Explore Spring 2027 Upper-Division History Course Offerings

9:30-10:45 AM | TR | Taught by Kristin Heineman

This course will examine the history of the Roman Empire from the beginnings of the Augustan principate (31 BC), through the Roman peace of the first and second centuries, the turmoil of the third century, the restoration of the empire under Christian rulership in the fourth century, and the fall of the western empire in the fifth century.

We will explore the major political events of the period and their chronological framework and will also examine broader social and cultural questions that relate to Rome and the Mediterranean world.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Critical Thinking

10:00-10:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Nicole Archambeau

This lecture-based course will compare the emergence and transformation of governments in Europe and England. We will consider governing systems such as empires, kingdoms, and city-states and the workings of decentralized and centralized governing systems. We will also look at expressions of authority and methods of developing authority. The course will use secondary and primary sources to build a framework of information about political regions of Europe, especially Germanic speaking lands, France, England, and the Italian Peninsula.

In this course we will obtain and synthesize information from multiple types of sources. We will question assumptions about how medieval governments worked and revise conclusions in order to account for new information. We will also consider complexity and uncertainty in relation to the historical narrative.

Course skills:

• Problem-Solving
• Communication

1:00-1:50 PM | MWF | Taught by Deborah Yalen

This course explores the political, economic, cultural, and social forces that once constituted Soviet civilization. Students will address the tension between utopian ideology and state-sponsored violence; ethnic diversity and the role of Bolshevik nationality policy in the consolidation and collapse of the Soviet Union; the use of visual propaganda in a society with historically low literacy rates; the evolving status of women and the family in Soviet society; the importance of literature as a mode of resistance to political repression; and the degree to which the Soviet Union was in fact a “socialist” or “communist” state. We will relate these topics to current events, particularly in connection with Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and its stance towards “the West.” 

Course skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Problem-Solving
• Communication

1:00-1:50 PM | MWF | Taught by Mike Mansfield

This course examines the strategic, naval, and land campaigns fought across the European Theater, the Mediterranean basin, and North Africa during World War Two. In addition to discussing specific battles and campaigns, we will examine the origins of the conflict, the personalities involved, and the stories and experiences of those who fought.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Data Literacy

2:00-3:15 PM | TR | Taught by Derek Everett

Bitter, spiteful politics? Rampant economic inequality? Environmental degradation? Flexing military might in contentious ways? Widespread racism and anti-immigrant sentiment? A president born in New York City who loves to be the center of attention? No, it’s not today’s headlines, it’s US 1876-1917. This course will explore these topics and more, illustrating how the United States evolved from the wake of the Civil War into the early twentieth century.

Course skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Adaptability
• Data Literacy

12:30-1:45 PM | TR | Taught by Douglas Sheflin

This is an introduction to the history of American foreign policy since the beginning of World War I. For some scholars, that moment marked a significant shift in a turn toward an American state and foreign policy agenda that sought more economic, political, and diplomatic influence abroad and that culminated with its progression to superpower status in the aftermath of World War II.

The “hot” wars of the Cold War years, the erosion of the USSR in the early 1990s, American involvement in the Middle East, and the development of the War on Terror have all produced shifts inAmerican policy and Americans’ willingness and ability to influence global dynamics that continues today. This information is vital to our understanding of America’s role in the world during the 21st century.

Course skills:

• Problem-Solving
• Critical Thinking

1:00-1:50 PM | MWF | Taught by Tracy Brady

The American West was one of the places with the earliest and greatest cultural diversity in the US, from diverse western Indigenous peoples, displaced eastern Indigenous peoples, and immigrants from all over the world, including white Americans. We will explore the meeting ground of all these peoples and study their interactions with one another as well as the landscape. We will read award-winning historical monographs, examine primary sources, and practice research, writing, and discussion skills.

Course skills:

• Work Ethic
• Adaptability
• Project Management

10:00-10:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Adam Thomas

This course is foremost a history class that uses the built environment (buildings and landscapes) as its primary text. It investigates architecture as artifact and treats buildings, neighborhoods, and cities as texts recording the cultural, political, and economic circumstances in which they were constructed. Yet like all texts, familiarity with language is necessary for comprehension.

This course seeks to unlock the language of architecture, design, and construction. While this is not a design class, it will focus on the development and analysis of American architecture. Through studying the language of architecture, historians can “read” buildings and landscapes, offering a more vibrant and informed interpretation of history than the written record alone can provide.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Creativity
• Innovation

9:30-10:45 AM | TR | Taught by Douglas Sheflin

This course is an introduction to the study of environmental history with a specific focus on the United States from the colonial period to the present. It assumes that humans are a part of the natural world, that natural conditions have significantly impacted human history, and that the study of human-environmental interactions, or how humans have shaped and been shaped by nature, is an innovative and insightful lens through which we can reconsider the nation’s past.

It will help us to think in new ways about events that we have long known something about, whether English colonization of New England, the Civil War, the New Deal, or climate change. In doing so, we will better appreciate how thinking about how humans have interacted with their environments will help us to better understand the past and present as well as think about future challenges.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Problem-Solving
• Critical Thinking

11:00-11:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Mike Mansfield

This course examines the role of the Armed Forces in American society and the development of military traditions, institutions, and practices.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Data Literacy
• Critical Thinking 

12:30-1:45 PM | TR | Taught by Derek Everett

Do you wonder how immigration became such a contentious issue? Spoiler alert: the chaos of today is nothing new, just the latest verse of a long-sung tune. Peopling what is now the United States, and how those diverse cultures and individuals interacted with each other, provides a framework for this course. 

Lectures and assigned readings will explore immigration, citizenship, and the rise of restrictive policies governing who can come to the United States. The anti-immigrant theme of nativism, a trend older than the United States itself, provides another centuries-long thread to follow through this course.

Course skills:

• Adaptability
• Critical Thinking
• Data Literacy

9:30-10:45 AM | TR | Taught by Tracy Brady

HIST 370-001: U.S. History Through Film

In this class, students will explore Hollywood’s changing depictions of historical events across time. For example, we examine how (and why) Hollywood depictions of slavery and enslaved people have changed from over 100 years ago examining films from Birth of a Nation (1915) to Twelve Years a Slave (2013). How can The Great Train Robbery (1903), Shane (1953), Blazing Saddles (1974) and The Hateful Eight (2015) all tell the story of the American West? The class will focus primarily on discussion of films, journal articles, books, film reviews, and various primary sources. In addition, all students will complete a research project. Come watch some movies with us! 

Course skills:

• Leadership
• Collaboration
• Innovation

11:00 AM-12:15 PM | TR | Taught by Jessica Jackson

Through discussion, current events, digital storytelling, public history, and young adult literature, this course introduces students to the formation, growth, and currency of various civil rights movements in American history, with a particular focus on the efforts of African American, women, Latinx, Native American/Indigenous, and LGBTQ+communities. 

Connecting the history with contemporary issues of race, ethnicity, gender, immigration, class, sexuality, and intersectionality, we will work to explore: How does our telling of this history better shape our understanding of current political and cultural debates? How does history and story help to better inform our conversations about equity and civil rights today?

Course skills:

• Communication
• Problem-Solving
• Critical Thinking

11:00-11:50 AM | MWF | Taught by John Didier

Introduction to historical methodology including asking historical questions, proficiency in analysis of primary sources, placing sources into historical context, making historical claims, and use of primary sources in supporting those claims.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Project Management
• Work Ethic

11:00 AM-12:15 PM | TR | Taught by Tracy Brady

This course serves as an introduction to historical methods, in other words, how historians “do history.” Humans have always told stories about themselves and their ancestors for entertainment, to understand where they came from, and to make sense of the world they inhabited. Historians do the same thing. The theme of story telling allows students great flexibility in their research topics as well as the methods they use to approach their topics. 

By exploring the many ways to tell stories about the past, students will learn the skills and techniques used by historians to analyze the past. Upon completion of the course, students will understand how to ask historical questions, how to find, analyze and critique primary sources, and how to use those sources to craft and support arguments about the past. In addition, we will explore how the writing of American history has changed over time.

Course skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Teamwork
• Creativity

9:00-9:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Jim Lindsay

Some history courses focus on a broad region over decades, even centuries. This course examines the history of a very small and contested region over a span of more than 3,000 years. Issues we will investigate include: the importance of physical geography, material culture, the Bible, and other ancient texts for understanding the history of ancient Canaan (biblical Israel & Judah) in the context of the ancient Near East; competing conceptions of the Holy Land in the Jewish (Eretz HaKodesh), Christian (Terra Sancta), and Islamic (al-Ard al-Muqaddasa) traditions in antiquity and the middle ages; competing conceptions of the Holy Land in the context of the modern Middle East.

Course skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Work Ethic

2:00-3:15 PM | TR | Taught by Eli Alberts

After a brief introduction to South Asia under Mughal dominance, we will trace the development of European colonialism on the Indian subcontinent, from the arrival of Portuguese ships on the Malabar coast in the early 16th century to the global competition during the Seven Years War, and the emergence of British India.

This course also explores the various nationalist movements against British rule that led to partition and the creation of the states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Burma.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Adaptability
• Critical Thinking

2:00-2:50 PM | MWF | Taught by John Didier

China is not, and never has been, the “mysterious East.” That is a figment of “Western” imagination. China and the Chinese are eminently “knowable,” even in their ancient, i.e., proto-Chinese and early-Chinese, forms. Toward achieving this end, this course seeks to develop within students, as comprehensive as possible, an understanding of early – or ancient and classical, i.e., pre-imperial (to 221 B.C.E.) – Chinese history and culture.

Course skills:

• Leadership
• Problem-Solving
• Initiative

12:30-1:45 PM | TR | Taught by Hong Xiang

This course explores the historical construction of Japanese national identity and challenges common assumptions about “traditional” culture. Students will examine major developments in modern Japanese history, including imperialism, constitutionalism, militarism, democracy, capitalism, and contemporary issues of war, peace, and international relations.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Problem-Solving
• Data Literacy

10:00-10:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Eli Alberts

This course covers the Korean and Vietnam Wars, beginning with the reconfiguration of power in Asia that resulted from the Japanese de-colonization of the Korean peninsula and Indochina. We will explore these conflicts from the perspectives of the multiple actors and nations involved.

In addition to reading about specific battles, we will also examine the various military, political, intellectual, cultural, and diplomatic back stories that resulted in two of the major wars of the second half of the twentieth century—national struggles in Korea and Indochina against Western and Japanese imperialism, French attempts to recolonize Indochina after WorldWar II, the rise of communist powers in Asia, competition between the US, Soviet Union, and China, the emergence of a Cold War mindset in Washington policy circles, as well as the aftermath of these divergent but related military and diplomatic conflicts.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Critical Thinking

11:00-11:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Erin Jordan

The purpose of this course is to better understand the series of events that occurred between 1000 and 1500 in Western Europe that are collectively known as “The Crusades.” It employs a range of sources, including documents, material culture, architectural remains, and modern scholarship to examine the origins of “Holy War” and explore the culture of the Crusader States founded in the Latin East.

While much of our focus will be devoted to understanding what the crusades were and what they reveal about medieval society, we will also use the crusades as a vehicle to gain a better appreciation for how history is made, honing our abilities to analyze sources and think critically about the past in the process.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Problem-Solving
• Critical Thinking

11:00-11:50 AM | MWF | Taught by Andrea Duffy

This course introduces students to the methods, sources, development, content, and value of world environmental history. Environmental history examines human interactions with the environment in the past. This field offers fresh and valuable perspective on historical developments and on contemporary environmental issues. World environmental history applies a global perspective to such subjects, highlighting patterns and connections across space and time.

Through readings, assignments, activities, and other course content, we will examine key points of inquiry such as ideas about nature, environmentalism, cities and the built environment, climate change, natural resource exploitation, imperialism, and environmental justice and injustice. This course provides critical context for contemporary environmental issues by exposing the central and varied roles of the environment in past human societies.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Data Literacy
• Critical Thinking

2:00-3:15 PM | TR | Taught by Doug Yarrington

This course examines the creation of international human rights norms in the 1940s as well as the impact and contestation of those norms in the Americas during the Cold War. We will focus especially on issues of torture in Brazil, the interrelationship of human rights activism and historical memory in Chile, the “disappeared” in Argentina, the question of genocide in Guatemala’s civil war, and the U.S. Sanctuary movement’s mobilization around the right to asylum in the 1980s.

Themes include the prominence of Latin American women in human rights advocacy, the importance of transnational connections in defending human rights, the tensions between sovereignty and human rights enforcement, and the variation in historical actors’ understanding of human rights.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Problem-Solving

12:30-1:45 PM | TR | Taught by Jessica Jackson

Through readings, discussions, case studies, service-learning, and hands-on curriculum development, students explore the complexities of teaching history while developing practical skills for engaging diverse audiences with the past. Designed for future educators, as well as anyone interested in public engagement with history, this course examines three major themes: (1) The Politics of Social Studies Curriculum; (2) Teaching Controversial Topics; and (3) Building Hyperlocal, Place-Based Curriculum.

Students examine how societal values, power structures, and educational policies shape historical narratives and curriculum design. They develop strategies for facilitating respectful dialogue about sensitive historical issues and engaging students in thoughtful discussions across diverse perspectives. The course also explores how local histories, cultural heritage, and the significance of place can inform meaningful, research-based curricula connected to students’ communities. 

Course skills:

• Communication
• Teamwork & Collaboration
• Project Management

9:30-10:45 AM | TR | Taught by Leisl Carr Childers

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and methods behind oral and community history and provides practical experience in conducting oral history interviews and working with community members to collect historical artifacts.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Adaptability
• Creativity & Innovation

12:00-2:50 PM | Monday | Taught by Andrea Duffy

What motivated past individuals to travel? What challenges did they face? What can their experiences tell us about history and about ourselves? This seminar investigates such questions by inviting students on a virtual world tour through the eyes of past travelers. We will study the accounts of explorers, diplomats, merchants, migrants, refugees, adventurers, and other voyagers from a wide range of temporal and geographical backgrounds. As we will discover, travelers were key players in the forging the human record, but they were also often outliers or exceptional human beings.

This seminar will enrich your knowledge of global history and cultures, cultivate your appreciation for different perspectives, improve your capacity for critical thinking, refine your communication skills, and help you navigate the transition to post-college life.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Adaptability
• Project Management

12:30-3:20 PM | Thursday | Taught by Kristin Heineman

How do we know what is true about the past? Throughout history, individuals and institutions have created forged documents, fabricated artifacts, manipulated evidence, and spread false information. This History capstone examines some of history’s most famous and consequential hoaxes and forgeries, from antiquity to the modern era, while asking a larger question: how do historians determine whether evidence is authentic, reliable, or deliberately deceptive?

Students will investigate cases such as forged ancient inscriptions and manuscripts, archaeological frauds, literary forgeries, historical hoaxes, and modern examples of misinformation and “fake news.” Rather than simply identifying what is real or fake, the course considers why people create historical deceptions, why others believe them, and how forged evidence can shape historical memory, scholarship, politics, religion, and public understanding.

Course skills:

• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Data Literacy

9:00-11:50 AM | Wednesday | Taught by Douglas Sheflin

This course addresses the history of the United States from the Civil War to the present, focusing on the theme of democracy. It will pay specific attention to how Americans have defined democracy, how they have attempted to expand (and contract) it, and how the fight for civil rights and individual liberties over the last 150 years helps us understand the modern United States. The course will consider prominent people, issues, events, and debates that have transformed American society, informed national identity, and propelled it to become a world power.

While attention will be paid to well-known individuals and events, we will also look to more obscure forces that have influenced American history to appreciate how individuals have impacted the nation and redefined its purpose.

Course skills:

• Problem-Solving
• Critical Thinking
• Project Management

2:00-4:50 PM | Tuesday | Taught by Leisl Carr Childers

This seminar involves critical reading, writing, research, and discussion. Its focus is on the American West. Students will take a regional approach that incorporates both place and process and will produce a 20-25 page work of original research and interpretation.

Course skills:

• Critical Thinking
• Communication
• Creativity & Innovation