Spring 2025 Graduate Courses


(Tentative schedule; subject to change)

Course No. & Name Professor/Lecturer Day/Time Course Description
HIST 200I. Advanced Historiography: Latin America: Mexico, from Independence to NAFTA Prof. F. Perez-Montesinos Weds 2-4:50 Comprehensive examination of Mexico since independence. Using sample of works by leading scholars, analysis of key developments in modern Mexican history including war of independence, U.S.-Mexico war, Mexican revolution, Mexican miracle period, and NAFTA era. Discussion of guiding themes, questions, and debates informing old and new interpretations of these events.
HIST M200W. Advanced Historiography: American Indian Peoples Prof. B. Madley Mon 2-4:50 This seminar is intended for students interested in deepening their understanding of Native American history. It will involve the close reading of books, making a presentation, writing a book review, and writing a historiography or research paper. Our discussions will reference themes of accommodation, adaptation, assimilation, agency, violence, resistance, and survival while focusing on five questions at the heart of recent scholarship analyzing relations between Native Americans and newcomers. First, were relations inherently full of conflict or could human agency create other outcomes? Second, were the primary drivers behind most conflicts ideological or material? Can we separate the two? Third, how did differing ideas about gender, labor, law, land, and religion shape interactions? Fourth, to what extent did interactions and conflicts with newcomers strengthen tribal identities, complicate them, or transform them? Finally, how do historical interactions between Native Americans and newcomers echo into the present?
HIST 201D. Topics in History: Early Modern Europe Prof. P. Stacey Thurs 2-4:50 Examination of truth and truthfulness concepts in work of two modern philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. These thinkers are often grouped together as proponents of genealogical approach to philosophical thinking and historical writing, and for good reason: in 1971, Foucault published essay on method at work in Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality of 1887, and subsequently adopted term genealogy to describe some of his own texts. One aim of study is to draw attention to historical character of these thinkers’ attempts to explicate meaning of truth and truthfulness, and to consider some implications of their claims for historical discipline. Study is fundamentally interdisciplinary in its approach to texts.
HIST 201O. Topics in History: Science/ Technology Prof. E. O’Brien Weds 1-3:50 Seminar, three hours. Graduate course involving reading, lecturing, and discussion of selected topics. May be repeated for credit. When concurrently scheduled with course 191, undergraduates must obtain consent of instructor to enroll. S/U or letter grading.
HIST C208A. Variable Topics: Interdisciplinary Studies: History of Money Prof. C.H. Koh Fri 1-3:50 Money is key to understanding social order of any community in past and present. Introduction to important issues in field of monetary history including price and financial revolution, big problem of small change, softening and hardening of currencies, and emergence (invention) of public debt. Exploration of case studies from ancient world (Mesopotamia and Greece), medieval and early modern Europe, imperial China, Ottoman and Mughal empires, and Africa. Study features master classes by four experts on monetary history: Richard Von Glahn (UCLA), Akinobu Kuroda (Tokyo U.), Kim Bowes (U. Pennsylvania), and Andrew Sartori (New York U.). Offered in conjunction with CMRS-Center for Early Global Studies. No previous knowledge needed. Undergraduate enrollment by instructor consent.
HIST 214 Topics in World History: Africa in World History Prof. G. Lydon Mon 2-4:50 The African continent has been central to the major currents of world history, and this since the beginning of humankind. Yet for centuries, both the centrality of Africa and the contributions of Africans have been ignored, misrepresented, minimalized or derided. This predicament is in large part due to a long-drawn history of the “othering” of African societies by various foreign groups dating back to Antiquity. In this seminar we will discuss Africa’s place in world history, from the earliest to more recent times, through a selective review of the literature. The course will introduce you to some of the principle debates, methods and approaches in world history scholarship. We will examine the Afrocentric debates about the origins of civilizations, the state of the literature on global Africa, and several studies dealing with Africans’ connections across seas and oceans, to several areas of the world. The seminar is designed as a reading seminar with a research component.
HIST 246C Introduction to U.S. History: 20th Century Prof. K. Lytle Hernandez Mon 2-4:50 Seminar, three hours. Graduate survey of significant literature dealing with U.S. history from the Colonial period to the present. Each course may be taken independently for credit.
HIST 275A Colloquium: African History Prof. A. Apter Tues 1-3:50 Seminar, three hours. Designed for all entering and continuing graduate students in African history. Source identification, research methodologies, historiographical traditions, historical interpretation, approaches to teaching, and research design. Forum for critical discussion of dissertation prospectuses and work in progress. May be taken independently for credit. S/U or letter grading.
HIST 282B. Seminar: Chinese History Prof. M. Zhang Weds 1-3:50 Seminar, three hours. Requisite: course 282A. Letter grading.
HIST 495. Teaching History (required for 1st year students) Prof. M. McClendon Tues 5-6:50 Required of all new teaching assistants. Lectures, readings, discussions, and practice teaching sessions within the structure of a seminar. Students receive unit credit toward full-time equivalence but not toward the nine-course requirement for MA degree. S/U grading