Undergraduate Courses

Instructor: Francis Russo

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: Nothing is inevitable, not even the United States. In this spirit we will explore North American history from c. 1500 to the 1860s, with the continent’s many peoples and cultures in view. The course begins in the deep pasts of the early modern European, African, and Indigenous North American continents, slowly brought together into an “Atlantic World” in the sixteenth century. The course continues through the American Revolution, when thirteen British colonies united in a revolt against Britain and created a new U.S. state that struggled to emerge out of Old Worlds that came before. We then explore some of the most consequential developments in the nation’s early history, including revolutionary transformations in systems of slavery, democracy, and capitalism. Finally, we examine the causes and consequences of the “Second Founding” of the United States, the Civil War. The unpredictable emergence and development of the United States as a nation is a focus in this course, but always in the context of wider developments: global struggles among European empires; conflicts between indigenous peoples and settler-colonists; exploitation of enslaved African labor; evolution of distinctive colonial societies; independence movements inspired by a transatlantic revolutionary age; expansion, urbanization, and early industrialization; sectional conflict and warfare. Throughout, we will pay attention to the dramatic stories of individuals as well as the structural forces and historical circumstances that collectively shaped the lives and fates of peoples and societies. History is a story, and no story can contain everything. While this is a survey course designed to cover many topics, themes, and questions, we will focus in on one important area by the course’s end: what is the meaning of freedom? Freedom was—and is—in no way self-evident or inevitable. This is especially true when claimed alongside the existence of systems of slavery and varieties of social, political, and economic inequality. By focusing on the meanings of freedom—both a historical and a philosophical question—this course will help you to think more critically about the challenges facing the contemporary United States and your own place in its unfolding history.

Instructor: Simon Balto

TR 11:00-12:15PM

Description: This is an introductory course focused on the history of the United States since 1865. It likely will not be similar to a history class like the ones you took in high school. (It at least is not similar to the ones I had when I was in high school!) In our time together, we’ll be exploring and analyzing the history of this country’s past 150+ years, focusing especially on the significant social, political, cultural, and economic shifts that changed it, rechanged it repeatedly, and made it into the one we inhabit now. This history is multidimensional, multiracial, multiethnic, multigender, and since the United States has never existed in a vacuum, and because it has shaped and been shaped by the rest of the world, transnational. Among the core animating questions we’ll be grappling with is this: What does it mean to be an American? All of us may come into the semester with different thoughts as to how to answer that question; some of us may come into the semester having not really thought about it at all. This course will, hopefully, cause each of us to consider that question more deeply, particularly since we sit at a moment in history in which answers to that question seem evermore contentious. With that in mind, we will be especially attentive this semester to what it’s meant for people of different backgrounds—including immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, women, queer people, servicemembers, industrial workers and farmers—to grapple with that question.

Instructor: Joseph Dennis

MWF 11:00-11:50AM

Description: History 103 is an introduction to Chinese history from its beginnings to 1989. The goal of this course is to achieve a basic understanding of the historical origins of Chinese society, government, and culture. We will also work on developing important historical skills.

Instructor: Viren Murthy

TR 4:00-5:15PM

Description: If one asks ten people what “Japan means to them, one might get ten different answers. Manga, anime, Japanese film, samurai, Zen Buddhism, tea ceremony among other phenomena are all associated with Japan. Can we find something unifying these seemingly diverse practices? In this course, we will discuss the meaning of some of these practices in historical context and also how Japanese people combined them in various ways. For example, take samurai, tea-ceremony and Zen Buddhism. The samurai are usually associated with combat, while the tea ceremony and Zen Buddhism are usually linked to imperial and aristocratic culture. However, we will note how imperial culture, aristocratic practices, and Zen Buddhism in particular, were essential to the identity of the samurai. In this way, Japanese culture brings seemingly separate and contradictory practices together in a unique constellation, which continues to inform many facets of life in Japan. Through looking at practices associated with Japan, the course aims to introduce students to the culture, politics and intellectual currents in Japan from ancient times to the present. After this introduction, students should be well-equipped to form their own opinions about Japan. The course will allow students to analyze writings about history and to construct historical arguments. Students will also learn to think historically about politics and culture, not only in Japan, but in the world.

Among the larger questions we will ask include: How do we periodize Japanese history? How should we understand “modern Japan in relation to its premodern past? The implications of these questions go well beyond Japan.

The more specific themes we will study include: whether we can talk about a unique Japanese culture, the influence of China on Japan and how Japan’s relation to China and East Asia changes throughout history, the emergence of a samurai/shogunal system in Japan, Zen Buddhism, Japanese Confucianism and national learning in the Edo period (1604-1868), Japanese imperialism and its legacies for the present, and the cultural, intellectual and artistic changes that took place in various periods of Japanese history.

Instructor: Elizabeth Lapina

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: We will begin this class with a discussion of the rise of Christianity and the role of Christianity in forging the new medieval civilization. We will continue with the relations between Romans and barbarians and with the fall (or “fall”?) of Rome. We will then move on to major heirs of the Roman Empire, both in Western Europe and in the Middle East. After dealing with the Vikings – and, hopefully, dispelling a myth or two about them – we will move on to a major episode in the history of relations between Church and State, the Investiture Controversy. In the last few weeks of class, we will discuss what is known as the age of castles and cathedrals. 2 Some of the features of this period were the founding of first universities, the appearance of the new chivalric culture, the expansion of Latin Europe into the Middle East during the crusades, and the rise – and brutal suppression – of heresy.

Instructor: Mallory Hope

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: Introduces Europe when it entered the global stage economically, politically, socially, and culturally. How Europeans took to the seas and developed new forms of empire. How did this wave of contact, encounter, and conquest affect Europeans, indigenous peoples of the Americas, and Africans? Examine the early global economy and the development of plantation slavery. How did Europeans develop new ways to make sense of their world, its size, its peoples, its flora and fauna? Explore new forms of Christianity, the Jewish diaspora, and the globalization of Christianity. As thinkers debated how rulers should wield political power, monarchs strove to expand their authority and territory, and ordinary people demanded a greater share of political power, provoking revolutions across the Atlantic world. Encounter the lives of women and men from many backgrounds, from peasants to queens, and all kinds of people on the move.

Instructor: Brandon Bloch

MWF 9:55-10:45AM

Description: This survey of modern European history stretches across more than two centuries of political and social upheaval, from the aftermaths of the French Revolution to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Three sets of questions will guide us: Why was Europe’s modern history so violent, punctured by war, regime change, and revolution? When did Europeans begin to identify as members of distinct nations, and why did many come to believe that each nation should have its own state? Finally, how were Europeans’ ideas about race, nationhood, and modernity shaped by encounters with peoples and cultures beyond Europe? To answer these questions, we will examine an array of primary sources that illuminate how diverse Europeans, both elites and ordinary people, experienced the ruptures of their modern history. Our sources include two novels, a film, political manifestos, memoirs, photographs, and more. Along the way, we will explore a number of themes that are critical for understanding the origins of today’s world. These include the expansion of the global capitalist economy; formation of nation-states; rise of democratic politics; transformation of gender roles; and emergence of ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, socialism, communism, and fascism. 

While this course will introduce you to central themes of modern European history, its goal is not simply to teach names, dates, and facts. Rather, lectures and discussions will help you hone your skills in reading critically, evaluating competing arguments, and presenting your ideas in clear and convincing prose. These skills are not only crucial for studying the past, but are relevant to a wide range of courses and career paths. No prior background with college-level history is assumed. Instead, we will devote time in lectures and discussion sections to practicing the skills you will apply in assignments and exams. 

Instructor: Paul Grant

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: This course is about the entire world throughout all of history. Themes include: empire and imperialism, global trade and globalization, war, migration, gender, race, religion, and nationalism. If that isn’t ambitious enough, we will do the whole thing in four months. Each week, then, covers vast stretches of human experience. To make this intelligible, we will also go small, learning to see ourselves in the lives and experiences of people unlike ourselves. 

Instructor: Michael Martoccio

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Introductory examination of the role of war and peace in human history from the earliest forms of organized violence to the 21st century “War on Terror.” Rather than center on tactics, key battles, or even particular critical conflicts, instead focuses on how different military cultures and technologies emerged over time across the globe. Explores how organized violence shaped not just the lives of soldiers, but all members of society by examining key pieces of popular culture including poetry, propaganda, music, movies, and social media. Takes a deliberately global approach by examining the connections and commonalities of war across different world regions.

Instructor: Ashley Brown

TR 4:00-5:15

Description: Sports factor into the lives of most Americans, whether it’s through playing or watching games. Yet, as much as we often view sports as a form of entertainment that distracts us from reality, it simply isn’t that simple. Issues and conflicts across sports demonstrate that we cannot separate sports from major social, political, and economic issues. This course will illuminate how the rise and growth of sports since the Civil War has reflected and shaped broader trends in American social, racial, economic, political, and gender history. Students will engage in discussions about popular sports’ relationship to American capitalism, urban development, and social movements and trends. Above all, this course will spark newfound curiosity in students as they reevaluate the sports they play and watch in the future.

Instructor: John Hall

MW 9:55-10:45AM

Description: Is there such a thing as a genuinely anti-war movie? The acclaimed, late French filmmaker Francois Truffaut thought not, as even the most brutal and honest depictions of war in film cannot help but valorize sacrifice and arouse something primordial in certain members of the audience. Nevertheless, some of the greatest films of all time are regarded as “anti-war classics” and not a few might be labeled “pro-war.” Critically examine more than fifteen full movies (and parts of many more) from across this spectrum and from around the world. In addition to testing the “Truffaut Rule,” evaluate the movies as both fictionalized secondary sources (conveying knowledge and influencing memory) and as primary sources that shed light on the moment and place in which they were created. 

Instructor: Daniel Stolz

MWF 11:00-11:50AM

Description: Traces the formation of the states and societies that compose the contemporary Middle East. How have global phenomena, including two world wars, the Cold War, women’s movements, and modern science, technology, and fossil fuels, affected the politics, culture, and daily lives of Middle Eastern people? What is Islamism, and how should we explain its influence? Why has the United States had such a troubled relationship with this part of the world? Balances a generally thematic approach with several weeks of country-specific studies, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Instructor: Giuliana Chamedes, Monica Kim

MW 2:30-3::45PM

Description: A Global History of Now is an introductory course to key historical events, movements, and systems that have shaped our present moment. The core power relationship we examine from the late 18th century to the current day is the dynamic struggle between empire-building and anti-colonial movements. By the end of the course, students will be able to use basic tools of historical inquiry to examine the political, economic, and social/cultural dimensions of larger themes in global history: colonialism, capitalism, and revolution. 

This course is not a comprehensive overview of the past. Our goal is to approach global history together through the most innovative and current scholarship today. This syllabus is a collaborative effort between five different professors in the Department of History. Temporally, we move from the 18th century to the present; geographically, we traverse the globe. By the course’s end, students will have a keener sense of Caribbean, Latin American, African, East and South Asian, and U.S. history–and a rich understanding of how “their history is “our history too. 

We begin with the Haitian Revolution, and its groundbreaking challenge to imperialism, slavery, and racial thinking. From there, we follow the growing imperial expansion and anticolonial resistance of the nineteenth century, with special attention to the intersection between imperialism, capitalism, and new forms of natural resource (and human) exploitation. Together, we will ask: What ideas and practices subtended the new imperialism of the 19th century, and what forms of resistance came to the fore? How did debt become central to the maintenance of inequality, both at the scale of the globe and within societies? Moving into the 20th century and the post-World War I era, we investigate how imperial and anticolonial demands remained central, even as new movements came into being–from fascism to anti-fascism, and from communist internationalism to Arab nationalism. The final part of our course gives direct insight into questions in the news today. We track the relationship between episodes of mass violence, environmental degradation, and socio-economic marginalization in the twentieth century and the birth of new forms of global governance, both financial and political. The course closes by revisiting and redefining our shared keywords: imperialism, coloniality, decolonization, resistance, globalism, internationalism, and debt. 

Instructor: Allison Powers Useche

TR 11:00-12:15PM

Description: This course provides an introduction to histories of places that have been called the American West, focusing on the period before 1850. Textbooks often treat the early West as a mere hinterland of European empires. But we cannot begin to understand North America’s past or present without attention to histories of the diverse Native nations whose homelands span the continent; Spanish, French, British, Russian, and United States aspirations to become Pacific as well as Atlantic imperial powers; the political communities forged across lines on settler maps; and the saltwater realms of coastal societies sharing ocean currents and exchanges with East Asia. Together we will investigate complex and changing worlds shaped by American revolutions that occurred long before 1776, Indigenous diplomats shocked by the poverty they witnessed in European cities, a lacrosse game that altered the course of a world war, refugees from slavery who found asylum in Mexico, and immigrant women who challenged some of the first deportation policies in the United States, to name only a few examples. Students will learn to think like historians by analyzing primary sources, evaluating competing narratives, and formulating arguments about the past. We will ask how systems of knowledge, governance, and ecological management, modes of diplomacy and political belonging, forms of labor exploitation and unfreedom, ideas about race, gender, and sexuality, epidemics and environmental catastrophes transformed a continent repeatedly redrawn and unsettled. Along the way we will consider the ongoing legacies of the past—and the stories we tell about it—in the American West today.

Instructor: Jorge Trinidad

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Examines the historical, social, and legal experiences of Latinas/Latinos/Latinxs in the US since the mid-1800s with emphasis on Mexican migrations. Latinxs became an important part of the US population through western expansion, conquest, and immigration. We will learn about the 3 main Latinx groups in the US: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans, but will also learn about other Latinx communities. We begin with an examination of conquest by studying the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that annexed roughly half of former Mexican territory and the Spanish-American War that resulted in the possession of Puerto Rico. Then, we examine the history of Latinx immigration to understand the experiences of Mexicans, Central Americans, South Americans, and people from the Caribbean who have immigrated to the US in search of economic opportunities and political asylum. This course serves as an introduction to the varied experiences of Latinxs in the US in order to understand their unique histories. 

Instructor: Jillian Jacklin

MW 11:00-11:50AM

Description: Organized around the title question: Who is an American? Explores how answers to that question have changed over time, focusing on people whose actions and ideas shaped those answers. Rather than an overview of U.S. history, focuses on a variety of topics related to our central theme, moving roughly chronologically from the Revolutionary era to the present. Covers the history of racial ideologies and racial inequities, arguments over citizenship and “American” identity, and the ways that various groups have been included or excluded from the nation.

Instructor: Tony Michels

MWF 1:20-2:10PM

Description: A century and a half ago, the United States was a backwater of the Jewish world, then centered in Europe with significant Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere. Yet, by the 1950s, the United States became home to the largest Jewish community at that time. Why did millions of Jews come to the United States? How has life in a liberal political and capitalist economic order shaped the Jewish experience in the United States? In turn, how have Jews influenced American culture, politics, and society? Surveys the history of American Jews from the 17th century to the 21st century. Using Jews as the primary, though not only, case, examines themes in the history of immigration, ethnicity, and religion. Topics include patterns of political activity, social mobility, processes of integration and exclusion, Jewish culture, religion, and problems in community building. 

Instructor: Cindy I-Fen Cheng

TR 11:00-12:15PM

Description: Over the course of the semester, we will untangle the many factors driving Asian immigration to the United States and explore how each wave of Asian immigration altered the social, political, cultural, and economic development of the nation from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. As non-white and non-European immigrants, Asian Americans grappled with the color line along with stereotypes that cast them as “forever foreign.” But the lived experiences of Asian Americans, far from revealing just the limits of American democracy, showcased efforts aimed at advancing American democracy to its fullest potential. Additionally, we will consider how Asian immigration connected the United States to the world and created transnational ties for Asian Americans. 

Instructor: Daniel Williford

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: What is the relationship between technology and social inequality today? As climate change, pandemics, and economic transformations threaten to intensify both global and localized disparities, arguments play out in media, the STEM community, and policy circles that single out new technologies as both a cause of and a potential solution to the present crisis. This course offers a critical perspective on the place of technology in history is essential for grasping the stakes of these debates in the contemporary world. History of Science 160 offers an introduction to the history of technology, centered around the relationship between technology and various forms of social inequality. It addresses: 1) how gendered, racial, and class-based disparities have shaped the history of technology; 2) how forms of engineered inequity have intersected with state-building, colonial projects, environmental degradation, and revolutionary programs; 3) how technology has been implicated in attempts to imagine a more just society. This course is designed to introduce students to central themes and concepts in the histories of science, medicine, and especially technology. The course is organized into four sections or modules that build on one another through case studies. These are transnational in scope and move chronologically from the 17th century to the present. The course also gives significant attention to histories of technology that originated outside of the U.S. and Europe.

Instructor: Matt Villeneuve

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: A broad survey of American Indian history which centers Indigenous peoples, communities, and nations in the context of U.S. policy and culture that emphasizes decolonial methods and Native ways of knowing the past. 

Instructor: Eric Carlsson

W 8:50-10:45AM

Description: This Historian’s Craft course explores the relationship between religion and the Enlightenment in Europe, c. 1650–1800, a topic that continues to fuel lively debate today. The Enlightenment is often described as an intellectual and cultural movement that ushered in modern ways of thinking about the world and humans’ place within it. Many people today assume that it opposed religious belief and promoted a secular approach to social and political life. The reality, however, was more complex. The Enlightenment took a variety of forms. While some thinkers rejected established religion altogether, others deployed new ways of thinking to reform their own religious traditions Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish and to rethink religion’s place in society. Still others embraced popular spiritual movements that bore an often surprising relationship to the Enlightenment. This course will equip you to think historically about these developments as you learn and practice the skills that historians use to do their work.

Instructor: Giuliana Chamedes

M 8:50-10:45AM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Juan Fernandez

TR 11:00-12:15PM

Description: We will look at photographs taken in Asia during the 19th and 20th centuries of public celebrations and executions, royal portraits and mugshots and family albums, among a host of other images. We will learn how to analyze these photographs, not merely for the “look of the past,” but for what we can read in them about ideals of power, desire, and modernity. We begin with the premise that photographs themselves have histories. We will ask, through these photographs, what it means to perform modernity for audiences both domestic and foreign, what it means to exercise power and be subject to it; and who is desiring what, and why. We will approach the material thematically rather than chronologically, with photographic case-studies across East, South, and Southeast Asia. Our main premise for this course is that photographs provide a useful and unique source of historical understanding, though one that must be critically examined not just for what the image shows its surface and content but also for why the photograph was taken in the first place, who made it, where it was taken, and for what ends was it used. That is, how do we read photographs to see them not just as images but as arguments? In this course, we shall develop skills in historical analysis, writing, and research through a critical engagement with colonial-era photographs from Asia. 

Instructor: Marcella Hayes

T 11:00-12:55PM

Description: This course teaches students how to think, research, speak and write like historians. We will approach the study of history not just as a series of events but as the study of the many ways in which events can be interpreted. We will do this by examining the long-term history of revolution, rebellion, and reform in Latin America, from before the Spanish invasion of the Americas to the end of the twentieth century. We will ask what people expected of their political leadership and how they defined good governance. We will explore what their options were to protest or to demand change if they felt change was necessary. We will ask how these concepts changed over time and how they stayed the same. We will explore secondary sources by other historians to trace major historical events, and will interpret primary sources, such as speeches, legislation, oral histories, poetry, paintings, and photographs, to explore how all sectors of society helped foment change.

Instructor: April Haynes

TR 4:00-5:15PM

Description: Have you ever taken a history course and wondered about all the women in the background? What if women were at the center of the story? What about diverse women, not just Abigail Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt? What were BIPOC, queer and trans women doing? This course offers students the opportunity to follow their curiosity about women, gender, sexuality, and feminisms in US history. It will teach you where to look to find answers to your own questions — how to navigate the relevant databases, why researchers sometimes browse the physical stacks of campus libraries, what to do with rare manuscripts in the Wisconsin Historical Society, and whether oral history interviews might be the right approach for you. As a Comm-B course, it will also demonstrate how to communicate your research findings to various audiences.

Instructor: Oliver Lazarus

M 1:20-3:15PM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Sasha Suarez

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Louise Young

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Jillian Jacklin

M 1:20-3:15PM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Khaled Esseissah

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Florence Hsia

TR 12:05-12:55PM

Description: What does science have to do with religion? What does it mean to have expertise about the natural world? And what difference do politics and funding sources make to scientific investigation? Learn how to think critically and historically about science in this course by exploring such fundamental questions across two millennia. We begin with ancient mythology and philosophy, then follow the movement of natural philosophical traditions into medieval Islam and Christendom, and finally turn to the ‘revolution’ in science of the 16th and 17th centuries with Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. These historical investigations provide vital insights into ideas of the ‘natural’, scientific observation, and experiment, as well as into our expectations of scientific knowledge and the scientific enterprise. 

Instructor: Suzanna Schulert

MW 12:05-12:55PM

Description: This course is a survey of different conceptions of how the body as a site of sickness and health has been understood from Antiquity to contemporary medicine. It includes consideration of the origins and evolution of public health, the changing social role of healers, and the emergence of the modern “standardized” body in health and illness. We aim to give you an overview of the development of the modern medical system while encouraging you to think about medicine in a historical context. Given this framing, some forms of healing that fall outside professional Western medicine are left out or underrepresented in our course content. This is a reflection of the particular story 212 is telling and not an indication of what ways of thinking about health are valid, true, and relevant to the history of medicine. Beginning with the ancient Mediterranean world, we will examine how technologies, diagnoses, and ways of thinking about the body have changed over time through four broad trends in healing: humoralism, pathological anatomy, infection, and risk. We will address questions such as who has done healing over time? How have patients chosen healers? What constitutes health and disease? What are the causes and treatments of disease? Examining these questions requires us to engage with humanities methods. In this course we will be reading and analyzing secondary historical sources in light of materials presented in lecture, as well as crafting our own historical arguments using primary and secondary sources. We will be thinking about how to use historical evidence and structure arguments to make compelling claims about medicine in historical context. In so doing we will see that while medicine has undoubtedly helped relieve suffering and extend lives, the evolution of medical systems is not a story of linear progress or a benign accrual of facts. Rather medical systems are embedded in the socio-cultural context of their given historical moment.

Instructor: Juan Fernandez

TR 4:00-5:15PM

Description: Is love a universal emotion and sex a universal practice? This course argues that they both are and are not: Love and sex are a set of ideas and practices that may seem the same across time and space in the human experience; and yet we shall examine how the specific questions of whom one can love (and why and how) are wholly contingent on historical and cultural contexts. We will survey a broad set of historical cases across South, East, and Southeast Asia from the 1800s onwards, in the period of these regions’ intense and intimate intertwining with Western imperial powers. We will talk about, among other historical issues: the dynamics of intimacy under colonial rule and the political anxieties arising from these intimate (and often sexual) relations; changing definitions of ideal manhood and womanhood during the colonial encounter; the regulation of homosexuality and other non-“normative” sexualities; and the clash and resolution of differing forms of religious and ethical prescriptions about love. We shall use these themes of familial and romantic love, and gender and sexuality as a thematic introduction to the history of Asia in the colonial era. 

Instructor: Karl Shoemaker

TR 2:30-3:45PM

Description: Examines the development of prisons from the ancient Mediterranean world to the present in the US and Europe. Pays particular attention to the way in which imprisonment has been used against marginalized populations. Examines the development of carceral tactics across a number of registers, including the prison as an ancient political tactic, the economic logic of early modern debtors’ prisons, the relationship of prisons and workhouses to forms of capitalism, prisons and colonial expansion, the relationship between mass incarceration and democratic forms of government, as well as the connections between the abolition of slavery and modern carceral practices. Also looks at the legal and constitutional limitations that have been put on imprisonment by the American legal system. Relies on interdisciplinary approaches to the study of prisons, including History, law, literature, and political theory.

Instructor: Marcella Hayes

TR 2:30-3:45PM

Description: An introductory survey of colonial Latin American history, from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth century. Examines developments in Spanish and Portuguese America by reading both secondary and primary sources. Beginning with fifteenth-century Europe, the Americas and West Africa, discusses European expansion and invasion, first contacts between the so-called Old and the so-called New Worlds, as well as the role of religion, sexuality, gender, labor and production, trade and exchange, and politics. Each week, a central question will address the topic for that week. Become familiar with and contextualize key processes and events in colonial Latin American history and learn about the nature of colonization. Identify and evaluate historical arguments. Practice interpreting primary sources and building historical arguments about them.

Instructor: Charlotte Whatley

MWF 1:20-2:10PM

Description: Surveys the development of American law down to the U.S. Civil War. Reviews the English historical background, and examines how law changed in colonial America, culminating in the framing of the U.S. Constitution. Explores how territorial expansion, democracy, and slavery shaped nineteenth-century American law. Emphasis is on how law interacts with political, social, and cultural change, with a focus on the origins of modern civil and constitutional rights. 

Instructor: Pablo Gomez

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: Surveys the medical and scientific constructions of categories of race, placing the development of racial theories in a broad social and political context. Pays particular attention to the importance of racial science in slavery and colonialism.

Instructor: James Sweet

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Welcome to Africa: An Introductory Survey. This course is designed to be a multi-disciplinary introduction to the history, cultures, and politics of Africa. Because Africa contains a remarkable array of languages, societies, and peoples, we cannot hope for exhaustive coverage. However, we will visit almost every major region of the continent at least once during the semester while we will explore a variety of themes and topics. I hope that you will take away from the course an understanding not just of what to think about the history, cultures, and politics of Africa but also how to think about this part of the world.

Instructor: Gloria Whiting

W 12:05-1:50PM

Description: https://history.wisc.edu/courses/undergraduate-courses/history-300-301/

Instructor: Claire Taylor

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: This course examines Greek political, cultural, and social history in the Archaic and Classical periods with a focus on political and social unity and division. We will examine the creation and development of political communities, the different ways in which these were run, how they came into conflict with one another and amongst themselves, and the social and cultural context from which they changed the Mediterranean world.

Instructor: Anne Hansen

MW 4:00-5:15PM

Description: This course introduces Buddhism across Asia, from ancient India to Cold War Southeast Asia, its migration to North America and importance as a contemporary global religion. Our lens on the Buddhist world will be the central Buddhist ritual of taking refuge in the “Triple Gem : the Buddha, his teachings known as the Dharma, and the Sangha, communities and individuals who call themselves Buddhist. We will examine and discuss interpretations of the Triple Gem through a variety of primary sources, from sermons, stories and Zen poetry to Buddhist material culture along the Silk Road and devotional images in the Chazen Museum.

Instructor: Alfred McCoy

TR 2:30-3:45PM

Description: Explores the prolonged cycle of wars in Vietnam and its neighbors, 1940 to date, with due regard for both local and U.S. perspectives.

Instructor: Daniel Stolz

W 1:20-3:15PM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Anne Hansen

R 1:20-3:15PM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Eric Carlsson

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Between the late Middle Ages and the French Revolution (c. 1500–1800), Christianity was deeply woven into the fabric of European life, permeating politics, law, intellectual culture, and the everyday lives of ordinary people. At the same time, Western Christianity also underwent dramatic transformation. The Reformations of the sixteenth century shattered the unity of the Catholic Church based in Rome and gave rise to multiple Christian confessions.

These developments had far-reaching consequences for European and global history. Confessional divisions reshaped European politics and society and transformed how people across social classes understood and expressed their religious identities, beliefs, and practices. As Europe’s colonial expansion accelerated, these religious changes also spread across the Atlantic world, profoundly affecting peoples in other parts of the globe, including those who were indigenous, or forcibly brought, to the “New World of the Americas. This course examines these momentous shifts through key moments in the history of Christianity in the early modern Atlantic world.

Instructor: Geoffrey Durham

TR 11:00AM-12:15PM

Description: Between 1801 and 1917, imperial Russia went from being the center of the world’s largest land empire and one of Europe’s Great Powers to a collapsing state embroiled in war and revolution. Nevertheless, the Tsarist regime outlived many of its main rivals. What happened and why? With staggering ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity, as well as immense inequalities in terms of wealth and rights, how did the empire’s different parts fit together? How can we understand the relationship between the Russian empire and the nations that emerged from within it? In this survey of Russian imperial history between 1801 and 1917, we will examine these questions and pay particular attention to themes of imperial expansion and diversity, as well as the social, political, and economic structures that shaped the lives of the tsars’ subjects across Eurasia. Doing so will enable us to consider the historical relationship between Ukraine and Russia, and to evaluate Vladimir Putin’s use of that history to justify the ongoing war and his broader geopolitical ambitions for the Russian Federation.

Instructor: Jorell Meléndez-Badillo

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: This seminar critically engages with the history of the Puerto Rican nation, composed of the Caribbean archipelago and its global diaspora. Originally inhabited by indigenous peoples for thousands of years, it was conquered by the Spanish Crown in 1493— although the official conquest did not begin until 1508. Almost four centuries of Spanish colonialism ended with an imperial succession after the War of 1898, colloquially known as the “Spanish-American War.” The Spanish flag went down, and the US flag was hoisted. To this day, Puerto Rico remains, in the words of legal scholar José Trías Monge, the oldest colony in the world. While some people contest the accuracy of such statement, this course explores the ways that Puerto Rico has been a colonial possession for more than five hundred years. It also highlights how those that have inhabited the archipelago and its diasporas have not tacitly accepted colonialism. This course will allow students to understand the ways that Puerto Ricans have navigated complex colonial dimensions and created vibrant ideas of belonging and nationhood. Ultimately, the course is an intellectual meditation about how—against colonial violence and erasure—, Puerto Ricans have crafted complex, ever-changing, and diasporic understandings of the nation. That is, they have radically, poetically, and politically affirmed their existence through coraje, solidarity, and love for their land. That is, against the necrocolonial logics of a “Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans,” many are dreaming and forging a Puerto Rico full of Puerto Ricans, whether it’s in Aguadilla, Manatí, Santurce, Kissimmee, the Bronx, or Madison.

Instructor: Oliver Lazarus

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: Survey of interactions among people and natural environments from before European colonization to present. Equal attention to problems of ecological change, human ideas, and uses of nature and history of conservation and environmental public policy.

Instructor: Ashley Brown

T 1:20-3:15PM

Description: We will read scholarly articles and book-length biographies of several American athletes. We will examine how the authors ground the study of sport in culture and history. We will interrogate how these cultural producers assess the ways that race, gender, class and economics, region, sexuality, labor, and other matters have impacted sports and the men and women who have played them.

We will consider why biography is a genre of history that is frequently turned to in the study of sport. We will discuss the role of sport and biography in the making (and unmaking) of heroic figures. Alas, we will seek to understand how politics and history impacted the personal and professional lives, public receptions, and legacies of people who, as athletes, are often imagined as having existed in a realm that is separate from politics and social issues. Together, these texts will help us to understand craft, specifically the decisions that historians and history-minded journalists make about sources, scope, and context as they tell the stories of figures and events that many people think they know well.

Instructor: Paul Grant

M 8:50-10:45AM

Description: Biography is a way of evaluating individual human lives. This course explores the genre though book-length case studies and methodological essays, examining the choices biographers have made and the ethical implications of those choices. We analyze the complex relationship between global forces, local dynamics (contemporary politics), and individual particularities (character strengths and weaknesses). By studying life stories in this way, you will grow better at understanding human experience in its global, historical contexts, interpreting contemporary events and assumptions in light of the past, and learning how to understand others, despite differences.

Instructor: Tony Michels

R 1:20-3:15PM

Description: In the late-19th century Jews in a number of countries initiated a movement for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Known as Zionism, this movement eventually led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. There were multiple forms of Zionism that pursued competing, sometimes antagonistic strategies and goals. Zionism also generated fierce criticism from various quarters within and beyond the Jewish community. There was much at stake in the debates among Zionists and between Zionists and their critics: the fate of Jews in increasingly perilous countries and empires, the prospects of Arab nationalism in Palestine and the larger region, and other critical issues. This seminar explores Zionism’s history in multiple locations from multiple perspectives. Framed most broadly, the seminar explores the interplay between nationalism, socialism, and liberalism through the case of the Jews as they became entangled with nation-states, empires, and revolutions from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

Instructor: Viren Murthy

M 3:30-5:25PM

Description: How did people from Asian countries think about their world? How did modern thought emerge in Asia? With the rise of Asia and China in particular, this has become an important question. In particular, scholars, journalists and political commentators have often asked whether and to what extent premodern Chinese, Japanese and Indian thought has influenced the present. This class will examine both indigenous and exogenous roots of modern thought in China, Japan and India. Did these countries require the West to become modern or did they have internal logics that pointed towards modernity? We will also ask how Asian American and Afro-Asian American thinkers confronted the problems of capitalist modernity and imperialism.

Although I have usually organized this course around various key texts in Asian philosophy, I have changed the structure of this class because we will have a special guest lecturer to our class, Colleen Lye from the University of California-Berkeley, who will speak to us about Afro-Asian readings of Marxism. Therefore, in addition to surveying key texts of Asian philosophy, including those of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and Hinduism, we will read texts of Asian American activists, such as Grace Lee Boggs and Howard Chang.

Instructor: Claire Taylor

M 8:50-10:45AM

Description: N/A

Instructor: Sarah Thal

W 1:20-3:15PM

Description: In this seminar, we will read both what Japanese warriors (samurai) read (or heard, or saw) and about what samurai read (or heard, or saw). Our goal is to try to get a sense of what samurai learned and how they thought.

Please note that this seminar will focus intensively on reading and discussion. There will be no exams. Instead, students will read, write short reflections or position papers about the readings, and participate actively in discussion. Each student will design and lead at least one class discussion in collaboration with partners and in consultation with Professor Thal.

Instructor: Charlotte Whatley

M 3:30-5:25PM

Description: N/A

All sections of History 600 require permission of the instructor for enrollment.  Please see the History 600 Seminars page for more information and course descriptions.

Instructor: Simon Balto

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: Civil rights history from 1930-1970. Legal, historical and economic origins of the civil rights movement. Study of the movement’s impact on United States culture, politics, and international relations.

History/Educational Policy Studies 107: The History of the University in the West – Please contact the Department of Educational Policy Studies with questions about this course.

History/Educational Policy Studies 143: History of Race and Inequality in Urban America – Please contact the Department of Educational Policy Studies with questions about this course.

History 223/Jewish Studies 431/Religious Studies 400: Jews in Medieval Spain – Please contact the Department of Jewish Studies with questions about this course.

History/Asian Languages and Culture/Political Science 255: Introduction to East Asian Civilizations – Please contact the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures with questions about this course.

History/Political Science/C&E Soc/Sociology 259: Forward? The Wisconsin Idea, Past and Present – Please contact the Sociology Department with questions about this course.

History/African Cultural Studies/African American Studies/Political Science 297: African and African-American Linkages: An Introduction – Please contact the African Cultural Studies Department with questions about this course.

History/English/Religious Studies 360: Early Medieval England – Please contact the English Department with questions about this course.

History/Educational Policy 412: History of American Education – Please contact the Department of Educational Policy Studies with questions about this course.

History/Scandinavian Studies 431: History of Scandinavia to 1815 – Please contact the German, Nordic, and Slavic Department with questions about this course.

History/Classics/Religious Studies 517: Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean – Please contact the Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies with questions about this course.

History/Journalism 560: History of US Media – Please contact the School of Journalism and Mass Communication with questions about this course.

History/Educational Policy Studies 622: History of Radical and Experimental Education in the US and UK – Please contact the Department of Educational Policy Studies with questions about this course.

History/Educational Policy Studies 665: History of the Federal Role in American Education – Please contact the Department of Educational Policy Studies with questions about this course.

History of Science/Social & Administrative Pharmacy 401: History of Pharmacy – Please contact the School of Pharmacy with questions about this course.

History of Science/Mathematics 473: History of Mathematics – Please contact the Mathematics Department with questions about this course.