HISTORY 1:
The History of 2023
How can we understand the events, ideas, and conflicts that have featured in the news cycle during the past year? "The History of 2023" offers historically informed reflections on this year's momentous events, providing an opportunity to understand our world in its historic context. Each week will feature a different History faculty member speaking on a major news topic of the year, showing what we can learn by approaching it from a historical perspective. The course is open to all students (newcomers and history veterans alike) who want to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of 2023, and who are curious to consider how studying history can offer a deeper and richer understanding of tumultuous times.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 5 units total)
HISTORY 1A:
Global History: The Ancient World (CLASSICS 76)
World history from the origins of humanity to the Black Death. Focuses on the evolution of complex societies, wealth, violence, hierarchy, and large-scale belief systems.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 1B:
Global History: The Early Modern World, 1300 to 1800
(Course is offered for 3 OR 5 units.) Topics include early globalization and cross-cultural exchanges; varying and diverse cultural formations in different parts of the world; the growth and interaction of empires and states; the rise of capitalism and the economic divergence of "the west"; changes in the nature of technology, including military and information technologies; migration of ideas and people (including the slave-trade); disease, climate, and environmental change over time. Designed to accommodate beginning students, non-majors, and more advanced history students
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 1C:
Global History through Graphic Novels: The Modern Age
(Course is offered for 3 OR 5 units.) How did empires and nation-states evolve around the globe during the modern period? How did they shape global experiences of modernity? And how can one write a history of the entire world, so as to cover the necessary ground, but also preserve nuance and complexity? In this course we will use graphic novels (paired with archival sources and historical essays) to examine modern world history from the 18th to the 21st century, from the age of empires and revolutions, through the World Wars, the Cold War, and the War on Terror. The class is appropriate for beginning students, non-majors, and more advanced history students, and may be taken for different levels of credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 2B:
Current Issues in Baltic Affairs (REES 100B, REES 200B)
The Baltic States, comprising a geopolitical region of the world encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, is vitally important politically, strategically, historically and culturally. This seminar series brings leading experts, from around the world - scholars and practitioners - representing a broad range of fields, to share their cutting-edge research and insights into the challenges and issues that have confronted this region in a global context. Class meets Wednesdays 12:00-1:00pm in CISAC - Encina Hall, Reuben Hills Conference room (E207).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 6 units total)
HISTORY 3C:
Democracy and Disagreement (COMM 3, CSRE 31, PHIL 3, POLISCI 31, PSYCH 31A, PUBLPOL 3, RELIGST 23X, SOC 13)
Each class will be focused on a different topic and have guest speakers. This class will be open to students, faculty and staff to attend and also be recorded. Deep disagreement pervades our democracy, from arguments over immigration, gun control, abortion, and the Middle East crisis, to the function of elite higher education and the value of free speech itself. Loud voices drown out discussion. Open-mindedness and humility seem in short supply among politicians and citizens alike. Yet constructive disagreement is an essential feature of a democratic society. This class explores and models respectful, civil disagreement. Each week features scholars who disagree - sometimes quite strongly - about major policy issues. Students will have the opportunity to probe those disagreements, understand why they persist, and to improve their own understanding of the facts and values that underlie them.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 4 units total)
HISTORY 3D:
Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ENGLISH 71, ETHICSOC 36X, FRENCH 36, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, RELIGST 36X, SLAVIC 36, TAPS 36)
Ideas matter. Concepts such as progress, technology, and sex, have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like cultural relativism and historical memory, play an important role in contemporary debates in the United States. All of these ideas are contested, and they have a real power to change lives, for better and for worse. In this one-unit class we will examine these "dangerous" ideas. Each week, a faculty member from a different department in the humanities and arts will explore a concept that has shaped human experience across time and space.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 4 units total)
HISTORY 3F:
Introduction to Modern Military History (HISTORY 103F, INTNLREL 103F)
(HISTORY 3F is 3 units; 103F is 5 units.) This course will introduce students to the basic concepts of modern warfare, its evolution, and some of the immeasurable ways by which it shaped our history as well as our world today. How have strategy, operations and tactics been transformed by the modern state; the industrial revolution; and the accelerated pace of technological change? What is the meaning of total war, conventional war, and asymmetric war, and how were these different types of war fought in the 20th and 21st centuries? From the Napoleonic wars to the war in Ukraine, how do wars reflect, and shape, our politics, economics, culture, and technology? No prior knowledge of military history (or technology) is required. Students satisfying the WiM requirement for the major in International Relations must enroll in INTNLREL 103F course listing. Please note that the version of this course offered in 2023-24 and later does not fulfill a "pre-1700" requirement for the history major.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 3J:
Human Trafficking: Historical, Legal, and Medical Perspectives
Interdisciplinary approach to understanding the extent and complexity of the global phenomenon of human trafficking, especially for forced prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trade, focusing on human rights violations and remedies. Provides a historical context for the development and spread of human trafficking. Analyzes the current international and domestic legal and policy frameworks to combat trafficking and evaluates their practical implementation.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 1
HISTORY 3N:
Terrorism
Why do we categorize some acts of violence as terrorism? How do the practitioners of such violence legitimize their actions? What are the effects of terror on culture, society, and politics? This course explores these questions around the globe from the nineteenth century to the present. Topics include the Russian populists, Ku Klux Klan, IRA, al Qaida, state terror, and the representation of terrorism in law, journalism, literature, film, and TV.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 3S:
A Global History of the Apocalypse: Millenarian Movements in the Modern World
This course will examine the rise, fall, and legacy of modern millenarian movements-- movements that claim that our corrupt world is about to be swept away, to be replaced with a particular version of paradise-- in a global perspective. Drawing on an array of sources ranging from proclamations, diaries, criminal confessions, newspaper accounts, cartoons, songs, photographs, and films, we will explore what, if anything, these movements had in common, and their connections to and influences on one another.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 4N:
What is Nature? Discovering the History of Nature at Stanford
Nature is everywhere. It pops up in advertisements, in news stories, and popular culture. We talk about nature all the time, sometimes without even realizing it: conserving nature, loving nature, and being in nature. But what actually is nature? Are oak trees nature? What about gardens, sunsets, or garbage? Are human beings nature, or is nature a state one can enter into? Do you have to go outdoors to be in nature? In this course we'll get out of the classroom and use the Stanford campus to explore how people in the past have thought about nature and why it has been and continues to be such a potent idea that is so hard to define. Together in this seminar we'll examine the history and design of Stanford University. We'll explore a range of narrative approaches to nature stories. And we'll consider current problems and debates about nature from pollution, to drought, to wildfire, and climate change. The course will culminate in a fun, hands-on project.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 5C:
Human Trafficking: Historical, Legal, and Medical Perspectives (CSRE 5C, FEMGEN 5C, INTNLREL 5C)
(Same as History 105C. 5C is 3 units; 105C is 5 units.) Interdisciplinary approach to understanding the extent and complexity of the global phenomenon of human trafficking, especially for forced prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trade, focusing on human rights violations and remedies. Provides a historical context for the development and spread of human trafficking. Analyzes the current international and domestic legal and policy frameworks to combat trafficking and evaluates their practical implementation. Examines the medical, psychological, and public health issues involved. Uses problem-based learning. Required weekly 50-min. discussion section, time TBD. Students interested in service learning should consult with the instructor and will enroll in an additional course.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 5N:
The Global Refugee Crisis
Worldwide there are more refugees and displaced people today than in any other period of human history. More than 90 million people across the planet have been forcibly displaced from their homes in recent years. How do we account for this crisis? And how might we imagine altering its trajectory? This course explores the varied forces, from war to climate change to narcotrafficking, that have uprooted these populations. It also seeks to understand the politics of migration by focusing on the experiences of refugees narrated by themselves. We analyze films, memoirs, novels and scholarly literature. Students will have the option of producing papers and/or audio and visual projects.Readings include:Viet Than Hguyen, ed., The DisplacedReyna Grande, The Distance Between Us Behrouz Boochani, No Friend But the MountainsEmmanuel Mbolela, RefugeeLeila Abdelrazaq, Badddawiand others
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 5Q:
The History of Information: From Movable Type to Machine Learning
Information has a history-- and it's not the one you've been told by Silicon Valley. In a series of propulsive, empirically rich, and provocative lectures and discussions, this course deep-dives into the history of information and IT, including moveable type, telegraphy, typewriting, personal computing, gaming, social media, algorithms, machine learning, Digital Humanities, and more. You will leave the course with entirely new perspectives on information, including how IT shapes-- and is shaped by-- culture, nationality, gender, ethnicity, economy, and environment.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4
HISTORY 5S:
Comparative Partitions: Religion, Identity, and the Nation-State (FEMGEN 5S)
This course looks at demands for representation made by religious minority communities, specifically by Indian Muslim and European Jewish intellectuals, in the twentieth century. We will explore what national belonging means from the perspective of minorities against the backdrop of global discussions of anticolonialism, national self determination, and equal representation. Through primary sources, namely political tracts and speeches, oral histories, literary sources, and historical maps, we question how authors from different backgrounds constructed religious communities as nations in need of states.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 6S:
An Environmental Problem: Energy, Pollution, Catastrophe
This course looks at pollution in the modern period through the lens of energy and resource use, focusing on four major categories of resources: coal, oil, nuclear power and metals. Key themes and topics, including colonialism, exploitation, disposability, and sustainability, will be explored through the use of archival documents, newspaper articles, maps, and multimedia. We will examine the histories of pollution worldwide and their legacies today -- as such the course intersects with international politics, environmental justice and human rights.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 6W:
Community-Engaged Learning Workshop on Human Trafficking - Part I (FEMGEN 6W, HUMRTS 6W)
Considers purpose, practice, and ethics of service learning. Provides training for students' work in community. Examines current scope of human trafficking in Bay Area, pressing concerns, capacity and obstacles to effectively address them. Students work with community partners dedicated to confronting human trafficking and problems it entails on a daily basis. Must currently be enrolled in or have previously taken History 5C/105C (FemGen 5C/105C, HumBio 178H, IR 105C, CSRE 5C/105C). (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3
HISTORY 7S:
Global Imperial Cities of the Pacific World: 1900-2000 (URBANST 7)
The history of the twentieth-century Pacific World is the history of imperialism on a global scale. And cities were both the stages and actors of this global dynamic of domination and resistance. We will examine ten cities around the Pacific Rim (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seoul, Panama, Auckland, Shanghai, Lima, Singapore, Kyoto, and Ho Chi Minh City) and explore how we can use local historical sources to study the transnational processes of empire-building and capitalism. In this class, we learn to read city plans, maps, business documents, policy documents, newspapers, photos, diaries, interviews, and landscapes to do environmental, colonial, international, social, gender, and cultural history.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 7W:
Community-Engaged Learning Workshop on Human Trafficking - Part II (FEMGEN 7W, HUMRTS 7W)
Prerequisite: HISTORY6W (FEMGEN 6W). Continuation of HISTORY 6W (FEMGEN 6W). Students will continue working on their projects with their community partners. Several class meetings and small group consultations throughout the quarter. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3
HISTORY 8S:
Whales, Bombs, & the Race to the Bottom: Oceanic Histories of Law, Environmentalism, & Human Rights
Oceans cover two thirds of the world's surface and play a vital role in global carbon storage, biodiversity, and food stocks. But who owns the oceans and their resources? And what rights and duties do countries, corporations, and individuals have at sea? In this course, we will examine histories of commercial fishing and whaling, nuclear testing, seabed mining, human rights at sea, and sea-level rise as avenues for understanding developments in international law over the course of the 20th century.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 9N:
How to Start Your Own Country: Sovereignty and State-Formation in Modern History
What does it mean to start a country, or to acquire and possess sovereignty over a territory? This course will examine the historical evolution of fundamental concepts in our international system: state formation, statehood, and sovereignty. Each week will spotlight a case-study in which sovereignty and statehood have appeared greatly confused and hotly contested. These include: the UK-China lease for control of Hong Kong; the US Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay; the corporate state of the legendary British East India Company; and Disney World.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 9S:
Life Histories of Enslaved Africans around the Globe from the Early Modern Period to the Present
Is there any possibility of hearing silenced voices of enslaved people? If it is so, how and where can we find their own voices? If we find the sources, to what extent can our findings help us differentiate between the lived and remembered experience of bondage? Can experiences of enslaved people fall under one category or can we talk about differences in defining their statuses? Throughout this course, we will be endeavoring to answer these questions by looking at individual experiences. Moreover, we will aim to see whether we can sympathize with the members of this exploited class by arguing that it is of value to know about their experiences. As much as the course benefits from different historical methods and thoughts, the overarching agenda is to contribute to global history through the life stories of enslaved Africans.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 10B:
Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern Europe
(Same as HISTORY 110B. HISTORY 10B is 3 units; HISTORY 110B is 5 units) Few historical settings offer a more illuminating perspective on our world today than old-regime Europe. Few cast a darker shadow. Science and the enlightened ambition to master nature and society, the emergence of statehood and its grasp for human mobility, bloodshed and coexistence in the face of religious fragmentation, as well as capitalism and the birth of modern finance: this course surveys some of the most consequential developments in European societies between the late fifteenth and the early nineteenth century.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 10C:
Modern Europe's Lives
(Same as HISTORY 110C. 10C is 3 units; 110C is 5 units.) From the late 18th century to the present. How Europeans responded to rapid social changes caused by political upheaval, industrialization, and modernization. How the experience and legacy of imperialism and colonialism both influenced European society and put in motion a process of globalization that continues to shape international politics today.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 10N:
Thinking About War
This course examines classic approaches to war as an intellectual problem, looking at how a matter of such great physical violence and passions can be subjected to understanding and used in philosophy, political theory, and art. Questions to be examined include the definition of war, its causes, its moral value, the nature of its participants, its use in the self-definition of individuals and societies, its relation to political authority, warfare and gender, and the problem of civil war.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 10S:
The Enlightenment and Slavery
An age defined by lofty goals of progress, improvement, and perfection also saw the colossal expansion of race-based slavery in the Atlantic world. This course explores how people living in the 1700s reconciled the ideals of the Enlightenment with the realities of slavery. Characters include Caribbean enslavers lining their deadly plantations with coconut trees, Black slaves tracking the developments of the Haitian Revolution from American newspaper offices, and European political thinkers questioning imperial rule. With an Atlantic-focused but global perspective, we will use ideas about betterment to examine a notoriously brutal history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 11N:
The Roman Empire: Its Grandeur and Fall (CLASSICS 26N)
Preference to freshmen. Explore themes on the Roman Empire and its decline from the 1st through the 5th centuries C.E.. What was the political and military glue that held this diverse, multi-ethnic empire together? What were the bases of wealth and how was it distributed? What were the possibilities and limits of economic growth? How integrated was it in culture and religion? What were the causes and consequences of the conversion to Christianity? Why did the Empire fall in the West? How suitable is the analogy of the U.S. in the 21st century?
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-3, WAY-SI
HISTORY 12N:
Income and wealth inequality from the Stone Age to the present (CLASSICS 12N)
Rising inequality is a defining feature of our time. How long has economic inequality existed, and when, how and why has the gap between haves and have-nots widened or narrowed over the course of history? This seminar takes a very long-term view of these questions. It is designed to help you appreciate dynamics and complexities that are often obscured by partisan controversies and short-term perspectives, and to provide solid historical background for a better understanding of a growing societal concern.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 12S:
Multiculturalism in the Middle Ages: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain (JEWISHST 12S)
Before the year 1492, Spain had been a dynamic and complex region of Muslim and Christian kingdoms populated by Christians, Muslims, and Jews for nearly 800 years. What political, economic, and military exchanges took place among peoples of the three faiths in medieval Spain? Did community leaders and governments attempt to regulate and prohibit fluid identity boundaries? How has 20th-century Spanish nationalism shaped our understanding of medieval Spain? How have 21st-century questions of multiculturalism impacted our view of medieval Spain? These are the kinds of questions that this course will explore through chronicles, poetry, letters, legal documents, art, and architecture.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 13P:
Media and Communication from the Middle Ages to the Printing Press (ENGLISH 13P, ENGLISH 113P, HISTORY 113P, MUSIC 13P, MUSIC 113P)
Did you know that the emperor Charlemagne was illiterate, yet his scribes revolutionized writing in the West? This course follows decisive moments in the history of media and communication, asking how new recording technologies reshaped a society in which most people did not read or write--what has been described as the shift "from memory to written record." To understand this transformation, we examine forms of oral literature and music, from the Viking sagas, the call to crusade, and medieval curses (Benedictine maledictions), to early popular authors such as Dante and the 15th-century feminist scribe, Christine de Pizan. We trace the impact of musical notation, manuscript and book production, and Gutenberg's print revolution. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, how did the medium shape the message? Along the way, we will consider how the medieval arts of memory and divine reading (lectio divina) can inform communication in the digital world. This is a hands-on course: students will handle medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Special Collections, and will participate in an "ink-making workshop," following medieval recipes for ink and for cutting quills, then using them to write on parchment. The course is open to all interested students.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 13S:
Misfits of the Middle Ages: Persecution and Tolerance in Medieval Europe
Medieval Europe is infamous for its persecutions. In the popular imagination, the Middle Ages were a uniquely unhappy time for Jews, heretics, lepers, witches, and countless other outsiders. But what is the truth about Europe¿s ¿Dark Ages?¿ What was it actually like to be a Jew in medieval Italy, a leper in England, a heretic in France? Who carried out the persecutions, what motivated them to violence, and did they actually succeed? How do the experiences of medieval Europe¿s outsiders still inform our own notions of tolerance, human rights, and inclusion today?
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 14B:
The Crusades: A Global History (JEWISHST 14B)
(HISTORY 14B is 3 units; HISTORY 114B is 5 units.) Questioning traditional western narratives of the crusades, this course studies Latin and Turkic invaders as rival barbarian formations, and explores the societies of western Afro-Eurasia and the Mediterranean in the centuries before western European global expansion. We approach the crusades as a "Christianized Viking raid," and investigate an array of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish sources. In so doing, we emphasize the diversity of perspectives within the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities: in the Muslim case, the tangle of Turkic, Arab, and Berber ethnicities; in the Jewish case, Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkic speakers ranging from the Iberian peninsula to India; in the Christian case, the fragmented Greek, Latin, and Arabic traditions. We explore how these barbarian invasions transformed the societies of western Afro-Eurasia, how ancient Greek knowledge in Islamic translation came to medieval Europe, and how a fragmenting Byzantine Empire gave way to the rise of the Ottoman Empire. However foreign, the interactions and encounters between these societies continue to reverberate today.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 14S:
Conversion in Ancient and Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (JEWISHST 14S)
In the third century, a group of Roman soldiers submerged themselves in baptismal waters in the Syrian desert and became Christians, a radical act. A thousand years later, the Jews of Spain were forced to do the same; in 1391, their mass forced baptisms sparked widespread panic. Traces of these historical events, and countless others like them, survive in texts, manuscripts and archeological remains, and prompt the following questions: how did people of the past judge the "authenticity" of a religious conversion? What was the relationship between religion, culture, ethnicity, and race? Was religion an internal conviction, or a cultural practice? This course will explore conversions, both willing and forced, in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Our exploration will focus on conversions among the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 15D:
Europe in the Middle Ages, 300-1500 (HISTORY 115D, RELIGST 115X)
(HISTORY 15D is 3 units; HISTORY 115D is 5 units.) This course provides an introduction to Medieval Europe from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. While the framework of the course is chronological, we'll concentrate particularly on the structure of medieval society. Rural and urban life, kingship and papal government, wars and plagues provide the context for our examination of the lives of medieval people, what they believed, and how they interacted with other, both within Christendom and beyond it. This course may count as DLCL 123, a course requirement for the Medieval Studies Minor.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 16:
Traders and Crusaders in the Medieval Mediterranean (HISTORY 116)
Trade and crusade were inextricably interconnected in the high Middle Ages. As merchant ships ferried knights and pilgrims across the Mediterranean, rulers borrowed heavily to finance their expeditions, while military expansion opened new economic opportunities. Course themes include the origins of the Crusading movement; the rise of Venice and other maritime powers; the pivotal roles of the Byzantine and Mongol Empires; relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews; new military, maritime, and commercial technologies; and the modern legacy of the Crusades.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 17N:
Intimacy, Secrets and the Past: Biography in History and Fiction
Biography is one of the most popular- and controversial- modes of writing about the past and perhaps its greatest draw is in its promise to revel the otherwise sequestered details of life, its everyday secrets otherwise sequestered from view. This, of course, is also at the heart of most modern fiction, and the two modes of writing have many other similarities as well as, needless to say, differences. The rhythms of life writing in biography as well as fiction will be explored in this class, along with the difficulties (factual, ethical, and otherwise) of ferreting out the secrets of individual lives. Among the figures explored in the course will be Sigmund Freud, Sabina Spielrein, Sylvia Plath, Hannah Arendt, and Woody Allen.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-4
HISTORY 18S:
Pirates, Captives, and Renegades: Encounters in the Early Modern Mediterranean World
In this course, we will study how mobile subjects, such as (barbary) pirates, slaves, captives, renegades, merchants, and dragomans shaped the history of the early modern Mediterranean. By studying a range of primary sources, including official documents, chronicles, travel accounts, autobiographical texts, objects, and visual materials, we will analyze how people living on the Mediterranean's European, Asian, and African littorals experienced and influenced interactions between regional powers, such as the Italian city states, Spain, Portugal, France, Morocco, and the Ottoman Empire. In order to analyze these accounts, we will employ various historical methods and evaluate what is at stake in understanding cross-cultural/religious encounters and exchanges in the Mediterranean world during the early modern period.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 20A:
The Russian Empire, 1450-1800
(Same as HISTORY 120A. 20A is 3 units; 120A is 5 units.) The rise of Russian state as a Eurasian "empire of difference"; strategies of governance of the many ethnic and religious groups with their varied cultures and political economies; particular attention to Ukraine. In the Russian center, explores gender and family; serfdom; Russian Orthodox religion and culture; Europeanizing cultural change of 18th century.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 20N:
Russia in the Early Modern European Imagination
Critically assesses European travelers' travel accounts of Russia in comparison with what was really happening in Russia at the time; explores the phenomenon of travel writing. Write2, Freshman Seminar; requires frequent oral presentations, major research paper and building of a website based on paper research.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI, Writing 2
HISTORY 21:
The History of 2021
How can we understand the events, ideas, and conflicts that have featured in the news cycle during the past year? "The History of 2021" offers historically informed reflections on this year's momentous events, providing an opportunity to understand our world in its historic context. Each week will feature a different History faculty member speaking on a major news topic of the year, showing what we can learn by approaching it from a historical perspective. The course is open to all students (newcomers and history veterans alike) who want to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of 2021, and who are curious to consider how studying history can offer a deeper and richer understanding of tumultuous times.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 1
HISTORY 23N:
The Soviet Union and the World: View from the Hoover Archives
This course seeks to explore the Soviet Union's influence on the world from 1917 to its end in 1991 from a variety of perspectives. Hoover Institution archival holdings will be the basic sources for the course.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 23S:
Sex and Socialism
Among the major promises made by socialism and communism was the liberation of women from an imperialist, capitalist, and patriarchal world. How did these promises hold up in the face of the realities of revolution and state formation? This course explores the relationship between gender, sex, and sexuality within the state socialist polities of the 20th century. Topics include diversity in barricades and workplaces, motherhood and reproductive rights, medicine and sexology, incarceration and state violence, and homosexuality and gender non-conformity.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 24B:
The Balkan World: History, Culture, Politics (HISTORY 124B, REES 224C)
The Balkans is a region that is often marginalized, even though throughout modern history it has stood at the crossroads between East and West and has been the locus of the major developments of the 19th and 20th centuries - the site of Great Power competition, the first de-colonization movements, the rise of the modern nation-state, the outbreak of the First World War, Nazi occupation and resistance, genocides, the rise of emancipatory communist regimes that have challenged the hegemony of the Soviet Union, the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and a challenge for democratization and western-based military intervention. Today the Balkans are a region where the European Union, Russia and the China vie for control. This course draws on a range of primary and secondary, literary, historical and policy sources as well as a range of scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the significance of the Balkans to global affairs in historical and contemporary contexts. Section REES 224C is offered for graduate student enrollment.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 24N:
Stalin's Terror: Causes, Crimes, Consequences
This course explores the period of Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union from 1928 until 1953 and focuses on what the Russians called "the repressions." This includes, the war against the kulaks, the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor), the operations against the nationalities, the Great Terror, the deportation of the "punished peoples," the expansion of the Gulag (prison camp system), the Leningrad Affair, and the Doctors' Plot. The origins of these events are still controversial, as are their impact on the development of the Soviet Union. Scholars also continue to argue about the numbers of deaths involved. Students will discuss the arguments about Stalin's crimes using newly available documents, memoirs, literary sources, and other materials. We will visit the Hoover Archives, view the poster and film collection there, and discuss the period with archivists. Viewing films and documentaries, we will also reconstruct the lives of the people faced with the daily threat of denunciations and arrest. "Life has become better comrades; living has become happier..." was an often repeated slogan during the period of Stalin's terror. We will examine how that slogan translated into reality.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 26S:
Building Utopia: Cities, 'Megaprojects', and Socialism in the USSR
'Utopia' has always been a realm of dreamers and intellectuals. But between 1917 and 1991, the political leaders of the Soviet Union actually built their socialist utopia, brick by brick. They constructed cities in a matter of months, moved whole factories by train, and even tried to reverse the course of rivers. This class aims to explore how infrastructure, as policy and in implementation, impacted the political, geographic, economic, social, and environmental history of the USSR. We will examine maps, architecture, propaganda, newspapers, and films to figure out how socialism was `built' and what the consequences were.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 28S:
Napoleon
This course examines the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte. For twenty years, Napoleon commanded and captivated Europe, evoking fascination and fear in equal measure and profoundly shaping the course of the modern world. In this course we follow the arc of his career, from revolutionary to emperor to exile, with each week devoted to a different theme of his life and the age in which he lived. Topics include politics, warfare, revolution, colonialism, gender, popular culture, and the arts. The course has no prerequisites and all readings are in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 29SC:
River and Region: The Columbia River and the Shaping of the Pacific Northwest (CEE 17SC, EARTHSYS 16SC, POLISCI 14SC)
This seminar will explore the crucial role of the Columbia River in the past, present, and future of the Pacific Northwest. Topics will include the lives and legacies of the indigenous peoples that Lewis and Clark encountered more than two centuries ago; the historic fisheries that attracted thousands of Chinese and, later, Scandinavian workers; the New Deal¿s epic dam-building initiatives beginning in the 1930s; the impact of the Manhattan Project¿s plutonium bomb development at Hanford Atomic Works in WWII; and the twenty-first-century server farms dotted across the Columbia Plateau. We plan to visit with local water managers, farmers, ranchers, loggers, Native American fishermen, and energy administrators, as well as elected officials and environmental activists, to examine the hydrologic, meteorologic, and geologic bases of the river¿s water and energy resources, and the practical, social, environmental, economic, and political issues surrounding their development in the Pacific Northwest region.The Columbia River and its watershed provide a revealing lens on a host of issues. A transnational, multi-state river with the largest residual populations of anadromous salmonids in the continental US, it is a major source of renewable hydroelectric power. (The Grand Coulee dam powerhouse is the largest-capacity hydropower facility in the US; nearly 50% of Oregon¿s electricity generation flows from hydropower; in Washington State it¿s nearly two-thirds, the highest in the nation.) The river provides a major bulk commodity transportation link from the interior West to the sea via an elaborate system of locks. It irrigates nearly 700,000 acres of sprawling wheat ranches and fruit farms in the federally administered Columbia Basin Project. We will look at all these issues with respect to rapid climate change, ecosystem impacts, economics, and public policy.We will begin with classroom briefings on campus, in preparation for the two-week field portion of the seminar. We plan to then travel widely throughout the Columbia basin, visiting water and energy facilities across the watershed, e.g., hydro, solar, wind, and natural gas power plants; dams and reservoirs with their powerhouses, fish passage facilities, navigation locks, and flood-mitigation systems; tribal organizations; irrigation projects; the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; and offices of regulatory agencies. We hope to meet with relevant policy experts and public officials, along with several of the stakeholders in the basin.Over the summer students will be responsible for assigned readings from several sources, including monographs, online materials, and recent news articles. During the trip, students will work in small groups to analyze and assess one aspect of the river¿s utilization, and the challenges to responsible management going forward. The seminar will culminate in presentations to an audience of Stanford alumni in Portland, Oregon.
Last offered: Summer 2023
| Units: 2
HISTORY 30SC:
SoCo Humanities Research Intensive
Join two Stanford professors for a week of immersive, expert introduction to humanities research. This intensive, one-week course introduces rising sophomores to the excitement and wonder of humanities research, along the way preparing you for independent research projects, for working as a research assistant for a Stanford professor, or just for the next step in your Stanford career. No humanities background is necessary. Think of this class as humanities research in a nutshell: over 5 days, we'll take a deep dive into some of the most important methods and questions driving scholarly research in the humanities. Our laboratory will be the Special Collections Library at Stanford, where we'll conduct hands-on research in ancient and modern books, maps, objects, and manuscripts, from ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets to materials from San Francisco's Chinatown. We're also planning a field trip to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Over the week, we'll teach you how to formulate a solid research question; how to gather the evidence that will help you to answer that question; how to write up research results; how to critique the research of your fellow students; how to deliver your results in a public setting; and how to write a really great grant proposal. Students who complete this course become eligible for follow-up student research grants during their next year. So if you have a larger project in mind - a capstone project, or even a senior thesis idea - this course can help set the stage for that next step. Learning Goals: Introduction to humanities research methods; Conceptualization of a major humanities research project; Skills and familiarity with working with archival materials; Oral presentation skills.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 1
HISTORY 31Q:
Resistance and Collaboration in Hitler's Europe (JEWISHST 31Q)
What is resistance and what did it entail in Nazi-occupied Europe? What prompted some to resist, while others accommodated or actively collaborated with the occupiers? How have postwar societies remembered their resistance movements and collaborationists? This seminar examines how Europeans responded to the Nazi order during World War II. We will explore experiences under occupation; dilemmas the subject peoples faced; the range of resistance motivations, goals, activities, and strategies; and postwar memorialization. Select cases from Western, Eastern, and Mediterranean Europe.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 32S:
Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Nightmares: Visions of the Ideal Society in Early Modern Britain
Visions of the ideal society are a mainstay in the European imagination, from Plato¿s Republic to Charles Fourier¿s phalanstère. Yet utopianism has always been maligned as idealistic, impracticable, or naïve, while its proponents accused variously of hypocrisy, totalitarianism, and abject failure. Nowhere more so has the utopian impulse been felt than in early modern Britain during the age of imperial, scientific, and industrial revolution. This course asks how British writers imagined better futures, starting with Thomas More¿s genre-defining Utopia and ending with the utopian socialists and communitarian experiments of the early nineteenth century. We will ask what utopias can tell us about the societies which imagined them, and appraise their lasting legacies in political thought, social science, and critical theory. Covering themes such as empire, capitalism, gender, enlightenment, and socialism, we will engage with a range of primary sources, including literary texts, cartographic images, political and scientific tracts, and letters, aided by secondary literature from the history of political thought, literary history, the history of science, and theory.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 33A:
Blood and Roses: The Age of the Tudors
(Same as HISTORY 133A. 33A is 3 units; 133A is 5 units.) English society and state from the Wars of the Roses to the death of Elizabeth. Political, social, and cultural upheavals of the Tudor period and the changes wrought by the Reformation. The establishment of the Tudor monarchy; destruction of the Catholic church; rise of Puritanism; and 16th-century social and economic changes.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 33B:
Revolutionary England: The Stuart Age
(Same as HISTORY 133B. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 133B.) From the accession of King James I in 1603 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714: a brutal civil war, the execution of one anointed king, and the deposition of another. Topics include the causes and consequences of the English Revolution, the origins of Anglo-American democratic thought, the rise and decline of Puritanism, and the emergence of England as an economic and colonial power. (Como)
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3
HISTORY 34A:
European Witch Hunts
(Same as HISTORY 134A. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 134A.) After the Reformation, in the midst of state building and scientific discovery, Europeans conducted a series of deadly witch hunts, violating their own laws and procedures in the process. What was it about early modernity that fueled witch hunting? Witch trials and early modern demonology as well as historians' interpretations of events to seek answers to this question.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 35:
Sustainability and Civilization (BIO 35, POLISCI 35)
Our civilization faces multiple sustainability challenges. Climate change often dominates public conversation, but in fact, a whole range of environmental, economic, political, and cultural trends threaten the structures that sustain the societies we know. These problems cannot be understood in isolation, because they interact in complex ways. Solving them will require collaboration across many different fields, from the natural and social sciences to the humanities. This one-unit course brings together over two dozen faculty from across the entire university for a series of interdisciplinary conversations around cross-cutting themes. Our aim is to encourage dialogue and perhaps even future collaborations among students and professors who might otherwise rarely interact in a classroom. All students are welcome, but frosh and sophomores may find the course especially useful as an introduction to a wide range of sustainability-related disciplines and teachers at Stanford.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
HISTORY 35Q:
Convict Australia: "Rogues," "Whores," and "Savages"
In 1787, the British government made the audacious decision to send its prisoners to a continent on the other side of the globe about which very little was known. In this new colony, a motley crew had to learn to live together: military men, who were determined to make their unlucky posting pay off; the convicts, who found themselves exiled from their families and homes most often for petty crimes of poverty; the female convicts, who served primarily to fulfill the sexual needs of the men; and the Indigenous peoples, who were deemed absolute "savages" by their invaders. Through early starvation days, rebellions, and frontier wars, a new society was contentiously formed, as various groups battled for supremacy, status, or simply survival and norms of race, class, and gender adapted to a unique environment. In this hands-on IntroSem, we will do the work of the historian: read and interpret primary sources. During class time, we will work in groups, essentially crowd sourcing primary research, in order to piece together what life was like on the ground. We will debate the extent to which we can trust the sources and how best to use "biased" reports. We will also read the interpretations of historians and decide whether or not we agree with them. In doing so, we will see that the writing of history is never complete.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 37D:
Germany's Wars and the World, 1848-2010 (HISTORY 137D)
(History 37D is 3 units; History 137D is 5 units.)This course examines a series of explosive encounters between Germans, Europe, and the world. Starting with the overlooked revolutions of 1848 and ending with the reunification of West Germany and East Germany after the Cold War, the course will explore a range of topics: capitalism, communism, imperialism, nationalism, diplomacy, antisemitism, gender, race, and the Holocaust, among others. We will also consider competing visions of Germany its borders, its members, its enemies.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 38S:
All That Glitters is not Gold: The Country House in Modern Britain
The country house is more than just the setting for period dramas starring Maggie Smith; its story, from construction to demolition, is also that of modern Britain. This class is a biography of the country house, told each week as a chapter of historical methodology. From palace to military hospital to 'heritage' property of the National Trust, we will use the country house--its occupants, decor, and collections--to see how this symbol of class hierarchy came to be a national rallying point for Brexiteers.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 39:
Modern Britain and the Empire, 1688-2016
(History 39 is offered for 3 units; History 139 is offered for 5 units.) This course surveys British history from the Glorious Revolution to Brexit. We will integrate the stories of Britain and its empire as we examine key topics, including the rise of the modern British state and economy, imperial expansion and contraction, the formation of class, gender, and national identities, mass culture and politics, the world wars, and racial politics in contemporary Britain. We will focus particularly on questions of decline, the dynamic fortunes and contradictions of British liberalism in an era of imperialism, and the weight of the past in contemporary Britain. Readings focus on primary sources from the period covered as well as a few scholarly works.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 39Q:
Were They Really "Hard Times"? Mid-Victorian Social Movements and Charles Dickens (ENGLISH 39Q)
"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it." So begins Charles Dickens description of Coketown in Hard Times. And it only seems to get more grim from there. But the world that Dickens sought to portray in the novel was a hopeful one, too. And that tension is our starting point. The intent of this class is to more closely examine mid-Victorian Britain in light of Dickens' novel, with particular focus on the rise of some of our modern social movements in the 19th century. While things like the labor movement, abolitionism, feminism, and environmentalism, are not the same now as they were then, this class will explore the argument that the 21st century is still, in some ways, working out 19th century problems and questions. At the same time, this is also a course that seeks to expand the kinds of sources we traditionally use as historians. Thus, while recognizing that literary sources are particularly complex, we will use Hard Times as a guide to our exploration to this fascinating era. We will seek both to better understand this complex, transitional time and to assess the accuracy of Dickens' depictions of socio-political life.Through a combination of short response papers, creative Victorian projects (such as sending a hand-written letter to a classmate), and a final paper/project, this course will give you the opportunity to learn more about the 19th century and the value of being historically minded.As a seminar based course, discussion amongst members of the class is vital. All students are welcome
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 40:
World History of Science: From Prehistory through the Scientific Revolution
(History 40 is 3 units; History 140 is 5 units.) The earliest developments in science, the prehistoric roots of technology, the scientific revolution, and global voyaging. Theories of human origins and the oldest known tools and symbols. Achievements of the Mayans, Aztecs, and native N. Americans. Science and medicine in ancient Greece, Egypt, China, Africa, and India. Science in medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Islamic world including changing cosmologies and natural histories. Theories of scientific growth and decay; how science engages other factors such as material culture and religions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 40A:
The Scientific Revolution
(Same as History 140A. 40A is 3 units; 140A is 5 units.) What do people know and how do they know it? What counts as scientific knowledge? In the 16th and 17th centuries, understanding the nature of knowledge engaged the attention of individuals and institutions including Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, the early Royal Society, and less well-known contemporaries. New meanings of observing, collecting, experimenting, and philosophizing, and political, religious, and cultural ramifications in early modern Europe.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 40S:
The Mind's Not-So-New Science: Thinking About Thinking in the Modern World
What is a mind? Who has one? How can you know? This course investigates how psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, statisticians, test-makers, medical practitioners, linguists, economists, and others wrestled with these questions from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries all across the globe. Through analyses of treatises, letters, newspapers, tests, illustrations, diagrams, instruments, and videos, we follow how theorists of the mind, thinking, rationality, madness, and more were attuned to one another and to the societal developments around them. "The mind" and its associated ideas have their own, particular history - pinning down what it is has been thought consistently important yet never at all obvious. Through this course, we will see how knowledge of minds was crucial for defining good thoughts, for arbitrating who counted in society, and for arguing over what makes us human.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 41N:
Visible Bodies: Black Female Authors and the Politics of Publishing in Africa (AFRICAAM 140N, AFRICAST 51N, ENGLISH 54N)
Where are the African female writers of the twentieth century and the present day? This Introductory Seminar addresses the critical problem of the marginalization of black female authors within established canons of modern African literature. We will explore, analyse and interrogate the reasons why, and the ways in which, women-authored bodies of work from this period continue to be lost, misplaced, forgotten, and ignored by a male-dominated and largely European/white publishing industry in the context of colonialism, apartheid and globalization. nnYou will be introduced to key twentieth-century and more contemporary female authors from Africa, some of them published but many more unpublished or out-of-print. The class will look at the challenges these female authors faced in publishing, including how they navigated a hostile publishing industry and a lack of funding and intellectual support for black writers, especially female writers. nnWe will also examine the strategies these writers used to mitigate their apparent marginality, including looking at how women self-published, how they used newspapers as publication venues, how they have increasingly turned to digital platforms, and how many sought international publishing networks outside of the African continent. As one of the primary assessments for the seminar, you will be asked to conceptualize and design an in-depth and imaginative pitch for a new publishing platform that specializes in African female authors. nnYou will also have the opportunity for in-depth engagement (both in class and in one-on-one mentor sessions) with a range of leading pioneers in the field of publishing and literature in Africa. Figures like Ainehi Edoro (founder of Brittle Paper) and Zukiswa Wanner (prize-winning author of The Madams and Men of the South), amongst others, will be guests to our Zoom classroom. One of our industry specialists will meet with you to offer detailed feedback on your proposal for your imagined publishing platform. nnYou can expect a roughly 50/50 division between synchronous and asynchronous learning, as well as plenty of opportunity to collaborate with peers in smaller settings.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 41Q:
The Ape Museum: Exploring the Idea of the Ape in Global History, Science, Art and Film (GLOBAL 41Q)
This course will explore the idea of "the ape" in global history, science, art, and film. The idea that apes might be humanity's nearest animal relatives is only about 200 years old. From the start, the idea developed in a global context: living fossil apes were found in Africa and Asia, and were immediately embroiled in international controversies about theories of human origins and racial hierarchies. This class will look at how and why "the ape" became a generative and controversial new concept in numerous national and regional contexts. We'll explore some of the many ways humans have looked at, studied, and thought about apes around the world: the "out of Asia" versus "out of Africa" hypothesis for human origins; Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee raised as a human child; Koko, the gorilla who may have learned sign language; Congo, the chimpanzee who made "abstract" paintings; films such as King Kong, Planet of the Apes, and 2001: Space Odyssey; the ape in World War II and Cold War propaganda in Japan, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United States; Jane Goodall's study of chimpanzees "culture" and "personality"; the place of apes in natural history museums and zoos around the world; and Stanford's own fraught history of comparing apes and humans through the archival writings of eugenicist founding president David Starr Jordan. Taught in conjunction with an exhibit on global ape imagery at the Stanford Library curated by Professors Riskin and Winterer in 2024, the course will culminate in students' own miniature exhibits for a class-generated "Ape Museum."
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 41S:
The Spirit in Motion: Desire in Early Modern Europe
How did people experience and express desire -- for objects, for ideas, or for each other -- in the early modern period? From lusting after a beautiful woman to frantically seeking gold in the farthest corners of the earth, early modern individuals and societies were shaped by the many things they craved. This course will use desire as a lens to better understand its impacts on daily life and culture, and to explore what it meant to want in early modern Europe.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 42N:
The Missing Link
This course explores the history of evolutionary science, focusing upon debates surrounding the evolutionary place of human beings in the natural world, by examining the history of the idea of a "missing link," an intermediate form between humans and apes. We will consider famous hoaxes such as the Piltdown Man, and films and stories such as King Kong and Planet of the Apes, as well as serious scientific work such as that of Eugène Dubois, the paleoanthropologist and geologist who discovered Homo erectus (first called Java Man and then Pithecanthropus erectus) and first developed the notion of a missing link. We will take an interest not only in scientific aspects of missing-link theories but in their accompanying political, social and cultural implications. And we'll watch some classic monster films.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 42Q:
Animal Archives: History Beyond the Human
There's a great big world out there. We humans are just one of a million or more animate beings on this planet. Nonhuman animals have their own histories that influence, intersect with, and stand apart from our own. This IntroSem takes animals seriously as subjects of historical study. Together we'll explore how the study of animals--from platypus to (plastic) pink flamingo--offers new ways of seeing human history. We'll examine how animals have shaped historical events and, inversely, how animals are historical artifacts. And we'll spend the majority of the course puzzling through challenges that arise when studying nonhumans. Can we understand creatures that do not communicate the way we do? Do nonhumans tell stories and chronicle their own histories? Are animals themselves archives of historical information? If so, how do we read them? This course will introduce you to diverse ways of studying historical animals and contemporary creatures too. You'll write animal biographies, practice slow witnessing of the more-than-human world, and conduct research deep dives into nonhuman narratives. You'll encounter multi-disciplinary approaches to our core questions, including historical and cultural analysis, ethnography, scientific inquiry, and technological surveillance. Ultimately, you'll gain insight into how scholars reconstruct the past and know the lives of others, whether human or nonhuman. The creative research skills and critical analysis that you exercise in Animal Archives will serve you in other history courses and beyond.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 42S:
Cannibalism in Early Modern Europe: The Ultimate Taboo in Historical Context
Cannibalism (or anthropophagy) may be one of many societies' greatest taboos, but how have ideas about the act changed over time? Taking a historical perspective on cannibalism, this course explores its meanings in Europe during the early modern period, when the word "cannibal" emerged in the context of the "discovery" of the Americas. Focusing on cannibalism offers insight into events like the witch craze, the Reformation, and colonization, as well as larger issues such as social and religious conflict, responses to disasters, and ideas about human nature.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 44Q:
Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Environment (FEMGEN 44Q)
Gendered Innovations harness the creative power of sex, gender, and intersectional analysis for innovation and discovery. We focus on sex and gender, and consider factors intersecting with sex and gender, including age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational background, disabilities, geographic location, etc. We start with the history of gender in science in the scientific revolution to understand how to transform research institutions so that women, men, and non-binary individuals can flourish. The majority of the course is devoted to considering gendered innovations in AI, social robotics, health & medicine, design of cars and cockpits, menstrual products, marine science, and more. This course will emphasize writing skills as well as oral and multimedia presentation; it fulfills the second level Writing and Rhetoric Requirement (WRITE 2), WAY-ED, and WAY-SI.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI, Writing 2
HISTORY 45B:
Introduction to African Studies I: Africa in the 20th Century
(AFRICAAM/HISTORY 45B is 3 units; AFRICAAM/HISTORY 145B is 5 units.) CREATIVITY. AGENCY. RESILIENCE. This is the African history with which this course will engage. African scholars and knowledge production of Africa that explicitly engages with theories of race and global Blackness will take center stage. TRADE. RELIGION. CONQUEST. MIGRATION. These are the transformations of the 20th century which we shall interrogate and reposition. Yet these groundbreaking events did not happen in a vacuum. As historians, we also think about the continent's rich traditions and histories prior to the 20th century. FICTION. NONFICTION. FILM. MUSIC. Far from being peripheral to political transformation, African creative arts advanced discourse on gender, technology, and environmental history within the continent and without. We will listen to African creative artists not only as creators, but as agents for change.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 45N:
Power, Prestige and Politics in African Societies
This seminar infuses a human dimension into the study of politics in Africa. Considering the 1800s to the present day, the seminar prompts students to creatively connect the political with the personal. We will examine how gender, intimate and romantic relationships, arguments between parents and children, attempts to access and harness the power of the sacred, and fights for status and authority of all kinds, were pivotal forces shaping the form that politics and political activism assumed on the continent.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 45S:
Land and Power in the Anthropocene: Perspectives from Africa (AFRICAAM 145S, CSRE 45S)
How and why is land use a contested issue? How can we understand land injustice in light of the Anthropocene, that is, human-induced climate change? How do African knowledges, practices, and experiences inform global debates about environmental, political, and socio-economic well-being? This course considers how racial and colonial thinking and processes compounded discourses about land and examines examples of resistance, legacies of struggle, and possible futures. Centering African perspectives in a global context, we will examine how individual, institutional, and societal conceptions of land are revealed in narratives, practices, and policies created and circulated by Africans as well as outsiders in the continent. We will also analyze how these dynamics have had and continue to have repercussions across the globe. We will engage with diverse written, oral, audio-visual, and digital sources and associated methodologies to explore perceptions of land and land ownership, and discuss various forms of land use including agriculture, pastoralism, conservation, mining, and urbanization, and potential futures.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 46N:
Show and Tell: Creating Provenance Histories of African Art (AFRICAAM 46N, AFRICAST 46N)
Provenance refers to the chain of custody of a particular art object during its lifetime. Put another way, provenance refers to all the individuals, communities, and institutions who have owned (both legally and illegally), kept, stored, exhibited, displayed, managed, and sold an art object. Knowledge of provenance can both inflate and deflate the value of an art object and it can also shed light upon legal and ethical questions including assessing repatriation and restitution claims for African art objects. Furthermore, by telling the story of how a particular object moved through multiple pairs of hands, often over the course of centuries and across several continents, we gain nuanced appreciation of the social currency of artwork as well as of changing perceptions of aesthetic and monetary value, and insight into the extractive dynamics of colonialism and postcolonial global economies. For this class, you will have the unique opportunity to work first hand with an important African art collection in North America: the Richard H. Scheller Collection at Stanford University. You will select one object from the collection and create a detailed provenance history, documenting and detailing its origins, its movement across space and time, and its arrival to the Scheller collection in Silicon Valley. You will use archival materials from Scheller¿s collection, online databases and archives, and secondary literature. Your final project for the class will be to create a visual StoryMap that allows you to display your provenance history with narrative text and multimedia content. In this way, you will not only have completed a class assignment: you will also have constructed for posterity a remarkable hitherto unknown history of an important African art object.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 46S:
Cape to Cairo: Decolonization and African Urban Life 1940s-1960s (AFRICAAM 46, CSRE 46, URBANST 144U)
Decolonization across Africa was complicated, messy and sometimes violent. It was also an important moment for (re) imagining and (re)structuring society resulting in fascinating historical encounters among different groups. This course explores decolonization through the lens of different African urban spaces. In doing so, we shall focus on the major conflicts, debates and issues that emerged in the moment of decolonization. Additionally, we shall explore the different ways Africans survived, lived and thrived in the cities. Finally, we shall explore the relationships between the colonial and postcolonial eras through African urban spaces.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
HISTORY 47:
History of South Africa (AFRICAAM 47, CSRE 74)
(Same as HISTORY 147. HISTORY 47 is 3 units; HISTORY 147 is 5 units.) Introduction, focusing particularly on the modern era. Topics include: precolonial African societies; European colonization; the impact of the mineral revolution; the evolution of African and Afrikaner nationalism; the rise and fall of the apartheid state; the politics of post-apartheid transformation; and the AIDS crisis.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 47S:
Black Earth Rising: Law and Society in Postcolonial Africa (AFRICAAM 47S, AFRICAST 90)
Is the International Criminal Court a neocolonial institution? Should African art in Western museums be returned? Why have anti-homosexuality laws emerged in many African countries? This course engages these questions, and more, to explore how Africans have grappled with the legacies of colonialism through law since independence. Reading court documents, listening to witness testimonies, analyzing legal codes, and watching cultural commentaries¿including hit TV series Black Earth Rising¿students will examine the histories of legal conflict in Africa and their implications for the present and future of African societies. This course fulfills the Social Inquiry and Engaging Diversity Ways requirements.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 48:
The Egyptians (AFRICAAM 30, CLASSICS 82, HISTORY 148)
This course traces the emergence and development of the distinctive cultural world of the ancient Egyptians over nearly 4,000 years. Through archaeological and textual evidence, we will investigate the social structures, religious beliefs, and expressive traditions that framed life and death in this extraordinary region. Students with or without prior background are equally encouraged.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 48Q:
South Africa: Contested Transitions (AFRICAAM 48Q)
Preference to sophomores. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president in May 1994 marked the end of an era and a way of life for South Africa. The changes have been dramatic, yet the legacies of racism and inequality persist. Focus: overlapping and sharply contested transitions. Who advocates and opposes change? Why? What are their historical and social roots and strategies? How do people reconstruct their society? Historical and current sources, including films, novels, and the Internet.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI, Writing 2
HISTORY 48S:
African Voices: Literature and Arts in 20th Century South Africa (AFRICAAM 149)
How did South African Black intellectuals and artists utilize literature and other artistic forms to articulate their increasingly precarious position in the country's political landscape in the 20th century? What hopes and visions were captured through their works? Engaging with numerous sources ranging from speeches, newspapers, short stories, novels, music, film, paintings to photographs, we will explore what Ntongela Masilela calls "New African modernity"--a movement pioneered by different generations of Black intellectuals and artists. We will grapple with the notion of art as political, and the salience of Black women's works in contexts of double marginalization. This class lies at the intersection of intellectual, cultural, and literary histories.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 49S:
African Futures: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Beyond (AFRICAAM 49S)
This course examines decolonization and its aftermath in sub-Saharan Africa. With a "wind of change" sweeping the continent, how did Africans imagine their futures together? From W.E.B. Du Bois to Black Panther, this course will engage in historical readings of political essays, speeches, film, and literature to consider how Africans envisioned their communities beyond empire. Topics will include a variety of projects for African unity, from experiments with Pan-Africanism, to religious revivalism, to Afrofuturist art and aesthetics.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 50A:
Colonial and Revolutionary America
(Same as HISTORY 150A. 50A is 3 units; 150A is 5 units.) Survey of the origins of American society and polity in the 17th and 18th centuries. Topics: the migration of Europeans and Africans and the impact on native populations; the emergence of racial slavery and of regional, provincial, Protestant cultures; and the political origins and constitutional consequences of the American Revolution.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 50B:
Nineteenth Century America (CSRE 50S)
(Same as HISTORY 150B. HISTORY 50B is 3 units; HISTORY 150B is 5 units.) Territorial expansion, social change, and economic transformation. The causes and consequences of the Civil War. Topics include: urbanization and the market revolution; slavery and the Old South; sectional conflict; successes and failures of Reconstruction; and late 19th-century society and culture.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI
HISTORY 50C:
The United States in the Twentieth Century (AFRICAAM 50C)
(Same as HISTORY 150C. 50C is 3 units; 150C is 5 units.) 100 years ago, women and most African-Americans couldn't vote; automobiles were rare and computers didn't exist; and the U.S. was a minor power in a world dominated by European empires. This course surveys politics, culture, and social movements to answer the question: How did we get from there to here? Suitable for non-majors and majors alike.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 51B:
The End of American Slavery, 1776-1865 (HISTORY 151B)
How did the institution of American slavery come to an end? The story is more complex than most people know. This course examines the rival forces that fostered slavery's simultaneous contraction in the North and expansion in the South between 1776 and 1861. It also illuminates, in detail, the final tortuous path to abolition during the Civil War. Throughout, the course introduces a diverse collection of historical figures, including seemingly paradoxical ones, such as slaveholding southerners who professed opposition to slavery and non-slaveholding northerners who acted in ways that preserved it. Historical attitudes toward race are a central integrative theme.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 52Q:
Democracy in Crisis: Learning from the Past (EDUC 122Q, POLISCI 20Q)
This January, an armed insurrection assaulted the U.S. Capital, trying to block the Electoral College affirmation of President Biden's election. For the past four years, American democracy has been in continual crisis. Bitter and differing views of what constitutes truth have resulted in a deeply polarized electoral process. The sharp increase in partisanship has crippled our ability as a nation to address and resolve the complex issues facing us. <br><br>There are reasons to hope the current challenges will be overcome and the path of our democracy will be reset on a sound basis. But that will require a shift to constructive--rather than destructive--political conflict. <br><br>This Sophomore Seminar will focus on U.S. democracy and will use a series of case studies of major events in our national history to explore what happened and why to American democracy at key pressure points. This historical exploration will shed light on how the current challenges facing American democracy might best be handled. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center).
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 53S:
Black San Francisco (AFRICAAM 53S)
For over a century African-Americans have shaped the contours of San Francisco, a globally recognized metropolis, but their histories remain hidden. While endangered, Black San Francisco is still very much alive, and its history is an inextricable piece of the city's social and cultural fabric. This course aims to uncover the often-overlooked history of African-Americans in the city of San Francisco. The history of Black San Francisco unravels the myth of San Francisco liberalism showing how systemic racial oppression greatly limited the social mobility of non-whites well into the 20th century. Conversely, this course will also highlight the rich cultural and artistic legacies of Black San Franciscans with special attention on their ability to create social. Starting with the small, but influential middle and upper classes of African-Americans, who supported abolitionism from the West in the mid-late nineteenth century, to the rapid growth of the black population during WWII and moving through post-war struggles against the forces of Jim Crow and environmental racism. This course will explore: What is Black San Francisco? How did African-Americans shape the culture and politics of San Francisco, and where does the history of Black San Francisco fit into the broader national historical narrative? Conversely, what is unique about San Francisco and similar black communities in the West? How do we reconstruct the past of people going South to West as opposed to South to North? And finally, as raised in the critically acclaimed 2019 film, The Last Black Man in San Francisco and eluded by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, where does black San Franciscans, go from here?
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 54:
The History of Ideas in America, Part I (to 1900) (AMSTUD 54)
(Same as HISTORY 154. 54 is 3 units; 154 is 5 units.) How Americans considered problems such as slavery, imperialism, and sectionalism. Topics include: the political legacies of revolution; biological ideas of race; the Second Great Awakening; science before Darwin; reform movements and utopianism; the rise of abolitionism and proslavery thought; phrenology and theories of human sexuality; and varieties of feminism. Sources include texts and images.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 54B:
The History of Ideas in America, Part II (AMSTUD 54B, AMSTUD 154B, HISTORY 154B)
This course explores intellectual life and culture in the United States during the twentieth century, examining the work and lives of social critics, essayists, artists, scientists, journalists, novelists, and sundry other thinkers. We will look at the life of the mind as a narrative of ongoing yet contested secularization and a series of debates about the meaning and nature of truth, knowing, selfhood, and the American democratic experience. Persistent themes include modernism and anti-modernism, shifts and changes in political liberalism and conservatism, disagreements about the role of the United States in the world, and the importance of distinctions based on race, ethnicity, religion, class, and gender.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AMSTUD 54N)
This course encourages students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women's experiences, which often have been placed on the periphery of American history and American life.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 54S:
From Stanford to Stone Mountain: U.S. History, Memory, and Monuments (AFRICAAM 54S)
The future of America's memorial landscape is a subject of intense debate. How do societies remember? Who built the nation's monuments and memorials, and to what ends? Can the meaning of a memorial change over time? In this course, we will survey the history of memorialization in the United States, paying close attention to the interplay of race, gender, and nationalism. Case studies include: the political uses of textbooks and memoirs; Civil War memory and the Lost Cause; the re-interpretation of slavery at historic sites; and the renaming movement on Stanford's campus.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 55F:
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1830 to 1877 (AFRICAAM 55F, AMSTUD 55F, AMSTUD 155F, HISTORY 155F)
(History 55F is 3 units; History 155F is 5 units.)This course explores the causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War. The Civil War profoundly impacted American life at national, sectional, and constitutional levels, and radically challenged categories of race and citizenship. Topics covered include: the crisis of union and disunion in an expanding republic; slavery, race, and emancipation as national problems and personal experiences; the horrors of total war for individuals and society; and the challenges--social and political--of Reconstruction.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 56D:
A History of Debt in America (HISTORY 156D)
What is the history of debt in America? How has indebtedness become an inescapable condition for some, and a virtue for others? What can we learn from the forgotten efforts of those who issued debt, lived in debt, struggled through debt, and mobilized in and around debt? This survey course examines the links between debt, power, development, and mobility. Together, we will see how debt transformed daily life in North America over the past 500 years, and spot moments when collective action undermined the supposed unbreakable terms of indebtedness. This class neither presumes a background in economics, nor previous coursework in history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 57S:
"Don't Tread on Me!": The Spirit of 1776 in U.S. Politics & Culture, From the Constitution to Jan 6 (AMSTUD 57S)
Are the people responsible for the American Revolution demigods or devils? What did they really believe, and what would they think of the United States today? The answers to these questions have been fraught - yet important - since the Revolution. This course explores the many ways in which the memory of the Revolution has been interpreted, appropriated, and remixed. We will explore the politics of memory, interrogate America's relationship to its founding, and study rhetoric from across the political spectrum - from abolitionists to fascists to Hamilton and beyond.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 58E:
Stanford and Its Worlds: 1885-present (EDUC 147)
The past and future of Stanford University examined through the development of five critical "worlds," including the Western region of the United States, the US nation-state, the global academy, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the complex phenomena summarized by the name Silicon Valley. Students are asked to consider and theorize these worlds, their interrelationships, and the responsibilities they entail for all of us who live and work at Stanford in the present.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 58EL:
Stanford Archive Lab (EDUC 147L)
Work together with a team of University Archivists, student archive assistants, and classmates on a public exhibition about a rotating theme. Learn what to search for in an archive, how to employ methods from history and sociology to understand and synthesize the sources, and strategies for designs and delivery. Play an active role in the ongoing writing and rewriting of Stanford University's history, and, in turn, its present. Must be taken concurrently or following enrollment in "Stanford and Its Worlds" or with permission of the instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-5
HISTORY 61:
The Politics of Sex: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Modern America (AMSTUD 161, CSRE 162, FEMGEN 61, FEMGEN 161, HISTORY 161)
This course explores the ways that individuals and movements for social and economic equality have redefined and contested gender and sexuality in the modern United States. Using a combination of primary and secondary sources, we will explore the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality in the politics of woman suffrage, racial justice, reproductive rights, and gay and trans rights, as well as conservative and right-wing responses. Majors and non-majors alike are welcome.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 61N:
The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson (AMSTUD 61N)
Thomas Jefferson assumed many roles during his life-- Founding Father, revolutionary, and author of the Declaration of Independence; natural scientist, inventor, and political theorist; slaveholder, founder of a major political party, and President of the United States. This introductory seminar explores these many worlds of Jefferson, both to understand the multifaceted character of the man and the broader historical contexts that he inhabited and did so much to shape.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 62E:
Extremism in America, from the Ku Klux Klan to January 6
(62E is 3 units; 262E is 5 units.)This course is a historical analysis of extremism in the United States from Reconstruction through the present day, looking at such figures and movements and the KKK, the First Red Scare, Father Coughlin and the Christian Front, McCarthyism, the John Birch Society, the Aryan Nations, and the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of the present. Students will explore the following questions: what do we mean by extremism? What are the material, cultural, political, and intellectual conditions that lay the groundwork for extremism? What is the relationship between political and religious extremism? Is there a connecting thread spanning extremist movements across the nation's history--a paranoid style or authoritarian personality, perhaps? With these guiding questions, students will be introduced to primary sources along with scholarly literature--classic texts and new, groundbreaking research--to equip them with a foundational knowledge of the long history of extremism in the United States.
Last offered: Summer 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 62S:
From Runaway Wives to Dancing Girls: Urban Women in the Long Nineteenth Century (FEMGEN 62S)
This course explores the ways in which women - white and black, immigrant and native born, free and enslaved - lived and labored in American cities during the long nineteenth century. Together we will examine a variety of primary sources including diaries, municipal and institutional records, newspapers, memoirs, oral histories, and visual culture. We will also consider whose stories are told and explore how historians make sense of times very different from our own. Priority given to History majors and minors.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 63N:
The Feminist Critique: The History and Politics of Gender Equality (AMSTUD 63N, CSRE 63N, FEMGEN 63N)
This course explores the long history of ideas about gender and equality. Each week we read, dissect, compare, and critique a set of primary historical documents (political and literary) from around the world, moving from the 15th century to the present. We tease out changing arguments about education, the body, sexuality, violence, labor, politics, and the very meaning of gender, and we place feminist critics within national and global political contexts.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 64S:
The Religious Right and Its Critics in America from 1920 to Today
In 2016, Donald Trump won 81% of white evangelical voters. Evangelical and conservative Catholic voters, members of the so-called Religious Right, have formed an essential pillar of the Republican Party for the entire lifetime of most Stanford undergraduates. But this was not always the case. In this course, we will discover leaders who shaped the Religious Right through coalition building, ideological line-drawing, and sermonizing as well as those who offered political alternatives of the Irreligious Right and ever-elusive Religious Left.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 67S:
The Vietnam War/The American War
This course explores the conflict called "the Vietnam War" in the United States and "the American War" in Vietnam - one of the longest and most violent wars of the twentieth century - from the perspectives of those who experienced it. Engaging diverse primary sources from Vietnam, the U.S., and beyond, the course traces the conflict's global roots and consequences as well as challenges of interpreting war generally. Students have the option of a final paper or an oral history.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-ER
HISTORY 68D:
American Prophet: The Inner Life and Global Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. (AFRICAAM 68D, AMSTUD 168D, CSRE 68, HISTORY 168D)
Martin Luther King, Jr., was the 20th-century's best-known African-American leader, but the religious roots of his charismatic leadership are far less widely known. The documents assembled and published by Stanford's King Research and Education Institute provide the source materials for this exploration of King's swift rise to international prominence as an articulate advocate of global peace and justice.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 69Q:
American Road Trips (AMSTUD 109Q)
"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road." --Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957. From Jack Kerouac's On the Road to Cheryl Strayed's Wild, this course explores epic road trips of the twentieth century. Travel is a fundamental social and cultural practice through which Americans have constructed ideas about the self, the nation, the past, and the future. The open road, as it is often called, offered excitement, great adventure, and the space for family bonding and memory making. But the footloose and fancy-free nature of travel that Jack Kerouac celebrated was available to some travelers but not to all. Engaging historical and literary texts, film, autobiography, memoir, photography, and music, we will consider the ways that travel and road trips have been represented in American culture. This course examines the following questions: How did men and women experience travel differently? How did the motivations for travel change over time? What role did race, ethnicity, class, relationships, and sexuality play in these trips? Students will work together to plan a road trip of their own which the class will take during the quarter.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 70S:
The Mexican-American War
Frequently overshadowed by the Louisiana Purchase and the Civil War, the Mexican-American War was central to antebellum conflicts over territorial expansion, the expansion of slavery, and debates about race, ethnicity, and citizenship. This course examines the long and deep history of the war by situating it within its colonial, national, and borderlands contexts. The course will draw on methods from a range of historical subfields including, diplomatic, political, social, cultural, and spatial history. Priority given to History majors and minors.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 73:
Mexican Migration to the United States (AMSTUD 73, CHILATST 173, HISTORY 173)
(History 73 is 3 units; History 173 is 5 units.) This course is an introduction to the history of Mexican migration to the United States. Barraged with anti-immigrant rhetoric and calls for bigger walls and more restrictive laws, few people in the United States truly understand the historical trends that shape migratory processes, or the multifaceted role played by both US officials and employers in encouraging Mexicans to migrate north. Moreover, few have actually heard the voices and perspectives of migrants themselves. This course seeks to provide students with the opportunity to place migrants' experiences in dialogue with migratory laws as well as the knowledge to embed current understandings of Latin American migration in their meaningful historical context.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 74:
Mexico Since 1876: The Road to Ayotzinapa
(History 74 is for 3 units; History 174 is for 5 units.) In September of 2014, 43 students from a Mexican teacher's college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero were abducted and disappeared via the actions of police and organized crime. This shocking human rights violation, as well as the violence and impunity it represented, were symbolic of the decline of the rule of law embodied by Mexico's drug war. How did the nation arrive at this crossroads? This course is an introduction to the history of Mexico from 1876 to the present. Through lectures, discussions, primary and secondary sources, film and documentaries, and written assignments, students will critically explore the events and people that shaped Mexico for over a century. From the Porfirian dictatorship, to the Revolution, to the PRI's "perfect dictatorship," this course analyzes socioeconomic and racial inequality, foreign intervention, urbanization and industrialization, technological innovation and environmental degradation, education and ideology, modernity and migration, culture and media, and the drug trade.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3
HISTORY 77S:
Independence or Death! The Transformation of Latin America in the Age of Revolution (1808-1831)
The first half of the nineteenth century saw a cascade of Revolutions transform Latin America from a collection of colonies into independent and sovereign countries struggling for their own national identity. The invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by Napoleon in 1808, the forced abdication of the Spanish Royal Family and the escape of the Portuguese royal family to Brazil forever changed the course of Latin America. But the history of that region was not solely defined in Europe, and it was through their own agency that the people of Latin America set about the road to independence.In this course we will explore the history of Latin America in the years preceding, concurrent and following the many Wars of Independence that splintered the continent into many sovereign nations. Specifically, we'll focus on the cases of Mexico, New Granada (Colombia and Venezuela) and Brazil, to understand what was unique and what as shared among each of these. We'll learn about the colonial period, how the ideas of the enlightenment influenced revolutionary movements in Latin America, and what changes these revolutions brought to the people of Latin America. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, among them speeches, newspapers, books, paintings and movies, we'll attempt to understand the history of the Independence movements not only from the points of view of the colonial elite, but from the many other groups that constituted Latin American society, such as Indigenous populations and the many enslaved. Doing so we'll tackle the question: What did these Revolutions really mean to the day-to-day lives of Latin Americans?
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 78:
Film and History of Latin American Revolutions and Counterrevolutions (FILMEDIA 178, HISTORY 178, ILAC 178)
In this course we will watch and critique films made about Latin America's 20th century revolutions focusing on the Cuban, Chilean and Mexican revolutions. We will analyze the films as both social and political commentaries and as aesthetic and cultural works, alongside archivally-based histories of these revolutions.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 78S:
The Haitian Revolution: Slavery, Freedom, and the Atlantic World (AFRICAAM 178S, FRENCH 178)
How did the French colony of Saint-Domingue become Haiti, the world's first Black-led republic? What did Haiti symbolize for the African diaspora and the Americas at large? What sources and methods do scholars use to understand this history? To answer these questions, this course covers the Haitian story from colonization to independence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Our course will center Africans and people of African descent, both enslaved and free, as they negotiated and resisted systems of racial and economic oppression in the French Caribbean. Our inquiry will critically engage with conceptions and articulations of human and civil rights as they relate to legal realities and revolutionary change over time, as well as the interplay between rights and racial thinking. Tracing what historian Julius Scott called the "common wind" of the Haitian Revolution, we will also investigate how the new nation's emergence built on the American and French Revolutions while also influencing national independence movements elsewhere in the Atlantic World. Priority given to history majors and minors; no prerequisites and all readings are in English.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 79C:
The Ethical Challenges of the Climate Catastrophe (HISTORY 179C)
(History 79C is 3 units; History 179C is 5 units.) This course explores the ethical challenges of the climate catastrophe from historical, social, economic, political, cultural and scientific perspectives. These include the discovery of global warming over two centuries; the rise of secular and religious denialism toward the scientific consensus on it; the dispute between "developed" and "developing" countries over the timing and amount of national contributions per the 2015 Paris Accord; climate justice as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, gender, and nationality; and the "role morality" of various actors (scientists, politicians, fossil fuel companies, the media and ordinary individuals) in assessing ethical responsibility for the catastrophe and how to mitigate, adapt, or even geoengineer, it.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 81B:
Making the Modern Middle East
(Same as HISTORY 181B. 81B is 3 units; 181B is 5 units) This course aims to introduce students to major themes in the modern history of the region linking the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds. No prerequisites or prior knowledge of the Middle East is required. We will begin with the Eurasian context that produced the Safavid and Ottoman empires and quickly move to the rapid transformations of the nineteenth century and imperial dissolution of the early twentieth. Twentieth-century themes will include mass migrations and colonial occupation; nationalism, mass politics and revolution; socialist and Islamist movements; and the growing role of American policy in the region. The course will conclude with a close examination of the profound transformations of the past decade, from the multiform uprisings of the 2010s to the equally multiform attempts to repress them.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 82S:
Enemies Within: Hostile Minorities in Israel and Iraq in the 20th Century
This course explores the nation state in the Middle East through the perspectives of minority groups in Israel and Iraq. The class examines the origins of these two states since WWI, and considers the integral role that minority groups have played in their formation. Using an array of primary sources and methods of analysis, we will examine significant political, economic, social, and discursive trends in these states, while keeping in mind the broader regional and global contexts.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 83A:
Enlightenment and Genocide: Modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire
(HISTORY 83A is 3 units; HISTORY 183A is 5 units.) In the early eighteenth century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, introduced Ottoman smallpox inoculation to western medicine. But over the next two centuries, Ottoman scientific, cultural, and geopolitical strength disintegrated, while western Europeans colonized much of the globe and industrialized at home. How and why did this happen? This course explores this period of wrenching social change and transformation, and asks how the Enlightenment, with its calls for universal human rights and democracy, existed alongside crimes against humanity such as the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. We inquire into ethical dilemmas from diverse perspectives to better understand the contested heritage of our modern world. Bringing western and non-western philosophy into conversation with history, we study the changing structures of Ottoman and European societies in the context of industrialization, repeated cycles from monarchy to democracy to dictatorship, and the growth of radical strains of Islam as a social protest and revolt against European dominance.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 83S:
Refugees, Routes, and Risks: How People and Things Moved in the Early Modern Period
How did people move, before the inventions of the train and steamship? How did they cross borders before the passport, or get news before the internet, the telephone, the telegraph? We often imagine people, things, and ideas in the early modern period as being static, unchanging, and immobile. This course offers a new "mobile" perspective on history of the Early Modern world before 1800, particularly focusing on the Ottoman Empire, Eastern and Western Europe.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 85B:
Jews in the Contemporary World: Culture, Pop Culture, and Representation (JEWISHST 85B, REES 85B)
(HISTORY 85B is 3 units; HISTORY 185B is 5 units.) From Barbra Streisand to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from The Dybbuk to Broad City, and from Moscow to LA, this course applies a multicultural perspective on different experiences of Jewishness in the 20th and 21st centuries. The discussion is centered on the ways in which these experiences are represented in various types of media: in literature or on TikTok, in poetry or on Instagram, in film and on television. The themes of the course include (but are not limited to) the interplay of national, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and political identities, intersectionality, the definitions and boundaries of Jewish cultures, Queer and variously gendered experiences of Jewishness, as well as antisemitism and stereotyped representations of Jewishness. The course introduces students to the analysis of a diverse array of media as cultural texts and historical sources. Students are encouraged to apply their new skills to media of their choice.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 86Q:
Blood and Money: The Origins of Antisemitism (JEWISHST 86Q)
For over two millennia, Jews and Judaism have been the object of sustained anxieties, fears, and fantasies, which have in turn underpinned repeated outbreaks of violence and persecution. This course will explore the development and impact of antisemitism from Late Antiquity to the Enlightenment, including the emergence of the Blood libel, the association between Jews and moneylending, and the place of Judaism in Christian and Islamic theology. No prior background in history or Jewish studies is necessary. Prerequisite: PWR 1.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI, Writing 2
HISTORY 87:
The Islamic Republics: Politics and Society in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
(Same as HISTORY 187. History majors and other taking 5 units, register for 187.) Explores the contested politics of these societies in modern times. Topics include controversies surrounding the meaning of revolution, state building, war, geopolitics, Islamic law, clerical authority, gender, an Islamic economy, culture, and ethnic, national and religious identities from the 1940s to the present. Assignments will focus on primary sources (especially legal documents, poetry, novels, and memoirs) and films.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 89S:
Chinese Diaspora and the Making of the Pacific World, 1750-1911
What do the city of Singapore, ICE, the abolition of the slave trade, and the latex condom have in common? All are entangled with the merchant princes, people-smugglers, indentured laborers, and rubber planters that made up the Chinese diaspora in the ¿long¿ 19th century. This course will introduce the primary sources and interpretive techniques that historians use to understand the Chinese diasporic past by focusing on four main themes: autonomy and assimilation, indenture and forced labor, race and immigration, and intellectual and material exchanges.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 90:
Early Chinese Thought (HISTORY 190)
This lecture course examines the emergence of critical thought in early China. After a brief study of the social and political changes that made this emergence possible, it looks at the nature and roles of the thinkers, and finally their ideas about the social order, the state, war and the army, the family, the cosmos, and the self (both physical and mental). Some brief comparisons with early Greek thought.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 91B:
The City in Imperial China
(Same as HISTORY 191B. 91B is 3 units; 191B is 5 units.) The evolution of cities in the early imperial, medieval, and early modern periods. Topics include physical structure, social order, cultural forms, economic roles, relations to rural hinterlands, and the contrast between imperial capitals and other cities. Comparative cases from European history. Readings include primary and secondary sources, and visual materials.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3
HISTORY 91S:
Before Footbinding: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Early and Medieval China
This course discusses women, gender, and sexuality from ancient China to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). During this period, gender norms and practices changed with the political system, state ideology, and family structure, as well as religions and literary genres. Using diverse approaches and sources, we will explore topics including family and marriage, women and political power, gender and law, gender and medical care, gender and arts, the construction of femininity and masculinity, and same-sex relations.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 93:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (CHINA 93, FEMGEN 93)
(Same as HISTORY 193. 93 is 3 units; 193 is 5 units.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 93S:
Beyond the Modern Girl: Gender, Sexuality, and Empire in Japan and Korea, 1900-1955 (FEMGEN 193S)
In the 1920s and 1930s, the fashionable and iconoclastic "modern girl" appeared in media in Tokyo, Seoul, and beyond. Yet what, if anything, did she have to do with empire? And what other gendered experiences, identities, and movements emerged alongside her? From "new women" to "comfort women," from the "sons of the empire" to "sensitive young men," along with discourses on same-sex love, this course examines gender in Japan and Korea from the colonial period through the postwar occupations.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 94B:
Japan in the Age of the Samurai
(Same as HISTORY 194B. 94B is 3 units; 194B is 5 units.) From the Warring States Period to the Meiji Restoration. Topics include the three great unifiers, Tokugawa hegemony, the samurai class, Neoconfucian ideologies, suppression of Christianity, structures of social and economic control, frontiers, the other and otherness, castle-town culture, peasant rebellion, black marketing, print culture, the floating world, National Studies, food culture, samurai activism, black ships, unequal treaties, anti-foreign terrorism, restorationism, millenarianism, modernization as westernization, Japan as imagined community.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 94S:
Savoring Japan: Food and Society in Global Perspective
Sushi, Sukiyaki, and Ramen--why are they considered "Japanese?" This course provides insight into this question by exploring the transformations that the Japanese diet underwent in the early 20th century. While the course centers on modern Japan, we will often draw on food histories from other times and places.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 95:
Modern Korean History
(Same as HISTORY 195. 95 is 3 units; 195 is 5 units.) This lecture course provides a general introduction to the history of modern Korea. Themes include the characteristics of the Chosôn dynasty, reforms and rebellions in the nineteenth century, Korean nationalism; Japan's colonial rule and Korean identities; decolonization and the Korean War; and the different state-building processes in North and South, South Korea's democratization in 1980s, and the current North Korean crisis.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 95C:
Modern Japanese History: From Samurai to Pokemon
(95C is 3 units; 195C is 5 units.) Japan's modern transformation from the late 19th century to the present. Topics include: the Meiji revolution; industrialization and social dislocation; the rise of democracy and empire; total war and US occupation; economic miracle and malaise; Japan as soft power; and politics of memory. Readings and films focus on the lived experience of ordinary men and women across social classes and regions.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 95E:
Trenches, Guerrillas, and Bombs: Modern Warfare in East Asian History
(95E is 3 units; 295E is 5 units.) This course is an introduction to the field of military history. But rather than centering on the typical Western perspectives, it focuses on studying the East Asian modern warfare during the early 20th century. Students will investigate, define, and historicize different kinds of wars, and draw historical lessons to better understand the contemporary military conflicts. From the trench warfare in the Russo-Japanese War, to the guerrilla warfare of the Chinese Communist Party, and to Americans' strategic bombing in the Korean War, students will identify modern warfare's historical characteristics in East Asia and reflect on how they continue to affect the politics in the region today.
Last offered: Summer 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 95N:
Maps in the Modern World
Preference to freshmen. Through critical essays, maps, and atlases focusing on California, this seminar explores four principal themes: the roots of modern mapping in the rise of the state; maps as commodities; cartographies of race; and counter-mapping (where the marginalized take map-making into their own hands). Students learn to use resources in the Branner Map Library, Stanford digital collections, and the David Rumsey Map Center. The culminating project involves making and annotating your own map of the campus.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 96C:
Resisting Empire: Anti-colonial Nationalism, Popular Politics & Decolonization in Modern South Asia (FEMGEN 96C, FEMGEN 196C, HISTORY 196C)
(HISTORY 96C is 3 units; 196C is 5 units.) How did subjects of British India respond to colonial rule? When and how did anti-colonial nationalism emerge in South Asia? How did leading thinkers of the region conceptualize the nature of colonialism and the methods of nationalist resistance? Did nationalism represent all social classes in British India? Did it also alienate and exclude? What tactics of resistance were developed in anti-colonial movements, especially by M. K. Gandhi? Why did independence arrive with the partition of British India into two nation-states - India and Pakistan? How did the colonial legacy shape the post-colonial nation-states of South Asia? In this this introductory lecture-based survey course on the history of modern South Asia, we will explore the answers to these questions. The course will span the period from the beginning of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, and cover the regions that constitute present day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. No prior knowledge of South Asia is necessary.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 96N:
World War II in Asia
This course will explore the history of World War II in Asia. Moving beyond a narrow focus on the war as a U.S.-Japanese conflict, we will take a trans-Asian approach to study social, cultural, military, and political aspects of the war and its consequences in shaping "postwar" Asia and global politics. Themes will include empires and imperialism, trade and treaties, nations and civil wars, parades and propaganda, race and migration, wartime capitalism and consumption, food and everyday life, war crimes and tribunals, and memory and reparations. Diverse visual and textual sources, including films, documentaries, and memoirs, will be introduced to understand and analyze weekly themes and topics.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 96S:
The World the Mongols Made: Nomads, Empire, Legacy
The Mongols created global history. Their enterprise was the largest land-based empire in world history, and it lasted longer than most of the competition. This course will examine the world that the Mongols left behind, a world whose ways the Mongols affected and still continue to affect. In particular we will look first at the Mongol Empire in its entirety and its interactions with the Christian, Muslim, and the Chinese worlds. We will then examine the legacies left by the Mongols in the aftermath of its fracture and reorganization to form various successors.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 97:
Southeast Asia: From Antiquity to the Modern Era (HISTORY 197)
The history of S.E. Asia, comprising Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos, from antiquity to the present. The spread of Indian cultural influences, the rise of indigenous states, and the emergence of globally linked trade networks. European colonization, economic transformation, the rise of nationalism, the development of the modern state, and the impact of globalization.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
HISTORY 97C:
The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century (ANTHRO 97C)
How did the colonial encounter shape the making of modern South Asia? Was colonial rule a radical rupture from the pre-modern past or did it embody historical continuities? Did colonial rule cause the economic underdevelopment of the region or were regional factors responsible for it? Did colonial forms of knowledge shape how we think of social structures in the Indian subcontinent? Did the colonial census merely register pre-existing Indian communities or did it reshape them? Did colonialism break with patriarchal power or further consolidate it? How did imperial power regulate sexuality in colonial India? What was the relationship between caste power and colonial power? How did capital and labor interact under colonial rule? How did colonialism mediate the very nature of modernity in the region?This lecture-based survey course will explore the nature of the most significant historical process that shaped modern South Asia from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries -- colonialism. It primarily deals with the regions that constituted the directly administered territories of British India, specifically regions that subsequently became the nation-states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 97S:
Between Empires: Modern History of Taiwan
Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has drawn renewed concern and debate around the world. To fully understand the contemporary Taiwanese issues, however, requires one to dig deeper and see Taiwan as a space where multiple great powers - China, Japan, and the United States - have historically intersected. This course explores the centuries-long history of Taiwan under different empires: the Qing empire (1683-1895), the Japanese empire (1895-1945), the Republic of China (1945-present), and the U.S. military empire (1945-present). Entering the postwar era, we will also cover the White Terror period (1947-1987), the democratization in the 1980s and 90s, and the issue of historical memory. Examining how different histories are remembered and forgotten, we will address the ways colonial legacies are intertwined with nation-making and postwar politics. Throughout the course, we will pay attention to how Taiwan's ethnic diversity has complicated the writing of national history and the formation of national identity. And we will ask: from whose perspective is Taiwanese history written? This course will analyze governmental reports, colonial travelogues, and propaganda videos, as well as fiction, music, and video games.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 98:
The History of Modern China
(Same as HISTORY 198. 98 is 3 units; 198 is 5 units.) This course charts major historical transformations in modern China, and will be of interest to those concerned with Chinese politics, culture, society, ethnicity, economy, gender, international relations, and the future of the world.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 98S:
Crime and Punishment in Late Imperial China: Law, State Formation, and Society
How did crime and punishment in late imperial China compare to other parts of the world? What place did the law have in the imperial Chinese state's strategies of governance and in resolving social grievances? How did certain groups and behaviors come to be criminalized, and how did this relate to broader contexts of pre-modern Chinese society? How was Chinese law perceived by foreign observers? Over the course of the quarter, we will utilize a wide range of both Qing legal documents and other types of primary sources to search for answers to these questions.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 101:
The Greeks (CLASSICS 83)
250 years ago, for almost the first time in history, a few societies rejected kings who claimed to know what the gods wanted and began moving toward democracy. Only once before had this happened--in ancient Greece. This course asks how the Greeks did this, and what they can teach us today. It uses texts and archaeology to trace the material and military sides of the story as well as cultural developments, and looks at Greek slavery and misogyny as well as their achievements. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 102:
History of the International System since 1914 (INTNLREL 102)
The course seeks to explain the history of international relations in the tumultuous century since 1914. It aims at a three-dimensional understanding, relating social and political structures of countries and regions to the primary shifts in the character of the competition between states, in the composition of the system, and in international institutions and norms. Great power interactions constitute the most visible element within the course: through the two world wars, into the Cold War, and beyond. Concurrently, we look within the empires and blocs of the Twentieth Century world, to consider the changing relationships between imperial centers and subject peoples. Lastly, we consider spirited if sporadic international efforts to pursue order, justice, and progress. This last pursuit also requires study of the proliferation of transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Terms: Spr, Sum
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 102A:
The Romans (CLASSICS 84)
How did a tiny village create a huge empire and shape the world, and why did it fail? Roman history, imperialism, politics, social life, economic growth, and religious change. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required; enroll in sections on Coursework.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 103D:
Human Society and Environmental Change (EARTHSYS 112, EARTHSYS 212, ESS 112)
Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding human-environment interactions with a focus on economics, policy, culture, history, and the role of the state. Prerequisite: ECON 1.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 103F:
Introduction to Modern Military History (HISTORY 3F, INTNLREL 103F)
(HISTORY 3F is 3 units; 103F is 5 units.) This course will introduce students to the basic concepts of modern warfare, its evolution, and some of the immeasurable ways by which it shaped our history as well as our world today. How have strategy, operations and tactics been transformed by the modern state; the industrial revolution; and the accelerated pace of technological change? What is the meaning of total war, conventional war, and asymmetric war, and how were these different types of war fought in the 20th and 21st centuries? From the Napoleonic wars to the war in Ukraine, how do wars reflect, and shape, our politics, economics, culture, and technology? No prior knowledge of military history (or technology) is required. Students satisfying the WiM requirement for the major in International Relations must enroll in INTNLREL 103F course listing. Please note that the version of this course offered in 2023-24 and later does not fulfill a "pre-1700" requirement for the history major.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 105C:
Human Trafficking: Historical, Legal, and Medical Perspectives (CSRE 105C, FEMGEN 105C, HUMRTS 112, INTNLREL 105C)
(Same as HISTORY 5C. 105C is 5 units, 5C is 3 units.) Interdisciplinary approach to understanding the extent and complexity of the global phenomenon of human trafficking, especially for forced prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trade, focusing on human rights violations and remedies. Provides a historical context for the development and spread of human trafficking. Analyzes the current international and domestic legal and policy frameworks to combat trafficking and evaluates their practical implementation. Examines the medical, psychological, and public health issues involved. Uses problem-based learning. Required weekly 50-min. discussion section, time TBD. Students interested in service learning should consult with the instructor and will enroll in an additional course.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 105F:
Global Futures: History, Statecraft, Systems (INTLPOL 222, POLISCI 116M, POLISCI 316M)
Where does the future come from? It comes from the past, of course, but how? What are the key drivers of continuity or change, and how can we trace those drivers going forward, too? What are the roles of contingency, chance, and choice, versus long-term underlying structure? How can people, from whatever walk of life, identify and utilize levers of power to ty to shift the larger system? What is a system, and how do systems behave? To answer these questions and analyze how today's world came into being and where it might be headed, this course explores geopolitics and geoeconomics, institutions and technologies, citizenship and leadership. We examine how our world works to understand the limits but also the possibilities of individual and collective agency, the phenomenon of perverse and unintended consequences, and ultimately, the nature of power. Our goal is to investigate not just how to conceive of a smart policy, but how its implementation might unfold. In sum, this course aims to combine strategic analysis and tactical agility.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 106A:
Global Human Geography: Asia and Africa
Global patterns of demography, economic and social development, geopolitics, and cultural differentiation, covering E. Asia, S. Asia, S.E. Asia, Central Asia, N. Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. Use of maps to depict geographical patterns and processes.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 106B:
Global Human Geography: Europe and Americas
Patterns of demography, economic and social development, geopolitics, and cultural differentiation. Use of maps to depict geographical patterns and processes.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 107:
Introduction to Urban Studies (URBANST 110)
Today, for the first time in history, a majority of people live in cities. By 2050, cities will hold two-thirds of the world's population. This transformation touches everyone, and raises critical questions. What draws people to live in cities? How will urban growth affect the world's environment? Why are cities so divided by race and by class, and what can be done about it? How do cities change who we are, and how can we change cities? In this class, you will learn to see cities in new ways, from the smallest everyday interactions on a city sidewalk to the largest patterns of global migration and trade. We will use specific examples from cities around the world to illustrate the concepts that we learn in class. The course is intended primarily for freshmen and sophomores.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 107B:
The Archaeology of Institutions (ANTHRO 125C, ARCHLGY 161)
Modern life is marked by institutions - schools, hospitals, international conglomerates, even prisons - so how did they develop and become so common? Historical archaeology can help us tell a different history of institutions because it combines documents, especially official records, with the material items left behind by the people who lived and worked in the institution. This course uses archaeological case studies to look at the different theoretical frameworks used to explain why institutions exist and how they function. We will also use practical examples to make connections between historical institutions and modern life. For example, what can looking at nineteenth century prison menus tell us about prison or hospital food today? And how can we use the archaeology of institutions to 'read' the Stanford campus? No prior archaeological experience required.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 110B:
Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern Europe
(HISTORY 110B is 5 units; HISTORY 10B is 3 units). Few historical settings offer a more illuminating perspective on our world today than old-regime Europe. Few cast a darker shadow. Science and the enlightened ambition to master nature and society, the emergence of statehood and its grasp for human mobility, bloodshed and coexistence in the face of religious fragmentation, as well as capitalism and the birth of modern finance: this course surveys some of the most consequential developments in European societies between the late fifteenth and the early nineteenth century.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 110C:
Modern Europe's Lives
(Same as HISTORY 10C. 110C is 5 units; 10C is 3 units.) From the late 18th century to the present. How Europeans responded to rapid social changes caused by political upheaval, industrialization, and modernization. How the experience and legacy of imperialism and colonialism both influenced European society and put in motion a process of globalization that continues to shape international politics today.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 111B:
Exploring the New Testament (CLASSICS 43, JEWISHST 86, RELIGST 86)
To explore the historical context of the earliest Christians, students will read most of the New Testament as well as many documents that didn't make the final cut. Non-Christian texts, Roman art, and surviving archeological remains will better situate Christianity within the ancient world. Students will read from the Dead Sea Scrolls, explore Gnostic gospels, hear of a five-year-old Jesus throwing divine temper tantrums while killing (and later resurrecting) his classmates, peruse an ancient marriage guide, and engage with recent scholarship in archeology, literary criticism, and history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 112C:
What Didn't Make the Bible (CLASSICS 9N, JEWISHST 4, RELIGST 4)
Over two billion people alive today consider the Bible to be sacred scripture. But how did the books that made it into the bible get there in the first place? Who decided what was to be part of the bible and what wasn't? How would history look differently if a given book didn't make the final cut and another one did? Hundreds of ancient Jewish and Christian texts are not included in the Bible. "What Didn't Make It in the Bible" focuses on these excluded writings. We will explore the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnostic gospels, hear of a five-year-old Jesus throwing temper tantrums while killing (and later resurrecting) his classmates, peruse ancient romance novels, explore the adventures of fallen angels who sired giants (and taught humans about cosmetics), tour heaven and hell, encounter the garden of Eden story told from the perspective of the snake, and learn how the world will end. The course assumes no prior knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, the bible, or ancient history. It is designed for students who are part of faith traditions that consider the bible to be sacred, as well as those who are not. The only prerequisite is an interest in exploring books, groups, and ideas that eventually lost the battles of history and to keep asking the question "why." In critically examining these ancient narratives and the communities that wrote them, you will investigate how religions canonize a scriptural tradition, better appreciate the diversity of early Judaism and Christianity, understand the historical context of these religions, and explore the politics behind what did and did not make it into the bible.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 113P:
Media and Communication from the Middle Ages to the Printing Press (ENGLISH 13P, ENGLISH 113P, HISTORY 13P, MUSIC 13P, MUSIC 113P)
Did you know that the emperor Charlemagne was illiterate, yet his scribes revolutionized writing in the West? This course follows decisive moments in the history of media and communication, asking how new recording technologies reshaped a society in which most people did not read or write--what has been described as the shift "from memory to written record." To understand this transformation, we examine forms of oral literature and music, from the Viking sagas, the call to crusade, and medieval curses (Benedictine maledictions), to early popular authors such as Dante and the 15th-century feminist scribe, Christine de Pizan. We trace the impact of musical notation, manuscript and book production, and Gutenberg's print revolution. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, how did the medium shape the message? Along the way, we will consider how the medieval arts of memory and divine reading (lectio divina) can inform communication in the digital world. This is a hands-on course: students will handle medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Special Collections, and will participate in an "ink-making workshop," following medieval recipes for ink and for cutting quills, then using them to write on parchment. The course is open to all interested students.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 114:
Origins of History in Greece and Rome (CLASSICS 88)
What's the history of `History'? The first ancient historians wrote about commoners and kings, conquest and power - those who had it, those who wanted it, those without it. Their powerful ways of recounting the past still resonate today and can be harnessed to tell new stories. We will look at how ancients like Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, and Livy turned stories about the past into compelling narratives of loss, growth and decline - inventing 'History' as we know it. All readings in English.
Last offered: Spring 2019
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
HISTORY 114B:
The Crusades: A Global History
(History 114B is 5 units; History 14B is 3 units) Questioning traditional western narratives of the crusades, this course studies Latin and Turkic invaders as rival barbarian formations, and explores the societies of western Afro-Eurasia and the Mediterranean in the centuries before western European global expansion. We approach the crusades as a "Christianized Viking raid," and investigate an array of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish sources. In so doing, we emphasize the diversity of perspectives within the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities: in the Muslim case, the tangle of Turkic, Arab, and Berber ethnicities; in the Jewish case, Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkic speakers ranging from the Iberian peninsula to India; in the Christian case, the fragmented Greek, Latin, and Arabic traditions. We explore how these barbarian invasions transformed the societies of western Afro-Eurasia, how ancient Greek knowledge in Islamic translation came to medieval Europe, and how a fragmenting Byzantine Empire gave way to the rise of the Ottoman Empire. However foreign, the interactions and encounters between these societies continue to reverberate today.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 115D:
Europe in the Middle Ages, 300-1500 (HISTORY 15D, RELIGST 115X)
(HISTORY 15D is 3 units; HISTORY 115D is 5 units.) This course provides an introduction to Medieval Europe from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. While the framework of the course is chronological, we'll concentrate particularly on the structure of medieval society. Rural and urban life, kingship and papal government, wars and plagues provide the context for our examination of the lives of medieval people, what they believed, and how they interacted with other, both within Christendom and beyond it. This course may count as DLCL 123, a course requirement for the Medieval Studies Minor.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 116:
Traders and Crusaders in the Medieval Mediterranean (HISTORY 16)
Trade and crusade were inextricably interconnected in the high Middle Ages. As merchant ships ferried knights and pilgrims across the Mediterranean, rulers borrowed heavily to finance their expeditions, while military expansion opened new economic opportunities. Course themes include the origins of the Crusading movement; the rise of Venice and other maritime powers; the pivotal roles of the Byzantine and Mongol Empires; relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews; new military, maritime, and commercial technologies; and the modern legacy of the Crusades.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 116M:
"You Know Nothing, Jon Snow": Representations and Misrepresentations of the Middle Ages in Film
Throughout the history of film, writers, directors and producers have made the Middle Ages one of the most popular settings featured in the medium. Some films attempt to faithfully represent this fascinating period in great historical detail. Other films use a deformed image of the Middle Ages as an inspiration for movies that propagate misleading depictions of this important time. Finally, most films could be placed somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes. This class will examine eight films and one broad theme (e.g., violence, women, politics, etc.) featured in them. Through examination of primary and secondary sources, students will investigate these themes within the context of medieval history, critique their cinematic representation and discuss medievalism and its proponents.
Last offered: Summer 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 116N:
Howard Zinn and the Quest for Historical Truth (EDUC 116N)
With more than two million copies in print, Howard Zinn's A People's History is a cultural icon. We will use Zinn's book to probe how we determine what was true in the past. A People's History will be our point of departure, but our journey will visit a variety of historical trouble spots: debates about whether the US was founded as a Christian nation, Holocaust denial, and the "Birther" controversy of President Obama.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 117:
Ancient Empires: Near East (CLASSICS 81)
Why do imperialists conquer people? Why do some people resist while others collaborate? This course tries to answer these questions by looking at some of the world's earliest empires. The main focus is on the expansion of the Assyrian and Persian Empires between 900 and 300 BC and the consequences for the ancient Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks. The main readings come from the Bible, Herodotus, and Assyrian and Persian royal inscriptions, and the course combines historical and archaeological data with social scientific approaches. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 120A:
The Russian Empire, 1450-1800 (SLAVIC 110)
(Same as HISTORY 20A. 120A is 5 units, 20A is 3 units.) The rise of Russian state as a Eurasian "empire of difference"; strategies of governance of the many ethnic and religious groups with their varied cultures and political economies; particular attention to Ukraine. In the Russian center, explores gender and family; serfdom; Russian Orthodox religion and culture; Europeanizing cultural change of 18th century.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 124B:
The Balkan World: History, Culture, Politics (HISTORY 24B, REES 224C)
The Balkans is a region that is often marginalized, even though throughout modern history it has stood at the crossroads between East and West and has been the locus of the major developments of the 19th and 20th centuries - the site of Great Power competition, the first de-colonization movements, the rise of the modern nation-state, the outbreak of the First World War, Nazi occupation and resistance, genocides, the rise of emancipatory communist regimes that have challenged the hegemony of the Soviet Union, the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and a challenge for democratization and western-based military intervention. Today the Balkans are a region where the European Union, Russia and the China vie for control. This course draws on a range of primary and secondary, literary, historical and policy sources as well as a range of scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the significance of the Balkans to global affairs in historical and contemporary contexts. Section REES 224C is offered for graduate student enrollment.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 127:
The Eurasian World From Plato to NATO: History, Politics, and Culture (POLISCI 142, REES 117, REES 217, SLAVIC 117)
The course explores the history, politics and culture of the Eurasian space, covering themes such as the rise and fall of civilizations; political and ideological movements; literature and art; and geopolitics. See HISTORY 127 for section schedule details.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
HISTORY 133A:
Blood and Roses: The Age of the Tudors
(Same as HISTORY 33A. 133A is 5 units; 33A is 3 units.) English society and state from the Wars of the Roses to the death of Elizabeth. Political, social, and cultural upheavals of the Tudor period and the changes wrought by the Reformation. The establishment of the Tudor monarchy; destruction of the Catholic church; rise of Puritanism; and 16th-century social and economic changes.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 133B:
Revolutionary England: The Stuart Age
(Same as HISTORY 33B. HISTORY 133B is 5 units; 33B is 3 units.) From the accession of King James I in 1603 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714: a brutal civil war, the execution of one anointed king, and the deposition of another. Topics include the causes and consequences of the English Revolution, the origins of Anglo-American democratic thought, the rise and decline of Puritanism, and the emergence of England as an economic and colonial power.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
HISTORY 134A:
The European Witch Hunts
(Same as HISTORY 34A. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 134A.) After the Reformation, in the midst of state-building and scientific discovery, Europeans conducted a series of deadly witch hunts, violating their own laws and procedures in the process. What was it about early modernity that fueled witch hunting? Examines witch trials and early modern demonology as well as historians' interpretations of events to seek answers to this question.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 137D:
Germany's Wars and the World, 1848-2010 (HISTORY 37D)
(History 37D is 3 units; History 137D is 5 units.)This course examines a series of explosive encounters between Germans, Europe, and the world. Starting with the overlooked revolutions of 1848 and ending with the reunification of West Germany and East Germany after the Cold War, the course will explore a range of topics: capitalism, communism, imperialism, nationalism, diplomacy, antisemitism, gender, race, and the Holocaust, among others. We will also consider competing visions of Germany its borders, its members, its enemies.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 139:
Modern Britain and the Empire, 1688-2016
(Same as HISTORY 39. 139 is 5 units; 39 is 3 units.) This course surveys British history from the Glorious Revolution to Brexit. We will integrate the stories of Britain and its empire as we examine key topics, including the rise of the modern British state and economy, imperial expansion and contraction, the formation of class, gender, and national identities, mass culture and politics, the world wars, and racial politics in contemporary Britain. We will focus particularly on questions of decline, the dynamic fortunes and contradictions of British liberalism in an era of imperialism, and the weight of the past in contemporary Britain. Readings focus on primary sources from the period covered as well as a few scholarly works.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 140:
World History of Science: From Prehistory through the Scientific Revolution
(History 40 is 3 units; History 140 is 5 units.) The earliest developments in science, the prehistoric roots of technology, the scientific revolution, and global voyaging. Theories of human origins and the oldest known tools and symbols. Achievements of the Mayans, Aztecs, and native N. Americans. Science and medicine in ancient Greece, Egypt, China, Africa, and India. Science in medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Islamic world including changing cosmologies and natural histories. Theories of scientific growth and decay; how science engages other factors such as material culture and religions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 140A:
The Scientific Revolution
(History 140A is 5 units; History 40A is 3 units.) What do people know and how do they know it? What counts as scientific knowledge? In the 16th and 17th centuries, understanding the nature of knowledge engaged the attention of individuals and institutions including Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, the early Royal Society, and less well-known contemporaries. New meanings of observing, collecting, experimenting, and philosophizing, and political, religious, and cultural ramifications in early modern Europe.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 144:
Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Environment (FEMGEN 144)
Explores "Gendered Innovations" or how sex, gender, and intersectional analysis in research spark discovery and innovation. This course focuses on sex and gender, and considers factors intersecting with sex and gender, including age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational background, disabilities, geographic location, etc., where relevant. Topics include historical background, basic concepts, social robots, sustainability, medicine & public health, femtech, facial recognition, inclusive crash test dummies, and more. Stanford University is engaged in a multi-year collaboration with the European Commission and the U.S. National Science Foundation project on Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment, and this class will contribute that project. The operative questions is: how can sex, gender, and intersectional analysis lead to discovery, enhance social justice, and environmental sustainability?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 145B:
Introduction to African Studies I: Africa in the 20th Century (AFRICAAM 145B)
(AFRICAAM/HISTORY 45B is 3 units; AFRICAAM/HISTORY 145B is 5 units.) CREATIVITY. AGENCY. RESILIENCE. This is the African history with which this course will engage. African scholars and knowledge production of Africa that explicitly engages with theories of race and global Blackness will take center stage. TRADE. RELIGION. CONQUEST. MIGRATION. These are the transformations of the 20th century which we shall interrogate and reposition. Yet these groundbreaking events did not happen in a vacuum. As historians, we also think about the continent's rich traditions and histories prior to the 20th century. FICTION. NONFICTION. FILM. MUSIC. Far from being peripheral to political transformation, African creative arts advanced discourse on gender, technology, and environmental history within the continent and without. We will listen to African creative artists not only as creators, but as agents for change.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 147:
History of South Africa (AFRICAAM 147, CSRE 174)
(Same as HISTORY 47. HISTORY 147 is 5 units; HISTORY 47 is 3 units) Introduction, focusing particularly on the modern era. Topics include: precolonial African societies; European colonization; the impact of the mineral revolution; the evolution of African and Afrikaner nationalism; the rise and fall of the apartheid state; the politics of post-apartheid transformation; and the AIDS crisis.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 148:
The Egyptians (AFRICAAM 30, CLASSICS 82, HISTORY 48)
This course traces the emergence and development of the distinctive cultural world of the ancient Egyptians over nearly 4,000 years. Through archaeological and textual evidence, we will investigate the social structures, religious beliefs, and expressive traditions that framed life and death in this extraordinary region. Students with or without prior background are equally encouraged.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 148C:
Los Angeles: A Cultural History (AMSTUD 148, CSRE 148R)
This course traces a cultural history of Los Angeles from the early twentieth century to the present. Approaching popular representations of Los Angeles as our primary source, we discuss the ways that diverse groups of Angelenos have represented their city on the big and small screens, in the press, in the theater, in music, and in popular fiction. We focus in particular on the ways that conceptions of race and gender have informed representations of the city. Possible topics include: fashion and racial violence in the Zoot Suit Riots of the Second World War, Disneyland as a suburban fantasy, cinematic representations of Native American life in Bunker Hill in the 1961 film The Exiles, the independent black cinema of the Los Angeles Rebellion, the Anna Deaver Smith play Twilight Los Angeles about the civil unrest that gripped the city in 1992, and the 2019 film Once Upon a Time¿in Hollywood.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 150A:
Colonial and Revolutionary America (AMSTUD 150A)
(HISTORY 50A is 3 units. HISTORY 150A is 5 units) This course surveys early American history from the onset of English colonization of North America in the late sixteenth century through the American Revolution and the creation of the United States in the late eighteenth. It situates the origins and the development of colonial American society as its peoples themselves experienced it, within the wider histories of the North American continent and the Atlantic basin. It considers the diversity of peoples and empires that made up these worlds as well as the complex movement of goods, peoples, and ideas that defined them. The British North American colonies were just one interrelated part of this wider complex. Yet out of that interconnected Atlantic world, those particular colonies produced a revolution for national independence that had a far-reaching impact on the world. The course, accordingly, explores the origins of this revolutionary movement and the nation state that it wrought, one that would rapidly ascend to hemispheric and then global prominence.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 150B:
Nineteenth Century America (AMSTUD 150B, CSRE 150S)
(Same as HISTORY 50B. 150B is 5 units; 50B is 3 units.) This course is a survey of nineteenth-century American history. Topics include: the legacy of the American Revolution; the invention of political parties; capitalist transformation and urbanization; the spread of evangelical Christianity; antebellum reform; changing conceptions of gender, sex, and family; territorial expansion, Indigenous dispossession, and Manifest Destiny; the politics and experience of Indian removal; slavery and emancipation; the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Redemption; the crises and corruption of the Gilded Age; the Populist insurgency; Chinese exclusion; allotment and reservation life; and the emergence of the United States as a modern nation state.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-SI
HISTORY 150C:
The United States in the Twentieth Century (AFRICAAM 150C, AMSTUD 150C)
(Same as HISTORY 50C. 50C is 3 units; 150C is 5 units.) 100 years ago, women and most African-Americans couldn't vote; automobiles were rare and computers didn't exist; and the U.S. was a minor power in a world dominated by European empires. This course surveys politics, culture, and social movements to answer the question: How did we get from there to here? Suitable for non-majors and majors alike.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 151:
The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ARTHIST 152, ENGLISH 124, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 151B:
The End of American Slavery, 1776-1865 (HISTORY 51B)
How did the institution of American slavery come to an end? The story is more complex than most people know. This course examines the rival forces that fostered slavery's simultaneous contraction in the North and expansion in the South between 1776 and 1861. It also illuminates, in detail, the final tortuous path to abolition during the Civil War. Throughout, the course introduces a diverse collection of historical figures, including seemingly paradoxical ones, such as slaveholding southerners who professed opposition to slavery and non-slaveholding northerners who acted in ways that preserved it. Historical attitudes toward race are a central integrative theme.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 151C:
Imagineering the American City
What will American cities look like in the future? Will they be "smart"? Will they be sustainable? Will they be equitable? This course will explore possible answers to these questions by looking back towards the nation's urban past. The city has been a polarizing space in the U.S. imagination since the nation's inception, but in the late nineteenth century it became clear that industrialization and urbanization were undeniable parts of the nation's future. The national conversation shifted away from debating if the U.S. should urbanize to how it would urbanize. This course will introduce students to the concept of "imagineering" in urban studies, or the process of engineering imagined urban landscapes into physical reality. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources, including engineering design publications, city planning maps and memos, and urban photojournalism, students will learn about why and how the nation imagineered (and re-imagineered) urban spaces, and trace how these activities have shaped urban inequality, politics, culture, and environments in the past and present. Using contemporary media, like Weird City (2019) and Elysium (2013), short stories like N.K. Jemisin's "The City Born Great," and TedTalks on the future of urban design, this course will also explore possible futures for urban America. The creative weekly assignments will ask students to step into the proverbial shoes of different city residents, writing Op-eds as a journalist, inspection reports as a city planner, and manifestos as a local activist, to discuss urban issues across time and space from different perspectives. The final research project offers students the opportunity to use their newfound knowledge to propose a solution for a contemporary urban issue with deep historical roots.
Last offered: Summer 2023
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 151M:
Between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, JR.: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Freedom (AFRICAAM 221, AMSTUD 141X, CSRE 141R, POLISCI 126, RELIGST 141)
Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) and Martin Luther King, Jr. are both icons of the twentieth-century civil rights and black freedom movements. Often characterized as polar opposites - one advocating armed self-defense and the other non-violence against all provocation - they continue to be important religious, political, and intellectual models for how we imagine the past as well as for current issues concerning religion, race, politics and freedom struggles in the United States and globally. This course focuses on the political and spiritual lives of Martin and Malcolm. We will examine their personal biographies, speeches, writings, representations, FBI Files, and legacies as a way to better understand how the intersections of religion, race, and politics came to bare upon the freedom struggles of people of color in the US and abroad. The course also takes seriously the evolutions in both Martin and Malcolm's political approaches and intellectual development, focusing especially on the last years of their respective lives. We will also examine the critical literature that takes on the leadership styles and political philosophies of these communal leaders, as well as the very real opposition and surveillance they faced from state forces like the police and FBI. Students will gain an understanding of what social conditions, religious structures and institutions, and personal experiences led to first the emergence and then the assassinations of these two figures. We will discuss the subtleties of their political analyses, pinpointing the key differences and similarities of their philosophies, approaches, and legacies, and we will apply these debates of the mid- twentieth century to contemporary events and social movements in terms of how their legacies are articulated and what we can learn from them in struggles for justice and recognition in twenty-first century America and beyond.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-ER
HISTORY 152:
History of American Law (HISTORY 352B)
(Formerly Law 318. Now Law 3504.) This course examines the growth and development of American legal institutions with particular attention to crime and punishment, slavery and race relations, the role of law in developing the economy, and the place of lawyers in American society, from colonial times to the present. Special Instructions: Any student may write a paper in lieu of the final exam with consent of instructor. After the term begins, students accepted into the course can transfer from section (01) into section (02), which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor. Elements used in grading: Final exam or paper. Automatic grading penalty waived for writers. Cross-listed with History (HISTORY 152 Consent of instructor required) & (HISTORY 352B).
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 152K:
America as a World Power in the Modern Era (INTNLREL 168, INTNLREL 168W)
This class will examine the history of U.S. foreign policy, beginning the U.S. rise to world power at the dawn of the 20th century and concluding with an examination of the foreign policies of Presidents Bush and Obama. It will ask you to weigh the arguments scholars alongside firsthand (primary source) evidence ? to make your own assessments of motivations, goals, causation, and consequences. Above all, it will ask you to think historically about the last century of U.S. foreign policy, and to consider a broad range of factors: ideology, domestic politics, geopolitics, race, psychology, culture, and bureaucracy ? sometimes in complementary ways. Our task is to understand the critical choices made over the past century, both in their own right and for the broader lessons that a comparative historical perspective might provide.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 153:
Creation of the Constitution
The course begins with readings setting forth the intellectual and experiential background of the framing, including common law and natural rights theory, republicanism, economic & political scientific ideas, and colonial and post-Independence experience. We then study large parts of the debates at the Constitutional Convention, primarily using Madison's Notes. Major topics are the principle of representation, the extent and enumeration of national powers, the construction of the executive and judicial branches, and slavery. Next come the ratification debates, including readings from antifederalist writers, The Federalist, and speeches in ratification conventions. We conclude with the addition of the Bill of Rights. Classes consist of a combination of lecture and extensive participation by students. Elements used in grading: Class participation, final exam, supplemented by short take-home essay. Cross-listed with the Law School (LAW 7017).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 153C:
Reconstruction: Adding the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments
(Same as LAW 7100.) This course will explore the changes to the Constitution made after the Civil War and their enforcement statutes. Materials will primarily be original source texts, supplemented by selected secondary literature. The majority of class time will be devoted to discussion, based on close reading of the materials. Students will be assigned to take the lead on class discussion on particular topics. Topics will include: (1) the constitutional status of slavery prior to the Civil War; (2) the Emancipation Proclamation; (3) the Thirteenth Amendment; (4) the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and President Johnson's constitutional veto; (4) drafting and ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, with special emphasis on the citizenship clause, due process, equal protection, privileges and immunities, and congressional enforcement; (5) the Freedman's Bureau Act, Ku Klux Klan Act, Enforcement Acts, and Civil Rights Act of 1871; (6) the Fifteenth Amendment; (7) the Civil Rights Act of 1875; (8) early Supreme Court interpretations, and (9) the collapse of Reconstruction and rise of Jim Crow. Within these topics, we will discuss segregation, affirmative action, the state action doctrine, equality with respect to non-racial characteristics, ratification rules, state sovereign immunity, and the role of electoral politics in constitutional interpretation and enforcement. Note: This is NOT a course on current interpretations of the Reconstruction Amendments, but on their historical background. There are no prerequisites. First year law students and non-law students are welcome. Constitutional Law would be helpful but is not required. Grading. Grades will be based partly (20%) on class participation, and partly on either an in-class exam or a research paper on a topic approved in advance by the instructor. Students will choose between the exam and the paper. Grades for students in this section will be "Letter Only." After the term begins, students accepted into the course can transfer, with consent of the instructor, from section (01) into section (02), which meets the R requirement.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3
HISTORY 154:
The History of Ideas in America, Part I (to 1900) (AMSTUD 154)
(Same as HISTORY 54. 154 is 5 units; 54 is 3 units.) How Americans considered problems such as slavery, imperialism, and sectionalism. Topics include: the political legacies of revolution; biological ideas of race; the Second Great Awakening; science before Darwin; reform movements and utopianism; the rise of abolitionism and proslavery thought; phrenology and theories of human sexuality; and varieties of feminism. Sources include texts and images.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 154B:
The History of Ideas in America, Part II (AMSTUD 54B, AMSTUD 154B, HISTORY 54B)
This course explores intellectual life and culture in the United States during the twentieth century, examining the work and lives of social critics, essayists, artists, scientists, journalists, novelists, and sundry other thinkers. We will look at the life of the mind as a narrative of ongoing yet contested secularization and a series of debates about the meaning and nature of truth, knowing, selfhood, and the American democratic experience. Persistent themes include modernism and anti-modernism, shifts and changes in political liberalism and conservatism, disagreements about the role of the United States in the world, and the importance of distinctions based on race, ethnicity, religion, class, and gender.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 154F:
Against Slavery: African Americans and Self Emancipation
TBD.
| Units: 5
HISTORY 155:
American Constitutional History from the Civil War to the War on Poverty (AMSTUD 155)
This course addresses U.S. constitutional history from the post-Civil War Reconstruction period through the mid-20th century. Because of the breadth of the subject matter, the view will necessarily be partial. In particular we will take as our focus the way the Constitution has provided a point of political mobilization for social movements challenging economic and social inequality. Topics covered include: Civil War Reconstruction and restoration; the rise of corporate capitalism and efforts to constrain it; Progressive Era regulation; the New Deal challenge to federalism and the anti-New Deal backlash; government spending; WWII and the Japanese Internment; the Civil Rights Era, and the War on Poverty. Readings will include both legal and historical materials with a focus on the relationship between law and society. Elements used in grading: Class Participation, Attendance, Written Assignments, Final Paper. Paper extensions will be granted with instructor permission. No automatic grading penalty for late papers. Cross-listed with the Law School (LAW 7008),
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 155F:
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1830 to 1877 (AFRICAAM 55F, AMSTUD 55F, AMSTUD 155F, HISTORY 55F)
(History 55F is 3 units; History 155F is 5 units.)This course explores the causes, course, and consequences of the American Civil War. The Civil War profoundly impacted American life at national, sectional, and constitutional levels, and radically challenged categories of race and citizenship. Topics covered include: the crisis of union and disunion in an expanding republic; slavery, race, and emancipation as national problems and personal experiences; the horrors of total war for individuals and society; and the challenges--social and political--of Reconstruction.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 156D:
A History of Debt in America (HISTORY 56D)
What is the history of debt in America? How has indebtedness become an inescapable condition for some, and a virtue for others? What can we learn from the forgotten efforts of those who issued debt, lived in debt, struggled through debt, and mobilized in and around debt? This survey course examines the links between debt, power, development, and mobility. Together, we will see how debt transformed daily life in North America over the past 500 years, and spot moments when collective action undermined the supposed unbreakable terms of indebtedness. This class neither presumes a background in economics, nor previous coursework in history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 158C:
History of Higher Education in the U.S. (AMSTUD 165, EDUC 165, EDUC 265)
Major periods of evolution, particularly since the mid-19th century. Premise: insights into contemporary higher education can be obtained through its antecedents, particularly regarding issues of governance, mission, access, curriculum, and the changing organization of colleges and universities.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 161:
The Politics of Sex: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Modern America (AMSTUD 161, CSRE 162, FEMGEN 61, FEMGEN 161, HISTORY 61)
This course explores the ways that individuals and movements for social and economic equality have redefined and contested gender and sexuality in the modern United States. Using a combination of primary and secondary sources, we will explore the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality in the politics of woman suffrage, racial justice, reproductive rights, and gay and trans rights, as well as conservative and right-wing responses. Majors and non-majors alike are welcome.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 166C:
The Cold War: An International History (INTNLREL 154)
Though it ended twenty years ago, we still live in a world shaped by the Cold War. Beginning with its origins in the mid-1940s, this course will trace the evolution of the global struggle, until its culmination at the end of the 1980s. Students will be asked to ponder the fundamental nature of the Cold War, what kept it alive for nearly fifty years, how it ended, and its long term legacy for the world. As distinguished from the lecture taught in previous quarters, this class will closely investigate ten major Cold War battlegrounds over the quarter. Selected case studies will include: the division of Germany, Iran in the 1950s, Cuba, Vietnam, the Six Day War, the Chilean coup, sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, Central America, and the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. Students will be asked to consult a combination of original documents and recent histories.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 168:
American History in Film Since World War ll
U.S. society, culture, and politics since WW II through feature films. Topics include: McCarthyism and the Cold War; ethnicity and racial identify; changing sex and gender relationships; the civil rights and anti-war movements; and mass media. Films include: The Best Years of Our Lives, Salt of the Earth, On the Waterfront, Raisin in the Sun, Kramer v Kramer, and Falling Down.
Last offered: Summer 2019
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 168D:
American Prophet: The Inner Life and Global Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. (AFRICAAM 68D, AMSTUD 168D, CSRE 68, HISTORY 68D)
Martin Luther King, Jr., was the 20th-century's best-known African-American leader, but the religious roots of his charismatic leadership are far less widely known. The documents assembled and published by Stanford's King Research and Education Institute provide the source materials for this exploration of King's swift rise to international prominence as an articulate advocate of global peace and justice.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 173:
Mexican Migration to the United States (AMSTUD 73, CHILATST 173, HISTORY 73)
(History 73 is 3 units; History 173 is 5 units.) This course is an introduction to the history of Mexican migration to the United States. Barraged with anti-immigrant rhetoric and calls for bigger walls and more restrictive laws, few people in the United States truly understand the historical trends that shape migratory processes, or the multifaceted role played by both US officials and employers in encouraging Mexicans to migrate north. Moreover, few have actually heard the voices and perspectives of migrants themselves. This course seeks to provide students with the opportunity to place migrants' experiences in dialogue with migratory laws as well as the knowledge to embed current understandings of Latin American migration in their meaningful historical context.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 174:
Mexico Since 1876: The Road to Ayotzinapa
(History 74 is for 3 units; History 174 is for 5 units.) In September of 2014, 43 students from a Mexican teacher's college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero were abducted and disappeared via the actions of police and organized crime. This shocking human rights violation, as well as the violence and impunity it represented, were symbolic of the decline of the rule of law embodied by Mexico's drug war. How did the nation arrive at this crossroads? This course is an introduction to the history of Mexico from 1876 to the present. Through lectures, discussions, primary and secondary sources, film and documentaries, and written assignments, students will critically explore the events and people that shaped Mexico for over a century. From the Porfirian dictatorship, to the Revolution, to the PRI's "perfect dictatorship," this course analyzes socioeconomic and racial inequality, foreign intervention, urbanization and industrialization, technological innovation and environmental degradation, education and ideology, modernity and migration, culture and media, and the drug trade.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 177C:
Rebelión: Black Resistance in the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 158, COMPLIT 158)
In 1978, Afro-Columbian artist recorded his hit song "Rebelión," including lines such as "esclavitud perpetua," a reference to the 1455 Romanus Pontifex Papal Bull, and lines like "No le pegue a la negra," which evince a slave resistance based on a bond of kinship and affection. This is an introductory course in Caribbean history with a focus on labor and rebellion. In this course, we will discuss slave revolts and revolutions in the Caribbean from the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave trade through present-day labor strikes in the Caribbean. Using Caribbean resistance music as the backdrop to many of our discussions, this course will engage with the metaphors and motifs found in riotous iconography, such as the machete (i.e. "El machete de Maceo," in Celia Cruz¿s "Guantanamera"). Revolts covered include the 1500s slave revolts in Quisqueya, the Haitian Revolution, the 1843 La Escalera conspiracy in Cuba, the 1831 Christmas Rebellion in Jamaica, the Cuban Ten Years War, Little War, and present-day labor strikes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We will review and study historical records, as well as take in archival and musical sources. No prior knowledge in Caribbean history is required.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 178:
Film and History of Latin American Revolutions and Counterrevolutions (FILMEDIA 178, HISTORY 78, ILAC 178)
In this course we will watch and critique films made about Latin America's 20th century revolutions focusing on the Cuban, Chilean and Mexican revolutions. We will analyze the films as both social and political commentaries and as aesthetic and cultural works, alongside archivally-based histories of these revolutions.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 179C:
The Ethical Challenges of the Climate Catastrophe (HISTORY 79C)
(History 79C is 3 units; History 179C is 5 units.) This course explores the ethical challenges of the climate catastrophe from historical, social, economic, political, cultural and scientific perspectives. These include the discovery of global warming over two centuries; the rise of secular and religious denialism toward the scientific consensus on it; the dispute between "developed" and "developing" countries over the timing and amount of national contributions per the 2015 Paris Accord; climate justice as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, gender, and nationality; and the "role morality" of various actors (scientists, politicians, fossil fuel companies, the media and ordinary individuals) in assessing ethical responsibility for the catastrophe and how to mitigate, adapt, or even geoengineer, it.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 181B:
Making the Modern Middle East
(Same as 81B. 181B is 5 units; 81B is 3 units.) This course aims to introduce students to major themes in the modern history of the region linking the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds. No prerequisites or prior knowledge of the Middle East is required. We will begin with the Eurasian context that produced the Safavid and Ottoman empires and quickly move to the rapid transformations of the nineteenth century and imperial dissolution of the early twentieth. Twentieth-century themes will include mass migrations and colonial occupation; nationalism, mass politics and revolution; socialist and Islamist movements; and the growing role of American policy in the region. The course will conclude with a close examination of the profound transformations of the past decade, from the multiform uprisings of the 2010s to the equally multiform attempts to repress them.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 183A:
Enlightenment and Genocide: Modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire
(History 183A is 5 units; History 83A is 3 units.) In the early eighteenth century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, introduced Ottoman smallpox inoculation to western medicine. But over the next two centuries, Ottoman scientific, cultural, and geopolitical strength disintegrated, while western Europeans colonized much of the globe and industrialized at home. How and why did this happen? This course explores this period of wrenching social change and transformation, and asks how the Enlightenment, with its calls for universal human rights and democracy, existed alongside crimes against humanity such as the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. We inquire into ethical dilemmas from diverse perspectives to better understand the contested heritage of our modern world. Bringing western and non-western philosophy into conversation with history, we study the changing structures of Ottoman and European societies in the context of industrialization, repeated cycles from monarchy to democracy to dictatorship, and the growth of radical strains of Islam as a social protest and revolt against European dominance.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 185B:
Jews in the Contemporary World:Â Culture, Pop Culture, and Representation (CSRE 185B, JEWISHST 185B, REES 185B, SLAVIC 183)
(HISTORY 185B is 5 units; HISTORY 85B is 3 units.) From Barbra Streisand to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from The Dybbuk to Broad City, and from Moscow to LA, this course applies a multicultural perspective on different experiences of Jewishness in the 20th and 21st centuries. The discussion is centered on the ways in which these experiences are represented in various types of media: in literature or on TikTok, in poetry or on Instagram, in film and on television. The themes of the course include (but are not limited to) the interplay of national, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and political identities, intersectionality, the definitions and boundaries of Jewish cultures, Queer and variously gendered experiences of Jewishness, as well as antisemitism and stereotyped representations of Jewishness. The course introduces students to the analysis of a diverse array of media as cultural texts and historical sources. Students are encouraged to apply their new skills to media of their choice.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 187:
The Islamic Republics: Politics and Society in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
(Same as HISTORY 87. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 187.) Explores the contested politics of these societies in modern times. Topics include controversies surrounding the meaning of revolution, state building, war, geopolitics, Islamic law, clerical authority, gender, an Islamic economy, culture and ethnic, national and religious identities from the 1940s to the present. Assignments will focus on primary sources (especially legal documents, poetry, novels, and memoirs) and films.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 190:
Early Chinese Thought (HISTORY 90)
This lecture course examines the emergence of critical thought in early China. After a brief study of the social and political changes that made this emergence possible, it looks at the nature and roles of the thinkers, and finally their ideas about the social order, the state, war and the army, the family, the cosmos, and the self (both physical and mental). Some brief comparisons with early Greek thought.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 191B:
The City in Imperial China
(Same as HISTORY 91B. 191B is 5 units; 91B is 3 units.) The evolution of cities in the early imperial, medieval, and early modern periods. Topics include physical structure, social order, cultural forms, economic roles, relations to rural hinterlands, and the contrast between imperial capitals and other cities. Comparative cases from European history. Readings include primary and secondary sources, and visual materials.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 193:
The Chinese Empire from the Mongol Invasion to the Boxer Uprising (CHINA 183, FEMGEN 193)
(Same as HISTORY 93. 193 is 5 units; 93 is 3 units.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 194B:
Japan in the Age of the Samurai
(Same as HISTORY 94B. 194B is 5 units, 94B is 3 units.) From the Warring States Period to the Meiji Restoration. Topics include the three great unifiers, Tokugawa hegemony, the samurai class, Neoconfucian ideologies, suppression of Christianity, structures of social and economic control, frontiers, the other and otherness, castle-town culture, peasant rebellion, black marketing, print culture, the floating world, National Studies, food culture, samurai activism, black ships, unequal treaties, anti-foreign terrorism, restorationism, millenarianism, modernization as westernization, Japan as imagined community.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 194G:
Humanities Core: Technology and Media in Modern Japan
This course considers the political, economic, social, cultural, and artistic effects of the introduction of new technologies and media to modern China and Japan. The methodology will integrate techniques gleaned from the disciplines of history and literary studies. Our cross-discipline exploration will encompass printed books and images, language reform, communication technology, serialized fiction and commercial journalism, propaganda and censorship, cinema, comics, animation and television, gaming, and the internet. Through examination of these topics we will investigate a wide range of issues including nationality, ethnic identity, class, revolution, cultural identification, gender, sexuality, literacy, colonialism, imperialism, consumerism, materialism, and globalism, to name just a few. Throughout the course we will be attentive not only to the ways that new technology and media are represented in cultural materials but also how they are materialized in these products through the acts of adaptation, translation, transliteration, and remediation.nnStudents will survey, collect, and synthesize archival materials, engage in media analysis, and undertake close readings to illuminate narrative strategies and other signifying effects. This work will in part be facilitated by the Massive Multiplayer Humanities pedagogical model, which involves flipped classrooms, faculty curated online archives, and student initiated group work.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 195:
Modern Korean History
(Same as HISTORY 95. 195 is 5 units; 95 is 3 units.) This lecture course provides a general introduction to the history of modern Korea. Themes include the characteristics of the Chosôn dynasty, reforms and rebellions in the nineteenth century, Korean nationalism; Japan's colonial rule and Korean identities; decolonization and the Korean War; and the different state-building processes in North and South, South Korea's democratization in 1980s, and the current North Korean crisis.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 195C:
Modern Japanese History: From Samurai to Pokemon (JAPAN 195C)
(95C is 3 units; 195C is 5 units.) Japan's modern transformation from the late 19th century to the present. Topics include: the Meiji revolution; industrialization and social dislocation; the rise of democracy and empire; total war and US occupation; economic miracle and malaise; Japan as soft power; and politics of memory. Readings and films focus on the lived experience of ordinary men and women across social classes and regions.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 196C:
Resisting Empire: Anti-colonial Nationalism, Popular Politics & Decolonization in Modern South Asia (FEMGEN 96C, FEMGEN 196C, HISTORY 96C)
(HISTORY 96C is 3 units; 196C is 5 units.) How did subjects of British India respond to colonial rule? When and how did anti-colonial nationalism emerge in South Asia? How did leading thinkers of the region conceptualize the nature of colonialism and the methods of nationalist resistance? Did nationalism represent all social classes in British India? Did it also alienate and exclude? What tactics of resistance were developed in anti-colonial movements, especially by M. K. Gandhi? Why did independence arrive with the partition of British India into two nation-states - India and Pakistan? How did the colonial legacy shape the post-colonial nation-states of South Asia? In this this introductory lecture-based survey course on the history of modern South Asia, we will explore the answers to these questions. The course will span the period from the beginning of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, and cover the regions that constitute present day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. No prior knowledge of South Asia is necessary.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 197:
Southeast Asia: From Antiquity to the Modern Era (HISTORY 97)
The history of S.E. Asia, comprising Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos, from antiquity to the present. The spread of Indian cultural influences, the rise of indigenous states, and the emergence of globally linked trade networks. European colonization, economic transformation, the rise of nationalism, the development of the modern state, and the impact of globalization.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
HISTORY 197C:
The Structure of Colonial Power: South Asia since the Eighteenth Century (ANTHRO 197C)
How did the colonial encounter shape the making of modern South Asia? Was colonial rule a radical rupture from the pre-modern past or did it embody historical continuities? Did colonial rule cause the economic underdevelopment of the region or were regional factors responsible for it? Did colonial forms of knowledge shape how we think of social structures in the Indian subcontinent? Did the colonial census merely register pre-existing Indian communities or did it reshape them? Did colonialism break with patriarchal power or further consolidate it? How did imperial power regulate sexuality in colonial India? What was the relationship between caste power and colonial power? How did capital and labor interact under colonial rule? How did colonialism mediate the very nature of modernity in the region?This lecture-based survey course will explore the nature of the most significant historical process that shaped modern South Asia from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries -- colonialism. It primarily deals with the regions that constituted the directly administered territories of British India, specifically regions that subsequently became the nation-states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 198:
The History of Modern China
(Same as HISTORY 98. 198 is 5 units; 98 is 3 units.) This course charts major historical transformations in modern China, and will be of interest to those concerned with Chinese politics, culture, society, ethnicity, economy, gender, international relations, and the future of the world.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200A:
Doing Legal History
What is law, and how do we write its history? Drawing on case studies from a broad range of periods and places, this course will explore how law is made, interpreted, enforced, experienced, and resisted. It will also explore how historians use both legal and non-legal sources to study the ways in which law and society have shaped each other. This course forms part of the "Doing History" series: rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 200B:
Doing Environmental History: Water Justice
This course is an introduction to the field of environmental history, or the study of how humans have influenced, and have been influenced by, diverse environments over time. We will employ various sources (written, visual, aural) to learn about different methods of doing environmental history with a focus on water justice, or how access to freshwater has historically reflected racial, gender and class disparities at multiple levels, from families to communities (urban and rural), states, nations, and empires, especially with the rise of industrial capitalism from the late 19th century and increasing scientific understanding of climate change in the late 20th century. Final assignments may be multi-media (Youtube, TikTok, Podcasts, etc) as well as traditional research papers.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200BG:
Doing History: Biography as History (JEWISHST 200BG)
Although historians often focus on broad social forces, individuals can and do shape these currents in unexpected ways, as the headlines of our own time illustrate. What role do individuals play in historical change? How can we use individual life stories to illuminate broader trends? Led by two history faculty members who are also biographers, this seminar will introduce students to a diverse cast including writers, musicians, politicians, and intellectuals, with a general focus on the modern era since 1870. As a final project, students will draw on Stanford's archival holdings to write an original mini-biography.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
HISTORY 200C:
Doing the History of Race and Ethnicity
How does ethnicity and race operate in different time periods, and across different historical, national, and cultural contexts? This course guides students through an historical and cross-cultural exploration of ethnoracial identity formation, racism, ethnopolitics, migration, belonging, and exclusion, using primary and secondary sources to examine how the lived experience of race and ethnicity shapes and is shaped by local, regional, and global dimensions. This course forms part of the "Doing History" series: rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 200D:
Doing the History of Science and Technology
An active, activist-oriented exploration of history of science methods, using exploration of the tobacco industry's secret documents as basic research materials. This is a fun class looking at how history of science methods were used to document the diseases caused by cigarettes, and how cigarette makers used (and abused) science to create doubt about their products. We also look at the rise of climate change denialism, which was largely based on "doubt is out product" techniques developed by cigarette makers. Students will produce an paper based on original research into the cigarette industry's formerly secret archives!
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200E:
Doing Economic History
The courses examines how historians and economists, from different intellectual traditions and schools, grapple with major problems of economic history including pre-modern agrarian orders; demographic fluctuations; diverse property regimes; financial and commercial expansion; the emergence of fiscal-military state; the industrial revolution; growth and poverty; markets and networks; epidemics and their economic impacts; labor and capital; the rise of capitalism and imperialism; anti-capitalist and socialist movements; immigration; formal and informal economies; ; development and underdevelopment; globalization and environmental crisis; Special emphasis will be given to the theories of the Great Divergence, namely why the West became the dominant economic power over the rest of the world and how different economies responded to that.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 200F:
Doing Microhistory
The genre of microhistory was expressly invented in the 1970s to recover the voices of people usually neglected in the past, often based on scanty sources. It's an exciting and risky endeavor, as the historian often has to fill in details lacking in the sources, a historical tightrope act. Class includes three sessions with authors of microhistory who share how they met these challenges:Profs. Zipperstein and Stokes (Stanford) and Getz (San Francisco State).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 200GH:
Doing Gender History
While history was once believed to be the study of "great men," war, and politics, in recent decades, histories of women, gender, and sexuality have flourished. This course explores the development and major questions in the subfield of gender history from a transnational perspective. It allows students to examine gender history at the craft level, including research methods, theoretical frameworks, and novel approaches to uncover what has been previously hidden or ignored. This course is part of the "Doing History" series, rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 200J:
Doing Oral History (AMSTUD 200J)
Students explore exemplary historical works based on oral histories and develop a range of practical skills while completing their own interviews. Topics include oral history and narrative theory, interview techniques, transcript preparation, and digital archiving. Students also learn how to analyze interviews using both qualitative and quantitative methods, practice writing history using oral evidence, and experiment with digital humanities approaches for disseminating oral history, including the Stanford Oral History Text Analysis Project. This course forms part of the "Doing History" series: rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 200K:
Doing Literary History: Orwell in the World (ENGLISH 224)
This course will bring together the disciplines of history and literary studies by looking closely at the work of one major twentieth-century author: the British writer and political polemicist George Orwell. In 1946, Orwell writes, "What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art." In these years, Orwell writes about-- and often participates in or witnesses first-hand--a series of major events and crises. These include British imperialism in Burma, urban poverty in Europe, class inequality in England, the conflict between Socialism and Fascism in Spain, and the rise of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. In engaging all of these events, Orwell experiments with different literary forms, moving between fiction and non-fiction, novel and autobiography, essay and memoir, manifesto and fable, literature and journalism. Few writers demand such sustained and equal attention to text and context: in this course we will move back-and-forth between Orwell's varied writing and the urgent social and political contexts it addresses.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
HISTORY 200L:
Doing Public History (CSRE 201L)
Examines history outside the classroom; its role in political/cultural debates in U.S. and abroad. Considers functions, practices, and reception of history in public arena, including museums, memorials, naming of buildings, courtrooms, websites, op-eds. Analyzes controversies arising when historians' work outside the academy challenges the status quo; role funders, interest groups, and the public play in promoting, shaping, or suppressing historical interpretation. Who gets to tell a group's story? What changes can public history enable? Students will engage in public history projects.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200LB:
Doing Labor History (FEMGEN 200LB)
How do historians access lives of the laboring poor in the past? What is the archive of the working-class life? Toiling in farms, plantations, workshops, mines, factories, brothels and households, workers seldom leave behind an account of their lives in their own words. How have labor historians devised methods and techniques of reading traces from the past of those who were on the margins of society and struggling for their survival, and dignity? In this undergraduate colloquium, we will engage with these questions, particularly through the historical scholarship on workers in the Global South. This course will provide an introduction to the history of the field of labor history across different parts of the world; discuss the tremendous influence of the historian E.P. Thompson in the shaping of the field; explore how studies of gender, race, caste, cultural identities, and of a global perspective, have transformed the field in profound ways; and how the modern world was built on the foundation of oppressive regimes of labor extraction such as slavery, indenture, and wage labor.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200M:
Doing Digital History
This course is designed to introduce students to the theories and methods of digital history. In keeping with the digital humanities- commitment to experimentation, public discourse, and praxis, we will compile a web presence for our seminar that includes blog posts from students that engage with the discussions and readings. A series of tutorials will provide hands-on experience with a range of common digital history tools. The course will culminate in a final project in which students apply DH methodologies to their own research interests.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 200MM:
Doing Historical Memory
How do societies remember? What events and experiences become part of our shared patrimony and what stories are lost to time? Who decides? What are the dynamics -- and the politics -- of collective memory? In this course, we will examine these questions in the context of several different societies and historical problems. Topics examined include slavery and the transatlantic slave trade; the Holocaust; South African apartheid; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the Civil Rights movement; and the current battles over historical memorials and monuments.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200P:
Doing Religious History (AFRICAAM 200P, AFRICAST 200, RELIGST 210X)
What is religion, and how do we write its history? This undergraduate colloquium uses case studies from a variety of regions and periods - but with a specific focus on the African continent - to consider how historians have dealt with the challenge of writing accounts of the realm of religious and spiritual experience. We will explore the utility of oral history alongside written documentary sources as well as explore issues of objectivity and affiliation in writing religious histories. (This course has been submitted for WAY-SI and WAY-ED certification.)
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200R:
Doing Community History: Asian Americans and the Pandemic (AMSTUD 200R, ASNAMST 201)
Students utilize a community-engaged oral history methodology to produce short video documentaries focused on Asian Americans in the Covid-19 pandemic. In producing these collaborative digital history projects, students learn to evaluate the ways social power influences historical documentation at various levels including the making of sources, the construction of archives, and the telling of historical narratives. We ask: how have race and racism, ethnicity and community, gender and class, shaped the ways that the pandemic has influenced the lives of Asian Americans? To what extent have Asian American experiences with the pandemic been shaped by the recent global protests for racial justice and Black liberation? In studying the pandemic and its relationship to histories of race and racism, how should we understand the place of Asian Americans?
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200T:
Doing the History of Gender and Sexuality: African Perspectives (AFRICAST 262, FEMGEN 200)
What are gender and sexuality, and how do understandings of these concepts shape human experience across time and space? This course explores major topics in the history of gender and sexuality, with a focus on Africa. Course materials examine a range of themes in African history, including politics and power, marriage and motherhood, fashion and the body, and love and same-sex intimacies. This course forms part of the "Doing History" series: rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200U:
Doing History: Beyond the Book
This class will teach you how to look for clues in the historical record beyond the usual written texts. The past took place in three dimensions, involved five senses, and included actors that were not human beings. This course takes seriously the challenges of recovering a larger source base than books (although we will also consider books in their materiality as books). What are some of these non-text sources? How should we approach them? What are their prospects and limitations? What do we do when there aren't many sources for our subject? "How do we know what to look for?" is one of the most profound and important questions for historians - and scholars more generally - to ask themselves.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 200UR:
Doing (Sub)Urban History (AMSTUD 200UR, URBANST 100UR)
This course explores the attempts by scholars to understand the political, economic, and social development of cities, suburbs, and metropolitan regions from the nineteenth century onward. How have historians examined the evolution of metropolitan spatial forms over time? How have they approached the analytical challenge of handling the diversity in popular experiences and aspirations of urbanites? What of the relationship between industrialization and class formation, state building and culture, surveillance and resistance, banking and racism? Readings consist of some primary sources, classic works, and recent interpretations in the field of (sub)urban history. Although we will largely focus on urban processes within the United States, we will also draw on select examples from urban centers from around the globe. This course forms part of the "Doing History" series: rigorous undergraduate colloquia that introduce the practice of history within a particular field or thematic area.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 200Y:
Doing Colonial History
This course will explore major themes and debates in the history of modern colonialism in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Using case studies from Asia and Africa, "Doing Colonial History" will address the following issues of global importance: colonial conquest and governance, development vs. exploitation, education for assimilation, wartime and sexual violence, decolonization, and the politics of memory. This course is part of the "Doing History" series through which students learn how historians frame problems, collect and analyze evidence, and contribute to on-going debates.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 201:
From Confederate Monuments to Wikipedia: The Politics of Remembering the Past
Gateway course for Public History/Public Service track. Examines various ways history is used outside of the classroom, and its role in political/cultural debates in the U.S. and abroad. Showcases issues and careers in public history with guest speakers.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 201A:
The Global Drug Wars (HISTORY 301A)
Explores the global story of the struggle over drugs from the nineteenth century to the present. Topics include the history of the opium wars in China, controversies over wine and tobacco in Iran, narco-trafficking and civil war in Lebanon, the Afghan 'narco-state,' Andean cocaine as a global commodity, the politics of U.S.- Mexico drug trafficking, incarceration, drugs, and race in the U.S., and the globalization of the American 'war on drugs.'
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 201B:
Spatial History: Concepts, Methods, Problems (HISTORY 401A)
What can digital mapping and spatial analysis bring to history? How have historians written spatial history in the past? How do scholars in other disciplines deal with space and what can we learn from them? The course provides students with conceptual and technical skills in spatial history. As part of the exercise to think spatially about the past, students will receive training in Geographic Informational Science (GIS) and develop their own spatial history projects. No prior technical skills are needed for this course.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 201C:
The U.S., U.N. Peacekeeping, and Humanitarian War (INTNLREL 140C, INTNLREL 140X)
The involvement of U.S. and the UN in major wars and international interventions since the 1991 Gulf War. The UN Charter's provisions on the use of force, the origins and evolution of peacekeeping, the reasons for the breakthrough to peacemaking and peace enforcement in the 90s, and the ongoing debates over the legality and wisdom of humanitarian intervention. Case studies include Croatia and Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor, and Afghanistan. *International Relations majors taking this course to fulfill the WiM requirement should enroll in INTNLREL 140C for 5 units.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 201D:
History Goes Pop! Songwriting the Past (HISTORY 301D)
Historical research doesn't always take the form of a thesis, an article, or a book. Sometimes, research leads to film, museum exhibits, works of art, or... music. In this class, students will collaborate to write, record, and produce original pop music (perhaps even an entire album) based on original research in Stanford's wealth of archives and Special Collections. Background in music is NOT required.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
HISTORY 201P:
History and Policy (HISTORY 301P)
Can historical thinking produce more humane forms of governance? This course exposes students to the discipline of history as an instrument of policy critique and formulation. Students will pursue their own research projects with the option of creating papers and/or audio/visual products.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 202B:
Coffee, Sugar, and Chocolate: Commodities and Consumption in World History, 1200-1800 (ARTHIST 102B, ARTHIST 302B, HISTORY 302B, HISTORY 402B)
Many of the basic commodities that we consider staples of everyday life became part of an increasingly interconnected world of trade, goods, and consumption between 1200 and 1800. This seminar offers an introduction to the material culture of the late medieval and early modern world, with an emphasis on the role of European trade and empires in these developments. We will examine recent work on the circulation, use, and consumption of things, starting with the age of the medieval merchant, and followed by the era of the Columbian exchange in the Americas that was also the world of the Renaissance collector, the Ottoman patron, and the Ming connoisseur. This seminar will explore the material horizons of an increasingly interconnected world, with the rise of the Dutch East India Company and other trading societies, and the emergence of the Atlantic economy. It concludes by exploring classic debates about the "birth" of consumer society in the eighteenth century. How did the meaning of things and people's relationships to them change over these centuries? What can we learn about the past by studying things? Graduate students who wish to take a two-quarter graduate research seminar need to enroll in 402B in fall and 430 in winter.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 202F:
Surveillance States and Societies (HISTORY 302F)
The course analyzes the evolution, functions, structures and consequences of surveillance in the modern era. Among issues discussed are the rise of the modern state and population politics, information gathering and its uses in domestic and national security arenas, institutions of surveillance in various regimes and polities, and the challenge of privacy, legal and ethical dilemmas.
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 202G:
Peoples, Armies and Governments of the Second World War (HISTORY 302G)
Clausewitz conceptualized war as always consisting of a trinity of passion, chance, and reason, mirrored, respectively, in the people, army and government. Following Clausewitz, this course examines the peoples, armies, and governments that shaped World War II. Analyzes the ideological, political, diplomatic and economic motivations and constraints of the belligerents and their resulting strategies, military planning and fighting. Explores the new realities of everyday life on the home fronts and the experiences of non-combatants during the war, the final destruction of National Socialist Germany and Imperial Japan, and the emerging conflict between the victors. How the peoples, armies and governments involved perceived their possibilities and choices as a means to understand the origins, events, dynamics and implications of the greatest war in history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 202J:
Climate Politics: Science and Global Governance (INTLPOL 271)
Historical and contemporary perspectives on climate politics. Briefly covers the origins of climate understanding in the 1800s, then turns to the co-evolution of climate science and climate politics from the 20th century to the present, including multiple political issues and debates that established human impacts on the global atmosphere. The last half of the course focuses on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 2015 Paris Agreement, the 2021 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, organized climate disinformation, and the future of international climate policy and fossil fuels. Assignments include in-class presentations and a policy brief or research paper.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-4
HISTORY 202S:
The History of Genocide (HISTORY 402D, JEWISHST 282S, JEWISHST 482D)
This course will explore the history, politics, and character of genocide from the beginning of world history to the present. It will also consider the ways that the international system has developed to prevent and punish genocide.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 203:
Premodern Economic Cultures (HISTORY 303)
Modern economists have made a science of studying the aggregate effects of individual choices. This science is based on the realities of personal freedom and individual choice. Prior to the modern era, however, different realities comprised very different economic cultures: moral economies in which greed was evil and generosity benefitted the patron's soul; familial collectives operating within historical conditioned diasporas; economies of obligation that threatened to collapse under their own weight as economic structures shifted. In this course we will be reading cross-culturally to develop an understanding of the shared and distinct elements of premodern economic cultures.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 203B:
East Asia Discovers the World: Cartographic Encounters from the Mongols to Meiji (HUMCORE 124)
Before the modern era, how did curious people in China, Korea, and Japan learn about the world? How did geographical information reach them, and how did they interpret it? This class will probe the history of cartographic exchange from the Mongols to Meiji from an East Asian perspective. Every Tuesday, we will examine East Asian maps; Thursday readings will introduce broader comparative perspectives. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative humanities seminar cluster. On Tuesdays we meet in our own course, while on Thursdays we will gather with two other HumCore classes for joint Plenary Sessions.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 203C:
History of Ignorance
Scholars pay a lot of attention to knowledge but tend to ignore ignorance, even though ignorance defines many parts of our world. Think climate denial, anti-vaxxers, filter bubble myopia, etc. Here we explore the history of ignorance through case studies, focusing on how cigarette makers created the template for climate change denial and how can science can be used to produce ignorance. We¿ll look at rhetorical strategies to produce dis- and misinformation, and how these can be overcome. Students will produce a research paper tracing the origins and impact of a particular form of ignorance.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
HISTORY 204A:
Reimagining History: A Workshop (HISTORY 304A)
This class explores, through analysis and practice, the ways in which history can be told and experienced through means other than traditional scholarly narratives. Approaches include literary fiction and non-fiction, digital media, graphic arts, maps, exhibitions, and film. A final project will require students to produce their own innovative work of history.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 204D:
Advanced Topics in Agnotology (HISTORY 304D)
Advanced research into the history of ignorance. Our goal will be to explore how ignorance is created, maintained and destroyed, using case studies from topics such as tobacco denialism, global climate denialism, and other forms of resistance to knowledge making. Course culminates in a research paper on the theory and practice of agnotology, the science of ignorance.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 204E:
Totalitarianism (HISTORY 307E, JEWISHST 204E)
This course analyzes the evolution and nature of revolutionary and totalitarian polities through the reading of monographs on the Puritan Reformation, French Revolutionary, turn of the 20th Century, interwar, and Second World War eras. Among topics explored are the essence of modern ideology and politics, the concept of the body national and social, the modern state, state terror, charismatic leadership, private and public spheres, totalitarian economies, and identities and practices in totalitarian polities.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom
HISTORY 204G:
War and Society (HISTORY 304G, REES 304G)
(History 204G is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 304G is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) How Western societies and cultures have responded to modern warfare. The relationship between its destructive capacity and effects on those who produce, are subject to, and must come to terms with its aftermath. Literary representations of WW I; destructive psychological effects of modern warfare including those who take pleasure in killing; changes in relations between the genders; consequences of genocidal ideology and racial prejudice; the theory of just war and its practical implementation; how wars end and commemorated.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 205C:
Global Racial Capitalism (HISTORY 305C)
From as early as the sixteenth century to our present moment, capitalism has been a central part of modern world history. The history of capitalism is not solely one of wealth and development, but also one of extraction and exploitation. It is a history that scholars have conceptualized as racial capitalism. This course explores the global structures of inequality that are inherent to capitalism and how they have changed over time. Students will engage with key scholarly debates and theoretical concepts, which they will then apply to specific case studies in different parts of the world with a particular focus on commodities.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 205E:
Comparative Historical Development of Latin America and East Asia (HISTORY 305E, ILAC 267E)
(Graduate students must enroll for 5 units.) Students will analyze, in historical perspective, the similarities and differences between the development of Latin America and East Asia from early modern times to the present. Focusing primarily on Brazil and Mexico, on one hand, and China and Japan, on the other, topics will include the impact of colonial and postcolonial relationships on the development of states, markets, and classes, as well as geopolitical, social, cultural, technological and environmental factors that shaped, and were shaped by, them.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 205K:
The Age of Revolution: America, France, and Haiti (AFRICAAM 205K, HISTORY 305K)
(History 205K is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 305K is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This course examines the "Age of Revolution," spanning the 18th and 19th centuries. Primarily, this course will focus on the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions (which overthrew both French and white planter rule). Taken together, these events reshaped definitions of citizenship, property, and government. But could republican principles-- color-blind in rhetoric-- be so in fact? Could nations be both republican and pro-slavery? Studying a wide range of primary materials, this course will explore the problem of revolution in an age of empires, globalization, and slavery.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 205L:
Prostitution & Sex Trafficking: Regulating Morality and the Status of Women (CSRE 205L, FEMGEN 205L)
Examines governmental policies toward prostitution from the late 19th century to the present. Focuses on the underlying attitudes, assumptions, strategies, and consequences of various historical and current legal frameworks regulating prostitution, including: prohibitionism, abolitionism, legalization, partial decriminalization, and full decriminalization. Special focus on these policies' effects on sex trafficking, sex worker rights, and the status of women. Emphasis on Europe and the U.S., with additional cases from across the globe.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 205M:
Silicon Valley in 10 Objects (HISTORY 305M)
Have you ever wanted to curate a museum exhibition, or explore alternative ways of studying history, beyond the term paper or article? In this hands-on class, we will research and design a real museum exhibition, to be staged at the Silicon Valley Archives inside Green Library. Students will learn archival research methods, design and build exhibition cases and panels, the theory and practice of museum curation. Students will create individual projected, centered around the core theme of the class: the global history of information technology and Silicon Valley.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 206C:
The Modern Battle (INTNLREL 183)
The purpose of this seminar is to examine the evolution of modern warfare by closely following four modern battles/campaigns. For this purpose the seminar offers four mock staff rides, facilitating highly engaged, well-researched experience for participants. In a mock staff ride, students are assigned roles; each student is playing a general or staff officer who was involved in the battle/campaign. Students will research their roles and, during the staff ride, will be required to explain "their" decisions and actions. Staff rides will not deviate from historical records, but closely examine how decisions were made, what pressures and forces were in action, battle outcomes, etc. This in-depth examination will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of how modern tactics, technology, means of communications, and the scale of warfare can decide, and indeed decided, campaigns. We will will spend two weeks preparing for and playing each staff ride. One meeting will be dedicated to discussing the forces shaping the chosen battle/campaign: the identity and goals ofnthe belligerents, the economic, technological, cultural and other factors involved, as well as the initial general plan. The second meeting will be dedicated to the battle itself. The four battles will illustrate major developments in modern warfare.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 206D:
Global Humanities: The Grand Millennium, 800-1800 (DLCL 52, HUMCORE 52, JAPAN 52)
How should we live? This course explores ethical pathways in European, Islamic, and East Asian traditions: mysticism and rationality, passion and duty, this and other worldly, ambition and peace of mind. They all seem to be pairs of opposites, but as we'll see, some important historical figures managed to follow two or more of them at once. We will read works by successful thinkers, travelers, poets, lovers, and bureaucrats written between 800 and 1900 C.E. We will ask ourselves whether we agree with their choices and judgments about what is a life well lived.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
HISTORY 206E:
CAPITALS: How Cities Shape Cultures, States, and People (COMPLIT 100, DLCL 100, FRENCH 175, GERMAN 175, ILAC 175, ITALIAN 175, URBANST 153)
This course takes students on a trip to major capital cities at different moments in time, including Renaissance Florence, Golden Age Madrid, colonial Mexico City, imperial Beijing, Enlightenment and romantic Paris, existential and revolutionary St. Petersburg, roaring Berlin, modernist Vienna, and transnational Accra. While exploring each place in a particular historical moment, we will also consider the relations between culture, power, and social life. How does the cultural life of a country intersect with the political activity of a capital? How do large cities shape our everyday experience, our aesthetic preferences, and our sense of history? Why do some cities become cultural capitals? Primary materials for this course will consist of literary, visual, sociological, and historical documents (in translation).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 207:
Biography and History (AMSTUD 207B, HISTORY 308, JEWISHST 207)
Designed along the lines of the PBS series, "In the Actor's Workshop," students will meet weekly with some of the leading literary biographers writing today. Included this spring will be "New Yorker" staff writer Judith Thurman -- whose biography of Isak Dinesen was made into the film "Out of Africa" -- as well as Shirley Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin, now at work on a book about Anne Frank. Professor Zipperstein will share with the class drafts of the biography of Philip Roth that he is now writing. Critics questioning the value of biography as an historical and literary tool will also be invited to meetings with the class.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
HISTORY 207B:
The Irish and the World (HISTORY 307B)
"When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious." The writer Edna O'Brien's portrait of Irish life encapsulates a history shaped by colonialism, famine, forced migration, and enduring political struggle. This course explores the global story of Ireland, a small land of 4.8 million that since 1800 has produced a diaspora of some 10 million people worldwide. Colonized and colonizers, freedom fighters and slave-owners, the starving and the wealthy, pious and irreverent-- the Irish reveal their past through memoirs, poetry, novels, music, film, and television.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 207C:
The Global Early Modern (HISTORY 307C)
In what sense can we speak of "globalization" before modernity? What are the characteristics and origins of the economic system we know as "capitalism"? When and why did European economies begin to diverge from those of other Eurasian societies? With these big questions in mind, the primary focus will be on the history of Europe and European empires, but substantial readings deal with other parts of the world, particularly China and the Indian Ocean. HISTORY 307C is a prerequisite for HISTORY 402 (Spring quarter).
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 207D:
Transhistory Colloquium (FEMGEN 207D, FEMGEN 307D, HISTORY 307D)
Colloquium on the history of transgender practices and identities. Readings will include scholarly texts from the emerging historical field of transhistory as well as adjacent fields within gender history. Colloquium will investigate avenues for deepening transhistory through further historical inquiry.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 207F:
Crafting Digital Stories
Historians tell stories. Using digital methods, we can tell these stories in creative and innovative ways. This digital humanities course is a hands-on experience of working with different methods of digital storytelling. This course is best suited for students interested in mapping, podcasting, digital publishing, and creating visualizations to present research. Students will interpret historical primary sources in addition to secondary sources to engage in the process of interpreting stories like a historian. There is also a degree of creativity and freedom with the creation of your digital stories.This course is designed to not only teach practical digital storytelling skills, but to also analyze the practicalities of telling historical stories and how to present the information through digital means. In addition, students will have to consider copyright laws, ethics of digital publishing, and concepts of equity of digital storytelling methods. Students will engage in workshops and discussions. No prior technical experience is required.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 208C:
The Laws of War in Global History
What are the modern laws of war and how have they changed since they were first codified in the 1860s? What does it mean to wage a lawful war? Course readings focus on central through lines of the history of the laws of war: colonial hierarchies and exclusions, the problem of new weaponry, the conflict between humanity and military necessity, and law as wartime morality. We will also reflect on past and ongoing violations of the laws of war and discuss responses to such transgressions. Chronologically, discussions will range from the 1864 Geneva Conventions to the role of international humanitarian law in the Syrian Civil War and the Russo-Ukrainian War today.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 208D:
Pre-Modern Warfare (HISTORY 308D)
This course examines the evolving nature of warfare and its impact on society across the Eurasian continent up to the Gunpowder Revolution and rise of the nation-state. Beginning with an attempt to define war, it will trace the evolution of military technology from the Stone Age through the rise of the chariot, the sword, and the mounted rider, and examine how changing methods of conducting warfare were inextricably linked to changes in the social order and political structures.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 208P:
Paris 1919: Self-Determination and the New(?) World Order
In the wake of the Great War (which we now know as WW1), the notion of self-determination, championed by the US president Woodrow Wilson, became an ideal of governance, spreading like wildfire across continents. It was received enthusiastically and reinterpreted creatively by former subjects of the defeated empires and those under the rule of the winners: middle class French suffragists, Black American activists, elite Egyptian women, Indians and the Irish under the British rule, warring Poles and Ukrainians, Korean students, Arab royalty, industrial laborers, and Zionists on both sides of the Atlantic. The shape of the new postwar world was to be decided at the peace conference in Paris and these groups (and more) demanded to be heard and listened to. Self-determination transformed how the contemporaries thought about empire, revolution, nation, minority, race, and gender. Paris in 1919 was the epicenter of the transformation. The objective of the course is the development of historical imagination (the ability to consider people and ideas in historical contexts and from the vantage point of their era) and critical empathy (the ability to analyze and understand the personal 'logic' of historical actors) as well as the crucial skills of public speaking and argumentative writing.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
HISTORY 209F:
Maps in the Early Modern World (HISTORY 309F)
The significance of cartographic enterprise across the early modern world. Political, economic, and epistemological imperatives that drove the proliferation of nautical charts, domain surveys, city plans, atlases, and globes; the types of work such artifacts performed for their patrons, viewers, and subjects. Contributions of indigenous knowledge to imperial maps; the career of the map in commerce, surveillance, diplomacy, conquest, and indoctrination. Sources include recent research from Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 209S:
Research Seminar for Majors
Required of History majors. How to conduct original, historical research and analysis, including methods such as using the libraries and archives at Stanford and elsewhere, and working collaboratively to frame topics, identify sources, and develop analyses. Autumn quarter: Professor Allyson Hobbs' section will focus on American Identities; Professor Ana Minian's section will focus on the Twentieth Century; and Professor Thomas Mullaney's section will focus on Honors Topics. Winter quarter: Professor Nancy Kollmann's section will focus on Early Modern History; and Professor Destin Jenkins' section will focus on the History of Capitalism. Spring quarter: Professor Robert Crews' section will focus on Modern Times. This course requires a permission number to enroll. Please email Kai Dowding at kdowding@stanford.edu for the permission number.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 210:
The History of Occupation, 1914-2010 (HISTORY 310)
(History 210 is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 310 is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Examines the major cases of occupation in the twentieth century, from the first World War until the present, and issues of similarities, differences, and implications for contemporary policy making. Topics include European and Asian cases emerging from World War I and World War II, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank; the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan; and the American occupation of Iraq. Discussions will revolve around the problems, efficacy, and effects of occupation in historical perspective.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 210D:
Neighbors: Intimate Relationships and Everyday Life in Hitler's Europe
This course explores how different groups of people experienced Nazi rule in Germany and German-occupied Europe. While we will cover the general history of Hitler's rise to power, the prewar years of his rule, and the Second World War, our focus will be on the effects of fascism on everyday life and relationships between neighbors, family members, partners, friends, and coworkers. How did class, race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation interact with Nazi rule and occupation? The course pays special attention to the fate of European Jews and the Holocaust. On a theoretical level, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges of "Alltagsgeschichte," or the history of everyday life, as an approach to studying Nazi rule. The course provides tools to manage efficiently a fairly high reading load, a skill that will greatly help students to succeed in future academic endeavors.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 210F:
Making Italy Great Again: Mussolini, Italian Fascism, and Its Impact
100 years ago in 1922, Benito Mussolini and his followers marched Rome in a show of force that ushered in a period of radical change in Italian government and society, culminating in the establishment of the first fascist totalitarian regime. Who was Benito Mussolini? What were the factors that made Mussolini's rise to power possible? What was his fascist ideology? What effect did Mussolini have on Hitler and the NAZIs and what effect did Hitler have on Mussolini's Italy? What was Italian fascist culture? What was Mussolini's legacy in the wider world? What parallels exist between the world today and the world of the early 20th century? We will investigate these and other questions in this class.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 210G:
The Great War (INTNLREL 182)
The First World War provided a prototype and a reference for a new, horrific kind of war. It catalyzed the emergence of modern means of warfare and the social mechanisms necessary to sustain the industrialized war machine. Killing millions, it became the blueprint for the total war that succeeded it. It also brought about new social and political orders, transforming the societies which it mobilized at unprecedented levels. This course will examine the military, political, economic, social and cultural aspects of the conflict. We will discuss the origins and outbreak of the war, the land, sea and air campaigns, the war's economic and social consequences, the home fronts, the war's final stages in eastern and western Europe as well as non-European fronts, and finally, the war's impact on the international system and on its belligerents' and participants' perceptions of the new reality it had created.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 210J:
Fascism and Authoritarianism
This course introduces students to the history of fascist and authoritarian movements in modern Europe, from their origins through the post-WWII era. Germany and Italy will serve as central case studies, though the course will consider other examples as well. Through analytical consideration of secondary sources, primary texts, and art as political propaganda, we will interrogate the meanings and applications of these fraught and complex terms, the different forms taken by fascist and authoritarian movements, and their relationship to nationalism, race, religion, gender, and economic and political institutions. Why did millions of Europeans accept -- and even enthusiastically support -- fascist and authoritarian regimes? To what extent was a single, charismatic leader central to the success or failure of such governments? The course will conclude with an opportunity to reflect on the degree to which fascism and authoritarianism are concepts that remain relevant to political discourse in the twenty-first century.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 211:
Out of Eden: Deportation, Exile, and Expulsion from Antiquity to the Renaissance (HISTORY 311, JEWISHST 211)
This course examines the long pedigree of modern deportations and mass expulsions, from the forced resettlements of the ancient world to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and from the outlawry of Saga-era Iceland to the culture of civic exile in Renaissance Italy. The course focuses on Europe and the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period, but students are welcome to venture beyond these geographical and chronological boundaries for their final papers.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 212D:
Dante's World: A Medieval and Renaissance Journey
700 years ago this year Dante Alighieri died. The Italian poet, philosopher, politician, and humanist crafted one of the great epics of world literature, The Divine Comedy. For seven centuries, his journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven has been a source of inspiration and fascination for countless artists, critics, and students from all over the world. Yet, at heart, his tale is a commentary upon the complex, violent, wealthy, and deeply religious world to which Dante belonged. In this class, we will investigate Dante's world. Medieval Italy held a privileged place in Latin Christendom. Its location upon a peninsula, jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea, meant it was wedged between and deeply affected by the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. It was home to merchants, bankers, nobles, university students, friars, nuns, and heretics, popes, prostitutes, and the city-states in which they all lived together. Italy played a leading role throughout the Middle Ages in economy, art, culture, religion, and politics and gives us the opportunity to jump into a rich and fascinating world, much different from our own. Our guide and witness to this world will be Dante. Each week students will read selected portions of Dante's journey through the afterlife in order to make their own journey through the world of Italy in the Middle Ages.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 213F:
Medieval Germany, 900-1250 (GERMAN 213, GERMAN 313, HISTORY 313F)
(Undergraduates may sign up for German 213 or History 213F, graduate students should sign up for German 313 or History 313F. This course may be taken for variable units. Check the individual course numbers for unit spreads.) This course will provide a survey of the most important political, historical, and cultural events and trends that took place in the German-speaking lands between 900 and 1250. Important themes include the evolution of imperial ideology and relations with Rome, expansion along the eastern frontier, the crusades, the investiture controversy, the rise of powerful cities and civic identities, monastic reform and intellectual renewal, and the flowering of vernacular literature. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 213G:
Route-Place-Object: Re-defining "Cultural Landscape" in Medieval Germany (GERMAN 240, GERMAN 340)
In modern perception, the definition of Germany's various cultural landscapes often follows narratives of regional remoteness and aesthetic coherency. Today's Bundesland (federal state) of Hesse makes a case in point. Ever since the Brothers Grimm collected many of their fairy tales there, its image is defined by ideas of small picturesque towns with half-timbered houses and impressive castles on hilltops. However, a closer look clearly reveals that Hesse's countryside was and is rather heterogeneous and diverse in its architectural and artistic heritage, just like in many other "typical" German regions. In this class, we invite students to study the rich artistic heritage of medieval Hesse with us in order to re-define a scholarly concept of "cultural landscape" as a dynamic interaction of route, place, and object. Rather than being a remote region, Hesse was determined by important trans-European routes enabling the transfer of objects and ideas. Along these passages, a dynamic network of micro-landscapes around certain places like towns, abbeys, castles but also bridges with partly distinct political and religious connotations could both develop and transform over a long period. It is our aim to create a better understanding for a historically grounded diversity of German cultural landscapes.NO CLASS during the first week. Class will begin 10/5.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 214B:
The things to come? Prophecy in the Middle Ages (GERMAN 200, HISTORY 314B)
Grand rulers, decisive battles, one or more antichrists, and, inevitably, the end of the world - prophetic texts from the Middle Ages abound with significant allusions. These references are intricately interconnected and shrouded in enigmatic language. This course delves into the phenomenon of prophecy as depicted in medieval sources. Bridging eschatology and chronological perspectives, we will investigate the value of these texts and strive to gain a deeper understanding of the intellectual history of the Middle Ages. Moreover, we will meticulously examine the distribution of these numerous texts within manuscripts, scrutinizing the intended audience and specific effects of the texts. This subject area will serve as an exemplary object of study, enabling us to apply and refine the tools of historical scholarship.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 214C:
Renaissances: Living, Learning, and Loving around the Mediterranean (800-1500 CE)
This course explores three watershed moments in Mediterranean history: the Carolingian Renaissance, the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, and the Italian Renaissance. The class examines how each renaissance redefined a specific place and how those changes influenced connections across the Mediterranean world.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 215B:
Race and Ethnicity in Premodern Europe (ARTHIST 207D, ARTHIST 407D, HISTORY 315B)
How do historians, art historians, and literary historians of premodern Europe shape their research and their teaching around questions of race? How do current debates on race theory shape our perception of the past and deepen historical inquiry? This graduate colloquium focuses on the most recent publications on race in medieval and early modern studies to reflect on such questions while examining the challenges that race studies put on historical definitions, research methodologies, as well as teaching institutions.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 216B:
The Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (HISTORY 316B, RELIGST 226, RELIGST 326)
This seminar investigates the central role of the Christian Bible in European religion, culture, and society from ca. 1000-1700 CE. In the medieval and early modern periods, the Bible not only shaped religious attitudes, practices, and institutions, but also exercised profound influence over learning and education, politics, law, social relations, art, literature, and music. Students will obtain an overview of the role of the scripture as both a religious text and a cultural artifact, exploring the history of biblical interpretation in commentaries and sermons; textual criticism, study of biblical languages, and the translation of scripture; manufacturing of Bibles in manuscript and in print; the commercial dimensions of Bible production; illustrated Bibles, biblical maps, and biblically-inspired artwork; religious uses of scripture in monastic houses, public worship, and domestic settings; biblical foundations for political and legal traditions. Students will also have the opportunity to suggest topics consonant with their own fields of interest and use the seminar to workshop on-going projects related to the Bible in this period. All of the readings will be in English, though students with the ability to read German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, or Hebrew will be encouraged to pursue projects that utilize their linguistic skills. Students will have the opportunity to utilize materials in Special Collections. Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor. Send an email to pitkin@stanford.edu explaining your interests and background. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 216D:
Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Lord of the Rings: The Middle Ages in the Modern World
From its inception the term "Middle Ages" carried negative connotations. Renaissance humanists bewailed the fall of the Roman Empire and its replacement with "barbarian" kingdoms. Enlightenment philosophes abhorred the Middle Ages even more intensely than their Renaissance forerunners and decried medieval "superstition" and "barbarism." Nevertheless, as part of their rejection of the Enlightenment, nineteenth-century Romantics embraced the Middle Ages and sought inspiration for political and cultural renewal within medieval civilization. From nationalist movements, to colonialism, to movements within high and popular culture interest in the Middle Ages helped fashion the modern world in important ways. This class will explore the complex history associated with the images of the Middle Ages in the modern world.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 217D:
Love, Death and the Afterlife in the Medieval West (FRENCH 217, FRENCH 317, HISTORY 317D, ITALIAN 217, ITALIAN 317)
Romantic love, it is often claimed, is an invention of the High Middle Ages. The vocabulary of sexual desire that is still current in the twenty-first century was authored in the twelfth and thirteenth, by troubadours, court poets, writers like Dante; even by crusaders returning from the eastern Mediterranean. How did this devout society come to elevate the experience of sensual love? This course draws on primary sources such as medieval songs, folktales, the "epic rap battles" of the thirteenth century, along with the writings of Boccaccio, Saint Augustine and others, to understand the unexpected connections between love, death, and the afterlife from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. Each week, we will use a literary or artistic work as an interpretive window into cultural attitudes towards love, death or the afterlife. These readings are analyzed in tandem with major historical developments, including the rise of Christianity, the emergence of feudal society and chivalric culture, the crusading movement, and the social breakdown of the fourteenth century.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 218:
The Holy Dead: Saints and Spiritual Power in Medieval Europe (HISTORY 318, RELIGST 218X, RELIGST 318X)
Examines the cult of saints in medieval religious thought and life. Topics include martyrs, shrines, pilgrimage, healing, relics, and saints' legends.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 218C:
Peace and War in Medieval Islam: From the Arab Conquests to the Crusades (GLOBAL 190, GLOBAL 232, HISTORY 318C)
This course interrogates the theory and reality of war-making and peacemaking across the first millennium of Islamic history (c.600-c.1600 CE). We will examine major historical events (e.g. the struggle of the early community of Muslims against the pagan tribes of Arabia; Arab expansion and conquest during the seventh and eighth centuries; a sequence of civil wars, dynastic struggles, and schisms within Islam; and external invasions of the Islamic world by crusaders and steppe nomads, etc.). We will also investigate the development of major normative concepts across the Islamic tradition concerning peace and war (e.g. holy war; treaty- and truce-making; treatment of conquered enemies and prisoner; diplomacy with Muslims and non-Muslims, etc.). With respect to these concepts, we will attend especially to change over time and diversity across various sects. Mix of lecture and discussion. Readings will consist of both primary sources (in English translation) and modern scholarship. No previous experience with pre-modern or Islamic history required.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 221B:
The 'Woman Question' in Modern Russia (FEMGEN 221B, HISTORY 321B)
(History 221B is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 321B is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Russian radicals believed that the status of women provided the measure of freedom in a society and argued for the extension of rights to women as a basic principle of social progress. The social status and cultural representations of Russian women from the mid-19th century to the present. The arguments and actions of those who fought for women's emancipation in the 19th century, theories and policies of the Bolsheviks, and the reality of women's lives under them. How the status of women today reflects on the measure of freedom in post-Communist Russia.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
HISTORY 222:
Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe and Russia (HISTORY 322A)
Explores criminal law in early modern Europe and Russia, ca 1500-1800, in law and in practice. Engages debates about use of exemplary public executions as tactic of governance, and about gradual decline in "violence" in Europe over this time. Explores practice of accusatory and inquisitory judicial procedures, judicial torture, forms of punishment, concepts of justice.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 222B:
The Baltic World (REES 222B)
What makes a small, shallow and cold sea surrounded by very poor farming land stand out? Can we talk about a sea surrounded by nine countries as a single unit? This course traces and analyzes the interconnectedness and interdependence that shaped the region, side by side with the cataclysms that repeatedly fragmented it from the Viking marauders; warring empires; WWI and the Russian Revolution; WWII and the totalitarian nightmare of Nazi & Soviet policies; the Cold War and present-day geopolitics.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 223E:
Cities of Empire: An Urban Journey through Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean (HISTORY 323E, REES 204, REES 304)
This course explores the cities of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires in the dynamic and turbulent period of their greatest transformation from the 19th century through the Two World Wars. Through the reading of urban biographies of Venice and Trieste, Vienna, Budapest, Cracow, Lviv, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Salonica, and Odessa, we consider broad historical trends of political, economic, and social modernization, urbanization, identity formation, imperialism, cosmopolitanism, and orientalism. As vibrant centers of coexistence and economic exchange, social and cultural borderlands, and sites of transgression, these cities provide an ideal lens through which to examine these themes in the context of transition from imperial to post-imperial space.
Last offered: Spring 2019
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 223F:
Russia's Industrial Revolutions: The Making and Breaking of a Superpower
In the span of a single century, Russia went from unstable empire to revolutionary proving ground, from scene of mass starvation to space pioneer, from the geopolitical sidelines to a seat among superpowers -- all before falling back again. This course foregrounds industrialization, economic development, and (often agonizing) adaptation as engines of these dramatic transformations. Was pre-revolutionary Russia 'backwards' as many suggested? Can state socialism be credited for decades of rapid growth and the landmark achievements of the USSR? Or should it be blamed for economic stagnation, environmental degradation, and the ultimate collapse of an empire? How have the conditions of that late 20th-century collapse impacted the country's prospects and problems into the 21st? Readings and assignments will encourage students to explore various methodological approaches -- social, cultural, economic, urban -- to address long-term themes and sector-specific histories of Russian industrialization. (This course has been submitted for WAY-SI and WAY-EDP certifications, currently pending review.)
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 223G:
Russia and Ukraine: Empire, Nation, Myth (HISTORY 323G, SLAVIC 203)
Explores theories of national myths and nationalism; identifies the founding myths of Russia and Ukraine and the medieval and early modern events they are based on. Extensive primary source readings. Focuses primarily up through eighteenth century, with some reading of nineteenth-century national statements.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 224A:
The Soviet Civilization (HISTORY 424A, REES 224A)
(History 224A is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 424A is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Socialist visions and practices of the organization of society and messianic politics; Soviet mass state violence; culture, living and work spaces. Primary and secondary sources. Research paper or historiographical essay.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
HISTORY 224C:
Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention (HISTORY 324C, JEWISHST 284C, JEWISHST 384C, PEDS 224)
Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Traces the history of genocide in the 20th century and the question of humanitarian intervention to stop it, a topic that has been especially controversial since the end of the Cold War. The pre-1990s discussion begins with the Armenian genocide during the First World War and includes the Holocaust and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Coverage of genocide and humanitarian intervention since the 1990s includes the wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, the Congo and Sudan.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 224D:
The Soviet Civilization, Part 2 (HISTORY 424B)
Prerequisite: HISTORY 224A/424A
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 225E:
From Vladimir to Putin: Key Themes in Russian History (HISTORY 325E, REES 225E)
Formative issues in Russian history from Muscovy to the present: autocracy and totalitarianism; tsars, emperors, and party secretaries; multi-ethnicity and nationalism; serfdom, peasantry; rebellions and revolutions, dissent and opposition; law and legality; public and private spheres; religion and atheism; patterns of collapse. Class format will be discussion of one to two assigned books or major articles per class.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 225G:
Propaganda Century: 20th-Century Preoccupations with Mass Influence
The course explores the idea of propaganda as one of the central obsessions of 20th-century thought and politics. It traces the history of propaganda, from the early 20th century optimistic ideas about mass manipulation and political education to post-WWII anxieties around totalitarianism and capitalist public opinion manipulation. The course examines just how malleable or resistant various 20th-century belief systems considered societies to be. It also explores how they have thought of the ethics and desirability of mass persuasion and how they struggled with adjacent concepts such as the crowd, mass society, totalitarianism, false consciousness, manufactured consent, etc. It concludes by exploring the waning of propaganda discourse in the late-1980s. As an epilogue, we will discuss propaganda's modified resurgence a generation later in today's concerns over "new media," "viral misinformation," and "indoctrination." The course aims to help students historicize the concept of propaganda and contextualize it transnationally, bridging cultural, political, and theoretical divides.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 226D:
The Holocaust: Insights from New Research (HISTORY 326D, JEWISHST 226E, JEWISHST 326D)
Overview of the history of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews. Explores its causes, course, consequences, and memory. Addresses the events themselves, as well as the roles of perpetrators and bystanders, dilemmas faced by victims, collaboration of local populations, and the issue of rescue. Considers how the Holocaust was and is remembered and commemorated by victims and participants alike. Uses different kinds of sources: scholarly work, memoirs, diaries, film, and primary documents.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 226E:
Famine in the Modern World (HISTORY 326E, PEDS 226)
Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Examines the major famines of modern history, the controversies surrounding them, and the reasons that famine persists in our increasingly globalized world. Focus is on the relative importance of natural, economic, and political factors as causes of famine in the modern world. Case studies include the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s; the Bengal famine of 1943-44; the Soviet famines of 1921-22 and 1932-33; China's Great Famine of 1959-61; the Ethiopian famines of the 1970s and 80s, and the Somalia famines of the 1990s and of 2011.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 227:
East European Women and War (FEMGEN 227, HISTORY 327)
Thematic & chronological approach to conflicts in the region 20th & 21st centuries: Balkan Wars, WWI, WWII, Yugoslav wars, & current Russo-Ukrainian War. Ways women in E. Europe involved in and affected by wars; comparison with women in W. Europe in the two world wars. Examines women during war as members of military services, underground movements, workers, volunteers, mothers of soldiers, subjects and supporters of war aims and propaganda, activists in peace movements, and objects of wartime destruction, dislocation, and sexual violation.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
HISTORY 227B:
The Business of Socialism: Economic Life in Cold War Eastern Europe (REES 205)
This colloquium investigates the processes of buying, making, and selling goods and services in Cold War Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We will familiarize ourselves with a variety of approaches to writing the history of economic life and discuss to what extent they are applicable to state socialist systems. Our focus will not be on theories of socialism but on empirically grounded studies that allow for insights into how the system operated in practice and interacted with capitalism. We will, among others, explore the following questions: What was the role of the state in the economies east and west of the Iron Curtain? Are socialism and capitalism two incompatible systems? How did women experience and shape economic life after the Second World War? What had a greater impact on the economies of the region: Cold War politics or globalization?
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 227D:
All Quiet on the Eastern Front? East Europe and Russia in the First World War (HISTORY 327D, REES 227, REES 327)
Until recently history has been comparatively quiet about the experience of World War I in the east. Far from being a peripheral theater of war, however, the experiences of war on the Eastern Front were central to shaping the 20th century. Not only was the first shot of the war fired in the east, it was also the site of the most dramatic political revolution. Using scholarly texts, literature and film, this course combines political, military, cultural and social approaches to introduce the causes, conduct and consequences of World War I with a focus on the experiences of soldiers and civilians on the Eastern Front. Topics include: the war of movement, occupation, extreme violence against civilians, the Armenian genocide, population exchanges, the Russian Revolution and civil war, and the disintegration of empires and rise of nation-states.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 227G:
A Global History of Eastern Europe
The course will present a survey of Eastern Europe's modern history in a global context. The themes of the course will include emergence of nationalisms and nation states, race and ethnicity, the discourse of rights, globalization, totalitarianism, as well as the role of the region in the planet's environmental history of the last three hundred years. From the Vikings to Snake Island, from the Rhine to the Caucasus, the course will examine the spatial and temporal limits of what we call Eastern Europe.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 227K:
Marx and Marxism: History and Social Change
This course examines the life and work of Karl Marx, his social and intellectual milieu, and the evolution of Marxism and historical materialism in theory and practice to the present. Basic concepts of Marxism will be discussed along with debates about orthodox or unorthodox extensions. Critiques of Marx and Marxism from the perspective of gender and race will be addressed. The learning outcomes anticipated include facility with Marxist terminology, a basic understanding of the biography of Marx, an overview of the historical development of Marxism and its role in shaping world history, and the development of critical tools for the evaluation and extension of Marxist concepts in contemporary settings.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 228:
Circles of Hell: Poland in World War II (HISTORY 328, JEWISHST 282, JEWISHST 382)
Looks at the experience and representation of Poland's wartime history from the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) to the aftermath of Yalta (1945). Examines Nazi and Soviet ideology and practice in Poland, as well as the ways Poles responded, resisted, and survived. Considers wartime relations among Polish citizens, particularly Poles and Jews. In this regard, interrogates the traditional self-characterization of Poles as innocent victims, looking at their relationship to the Holocaust, thus engaging in a passionate debate still raging in Polish society.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 228C:
Politics and Society in Early Soviet Russia: View from the Hoover Library & Archives (HISTORY 328C, REES 110, REES 211)
The course offers an examination of early Soviet history (1917-1924) based on the archival collections, digital records, and rare books and periodicals in the Hoover Library & Archives, with a focus on the papers of the American Relief Administration and the Soviet famine of 1921. Topics include Bolshevik ideology, the role of the Communist Party, Russian-Ukrainian relations, the formation of the USSR, Soviet economic policy, Soviet foreign policy and the Communist International, the secret police and political repression, culture under the Bolsheviks, demographic shifts and refugee movements, and the famine of 1921, in which six million people perished. Students will become familiar with how to research and interpret primary sources. Class will meet in Hoover Tower, in a secure room where students can work with archival and rare library materials, including early Soviet newspapers and journals. Course is open to graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Students may take the course for either 3 or 5 units. Those enrolled for 5 units will submit a research paper. Russian language ability is not required. Offered in conjunction with the Hoover Library & Archives exhibition Bread + Medicine: Saving Lives in a Time of Famine.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 229C:
Political Exhumations: Killing Sites in Comparative Perspective (ANTHRO 137D, ARCHLGY 137, ARCHLGY 237, DLCL 237, HISTORY 329C, REES 237C)
The course discusses the politics and practices of exhumation of individual and mass graves. The problem of exhumations will be considered as a distinct socio-political phenomenon characteristic of contemporary times and related to transitional justice. The course will offer analysis of case studies of political exhumations of victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, communist violence in Poland, the Rwandan genocide, the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Ukraine. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 230C:
Paris: Capital of the Modern World (FRENCH 140, FRENCH 340, URBANST 184)
This course explores how Paris, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, became the political, cultural, and artistic capital of the modern world. It considers how the city has both shaped and been shaped by the tumultuous events of modern history- class conflict, industrialization, imperialism, war, and occupation. It will also explore why Paris became the major world destination for intellectuals, artists and writers. Sources will include films, paintings, architecture, novels, travel journals, and memoirs. Course taught in English with an optional French section.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 230L:
Modern Irish History
| Units: 5
HISTORY 231:
Leonardo's World: Science, Technology, and Art (ARTHIST 231, ARTHIST 431, HISTORY 331, ITALIAN 231, ITALIAN 331)
Leonardo da Vinci is emblematic of creativity and innovation. His art is iconic, his inventions legendary. His understanding of nature, the human body, and machines made him a scientist and engineer as well as an artist. His fascination with drawing buildings made him an architect, at least on paper. This class explores the historical Leonardo, considering his interests and accomplishments as a product of the society of Renaissance Italy. Why did this world produce a Leonardo? Special attention will be given to interdisciplinary connections between religion, art, science, and technology.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 231G:
The Battle for Souls: Europe's Religious Reformations, 1500-1650
How do you get to heaven, and who has the right to decide? The Reformation ruptured Europe and ultimately fractured Western Christianity with competing claims about the soul's health, and the necessary personal beliefs and communal norms to sustain it. It plunged this world into compounding crises of faith, politics, and conscience. At the same time, a media revolution heralded an age of propaganda and censorship. The emergent technology of printing unleashed fiercely public debates that encouraged people to question everything, giving rise to new ideas about skepticism, doubt, and certainty, and new social methods of controlling opinion. We will examine the Reformation by looking at the intersections of media, science, and politics with faith, and grapple with religion's inadvertent role in secularizing society.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 232B:
Heretics, Courtesans and Merchants: Venice and its Empire (ITALIAN 232B)
Between 1200-1600, Venice created a powerful empire at the boundary between East and West that controlled much of the Mediterranean, with a merchant society that allowed social groups, religions, and ethnicities to coexist. Topics include the features of Venetian society, the relationship between center and periphery, order and disorder, orthodoxy and heresy, the role of politics, art, and culture in the Venetian Renaissance, and the empire's decline as a political power and reinvention as a tourist site and living museum.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 232G:
Early Modern Cities (HISTORY 332G)
Colloquium on the history of early modern European cities, covering urbanization, street life, neighborhoods, fortifications, guilds and confraternities, charity, vagrancy, and begging, public health, city-countryside relationship, urban constitutions, and confederations. Assignments include annotated bibliography, book review, and a final paper. Second-quarter continuation of research seminar available (HIST299S or HIST402).
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 233:
Reformation to Civil War: England under the Tudors and Stuarts (HISTORY 333)
English political and religious culture from the end of the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War of the 1640s. Themes include the growth of the size and power of the state, Reformation, creation of a Protestant regime, transformation of the political culture of the ruling elite, emergence of Puritanism, and causes of the Civil War. HISTORY 333 is a prerequisite for HISTORY 402 (Spring quarter).
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 233C:
Two British Revolutions (HISTORY 333C)
Current scholarship on Britain,1640-1700, focusing on political and religious history. Topics include: causes and consequences of the English civil war and revolution; rise and fall of revolutionary Puritanism; the Restoration; popular politics in the late 17th century; changing contours of religious life; the crisis leading to the Glorious Revolution; and the new order that emerged after the deposing of James II.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
HISTORY 233F:
Political Thought in Early Modern Britain (HISTORY 333F)
1500 to 1700. Theorists include Hobbes, Locke, Harrington, the Levellers, and lesser known writers and schools. Foundational ideas and problems underlying modern British and American political thought and life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 233G:
Global Visions: Faith and Knowledge in the Early Modern World
The early modern world saw Catholicism transform itself into a global faith. Missionaries traveled with expanding Portuguese, Spanish, French empires, and beyond to translate their message of salvation into every culture possible from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy to the Japanese shogunate. No group was more instrumental in this regard than the Jesuits. Between 1534 and its suppression by the pope in 1773, the Society of Jesus grew from seven founding members to several thousand worldwide. As evangelizers they operated at boundaries of political, cultural, and metaphysical conflict. As global observers they became astronomers, linguists, ethnographers, historians, and mapmakers. We will critically examine Jesuit strategies to expand their religious network across every inhabitable continent, as well as the distinctive range of reactions from host societies. The extraordinary range of mission fields challenges us with issues of political and cultural conflict, integration, and appropriation. What did it mean to globalize religion in this era? How did missionaries facilitate and maneuver societal confrontation, and how did this conflict shape lasting knowledge and faith?
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 234G:
Post-Colonial and Post-Shoah Readings: The Conundrums of Memory Politics (GERMAN 285, JEWISHST 285)
In April of 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge controversy erupted in Germany on the relation between Postcolonial and Holocaust Studies. Previously, in 2012, Judith Butler on the occasion of being awarded the Adorno Prize was assailed for her support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This time, the philosopher Achille Mbembe, from Cameroon, the former German colony, was accused of antisemitism. His comparison of Israel with the apartheid state in South Africa and his critique of Palestine's occupation as a form of settler colonialism is condemned for relativizing the Holocaust and questioning the Israeli state's right to exist. The allegation of "postcolonial antisemitism" resurfaced in 2022 in the context of the Documenta 15 in Kassel. The curators, ruangrupa, an Indonesian art collective, are accused of antisemitism, of supporting BDS and of the "silent boycott" of Jewish-Israeli artists.These controversies confront us with the challenge of how to think together antisemitism and racism. In this class, we will engage with critical scholarship to address the conundrums of memory politics and to engage with the "unfinished conversations" between Jewish and Postcolonial Studies.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 234P:
The Age of Plague: Medicine and Society, 1300-1750 (STS 200U)
(Undergraduates, enroll in 234P. Graduates, enroll in 334P) The arrival of plague in Eurasia in 1347-51 affected many late medieval and early modern societies. It transformed their understanding of disease, raised questions about the efficacy of medical knowledge, and inspired new notions of public health. This class explores the history of medicine in the medieval Islamic and European worlds. Changing ideas about the body, the roles of different healers and religion in healing, the growth of hospitals and universities, and the evolution of medical theory and practice will be discussed. How did medicine and society change in the age of plague?
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 234R:
Risk and Credit Before Modern Finance (HISTORY 334R)
In today's world, credit scores are nearly as important as citizenship. Creditworthiness is measured in numbers, but is also bound up with moral qualities. To lack credit is to be on the margins of society, and vice versa. How did we get here? How did lenders mitigate risks before credit scores were available? Where do the risk management tools of modern finance come from? How did merchants trade over long distances when information technology was extremely poor? This one-unit course will address these pressing questions from a historical perspective, starting from the modern U.S. and reaching back in time to the Middle Ages. Classroom discussions and readings include articles written by historians and social scientists, as well as primary sources in English translation.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 1
HISTORY 235:
Global Voyages: Navigating the Early Modern World (HISTORY 335, HISTORY 435A)
[Graduate students completing a two-quarter research seminar must enroll in 435A in Winter and 435B in Spring.] This seminar explores global travel, knowledge, curiosity, experience, and understanding, ca. 1500-1800. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of global realignments, an age of empires, missionaries, embassies, and trading companies. This seminar takes students around the world, following global travelers, merchants, missionaries, and mapmakers. Students will work extensively with rare books, manuscripts, maps and other artifacts, especially in the Rumsey Map Center to design an exhibit. Urbano Monti's 1587 world map and Francesco Carletti's accidental circumnavigation of the world, 1594-1603, will guide our global voyage, contextualized by sources, artifacts, and histories from many other parts of the world.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 235D:
When Worlds Collide: The Trial of Galileo (HISTORY 335D, ITALIAN 233, ITALIAN 333)
In 1633, the Italian mathematician Galileo was tried and condemned for advocating that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the cosmos. The Catholic Church did not formally admit that Galileo was right until 1992. Examines the many factors that led to the trial of Galileo and looks at multiple perspectives on this signal event in the history of science and religion. Considers the nature and definition of intellectual heresy in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and examines the writings of Galileo's infamous predecessor Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake in 1600). Looks closely at documents surrounding the trial and related literature on Renaissance and Reformation Italy in order to understand the perspectives of various participants in this famous event. Focal point of seminar involves the examination of the many different histories that can be produced from Galileo's trial. What, in the end, were the crimes of Galileo?
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 235J:
The Meaning of Life: Modern European Encounters with Consequential Questions
(History 235J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 335J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Across two centuries of social, political, and religious upheaval and transformation, modern Europeans confronted a series of interconnected ¿big questions¿: What is humanity¿s relationship with deity? Where does life, including human life, come from, and where is it going? What considerations should shape human beings¿ relationships with, and actions toward, one another? What is socially and morally acceptable¿or transgressive? Is there life after death, and a spiritual realm distinct from the material world? Through case studies in the history of religion, evolutionary thought, gender and sexuality, and the aims and ends of empire, this course will examine European engagement with these questions across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (with some background in earlier periods), paying attention to the ways in which the questions people asked¿and the conclusions they drew¿were shaped by social, religious, and political institutions and structures.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 235L:
Alien Imaginations: Extraterrestrial Speculations in Modern European History
(History 235L is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 335L is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This course will examine the historical basis and evolution of modern European beliefs concerning the existence and nature of alien life throughout the universe, and the ways in which these imagined alien beings have historically reflected an interplay of social, religious, political, and scientific assumptions, hopes, fears, and preoccupations. We will explore the relationship between belief in extraterrestrial life and historical themes and episodes in European history including the debate over heliocentrism, deism and freethought, theories of life and of human nature, changing concepts of national identity, and the intertwined histories of immigration, colonialism, race, and gender. We will particularly examine how and why concepts of the alien took a dark and sinister turn across the late nineteenth- and early-to-mid-twentieth centuries.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 236F:
French Kiss: The History of Love and the French Novel (FRENCH 159, FRENCH 256)
The history of the French novel is also the history of love. How did individuals experience love throughout history? How do novels reflect this evolution of love through the ages? And, most significantly, how have French novels shaped our own understanding of and expectations for romantic love today? The course will explore many forms of love from the Ancien R¿gime to the 20th century. Sentiment and seduction, passion and desire, the conflict between love and society: students will examine these themes from a historical perspective, in tandem with the evolution of the genre of the novel (the novella, the sentimental novel, the epistolary novel, the 19th-century novel, and the autobiographical novel). Some texts will be paired with contemporary films to probe the enduring relevance of love "¿ la fran¿aise" in the media today. Readings include texts by Lafayette, Pr¿vost, Laclos, Dumas fils, Flaubert, Colette, Yourcenar, and Duras. This is an introductory course to French Studies, with a focus on cultural history, literary history, interpretation of narrative, thematic analysis, and close reading. Undergraduate students should enroll for FRENCH159, while graduate students may enroll for FRENCH256. Readings and discussion in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 236J:
A Tour of Dangerous Ideas: Radical Thinkers in Modern Europe (HISTORY 336J)
In this course we will examine ideas radical to their context in modern European thought, paying close attention to what it has meant to explain features of society, government, and politics in terms of power. What is power? What is human nature, and do all humans possess natural rights? How is human identity interwoven with the practice of power? What makes an idea radical? We will examine these and other questions through close readings of seven thinkers whose ideas shaped the modern period: John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, C.L.R. James, and Michel Foucault.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 237B:
Michelangelo: Gateway to Early Modern Italy (ARTHIST 218A, ARTHIST 418A, HISTORY 337B, ITALIAN 237, ITALIAN 337)
Revered as one of the greatest artists in history, Michelangelo Buonarroti's extraordinarily long and prodigious existence (1475-1564) spanned the Renaissance and the Reformation in Italy. The celebrity artist left behind not only sculptures, paintings, drawings, and architectural designs, but also an abundantly rich and heterogeneous collection of artifacts, including direct and indirect correspondence (approximately 1400 letters), an eclectic assortment of personal notes, documents and contracts, and 302 poems and 41 poetic fragments. This course will explore the life and production of Michelangelo in relation to those of his contemporaries. Using the biography of the artist as a thread, this interdisciplinary course will draw on a range of critical methodologies and approaches to investigate the civilization and culture of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Course themes will follow key tensions that defined the period and that found expression in Michelangelo: physical-spiritual, classical-Christian, tradition-innovation, individual-collective.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 237C:
Building Modernity: Urban Planning and European Cities in the Twentieth Century (URBANST 152)
This seminar explores the history of urban planning in twentieth-century Europe. We will discuss visions of ideal cities and attempts at their implementation in the context of democratic and authoritarian systems as well as capitalism and socialism. Through case studies from eastern and western Europe--from Berlin in Germany to Nowa Huta in Poland--we will examine how broader historical trends played out in, and were shaped by, specific local circumstances. The seminar is intended for advanced undergraduate students.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 237D:
The French Revolution and the Origins of Modern Politics (HISTORY 337D)
Human rights, national sovereignty, terror, even revolution itself - the French Revolution gave rise to modern politics. This course examines the causes, course, and consequences of the revolution from the crisis of the Old Regime to the Napoleonic period. We will read both original documents and current historical scholarship on the French Revolution. Throughout, key themes will include the role of ideas and language in political change, the relationship between revolution and violence, the politics of rights, and the global legacies of the revolution.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 237G:
Outer Space Exploration in Germany in the Twentieth Century (GERMAN 275)
Since the nineteenth century, Germans, like their counterparts around the world, have considered the meaning and the role of humanity in outer space. As space travel developed from a dream to a reality, and as Germany changed borders and political systems among empires, dictatorships, socialist states, and capitalist states, German interest in spaceflight remained, although the meaning found in the stars changed dramatically. This course considers Germans' dreams of and predictions for outer space travel alongside German technological developments in spaceflight. It includes the different German states throughout the century, including Weimar Germany, National Socialism, East Germany, and West Germany. The course looks at science fiction films and novels, newspaper reports, scientific developments, and German space engineering projects, which together demonstrate how and why space travel often found high levels of support in Germany. Students will engage in historical and cultural analysis through course readings, discussions, and assignments.nNOTE: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take this course for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 238C:
Virtual Italy (ARCHLGY 117, CLASSICS 115, ENGLISH 115, ITALIAN 115)
Classical Italy attracted thousands of travelers throughout the 1700s. Referring to their journey as the "Grand Tour," travelers pursued intellectual passions, promoted careers, and satisfied wanderlust, all while collecting antiquities to fill museums and estates back home. What can computational approaches tell us about who traveled, where and why? We will read travel accounts; experiment with parsing; and visualize historical data. Final projects to form credited contributions to the Grand Tour Project, a cutting-edge digital platform. No prior programming experience necessary.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 238E:
Narrating the British Empire (HUMCORE 138)
In this course, we will read major British literary works of the age of empire to explore the relationship between imperialism and modern literature. We will attend to the way imperialism shaped the evolution of a range of genres, from romantic to gothic to mystery to the spy novel, fantasy, and modernism, reading works by authors such as Charlotte Bronte, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Agatha Christie, and others. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Mondays you meet in your own course, and on Wednesdays all the HumCore seminars (in session that quarter) meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 238J:
The European Scramble for Africa: Origins and Debates (AFRICAAM 238J, HISTORY 338J)
Why and how did Europeans claim control of 70% of African in the late nineteenth century? Students will engage with historiographical debates ranging from the national (e.g. British) to the topical (e.g. international law). Students will interrogate some of the primary sources on which debaters have rested their arguments. Key discussions include: the British occupation of Egypt; the autonomy of French colonial policy; the mystery of Germany¿s colonial entry; and, not least, the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884-1885.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 239C:
Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Modern (FRENCH 13, HUMCORE 13, PHIL 13)
What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? This course examines tcourse examines these questions in the modern period, from the rise of revolutionary ideas to the experiences of totalitarianism and decolonization in the twentieth century. Authors include Locke, Mary Shelley, Marx, Nietzsche, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Mondays you meet in your own course, and on Wednesdays all the HumCore seminars (in session that quarter) meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
HISTORY 239D:
Capital and Empire (HISTORY 339D)
This colloquium for advanced undergraduate and graduate students will investigate the political economy of modern empire, focusing on the British empire. Topics include the history of imperial corporations; industry and empire; the commodification of nature and life; racial capitalism; the formation of the global economy; the relationship between trafficking and free trade; and the relationship between empire and the theory and practice of development.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 239G:
The Algerian Wars (CSRE 249, FRENCH 249, JEWISHST 249)
From Algiers the White to Algiers the Red, Algiers, the Mecca of the Revolutionaries in the words of Amilcar Cabral, this course offers to study the Algerian Wars since the French conquest of Algeria (1830-) to the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. We will revisit the ways in which the war has been narrated in literature and cinema, popular culture, and political discourse. A special focus will be given to the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962). The course considers the racial representations of the war in the media, the continuing legacies surrounding the conflict in France, Africa, and the United States, from Che Guevara to the Black Panthers. A key focus will be the transmission of collective memory through transnational lenses, and analyses of commemorative events and movies. nReadings from James Baldwin, Assia Djebar, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Mouloud Feraoun. Movies include "The Battle of Algiers," "Days of Glory," and "Viva Laldjérie." nTaught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 239J:
Work and Leisure in Nineteenth Century Britain (HISTORY 339J)
This course charts the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, empire, and social factors in Britons' lives at work and at home in the nineteenth century. Readings will explore trade unionism and Chartism, urban migration, consumer culture, print culture, organized sports, shows, rational leisure" and the development of exhibitions and public museums. Students will gain a sense of how Britons worked and played in a century that gave birth to pastimes and institutions that continue to shape our own.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 239K:
Sex, Death, and God in Modern Europe (HISTORY 339K)
In the midst of social and political upheaval and transformation, people in modern Europe have grappled with central questions of human existence. What place does humanity occupy in the universe and in relation to God? How does life begin, and under what circumstances? What gives life its meaning? What is socially and morally acceptable--or transgressive? Is there life after death, and a spiritual realm distinct from the material world? This course will examine answers to these questions across the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and the ways in which the questions people asked--and the conclusions they drew--were shaped by social, political, and religious assumptions, hopes, and fears.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 239T:
What is Time?
At a basic level, history is the study of change over time. But the modern discipline of history, as it was formed during the Enlightenment, radically changed conceptions of time itself: from something at times understood as cyclical or directionless to something linear and teleological. Modern history then prompted further reconceptualizations of time: Capitalism introduced new ways of valuing time; the Darwinian revolution introduced a new scale of earthly time; the world wars dented faith in the idea that time passed in the direction of progress; and now climate change has altered conceptions of time in a new way. This course examines evolving understandings of the medium of the historian's craft: what is time? We will examine poetic, scientific, literary, and geographical conceptions of time and trace time's modern history: how colonialism and capitalism produced new experiences of time, and anticolonial and anticapitalist critiques of those experiences. Throughout, we will consider how this history should shape the way historians think about change over time, in terms of questions of scale, human experience, and disciplinary purpose.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 240:
The History of Evolution (HISTORY 340)
This course examines the history of evolutionary biology from its emergence around the middle of the eighteenth century. We will consider the continual engagement of evolutionary theories of life with a larger, transforming context: philosophical, political, social, economic, institutional, aesthetic, artistic, literary. Our goal will be to achieve a historical rich and nuanced understanding of how evolutionary thinking about life has developed to its current form.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 240C:
Great Minds of the Italian Renaissance and their World (ARTHIST 210, ITALIAN 140, ITALIAN 240)
What enabled Leonardo da Vinci to excel in over a dozen fields from painting to engineering and to anticipate flight four hundred years before the first aircraft took off? How did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel Ceiling? What forces and insights led Machiavelli to write "The Prince"? An historical moment and a cultural era, the Italian Renaissance famously saw monumental achievements in literature, art, and architecture, influential developments in science and technology, and the flourishing of multi-talented individuals who contributed profoundly, expertly, and simultaneously to very different fields. In this course on the great thinkers, writers, and achievers of the Italian Renaissance, we will study these "universal geniuses" and their world. Investigating the writings, thought, and lives of such figures as Leonardo da Vinci, Niccol¿ Machiavelli, and Galileo Galilei, we will interrogate historical and contemporary ideas concerning genius, creativity, and the phenomenon of "Renaissance man" known as polymathy. Taught in English. In 2023-24, this course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Tuesdays you meet in your own course, and on Thursday all the HumCore seminars in session that quarter meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 241C:
Histories of Attention and Mind Control
This course follows the history of attention from the Enlightenment and the rise of capitalism to Cold War controversies over mind control and recent debates on the attention economy and the ethics of technology. Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, which regulates what enters consciousness. In an age of information abundance, digital technologies compete to catch and direct our attention. Offering a historical perspective, the course readings trace how attention has been constructed, studied, commodified, and manipulated throughout the modern period by travelling across various regions including the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean and North America. Consideration will be given to the training and altering of attention, to spectacle and the manipulation of attention, and to the shifting economies of attention. We will explore how practices such as mesmerism, hypnotism, and conjure became part of power relationships within social, racial, gendered, religious and cultural contexts, and how attention was made to reproduce different relationships of inequality between the industrial revolution and the advent of surveillance capitalism. The course is divided into three parts. It begins with introducing approaches to attention by historians, philosophers, and scholars of visual studies among others. Second is a more empirical analysis of how slavery, industrialism, advertising, cinema, science, and technology came together to shape modern theories of attention. The course then ends with several weeks on the current politics of attention and the attention economy.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 241F:
The Science and Politics of Apocalypse (POLISCI 232, STS 158)
For millennia, an apocalypse has been just around the corner. This course examines how expectations surrounding the end of the world - and the role that human beings might play in bringing it about - have transformed over the last two centuries. After a brief look at traditional religious apocalypticism, we explore how apocalypse came to be reconsidered as an entirely this-worldly phenomenon that falls within human power to achieve and demands political attention. Along the way, the course addresses the discovery of entropy in the 19th century, development of the hydrogen bomb in the mid-20th, and the planetary science that has transformed the Apocalypse into a primarily ecological concern over the last half-century.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
HISTORY 242G:
Spaces and Practices of Natural History (HISTORY 342G)
Gentleman scientists once practiced natural history by studying specimens collected from around the world, stored in cabinets of curiosity. From the 17th to 19th centuries, natural history moved out of the cabinet and into the field; these environments required new ways of thinking and different types of scientific workers. This course will track how new spaces, practices, and people became associated with natural history and explore how they shaped the content of the field and the social contours of science.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 242J:
London Low Life in the Nineteenth Century
(History 242J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 342J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) London began the nineteenth century as a city of one million, but was home to over six million people by the century¿s end. How did Londoners in the nineteenth century respond to the challenges and temptations of life in a growing metropolis? How did government and reformers try to influence and control city dwellers¿ behavior? This class seeks to answer these questions by exploring life in Britain¿s capital in the nineteenth century, using the digital database ¿London Low Life¿ as a guide. Contemporary street literature, night-life guides, pamphlets, broadsides, images, reformer¿s tracts, and public-interest journalism are some of the sources that will give us a window into vice, virtue, and daily life in London during a period of great uncertainty and change.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 243C:
People, Plants, and Medicine: Atlantic World Amerindian, African, and European Science (CSRE 243C, CSRE 443C, FEMGEN 443C, HISTORY 343C, HISTORY 443C)
Explores the global circulation of plants, peoples, disease, medicines, technologies, and knowledge. Considers primarily Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and focuses on their exchanges in the Caribbean, in particular within the French and British empires. We also take examples from other knowledge traditions, where relevant. Readings treat science and medicine in relation to voyaging, the natural history of plants, environmental exchange, racism, and slavery in colonial contexts. Colonial sciences and medicines were important militarily and strategically for positioning emerging nation states in global struggles for land and resources. Upper-level undergrads must apply for 243C; please fill in this short form: https://forms.gle/XpUXwfT6ULiwC8P19 Graduate students taking the course as a one-quarter seminar should enroll in 343C. Graduate students taking the course as a two-part graduate research seminar should enroll in the 443C (Part I) in Winter and the 443D (Part II) in Spring.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 243D:
Emerging Diseases, Past and Present
This course will use our current experience with the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens to study the processes by which infectious diseases emerge. Because of recent developments in the "historicist sciences" (bioarchaeology and palaeogenetics), it is possible to piece together the origin stories of some of the world's most impactful diseases. How does a "microbe's-eye view" of disease emergence change our understanding of past (and present) pandemics? Is it possible that understanding emergence might help us better understand why certain diseases have continued to proliferate, refusing to yield to modern interventions?We will focus on several major diseases transmitted between the Old and New Worlds before and after 1500. At issue is not simply the original spillover event (the transfer of a pathogen from one host species to humans), but the question of how these diseases exploit human connectivity to proliferate. These early globalizing stories will be compared with the story of SARS-CoV-2 as its own "origin story" continues to unfold. Given current critiques of the failures of "global health," what do these origin stories have to tell us about how diseases become "endemic"? Is humankind both the cause of its major diseases, but also doomed to endure them in perpetuity?
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 243E:
Culture and Revolution in Africa (AFRICAAM 213, COMPLIT 213, FRENCH 213E)
This course investigates the relationship between culture, revolutionary decolonization, and post-colonial trajectories. It probes the multilayered development of 20th and 21st-century African literature amid decolonization and Cold War cultural diplomacy initiatives and the debates they generated about African literary aesthetics, African languages, the production of history, and the role of the intellectual. We will journey through national cultural movements, international congresses, and pan-African festivals to explore the following questions: What role did writers and artists play in shaping the discourse of revolutionary decolonization throughout the continent and in the diaspora? How have literary texts, films, and works of African cultural thought shaped and engaged with concepts such as "African unity" and "African cultural renaissance"? How have these notions influenced the imaginaries of post-independence nations, engendered new subjectivities, and impacted gender and generational dynamics? How did the ways of knowing and modes of writing promoted and developed in these contexts shape African futures?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 243F:
Letter Writing in 17th - and 18th - Century France: A Media Revolution (FRENCH 243)
This interdisciplinary course examines the evolution of letter-writing practices in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France through the lens of a media revolution, and highlights the historical roots of contemporary media issues. We will read primary sources such as epistolary manuals, letters by notable early modern letter writers (Sévigné, Voltaire, and Catherine the Great), and epistolary novels, as well as secondary scholarship from the fields of cultural history, literary studies, and media studies. Topics include, but are not limited to, innovations to the postal system, the rise of social norms of letter writing, image management, the Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment, social activism through letter writing, the birth of media celebrities, surveillance, and privacy. Readings and discussions in English.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 243G:
Tobacco and Health in World History: How Big Nic created the template for global science denial (HISTORY 343G)
Cigarettes are the world's leading cause of death--but how did we come into this world, where 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year? Here we explore the political, cultural, and technological origins of the cigarette and cigarette epidemic, using the tobacco industry's 80 million pages of secret documents. Topics include the history of cigarette advertising and cigarette design, the role of the tobacco industry in fomenting climate change denial, and questions raised by the testimony of experts in court.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
HISTORY 244F:
New Directions in Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Technology, and Environment (FEMGEN 344F, HISTORY 344F)
Welcome! This is a new upper-level course in Gendered Innovations that explores how sex, gender, and intersectional analysis in research and design sparks discovery and innovation. This course focuses on sex and gender, and considers factors intersecting with sex and gender, including age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational background, disabilities, geographic location, etc., where relevant. We will read new research touching on basic concepts, intersectional design, gendering social robots, new approaches to sustainability, what's new in biomedicine & public health, facial recognition, inclusive crash test dummies, and more. As Director of Gendered Innovations, I work with the European Commission, Wellcome Trust, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and major journals on policy to support integrating sex, gender, and intersectional analysis into the design of research. The operative question is: how can this type of analysis lead to discovery & innovation while enhancing social equity and environmental sustainability? Students will read and report on new research in weekly sessions and present a paper on a topic of their choice. We welcome open and respectful discussion. This course is open to upper-level undergraduate students and to graduate students by application https://forms.gle/2KmxUUnRSG2LNNSS6. Limited to 15.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 245:
Introduction to African Studies II: Who Owns the Past? African Museum Collections in the Bay Area (AFRICAAM 246, HUMCORE 136)
The colonial era saw widespread extraction of cultural treasures by European powers across the globe. Greece, Egypt, and other countries have maintained that these objects belong at home rather than in the museums of London, Paris, and New York. This class invites you to consider the role of African art in debates about ownership, access, and aesthetics. Stanford University, for example, has a large collection of African objects in the Cantor Museum, while in nearby San Francisco, the renowned De Young Museum has a significant selection in its Africa gallery.Classes will chart the "scramble for art" that occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries among European colonial powers on the African continent. We will also examine the role of North American collectors in extracting African cultural treasures from the continent, and the burgeoning ethnographic museum culture that showcased these objects at universities and museums across the U.S. We will consider how practices of museum curation throughout the twentieth century shaped and defined fundamental categories including the notion of "African art" itself. Students will discuss pressing questions of agency, justice, and power. We will consider early calls from African countries for repatriation of their objects and the ongoing state of these debates today, including the current call for the return of the famed and controversial Benin Bronzes and the efforts of museums like the De Young, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard's Peabody Museum, and the UCLA Fowler Museum to ethically engage with their African holdings. Throughout the class, our guiding question will be: who owns the past? Are these cultural treasures the property of all humanity (as many museums would argue), or of the specific countries and communities who lay claim to them?
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
HISTORY 245C:
Casablanca - Algiers - Tunis : Cities on the Edge (COMPLIT 236A, CSRE 140S, FRENCH 236, FRENCH 336, JEWISHST 236A, URBANST 140F)
Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis embody three territories, real and imaginary, which never cease to challenge the preconceptions of travelers setting sight on their shores. In this class, we will explore the myriad ways in which these cities of North Africa, on the edge of Europe and of Africa, have been narrated in literature, cinema, and popular culture. Home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, they are an ebullient laboratory of social, political, religious, and cultural issues, global and local, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. We will look at mass images of these cities, from films to maps, novels to photographs, sketching a new vision of these magnets as places where power, social rituals, legacies of the Ottoman and French colonial pasts, and the influence of the global economy collude and collide. Special focus on class, gender, and race.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 246F:
The African State: An Inconvenient History
This course offers a history of the formation of postcolonial African states and how they came to be the way they are now. It will explore what exactly is meant by a "state", as well as examine the forms of governments that existed within Africa prior to, and during colonial rule. The course looks at structures and institutions the colonial state erected and what effects they had on their succeeding African states.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
HISTORY 246G:
Participatory Research in African History
Historical research in Africa is liable to issues of authenticity and relevance to local communities, as well as power disparities between researcher and subject. Can we turn this weakness into a strength by developing theory and practice of participatory action research in which communities and scholars work together to make meaningful interpretations of the past? We will explore this issue, study previous attempts, and design a participatory action research project to be carried out in Ghana.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 247:
Gender and Sexuality in African History (AFRICAAM 247, FEMGEN 247, FEMGEN 347, HISTORY 347)
This course examines the history of gender and sexuality in twentieth and twenty-first century Africa. It explores how concepts, identities, and practices of gender and sexuality have changed in shifting social, cultural, political, and economic contexts across the continent and in connection with global currents. This historical journey encompasses European colonialism, independence, postcolonial nation-building, and current times. Course materials include African novels, films, material culture and multinational scholarly research and primary sources. We will also engage multidisciplinary perspectives, methodologies, and theories as tools for critical thinking, writing and varied modes of producing knowledge. Gender and sexuality(ies) as examined in this course act as gateways to explore transformations in : selfhood, peoplehood, and life stage; health, medicine, reproduction, and the body; law and criminality; marriage, kinship, family, and community; politics, power and protest; feminism(s); popular culture; religion and belief; LGBTQI+ themes; and the history of emotions, including love, joy, desire, pain, and trauma.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 248:
Religion, Radicalization and Media in Africa since 1945 (AFRICAST 248, AFRICAST 348, HISTORY 348, RELIGST 230X, RELIGST 330X)
What are the paths to religious radicalization, and what role have media- new and old- played in these conversion journeys? We examine how Pentecostal Christians and Reformist Muslims in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia have used multiple media forms- newspapers, cell phones, TV, radio, and the internet- to gain new converts, contest the authority of colonial and post-colonial states, construct transnational communities, and position themselves as key political players.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 248C:
Curating the Image: African Photography and the Politics of Exhibitions (AFRICAAM 248C, HISTORY 348C)
This course will be built around a photography exhibition at the Cantor Art Center, featuring the images of South African photographer, Sabelo Mlangeni. The class will invite students to consider both the history and the present-day state of photography on the African continent, exploring themes such as social-realist documentary photography and an African tradition of studio photography. The class will also reflect upon curatorial questions, including how, where, and why certain photographic work is displayed, and the aesthetics as well as politics of museum display.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 248E:
Race and Slavery in Africa (HISTORY 348E)
This course will explore the histories of race and slavery in the African continent. We will consider how these histories developed alongside and independent of global developments, including but not limited to imperialism, capitalism, and slavery in the Arab world, as well as the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Students will engage with an array of primary and secondary sources that centralize the voices, experiences, and perspectives of Africans from different time periods. We will grapple with the complex histories of slavery within the continent and how the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion evolved over time.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 250A:
History of Native Americans in California (CSRE 117S, NATIVEAM 117S)
This course examines the political histories and cultural themes of Native Americans in California, 1700s1950s. Throughout the semester we will focus on: demographics, diversity of tribal cultures; regional environmental backgrounds; the Spanish Era and missionization; the Mexican Era and secularization; relations with the United States Government and the State of California, including the gold rush period, statehood, unratified treaties, origin of reservations/rancherias, and other federal policies, e.g., Allotment Act, Indian Reorganization Act and termination.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 250B:
Comparative History of Racial & Ethnic Groups in California (CSRE 114R, NATIVEAM 114)
Comparative focus on the demographic, political, social and economic histories of American Indians & Alaska Natives, African Americans, Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans during late 18th and early 20th century California. Topics: relationships with Spanish, Mexican, U.S. Federal, State and local governments; intragroup and intergroup relationships; and differences such as religion, class and gender.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 251C:
The American Enlightenment (AMSTUD 251C)
The eighteenth century saw the rise of many exciting new political, religious, and scientific theories about human happiness, perfectibility, and progress that today we call "the Enlightenment." Most people associate the Enlightenment with Europe, but in this course we will explore the many ways in which the specific conditions of eighteenth-century North America --such as slavery, the presence of large numbers of indigenous peoples, a colonial political context, and even local animals, rocks, and plants--also shaped the major questions and conversations of the people who strove to become "enlightened." We'll also explore how American Enlightenment ideas have profoundly shaped the way Americans think today about everything from politics to science to race. The class is structured as lecture and discussion, with deep reading in primary sources from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 251J:
American Slavery and Its Afterlives (AFRICAAM 251J, AMSTUD 251J, HISTORY 351J)
How did the institution of American slavery come to an end? The story is more complex than most people know. This course examines the rival forces that fostered slavery's simultaneous contraction in the North and expansion in the South between 1776 and 1861. It also illuminates, in detail, the final tortuous path to abolition during the Civil War. Throughout, the course introduces a diverse collection of historical figures, including seemingly paradoxical ones, such as slaveholding southerners who professed opposition to slavery and non-slaveholding northerners who acted in ways that preserved it. During the course's final weeks, we will examine the racialized afterlives of American slavery as they manifested during the late-nineteenth century and beyond.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 252:
Originalism and the American Constitution: History and Interpretation (HISTORY 352)
Except for the Bible no text has been the subject of as much modern interpretive scrutiny as the United States Constitution. This course explores both the historical dimensions of its creation as well as the meaning such knowledge should bring to bear on its subsequent interpretation. In light of the modern obsession with the document's "original meaning," this course will explore the intersections of history, law, and textual meaning to probe what an "original" interpretation of the Constitution looks like.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 252B:
Diplomacy on the Ground: Case Studies in the Challenges of Representing Your Country (INTNLREL 174)
The tragic death of Ambassador Chris Stevens has recently highlighted the dangers of diplomacy in the modern era. This class will look at how Americans in embassies have historically confronted questions such as authoritarian rule, human rights abuses, violent changes of government, and covert action. Case studies will include the Berlin embassy in the 1930s, Tehran in 1979, and George Kennan's experiences in Moscow, among others. Recommended for students contemplating careers in diplomatic service. *IR majors taking this course to fulfill the IR WIM requirement should enroll in INTNLREL174. As space is limited, first-year students must obtain the instructor's prior consent before enrolling. Non-matriculating students are also asked to consult the instructor before enrolling in the course.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 252C:
The Old South: Culture, Society, and Slavery (AFRICAAM 252C, CSRE 252C)
This course explores the political, social, and cultural history of the antebellum American South, with an emphasis on the history of African-American slavery. Topics include race and race making, slave community and resistance, gender and reproduction, class and immigration, commodity capitalism, technology, disease and climate, indigenous Southerners, white southern honor culture, the Civil War, and the region's place in national mythmaking and memory.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 252E:
From Gold Rush to Google Bus: History of San Francisco (AMSTUD 150X, URBANST 150)
This class will examine the history of San Francisco from Native American and colonial settlement through the present. Focus is on social, environmental, and political history, with the theme of power in the city. Topics include Native Americans, the Gold Rush, immigration and nativism, railroads and robber barons, earthquake and fire, progressive reform and unionism, gender, race and civil rights, sexuality and politics, counterculture, redevelopment and gentrification. Students write final project in collaboration with ShapingSF, a participatory community history project documenting and archiving overlooked stories and memories of San Francisco. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 253C:
Histories of Racial Capitalism (AFRICAAM 257, CSRE 253C)
This colloquium takes as its starting point the insistence that the movement, settlement, and hierarchical arrangements of indigenous communities and people of African descent is inseparable from regimes of capital accumulation. It builds on the concept of "racial capitalism," which rejects treatments of race as external to a purely economic project and counters the idea that racism is an externality, cultural overflow, or aberration from the so-called real workings of capitalism. This course will cover topics such as chattel slavery, settler colonialism, black capitalism, the under-development of Africa, and the profitability of mass incarceration.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
HISTORY 253F:
Thinking the American Revolution (AMSTUD 253F, HISTORY 353F)
No period in American history has generated as much creative political thinking as the era of the American Revolution. This course explores the origins and development of that thought from the onset of the dispute between Great Britain and its American colonies over liberty and governance through the debates surrounding the construction and implementation of the United States federal Constitution.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 253L:
Caring Labor in the United States (AFRICAAM 253, FEMGEN 253L)
Who cares for America's children, elderly, and infirm? How is the structure of these labor forces influenced by ideologies of race, gender, and class? Beginning with theories of reproductive and caring labor, we examine the history of coerced and enslaved care and then caring as free labor. We will look at housework, child care, nursing, and elder care, among others, and will also examine how activists, policy makers, and workers have imagined new ways of performing and valuing care.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 253P:
Before the Model Minority: South Asians in the US (ASNAMST 153P, GLOBAL 253P)
The model minority myth has been used to create a wedge between Asian and Black people in the United States, and masks the histories and lives of itinerant South Asian traders, laborers, and farmers. Beginning in the 1860s, South Asians (mostly male, and often undocumented) traveled to major ports in the US, such as New York City, New Orleans, and the California coast, where they found working-class jobs and married Puerto Rican, African American, Creole, and Mexican women. Some South Asians were double migrants, first brought to British colonies in the Caribbean and South America through indentured servitude, and later migrated to the United States. Their life stories expand to the racial history of the United States by looking beyond a Black/white binary. By juxtaposing immigrant stories with exclusionary US immigration laws, the course touches upon major themes of migration, capitalism, surveillance, race and racism, multiracial couples and communities, resistance, intersectional activism, borderlands and cities in the US, and the formation of national identity. During the quarter, we will seek to connect experiences in the past with contemporary issues of political culture in the United States to engage with the continuing challenge of locating and attaining self-definition, justice, and social progress in a fraught and divided world.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 254:
Popular Culture and American Nature
Despite John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson, it is arguable that the Disney studios have more to do with molding popular attitudes toward the natural world than politicians, ecologists, and activists. Disney as the central figure in the 20th-century American creation of nature. How Disney, the products of his studio, and other primary and secondary texts see environmentalism, science, popular culture, and their interrelationships.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 254B:
Animism, Gaia, and Alternative Approaches to the Environment (ANTHRO 254C, FRENCH 254, HISTORY 354B, REES 254)
Indigenous knowledges have been traditionally treated as a field of research for anthropologists and as mistaken epistemologies, i.e., un-scientific and irrational folklore. However, within the framework of environmental humanities, current interest in non-anthropocentric approaches and epistemic injustice, animism emerged as a critique of modern epistemology and an alternative to the Western worldview. Treating native thought as an equivalent to Western knowledge will be presented as a (potentially) decolonizing and liberating practice. This course may be of interest to anthropology, archaeology and literature students working in the fields of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities/social sciences, students interested in the Anthropocene, geologic/mineral, bio-, eco- and geosocial collectives, symbiotic life-forms and non-human agencies. The course is designed as a research seminar for students interested in theory of the humanities and social sciences and simultaneously helping students to develop their individual projects and thesis.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 254E:
The Rise of American Democracy (HISTORY 354E)
(History 254E is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 354E is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Where did American democracy come from? Prior to and during the American Revolution, few who lived in what became the United States claimed to live in a democracy. Half a century later, most took this reality as an article of faith. Accordingly, the period stretching from c. 1750 to c. 1840 is often considered the period when American democracy was ascendant, a time marked by the explosion of new forms of political thinking, practices, and culture, new political institutions and forms of political organization, and new kinds of political struggles. This advanced undergraduate/graduate colloquium will explore how American political life changed during this formative period to understand the character of early American democracy, how different groups gained or suffered as a result of these transformations, and, in light of these investigations, in what ways it is historically appropriate to think of this period as in fact the rise of American democracy.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 254F:
Anti-Asian Violence in America: A History (ASNAMST 254)
This course places the recent wave of hate violence directed against Asian Americans in historical context. The recent violence is the latest in a history that began with the arrival of Asian immigrants in America in the mid-19th century and continued into the 21st century. Themes include anti-Asian racism; fears of a 'yellow peril' and race war; identifying Asians as perpetual foreigners and suspect aliens; race and wars in Asia and the consequences at home; fears of medical contamination; and gendered violence against Asian women. Asian American responses to hatred are integrated throughout the course.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 254G:
The News Media and American Democracy
The role of the news media in a democracy has been a source of controversy throughout American history. This colloquium will examine how technology, capitalism, law, and politics have reshaped the press over time and how the press, in turn, has impacted democratic discourse and formed partisan, gender, and ethnic identities. Students will be expected to write a primary source paper using historical newspapers to engage with debates about the history of news media.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 255B:
Contested Masculinities in Modern America (FEMGEN 255B)
This course examines masculinity in the twentieth-century United States across academic disciplines. Suspending the idea that manhood is biologically fixed or innate, this course presents masculinity as socially constructed and in a state of ongoing contest and crisis. Students will explore what it has meant (and means) to be a man in America, how masculinity has related to femininity and feminism, and masculinity's intersection with other identities like race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. Assigned materials include an array of readings in History, African and African American Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, Art History, and American Studies, along with documentary and fictional films.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 255D:
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, AMSTUD 255D, CSRE 255D, HISTORY 355D)
From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama and Beyonce, this course explores the ways that racial identity has been experienced, represented, and contested throughout American history. Engaging historical, legal, and literary texts and films, this course examines major historical transformations that have shaped our understanding of racial identity. This course also draws on other imaginative modes including autobiography, memoir, photography, and music to consider the ways that racial identity has been represented in American culture.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP
HISTORY 255F:
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era (HISTORY 355F)
(Undergraduates, enroll in 255F; Graduates, enroll in 355F.) This course examines the critical period between 1860, when the first states seceded in defense of enslavement, and 1896, when the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision affirmed the constitutionality of Jim Crow. We will focus, at first, on the crucial role played by African Americans, enslaved and free, in the abolition of slavery and in the fundamental reframing of civil rights effected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We will then shift to a close study of the decades-long fight between those who sought to defend these advances in racial justice and those who sought to constrain them, even invalidate them. Students will engage with primary source material in every class session and will write final papers on topics of their own choosing.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 255G:
Planning Suburban America
In 2021 Governor Galvin Newsom singed a law ending single-family zoning in the state of California, a remarkable departure for the state of California, which had pioneered automobile-centric suburban development. This course aims to contextualize contemporary concerns about the suburb. Life outside of the urban core had often been seen as dangerous and uncivilized. But, by the middle of the 20th century, homogenous, middle class suburban households were often depicted as quintessentially American bulwarks against communism. This course will engage with debates over whether that transformation was a natural result of technological innovation or a contingent product of public policy and white flight. It will then consider how suburban planning has impacted popular culture, ecology, race, politics, national identity, and even foreign policy.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 255J:
Oral History Practicum: United States History and Stanford History Through Oral History
Oral history gathers, preserves, and interprets the spoken memories of participants in past events. The subjects of interviews range from public figures to behind-the-scenes actors to people and communities whose stories and perspectives are often excluded from traditional historical narratives. In this class, students will examine aspects of United States history and the history of Stanford University through the medium of oral history. By reading exemplary historical studies based on oral histories, analyzing transcripts and recordings of individual life narratives, and conducting oral histories of Stanford community members in collaboration with the Stanford Historical Society, students will learn how this interviewee-centered methodology contributes to our understanding of contemporary history (since the twentieth century). Each week one class session typically will center on discussions of secondary readings and primary oral history sources and the second session will focus on methodological issues and training in doing oral history.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 256A:
Antebellum America (HISTORY 356A)
In the decades leading up to the American Civil War, the United States underwent profound transformations. Diverse developments - including the expansion of slavery and the increasing power of the cotton kingdom, the rise of the Second Great Awakening and mass politics, the growth of capitalism and its attendant panics, the construction of a series of reform movements, and deep uncertainties and anxieties about the proper role of women and people of color in the still new nation - made the lived experience of the period incredibly tumultuous. In this advanced undergraduate/graduate colloquium, students will explore the social, cultural, religious, political, economic, labor, and gender history and historiography of antebellum America, with a particular focus on how these developments were experienced by ordinary people.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 256C:
Crime and Punishment in American History
This course engages scholarship on the history of crime and punishment in America from the colonial period to the recent past. Readings consist of some theory, a handful of primary sources, and mostly secondary readings on such topics as: knowledge production about crime, discipline, and punishment; the history of prisons; carceral labor; penal reform; the relationship of institutionalized punishment to state-building and empire; the role of the illicit economy and incarceration in the making of racial capitalism; prisoners social movements; and the origins of mass incarceration.
| Units: 5
HISTORY 256E:
The American Civil War: The Lived Experience (AFRICAAM 256E, AMSTUD 256E)
What was it like to live in the United States during the Civil War? This course uses the lenses of racial/ethnic identity, gender, class, and geography (among others) to explore the breadth of human experience during this singular moment in American history. It illuminates the varied ways in which Americans, in the Union states and the Confederate states, struggled to move forward and to find meaning in the face of unprecedented division and destruction.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 256G:
Constructing Race and Religion in America (AMSTUD 246, CSRE 246, RELIGST 246)
This seminar focuses on the interrelationships between social constructions of race and social interpretations of religion in America. How have assumptions about race shaped religious worldviews? How have religious beliefs shaped racial attitudes? How have ideas about religion and race contributed to notions of what it means to be "American"? We will look at primary and secondary sources and at the historical development of ideas and practices over time.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 257C:
LGBTQ History of the United States (FEMGEN 140D, FEMGEN 240D)
An introductory course that explores LGBT/Queer social, cultural, and political history in the United States. By analyzing primary documents that range from personal accounts (private letters, autobiography, early LGBT magazines, and oral history interviews) to popular culture (postcards, art, political posters, lesbian pulp fiction, and film) to medical, military, and legal papers, students will understand how the categories of gender and sexuality have changed over the past 150 years. This class investigates the relationship among queer, straight and transgender identities. Seminar discussions will question how the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality influenced the construction of these categories.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 257D:
War, Revolution, and Modern American Society
War has fundamentally shaped the ways that Americans think about themselves, their fellow Americans, and the meanings of national citizenship. Whatever the extent of American participation, war has transformed how Americans think about other nations, the environment, technology, and the meaning of death and dying. War has also posed challenges of representation, both for those who fought as well as those who did not. Wars and revolutions abroad have likewise played a part in molding American identity. This course examines how Americans have observed, experienced, and thought about modern war and revolution in history, literature, and popular culture. Course themes will include mobilization, protest and dissent, building empire, gender and masculinity, race and xenophobia, the economics of war, coercion and propaganda, war and the environment, and the changing meanings of death and sacrifice. The course begins with the American Civil War, and takes students through the rise of American empire, the world wars, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Cold War, Vietnam, and closes with the War on Terror. Students will be introduced to a variety of primary and secondary sources and historical methods directed at probing the paradox of how conflict creates social cohesion, and will be guided by a basic ethical question: how do we live together?
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 257E:
History of Conservatism (HISTORY 357E)
What is conservatism in America? Where did it come from, and where might it be going? Looking at conservatism as a political, social, and intellectual movement, we will consider these questions by reading primary and secondary sources and archival material. Suitable for students of any or no particular political persuasion. No prerequisites or background required, although the reading will be considerable.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 258A:
Back to the Future: Media, Art, and Politics in the 1980s (AMSTUD 128B, COMM 128, COMM 228, COMM 328, HISTORY 358A)
(COMM 128 is offered for 5 units, COMM 228 is offered for 4 units. COMM 328 is offered for 3-5 units.)This seminar covers the intersection of politics, media and art in the U.S. from the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Topics include globalization and financialization; the rise of the New Right; the personalization of media technology, from television to computing; postmodernism and political art; feminism, queer, and sex-positive activism; identity politics and the culture wars. Open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 258B:
History of Education in the United States (AMSTUD 201, EDUC 201)
How education came to its current forms and functions, from the colonial experience to the present. Focus is on the 19th-century invention of the common school system, 20th-century emergence of progressive education reform, and the developments since WW II. The role of gender and race, the development of the high school and university, and school organization, curriculum, and teaching.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 258C:
Asian American and Settler Colonial Entanglements (ANTHRO 118W, ARCHLGY 138, ASNAMST 118)
Today, the subject of decolonization is at the forefront of a wealth of scholarship as scholars, activists, and institutions grapple with the legacies of colonialism that are far from over. For Asian Americans, there are entanglements with colonialism in both the countries of their heritage and in the United States, complicating the scope of what it means to deal with colonialism. In this class we look at some of these relationships, thinking through the impact of various types of colonialism on history of Asian Americans, and their positionality alongside colonial structures in the United States. In doing so we look to unpack the nuances behind these interrelationships and the murky overlapping and underdiscussed dynamics that they create. We start the quarter with a discussion of what settler colonialism is, and key discussions of its intersections with the Asian American experience that emerged with the publication of Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai'i. We will then move to read our first two books of the quarter which focus on the intersections of Asian American labor and Indigenous erasure from the construction of the transcontinental railroad to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. From here we will pivot towards the Pacific and look to two books which seek to understand Asian American involvement with US colonial projects, and the wake of wartime and post-war resettlement. These works look past the North American continent to consider the ways in which transnational connections and diasporas become entangled with settler colonial projects. Throughout the course, students will work to develop their writing in formulating a research paper that they will work on in steps.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 258E:
History of School Reform: Origins, Policies, Outcomes, and Explanations (EDUC 220D)
Strongly recommended for students in the POLS M.A. program; others welcome. Focus is on 20th-century U.S. Intended and unintended patterns in school change; the paradox of reform that schools are often reforming but never seem to change much; rhetorics of reform and factors that inhibit change. Case studies emphasize the American high school. This course is strongly recommended for POLS students pursuing K -12 leadership.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 258G:
The Origins of American Liberalism
In the 1870s, liberalism in America was associated with freedom of contract, small government, and, quite often, restrictions on suffrage. Today, liberalism means nearly the opposite of that. This class examines how factors like war, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, disease, fascism, and economic instability have reshaped liberalism. American liberalism has been labelled protean, flexible, or just imprecise. The goal of this course is to identify some of the strands that hold it together by contextualizing its evolution within social changes that have forced liberals to reevaluate their ideas.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 259B:
History of Asian Americans and the Law (AMSTUD 112, ASNAMST 112)
This course explores the unique role the law has played in Asian American racialization and identity formation while also introducing students to the fundamentals of legal analysis and research. Students will learn how to read legal documents such as case law, legislation, legal reviews, and executive orders alongside other primary sources such as newspaper reporting, oral histories, and cultural texts. In using the law to frame an analysis of Asian Americanness, students will put both the law and race under a critical lens and explore how the historical constructions of both have shaped the Asian American experience.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 259C:
The Civil Rights Movement in American History and Memory (AMSTUD 259C, HISTORY 359C)
This course examines the origins, conduct, and complex legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the continuing struggle over how the movement should be remembered and represented. Topics examined include: the NAACP legal campaign against segregation; the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the career of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the birth of the student movement; the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project; the rise of Black Power; Black political movements in the urban North; and the persistence of racial inequality in post-Jim Crow America.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 259E:
American Interventions, 1898-Present (HISTORY 359E, INTNLREL 168A)
This class seeks to examine the modern American experience with limited wars, beginning with distant and yet pertinent cases, and culminating in the war in Iraq. Although this class will examine war as a consequence of foreign policy, it will not focus primarily on presidential decision making. Rather, it will place wartime policy in a broader frame, considering it alongside popular and media perceptions of the war, the efforts of antiwar movements, civil-military relations, civil reconstruction efforts, and conditions on the battlefield. We will also examine, when possible, the postwar experience. Non-matriculating students are asked to consult the instructor before enrolling in the course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 260:
Black Women, Trauma, and the Art of Resistance (HISTORY 360)
This course explores how Black women have experienced, remembered, and recovered from trauma. Drawing on historical texts, works in psychology, legal records, medical literature, diaries, novels, poetry, plays, songs, and films, we will consider how Black women recorded, passed down, and inherited stories about traumatic events. We begin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with Black women's experiences on slave ships and during slavery, we discuss intergenerational trauma, and we conclude by examining the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black women's lives. We pay considerable attention to how Black women relied on the arts to speak the unspeakable. The class will centrally address healing, recovery, and resistance. We will read texts by writers, activists, legal scholars, and artists including Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, bell hooks, Saidiya Hartman, Kimberl¿ Crenshaw, and Jesmyn Ward.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 260P:
American Protest Movements, Past and Present (AMSTUD 260P, FEMGEN 260P)
(History 260P is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 360P is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Societal change comes only when individuals and groups speak out, perseverantly, against prevailing norms. This course examines the overlapping histories of three nineteenth-century protest movements: antislavery, womens rights, and temperance. It focuses on the arguments and tactics used by these movements to persuade Americans to oppose the status quo, and it examines the points of agreement and disagreement that arose within and among these movements. Ultimately, the course connects these past protest movements to more recent analogs, such as Black Lives Matter, ERA ratification, and marijuana legalization. Throughout the course, race, gender, and class serve as central analytical themes.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 261C:
Topics in Writing & Rhetoric: Racism, Misogyny, and the Law (CSRE 194KTA, FEMGEN 194, PWR 194KTA)
The gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by the Supreme Court of the United States led to the consequent disenfranchisement of many voters of color. For many citizens who desire a truly representative government, SCOTUS's decision predicted the collapse of democracy and endorsed White supremacy. In this course, through an examination of jurisprudential racism and misogyny, students will learn to dissect the rhetoric of the U.S. judicial branch and the barriers it constructs to equity and inclusion through caselaw and appellate Opinions. The United States of America long deprived the right to vote to men of color and women of every race, and equal access to justice including at the intersections has been an enduring fight. The history of employment law, criminal justice, access to healthcare, and more includes jurisprudence enforcing racist and misogynist U.S. policies and social dynamics. Students will learn how to read a case, scrutinize court briefings, and contextualize bias as a foundation to erect a more just, equitable, and inclusionary legal system.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 261D:
Democracy in Crisis: Historical Perspectives
Scholars and pundits warn that American democracy is in crisis. But what is at stake? How new is this crisis? And can historical analysis offer insight into our present predicament?nnThis course will examine five historical crises of democracy: the Constitutional Convention, the Civil War, the Progressive Movement, World War II, and the protest movements of the 1960s. For each crisis, we will explore the political, cultural, and intellectual factors that defined and resolved (or failed to resolve) each crisis.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 261E:
Introduction to Asian American History (AMSTUD 261W, ASNAMST 261)
This course provides an introduction to the field of Asian American history. Tracing this history between the arrival of the first wave of Asian immigrants to the US in the mid-nineteenth century and the present, we foreground the voices and personal histories of seemingly everyday Asian Americans. In the process, the course disrupts totalizing national historical narratives that center the US nation-state and its political leaders as the primary agents of historical change.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 261G:
Presidents and Foreign Policy in Modern History (INTNLREL 173)
Nothing better illustrates the evolution of the modern presidency than the arena of foreign policy. This class will examine the changing role and choices of successive presidential administrations over the past century, examining such factors as geopolitics, domestic politics, the bureaucracy, ideology, psychology, and culture. Students will be encouraged to think historically about the institution of the presidency, while examining specific case studies, from the First World War to the conflicts of the 21st century. Non-matriculating students are asked to consult the instructor before enrolling in the course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 261P:
The Pen and the Sword: A Gendered History (COMPLIT 140, FEMGEN 141B, ITALIAN 141)
As weapons, the pen and the sword have been used to wound, punish, and condemn as well as to protect, liberate, and elevate. Historically entangled with ideals of heroism, nobility, and civility, the pen and the sword have been the privileged instruments of men. Yet, throughout history, women have picked up the pen and the sword in defense, despair, and outrage as well as with passion, vision, and inspiration. This course is dedicated to them, and to study of works on love, sex, and power that articulate female experience. In our readings and seminars, we will encounter real and fictive women in their own words and in narrations and depictions by others from classical antiquity to the present, with a special focus on the Renaissance and on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Touching on such topics as flattery and slander through the study of misogynistic, protofeminist, and feminist works in the early modern and modern periods in various European literary traditions, we will consider questions of truth and falsehood in fiction and in life. Course materials span a variety genres and media, from poetry, letters, dialogues, public lectures, treatises, short stories, and drama to painting, sculpture, music, and film works regarded for their aesthetic, intellectual, religious, social, and political value and impact.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
HISTORY 262:
Race and Gender in the 1990s United States
Popular references to the 1990s are often contradictory: it was somehow an era of prosperity and anxiety, stability and scandal, "colorblindness" and "race riots," and "New Democrats" and the "Republican Revolution." This course seeks to reconcile these apparent inconsistencies by examining the intersections of gender and race in American politics and popular culture. With a historical framework, students will situate this decade within the larger shifts of the late twentieth-century, including political realignment, increasing polarization, and economic dislocation.
| Units: 5
HISTORY 262A:
Taylor Swift and Millennial America
Whether you identify as a Swiftie or "grumble on about how she can't sing," it is impossible to deny that Taylor Swift has become a cultural, economic, and political powerhouse. This course will place Swift in historical context within the modern United States, exploring the forces that enabled her rise to superstardom as well as those that shape her loyal millennial and Gen-Z fanbase. Topics include the politics of country music; the roles of globalization and technology in the rapidly changing music industry; feminist readings, and feminist critiques, of Swift's career; and the attempts of various communities to claim Swift as their own, including Gaylors and the alt-right. Fans and non-fans alike are welcome, as our historical objective is to explore Swift, the world that made her, and the world that she is creating at a critical distance.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 262B:
The Roots of Gendered Labor: Women and Work in American History (AMSTUD 262B, FEMGEN 262B)
This class will explore the long, tangled history of women's labor in North America. Beginning with gendered labor practices among Native Americans, West Africans, and Europeans in the seventeenth century, this class will proceed thematically and chronologically through the early twentieth century. We will consider the deep roots of gendered labor in American history, asking how categories of race and class, freedom and enslavement, and immigration status have structured female labor. We will also examine the ways in which social transformations such as industrialization and urbanization, as well as changes in the economic, political, and sexual order shaped the experiences of laboring women. Reading secondary sources alongside a rich array of primary sources, including images and songs, we will consider the deep continuities and wrenching changes in the meanings of women's work over time.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 262E:
Extremism in America, from the Ku Klux Klan to January 6
(262E is 5 units; 62E is 3 units.)This course is a historical analysis of extremism in the United States from Reconstruction through the present day, looking at such figures and movements and the KKK, the First Red Scare, Father Coughlin and the Christian Front, McCarthyism, the John Birch Society, the Aryan Nations, and the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of the present. Students will explore the following questions: what do we mean by extremism? What are the material, cultural, political, and intellectual conditions that lay the groundwork for extremism? What is the relationship between political and religious extremism? Is there a connecting thread spanning extremist movements across the nation's history--a paranoid style or authoritarian personality, perhaps? With these guiding questions, students will be introduced to primary sources along with scholarly literature--classic texts and new, groundbreaking research--to equip them with a foundational knowledge of the long history of extremism in the United States.
Last offered: Summer 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 263:
Sex and Sexuality in America
This course examines the ongoing importance of sex, including sexual behavior and sexuality, in American culture and politics. We will use sex as a lens through which we can interpret major events and themes in United States history, and in the process we will uncover otherwise hidden beliefs and anxieties. From Puritans to the present day, we will analyze primary sources including court cases, letters, diaries, and memoirs alongside theoretical and historical scholarship.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 263C:
Nature's Bounty: Natural Resources and U.S. Political Economy
The United States has long been among the wealthiest countries in the world, and its economic life has been closely tied to natural resource extraction. Taking the relation between these two historical facts as a question to be examined rather than a truism to be repeated, this course considers the histories of fossil fuels, plantation agriculture, farming, forestry, fishing, and nuclear energy as they relate to wealth, poverty, and economic thought.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 263D:
Junipero Serra
Why is Junipero Serra considered a representative figure of California? How have assessments of Serra evolved over the last 200 years? Why does his name appear so often on our campus? In this course we will consider these and other questions in terms of Spanish empire, Native American history, California politics of memory and commemoration, among other approachs. Requirements include weekly reading, class discussion, a field trip to Carmel Mission, short writing assignments, and a formal debate on the ethics naming university or public buildings after historical figures with contested pasts. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 264:
History of Prisons and Immigration Detention (AMSTUD 264, CSRE 264, HISTORY 364)
This course will explore the history of the growing prison and immigration detention systems in the United States. They will pay particular attention to how they developed and how they affect different populations.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 264D:
Modern America in Historical Perspective (SIW 185)
Last offered: Autumn 2018
| Units: 5
HISTORY 268:
Women of the Movement (AFRICAAM 208, AMSTUD 208, FEMGEN 208, FEMGEN 308, HISTORY 368, RELIGST 208, RELIGST 308)
This seminar will examine women and their gendered experience of activism, organizing, living, and leading in the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 269:
Thinking About Capitalism (HISTORY 369)
What is capitalism? An economic and social system that maximizes both individual freedom and social good? An exploitative arrangement dependent on the subordination of labor to capital? A natural arrangement guided by a munificent invisible hand? Or a finely tuned mechanism requiring state support? This class offers undergraduate and graduate students a forum to consider these questions by reading selected works by historians, sociologists, economists, and other thinkers. Together we will work our way through primary sources from the twentieth century, using them to examine how capitalism has been understood, conceptualized, defended, and attacked. We will study the history of debates about markets, the state, and social organization, taking capitalism as both an economic system and a culture. Permission number required to enroll. Please contact Professor Burns at jenniferburns@stanford.edu to request permission to enroll in the course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-SI
HISTORY 269F:
Modern American History: From Civil Rights to Human Rights (HISTORY 369F)
(History 269F is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 369F is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This focuses on American social justice movements during the years since the passage of landmark civil rights legislation during the 1960s, with particular emphasis on efforts to extend rights to all people.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 270F:
History of the Police in the United States
How did police come to have the power to use violence? Who counts as a police officer and why? Topics include: growth of professional policing, creation of private police forces and vigilantism, slave patrols, political economy of policing, global policing, and cultural depictions of police. The entanglement of race, class, gender, and state power with police work is central.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 271B:
US Latinx History (CHILATST 271B, HISTORY 371B)
This course introduces scholarship on Latinx history, a field of critical importance to U.S. History, American studies, Latinx studies, ethnic studies, Latin American studies, and African American history. In order to cover a plethora of Latinx experiences, it will focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Central American, and other Latinx communities from the 1840s into present, though it does not adhere to a strict chronological time frame. This course attempts to show the hemispheric nature of Latinx history. It also emphasizes a notion of Latinidad as a contingent historical process. Key themes which survey its complexity include the nature and legacies of imperialism; the politics of peoplehood and citizenship; trans-border connections; the importance of race, class, and gender in defining politics and culture; the emergence of ethnic nationalisms; and the development of urban enclaves. In particular, our class will focus on linking these dynamics to present-day issues and debates.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 271C:
Iberian Expansion Through the Looking Glass: One World or Many? (COMPLIT 251A, COMPLIT 351A, CSRE 251, CSRE 351, HISTORY 371C, ILAC 251, ILAC 351)
The conquerors, missionaries, and historians who reflected on Iberian overseas expansion during the early modern period often asked themselves a crucial question: was there only one world or many? Were the Americas a 'New World,' unknown to the ancients, entirely detached from the rest of human history? Even after the invasion and occupation of the Americas, many European chroniclers continued to think that the world was divided into three parts - Europe, Asia, and Africa. In their descriptions of the Americas, they drew heavily on histories and travel reports pertaining to other epochs and locales, especially contemporary Asia and ancient Rome. At the same time, indigenous elites and mestizo authors in the Americas used 'Old World' history and news of distant conflicts to reflect on the immediacy of their historical experience. In this course, students will consider the ways in which diverse authors in New Spain (Mexico), Peru, and Brazil contemplated themselves in relation to remote times and places: from Greco-Roman Antiquity to Lutheran Germany, the Ottoman Mediterranean to the Apocalyptic End of Times. Students will analyze the many reflections, distortions, inversions, translations, uncanny resemblances, and strange parallel dimensions that resulted from these intellectual experiments. Primary sources include chronicles, poetry, theater, Afro-Catholic festivals, pictographic codices, feather mosaics, and maps. All texts offered in the original language and in English translation whenever possible. For graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 272:
Colonial Mexico: Images and Power (ARTHIST 277, HISTORY 372B, ILAC 214, ILAC 314)
How did images maintain, construct, or transform political power during the conquest and colonization of Mexico? The creation and destruction of visual materials in this period had a complicated relationship with power. The pictographic codices that celebrated the expansive Aztec Empire were created after its fall; and the conquistadors' indigenous allies painted some of the most triumphalist narratives of the conquest. Friars accused indigenous peoples of "idolatry" both to justify the destruction of their images and objects, and to construct legal defenses of their humanity. Colonial authorities frequently claimed Afro-Catholic festivals were seditious. In light of such complexity, official histories that recount the top-down consolidation of royal and viceroyal power are suspiciously simple. What counter-narratives do images and other visual phenomena from this tumultuous period offer? This course introduces students to major texts from Colonial Mexico (royal chronicles, conquistadors' tales, letters, poems, festival accounts) alongside a fascinating trove of images (painted codices with Nahuatl texts, feather mosaics, and indigenous heraldry) and considers how experiences of images and spectacles were transformed into textual accounts ("ekphrasis" or the literary device of description). Taught in Spanish with accommodations for non-ILAC students who are still improving their language skills
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 273:
Mexican Immigration to the United States (HISTORY 373)
This course is an introduction to the history of Mexican migration to the United States. Barraged with anti-immigrant rhetoric and calls for bigger walls and more restrictive laws, few people in the United States truly understand the historical trends that shape migratory processes, or the multifaceted role played by both US officials and employers in encouraging Mexicans to migrate north. Moreover, few have actually heard the voices and perspectives of migrants themselves. This course seeks to provide students with the opportunity to place migrants' experiences in dialogue with migratory laws as well as the knowledge to embed current understandings of Latin American migration in their meaningful historical context.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 273D:
Caudillos and Dictators from BolÃvar to Bolsonaro: Modern South America
Latin American history provides key insight into the origins and resurgence of authoritarianism as well as various forms of political and social resistance. Consequently, this course surveys the major social, economic, political, and cultural trends that shaped modern South American history. We will examine the nation-states forged in the aftermath of early-nineteenth-century independence movements, their diverse peoples, and how their development was shaped by US imperialism and intervention. We will analyze the following themes: liberalism vs. conservatism; modernization and neocolonialism ('order and progress'); the rise of nationalism and populism; industrialization and the environment; (im)migration and urbanization; and neoliberal reform. Special emphasis is placed on racial and gender inequality and the struggle for both national and individual self-determination.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 273E:
Revolution and Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean
This course examines key instances of revolution, reaction, and intervention in select Central American and Caribbean nations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will explore how various forms of imperialism/neocolonialism intensified class, racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities that produced poverty, dictatorship, and armed uprisings in these culturally diverse regions of the Americas. Through primary and secondary sources, film, music, media, popular art and literature students will gain insight into the political, social, and economic trends that made Central America and the Caribbean epicenters of social struggle as well as home to the Western Hemisphere's poorest countries.
| Units: 5
HISTORY 274A:
The Historical Archaeology of Latin America (ARCHLGY 160, CSRE 160A)
How has the study of past material cultures contributed to our comprehension of the Iberian colonial experience in the New World? How has an archaeology of the recent past been presented to the public and made socially relevant in contemporary Latin American nations? This course invites students to address these questions in the light of current Latin American thought, and to gain innovative perspectives on the different processes through which archaeological knowledge participates in the formation and transformation of cultural, social, and racial identities in present-day Latin America. Exploring a wide array of scholarly literature--principally produced in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico--this course will offer detailed insight into the achievements, limitations, possibilities, and future challenges of Latin American historical archaeology. Through this course, students will be familiarized with some of the main topics that have been approached in Latin America, which range from the study of cultural contact in early colonial settlements to the development of forensic archaeology as a therapeutic instrument facilitating the remembrance of a traumatic past. Class discussions will also delve into rich archaeological evidence testifying to the development of specific social spaces and categories, such as maroons, colonial borderlands, or gentrified households in republican urban centers. The careful analysis of each one of these highly varied topics, as described in local archaeological literature, will contribute to a better understanding of how the politics of cultural heritage plays out across Latin America.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 274C:
Mexican American History (AMSTUD 274C, CHILATST 274, HISTORY 374C)
This course will explore the history of Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans from 1848 to the present.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 276C:
Central American Refugees (HISTORY 376C)
Students will work with the Stanford Immigration and Asylum Lab to conduct research on conditions in Mexico and Central America to support people seeking U.S. asylum. With the guidance of historians and attorneys, students will analyze publicly available information on violence, corruption, discrimination, and other relevant country conditions to corroborate the lived experiences of asylum-seeking clients. Through collaborations with local nonprofit legal services providers, students will contribute country conditions research for expert testimony to support the asylum cases of people who have fled persecution. Guest lecturers will include legal practitioners, a former immigration judge, and other experts on U.S. asylum and Latin America. Through this work, students will gain critical research skills and an understanding of the U.S. asylum system, its implications in the Americas, and contemporary human security issues in the region, while meaningfully impacting people in need of protection.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 277:
Refugees and Asylum (CHILATST 277, HISTORY 377)
This course explores the histories of refugees and asylum seekers to the United States and helps students learn how people seek asylum by working on the legal cases of current asylum seekers.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 278B:
The Historical Ecology of Latin America (HISTORY 378)
This seminar explores the ways in which access to natural resources has translated into political and economic power in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the colonial period to the present. We will examine how state-building projects (colonialism, capitalism, socialism) have used natural resources as a tool to assert power and legitimacy in the region and on the world stage. We will also explore how Latin American and Caribbean thinkers and activists have offered some of the earliest critiques of capitalism based on the region's environmental exploitation. How has the long history of resource extraction and resistance played out in Latin America and the Caribbean? In what ways have indigenous and local knowledge been overlooked, even as that knowledge informed scientific innovation or management techniques over time? How can environmental history reveal new perspectives on the history of colonialism, inequality, and resistance in the region? Case studies range from hurricanes in the Caribbean to the fight of the Indigenous Cofán against oil spills in Ecuador. Students will learn how to think and write like historians through participation in class discussions, regular short response papers, and creative research toward a final project.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 279:
Latin American Development: Economy and Society, 1800-2014 (HISTORY 379)
The newly independent nations of Latin America began the 19th century with economies roughly equal to the U.S. and Canada. What explains the economic gap that developed since 1800? Why are some Latin American nations rich and others poor and how have societies changed over time? Marxist, dependency, neoclassical, and institutionalist interpretive frameworks are explored. The effects of globalization on Latin American economic growth, autonomy, and potential for social justice are examined and debated.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom
HISTORY 279A:
Immigration and Asylum Practicum (HISTORY 379A)
Course description coming soon.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 279B:
Potatoes, Coca, and Tamales: Food in Latin American History
The history of Latin America is profoundly marked by the production, circulation, preparation, and consumption of food in its most different forms: as a staple food, drugs, ethnic dishes, drinks, etc. This course examines the cultural, social, economic, and environmental significance of food throughout the history of the region, from pre-Columbian times to the present. By selecting specific examples of ingredients, spices, dishes, cooking practices, and dietary habits, we will explore the role of new foods in shaping empires and global trading networks, the global circulation of Latin America's food commodities and internationalization of its cuisine, and food as an expression of identities based on race, class, gender, and nationality, linking them to major trends in the region's history. Students are welcome to explore themes of their interest related to the course topic in their assignments.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 280B:
The Birth of Islam: Authority, Community, and Resistance (GLOBAL 134, GLOBAL 234, HISTORY 380B)
This course explores the historical problem of how authority and community (in both the political and religious sense) were defined and challenged in the early Islamic period. Chronological topics covered include: the political, cultural, and religious world of Late Antiquity into which Muhammad was born; the crystallization of a small community of believers who supported Muhammad's message of radical monotheism and aided him in the conquest and conversion of the Arabian Peninsula; the problems of legacy and leadership in the community of the faithful after Muhammad's death; the Arabo-Islamic conquests beyond Arabia during the 7th and early 8th centuries and the establishment of the first Islamic empire under the rule of the Umayyad clan; the Sunni/Shi'a split (and further splits in Shi'ism); the revolution of 750 A.D. and overthrow of the Umayyads by the 'Abbasids; the flourishing of a sophisticated world of learning and culture under the 'Abbasids; and the waning of the 'Abbasids empire in the tenth century and political reconfiguration of the Islamic lands.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 281D:
Introduction to Islamic Law (HISTORY 381D)
What is Islamic law? What kinds of sources do we use to access Islamic law, and how has Islamic legal thinking and practice changed historically? This course introduces students to topics in Islamic law while addressing questions of continuity and change in the legal tradition from the medieval period to the present. The first part of the course will introduce aspects of substantive Islamic law, including criminal and penal law, family law, and the law of war. The second part will explore the diversity of Islamic legal traditions across chronological and geographic space, examining topics from classical jurisprudence to Ottoman constitutionalism, the encounter with colonialism and modern state iterations. No prior knowledge or prerequisites are required.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 281E:
Oil, Maps, Data: Technology in the Middle East (HISTORY 381E)
This course introduces students to a wide range of humanities and social science concepts pertaining to the global study of technology with an emphasis on the Middle East in the 19th, 20th and 21st-centuries. The main body of the course focuses on three case studies namely oil, mapping, and the internet through which issues of power, race, colonialism, financial imperialism, violence, and surveillance will be explored. This colloquium provides a unique perspective on contemporary debates about the politics and ethics of technology through a study of their global circulation.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 281J:
The Road to Global Jihad: From Radical Networks to Militant Islamism
This course traces the historical development of Islamically-oriented armed networks without theologizing or essentializing their nature, organizational structures, activities, or violence. We will cover the scholarly studies on militant organizations such as Egyptian Jihad, Al-Gama'at Al-Islamiyya, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, IS(IS), Hizbullah with their sectarian, ideological, and strategic diversity. The trajectory of militant Islamism as various offshoots from earlier global radical Muslim networks will be of critical focus. Basic jihadi texts and historical surveys and monographs on organizations will form the major components of the readings."
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 281L:
Early Modern Iran: Continuity and Change (GLOBAL 131L)
This course is an opportunity and invitation to explore themes and topics in politics and society in Iran from 1500 to 1900 CE. The course invites students to read, discuss, and reflect on trends and events that shaped early modern politics and society in Iran through the lens of primary and secondary sources, including narrative and archival sources in translation. Topics include the changing dynamics of state-building, religious transition, revivalist movements, women in politics and society, modernization paths in response to European global hegemony, and center-periphery relations concerning linguistic and religious minorities.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
HISTORY 282:
Ottoman Palestine (HISTORY 382)
This course focuses on Palestine during Ottoman rule, spanning from the 16th century to the 1920s. It explores the diverse peoples, territories, cities, and cultures of Palestine, alongside significant political developments. Key themes include the region's integration into the Ottoman Empire, the reconstruction of Jerusalem under Ottoman rule, European fascination with the "Holy Land," intricate dynamics among Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Armenians, and Jews with fluid boundaries, the rise of regional powers, the expansion of global trade and capitalism, and the establishment of Jewish settlements alongside Ottoman reforms in the 19th century. The course culminates in discussions on contested notions of multi-religious and multi-national Ottoman citizenship, and examines the eventual demise of the Ottoman regime within the context of the Zionist movement, Palestinian and Arab nationalism, and European colonial ambitions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 282J:
Disasters in Middle Eastern History
(History 282J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 382J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) nnThis course explores the history of disasters in the Middle East from the early modern period to the mid-20th-century. We will trace the evolving meanings of disasters and misfortunes by focusing on critical moments -- plagues, fires, earthquakes, wars -- to examine how people have responded to these events, labeled them, and devised strategies to live with or forget them. The course readings follow the evolution of policies and norms together with the articulation of new forms of knowledge and expertise in the wake of catastrophe. Additionally, particular attention will be paid to how modern conceptions of disaster relate to older understandings of apocalypse, as well as to various strands of "disaster reformism," when rethinking tragedy and time helped assert radical agendas for reforming political, economic, social, communal, racial, and gender relations while remodeling social science and intellectual life. The course focuses on various trajectories of disaster thinking in Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 282K:
Refugees and Migrants in the Middle East and Balkans: 18th Century to Present (HISTORY 382K, JEWISHST 282K)
This course studies one of the most pressing issues of our day--massive population displacements--from a historical perspective. Our focus will be the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, including Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. Questions include the following: When and why did certain ethno-religious groups begin to relocate en masse? To what extent were these departures caused by state policy? In what cases can we apply the term "ethnic cleansing"? How did the movement of people and the idea of the nation influence each other in the modern age?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 283B:
The Ottoman Empire and Iran: An Intertwined History of Islamic Eurasia (HISTORY 383B)
A history of the Ottoman Empire and Iran (under the Timurid, Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties) from the 14th to the early 20th century. The course invites students to think the Ottoman and Iranian experiences as a connected history, bridging separate historiographical traditions of Ottoman and Persianate worlds. Topics include paths of empire building in Eurasia after the Mongols; consolidation of the Sunni-Shii division; border making in early modern Eurasia; Armenians, Kurds and Afghans between Ottoman and Iranian orders; Istanbul and Isfahan; European global hegemony and Islamic Eurasia; two paths of modernization; revolutions ending the empires.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 283C:
The Medieval Middle East: Crusaders, Turks, and Mongols (GLOBAL 133, GLOBAL 233, HISTORY 383C)
This course surveys the history of the Middle East from c.950 A.D. to c.1517 A.D., placing particular emphasis on the following questions: What were the social, cultural, and political contexts for conversion to Islam in the Middle Ages? How did the interplay of nomadic and sedentary peoples shape Middle Eastern history? What were the nature of Christian-Muslim relations and the fate of religious minorities in an age of Crusade and Jihad? What were the conditions for the rise, flourishing, and eventual collapse of a ¿world-system¿ in this period (with the lands of the Middle East serving as its nexus)? Chronological topics include: the arrival in the Middle East of the Seljuk Turks, new adopters of Islam and recent nomads; the western European crusades to the Holy Land and the establishment of so-called ¿Crusader States¿ in Syria; the subjugation of Iran to pagan Mongols¿and the Mongols¿ eventual conversion to Islam; the rise to power of a dynasty of Turkish slave-soldiers (mamluks) in Cairo and the political reunification of Syria and Egypt under their rule. Readings will consist of both primary sources and works of modern scholarship.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 283E:
Empire and Resistance in the Modern Middle East
Many scholars and pundits present European empires as the main historical actors shaping the modern Middle East. This course will assess that claim by examining the history of European imperialism in the Middle East, giving equal weight to the power of imperialism and the many ways in the which the peoples of the region responded to and contested that power in order to shape their own history. From the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt to the European takeover of the former Ottoman lands after World War I.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 283F:
Capital and Crisis in the Middle East and the World
(History 283F is an undergraduate course for 5 units; History 383F is a graduate course for 4-5 units.) How do economies change in times of crisis? How do economic crises intersect with pandemics, violence and environmental disaster to redefine the workings of capital? This course approaches these questions through critical reading in the histories of capitalism, crisis, and intersections between legal history and political economy, using the Middle East region as a starting point for the study of global phenomena. We will examine the ways in which constructions like race and ethnicity, gender, and the human/non-human divide have mediated the social and spatial expansion of capital in the region, especially through legal categories and instruments that transform rapidly in times of crisis. Temporally, we will focus our examination between two moments of economic crisis: the ¿long depression¿ of the late nineteenth century and the financial crisis of 2008. We will ground our historical reading in attention to current events, in particular the Middle East¿s ongoing experience of the pandemic-induced global financial crisis of 2020.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 283J:
Global Islam
(Undergraduates, enroll in 283J; Graduates, enroll in 383J.) Explores the history and politics of Islam in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas --- and of the novel connections that have linked Muslim communities across the globe in modern times.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 283K:
Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Ottoman to Modern Times (HISTORY 383K, JEWISHST 283K)
At a time when Europe was riven by sectarian war, the expanding Ottoman Empire came to rule over a religiously diverse population in what we now call the Balkans and Middle East. Focusing on the period 1323-1789, this course asks the following questions: Why was "difference" normal in the Ottoman Empire but not elsewhere? How did the Ottomans maintain relatively low levels of intercommunal violence during the early-modern period? How did Ottoman rule and intracommunal dynamics affect each other? How did perceptions of ethno-religious diversity vary among commentators and over time? This course is currently pending review for WAY-SI and WAY-EDP.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
HISTORY 284:
The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Coexistence, and Coffee (HISTORY 384)
(History 284 is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 384 is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) The Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe from the 15th to the early 20th centuries. How did the Ottoman enterprise appear in the frontier region between Christendom and the Islamic world? How were diverse peoples, religions, and regions integrated under the Ottoman order? Was there an Ottoman Mediterranean and Indian Ocean? How did reform movements in Islamic, Christian and Jewish thinking transform Ottoman societies? Topics include the Ottoman Empire between Europe and Eastern Islamic World; merchants and their markets; elite, urban, rural and nomadic lives; women, family, childhood and sexuality; life, afterlife and dreams; epidemics and natural disasters. Special emphasis will be given to coffee and coffee houses which shaped public life in the Ottoman World since the 16th century. The survey ends with the rise of nationalism, inter-communal violence and the disintegration of the Ottoman world.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 284E:
Contemporary Muslim Political Thought (HISTORY 384E)
This course aims to provide an intellectual history of contemporary Muslim political thought. It presents post-nineteenth century Muslim contributions to political thought. It is designed as a survey of some major thinkers from the Arab world to Iran and Southeast Asia, from Turkey to North America, who sought to interpret Islam's basic sources and Islamic intellectual legacy. Our readings include primary texts by Tahtawi, Tunisi, Afghani, Rida, Huda Sharawi, Qutb, Shariati, and Mernissi among other prominent figures. We will analyze recurring ideas in this body of thought such as decline, civilization, rationality, ijtihad (Islamic independent reasoning), shura (deliberative decision-making), democracy, secularism, Muslim unity, khilafah (caliphate and vicegerency), freedom, equality, and justice. We will discuss their current significance for the ongoing theoretical debates in Muslim political thought, Muslim intellectual history, and comparative political theory.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 284F:
Empires, Markets and Networks: Early Modern Islamic World Between Europe and China, 1400-1900 (HISTORY 384F)
Focuses on political regimes, transregional connections, economic interactions and sociocultural formations in the early modern Islamic Afro-Eurasia. Topics include complex political-economic systems of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires and expansion of Turco-Persianate political and literary cultures across the Post-Mongolian Eurasia; experiences of various Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Hindu, as well as urban, rural and nomadic communities and networks under Islamicate political regimes; consolidation of transregional commerce and cultural exchange with the proliferation of networks of merchants, scholars and sufis; new tendencies in knowledge, individual, gender, family, social order, and religion; incorporation of the Islamic world in the global economy; Muslims in the age of revolutions; political and social reforms and consolidation of Muslim internationalism in the age of imperialism.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
HISTORY 284G:
The Neo-Imperial Middle East
This course begins with the withdrawal of the European empires from the Middle East in the wake of World War II and the ascendance of the United States (and to a lesser extent the Soviet Union) in the region. We will follow these superpowers' attempts to build and control spheres of influence in the Middle East throughout the 20th Century and continue on to an examination of the Arab Spring as a response to decades of American-imposed neoliberal policies. The focus will be on two themes: first, what techniques did the US and USSR use to project power in the Middle East, and what (if anything) distinguished them from the practices of European imperialism? Second, how did local actors navigate this environment, either by contesting American/Soviet power or by using it to their advantage?
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 284K:
The "Other" Jews: Sephardim in Muslim-Majority Lands (HISTORY 384K, JEWISHST 284)
This course expands conceptions of Jewish History by focusing on overlooked regions such as North Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Beginning in medieval Al-Andalus, the course follows the Jews of Spain and Portugal to other parts of the world and traces their stories into the 20th century. Topics include the expulsions from Iberia, the formation of a Sephardi identity, encounters between Sephardim and other communities (Muslim, Christian, and Jewish), life in the Ottoman Empire, networks and mobility, gender, colonialism, and the rise of the nation-state paradigm.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 285C:
The Immigrant in Modern America (JEWISHST 285C)
The 2016 presidential election propelled the topic of immigration to the center of public attention. This is not the first time, however, that questions of immigration and what it means to be an American have revealed deep divisions within the U.S. This course explores the reception of immigrants in modern America, including differing views toward immigration; how immigrants help shape ideas about the American nation; and the growth of state bureaucracy and policing apparatus as a response.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 285D:
Vanishing Diaspora? Ruin, Revival, and Jewish Life in Post-Holocaust Europe (JEWISHST 285D)
This course explores the lives and fates of European Jews as they re-encountered, reimagined, and reconstructed their communities in the grim aftermath of World War II. Attending to a variety of national and ideological contexts, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe and the communist bloc, the course traces how Jews wrestled with their present and future in the wake of continent-wide calamity, the founding of the state of Israel, Soviet influence, Cold War geopolitics, the collapse of communism, and, finally, the post-Soviet order of the 1990s and 2000s. It likewise traces how postwar European Jewry grappled with the anxieties of immigration and return, the wages of acculturation and assimilation, and the interplay between cultural destruction, revival, and nostalgia in the face of persistent antisemitism, explosive Holocaust memory politics, and significant foreign Jewish philanthropy. Drawing on a wide range of printed, visual, and oral sources, this highly interdisciplinary course investigates questions particular to the Jewish experience, but also broader concerns about European inclusion, interethnic relations, and diasporic identity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. All readings are in English. **For time and location, email jtapper@stanford.edu**
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 285E:
Counterinsurgency and Torture: Algeria, Vietnam, and Iraq
This course covers the post-WWII history of counterinsurgency, a type of warfare in which a powerful, state-backed military is pitted against guerrilla fighters, or insurgents. In the context of decolonization (the dissolution of European overseas empires) and the United States' growing role on the world stage, we will examine four counterinsurgency campaigns: the French in Indochina (1946-1954) and Algeria (1954-1962); and the Americans in Vietnam (1964-1973) and Iraq (2003-2011). Using a combination of secondary and primary sources, including declassified government documents, maps, photography, film, music, news broadcasts, and recorded tapes of presidential phone calls, we will ask four overarching questions: 1) How did military planners and politicians learn from prior counterinsurgencies, and what are the strengths and pitfalls of an approach to warfare that applies historical "lessons learned" to contemporary problems? 2) Are torture and violence against civilians the results of mishandled counterinsurgency, or are they inherent to the doctrine? 3) Why have counterinsurgency strategies persisted despite long-term failures and public criticism? 4) How does historical thinking allow us to participate more effectively in debates about counterinsurgency and torture in America today? Throughout, we will explore how counterinsurgency and torture have traveled across space and time, intertwining historical trajectories in Southeast Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 286D:
Yours in Struggle: African Americans and Jews in the 20th Century U.S. (JEWISHST 286D)
This colloquium explores the history of African Americans and Jews in 20th century US beginning with Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and the Great Migration to America's urban centers. It considers the geographical and economic tensions that developed between two minority groups living in close proximity; the appropriation of black culture; Jewish claims to whiteness and performance of blackness; intercommunal relations during the Civil Rights movement; the breakdown of the black-Jewish alliance in the late 1960s; and the lingering ramifications of this shift today.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 286E:
Labor Migration: Gender, Race, and Capitalism in North Africa and the Middle East
Current media coverage dwells on the plight of migrants passing through North Africa in search of higher-wage jobs in Europe. But labor migration from, to, and through North Africa and the Middle East is nothing new. Pushing beyond widespread views of labor migration as a policy problem for Western governments to "solve," we will instead explore how migrant laborers shaped the modern history of North Africa and the Middle East, from the late Ottoman Empire until today. We will read an array of texts in history and historical anthropology--each deploying different sources, methods, and empirical examples--to discuss how migrant laborers molded 1) conceptions of race and gender, 2) the development of capitalism, 3) political mobilization, and 4) the boundaries between nations and regions. Among other examples, we will discuss trans-Atlantic migrants from the Ottoman Levant who shaped labor and gender relations within the Middle East and the Americas; migrant workers from North Africa and the Middle East who sustained wartime industries in European empires and metropoles; the construction of an oil economy in the Gulf that was built by migrant labor; and sub-Saharan African domestic workers in the Middle East facing exploitation and crisis. Throughout, we will devote particular attention to the ways in which our readings place migrant laborers and their communities at the center of analysis, despite the fact that migrant laborers do not have a voice in dominant archives.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 286F:
Jews in Trump's America and Before (JEWISHST 186)
This class considers the notion of American Jewish exceptionalism through the lens of Trump's America. The social and economic success of American Jewry over the last 350 years is remarkable, yet Jews continue to find their position in American society called into question. This course moves between past and present and will consider key moments in American Jewish life with a particular emphasis on contemporary currents, including post-liberal identity politics, Israel, and the rise of white supremacy.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 288C:
Jews of the Modern Middle East and North Africa (CSRE 288C, JEWISHST 288C)
This course will explore the cultural, social, and political histories of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from 1860 to present times. The geographic concentration will range from Morocco to Iran, Iraq to Turkey, and everywhere in between. Topics include: Jewish culture and identity in Islamic contexts; the impacts of colonialism, westernization, and nationalism; Jewish-Muslim relations; the racialization of MENA Jews; the Holocaust; the experience and place of MENA Jews in Israel; and "Jews of Color."
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 290:
North Korea in a Historical and Cultural Perspective (HISTORY 390, KOREA 190X, KOREA 290X)
North Korea has been dubbed secretive, its leaders unhinged, its people mindless dupes. Such descriptions are partly a result of the control that the DPRK exerts over texts and bodies that come through its borders. Filtered through foreign media, North Korea's people and places can seem to belong to another planet. However, students interested in North Korea can access the DPRK through a broad and growing range of sources including satellite imagery, archival documents, popular magazines, films, literature, art, tourism, and through interviews with former North Korean residents (defectors). When such sources are brought into conversation with scholarship about North Korea, they yield new insights into North Korea's history, politics, economy, and culture. This course will provide students with fresh perspectives on the DPRK and will give them tools to better contextualize its current position in the world. Lectures will be enriched with a roster of guest speakers.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 291C:
War and the Making of Modern China (EASTASN 261, EASTASN 361, HISTORY 391C, INTLPOL 249)
Instructor: Jonathan Ming-En Tang Warfare and organized state violence has been a critical part of modern China's construction over the past 150 years. What is the consequence of such violence for our understanding of PRC strategic behavior in the present day? How can these wars be placed in a larger regional context? Over the course of this time period, and across multiple governmental regimes, can a culturally 'Chinese' form of war be identified? Conflicts will be analyzed in chronological fashion, beginning with the Taiping Civil War, The First Sino-Japanese War, the early republican "Warlord Period" in the second and third decades of the twentieth century, China's participation in World War II, the Civil War between the Nationalists and the Communists, the Cold War, and the People's Republic of China's military involvement in East and Southeast Asia. This course covers selected major English-language secondary scholarship on the topic of war in China or conducted by China. No knowledge of Chinese language is required, but some background in Chinese history would be extremely helpful.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
HISTORY 291E:
Maps, Borders, and Conflict in East Asia (HISTORY 391E)
(Students enroll for 3 OR 5 units.)The nature of borders and border conflicts in N.E. Asia from the 17th to the early 20th century. Focus is on contact zones between China, Russia, Korea, and Japan. The geopolitical imperatives that drove states to map their terrain in variable ways. Cultural, diplomatic, and imperial contexts. European pressures and contributions to E. Asian cartography; the uses of maps in surveillance, diplomacy, identity, and war. Student projects focus on a contested border zone.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
HISTORY 291G:
Pre-Modern Chinese Warfare (HISTORY 391G)
This course examines the evolution of warfare in China, and its impact on the evolving political and social orders, from the earliest states through the Mongol conquest. It will study how changing military technology was inextricably linked to changes in the state and society. It will also look at changing Chinese attitudes towards warfare over the same period, from the celebration of heroism, through writing about warfare as an intellectual art, to the links of militarism with steppe peoples/
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 291K:
Korean History and Culture before 1900 (HISTORY 391K, KOREA 158, KOREA 258)
This course serves as an introduction to Korean culture, society, and history before the modern period. It begins with a discussion of early Korea and controversies over Korean origins; the bulk of the course will be devoted to the Chos'n period (1392-1910), that from the end of medieval Korea to the modern period. Topics to be covered include: Korean national and ethnic origins, the role of religious and intellectual traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism, popular and indigenous religious practices, the traditional Korean family and social order, state and society during the Chos'n dynasty, vernacular prose literature, Korean's relations with its neighbors in East Asia, and changing conceptions of Korean identity.nThe course will be conducted through the reading and discussion of primary texts in English translation alongside scholarly research. As such, it will emphasize the interpretation of historical sources, which include personal letters, memoirs, and diaries, traditional histories, diplomatic and political documents, along with religious texts and works of art. Scholarly work will help contextualize these materials, while the class discussions will introduce students to existing scholarly debates about the Korean past. Students will be asked also to examine the premodern past with an eye to contemporary reception. The final project for the class is a film study, where a modern Korean film portraying premodern Korea will be analyzed as a case study of how the past works in public historical memory in contemporary Korea, both North and South. An open-ended research paper is also possible, pending instructor approval.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 292B:
Chinese Legal History (CHINA 292B)
This undergraduate colloquium introduces students to the history of law in imperial China through close reading of primary sources in translation and highlights of Anglophone scholarship. We begin with legal perspectives from the Confucian and Legalist classics and the formation of early imperial legal codes. Then we focus on how law served as a field of interaction between state and society during China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911). Specific topics include autocracy and political crime; evidence, review, and appeals; the regulation of gender and sexual relations; the functioning of local courts; property and contract; and the informal sphere of community regulation outside the official judicial system.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 292C:
Gender in Modern South Asia (FEMGEN 292)
Gender is crucial to understanding the political, cultural, and economic trajectories of communities in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Throughout this course, we will ask a series of questions: How does gender structure conceptions of home, community, and homeland in South Asia? How do gender and religion become represented in movements for nation-states? How does women's participation in anticolonial politics and fights for equal representation in postcolonial nation-states affect our understanding of gender in South Asia today? Readings examine the creation and impact of religious personal law under British colonial rule, the role of masculinity in the British-Indian army, perspectives on religion and clothing, the interplay of rights movements and anti-colonialism, and the status of women in postcolonial India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Students will also explore a range of primary sources, including political treatises, short stories, didactic manuals, autobiographies, and travelogues.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 292D:
Japan in Asia, Asia in Japan (HISTORY 392D, JAPAN 392D)
(History 292D is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 392D is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) How Japan and Asia mutually shaped each other in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Focus is on Japanese imperialism in Asia and its postwar legacies. Topics include: pan-Asianism and orientalism; colonial modernization in Korea and Taiwan; collaboration and resistance; popular imperialism in Manchuria; total war and empire; comfort women and the politics of apology; the issue of resident Koreans; and economic and cultural integration of postwar Asia.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
HISTORY 292F:
Culture and Religions in Korean History (HISTORY 392F)
This colloquium explores the major themes of Korean history before 1800 and the role of culture and religions in shaping the everyday life of Chosôn-dynasty Koreans. Themes include the aristocracy and military in the Koryô dynasty, Buddhism and Confucianism in the making of Chosôn Korea, kingship and court culture, slavery and women, family and rituals, death and punishment, and the Korean alphabet (Hangûl) and print culture.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 293C:
Stateless in South Asia
Taking statelessness as more than a political condition, this course reviews the myriad aspects of statelessness. Exploring a few critical moments in modern South Asia (1945-2010), this seminar thematically follows the historical construction of statelessness in some of the most conflict-ridden theatres of world politics. This course explores the following questions: Is statelessness always a result of national and nationalist exclusion? What are the ways in which statelessness has amplified the gaps in the coherent rationale of national belonging?
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 293E:
Female Divinities in China (FEMGEN 293E, HISTORY 393E, RELIGST 257X, RELIGST 357X)
This course examines the fundamental role of powerful goddesses in Chinese religion. It covers the entire range of imperial history and down to the present. It will look at, among other questions, what roles goddesses played in the spirit world, how this is related to the roles of human women, and why a civilization that excluded women from the public sphere granted them a dominant place, in the religious sphere. It is based entirely on readings in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 293F:
Chinese Politics and Society (HISTORY 393F, SOC 217B, SOC 317B)
(Doctoral students register for 317B.) This seminar examines scholarship on major political developments in the People's Republic of China during its first four decades. The topics to be explored in depth this year include the incorporation of Tibet and Xinjiang into the new Chinese nation-state during the 1950s, political violence during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, and the nationwide political upheavals of 1989.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom
HISTORY 294E:
The Past in Ancient China (HISTORY 394E)
Introduction to the most important sources in the early Chinese historiographical tradition (broadly conceived), examining how the past was mobilized across a range of textual genres including poetry, speeches, philosophy, narrative, and rhetoric. Prior knowledge of premodern Chinese history and culture is not required. All reading materials will be in English; no knowledge of modern or classical Chinese is expected.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 294K:
Chinese Migrations
This seminar will explore global patterns of Chinese migration, and consider both continuities and change within these movements. We will examine Chinese communities here in California, as well as in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. In addition to the dynamics of specific encounters, the course examines how Chinese migrants contributed to broader patterns of nation building, colonialism, race formation, capitalist development, and global constructions of "Chinese-ness?"
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 295E:
Trenches, Guerrillas, and Bombs: Modern Warfare in East Asian History
(295E is 5 units; 95E is 3 units.) This course is an introduction to the field of military history. But rather than centering on the typical Western perspectives, it focuses on studying the East Asian modern warfare during the early 20th century. Students will investigate, define, and historicize different kinds of wars, and draw historical lessons to better understand the contemporary military conflicts. From the trench warfare in the Russo-Japanese War, to the guerrilla warfare of the Chinese Communist Party, and to Americans' strategic bombing in the Korean War, students will identify modern warfare's historical characteristics in East Asia and reflect on how they continue to affect the politics in the region today.
Last offered: Summer 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 295J:
Chinese Women's History (CHINA 295J, FEMGEN 295J)
The lives of women in the last 1,000 years of Chinese history. Focus is on theoretical questions fundamental to women's studies. How has the category of woman been shaped by culture and history? How has gender performance interacted with bodily disciplines and constraints such as medical, reproductive, and cosmetic technologies? How relevant is the experience of Western women to women elsewhere? By what standards should liberation be defined?
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 296E:
Modern South Asia, 1500- Present
This course examines the major political, social, religious, and cultural developments within early modern, colonial, and postcolonial South Asia. Topics include religious reform, the role of women, anticolonialism, and national formation. Students will be introduced to critical writings on the emergence of modernity on the Indian subcontinent.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 296F:
Science and Society in Modern South Asia
(Undergraduates, enroll in 296F. Graduates, enroll in 396F.) Modern science, technology and medicine are global phenomena, and yet scientific knowledge, as the product of human activity, reflects the social, political, economic and cultural contexts in which it is produced, mobilized and used. This course explores the dynamic relationship between science and society in South Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Taking scientific practice as not the exclusive domain of the British colonial state, its European personnel or even South Asian scientists, this course explores the knowledge practices of a range of actors in South Asian societies. We will pursue two questions throughout: How and where did South Asians learn, receive, interpret, practice, and produce scientific knowledge? How did they mobilize this knowledge in their own political and social agendas? In these varied practical, social and cultural projects, science became a force for civilization and enlightenment, political domination and national liberation, and economic development and social transformation. In fact, a 'scientific temperament' has also come to be upheld as the appropriate civic attitude of postcolonial citizens. Through these themes, this course examines the making of the power and cultural authority of the sciences and their practitioners in modern South Asia.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 296L:
The Worlds of Labor in Modern India (ANTHRO 196F)
This colloquium will introduce students to the exciting and expanding field of Indian labor history and provide them a comprehensive historiographical foundation in this area of historical research. Seminars will engage with one key monograph in the field every week, with selected chapters of the monograph set as compulsory reading. In these seminars, we will explore the world of the working classes and the urban poor in colonial and post-colonial India, as also the Indian labor diaspora. We will understand myriad workplaces such as jute and cotton mills, small workshops, farms and plantations. We will also explore forms of protest and political mobilization devised by workers in their struggles against structures of oppression and in their quest for a life of dignity. Most importantly, these seminars will train students in the methods deployed by labor historians to access the lives of the largely unlettered workers of the region who seldom left a trace of their consciousness in archival documents. Overall, we will connect the debates in the history of labor in modern India to wider discussions about the nature of capitalism, colonial modernity, gender, class, caste and culture.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 297C:
Pre-modern Chinese Foreign Relations and Diplomacy
As the PRC's economic and political clout has grown, Chinese diplomacy and foreign relations have drawn far more attention. Especially following the start of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative, both popular and academic commentators have often referred to the supposedly ancient precedents of the modern PRC's approach to foreign policy. PRC leaders have themselves invoked the Chinese tradition of foreign relations as one that enabled largely peaceful coexistence between China and its neighbors, unlike Western alternatives. This course will take a long-duree approach to understanding the conceptual frameworks, interactions, and historical events that shaped Chinese diplomacy and foreign relations from the time of the Mongol invasions up to the early twentieth century. The questions we will consider include: What basic geographic, environmental, and economic factors influenced Chinese foreign relations? Did frequently invoked concepts like "the tributary system" or "Silk Road" actually exist in Chinese thought, and if so, how did they affect the pragmatic practice of diplomacy? What was the role of ritual, poetry, and other forms of praxis in the sphere of foreign relations? How did the way that Chinese thought about the outside world and foreigners thought about China shift over time, especially in the 19th century with the advent of the much more pressing threat of European powers and Japan? The course will conclude by more directly examining the legacy of imperial Chinese foreign relations for China and the world in the 20th and 21st century.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
HISTORY 297G:
Rulers, Reformers, Radicals: History of India in Two Centuries
This course traces the cultural, religious, literary, and political lineages of India during the last two centuries. It investigates the conditions and impact of colonialism in the formation of the contemporary subcontinent. In doing so, the course examines the ways in which Indians changed their society, culture, and identities as they became entwined with colonial, imperial, and global forces. Over the course of the quarter, we will address the following questions: What was the nature of colonial rule in India? How did the process of colonization shape questions of gender and class, race and caste in India? In societies as diverse as India, is anticolonialism synonymous with nationalism?
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 297T:
Time and History in South Asia (HISTORY 397T)
This course explores key concepts and themes around the temporal cultures of South Asia, with an emphasis on the transition from the middle ages to modernity. We will study the philosophical/scientific understandings of time and history in South Asia, and how the West read (or misread) these temporal traditions. Topics include: the philosophical debates around cyclical and linear time; the development of historical thinking outside Europe; the impact of colonialism on medieval understandings of time and history; the challenges to our sense of 'future' due to the current climate crisis. The goal is to think of South Asia not merely as subject to Western epistemologies and temporalities, but also as an important site where our current concepts and propositions about time and history were developed.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 298:
Major Topics in Modern Chinese History: Cultural and Intellectual History (HISTORY 398)
China has experienced profound changes over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the span of less than two hundred years, the country has witnessed colonial incursions by multiple Western powers, the demise of an imperial system over two millennia old, a period of widespread political and social fragmentation, a debilitating war against Japan, a Communist revolution that dwarfed in size its Russian counterpart, and a tumultuous period of Communist rule that has itself fluctuated between periods of unprecedented economic growth and chaos. This course is part of a two-part master class in modern Chinese history. The course will offer students an intensive introduction to the historiography of modern China, mapping out key theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and influential contemporary scholars. Over the past four decades, the study of China has changed as dramatically as China itself. Unprecedented access to Chinese archives, the growth of PhD-granting Chinese history programs worldwide, and a host of formidable new approaches and methodologies have fundamentally changed, deepened, and diversified our study of Chinese history. Owing to this sometimes dizzying diversity, never before has our understanding of modern China so required us to develop a holistic understanding of Chinese historiography as well.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 298C:
Race, Gender, & Sexuality in Chinese History (ASNAMST 298, CSRE 298G, FEMGEN 298C, HISTORY 398C)
This course examines the diverse ways in which identities--particularly race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality have been understood and experienced in Chinese societies, broadly defined, from the imperial period to the present day. Topics include changes in women's lives and status, racial and ethnic categorizations, homosexuality, prostitution, masculinity, and gender-crossing.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
HISTORY 298E:
Chinese Pop Culture: A History
This discussion course examines the evolution of popular culture in the Chinese-speaking world and diaspora from the late imperial era to the present. Analyzing myth, literature, medicine, music, art, film, fashion, and internet culture will help students understand the revolutionary social and political changes that have transformed modern East Asia.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
HISTORY 298F:
Social Movements and State Power in China, 1644-Present
This discussion course investigates the ideological, political and environmental conditions that have shaped social movements, uprisings and governance in China from the late imperial period to the present. It considers differences between the experience of social movements, the portrayal of social movements and the memory of social movements, as well as evolving approaches to wielding power.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
HISTORY 299A:
Senior Research I
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Barakat, N. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Vardi, G. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI);
Dowding, K. (GP)
HISTORY 299B:
Senior Research II
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Barakat, N. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Vardi, G. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 299C:
Senior Research III
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
9 times
Instructors: ;
Barakat, N. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Vardi, G. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 299F:
Curricular Practical Training
Following internship work, students complete a research report outlining work activity, problems investigated, key results and follow-up projects. Meets the requirements for curricular practical training for students on F-1 visas. Student is responsible for arranging own internship and faculty sponsorship.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 3 units total)
Instructors: ;
Baker, K. (PI);
Beinin, J. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Camarillo, A. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Carson, C. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Holloway, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kennedy, D. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Kumar, A. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Rakove, J. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Roberts, R. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Sheffer, E. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
White, R. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 299H:
Junior Honors Colloquium
Required of junior History majors planning to write a History honors thesis during senior year. Meets four times during the quarter.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
HISTORY 299M:
Undergraduate Directed Research: Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-4
| Repeatable
for credit
HISTORY 299P:
Mastering Uncertainty: The Power of Archival Thinking (HISTORY 399P)
When confronted with chaos and uncertainty, do you know how to stay calm, ask the right questions, and find the answers? Archival researchers do. Do you realize that less than 1 percent of primary sources have been digitized, and that 99 percent still exist in their original formats in collections, small and large, scattered all across the world? Do you know how to find them and use them? Archival researchers do. Through hands-on exercises in Stanford's archives, students learn the fundamentals of archival research. Pursuing their own research interests, students will learn to become self-sufficient, independent researchers capable of navigating uncertainty and producing knowledge--a skill set in demand no matter what their major or post-graduate plans.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 3 units total)
HISTORY 299S:
Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing
May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Barakat, N. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daniels, J. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
McConnell, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Roberts, R. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Vardi, G. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 301A:
The Global Drug Wars (HISTORY 201A)
Explores the global story of the struggle over drugs from the nineteenth century to the present. Topics include the history of the opium wars in China, controversies over wine and tobacco in Iran, narco-trafficking and civil war in Lebanon, the Afghan 'narco-state,' Andean cocaine as a global commodity, the politics of U.S.- Mexico drug trafficking, incarceration, drugs, and race in the U.S., and the globalization of the American 'war on drugs.'
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 301D:
History Goes Pop! Songwriting the Past (HISTORY 201D)
Historical research doesn't always take the form of a thesis, an article, or a book. Sometimes, research leads to film, museum exhibits, works of art, or... music. In this class, students will collaborate to write, record, and produce original pop music (perhaps even an entire album) based on original research in Stanford's wealth of archives and Special Collections. Background in music is NOT required.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3
HISTORY 301P:
History and Policy (HISTORY 201P)
Can historical thinking produce more humane forms of governance? This course exposes students to the discipline of history as an instrument of policy critique and formulation. Students will pursue their own research projects with the option of creating papers and/or audio/visual products.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 302:
Technopolitics: Materiality, Power, Theory (ANTHRO 302A)
This graduate readings seminar provides a lively introduction to some of the major themes and issues in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). How do technologies and material assemblages perform power? How are their designs and uses shaped by social, cultural, and political dynamics? How do they shape those dynamics? The course draws on an interdisciplinary body of literature in humanities and social science, mixing theoretical material with more empirically oriented studies, and classics with new scholarship.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 302B:
Coffee, Sugar, and Chocolate: Commodities and Consumption in World History, 1200-1800 (ARTHIST 102B, ARTHIST 302B, HISTORY 202B, HISTORY 402B)
Many of the basic commodities that we consider staples of everyday life became part of an increasingly interconnected world of trade, goods, and consumption between 1200 and 1800. This seminar offers an introduction to the material culture of the late medieval and early modern world, with an emphasis on the role of European trade and empires in these developments. We will examine recent work on the circulation, use, and consumption of things, starting with the age of the medieval merchant, and followed by the era of the Columbian exchange in the Americas that was also the world of the Renaissance collector, the Ottoman patron, and the Ming connoisseur. This seminar will explore the material horizons of an increasingly interconnected world, with the rise of the Dutch East India Company and other trading societies, and the emergence of the Atlantic economy. It concludes by exploring classic debates about the "birth" of consumer society in the eighteenth century. How did the meaning of things and people's relationships to them change over these centuries? What can we learn about the past by studying things? Graduate students who wish to take a two-quarter graduate research seminar need to enroll in 402B in fall and 430 in winter.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 302D:
Power in the Anthropocene: Pasts, Presents, Futures (ANTHRO 302D, SUSTAIN 352)
The Anthropocene designates the present geological epoch, in which humans have irreversibly changed planet Earth, with impacts discernible in the atmosphere, biosphere, and more. The term has also become a "charismatic mega-category" in the humanities and social sciences, where some critique the very concept, while others focus on how power dynamics, political economy, racial capitalism, and human/non-human relations manifest--and often accelerate--Anthropocenic transformations. This PhD-level course dives into these debates, drawing on work in a wide range of fields in the humanities, social sciences, arts, and natural science (the latter with works accessible to non-expert audiences). The course involves considerable reading. Written assignments will be varied and often experimental. The format of the final assignment will be flexible, with options that can be adapted to the needs and interests of individual students.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 302F:
Surveillance States and Societies (HISTORY 202F)
The course analyzes the evolution, functions, structures and consequences of surveillance in the modern era. Among issues discussed are the rise of the modern state and population politics, information gathering and its uses in domestic and national security arenas, institutions of surveillance in various regimes and polities, and the challenge of privacy, legal and ethical dilemmas.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 302G:
Peoples, Armies and Governments of the Second World War (HISTORY 202G)
Clausewitz conceptualized war as always consisting of a trinity of passion, chance, and reason, mirrored, respectively, in the people, army and government. Following Clausewitz, this course examines the peoples, armies, and governments that shaped World War II. Analyzes the ideological, political, diplomatic and economic motivations and constraints of the belligerents and their resulting strategies, military planning and fighting. Explores the new realities of everyday life on the home fronts and the experiences of non-combatants during the war, the final destruction of National Socialist Germany and Imperial Japan, and the emerging conflict between the victors. How the peoples, armies and governments involved perceived their possibilities and choices as a means to understand the origins, events, dynamics and implications of the greatest war in history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 303:
Premodern Economic Cultures (HISTORY 203)
Modern economists have made a science of studying the aggregate effects of individual choices. This science is based on the realities of personal freedom and individual choice. Prior to the modern era, however, different realities comprised very different economic cultures: moral economies in which greed was evil and generosity benefitted the patron's soul; familial collectives operating within historical conditioned diasporas; economies of obligation that threatened to collapse under their own weight as economic structures shifted. In this course we will be reading cross-culturally to develop an understanding of the shared and distinct elements of premodern economic cultures.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 303C:
History of Ignorance
Scholars pay a lot of attention to knowledge--how it arises and impacts society--but much less attention has been given to ignorance, even though its impacts are equally profound. Here we explore the political history of ignorance, through case studies including: corporate denials of harms from particular products (tobacco, asbestos), climate change denialism, and creationist rejections of Darwinian evolution. Students will be expected to produce a research paper tracing the origins and impact of a particular form of ignorance.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 303E:
Infrastructure & Power in the Global South (AFRICAST 303E, ANTHRO 303E)
In the last decade, the field of infrastructure studies has entered into conversation with area studies, post/colonial studies, and other scholarship on the "Global South." These intersections have produced dramatic new understandings of what "infrastructures" are, and how to analyze them as conduits of social and political power. This course offers a graduate-level introduction to this recent scholarship, drawing primarily on works from history, anthropology, geography, and architecture.
Last offered: Winter 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 303F:
Words and Things in the History of Classical Scholarship (CLASSICS 331)
How have scholars used ancient texts and objects since the revival of the classical tradition? How did antiquarians study and depict objects and relate them to texts and reconstructions of the past? What changed and what stayed the same as humanist scholarship gave way to professional archaeologists, historians, and philologists? Focus is on key works in the history of classics, such as Erasmus and Winckelmann, in their scholarly, cultural, and political contexts, and recent critical trends in intellectual history and the history of disciplines.
Last offered: Winter 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 304:
Approaches to History
For first-year History and Classics Ph.D. students. This course explores ideas and debates that have animated historical discourse and shaped historiographical practice over the past half-century or so. The works we will be discussing raise fundamental questions about how historians imagine the past as they try to write about it, how they constitute it as a domain of study, how they can claim to know it, and how (and why) they argue about it.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 304A:
Reimagining History: A Workshop (HISTORY 204A)
This class explores, through analysis and practice, the ways in which history can be told and experienced through means other than traditional scholarly narratives. Approaches include literary fiction and non-fiction, digital media, graphic arts, maps, exhibitions, and film. A final project will require students to produce their own innovative work of history.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 304D:
Advanced Topics in Agnotology (HISTORY 204D)
Advanced research into the history of ignorance. Our goal will be to explore how ignorance is created, maintained and destroyed, using case studies from topics such as tobacco denialism, global climate denialism, and other forms of resistance to knowledge making. Course culminates in a research paper on the theory and practice of agnotology, the science of ignorance.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 304G:
War and Society (HISTORY 204G, REES 304G)
(History 204G is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 304G is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) How Western societies and cultures have responded to modern warfare. The relationship between its destructive capacity and effects on those who produce, are subject to, and must come to terms with its aftermath. Literary representations of WW I; destructive psychological effects of modern warfare including those who take pleasure in killing; changes in relations between the genders; consequences of genocidal ideology and racial prejudice; the theory of just war and its practical implementation; how wars end and commemorated.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 304M:
Historiography (CLASSICS 240)
For History and Classics MA and coterm students. This course explores how historians have explored the past, and the strengths and limits of the methods they have employed. Beginning with a survey of non-western historiography, we then investigate the modern formulation of the historical discipline and its continuing evolution. What is the basis of our claims to know the past, and how can we better sift and gauge these claims? How can we better understand the historian's changing role in a changing society?
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 305:
Graduate Pedagogy Workshop
Required of first-year History Ph.D. students. Perspectives on pedagogy for historians: course design, lecturing, leading discussion, evaluation of student learning, use of technology in teaching lectures and seminars. Addressing today's classroom: sexual harassment issues, integrating diversity, designing syllabi to include students with disabilities.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
HISTORY 305C:
Global Racial Capitalism (HISTORY 205C)
From as early as the sixteenth century to our present moment, capitalism has been a central part of modern world history. The history of capitalism is not solely one of wealth and development, but also one of extraction and exploitation. It is a history that scholars have conceptualized as racial capitalism. This course explores the global structures of inequality that are inherent to capitalism and how they have changed over time. Students will engage with key scholarly debates and theoretical concepts, which they will then apply to specific case studies in different parts of the world with a particular focus on commodities.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 305D:
Global Urban History
This graduate readings course considers the work of historians working at the crossroads of urban history and global history, with particular attention to the role of the urban setting as both product and producer of social and spatial relations of power locally and globally. Our primary aim will be to examine the variety of geographical scopes and theoretical inspirations that guide the recent subfield of 'global urban history.' Students will also grapple with the unique set of research challenges that these historians face, including utilizing hyper-local archives to evince larger-scale and the difficulty of engaging with a variety of historiographies on colonialism, globalization, network societies, urban systems, and global cities.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 305E:
Comparative Historical Development of Latin America and East Asia (HISTORY 205E, ILAC 267E)
(Graduate students must enroll for 5 units.) Students will analyze, in historical perspective, the similarities and differences between the development of Latin America and East Asia from early modern times to the present. Focusing primarily on Brazil and Mexico, on one hand, and China and Japan, on the other, topics will include the impact of colonial and postcolonial relationships on the development of states, markets, and classes, as well as geopolitical, social, cultural, technological and environmental factors that shaped, and were shaped by, them.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 305K:
The Age of Revolution: America, France, and Haiti (AFRICAAM 205K, HISTORY 205K)
(History 205K is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 305K is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This course examines the "Age of Revolution," spanning the 18th and 19th centuries. Primarily, this course will focus on the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions (which overthrew both French and white planter rule). Taken together, these events reshaped definitions of citizenship, property, and government. But could republican principles-- color-blind in rhetoric-- be so in fact? Could nations be both republican and pro-slavery? Studying a wide range of primary materials, this course will explore the problem of revolution in an age of empires, globalization, and slavery.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 305L:
Prostitution & Sex Trafficking: Regulating Morality and the Status of Women (FEMGEN 305L)
Examines governmental policies toward prostitution from the late 19th century to the present. Focuses on the underlying attitudes, assumptions, strategies, and consequences of various historical and current legal frameworks regulating prostitution, including: prohibitionism, abolitionism, legalization, partial decriminalization, and full decriminalization. Special focus on these policies' effects on sex trafficking, sex worker rights, and the status of women. Emphasis on Europe and the U.S., with additional cases from across the globe.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 305M:
Silicon Valley in 10 Objects (HISTORY 205M)
Have you ever wanted to curate a museum exhibition, or explore alternative ways of studying history, beyond the term paper or article? In this hands-on class, we will research and design a real museum exhibition, to be staged at the Silicon Valley Archives inside Green Library. Students will learn archival research methods, design and build exhibition cases and panels, the theory and practice of museum curation. Students will create individual projected, centered around the core theme of the class: the global history of information technology and Silicon Valley.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 306:
Beyond Borders: Approaches to Transnational History
This core colloquium for the Transnational, International, and Global (TIG) field will introduce students to the major historiographical trends, methodological challenges, and theoretical approaches to studying and writing transnational histories.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 306D:
Global History & Pedagogy Workshop
How do historians engage the global scale in the classroom as well as in research? The world history canon including Toynbee, McNeill, Braudel, Wolf, and Wallerstein; contrasting approaches, recent research, and resources for teaching.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 306K:
World History Pedagogy Workshop
Students draft a syllabus and create a curriculum module for use in a world history lecture course. Corequisite: HISTORY 306D, recommended.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 1
HISTORY 307:
Transpacific History
This graduate seminar will explore the growing field of Transpacific History by reading both foundational texts and cutting-edge scholarship on the topic. Our thematic focus will be on Pacific empires, specifically the United States and Japan. The seminar will investigate previously overlooked connections rather than well-known rivalries and conflicts between the two Pacific powers through commodity flows, migration, and scientific and technological exchange as well as Cold War politics.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 307A:
Legal History Workshop
(Same as LAW 3516.) The Legal History Workshop is designed as a forum in which faculty and students from the Law School, the History Department, and elsewhere in the university can discuss some of the best work now being done in the field of legal history. Every other week, an invited speaker will present his or her current research for discussion. In the week prior to a given speaker's presentation, the class will meet as a group to discuss secondary literature relevant to understanding and critiquing the speaker's research. Students will then read the speaker's paper in advance of the following week's workshop presentation. Special Instructions: Students may choose to enroll in one of two sections of the course. In the first, students must write brief responses to each speaker's paper. There will be a total of four speakers, and thus four papers. Guidance will be provided concerning how to frame these response papers, which will be due every two weeks - i.e., on the day before speaker presents. In the second section, students must write a research paper on a legal history topic that they select in consultation with the professors. Enrollment will be limited to 30 students -- 20 from SLS who will be selected by lottery and 10 from H&S. Elements used in grading: Class participation, attendance, assignments and final paper.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 307B:
The Irish and the World (HISTORY 207B)
"When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious." The writer Edna O'Brien's portrait of Irish life encapsulates a history shaped by colonialism, famine, forced migration, and enduring political struggle. This course explores the global story of Ireland, a small land of 4.8 million that since 1800 has produced a diaspora of some 10 million people worldwide. Colonized and colonizers, freedom fighters and slave-owners, the starving and the wealthy, pious and irreverent-- the Irish reveal their past through memoirs, poetry, novels, music, film, and television.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 307C:
The Global Early Modern (HISTORY 207C)
In what sense can we speak of "globalization" before modernity? What are the characteristics and origins of the economic system we know as "capitalism"? When and why did European economies begin to diverge from those of other Eurasian societies? With these big questions in mind, the primary focus will be on the history of Europe and European empires, but substantial readings deal with other parts of the world, particularly China and the Indian Ocean. HISTORY 307C is a prerequisite for HISTORY 402 (Spring quarter).
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 307D:
Transhistory Colloquium (FEMGEN 207D, FEMGEN 307D, HISTORY 207D)
Colloquium on the history of transgender practices and identities. Readings will include scholarly texts from the emerging historical field of transhistory as well as adjacent fields within gender history. Colloquium will investigate avenues for deepening transhistory through further historical inquiry.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 307E:
Totalitarianism (HISTORY 204E, JEWISHST 204E)
This course analyzes the evolution and nature of revolutionary and totalitarian polities through the reading of monographs on the Puritan Reformation, French Revolutionary, turn of the 20th Century, interwar, and Second World War eras. Among topics explored are the essence of modern ideology and politics, the concept of the body national and social, the modern state, state terror, charismatic leadership, private and public spheres, totalitarian economies, and identities and practices in totalitarian polities.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 308:
Biography and History (AMSTUD 207B, HISTORY 207, JEWISHST 207)
Designed along the lines of the PBS series, "In the Actor's Workshop," students will meet weekly with some of the leading literary biographers writing today. Included this spring will be "New Yorker" staff writer Judith Thurman -- whose biography of Isak Dinesen was made into the film "Out of Africa" -- as well as Shirley Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin, now at work on a book about Anne Frank. Professor Zipperstein will share with the class drafts of the biography of Philip Roth that he is now writing. Critics questioning the value of biography as an historical and literary tool will also be invited to meetings with the class.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 308D:
Pre-Modern Warfare (HISTORY 208D)
This course examines the evolving nature of warfare and its impact on society across the Eurasian continent up to the Gunpowder Revolution and rise of the nation-state. Beginning with an attempt to define war, it will trace the evolution of military technology from the Stone Age through the rise of the chariot, the sword, and the mounted rider, and examine how changing methods of conducting warfare were inextricably linked to changes in the social order and political structures.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 309F:
Maps in the Early Modern World (HISTORY 209F)
The significance of cartographic enterprise across the early modern world. Political, economic, and epistemological imperatives that drove the proliferation of nautical charts, domain surveys, city plans, atlases, and globes; the types of work such artifacts performed for their patrons, viewers, and subjects. Contributions of indigenous knowledge to imperial maps; the career of the map in commerce, surveillance, diplomacy, conquest, and indoctrination. Sources include recent research from Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 310:
The History of Occupation, 1914-2010 (HISTORY 210)
(History 210 is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 310 is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Examines the major cases of occupation in the twentieth century, from the first World War until the present, and issues of similarities, differences, and implications for contemporary policy making. Topics include European and Asian cases emerging from World War I and World War II, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank; the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan; and the American occupation of Iraq. Discussions will revolve around the problems, efficacy, and effects of occupation in historical perspective.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 310J:
Fascism and Authoritarianism
This course introduces students to the history of fascist and authoritarian movements in modern Europe, from their origins through the post-WWII era. Germany and Italy will serve as central case studies, though the course will consider other examples as well. Through analytical consideration of secondary sources, primary texts, and art as political propaganda, we will interrogate the meanings and applications of these fraught and complex terms, the different forms taken by fascist and authoritarian movements, and their relationship to nationalism, race, religion, gender, and economic and political institutions. Why did millions of Europeans accept -- and even enthusiastically support -- fascist and authoritarian regimes? To what extent was a single, charismatic leader central to the success or failure of such governments? The course will conclude with an opportunity to reflect on the degree to which fascism and authoritarianism are concepts that remain relevant to political discourse in the twenty-first century.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 311:
Out of Eden: Deportation, Exile, and Expulsion from Antiquity to the Renaissance (HISTORY 211, JEWISHST 211)
This course examines the long pedigree of modern deportations and mass expulsions, from the forced resettlements of the ancient world to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and from the outlawry of Saga-era Iceland to the culture of civic exile in Renaissance Italy. The course focuses on Europe and the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period, but students are welcome to venture beyond these geographical and chronological boundaries for their final papers.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 313:
Core Colloquium: Graduate Readings in Medieval History
This course serves as a graduate-level introduction to major themes, problems, methods, and historiographical traditions in medieval European history.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 313F:
Medieval Germany, 900-1250 (GERMAN 213, GERMAN 313, HISTORY 213F)
(Undergraduates may sign up for German 213 or History 213F, graduate students should sign up for German 313 or History 313F. This course may be taken for variable units. Check the individual course numbers for unit spreads.) This course will provide a survey of the most important political, historical, and cultural events and trends that took place in the German-speaking lands between 900 and 1250. Important themes include the evolution of imperial ideology and relations with Rome, expansion along the eastern frontier, the crusades, the investiture controversy, the rise of powerful cities and civic identities, monastic reform and intellectual renewal, and the flowering of vernacular literature. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
HISTORY 314B:
The things to come? Prophecy in the Middle Ages (GERMAN 200, HISTORY 214B)
Grand rulers, decisive battles, one or more antichrists, and, inevitably, the end of the world - prophetic texts from the Middle Ages abound with significant allusions. These references are intricately interconnected and shrouded in enigmatic language. This course delves into the phenomenon of prophecy as depicted in medieval sources. Bridging eschatology and chronological perspectives, we will investigate the value of these texts and strive to gain a deeper understanding of the intellectual history of the Middle Ages. Moreover, we will meticulously examine the distribution of these numerous texts within manuscripts, scrutinizing the intended audience and specific effects of the texts. This subject area will serve as an exemplary object of study, enabling us to apply and refine the tools of historical scholarship.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 315B:
Race and Ethnicity in Premodern Europe (ARTHIST 207D, ARTHIST 407D, HISTORY 215B)
How do historians, art historians, and literary historians of premodern Europe shape their research and their teaching around questions of race? How do current debates on race theory shape our perception of the past and deepen historical inquiry? This graduate colloquium focuses on the most recent publications on race in medieval and early modern studies to reflect on such questions while examining the challenges that race studies put on historical definitions, research methodologies, as well as teaching institutions.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 316B:
The Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (HISTORY 216B, RELIGST 226, RELIGST 326)
This seminar investigates the central role of the Christian Bible in European religion, culture, and society from ca. 1000-1700 CE. In the medieval and early modern periods, the Bible not only shaped religious attitudes, practices, and institutions, but also exercised profound influence over learning and education, politics, law, social relations, art, literature, and music. Students will obtain an overview of the role of the scripture as both a religious text and a cultural artifact, exploring the history of biblical interpretation in commentaries and sermons; textual criticism, study of biblical languages, and the translation of scripture; manufacturing of Bibles in manuscript and in print; the commercial dimensions of Bible production; illustrated Bibles, biblical maps, and biblically-inspired artwork; religious uses of scripture in monastic houses, public worship, and domestic settings; biblical foundations for political and legal traditions. Students will also have the opportunity to suggest topics consonant with their own fields of interest and use the seminar to workshop on-going projects related to the Bible in this period. All of the readings will be in English, though students with the ability to read German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, or Hebrew will be encouraged to pursue projects that utilize their linguistic skills. Students will have the opportunity to utilize materials in Special Collections. Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor. Send an email to pitkin@stanford.edu explaining your interests and background. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 317:
Introduction to the Sources of Medieval History
This seminar is intended as a hands-on introduction to several major genres of source materials for the history of Western Europe from ca. 700-ca. 1400. Each week's meeting will consist of a mix of faculty-led bibliographical overviews, student presentations, and discussions of readings. Above all, it will guide you through a series of research assignments that will collectively introduce you to the medievalist's toolkit -- and provide you with solid foundations for further inquiry, wherever your scholarly interests should lead.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 317D:
Love, Death and the Afterlife in the Medieval West (FRENCH 217, FRENCH 317, HISTORY 217D, ITALIAN 217, ITALIAN 317)
Romantic love, it is often claimed, is an invention of the High Middle Ages. The vocabulary of sexual desire that is still current in the twenty-first century was authored in the twelfth and thirteenth, by troubadours, court poets, writers like Dante; even by crusaders returning from the eastern Mediterranean. How did this devout society come to elevate the experience of sensual love? This course draws on primary sources such as medieval songs, folktales, the "epic rap battles" of the thirteenth century, along with the writings of Boccaccio, Saint Augustine and others, to understand the unexpected connections between love, death, and the afterlife from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. Each week, we will use a literary or artistic work as an interpretive window into cultural attitudes towards love, death or the afterlife. These readings are analyzed in tandem with major historical developments, including the rise of Christianity, the emergence of feudal society and chivalric culture, the crusading movement, and the social breakdown of the fourteenth century.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 318:
The Holy Dead: Saints and Spiritual Power in Medieval Europe (HISTORY 218, RELIGST 218X, RELIGST 318X)
Examines the cult of saints in medieval religious thought and life. Topics include martyrs, shrines, pilgrimage, healing, relics, and saints' legends.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 318C:
Peace and War in Medieval Islam: From the Arab Conquests to the Crusades (GLOBAL 190, GLOBAL 232, HISTORY 218C)
This course interrogates the theory and reality of war-making and peacemaking across the first millennium of Islamic history (c.600-c.1600 CE). We will examine major historical events (e.g. the struggle of the early community of Muslims against the pagan tribes of Arabia; Arab expansion and conquest during the seventh and eighth centuries; a sequence of civil wars, dynastic struggles, and schisms within Islam; and external invasions of the Islamic world by crusaders and steppe nomads, etc.). We will also investigate the development of major normative concepts across the Islamic tradition concerning peace and war (e.g. holy war; treaty- and truce-making; treatment of conquered enemies and prisoner; diplomacy with Muslims and non-Muslims, etc.). With respect to these concepts, we will attend especially to change over time and diversity across various sects. Mix of lecture and discussion. Readings will consist of both primary sources (in English translation) and modern scholarship. No previous experience with pre-modern or Islamic history required.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 321B:
The 'Woman Question' in Modern Russia (FEMGEN 221B, HISTORY 221B)
(History 221B is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 321B is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Russian radicals believed that the status of women provided the measure of freedom in a society and argued for the extension of rights to women as a basic principle of social progress. The social status and cultural representations of Russian women from the mid-19th century to the present. The arguments and actions of those who fought for women's emancipation in the 19th century, theories and policies of the Bolsheviks, and the reality of women's lives under them. How the status of women today reflects on the measure of freedom in post-Communist Russia.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 322A:
Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe and Russia (HISTORY 222)
Explores criminal law in early modern Europe and Russia, ca 1500-1800, in law and in practice. Engages debates about use of exemplary public executions as tactic of governance, and about gradual decline in "violence" in Europe over this time. Explores practice of accusatory and inquisitory judicial procedures, judicial torture, forms of punishment, concepts of justice.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 322E:
Topics in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine (REES 223E, SLAVIC 342)
Explores and contrasts Ukraine and Russia ca 1450-1800, when most of Ukraine had not yet been conquered by Russia: governmental structures, religion and culture, ideology, social organization, agrarian economy.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 323E:
Cities of Empire: An Urban Journey through Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean (HISTORY 223E, REES 204, REES 304)
This course explores the cities of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires in the dynamic and turbulent period of their greatest transformation from the 19th century through the Two World Wars. Through the reading of urban biographies of Venice and Trieste, Vienna, Budapest, Cracow, Lviv, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Salonica, and Odessa, we consider broad historical trends of political, economic, and social modernization, urbanization, identity formation, imperialism, cosmopolitanism, and orientalism. As vibrant centers of coexistence and economic exchange, social and cultural borderlands, and sites of transgression, these cities provide an ideal lens through which to examine these themes in the context of transition from imperial to post-imperial space.
Last offered: Spring 2019
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 323G:
Russia and Ukraine: Empire, Nation, Myth (HISTORY 223G, SLAVIC 203)
Explores theories of national myths and nationalism; identifies the founding myths of Russia and Ukraine and the medieval and early modern events they are based on. Extensive primary source readings. Focuses primarily up through eighteenth century, with some reading of nineteenth-century national statements.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 324C:
Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention (HISTORY 224C, JEWISHST 284C, JEWISHST 384C, PEDS 224)
Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Traces the history of genocide in the 20th century and the question of humanitarian intervention to stop it, a topic that has been especially controversial since the end of the Cold War. The pre-1990s discussion begins with the Armenian genocide during the First World War and includes the Holocaust and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Coverage of genocide and humanitarian intervention since the 1990s includes the wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, the Congo and Sudan.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
HISTORY 325E:
From Vladimir to Putin: Key Themes in Russian History (HISTORY 225E, REES 225E)
Formative issues in Russian history from Muscovy to the present: autocracy and totalitarianism; tsars, emperors, and party secretaries; multi-ethnicity and nationalism; serfdom, peasantry; rebellions and revolutions, dissent and opposition; law and legality; public and private spheres; religion and atheism; patterns of collapse. Class format will be discussion of one to two assigned books or major articles per class.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 326A:
Modern Europe: Society and Politics
The goal of this course is to introduce graduate students to major works of history and literature in the field of nineteenth and early-twentieth century history. A colloquia will be given in tandem with a research seminar.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 5
HISTORY 326D:
The Holocaust: Insights from New Research (HISTORY 226D, JEWISHST 226E, JEWISHST 326D)
Overview of the history of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews. Explores its causes, course, consequences, and memory. Addresses the events themselves, as well as the roles of perpetrators and bystanders, dilemmas faced by victims, collaboration of local populations, and the issue of rescue. Considers how the Holocaust was and is remembered and commemorated by victims and participants alike. Uses different kinds of sources: scholarly work, memoirs, diaries, film, and primary documents.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 326E:
Famine in the Modern World (HISTORY 226E, PEDS 226)
Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Examines the major famines of modern history, the controversies surrounding them, and the reasons that famine persists in our increasingly globalized world. Focus is on the relative importance of natural, economic, and political factors as causes of famine in the modern world. Case studies include the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s; the Bengal famine of 1943-44; the Soviet famines of 1921-22 and 1932-33; China's Great Famine of 1959-61; the Ethiopian famines of the 1970s and 80s, and the Somalia famines of the 1990s and of 2011.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
HISTORY 327:
East European Women and War (FEMGEN 227, HISTORY 227)
Thematic & chronological approach to conflicts in the region 20th & 21st centuries: Balkan Wars, WWI, WWII, Yugoslav wars, & current Russo-Ukrainian War. Ways women in E. Europe involved in and affected by wars; comparison with women in W. Europe in the two world wars. Examines women during war as members of military services, underground movements, workers, volunteers, mothers of soldiers, subjects and supporters of war aims and propaganda, activists in peace movements, and objects of wartime destruction, dislocation, and sexual violation.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 327B:
The Business of Socialism: Economic Life in Cold War Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
(Graduate students, enroll in 327B. Undergraduate students, enroll in 227B.) This colloquium investigates the processes of buying, making, and selling goods and services in Cold War Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We will familiarize ourselves with a variety of approaches to writing the history of economic life and discuss to what extent they are applicable to state socialist systems. Our focus will not be on theories of socialism but on empirically grounded studies that allow for insights into how the system operated in practice and interacted with capitalism. We will, among others, explore the following questions: What was the role of the state in the economies east and west of the Iron Curtain? Are socialism and capitalism two incompatible systems? How did women experience and shape economic life after the Second World War? What had a greater impact on the economies of the region: Cold War politics or globalization?
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 327D:
All Quiet on the Eastern Front? East Europe and Russia in the First World War (HISTORY 227D, REES 227, REES 327)
Until recently history has been comparatively quiet about the experience of World War I in the east. Far from being a peripheral theater of war, however, the experiences of war on the Eastern Front were central to shaping the 20th century. Not only was the first shot of the war fired in the east, it was also the site of the most dramatic political revolution. Using scholarly texts, literature and film, this course combines political, military, cultural and social approaches to introduce the causes, conduct and consequences of World War I with a focus on the experiences of soldiers and civilians on the Eastern Front. Topics include: the war of movement, occupation, extreme violence against civilians, the Armenian genocide, population exchanges, the Russian Revolution and civil war, and the disintegration of empires and rise of nation-states.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 327K:
Marx and Marxism: History and Social Change
This course examines the life and work of Karl Marx, his social and intellectual milieu, and the evolution of Marxism and historical materialism in theory and practice to the present. Basic concepts of Marxism will be discussed along with debates about orthodox or unorthodox extensions. Critiques of Marx and Marxism from the perspective of gender and race will be addressed. The learning outcomes anticipated include facility with Marxist terminology, a basic understanding of the biography of Marx, an overview of the historical development of Marxism and its role in shaping world history, and the development of critical tools for the evaluation and extension of Marxist concepts in contemporary settings.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 328:
Circles of Hell: Poland in World War II (HISTORY 228, JEWISHST 282, JEWISHST 382)
Looks at the experience and representation of Poland's wartime history from the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) to the aftermath of Yalta (1945). Examines Nazi and Soviet ideology and practice in Poland, as well as the ways Poles responded, resisted, and survived. Considers wartime relations among Polish citizens, particularly Poles and Jews. In this regard, interrogates the traditional self-characterization of Poles as innocent victims, looking at their relationship to the Holocaust, thus engaging in a passionate debate still raging in Polish society.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 328C:
Politics and Society in Early Soviet Russia: View from the Hoover Library & Archives (HISTORY 228C, REES 110, REES 211)
The course offers an examination of early Soviet history (1917-1924) based on the archival collections, digital records, and rare books and periodicals in the Hoover Library & Archives, with a focus on the papers of the American Relief Administration and the Soviet famine of 1921. Topics include Bolshevik ideology, the role of the Communist Party, Russian-Ukrainian relations, the formation of the USSR, Soviet economic policy, Soviet foreign policy and the Communist International, the secret police and political repression, culture under the Bolsheviks, demographic shifts and refugee movements, and the famine of 1921, in which six million people perished. Students will become familiar with how to research and interpret primary sources. Class will meet in Hoover Tower, in a secure room where students can work with archival and rare library materials, including early Soviet newspapers and journals. Course is open to graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Students may take the course for either 3 or 5 units. Those enrolled for 5 units will submit a research paper. Russian language ability is not required. Offered in conjunction with the Hoover Library & Archives exhibition Bread + Medicine: Saving Lives in a Time of Famine.
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 329C:
Political Exhumations: Killing Sites in Comparative Perspective (ANTHRO 137D, ARCHLGY 137, ARCHLGY 237, DLCL 237, HISTORY 229C, REES 237C)
The course discusses the politics and practices of exhumation of individual and mass graves. The problem of exhumations will be considered as a distinct socio-political phenomenon characteristic of contemporary times and related to transitional justice. The course will offer analysis of case studies of political exhumations of victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, communist violence in Poland, the Rwandan genocide, the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Ukraine. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 330A:
Early Modern Colloquium
Historiographical survey from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Topics include Renaissance, Reformation, European expansion, state and nation building, printing, military, and scientific revolutions, origins of Enlightenment. Designed to prepare students doing either a primary or secondary graduate field in early modern European history.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331:
Leonardo's World: Science, Technology, and Art (ARTHIST 231, ARTHIST 431, HISTORY 231, ITALIAN 231, ITALIAN 331)
Leonardo da Vinci is emblematic of creativity and innovation. His art is iconic, his inventions legendary. His understanding of nature, the human body, and machines made him a scientist and engineer as well as an artist. His fascination with drawing buildings made him an architect, at least on paper. This class explores the historical Leonardo, considering his interests and accomplishments as a product of the society of Renaissance Italy. Why did this world produce a Leonardo? Special attention will be given to interdisciplinary connections between religion, art, science, and technology.
Last offered: Autumn 2018
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331B:
Core Colloquium on Modern Europe: The 19th Century
The major historical events and historiographical debates of the long 19th century from the French Revolution to WW I.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 331C:
Modern European Core: The Twentieth Century
The historiography of 20th-century Europe. Topics include WW I, the Russian Revolution, National Socialism, and the EU.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 332B:
Heretics, Prostitutes and Merchants: The Venetian Empire (ITALIAN 332B)
Between 1200-1600, Venice created a powerful empire at the boundary between East and West that controlled much of the Mediterranean, with a merchant society that allowed social groups, religions, and ethnicities to coexist. Topics include the features of Venetian society, the relationship between center and periphery, order and disorder, orthodoxy and heresy, the role of politics, art, and culture in the Venetian Renaissance, and the empire's decline as a political power and reinvention as a tourist site and living museum.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 332D:
Rome: From Pilgrimage to the Grand Tour
Imagine yourself in Rome. What do you see beyond the ruins of an ancient city? In the fourteenth century the city of over one million ancient Roman inhabitants had shrunk to a paltry population of less than twenty thousand. With the return of the papacy in the fifteenth century the rebuilding and revival of Rome began in earnest. By the late sixteenth century it was the center of global missions, an expanding state, and a nascent tourist industry. This course explores the history of the "Eternal City" from the late Middle Ages through the age of the Grand Tour. It examines the political, diplomatic, and religious history of the papacy, Roman society and cultural life, the everyday world of Roman citizens, the relationship between the city and the surrounding countryside, the material transformation of Rome as a city, and its meaning for foreigners.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 332G:
Early Modern Cities (HISTORY 232G)
Colloquium on the history of early modern European cities, covering urbanization, street life, neighborhoods, fortifications, guilds and confraternities, charity, vagrancy, and begging, public health, city-countryside relationship, urban constitutions, and confederations. Assignments include annotated bibliography, book review, and a final paper. Second-quarter continuation of research seminar available (HIST299S or HIST402).
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 333:
Reformation to Civil War: England under the Tudors and Stuarts (HISTORY 233)
English political and religious culture from the end of the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War of the 1640s. Themes include the growth of the size and power of the state, Reformation, creation of a Protestant regime, transformation of the political culture of the ruling elite, emergence of Puritanism, and causes of the Civil War. HISTORY 333 is a prerequisite for HISTORY 402 (Spring quarter).
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 333C:
Two British Revolutions (HISTORY 233C)
Current scholarship on Britain,1640-1700, focusing on political and religious history. Topics include: causes and consequences of the English civil war and revolution; rise and fall of revolutionary Puritanism; the Restoration; popular politics in the late 17th century; changing contours of religious life; the crisis leading to the Glorious Revolution; and the new order that emerged after the deposing of James II.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 333F:
Political Thought in Early Modern Britain (HISTORY 233F)
1500 to 1700. Theorists include Hobbes, Locke, Harrington, the Levellers, and lesser known writers and schools. Foundational ideas and problems underlying modern British and American political thought and life.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 334P:
The Age of Plague: Medicine and Society, 1300-1750
(Graduates, enroll in 334P. Undergraduates, enroll in 234P.) The arrival of plague in Eurasia in 1347-51 affected many late medieval and early modern societies. It transformed their understanding of disease, raised questions about the efficacy of medical knowledge, and inspired new notions of public health. This class explores the history of medicine in the medieval Islamic and European worlds. Changing ideas about the body, the roles of different healers and religion in healing, the growth of hospitals and universities, and the evolution of medical theory and practice will be discussed. How did medicine and society change in the age of plague?
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 334R:
Risk and Credit Before Modern Finance (HISTORY 234R)
In today's world, credit scores are nearly as important as citizenship. Creditworthiness is measured in numbers, but is also bound up with moral qualities. To lack credit is to be on the margins of society, and vice versa. How did we get here? How did lenders mitigate risks before credit scores were available? Where do the risk management tools of modern finance come from? How did merchants trade over long distances when information technology was extremely poor? This one-unit course will address these pressing questions from a historical perspective, starting from the modern U.S. and reaching back in time to the Middle Ages. Classroom discussions and readings include articles written by historians and social scientists, as well as primary sources in English translation.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 1
HISTORY 335:
Global Voyages: Navigating the Early Modern World (HISTORY 235, HISTORY 435A)
[Graduate students completing a two-quarter research seminar must enroll in 435A in Winter and 435B in Spring.] This seminar explores global travel, knowledge, curiosity, experience, and understanding, ca. 1500-1800. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of global realignments, an age of empires, missionaries, embassies, and trading companies. This seminar takes students around the world, following global travelers, merchants, missionaries, and mapmakers. Students will work extensively with rare books, manuscripts, maps and other artifacts, especially in the Rumsey Map Center to design an exhibit. Urbano Monti's 1587 world map and Francesco Carletti's accidental circumnavigation of the world, 1594-1603, will guide our global voyage, contextualized by sources, artifacts, and histories from many other parts of the world.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 335D:
When Worlds Collide: The Trial of Galileo (HISTORY 235D, ITALIAN 233, ITALIAN 333)
In 1633, the Italian mathematician Galileo was tried and condemned for advocating that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the cosmos. The Catholic Church did not formally admit that Galileo was right until 1992. Examines the many factors that led to the trial of Galileo and looks at multiple perspectives on this signal event in the history of science and religion. Considers the nature and definition of intellectual heresy in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and examines the writings of Galileo's infamous predecessor Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake in 1600). Looks closely at documents surrounding the trial and related literature on Renaissance and Reformation Italy in order to understand the perspectives of various participants in this famous event. Focal point of seminar involves the examination of the many different histories that can be produced from Galileo's trial. What, in the end, were the crimes of Galileo?
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 335J:
The Meaning of Life: Modern European Encounters with Consequential Questions
(History 235J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 335J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Across two centuries of social, political, and religious upheaval and transformation, modern Europeans confronted a series of interconnected ¿big questions¿: What is humanity¿s relationship with deity? Where does life, including human life, come from, and where is it going? What considerations should shape human beings¿ relationships with, and actions toward, one another? What is socially and morally acceptable¿or transgressive? Is there life after death, and a spiritual realm distinct from the material world? Through case studies in the history of religion, evolutionary thought, gender and sexuality, and the aims and ends of empire, this course will examine European engagement with these questions across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (with some background in earlier periods), paying attention to the ways in which the questions people asked¿and the conclusions they drew¿were shaped by social, religious, and political institutions and structures.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 335L:
Alien Imaginations: Extraterrestrial Speculations in Modern European History
(History 235L is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 335L is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This course will examine the historical basis and evolution of modern European beliefs concerning the existence and nature of alien life throughout the universe, and the ways in which these imagined alien beings have historically reflected an interplay of social, religious, political, and scientific assumptions, hopes, fears, and preoccupations. We will explore the relationship between belief in extraterrestrial life and historical themes and episodes in European history including the debate over heliocentrism, deism and freethought, theories of life and of human nature, changing concepts of national identity, and the intertwined histories of immigration, colonialism, race, and gender. We will particularly examine how and why concepts of the alien took a dark and sinister turn across the late nineteenth- and early-to-mid-twentieth centuries.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 336J:
A Tour of Dangerous Ideas: Radical Thinkers in Modern Europe (HISTORY 236J)
In this course we will examine ideas radical to their context in modern European thought, paying close attention to what it has meant to explain features of society, government, and politics in terms of power. What is power? What is human nature, and do all humans possess natural rights? How is human identity interwoven with the practice of power? What makes an idea radical? We will examine these and other questions through close readings of seven thinkers whose ideas shaped the modern period: John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, C.L.R. James, and Michel Foucault.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 337B:
Michelangelo: Gateway to Early Modern Italy (ARTHIST 218A, ARTHIST 418A, HISTORY 237B, ITALIAN 237, ITALIAN 337)
Revered as one of the greatest artists in history, Michelangelo Buonarroti's extraordinarily long and prodigious existence (1475-1564) spanned the Renaissance and the Reformation in Italy. The celebrity artist left behind not only sculptures, paintings, drawings, and architectural designs, but also an abundantly rich and heterogeneous collection of artifacts, including direct and indirect correspondence (approximately 1400 letters), an eclectic assortment of personal notes, documents and contracts, and 302 poems and 41 poetic fragments. This course will explore the life and production of Michelangelo in relation to those of his contemporaries. Using the biography of the artist as a thread, this interdisciplinary course will draw on a range of critical methodologies and approaches to investigate the civilization and culture of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Course themes will follow key tensions that defined the period and that found expression in Michelangelo: physical-spiritual, classical-Christian, tradition-innovation, individual-collective.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 337C:
Street History: Learning the Past in School and Out (EDUC 356)
Interdisciplinary. Since Herodotus, history and memory have competed to shape minds: history cultivates doubt and demands interpretation; memory seeks certainty and detests that which thwarts its aims. History and memory collide in modern society, often violently. How do young people become historical amidst these forces; how do school, family, nation, and mass media contribute to the process?
Last offered: Spring 2009
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 337D:
The French Revolution and the Origins of Modern Politics (HISTORY 237D)
Human rights, national sovereignty, terror, even revolution itself - the French Revolution gave rise to modern politics. This course examines the causes, course, and consequences of the revolution from the crisis of the Old Regime to the Napoleonic period. We will read both original documents and current historical scholarship on the French Revolution. Throughout, key themes will include the role of ideas and language in political change, the relationship between revolution and violence, the politics of rights, and the global legacies of the revolution.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 338A:
Graduate Colloquium: Britain and the Making of the Modern World: 1688-1850
Influential approaches to problems in British, European, and imperial history. The 19th-century British experience and its relationship to Europe and empire. National identity, the industrial revolution, class formation, gender, liberalism, and state building. Goal is to prepare specialists and non-specialists for oral exams. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center.)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 338B:
MODERN BRITISH HISTORY PART II
Themes include empire and racism, the crisis of liberalism, the rise of the welfare state, national identity, the experience of total war, the politics of decline, and modernity and British culture.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 338J:
The European Scramble for Africa: Origins and Debates (AFRICAAM 238J, HISTORY 238J)
Why and how did Europeans claim control of 70% of African in the late nineteenth century? Students will engage with historiographical debates ranging from the national (e.g. British) to the topical (e.g. international law). Students will interrogate some of the primary sources on which debaters have rested their arguments. Key discussions include: the British occupation of Egypt; the autonomy of French colonial policy; the mystery of Germany¿s colonial entry; and, not least, the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884-1885.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 339D:
Capital and Empire (HISTORY 239D)
This colloquium for advanced undergraduate and graduate students will investigate the political economy of modern empire, focusing on the British empire. Topics include the history of imperial corporations; industry and empire; the commodification of nature and life; racial capitalism; the formation of the global economy; the relationship between trafficking and free trade; and the relationship between empire and the theory and practice of development.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 339J:
Work and Leisure in Nineteenth Century Britain (HISTORY 239J)
This course charts the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, empire, and social factors in Britons' lives at work and at home in the nineteenth century. Readings will explore trade unionism and Chartism, urban migration, consumer culture, print culture, organized sports, shows, rational leisure" and the development of exhibitions and public museums. Students will gain a sense of how Britons worked and played in a century that gave birth to pastimes and institutions that continue to shape our own.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 339K:
Sex, Death, and God in Modern Europe (HISTORY 239K)
In the midst of social and political upheaval and transformation, people in modern Europe have grappled with central questions of human existence. What place does humanity occupy in the universe and in relation to God? How does life begin, and under what circumstances? What gives life its meaning? What is socially and morally acceptable--or transgressive? Is there life after death, and a spiritual realm distinct from the material world? This course will examine answers to these questions across the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and the ways in which the questions people asked--and the conclusions they drew--were shaped by social, political, and religious assumptions, hopes, and fears.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 339T:
What is Time?
At a basic level, history is the study of change over time. But the modern discipline of history, as it was formed during the Enlightenment, radically changed conceptions of time itself: from something at times understood as cyclical or directionless to something linear and teleological. Modern history then prompted further reconceptualizations of time: Capitalism introduced new ways of valuing time; the Darwinian revolution introduced a new scale of earthly time; the world wars dented faith in the idea that time passed in the direction of progress; and now climate change has altered conceptions of time in a new way. This course examines evolving understandings of the medium of the historian's craft: what is time? We will examine poetic, scientific, literary, and geographical conceptions of time and trace time's modern history: how colonialism and capitalism produced new experiences of time, and anticolonial and anticapitalist critiques of those experiences. Throughout, we will consider how this history should shape the way historians think about change over time, in terms of questions of scale, human experience, and disciplinary purpose.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 340:
The History of Evolution (HISTORY 240)
This course examines the history of evolutionary biology from its emergence around the middle of the eighteenth century. We will consider the continual engagement of evolutionary theories of life with a larger, transforming context: philosophical, political, social, economic, institutional, aesthetic, artistic, literary. Our goal will be to achieve a historical rich and nuanced understanding of how evolutionary thinking about life has developed to its current form.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 341C:
Histories of Attention and Mind Control
This course follows the history of attention from the Enlightenment and the rise of capitalism to Cold War controversies over mind control and recent debates on the attention economy and the ethics of technology. Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, which regulates what enters consciousness. In an age of information abundance, digital technologies compete to catch and direct our attention. Offering a historical perspective, the course readings trace how attention has been constructed, studied, commodified, and manipulated throughout the modern period by travelling across various regions including the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean and North America. Consideration will be given to the training and altering of attention, to spectacle and the manipulation of attention, and to the shifting economies of attention. We will explore how practices such as mesmerism, hypnotism, and conjure became part of power relationships within social, racial, gendered, religious and cultural contexts, and how attention was made to reproduce different relationships of inequality between the industrial revolution and the advent of surveillance capitalism. The course is divided into three parts. It begins with introducing approaches to attention by historians, philosophers, and scholars of visual studies among others. Second is a more empirical analysis of how slavery, industrialism, advertising, cinema, science, and technology came together to shape modern theories of attention. The course then ends with several weeks on the current politics of attention and the attention economy.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 342G:
Spaces and Practices of Natural History (HISTORY 242G)
Gentleman scientists once practiced natural history by studying specimens collected from around the world, stored in cabinets of curiosity. From the 17th to 19th centuries, natural history moved out of the cabinet and into the field; these environments required new ways of thinking and different types of scientific workers. This course will track how new spaces, practices, and people became associated with natural history and explore how they shaped the content of the field and the social contours of science.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 342J:
London Low Life in the Nineteenth Century
(History 242J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 342J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) London began the nineteenth century as a city of one million, but was home to over six million people by the century's end. How did Londoners in the nineteenth century respond to the challenges and temptations of life in a growing metropolis? How did government and reformers try to influence and control city dwellers' behavior? This class seeks to answer these questions by exploring life in Britain's capital in the nineteenth century, using the digital database ¿London Low Life¿ as a guide. Contemporary street literature, night-life guides, pamphlets, broadsides, images, reformer's tracts, and public-interest journalism are some of the sources that will give us a window into vice, virtue, and daily life in London during a period of great uncertainty and change.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 343C:
People, Plants, and Medicine: Atlantic World Amerindian, African, and European Science (CSRE 243C, CSRE 443C, FEMGEN 443C, HISTORY 243C, HISTORY 443C)
Explores the global circulation of plants, peoples, disease, medicines, technologies, and knowledge. Considers primarily Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and focuses on their exchanges in the Caribbean, in particular within the French and British empires. We also take examples from other knowledge traditions, where relevant. Readings treat science and medicine in relation to voyaging, the natural history of plants, environmental exchange, racism, and slavery in colonial contexts. Colonial sciences and medicines were important militarily and strategically for positioning emerging nation states in global struggles for land and resources. Upper-level undergrads must apply for 243C; please fill in this short form: https://forms.gle/XpUXwfT6ULiwC8P19 Graduate students taking the course as a one-quarter seminar should enroll in 343C. Graduate students taking the course as a two-part graduate research seminar should enroll in the 443C (Part I) in Winter and the 443D (Part II) in Spring.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 343D:
Emerging Diseases, Past and Present
This course will use our current experience with the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens to study the processes by which infectious diseases emerge. Because of recent developments in the "historicist sciences" (bioarchaeology and palaeogenetics), it is possible to piece together the origin stories of some of the world's most impactful diseases. How does a "microbe's-eye view" of disease emergence change our understanding of past (and present) pandemics? Is it possible that understanding emergence might help us better understand why certain diseases have continued to proliferate, refusing to yield to modern interventions?We will focus on several major diseases transmitted between the Old and New Worlds before and after 1500. At issue is not simply the original spillover event (the transfer of a pathogen from one host species to humans), but the question of how these diseases exploit human connectivity to proliferate. These early globalizing stories will be compared with the story of SARS-CoV-2 as its own "origin story" continues to unfold. Given current critiques of the failures of "global health," what do these origin stories have to tell us about how diseases become "endemic"? Is humankind both the cause of its major diseases, but also doomed to endure them in perpetuity?
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 343G:
Tobacco and Health in World History: How Big Nic created the template for global science denial (HISTORY 243G)
Cigarettes are the world's leading cause of death--but how did we come into this world, where 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year? Here we explore the political, cultural, and technological origins of the cigarette and cigarette epidemic, using the tobacco industry's 80 million pages of secret documents. Topics include the history of cigarette advertising and cigarette design, the role of the tobacco industry in fomenting climate change denial, and questions raised by the testimony of experts in court.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 344F:
New Directions in Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Technology, and Environment (FEMGEN 344F, HISTORY 244F)
Welcome! This is a new upper-level course in Gendered Innovations that explores how sex, gender, and intersectional analysis in research and design sparks discovery and innovation. This course focuses on sex and gender, and considers factors intersecting with sex and gender, including age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational background, disabilities, geographic location, etc., where relevant. We will read new research touching on basic concepts, intersectional design, gendering social robots, new approaches to sustainability, what's new in biomedicine & public health, facial recognition, inclusive crash test dummies, and more. As Director of Gendered Innovations, I work with the European Commission, Wellcome Trust, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and major journals on policy to support integrating sex, gender, and intersectional analysis into the design of research. The operative question is: how can this type of analysis lead to discovery & innovation while enhancing social equity and environmental sustainability? Students will read and report on new research in weekly sessions and present a paper on a topic of their choice. We welcome open and respectful discussion. This course is open to upper-level undergraduate students and to graduate students by application https://forms.gle/2KmxUUnRSG2LNNSS6. Limited to 15.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 345A:
Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade
The slave trade, including the trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean, and trans-Atlantic trades, constituted nearly a millennium of interaction with the wider world and set in motion transformations in African societies, polities, and cultures. Topics include the debates about slavery in Africa, the impact of the slave trade on African societies, state formation, economic change, religious change, and household change in the period before the scramble for Africa in the late 19th century.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 345B:
African Encounters with Colonialism
This colloquium is a broad sweep of some of the main themes in the history of the colonial period for Africa. A course of this nature can not help but be a selective sample of the field. For example, topics on the end of slavery in Africa, on the social history of law in colonial Africa, Islam and religious conversion, nationalism and decolonization are not included here because they are covered by more specialized courses. This course is designed to let students sample different approaches to the history of the colonial period.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 346F:
Women and Autobiography in African History
This graduate colloquium focuses on the place of women in modern African history. We focus specifically on the literary techniques that African women have used to represent themselves to the outside world. In the course of ten in-depth seminars, we will intensively read a number of African women-authored autobiographies and biographies from the twentieth century to the present day. We look at the auto/biographies of prominent as well as not-so-well-known African women: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Wangari Maathai's autobiographies will be read alongside the life stories of more "ordinary" women. The seminar straddles history, literary theory and gender studies, and it encourages students to think critically about the creative ways in which African women have portrayed themselves to their intimates and their families as well as to the wider world.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 346G:
Participatory Research in African History
Historical research in Africa is liable to issues of authenticity and relevance to local communities, as well as power disparities between researcher and subject. Can we turn this weakness into a strength by developing theory and practice of participatory action research in which communities and scholars work together to make meaningful interpretations of the past? We will explore this issue, study previous attempts, and design a participatory action research project to be carried out in Ghana.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 347:
Gender and Sexuality in African History (AFRICAAM 247, FEMGEN 247, FEMGEN 347, HISTORY 247)
This course examines the history of gender and sexuality in twentieth and twenty-first century Africa. It explores how concepts, identities, and practices of gender and sexuality have changed in shifting social, cultural, political, and economic contexts across the continent and in connection with global currents. This historical journey encompasses European colonialism, independence, postcolonial nation-building, and current times. Course materials include African novels, films, material culture and multinational scholarly research and primary sources. We will also engage multidisciplinary perspectives, methodologies, and theories as tools for critical thinking, writing and varied modes of producing knowledge. Gender and sexuality(ies) as examined in this course act as gateways to explore transformations in : selfhood, peoplehood, and life stage; health, medicine, reproduction, and the body; law and criminality; marriage, kinship, family, and community; politics, power and protest; feminism(s); popular culture; religion and belief; LGBTQI+ themes; and the history of emotions, including love, joy, desire, pain, and trauma.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 348:
Religion, Radicalization and Media in Africa since 1945 (AFRICAST 248, AFRICAST 348, HISTORY 248, RELIGST 230X, RELIGST 330X)
What are the paths to religious radicalization, and what role have media- new and old- played in these conversion journeys? We examine how Pentecostal Christians and Reformist Muslims in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia have used multiple media forms- newspapers, cell phones, TV, radio, and the internet- to gain new converts, contest the authority of colonial and post-colonial states, construct transnational communities, and position themselves as key political players.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 348C:
Curating the Image: African Photography and the Politics of Exhibitions (AFRICAAM 248C, HISTORY 248C)
This course will be built around a photography exhibition at the Cantor Art Center, featuring the images of South African photographer, Sabelo Mlangeni. The class will invite students to consider both the history and the present-day state of photography on the African continent, exploring themes such as social-realist documentary photography and an African tradition of studio photography. The class will also reflect upon curatorial questions, including how, where, and why certain photographic work is displayed, and the aesthetics as well as politics of museum display.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 348E:
Race and Slavery in Africa (HISTORY 248E)
This course will explore the histories of race and slavery in the African continent. We will consider how these histories developed alongside and independent of global developments, including but not limited to imperialism, capitalism, and slavery in the Arab world, as well as the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Students will engage with an array of primary and secondary sources that centralize the voices, experiences, and perspectives of Africans from different time periods. We will grapple with the complex histories of slavery within the continent and how the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion evolved over time.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 349:
Bodies, Technologies, and Natures in Africa (AFRICAST 249, ANTHRO 348B)
This interdisciplinary course explores how modern African histories, bodies, and natures have been entangled with technological activities. Viewing Africans as experts and innovators, we consider how technologies have mediated, represented, or performed power in African societies. Topics include infrastructure, extraction, medicine, weapons, communications, sanitation, and more. Themes woven through the course include citizenship, mobility, labor, bricolage, in/formal economies, and technopolitical geographies, among others. Readings draw from history, anthropology, geography, and social/cultural theory.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 351A:
Core in American History, Part I
May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 351B:
Core in American History, Part II
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 351C:
Core in American History, Part III
Core in American History, Part III
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 351D:
Core in American History, Part IV
May be repeated once for credit.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 351E:
Core in American History, Part V
Required of all first-year United States History Ph.D. students. Topics in Twentieth Century United States History.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 351F:
Core in American History, Part VI
Required of all first-year Ph.D. students in U.S. History. This course is designed to provide graduate students with an intensive introduction to twentieth-century U.S. social, political, transnational, and cultural history and historiography. We will read classic and canonical works as well as recent literature that has pushed the boundaries of the field. We will investigate a series of interrelated issues that have been central to twentieth-century historiography: nation-building; the changing organization of work and leisure; the rise of mass culture and mass consumption; changing and contested notions of American identity in the context of mass immigration and racial and gender conflict; and social movements and the politics of everyday life. We will pay close attention to the multiple meanings and significance of racial, ethnic, class, gender, sexual, religious, and nationalist identifications. History courses develop students' knowledge of how past events influence today's society,and help students to understand how humans view themselves. There are four main goals for this class: 1) students will acquire a perspective on history and an understanding of the factors that shape human life; 2) students will display knowledge about the origins and nature of contemporary issues and develop a foundation for comparative understanding; 3) students will think, speak, and write critically about primary and secondary historical sources by examining diverse interpretations of past events and ideas in their historical contexts; and 4) students will gain expertise in discussing historiography and will gain critical knowledge for teaching history courses and successfully passing oral examinations.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 351J:
American Slavery and Its Afterlives (AFRICAAM 251J, AMSTUD 251J, HISTORY 251J)
How did the institution of American slavery come to an end? The story is more complex than most people know. This course examines the rival forces that fostered slavery's simultaneous contraction in the North and expansion in the South between 1776 and 1861. It also illuminates, in detail, the final tortuous path to abolition during the Civil War. Throughout, the course introduces a diverse collection of historical figures, including seemingly paradoxical ones, such as slaveholding southerners who professed opposition to slavery and non-slaveholding northerners who acted in ways that preserved it. During the course's final weeks, we will examine the racialized afterlives of American slavery as they manifested during the late-nineteenth century and beyond.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 352:
Originalism and the American Constitution: History and Interpretation (HISTORY 252)
Except for the Bible no text has been the subject of as much modern interpretive scrutiny as the United States Constitution. This course explores both the historical dimensions of its creation as well as the meaning such knowledge should bring to bear on its subsequent interpretation. In light of the modern obsession with the document's "original meaning," this course will explore the intersections of history, law, and textual meaning to probe what an "original" interpretation of the Constitution looks like.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 352B:
History of American Law (HISTORY 152)
(Formerly Law 318. Now Law 3504.) This course examines the growth and development of American legal institutions with particular attention to crime and punishment, slavery and race relations, the role of law in developing the economy, and the place of lawyers in American society, from colonial times to the present. Special Instructions: Any student may write a paper in lieu of the final exam with consent of instructor. After the term begins, students accepted into the course can transfer from section (01) into section (02), which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor. Elements used in grading: Final exam or paper. Automatic grading penalty waived for writers. Cross-listed with History (HISTORY 152 Consent of instructor required) & (HISTORY 352B).
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
HISTORY 353C:
Histories of Racial Capitalism
This colloquium takes as its starting point the insistence that the movement, settlement, and hierarchical arrangements of indigenous communities and people of African descent is inseparable from regimes of capital accumulation. It builds on the concept of "racial capitalism," which rejects treatments of race as external to a purely economic project and counters the idea that racism is an externality, cultural overflow, or aberration from the so-called real workings of capitalism. This course will cover topics such as chattel slavery, settler colonialism, black capitalism, the under-development of Africa, and the profitability of mass incarceration.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 353F:
Thinking the American Revolution (AMSTUD 253F, HISTORY 253F)
No period in American history has generated as much creative political thinking as the era of the American Revolution. This course explores the origins and development of that thought from the onset of the dispute between Great Britain and its American colonies over liberty and governance through the debates surrounding the construction and implementation of the United States federal Constitution.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 354B:
Animism, Gaia, and Alternative Approaches to the Environment (ANTHRO 254C, FRENCH 254, HISTORY 254B, REES 254)
Indigenous knowledges have been traditionally treated as a field of research for anthropologists and as mistaken epistemologies, i.e., un-scientific and irrational folklore. However, within the framework of environmental humanities, current interest in non-anthropocentric approaches and epistemic injustice, animism emerged as a critique of modern epistemology and an alternative to the Western worldview. Treating native thought as an equivalent to Western knowledge will be presented as a (potentially) decolonizing and liberating practice. This course may be of interest to anthropology, archaeology and literature students working in the fields of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities/social sciences, students interested in the Anthropocene, geologic/mineral, bio-, eco- and geosocial collectives, symbiotic life-forms and non-human agencies. The course is designed as a research seminar for students interested in theory of the humanities and social sciences and simultaneously helping students to develop their individual projects and thesis.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 354E:
The Rise of American Democracy (HISTORY 254E)
(History 254E is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 354E is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Where did American democracy come from? Prior to and during the American Revolution, few who lived in what became the United States claimed to live in a democracy. Half a century later, most took this reality as an article of faith. Accordingly, the period stretching from c. 1750 to c. 1840 is often considered the period when American democracy was ascendant, a time marked by the explosion of new forms of political thinking, practices, and culture, new political institutions and forms of political organization, and new kinds of political struggles. This advanced undergraduate/graduate colloquium will explore how American political life changed during this formative period to understand the character of early American democracy, how different groups gained or suffered as a result of these transformations, and, in light of these investigations, in what ways it is historically appropriate to think of this period as in fact the rise of American democracy.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 354F:
Law and Empire in U.S. History
(Same as LAW 3506. Instructor consent required for History 354F.) This course will examine the interrelationship between legal norms and empire in the history of the United States. Topics in this part will include the Constitution as an imperial document; law and the expansion of the United States in western North America, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii; the Insular Cases; and current debates over extraterritoriality and the War on Terror. Substantial readings will consist of scholarly articles, historical cases, and primary sources, and will be provided online. Requirements for the course include regular class participation and, at the students' election, either response papers or a historiographical essay. Students may also elect to complete a research paper, in which case they will receive 3 units and "R" credit.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 2-3
HISTORY 354G:
The News Media and American Democracy
The role of the news media in a democracy has been a source of controversy throughout American history. This colloquium will examine how technology, capitalism, law, and politics have reshaped the press over time and how the press, in turn, has impacted democratic discourse and formed partisan, gender, and ethnic identities. Students will be expected to write a primary source paper using historical newspapers to engage with debates about the history of news media.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 355D:
Racial Identity in the American Imagination (AFRICAAM 255, AMSTUD 255D, CSRE 255D, HISTORY 255D)
From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama and Beyonce, this course explores the ways that racial identity has been experienced, represented, and contested throughout American history. Engaging historical, legal, and literary texts and films, this course examines major historical transformations that have shaped our understanding of racial identity. This course also draws on other imaginative modes including autobiography, memoir, photography, and music to consider the ways that racial identity has been represented in American culture.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 355F:
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era (HISTORY 255F)
(Undergraduates, enroll in 255F; Graduates, enroll in 355F.) This course examines the critical period between 1860, when the first states seceded in defense of enslavement, and 1896, when the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision affirmed the constitutionality of Jim Crow. We will focus, at first, on the crucial role played by African Americans, enslaved and free, in the abolition of slavery and in the fundamental reframing of civil rights effected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. We will then shift to a close study of the decades-long fight between those who sought to defend these advances in racial justice and those who sought to constrain them, even invalidate them. Students will engage with primary source material in every class session and will write final papers on topics of their own choosing.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 355G:
Planning Suburban America
In 2021 Governor Galvin Newsom singed a law ending single-family zoning in the state of California, a remarkable departure for the state of California, which had pioneered automobile-centric suburban development. This course aims to contextualize contemporary concerns about the suburb. Life outside of the urban core had often been seen as dangerous and uncivilized. But, by the middle of the 20th century, homogenous, middle class suburban households were often depicted as quintessentially American bulwarks against communism. This course will engage with debates over whether that transformation was a natural result of technological innovation or a contingent product of public policy and white flight. It will then consider how suburban planning has impacted popular culture, ecology, race, politics, national identity, and even foreign policy.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 356A:
Antebellum America (HISTORY 256A)
In the decades leading up to the American Civil War, the United States underwent profound transformations. Diverse developments - including the expansion of slavery and the increasing power of the cotton kingdom, the rise of the Second Great Awakening and mass politics, the growth of capitalism and its attendant panics, the construction of a series of reform movements, and deep uncertainties and anxieties about the proper role of women and people of color in the still new nation - made the lived experience of the period incredibly tumultuous. In this advanced undergraduate/graduate colloquium, students will explore the social, cultural, religious, political, economic, labor, and gender history and historiography of antebellum America, with a particular focus on how these developments were experienced by ordinary people.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 356E:
The American Civil War: The Lived Experience
What was it like to live in the United States during the Civil War? This course uses the lenses of racial/ethnic identity, gender, class, and geography (among others) to explore the breadth of human experience during this singular moment in American history. It illuminates the varied ways in which Americans, in the Union states and the Confederate states, struggled to move forward and to find meaning in the face of unprecedented division and destruction.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 357E:
History of Conservatism (HISTORY 257E)
What is conservatism in America? Where did it come from, and where might it be going? Looking at conservatism as a political, social, and intellectual movement, we will consider these questions by reading primary and secondary sources and archival material. Suitable for students of any or no particular political persuasion. No prerequisites or background required, although the reading will be considerable.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 358A:
Back to the Future: Media, Art, and Politics in the 1980s (AMSTUD 128B, COMM 128, COMM 228, COMM 328, HISTORY 258A)
(COMM 128 is offered for 5 units, COMM 228 is offered for 4 units. COMM 328 is offered for 3-5 units.)This seminar covers the intersection of politics, media and art in the U.S. from the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Topics include globalization and financialization; the rise of the New Right; the personalization of media technology, from television to computing; postmodernism and political art; feminism, queer, and sex-positive activism; identity politics and the culture wars. Open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 358G:
The Origins of American Liberalism
In the 1870s, liberalism in America was associated with freedom of contract, small government, and, quite often, restrictions on suffrage. Today, liberalism means nearly the opposite of that. This class examines how factors like war, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, disease, fascism, and economic instability have reshaped liberalism. American liberalism has been labelled protean, flexible, or just imprecise. The goal of this course is to identify some of the strands that hold it together by contextualizing its evolution within social changes that have forced liberals to reevaluate their ideas.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 359C:
The Civil Rights Movement in American History and Memory (AMSTUD 259C, HISTORY 259C)
This course examines the origins, conduct, and complex legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the continuing struggle over how the movement should be remembered and represented. Topics examined include: the NAACP legal campaign against segregation; the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the career of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the birth of the student movement; the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project; the rise of Black Power; Black political movements in the urban North; and the persistence of racial inequality in post-Jim Crow America.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 359E:
American Interventions, 1898-Present (HISTORY 259E, INTNLREL 168A)
This class seeks to examine the modern American experience with limited wars, beginning with distant and yet pertinent cases, and culminating in the war in Iraq. Although this class will examine war as a consequence of foreign policy, it will not focus primarily on presidential decision making. Rather, it will place wartime policy in a broader frame, considering it alongside popular and media perceptions of the war, the efforts of antiwar movements, civil-military relations, civil reconstruction efforts, and conditions on the battlefield. We will also examine, when possible, the postwar experience. Non-matriculating students are asked to consult the instructor before enrolling in the course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
HISTORY 360:
Black Women, Trauma, and the Art of Resistance (HISTORY 260)
This course explores how Black women have experienced, remembered, and recovered from trauma. Drawing on historical texts, works in psychology, legal records, medical literature, diaries, novels, poetry, plays, songs, and films, we will consider how Black women recorded, passed down, and inherited stories about traumatic events. We begin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with Black women's experiences on slave ships and during slavery, we discuss intergenerational trauma, and we conclude by examining the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black women's lives. We pay considerable attention to how Black women relied on the arts to speak the unspeakable. The class will centrally address healing, recovery, and resistance. We will read texts by writers, activists, legal scholars, and artists including Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, bell hooks, Saidiya Hartman, Kimberl¿ Crenshaw, and Jesmyn Ward.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 360P:
American Protest Movements, Past and Present (FEMGEN 360P)
(History 260P is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 360P is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Societal change comes only when individuals and groups speak out, perseverantly, against prevailing norms. This course examines the overlapping histories of three nineteenth-century protest movements: antislavery, womens rights, and temperance. It focuses on the arguments and tactics used by these movements to persuade Americans to oppose the status quo, and it examines the points of agreement and disagreement that arose within and among these movements. Ultimately, the course connects these past protest movements to more recent analogs, such as Black Lives Matter, ERA ratification, and marijuana legalization. Throughout the course, race, gender, and class serve as central analytical themes.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 361:
Topics in US History: African American History: Text and Context
Graduate colloquium in US history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 361D:
History of Civil Rights Law
(Same as LAW 7838.) This is a seminar that will examine canonical civil rights law using history. We will investigate the historical context behind the enactment of particular laws and judicial decisions. We will also discuss the meaning and implications of the term "civil rights law." Readings will include cases, law review articles, primary sources, and history articles. Topics will include segregation, abortion, workers' rights, and disability. 14th Amendment is not a prerequisite for the seminar. Requirements for the course include regular class participation and, at the students' election, either response papers or a historiographical essay. Elements used in grading: Attendance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete and submit a Consent Application Form available on the SLS website (Click Courses at the bottom of the homepage and then click Consent of Instructor Forms). See Consent Application Form for instructions and submission deadline.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 364:
History of Prisons and Immigration Detention (AMSTUD 264, CSRE 264, HISTORY 264)
This course will explore the history of the growing prison and immigration detention systems in the United States. They will pay particular attention to how they developed and how they affect different populations.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 368:
Women of the Movement (AFRICAAM 208, AMSTUD 208, FEMGEN 208, FEMGEN 308, HISTORY 268, RELIGST 208, RELIGST 308)
This seminar will examine women and their gendered experience of activism, organizing, living, and leading in the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 369:
Thinking About Capitalism (HISTORY 269)
What is capitalism? An economic and social system that maximizes both individual freedom and social good? An exploitative arrangement dependent on the subordination of labor to capital? A natural arrangement guided by a munificent invisible hand? Or a finely tuned mechanism requiring state support? This class offers undergraduate and graduate students a forum to consider these questions by reading selected works by historians, sociologists, economists, and other thinkers. Together we will work our way through primary sources from the twentieth century, using them to examine how capitalism has been understood, conceptualized, defended, and attacked. We will study the history of debates about markets, the state, and social organization, taking capitalism as both an economic system and a culture. Permission number required to enroll. Please contact Professor Burns at jenniferburns@stanford.edu to request permission to enroll in the course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 369F:
Modern American History: From Civil Rights to Human Rights (HISTORY 269F)
(History 269F is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 369F is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This focuses on American social justice movements during the years since the passage of landmark civil rights legislation during the 1960s, with particular emphasis on efforts to extend rights to all people.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 371:
Graduate Colloquium: Explorations in Latin American History and Historiography (ILAC 371)
Introduction to modern Latin American history and historiography, including how to read and use primary sources for independent research.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 371B:
US Latinx History (CHILATST 271B, HISTORY 271B)
This course introduces scholarship on Latinx history, a field of critical importance to U.S. History, American studies, Latinx studies, ethnic studies, Latin American studies, and African American history. In order to cover a plethora of Latinx experiences, it will focus on Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Central American, and other Latinx communities from the 1840s into present, though it does not adhere to a strict chronological time frame. This course attempts to show the hemispheric nature of Latinx history. It also emphasizes a notion of Latinidad as a contingent historical process. Key themes which survey its complexity include the nature and legacies of imperialism; the politics of peoplehood and citizenship; trans-border connections; the importance of race, class, and gender in defining politics and culture; the emergence of ethnic nationalisms; and the development of urban enclaves. In particular, our class will focus on linking these dynamics to present-day issues and debates.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 371C:
Iberian Expansion Through the Looking Glass: One World or Many? (COMPLIT 251A, COMPLIT 351A, CSRE 251, CSRE 351, HISTORY 271C, ILAC 251, ILAC 351)
The conquerors, missionaries, and historians who reflected on Iberian overseas expansion during the early modern period often asked themselves a crucial question: was there only one world or many? Were the Americas a 'New World,' unknown to the ancients, entirely detached from the rest of human history? Even after the invasion and occupation of the Americas, many European chroniclers continued to think that the world was divided into three parts - Europe, Asia, and Africa. In their descriptions of the Americas, they drew heavily on histories and travel reports pertaining to other epochs and locales, especially contemporary Asia and ancient Rome. At the same time, indigenous elites and mestizo authors in the Americas used 'Old World' history and news of distant conflicts to reflect on the immediacy of their historical experience. In this course, students will consider the ways in which diverse authors in New Spain (Mexico), Peru, and Brazil contemplated themselves in relation to remote times and places: from Greco-Roman Antiquity to Lutheran Germany, the Ottoman Mediterranean to the Apocalyptic End of Times. Students will analyze the many reflections, distortions, inversions, translations, uncanny resemblances, and strange parallel dimensions that resulted from these intellectual experiments. Primary sources include chronicles, poetry, theater, Afro-Catholic festivals, pictographic codices, feather mosaics, and maps. All texts offered in the original language and in English translation whenever possible. For graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 372B:
Colonial Mexico: Images and Power (ARTHIST 277, HISTORY 272, ILAC 214, ILAC 314)
How did images maintain, construct, or transform political power during the conquest and colonization of Mexico? The creation and destruction of visual materials in this period had a complicated relationship with power. The pictographic codices that celebrated the expansive Aztec Empire were created after its fall; and the conquistadors' indigenous allies painted some of the most triumphalist narratives of the conquest. Friars accused indigenous peoples of "idolatry" both to justify the destruction of their images and objects, and to construct legal defenses of their humanity. Colonial authorities frequently claimed Afro-Catholic festivals were seditious. In light of such complexity, official histories that recount the top-down consolidation of royal and viceroyal power are suspiciously simple. What counter-narratives do images and other visual phenomena from this tumultuous period offer? This course introduces students to major texts from Colonial Mexico (royal chronicles, conquistadors' tales, letters, poems, festival accounts) alongside a fascinating trove of images (painted codices with Nahuatl texts, feather mosaics, and indigenous heraldry) and considers how experiences of images and spectacles were transformed into textual accounts ("ekphrasis" or the literary device of description). Taught in Spanish with accommodations for non-ILAC students who are still improving their language skills
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 373:
Mexican Immigration to the United States (HISTORY 273)
This course is an introduction to the history of Mexican migration to the United States. Barraged with anti-immigrant rhetoric and calls for bigger walls and more restrictive laws, few people in the United States truly understand the historical trends that shape migratory processes, or the multifaceted role played by both US officials and employers in encouraging Mexicans to migrate north. Moreover, few have actually heard the voices and perspectives of migrants themselves. This course seeks to provide students with the opportunity to place migrants' experiences in dialogue with migratory laws as well as the knowledge to embed current understandings of Latin American migration in their meaningful historical context.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 374C:
Mexican American History (AMSTUD 274C, CHILATST 274, HISTORY 274C)
This course will explore the history of Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans from 1848 to the present.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 376C:
Central American Refugees (HISTORY 276C)
Students will work with the Stanford Immigration and Asylum Lab to conduct research on conditions in Mexico and Central America to support people seeking U.S. asylum. With the guidance of historians and attorneys, students will analyze publicly available information on violence, corruption, discrimination, and other relevant country conditions to corroborate the lived experiences of asylum-seeking clients. Through collaborations with local nonprofit legal services providers, students will contribute country conditions research for expert testimony to support the asylum cases of people who have fled persecution. Guest lecturers will include legal practitioners, a former immigration judge, and other experts on U.S. asylum and Latin America. Through this work, students will gain critical research skills and an understanding of the U.S. asylum system, its implications in the Americas, and contemporary human security issues in the region, while meaningfully impacting people in need of protection.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 377:
Refugees and Asylum (CHILATST 277, HISTORY 277)
This course explores the histories of refugees and asylum seekers to the United States and helps students learn how people seek asylum by working on the legal cases of current asylum seekers.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 378:
The Historical Ecology of Latin America (HISTORY 278B)
This seminar explores the ways in which access to natural resources has translated into political and economic power in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the colonial period to the present. We will examine how state-building projects (colonialism, capitalism, socialism) have used natural resources as a tool to assert power and legitimacy in the region and on the world stage. We will also explore how Latin American and Caribbean thinkers and activists have offered some of the earliest critiques of capitalism based on the region's environmental exploitation. How has the long history of resource extraction and resistance played out in Latin America and the Caribbean? In what ways have indigenous and local knowledge been overlooked, even as that knowledge informed scientific innovation or management techniques over time? How can environmental history reveal new perspectives on the history of colonialism, inequality, and resistance in the region? Case studies range from hurricanes in the Caribbean to the fight of the Indigenous Cofán against oil spills in Ecuador. Students will learn how to think and write like historians through participation in class discussions, regular short response papers, and creative research toward a final project.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 379:
Latin American Development: Economy and Society, 1800-2014 (HISTORY 279)
The newly independent nations of Latin America began the 19th century with economies roughly equal to the U.S. and Canada. What explains the economic gap that developed since 1800? Why are some Latin American nations rich and others poor and how have societies changed over time? Marxist, dependency, neoclassical, and institutionalist interpretive frameworks are explored. The effects of globalization on Latin American economic growth, autonomy, and potential for social justice are examined and debated.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 379A:
Immigration and Asylum Practicum (HISTORY 279A)
Course description coming soon.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 380B:
The Birth of Islam: Authority, Community, and Resistance (GLOBAL 134, GLOBAL 234, HISTORY 280B)
This course explores the historical problem of how authority and community (in both the political and religious sense) were defined and challenged in the early Islamic period. Chronological topics covered include: the political, cultural, and religious world of Late Antiquity into which Muhammad was born; the crystallization of a small community of believers who supported Muhammad's message of radical monotheism and aided him in the conquest and conversion of the Arabian Peninsula; the problems of legacy and leadership in the community of the faithful after Muhammad's death; the Arabo-Islamic conquests beyond Arabia during the 7th and early 8th centuries and the establishment of the first Islamic empire under the rule of the Umayyad clan; the Sunni/Shi'a split (and further splits in Shi'ism); the revolution of 750 A.D. and overthrow of the Umayyads by the 'Abbasids; the flourishing of a sophisticated world of learning and culture under the 'Abbasids; and the waning of the 'Abbasids empire in the tenth century and political reconfiguration of the Islamic lands.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 380C:
Archives, Documents, and Manuscripts: Sources of Ottoman History
The seminar focuses on Ottoman-Turkish texts in various genres - political and moral treatises, histories, legal canons and court records, imperial decrees and fiscal documents, travelogues, private letters and novellas - gathered from archival sources, manuscripts and printed primary material from the 16th to 19th centuries. Students will be introduced to various paleographical and codicological skills. The seminar explores Ottoman-Turkish manuscripts in the Special Collections at Stanford Library. Knowledge of Turkish and Ottoman-Turkish is required.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 381:
Readings in the Historiography of the Modern Middle East
This course surveys major themes in the English-language historiography of the modern Middle East from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. The first half of the course will cover themes including modernization theory, Orientalism, political economy and the cultural turn. In the second half, students will read and discuss texts published in the past ten years.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 381D:
Introduction to Islamic Law (HISTORY 281D)
What is Islamic law? What kinds of sources do we use to access Islamic law, and how has Islamic legal thinking and practice changed historically? This course introduces students to topics in Islamic law while addressing questions of continuity and change in the legal tradition from the medieval period to the present. The first part of the course will introduce aspects of substantive Islamic law, including criminal and penal law, family law, and the law of war. The second part will explore the diversity of Islamic legal traditions across chronological and geographic space, examining topics from classical jurisprudence to Ottoman constitutionalism, the encounter with colonialism and modern state iterations. No prior knowledge or prerequisites are required.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 381E:
Oil, Maps, Data: Technology in the Middle East (HISTORY 281E)
This course introduces students to a wide range of humanities and social science concepts pertaining to the global study of technology with an emphasis on the Middle East in the 19th, 20th and 21st-centuries. The main body of the course focuses on three case studies namely oil, mapping, and the internet through which issues of power, race, colonialism, financial imperialism, violence, and surveillance will be explored. This colloquium provides a unique perspective on contemporary debates about the politics and ethics of technology through a study of their global circulation.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 382:
Ottoman Palestine (HISTORY 282)
This course focuses on Palestine during Ottoman rule, spanning from the 16th century to the 1920s. It explores the diverse peoples, territories, cities, and cultures of Palestine, alongside significant political developments. Key themes include the region's integration into the Ottoman Empire, the reconstruction of Jerusalem under Ottoman rule, European fascination with the "Holy Land," intricate dynamics among Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Armenians, and Jews with fluid boundaries, the rise of regional powers, the expansion of global trade and capitalism, and the establishment of Jewish settlements alongside Ottoman reforms in the 19th century. The course culminates in discussions on contested notions of multi-religious and multi-national Ottoman citizenship, and examines the eventual demise of the Ottoman regime within the context of the Zionist movement, Palestinian and Arab nationalism, and European colonial ambitions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 382J:
Disasters in Middle Eastern History (ANTHRO 382J)
(History 282J is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 382J is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) This course explores the history of disasters in the Middle East from the early modern period to the mid-20th-century. We will trace the evolving meanings of disasters and misfortunes by focusing on critical moments -- plagues, fires, earthquakes, wars -- to examine how people have responded to these events, labeled them, and devised strategies to live with or forget them. The course readings follow the evolution of policies and norms together with the articulation of new forms of knowledge and expertise in the wake of catastrophe. Additionally, particular attention will be paid to how modern conceptions of disaster relate to older understandings of apocalypse, as well as to various strands of "disaster reformism," when rethinking tragedy and time helped assert radical agendas for reforming political, economic, social, communal, racial, and gender relations while remodeling social science and intellectual life. The course focuses on various trajectories of disaster thinking in Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 382K:
Refugees and Migrants in the Middle East and Balkans: 18th Century to Present (HISTORY 282K, JEWISHST 282K)
This course studies one of the most pressing issues of our day--massive population displacements--from a historical perspective. Our focus will be the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, including Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. Questions include the following: When and why did certain ethno-religious groups begin to relocate en masse? To what extent were these departures caused by state policy? In what cases can we apply the term "ethnic cleansing"? How did the movement of people and the idea of the nation influence each other in the modern age?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
HISTORY 383B:
The Ottoman Empire and Iran: An Intertwined History of Islamic Eurasia
A history of the Ottoman Empire and Iran (under the Timurid, Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties) from the 14th to the early 20th century. The course invites students to think the Ottoman and Iranian experiences as a connected history, bridging separate historiographical traditions of Ottoman and Persianate worlds. Topics include paths of empire building in Eurasia after the Mongols; consolidation of the Sunni-Shii division; border making in early modern Eurasia; Armenians, Kurds and Afghans between Ottoman and Iranian orders; Istanbul and Isfahan; European global hegemony and Islamic Eurasia; two paths of modernization; revolutions ending the empires.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 383B:
The Ottoman Empire and Iran: An Intertwined History of Islamic Eurasia (HISTORY 283B)
A history of the Ottoman Empire and Iran (under the Timurid, Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties) from the 14th to the early 20th century. The course invites students to think the Ottoman and Iranian experiences as a connected history, bridging separate historiographical traditions of Ottoman and Persianate worlds. Topics include paths of empire building in Eurasia after the Mongols; consolidation of the Sunni-Shii division; border making in early modern Eurasia; Armenians, Kurds and Afghans between Ottoman and Iranian orders; Istanbul and Isfahan; European global hegemony and Islamic Eurasia; two paths of modernization; revolutions ending the empires.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 383C:
The Medieval Middle East: Crusaders, Turks, and Mongols (GLOBAL 133, GLOBAL 233, HISTORY 283C)
This course surveys the history of the Middle East from c.950 A.D. to c.1517 A.D., placing particular emphasis on the following questions: What were the social, cultural, and political contexts for conversion to Islam in the Middle Ages? How did the interplay of nomadic and sedentary peoples shape Middle Eastern history? What were the nature of Christian-Muslim relations and the fate of religious minorities in an age of Crusade and Jihad? What were the conditions for the rise, flourishing, and eventual collapse of a ¿world-system¿ in this period (with the lands of the Middle East serving as its nexus)? Chronological topics include: the arrival in the Middle East of the Seljuk Turks, new adopters of Islam and recent nomads; the western European crusades to the Holy Land and the establishment of so-called ¿Crusader States¿ in Syria; the subjugation of Iran to pagan Mongols¿and the Mongols¿ eventual conversion to Islam; the rise to power of a dynasty of Turkish slave-soldiers (mamluks) in Cairo and the political reunification of Syria and Egypt under their rule. Readings will consist of both primary sources and works of modern scholarship.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 383F:
Capital and Crisis in the Middle East and the World
How are crises imagined, named, and categorized? How do economic crises intersect with pandemics, violence and environmental disaster to redefine the workings of capital? This course approaches these questions through critical reading in the histories of capitalism, crisis, and intersections between political economy and legal history. Moving beyond the tendency to center the history of Western Europe in understandings of global phenomena, this course uses the Middle East region as a starting point. We will examine the ways in which constructions like race and ethnicity, gender, and the human/non-human divide have mediated the social and spatial expansion of capital in the region, especially through legal categories and instruments that transform rapidly in times of crisis. Temporally, we will focus our examination between two moments experienced as crises: the ¿long depression¿ of the late nineteenth century and the financial crisis of 2008. We will also ground our historical reading in attention to current events, in particular the Middle East¿s ongoing experience of the financial crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, in global perspective.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 383J:
Global Islam
(Undergraduates, enroll in 283J; Graduates, enroll in 383J.) Explores the history and politics of Islam in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas --- and of the novel connections that have linked Muslim communities across the globe in modern times.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 383K:
Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Ottoman to Modern Times (HISTORY 283K, JEWISHST 283K)
At a time when Europe was riven by sectarian war, the expanding Ottoman Empire came to rule over a religiously diverse population in what we now call the Balkans and Middle East. Focusing on the period 1323-1789, this course asks the following questions: Why was "difference" normal in the Ottoman Empire but not elsewhere? How did the Ottomans maintain relatively low levels of intercommunal violence during the early-modern period? How did Ottoman rule and intracommunal dynamics affect each other? How did perceptions of ethno-religious diversity vary among commentators and over time? This course is currently pending review for WAY-SI and WAY-EDP.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
HISTORY 384:
The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Coexistence, and Coffee (HISTORY 284)
(History 284 is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 384 is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) The Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe from the 15th to the early 20th centuries. How did the Ottoman enterprise appear in the frontier region between Christendom and the Islamic world? How were diverse peoples, religions, and regions integrated under the Ottoman order? Was there an Ottoman Mediterranean and Indian Ocean? How did reform movements in Islamic, Christian and Jewish thinking transform Ottoman societies? Topics include the Ottoman Empire between Europe and Eastern Islamic World; merchants and their markets; elite, urban, rural and nomadic lives; women, family, childhood and sexuality; life, afterlife and dreams; epidemics and natural disasters. Special emphasis will be given to coffee and coffee houses which shaped public life in the Ottoman World since the 16th century. The survey ends with the rise of nationalism, inter-communal violence and the disintegration of the Ottoman world.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 384A:
Core Graduate Colloquium: History of the Ottoman Empire
This course presents a comprehensive exploration of key themes in Ottoman History spanning the 14th to the early 20th centuries. Emphasizing a critical approach, the curriculum introduces students to historiographical debates within the field. It is designed to contextualize Ottoman history within broader frameworks, including European, Eurasian, Mediterranean, and Islamic history. Additionally, the course delves into the intellectual trends of the 20th and 21st centuries that shape the landscape of Ottoman History, providing students with a holistic understanding of the field's evolution.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 384E:
Contemporary Muslim Political Thought (HISTORY 284E)
This course aims to provide an intellectual history of contemporary Muslim political thought. It presents post-nineteenth century Muslim contributions to political thought. It is designed as a survey of some major thinkers from the Arab world to Iran and Southeast Asia, from Turkey to North America, who sought to interpret Islam's basic sources and Islamic intellectual legacy. Our readings include primary texts by Tahtawi, Tunisi, Afghani, Rida, Huda Sharawi, Qutb, Shariati, and Mernissi among other prominent figures. We will analyze recurring ideas in this body of thought such as decline, civilization, rationality, ijtihad (Islamic independent reasoning), shura (deliberative decision-making), democracy, secularism, Muslim unity, khilafah (caliphate and vicegerency), freedom, equality, and justice. We will discuss their current significance for the ongoing theoretical debates in Muslim political thought, Muslim intellectual history, and comparative political theory.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 384F:
Empires, Markets and Networks: Early Modern Islamic World Between Europe and China, 1400-1900 (HISTORY 284F)
Focuses on political regimes, transregional connections, economic interactions and sociocultural formations in the early modern Islamic Afro-Eurasia. Topics include complex political-economic systems of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires and expansion of Turco-Persianate political and literary cultures across the Post-Mongolian Eurasia; experiences of various Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Hindu, as well as urban, rural and nomadic communities and networks under Islamicate political regimes; consolidation of transregional commerce and cultural exchange with the proliferation of networks of merchants, scholars and sufis; new tendencies in knowledge, individual, gender, family, social order, and religion; incorporation of the Islamic world in the global economy; Muslims in the age of revolutions; political and social reforms and consolidation of Muslim internationalism in the age of imperialism.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 384K:
The "Other" Jews: Sephardim in Muslim-Majority Lands (HISTORY 284K, JEWISHST 284)
This course expands conceptions of Jewish History by focusing on overlooked regions such as North Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Beginning in medieval Al-Andalus, the course follows the Jews of Spain and Portugal to other parts of the world and traces their stories into the 20th century. Topics include the expulsions from Iberia, the formation of a Sephardi identity, encounters between Sephardim and other communities (Muslim, Christian, and Jewish), life in the Ottoman Empire, networks and mobility, gender, colonialism, and the rise of the nation-state paradigm.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
HISTORY 385A:
Graduate Colloquium in Early Modern Jewish History (JEWISHST 385A)
Core colloquium in Jewish History, 17th to 19th centuries.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 385B:
Graduate Colloquium in Jewish History, 19th-20th Centuries (JEWISHST 385B)
Graduate colloquium in Jewish History, 19th-20th centuries.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 390:
North Korea in a Historical and Cultural Perspective (HISTORY 290, KOREA 190X, KOREA 290X)
North Korea has been dubbed secretive, its leaders unhinged, its people mindless dupes. Such descriptions are partly a result of the control that the DPRK exerts over texts and bodies that come through its borders. Filtered through foreign media, North Korea's people and places can seem to belong to another planet. However, students interested in North Korea can access the DPRK through a broad and growing range of sources including satellite imagery, archival documents, popular magazines, films, literature, art, tourism, and through interviews with former North Korean residents (defectors). When such sources are brought into conversation with scholarship about North Korea, they yield new insights into North Korea's history, politics, economy, and culture. This course will provide students with fresh perspectives on the DPRK and will give them tools to better contextualize its current position in the world. Lectures will be enriched with a roster of guest speakers.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 391B:
The City in Imperial China
The evolution of cities in the early imperial, medieval, and early modern periods. Topics include physical structure, social order, cultural forms, economic roles, relations to rural hinterlands, and the contrast between imperial capitals and other cities. Comparative cases from European history. Readings include primary and secondary sources, and visual materials.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 391C:
War and the Making of Modern China (EASTASN 261, EASTASN 361, HISTORY 291C, INTLPOL 249)
Instructor: Jonathan Ming-En Tang Warfare and organized state violence has been a critical part of modern China's construction over the past 150 years. What is the consequence of such violence for our understanding of PRC strategic behavior in the present day? How can these wars be placed in a larger regional context? Over the course of this time period, and across multiple governmental regimes, can a culturally 'Chinese' form of war be identified? Conflicts will be analyzed in chronological fashion, beginning with the Taiping Civil War, The First Sino-Japanese War, the early republican "Warlord Period" in the second and third decades of the twentieth century, China's participation in World War II, the Civil War between the Nationalists and the Communists, the Cold War, and the People's Republic of China's military involvement in East and Southeast Asia. This course covers selected major English-language secondary scholarship on the topic of war in China or conducted by China. No knowledge of Chinese language is required, but some background in Chinese history would be extremely helpful.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
HISTORY 391E:
Maps, Borders, and Conflict in East Asia (HISTORY 291E)
(Students enroll for 3 OR 5 units.)The nature of borders and border conflicts in N.E. Asia from the 17th to the early 20th century. Focus is on contact zones between China, Russia, Korea, and Japan. The geopolitical imperatives that drove states to map their terrain in variable ways. Cultural, diplomatic, and imperial contexts. European pressures and contributions to E. Asian cartography; the uses of maps in surveillance, diplomacy, identity, and war. Student projects focus on a contested border zone.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 391G:
Pre-Modern Chinese Warfare (HISTORY 291G)
This course examines the evolution of warfare in China, and its impact on the evolving political and social orders, from the earliest states through the Mongol conquest. It will study how changing military technology was inextricably linked to changes in the state and society. It will also look at changing Chinese attitudes towards warfare over the same period, from the celebration of heroism, through writing about warfare as an intellectual art, to the links of militarism with steppe peoples/
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 391K:
Korean History and Culture before 1900 (HISTORY 291K, KOREA 158, KOREA 258)
This course serves as an introduction to Korean culture, society, and history before the modern period. It begins with a discussion of early Korea and controversies over Korean origins; the bulk of the course will be devoted to the Chos'n period (1392-1910), that from the end of medieval Korea to the modern period. Topics to be covered include: Korean national and ethnic origins, the role of religious and intellectual traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism, popular and indigenous religious practices, the traditional Korean family and social order, state and society during the Chos'n dynasty, vernacular prose literature, Korean's relations with its neighbors in East Asia, and changing conceptions of Korean identity.nThe course will be conducted through the reading and discussion of primary texts in English translation alongside scholarly research. As such, it will emphasize the interpretation of historical sources, which include personal letters, memoirs, and diaries, traditional histories, diplomatic and political documents, along with religious texts and works of art. Scholarly work will help contextualize these materials, while the class discussions will introduce students to existing scholarly debates about the Korean past. Students will be asked also to examine the premodern past with an eye to contemporary reception. The final project for the class is a film study, where a modern Korean film portraying premodern Korea will be analyzed as a case study of how the past works in public historical memory in contemporary Korea, both North and South. An open-ended research paper is also possible, pending instructor approval.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 3-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 392A:
Gender in Modern South Asia
Gender is crucial to understanding the political, cultural, and economic trajectories of communities in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Throughout this course, we will ask a series of questions: How does gender structure conceptions of home, community, and homeland in South Asia? How do gender and religion become represented in movements for nation-states? How does women's participation in anticolonial politics and fights for equal representation in postcolonial nation-states affect our understanding of gender in South Asia today? Readings examine the creation and impact of religious personal law under British colonial rule, the role of masculinity in the British-Indian army, perspectives on religion and clothing, the interplay of rights movements and anti-colonialism, and the status of women in postcolonial India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Students will also explore a range of primary sources, including political treatises, short stories, didactic manuals, autobiographies, and travelogues.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 392B:
Law and Society in Late Imperial China (CHINA 392B)
Connections between legal and social history. Ideology and practice, center and periphery, and state-society tensions and interactions. Readings introduce the work of major historians on concepts and problems in Ming-Qing history.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 392D:
Japan in Asia, Asia in Japan (HISTORY 292D, JAPAN 392D)
(History 292D is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 392D is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) How Japan and Asia mutually shaped each other in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Focus is on Japanese imperialism in Asia and its postwar legacies. Topics include: pan-Asianism and orientalism; colonial modernization in Korea and Taiwan; collaboration and resistance; popular imperialism in Manchuria; total war and empire; comfort women and the politics of apology; the issue of resident Koreans; and economic and cultural integration of postwar Asia.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 392F:
Culture and Religions in Korean History (HISTORY 292F)
This colloquium explores the major themes of Korean history before 1800 and the role of culture and religions in shaping the everyday life of Chosôn-dynasty Koreans. Themes include the aristocracy and military in the Koryô dynasty, Buddhism and Confucianism in the making of Chosôn Korea, kingship and court culture, slavery and women, family and rituals, death and punishment, and the Korean alphabet (Hangûl) and print culture.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 392G:
Modern Korea
Examines seminal works and major historical debates in the study of modern Korea. Topics include the state and society in the Choson dynasty, reform and rebellion in the nineteenth century, colonization, gender and colonial modernity, national identity and assimilation, wartime colonial Korea, decolonization and the North Korean revolution, the Korean War and its aftermath, the Pak Chung Hee regime and labor relations, and democratization.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 393:
Frontier Expansion and Ethnic Statecraft in the Qing Empire (CHINA 393)
The legacy of the Qing dynasty in the territorial boundaries claimed by the People's Republic of China including the frontier zones that lie outside China proper. How the Qing acquired and ruled its frontier territories. Growth and migration of the Han Chinese population. How the dynasty's Manchu rulers managed ethnic difference. Consequences of Qing expansionism and ethnic statecraft for subject peoples and for the dynasty itself. At what point and by what processes did the Qing become China.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 393A:
State, Society, and Economy in Qing Dynasty China (CHINA 393A)
Historical scholarship on China during the Qing period, including the gentry, civil examinations, and the debate about social mobility; merchants, cities, and the debate about civil society/public sphere; taxation, local security, and famine relief; heterodoxy, collective violence, and rebellion; and rival approaches (neo-Malthusian, neo-conservative, and neo-Marxist) to understanding the high Qing economy.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 393B:
Living in Ancient China: A Material Culture History (ARCHLGY 293)
(Undergraduates, enroll in 293B; Master's students, enroll in 393B.) This course explores the embodied means and meanings of "living" in ancient China, roughly from 1200 BCE to 220 CE, as a way of understanding the sociocultural history of the period. It discusses the lived, materialized experiences of the groups that originated from different cultural-geographic zones of then China, from the Central Plain and the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe to the coast of the East China Sea and the south of the Nanling Mountains. The material cultures these peoples once created--for the king's court, as well as for urban commoners and farmers--constitute what we will investigate along the way. Topics range widely from contemporary foodways, fashion, violence, and writing practice to cities, palaces, ritual monuments, luxury objects accessed by elites, and religious decorations designed for the afterlife. The weekly meeting is comprised of a mini-lecture and a longer discussion session. Hopefully, students will have a chance to visit Cantor Center for Visual Arts and study closely an assemblage of related artifacts taught in this course. No background knowledge of ancient China (or archaeology) is required or expected.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
HISTORY 393E:
Female Divinities in China (FEMGEN 293E, HISTORY 293E, RELIGST 257X, RELIGST 357X)
This course examines the fundamental role of powerful goddesses in Chinese religion. It covers the entire range of imperial history and down to the present. It will look at, among other questions, what roles goddesses played in the spirit world, how this is related to the roles of human women, and why a civilization that excluded women from the public sphere granted them a dominant place, in the religious sphere. It is based entirely on readings in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 393F:
Chinese Politics and Society (HISTORY 293F, SOC 217B, SOC 317B)
(Doctoral students register for 317B.) This seminar examines scholarship on major political developments in the People's Republic of China during its first four decades. The topics to be explored in depth this year include the incorporation of Tibet and Xinjiang into the new Chinese nation-state during the 1950s, political violence during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, and the nationwide political upheavals of 1989.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
HISTORY 394E:
The Past in Ancient China (HISTORY 294E)
Introduction to the most important sources in the early Chinese historiographical tradition (broadly conceived), examining how the past was mobilized across a range of textual genres including poetry, speeches, philosophy, narrative, and rhetoric. Prior knowledge of premodern Chinese history and culture is not required. All reading materials will be in English; no knowledge of modern or classical Chinese is expected.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 394K:
Chinese Migrations
(This section is for MA students. Please contact Kai Dowding for the permission number at kdowding@stanford.edu.) This seminar will explore global patterns of Chinese migration, and consider both continuities and change within these movements. We will examine Chinese communities here in California, as well as in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. In addition to the dynamics of specific encounters, the course examines how Chinese migrants contributed to broader patterns of nation building, colonialism, race formation, capitalist development, and global constructions of "Chinese-ness?"
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 395B:
Readings in Early Modern Japanese History
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 395J:
Gender and Sexuality in Chinese History (CHINA 395, FEMGEN 395J)
Graduate colloquium on gender and sexuality in Chinese history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 396D:
Historiography of Modern Japan (JAPAN 396D)
Introduces students to the major historical problems and historiographic trends in the study of modern Japan from the Meiji period to the present. Themes include approaches to late Meiji culture and politics, the formation of imperial subjects and citizens, agrarian society and politics, gender in modern Japan, empire and modernity, total war and transwar state and society, U.S. occupation, and postwar Japan.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 396E:
Japan's Long Nineteenth Century
Graduate historiography colloquium on Japan's early modern / modern transition
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 396F:
Science and Society in Modern South Asia
(Graduates, enroll in 396F. Undergraduates, enroll in 296F.) Modern science, technology and medicine are global phenomena, and yet scientific knowledge, as the product of human activity, reflects the social, political, economic and cultural contexts in which it is produced, mobilized and used. This course explores the dynamic relationship between science and society in South Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Taking scientific practice as not the exclusive domain of the British colonial state, its European personnel or even South Asian scientists, this course explores the knowledge practices of a range of actors in South Asian societies. We will pursue two questions throughout: How and where did South Asians learn, receive, interpret, practice, and produce scientific knowledge? How did they mobilize this knowledge in their own political and social agendas? In these varied practical, social and cultural projects, science became a force for civilization and enlightenment, political domination and national liberation, and economic development and social transformation. In fact, a 'scientific temperament' has also come to be upheld as the appropriate civic attitude of postcolonial citizens. Through these themes, this course examines the making of the power and cultural authority of the sciences and their practitioners in modern South Asia.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 396L:
The Worlds of Labor in Modern India (ANTHRO 296F)
This colloquium will introduce students to the exciting and expanding field of Indian labor history and provide them a comprehensive historiographical foundation in this area of historical research. Seminars will engage with one key monograph in the field every week, with selected chapters of the monograph set as compulsory reading. In these seminars, we will explore the world of the working classes and the urban poor in colonial and post-colonial India, as also the Indian labor diaspora. We will understand myriad workplaces such as jute and cotton mills, small workshops, farms and plantations. We will also explore forms of protest and political mobilization devised by workers in their struggles against structures of oppression and in their quest for a life of dignity. Most importantly, these seminars will train students in the methods deployed by labor historians to access the lives of the largely unlettered workers of the region who seldom left a trace of their consciousness in archival documents. Overall, we will connect the debates in the history of labor in modern India to wider discussions about the nature of capitalism, colonial modernity, gender, class, caste and culture.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 396T:
Lamas and Emperors: Tibetan Buddhists in Late Imperial China (EASTASN 306)
Instructor: Tracy Stilerman This course explores the rich interactions between Tibetan Buddhists and the rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912). Inspired by Mongol Yuan precedent, the Qing rulers employed Tibetan Buddhism in their efforts to rule over a vast, multi-ethnic state that included Manchus, Chinese, Mongols, and Tibetans. We will consider the complex network of individuals and groups involved in this interaction, from the Mongols, to Gelugpa lamas from Tibet, to the ethnically Manchu rulers of the Qing. We will explore courtly ritual implements, maps, architecture, and monuments, as well as textual sources to analyze the multi-ethnic nature of late imperial China. The course will draw on tools from history, art history, and religious studies. There are no prerequisites or linguistic requirements to take this course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
HISTORY 397:
Graduate Colloquium in Modern South Asian History (ANTHRO 397H, FEMGEN 397)
This graduate colloquium is a foundational and intensive course in the field of modern South Asian history. It is a course in historiography and weekly discussions will be structured around a key monograph in a specific thematic sub-field. The colloquium will begin with discussions on the impact of the Subaltern Studies collective in shaping the field; and through the quarter we will engage with monographs from various sub-fields such as studies of the transition to colonial rule; the relationship between labor and capital; agrarian history; caste society under colonial rule and Dalit resistance; studies of bureaucratic objects such as the official document; new research in feminist history and the emerging field of trans history.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 397T:
Time and History in South Asia (HISTORY 297T)
This course explores key concepts and themes around the temporal cultures of South Asia, with an emphasis on the transition from the middle ages to modernity. We will study the philosophical/scientific understandings of time and history in South Asia, and how the West read (or misread) these temporal traditions. Topics include: the philosophical debates around cyclical and linear time; the development of historical thinking outside Europe; the impact of colonialism on medieval understandings of time and history; the challenges to our sense of 'future' due to the current climate crisis. The goal is to think of South Asia not merely as subject to Western epistemologies and temporalities, but also as an important site where our current concepts and propositions about time and history were developed.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 398:
Major Topics in Modern Chinese History: Cultural and Intellectual History (HISTORY 298)
China has experienced profound changes over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the span of less than two hundred years, the country has witnessed colonial incursions by multiple Western powers, the demise of an imperial system over two millennia old, a period of widespread political and social fragmentation, a debilitating war against Japan, a Communist revolution that dwarfed in size its Russian counterpart, and a tumultuous period of Communist rule that has itself fluctuated between periods of unprecedented economic growth and chaos. This course is part of a two-part master class in modern Chinese history. The course will offer students an intensive introduction to the historiography of modern China, mapping out key theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and influential contemporary scholars. Over the past four decades, the study of China has changed as dramatically as China itself. Unprecedented access to Chinese archives, the growth of PhD-granting Chinese history programs worldwide, and a host of formidable new approaches and methodologies have fundamentally changed, deepened, and diversified our study of Chinese history. Owing to this sometimes dizzying diversity, never before has our understanding of modern China so required us to develop a holistic understanding of Chinese historiography as well.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 398C:
Race, Gender, & Sexuality in Chinese History (ASNAMST 298, CSRE 298G, FEMGEN 298C, HISTORY 298C)
This course examines the diverse ways in which identities--particularly race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality have been understood and experienced in Chinese societies, broadly defined, from the imperial period to the present day. Topics include changes in women's lives and status, racial and ethnic categorizations, homosexuality, prostitution, masculinity, and gender-crossing.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 5
HISTORY 398E:
Chinese Pop Culture: A History
This discussion course examines the evolution of popular culture in the Chinese-speaking world and diaspora from the late imperial era to the present. Analyzing myth, literature, medicine, music, art, film, fashion, and internet culture will help students understand the revolutionary social and political changes that have transformed modern East Asia.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 398F:
Social Movements and State Power in China, 1644-Present
(This section is for MA students; to enroll, please contact Kai Dowding kdowding@stanford.edu for the permission number.) This discussion course investigates the ideological, political and environmental conditions that have shaped social movements, uprisings and governance in China from the late imperial period to the present. It considers differences between the experience of social movements, the portrayal of social movements and the memory of social movements, as well as evolving approaches to wielding power.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 399P:
Mastering Uncertainty: The Power of Archival Thinking (HISTORY 299P)
When confronted with chaos and uncertainty, do you know how to stay calm, ask the right questions, and find the answers? Archival researchers do. Do you realize that less than 1 percent of primary sources have been digitized, and that 99 percent still exist in their original formats in collections, small and large, scattered all across the world? Do you know how to find them and use them? Archival researchers do. Through hands-on exercises in Stanford's archives, students learn the fundamentals of archival research. Pursuing their own research interests, students will learn to become self-sufficient, independent researchers capable of navigating uncertainty and producing knowledge--a skill set in demand no matter what their major or post-graduate plans.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 3 units total)
HISTORY 399W:
Graduate Directed Reading
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Ablavsky, G. (PI);
Barakat, N. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Levine, E. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Vardi, G. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 401A:
Spatial History: Concepts, Methods, Problems (HISTORY 201B)
What can digital mapping and spatial analysis bring to history? How have historians written spatial history in the past? How do scholars in other disciplines deal with space and what can we learn from them? The course provides students with conceptual and technical skills in spatial history. As part of the exercise to think spatially about the past, students will receive training in Geographic Informational Science (GIS) and develop their own spatial history projects. No prior technical skills are needed for this course.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 401B:
Spatial History, Part II
Prerequisite: 401A.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 402B:
Coffee, Sugar, and Chocolate: Commodities and Consumption in World History, 1200-1800 (ARTHIST 102B, ARTHIST 302B, HISTORY 202B, HISTORY 302B)
Many of the basic commodities that we consider staples of everyday life became part of an increasingly interconnected world of trade, goods, and consumption between 1200 and 1800. This seminar offers an introduction to the material culture of the late medieval and early modern world, with an emphasis on the role of European trade and empires in these developments. We will examine recent work on the circulation, use, and consumption of things, starting with the age of the medieval merchant, and followed by the era of the Columbian exchange in the Americas that was also the world of the Renaissance collector, the Ottoman patron, and the Ming connoisseur. This seminar will explore the material horizons of an increasingly interconnected world, with the rise of the Dutch East India Company and other trading societies, and the emergence of the Atlantic economy. It concludes by exploring classic debates about the "birth" of consumer society in the eighteenth century. How did the meaning of things and people's relationships to them change over these centuries? What can we learn about the past by studying things? Graduate students who wish to take a two-quarter graduate research seminar need to enroll in 402B in fall and 430 in winter.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 402D:
The History of Genocide (HISTORY 202S, JEWISHST 282S, JEWISHST 482D)
This course will explore the history, politics, and character of genocide from the beginning of world history to the present. It will also consider the ways that the international system has developed to prevent and punish genocide.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 403A:
Materialities of Power, Part I (ANTHRO 402D)
How is power made material? And how do material things--objects, commodities, technologies, and infrastructures --reflect, change, consolidate, or distribute power? This research seminar is aimed at PhD students in history, anthropology, and STS who are working on such questions. All geographic specialties welcome. A small amount of common reading will launch the course, whose main goal is to guide students towards producing a research paper draft that's close to submission-ready for a journal. Along the way, we'll also address practical topics, including how to pick and submit to a journal, how to present a paper, and more.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 403B:
Materialities of Power, Part II (ANTHRO 402F)
How is power made material? And how do material things --objects, commodities, technologies, and infrastructures--reflect, change, consolidate, or distribute power? This research seminar is aimed at PhD students in history, anthropology, and STS who are working on such questions. All geographic specialties welcome. A small amount of common reading will launch the course, whose main goal is to guide students towards producing a research paper draft that's close to submission-ready for a journal. Along the way, we'll also address practical topics, including how to pick and submit to a journal, how to present a paper, and more.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 424A:
The Soviet Civilization (HISTORY 224A, REES 224A)
(History 224A is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 424A is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Socialist visions and practices of the organization of society and messianic politics; Soviet mass state violence; culture, living and work spaces. Primary and secondary sources. Research paper or historiographical essay.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 424B:
The Soviet Civilization, Part 2 (HISTORY 224D)
Prerequisite: HISTORY 224A/424A
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 425A:
Graduate Research Seminar: Russia and East Europe
Graduate research seminar.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 425B:
Graduate Research Seminar: Russia and East Europe
Prerequisite: HISTORY 425A.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 430:
Graduate Research Seminar: Early Modern Europe
Prerequisite: HISTORY 402B. Students may research any aspect of late medieval, Renaissance, and early modern history, ca. 1300-1800. Students wishing to take this seminar must enroll in HISTORY 402B (Coffee, Sugar, and Chocolate: Commodities and Consumption, 1200-1800) in Autumn 2021.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 433A:
Research Seminar in Modern Europe
Students will complete an article-length research paper based on primary sources.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 433B:
Research Seminar in Modern Europe
Prerequisite: HISTORY 433A.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 435A:
Global Voyages: Navigating the Early Modern World (HISTORY 235, HISTORY 335)
[Graduate students completing a two-quarter research seminar must enroll in 435A in Winter and 435B in Spring.] This seminar explores global travel, knowledge, curiosity, experience, and understanding, ca. 1500-1800. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of global realignments, an age of empires, missionaries, embassies, and trading companies. This seminar takes students around the world, following global travelers, merchants, missionaries, and mapmakers. Students will work extensively with rare books, manuscripts, maps and other artifacts, especially in the Rumsey Map Center to design an exhibit. Urbano Monti's 1587 world map and Francesco Carletti's accidental circumnavigation of the world, 1594-1603, will guide our global voyage, contextualized by sources, artifacts, and histories from many other parts of the world.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 435B:
Global Voyages: Navigating the Early Modern World, Part II
Pre-requisite: HISTORY 435A in Winter. Graduate students completing a two-quarter research seminar must enroll in 435A in Winter and 435B in Spring.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 438:
European History Workshop
All European history graduate students in residence register for this weekly workshop, at which dissertation chapters and prospectuses, papers, and grant proposals by students and faculty are read and discussed.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
6 times
(up to 6 units total)
HISTORY 440B:
The History of Evolution, Part II
Second half of Graduate Research Seminar sequence. Prerequisite: HISTORY 440A.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 441A:
Research Seminar in the History of Science, Part I
This course, extending over two quarters, is intended for PhD students who want to conduct original research in areas relating to the history of science, early modern to modern, and write an article- or chapter-length paper (~45 pages). The course will meet regularly during the Winter quarter as students are conceiving and launching their research projects, and then occasionally during the Spring quarter to discuss their progress toward completion.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 441B:
Research Seminar in the History of Science, Part II
[Pre-requisite: 441A.] This course, extending over two quarters, is intended for PhD students who want to conduct original research in areas relating to the history of science, early modern to modern, and write an article- or chapter-length paper (~45 pages). The course will meet regularly during the Winter quarter as students are conceiving and launching their research projects, and then occasionally during the Spring quarter to discuss their progress toward completion.
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 443C:
People, Plants, and Medicine: Atlantic World Amerindian, African, and European Science (CSRE 243C, CSRE 443C, FEMGEN 443C, HISTORY 243C, HISTORY 343C)
Explores the global circulation of plants, peoples, disease, medicines, technologies, and knowledge. Considers primarily Africans, Amerindians, and Europeans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and focuses on their exchanges in the Caribbean, in particular within the French and British empires. We also take examples from other knowledge traditions, where relevant. Readings treat science and medicine in relation to voyaging, the natural history of plants, environmental exchange, racism, and slavery in colonial contexts. Colonial sciences and medicines were important militarily and strategically for positioning emerging nation states in global struggles for land and resources. Upper-level undergrads must apply for 243C; please fill in this short form: https://forms.gle/XpUXwfT6ULiwC8P19 Graduate students taking the course as a one-quarter seminar should enroll in 343C. Graduate students taking the course as a two-part graduate research seminar should enroll in the 443C (Part I) in Winter and the 443D (Part II) in Spring.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 443D:
Part II: People, Plants, and Medicine: Atlantic World Amerindian, African, and European Science
Graduate students taking the course as a two-part graduate research seminar should enroll in the 443C (Part I) in Winter and the 443D (Part II) in Spring.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 445A:
Research Seminar in African History
This is a two quarter research seminar in which students will conduct research using primary sources with the goal of producing an original work of history.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 445B:
Research Seminar in African History
Prerequisite: HISTORY 445A. This is the second half of a two quarter research seminar in which students conduct research using primary sources with the goal of producing an original work of history.
Last offered: Summer 2023
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 448A:
Colonial States and African Societies, Part I
(History 248S is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 448A is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) Colonialism set in motion profound transformations of African societies. These transformations did not occur immediately following military conquest, nor did they occur uniformly throughout the continent. This research seminar will focus directly on the encounter between the colonial state and African societies. The seminar will examine problems of social transformation, the role of the colonial state, and the actions of Africans. Following four weeks of collloquim style discussion, students then embark on independent research on the encounter between one colonial state and its constituent African societies.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 448B:
Colonial States and African Societies, Part II
Second part of the research seminar offered in the Winter. Students continue their research and present their penultimate drafts in week 8.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 452A:
Graduate Research Seminar: American Cultural and Intellectual History
Major methods and issues. Goal is to produce a research paper based on primary sources suitable for inclusion in a doctoral dissertation or submission to a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Topics include: compiling primary and secondary source bibliographies; primary and secondary source issues; and how to articulate an argument. Students produce a prospectus by the end of Spring Quarter. Summer Quarter meetings to discuss outlines, drafts, and problems, culminating in presentation of papers in scholarly conference format.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 452B:
Graduate Research Seminar: American Cultural and Intellectual History, Part 2
Prerequisite: HISTORY 452A
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 460:
Research Seminar in America in the World
Ways to place American history in an international context. Comparative, transnational, diplomatic, and world systems are approaches to complete a research paper based on research into primary materials. Historical methodologies, research strategies, and essay projects. May be repeated for credit.
Last offered: Summer 2022
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 468A:
Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century
Graduate research seminar in U.S. history, Part I.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 468B:
Graduate Research Seminar: U.S. History in the 20th Century Part II
Graduate research seminar in U.S. history, Part II. Prerequisite: History 468A.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 481:
Graduate Research Seminar in Ottoman and Middle East History (JEWISHST 287S, JEWISHST 481)
Student-selected research topics. May be repeated for credit
Terms: Spr, Sum
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 486A:
Graduate Research Seminar in Jewish History (JEWISHST 486A)
Graduate Research Seminar in Jewish History
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 486B:
Graduate Research Seminar in Jewish History (JEWISHST 486B)
Prerequisite: HISTORY 486A.
Terms: Spr, Sum
| Units: 4-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
HISTORY 491A:
Modern Korea Research Seminar
This graduate seminar prepares students to undertake research using Korean-language sources on a variety of themes in modern Korea. Students will identify characteristics of major online and offline archives in Korean studies, learn essential skills in investigating primary sources, and analyze selected sample documents in class.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 491B:
Modern Korea Research Seminar
This graduate seminar prepares students to undertake research using Korean-language sources on a variety of themes in modern Korea. Students will identify characteristics of major online and offline archives in Korean studies, learn essential skills in investigating primary sources, and analyze selected sample documents in class.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 495A:
Qing Legal Documents (CHINA 495A)
(Same as LAW 5037.) How to use Qing legal documents for research. Winter: sample documents that introduce the main genres including: the Qing code and commentaries; magistrates' handbooks and published case collections; and case records from Chinese archives. Spring: class meets occasionally; students complete research papers. Prerequisite: advanced reading ability in Chinese.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 495B:
Qing Legal Documents (CHINA 495B)
How to use Qing legal documents for research. Winter: sample documents that introduce the main genres including: the Qing code and commentaries; magistrates' handbooks and published case collections; and case records from Chinese archives. Spring: class meets occasionally; students complete research papers. Prerequisite: advanced reading ability in Chinese.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 496A:
Research Seminar in Chinese History
First part of a two part sequence. Primary sources and research methods to be used in the study of modern Chinese history.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 496B:
Research Seminar in Chinese History
Second part of a two part sequence. Primary sources and research methods to be used in the study of modern Chinese history. Prerequisite: HISTORY 496A.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 498C:
Japanese Imperial Archives, Part 1
First part of a two-quarter research graduate seminar on Japanese imperialism in Asia. Students explore different types of archives, from national and research libraries to online databases; learn various methods of research including oral history; and translate and analyze sample documents including government publications, company histories, police records, and media sources. Prerequisite: advanced reading ability in Japanese.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 498D:
Japanese Imperial Archives, Part 2
Second part of a two-quarter research graduate seminar on Japanese imperialism in Asia. Students complete research papers based on research conducted for History 498C; the class meets occasionally to report on progress and discuss working drafts. Prerequisite: History 498C.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
HISTORY 499X:
Graduate Research
Units by arrangement. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Ablavsky, G. (PI);
Barakat, N. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kennedy, D. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
HISTORY 802:
TGR Dissertation
Units by arrangement.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Ablavsky, G. (PI);
Barakat, N. (PI);
Beinin, J. (PI);
Burns, J. (PI);
Cabrita, J. (PI);
Campbell, J. (PI);
Chang, G. (PI);
Como, D. (PI);
Crews, R. (PI);
Daughton, J. (PI);
Dorin, R. (PI);
Findlen, P. (PI);
Frank, Z. (PI);
Gienapp, J. (PI);
Griffiths, F. (PI);
Hecht, G. (PI);
Hobbs, A. (PI);
Jenkins, D. (PI);
Jolluck, K. (PI);
Kollmann, N. (PI);
Lewis, M. (PI);
Minian Andjel, A. (PI);
Moon, Y. (PI);
Mullaney, T. (PI);
Naimark, N. (PI);
Olivarius, K. (PI);
Press, S. (PI);
Proctor, R. (PI);
Regalado, P. (PI);
Riskin, J. (PI);
Rodrigue, A. (PI);
Satia, P. (PI);
Scheidel, W. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Shil, P. (PI);
Sommer, M. (PI);
Stokes, L. (PI);
Uchida, J. (PI);
Weiner, A. (PI);
Wigen, K. (PI);
Winterer, C. (PI);
Wolfe, M. (PI);
Yaycioglu, A. (PI);
Zipperstein, S. (PI)
