History Department

Atlantic slave systems were gendered systems. Across lines of nation and empire, African-descended women and their reproductive labor were crucial to the formation of New World slave systems and the racial ideology that underwrote them....

The 1960s in global context, focusing particularly on Europe, Latin America, and the United States. The rise of mass movements dedicated to racial, economic, and sexual justice, against the backdrop of Cold War and decolonization. The...

Health and Healing in Africa. This course focuses on the ways in which African people have conceived of wellness and health. We will explore the diverse history of healing mechanisms that African people have employed, ranging from...

A case study of the US romance fiction industry and its global reach. The romance novel is the most popular form of fiction in the world. Its industry is powered by women, produces a product consumed by women, and exports to global...

This course covers the conspiracies, uprisings, and wars that led to the independence of Haiti and the Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal between 1780 and the 1898 withdrawal of Spain from Cuba. It focuses on the key military...

Crime and the City from Dickens to The Wire. Compares representation of crime and the city in two key "texts": Charles Dickens's “Oliver Twist” and the HBO television series, “The Wire.” Juxtaposes the social and political contexts to...

Course explores cultures of indigenous peoples before the Age of European exploration, and it takes up European conquest and its effects on the Amerindian peoples. Students will study Latin American history from the development of the...

Transformations in society, politics, foreign relations, and arts and literature between Spanish-American War and World War II. Course pays particular attention to domestic politics in the Progressive Era; the Great Migration and the “...

The Modern Regulatory State. Interdisciplinary inquiry into the origins/evolution of modern regulatory institutions in Western Europe and North America, along with the more recent rise of global regulatory bodies. Examines conceptual...

Women, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History. CCI, CZ, EI, SS, W Major questions relating to women and women's place in society over the course of U.S. history, broadly defined, from the colonial period to the present: How did different...

This course traces the emergence of slavery as a mode of production in the 16th century and its relationship to the rise of modern or industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century United States and broader Atlantic world economy. The...

This course explores the economic nature of caring — including not only dependents and households but also communities, workplaces, and environments.  By taking an interdisciplinary, transnational approach to thinking about care labors...