALS0720401 Cross Cultural Analysis https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST1702401 American, World Latin America/Caribbean, US
HIST 1760-001 Strategy, Policy and War Aron Brouwer
Arthur Waldron 		STNH AUD TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Analysis of the political use of force, both in theory and in practice, through analytical readings and study of selected wars. Readings include Sun Zi, Kautilya, Machiavelli, Clauseqitz and other strategists. Case studies vary but may include the Peloponnesian War, the Mongol conquests, the Crusades, the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War, World War II, Korea, or the Falklands, among others, with focus on initiation, strategic alternatives, decision and termination. Some discussion of the law of war and international attempts to limit it. Diplomatic, World Global Issues
HIST 1785-401 American Expansion in the Pacific Eiichiro Azuma TOWN 315 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course examines America's expansion into the Pacific with a focus on the colonization of Hawai'i and the Philippines. The class deals with various issues, including the meaning of "frontier," imperialism, development of capitalist economies and trade relations in the region, diplomacy and militarism, migration and racism, and colonial histories of the US West, the Pacific Islands, and East Asia. ASAM3100401 American, Diplomatic, World US
HIST 2000-301 History Workshop Sophia A Rosenfeld VANP 627 R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course introduces newly declared History Majors to the History Department and lays the foundation for future coursework, including research seminars, in History. Students will be introduced to various methods used to reconstruct and explain the past in different eras and places. Drawing on the rich resources available at Penn and in the Philadelphia region, students will also learn how to research and write history themselves. Throughout the semester, small research and writing assignments will allow students to try out different approaches and hone their skills as both analysts and writers of history. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2000301 Seminar
HIST 2158-301 News, Media and American Democracy Bruce K Lenthall CANCELED 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 media play a vital role. But news may inform or distort, empower or control. As Americans on both the Left and Right wonder today what is happening to our democratic prospects, how does access to public information and the media support or undermine democracy?
In this class we will consider the history of news – reliable and fake news – and media systems in the United States and their implications for democracy. We will dig into an array of moments that highlight the contested nature of the news, media and democratic citizenship, from the colonial era to the 21st century. 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. How we know about our world – including through the media – shapes how we inhabit it.
Throughout, we will explore what it means to think historically: to understand how to draw our own conclusions from historical sources, to understand perspectives other than our own, and to bring the past to bear to better understand the present.
HIST 2204-401 Food and Diet in Early Europe: Farm to Table in the Renaissance Ann Elizabeth Moyer COHN 237 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM What did medieval and Renaissance Europeans choose to eat? What did they have to eat? Before the age of mass transportation, was all food locally sourced? In an era when most medicines were plant based, what did it mean to eat a balanced diet? “Feed a cold, starve a fever.” Why?
In this course we will examine food, foodways, and diet in European culture, thought, and society with a focus on the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, and with a mix of primary sources and modern scholarship on food, cuisine, religion, and diet. 		ITAL2204401 Cross Cultural Analysis https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2204401 European, Intellectual Europe, pre-1800, Seminar
HIST 2205-401 Religious Conflict and Coexistence in Early Modern Europe Joshua Teplitsky WILL 741 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM Europe’s early modern period (roughly 1450-1750) has been described an “age of religious wars,” with the Reformation and contact with the New World prompting the formation of new fault lines, new collectives, and the reshaping of old animosities in new expressions. It was a period of bloody riots between Catholics and Protestants, expulsions of Jews and Muslims, prosecution of heretics, martyrdoms of saints, and inquisitions of witches. But it was also an age of living together, of pragmatism, and of coexistence. This seminar explores the complexities and curiosities of religious intellectual, political, social, and daily life as people across religious lines clashed, cooperated, communicated, and carried-on. We will explore the experiences both of influential thinkers but also ordinary people, and ask how and why people were willing, in the name of religion, to persecute, prosecute, fight, kill, and die, and how others traded and traveled together, defended each other, and even married across religious lines. JWST2225401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2205401 European, Jewish Europe, pre-1800, Seminar
HIST 2258-401 Existentialism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism: French Thought Since 1945 Warren G Breckman BENN 323 R 12:00 PM-2:59 PM In no other period, with the possible exception of the European Enlightenment, did French thought enjoy greater international influence than in the decades after the Second World War. From Existentialism, through Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Postmodernism, French thinkers played a crucial role in shaping the intellectual history of the second half of the twentieth century. This seminar surveys the intellectual movements and some of the key figures of this period. While our discussion will touch on many themes, the core of our inquiry will be the status of the human subject. If late nineteenth and early twentieth-century thinkers were preoccupied by the question of the “death of God,” French philosophical discourse in the late twentieth century was famously obsessed by the death of “Man”. Jean-Paul Sartre opened the post-war era by declaring that the death of God heralded an unprecedented age of Man; soon that proclamation came under attack as rival thinkers of the post-war period subjected the idea of the human “subject” -- the “self” or “ego” -- to unprecedented criticism. With the waning of Sartrean Existentialism, the unfolding dynamics of that critique came to drive the most creative and influential figures in French intellectual life. COML2258401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2258401 European, Intellectual Europe, Seminar
HIST 2350-401 Migration and Refugees in African History Cheikh Ante Mbacke Babou VANP 305 W 1:45 PM-4:44 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. AFRC2350401 Cross Cultural Analysis World Africa/Middle East, Seminar
HIST 2354-401 The Body in Middle Eastern History Secil Yilmaz WILL 219 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM The body has long been the focus of social and scientific inquiry, as well as the foundation of religious, philosophical, and artistic thought. This seminar examines premodern and modern notions of the body in the Middle East as they intersect with colonialism, nationalism, religion, labor, law, military, gender, race, medicine, and art. Students use the notion of the body as a "useful" historical category to investigate the broader social, cultural, and political transformations occurring in the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran, followed by post-empire and colonial modern Middle Eastern contexts. The course addresses diverse views and theories as manifested in the constructions and practices over the body by using literary texts, primary sources, medical recipes, religious orders, and even public monuments to unearth the role of the body in the making of Middle Eastern history. GSWS2354401, NELC2354401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2354401 Gender, World Africa/Middle East, Seminar
HIST 2403-401 Animal,Vegetable,Mineral:Culture, Tech, & the Columbian Exchange, 1450-1750 Marcia Susan Norton CANCELED In this course we will explore how Native American technologies shaped the early modern Atlantic World in order to understand the role of culture in what is often called the "Columbian Exchange.” Technologies, for the purpose of this course, include animal practices (such as hunting and taming techniques), foraged and domesticated plants (such as maize, potatoes, and annatto), foods (such as cassava and chocolate), drugs (such as tobacco, quinine and coca), textiles (such as hammocks and featherworks), and precious metals and gemstones (such as pearls, emeralds and gold). We will explore technologies' relationships to other aspects of art and culture, and focus particularly on how and why certain technologies - and not others - moved beyond colonial Latin America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We will read intensively in both primary and secondary sources. LALS2403401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2403401 World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800, Seminar
HIST 2601-301 Islam in Early America Arianne Sedef Urus WILL 320 R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Muslims first arrived on the shores of the Americas at the turn of the sixteenth century, yet their long history in the western hemisphere has been largely forgotten. For centuries Islam was the second-most widely practiced monotheistic religion in the Americas, after Catholicism; some Muslims came from Spain to escape persecution at the hands of the Inquisition for continuing to practice their religion, while others were taken captive and forcibly crammed into the hulls of ships on the West African coast and transported across the Atlantic, where, in 1522, they participated in the first uprising of enslaved men and women in the Americas on a sugar plantation on the island of Hispaniola (the site of present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). From the very beginning of European imperialism in the Atlantic World, Muslims were integral to the history of what scholars call “Vast Early America.” Their stories are entwined with the larger threads of early American history including those of missionary work, European interimperial conflict, slavery, the genocide of Native peoples, and capitalism. This course unfolds in four units that will take us from the first early modern European encounters with Islam to the stories of Muslim agents of European conquest and Muslim resistance to enslavement in the Caribbean and US South, to how the Founding Fathers thought about Islam and the status of Muslims in the Antebellum US. We will work with sources ranging from Laila Lalami’s 2014 novel, The Moor’s Account, to Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Qur’an, as well as the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said written in Arabic from a jail cell in South Carolina and Rhiannon Gidden’s new opera based on Omar’s story. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2601301 American, World pre-1800, Seminar, US
