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 | ||||
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HIST 0200-001 | The Emergence of Modern Europe | Joshua Teplitsky Benjamin Alexander Wightman |
ANNS 110 | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This course examines the period in European history from the Black Death until the French Revolution (roughly 1348 to 1789). During this period of Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, early modern Europe experienced a series of crises in authority that ushered in the modern world. The course will explore how new discoveries (both geographical and intellectual) challenged existing worldviews; movements of religious reform challenged the authority of the Church and the unity of Europe; and new political doctrines, accompanied by a series of striking rebellions, challenged the foundations of traditional rule. Our aim will be to excavate the changing social, political, intellectual, and cultural experiences of men and women during this time of renaissance, reformation, enlightenment, and revolution. We will follow the encounter between Europeans and the peoples of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, as well as the “discovery” of new ways to read old books, the “discovery” of new technologies in communications and combat, and the “discovery” of new sciences, arts, and philosophies as they impacted the way Europeans related to the wider world and their place within it. |
History & Tradition Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST0200001 | European | Europe, pre-1800 | ||||
HIST 0205-001 | Europe: From Fall of Rome to Age of Exploration | Ada M Kuskowski | EDUC 202 | MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | This course offers a broad introduction to the history of Europe from around the fourth to sixteenth century CE. We begin with Roman civilization facing a series of crises that led to its eventual fall in the West and the great migrations that resulted in ‘barbarian’ kingdoms. We then explore European history as it developed afterwards through key questions that capture its essence: what was ‘barbarian’ about these kingdoms and what exactly were the ‘dark ages’? How did political power transform throughout the period to produce nascent nation states in the end? What did it mean to be a medieval knight? In what ways were women powerless or powerful? What was city life like as these began to be rebuilt? What roles did faith and knowledge play in this world? What were the first universities like? How did European culture in this period handle difference, and how is this similar or different to modern approaches? How do we even know this history from centuries to over a millennium ago? Students will discover a Europe that is fascinating in its contradictions: both dark and bright, both closed and open, both strikingly different and yet often surprisingly familiar. | History & Tradition Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST0205001 | European | Europe, pre-1800 | ||||
HIST 0310-401 | Warriors, Concubines & Converts: the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East & Europe | Oscar Aguirre Mandujano Javier R. Ardila |
ANNS 111 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | For almost six hundred years, the Ottomans ruled most of the Balkans and the Middle East. From their bases in Anatolia, Ottoman armies advanced into the Balkans, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, constantly challenging the borders of neighboring European and Islamicate empires. By the end of the seventeenth century, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo, Baghdad, Sarajevo, Budapest, and nearly Vienna came under Ottoman rule. As the empire expanded into Europe and the Middle East, the balance of imperial power shifted from warriors to converts, concubines, and intellectuals. This course examines the expansion of the Ottoman sultanate from a local principality into a sprawling empire with a sophisticated bureaucracy; it also investigates the social, cultural, and intellectual developments that accompanied the long arc of the empire's rise and fall. By the end of the course, students will be able to identify and discuss major currents of change in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. The student will have a better understanding of the roles of power, ideology, diplomacy, and gender in the construction of empire and a refined appreciation for diverse techniques of historical analysis. | NELC0450401 | Cross Cultural Analysis History & Tradition Sector |
Diplomatic, European, World | Africa/Middle East, Europe, pre-1800 | ||||
HIST 1200-401 | Foundations of European Thought: from Rome to the Renaissance | Ann Elizabeth Moyer | PCPE 100 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This course offers an introduction to the world of thought and learning at the heart of European culture, from the Romans through the Renaissance. We begin with the ancient Mediterranean and the formation of Christianity and trace its transformation into European society. Along the way we will examine the rise of universities and institutions for learning, and follow the humanist movement in rediscovering and redefining the ancients in the modern world. | COML1201401 | Cross Cultural Analysis History & Tradition Sector |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST1200401 | European, Intellectual | Europe, pre-1800 | |||
HIST 1270-001 | World War I | Peter I Holquist | STIT 263 | MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM | This survey course examines the outbreak, conduct, and aftermath of the First World War. The First World War put an end to the world of the 19th century and laid the foundations of the 20th century, the age of destruction and devastation. This course will examine the war in three components: the long-term and immediate causes of the First World War; the war's catastrophic conduct, on the battlefield and on the home front; and the war's devastating aftermath. While we will discuss military operations and certain battles, this course is not a military history of the war; it covers the social, economic, political and diplomatic aspects that contributed to the war's outbreak and made possible its execution over four devastating years. No preliminary knowledge or coursework is required. | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST1270001 | Diplomatic, European | Europe, Global Issues | |||||
HIST 1280-401 | Origins of Nazism: From Democracy to Race War and Genocide | Anne K Berg | FAGN 216 | MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM | Where did the Nazis come from? Was the Weimar Republic bound to fail? Did the Treaty of Versailles or the Great Depression catapult the Nazis into power? What was the role of racism, of Anti-Semitism? How did the regime consolidate itself? What was the role of ordinary people? How do we explain the Holocaust and what kind of a war was the Second World War? Grappling with these and more questions, the first half of the course focuses on Germany's first democracy, the Weimar Republic and its vibrant political culture. In the second half, we study on the Nazi regime, how it consolidated its power and remade society based on the concepts of race and struggle. Discussions of race and race-making are crucial throughout the course. In the name of the "racial purity," the Nazi state moved ruthlessly against Germany's Jewish population and cleansed German society of all "undesirable" elements. These ideas and practices didn't originate with the Nazis and they didn't operate in a geopolitical vacuum. Thinking about Nazi racism and genocide in both its particular specifics and in a larger global historical context is the main goal of this course. | GRMN1306401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST1280401 | European | Europe | ||||
HIST 1733-001 | Free Speech and Censorship | Edward M Chappell Sophia A Rosenfeld |
BENN 231 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course will explore the idea of free speech - its justification, its relationship to various forms of censorship, and its proper limits - as a historical, philosophical, legal, and ultimately, political question. In the first half of the course, we will explore the long history across the West of the regulation of various kinds of ideas and their expression, from malicious gossip to heresies, and read classic arguments for and against censorship, copyright protections, and standards of taste and decency and of truth. In the second part of the seminar, after looking at how the idea of freedom of speech came to seem an existential prerequisite for democracy as well as individual liberty, we will take up the historical and philosophical questions posed by such recent dilemmas as whether or not hate speech deserves the protection of the First Amendment, the distinction between art and pornography from the perspective of freedom of expression, speech during wartime, and the transformative effects of the internet on the circulation and regulation of ideas. We will end the semester by thinking about the globalization of the idea of free speech as a human right and its implications, both positive and negative. Readings will range from Robert Darnton's The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, to D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, to documents concerning the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo and law review articles about Citizens United v. FEC. We will also make considerable use of local resources, from museums to the library. | Humanties & Social Science Sector | American, European, Intellectual | Global Issues, pre-1800, US | |||||
HIST 2201-401 | The City of Rome: From Constantine to the Borgias | Ann Elizabeth Moyer | WILL 306 | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | The great city of Rome outlived its empire and its emperors. What happened to the Eternal City after “the fall of the Roman Empire in the West?” In this course, we will follow the story of this great city, its people, its buildings old and new, and its legacy across Italy, Europe, and beyond. Rome rebuilt and reshaped itself through the Middle Ages: home for popes, destination for pilgrims, power broker for Italy. It became a great Renaissance and early modern city, a center of art and architecture, of religion, and of politics. We will be reading a mix of primary sources and modern scholarship. All required texts are in English, though students who take this course for Italian Studies credit may choose to read some works in Italian. | ITAL2201401 | Cross Cultural Analysis | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST2201401 | European, Intellectual | Europe, pre-1800, Seminar | |||
HIST 2206-401 | Neighbors and Strangers: Jews and Christians in Premodern Europe | Joshua Teplitsky | MCES 105 | R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | The history of Christians and Jews—and of Judaism and Christianity—is an entangled one. From antiquity the two groups gained understandings of themselves in relation to the other, and that story defined much of the lives of each throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period. At times this relationship was a hostile one, but it was also a force for creativity and a basic fact of life. This course approaches the history of relations between Christians and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (ca. 1000-1800), exploring both the bases of hatred and the possibilities of coexistence. We will look at episodes of crusader violence, mass expulsion, and religious polemic alongside exchanges in taverns, shared child-rearing, and sexual encounters. We will examine sources from both Christians and Jews, recovering voices from across this seeming divide, encountering both the ideals imagined by elites and intellectuals, and the messy—and more interesting!—realities of living side-by-side for centuries. Class meetings will involve dedicated discussion of a combination of primary and secondary sources, and assessment will be based on writing assignments. | JWST2206401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST2206401 | European, Jewish | Europe, pre-1800, Seminar | ||||
HIST 2256-401 | The Russian Revolutions, 1905-1924: Brave New World? | Peter I Holquist | BENN 139 | M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | Many believe that the 1917 Russian Revolution was the most significant event in the twentieth century, both as a rupture from the past and as a precursor of much that was to come in the twentieth century. The February Revolution of 1917 made the Russian Republic—at one stroke, in the midst of the world war—the world’s most democratic state. The October Revolution of 1917, following it, was the world’s first socialist revolution, and it established the world’s first socialist state—the Soviet Union. Throughout the twentieth century and beyond, people have looked to it with either fear or with hope. It generated great dreams of equality and liberation—and great misery. This course will examine the causes, course and consequences of this crucial period, for the peoples of the Soviet Union and for the world. In some ways, the term “Russian Revolution” is in fact not entirely correct. First, there was not one Russian Revolution--were a series of overlapping revolutions in this period—labor, rural, nationalist, liberationist. And second, it was a revolution that was not limited to European Russia, but encompassed the entire space of Russian empire (the Caucasus, the Baltics, Poland, Central Asia), and had worldwide and global significance. How do programs for liberation produce both new possibilities and great misery? |
REES2770401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST2256401 | European | Europe, Seminar | ||||
HIST 3202-301 | Medieval Justice | Ada M Kuskowski | MCES 105 | T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | What exactly is justice? What is its relationship to law? To what extent is it culturally contingent? How do ideas about justice change over time? This course will examine different theories and representation of justice in European Middle Ages (ca. 500-1500). We will begin by looking at aspects of dispute resolution in the early middle ages, when there was little centralized government. This was the heyday of feud, ordeal, and the law of talion, when law was largely unwritten and disputes were resolved informally by the community. We will then look at how law professionalized and how ideas of justice changed as formal legal institutions and centralized governments developed. Readings will be drawn from a variety of sources, including the so-called barbarian codes, stories of feud, accounts of crime, charters of rights, lawbooks, and trial records. |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST3202301 | European, Intellectual | Europe, pre-1800, Research, Seminar | |||||
HIST 3922-401 | European Thought and Culture in the Age of Revolution | Warren G Breckman | FAGN 110 | MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | Starting with the dual challenges of Enlightenment and Revolution at the close of the eighteenth century, this course examines the emergence of modern European thought and culture in the century from Kant to Nietzsche. Themes to be considered include Romanticism, Utopian Socialism, early Feminism, Marxism, Liberalism, and Aestheticism. Readings include Kant, Hegel, Burke, Marx, Mill, Wollstonecraft, Darwin, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. | COML3922401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=HIST3922401 | European, Intellectual | Europe |