Spring 2022 Courses

The Emergence of Modern Europe: Renaissance to the Present

CAS HI 102 (4 credits) – Clifford Backman

What is Europe? This course explores the emergence of Europe as an idea and place. Draws on literature and art from Machiavelli to Russian ballet to explain Europe’s changing meaning; focuses on nation- and state-building to explain Europe’s shifting boundaries.

Black Power in the Classroom: The History of Black Studies

CAS HI 112 (4 credits) – Aminah Pilgrim

Centers Black experiences, cultures, knowledge production and identity formation in the United States and in the African Diaspora across time and space. Examines and traces the genealogies of Black Studies as a discipline: its political, ideological, and practical foundations on college campuses and in communities. Also explores earlier traditions and contemporary work in Black radical thought and activism that lay the groundwork for and build on the founding principles of Black Studies by mobilizing an intersectional and diasporic lens. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Research and Information Literacy.

The Emerging United States since 1865

CAS HI 152 (4 credits) – David Shorten

After the Civil War, Americans created a new urbanizing and industrializing landscape, flush with immigrants, growing class conflict, and racial divisions. This course explores how, through times of prosperity, depression, and war, Americans transformed the United States into one of the world’s leading nations. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.

World History 1500-Present

CAS HI 176 (4 credits) – Simon Payaslian

Examines the religious encounters, economic rivalries, and military battles produced by European imperialism in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia since 1500. Analyzes how European colonialism came to dominate the world and nationalist movements succeeded in gaining independence. Carries social science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.

History of Boston: Community and Conflict

CAS HI 190 (4 credits) – Bruce Schulman

Explores the history of Boston and the city’s changes over time. Students work with archival objects, maps, and manuscripts. Topics include Native American history, colonial settlement, revolution, immigration, urban development, and race. Students visit nearby historical sites and museums. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, The Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration.

What Is Europe?

CAS HI 191 (4 credits) – Phillip Haberkern

Explores key moments in history when cultural contact prompted Europeans to reconsider how they defined themselves culturally and geographically. Lectures and discussions are combined with trips to local museums/archives to analyze the material remains of this process of self-definition. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Teamwork/Collaboration.

Click here for more information on the HI 191 enrollment priorities and waitlist.

The Historian’s Craft

CAS HI 200 (4 credits) – Alexis Peri

Required workshop for majors, normally taken in the sophomore year. Gives students the opportunity to analyze original sources and engage with leading works of historical scholarship. Explores how historians reconstruct and interpret the past using creativity, deduction, and contextual analysis.

History of Piracy

CAS HI 214 (4 credits) – Clifford Backman

Examines piracy in European history from ancient time to the present, focusing on its economic and social causes, and its consequences. Addresses too the modern permutations of piracy as a form of social protest and a technique of terrorism.

The European Enlightenment

CAS HI 215 (4 credits) – James Schmidt

How Europe became modern. The rise of science, critique of religion, and struggle for rights. The public sphere emerges: newspapers, Freemasons, coffee, salons, smut. The invention of a cosmopolitan republic of letters; Voltaire, Diderot, Kant, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings.

Power and Authority in Europe since World War I

CAS HI 218 (4 credits) – Jonathan Zatlin

Explores the breakdown of traditional authority, the rise of authoritarianism, and the triumph of democracy in twentieth-century Europe. Examines changing notions of power and legitimacy through major events, including communist revolutions, fascist takeovers, wartime occupations, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Historical Consciousness.

Media and Politics in Modern America

CAS HI 231 (4 credits) – Bruce Schulman

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.

Nineteenth-Century France

CAS HI 267 (4 credits) – James Johnson

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.

The History of the Soviet Union

CAS HI 273 (4 credits) – Alexis Peri

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.

Topics in History

CAS HI 290 (4 credits) – Charles Dellheim

May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topic for Spring 2022: Creativity and Crisis. 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.

Capitalism in America: Economic History of the US

CAS HI 292 (4 credits) – Louis Ferleger

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.

Women and Gender in US History

CAS HI 301 (4 credits) – Nina Silber

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.

American Thought and Culture, 1900 to the Present

CAS HI 306 (4 credits) – David Shorten

History 306 examines American thought in the 20th century when thinkers anointed their times “modern” and themselves “modernists” in revolt against the moral certainties and progressivist faiths of the 19th century. Four discourses driving this turn are spotlighted in the course’s first half: philosophical pragmatism, social science relativism, non-rational modern art, and debates over America’s role in the world. In the second half we consider post-World II conservative, multicultural, and postmodernist challenges to modernist norms in science, religion, liberal politics, and popular culture. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking.

Religious Thought in America

CAS HI 308 (4 credits) – Jon Roberts

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.

Internships in Public History

CAS HI 313 (4 credits) – Jan Haenraets

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.

American Urban History

CAS HI 316 (4 credits) – Andrew Robichaud

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.

The American Revolution, 1750-1800

CAS HI 321 (4 credits) – Brendan McConville

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.

History of Religion in Precolonial Africa

CAS HI 349 (4 credits) – John Thornton

The study of the development of religious traditions in Africa during the period prior to European colonialism. An emphasis on both indigenous religions and the growth and spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the continent as a whole. Also offered as CAS AA 382 and CAS RN 382. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness.

Atlantic History

CAS HI 350 (4 credits) – John Thornton

Examines the various interactions that shaped the Atlantic World, connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas between 1400 and 1820. Begins by defining the political interaction, then emphasizes cultural exchange, religious conversion, and the revolutionary era. Also offered as CAS AA 385.

Environmental History of Africa

CAS HI 351 (4 credits) – James McCann

Focus on the African environment and ecological systems over the past 150 years. Topics include climate change, hydrography, agriculture, deforestation, soil erosion, disease, conservation, famine, and the role of colonialism and government policy in environmental change. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.

Power, Leadership, and Governance in Africa and the Caribbean

CAS HI 352 (4 credits) – Linda Heywood

Haitian Revolution; British Caribbean, leadership, governance, and power in Africa during the period of legitimate trade; visionaries, dictators, and nationalist politics in the Caribbean; chiefs, western elites, and nationalism in colonial Africa; road to governance in post-colonial Caribbean and Africa. Also offered as CAS AA 395 and IR 394.

History of Modern Iran, 1900-Present

CAS HI 381 (4 credits) – Houchang Chehabi

Geographical/historical background; social structure, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversities; Anglo-Russian interventions; consequences of tobacco concession; constitutional revolution and reform; Qajar legacy; centralization, secularization, modernization under Pahlavis; oil and Mossadeg; autocracy and revolution; liberals, communists, fundamentalists, and Islamic revolution. Also offered as CAS IR 397.

Mecca to Dubai: Cities in the Middle East

CAS HI 390 (4 credits) – Betty Anderson

Examines Middle Eastern history through the lens of its cities because cities have always been pivotal sites of governance, religious life, cultural development, architectural legacies, and political protest. Today, they are the epicenter of neoliberal globalization. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.

Israel: History, Politics, Culture, Identity

CAS HI 392 (4 credits) – David Lehrer

Using a broad array of readings, popular music, documentaries, film and art, this course explores Israel’s political system, culture, and society, including the status of minorities in the Jewish state; post-1967 Israeli settlement projects; and the struggle for Israel’s identity. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Critical Thinking.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

CAS HI 393 (4 credits) – Nahum Karlinsky

History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, analysis of conflicting narratives through primary sources and film. Students present their own reflections on the conflict and debate possibilities of resolution. Counts toward majors and minors in History, International Relations, Middle East & North Africa Studies, and Jewish Studies. Also offered as CAS JS 286. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.

Senior Honors Seminar 2

CAS HI 402 (4 credits) – Benjamin Siegel

The second of a two-semester seminar that guides students through the research and writing of an honors thesis grounded in primary historical research. Students participate in a workshop environment and are matched with an additional faculty advisor.

Comparative European Fascism

CAS HI 430 (4 credits) – Jonathan Zatlin

Analyzes fascism as a political and social movement in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and beyond. Emphasizes the creation of popular dictatorships through propaganda, repression, and racism, and ends with the fascist attempt to remake Europe through violence and genocide.

Topics in the History of Popular Culture

CAS HI 450 (4 credits) – Jon Roberts

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.

Animals in America

CAS HI 460 (4 credits) – Andrew Robichaud

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.

American Consumer History

CAS HI 475 (4 credits) – Louis Ferleger

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.

Twentieth Century Japanese History

CAS HI 488 (4 credits) – Ronald Richardson

An examination of the cultural, social, and political impact of World War I on Japanese society; the nature of Taisho liberalism; 1930s militaristic nationalism, with emphasis on the role of the United States leading into and beyond World War II.

The African Diaspora in the Americas

CAS HI 489 (4 credits) – Linda Heywood

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.

Blacks and Asians: Encounters Through Time and Space

CAS HI 490 (4 credits) – Ronald Richardson

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.

Topics in History

CAS HI 500 (4 credits)

May be repeated for credit as topic varies. Topic for Fall 2021: Ten Years that Shook the World: Britain, 1938-48. This seminar explores the critical period from 1938 to 1948, from the Munich Conference to the creation of the Welfare State, “the New Jerusalem.” Three topics are offered Spring 2022.

Topics in History

CAS HI 500 A1 – James Johnson

History of the Self. Considers the changing experience and description of the self and selfhood from Antiquity to the present. Readings include biography, autobiography, and works of scholarship in history and philosophy. Appropriate for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.

The Age of Hamilton

CAS HI 508 (4 credits) – Brendan McConville

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.

Meaning, Memory, and History

CAS HI 515 (4 credits) – James Schmidt

Explores central issues in the philosophy of history, from Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche to Collingwood, Popper, and Danto. Topics include: is history a science? If so, what kind? How does it differ from tradition and memory? Does it have a meaning?

The Prevention of Genocide

CAS HI 543 (4 credits) – Simon Payaslian

(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.

Jews in Modern Culture

CAS HI 550 (4 credits) – Charles Dellheim

Examines the role and impact of Jews as producers and brokers of modern culture, with focus on fields ranging from psychoanalysis to movies. Considers whether Jews’ cultural activities were distinctive and, if so, how and why.

The United States as a World Power

CAS HI 578 (4 credits) – David Mayers

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.

Protest and Resistance in the Americas

CAS HI 582 (4 credits) – Jeffrey Rubin

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.

The Historian’s Craft

GRS HI 801 (4 credits) – Betty Anderson

Intensive training in the best practices of historical research, writing, publication, and oral presentation. Culminates in the production of a publishable journal article.

Graduate Topics in History

GRS HI 802 (4 credits) – Phillip Haberkern

May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topic for Spring 2022: Pedagogy and Professionalism. Introduces graduate students to best practices in undergraduate pedagogy and assessment; the scholarship of teaching and learning in history; and provides a framework for oral exam preparation and the construction of course syllabi.

African Historiography

GRS HI 870 (4 credits) – James McCann

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.

Dissertation Workshop

GRS HI 900 (4 credits) – Sarah Phillips

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.