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.

• CAS HI 273: The History of the Soviet Union
  Examines the tumultuous history of Russia's revolutions and its 74-year experiment with socialism. Explores the new revolutionary state's attempt to create a utopia by re-engineering human bodies, behaviors, and beliefs, and the successes and failures of that project. Effective Fall 2018, this course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same number that was previously entitled "Russia and Its Empires Since 1900." Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship an Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 278: Central Europe
  Examines the history of Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Lands, Hungary, and the Balkans primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries. Focusing on events in Europe's center, demonstrates the importance of events emanating outside the Big Powers. Also offered as CAS IR 341.
• CAS HI 279: Experiencing Total War
  Analyzes how soldiers and civilians experienced WWI and WWII, which brutally penetrated their everyday lives and affected their bodies, vocabularies, and world-views. Major sources include combat accounts, diaries, letters, songs, material culture, food, and more. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course entitled "Intimate Histories of War" that was previously numbered CAS HI 279. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Creativity/Innovation.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 280: Special Topics in American History
  May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Two topics are offered Fall 2023. Section A1: Race, Power, Policy. Examines the role of policymakers, policies, and practices that have produced and conserved racial inequity and injustice over the course of the history of the United States. Section B1: Power and Pleasure in Asian America. How have Asians and Asian Americans endured and survived US empire, war, and anti-Asian discrimination? Ranging across law, politics, and culture, this course reveals the complicated position of Asian Americans in the US racial order since the nineteenth century.
• CAS HI 284: History of War
  Why do we make war? Nothing else so engages the human genius for creative destruction. From crossbows to nuclear fire, this course traces five centuries of war to uncover depths of depravity and cruelty and heights of sacrifice and suffering.
• CAS HI 287: History of American Foreign Relations since 1898
  Analysis of the history of American foreign policy from the perspective of the changing world and regional international systems; emphasis on the effect of these systems and the impact of America on the creation and operation of international systems. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS HI 290: Topics in History
  May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topic for Spring 2024, Section A1: Fashion and Beauty Under War and Empire. How can clothing and makeup provide insights into war and empire in the twentieth century? With case studies including US war and empire in the Philippines, Vietnam, the Marshall Islands, and Korea, this course reveals how beauty products and fashion accessories can illuminate histories of violence and power.
• CAS HI 291: Politics of the American Environment
  When have Americans addressed declining resources and ecological deterioration? Why did demands for environmental justice develop? We explore how the United States has distributed environmental risks and rewards from the country's beginning to the present. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, The Individual in Community.
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  • The Individual in Community
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS HI 298: Black Freedom Dreams: America and the World
  Surveys the history of African diaspora peoples in the Americas from their African origins and the rise of the Atlantic slave trade through the age of emancipations, investigating the varied meanings of race, resistance, migration, and freedom. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
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  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS HI 299: Civil Rights History
  This course examines the U.S. Civil Rights and the struggle for black freedom movements. From the late nineteenth century through the twenty-first century, we consider events, organizations, "leaders" and organizers, legal campaigns, and political protests to answer the questions: What were the race, class, and gender dynamics within the movements? What were the changing definitions of freedom? The course treats the movement's roots, goals, ideologies, and cultures, and includes a comparison of the struggles for equal rights of Mexican Americans, Native Americans, LGBT folks, and other groups. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • The Individual in Community
  • Teamwork/Collaboration
• CAS HI 300: 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 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 301: Women and Gender in US History
  Examines the ideas and experiences of women in the United States from the 1600s through the late twentieth century. Considers the common factors that shaped women's lives as well as women's diverse class, ethnic, and regional experiences. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 303: Sex, Love, Family: American Relationships from Birth to Death
  Explores Americans' intimate bonds and family dynamics throughout US history. Follows the life cycle from birth to death, surveying common milestones and rituals such as coming of age, coming out, getting married, or having a midlife crisis, and more. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Digital/Multimedia Expression.
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  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 308: Religious Thought in America
  Surveys many of the strategies that American religious thinkers have adopted for interpreting the cosmos, the social order and human experience, and the interaction of those strategies with broader currents of American culture. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS HI 311: The South in History and Literature
  Explores the experience and culture of the U.S. South by focusing on its history and literature to understand how and why the South continues to be seen as a unique component of the larger American experience.
• CAS HI 315: The American West
  We examine the American West, the mythical landscape of freedom and adventure, as a region of violence, empire, and exclusion. Exploring 300 years of Western history, we focus in particular on Indigenous conquest and the continuities of colonialism. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry II
• CAS HI 321: The American Revolution, 1750-1800
  The course examines the American Revolution and America's dramatic war for independence, situating these struggles within broader changes in the society and the Atlantic world. The course also shows how Americans struggled, often violently, to create a stable republic in the aftermath of these truly revolutionary upheavals. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 322: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire
  Examines early modern Britain's global expansion, with a focus on the British isles and the American colonies. Explains how economic growth and imperial warfare shaped Britain and her colonies, and probes the causes of the empire's collapse in 1776. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course titled "Colonial British America from Settlement to Revolution" that was previously numbered CAS HI 322. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 331: Drugs and Security in the Americas
  (Meets with CAS IR 290). Drug trafficking has become a dominant issue in U.S.- Latin American relations. This class examines the War on Drugs from both U.S. and Latin American perspectives in order to draw out racial, socio-economic, political, and gender-based dimensions and explore alternatives. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 338: Repression, Revolution, Rock n' Roll: US in 1950s & 1960s
  Few periods shaped American society, culture and politics as dramatically and enduringly as the 1950s and 1960s, transforming institutions, life experiences, the nation's role in the world, and the ways Americans thought about social problems and political activism. Topics include: Cold War, McCarthyism, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Campus Protest, Counterculture Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II