Class Schedules

This first-year course explores the global history of travel and tourism in the modern world. We will consider how tourists engaged with transnational processes like war, decolonization, and global economic shifts that allowed for the slow and uneven democratization of leisure travel over the course of the twentieth century. We will also investigate the ways that racism and other forms of discrimination have become deeply embedded in global travel networks and infrastructure. Over the course of the semester we will "visit" a wide range of locales, traveling from the United States and its Pacific empire to Antigua, the Soviet Union, and Peru. As we "tour" the globe, we will contemplate a range of transportation options, including the role that cars, trains, and planes played in shaping the evolution of global tourism. In this history course we will engage in multidisciplinary approaches to studying the past as you develop your own scholarly projects. We will also work to foster a supportive community as we grow as writers, researchers, and humans.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism OR U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of the history of Africa before 1800, this course covers the major themes relating to the development of African societies and cultures from the earliest times. Students will engage with themes of state-building, trade and religion as catalysts for change and learn how historians have reconstructed the history of early Africa. This course will provide students with knowledge of specific case studies from North, South, East, West, and Central Africa. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course surveys the political, economic, and cultural development of the peoples of the ancient Greek world from the late Bronze Age through the Hellenistic era. Students will hone their critical thinking skills while working with translations of ancient literature, archaeological remains and works of art. The basic structure of the course is chronological, but we will examine major themes across time and space, which may include the interaction between physical landscape and historical change; rule by the one, the few and the many; the nature and development of literary and artistic genres; the economic, military, and/or cultural dimensions of empire; or the intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, slave/free status and civic identity in the Greek world.  Meets History Department pre-1800 requirement.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces the cultures and societies of China, Japan and Korea from the earliest times to the present day. Primarily an introductory course for beginners in East Asian civilization, this course considers a variety of significant themes in religious, political, economic, social and cultural developments in the region. Meets global and/or comparative history requirement. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Asia" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course we will learn about African history through the stories that Africans themselves have told about their own lives. We will use oral history, songs of West Africa's griots; slave narratives; political autobiographies; theatre and film to explore the personal narration of lived experience. To guide our class discussions we will also consult scholarly essays about life history as a genre, to help us understand the methodology behind the production of these important texts. Class activities will include seminar discussions, writing workshops, a field trip and intermittent background lectures. Each student will carry out an individual research project on their topic of choice. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the history of childhood and youth in the United States. The historical voices and perspectives of childhood that we study will pay close attention to the significance of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, time periods, and social settings. Some questions we will consider relevant to the study of history: Do children have agency? What is the role of children as subjects in history? How has childhood been socially and historically constructed? Why are children such galvanizing social and political symbols? How is identity shaped in childhood and what impact does this have on adult society at certain historical moments?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course offers a general survey of the complex and heterogeneous region we somewhat reductively term Latin America. It follows a roughly chronological approach, beginning with the eve of encounter and continuing through the contemporary era. Discussions will consider themes such as the institution and legacy of colonialism, the search for new national identities, and the onset of modern racial and political strife. The course will emphasize the import of global economic, political, and cultural trends on the formation of the region. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Latin American/Caribbean" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Blues, Jazz, Gospel, and Hip hop shaped the Black Freedom Struggle in numerous important ways between 1870 and 2020. This course will examine the cultural history of African-American musical traditions and analyze the connections to major transitions in the evolution of the African diaspora.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The objective of this course is to explore the role that women have played in the development of African history and to understand the major issues that define their experience as women from this region of the world. This course introduces students to the ways in which gender is studied in African history and to the major "break-through" works on women in African history. An important component of this course is the study of life histories of women from various geographical regions of the continent. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The history of American Indians is wonderfully complex, but this history is simultaneously fraught with misconceptions and misinterpretations. European (and, later, Euro-Americans) alternated among fascination, fear, and frustration toward American Indians, while American Indians sought to maintain tribal sovereignty and control over their lands, cultures, religions, politics, and lifestyles amidst continuing encroachment and settlement. This course examines American Indian history to 1871 - the year that Congress stopped making treaties with Native nations - by considering the complicated and multifaceted history of the nation's indigenous people. By looking at American Indian interactions with Spanish, French, British, and American explorers, settlers, missionaries, militaries, and government officials, this courses argues that the history of American Indians is essential to understanding past as well as present issues. Furthermore, this course looks to move beyond the notion that American Indian history is one of inevitable decline by creating a more nuanced understanding of the American Indian experience from pre-contact toward the twentieth century. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

People have always had to contend with the natural world, but only recently have historians begun to explore the changing relationships between people and their environment over time. In this course, we will examine the variety of ways that people in North America have shaped the environment, as well as how they have used, labored in, abused, conserved, protected, rearranged, polluted, cleaned, and thought about it. In addition, we will explore how various characteristics of the natural world have affected the broad patterns of human society, sometimes harming or hindering life and other times enabling rapid development and expansion. By bringing nature into the study of human history and the human past into the study of nature, we will begin to see the connections and interdependencies between the two that are often overlooked. Meets History's post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Environment," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Rather than approaching the history of Europe in wartime solely through the lens of military history or the history of international relations, this course will also delve into European culture, politics, and society in the period 1914-1945 and will explore the ways that both world wars profoundly changed the lives of Europeans living at the time, as well as the landscape of Europe itself. We will take a peripatetic approach, diving into different themes in different places and times. We will explore, for example, the lives of a young British nurse and a young German soldier during the First World War. We will grapple with the experiences of a concentration camp survivor during the Holocaust. We will think about the ways that critics of empire drew on the experiences of fascism in the twentieth century to build their case against colonialism. And finally, using more contemporary accounts and news coverage, we will consider the legacies of these two transformative wars and think about how they shape our conceptions of Europe and Europeans today. The class will strongly emphasize the development of research and writing skills. We will engage with a wide range of primary source material and students will conduct historical research on a topic of their choice, culminating in a major research paper that they will present as part of an in-class research conference. Can count towards "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Europe" or "Post-1800" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

After a brief but essential global history of drugs, this course will focus primarily on the 20th century to the present. We will examine histories of substance use and abuse, temperance and prohibition, the "War on Drugs," the shifting concept of addiction as a moral failing to addiction as a treatable disease, as well as study the history of the recovery movement and harm reduction. This course is not intended to be an exhaustive, comprehensive history of the subject-but it will provide you with a solid base from which to explore other aspects of this fascinating and contentious aspect of human history. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of the culture and society of China from earliest times to the eighteenth century, when the impact of the West was strongly felt. The course will feature themes in Chinese history, including the birth of the Great Philosophers, the story of the Great Wall, the making and sustaining of the imperial system, the Silk Road and international trade and cultural exchange, the emergence of Chinese Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, Genghis Kahn and his Eurasian Empire, the splendid literary and artistic achievements, the Opium War and its impact on modern China. Lecture/discussion format. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Asia" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A study of leading institutions and movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-century China. Major emphases include the impact of Western imperialism, intellectual and cultural changes, the transformation of peasant society through revolution, the rise of Mao Tse-Tung, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and the rise of China as a world power. Special attention will be given to China's international relations. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Asia" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the interaction between landscape and power in Andean history from the colonial period to the present day. The dramatic mountains have both shaped and have been shaped by sociopolitical relations, from the "vertical archipelagos" of ancient Andean peoples to the extractive economies of the Spanish and post-colonial Andean states. The course incorporates analytical perspectives from environmental, cultural, and urban history, alongside eyewitness accounts, to consider the relationship between the natural and built environments, on the one hand, and Andean racial and social identities, on the other. In selected years, this course will involve collaboration with contemporary Andean communities deploying oral history as a means of community and environmental preservation. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Environment," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Latin American/Caribbean" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What does the theory and practice of oral history have to offer in today's world of video chatting, social media, and the ability of anyone, anywhere to record and broadcast their own version of reality? What is oral history, exactly, and why is it important to formally record, transcribe, and preserve the memories and narratives of people involved in both historical and current events? This course provides students with a theoretical understanding of oral history as well as the opportunity to practice interviewing, transcribing, and interpreting events, memories, and narratives through a variety of local projects and community collaborations. All majors are welcome--oral history is an interdisciplinary practice!

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What is Northern Eurasia? Who inhabited the territory of present-day Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, the Caucasus, and parts of Central Asia? How did groups of diverse ethnic, religious, cultural, and economic backgrounds interact with one another? This course aims to answer these questions and explore the history of peoples and spaces in Northern Eurasia from the medieval period to the fall of the Soviet Union. Stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Northern Eurasia has been a place of intensive cultural exchange for many centuries. During this time, various groups came into contact that resulted in trade, wars, imperial rule, and revolutionary insurrections, as well as socialist experiments. The complex history of relations among peoples is the subject of this course. Drawing on a variety of primary sources, literary works, and films, we will discuss such topics as Eurasian identities; indigenous peoples; ideas of Russianness, imperialism, and Orientalism; the Eurasianist movement of the early 20th century; and the Soviet nation-building project.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In the minds of many Americans, cities are places where nature is absent-places where nature exists only in the crevices and on the margins of spaces dominated by technology, concrete, and human artifice. This course confronts this assumption directly, drawing on the scholarship from the relatively young field of urban environmental history to uncover the deep interconnections between urban America and the natural world. Among the other things, we will examine how society has drawn upon nature to build and sustain urban growth, the implications that urban growth has for transforming ecosystems both local and distant, and how social values have guided urbanites as they have built and rearranged the world around them. Using the Twin Cities has a backdrop and constant reference point, we will attempt to understand the constantly changing ways that people, cities, and nature have shaped and reshaped one another throughout American history. Meets the History post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Environment," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This reading- and writing-intensive course will explore one of the most tragic and transformative events of the 20th century: The Holocaust. Over the course of the semester, we will ask: What made the Holocaust possible? In what ways did Nazi genocide in the 1940s build on previous centuries of religious and racial prejudice? What factors shaped the way that people experienced the Holocaust? Why did so many people collaborate and how can we understand resistance and survival as complex and multi-faceted experiences? How can employing a global or comparative historical approach expand our understanding of the Holocaust? And finally, in what ways did the Holocaust bring about a revolution in human rights? Whenever possible, we will explore these questions through the first-hand perspectives. In addition to our shared course material, students will engage in their own independent research and writing projects. Throughout the semester we will work together to foster a supportive intellectual community. Meets the global and/or comparative requirement for the history major and can count towards the "Law and Social Justice," "Race and Indigeneity," or "Global/Comparative" fields. Prerequisite(s): One previous History course.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

What is a world system? How did scholars create concepts like Gross Domestic Product? These questions, and the evidence used to answer them, will be the main focus of this course. Starting with a detailed look at the economies of Islamic caliphates in the early modern period, students will combine historical, architectural, and archaeological resources to construct new perspectives on the evolution of world economies over the last five hundred years.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the histories, cultures, and lived experiences of the peoples who are Indigenous to the Americas. Highlighting the complexities and diversities of these vast regions, the course explores Indigenous ways of life while providing a space for deep engagement with the ways in which Indigenous Americans have encountered, engaged with, and resisted centuries of colonialism and imperialism.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The senior seminar is taught every fall on themes that cross chronological and geographic lines. Past themes have included Memory, Migration, Gender and Micro-History.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is designed to introduce students to the history of Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines major themes relating to change in the colonial period such as European conquest and imperialism, the development of the colonial economy, African responses to colonialism and the rise of nationalist movements that stimulated the movement towards independence. Students will examine these themes by applying them to case studies of specific geographic regions of the continent. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice" or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

How can history help us understand the landscape of global public health today? This "history of the present course" will help you situate contemporary global health topics in a broader historical perspective and show you how skills from the "historian's toolkit" can be instrumental in helping us build better public health systems. "Global Health Histories" is organized around three topic-focused mini-units. Possible topics include: pandemics; disease control and eradication; racism and health; vaccines and vaccine hesitancy; health and colonialism; international and regional health organizations; Communist health systems; public health in film and literature; family and child health; and the intersections between public health and eugenics and/or population control. In the fourth unit, students will design and execute independent research projects on a topic of their choice. We will devote ample class to developing research and writing skills and we will work intentionally to build a supportive and inclusive scholarly community. We welcome Community and Global Health concentrators, including folks without previous history experience. For History majors, this course meets the global and/or comparative requirement and can count towards the following fields: "Race and Indigeneity;" or "Law and Social Justice," or "Global/Comparative."

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines Native American history since 1871. We begin with an introduction to Indigenous history before 1871, characterized by centuries of Euro-American attempts to colonize and Christianize, to assimilate Native bodies and allot Native lands. We will then analyze the ways in which Native Americans have continually fought to sustain their cultures, languages, and religions, as well as their political and socio-economic structures, throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Focusing on themes such as Native resistance to the development of U.S. federal policies and the proliferation of Native culture, we will also consider the shifting nature of Native American sovereignty and the importance of indigenous identity in regards to the experiences of Native Americans. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

"Of all the strange beasts that have com slouching into the 20th century," writes James Twitchell, "none has been more misunderstood, more criticized, and more important than materialism." In this course we will trace the various twists and turns of America's vigorous consumer culture across the twentieth century, examining its growing influence on American life, its implications for the environmental health of the world, and the many debates it has inspired. Meets History's post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Environment," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the tumultuous changes that define the postwar era in U.S. society and culture. Themes of the course will vary depending on instructor. Topics may include: cultural tensions of the Cold War era, the civil rights movement and Black Power, the women-s movement, postwar prosperity, suburbanization, the Vietnam War, and the New Right. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Why are cultural intermediaries often remembered as villains or traitors? This course calls the popular stereotype into question by focusing on four dramatic case studies of notorious but pivotal mediators who moved between the Spanish, Aztec, English, French, Kongolese and Portuguese empires of the early modern period. Among others, we will consider conflicting primary source accounts and current scholarship about the Dona Marina, the Mexica translator for the Army of Cortes; Nathaniel Courthope, and English profiteer who made a fortune peddling nutmeg between India and New York; two competing French pirates who sacked the South American port city of Cartagena de Indias twice in a single month; and Dona Beatriz, an Kongolese convert to Christianity who was burned at the stake for professing that she was possessed by the spirit of Saint Anthony. This diverse group of pirates, missionaries and translators walked a similar tightrope between worlds, both liberated and constrained by their border crossings. We will evaluate how gender, race, religion, and imperial loyalties affected the survival of this small group of interlopers, and how, in spite of this, they came to disproportionately influence events in the Atlantic world. This course fulfills both the global/comparative and pre-1800 requirements for the major. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa and Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will trace the history of European politics, culture, and society from the end of the Second World War to the present. We will explore topics such as postwar reconstruction and memory, the creation of the European Union, the Cold War, the disintegration of Europe's overseas empires, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and the ongoing challenges of responding to an increasingly diverse cultural landscape in Europe today. Throughout the course we will ask: In what ways is the history of postwar Europe a story of recovery, integration, and unification, and in what ways is it a story of a continent haunted by growing divisions between different cultures, political systems, and values? In order to answer these questions and to situate Europe within a broader global framework, we will explore a wide range of sources, including film, art, memoirs, journalistic accounts, political speeches, and government documents. Our exploration of these sources will be coupled with a reading of historian Tony Judt's "magisterial" account of Europe since 1945: Postwar. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Europe" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A survey of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet history from the Russian Revolution to the present. Topics include the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Bolshevik rule and its tsarist heritage, Soviet "monocratic" society under Lenin and Stalin, dissent in the USSR, the "command economy" in the collapse of Communist political power, and national consciousness as an operative idea in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Can count toward History's "Europe" and "pre-1800" and "Colonization/Empire" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Japan's rapid industrialization in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and its phenomenal rise as the number two economic power in the world after the devastation wrought by World War II, have led many scholars to declare Japan a model worthy of emulation by all "developing" nations. After an examination of feudal Japan, this course probes the nature and course of Japan's "amazing transformation" and analyzes the consequences of its strengths as a nation-state. Considerable study of Japanese art, literature, and religion will be undertaken and American attitudes toward the Japanese and their history will also be examined. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Asia" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course traces depictions of the Amazon rainforest from the 16th century to the present with an emphasis on three central allegories - the Amazon as cultural crossroads; the Amazon as untapped economic resource; and the Amazon as a-historical paradise (or hell). Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Environment," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Latin American/Caribbean" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

