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Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. 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 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS HI 229: The Great Powers and the Eastern Mediterranean
    The Eastern Mediterranean as center of Great Power confrontation. Its impact on wider international relations, the domestic political results, the role of sea power, and the origins, conduct, and resolution of wars. Also offered as CAS IR 325.
  • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 267: Nineteenth-Century France
    Political, economic, social, and cultural developments of France, 1814-1914. Themes include the enduring legacy of the Revolution in French politics, romanticism, industrialization, impressionism and the avant-garde, nationalism, the Dreyfus affair.
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • 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 and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Critical Thinking
  • 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.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • 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 283: The Twentieth-Century American Presidency
    Examines the shifting role of the presidency in American politics, especially over the course of the twentieth century. Considers not only the accomplishments of individual presidents and institutional changes in the executive branch but also the evolving place of the presidency in American popular culture. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Social Inquiry II.
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Social Inquiry II
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS HI 290: Topics in History
    May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topic for Fall 2022: 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. Two topics are offered Spring 2023. Section A1: Modernity and its Discontents. Explores major social, political, ethical, and aesthetic issues in modern European history through literature, film, painting, and social thought. Topics include good and evil, sexuality and civilization, capital and labor, as well as collaboration and resistance. Section B1: Warfare in Africa. Explores antiquity, the Slave Trade, Imperialism, and Insurgency. How Africans have waged war through history, beginning with ancient Egypt and proceeding through the course of the building of states and Empires, to the military culture that underlay the slave trade.
  • 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.
    • Social Inquiry I
    • The Individual in Community

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