Check out our current course offerings
This is a partial list of courses. For the semester's complete offerings, see the Registrar's website. The IUB Course Bulletin also has full list of History Department courses past, present, and future.
This is a partial list of courses. For the semester's complete offerings, see the Registrar's website. The IUB Course Bulletin also has full list of History Department courses past, present, and future.
Spring of 2023 brings several study-abroad opportunities for students enrolled in specific history courses
It is hard to find a better place than Berlin to study the Cold War as the city divided by the Wall (1961-1989) still keeps memories and cultures of life in the GDR and West Berlin, sites of the Soviet-Western confrontation and cooperation, places where you can immerse into the history of World War II and the experiment of building socialism, history of propaganda and surveillance, the democratic revolutions and foreign politics, everyday life under the Soviet regime and international cultural exchanges at the time of the Iron Curtain.
Enroll in Dr. Saburova's D312 Histories of the Cold War and in HIST-X 395, section 35380.
London! Samuel Johnson wrote that this city contains “as much of life as the world can show.” Nearly 300 years later, its population includes people from 270 countries—and Johnson’s words only ring truer. Participants in this eight-week Honors seminar will study what “the world can show” in the history of its cities, from polis (Ancient Greece) to Indianapolis—with London’s story at the center of our attention. At the end of our on-campus survey, we travel to the planet’s greatest urban research laboratory to uncover the history of Western urbanism firsthand.
Honors students or non-honors students with a GPA of 3.4 can apply at https://hiep.indiana.edu/hhsa/upcoming-programs/london.html
HIST-H105 with Professor Sarah Knott
HIST-H106 with Professor Amy Ransford
How have people defined, debated, and asserted freedom in the United States since the conclusion of the Civil War? From Reconstruction politics to 1930s labor strikes to the Civil Rights movement, freedom and its uses is one of the key themes we will explore as we learn about the major political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual transformations that have shaped American life. Through lectures, short readings, and primary source analysis, students will learn how to interpret conflicting narratives and formulate arguments about the past.
HIST-A112 with Professor Janine Giordano Drake
Why is teaching US History so contentious? To what extent is the story of the United States a story of “democracy” triumphing over “tyranny?” Has “democracy” always triumphed, or are there other reasons why that narrative of US History is so beloved by some Americans? This course explores the extent to which national histories function as political mythologies. It problematizes the challenge of constructing a narrative of American history that does justice to the diversity of the American people and their many perspectives on the project called the United States.
HIST-W130 with Professor Maria Bucur-Deckard
This course offers a narrative of major changes around the world since 1900 centering on the role women have played as historical actors and objects of policy making and other social developments. To understand these changes, we will be examining the world of politics, demography, economics, knowledge making, culture, and kinship relations. In addition to familiarizing you with many important individuals and processes that unfolded in the recent past or are still unfolding, the course takes these case studies to acquaint you with a number of research methods. We will read and compare different disciplinary approaches, such as sociology, biology, and economics, to understanding gender regimes. The class will also provide hands-on introductions to a number of campus resources that can assist you in future research and writing projects.
HIST-A200 with Professor Alex Lichtenstein
"Unmasked: Art, Memory, and Antiracist Protest” will introduce students to the political and cultural ferment of the Great Depression era. The use of art and culture in antiracist struggles is nothing new. During the 1930s, antiracist activists publicized their campaigns with art exhibits. This ASURE (Arts and Sciences undergraduate research experience) seminar invites students to participate in the recreation of two of these exhibits for a public art installation entitled “Unmasked: The 1935 Antilynching Exhibits.” Students will research exhibit objects; produce curatorial descriptions for display in the installation; and help lead tours of the exhibit when it opens on the IU campus. Preparation for this research will include study of the art, culture, and politics of the 1930s. For students interested in art history, history, American Studies, African American Studies, and social movements.
HIST-A200 with Professor Wendy Gamber
What can moccasins, high rolls, tight-lacing, cross-dressing, business suits, zoot suits, bobby socks, bell bottoms, dashikis and shoulder pads tell us about American history? When did Americans dress for revolution and when did they dress for success? Who made the clothes Americans wore—and how did they make them?
HIST-F200 with Professor Danny James
Poverty, war, dictators, and coups, these are many of the things that come to mind when Americans think of Africa. This class will push back against these stereotypes. It traces the history of the African continent during the nineteenth and twentieth century, a period of political, economic, and social change. The class focuses on the impact of slavery’s abolition, the spread of Islam and Christianity, the role of Africans in the world wars, the cold war in Africa, and fights for independence. We will also discuss the postcolonial aspirations of African nations and contemplate why development and aid have failed.
HIST-W200 with Professor Tatiana Saburova
Course description: What photographs can tell us about the past, society, politics, culture and everyday life? In class “Photographing History” you will learn how visualize history and incorporate photographs into research, how to “look” at photographs as primary sources and see “invisible” in photos, how to use photographs as documents which tell stories about people and historical events. We will be exploring photo collections to examine the visual history of different countries and regions, global and local conflicts, political movements and daily life in the 19th -20th centuries.
HIST-H206 with Professor Deborah Deliyannis
Cities and villages, castles and cathedrals and mosques, from AD 400-1500 – learn what they looked like, who lived there, and what aspects of medieval life, politics, and culture they represented.
HIST-W210 with Professor Pedro Machado
Played, watched and enjoyed by millions, soccer (or football as it is known outside the US) is without doubt the most popular team sport on the planet. The ‘beautiful game’ attracts the passions of men and women from different social classes, races, religions and nationalities who regularly who gather at stadiums around the world in support of their local or national teams. Soccer is played professionally in nearly every country and has become a form of mass entertainment and big business, generating vast sums of money for sponsors, leagues, teams and the players themselves. Yet soccer is much more than simply a sport – it reflects and is shaped by broader historical, economic, social, political and cultural trends that affect the lives of fans, their areas and nations. In this course, we will use soccer as a lens through which to explore questions of race, gender, ethnicity, class, nationalism and empire to understand both how the beautiful game offers us an alternative way to study themes such as religious animosities, dictatorship, decolonization and industrialization, and can illuminate the many intersections between the personal and the social, and the local and the global.
HIST-C220 with Professor Colin Elliott
We investigate the lives and leadership of a diverse group of ancient Mediterranean leaders. How did these individuals rise to preeminence? Which ethical and cultural values shaped their choices? How did they change their world? Our subjects include Artemisia, Pericles, Socrates, Demosthenes, Alexander the Great, the Gracchi brothers, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Agrippina, Marcus Aurelius, Perpetua, Hypatia and Justinian the Great, among others. In addition to such leaders, Ancient Greek and Roman societies left behind compelling studies of leadership itself--a skill as valuable then as it is now. Leadership is fundamental to being human, and to cultivate leadership is to cultivate the best in humanity. Students should expect to attend weekly lectures and discussion sections, read around 30-60 pages of primary sources on ancient leaders, write around 8 short papers and complete a final essay which evaluates the leadership qualities of an ancient leader.
HIST-W220 with Professor Peter Guardino
“War? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” Whether or not we agree with the opening line of Edwin Starr’s 1969 hit song, we have to admit that war has been a common event in human history. Rather than taking a traditional military history approach, this course will explore the social history of war. Wars were the result of social and political institutions, and the social and cultural expectations that brought people from particular groups to the battlefields shaped their behavior there. We will also study how these social and cultural factors affected the more traditional topics of military history, often having more influence on victory or defeat than the cleverest military leaders. We will take a case study approach, looking at many wars from ancient Greece and China to the American Civil War to current wars. The course will foreground human experiences, and we will work hard to get as close as we can to the often colorful and poignant stories of individuals who participated in war. All reading will consist of short excerpts from primary and secondary sources posted on Canvas. Students will complete a number of extremely short reflections based on the reading and also three exams in class.
HIST-A235 with Professor Konstantin Dierks
HIST-H239 with Professor Judith Allen
Western medicine has a dramatic history. How did past cultures understand bodies, diseases, and healing? Ancient Greek doctrines of liquid humors shaped medicine until the mid-C19th “bacteriological revolution.” A key focus is the impact of anesthesia, analgesia, and asepsis, especially on hospitals. These became centers for surgery, teaching, and research, along with exclusionary medical professionalization, with class, gender, and race ramifications. Increased C20th longevity means that degenerative diseases (e. g. heart diseases, cancer) dominate mortality. Disputes over medical costs and health insurance, prevention and wellness, spotlight influential corporate medicine, and its critics.
HIST-H252 with Professor Brian Hillman
What Is History? introduces students to the fundamental practices of our discipline, namely, the ethical reading, researching, writing, and citing of history. Unlike other history classes, this course focuses only incidentally upon a particular people, place, period, and theme. Instead, it teaches the most basic skills of the historian’s craft. These include the ability to identify and critique an author’s thesis; to find and interpret primary and secondary sources; to construct a research project; and to cite evidence and scholarship authoritatively.
HIST-H270 with Professor Roos
What is the historian’s task? “Simply to show how it really was,” was the answer of nineteenth-century historian Leopold von Ranke. Is it that easy? How do we know how it really was? In this course, we will explore vital questions of the process of history-writing: the choices historians make, whether consciously or unconsciously, and the influence their own society and times have on these choices. “History is made up of facts. Facts are readily available.” We will unpack these seemingly straightforward assumptions by asking why only some facts, but not others, become part of the historical record. We will also examine the relationship between the historian’s work and debates over public memory.
HIST-A300 with Professor Wendy Gamber
What can murder tell us about American society and culture in particular times and places? How did trials, punishments, and media shape and express ideas about crime, violence, justice, safety, class, race, gender, ethnicity, economy, and politics? And how did these ideas change over time? We’ll address these questions by investigating a variety of cases, some famous, some lesser known, over four centuries of American history.
HIST-J300 with Professor Jeremy Schott
Explore how the emperor Constantine the Great transformed Europe and the Middle East. There is perhaps no figure so controversial and so misunderstood in the history of the Roman world as the first “Christian” emperor. Our study will focus on the same primary sources used by professional historians: ancient texts, documents, art, and architecture. We will explore Constantine’s conversion and his religious policies, but we will also examine his foreign and domestic agendas, and military and economic policies. We will also study the “mythical” Constantine and how the Constantine of medieval and modern imaginations shaped thinking about monarchy, church, and state. This course carries IW credit.
HIST-J300 with Professor Leah Shopkow
What would get you to go 2700 miles (plus or minus) to western Asia to fight someone who you had never met and who had never done you personal harm? What would get you to travel hundreds of miles to fight in ice and snow in Northern Europe? What would get you to fight and kill fellow-Christians for their beliefs? We’ll ask all of these questions and more as we explore the crusades this semester.
HIST-J300 with Professor Ke Chin Hsia
Nationalism, socialism/communism, fascism are democracy’s frenemies. They have inspired devoted activists who claim to fight for the people, to realize “true democracy,” and to effect real liberation. But they have also destroyed democracies, ruined millions of lives, and wreaked havoc at home and abroad. This course helps you understand these powerful phenomena in context. A historical look at them in relation to democracy prepares you to think what democracy was, is, could have been, and will be. This seminar emphasizes substantial reading, active discussion, and frequent writing. It fulfills CASE Intensive Writing and S&H credits.
HIST-J300 with Professor Clare Griffin
Drugs are a point of fascination for many societies: how and why do some substances make our brains go “phizz” and should we be taking them or not? In this course we will look at the early modern origins of a variety of drugs – coffee, tobacco, opium – and see how societal attitudes to them and their use were created and changed.
HIST-J300 with Professor Konstantin Dierks
HIST-J300 with Professor Juan Mora
References to the U.S. Midwest as “the heartland” in popular culture, national politics, and mass media evoke a romanticized regional past where the descendants of European settlers and immigrants populated small-towns and family farms. Through reading, writing, and discussion, we will disrupt these associations by exploring the history of Latinx migration, place-making, and politics throughout the Midwest. While the increased visibility of Latinxs in recent decades has led to their portrayal as a “new” group of migrants to the Midwest, this course will examine the century-long presence of Latinas/os/xs in the region. Focusing on a range of social, cultural, and economic transformations across urban and rural spaces, we will emphasize the Midwest as a crucial site for understanding 20th century Latinx and U.S. History.
HIST-J300 with Professor Danny James
HIST-J300 with Professor Cara Caddoo
In this course, we will examine the history of advertising, PR & propaganda in the United States. Our readings and class materials will introduce us to a world of divas, dictators, and “Don Drapers.” We will study their efforts to influence public desires and opinions, and ask how the public, especially workers, women, and racial minorities responded. We will consider how advertising, PR & propaganda relates to broader social, economic, and political developments, including wars, industrialization, and protest movements. In particular, we will ask what this history reveals about our changing and often-contradictory conceptions of ‘the public,’ democracy, and consumerism.
HIST-W300 with Professor Michael Dodson
In the early 20th Century, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier began to experiment with radical forms of architecture, believing that through the use of new physical structures and technologies in building he could fundamentally transform the nature of society. For Le Corbusier, the house was a “machine for living in” that could make life better for its residents, and architecture was thus the noblest of all professions. In this course we will focus on the ways that architecture has been used to communicate and experiment with forms of modernity, both in Euro-America and the non- Western world, during the 20th Century. How did architecture change people’s lives, for better and for worse?
HIST-A302 with Professor Benjamin Irvin
Between 1775 and 1783, a momentous military conflict wracked the British Empire. We know that conflict today as the American Revolution. We think of it as a war of independence waged against a tyrannical monarch. Yet, there are other—perhaps better—ways of understanding that calamitous event. In Hist-A:302, we will study the conflict from four different perspectives: first, as a Great War for Empire, in which powerful alliances of European and indigenous peoples waged combat for dominion over eastern North America; second, as a Revolutionary War, in which thirteen North American mainland colonies confederated in the fight for political autonomy from Britain; third, as a civil war that rent the British nation and greatly reconfigured the human landscape of North America; and finally, as one of several wars of liberation that unfolded across the greater Atlantic and that collectively gave the era its name, the Age of Revolutions.
HIST-D308 with Professor Tatiana Saburova
Learn about one of the largest empires and its history in the ""long"" nineteenth century to understand a role of imperial legacy in the current Russian politics. We will examine Russia's foreign policy from the Napoleonic wars to the World War One, studying the Crimean war, the conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and how the Russian empire ruled by the Tsars became a ""Gendarme of Europe"" but collapsed in 1917. Can you compare Russian serfdom with American slavery? We will learn how the Great Reforms changed the society, about the revolutionary movement in Russia and the origins of terrorism, daily life of the Russian nobility and peasants , a ""woman question"" and intellectual debates about socialism and Russia's role in the world.
HIST-D312 with Professor Tatiana Saburova
Is it a New Cold War now? Do you know who started and ended the Cold War, what the Iron Curtain and Red Scare mean and why “duck-and-cover” drills were important? In this class we will examine the origins and major episodes of the Cold War but go beyond the traditional political history and the international relations to discuss visual culture of the Cold War era and its media, the technological competition and its impact on science and education, the daily life and material culture, sport and music. We will analyze recently declassified documents and watch films of the Cold War.
HIST-C325 with Professor Colin Elliott
The Roman Empire left an indelible mark on the history of many European, North African, Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies. This course follows Rome's triumphant and tragic story--from the rise of the first emperor in 31 BC, to the fall of Rome in AD 476. This people witnessed remarkable transformations in culture, politics and religion among other elements. Roman goods, coins and ideas spread throughout the Mediterranean. Polytheism gave way to monotheism, as Christianity moved from obscure cult to the Europe's most dominant religion. Each week, students will read between roughly 40-80 pages of material from both modern historians, as well as the Romans themselves. Assessments include in-class quiz questions, several short research assignments and a final research paper.
HIST-E332 with Professor Avenel Rolfsen
Poverty, war, dictators, and coups, these are many of the things that come to mind when Americans think of Africa. This class will push back against these stereotypes. It traces the history of the African continent during the nineteenth and twentieth century, a period of political, economic, and social change. The class focuses on the impact of slavery’s abolition, the spread of Islam and Christianity, the role of Africans in the world wars, the cold war in Africa, and fights for independence. We will also discuss the postcolonial aspirations of African nations and contemplate why development and aid have failed.
HIST-F345 with Professor Arlene Diaz
HIST-F346 with Professor Peter Guardino
Mexico is our most populous neighbor, and Mexico and the United States are drawn together by many strong cultural, economic, political, and even culinary connections. This course will introduce the major themes of Mexican social, economic, and political history from Mexican independence to the present day. We will pay particular attention to the changing ways in which ordinary Mexicans, including women, have lived. The course ends with a look at the increasing variety of connections between the lives of ordinary Mexicans and ordinary Americans, including trade and immigration. We will work on improving student’s analytical and communication skills. Students will read various documents, two brief secondary books, and an oral history. We will also watch several dramatic films. Students will write two short papers and complete two exams.
HIST-W350 with Professor Ke Chin Hsia
Why do we attach so much non-athletic significance and varied meanings to baseball? Why do we play and watch baseball in the first place? This course explores history through the prism of baseball and baseball from a perspective that is both global and historical. We examine the intersections between baseball, class, race, gender, nation, and empire. The course will be conduct as a mix of lecture, discussion, and activities. Assignments and assessments include short papers, exams, quizzes, presentations, and group research projects. Both baseball fans and non-fans are welcomed as long as you know the rules of the game and are interested in baseball history.
HIST-B354 with Professor Robert Schneider
The period of religious reform, renewal and conflict in the sixteenth century in all its dimensions, from theological innovations and differences to the impact of momentous change on ordinary people's lives.
HIST-C366 with Professor Eric Robinson
Learn about the history of ancient Greek city-states teetering on the edge of war by engaging in group planning, discussion, short speeches, and writing of papers as you play an immersive historical role-playing game designed specifically for this course. Translated ancient writings will provide background information as well as clues to actions that might help your city-state negotiate the challenges confronting it.
HIST-B378 with Professor Julia Roos
How was it possible that Germany—long considered one of Europe’s most civilized societies—descended into the barbarism of National Socialism and the Holocaust? And how did (West) Germany manage to evolve into one of Europe’s most stable democracies in the aftermath of World War II? This course offers a survey of German history from the founding of the Second German Empire in 1871 to the reunification of East and West Germany in 1989-90. In the first half of the course, we will look closely at the origins and fault lines of the German Empire of 1871, the social and political upheavals of World War I, and the explosive mix of revolution and reaction in the Weimar Republic of 1918 to 1933. When discussing National Socialism, a major focus will be on situating the Nazi period in the broader course of modern German history. Was Nazism a historical “accident,” or was it rather the logical culmination of older authoritarian traditions peculiar to Germany? If neither of these two accounts satisfies, how else can we explain the rise of National Socialism? Germany’s postwar division and the coming of German reunification in 1989-90 offer excellent opportunities for assessing change and continuity in German politics and society since 1945.
HIST-A379 with Professor Carl R. Weinberg
HIST-A383 with Professor Michael McGerr
Does music matter? Music is everywhere in American life, but it’s “just” music, only entertainment, right? Not necessarily. This course explores how music, partly because it is seemingly so unimportant, has played a critical role in the transformation of American society from the 1940s to the present. Rather than musicological analysis or music appreciation, the class uses the history of popular music to explore the social, cultural, political, and economic history of the modern United States. We will examine a broad range of musical genres including rock ‘n’ roll, hip hop, pop, country, rhythm and blues, folk, soul, disco, heavy metal, and punk. Throughout, the course considers the inter-relationship between music on one hand, and identities—class, gender, race, ethnicity, generation, and nation—on the other. The course also investigates the ways that economic developments such as corporations and consumerism and technological innovations from juke boxes to digitization have affected the impact of music. We will discuss the role of popular music in myth-making about America at home and around the world. And we will study whether popular music has fostered or thwarted democracy. Our emphasis will always be on the ways in which music affects and reflects power.
HIST-G387 with Professor Fei Hsien Wang
China has seen dramatic cultural, political, and social transformation since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949: From a poor rural country to a socialist revolution machine, and now an economic superpower with strong government control. This course examines the interplay of these transformations from two perspectives: We will read the “official” and “serious” historical texts, such as Chairman Mao’s political thoughts, government records, propaganda works etc., and discuss how the communist party-state has remade the Chinese culture and reshaped the Chinese society according to their (changing) political ideologies. At the same time, we will also explore what life is like for ordinary people in China under the extraordinary changes in the past 70 plus years by reading the “personal,” “private,” and sometimes “fictional” narratives. Examining the “official” history side by side with the “private” narratives, this course will not only help students to develop a more complex and rich understanding of China’s recent historical development but also encourage them to think about the continuous relationship between culture, politics, history, and memory.
HIST-J400 with Professor John Nieto-Phillips
HIST-J400 with Professor Ellen Wu
HIST-J400 with Professor Arlene Diaz
HIST-J425 with Professor Nick Cullather
HIST-J425 with Professor Deborah Deliyannis
As your capstone experience, you will study whatever aspect of history most interests you! You will produce a research project that might take the form of a paper, or might be a documentary film, museum exhibit, online production, etc., and you will make an oral presentation of your project to the other members of the seminar.
HIST-X444 with Professor Janine Giordano Drake
Builds on the skills and assets of a History education through exploring vocational options, using campus career achievement resources, and identifying and assessing personal values, interests, and abilities. Supports the development of strategies and tools for the job market and/or professional/graduate education, as well as for lifelong career planning.
The College of Arts + Sciences