During the Cold War, Latin America was a decidedly "hot zone." This course considers this phenomenon as a result of internal and external pressures, including political and socioeconomic instability, a deep tradition of revolutionary and socialist activism, and the region's conflictive relationship with the United States. The class examines dramatic moments of the Latin American Cold War, such as the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, and the Dirty Wars in Chile and Argentina. It also examines less heralded aspects of the Latin American Cold War, such as its important role in fostering transhemispheric solidarities, the creative possibilities of Cold War cultural production, the emergence of a youth counterculture, and the many attempts by Latin Americans across the political spectrum to reject the premise of the Cold War altogether. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Latin American/Caribbean" field.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This advanced course is required for majors. It examines the various forms of analysis used by historians through a study of different kinds of historical texts and sources. It provides an opportunity for students to develop the skills and habits of thinking essential to practicing the discipline of history. This course invites students to address some of the myriad questions and controversies that surround such historical concepts as "objectivity," "subjectivity," "truth," "epistemology," and thereby to develop a "philosophy" of history. At the same time, it stresses the acquisition of such historical tools as the use of written, oral, computer and media sources and the development of analytical writing skills. The subject matter for study changes each year. Recent themes of the course have been memory, empires, and class formation.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Religion and Law in Africa is an intermediate cross-listed history and religion course designed to teach students how to think like historians and assess how the legal systems of indigenous African societies have been shaped by their respective religions and cosmologies. This course also explores how Arab and European colonization in different parts of Africa imposed new legal systems that were influenced by either Islam or Christianity. The major themes of this class include African agency, indigenous African forms of knowledge and periodization, the interconnectedness of religious, legislative, and judicial facets of African societies, and diversity among African regions, societies, ethnic groups, religions, and languages.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Encounters between Native nations and settlers in North America created shared zones of cultural impact that shaped the society and culture of the participants. These interactions took place in frontiers, borderlands, and the American Midwest and West. These regions, home to hundreds of Native American tribes long before the first fur trapper, gold miner, missionary, or cowboy arrived, are today products of this contested history. Disagreements over the future fuel violent confrontation, disagreements that continue to reveal themselves in contemporary relations between a variety of ethnic, class, and cultural backgrounds. This course will explore debates over the geography and historical process of the American Heartland as well as the historical underpinnings of confrontations between settlers and indigenous inhabitants, farmers and ranchers, and the federal, state, private, environmental, and tribal interests. These historical underpinnings help to re-imagine the Midwest, West, and the American identity while continuing to shape controversies including Malheur Wildlife-Refugee Standoff and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Pipeline Protests. "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America"

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

How did gender beliefs influence the development of modern science? How did science construct social conceptions of gender and sexuality? How did women shape modern science? This course explores the intersection of gender and science from the early modern period to the late twentieth century. It focuses on the Western scientific tradition, with special attention to Russian and Soviet experiences. In this course, we will examine the following topics: early modern beliefs about nature, science, and gender; women’s participation in early modern sciences; 18-20th-century scientific writings on the “nature” of men, women, and other genders; the development of modern scientific institutions; and biographies of women participating in the sciences.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This seminar-style class examines the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in the history of medicine and health in the U.S. Our diverse topics for study include eugenics, sexuality, midwifery, cultural/spiritual healing methods, pandemics, race- and gender-based ailments and medical experiments (such as the science and politics of the birth control pill and the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment), gender reassignment surgery, and sex-testing in the Olympics. This wide range of topics will prepare students to explore a research topic of their own choosing for a final paper. Can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course's main goal is to introduce evidence of the major crimes and atrocities during World War II in East Asia such as the Nanjing Massacre, biochemical warfare (Unit 731), the military sexual slavery ("comfort women") system, the forced labor system, and inhumane treatment of POWs. The course will also help students understand the contemporary geo-political and socio-economic forces that affect how East Asians and Westerners collectively remember and reconstruct World War II. Meets global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the post-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will focus on the African diaspora in the western hemisphere, specifically the formation of maroon communities in both North and South America. Theories of place-making and architectural design will shape the understanding of the people, languages, and cultural practices that provided a social infrastructure for resistance and rebellion against colonialism and enslavement between 1529 and 1794. Counts for race/indigeneity, pre-1800, and justice/law categories of the history major.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The history of Federal Indian Law has its roots in the first treaties between Native nations and Europeans and ripples to the present including recent court cases that reaffirm tribal sovereignty. But this trajectory, like much of history, is neither a continuous progressive arc nor is it unchanging. Treaties to Land Back explores the foundations of Federal Indian Law including its philosophical underpinnings, important treaties, precedent-setting court cases, and the Indigenous people-powered movements that echo from the past to the present. Key concepts and documents covered include the Doctrine of Discovery, treaty rights, the United States Constitution, the Marshall Trilogy, and tribal self-determination. "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America"

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Much about mainstream narratives of queerness and gender transgression are determined by powerful, cis-dominated institutions, still even to this day: the media, schools, police, the law, doctors and psychiatrists. These are institutions structured by a racialized, heteronormative gender binary, and for whom trans people pose a problem to be managed. Oral history offers possibility for queer and trans people to tell their own stories, and, in doing so, give more nuanced, complex analysis of identity, activism, and of the intersectional operations of systems of power. Oral history also makes room for the complex interplay of joy, playfulness, grief, anxiety, and connection that makes queer and trans life so valuable. In this course, students will have hands on experience building an archive of queer and trans oral histories in the context of the pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. Working closely with the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota as well as with the Aliveness Project, a local HIV/AIDS organization, we will learn about oral history methodology, interview techniques, and then have the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews and contribute to an online archive of queer and trans oral history.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials