Undergraduate Courses

Please explore this page for information about History and History of Science course offerings. Cross-listed courses offered by other departments can also be found below, with the department to contact noted beneath each course title. If you are having problems enrolling in a course, please start by contacting the Enrollment Help Desk. For questions about enrollment permissions, wait lists, etc. please reach out to undergraduateprogram@history.wisc.edu. History Majors and graduating seniors have first priority on the wait lists for our courses.


Fall 2023

History and History of Science Courses

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History 101: American History to the Civil War Era, the Origin & Growth of the U.S.

Instructor: Gloria Whiting

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: This course will ask surprising questions. How did enslaved Haitians, gold mined in Mexico, and the humble potato influence the history of the region that would become the United States? Because they did–profoundly.

This may not be the sort of history you learned in high school. Traditionally, historians have understood the history of early America or colonial America as the history of the thirteen colonies that joined to create the United States in the American Revolution. But such an approach severs these colonies from their context and creates an affinity between them that did not exist prior to the Revolutionary era.

Our course will take a much broader view. We will situate these thirteen colonies in the framework of the Atlantic world: the world created by Africans, Europeans, and Indigenous Americans from the sixteenth century–when European expansion into the Atlantic basin began in earnest–through the American Revolution, when the thirteen colonies united in a revolt against Britain. This revolt would usher in an era of state-building in the Atlantic and signal the beginning of the end of Europe’s imperial power in the Americas. Together we will investigate how people, pathogens, plants, animals, labor systems, ideas, technologies, and institutions across a vast geographic expanse shaped the history of the thirteen colonies that created the United States of America, and then we will explore the nation’s early development.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 102: American History, Civil War Era to the Present

Instructor: Paige Glotzer

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: This course surveys U.S. history from 1860 to the present. Readings, lectures, and discussion will explore the rich variety of the American past: its social movements, diversity of values, shifting geography, and everyday life. The ways people lived, however, were often affected by laws, popular culture, economics, and politics. As a result, U.S. history, as we will see, is truly local, national, and global. It will be our task as a class to untangle these threads to understand the enormous changes that have taken place. This is not a straightforward task. The past is not a list of major events to be memorized; it is something to be interpreted. Each week you will be looking at sources produced in the past photographs, maps, newspapers, songs, silent film, and more in order to tell stories and construct arguments. In doing so, you will be learning how to think history like a professional historian.

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History 103: Introduction to East Asian History: China

Instructor: Joseph Dennis

MWF 11:00-11:50AM

Description: History 103 is an introduction to Chinese history from its beginnings to recent times. The goal of this course is to achieve a basic understanding of the historical origins of Chinese society, government, and culture.

No Chinese language skills are necessary, however, if you can read Chinese and wish to use Chinese sources, Professor Dennis is willing to help you find them.

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History 104: Introduction to East Asian History: Japan

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 introduces 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 teach 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 throughout 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 role of women in Japanese 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.

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History 109: Introduction to U.S. History: Who Is an American?

Instructor: Stephen Kantrowitz

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: This course is organized around a central and continuing question in American life: Who is an American? How have laws, social movements, and individuals answered that question from the Revolution to the present? Through a mixture of lectures, discussions, and other activities, we will investigate key moments when these questions have reverberated through issues of citizenship, migration, settlement, conquest, Native resistance and sovereignty, slavery, freedom, war, and politics.

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History 110: The Ancient Mediterranean

Instructor: Marc Kleijwegt

MWF 8:50-9:40AM

Description: An examination of the evolution of the human community in the Mediterranean Basin, from the beginning of the earliest civilizations in the Near East (3,000 B.C.E.) until the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West (500 C.E.).

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History 115: Medieval Europe, 410-1500

Instructor: Elizabeth Lapina

TR 8:00-9:15AM

Description: The class deals with the thousand years that span between the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance. We will begin with a discussion of the rise of Christianity and the formation of the Catholic Church and its institutions. We will continue with the relations between Romans and barbarians and will tackle the following question: did Rome really fall? We will then move on to three major heirs of the Roman Empire: the Carolingian Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Empire. After dealing with the Vikings — and, hopefully, dispelling a myth or two about them — we will move on to the age of castles and cathedrals. Some of the features of this period were the crusades, the appearance of the new chivalric (knightly) culture, the rise of heresy and the founding of the first universities. We will finish with a discussion of the Black Death.

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History 119: Europe and the World, 1400-1815

Instructor: Lee Wandel

TR 8:00-9:15AM

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.

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History 120: Europe and the Modern World, 1815 to the Present

Instructor: Brandon Bloch

MWF 9:55-10:45AM

Description: This course surveys a vast subject: the transformation of Europe, from the aftermaths of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars to today’s European Union. We will explore Europe’s evolution across the dramatic nineteenth and twentieth centuries along a range of axes: political and economic as well as social, cultural, and intellectual. Major themes include the expansion of capitalism; centralization of nation-states; rise of mass politics; recasting of gender and the family; proliferation of industrial warfare; and emergence of ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, socialism, communism, and fascism. We will also explore how Europe was intertwined with the wider world through colonialism and decolonization.

This course is designed as an introduction to college-level history. No prior background is expected. Lectures and assignments are structured to introduce you to the skills of historical analysis: reading critically; interpreting primary sources; evaluating competing arguments; and presenting your own ideas in lucid and compelling prose. Writing assignments build in complexity over the course of the semester. Lectures and sections will devote time to practicing the skills you will need to succeed in these assignments. The purpose of the course is as much to introduce you to central themes of modern European history as to help you become a better reader, writer, listener, communicator, and thinker.

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History 130: An Introduction to World History

Instructor: James Sweet

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: The purpose of this course is to introduce you to major themes in world history from the dawn of man until the end of the twentieth century. The course is split into three units. The first unit – The Rise of Civilizations – traces the earliest histories of human migration, environment, and the emergence of sedentary life. The constitution of the world that we live in the haves and the have-nots, the “rich” and the “poor” is not random or accidental. Human history was, and continues to be, influenced by forces that are largely beyond our control geography, climate, disease, and so on. In short, the question we will be trying to answer in the first part of the course is: Why did human development proceed at such different rates in different parts of the world, and how does this impact us today?

The second unit – Contextualizing “The Rise of the West” – compares and contrasts the economies and societies of Ming China, the Islamic world, and imperial Spain, emphasizing cross-cultural contacts in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, respectively. We will examine the social and cultural influences that shaped each of these broad societies during their eras of expansion and “discovery.” We will also look at long-term trends in the economies of each society. Many historians now argue that China dominated the world economy until at least the middle of the eighteenth century. This argument destabilizes the idea of Western dominance since 1500 and calls into question the very notion of the untrammeled “rise of the West.” By carefully examining the Spanish conquest of the Americas and its Islamic antecedents, we will be able to better contextualize the historical significance of the European era of “discoveries.”

The third unit – The Emergence of a “Modern” World? – deals with the influence of Christian Europe and the United States on the world stage over the past 200 or so years. While a narrative history of the world will emerge, our primary concern will be the “-isms” that were by-products of the emerging “modern” world. These include capitalism, industrialism, Marxism, sexism, racism, imperialism, nationalism, and so on. Our goal will be to understand how these concepts have informed the histories of peoples and nations in a variety of comparative settings. Finally, in the last part of the semester we will examine collisions between “tradition” and “modernity,” “civilization” and “barbarity.” We will try to determine whether these concepts have any real meaning. Is one person’s “civilization” another person’s “barbarity”? Can we even talk about a “modern” world without having the “backwardness” of “tradition” to measure it against?

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History 133: Global Military History (5000 BCE – Present)

Instructor: Michael Martoccio

MW 4:00-5:15PM

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.

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History 134: Women and Gender in World History

Instructor: April Haynes

MW 8:00-9:15AM

Description: This course surveys the history of women and gender from the ancient world to the modern period. It approaches the study of women and gender through the lens of what historians call “the unpredictable past. It encourages each of us to examine the assumptions we may hold about women, gender, and history. Rather than imagining timeless male dominance, we will consider the changing contours of multiple power systems. We will search for clues about how a given society defined women including whether they were part of a binary gender system or something more complex. And we will ask how diverse women made history, even when oppressive social structures prevented them from making it exactly as they wished.

Learning women’s and gender history is inspirational and full of surprises. It can also be uncomfortable. It means confronting hard realities, including sexual and gender-based violence, colonialism, slavery, and other forms of exploitation. It requires interpreting sources produced by people whose values may conflict with our own. More fundamentally, it involves searching for truth amidst competing historical accounts. Historians don’t just describe the past; we use evidence to debate it and so will you. Sometimes the best available evidence will support the least appealing version of events.

The reward will be a thorough understanding of the gender systems that have shaped today’s world. For those who long to create a better future, grappling with history affirms the certainty of change and suggests useful models. The course concludes by exploring modern visions of gender justice, the challenges activists have faced in pursuing them, and the strategies which have/have not been effective.

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History 136: Sport, Recreation, & Society in the United States

Instructor: Ashley Brown

TR 4:00-5:15PM

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, issues such as conflict between players and team owners, contentious debate over public financing for new stadiums, conflicts over race, gender, sexual orientation, and the rising concern over the violent repercussions of sports, both on and off the field, 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, liberalism, urban development, and racial, gender, and social movements. Finally, students will analyze the underlying issues of race, gender, class, and politics in amateur, collegiate, and professional games. Above all, this course will spark newfound curiosity in students as they reevaluate the sports they play and watch in the future.

This course is ideal for students who are genuinely interested in U.S. history in all its complexities not just sports. Think of this as a class in which we are, to borrow from the title of a recent book, learning U.S. history through sports. Sports and recreation are fun. They are also serious business. This class takes both approaches.

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History 139: Introduction to the Modern Middle East

Instructor: Daniel Stolz

MWF 11:00-11:50AM (MW-In Person, F-Online)

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.

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History 151: The North American West to 1850

Instructor: Allison Powers Useche

TR 11:00AM-12:15PM

Description: Explores the history of places that have been called the American West before 1850. We start with Indigenous occupation; continue with European invasion and the creation of two new nations, Mexico and the U.S.; and end with U.S. conquest. We watch Indian lands becoming the object of Spanish, French, and English empires, and then see European incursions giving way to the hopes of new nation-states and newly empowered Indian peoples like Lakotas and Comanches. After studying the trails and trades that brought newcomers west, we reach key converging events: U.S. seizure of the Mexican North, resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute, discovery of western gold, West Coast arrival of Chinese immigrants, and Mormon exodus to the Great Basin. We use economic, environmental, political, cultural, and social analyses, and we attend to the dreams of many westerners: of North American, Latin American, European, African, and Asian origin or descent, and of all genders and class statuses.

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History 200-001: U.S. Military Missing in Action Project

Instructor: Vaneesa Cook

TR 9:30-10:45AM

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History 200-002: War and Forced Displacement

This is a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) course, and enrollment is restricted to incoming first-year students. More information about enrollment authorization is here.

Instructor: Cindy I-Fen Cheng

M 1:20-3:15PM

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History 200-003: Muslim Societies in Africa

Instructor: Khaled Esseissah

Description: Although Islam has been well established in Africa for many centuries, many simplistically associate “orthodox” Islam with the Middle East. Indeed, Africa was in the picture from the early days of Islam. In 617 CE, only six years after the birth of Islam, eighty-three Muslim men and women migrated from the city of Mecca to Abyssinia (now modern-day northern Ethiopia) to seek social justice and religious freedom. This course examines this Islamic heritage through a topical exploration of African history, while paying particular attention to continuing points of contact and exchange between Muslims in Africa across the Sahara as well as the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

The course is divided into five sections: (1) an introduction which discusses Islam as a world religion and introduces the main patterns of its introduction, transformation and amplification in Africa; (2) an overview of the imperial era (when African merchants and kings first converted to Islam); (3) an exploration of slavery, the slave trade and the role of Muslims in these processes; (4) an investigation of the nineteenth century when African Muslims fought in several jihads or and then defended against European colonial expansion; and (5) a discussion of the contemporary era when Muslims coped with European colonialism and struggled to regain political and religious influence in an era of independent nation-states.

Through the study of secondary sources, in-class reading and discussions of primary sources, as well as documentaries, this course will provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to understand the diversity of Islamic practices on the African continent.

M 8:50-10:45AM

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History 200-004: Russia and America in the 19th and 20th Centuries

This is a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) course, and enrollment is restricted to incoming first-year students. More information about enrollment authorization is here.

Instructor: Francine Hirsch

F 1:20-3:15PM

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History 200-005: Virtue in the Greco-Roman World

This is a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) course, and enrollment is restricted to incoming first-year students. More information about enrollment authorization is here.

Instructor: Leonora Neville

W 1:20-3:15PM

Description: This is a course about you. We will be reading texts written thousands of years ago by people living in a foreign world. These texts display and argue about ways to be good humans. Considering and debating the ideas of human virtue found in these texts can be one of the best ways for you to develop your own conceptions of value and virtues. We are not using the ancient people as role models for how we should be — although you might admire some of them — but as interlocutors who, in their strangeness, help us see ourselves more clearly. Our goal is not merely self-understanding, however, but self-creation as you choose and develop the ethical stances that you will embody in your life.

Throughout the class we will practice considerate deliberation and respectful disagreement as we develop our ideas. If you already have your mind made up and are not interested in changing it, you won’t find value in this class and should drop it. You will be asked to do a lot of reading and to think about what you’ve read, both during our class and while you go about the rest of your semester.

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History 200-006: Wisdom & the Meaningful Life through History

This is a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) course, and enrollment is restricted to incoming first-year students. More information about enrollment authorization is here.

Instructor: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: What comes to mind when you think of “wisdom”? Perhaps you think of virtues like insight, good judgement, and serenity. Or perhaps you have an image of a saintly religious figure, an inspiring political leader, or even someone close to you like a beloved grandparent, teacher, or coach, who seems to greet even the most difficult situations with an unflappable steadiness, acumen, and deep humanity.

While the images of wisdom may vary, it is widely assumed that — whatever it is and whoever embodies it — wisdom is something timeless and absolute. However, conceptions of wisdom can vary dramatically depending on their historical contexts. Another way of putting this is that wisdom has a history.

This course examines the history of ideas about and quests for wisdom in American history. We will investigate how some of the most pressing ethical, epistemological, and socio-political questions that we grapple with today presented themselves to Americans in the past. Because American observers have consistently looked to other cultures and historical periods for guidance (whether ancient Greece or the Middle East of biblical times, or the worlds of Confucius and Buddha in ancient Asia), students will also see how an “American” history of wisdom is by its very definition a trans-geographic, trans-temporal history.

This course will explore: the distinction between wisdom and knowledge; contested notions of wisdom as achieved through self-reflection vs. social engagement (i.e. personal contemplation vs. public action); varieties of struggles for wisdom against environmental devastation, social injustice, racism, and sexism; and competing conceptions of what makes a life significant. Along the way, students will not only learn what wisdom meant in the past, they will also have ample opportunities to consider what it can mean for them today.

This course will be discussion-based with some lectures, as well as some group work and experiential learning.

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History 200-007: History of Christianity

Instructor: Ulrich Rosenhagen

MWF 11:00-11:50AM

Description: Christianity is one of the world’s major religions. To say its history is complex and controversial would be an understatement. For two millennia, Christianity has shaped human agents’ worldviews and moral convictions. It has provided a foundation for legal and cultural concepts and institutions. Wars have been fought in the name of Christianity and its god. Revolutions have been inspired by its doctrines. Music, art, and science have been informed by its stories.

In this course, we will chart the development of some of the main ideas and key concepts of Christianity, and we will survey the history of Christianity from its beginnings to the present. We will be looking at the Christian origins in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the infant church, and the apostle Paul. The class will then proceed with Christianity becoming the dominant religion of the state in the 4th Century, the church in the middle ages, the Protestant Reformation, Christianity in the modern period and, last but not least, the uneven yet persistent influence of Christianity in today’s globalized world. Our class discussions will center on some of the main themes of Christianity’s history, which are crucial to its identity and structure. Though the main focus of the class will be on Western (European and North-American) Christianity, we will also touch upon the rise and specifics of the Eastern Church as well as Christianity in Africa and in Latin America.

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History 200-008: Sparta

Instructor: Claire Taylor

W 8:50-10:45AM

Description: The ancient Greek city-state of Sparta is well known for its austere (“laconic ) lifestyle devoted to military training. Its citizen-warriors were famous across the Greek world (and beyond) for their bravery, devotion to war, and military success. In this seminar we will investigate this image: How did this picture of Sparta emerge and is there any truth behind it? What kind of society was Sparta and how did the views of other Greeks shape what we know about this place? To answer these questions we will examine the structures which shaped Spartan society: their unusual political system, their relationship with dependent populations (helots and perioikoi) and the problems this caused and Sparta’s place in the archaic and classical Greek world (7th-4th centuries BCE). Throughout, using a combination of literary and archaeological sources, we will explore how the “Spartan mirage (the mythologizing representation of the Spartans) has shaped the creation of Spartan history in both the ancient and modern periods.

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History 200-009: Gandhi, King, Mandela: Non-Violence in the World

This is a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) course, and enrollment is restricted to incoming first-year students. More information about enrollment authorization is here.

Instructor: Mou Banerjee

M 8:50-10:45AM

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History 200-010: Gandhi, King, Mandela: Non-Violence in the World

This is a Learning Community course reserved for first-year students in the Center for Academic Excellence (CAE), Center for Educational Opportunity (CeO), Posse Program, and All-In Milwaukee. Students who want to enroll in the course can request permission to enroll by submitting this brief form, which asks for your name, your UW ID#, your program affiliation (CAE, CeO, etc.), and your SOAR date.

Instructor: Mou Banerjee

M 3:30-5:25PM

Description: This course is a historical introduction to the idea and practice of non-violence as a viable method of political resistance and protest. We shall study the evolution of the politics of non-violence in the 20th century by comparing the ways in which non-violent protests emerged in South Asia, South Africa, and the USA. We will trace this evolution through the inspired political activism of transformative leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. From environmental crises, gender and sexuality rights, immigration, and racial injustice advocacy — this course highlights how nonviolence has remained one of the most popular, important, and effective weapons of political resistance for those who are underrepresented and oppressed.

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History 201-001: African Decolonization

Instructor: Emily Callaci

TR 11:00AM-12:15PM

Description: African decolonization is often defined as the transfer of political sovereignty from European colonizers to independent African nations. Yet, even as formal decolonization was unfolding, many African activists, intellectuals and artists expressed deeper and more ambitious visions of what decolonization could mean. For example, some argued that decolonization required the overthrow of global capitalism and the creation a more just economic order. For others, it meant the dissolving of colonial boundaries to create a pan-African community. In some places, decolonization offered a political language to challenge gendered hierarchies, while in others, it became a justification for entrenching patriarchy. For some, decolonization was about liberating the mind, while some argued that the true target of decolonization was land. This course invites students to explore the history of decolonization in Africa as a moment of rich and diverse political possibilities. We will consider a range of primary sources, including political manifestoes, philosophical texts, underground newspapers, works of art, songs, films, and works of literature.

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History 201-004: Homeland, Home Town: Native and Settler Places

Instructor: Stephen Kantrowitz

T 1:20-3:15PM

Description: If you grew up in what is today the United States (or in many other places around the world), your home town was once a Native American nation’s homeland. This course teaches you to think historically about that fact, to do historical research related to it, and make historical arguments about it by investigating the history of your particular home place and the ways it has been transformed by its encounter with the United States and other colonial powers.

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History 201-005: The Woman Warrior in the Twentieth Century

Instructor: Mary Lou Roberts

W 1:20-3:15PM

Description: This course will introduce students to historical research by exploring the topic of women warriors in Europe. The recent Russian invasion of Ukraine has produced an image some still find unfamiliar: women engaged in combat. In fact, the woman warrior has existed as long as war itself. We will explore these women warriors, mostly in the two world wars in Europe. Some questions we will ask are: What happens when the industrialization of war enables women to fight in combat roles? What special challenges did women face on the battlefield or in resistance movements? How did they negotiate their identities as both women and warriors? We will probe memoirs, diaries, and oral histories as well as historical narratives. Some themes we shall explore: French, German and Hungarian women in the Resistance, Soviet women pilots and machine gunners; and the U.S. Women’s Auxiliary Army (WACs). Students will find a wealth of materials on women warriors to research through a guided trip to the Historical Society.

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History 201-006: American Revolutions

Instructor: Gloria Whiting

T 11:00AM-12:55PM

Description: The title of this class on the American Revolution is intentionally plural: American Revolutions. Most people think of the American Revolution as a single event: an orderly, high-minded struggle in which a united American people sought liberation from the British. This, though, does not align with what historians know of the past. The Revolution was a multi-sided conflict: Patriots and Loyalists squared off in civil war; Euro-Americans fought against Native people; folks of low social status stood up to the elite; and African Americans strove for independence. We will consider together the many participants in the American Revolution and the different objectives those participants had, taking into account both the formative actions of those remembered as “founders” and the ways in which ordinary people shaped the course of events. We will also step back and assess the Revolution’s ripples around the globe. Here, too, it makes sense to think of American Revolutions in the plural, as the American Revolution sparked a series of revolutions that transformed the Americas from a region largely ruled by Europe to one filled with nation states imbued to varying degrees with notions of popular sovereignty and universal rights. Through a variety of readings, research projects, and writing assignments, we will together examine the wide-ranging meanings and consequences of the American Revolution.

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History 201-008: The Weimar Republic and the Rise of Nazism

Instructor: Brandon Bloch

MW 4:00-5:15PM

Description: Germany’s Weimar Republic (1918-1933) is perhaps the most notorious case of democratic failure in modern history. Its collapse remains a reference point in discussions about challenges to democracy today. But is it fair to evaluate the Weimar Republic only in light of its disastrous end? Why did the Nazis come to power in 1933, and could the Nazi rise have been prevented? This seminar dives deep into the culture, society, and politics of this short-lived but momentous period in modern European history. We will explore not only the seedbeds of fascism and authoritarianism in 1920s Germany, but also reform movements that sought democratic transformations in the arts, gender, sexuality, and the built environment. Our sources will range widely across the Republic’s vibrant cultural landscape, including literature, film, journalism, music, fashion, painting, architecture, and propaganda. One key theme will be the contingency of the Weimar Republic’s rise and fall. We will aim to understand how the Republic’s history was shaped by individuals who could not anticipate consequences that appear evident to us in hindsight. By explore a wide range of perspectives on this complex period, students will sharpen their skills in historical thinking and writing.

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History 201-009: World War I in Wisconsin: Searching the Archives

Instructor: Leslie Bellais

T 3:30-5:25PM

Description: Conduct original historical research and convey the results to others. Through engagement with archival materials, become historical detectives; practice defining important historical questions, collecting and analyzing evidence, presenting original conclusions, and contributing to ongoing discussions. Confer individually with and receive feedback from instructors to improve skills of historical analysis and communication in both written and spoken formats.

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History 201-012: History of the United States Empire

Instructor: Allison Powers Useche

W 1:20-3:15PM

Description: Conduct original historical research and convey the results to others. Through engagement with archival materials, become historical detectives; practice defining important historical questions, collecting and analyzing evidence, presenting original conclusions, and contributing to ongoing discussions. Confer individually with and receive feedback from instructors to improve skills of historical analysis and communication in both written and spoken formats.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 201-013: Slavery & the Archival Problem: Researching and Writing Impossible Histories

Instructor: TBA

T 8:50-10:45AM

Description: Individual enslaved people are among the most invisible of historical subjects. Millions of people were enslaved in the British Atlantic world, including North America, yet most have left no written records and we do not even know most of their names. This class will use enslaved people in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries as case studies of how to research and write seemingly impossible histories, exploring how historians can research individuals, places, contexts, and a range of sources in order to craft short pieces of historical writing about those who have disappeared from view.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 201-014: Global Christianities

Instructor: Paul Grant

W 8:50-10:45AM

Description: This course is about how Christianity became a religion of the Global South (by midcentury half of all Christians will live in Africa), including an overview of how a cross-cultural process has also fundamentally remade the religion.

Global Christianity is a geopolitical reality, but so much more – it is also a colorful mosaic of cultural creativity, a foundation for encountering the world, and more. It is both good and bad: some have used it to justify violence, while others have used it for resistance.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 201-015: Global Christianities

Instructor: Paul Grant

M 8:50-10:45AM

Description: This course is about how Christianity became a religion of the Global South (by midcentury half of all Christians will live in Africa), including an overview of how a cross-cultural process has also fundamentally remade the religion.

Global Christianity is a geopolitical reality, but so much more – it is also a colorful mosaic of cultural creativity, a foundation for encountering the world, and more. It is both good and bad: some have used it to justify violence, while others have used it for resistance.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 201-016: Global History of Human Rights, 20th C. to Present

Instructor: TBA

W 1:20-3:15PM

Description: What are human rights? What rights are human rights? Who is responsible for defending them? What projects and positions have revolutionaries, activists, international organizations, and governments justified in their name? Today, human rights are invoked by grassroots social movements, NGOs, national governments, and international institutions to demand individual rights, claim legitimacy for their actions and existence, and justify international intervention in sovereign states. But human rights have not always held such a privileged place in our contemporary world. This class will investigate why and how human rights rose to such prominence over the course of the 20th century. We will also examine how historians have accounted for the rise of human rights and make our own contributions to these exciting scholarly debates. We will begin with the French and Haitian Revolutions in the late-18th century, abolitionist movements in the 19th century, and the rise of nationalism and minority rights in the early 20th century. We will focus on the second half of the 20th century where we will explore how human rights came to structure international institutions like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, and the historical events and processes that shaped their evolution. Throughout, we will pay particular attention to the social movements around the world that have shaped the history, including: anti-colonial movements in sub-Saharan Africa, anti-racism movements in South Africa and the United States, women’s rights movements in Western Europe, dissidents in the Soviet Union, victims of torture during the Algerian War of Independence, and survivors of the Armenian genocide.

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History 201-017: Global History of Unfree Labor in the Long 19th C.

Instructor: Geoffrey Durham

M 1:20-3:15PM

Description: People have been forced to work all around the world for millennia but context is crucial for understanding the many mutations of unfree labor throughout history. For example, what is the difference between slavery in the United States and serfdom in the Russian empire? Or between slavery in the US and Brazil? What can we learn about the past by comparing them and other forms of unfree labor? How can we do it well and what are the ethics of doing so? In this course we will examine the political economic systems and individual experiences of unfree labor regimes in different parts of the world and at different sites of work, including farms, factories, and homes. We will also explore the reasons why unfree labor became increasingly problematic throughout the period, leading to abolitionist movements all over the world.

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History 201-018: Women & Gender in Modern Europe

Instructor: Emma Kuby

MW 4:00-5:15PM

Description: This “Historian’s Craft” class invites students to explore the history of women, gender, and sexuality in modern Europe. Over the course of the semester, we will seek answers to three big, intertwined questions:

(1) How have European gender norms and understandings of masculinity, femininity, family structure, and human sexuality changed between 1750 and the present?

(2) How have women taken part in the major political events and social transformations of modern European history, from the French Revolution to World War II, early industrial strikes to Soviet communist state-building, violent colonial conquests to “Black Lives Matter”?

(3) How have activist movements for women’s social, sexual, reproductive, and political rights taken form over time, and what impact have these movements had on the lives of all Europeans?

The course tackles these questions via a diverse array of written, visual, and audiovisual sources. We also consider work by scholars who have found creative ways to uncover the experiences of ordinary, unprivileged European women despite their seemingly sparse presence in the archival record. Along the way, students will develop the skills to design and carry out their own original research projects within the broad framework of gender history.

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History of Science 201: The Origins of Scientific Thought

Instructor: Florence Hsia

TR 12:00-12:50PM

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 Babylonian astrology and ancient Greek mythology and philosophy, then follow the movement of the Greek classical tradition 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 our ideas of the ‘natural’, scientific observation, and experiment, as well as into our expectations of scientific knowledge and the scientific enterprise. Suitable for both science and humanities majors. Earn either Humanities (enroll in Hist Sci 201) or Natural Sciences (enroll in ILS 201) credits.

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History of Science 211: Imagining & Mapping the Medieval World

Instructor: Nicholas Jacobson

M 1:20-3:15PM

Description: Conduct original historical research in the fields of history of science, medicine, or technology and convey the results to others. Become historical detectives through engagement with archival materials and disciplinary methodologies in the histories of science, medicine and technology; practice defining important historical questions, collecting and analyzing evidence, presenting original conclusions, and contributing to ongoing discussions. Confer individually with and receive feedback from instructors to improve skills of historical analysis and communication in written and other formats.

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History of Science 212: Bodies, Diseases, and Healers: An Introduction to the History of Medicine

Instructor: Nicholas Jacobson

MW 8:50-9:40AM

Description: A survey of different conceptions of how the body as a site of sickness has been understood from Antiquity to contemporary medicine. 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.

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History 219: The American Jewish Experience: From Shtetl to Suburb

Instructor: Tony Michels

MWF 1:20-2:10PM

Description: 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? This course surveys the history of American Jews from the 17th century to the 21st century. Using Jews as the primary, though not only, case, the course 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.

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History 229: Oil and Mining in World History

Instructor: Paul Grant

MW 2:30-3:45PM

Description: This course is about your future. Regardless of your major, petroleum and mining are involved. The extraction industries are both good and bad, but they are intensely globalized. This course will help you understand our world from various angles social, economic, religious, ecological, and more. About 1/3 of the course is on ore mining (iron, copper, etc.). About 1/3 is on energy (coal, petroleum, and minerals for batteries). You will be able to customize the final third, reporting back to the class on your research about how oil and mining shape your intended career.

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History 244: Introduction to Southeast Asia: Vietnam to the Philippines

Instructor: Michael Cullinane

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Southeast Asia is a region that today consists of eleven nations: Brunei, Cambodia (Kampuchea), East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, each with its own history, cultural and ethnic diversity, and political and socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, it is a region–between China and India–that possesses many cultural and historical similarities and continuities that make it unique. This course is intended to provide a general introduction to Southeast Asia’s past and present. The course is organized chronologically around three broad periods: 1) traditional states and societies (to ca.1830); 2) colonial transformations and indigenous responses (ca.1830-1945); and 3) the emergence of modern nations (since 1945). Within these broad time frames, the course will explore several topics and themes, among them: the origins of indigenous states; religious conversion and practice; ethnicity, social organization, and gender relations; the impact of colonial domination; modern social and economic transformations; responses to colonial rule; the development of nationalist and socialist-communist movements and revolutions; the nature of post-colonial societies and political systems; ethnic conflict and national integration; the impact of Cold War international relations; and U.S. involvement and intervention in the region. Given the size and diversity of the region, the course will concentrate on three Southeast Asian countries: Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand–those countries that are the primary research areas of UW-Madison’s Southeast Asia program and for which significant resources exist on campus: course offerings (including in languages), library holdings, and study abroad opportunities. Students will also read two major works of fiction from at least one of the three countries of concentration.

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History 260: Latin America: An Introduction

Instructor: Patrick Iber

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: What does politics look like under conditions of economic inequality? What sort of culture does colonialism produce? When does democracy survive, and when does it break down? When do revolutions produce real improvements for ordinary people? These all sound like questions that many have been asking in the United States in the last few years. In Latin America, they have been asked for decades.

This course will offer a broad introduction to Latin American history and culture, with a close look at those big questions. We won’t be bound by comparisons to the United States, but we will think critically and comparatively about Latin America’s experience as part of the wider world. This course is an overview, from the pre-colonial era to the present day. We are going to the explore the region in all its diversity, steering away from easy clich or superficial analysis. The class will also be interdisciplinary in its approach: we will gather information from history, political science, economics, literature, and film. We will have guests and experts from across the university visit the class, so that if there are particular areas that interest you, you will have ideas about how you might pursue them further.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 275: U.S. Histories of LGBTQ Activism

This is a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) course, and enrollment is restricted to incoming first-year students. More information about enrollment authorization is here.

Instructor: Finn Enke

T 1:20-3:15PM

Description: Topics in the major issues and themes in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, considered across race, class, nationality, and time.

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History of Science 275: Science, Medicine, and Race: A History

Instructor: Pablo Gómez

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: This course examines ideas about race and ethnicity and their relationship to the history of “Western medicine and science. Starting with the arrival of modern Europeans in the New World, we will examine how, from the sixteenth century on, social, economic, cultural, and political developments have been determinant in the shaping of scientific and medical notions of race and bodily difference. We will use an array of readings coming from primary and secondary, historical sources, and from scholarly works on philosophy, anthropology, sociology, medicine and science. We will pay special attention to the construction of ideas about race in the “West and how the history of these ideas intersects with the histories of public health, disease, colonialism, slavery, and capitalism. In the final part of the course we will analyze how the rise of genomics has modeled ideas about, among others, body and group identity, gender, ancestry, disease, and public health policies.

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History 277: Africa: An Introductory Survey

Instructor: Neil Kodesh

MW 9:55-10:45AM (IN PERSON) & F (ONLINE)

Description: This course is designed to be a multidisciplinary introduction to the history, cultures, and politics of Africa. It is available to students as African Cultural Studies 277, Afro-American Studies 277, Anthropology 277, Geography 277, History 277, Political Science 277, or Sociology 277. 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.

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History of Science 280: Honors Seminar: Studies in Science, Technology, and Medicine

Instructor: Daniel Stolz

M 8:50-10:45AM

Description: The battle between advocates of Darwinian evolution and “creationists” has helped define the relationship between science, religion, public policy, and the law. For many of us, when we think of such controversies, we think of the American “Bible Belt,” as in the Tennessee courtroom immortalized in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind. But creationism has a global history, connecting teachers, politicians, religious activists, and scientists in the United States with counterparts across the world, and especially in the Middle East – another place where the public role of religion has been a topic of great controversy in recent decades. This course explores the global history of creationism as a way of understanding how science and religion have come into conflict in specific times and places, and how different societies have addressed this controversy in terms of law and educational policy. The course makes extensive hands-on use of unique collections in Memorial Library’s rare books department.

For more information, visit Course Search & Enroll

History 300: History at Work & History 301: History Internship Seminar

History 303: A History of Greek Civilization

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.

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History 328: Environmental History of Europe

Instructor: Richard Keyser

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: Explores a new approach to a part of the world with a very old history, but one that is now as ‘modern’ as any. The changing, complex relations between Europeans and their environments from antiquity to the twenty-first century offer instructive comparison with American and current global environmental concerns. Approaching Mediterranean and Western civilizations from an environmental viewpoint also offers fresh perspective on these enduring cultures.

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History 347: The Caribbean and its Diasporas

Instructor: Jorell Meléndez-Badillo

TR 11:00AM-12:15PM

Description: Surveys the history of the Caribbean from the 15th century to the present. Emphasizes the importance of colonialism, commodity-based capitalism, globalization, slavery, and forced labor for the modeling of the region’s social, economic, cultural, and political structures. Pay particular attention to the resilient, creative and resourceful ways in which Caribbean people have responded to these adverse conditions. Examine the circumstances that have shaped migrations from the region to the United States and Canada during the 20th and 21st centuries. Study how these diasporic communities have created social spaces in these two countries that have remained closely linked to the Caribbean through economic, political, and filial networks.

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History 350: The First World War and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Europe

Instructor: Daniel Ussishkin

LECTURES ONLINE, DISCUSSION SECTIONS IN PERSON

Description: The experience and legacy of the First World War has been linked to nearly every social, cultural, and political transformation that marked the short century that followed: mobilization and the experience of total war transformed the relations between governments and citizens, between men and women, and between social classes. Europeans experienced death on an unprecedented scale and came to terms with new forms of industrialized warfare, from the use of poison gas to modern practices of genocide. Europeans now learned to live with violence, both during as well as after the war, and found new ways to mourn or remember the dead. Using a wide variety of contemporary sources — memoirs, essays, poems, or cinematic representations — situates the upheaval of 1914-1918 within the larger framework of twentieth-century European history.

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History 357: The Second World War

Instructor: Mary Lou Roberts

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: The Second World War is arguably the most important global event in the twentieth century. It brought nearly the entire world into its vortex of violence, hatred and industrial killing. It was a racial war begun by Germany and Japan in their quests for dominance. It was also a total war which demanded complete loyalty to the state and which consumed the natural, material and human resources of combattant nations. This course will explore these three themes of violence, racism and total war during the years 1939-1945. Lectures, screenings and readings will emphasize the war as a turning point in global politics; the role of leaders such as Hitler, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Charles de Gaulle, the lived experience of war and occupation for soldiers, civilians, and prisoners, and the execution of Nazi genocide and Japanese atrocities. During weekly screenings of popular films, students will come to distinguish “popular from “historical memoriy of the Second World War, and gain critical distance on how the war has been remembered personally, officially, and in American culture.

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History 359: History of Europe Since 1945

Instructor: Laird Boswell

MW 4:00-5:15PM

Description: How did Europe rebuild from the ashes of World War II? This course explores the history of the European Continent from 1945 to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine. We will focus on key themes such as the legacy of Nazism and the Holocaust; the Cold War and the rivalry between the superpowers; the collapse of the European Empires; the birth and development of the European Union; the post war economic boom; the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union; the rebirth of nationalism after 1990; and the growth of populism in the present.

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History of Science 360: Health Inequalities in the Long 20th Century

Instructor: Dana Landress

TR 11:00AM-12:15PM

Description: While the concept of “social determinants of health” offers a familiar framework for analyzing health disparities in the present, the idea of health inequality has a long and nuanced history. Casting a wide net, this course will explore the historical development of health inequalities through a series of case studies, where contemporary health scholars will weigh in each week, thereby linking our historical analysis to contemporary questions about health equity in the present. Students will be asked to engage with the following questions: How was the Transatlantic medical marketplace shaped by the global forces of colonialism and the afterlives of slavery in the late 19th century? In what ways did life insurance companies come to define and categorize risk and how did medical racism shape early actuarial sciences? How did some body parts — including cadavers, organs, and breast milk — which were once considered outside of the marketplace, come to be integrated into medical economies and health service structures? In what ways did particular economies or labor systems work to produce illness in certain populations? And, how have a wide array of historical actors, including civil rights leaders, labor organizers, queer folx, people with disabilities, and Latinx coalitions articulated diverse and creative visions for addressing health disparities across time and place?

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History 366: From Fascism to Today: Social Movements and Politics in Europe

Instructor: Giuliana Chamedes

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Investigates how everyday people shaped European history and politics, from World War I through today. Takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to analyze a range of major social movements in Europe, thinking in detail about what constitutes a social movement in the first place, and what determines its effectiveness. Key topics include the rise and fall of Fascism; the fate of the Communist and Socialist Left in Europe; the role of youth movements as drivers of change; and the constraints imposed on political organizing by both democratic and authoritarian societies. Drawing on a range of texts, songs, and films, investigates how people power has shaped the European state, and vice-versa, from 1922 through today.

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History 375: The Cold War – From World War II to End of Soviet Empire

Instructor: Alfred McCoy

TR 2:30-3:45PM

Description: Designed for students with some background in U.S. history or international studies, the course probes the global dynamics of the Cold War, from its origins during World War II through the end of the Soviet empire in 1991. Not only did the Cold War split most of the world into communist and capitalist blocs, but it also penetrated deep inside many societies, shaping art, culture, electoral politics, and mass consciousness.

After exploring the Cold War’s key aspects such as nuclear warfare, espionage, and mind control, the course tracks its international history through three main phases. First, following the fall of the Iron Curtain across Europe in the late 1940s, the rival superpowers competed for dominion over this divided continent through espionage, cultural display, and deployment of nuclear-armed military forces. After the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 brought the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war, the Cold War’s superpower rivalry shifted to the Third World, marked by a massive surrogate war in Vietnam, CIA regime change in Indonesia and Chile, and Soviet intervention to end the Prague Spring. In the Cold War’s final phase after 1975, superpower surrogate warfare coincided with the primal politics of developing societies to produce devastating conflicts on three continents–in southern Africa, Central America, and Central Asia. Bloodied by Islamic resistance during its decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, the Red Army withdrew in defeat and the Soviet Union collapsed just two years later as 22 satellite states and captive republics broke free from Moscow’s steely grip.

Through the sum of such content, students should finish the course with knowledge about a key facet of U.S. foreign policy and a lasting ability to analyze future international developments. Beyond such empiricism, the course will impart sharpened analytical abilities, refined research skills, improved oral presentations, and better writing skills.

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History 401-002: Wisconsin 101 – Our History in Objects

Instructor: Leslie Bellais

R 3:30-5:25PM

Description: Introduction to the practice of public history. Public historians ground their work in rigorous, academic research with the goal of presenting history in a collaborative and publicly focused manner. These projects come in many forms including exhibits, walking tours, podcasts, documentaries, web projects, and place-based interpretation, to name a few. Learn how academic history gets presented to the public, not only by reading about public history, but by doing it.

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History of Science 404: A History of Disease

Instructor: Judith Houck

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: What is disease? Who decides? What are the consequences of labeling a behavior a disease? Can disease be a tool of liberation? Can disease be an instrument of oppression? How do race, class, and gender affect our understandings of and experiences with illness? How have diseases shaped American history? Illustrates the various ways disease operates in America and examines the role of disease on at least four levels–political, social, cultural, and personal–to demonstrate that diseases are not merely bodily afflictions; they are also participants in the body politic. Each disease covered is chosen to illustrate a different point about the social and cultural lives of disease in the history of the United States. Though diseases are covered in a chronological fashion, this coverage is not meant as a narrative history of disease.

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History 409: Christianity in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800

Instructor: Eric Carlsson

TR 9:30-10:45AM

Description: Between the late Middle Ages and the era of democratic revolutions Western Christianity saw a series of sweeping changes that altered its global profile and helped form the modern world – examines some of these shifts and their impact. Questions explored include: Why did the Reformations of the 16th century occur and with what effects on people’s lives and on early modern societies? What was the relationship between European colonization, the Atlantic slave trade, new theories of race, and the spread of Christianity to the “New World”? How was the Christian religion resisted, received, and reshaped by Native Americans and people of African descent? What sparked movements of reform and renewal – including new Catholic religious orders and the Protestant Evangelical Awakening – and with what consequences for modern Christianity? How did the nature of Christian belief and identity change under the impact of religious conflict, political revolution, and new intellectual movements?

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History 418: History of Russia

Instructor: Geoffrey Durham

TR 4:00-5:15PM

Description: Between 1800 and 1917, the Russian empire went from being one of Europe’s Great Powers to a collapsing power embroiled in war and revolution. What happened? And how did Imperial Russia become the center of the world’s largest land empire? With such 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 into a coherent whole? In this survey of Russian imperial history, 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.

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History 419: History of Soviet Russia

Instructor: Francine Hirsch

MWF 9:55-10:45AM

Description: This course examines the history of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991 with a focus on Revolutionary Russia, Stalinism, the experiences and consequences of World War II, the Cold War years, perestroika, and the Soviet collapse. We will look in depth at Soviet nationality policy and at the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Throughout the course we will discuss connections between the past and the present–with an eye to understanding Putin’s Russia and the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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History 426: The History of Punishment

Instructor: Karl Shoemaker

TR 1:00-2:15PM

Description: Examines punishment across a vast range of historical traditions, examining how wrongdoing and punishment have been figured in law, literature, art and philosophy. Examines ancient, medieval and modern traditions.

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History 435: Colony, Nation, and Minority: The Puerto Ricans’ World

Instructor: Jorell Meléndez-Badillo

R 3:30-5:25PM

Description: A historical introduction to the Puerto Rican experience, from island to mainland. Varieties of colonial rule, social institutions, cultural processes, and ethnic and national identity. Migration to the U.S. and social dynamics of stateside communities.

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History 460: American Environmental History

Instructor: Matt Villeneuve

TR 4:00-5:15PM

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.

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History 500-001: Women and U.S. Sports History

Instructor: Ashley Brown

R 1:20-3:15PM

Description: Women’s sports are bigger and more popular today than at any other time in history. The WNBA and NCAA basketball are filled with stars. Golf is thriving, with an abundance of events on the LPGA Tour and the creation of the new Augusta National Women’s Amateur tournament. Softball is reaching record audiences, thanks to the Olympics and the collegiate scene. Tennis continues to draw new fans and players even as Serena Williams and Ash Barty have moved on to other endeavors. This appears to be a golden moment for players, spectators, and the business of women’s sports. But what about the past?

This seminar explores the history of women in American sports from the nineteenth century through the present. We will examine women’s evolving efforts to make space for themselves in the world of athletics, paying close attention to the ways in which their challenges as well as expectations of them correlated with the issues that women faced in the broader society. Sportswomen’s strategies to endure, survive, and thrive will garner our attention. In addition, we will study the vast scrutiny leveled at female athletes as well as the opportunities and contradictions that characterized their sometimes celebrated, often controversial and dubious, and always unique place in American culture and society. This course is designed for students who are genuinely interested in U.S. women’s history in all its complexities.

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History 500-002: Blacks and Jews in Urban America

Instructor: Tony Michels

T 1:20-3:15PM

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History 600 – All Sections

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.

History 680: Honors Thesis Colloquium & History 690: Thesis Colloquium

Instructor: Kathryn Ciancia

W 11:00AM-12:55PM

Description: Colloquium for thesis writers & honors thesis writers.

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Cross-Listed Courses with History & History of Science

Undergraduate Catalog

The University of Wisconsin’s Undergraduate Guide is the central location for official information about its departments and programs. Find the Department of History’s entries here, including the official requirements of the major.

[archive of UW Undergraduate Catalogs, dating to 1995, and Graduate Catalogs from 1994]
[archive of History course catalogs, dating from 1852 to 1996]