History
Courses
HIST 101 Introductory Seminar in History 4.0 Credits
This course introduces freshmen history majors to the study and practice of historical inquiry. The course offers an overview of major themes related to historical practice: methodology, ethics, and professional development. It also introduces students to the history program, inviting them to meet and interact with the faculty of the department and their work.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Can enroll if major is HIST.
HIST 110 History Now 1.0-4.0 Credit
This course provides an intensive look at the historical roots of a contemporary issue. The topic is chosen by the instructor. Students may only repeat the course for different topics.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST 118 History of Modern Biology 4.0 Credits
In this course we will survey the history of biology in the modern period, from 1700-the present. We will explore how different sciences formed around the concept of life and methods for studying it. Examples will include systematics and classification, the impact of geology and paleontology, natural history and biogeography, embryology, evolution, physiology, microbiology, ecology, eugenics and genetics, molecular biology, astrobiology, and genomics. We will study these disciplines and related individuals, institutions, and theories in their social and cultural contexts to understand why they occurred in the places they did with the impact they had.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 125 The History of Drexel University 1.0 Credit
This course provides an overview and analysis of the history of Drexel University, founded in 1891 as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry by banker and philanthropist Anthony J. Drexel. By the 1920s Drexel had evolved into a professional engineering school with a co-operative education program. By the 1950s, Drexel was a powerhouse as a local provider of technical talent—and it became Drexel University in 1970. As the local economy went through a brutal deindustrial transformation Drexel had to change or face bankruptcy. The 1990s saw Drexel recovering and by the beginning of the new century Drexel evolved again in a period of change marked by the acquisition and founding of medical, nursing, public health schools, and law schools.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 153 Culture, Ethnicity, Religion: An Introduction to Jewish Studies 3.0 Credits
What is a Jew? Who is a Jew? What defines Judaism? These questions relate to religion, ethnicity, culture, nation, race, and more. A shared heritage unites Jews, yet understandings and interpretations of what it means to be Jewish are hotly contested, especially in the 21st century. In this course., we dig into Jewish thought and history and explore the ways they have shaped ethnic identity, cultural heritage, and religious tradition.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 155 The Historical Jesus 4.0 Credits
In this course, students analyze translations of the New Testament, other early Christian writings, and Roman histories in the light of Jesus’s broader historical context of Jewish life under Roman occupation before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. In the process, students learn to think like an historian by examining evidence to make their own interpretations of who Jesus was, the nature of the movement he led, and what that movement meant to him.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 161 Themes in World Civilization I 4.0 Credits
We examine development of civilizations from antiquity to the 12th century and view patterns of historical change through key themes and interpretive debates, including political structures, land tenure and social systems, commercial and trade relations, the development of cities, science, and technology, and religions.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 162 Themes in World Civilization II 4.0 Credits
Provides an analysis of civilizations from the 12th century to 1815 viewed through key themes and interpretive debates, including the development of the nation-state, interaction between civilizations, the concept of cultural unity, religious upheaval, disease and science, the relationship between culture and politics, and the nature of revolutions.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 163 Themes in World Civilization III 4.0 Credits
Explores the emergence of modern civilization through key themes and interpretive debates, including industrialization, imperialism, science and technology, ideological debate, the nature of modern warfare, the relationship between nationalism and the state, and the emergence of state-sponsored racism.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 181 Religion, Science, and Medicine in History 4.0 Credits
In this course, key episodes in the historical interactions among religion, science, and medicine from the ancient world to the near-present will be examined. The primary focus is on Western science and medicine in the context of the three main monotheistic faiths of the Mediterranean (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), but students in the course have the opportunity to examine other contexts as well.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 201 United States History to 1815 4.0 Credits
Examines the political, economic, and social forces that shaped America in the era of its founding.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 202 United States History, 1815-1900 4.0 Credits
Examines the emergence of modern America to the close of the Spanish-American War.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 203 United States History since 1900 4.0 Credits
Examines America as economic giant, world political power, and scene of social change.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 206 Race and Islam in Africa and the Middle East 4.0 Credits
This course explores the historical connections between Africa and the Middle East both as concepts, geographic expressions, homelands and sites of diaspora. This course will examine the changing definitions and connections between Africa and the Middle East from the ancient world until the present.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 208 Women in American History 4.0 Credits
