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 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
• CAS HI 568: The Modern Metropolis: Approaches to Urban History
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Cities such as New York, Paris, London, and Shanghai captured the worst problems and most exciting possibilities of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This course investigates how urban spaces facilitated commerce, social life, and the forging of modern identities. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 569: Boston Architectural and Community History Workshop
  Focuses on class readings, lectures, and research on a single neighborhood or community in Boston (or Greater Boston). Greatest emphasis is on using primary sources-- land titles and deeds, building permits, fire insurance atlases and other maps. Topic for Fall 2020: Somerville Project. Explores the architectural and urban transformation of Somerville from agricultural fields, country estates, to an area of dense urban settlement and industrial development. Explores places and sources that help assess and narrate the rich history of architectural and urban development.
• CAS HI 574: Introduction to Critical University Studies: Space, Place, and BU
  This team-taught seminar uses the lens of "critical university studies" to consider the ways colonialism and white supremacy have shaped the history of American universities. Readings and archival research examine land appropriation, slavery and anti-slavery, segregation, and policing at Boston University. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU HUB areas: Writing-Intensive, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 575: The Birth of Modern America, 1896-1929
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing and consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - The political, economic, social, and cultural history of the United States in the formative years of the early twentieth century. Topics include Progressivism, World War I, immigration, modernism, the Scopes Trial, suffrage, the Harlem Renaissance, and the emergence of modern business practices. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 578: The United States as a Great Power
  The course material is organized along a debate format. Although the course is primarily concerned with twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy, attention is also given to eighteenth-and nineteenth-century issues. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS HI 580: White Supremacist Thought: Self, Culture and Society since the 18th Century
  Within a global and comparative context, this course explores the simultaneous, mutualistically symbiotic emergence and sustained codependent development of autonomous individuality and white supremacy in western Europe and the United States from the 18th century to the present day.
• CAS HI 582: Protest and Resistance in the Americas
  How do ordinary people rise up to challenge economic exploitation, racism, police violence, and environmental harm? This course examines protest movements in Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, and the US from the Mexican Revolution to Black Lives Matter.
• CAS HI 584: Labor, Sexuality, and Resistance in the Afro-Atlantic World
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing. - The role of slavery in shaping the society and culture of the Afro-Atlantic world, highlighting the role of labor, the sexual economy of slave regimes, and the various strategies of resistance deployed by enslaved people. Also offered as CAS AA 514. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS HI 586: African City Life
  Studying urban African lives in the 20th century, including cinemagoers in Zanzibar, footballers in Kinshasa, workers in Dakar, and revolutionaries in Algiers, this course examines cities as crucibles of change and Africans’ fight for a just and sustainable urban belonging. Effective Spring 2026, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS HI 587: U.S.-Mexican Borders
  Examines the geographic border, as well as political and cultural boundaries inside Mexico and the U.S., from 1848 to the present. Topics include the Chicano movement, maquiladora assembly plants, the Zapatista rebellion, youth gangs, free trade, and music and art.
• CAS HI 698: African American Historiography
  Graduate seminar in African American history surveys shifts in historiography in the last 25 years in slavery studies, Black women's, Black youth history, Great Migration, the histories of racial justice and coalitional movements (CR, BP, BLM), and the recent turn in carceral studies.
• CAS HI 800: European Historiography
  Examines historical writing about Europe through changing trends in method and approach.
• CAS HI 801: The Historian's Craft
  Intensive training in the best practices of historical research, writing, publication, and oral presentation. Culminates in the production of a publishable journal article.
• CAS HI 802: Advanced Techniques for Historians
  Offers PhD students a workshop environment, tailored to participants’ specific needs, for honing academic and professional skills, including writing style, public speaking, technology use, pedagogy, networking, and more.
• CAS HI 808: The Evolution of Historiography
  This course offers an introduction to the development of historical studies, moving from their origins in nineteenth-century Europe to their global practice today, with a focus on the continually expanding understanding of what actors and subjects constitute history.
• CAS HI 809: Historical Methods
  Prerequisites: For first-year students in the History MA or PhD program. Asks how historians do history; what problems and possibilities they encounter finding and interpreting evidence; and how they communicate their stories to various publics. Readings showcase innovative methodologies, including works from other fields such as anthropology, geography, and literary studies.
• CAS HI 850: American Historiography
  Examines the methodological and professional development of American historians since the 1880s, changes in the field since the founding period, and new directions in U.S. history.
• CAS HI 870: African Historiography
  Examines historical writing about the African continent through key trends in the study of themes and regional historiographies. Also highlights recent works in the field.
• CAS HI 900: Dissertation Writing
  Graduate Prerequisites: dissertation level in History. - A workshop designed for students writing a dissertation that provides them with critical responses to their work and addresses important issues associated with becoming a professional historian.