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  • 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.
  • 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 This course considers this question by exploring literature, film, and historical documents.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 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
  • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course

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