Covers the history of American women from the 1890s to the present, with emphasis on women's rights, women and technology, women's role in war, and women in the labor force in the 20th century.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 210 Freedom, Medicine, and Slavery 4.0 Credits
Covering the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, this course examines the history of medicine alongside the history of slavery from Africa to the Americas and traces the continuing presence of African diasporic knowledge and practices against the transformation of white "men of science" into modern physicians and specialists.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 211 Freedom, Medicine, and Slavery’s Afterlives 4.0 Credits
Covering from the end of the American Civil War to present, this course examines the history of medicine in the United States, focusing on the contributions of African and African-descended peoples to western medicine alongside the continuing presence of African diasporic knowledge and practices into the era of the modern hospital and medical industrial complex.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 212 Themes in African-American History 4.0 Credits
Explores the major issues in the development of African-American history through the 19th century, beginning with an overview of West and Central African societies in the 15th and 16th centuries and including the family, religion, forms of resistance, aesthetics, and patterns of white-black relationships.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 214 United States Civil Rights Movement 4.0 Credits
Examines the origins, objectives, successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement in the United States between 1954 and 1972.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 215 American Slavery 4.0 Credits
This course is a rigorous examination of slavery and its representation in the United States. Using primary and secondary resources, art, literature and film clips, the course explores the relationship between history and memory and the impact of the social, political, and gendered imagination.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 216 Freedom in America 4.0 Credits
This course examines African-American history, 1865 to the present, including the impact of gender and sexuality in history. The course compares primary and secondary sources to critique how history itself is manufactured and to investigate the role that sexuality and gender play in that process.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 217 American Insurrection 4.0 Credits
The insurrection of January 6, 2021, shocked most Americans. It was, however, just one part of a broader insurrectionist movement in a year that had seen armed paramilitary groups storm state capitals and attack Black Lives Matter protests. This course places the insurrection in a longer twentieth-century history of anti-government and conspiratorial far-right movements, including the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, the militia movement, neo-Nazi groups, anti-abortion terrorism, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 219 History of Policing Homosexuality 4.0 Credits
This course surveys the medical and penal criminalization of homosexuality from the late 19th to early 21st Century in the United States. It also traces the varied historical responses to the policing of homosexuality by LGBTQ+ people and other individuals who engage in same-sex sex. The course will approach policing (both medical and penal) with particular emphasis on how race, Blackness, gender performance, and class impact policing and the formation of homosexual identities through time.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 222 History of Work & Workers in America 4.0 Credits
Examines the changing nature of work and the lives of American workers, from the origins of wage labor in the 19th century to the transformations of the workplace in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 226 American Jewish Experience 4.0 Credits
This course surveys the Jewish experience in America from the colonial period to the present. We will discuss the various waves of Jewish immigration and examine the religious, cultural, political, and economic activities of American Jews. We will consider the trajectories that shaped the experiences of Jews in America and the heterogeneity of Jewish experience and views. A diverse array of sources and topics will provide the framework for this course. The case study of the Jews in the United States elucidates major nations historical issues including immigration, acculturation, minority rights, prejudice and discrimination, intergroup relations, ethnic and racial pride and intermarriage. We will consider how Jews resolved the tensions between being Jewish and American.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 227 History of Antisemitism 4.0 Credits
For centuries, Jews have suffered prejudice, discrimination, and persecution. Jewish people have been vilified for denying the divinity of Jesus Christ; they were unjustly marked as murderers, usurers, and villains of all sorts; they were condemned for their supposed role in defiling and undermining the “white-race”; they were accused of committing the greatest abuses of capitalism, and at the same time, were charged with inventing socialism and Communism. What is antisemitism? How did it start? Why is it so enduring? This course will explore the long history of a perplexing and irrational phenomenon. This course will examine the racial, political, and economic forms of antisemitism in the ancient, medieval, and modern world.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 228 Antisemitism in America 4.0 Credits
The past few years have shown that antisemitism is alive and well in the United States, in spite of a decades-long lull. While the Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Newark shootings, and the Hanukkah attack in Monsey show are the most violent expressions of antisemitism that this country has ever seen, these are not the only times during which Jews were identified as outsiders and a threatening presence. This course will examine Jewish exclusion through the mid-20th century including General Grant’s expulsion of Jews, the Leo Frank lynching and Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent, Father Coughlin’s antisemitic radio addresses, the Nazi rally and Madison Square Garden. Finally, it will explore the recent rise in antisemitism and relationship between white supremacy and antisemitism.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 229 Pirates, Planters, Traders: The Jewish Atlantic World 4.0 Credits
When European empires expanded to the New World, their ships carried Jews to North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Jews were relegated to a marginalized group in Europe, but the New World opened up opportunities. They owned plantations and participated in extensive trading enterprises in the New World, including sugar cultivation, the triangulated slave trade, trade in precious gems, and the fur-trade. This course will investigate the ways in which Jews participated in colonial environments in the 16th-18th centuries: their business pursuits and their interactions with Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. It will also explore Jews' improved status in diverse New World environments, and the ways Jews created hybrid communities in environments formerly devoid of Jewish life.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 230 United States Military History I (before 1900) 4.0 Credits
Covers the origins and development of military institutions, traditions, and practices in the United States from the Revolution to the Spanish-American War, and the operational, intellectual, diplomatic, and social aspects of military history.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 231 US Military History II (since 1900) 4.0 Credits
Examines the emergence of the United States as a major military power, including military/civil relationships and the impact of technological change; the course covers World War I, World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 234 The United States Civil War 4.0 Credits
Examines the causes, course, and results of the American Civil War.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 235 The Great War, 1914-1918 4.0 Credits
Examines the global causes, conduct, and consequences of World War I, which fundamentally altered the next century's political, social, economic, and cultural institutions.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 236 World War II 4.0 Credits
Provides an in-depth study of World War II, with emphasis on Europe but also including the war in North Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Discusses major military events in a broad political framework, with lectures on economic, social, and scientific developments.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 239 The Pacific War 4.0 Credits
This course focuses on the conflict between China, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries from 1937 to 1945. We will also examine 1) the roots of the war in nineteenth-century changes in the distribution of power in the Pacific and 2) how the war redistributed power and alliances once again, contributing to the rise of the Cold War.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 248 History of the Holocaust 4.0 Credits
This course surveys Nazi Germany's systematic attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe between 1941 and 1945. The course stresses the historical study of the Holocaust: the course of events, their origin and context, and their repercussions. We study the general context of the 1930's and 1940's, the perpetrators and their relevant ideology and administrative systems, the victims and intended victims, and also the "bystanders", those among whom the round-ups and extermination took place in Europe as well as in the US. The materials include historical documents, memoirs, and historical accounts, and a variety of films.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 249 Modern Jewish History 4.0 Credits
Explores the social, cultural, political and religious forces that have shaped world Jewry from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 251 Fascism 4.0 Credits
Provides a chronological/topical study of fascist movements and regimes in Europe between 1919 and 1945, with emphasis on Italian Fascism and German Nazism.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 253 Jewish Life and Culture in the Middle Ages 4.0 Credits
This course is an introductory survey of the history of the Jewish people, their civilization, religion, and contacts with other cultures in medieval times. Topics will include the rise of Christianity and Islam, the Talmud, Jewish mysticism, and the growth of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewry.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 254 Russian History Before 1900 4.0 Credits
Survey of Russian history from its origins to the end of the Tsarist period. This course covers both Russia's role in Western European history, and its interactions with Eastern Eurasian civilizations.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 255 Twentieth Century Russia & the USSR 4.0 Credits
Examines the last years of imperial Russia, showing the background to the revolutions of 1917, followed by a study of the institutions and personalities of the USSR.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 257 The Reformation Age 4.0 Credits
The course covers the general background to the Reformation, both religious and secular, the growth of reform movements, including the big names (Luther and Calvin) but also other sects, the Catholic reform and counter-Reformation efforts, and the legacies of reform and the Reformation in Europe and beyond.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 260 Coexistence and Conflict: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Early Mediterranean 4.0 Credits
