Class Schedules

This is an introductory course designed to familiarize you with changes and continuities that have occurred across the African continent since approximately 1800. We will examine large trends of change as well as explore specific case studies from North, Southern, East, West, and Central Africa to explain changes that occurred in different times and places and that demonstrate particular themes and concepts. This course emphasizes the multiple and varied ways in which Africans have shaped their own histories. It meets the post-1800 requirement and can count towards the "Colonization and Empire," "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields. It counts toward the African Studies concentration.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course is designed to teach students how to think like Africanist historians to interpret the stories of the past in meaningful and accurate ways. Since interpretation is central to creating or narrating history, students will learn how the degree of accuracy can be skewed in the construction and reconstruction of narrations of the past. Students will learn about and use ideas and methods that inform both feminist theories and historical thinking. The aim of Women in African History is to use case studies to examine the lived experiences of various women from different parts of Africa who lived from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. This can count towards "Gender," "Colonization and Empire," "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The American West is central to the construction of America's identity and popular culture.  The mythology of the American West, built on a narrow foundation of Euro-American settlement and conquest, is critical to understanding the role of the West in the national narrative of American history. Using a variety of materials, including films, art and photography, literature, and historical sources, this course will examine how writers, artists, actors, settlers, and government officials, among others, shaped the creation of the mythic West.  This course will investigate what - and who - is and is not considered part of this mythology, as well as the ways in which these constructs attempted to make sense of the diverse populations converging in the West. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "North America" fields.

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

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:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines traditions of 20th century African American women's activism and the ways in which they have changed over time.  Too often, the narrative of the "strong black woman" infuses stories of African American women's resistance which, coupled with a culture of dissemblance, makes the inner workings of their lives difficult to imagine. This course, at its heart, seeks to uncover the motivations, both personal and political, behind African American women's activism. It also aims to address the ways in which African American women have responded to the pressing social, economic, and political needs of their diverse communities. The course also asks students to consider narrative, voice and audience in historical writing, paying particular attention to the ways in which black women's history has been written over the course of the twentieth century. Can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores cross-cultural encounters in the Americas that characterized the meetings of Europeans, Africans, and Americans in the early modern world between 1492 and 1763.  During this period, the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent land masses became critical locations for economic, biological, and cultural exchanges.  This course focuses on the Americas as sites for discovery, mutual incomprehension, and exploitation.  The course explores the ways that conquest, resistance, and strategic cooperation shaped peoples' "new worlds" on both sides of the Atlantic. It also considers how colonialism framed and was framed by scientific inquiry, religious beliefs, economic thought, and artistic expression.  Students interrogate primary sources-written, visual and aural--that emerged from these encounters and the secondary literatures that have sought to make sense of them. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa and Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

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 WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

A survey of the development of Russian social and political institutions from Peter the Great (1682-1724) to 1917. The course will explain the growth of the tsar's authority, the origins and outlooks of Russia's major social/gender groups (nobility, peasants, merchants, clergy, women, minorities, Cossacks) and the relations which grew up between the tsar and his society. The course will conclude with an appraisal of the breakdown of the relationship in 1917, and the tsarist legacy for Russia's social and political institutions in the Soviet Union and beyond. Can count towards History's "Europe" and "pre-1800" and "Race/Indigeneity" and "Colonization/Empire" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

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

This course will provide an introduction to the study of history and to European politics, culture, and society in the long nineteenth century from the French Revolution in 1789 to the Russian Revolution in 1917. We will explore a multitude of different kinds of revolutions - including political revolutions, dramatic changes in class and social structure, evolving gender roles for men and women, and the establishment of new empires and nation states. This class will situate these vast changes in Europe in a broad global context and will consider the experiences of people with very different identities, ranging from women fighting for equal rights under the banner of the French Revolution to Russian peasants to African workers in the Belgian Congo. We will challenge traditional notions of what constitutes Europe and we will explore the various transnational connections that linked Europe to the rest of the world.  Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Europe" fields.

