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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 292: Capitalism in America: Economic History of the US
    Surveys the history of corporations and private enterprise since the Civil War, disentangling the evolving relationships between business and government and tracing the influence of money, markets, and their managers in American communities from factories to the frontiers. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course with the title "Money, Markets & Managers: Economic History of the United States" that was previously numbered CAS HI 377.
  • CAS HI 298: African American History
    Surveys the history of African Americans from their African origins to the present, investigating their critical role in shaping the meaning of race, rights, freedom, and democracy during slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era. Also offered as CAS AA 371. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS HI 302: Science and American Culture
    Examines the rise of the natural and human sciences as influential forces in American society. Considers why they gained considerable authority in realms of medicine and technology but have proven far more limited in their impact on morality and religion Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • CAS HI 304: Science and Religion: Dialogue and Debate
    Challenges conventional wisdom that science and religion have always been at war in Europe and North America. Explores their interactions, mutual existence, and conflict from Copernicus' claim that the earth revolved around the sun to contemporary debates about evolution. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS HI 305: American Thought and Culture, 1776-1900
    History 305 examines how major American thinkers and intellectual movements of the "long nineteenth century" constructed an "exceptional" national identity by adjusting their culture's provincial Protestant and Enlightenment traditions to the challenges of transnational democratic, Romantic, and secular modes of thinking. Specific topics include Transcendentalism, evangelical and liberal Protestantism, pro- and anti- slavery arguments about "freedom," race and gender theory, philosophical idealism, literary realism, scientific Darwinism, and evolutionary social science. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Critical Thinking
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS HI 313: Internships in Public History
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor.
    Students undertake supervised work in Boston-area institutions dedicated to the public presentation of America's past. Students meet with the instructor to discuss themes in public history theory and practice that, together with the internship experience and related readings, inform a final research project and class presentation. Also offered as CAS AM 313.
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS HI 316: American Urban History
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
    Examines cities in America, from colonial era forward, focusing on Boston, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, and San Francisco in national and transnational context. Focus on social, political, and environmental change to understand present and past urban landscapes. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS HI 317: Nineteenth-Century European Thought and Culture
    This is the century of "system-builders" who aspired to encompass politics, society, and history in their creations. Discuss the ideas of Marx, Mill, and Nietzsche; study the music of Berlioz, the art of Delacroix, and the fiction of Goethe. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course entitled "Intellectual History of Europe in the Nineteenth Century" that was previously numbered CAS HI 315 or the course entitled "Nineteenth-Century European Thought and Culture" previously numbered CAS HI 223. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
    • Historical Consciousness
  • 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.
    • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS HI 328: Slavery and Freedom in the Civil War Era
    What led to the US Civil War and how did Americans, North and South, black and white, male and female, experience this central cataclysm? What were its consequences and what has been its legacy? Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS HI 329: The Gilded Age, 1877-1914
    Examines the economic, social, cultural and political transformation from the end of the Reconstruction until 1914. Specific focus on the industrial revolution, foreign policy, the nation state, the metropolis, and conflicts that emerged in American society during the Gilded Age.
  • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Ethical Reasoning
  • CAS HI 335: International Nuclear Politics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120)
    This course examines politics, history, and technologies surrounding nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. It foregrounds the "global atomic marketplace" with emphasis on the challenges and opportunities for nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation. Also offered as CAS IR 315 and CAS PO 358. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Writing- Intensive Course.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Writing-Intensive Course

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