This course investigates the history of interactions among the early Mediterranean's three major monotheistic religious communities: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The course explores how religious communities understood themselves and each other as well as how and why multi-faith communities sometimes coexisted peacefully, sometimes coexisted tensely, and sometimes exploded into violence.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 264 East Asia in Modern Times 4.0 Credits
Deals primarily with China and Japan, including a description of their traditional societies and the changes they have undergone during the 20th century.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 275 History of Pennsylvania 3.0 Credits
This course introduces students to the history and culture of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Major topics include: the geography of Pennsylvania, Native-American culture before the Colonial Era, the Colonial Era and the governance of the Penn family, the development of the state’s economy throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the role of urban centers such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the role of immigration and diversity in the history of the state.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 276 The History of Philadelphia 4.0 Credits
This course surveys the history of Philadelphia through pre-colonial, colonial, and industrial eras to the present day. Philadelphia is investigated as an economic, social, cultural, and political center. Students read primary and secondary sources and conduct original research into Philadelphia's history. Lectures and discussions are complemented by on-site historical investigations.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 278 Medicine Before Germs 4.0 Credits
This course focuses on the history of Western medicine before the acceptance of the germ theory of disease dramatically transformed medicine around the turn of the twentieth century. This course explores medical theories and practices, medicine’s connections to the broader social and cultural context, and the lived experiences of patients and practitioners through sources written by those individuals as well as modern historians.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 279 History of Modern Medicine 4.0 Credits
This course will survey the intellectual, and social-cultural history of Western laboratory-based medicine from the late-19th century to the present. It will focus on the political, economic, institutional, and cultural aspects of the development of scientific medicine. Interpretive materials will include biographies, medical publications, films, and fictional accounts related to topics including the role of physicians, nurses, hospitals, biomedical research, therapies etc.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 283 Technology and Identity 4.0 Credits
In this course, we'll use the lens of identities--historical and contemporary experiences of race, class, gender, LGBTQ identities, physical and mental “ability/disability” divisions, age, and many other taxonomies of personhood--to understand science, technology, medicine, public health, and other bodies of knowledge.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 285 Technology in Historical Perspective 4.0 Credits
Examines the causal interrelations between technological developments and economic, social, intellectual, and political aspects of Western civilization from the 18th century to the present.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 287 History of Science: Ancient to Medieval 4.0 Credits
Explores the history of Western science from the Ancient to Medieval period. Surveys the intellectual content of natural philosophy (science) especially Babylonian, Greek, Roman sciences and medicine, in broader political, economic, social, and cultural context.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 288 History of Science: Medieval to Enlightenment 4.0 Credits
Explores the history of Western science (broadly understood) from the end of the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Connects the changes in the content, methodology, and meaning of natural knowledge to the broader political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual trends of the time.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 289 History of Science: Enlightenment to Modernity 4.0 Credits
Explores the history of science in the modern period from Newton to late 20th century. Surveys the major developments in the history of science, including Newtonianism, chemical revolution, Darwinian evolution, laboratory revolution, modern genetics, ecology, and environmentalism in broader historical context.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 290 Technology and the World Community 4.0 Credits
Examines the effect on international relations of rapid technological change in the modern era and technology as a tool of modernization, political integration, and national security among advanced and developing states.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 293 Global Legal History 4.0 Credits
This course will explore the global history of law that shaped the empires from Medieval times to the contemporary world order. It will offer students a background to the central concepts of modern legal theory and introduce them to the wide array of dispute resolution that human beings have practiced within and beyond the normative legal spaces.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 296 Research Methods in History 4.0 Credits
Designed for history majors in their sophomore year, this course introduces students to the fundamentals of historical research. The course focuses on methods, particularly in teaching students to locate and analyze evidence.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Can enroll if major is HIST.
Prerequisites: HIST 101 [Min Grade: D]
HIST 301 The Study of History 4.0 Credits
This course is for history majors in their pre-junior or junior year; it explores conventions and historiographical conversations in the discipline of history. Students will examine philosophies of history, great historical debates, and the nature of historical evidence.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Can enroll if major is HIST.
Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
Prerequisites: HIST 296 [Min Grade: D]
HIST 302 The Study of Science, Technology, and Environment in History 4.0 Credits
This course offers an introduction to historiographies of science, technology and the environment (STE), investigating which questions and methodologies about STE have dominated historical scholarship. We'll explore issues of identity, geopolitics, and cultures by following historians' changing understandings of the patterns of knowledge production, dissemination, uptake, and resistance across STE. This course provides an introduction to the critical historiographies in the “science, technology, and environment” concentration within the history B.A.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 303 The Study of Global History 4.0 Credits
This course explores modern global history from the 17th to 21st century, familiarizing students with theories of global history (Annales School, world systems theory) while insisting on bottom up approaches. Taking a transnational perspective, students will follow things, ideas, and people on the move and delve into the spaces enabling such moves (ports, slave markets, caravans, cafes, technological infrastructures, scientific institutions). This course provides an introduction to the critical historiographies in the "global history" concentration within the history B.A.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 307 History of Education and Anti-Colonial Resistance 4.0 Credits
This course will explore historically complex moments in the history of education and the resistance forces that emerged during liberation struggles across the globe. Students in this class will engage with a critically historical study on the history and process of education that will allow us to think and reflect on educational experiences and also to think, imagine and develop possible strategies and praxis of the revolutionary pedagogy for liberation and decolonization. Some topics that will be approached in this course are 1) the theory of the hidden curriculum, 2) education under colonial and oppressive regimes, 3) social and political movements' educational practices, 4) their transnational approaches, and 5) historical ideas of learning, talent, opportunity and human difference.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 315 History of Capitalism 4.0 Credits
This course covers capitalism since 1500, taking a broad view of the development of this economic system in historical context. A complex set of cultural, political, and economic factors shaped capitalism over time and place, and students will consider variations and the explanations for its development. Among other things, the course will include a discussion of trade, firms, politics, and finance.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 316 History of American Business 4.0 Credits
This course explores the history of American business, broadly defined, including the evolving structure of business enterprise, business/government relations, business in an international context, and business and American culture since 1800.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 321 Themes in Global Environmental History 4.0 Credits
This course covers global history of the environment, with a special emphasis on environmental factors in urban, political, economic, and social development and change. Faculty may tailor the course to fit specific themes of expertise and interest. Themes may focus more specifically on particular time periods or sub-questions (migration, demography, politics and mass movements) but the approach will also be a transnational/global analysis.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 322 Empire and Environment 4.0 Credits
This course will deal with how colonial rule altered the environment including agrarian societies, rivers, forests, cities, human-animal and human-insect relations in colonial settings through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will learn about the colonial improvement missions of producing the tropical landscapes, productive agriculture, irrigation canals, dammed rivers and the creation of new environmental subjects in the empire.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 323 The History of Climate Change 4.0 Credits
In this course, we will explore how both natural and anthropogenic climate change eras have shaped human history, from the transformation of species to the current geopolitics of the oil regimes. By taking critical moments in the history of climate-human interaction, this course will explore the history of scientific ideas and practices, from the 18th century to the present, that serve as the foundation for modern conceptions of the weather and climate as a global system. Our aim is to put current scientific debates on climate change into historical and critical perspective as we seek to understand the ways climate has been interpreted and understood over time, both within and outside the scientific community.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 331 [WI] The American Revolution 4.0 Credits
The course examines the secession of the British colonies from the empire, including the causes of secession, conflicts among the colonists, the Revolutionary War, international relationships during the war, and how the war transformed the colonies and their peoples.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 333 U.S.-Mexican War 4.0 Credits
The war between the United States and the Mexico Republic was one of the most important moments in the national history of each country. Using scholarship that explores the war from both sides of the border, this course encourages students to think critically about historical evidence, particularly as it reflects different ethical and cultural perspectives.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 334 American Empire in the Nineteenth Century 4.0 Credits
In this course, students study American territorial acquisition and settlement during the nineteenth century from the Louisiana Purchase to the Philippine-American War. Students will draw on perspectives from a variety of approaches to history, including cultural, political, and social history.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 338 [WI] The Vietnam War 4.0 Credits
The course focuses on the Second Indochina War between the United States and North Vietnam but also includes the origins of the Vietnam War in French imperialism, World War II, the Cold War, and the First Indochina War. Students also look at the consequences of the war for Vietnam, America, and the Cold War.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
HIST 341 Disabilities in History 4.0 Credits
This class considers histories of so-called abled and disabled bodies and the cultural persistence of that binary. It includes examples from many eras and global settings, and it touches on what have conventionally been categorized as both physical and intellectual disabilities. We will consider how historical landscapes, economies, technologies, sciences, arts, skills, and ideas of prestige and stigma all reflect shifting beliefs about ability and disability.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 342 Madness, Mental Health and Psychiatry in the Modern West 4.0 Credits
This course will examine changing assumptions, attitudes and ideas about behavior variously labeled madness, insanity, or mental illness; the development of professions, treatments, institutions and policies dealing with it; and the changing experiences of those afflicted.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 344 History of the AIDS Pandemic 4.0 Credits
This course explores responses to the AIDS crisis in Philadelphia and the United States. It investigates the medical, political, and activist responses to the AIDS crisis with a special emphasis on the lesser-known perspectives of AIDS activists and organizations.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 355 Venice and the Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to Napoleon 4.0 Credits
Venice was one of the most important states in the Mediterranean for centuries during the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods of European history. It occupied a key place (both physically and metaphorically) between West and East, between Europe and the Byzantine and later Ottoman empires. Venice provides a vantage point from which to observe the history of the broader Mediterranean region.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 358 Witches, Demons, and Witch-hunters in European History 4.0 Credits
This course explores the history of magic, witchcraft, and demonology in Europe and its colonies from antiquity through the late 1700s. Main topics include the origins of European ideas and practices related to the supernatural; how those ideas and practices changed through Middle Ages and Renaissance; why large-scale witch-hunts emerged in early modern European societies; and why such hunts eventually faded out. We also consider questions of historical methods: How should scholars approach the problem of understanding the history of magic, witchcraft, and demonology? What sources can we use? How should we interpret those sources?.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 365 Science and State Power: Colonialism 4.0 Credits
This course will introduce students to the history of how science was practiced in colonial India and its relation to state power. Students will learn how developments in natural and social sciences were related to civilizing mission, how bodies became sites of governance in the colony, and the lasting legacy of scientific research in the postcolonial atomic state of India.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 366 The Black Atlantic: Slave Societies of the Americas 4.0 Credits
Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, over twelve million Africans crossed the Atlantic in chains. Those who survived, and millions more of their descendants, were bought and sold as commodities and forced to labor under conditions of bondage in places as varied as Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. Their diverse experiences of exploitation, struggle, perseverance, and liberation lie at the core of the foundation, and entrenchment, of the colonial order in the Americas. This course introduces students to scholarship on the history of the slave societies of the colonial Americas. It will trace how African and Afro-descendant people's varied experiences of slavery and freedom between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries forged an interconnected and diverse Black Atlantic world.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 368 Silences in African History 4.0 Credits
Colonization and capitalism deeply impacted the history of Africa, including in the way we understand the history. This course examines some of the silences in the historical record and considers the ways research can construct and reproduce the silences, as well as unveil them, in the history of the continent. What are these silences? What forces might be moving behind them? What hidden languages can we find when we question the silences? How do these silences affect our perception of the continent today? What are the ramifications in the world today?.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
HIST 380 Advanced History Seminar 4.0 Credits
An advanced variable topics course that includes a substantial independent research project. Topic varies by instructor. May be repeated for credit (if on a different topic). History majors are required to take at least one HIST 380.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated 10 times for 132 credits
HIST 490 [WI] Senior Seminar I 4.0 Credits
In this senior capstone course, students conduct original research and produce an in-depth research project supervised by a historian.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Can enroll if major is HIST and classification is Senior.
Prerequisites: HIST 301 [Min Grade: D]
HIST 491 [WI] Senior Seminar II 4.0 Credits
Requires completion of the project begun in HIST 490.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Can enroll if major is HIST and classification is Senior.
Prerequisites: HIST 490 [Min Grade: D]
HIST I199 Independent Study in HIST 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST I299 Independent Study in HIST 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST I399 Independent Study in HIST 0.5-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST I499 Independent Study in HIST 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST T180 Special Topics in History 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST T280 Special Topics in History 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST T380 Special Topics in History 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
HIST T480 Special Topics in History 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit