The Making of Modern Russia

HIST-D103 with Professor Saburova

Let's discover Russia through its history in the long twentieth century! We look at late Imperial Russia, the Russian Revolution and Stalinism; the emergence, evolution and final collapse of the Soviet Union, and the newly emergent Russian Federation. We combine a survey of political events, economic and social processes at the “macro” level with a search to understand the lived experience of those people who made up this vast and diverse country.

• TuTh, 11:30a - 12:45p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Europe: Renaissance to Napoleon

HIST-H103 with Professor Schneider

In European history, no time was more formative in the creation of the Modern World than the early modern period. This course will take in more than four centuries of this history, from the Renaissance and the so-called Age of Discovery, through the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the English Revolution, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and finally the rise and fall of Napoleon.

• MW + section, 11:30a - 12:20p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Global Pop Culture

HIST-COLL-C104 with Professor McGraw

This course asks three interrelated questions: How "global" is American pop culture? How "American" is global pop culture? And how much global cultural flow takes place without involvement or notice from the United States? By asking these questions from the perspective of change over time--that is, from a historical perspective--we hope to gain insight into the workings of the world today. We will have several case studies: tamales and tacos; jazz as Cold War diplomacy; film industries in India and Nigeria; rock music in the Soviet Union; the fate of small languages today; global hip hop; the world of Hello Kitty; and more. Through our case studies we will see people and culture popping up in interesting places, in order to arrive at the larger goal of learning important keywords in cultural and historical studies

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p

American History I

HIST-H105 with Professor Dierks

Has it ever been possible in American history to imagine equality without at the same time excluding some people? We will explore cultural tensions between equality and inequality, freedom and unfreedom, and prosperity and poverty in American history from the era of Columbus’s exploration of the New World, up through the era of the American Civil War.

• TuTh, 4:45p - 6:00p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H

American History II

HIST-H106 with Professor Nieto-Phillips

Today (March 9, 2022) Russian bombs are falling on Ukraine. Thousands are dying, millions are fleeing in desperation. World powers, including the US, are mounting a coordinated response. We have been here before, collectively hoping for peace yet fearing global conflict. In this course, we will seek lessons from US history to better comprehend historic events unfolding before our eyes. Drawing on first-person accounts, historical documents, and scholarship, we will explore ways US experiences have influenced and been shaped by global contexts since 1865, including violence, disease, the environment, race, geopolitics, culture, migration, and social movements. Substantial in-class discussion and activities, and some take-home assignments.

• TuTh, 11:30a - 12:45p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H

Resilient Eastern Europe

HIST-D200 with Professor Bucur

From Imperial Borderlands to Center of Global Crisis: this is the arc of Eastern Europe’s history in the 20th century. The course explores the implications of the current crisis in Ukraine for Eastern Europe, NATO, the European Union, and the global order, by examining the political, economic, cultural, historical contexts shaping responses and impact.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, GenEd WC

Global Heavy Metal

HIST-W200 with Professor Dodson

This is not a course on metallurgy, but on the history of rocking out. From its birth in the late 1960s in working-class England, heavy metal music has been characterized as everything from a salve for teenaged existential despair to the handmaiden of the devil. Here we will examine heavy metal as a form of self-expression, social and cultural critique, and political statement, from Birmingham to Beijing, and Los Angeles to Laos. Earplugs not included.

• TuTh, 9:45a - 11:00a
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, GenEd WC

Democratic Revolutions since 1980

HIST-D201 with Professor Hsia

Interested in the recent history of democracy? Using the democratically-oriented revolutions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, South Africa, and East Asia in the 1980s as the point of departure, we ask what account for this wave of pursuit of liberal democracy and the common ideas and practices that linked them. We then consider the recent failed attempts, and the setbacks or challenges to the liberal democratic visions in Eastern Europe. From the communist revolutions and anti-communist dictatorships of the 20th century to the nationalist illiberal democracy in our times, we use first-hand accounts to engage with something that is both so fundamental yet so elusive in the modern world.

• MW, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

World War I: Global War

HIST-W203 with Professor Moyd

World War I, a global catastrophe that killed millions and forever changed international politics and economics, finally ended in November 1918. One hundred years later, the horrific violence of the western front dominates understandings of the war. This course pushes students to think beyond the western front; to consider the experiences of soldiers, laborers and non-combatants from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and elsewhere in military campaigns both within and outside of Europe; and to think of the war as one waged between not just nations, but empires. Students will also learn about the roles the US played in the war and after the armistice in 1918.

• TuTh, 11:30a - 12:45p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Medieval Heroes

HIST-B204 with Professor Shopkow

Yesterday’s heroes sometimes are today’s villains (I’m sure you can think of some). Sometimes they’re just forgotten (so who was Walter of Aquitaine anyway?) And someone you regard as a villain may be someone else’s hero. (Attila the Hun is a national hero in Hungary). We’ll explore how context makes someone a hero (or a villain), looking at three medieval heroes or types of heroes, Charlemagne, Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, and the female hero.

• MW + section, 3:00p - 3:50p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

History of Islam

HIST-C205 with Professor Sahin

How did Islam emerge? Who were the first Muslims? What did they believe in? How did they establish a global civilization? What were the most important cultural, political, and military challenges faced by the Islamic civilization? These are some of the questions we will address during this course. In the first half of the semester, we will cover the story of Islam’s rise and expansion, up to the year 1500. In the second half, we will talk about politics, law, theology, mysticism, and various issues related to the everyday lives of medieval Muslims.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Intro to Native American History

HIST-A207 with Professor Nichols

From the Arctic to the tropics, the human landscape of Indigenous North America is densely interwoven with stories: tales of resilience and loss, cooperation and rebellion, novelty and tradition, dispossession and homecoming. History A207 will explore some of these stories during the five centuries from the start of European colonization to the era of Indigenous cultural decolonization. Through lectures and discussions, primary source readings and short analytical essays, students will gain a deeper understanding of Native North America’s past and present - and how material exchange, political negotiation, and cultural synthesis transformed both Indigenous and settler societies.

• MW, 11:30a - 12:45p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE DUS

Black Death

HIST-H213 with Professor Craig

The bubonic plague has forced people all over the world to grapple with death, and the bacteria that caused these outbreaks is still with us today. From the sixth-century medieval Mediterranean world to 20th century Hawaii, we'll see how cultural similarities and differences shape plague response in art, written sources, clothing, and medical theory developed during plague outbreaks. As we work, we'll use a modern historian's tool box that includes ancient primary sources and big-data analysis to explore the limits of what we can understand about the Black Death's past.

• Fully online and asynchronous
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Sparta at War

HIST-C215 with Professor Robinson

Ancient Sparta built a society unique in Greece and a fighting force with a reputation for invincibility. How did the Spartans create their brutal yet remarkable society? What costs did their social system exact from Sparta's women and men? How accurately has the image of warlike Sparta been used in contemporary culture? This course will study Spartan history with a view to answering these questions and more.

• TuTh, 9:45a - 11:00a
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Confronting Catastrophe

HIST-W215 with Professor O'Bryan

We seem today increasingly confronted with the question of catastrophes--confronted by our experiences of catastrophes, by our fear of the many new catastrophes that seem to threaten us (from asteroids to killer viruses, from climate change to the end of fossil fuels), and by our simultaneous fascination with doomsday prospects. We will explore the ways catastrophe as idea and reality is not so new, in fact, but has actually long operated in history as an "agent" of change and as an organizing theme informing the stories we tell about the relations between humans and the natural world.

• MW, 1:15p - 2:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H

The Mafia and other Italian Mysteries

HIST-B226 with Professor Ipsen

An offer you can’t refuse: 15 weeks of murder, corruption, drug dealing, and occasional successes against organized crime. This course will focus primarily on the Sicilian mafia. While we will look at links to the US mafia, our focus will be Italy. In addition to the mafia, we will look at related areas of Italian “deep politics” (or Italy’s mysteries) including: Salvatore Giuliano, right and left wing terror and the strategy of tension, the Vatican banking scandal, and the Tangentopoli scandal and Clean Hands investigation.

• Fully online and asynchronous
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

History of Birth

HIST-A240 with Professor Knott

What is the history of the dramatic scene that begins every life? Find the answers from healers penning herbal recipes, doctors discussing forceps and anesthesia, educational films and documentaries, early feminists urging better pain relief, women's liberationists campaigns, and birth-giver's own stories. We take field trips to the Lilly Library, the Wylie House Museum, the Kinsey Institute and the University Archives to examine their unexpected and compelling sources.

• TuTh, 1:15p - 2:30p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H

U.S. Labor History

HIST-A270 with Professor English

From worker shortages and the “Great Resignation,” to a surge in union organizing, labor became a central issue in pandemic America. What is the historical context for this modern moment of worker activism? This course is an introduction to the history of U.S. labor and the working-class experience from the Gilded Age to the age of globalization. Students will engage with the experiences of various groups of workers across time, regions and economic sectors, the evolution of the US labor movement and worker-management relations, the organization of workplaces, intersections of race, gender and ethnicity and how they shaped workplace norms, and the role of labor movements and class consciousness in American culture, politics and society.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE DUS

Inside Nazi Germany

HIST-B270 with Professor Pergher

To speak of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany is to conjure up images of marching automatons, extreme violence, war and genocide, all at the behest of a charismatic but perverse, brutal, deluded, and crazed dictator. But could this gigantic project really have been summoned into being by one man? What were the promises and goals that persuaded millions of Germans to support and fight for such a regime? Sign up and find out!

• TuTh, 1:15p - 2:30p
• Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WC

Early Medieval England

HIST-J300 with Professor Deliyannis

When the Roman legions pulled out of Britain in the early fifth century, the island entered a "dark age", during which groups of people from outside the island became its rulers. In this course, we will read and write about the history and culture of England from 400-1066, including the conversion to Christianity, the Viking invasions, and the Norman Conquest.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, IW

Global America

HIST-J300 with Professor Dierks

The United States was born global. 1784 saw the first American trading ship voyage to China. 1812 saw the first American missionaries dispatched overseas, to India. Traders, missionaries, engineers, and many other Americans have ventured into the wider world; immigrants, tourists, and many other foreigners have sojourned in the United States. How did American involvement in the world, and foreign involvement in the United States, both change over time? We will examine the porous interactions and flows between the United States and the world as both globalized across the 19th and 20th centuries.

• TuTh, 9:45a - 11:00a
• Fulfills CASE S&H, IW

Lives of Crime

HIST-J300 with Professor Gamber

What can criminal biographies tell us about history? Why do Americans love to read, watch, and listen to “true crime”? Why do they romanticize some “outlaws,” but not others? We’ll use “lives of crime” as lenses through which to view American social, cultural, and political history between the early nineteenth and the late twentieth centuries. We’ll explore the lives and times of (in)famous people such as Lizzie Borden and John Dillinger, as well as lesser known figures such as George Appo, a child pickpocket, and Betty Jean Owens, a college student who courageously testified against her attackers. Last, but not least, you’ll have the opportunity to research and write about a “life of crime” that interests you.

• Tuesday, 3:00p - 5:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, IW

WWI and its Legacies

HIST-J300 with Professor Roos

The First World War was the first traumatic rupture of the twentieth century. This class is NOT a course in military history. Instead, its primary focus is on the social, economic, cultural, and political legacies of World War I for 1920s and 1930s Europe. The war caused major upheavals in established class relations and gender roles. It led to the downfall of empires and spurred revolutionary uprisings in many European countries. The 1920s brought important democratic advances, yet the period also witnessed the rise of fascism.

• Tuesday, 9:45a - 12:15p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, IW

Colonial America

HIST-A301 with Professor Irvin

Little more than five hundred years ago, western Europeans ventured into the Atlantic. In the Caribbean islands and on the American mainlands, they built forts and claimed the surrounding lands in the names of their kings and queens. They proselytized to and made war with Indigenous peoples. They established trading posts, plantations, and mines, and they carried African captives across the Atlantic to labor as slaves. This course will focus primarily on the efforts of Spanish, French, and British colonizers to subjugate North America; on the struggles of Indigenous peoples to preserve their autonomy; and on the endeavors of forcibly imported Africans to create lives and families within the violent institution of slavery.

• TuTh, 4:45p - 6:00p
• Fulfills CASE S&H

Heroes and Villains in Russian History

HIST-D303 with Professor Saburova

We will look at Russian legendary rulers and revolutionaries, thinkers and explorers, examining the lives of colorful, controversial, famous, but also obscure, individuals from the 16th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will analyze biographies and memoirs, watch popular films and read excerpts from novels, look at paintings and monuments, to address how historical myths are constructed and why certain figures occupy a permanent place in the Russian or Western imagination.

• TuTh, 1:15p - 2:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H

The Roman Republic

HIST-C320 with Professor Elliott

Nearly eight centuries after Rome was founded by outcasts, Julius Caesar was violently murdered by members of the Senate. Rome's massive Mediterranean empire had become a prize worth killing for. We investigate the chain of events by which Rome ascended to superpower status and subsequently abandoned its Republican constitution in favor of autocracy.

• MW, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

History of the Holocaust

HIST-B323 with Professor Roseman

The Holocaust has been memorialized through memoirs, film, monuments and museums. But the public image misleads. The perpetrators were not brainwashed, and no one put a gun to their heads. Most of them were not monsters, though their deeds were monstrous. The victims did not go like “sheep to the slaughter” - they evaded, resisted, collaborated, and sought to maintain a semblance of life to the end. Both perpetrators and victims were diverse. The killers were not all German, and the victims were not all Jews. The reality of the Holocaust is more complex than we think, but no less strange and compelling. Using original documents, images, and footage, this course explores one of the most important and disturbing events of modern times.

• TuTh + section, 12:40p - 1:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Habsburg Empire, 1780-1918

HIST-D327 with Professor Hsia

You can’t find it on the map, but it started WWI and shaped your world! The Habsburg Empire in its last stage, the modernization of Central and Eastern Europe. Was it a prison of nations? Was it a wantonly ruined opportunity of liberal multiculturalism? Was it a doomed anachronism, or a unique modernizing state? The Habsburg Empire, with 50 million of people of diverse cultures and a dozen official languages, looked uncannily like an EU before the EU in both its problems and promises. Or as Arthur Schnitzler suggested, it was “a laboratory for world destruction?” We will explore the transformation of East Central Europe from the age of Enlightenment to the end of the First World War.

• TuTh, 4:45p - 6:00p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Modern Argentina

HIST-F340 with Professor James

Argentina underwent dramatic changes in the 19th and 20th centuries. Starting at Independence from Spain in the early 19th Century and going through to the contemporary era, the course highlights themes such as Immigration, the emergence of mass politics, the role of Evita and Juan Peron, the development of Buenos Aires as a major twentieth century metropolis, military dictatorship and the issue of human rights, and the hidden presence of Argentina's indigenous past. In addition, attention will be paid to cultural phenomena such as tango, folklore and the passion for futbol. In addition to standard history tests we will also use documents such as letters, maps and musical lyrics. Texts by Argentine novelists such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar and Osvaldo Soriano will also be used.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 5:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Western Europe Early Middle Ages

HIST-B351 with Professor Deliyannis

Barbarians, Islam, Charlemagne, the Vikings! The Early Middle Ages (c. 500-1000 AD) was a time of dramatic cultural, political, and social change. After the Roman Empire had disintegrated, western Europe experienced invasion, plague, religious conversion, and other upheavals that shaped entirely new political, social, and cultural systems.

• TuTh, 9:45a - 11:00a
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Hoosier Nation

HIST-A363 with Professor Sandweiss

From Tecumseh to Richard Lugar, from Madame CJ Walker to Kurt Vonnegut, the residents of Indiana have broken cultural and political ground for more than two centuries. Their land—from the Indiana Dunes to the Falls of the Ohio—abounds with key sites in American history. Yet Hoosiers themselves will tell you that this is just an average place, full of hardworking people minding their own business. What is the "real" story behind the Hoosier image? How has this state shaped the US—and how will it face the environmental, political, and social challenges to come? This class welcomes natives and newcomers alike to join in a historical discovery tour and take part in a frank discussion of the Hoosier Way…from the 1700s to the day after tomorrow.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills CASE S&H

Greek History 1

HIST-C376 with Professor Robinson

Who were the ancient Greeks? How did their civilization develop into the pioneering society that has captured the imagination of the world ever since? Beginning with the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenaeans on the Greek mainland, we will trace the rise and fall of these Bronze Age civilizations (including the legendary Trojan War) before moving on to the rebirth of Greek culture in the following centuries. The course concludes with the Greeks' desperate struggle for independence against the might of the Persian Empire.

• TuTh, 3:00p - 4:15p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

China: The Later Empires

HIST-G383 with Professor Schlesinger

This course provides an overview of Chinese history in the period 755-1850. It surveys the events, processes, and people that defined imperial China during its second millennium: the rise of the south, the coming of the Mongol and Manchu empires, the flourishing of the exam system and print culture, and dramatic environmental, social, and international upheavals that brought the old order to its heels. Through this long stretch of history, we ask: what traditions bound China together, and what transformations tore it apart? What were the key turning points, and what were the engines of change?

• TuTh, 11:30a - 12:45p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

HIST-C390 with Professor Caner

• MW, 4:45p - 6:00p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

History Honors Seminar

HIST-K392 with Professor Schneider

An intensive, practical exploration of the nature of professional history and the pleasure of pursuing your own research. Looking closely at how historians think and work, you will frame, investigate, draft, and revise a written project of your choice. The course is prerequisite for History’s Honors Paper (K498) and Honors Thesis (K499).

• Monday, 4:10p - 6:40p
• Fulfills IW

Wenches, Witches, and Welfare Queens:

HIST-A394 with Professor Myers

Engaging with secondary scholarship, travel literature, ads, music, poetry, film, and more, we will examine when, where, how, and why particular stereotypes about Black women were created, and by whom. We will also discuss how Black women have grappled with race, class, gender and sexuality, struggling to create lives and images that reflect their own understanding of liberty, power, equality, rights, citizenship, and self. Instead of attempting to understand all of Black women’s history, or every image that exists in the US context, we will focus on interrogating certain images more closely than others. This class is thus organized thematically, not chronologically, and is not meant to be an exhaustive examination of Black Women’s History.

• TuTh, 1:15p - 2:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE DUS

Disability in America

HIST-A398 with Professor Irvin

Disability is a nearly universal condition. Everyone becomes disabled if they live long enough. Yet, not until recently have historians recognized that disability changes over time and in relation to the specific societies in which it is experienced. In this reading-intensive seminar, we will explore disability as it has pertained to a variety of institutions, eras, and events in U.S. history, including slavery and emancipation, immigration, the Progressive Era, World Wars I and II, and the Great Depression. We will also examine several phenomena that have particularly defined or shaped disability in the United States, including the birth of the asylum, the rise and fall of eugenic science, and modern campaigns for veterans’ health care.

• MW, 9:45a - 11:00a
• Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE DUS

Cities

HIST-J400 with Professor Dodson

Cities are the future. In this course we will learn about the recent history of urbanization, in a global perspective, with a view to understanding the origins of our urban present and potential future. How do cities grow and what purposes do they serve? How did people of the past plan for the city of the future? Are there lessons there for our contemporary cities? Indeed, is the centuries-old dream of a sustainable city any closer to becoming a reality? Class assignments will include short analyses of cities in film and fiction, as well as a major research project that will analyze the history of a city of your choosing.

• Tuesday, 3:00p - 5:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H

Criminal Histories

HIST-J400 with Professor Gamber

What can criminal histories tell us about history? What is a crime, who is a criminal, and how have those definitions varied across place and time? What can we learn by examining how those people deemed “criminals” in various times and places have been punished? We’ll consider how other historians have answered these questions. Most importantly, though, you’ll have the chance to ask and answer your own questions as you research and write a paper on any historical topic in any time or place that concerns crime, broadly defined.

• Wednesday, 3:00p - 5:30p
• Fulfills CASE S&H

History capstone

HIST-J425

Recovering the past as history – this is what J425 empowers you do. The course allows you to hone your skills in historical research and writing. Whether there is a historical question that has always fascinated you or one you have just discovered, J425 gives you the opportunity to dive deeply into a historical topic of your choosing. By the end, you will have researched and produced a piece of original historical scholarship. This capstone seminar is required for all History/Social Studies Education majors and should be taken in your final year.

• with Professor Kriegel, Tuesday, 1:15p - 3:45p
• with Professor Schlesinger, Wednesday, 10:20a-3:45p
• with TBA, Monday, 12:40p-3:10p