General Education Requirements:

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 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 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:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

A history of feminism and feminist thought in the United States between 1848-2022, this course focuses on women’s rights: the ideologies, leaders, and actions that forced change in long-held gender roles and patriarchal governing norms. We will also interrogate the myths, hypocrisies, and the backlash moments that are central to United States history, culture, and politics in the context of women’s rights. Critical to our course is learning about the many divergent ways that ethnicity, race, sexuality, and class came to inform how we understand feminism and its history to the present day. SPECIAL PROJECT SPRING 2024: This class will be working to write biographies of feminists from Minnesota for an exciting digital humanities project, Sharing Stories, centered on the historic 1977 National Women’s Conference.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The United States Economy and Globalization since 1945 meets twice a week and is a discussion-based seminar. We will examine the ways the American economy changed between 1945 and the present day, emphasizing a variety of factors including: agriculture; state, national, and global banking; financial regulation and deregulation; inflation; national assets and debts; the evolution of municipal government; the economic power of mortgage lenders and federal development funds; immigration and diversity; public and private planning procedures; integration, segregation, and hypersegregation; and civil rights and democracy in neighborhoods and education.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this class, we will explore the role of antisemitism in European politics and culture from the French Revolution to the present. Throughout the course of the semester, we will seek to answer questions such as: what is unique about antisemitism in the modern era? How did prejudice against Jews interact with other forms of bigotry such as racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia? How did Jewish communities respond to antisemitism? What does resistance to antisemitism look like? Building upon the historical and theoretical foundations of our readings and discussions, students will develop a research project investigating the relationship between Jews and their neighbors at a specific moment in time. They will present the results of their investigation in a format of their choice, such as short film, podcasts, narrative nonfiction, etc.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

From the first glance at a digital clock in the morning to putting events in a Google calendar, humans interact with the concept of time on a daily basis. We are so accustomed to living within familiar temporal frameworks that we rarely notice how our lives are governed by “time.” But a universally agreed upon standard for “time” has not always existed and, indeed, has shifted across human history. How and why was time invented? How has time in its various forms been constructed over the course of the past several centuries in different parts of the world? How is power inscribed in our conception of time? How are conceptualizations of temporal universality (and even physicists' theories of relativity) bound up with global trade and even something as prosaic as shipping timetables?In this course, we will discuss why humans need “time” and how culturally specific definitions of "time" have impacted global history. While we will criss-cross millenia of temporal imaginaries, our emphasis will be upon "modern times" starting with the first globalization of the 16th century. We will trace 'time' history through the present, both within the establishment of colonial and industrial manipulations of temporality as well as the coeval persistence of alternative temporalities as activations of political, cultural, and epistemic resistance.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Is caste a long-standing social structure or a recent construct? Does it belong to the past or continue to shape lives today? Is it unique to Hindus in South Asia, or does it have a global impact? In this course, we will delve into the intricacies of caste as a social practice. We'll analyze the historical development of caste and its interactions with other hierarchies, such as race, gender, and sexuality, not only in South Asia but around the world. Throughout the course, we will scrutinize how caste transcends geographical boundaries, examining its portrayal in diverse sources such as literature, ethnographies, censuses, and legal documents. We will also closely examine the histories and lasting effects of anti-caste movements. Our exploration begins in the 19th century when colonialism reshaped caste dynamics while also providing opportunities for marginalized communities to challenge established power structures. Additionally, we will investigate the emergence of caste practices within Afro-Caribbean diaspora communities. Lastly, we will explore the contemporary dimensions of caste, considering how it influences social mobility and marginalization within the context of global migration and social movements. In essence, this course will equip you with fresh perspectives on caste, with an emphasis on primary sources.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Between 1729 and 1804, people in the interconnected Atlantic world sought to reconfigure social, economic and political relations through collective resistance and revolution. The most momentous movements were led by subjugated peoples, including enslaved Africans and white workers. This course examines the practices that revolutionaries like Nanny of the Maroons, Samuel Adams, and Toussaint L’Overture deployed; how political thought, spiritual beliefs, food diplomacy, and ecological transformation guided actions; and how exiles, refugees, and forcibly transported persons re-shaped the wider Atlantic World from the New Orleans and Cuba to Sierra Leone and London. The course culminates with an in-depth discussion of the revolution in Haiti and its repercussions for the wider Caribbean, North America, and Europe along with an examination of the way this historical event has been commemorated in public history and popular culture up to the present. The significance of early modern forms of long-distance written and oral communication along as part of the circulation of news in fostering radical thought and revolutionary action will be central to our discussions.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the dynamic and diverse cultures and people of the Maghreb – North Africa. From Carthage and other indigenous empires of North Africa, through early Christian centuries, to the arrival of Islam and its various expressions, to the “golden period” when North Africa and Spain came together, in Al -Andalusia; one of the greatest chapters of human creativity and cooperation. We conclude c.1492, and the beginning of the early modern period in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Much about mainstream narratives of 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 the possibility for 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 project-based and community engaged course, students will have hands on experience working with an archive of queer and trans oral histories in the context of the pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. Working closely with our community partner, the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, we will learn about oral history methodology and interview techniques, and then have the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews, develop audio or video projects using extant oral histories, and contribute to an online archive of queer and trans oral history.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

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:
Writing WA

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:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Why and how are rumors formed? What kinds of media prolong their life? What gives rumors staying power even when they are publicly disproven? This course explores some precedents for fake news, revisiting earlier occasions in world history when fiction overshadowed reality to dramatic effect. Case studies covered in class may include upheaval due to rumors of children disappearing in the city of Paris in the 1700s; North American frontier myths that (still) wont die, including one about the distribution of germ-ridden blankets to Native Americans; Orson Welles infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast; and more recent twenty-first-century theories of thought contagion (ideas spreading like infections) and factfulness (conscientiously counteracting distortions in our perception). In the last part of this 300-level course, students will choose a rumor from a time period or region of their own interest and write and present a brief research paper about it. For the History major, this counts towards the "Global/Comparative" and "Public History" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class interrogates the role that memory and history have played in the formation of modern urban landscapes and identities during the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides introducing theoretical and global case studies, the course considers the layering of metahistorical significance upon sites in the Twin Cities and includes an archival research component. Meets the post-1800, and the global and/or comparative history requirements, and can count towards the Environment or Global/Comparative fields. Prerequisite(s): One 100- or 200- level history course or consent of instructor.

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

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class interrogates the role that memory and history have played in the formation of modern urban landscapes and identities during the 19th and 20th centuries. Besides introducing theoretical and global case studies, the course considers the layering of metahistorical significance upon sites in the Twin Cities and includes an archival research component. Meets the post-1800, and the global and/or comparative history requirements, and can count towards the Environment or Global/Comparative fields. Prerequisite(s): One 100- or 200- level history course or consent of instructor.

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

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

How do algorithms and artificial intelligence reinforce historic patterns of discrimination? This course will build on the work of Safiya Noble (Algorithms of Oppression) and Ruha Benjamin (Captivating Technology) in this course, combining their ideas with the work of Andre Brock (Distributed Blackness). Students will advance their understanding of the history of computer technologies, especially the roles of African American scientists and engineers. By the end of the course, the students will produce an original project based on the history and technologies they have studied.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the history of tourism in the modern world from a global perspective. We will consider how tourists engaged with transnational processes like world 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. Meets the global and/or comparative requirement for the history major and can count towards the "Colonization and Empire," "Race and Indigeneity," or "Global/Comparative" fields.

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

In the Plan of Union prepared during the 1754 "Albany Convention," Anglo-American colonists met to consider uniting as a loose confederation for their common defense and to ally with the Iroquois confederacy. That plan failed, but a later experiment in unity succeeded when the united colonies declared independence. Nevertheless, social, cultural, and ideological differences persisted, and the union formed in 1776 was tried and tested before finally fracturing with the secession of South Carolina, precipitating the Civil War. In the intervening years, Americans grappled with how they should govern themselves, who should be included in the polity, and how society should be organized. Reformers considered the controversial issues of women's rights, the role of Native Americans within the US, and the place of slavery in a nation founded on the precept that "All men are created equal." This course covers the periods of the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the early national and antebellum periods, before concluding with the Civil War. It also considers the global causes and consequences of the war and the rise of the new United States. We will also analyze the construction of the myth and historical memory of Alexander Hamilton, the founding father who has captured the imagination of people in the modern U.S.  Through a study of the recent biography of Hamilton along with the music and stage production of Hamilton, we will consider both the biographical and mythical Alexander Hamilton in order to understand his era and our own. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," 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 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:
Writing WP
Internationalism

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

Colonization and Empire; Race and indigeneity; Asia; Global/International. Encompassing a vast and diverse region that includes the present-day states of India,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bhutan, SouthAsia is home to a fourth of the world’s population. What was political, social, and culturallife in this region like before modernity? How did the plural religious, linguistic, andsocial identities that shape everyday life emerge? How did the encounter withcolonialism reshape the contemporary trajectories of South Asian cultures? Proceedingchronologically, we will explore important themes that continue to inspire a rich historicalscholarship, namely: processes underlying the integration of diverse cultural traditionsacross the Indian Ocean; the emergence, and consolidation of Indo-Persian kingshipand attendant forms of socio- cultural life; changes wrought upon this landscape by thearrival of European colonial rule; and the postcolonial trajectories of South Asiansocieties. We will explore these changes by engaging with sources and scholarship ondifferent genres and mediums of communication ranging from art, architecturalpractices, music, film, fiction, and ethnography. This course will not only introduce youto critical issues for understanding contemporary South Asia but also to culturalpractices and modes of representation unique to the region. By examining the past withan eye to its contemporary relevance, we will investigate why premodern identities andhistories remain at the center of debates about politics and culture in contemporarySouth Asia.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The French called it “le lac superieur,” or “the uppermost lake.” Later visitors, overwhelmed by its size and strength, called it an “inland sea.” For Ojibwe people, though, it was and always has been Gichigami: home to the place where the food grows on water, the place prophesied to be their homelands. This class centers Indigenous histories of Lake Superior, from the fur trade and fisheries to treaty rights and tribal national parks, looking especially at the lake’s cultural, economic, and environmental role in Indigenous pasts, presents, and futures.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The course examines the post-World War II Civil Rights Movement led by African Americans in the United States.  In the class, students will analyze key people, issues, events, and debates within movement history, including, but not limited to, gender and leadership; struggles for civil rights in the south, west, and urban north; the impact of the Cold War on race relations; student activism; movement strategies; and the emergence of Black Power.  Throughout the semester, students will read a wide variety of primary and secondary texts to illuminate the activities and life stories of individual participants as well as the broad historical forces that characterized this long era of insurgency.   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

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

This course examines Native history to 1871 -- the year that Congress unilaterally chose to stop making treaties with Native nations -- by considering the multifaceted histories and experiences of Native people in what is now the United States. By looking at Native interactions with (and resistance to) Spanish, French, British, and American explorers, settlers, missionaries, militaries, and government officials, this course argues that Native history is essential to understanding past as well as present issues. Can count towards "Colonization and Empire," 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

Since the 1960s historians have revisited early American history to identify populations on the margins and historical actors whose stories and experiences were neglected in the traditional canon of history. Historians of women made some of the first forays into this important work of recovery. Building up the foundations produced by women's historians, the field of gender and sexuality studies have flourished and enriched the narratives of American history. This course examines American peoples and cultures from the 16th through early 19th centuries to uncover the ways in which gender and sexuality shaped the formation of an early American society. Particular attention will be given to the way that ideologies of gender and sexuality shaped early concepts of race and the development of North American political institutions. Can count towards "Gender," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines traditions of 20th century African American women's activism and the ways in which they have changed over time.  Too often, the narrative of the "strong black woman" infuses stories of African American women's resistance which, coupled with a culture of dissemblance, makes the inner workings of their lives difficult to imagine. This course, at its heart, seeks to uncover the motivations, both personal and political, behind African American women's activism. It also aims to address the ways in which African American women have responded to the pressing social, economic, and political needs of their diverse communities. The course also asks students to consider narrative, voice and audience in historical writing, paying particular attention to the ways in which black women's history has been written over the course of the twentieth century. Can count towards "Gender," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "North America" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

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

What causes people to change their religious beliefs? How have societies handled those who do alter their spiritual attitudes? This course focuses on several dramatic case studies of men and women who self-consciously changed their religion during the turbulent period of imperial encounters between the mid-1500s and the 1700s. Among others, we will examine and interrogate reports of converts to Christianity including Jewish and Muslim prisoners of the Inquisition, captives of Mediterranean pirates, and the nearly canonized Mohawk convert Catherine Tekakwitha. We will consider how violence, national loyalties, gender, charisma, local power dynamics, environmental upheaval, and serendipity affected the choices and fates of these converts. This course fulfills both the global/comparative and pre-1800 requirements for the major. Meets the pre-1800, and the global and/or comparative history requirements, and can count towards "Law and Social Justice," or "Global/Comparative" fields.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class examines the Atlantic commerce in enslaved Africans that took place between 1500 and 1800. We will explore, among other topics, transatlantic commerce, the process of turning captives into commodities, the gendered dimensions of the slave trade, onboard experiences, resistance to the trade, Africans in the Americas, and the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Students will read a range of primary and secondary sources in order to gain a more complex understanding of the trade and how it changed over time. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement. Meets the pre-1800 requirement, and can count towards "Colonization and Empire," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Law and Social Justice," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields within the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
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 "post-1800" and "Colonization/Empire" fields.

General Education Requirements:

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

Colonization and Empire, Global/Comparative, Post-1800, Environment.This course examines the relationship between empire and environment in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union from the 18th to the 20th century. How did imperial expansion and socialist projects transform the livelihoods and landscapes of Northern Eurasia? Using primary and secondary sources, we will explore this question and consider how both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union enacted policies that sought to tame and protect the environment of Northern Eurasia. Among the topics that we will discuss are the conquest of Siberia and the Far East; fur trade, hunting, and animal extinction; the Arctic environment; agricultural landscapes, famines, and food resources; the Virgin Land Campaign; Soviet industrialization; the exploitation of labor and nature in the Gulag; nuclear landscapes; environmental disasters and mysteries (Chornobyl, the Aral Sea, and the Tunguska meteorite).

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

'Us vs. Them: the Cold War and its Culture' explores the politics, cultural exchanges, and ideological battles that defined the Cold War era, 1945-1991. Perspectives on the decades-long standoff will include not only the superpowers in the East and the West but also the socialist bloc of nations and the peoples and states shaking off the chains of colonialism.Discover how the intense rivalry and the specter of nuclear annihilation shaped global politics, economics, and societies, from the space race and the arms race to proxy wars fought on foreign soils. This course delves into the fears, strategies, and motivations that drove the actions of the United States, the Soviet Union, their allies, and the newly independent nations, providing a nuanced understanding of their interrelations.However, the Cold War's legacy is not solely one of political and military maneuvers; it also sparked significant cultural exchanges that influenced music, literature, film, and art, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary culture. During this period, culture became a frontier for competing ideologies, and it shaped how individuals and communities across different political and ideological spectrums navigated this complex era of suspicion and cooperation.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the four significant periods of theater history (Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and Restoration) through learning about the historical context, the physical theater elements, the plays that defined the time and the playwrights who wrote them. Students will engage with script analysis of the plays through staged readings.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

Much about the mainstream narratives of queerness and gender transgression have been 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 the 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. In this community-engaged course we will work closely with the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota, learning about oral history methodology, interview techniques, and having the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews and contribute to an online archive of queer and trans oral history. In particular, this semester, students will have the opportunity to work on an ongoing collaborative research project entitled "The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha," which uses oral history and archival research to grapple with the layers of history at the Lake/Minnehaha intersection in South Minneapolis, from the legacies of colonialism, to the intersecting systems of racialized capitalism that unevenly expose some members of the community to homelessness, policing, and violence, to the narratives of racialized gender that animate these struggles over space.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This seminar considers the interaction between visual culture and the establishment of global empires. It will include examples from the early modern and modern era, beginning with the establishment of European colonization of the Americas and parts of Asia in the 16th century and continuing through semicolonial projects of the 20th century. The course will focus on the interaction between visual representation of empire and the constitution of empire building. The course will follow a broadly chronological focus but will be organized thematically according to forms of visualizing imperial constructions of such topics as racial difference, scientific and technological development, landscape and environmental determinism, and the broader cult to rationality that undergirds the project of "modernity". Students will work with primary and secondary materials to develop original research projects. Counts toward the Global/Comparative, Race and Indigeneity, and Colonization/Empire fields in the History major.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

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:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials