Spring 2024 Courses

Check out our current course offerings

This is a partial list of courses. For the semester's complete offerings, see the Registrar's iGPS site. The IUB Course Bulletin also has full list of History Department courses past, present, and future.

Spring of 2024 brings several opportunities for students to enroll in courses taught by our newest faculty members and to explore history on a global scale.

Take a course with our new faculty!

We've welcomed several new faculty this year and last! Get to know a few of them with these new history courses.

HIST-J300: Deviance and Desire in Modern Asia (Chan)
HIST-J300: History of the Latinx Midwest (Mora)
HIST-W200: Cannibalism and Civilization (Griffin)

Explore global history

HIST-A 112: American Diversity (Drake)
HIST-W 130: The Century of Women (Bucur)
HIST-W 200: Global Heavy Metal (Dodson)
HIST-G 387: Contemporary China (Chan)

Explore New Avenues in History

COLL-C 104: Foodstuff: Food & Culture (history through food, Ipsen)
HIST-C 215: Sparta at War (history through board games, Robinson)
HIST-J 300: Movies and American History (history through media, Caddoo)
HIST-J 400: Mapping History (history through maps and GIS, Saburova, for majors)

100-Level History Courses

Foodstuff: Food & Culture

COLL-C 104 with Professor Ipsen

Just as food plays a central role in everyday life – malnutrition; hunger; mental health; pleasure; entertainment; national, regional, and ethnic identity – so has it played a central role in human history. Foodstuff will focus on key “moments” in food history: the mastery of fire and the invention of cooking (about 1.8m years ago); the invention of agriculture a.k.a. the Neolithic Revolution (about 10,000 years ago); the development of grain and root cultures that followed and the global empires they generated; the “Columbian Exchange” that brought wheat and cows to the “New World” and tomatoes and corn to the “Old” (about 600 years ago); the Industrial Revolution that developed new methods of food preservation and transportation (2-300 years ago), and the Green Revolution that proposed to solve world hunger in the late 20th century. We’ll conclude with a look at contemporary global issues: GMOs and the so-called second green revolution, persistent hunger and malnutrition, and the spread of a Western diet of processed and fast foods that lies behind the present-day health crises of obesity and diabetes.

First 8 weeks, MTWR 8:00 AM–9:15 AM

Europe, Napoleon to the Present

HIST-H104 with Professor Roos

Europe’s history captures the contradictions of the modern age. Impressive achievements in art, literature, and science contrast with two murderous world wars. After 1945, the continent slowly rebuilt itself; war and nationalism seemed discredited. In our own times, Europe experiences the resurgence of neo-fascist parties, hostility towards immigrants, and the dismantling of democracies. Where is Europe headed?

TR 1:15 - 2:30 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, GenEd S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WCC

American History I to 1865

HIST-H105 with Professor Knott

Land and water. Native peoples, Africans, Europeans. Explorers, merchants, warriors, slaves, servants, mothers, sailors, farmers, politicians, freedom fighters, factory workers. What is the history of North America before the Civil War? As importantly, how do we know?

TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, GenEd S&H

The Century of Women

HIST-W130 with Professor Bucur

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.

TR 11:30 AM-12:45 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, GenEd S&H, CASE GCC

200-Level History Courses

Cannibalism and Civilization

HIST-W200 with Professor Griffin

What’s the worst thing someone can do? For a lot of people in history the answer was simple – cannibalism. There are extensive records of this terrifying practice in multiple period and various world regions. Yet some scholars have raised doubts about these sources. Were people really committing cannibalism? Or were these just empty accusations? This course will look at why people cried “cannibal” and if we should believe them.

TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, GenEd S&H, GenEd WCC

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, up to the present day. Earplugs not included.

TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, GenEd S&H, GenEd WCC

Medieval Civilization

HIST-H206 with Professor Deliyannis

Cities and villages, castles and cathedrals – learn what they looked like, who lived there, and what aspects of medieval life, politics, and culture they represented.

TR 11:30 AM-12:45 PM
Fulfills GenEd S&H, GenEd WCC, CASE S&H, CASE GCC

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? We will study Spartan history with a view to answering these questions and more. Work for the course will include reading assignments to be completed before every class meeting (most will be moderate in length for a history course), multiple in-class examinations, and 1-2 short (min 5 page) writing assignments. Fulfills GenEd S&H and WC; also fulfills CASE S&H and GCC.

TR 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Fulfills GenEd WCC, CASE GCC, GenEd S&H, CASE S&H

The Social History of War

HIST-W220 with Professor Guardino

The social and cultural expectations that people bring to war shape the way they behave during wars, and these social and cultural expectations often have more influence on who wins than the ideas of even the cleverest leaders. We’ll examine the social and cultural history of wars from Ancient Greece, China, and Rome to the present day, foregrounding the often colorful and poignant stores of individuals on both the home fronts and the fighting fronts. We will also probe how wars can help us better understand the societies and cultures of their eras.

TR 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE GCC, GenEd WCC, CASE S&H

H270 What is History

(intro to the major, and S&H credit!)

What is History?

HIST-H270 with Professor Mora

What Is History? explores the ideas, practices, and excitement of history that can be found in the study of all places, time periods, and themes. Emphasis will be on developing the skills historians use in research and writing, including locating and interpreting sources, using scholarly resources, and arguing persuasively. We will engage with stories that offer an engaging way to think about past worlds as well as our current one. This course will serve as a building block for students going on to advanced-level History courses.

TR 9:45 AM-11:00 AM
Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H

What Is History?

HIST-H270 with Professor Roos

What is the historian’s task? “Simply to show how it really was,” was the answer of nineteenth-century German 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.

TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills GenEd S&H, CASE S&H

300-Level History Courses

Movies and American History

HIST-J300 with Professor Caddoo

What can the movies reveal about the past? Sometimes more, sometimes less than one might initially expect. In our writing-intensive course, we delve into the history of the US film industry, filmmakers, audiences, and film texts. Instead of attempting to study every person, place, thing, and idea related to this history, we will focus on a selection of key developments that are pivotal to our understanding of 20th-century American history.

T 3:00 PM-5:30 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, Intensive Writing

History of the Latinx Midwest

HIST-J300 with Professor 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.

TR 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, Intensive Writing

Deviance and Desire in Modern Asia

HIST-J300 with Professor Chan

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But how do we determine what's beautiful and what's not, what's desirable and what's deviant? By looking at the history of 20th century Asia, we'll examine how standards of beauty, desire, health, deviance, and normativity shifted and changed over time according to historical and political context and alongside discourses of modernity, gender, race, empire, and nationalism. The class will examine everything from skin lightening treatments in East and Southeast Asia to the history of plastic surgery. We'll cover primary and secondary sources from short stories to films to newspaper advertisements and examine how normative and non-normative bodies are constructed, contested, and change over time.

TR 11:30 AM-12:45 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, Intensive Writing

Empire of the Tsars

HIST-D308 with Professor Saburova

Learn about one of the largest empires and its history in the ""long"" nineteenth century to understand the role of imperial legacy in the current Russian politics. 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. 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.

TR 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Fulfills CASE GCC, CASE S&H

Histories of the Cold War

HIST-D312 with Professor 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. Requirements include preparation and participation (reading notes, discussions), 2 writing responses, a final project and its presentation.

T 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
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.

TR 11:30 AM-12:20 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Modern Mexico

HIST-F346 with Professor 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, but it will concentrate on the 20th century. We will pay particular attention to social history, including that of women. The course ends with a look at the increasing variety of connections between the lives of ordinary Mexicans and ordinary Americans.

TR 9:45 AM-11:00 AM
Fulfills CASE GCC, CASE S&H

Western Europe: High and Later Middle Ages

HIST-B352 with Professor Shopkow

An English lord hangs a Welsh rebel whose survival forms part of the dossier of a candidate for canonization as a saint. What does this tell us about the world of the High and Later Middle Ages? We’ll be looking at thus story and more as we consider this period of European history (c. 1000-c. 1500), trying to understand both how medieval people saw their world and how we can understand the ways their lives and ideas were both like ours and very different from ours.

TR 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H, CASE GCC

Rock, Hip Hop, & Revolution

HIST-A383 with Professor 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 Americ an society from World War II to the present.

TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H

America's Pacific

HIST-A385 with Professor Wu

What do hula, sugar, atomic bombs, and the NFL have in common? This course tackles the surprising and troubling history of US expansion and empire in the Pacific. Contests and conflicts in this region have long been central to the United States’ sense of itself and its global standing. From Hawai‘i and Japan to the Philippines, Samoa, and Guam, we will wrestle with the problems sparked by Americans’ encounters with the environments, peoples, and cultures of the Pacific.

MW 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills CASE Diversity in US, CASE S&H

Contemporary China

HIST-G387 with Professor Chan

The People's Republic of China is one of the most important geopolitical powers of the 21st Century. But in 1949, it was a poor and primarily rural country with no guarantee of survival on the global stage. How did Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party build up the new People's Republic and how did ordinary people experience the turbulent events of the second half of the 20th century? Together, we'll explore the different events and developments in contemporary Chinese history from 1949 onwards, from the perspective of mainland China but also from the histories of Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. We'll examine primary and secondary sources from interrogation records to short stories, novels, films, and propaganda posters.

TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Fulfills CASE GCC, CASE S&H

400-Level History Courses

Feminist Archives, Feminist Histories

HIST-J400 with Professor Knott

Explore approaching archives and writing history from a feminist perspective, and write a research paper of your own.

R 11:30 AM-2:00 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H

Mapping History

HIST-J400 with Professor Saburova

Are you fascinated by maps, imagining other continents and countries? Historical maps can tell us about the age of exploration, colonialism, and empires. States and nations can be created on the maps, they show water passages and natural resources, roads and borders, they can sound in different languages, naming places and changing our ideas of space. But who made historical maps and what narratives were written by maps? Can you read stories hidden in maps and find invisible lands and peoples there? We will explore historical maps and learn how to analyze them as a primary source, how to use maps in research projects and visualize history using digital mapping. In this class you will work with printed and digital historical maps and create a StoryMap as a final project.

R 9:45 AM-12:15 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H

War & Peace

HIST-J400 with Professor McGerr

This seminar offers students an opportunity to explore any aspect of war- and peacemaking through the collection and analysis of primary and secondary sources. Working with the instructor and classmates to refine and develop your topic, you will research, draft, and re-write an original 15-20 page research paper. Reading includes Jim Cullen, Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History, John Keegan, The Face of Battle, and articles.

M 1:50 PM - 4:20 PM
Fulfills CASE S&H

Capstone seminar

HIST-J425 with Professor Deliyannis

You are a historian! In the capstone class, you will carry out a research project on the topic of your choice.

T 3:00 PM–5:30 PM

Capstone seminar

HIST-J425 with Professor Ransford

You are a historian! In the capstone class, you will carry out a research project on the topic of your choice.

WWednesday 10:20 AM–12:50 PM

Department of History

Spring 2024 Courses

Check out our current course offerings

100-Level History Courses

Foodstuff: Food & Culture

Europe, Napoleon to the Present

American History I to 1865

The Century of Women

200-Level History Courses

Cannibalism and Civilization

Global Heavy Metal

Medieval Civilization

Sparta at War

The Social History of War

H270 What is History

(intro to the major, and S&H credit!)

What is History?

What Is History?

300-Level History Courses

Movies and American History

History of the Latinx Midwest

Deviance and Desire in Modern Asia

Empire of the Tsars

Histories of the Cold War

History of the Holocaust

Modern Mexico

Western Europe: High and Later Middle Ages

Rock, Hip Hop, & Revolution

America's Pacific

Contemporary China

400-Level History Courses

Feminist Archives, Feminist Histories

Mapping History

War & Peace

Capstone seminar

Capstone seminar

The College of Arts & Sciences

Spring 2024 Courses

Check out our current course offerings

100-Level History Courses

Foodstuff: Food & Culture

Europe, Napoleon to the Present

American History I to 1865

The Century of Women

200-Level History Courses

Cannibalism and Civilization

Global Heavy Metal

Medieval Civilization

Sparta at War

The Social History of War

H270 What is History

(intro to the major, and S&H credit!)

What is History?

What Is History?

300-Level History Courses

Movies and American History

History of the Latinx Midwest

Deviance and Desire in Modern Asia

Empire of the Tsars

Histories of the Cold War

History of the Holocaust

Modern Mexico

Western Europe: High and Later Middle Ages

Rock, Hip Hop, & Revolution

America's Pacific

Contemporary China

400-Level History Courses

Feminist Archives, Feminist Histories

Mapping History

War & Peace

Capstone seminar

Capstone seminar

Department of History social media channels

The College of Arts & Sciences