Courses
The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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- African American & Black Diaspora Studies
- African Studies: Culture (in English)
- African Studies: East African Languages: Kiswahili (Swahili)
- African Studies: East, West & South African Languages: Amharic, Igbo, Mandinka, isiZulu
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CAS HI 192: American Popular Culture
Examines how Americans have changed (and haven't) since the nineteenth century by exploring their curious beliefs, social and sexual practices, and changing understandings of selfhood. Topics include Victorian etiquette, modern city pleasures, racial stereotyping, dating rituals, family dynamics, and more. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking Individual and the Community. -
CAS HI 200: The Historian's Craft
Required workshop for majors, normally taken in the sophomore year. Gives students the opportunity to analyze original sources and engage with leading works of historical scholarship. Explores how historians reconstruct and interpret the past using creativity, deduction, and contextual analysis. -
CAS HI 203: Magic, Science, and Religion
Boundaries and relationships between magic, science, and religion in Europe from antiquity through the Enlightenment. Explores global cultural exchange, distinctions across social, educational, gender, and religious lines, the rise of modern science, and changing assumptions about God, Nature, and humanity. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Critical Thinking. -
CAS HI 205: Gender and Sexuality in Judaism
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - Explores the role of gender and sexuality in Judaism and Jewish experience, historically and in the present. Subjects include constructions of masculinity and femininity, attitudes toward (and uses of) the body and sexuality, gendered nature of religious practice and authority. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS HI 207: Game of Thrones: Power and Politics in Pre-Modern Europe
This course employs medieval and early modern authors, as well as contemporary scholars, as vehicles for understanding the dynamics of power, gender, violence and politics in George Martin's novel, Game of Thrones. Effective Fall 2023 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness, Creativity/Innovation. -
CAS HI 209: The Reformation: Religious Conflict in Early Modern Europe
Examines religious change in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, particularly the origins and causes of the Protestant Reformation, the parallel Catholic Reformation, and the consequent military conflicts in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Also offered as CAS RN 310. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry I. -
CAS HI 215: The European Enlightenment
How Europe became modern. The rise of science, critique of religion, and struggle for rights. The public sphere emerges: newspapers, Freemasons, coffee, salons, smut. The invention of a cosmopolitan republic of letters; Voltaire, Diderot, Kant, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings. -
CAS HI 218: Power and Authority in Europe since World War I
Explores the breakdown of traditional authority, the rise of authoritarianism, and the triumph of democracy in twentieth-century Europe. Examines changing notions of power and legitimacy through major events, including communist revolutions, fascist takeovers, wartime occupations, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness. -
CAS HI 221: Catastrophe and Memory
Examines the ways in which catastrophes, both natural and social, enter into cultural memory. Goal is to understand how events that seem to defy comprehension are represented in works of art and given a place in the memory of a culture. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS HI 226: Cities and Cultures
Examines the relationship between cultural expression and political, social, and economic change by focusing on cities such as Boston, Paris, London, Casablanca, and Johannesburg during times of intense creativity and upheaval. -
CAS HI 227: Living in the City
Gateway to international urban history. Case studies of selected cities -- from ancient Uruk to modern Shanghai -- through scrutiny of histories and documents. Discussion of important themes for our urban future: justice, health, worship, entertainment, human rights, city planning, beauty. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Teamwork/Collaboration. -
CAS HI 231: Media and Politics in Modern America
Examines how mass media have shaped the modern American political landscape, including electoral campaigns, voter attitudes, social movements, and war mobilization, as well as the ways public policy has structured both the news and entertainment media. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS HI 234: Introduction to India and South Asia
A survey of South Asian history from antiquity to the present. Considers pre- modern empires, the rise of the British Empire in South Asia, and the struggle for independence. Explores the modern politics and culture of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy. -
CAS HI 237: Reconstructing the African Past
Explores the richness and diversity of a continent where oral histories and environmental settings have shaped society as much as written records. Considers Africa's critical place in the world from ancient Egypt and Ghana to the Asante and Ethiopian empires. Carries social science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness. -
CAS HI 238: Modern Africa
Provides an introduction to African history over the past 175 years, including the end of slavery, colonial rule and anti-colonial revolt, decolonization and nationalism, and the opportunities and challenges of life in postcolonial Africa. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry I. -
CAS HI 247: The Making of Modern Britain
How did a small island nation develop into a global superpower, and at what costs? This course charts Britain's ascendancy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a focus on industrialization, colonial expansion, democratic institution building, and enlightenment thought. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS HI 248: Modern Britain, 1867 to Present
A political, social, and cultural history of England with emphasis on the impact of the two world wars, the emergence of the welfare state, the loss of empire, and Britain's relations with Europe. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. -
CAS HI 266: French Revolution and Napoleon
The French Revolution began with high ideals of liberty and equality but quickly dissolved into civil war, the Terror, and Napoleon's expansionist ambitions. From the fall of the Bastille to Waterloo, this course traces the revolution's successes, failures, and legacy. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I. -
CAS HI 271: The Nazis
Explores the rise and fall of Europe's most notorious mass movement through film, diaries, party documents, and other sources. Considers the impact of Nazi rule on art, finance, politics, and family life. Analyzes the mass murder and destruction caused by Nazi rule. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking. -
CAS HI 272: Russia's Empire under the Tsars
Focuses on the history of Russia under the Romanov Dynasty and its establishment as a Eurasian power and empire. Emphasizes issues of religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity, modernization, reform and revolt, and the vexed question of Russian identity. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Creativity/Innovation.
