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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 440: Refugee Hollywood (1933-1950)
    Examines the flight of artists, writers, and intellectuals from Germany to Los Angeles in the wake of Hitler's rise to power with a focus on accounts by the emigres themselves, their works, and their influence on American culture. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS HI 450: Topics in the History of Popular Culture
    May be repeated for credit if topic is different. Topic for Spring 2022, Section A1: Horror and American Culture. Course relates the genre of horror as expressed in literature, film, and other media to both the primordial fears of individuals and the collective fears of American society as those fears changed over time.
  • CAS HI 451: Fashion as History
    This seminar treats clothing and other products of material culture as historical documents. Explores what clothing can tell us about key developments in the modern period relating to trade and commerce, empire, gender, class, industry, revolution, nation-building, identity politics, and globalization. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in 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 460: Animals in America
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR120)
    Examines the place of animals in North American culture and society from pre- colonial times to the twentieth century, to shed light on popular beliefs, social relationships, environmental change, and politics. From hunting to husbandry, pet keeping to popular entertainment, we will look at animals to understand larger trends in American history. Topics include pigs in New York City, Jumbo the Elephant, and Bambi. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS HI 465: The United States and the Cold War
    Examination of U.S. Cold War foreign policy from its origins at the end of World War II to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and of the Soviet Union. Also offered as CAS IR 465.
  • CAS HI 467: Postwar America: Issues in Political, Cultural, and Social History, 1945-69
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing course (WR 120 or equivalent)
    Exploring a variety of source materials, analytic methods, and modes of writing, students investigate how, after the upheavals of World War II, American fought over and refashioned new norms and ideals in politics, daily life, and the home, Topics include Cold War culture, youth rebellion, the African American freedom movement, liberalism, the Vietnam war, and the counterculture. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS HI 475: American Consumer History
    The history of consumerism in modern America. Topics include origins and critiques of the culture of consumption; the development of national markets; advertising and commercial amusements; and the relationship of consumer society to religion, gender, ethnicity, and class.
  • 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
    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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • 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
    Exploration of historical encounters between Africans and people of African descent, and Asians and people of Asian descent. How such people imagined themselves, interacted with each other, viewed each other, influenced each other, and borrowed from each other. Also offered as CAS AA 490.
  • CAS HI 491: Directed Study
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor and approval of the department and CAS Room 105.
  • CAS HI 500: Topics in History
    May be repeated for credit as topic varies. Topic for Fall 2023, Section B1: Getting Around: Transportation, Cars, and Community in the Modern World. 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.
  • CAS HI 502: Drafts of History: Journalism and Historical Revisionism
    Considers episodes from U.S. history, comparing the "draft" of journalists to subsequent historical accounts. Analyzes how new evidence alters understanding of events, but also how different eras ask questions about the past, interrogate different sources, and appeal to different audiences. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Oral and/or Signed Communication.
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS HI 503: Race, Ethnicity, and Childhood in US History
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar.
    The history of childhood in US History intersects with the interdisciplinary area of childhood studies. Within that, the histories of Black children and children of ethnic minorities and historically marginalized young people is a burgeoning subfield. This course examines how identities inclusive of (and structural inequities associated with) race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and sexuality have differently affected the lives and experiences of young people in the United States from the colonial period through to the 21st century. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Historical Consciousness (HCO), Creativity/Innovation.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS HI 508: The Age of Hamilton
    The course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the world in the aftermath of the War of the American Revolution, through the lens of one of its most iconic figures. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking

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