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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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  • CAS HI 339: A History of the Present: The United States since 1968
    Analyzing the recent experience of the United States and its people in historical perspective, the course allows students to explore important developments in US politics, race relations, economy, and popular culture, investigate diverse social science approaches to contemporary problems, and develop an independent research project. Topics include war, politics, religion, and popular culture as well as changing notions about race, gender, and selfhood. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS HI 341: Political and Cultural Revolution
    Comparative historical analysis of modern and contemporary revolutionary upheavals and cultural change in Europe, the Americas, East Asia, Africa, Middle East, and the former Soviet republics. Examines the challenges posed by modernization, crisis of legitimacy, nationalism, imperial decline, and globalization. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title that was previously numbered CAS HI 215. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS HI 343: Taste, Culture, and Power: The Global History of Food
    An exploration of the global history of food from prehistory to the present, considering the birth of agriculture, food in nations and empires, hunger and nutrition, and the future of eating, including examples from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 347: Bodies, Drugs, and Healing: A Global History of Medicine
    An introduction to the history of medicine in global contexts, offering a broad perspective on the ways that bodies, healers, drugs, and health have been conceptualized, from antiquity to the present day, in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning.
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 348: Colonialism in Africa: Impact and Aftermath
    Uses case studies of particular African societies or nations to examine patterns of European conquest and African resistance; forms of colonial administration and socioeconomic consequences of colonial rule; decolonization and contemporary African liberation movements; economic and political developments since independence; and contemporary social and cultural change.
  • CAS HI 349: History of Religion in Precolonial Africa
    The study of the development of religious traditions in Africa during the period prior to European colonialism. An emphasis on both indigenous religions and the growth and spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the continent as a whole. Also offered as CAS AA 382 and CAS RN 382. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 350: Atlantic History
    Examines the various interactions that shaped the Atlantic World, connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas between 1400 and 1820. Begins by defining the political interaction, then emphasizes cultural exchange, religious conversion, and the revolutionary era.
  • CAS HI 358: Twentieth-Century European Thought and Culture
    This course treats artistic, musical, literary, political, and philosophical works historically. Among its large themes are modernism and the discovery of the unconscious, the cultural effects of both World Wars, democracy and its critics, totalitarian culture, existentialism, and postmodernism. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Writing-Intensive Course.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS HI 360: European Dimensions of the Black Diaspora
    Explores writings about the Black experience in Europe since the 1800s through examinations of historical and literary works, artistic and folkloric depictions, as well as politics and sports in England, France, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands. Also offered as CAS AA 380.
  • CAS HI 363: Early Chinese History
    From the Bronze Age to the seventeenth century, China changed dramatically yet maintained political and cultural cohesion, unlike any other civilization. This course explores both diversity and unity in early Chinese society as well as their historical legacies. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 364: Modern Chinese History
    A hodgepodge of lands and seas between the Pamir and the Pacific, China is ten thousand worlds folded into one. We trace the people who animated those worlds: Manchus, Maoists, and the many. Featuring fun stories and deep thinking. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 367: The Odd Couple: China and the USA, 1776 to the present
    The USA, a bastion of capitalism, and China, the largest communist state on earth, are the two major global powers today. It was not always this way, and the course will map three centuries of this complex historical relationship, filled with mutual admiration and misunderstanding. Effective Spring 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 369: Empires and Modernity's in Motion: Modern Japan and the Asian World
    Modern Japan is a story of miracles and tragedies, both to the extreme. This course explores the rise of the Japanese empire, the fall of its Pan-Asian intrigues, and the reconstitution of a nation on the ruins of empire. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Creativity/Innovation, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Social Inquiry I.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS HI 370: Samurai, Ships, and Soil: Japan Among the Empires of Asia, 1600-1950
    Exotic as it may seem, Japan was never an isolated island country floating off the coast of Asia. This course offers a new narrative about the history of Japan in relation to the imperial orders and transnational spaces of Asia. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Social Inquiry I, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS HI 372: 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 377: The Sword, the Cross, and the Crescent: Byzantium and the Near East
    Examines Byzantine society and culture, focusing on conflicts and cooperation with the Islamic East until 1453, when Muslim Ottomans captured Constantinople and radically altered life and politics in the eastern Mediterranean. Explores lessons from Byzantine-Muslim relations for the twenty-first century.
  • CAS HI 379: Modern Armenian History and Literature
    Introduction to modern Armenian history and literature from the nineteenth-century "cultural renaissance" to the upheavals of the twentieth century--genocide, independence, and Sovietization--and the literatures of Soviet Armenia and the diaspora.
  • CAS HI 383: Modern History and Geopolitics of the Caucasus
    Surveys history of the Caucasus with a focus on Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, from the early nineteenth century to the post-Soviet period. Explores advantages and problems of modernization, nationalism, and major power geopolitics within the context of international political economy.
  • CAS HI 384: History of Genocide
    History and comparative analysis of genocidal mass murder with focus on the twentieth century. Hereros, Armenians, holomodor, Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur. Attention to political leaders, state ideology, dehumanization of victim groups, geopolitical competition, war, empire building and decline.
  • CAS HI 389: Americans and the Middle East
    Examines the intersecting histories of America and the Middle East from the late eighteenth century to the present, focusing first on American missionary and educational efforts in the region and then on American political and military involvement after World War II. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Historical Consciousness

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