Graduate Courses
Spring 2027
Teaching Practicum and Professional Development
Introduction to inclusive teaching practices and professional development strategies. Combines hands-on pedagogical training with guidance for navigating key milestones in academic life.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Utilize critical pedagogical principles underlying course design and assessment strategies in undergraduate history instruction.
2. Incorporate insights from peer and faculty discussions to formulate a personalized plan for professional development during graduate study.
R 3:30–4:20PM | 5240 Levy Hall | Instructor: Charles Kim
This seminar is designed a one-semester workshop on course design for History and HSMT graduate students. Each week, we will discuss one element of course design. In some weeks, we will discuss basic concepts or frameworks in teaching and learning and ask how these can help us design courses that better fit our goals as teachers, and how to apply the principles of course design to different settings. Over the course of the semester, each student will design and develop a course syllabus, learning activities, and an assessment plan. Students will also develop one full module (or equivalent).
W 3:30-5:25PM | 5240 Levy Hall | Instructor: Daniel Ussishken
T 1:20–3:15PM | 5216 Levy Hall | Instructor: Emma Kuby
M 3:30-5:25PM | 5216 Levy Hall | Instructor: Louise Young
Proseminar in Latin American History
Historical literature of significant topics in Latin American history. The colonial period, Brazilian history, and Spanish-America in the national period.
T 11AM-12:55PM | L1207 Levy Hall | Instructor: Jorell Melendez Badillo
Proseminar in Southeast Asian History
Designed for undergraduates and graduate students with some background in U.S. diplomatic history or international relations, the course will probe the dynamics of CIA covert wars through case histories over the past 75 years. By focusing on world regions such as Europe, Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, the seminar will explore the central role these covert wars played in international history during the Cold War and its aftermath. These clandestine interventions often succeeded brilliantly from a U.S. perspective. But they sometimes left behind ruined battlegrounds and ravaged societies that became veritable black holes of international instability.
After several sessions reviewing the origins of the CIA and its distinctive patterns of clandestine warfare, the seminar will apply a case-study approach to covert wars in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America including, the anti-Mossadeq coup in Iran, overthrow of Sukarno in Indonesia, Lumumba’s murder in the Congo, and the protracted war in Afghanistan. Reflecting the significance of Southeast Asia to CIA operations, the seminar will devote four sessions to this region, including anti-Sukarno operations in Indonesia, anti-communist pacification in the Philippines, counter-guerilla operations in South Vietnam, and the secret war in Laos, arguing that the latter two operations are central to understanding more recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. Through the sum of such content, students should finish the seminar with knowledge about a key facet of U.S. foreign policy and a lifelong capacity for critical analysis of international relations. Beyond such an approach, the course will give students sharpened analytical abilities, refined research tactics, improved oral presentations, and better writing skills.
R 3:30–5:25PM | 5240 Levy Hall | Instructor: Alfred McCoy
Dimensions of Material Culture
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of material culture studies. It is intended for students interested in any professional endeavor related to material culture, including careers in museums, galleries, historical societies, historic preservation organizations, and academic institutions. During the semester, students have varied opportunities to engage with and contemplate the material world to which people give meaning and which, in turn, influences their lives. Sessions combine in some way the following: presentations from faculty members and professionals who lecture on a phase of material culture related to his/her own scholarship or other professional work; discussion of foundational readings in the field; visits to collections and sites on campus and around Madison; discussion of readings assigned by visiting presenters or the professors; and exams and short papers that engage material culture topics.
TR 1:00-2:15PM, T 11-11:50AM | 2255 Nancy Nicholas Hall| Instructor: TBA
Western European Area Studies Seminar
M 2:25–5:25PM | 159 Van Hise Hall | Instructor: Sonja Klocke
Reading seminar in American History
F 1:20–3:15PM | 5240 Levy Hall | Instructor: Devin Kennedy
M 2:25–5:25PM | 2180 Grainger Hall | Instructor: Walter Stern
W 1:20PM–3:15PM | 5240 Levy Hall | Instructor: Bill Reese
Interdepartmental Seminar in Latin America
T 3:30-5:30PM | 1120 Van Hise Hall | Guillermina de Ferrari Rueda
T 4:00–5:55PM | L166 Conrad Elvehjem Building | Instructor: Elaine Sullivan
In this graduate seminar, we will discuss works that approach the histories of science, medicine, technology and the body in the Middle Ages and early modernity from a global perspective (including Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas). Readings will represent a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and geographical/cultural areas. The writing requirement for this seminar will be tailored to students’ particular needs in their respective programs of study. Students will gain familiarity with current scholarly trends in history of science, print culture, material culture, and archives among others; expand their analytical and interpretive skills; and strengthen their oral and written communication skills.
W 1:20-3:15PM| 5218 Levy Hall | Florence Hsia
F 1:20-3:15PM | 5240 Levy Hall | Devin Kennedy
Gender, Health, and Illness in U.S. History
W 8:50-10:45AM | 5216 Levy Hall | Judy Houck
Syllabi Library
Current and past syllabi, arranged by course number, can be found in the History Syllabi Library.
Course Guide
Graduate courses at UW–Madison are numbered 700 and above, and History graduate students typically take courses at the 700 or higher level. Subject to program restrictions and by prior arrangement with the instructor, however, students may take 300-600 level course that carry the graduate attribute for graduate credit. For details, see the Graduate Program Handbook – Registration – Level of Course Credits.
The Course Guide lists all courses offered at UW–Madison. It is an online, searchable catalog that provides a broad spectrum of course information and enables browsing the course sections offered each term. It is updated six times per day. You may reach the Course Guide in two ways:
- Public version of the Course Guide
- Version for UW students available through My UW (requires UW NetID login)
For graduate students, there is no practical difference between the two points of entry. (The only difference that the My UW version enables undergraduates to use the Degree Planner tool.)
Class Search
Class Search is the real-time, online listing of course sections offered each term. Students can click on course sections to add them to their enrollment shopping cart.
- Public version of Class Search
- Students: use My UW Student Center
- Faculty: use My UW Faculty Center
- Staff – Use ISIS: Self Service > Class Search or Public Class Search