History

240 Hall of Graduate Studies, 432.1366
www.yale.edu/history/
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Chair
Laura Engelstein

Director of Graduate Studies
Timothy Snyder (236 HGS, 432.1361)

Professors
Jean-Christophe Agnew (American Studies), Abbas Amanat, Gershon Bacon (Visiting), Ivo Banac, David Blight, Paul Bushkovitch, Jon Butler, George Chauncey, John Demos, Michael Denning (American Studies), Carlos Eire, Laura Engelstein, John Mack Faragher, Paul Freedman, Joanne Freeman, Ute Frevert, John Gaddis, Glenda Gilmore, Robert W. Gordon (Law), Timothy Guinnane (Economics), Valerie Hansen, Robert Harms, Jonathan Holloway, Paula Hyman, Matthew Jacobson, Gilbert Joseph, Donald Kagan, Paul Kennedy, Daniel Kevles, Benedict Kiernan, Bentley Layton (Religious Studies), Robert Liberles (Visiting), Ivan Marcus, John Matthews (Classics), John Merriman, Joanne Meyerowitz, Steven Pincus, Stephen Pitti, Tessa Rajak (Visiting), Cynthia Russett, Lamin Sanneh (Divinity), Stuart Schwartz, Frank Snowden, Timothy Snyder, Jonathan Spence, Harry Stout (Religious Studies), Francesca Trivellato, Frank Turner, John Harley Warner (History of Medicine), Anders Winroth, Jay Winter, Keith Wrightson

Associate Professors
Jennifer Klein, Susan Lederer (History of Medicine), Mary Lui, Michael Mahoney, Mridu Rai, Naomi Rogers (History of Medicine)

Assistant Professors
Bruno Cabanes, Patrick Cohrs, Seth Fein, Beverly Gage, Michael Gasper, Lillian Guerra, Ole Molvig, Alyssa Mt. Pleasant (American Studies), Youval Rotman, Celia Schultz (Classics), Marci Shore, Bruno Strasser (History of Medicine), Charles Walton, Kariann Yokota

Lecturers*
Adel Allouche, Annping Chin (Senior Lecturer), Veronika Grimm, Shonaleeka Kaul

*For a complete listing of lecturers, see the undergraduate bulletin, Yale College Programs of Study.

Fields of Study

Fields include ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern Europe (including Britain, Russia, and Eastern Europe), United States, Latin America, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Jewish history; and diplomatic, environmental, ethnic, intellectual, labor, military, political, religious, social, and women’s history, as well as the history of science and medicine (see the section in this bulletin on the History of Science and Medicine).

Special Admissions Requirements

The department requires a short book review to accompany the application. It should cover the book that has most shaped the applicant’s understanding of the kind of work he or she would like to do as a historian.

Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree

All students must pass examinations in at least two foreign languages, one by the end of the first year. Students are urged to do everything in their power to acquire adequate linguistic training before they enter Yale and should at a minimum be prepared to be examined in at least one language upon arrival. Typical language requirements for major subfields are as follows:

African: Either (1) French and German or Portuguese or Dutch-Afrikaans; or (2) French or German or Portuguese and Arabic; or (3) French or German or Portuguese or Dutch-Afrikaans and an African language approved by the department.

American: Two languages relevant to the student’s research interests, or a high level of proficiency in one language; competence in statistics may substitute for a natural language under appropriate circumstances.

Ancient: French, German, Greek, and Latin.

Chinese: Chinese and French; additional languages like Japanese, Russian, or German may be necessary for certain dissertation topics.

East European: The language of the student’s concentration plus two of the following: French, German, Russian, or an approved substitution.

Japanese: Japanese and French or German; Chinese may be necessary for some fields of study.

Jewish: Modern Hebrew and German, and additional languages such as Latin, Arabic, Yiddish, Russian, or Polish, as required by the student’s areas of specialization.

Latin American: Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Medieval: French, German, and Latin.

Middle East: Arabic, Persian, or Turkish (or modern Hebrew, depending on area of research) and a major European research language (French, German, Russian, or an approved substitute).

Modern Western European (including British): French and German; substitutions are permitted as appropriate.

Russian: Russian plus French or German with other languages as required.

During the first two years of study, students normally take twelve term courses, at least eight of which shall be chosen from those offered by the department, and must achieve Honors in at least two courses in the first year, and Honors in at least four courses by the end of the second year, with a High Pass average overall. If a student does not meet this standard by the end of the first or second year, the relevant members of the department will consult and promptly advise the student whether the student will be allowed to register for the fall of the following academic year.

Three of the twelve courses must be research seminars in which the student produces an original research paper from primary sources. Another of the twelve courses, normally taken in the first term of the second year, must be a tutorial in one of the three selected orals fields (see below). The orals tutorial provides an opportunity for students to read for an orals field with one of the three future orals committee members. The student must submit a draft reading list to the director of graduate studies by the end of the term in which the orals tutorial is taken. A final course, normally taken in the second term of the second year, must be a tutorial resulting in a prospectus for the dissertation. Its purpose is to familiarize the student with debates in the relevant field and to prepare the student for fieldwork. The prospectus tutorial concludes with the submission of a draft prospectus to the director of graduate studies. These submissions, like passing the two tutorials, are preconditions for enrollment in the third year. The prospectus tutorial counts as one of the three research seminars.

The prospectus colloquium offers the student an opportunity to discuss the dissertation prospectus with the faculty committee in order to gain the committee’s advice on the research and writing of the dissertation and its approval for the project. The dissertation prospectus provides the basis of grant proposals for doing research away from Yale in the fourth year. The prospectus colloquium and any further language requirements must be completed before the student takes his/her oral examination.

The oral examination will cover three chosen fields of concentration: a major field and two minor fields, one of which is comparative or theoretical, or on a continent different from the student’s ordinary field of specialization. U.S. historians must offer a minor field that addresses historiography outside the United States. If these do not include one field dealing with premodern history, then a year’s work in that earlier period must have been included among the twelve required courses. Completion of these requirements will qualify a student for admission to candidacy for the Ph.D., which must take place by the end of the third year of study.

During the third year of study, almost all students serve as teaching fellows in order to acquire crucial professional training. During their first term of teaching, students must attend several training sessions run by the department in conjunction with the Graduate Teaching Center.

Students usually complete the requirements for admission to candidacy in the sixth term, but it is also possible for students who have completed extensive graduate work prior to entering the Ph.D. program to petition for candidacy sooner. Students may petition for credit for previous graduate work only after successful completion of the first year.

In the fourth year, once students have advanced to candidacy, they may continue their studies while serving as teaching fellows or they may decide to pursue their research, either at Yale or elsewhere, using external funding.

In the fifth year, strongly preferably in the fall term, students are required to submit a chapter of the dissertation (not necessarily the first chapter) to the dissertation committee. This chapter will then be discussed with the student by members of the committee, preferably in a colloquium, to give the student additional advice and counsel on the progress of the dissertation. This conference is designed to be an extension of the conversation begun in the dissertation colloquium and is not intended as a defense: its aim is to give students early feedback on the research, argument, and style of the first writing accomplished on the dissertation.

Students are eligible to receive the University Dissertation Fellowship (UDF) provided that they have advanced to candidacy. Students may take the UDF in the fifth year, but they must take the fellowship no later than the sixth year. They should apply for the fellowship in the term prior to which they wish to receive it. Students may serve as teaching fellows when they are not on the UDF.

The department strongly recommends that the student apply for a UDF only after completing the first chapter conference, and that students on a UDF should have completed at least two dissertation chapters before starting the fellowship. Many students apply for jobs in the year in which they receive the UDF, and the department urges that students apply for academic positions only when they have two chapters ready to send out to potential employers.

In short, a student making timely progress should expect to finish at least one chapter by December of the fifth year, and to complete the dissertation in the sixth year, when the submission deadline for May graduation is March 15.

Registration in the seventh year is not required for students submitting their dissertations by the October deadline (which the majority of students do). If students are unable to make the October deadline, they can petition the Graduate School for extended registration in exceptional cases where unique personal circumstances or substantial difficulties in obtaining archival sources have prevented normal progress. The petition, delivered first to the History DGS, will explain the particular circumstances that have prevented completion of the dissertation within the normal timetable and offer a specific plan that describes how the dissertation will be completed in the seventh year. Half of the dissertation chapters should be complete and must be submitted with the petition.

Combined Ph.D. Programs

History and African American Studies

The Department of History also offers, in conjunction with African American Studies, a combined Ph.D. in History and African American Studies. For further details, see African American Studies.

History and Renaissance Studies

The Department of History also offers, in conjunction with the Renaissance Studies program, a combined Ph.D. in History and Renaissance Studies. For further details, see Renaissance Studies.

Master’s Degrees

M.Phil. Students who have completed all requirements for admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. may receive the M.Phil. degree. Additionally, students in History are eligible to pursue a supplemental M.Phil. degree in Medieval Studies. For further details, see Medieval Studies.
M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.). Students enrolled in the Ph.D. program may qualify for the M.A. degree upon completion of a minimum of six graduate term courses at Yale, of which two must have earned Honors grades and the other four courses must average High Pass overall. Students must also pass an examination in one foreign language. A student in the American Studies program who wishes to obtain an M.A. in History, rather than an M.A. in American Studies, must include in the courses completed at least two research seminars in the History department.
Master’s Degree Program. For this terminal master’s degree students must pass six term courses, four of which must be in History; substantial written work must be submitted in conjunction with at least two of these courses, and Honors grades are expected in two courses, with a High Pass average overall. All students in this program must pass an examination in one foreign language.

Program materials are available upon request from the Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, Yale University, PO Box 208324, New Haven CT 06520-8324.

Courses

HIST 518a^u,The Spartan Hegemony.  Donald Kagan.
T 2.30–4.20
A history of Greece during the period 404–362 B.C. The focus is on the relationship between domestic constitutions and politics and diplomacy and war.

HIST 522b^u,Cities of the Roman Empire.  John Matthews.
T 2.30–4.20
The development and physical culture of ten cities of the Roman Empire, selected for the variety of their historical situations, and wealth of available written and material evidence.

HIST 523b^u,Greek Intellectuals under the Roman Empire.  Veronika Grimm.
TTh 2.30–3.45
Aspects of intellectual life in the high Empire, focusing on the concerns, reminiscences, and character types of the Greek upper classes living under Roman rule as reflected in the discussions of the learned dinner guests of Athenaeus.

HIST 531a^u,Seminar: The Making of Monasticism.  Bentley Layton.
W 2.30–4.20
The history of Christian monasteries, hermits, ascetics, and monastic institutions and values in late antiquity, with special attention to the eastern Mediterranean world. Also NELC 534a^u,RLST 659a^u.

HIST 532b^u,Jews in Muslim Lands from the Seventh to Sixteenth Century.  Ivan Marcus.
TTh 11.35–12.50
Introduction to Jewish culture and society in Muslim lands from the Prophet Muhammad to Suleiman the Magnificent. Topics include Islam and Judaism; Jerusalem as a holy site; rabbinic leadership and literature in Baghdad; Jewish courtiers, poets, and philosophers in Muslim Spain; the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Also JDST 764b^u,RLST 777b^u.

HIST 535a^u,History of Jewish Culture to the Reformation.  Ivan Marcus.
TTh 11.35–12.25
Undergraduate lecture course open to graduate students by permission of instructor. Also JDST 761a^u,RLST 773a^u.

HIST 541b, Jews in Christian and Muslim Lands from the Fourth to Sixteenth Century. Ivan Marcus.
T 1.30–3.20
Research seminar that focuses on a comparison of the two medieval Jewish subcultures of Ashkanaz (northern Christian Europe) and Sefard (mainly Muslim and Christian Spain). Issues in historiography and comparative methodology complement discussions about the symbols and reality of literary, political, and economic features of each society. Also JDST 790b, RLST 776b.

HIST 542a, Law in Medieval Europe.  Anders Winroth.
M 1.30–3.20
This seminar explores the creation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of a sophisticated system of law, the European Common Law (ius commune). All late medieval and much modern legislation is based on this legal system. The course focuses on its roots in the Roman law of Emperor Justinian and in ecclesiastical legislation. We also study the influence of the ius commune on national and local medieval law. The emphasis is on using law in historical research and in learning the necessary technical skills.

HIST 550b, Medieval Social History.  Paul Freedman.
T 1.30–3.20
Aspects of the social history of the Middle Ages. The bonds holding together societies with weak states and frequent local wars. Topics include the peasantry, definitions of noble status, the growth of towns, gender, the church in society. Attention is given to both the material conditions and mental constructs of Europe between about 1000 and 1500. Reading or research seminar.

HIST 554a^u,Medieval Jews, Christians, and Muslims Imagining Each Other. Ivan Marcus.
T 1.30–3.20
How members of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities thought of and interacted with members of the other two cultures during the Middle Ages. Topics include the cultural grids and expectations each imposed on the other; the rhetoric of otherness such as humans or devils, purity or impurity, and animal imagery; and models of religious community and power in dealing with the other when confronted with cultural differences. Also JDST 763a^u.

HIST 564a, Introduction to Renaissance Studies: Renaissance Italy. Francesca Trivellato.
M 1.30–3.20
An introduction to the major texts, issues, historiography, and methods in the interdisciplinary study of the Renaissance. In fall 2007 the seminar focuses on historical rather than literary perspectives. Readings include both original texts in English translation and a broad range of studies by historians.

HIST 566b^u,History of Jewish Culture, 1500 to the Present.  Paula Hyman.
TTh 11.35–12.50
A brief introduction to the history of Jewish culture from the late Middle Ages until the present. Emphasis on the changing interaction of Jews with the larger society as well as the transformation of Judaism in its encounter with modernity. Also JDST 781b^u,RLST 774b^u.

HIST 571b^u,Jewish Life and Culture in the Renaissance.  Daniel Stein Kokin.
TTh 2.30–3.45
An examination of Jewish life and cultural production from the fourteenth through seventeenth century, focusing primarily on Italy. Special emphasis on Jewish engagement with the humanist movement, Jewish-Christian relations, and how the emergence of the ghetto and print culture influenced Jewish life.

HIST 572b^u,Moses through the Centuries.  Daniel Stein Kokin.
Th 1.30–3.20
An examination of the history of the interpretation of Moses, particularly as model religious leader, legislator, and philosopher. Emphasis on Moses’s status as a flashpoint of polemics between Pagans and Jews, Jews and Christians, and as a key “site” for negotiating the boundaries between the human and the divine. Also JDST 699b^u,RLST 783b^u.

HIST 602a, Microhistories.  Keith Wrightson.
W 9.25–11.15
Research seminar. The first weeks are devoted to reading and discussing a number of outstanding microhistorical studies of individuals, families, communities, incidents, and processes, principally (though not exclusively) drawn from the literature on early modern England. Particular attention is paid to questions of sources and their use. Thereafter members of the class undertake individual microhistorical studies on subjects of their choice and present papers on work in progress to the seminar.

HIST 606a, Britain, Modernity, and Empire.  Steven Pincus.
T 1.30–3.20
Why and in what ways did Britain become the paradigmatic modern nation? This research seminar introduces students to a variety of approaches to the study of modernization and to a range of questions about the coming of modernity in Britain. Topics may include the emergence of the novel, the origins of the British Empire, England’s economic transformation, the development of representative politics, the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere, secularization, among others. The course emphasizes methodological as well as substantive questions. The course is appropriate for historians of any period or area, as well as for graduate students in related disciplines.

HIST 607b, English Social History, 1550–1700: Sources and Problems.  Keith Wrightson.
T 9.25–11.15
This research seminar aims to provide a hands-on introduction to central issues in the social history of early modern England. The main topics include household structures; courtship and marriage; marital relationships and marital breakdowns; sexual behavior and its regulation; parent/child and adult/youth relationships; kinship; neighborliness; authority and subordination; death and inheritance. The course is primarily taught from a large collection of edited primary sources, including diaries and autobiographies, early printed books, letters, records of the ecclesiastical and secular courts, wills and inventories, town meeting books, local censuses, and poor law papers. Readings from the secondary literature provide guidance on source use, exemplify methodologies, and introduce interpretive debates, but the emphasis is on using the primary material.

HIST 620b, Readings in Early Modern Europe.  Charles Walton, Carlos Eire.
W 3.30–5.20
Introduction to early modern European history. Readings focus on major works and problems in the field as it has evolved from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.

HIST 625a, The Old Regime and the French Revolution.  Charles Walton.
W 1.30–3.20
This course introduces students to the principal themes and debates in the study of Old Regime and Revolutionary France. Topics include society and political institutions, the impact of the Enlightenment, the causes of the French Revolution, radicalization and terror after 1789, and the legacy of the Revolution, notably for women and France’s Haitian colony.

HIST 635a, Readings in Modern French History.  John Merriman.
T 9.25–11.15
Readings and discussion of recent work on the social, political, economic, and cultural history of modern France.

HIST 649a^u,Polish Jewry Between the World Wars.  Gershon Bacon.
MW 9–10.15
A survey of the social, cultural, economic, and political life of Polish Jewry in the interwar period and the changing historical narrative of recent decades. Topics include historiography, government policies, Jewish women in interwar Poland, day-to-day Polish-Jewish relations, educational systems, youth movements, Polish Jewry in contemporary and retrospective media presentations. Also JDST 791a^u.

HIST 662b, Modernism and Modernity in Europe.  Marci Shore.
T 7–8.50 p.m.
This reading and discussion seminar attempts to answer the question: What is modernity? The readings are primarily secondary sources. Among the questions to be discussed: Why do historians traditionally begin modernity with the French Revolution? Did modernity come to Eastern Europe—and Russia—“late”? If so, what were the implications? What is the relationship between modernity and modernism, modernity and modernization? What is the relationship between modernity and totalitarianism? In what ways was subjectivity transformed? How does Eastern Europe emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as liminal space between Western Europe and Russia? More specific topics include art, terror, ethnic cleansing, Marxism, psychoanalysis, anti-Semitism, revolution, phenomenology, and existentialism.

HIST 681b, Eastern Orthodoxy and Society, 850–1700.  Paul Bushkovitch.
W 9.25–11.15
The development of Eastern Orthodoxy in its interaction with state and society in Byzantium, the Balkans, and Russia to 1700. A basic introduction to Orthodoxy and its different regional variants, including topics such as monasticism and political power, the problem of popular piety, and responses to heresy, paganism, and Islam.

HIST 688a^u,Jews and Cosmopolitanism in Modern European Intellectual History. Marci Shore.
M 2.30–4.20
This seminar, inspired by Isaac Deutscher’s essay “The Non-Jewish Jew,” examines Jewish contributions to “cosmopolitan” ideas in modern European intellectual history. Topics include Marxism, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction.

HIST 689b, The Politics of Atrocity in Europe.  Timothy Snyder.
W 9.25–11.15
Considers the new literature on the institutional execution and the social experience of political atrocity during Europe’s age of mass terror, the period between Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and Stalin’s death in 1953. Begins with the hypothesis that the center of gravity of both Stalinian and Hitlerian repression was the lands between Russia and Germany, today’s Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland. Proposed topics of research include planned famines, the Great Terror, concentration camps, the Holocaust (death camps and mass murder by shooting), anti-partisan tactics, deportations, starvation of prisoners of war, destruction of cities, and ethnic cleansing. The assignment is to exploit recent literature in one or more languages regarding these or other major examples of mass coercion in order to produce a synthetic account of one major event, with an emphasis on both the institutions that implement the policies and the societies that experience them.

HIST 692a, Communism in Eastern Europe.  Ivo Banac.
T 1.30–3.20
Research seminar on the political, social, and cultural effects of the Communist movement before and after the establishment of Communist dictatorships in the countries of East Central and Southeastern Europe.

HIST 700a, Introduction to the Historiography of the United States. John Mack Faragher.
TTh 9.25–11.15
Readings and discussion of scholarly work on U.S. history from the settlement era to the present. Members of the department faculty visit the class on a rotating basis. Also AMST 700a.

HIST 715a, Readings in Nineteenth-Century American History, 1820–1877.  David Blight.
T 1.30–3.20
This course explores recent trends and historiography on several problems through the middle of the nineteenth century: sectionalism; expansion; slavery and the Old South; northern society and reform movements; Civil War causation; the meaning of the Confederacy; why the North won the Civil War; the political, constitutional, and social meanings of emancipation and Reconstruction; violence in Reconstruction society; the relationships between social/cultural and military/political history; problems in historical memory; the tension between narrative and analytical history writing; and the ways in which race and gender have reshaped research and interpretive agendas. Also AFAM 764a, AMST 715a.

HIST 720b, Readings in Religion and American History, 1600–2000.  Harry Stout.
M 9.25–11.15
This seminar explores intersections of religion and society in American history from the colonial period to the present as well as methodological problems important to their study. Also AMST 705b, RLST 705b.

HIST 722b, Research Seminar in Nineteenth-Century United States History. David Blight.
W 1.30–3.20
Some class sessions focus on matters of craft: research techniques, styles of writing narrative and analysis; judging scholarly work; and philosophical dimensions of doing history in the early twenty-first century. Primary focus of course is for each student to complete his/her own major research paper. Students in any field of American history are welcome. Also AMST 722b, AFAM 757b.

HIST 726a, The Culture of the Gilded Age.  Cynthia Russett.
W 1.30–3.20
Although the politics of the Gilded Age may seem somewhat jejune (who today has lively memories of Chester A. Arthur or James Garfield?), its society and culture were undergoing dramatic and challenging developments. Industrialization and urbanization brought new immigrants to our shores; labor unions grew and flexed their muscle in a series of major strikes. In the world of thought the impact of Darwinism was still being absorbed, especially in the new academic disciplines of the social sciences: sociology, economics, and psychology. Some important names from the period: William James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry George, Andrew Carnegie, W.E.B. Dubois, Jane Addams, Edward Bellamy, Samuel Gompers (and, of course, many more). Also AMST 798a.

HIST 734a, Toward a Twentieth-Century “Pax Americana.”  Patrick Cohrs.
HTBA
This research seminar examines both “classic” interpretive perspectives and significant recent research on American quests to create more durable international orders after the two World Wars. It thus explores how far a distinct “Pax Americana” emerged in the twentieth century. The seminar’s first part reappraises Wilson’s quest to make the world “safe for democracy” and subsequent pursuits of an “American peace” in the interwar period. The second part reassesses the search for a “new world order” after World War II, notably under the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. The focus is on a critical analysis of sources that illuminate the significance of underlying assumptions and learning processes for the reorientations of U.S. postwar policies. Also INRL 644a.

HIST 735a, Readings in Twentieth-Century United States Political and Social History. Glenda Gilmore.
Th 1.30–3.20
Recent trends in American political history from the 1890s, with an emphasis on the social analysis of mass politics and reform. Also AFAM 706a, AMST 714a.

HIST 736b, Research in Twentieth-Century United States Political and Social History. Glenda Gilmore.
Th 3.30–5.20
Projects chosen from post-Civil War period, with emphasis on twentieth-century social and political history, broadly defined. Research seminar. Also AFAM 709b, AMST 709b.

HIST 738b, Readings in Western and Frontier History.  John Mack Faragher.
W 9.25–11.15
An introduction to recent work on the history of North American frontiers and the shifting region of the American West. Critical consideration of readings, participation in discussion, and completion of short weekly writing assignments and a term project. Also AMST 738b.

HIST 744a, Readings in the History of Gender.  Joanne Meyerowitz.
W 1.30–3.20
Selected topics in women’s and gender history with emphasis on U.S. history. Themes include changing conceptions of sex, gender, womanhood, manhood, femininity, and masculinity; the language of gender as a constitutive part of various social hierarchies; class, racial/ethnic, regional, and national differences; and gendered participation in religion, labor, politics, war, and social reform movements. Readings, writing assignments, and classroom discussions address recent historical literature, historiographic trends and debates, and theoretical and methodological approaches. Also AMST 786a, WGSS 744a.

HIST 758a, Research in U.S. International and Transnational Histories.  Seth Fein.
T 7–8.50 p.m.
The course emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to researching and writing the history of the United States outside the United States and the history of other nations within the United States. Term project is a publishable, article-length essay. Also AMST 777a.

HIST 760b, American Legal History, 1880–1980.  Robert Gordon.
TTh 2.10–3.25
Selected topics in the modern history of American law, legal thought, legal institutions, and the legal profession. Also LAW 21063.

HIST 761a, Race and Medicine in America, 1800–2000.  Susan Lederer.
T 1.30–3.20
An examination of race and medicine in America, primarily but not exclusively focused on African Americans’ encounters with the health care system. Topics include slavery and health; doctors, immigration, and epidemics; the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the use of minorities as research subjects; and race and genetic diseases. Also AMST 883a, HSHM 637a^u,WGSS 725a.

HIST 765a^u,Jews in America, 1654 to the Present.  Paula Hyman.
MW 10.30–11.20, 1 HTBA
Survey of the history of Jews in America from the colonial period to the present. Topics include immigration, religious development, politics, and participation in culture. Special attention to how Jews, as a minority, have negotiated their place in American society. Also JDST 789a^u,RLST 764a^u.

HIST 766a, Race and Rights in the Twentieth Century.  Stephen Pitti, Jonathan Holloway.
M 1.30–3.20
This research seminar explores topics in U.S. history related to demands for political rights by African Americans, Latinos, and others, and to the broader articulations and social movements linked to race and ethnicity in the twentieth century. Also AFAM 767a, AMST 765a.

HIST 770b, Research on Gender and Sexuality.  Joanne Meyerowitz, George Chauncey.
Th 1.30–3.20
Students conduct research in primary sources and write original monographic essays on the history of gender and sexuality. Readings include key theoretical works as well as journal articles that might serve as models for student research projects. Also AMST 770b, WGSS 750b.

HIST 772a, Theorizing the Racial Formation of the United States in the Early Twenty-First Century.  Jonathan Holloway.
T 1.30–3.20
A designated core course for students in the joint Ph.D. program; also open to students in American Studies and History. The interdisciplinary seminar includes readings from the fields of critical legal studies, cultural studies, literary history, history, politics, and sociology. Also AFAM 505a, AMST 643a.

HIST 778a, Reconstruction from the Right.  Daniel Kevles, Michael Graetz.
W 2.30–4.20
Research seminar. Centering on the 1970s, an examination of changes in policy and society that moved the United States from the liberalism of the Kennedy-Johnson years to the conservatism of the Reagan era. Topics to be considered include the backlash against the women’s and the civil rights movements; deregulation; tax and economic policies; the rise of the religious right; the federalization of crime; the new immigration and regional migrations; the emergence of the personal computer, biotechnology, and reproductive technologies industries; and energy, environment, and globalization. Also AMST 778a, LAW 20460, PLSC 814a.

HIST 785b, American Colonization in Comparative Perspective.  John Demos, Stuart Schwartz.
T 7–8.50 p.m.
Reading and discussion on the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British colonial systems in the Americas of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Main themes include first encounters with indigenous peoples, the settlement process, economic and social development, mentality and culture, and movements for independence. Comparison and contrast are emphasized throughout.

HIST 790a, Narrative and Other Histories.  John Demos.
W 7–8.50 p.m.
An exploration, through readings and discussion, of the recent “literary turn” in historical study. Readings include history, fiction, and some theory. In addition, a month-long practicum focus on writings by course participants. Also AMST 790a.

HIST 796a, Capitalism and Culture.  Jean-Christophe Agnew.
W 9.25–11.15
A reading-intensive seminar that explores the historical intersections between capitalism and culture in the U.S. and elsewhere. Subjects range from the cultural construction of credit and risk, to cultural capital and class formation, gift and commodity exchange, law and the corporation, gender and the “invisible economy,” virtualism and the “experience economy.” Readings include both canonical treatments of capitalism and culture and more recent contributions by scholars associated with feminist criticism, the New Economic Criticism, and economics, anthropology, and sociology. Also AMST 796a.

HIST 807a, Resistance, Rebellion, and Survival Strategies in Modern Latin America. Gilbert Joseph, Patricia Pessar.
Th 3.30–5.20
An interdisciplinary examination of new conceptual and methodological approaches to such phenomena as peasants in revolution, millenarianism, “banditry,” refugee movements, and transnational migration.

HIST 816b, Race, Nation, and Resistance in the Andes.  Lillian Guerra.
W 3.30–5.20
Primarily focused on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century histories of Peru, Chile, and Ecuador, this course explores the relationship between indigenous survival and the rise of modernizing national projects that strove to re-cast Andean societies culturally, economically, and politically. Topics include attempts to erase or diminish the indigenous heritage in comparative national landscapes, the role of the military in modern political developments, and the emergence of movements to recover an indigenous past such as that of Shining Path in Peru and the Mapuche in Chile.

HIST 829a, From Medina to Constantinople: The Middle East from 600 to 1517.  Adel Allouche.
T 1.30–3.20
An examination of the shaping of society and policy from the rise of Islam to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1238. The origins of Islamic society, conquests, and social and political assimilation under the Ummayyads and Abbasids, the changing nature of political legitimacy and sovereignty under the caliphate, provincial decentralization, and new courses of social and religious power. Also NELC 830a.

HIST 831a, Military History of the Middle East.  Michael Oren.
W 3.30–5.20
This seminar examines the pivotal military engagements in the Middle East over the last two hundred years, from Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt to America’s incursion in Iraq. Special emphasis is placed on the world wars in the Middle East and on the military dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Readings focus on overviews of the battles as well as the memoirs of their participants. The course stresses—and students are asked to identify—the major themes in the military history of the Middle East and the characteristics that distinguish it from that of other regions. Also INRL 664a.

HIST 844a, Memory and Orality in African History.  Michael Mahoney.
Th 1.30–3.20
This graduate seminar introduces the student to oral research methodology, as well as to particular debates about that methodology within African historiography. We also discuss memory and popular historical understandings, and how this non-guild historiography interacts with what academics do. Though the focus is on Africa, we cover the material in a sufficiently general manner so that the course may be of interest to non-Africanists. In addition, the final project requires practical oral research, and this may very well be non-Africanist in nature, since so few African respondents are available in the area. Also AFST 844a.

HIST 862a, Readings in Middle-Period Documents.  Valerie Hansen.
T 1.30–3.20
A survey of the historical genres of pre-modern China: the Dynastic histories, other chronicles, gazetteers, literati notes, and Buddhist and Daoist canons. How to determine what different information these sources contain for research topics in different fields. Prerequisite: at least one term of classical Chinese. Also CHNS 862a.

HIST 866a, China and the West, 1580–1950.  Jonathan Spence.
W 1.30–3.20
This course explores the broad outlines of the many ways China interacted with the West from the early Jesuits to the founding of the People’s Republic. Topics to be covered include the sciences, the military, religion and philosophy, literature, narcotics, political structures, and law. Reading and discussion. Chinese not required.

HIST 867b, Social History of the Chinese Silk Routes.  Valerie Hansen.
Th 1.30–3.20
An introduction to artifacts and documents excavated from the most important sites on the Northern and Southern Silk Routes in China including Niya, Kizil, Turfan, and Dunhuang. All assigned readings in English, but given sufficient student interest, a separate section can be formed for those wishing to read documents in classical Chinese from Turfan and Dunhuang.

HIST 871b, History and Aesthetics in the Ming-Qing Transition.  Annping Chin.
W 3.30–5.20
This course focuses on what the Chinese thought and wrote about history and aesthetics around the time of the Manchu conquest. Readings in Chinese include the works of Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, Wand Fuzhi, Li Yu, and Zhang Dai. Also CHNS 839b.

HIST 891b, Exploring Gender in Early Sanskrit (and Other Indian) Literature. Shonaleeka Kaul.
T 9.25–11.15
This is a research-based course involving a gendered reading of classical plays, poems, normative treatises, sectarian texts, and devotional songs of women saints. The focus is on exploring structures of patriarchy (its affirmation/subversion), private and public realms of sexuality (marriage, prostitution), sexual-spiritual interface, and women’s voices from the kitchen, bedroom, nunnery, brothel, hermitage, and palace.

HIST 916b^u,Introduction to the History of Mathematics: Certainty, Uncertainty, and the Infinite.  William Summers.
Th 1.30–3.20
This seminar course considers the history of several mathematical topics from antiquity to the present time. This is not a mathematics course, but rather it treats mathematics as examples of intellectual problems rather than technical accomplishments. The graduate students in this seminar are required to complete more extensive research papers, both at midterm and at the end of the course (approximately double in length), than the undergraduates. These papers are evaluated at a significantly more stringent level in terms of both research methods and analytical sophistication than the undergraduate written work. Also HSHM 633b^u.

HIST 918b^u,Magic Bullets and Wonder Pills.  Bruno Strasser.
TTh 11.35–12.50
This course explores the history of pharmaceutical drugs from the nineteenth century to the present. It covers the biographies of selected drugs (e.g., vaccines, vitamins, antibiotics, and steroids), the rise of the pharmaceutical industry, the modes of drug innovation, and broader social, political, and cultural issues. It shows how the development of drugs reflects changes in the relationships among academia, industry, and the state; the laboratory, the clinic, and the market; the physician, the patient, and the consumer. Also HSHM 670b^u.

HIST 921b, Methods for the Social Studies of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Bruno Strasser.
T 1.30–3.20
Exploration of the methods and debates in the social studies of science, technology, and medicine. This course covers the history of the field and its current intellectual, social, and political positioning. It emphasizes the debates on constructionism and relativism, and provides critical tools to address the relationships among science, technology, medicine, and society. Also HSHM 710b.

HIST 925a, The Cultures of American Medicine since 1800.  John Harley Warner.
T 1.30–3.20
Reading and discussion of the scholarly literature on medicine in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. Themes include the moral, social, political, aesthetic, and epistemological grounding of orthodox and alternative cultural authority; the role of the marketplace in shaping professional identities and patient expectations; gender, ethnicity, race, religion, class, and region in the construction and management of illness and in the production and circulation of medical beliefs; interplay between lay and professional understanding of the body; nationalism, citizenship, and colonialism; and representations of medical institutions, practitioners, and practices in visual media, including film. May be taken as a research seminar with the permission of the instructor. Also AMST 884a, HSHM 740a.

HIST 928a, Infection, Public Health, and the State.  Frank Snowden.
Th 3.30–5.20
This course is a comparative examination of public health strategies adopted by Western nations since 1800 with regard to high-impact infectious diseases—cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis, malaria, polio, and HIV/AIDS. The course begins with “plague regulation” and then explores such alternative policies as vaccination, the sanatorium, the sanitarian idea, the regulation of prostitution, health education, and the reporting and tracing of cases. Attention is also given to state planning to confront the threat of bioterrorism and to the present emergency in sub-Saharan Africa of malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. The class considers the strategies of the World Health Organization and of national governments to confront the crisis. Reading and discussion, or research seminar with permission of the instructor. There are no prerequisites and no prior knowledge is assumed. Also HSHM 732a.

HIST 930a, Introduction to the History of Medicine and Public Health.  Susan Lederer.
M 1.30–3.20
An examination of the variety of approaches to the social and cultural history of medicine and public health. Readings are drawn from recent literature in the field. Topics include the role of gender, class, ethnicity, race, region, and religion in the experience of sickness and health care; the intersection of lay and professional understandings of the body; and the role of the marketplace in shaping professional identities and patient expectations. Also HSHM 701a.

HIST 931b, Introduction to the History of Science.  Ole Molvig.
W 1.30–3.20
Study of secondary literature, recent and older, in the history of the physical and life sciences from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. Students acquire familiarity both with the development of science in general and of its major branches, including its content, instruments and methods, and social-institutional settings, and an acquaintance with various approaches that historians have followed in interpreting these events. Also HSHM 702b.

HIST 937b^u,The Cultures of Western Medicine: A Historical Introduction. John Harley Warner.
MW 10.30–11.20
A survey of medical thought, practice, institutions, and practitioners from classical antiquity through the present. Changing concepts of health and disease in Europe and America explored in their social, cultural, economic, scientific, technological, and ethical contexts. Also HSHM 631b^u.

HIST 938b, The Engineering and Ownership of Life.  Daniel Kevles.
W 1.30–3.20
This seminar explores the historical development of intellectual property protection in living matter. Focusing on the United States in world context, it examines arrangements outside the patent system as well as within it. Topics include agriculture, medicine, biotechnology, and law. May be taken as a reading or research course. Also HSHM 676b, LAW 20332.

HIST 939a^u,Genetics, Reproduction, and Society.  Daniel Kevles.
MW 11.35–12.25
A history of the interplay of modern biology with its social, economic, legal, and cultural context. Lecture topics include eugenics and sterilization, the Scopes trial, contraception and abortion, the new reproductive technologies, medical genetics, the human genome project, and human cloning. A two-hour graduate discussion section emphasizes the development of genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology. Also HSHM 677a^u.

HIST 945b^u,Science, Arms, and the State.  Daniel Kevles.
M 1.30–3.20
A history of chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons in the twentieth century that focuses on the integration in the United States of national security policymaking, scientific research, and military innovation, including its consequences for the scientific community, the civilian economy, public attitudes toward weapons of mass destruction, and political movements to control them. Also HSHM 635b^u.

HIST 950a^u,Women and Judaism.  Paula Hyman.
M 1.30–3.20
An examination of the changing status and roles of women within Judaism and Jewish history. Topics include women in Jewish law; the social, domestic, and religious roles of women in the modern period; and the development of Jewish feminism. Also JDST 787a^u,RLST 795a^u.

HIST 965a, Agrarian Societies: Culture, Society, History, and Development. Robert Harms, James Scott, Amity Doolittle.
M 1.30–5.20
An interdisciplinary examination of agrarian societies, contemporary and historical, Western and non-Western. Major analytical perspectives from anthropology, economics, history, political science, and environmental studies are used to develop a meaning-centered and historically grounded account of the transformations of rural society. Team taught. Also ANTH 541a, F&ES 836a, PLSC 779a.

HIST 967a, Orientalism and Its Critics.  Abbas Amanat.
T 1.30–3.20
This reading and discussion seminar (also research seminar with instructor’s consent) addresses discourse of Orientalism in the European and American contexts: cultural trends, academia, and genesis of imperial hegemony as well as the critics of Orientalism, Occidentalism, and Islamic “authenticity.” Readings include Edward Said, Laruoi, Al-e Ahmad, as well as travel literature and images of women.

HIST 968b, The Islamic Revolution in Iran.  Abbas Amanat.
W 3.30–5.20
This research/reading seminar examines the genesis of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and its impact on the Iranian society, the contemporary Middle East, and the Muslim world. Themes include contesting experiences of modernity, legacy of messianic and legalistic Shi’ism, and the making of the Islamic Republic.

HIST 972b, Revolutions in a Comparative Perspective.  Steven Pincus, Julia Adams.
Th 1.30–3.20
Why do revolutions happen? What determines their outcome? What do revolutions have in common with one another? Is there something distinctively modern about revolutions? What distinguishes revolutions from civil wars? This course examines these and other questions. The course begins with a discussion of some of the important theoretical literature on revolutions and then turns to a number of case studies taken from Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Also SOCY 520b.

HIST 976a, Memory and Emotions.  Jay Winter, Ute Frevert.
T 1.30–3.20
This course aims to provide graduate students with an understanding of some major theoretical and practical issues in cultural history. We investigate two of the central problems faced by all cultural historians: how to engage in the study of memory and in an understanding of the affective world of the past. Memory traces and narratives are studied in their multiple forms: as individual, social, political, cultural, and collective phenomena. The affective turn in history is examined through both theoretical approaches and empirical studies. We read texts from Augustine to Ricoeur, from Aristotle to Reddy. A major focus is on how emotions guide/shape memory, and how societies control/regulate emotions.

HIST 977b^u,Antisemitism in Modern Times.  Paula Hyman.
T 1.30–3.20
An exploration of how antisemitism has functioned as a religious, social, and political prejudice in different historical contexts. Examining premodern religious and secular stereotypes, the course focuses on the role of anti-Semitism in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East from the late nineteenth century to contemporary times. Also JDST 796b^u,RLST 790b^u.

HIST 980a, Genocide: History and Theory.  Ben Kiernan.
Th 1.30–3.20
Comparative research and analysis of genocidal occurrences from ancient times to the present; theories and case studies; an interregional, interdisciplinary perspective. Readings and discussion, guest speakers, research paper.

HIST 981a, The Body in Modern Warfare (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Bruno Cabanes.
M 3.30–5.20
Covering the period between the 1850s and the Iraq War, this seminar examines modern warfare as a bodily experience. We consider the question of gender, the the impact of violence on the bodies and spirits of both soldiers and civilians, the experience of mass death and the mourning process, and the veterans’ homecomings—especially the reception of those severely wounded or mutilated by war.

HIST 985a, Studies in Grand Strategy, Part II.  Paul Kennedy.
M 3.30–5.20
Part II of the two-term linked seminar offered during the calendar year 2007. Research seminar. Also PLSC 715a.

HIST 985b, Studies in Grand Strategy, Part I.  John Gaddis.
M 3.30–5.20
This two-term course begins in January with readings in classical works from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz to Kissinger. Students identify principles of strategy and examine the extent to which these were or were not applied in historical case studies from the Peloponnesian War to the post-Cold War period. During the summer students undertake research projects or internships designed to apply resulting insights to the detailed analysis of a particular strategic problem or aspect of strategy. Written reports are presented and critically examined early in the fall term. Students must take both terms, fulfill the summer research/internship, and attend additional lectures to be scheduled throughout the spring and fall terms. Admission is by competitive application only; forms are available at International Security Studies. Also PLSC 715b.

HIST 994a/b, Oral Examination Tutorial.  Faculty.

HIST 995a/b, Prospectus Tutorial.  Faculty.

HIST 998a/b, Directed Readings.  Faculty.
Offered by permission of instructor and DGS to meet special requirements not covered by regular courses.

HIST 999a/b, Directed Research.  Faculty.
Offered by arrangement with instructor and permission of DGS to meet special requirements.

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