HIST 2700-301 Utopia Margo Todd VANP 627 W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Western thinkers from the ancient Greeks to the present have speculated about what the ideal human society would look like. We can study the resultant utopias as works of literature, philosophy, religion, psychology or political science; we must understand them in their historical contexts. This seminar will take a multidisciplinary approach to utopian thought from Plato's Republic to the ecological utopias of the 1980s. Works to be examined include More's Utopia; seventeenth century scientific utopias like Bacon's New Atlantis; the political theory of Rousseau (Social Contract); essays of the French utopian socialists and Hawthorne's version of the Brook Farm experiment; Morris' News from Nowhere; its American counterpart, Bellamy's Looking Backward; Gilman's feminist blueprint, Herland; BF Skinner's psychological utopia, Walden Two; and the utopian science fiction of LeGuin. Huxley's dystopia, Brave New World, will be set against his later utopia, Island. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2700301 Intellectual Seminar
HIST 2709-401 Pan-Africanism in Global Perspective Roquinaldo Ferreira BENN 139 T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This class covers the history of Pan-Africanism from its early inception in the nineteenth century to the present. Pan-Africanism has sparked political struggles and provided a powerful catalyst to artistic endeavors across the globe. The class focuses on the early critiques of the transatlantic slave trade, tracing the development of a unifying sociopolitical movement and the struggle for identity among Africans and African descendants in the diaspora. C. L. R. James posits that people of African descent, no matter where they might live, are linked through ancestral ties to Africa and as victims of structural and historical racism in the West. The class will not only engage with the classics of Pan-Africanism but also explore the movement’s influence through the arts (music, movies, and literature) and politics. To stress Pan-Africanism’s global ramifications, the class pays significant attention to the movement’s impact on Africa and Latin America. AFRC2709401, LALS2709401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2709401 Intellectual, World Africa/Middle East, Latin America/Caribbean, Seminar
HIST 2710-401 Inflationary Times: Money, Currency, and Debt in History Melissa Teixeira BENN 141 T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM What is inflation? What are its causes and consequences? Inflation has become a pressing concern recently, as prices of fuel, food, and consumer goods have ticked upwards at alarming rates. From the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, and climate disasters, current inflationary pressures are inseparable from the major events disrupting the global economy. This is as much the case today as it was following the discovery of silver mines in Potosí (Bolivia), the French Revolution, the breakdown of Bretton Woods, or the 1980s debt crises in Latin America. This course explores the economic and social consequences of inflation across history. It also considers the economic models used to explain the rise and fall of prices—and how economists and policy-makers experiment with new formulas when old ones appear obsolete. By exploring inflationary moments in historical perspective, this seminar explores topics like the political and social meanings of money, how to build trust in a new currency, and what governments can do (or tried to do) to correct financial crisis. Students will be asked to explore past moments of financial and economic crises on their own terms, but also to look for how the past can offer lessons for the present. LALS2710401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST2710401 Economic, World Global Issues, Seminar
HIST 2711-301 The Good Fight: Global Decolonization from Chile to China Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet WILL 321 T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM The conclusion of the Second World War precipitated independence movements that put an end to colonialism in many countries of the Global South, especially Asia and Africa. How did people with different political backgrounds ideologies, as well as divergent and historical experiences of imperialism, take part in shaping their communities after WWII? The rise of the Cold War and expressions of Third Worldism complicated the identities and alliances of many newly formed countries that were previously colonized or in relationships of political dependency with the West. This course will survey case studies that speak to issues of social inequality, in particular poverty, gender, and race. At the same time, the class will consider the role and impact of new international organizations and non-state actors in the struggle for decolonization. Special attention will be paid to civil rights movements and political resistance to new forms of state control. World Global Issues, Seminar
HIST 3150-401 Wartime Internment of Japanese-Americans Eiichiro Azuma WILL 202 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This research seminar will consist of a review of representative studies on the Japanese American internment, and a discussion of how social scientists and historians have attempted to explain its complex backgrounds and causes. Through the careful reading of academic works, primary source materials, and visualized narratives (film productions), students will learn the basic historiography of internment studies, research methodologies, and the politics of interpretation pertaining to this particular historical subject. Students will also examine how Japanese Americans and others have attempted to reclaim a history of the wartime internment from the realm of “detached” academia in the interest of their lives in the “real” world, and for a goal of “social justice” in general. The class will critically probe the political use of history and memories of selected pasts in both Asian American community and contemporary American society through the controversial issue of the Japanese American internment. ASAM2100401 Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. American, Diplomatic Research, Seminar, US
HIST 3151-401 The Civil Rights Movement Mia E Bay BENN 20 W 3:30 PM-6:29 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. AFRC3151401 American Research, Seminar, US
HIST 3158-401 ¡Huelga! The Farmworker Movement in the United States Amy C Offner CANCELED This intensive research seminar invites students to explore the history of farmworkers in the United States during the twentieth century. Research will primarily but not necessarily exclusively focus on the west coast, a region in which many archival sources have been digitized. Students may explore a wide variety of topics, including but not limited to: farmworker unions; the relationship between farmworker mobilizations and other movements in the US and abroad; the experiences of workers from the Philippines and Latin America and the role of US imperial and immigration policies in the lives of farmworkers; farmworkers' confrontations with and participation in systems of racism; the Great Depression in rural communities; the history of gender and family in farmworker communities; the history of environment and health; struggles over citizenship and social rights; counter-mobilizations of growers and the right; religion in farmworker communities; legislative and legal strategies to obtain rights denied agricultural workers in federal law; artistic, musical, and cultural production; or the relationship between consumers and the workers who produced their food. LALS3158401
HIST 3174-401 Free State Slavery and Bound Labor Research Seminar Kathleen M Brown
Sarah B Gordon 		VANP 627 R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This seminar invites students to do original research into the stories of Black refugees – including escaped, kidnapped, sojourning, and other temporary or permanent residents of Pennsylvania. Their stories unfolded through contentious freedom suits, daring escapes on the Underground Railroad, newspaper wars, gun fights and thuggery, treason cases, and more. We have assembled an archive of statutes, legal cases, testimony, judicial and administrative decisions, newspaper stories, images, memoirs, maps, and more to help students get started with their research. In addition, students will have opportunities to pursue additional research at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a co-sponsor of this course. Many of these materials have never been the subject of sustained study or placed in their historical context. Students will choose their topics in consultation with the professors and will produce research reports in written or digital or cinematic formats.
Students are expected to contribute to the course website, a platform that will be available to the public as well as to the Penn community, and we aim to provide new information and venues for research. The course therefore will involve considerations of how best to convey what we learn, as well as explorations of historical methods and collaborating archives. 		AFRC3174401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST3174401 American Research, Seminar, US
HIST 3200-301 War and Conquest in Medieval Europe Ada M Kuskowski MCES 105 T 1:45 PM-4:44 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. Cross Cultural Analysis European Europe, pre-1800, Research, Seminar
HIST 3405-401 The Conquest of Mexico Peter Sorensen WILL 306 R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM The Conquest of Mexico is one of the most famous episodes of global history. Often told as a story of European technological and military superiority, scholarship of the last thirty years has started to change our understanding of what really happened. In the first half of this course we will examine the history of both Spain and Mesoamerica from approximately 1300 to the fateful meeting of the two civilizations in 1519 that led to war in 1520-21. We will ask questions about sources, actors, and intentions such as, should we even call the events “The Conquest of Mexico”?
The second half of the course will focus on the first century of Spanish colonial control of what was now called New Spain to roughly 1650. We will ask questions like, how much control did the Spanish have over their Mesoamerican colonies? What role did the Catholic Church play? How did Indigenous people and Africans adapt to living under colonialism? In what ways did the lives of women change? How was the environment impacted? How did epidemic disease alter daily life and communities? And, finally, what role did China and the Philippines play in the maintenance of a Spanish colony in the Americas?
Throughout the course we will read translated primary sources produced by both Spaniards and Indigenous people, as well as selections from recently published scholarship. By the end of the course, each student will have written an original historical analysis based on a theme or event discussed with and approved by the instructor. 		LALS3405401 Diplomatic, World Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800, Research, Seminar
HIST 3552-401 Constitutionalism and Democracy in China: 1900-present Arthur Waldron PWH 108 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Research on constitutional thought in China from the late Qing to the present, as well as the political and practical aspects of attempts at implementation. A presentation and a research paper of moderate length are expected. Chinese language is not necessary, though if you have it, that will be useful. EALC3532401 World East/South Asia, Research, Seminar
HIST 3603-401 Writing, Publishing, and Reading in Early Modern Europe and the Americas Roger Chartier
John Pollack 		VANP 605 M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM In this course we will consider the writing, publication, and reading of texts created on both sides of the Atlantic in early modern times, from the era of Gutenberg to that of Franklin, and in many languages. The seminar will be held in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts in Van Pelt Library and make substantial use of its exceptional, multilingual collections, including early manuscripts, illustrated books, plays marked for performance, and censored books. Any written or printed object can be said to have a double nature: both textual and material. We will introduce this approach and related methodologies: the history of the book; the history of reading; connected history; bibliography; and textual criticism. We will focus on particular case studies and also think broadly about the global history of written culture, and about relations between scribal and print culture, between writing and reading, between national traditions, and between what is and what is not “literature.” We encourage students with diverse linguistic backgrounds to enroll. As part of the seminar, students will engage in a research project which can be based in the primary source collections of the Kislak Center. History Majors or Minors may use this course to fulfill the US, Europe, or Latin America geographic requirement if that region is the focus of their research paper. COML3603401, ENGL2603401 American, European, World Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, pre-1800, Research, Seminar, US
HIST 3710-401 Introduction to Business, Economic and Financial History Marc R Flandreau WILL 3 R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Business, Economic and Financial History plays a crucial role today in informing the views of business leaders, policy makers, reformers and public intellectuals. This seminar provides students with the opportunity to acquire a command of the key elements of this important intellectual field. The seminar format enables us to do this engagingly through reading and discussion. Students acquire a knowledge of the fundamental texts and controversies. Each meeting focuses on one foundational debate and provides a means to be up to date with the insights gleaned from rigorous economic history. We will examine twelve important debates and students will be asked to write a paper. The debates will include such questions as: What is growth and how can it be measured? What caused the "great divergence" in long run development among countries? How can we "understand" the rise and fall of slavery and its long shadow today? What is globalization and when did it begin? Did the Gold Standard and interwar fiscal and monetary policy orthodoxy cause the great depression? How can we explain the evolution of inequality in the very long run? ECON0625401 Economic Research, Seminar
HIST 3711-301 Uses and Abuses of History Lee V Cassanelli WILL 6 W 3:30 PM-6:29 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. 		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST3711301 Research, Seminar
HIST 3713-401 Singer-songwriters in the Cold War Ann C Farnsworth MCES 105 R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This research seminar considers the overlapping political worlds of performers like Violeta Parra (b. Chile 1917), Pete Seeger (b. USA 1919), Miriam Makeba (b. South Africa 1932), Vladimir Vysotsky (b. USSR 1938), Gilberto Gil (b. Brazil 1942), Bob Marley (b. Jamaica 1945), Silvio Rodríguez (b. Cuba 1946), Waldemar Bastos (b. Angola 1954), and others. We will have shared readings about youth-identified musicians who brought Leftist politics on stage with them, as well as about the activism of anti-communists and anti-Stalinists in different geographic spaces. Each participant will produce a 15-20 page paper based on primary sources. Throughout the semester, in-class work will be designed to support the research process. Students will work through multiple drafts and share their writing with one another. Faculty members from Music, Comparative Literature, and other departments will be invited as guest speakers, as will folklorists, performers, and members of other Philadelphia-area communities. LALS3713401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST3713401 World Research, Seminar
HIST 3921-001 European International Relations 1914-present Walter A Mcdougall
Yi Ren 		ANNS 111 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course looks at Europe's interactions with other world regions throughout the twentieth century. Over the course of roughly a hundred years, Europeans have shaped the fates of peoples living beyond the western world, for instance through the impact of two world wars, European colonialism, and the global Cold War. At the same time, European societies 'at home' were not left unaffected by these interactions. Even today, Europeans are facing the legacies of some of these histories in immigration and the politics of religion and secularism for example. The past century also saw a dramatic shift in Europe's position in the world - from dominance to a loss of influence in the shadow of the United States and more recently, China. The course spends significant time covering the histories of world regions other than Europe. It furthermore considers some interactions and exchanges between world regions from a social and cultural point of view. Because the class spans roughtly a century, the content has to remain introductory and general, although a very basic familiarity with 20th-century international history is helpful. Diplomatic, European Europe
HIST 3965-401 The History of the International Monetary System and the Rise of the US Dollar Maylis Avaro
Marc R Flandreau 		36MK 110 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM The course will cover the modern evolution of the international monetary system going all the way back to the era when sterling became the leading international currencies. It is arranged thematically and chronologically both. The lessons and readings will introduce students to the principal evolutions of the international monetary system and at the same time, it will give them an understanding of regimes, their mechanics and the geopolitical economies behind systemic shifts. Students need not have an economic background but must be prepared to read about exchange rates (and world politics). Special focus on: The early modern international monetary system. How Amsterdam and London captured the Spanish treasure. Beyond the West (Ottoman Empire, India, China). The Napoleonic wars and the rise of sterling. Hong-Kong: Silver, Opium, and the Recycling of Surpluses. The emergence of the Gold Standard. Bimetallism: The US election of 1796. Sterling and Key Currencies before WWI. The First World War and the origins of dollar supremacy. When the dollar displaced sterling (1920s). The collapse of the international gold standard (1930s). The Bretton Woods System. The rise and rise of the US dollar. Currency competition (Dollar, Euro, Yuan Renminbi). The meaning of cryptocurrencies. ECON0615401 Economic, World Global Issues
HIST 4997-301 Junior Honors in History Benjamin Nathans MCES 105 M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Open to junior honors candidates in history. Introduction to the study and analysis of historical phenomena. Emphasis on theoretical approaches to historical knowledge, problems of methodology, and introduction to research design and strategy. Objective of this seminar is the development of honors thesis proposal. Perm Needed From Department Seminar
HIST 6100-301 Race, Citizenship, and Political Development 1776-2016 Randall B Cebul
Sarah L H Gronningsater 		VANP 402 R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Reading and discussion course on selected topics in US history.
HIST 6220-301 Present Past: History, Memory, Literature Roger Chartier VANP 605 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Reading and Discussion course on selected topics in Early Modern European History. SPRING 2023 CHartier Syllabus.docx32.24 KB
HIST 6300-301 Colonialism in South Asia Ramya Sreenivasan MCNB 582 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Reading and discussion course on selected topics in Asian History.
HIST 6330-301 Readings in Modern Japanese History Frederick R Dickinson MEYH B6 W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Reading and discussion course on selected topics in Modern Asian History.
HIST 6600-301 20th Political Economy: Latin Amer in the World Amy C Offner MCES 105 W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Reading and discussion course on selected topics in Latin American and Caribbean history https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST6600301
HIST 6700-301 Intellectual History of Early Modern Worlds Oscar Aguirre Mandujano COHN 337 M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Reading and discussion course on selected topics in Transregional History Prospectus_HIST6700_Spring2023.pdf1.21 MB https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=HIST6700301
HIST 7000-301 Proseminar in History Eve M Troutt Powell MEYH B5 M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM Weekly readings, discussions, and writing assignments to develop a global perspective within which to study human events in various regional/cultural milieus, c. 1400 to the present. This course is required for all PhD students, and is taken in the first year of study.