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 480: The Theater of History
  A practical workshop in the uses of history as source for theatrical productions including narrative films, television and other forms of performance arts, including dance, and the uses of such creative engagement as modes of historical imagination.
• CAS HI 482: Merchants, Pirates, Missionaries, and the State in Maritime Asia, 600-2000
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Oceans connected the peoples of coastal Asia, Africa, and Oceania long before the arrival of Europeans in the 1500s. This course examines how commerce, piracy, religious contact, and imperialisms shaped maritime Asia, and how oceans facilitated our own era's global connections. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 488: Twentieth Century Japanese History
  An examination of the cultural, social, and political impact of World War I on Japanese society; the nature of Taisho liberalism; 1930s militaristic nationalism, with emphasis on the role of the United States leading into and beyond World War II.
• CAS HI 489: The African Diaspora in the Americas
  History of peoples of African descent in the Americas after end of slavery from an international framework. Examines development of racial categories, emergence of national identities in wake of the wars of independence, diverse Black communities in the twentieth century. Also offered as CAS AA 489.
• CAS HI 490: Blacks and Asians: Encounters Through Time and Space
  This course comparatively explores how artists, writers, and activists of African descent and those of Asian descent have struggled against the political-economic, spiritual, psychological and cultural aggressions of global white supremacy and imagined and invented new modes of human liberation. Also offered as CAS AA 490.
• CAS HI 500: Topics in History
  May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topic for Fall 2024: Before the Deluge: Weimar Germany, 1918-1933. Explores Weimar’s fragility and resilience. Explores problems of political polarization, from authoritarian thought to insurrectionary violence; economic instability, from hyperinflation to Depression; social integration, from reproductive and gay rights to homicidal racism; and cultural production, from philosophy to film. Topic for Spring 2025, Section A1: Love and Lust in the French Empire. Explores the history of intimacy across the nineteenth and twentieth century French Empire. We discuss how patriarchy, racism, and class underpinned colonial norms and anxieties. Topics include sexuality, marriage, and childbearing in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Topic for Spring 2025, Section B1: Black Erotics and Ecstasy: Feminist and Queer Studies. Attends to notions of the erotic and ecstasy in black feminist and queer historiography by considering racialized sexualities, desires, and longings in relation to the persistence of injury and violence that frame the history of slavery and its afterlives.
• CAS HI 504: The Civil War in American Memory
  From the immediate post-war years through very recent political conflicts, Americans have vigorously contested the memory of their Civil War. This course considers this question by exploring literature, film, and historical documents. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 505: The American South in History, Literature, and Film
  Explores the American South through literature, film, and other sources. Considers what, if anything, has been distinctive about the Southern experience and how a variety of Americans have imagined the region over time. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the same title that was previously numbered CAS HI 462. Also offered as CAS AM 505. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 506: The Transformation of Early New England: Witches, Whalers and Warfare
  Explores how religious schisms and revival, warfare with native Americans, political revolution, and commercial development transformed New England from a Puritanical agricultural society into an urbanized, industrial society by the outbreak of the American Civil War. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS HI 507: Three Revolutions
  The course examines how the English civil wars, the Glorious Revolution, and the American Revolution altered Anglo-American political thought and encouraged the rise of a democratic order and changed the nature of governance. Writers from Hobbes and Milton to Burke and Jefferson grappled with these transformations that created political modernity. The course situates these changes within their broader social and spiritual contextes and explores the continuation of inequality within a democratic order. Effective Spring 2021, 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 514: Enlightenment and Its Critics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Explores how eighteenth-century criticisms of the Enlightenment have been taken up by twentieth-century thinkers such as Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, Gadamer, and Foucault; discusses recent defenses of Enlightenment ideals of reason, critique and autonomy by Habermas and others. Also offered as CAS PO 592 and CAS PH 412.
• CAS HI 526: Poverty and Democracy: Modern India and the United States in Comparative Perspective
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - Through an examination of historical, empirical, and journalistic evidence, students examine the peculiar and pernicious nature of modern and contemporary poverty in the context of two large democracies, India and the United States. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry II.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 527: Getting Around: Transportation, Cars, and Community in the Modern World
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: "First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or 120)" - Explores the history of transportation and mobility and its impact on daily life, community, environment, and justice, examining automobiles, walking, biking, and mass transit in diverse global contexts from the nineteenth century to the present day. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Social Inquiry II.
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  • The Individual in Community
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 537: World War II: Causes, Course, Consequences
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior and senior standing. - Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and 75 million ordinary and extraordinary dead. From 1939-1945, the whole world waged total war in cruel ways unknown to any history before or since. Explore the causes, course, and consequences of these events.
• CAS HI 539: Nazis on Film
  Explores changing representations of Nazis on the silver screen, from celebrations of the "Third Reich" to post-1945 depictions of Nazis as evil. Focuses on the longing for strong leadership, pleasure at inflicting pain on enemies, fear of others, and racism. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 543: The Prevention of Genocide
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: one previous course in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, or consent of i nstructor. - (Meets with CAS IR 437.) Examines various approaches to and challenges in prevention of genocide, including ability of existing international institutions to develop early warning systems. Evaluation of effectiveness of unilateral military action and multilateral options at the UN and regional levels to stop genocide.
• CAS HI 546: Places of Memory: Historic Preservation Theory and Practice
  Covers key aspects of the history, theory, and practice of historic preservation. Preservation is discussed in the context of cultural history and the changing relationship between existing buildings and landscapes and attitudes toward history, memory, invented tradition, and place. Also offered as CAS AM 546 and CAS AH 546.
• CAS HI 549: Nationalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Explores the origins of modern nationalism as a major force, molding identity and motivating politics. Examines the relationship between nationalism, revolution, and war, as well as the challenges presented by ethnic revivalism, ethnonational conflicts, and globalization.
• CAS HI 553: Transnational Histories of Asia: How Homo Sapiens Changed the Largest Continent on Our Planet
  From archaic humans roaming the woods of Siberia to the thunderous call of the modern revolutions, the story of the Asian continent is the story of our species and its aspirations. This course tells that story from a transnational perspective. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Oral and Signed Communication.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
• CAS HI 559: Wars, Peace, and Diplomacy
  Why do wars occur? What constitutes peace? How is peace maintained or lost? What are the virtues and deficiencies of diplomacy as practitioners have implemented it? How do memory, justice, and the requirements of security interact in the international arena? Effective Fall 2023 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Ethical Reasoning.
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  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy