Spring Term Schedule
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Spring 2024
| Number | Title | Instructor | Time |
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HIST 125-1
Mariah Steele
MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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Social dance plays an important role in every society, simultaneously fostering community and self-expression. From the Waltz to Contra Dancing, Ragtime Dances to Rock n Roll, and Tango to Salsa, this course explores the history and culture of several social and popular dances in the United States from the countrys founding to the present. Students discover how cultural beliefs are embedded in social dance practices, and how, vice versa, social dance practices can help shape changing norms and behaviors. Through a mixture of lectures, readings, discussions, video-viewings and experiencing the basic steps, each social dance form studied is contextualized within its time period. The course as a whole considers patterns of cultural change across the decades in terms of gender, race, class and social identities. No previous dance experience is necessary.
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HIST 126-1
Thomas Fleischman
TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM
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This course revolves around the most essential question in modern German history: was Hitler's regime particular to Germany, German culture, and German society, or was merely the manifestation of an immanent quality in all modern nation states? What does it mean to compare any political figure to Hitler? Was his kind of "evil" suis generis or dangerously banal? This course places the rise and fall of the Nazi Party and Hitler in the longer duree of German history, from the Second Empire and WWI, to Weimar, the Nazi State, and the Two Germanys of the Cold War.
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HIST 134-1
Nikita Maslennikov
MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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In this 2-credit version of the 'Russia Now' course, students will follow current events in Russia through the internet, newspapers, magazines, and other sources. Along with a general attention to current events, each student will follow a particular area of interest (e.g. national identity, the market economy, politics, health issues, crime, culture, foreign policy) throughout the term, do background work on this topic and write it up towards the end of the term. Students who read Russian will be encouraged to use available sources in that language. This course is designed to (1) familiarize students with the most important issues facing Russia today and the historical/political/cultural context in which to place them; (2) to acquaint students with a variety of resources from the US, Russia, and a number of other countries and the different perspectives these sources may give on one and the same issue. May be taken twice for credit.
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HIST 136-1
Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio
MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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The second of a sequence of two, the course approaches "The Divine Comedy" both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of the second half of "Purgatorio" and the entirety of "Paradiso," students learn how to approach Dante’s poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dante’s concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the "Comedy" and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster.
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HIST 151-1
Molly Ball
TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM
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This introductory course will cover the difficult process of nation-building that twenty-odd societies south of the Rio Grande experienced during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand most references in Calle 13's song "Latinoamerica." Latin America became a space where questions of modernity and progress intersected with science and development. Foreign influence, intellectual, physical, and commercial, played a considerable role and many voices continued to be marginalized. As the twentieth century progressed, development strategies, shifting racial and gender norms, and the Cold War radically impacted the region's more modern history. We will explore these moments through a variety of traditional and less conventional primary and secondary sources.
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HIST 176-2
Andrea Gondos
MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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This course is an introduction to Jewish religion and culture from ancient to modern times. Designed for students with little or no prior knowledge of Judaism, it will examine the formation, ruptures, and changes of Jewish tradition, identity, and culture beginning with the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), continuing through Rabbinic interpretations of law and lore, medieval Jewish thought, early modern Jewish mysticism, the Enlightenment and modern Jewish philosophy, up to contemporary American Jewish feminism. Because this course explores a large swath of the history of Judaism, its peoples, and ideas in various geographic contexts, we will continually question the claim that there exists a single, static, essential entity called “Judaism.” Paying close attention to changes in Jewish religious and cultural self-understanding and traditions across primary and secondary texts, we will instead investigate the possibility that there were and are multiple “Judaisms” just as there were and are multiple “Jews” living in different cultural, religious, and geographic settings throughout time.
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HIST 183-1
John Downey
TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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The purpose of this course is to explore the general development of Christianity throughout its twenty centuries of existence, paying special attention to the religious presuppositions behind Christianity and its complex relationship to its socio-cultural matrix. The course will focus on important moments in Christian history, including its inception as a Jewish religious movement set in motion by Jesus, its dissemination in the Greco-Roman world by Paul of Tarsus, its growth and triumph in the Roman Empire, the split between the Greek- and Latin-speaking churches, medieval Catholicism, the Reformation and rise of Protestantism, Christianity and the modern world, and contemporary movements and tendencies within the Christian churches.
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HIST 184-1
Aaron Hughes
TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
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Framed as a historical introduction to Islamic traditions, this course will explore the political, social, and intellectual histories of Islam as a global tradition from its emergence through the modern period. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the central texts, personalities, events, geographies, institutions, and schools of thought that make up Islamic histories. We will begin by tracing Islam’s political history as it spreads from the Arabian Peninsula and encounters diverse cultures and peoples, before moving on to discuss the development of intellectual sciences and social institutions. In the process of studying Islamic histories, the course will engage several critical issues in the academic study of Islam such as orientalism, authority and writing history, authenticity, and gendered representations of Muslim societies.
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HIST 186-1
Morris Pierce
MW 6:15PM - 7:30PM
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This will cover the broad history of energy from ancient civilizations using various resources for heat and power through the introduction of coal that sparked the industrial revolution, the exploitation of petroleum and natural gas in the late 19th century, and followed by the nuclear age. Today we are seeing a growth realization that renewable resources and conservation have important roles to play in powering civilization.
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HIST 187-1
Laura Smoller
TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
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This course explores the early history of humans' attempts to explain and control the cosmos, taking into account the real contributions made to early science by areas of inquiry now dismissed as magic or superstition, such as astrology, alchemy, and 'natural magic.' One major theme of the course will be the continuing way in which societies have policed the boundary between what they define as 'magic' and what they dub legitimate 'science.' What is legitimate knowledge about nature, and who gets to define what counts as legitimate? The course will end around 1700, with Newton and the so-called 'scientific Revolution,' and the marginalization of astrology, alchemy and similar fields of inquiry as 'pseudo-sciences' or popular error.
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HIST 195-2
Jeff Baron
MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM
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The History of Treasure will broadly survey all kinds of treasures in Europe and the Americas from over two thousand years of history. Readings and lectures will span a variety of senses and definitions of the term, from biblical and literary metaphor to tangible stashes of wealth. The course will begin in prehistory and antiquity by introducing treasures in their most literal sense, examining who buries or hides wealth and why, then spend considerable time in the Middle Ages and early modern periods, and end in modernity, discussing questions of law, archaeological patrimony, and museum repatriation This course will trace two millennia of laws, literature, searches, and excavations, to explore why treasure looms large in European and American culture, why it has long been the source of deep contention, and why it remains a term that signifies the most precious things.
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HIST 196-1
Alice Wynd
TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM
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Institutions across America interpret and disseminate narratives about tragic events in history; slavery, the Holocaust, institutional racism, and genocide of Native Americans are all “on display” for visitors to see. Museums are—and have always been—political entities that use their collections and resources to promote specific arguments. Furthermore, museums themselves have attracted criticism about their funding, curation, and collecting practices. This course examines how modern American museums interpret tragic pasts and what ethical issues plague museums. Considering this topic, we will explore three central questions: how do museums and historic sites narrate the cruelty of past events? How do these institutions perpetuate cruelty themselves? How can museums do better? The readings and discussion will focus on the American past to highlight the specific incentives and social context that affect interpretation in American museums, and the course will culminate in a final project, where each student creates a digital micro-exhibit on a narrow topic.
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HIST 200-3
Laura Smoller
TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM
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History 200 is an introduction to historical practice - what professional historians actually do. It is a requirement for history majors, but we encourage all interested undergraduates to enroll. This section focuses upon the concept of deviance in medieval European society, studying the process of identifying persons as “deviants” because of their religious beliefs, sexual preferences, alleged witchcraft, or presumed status as werewolves. Along the way we will discuss the various ways in which historians have approached this topic and will engage with key primary sources. Readings will address the question of whether the persecution of “deviants” began only in the twelfth century as part of the process of centralizing power in church and state. We will consider the relationship between persecution and power, as we ponder why certain groups were singled out for persecution. And we will ask what Europeans really were afraid of when they labeled certain groups as “deviant."
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HIST 200-4
Michael Hayata
MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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The Japanese empire mediated large parts of East Asia and the global capitalist economy during the first half of the twentieth century. This course examines major themes that are relevant to the study of Japanese imperialism across Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan, including industrialization, agrarian colonization, mass/popular culture, resistance, and wartime mobilization. As a historical methods course, it will prepare students to conduct original historical research by training them to develop their own historical questions, gather and analyze primary and secondary sources, create original conclusions, and contribute to ongoing discussions. Using locally available or online archival materials, they will write a research paper on a topic of their choice in consultation with the instructor.
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HIST 201-1
Elias Mandala
TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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This course explores the origins and development of the rift between the Global North and Global South since the fifteenth century, with a focus on how ordinary women and men of the Global South reorganized their lives to meet the challenges and opportunities offered by the following developments in the Global North: the crisis in European feudalism, rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, and the “new” imperialism of the late nineteenth century. The final section of the course discusses the worldwide impact of the Chinese and Russian Revolutions of the twentieth century.
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HIST 211-1
Elias Mandala
R 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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The peoples of southern Africa’s fifteen states freed themselves from the yoke of European and settler colonialism in different ways. In some countries, Africans pursued, from the time of World War II, a nationalist agenda whose principal objectives were limited to political independence. In other colonies, however, frustrated nationalists became revolutionaries, determined to achieve both political and economic autonomy. With the support of peasants and workers, the radicalized leadership launched guerrilla wars that turned portions of southern Africa into bloody battlefields from the late 1960s to the fall of apartheid in 1994.
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HIST 211W-1
Elias Mandala
R 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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The peoples of southern Africa’s fifteen states freed themselves from the yoke of European and settler colonialism in different ways. In some countries, Africans pursued, from the time of World War II, a nationalist agenda whose principal objectives were limited to political independence. In other colonies, however, frustrated nationalists became revolutionaries, determined to achieve both political and economic autonomy. With the support of peasants and workers, the radicalized leadership launched guerrilla wars that turned portions of southern Africa into bloody battlefields from the late 1960s to the fall of apartheid in 1994.
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HIST 214-1
Andrea Gondos
TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
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Is there a uniquely Jewish approach to healthcare? In trying to answer this question, this course will thematically explore the engagement of Jews with health, illness, and medicine from the Biblical to the pre-modern period. Over the course of the semester we will look at the ways in which Jews imagined the human body and therapeutic techniques aimed at affecting its optimal wellbeing. Of particular interest to our study will be the gendered aspects of pre-modern medicine, conceptualizations of health and wellness, the relationship between the body and the soul, and the healing properties of natural substances. The course will also consider non-Jewish medical traditions and their influence on and adaptation into Jewish healing practices. The Jewish legal or halakhic dimensions of caring for the body will also be explored along with questions of folk medicine and alternative cures that at times fell outside of boundaries of Jewish normative praxis.
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HIST 217-1
Stefanie Bautista San Miguel
MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM
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This course will review the prehistory of ancient societies in the Andes, which will begin from the peopling of the continent to the conquest of the Inca Empire by the Spanish. Students will become familiar with Andean chronologies as well as the prehispanic cultures of Chinchorro, Caral, Chavin, Pukara, Paracas, Moche, Nasca, Wari, Tiwanaku, Chim, and the Inca, among others. Special attention will be paid to how these societies adapted to the diverse ecology of the Andes. Topics include the history of Peruvian archaeology; plant and animal domestication; the development of social complexity, the emergence of religion; prehispanic art and symbolism; ancient technology, economies and trade; and urbanism. The course includes material from archaeological investigations and interpretations as well as ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources.
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HIST 221-2
Jonathon Catlin
MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM
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Twentieth-century Europe was torn between struggles for emancipation and the forces of totalitarianism. Hopes of social and technological progress were dashed as Europe plunged into unprecedented mass violence. Old empires broke up, young liberal democracies succumbed to fascism, and socialist revolutionaries experimented with new forms of political economy. This course explores some of the most influential ideas behind these transformations: the birth of modern social theory, liberalism and its opponents, fascism and antifascism, Frankfurt School critical theory, phenomenology and existentialism, feminism, anticolonial thought, the history of sexuality, and deconstruction and postmodernism. We will conclude by exploring how these traditions are manifest in contemporary intellectual responses to the climate crisis.
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HIST 227-1
Thomas Fleischman; Stephen Roessner (Private)
TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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Hear UR is a history-oriented podcast that takes on a subject related to the environmental history of Rochester. Over the course of this semester, this class researches, develops, and produces one season of episodes for Hear UR. Students divide into teams of three, where they take on the roles of Producer, Lead Researcher, or Engineer. Together they develop the subject matter of the season and episodes; locate primary sources to interpret; identify a body of secondary literature; draft and re-draft podcast scripts; master the use of microphones, recording studios, and audio editing software; create a website to host each episode, where they post a written article on the same topic, provide primary source images, additional links, and script; finally they organize and execute a public roll out of the season, using social and traditional media platforms, local public radio and television, and University communications.
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HIST 227W-1
Thomas Fleischman; Stephen Roessner (Private)
TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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Hear UR is a history-oriented podcast that takes on a subject related to the environmental history of Rochester. Over the course of this semester, this class researches, develops, and produces one season of episodes for Hear UR. Students divide into teams of three, where they take on the roles of Producer, Lead Researcher, or Engineer. Together they develop the subject matter of the season and episodes; locate primary sources to interpret; identify a body of secondary literature; draft and re-draft podcast scripts; master the use of microphones, recording studios, and audio editing software; create a website to host each episode, where they post a written article on the same topic, provide primary source images, additional links, and script; finally they organize and execute a public roll out of the season, using social and traditional media platforms, local public radio and television, and University communications.
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HIST 236-1
Jesse LeFebvre
MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM
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“Miracles are a retelling in small letters,” said C.S. Lewis, “of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” In recent years, Korean film and television has taken the world by storm in what is no small miracle of marketing, technology, and story-telling, but what does contemporary Korean film and television render visible that would otherwise be difficult to see? Onscreen interactions with the supernatural, divine, or horrific provide a unique medium for myth-making, identity formation, and world-building. In this course students will explore the ways in which religion in Korean film and television confront mortality and collective anxieties, and how the interaction between the religious and nonreligious serve as sites for the construction and interrogation of nation, race, gender, identity, modernity, cosmology, and moral discourse.
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HIST 249-1
Lisa Cerami
TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM
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This comparative course explores the figuration of the French Revolution in literature and film in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will read and analyse several prose, dramatic and cinematic works, including by authors such as Charles Dickens, Baroness Orczy, Georg Büchner, Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss, C.L.R James, Lauren Gunderson, and filmmakers like Sofia Coppola and Peter Brook. German majors should enroll in co-location GRMN 256. German majors will have the opportunity to work on 1-2 German language texts with a separate language lab, while classroom language will otherwise be English.
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HIST 250-1
Pablo Sierra
MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM
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Learn how to read, analyze, and transcribe Spanish writing from the 1500s-1700s in this interactive course. Paleography is an essential skill for deciphering primary sources whether they were produced in Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, the Philippines or any other Spanish-speaking territory. This course prepares students for historical research in digital databases, physical archives and specialized libraries. We will collectively transcribe, analyze and annotate a group document to familiarize ourselves with early modern Spanish. For your final project you will analyze a digitized primary source of your own choice. Students should have a strong background in Spanish (or Portuguese). No HIST pre-requisites necessary.
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HIST 254-1
Molly Ball
TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM
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Explore how big business emerged in modern Brazil and impacted the countrys development and classification as one of the worlds five major emerging economies. Using an economic historical lens, we will investigate how Brazilian growth and development conforms to or diverges from traditional economic history models. The course looks particularly at theories of development and how transportation, banking, and the film industry impacted Brazils 19th and 20th century history.
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HIST 254W-1
Molly Ball
TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM
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Explore how big business emerged in modern Brazil and impacted the countrys development and classification as one of the worlds five major emerging economies. Using an economic historical lens, we will investigate how Brazilian growth and development conforms to or diverges from traditional economic history models. The course looks particularly at theories of development and how transportation, banking, and the film industry impacted Brazils 19th and 20th century history.
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HIST 259-1
Tatyana Bakhmetyeva
M 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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In this colloquium we will look at the history of international feminism and explore its many faces. We will examine the various factors that have contributed to womens historically lower status in society; will look at the emergence of womens rights and feminist movements as well as the distinctions among various feminist theories, and will discuss the relevance of feminism today.
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HIST 259W-1
Tatyana Bakhmetyeva
M 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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In this colloquium we will look at the history of international feminism and explore its many faces. We will examine the various factors that have contributed to womens historically lower status in society; will look at the emergence of womens rights and feminist movements as well as the distinctions among various feminist theories, and will discuss the relevance of feminism today.
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HIST 291-1
Alexander Cushing
TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM
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Slavery was a major economic, social, and cultural force in the ancient Roman world. By the end of the first century BCE, as much as 30% of the population of Roman Italy alone were enslaved people, roughly 1.8 million out of 6 million total inhabitants. This was more than eight times the population of the city of Rochester and does not include millions more enslaved people who lived in all areas throughout the wider Roman world. These enslaved people came from a broad range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, were exploited in a variety of economic and occupational roles, and left records of their experiences in everything from urban graffiti to wax writing tablets to archaeological remains. This course will use primary source evidence produced by the enslaved themselves, as well as by their enslavers, to examine the diverse experiences of those who lived through slavery in the Roman Mediterranean. Students will learn how to analyse an array of ancient primary evidence from different historical contexts and how to use secondary scholarship to support their conclusions. We will also consider the legacies of Roman slavery, exploring, for example, how the ideologies of ancient enslavers influenced American colonial ideas of freedom and unfreedom and how slave resistance by figures like Spartacus continue to capture popular imagination.
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HIST 296-1
Alexander Cushing
TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM
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This course will provide a survey of the most important historical writers of the Greek and Roman world. We will read extensive selections from their work in translation, and discuss both the development of historiography as a literary genre and the development of history as a discipline in the ancient world. Finally, we will consider the implications these findings hold for our ability to use the works of Greek and Roman historical writers in our own efforts to construct narratives of the past.
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HIST 297-1
Andrea Gondos
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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This course will survey the way in which Jewish music and film engaged the issues of Jewish history, memory, and identity. The first half of the course will focus on the cultural and religious role of song and music in Judaism from their Biblical origins to contemporary Klezmer. The second part of the course will explore the medium of film for the portrayal of Jews, the gendered dimensions of Jewish religious and daily life, as well as formative events in Jewish history. Our discussions of both music and film will aim to contextualise Jewish life and culture in broader discourses of the surrounding society. We will also reflect on geographical and ethnic differences, such as the Sephardi-Ashkenazi divide, cultural influences on the Jews in Yemen and North Africa, Europe and North America. We will also trace enduring themes such as spirituality, suffering, redemption, and personal/world repair (tiqqun) that have played an important role in the development of Jewish culture.
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HIST 299H-2
Michael Hayata
MW 6:00PM - 7:15PM
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Interested in designing an original research project? This seminar introduces students to source identification, prospectus preparation, and grant-writing techniques for historical research. To prepare for your project, we will discuss select readings on questions of memory, power, archives and our motivations as writers of History. The course is mandatory for students interested in completing the History Honors program next year. Students who are planning on developing an alternate research project are also welcome to enroll. As a 2.0 credit course, the course only meets the first eight weeks of the semester.
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HIST 301W-1
Michael Hayata
T 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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From the Paris arcades and the Inkan ayllu, people have mobilized a usable past to envision new communities that confronted capitalist institutions and socialized work. This course examines critiques of modernity in East Asia, Europe, and Latin America during the twentieth century to analyze experiences of displacement, dispossession, and class formation in the context of such social structures as capitalism and settler colonialism. It particularly focuses on the works of scholars who theorized the problem of modernity and drew on local traditions to resolve their tensions.
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HIST 302W-1
Michael Jarvis
MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM
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This research seminar focuses on spatial dimensions of historical study and analysis and how the physical world reflects historical change. We will survey how historians use spatial, textual, and visual analysis to advance research into Early Modern Atlantic network formation, circulations of disease, news, ideas, and material culture, and witchcraft hysteria before students learn GIS and database building basics and develop their own research topics.
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HIST 359W-1
Brianna Theobald
W 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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Why did fertility rates decline over the nineteenth century? Why did women begin choosing hospital rather than home births in the twentieth century? What difference have the Pill and other reproductive technologies made in shaping how women think about pregnancy and childbirth? Why have breastfeeding rates been rising since the 1970s? How have women's reproductive experiences differed along lines of race and class? In this course, we will consider these questions and more as we explore how women's reproductive experiences and the meanings attached to such experiences have changed over time and why. This is a research seminar, so students will further explore these issues through their own research and writing on some aspect of the history of reproduction. Readings and discussions will focus on the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but students may explore the location and period of their choice in their papers.
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HIST 373W-1
Mical Raz
R 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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Among the topics covered are the rise of hospitals as the main site of medical care, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the further evolution of these programs, the rise to dominance of actuarial analysis in the shaping of health policy, and the Affordable Care Act and its implementation. The seminar will also address how health policy is implemented, introduce the concept of administrative burdens, and will examine the politics and policymaking of contested healthcare. The seminar will focus on writing skills, honing the ability to write for diverse audience, and developing an individual policy-focused opinion essay. Students will also experience writing peer reviews. Students’ final project will require independent research that is based on the analysis of primary sources which they will have identified.
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HIST 386W-1
Pablo Sierra
M 2:00PM - 4:40PM
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This seminar engages the experiences, writings and political ambitions of individuals typically excluded from discussions of the Atlantic. Key concepts such as Atlantic creoles and the Black Atlantic will be debated in light of recent studies on Sephardic merchants, African healers and Native American intellectuals. In order to contextualize their lives, this course will focus on the Iberian and South Atlantic from the early sixteenth to the late nineteenth century. Our initial readings will center on the circulation of Native American commoners and elites to Spain and will be complemented by seminal ethnohistorical studies. The second part of the course will take on the construction of a South or Lusophone ocean that weaves together the histories of Brazilian, Angolan and Portuguese actors. Students will revise and resubmit an original research paper on a topic of their choice.
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HIST 393H-2
Laura Smoller
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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Advanced or Senior Project/Seminar/Thesis
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HIST 393H-3
Thomas Fleischman
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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Advanced or Senior Project/Seminar/Thesis
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HIST 393H-4
Brianna Theobald
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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Advanced or Senior Project/Seminar/Thesis
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HIST 393H-5
Molly Ball
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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Advanced or Senior Project/Seminar/Thesis
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HIST 393H-6
Thomas Devaney
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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Blank Description
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HIST 399H-1
Thomas Fleischman
7:00PM - 7:00PM
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This Spring semester seminar (2.0 credits) is taught by the Honors director. Enrollment is reserved for History seniors whose Honors research has progressed adequately during Fall semester. Students in 399H should also register to continue their Honors research in HIST 393H (4.0 credits with their advisor).
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Spring 2024
| Number | Title | Instructor | Time |
|---|---|
| Monday | |
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HIST 259-1
Tatyana Bakhmetyeva
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In this colloquium we will look at the history of international feminism and explore its many faces. We will examine the various factors that have contributed to womens historically lower status in society; will look at the emergence of womens rights and feminist movements as well as the distinctions among various feminist theories, and will discuss the relevance of feminism today. |
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HIST 259W-1
Tatyana Bakhmetyeva
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In this colloquium we will look at the history of international feminism and explore its many faces. We will examine the various factors that have contributed to womens historically lower status in society; will look at the emergence of womens rights and feminist movements as well as the distinctions among various feminist theories, and will discuss the relevance of feminism today. |
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HIST 386W-1
Pablo Sierra
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This seminar engages the experiences, writings and political ambitions of individuals typically excluded from discussions of the Atlantic. Key concepts such as Atlantic creoles and the Black Atlantic will be debated in light of recent studies on Sephardic merchants, African healers and Native American intellectuals. In order to contextualize their lives, this course will focus on the Iberian and South Atlantic from the early sixteenth to the late nineteenth century. Our initial readings will center on the circulation of Native American commoners and elites to Spain and will be complemented by seminal ethnohistorical studies. The second part of the course will take on the construction of a South or Lusophone ocean that weaves together the histories of Brazilian, Angolan and Portuguese actors. Students will revise and resubmit an original research paper on a topic of their choice. |
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| Monday and Wednesday | |
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HIST 217-1
Stefanie Bautista San Miguel
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This course will review the prehistory of ancient societies in the Andes, which will begin from the peopling of the continent to the conquest of the Inca Empire by the Spanish. Students will become familiar with Andean chronologies as well as the prehispanic cultures of Chinchorro, Caral, Chavin, Pukara, Paracas, Moche, Nasca, Wari, Tiwanaku, Chim, and the Inca, among others. Special attention will be paid to how these societies adapted to the diverse ecology of the Andes. Topics include the history of Peruvian archaeology; plant and animal domestication; the development of social complexity, the emergence of religion; prehispanic art and symbolism; ancient technology, economies and trade; and urbanism. The course includes material from archaeological investigations and interpretations as well as ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources. |
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HIST 250-1
Pablo Sierra
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Learn how to read, analyze, and transcribe Spanish writing from the 1500s-1700s in this interactive course. Paleography is an essential skill for deciphering primary sources whether they were produced in Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, the Philippines or any other Spanish-speaking territory. This course prepares students for historical research in digital databases, physical archives and specialized libraries. We will collectively transcribe, analyze and annotate a group document to familiarize ourselves with early modern Spanish. For your final project you will analyze a digitized primary source of your own choice. Students should have a strong background in Spanish (or Portuguese). No HIST pre-requisites necessary. |
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HIST 195-2
Jeff Baron
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The History of Treasure will broadly survey all kinds of treasures in Europe and the Americas from over two thousand years of history. Readings and lectures will span a variety of senses and definitions of the term, from biblical and literary metaphor to tangible stashes of wealth. The course will begin in prehistory and antiquity by introducing treasures in their most literal sense, examining who buries or hides wealth and why, then spend considerable time in the Middle Ages and early modern periods, and end in modernity, discussing questions of law, archaeological patrimony, and museum repatriation This course will trace two millennia of laws, literature, searches, and excavations, to explore why treasure looms large in European and American culture, why it has long been the source of deep contention, and why it remains a term that signifies the most precious things. |
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HIST 125-1
Mariah Steele
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Social dance plays an important role in every society, simultaneously fostering community and self-expression. From the Waltz to Contra Dancing, Ragtime Dances to Rock n Roll, and Tango to Salsa, this course explores the history and culture of several social and popular dances in the United States from the countrys founding to the present. Students discover how cultural beliefs are embedded in social dance practices, and how, vice versa, social dance practices can help shape changing norms and behaviors. Through a mixture of lectures, readings, discussions, video-viewings and experiencing the basic steps, each social dance form studied is contextualized within its time period. The course as a whole considers patterns of cultural change across the decades in terms of gender, race, class and social identities. No previous dance experience is necessary. |
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HIST 302W-1
Michael Jarvis
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This research seminar focuses on spatial dimensions of historical study and analysis and how the physical world reflects historical change. We will survey how historians use spatial, textual, and visual analysis to advance research into Early Modern Atlantic network formation, circulations of disease, news, ideas, and material culture, and witchcraft hysteria before students learn GIS and database building basics and develop their own research topics. |
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HIST 134-1
Nikita Maslennikov
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In this 2-credit version of the 'Russia Now' course, students will follow current events in Russia through the internet, newspapers, magazines, and other sources. Along with a general attention to current events, each student will follow a particular area of interest (e.g. national identity, the market economy, politics, health issues, crime, culture, foreign policy) throughout the term, do background work on this topic and write it up towards the end of the term. Students who read Russian will be encouraged to use available sources in that language. This course is designed to (1) familiarize students with the most important issues facing Russia today and the historical/political/cultural context in which to place them; (2) to acquaint students with a variety of resources from the US, Russia, and a number of other countries and the different perspectives these sources may give on one and the same issue. May be taken twice for credit. |
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HIST 136-1
Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio
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The second of a sequence of two, the course approaches "The Divine Comedy" both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of the second half of "Purgatorio" and the entirety of "Paradiso," students learn how to approach Dante’s poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dante’s concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the "Comedy" and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster. |
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HIST 176-2
Andrea Gondos
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This course is an introduction to Jewish religion and culture from ancient to modern times. Designed for students with little or no prior knowledge of Judaism, it will examine the formation, ruptures, and changes of Jewish tradition, identity, and culture beginning with the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), continuing through Rabbinic interpretations of law and lore, medieval Jewish thought, early modern Jewish mysticism, the Enlightenment and modern Jewish philosophy, up to contemporary American Jewish feminism. Because this course explores a large swath of the history of Judaism, its peoples, and ideas in various geographic contexts, we will continually question the claim that there exists a single, static, essential entity called “Judaism.” Paying close attention to changes in Jewish religious and cultural self-understanding and traditions across primary and secondary texts, we will instead investigate the possibility that there were and are multiple “Judaisms” just as there were and are multiple “Jews” living in different cultural, religious, and geographic settings throughout time. |
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HIST 200-4
Michael Hayata
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The Japanese empire mediated large parts of East Asia and the global capitalist economy during the first half of the twentieth century. This course examines major themes that are relevant to the study of Japanese imperialism across Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan, including industrialization, agrarian colonization, mass/popular culture, resistance, and wartime mobilization. As a historical methods course, it will prepare students to conduct original historical research by training them to develop their own historical questions, gather and analyze primary and secondary sources, create original conclusions, and contribute to ongoing discussions. Using locally available or online archival materials, they will write a research paper on a topic of their choice in consultation with the instructor. |
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HIST 236-1
Jesse LeFebvre
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“Miracles are a retelling in small letters,” said C.S. Lewis, “of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” In recent years, Korean film and television has taken the world by storm in what is no small miracle of marketing, technology, and story-telling, but what does contemporary Korean film and television render visible that would otherwise be difficult to see? Onscreen interactions with the supernatural, divine, or horrific provide a unique medium for myth-making, identity formation, and world-building. In this course students will explore the ways in which religion in Korean film and television confront mortality and collective anxieties, and how the interaction between the religious and nonreligious serve as sites for the construction and interrogation of nation, race, gender, identity, modernity, cosmology, and moral discourse. |
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HIST 221-2
Jonathon Catlin
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Twentieth-century Europe was torn between struggles for emancipation and the forces of totalitarianism. Hopes of social and technological progress were dashed as Europe plunged into unprecedented mass violence. Old empires broke up, young liberal democracies succumbed to fascism, and socialist revolutionaries experimented with new forms of political economy. This course explores some of the most influential ideas behind these transformations: the birth of modern social theory, liberalism and its opponents, fascism and antifascism, Frankfurt School critical theory, phenomenology and existentialism, feminism, anticolonial thought, the history of sexuality, and deconstruction and postmodernism. We will conclude by exploring how these traditions are manifest in contemporary intellectual responses to the climate crisis. |
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HIST 299H-2
Michael Hayata
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Interested in designing an original research project? This seminar introduces students to source identification, prospectus preparation, and grant-writing techniques for historical research. To prepare for your project, we will discuss select readings on questions of memory, power, archives and our motivations as writers of History. The course is mandatory for students interested in completing the History Honors program next year. Students who are planning on developing an alternate research project are also welcome to enroll. As a 2.0 credit course, the course only meets the first eight weeks of the semester. |
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HIST 186-1
Morris Pierce
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This will cover the broad history of energy from ancient civilizations using various resources for heat and power through the introduction of coal that sparked the industrial revolution, the exploitation of petroleum and natural gas in the late 19th century, and followed by the nuclear age. Today we are seeing a growth realization that renewable resources and conservation have important roles to play in powering civilization. |
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HIST 301W-1
Michael Hayata
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From the Paris arcades and the Inkan ayllu, people have mobilized a usable past to envision new communities that confronted capitalist institutions and socialized work. This course examines critiques of modernity in East Asia, Europe, and Latin America during the twentieth century to analyze experiences of displacement, dispossession, and class formation in the context of such social structures as capitalism and settler colonialism. It particularly focuses on the works of scholars who theorized the problem of modernity and drew on local traditions to resolve their tensions. |
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HIST 126-1
Thomas Fleischman
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This course revolves around the most essential question in modern German history: was Hitler's regime particular to Germany, German culture, and German society, or was merely the manifestation of an immanent quality in all modern nation states? What does it mean to compare any political figure to Hitler? Was his kind of "evil" suis generis or dangerously banal? This course places the rise and fall of the Nazi Party and Hitler in the longer duree of German history, from the Second Empire and WWI, to Weimar, the Nazi State, and the Two Germanys of the Cold War. |
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HIST 151-1
Molly Ball
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This introductory course will cover the difficult process of nation-building that twenty-odd societies south of the Rio Grande experienced during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand most references in Calle 13's song "Latinoamerica." Latin America became a space where questions of modernity and progress intersected with science and development. Foreign influence, intellectual, physical, and commercial, played a considerable role and many voices continued to be marginalized. As the twentieth century progressed, development strategies, shifting racial and gender norms, and the Cold War radically impacted the region's more modern history. We will explore these moments through a variety of traditional and less conventional primary and secondary sources. |
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HIST 249-1
Lisa Cerami
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This comparative course explores the figuration of the French Revolution in literature and film in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will read and analyse several prose, dramatic and cinematic works, including by authors such as Charles Dickens, Baroness Orczy, Georg Büchner, Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss, C.L.R James, Lauren Gunderson, and filmmakers like Sofia Coppola and Peter Brook. German majors should enroll in co-location GRMN 256. German majors will have the opportunity to work on 1-2 German language texts with a separate language lab, while classroom language will otherwise be English. |
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HIST 184-1
Aaron Hughes
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Framed as a historical introduction to Islamic traditions, this course will explore the political, social, and intellectual histories of Islam as a global tradition from its emergence through the modern period. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the central texts, personalities, events, geographies, institutions, and schools of thought that make up Islamic histories. We will begin by tracing Islam’s political history as it spreads from the Arabian Peninsula and encounters diverse cultures and peoples, before moving on to discuss the development of intellectual sciences and social institutions. In the process of studying Islamic histories, the course will engage several critical issues in the academic study of Islam such as orientalism, authority and writing history, authenticity, and gendered representations of Muslim societies. |
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HIST 187-1
Laura Smoller
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This course explores the early history of humans' attempts to explain and control the cosmos, taking into account the real contributions made to early science by areas of inquiry now dismissed as magic or superstition, such as astrology, alchemy, and 'natural magic.' One major theme of the course will be the continuing way in which societies have policed the boundary between what they define as 'magic' and what they dub legitimate 'science.' What is legitimate knowledge about nature, and who gets to define what counts as legitimate? The course will end around 1700, with Newton and the so-called 'scientific Revolution,' and the marginalization of astrology, alchemy and similar fields of inquiry as 'pseudo-sciences' or popular error. |
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HIST 214-1
Andrea Gondos
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Is there a uniquely Jewish approach to healthcare? In trying to answer this question, this course will thematically explore the engagement of Jews with health, illness, and medicine from the Biblical to the pre-modern period. Over the course of the semester we will look at the ways in which Jews imagined the human body and therapeutic techniques aimed at affecting its optimal wellbeing. Of particular interest to our study will be the gendered aspects of pre-modern medicine, conceptualizations of health and wellness, the relationship between the body and the soul, and the healing properties of natural substances. The course will also consider non-Jewish medical traditions and their influence on and adaptation into Jewish healing practices. The Jewish legal or halakhic dimensions of caring for the body will also be explored along with questions of folk medicine and alternative cures that at times fell outside of boundaries of Jewish normative praxis. |
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HIST 296-1
Alexander Cushing
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This course will provide a survey of the most important historical writers of the Greek and Roman world. We will read extensive selections from their work in translation, and discuss both the development of historiography as a literary genre and the development of history as a discipline in the ancient world. Finally, we will consider the implications these findings hold for our ability to use the works of Greek and Roman historical writers in our own efforts to construct narratives of the past. |
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HIST 201-1
Elias Mandala
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This course explores the origins and development of the rift between the Global North and Global South since the fifteenth century, with a focus on how ordinary women and men of the Global South reorganized their lives to meet the challenges and opportunities offered by the following developments in the Global North: the crisis in European feudalism, rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, and the “new” imperialism of the late nineteenth century. The final section of the course discusses the worldwide impact of the Chinese and Russian Revolutions of the twentieth century. |
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HIST 227-1
Thomas Fleischman; Stephen Roessner (Private)
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Hear UR is a history-oriented podcast that takes on a subject related to the environmental history of Rochester. Over the course of this semester, this class researches, develops, and produces one season of episodes for Hear UR. Students divide into teams of three, where they take on the roles of Producer, Lead Researcher, or Engineer. Together they develop the subject matter of the season and episodes; locate primary sources to interpret; identify a body of secondary literature; draft and re-draft podcast scripts; master the use of microphones, recording studios, and audio editing software; create a website to host each episode, where they post a written article on the same topic, provide primary source images, additional links, and script; finally they organize and execute a public roll out of the season, using social and traditional media platforms, local public radio and television, and University communications. |
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HIST 227W-1
Thomas Fleischman; Stephen Roessner (Private)
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Hear UR is a history-oriented podcast that takes on a subject related to the environmental history of Rochester. Over the course of this semester, this class researches, develops, and produces one season of episodes for Hear UR. Students divide into teams of three, where they take on the roles of Producer, Lead Researcher, or Engineer. Together they develop the subject matter of the season and episodes; locate primary sources to interpret; identify a body of secondary literature; draft and re-draft podcast scripts; master the use of microphones, recording studios, and audio editing software; create a website to host each episode, where they post a written article on the same topic, provide primary source images, additional links, and script; finally they organize and execute a public roll out of the season, using social and traditional media platforms, local public radio and television, and University communications. |
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HIST 291-1
Alexander Cushing
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Slavery was a major economic, social, and cultural force in the ancient Roman world. By the end of the first century BCE, as much as 30% of the population of Roman Italy alone were enslaved people, roughly 1.8 million out of 6 million total inhabitants. This was more than eight times the population of the city of Rochester and does not include millions more enslaved people who lived in all areas throughout the wider Roman world. These enslaved people came from a broad range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, were exploited in a variety of economic and occupational roles, and left records of their experiences in everything from urban graffiti to wax writing tablets to archaeological remains. This course will use primary source evidence produced by the enslaved themselves, as well as by their enslavers, to examine the diverse experiences of those who lived through slavery in the Roman Mediterranean. Students will learn how to analyse an array of ancient primary evidence from different historical contexts and how to use secondary scholarship to support their conclusions. We will also consider the legacies of Roman slavery, exploring, for example, how the ideologies of ancient enslavers influenced American colonial ideas of freedom and unfreedom and how slave resistance by figures like Spartacus continue to capture popular imagination. |
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HIST 200-3
Laura Smoller
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History 200 is an introduction to historical practice - what professional historians actually do. It is a requirement for history majors, but we encourage all interested undergraduates to enroll. This section focuses upon the concept of deviance in medieval European society, studying the process of identifying persons as “deviants” because of their religious beliefs, sexual preferences, alleged witchcraft, or presumed status as werewolves. Along the way we will discuss the various ways in which historians have approached this topic and will engage with key primary sources. Readings will address the question of whether the persecution of “deviants” began only in the twelfth century as part of the process of centralizing power in church and state. We will consider the relationship between persecution and power, as we ponder why certain groups were singled out for persecution. And we will ask what Europeans really were afraid of when they labeled certain groups as “deviant." |
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HIST 254-1
Molly Ball
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Explore how big business emerged in modern Brazil and impacted the countrys development and classification as one of the worlds five major emerging economies. Using an economic historical lens, we will investigate how Brazilian growth and development conforms to or diverges from traditional economic history models. The course looks particularly at theories of development and how transportation, banking, and the film industry impacted Brazils 19th and 20th century history. |
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HIST 254W-1
Molly Ball
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Explore how big business emerged in modern Brazil and impacted the countrys development and classification as one of the worlds five major emerging economies. Using an economic historical lens, we will investigate how Brazilian growth and development conforms to or diverges from traditional economic history models. The course looks particularly at theories of development and how transportation, banking, and the film industry impacted Brazils 19th and 20th century history. |
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HIST 183-1
John Downey
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The purpose of this course is to explore the general development of Christianity throughout its twenty centuries of existence, paying special attention to the religious presuppositions behind Christianity and its complex relationship to its socio-cultural matrix. The course will focus on important moments in Christian history, including its inception as a Jewish religious movement set in motion by Jesus, its dissemination in the Greco-Roman world by Paul of Tarsus, its growth and triumph in the Roman Empire, the split between the Greek- and Latin-speaking churches, medieval Catholicism, the Reformation and rise of Protestantism, Christianity and the modern world, and contemporary movements and tendencies within the Christian churches. |
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HIST 196-1
Alice Wynd
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Institutions across America interpret and disseminate narratives about tragic events in history; slavery, the Holocaust, institutional racism, and genocide of Native Americans are all “on display” for visitors to see. Museums are—and have always been—political entities that use their collections and resources to promote specific arguments. Furthermore, museums themselves have attracted criticism about their funding, curation, and collecting practices. This course examines how modern American museums interpret tragic pasts and what ethical issues plague museums. Considering this topic, we will explore three central questions: how do museums and historic sites narrate the cruelty of past events? How do these institutions perpetuate cruelty themselves? How can museums do better? The readings and discussion will focus on the American past to highlight the specific incentives and social context that affect interpretation in American museums, and the course will culminate in a final project, where each student creates a digital micro-exhibit on a narrow topic. |
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HIST 359W-1
Brianna Theobald
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Why did fertility rates decline over the nineteenth century? Why did women begin choosing hospital rather than home births in the twentieth century? What difference have the Pill and other reproductive technologies made in shaping how women think about pregnancy and childbirth? Why have breastfeeding rates been rising since the 1970s? How have women's reproductive experiences differed along lines of race and class? In this course, we will consider these questions and more as we explore how women's reproductive experiences and the meanings attached to such experiences have changed over time and why. This is a research seminar, so students will further explore these issues through their own research and writing on some aspect of the history of reproduction. Readings and discussions will focus on the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but students may explore the location and period of their choice in their papers. |
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HIST 211-1
Elias Mandala
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The peoples of southern Africa’s fifteen states freed themselves from the yoke of European and settler colonialism in different ways. In some countries, Africans pursued, from the time of World War II, a nationalist agenda whose principal objectives were limited to political independence. In other colonies, however, frustrated nationalists became revolutionaries, determined to achieve both political and economic autonomy. With the support of peasants and workers, the radicalized leadership launched guerrilla wars that turned portions of southern Africa into bloody battlefields from the late 1960s to the fall of apartheid in 1994. |
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HIST 211W-1
Elias Mandala
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The peoples of southern Africa’s fifteen states freed themselves from the yoke of European and settler colonialism in different ways. In some countries, Africans pursued, from the time of World War II, a nationalist agenda whose principal objectives were limited to political independence. In other colonies, however, frustrated nationalists became revolutionaries, determined to achieve both political and economic autonomy. With the support of peasants and workers, the radicalized leadership launched guerrilla wars that turned portions of southern Africa into bloody battlefields from the late 1960s to the fall of apartheid in 1994. |
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HIST 373W-1
Mical Raz
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Among the topics covered are the rise of hospitals as the main site of medical care, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the further evolution of these programs, the rise to dominance of actuarial analysis in the shaping of health policy, and the Affordable Care Act and its implementation. The seminar will also address how health policy is implemented, introduce the concept of administrative burdens, and will examine the politics and policymaking of contested healthcare. The seminar will focus on writing skills, honing the ability to write for diverse audience, and developing an individual policy-focused opinion essay. Students will also experience writing peer reviews. Students’ final project will require independent research that is based on the analysis of primary sources which they will have identified.
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