History

How did the Maya civilization collapse? Why did the bubonic plague kill over one third of 14th century European population? How long can current rates of global population be continued? This course introduces the fascinating field of environmental history, focusing on the tensions between economic growth, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation in the distant past as well as in present-day societies. The course pays ample attention to the transition from pre-industrial to industrial modes of production and the environmental consequences thereof - the making of the Anthropocene. We draw analogies from the collapse of ancient civilizations to contemporary environmental problems, such as global warming and mineral resource depletion. The course also specifically addresses the various strategies that historical civilizations have developed in order to survive climate change, deforestation, soil erosion or other ecological threats to human livelihood. Finally, the course addresses the emergence of present-day environmental consciousness in the wake of modern urbanization, industrialization and unprecedented demographic growth.

This course examines how documentary films have both represented and revised the past. From the earliest radical Bolshevik pioneers to the home movies of the forties, to the current use of the phone camera to record emergency and war, and even to the wildlife documentary, this course explores how documentary films interpret history, make history and in some cases, have even changed history.

From interpersonal violence to political violence, from sex crimes to organized crime, from the family sphere to the public arena, from “news stories” to historical trials, criminal justice reveals our societies, their obsessions, the norms and values that underpin them and evolve over time. Society protects itself by criminalizing deviance and transgression, and in the courtroom, the repulsive figures of this deviance are forged and assigned to the dock. In contemporary France, the legitimacy and symbolic force of the sanction, in terms of the law but also under the weight of representations, social expectations and media focus, are the subject of constant questioning, as the emergence of the victim figure tends to redefine the balance of penal interactions.

This course focuses on current history from the last third of the 20th century to the present. Topics include: politics and international relations; the economy; culture; international conflicts in a global world; technological and scientific globalization; global society and risk; global civil society. 

This course looks at the interaction of social change and politics in postwar Britain, integrating social and cultural history with political history. It introduces students to change thinking about class, race, and gender among political parties in Britain, looking at political thought, political ideologies, and political propaganda. Students examine the changing social and cultural bases of politics, and why “new social movements” like the Women’s Liberation Movement and Gay Liberation exploded onto the scene from the late 1960s onwards.