History

This course presents an overview of the archaeology and ancient history of the Ancient World, introducing the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Iran, and Egypt. It also explores the prehistoric and historic cultures of Greece and Italy, ending with the height of the Roman Empire.

How do our unconscious biases impact the way we view people within the African Diaspora? This course explores intersectional inequalities of citizenship and the politics of Belonging and how our unconscious biases impact the way we view (Black) Africans and people within the African Diaspora. The relationship between migration, social cohesion, and national German identity has become an increasingly contentious political issue. Historically, the settlement of migrant groups and the formation of minority ethnic groups have changed the socio-cultural, political and economic fabric of receiving societies. The course explores the relationship between racial and ethnocultural diversity. Students are encouraged to the intentional notion of undoing – unlearning and dismantling unjust practices, assumptions, and institutions – as well as persistent action to create and build alternative spaces and ways of knowing, particularly concerning the Black (African) Diaspora. Berlin is used as a case study for themes covered, however, students are encouraged to reflect on their own identities and the expressions of various identities around the city.

The most pressing societal challenges in the present have to do with climate change and the loss of biodiversity. In the age of the Anthropocene, nature has become a vital political concern. This course offers cultural historical perspectives upon the present situation. The aim is to explore how humans have used, imagined and shaped animals and physical environments and, conversely, the role that nature and ideas of nature have played in social, cultural, political, economic, and everyday life. The course focuses on ways to describe and theorize the relations between humans and nature—from early modern natural histories and the modern distinction between nature and culture, to ongoing discussions about the Anthropocene. Central themes include the politics of landscape and of domestication, the rise of conservation and scientific ecology, nature and colonialism, nature and the nation-state, and the strange new hybrid natures that emerge with the Anthropocene.

This course examines American history since 1945. It charts key developments: from McCarthyism to the Patriot Act; from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Black Lives Matter; from liberalism’s apogee to the rise of conservatism. It examines the legacies of and controversies surrounding presidencies from Truman to Trump. With an emphasis on domestic rather than foreign affairs, the subject covers the Cold War, the Sixties – New Left and counterculture, the civil rights movement, social activism in the 1970s, the role of religion in American public life, the rise of the New Right, debates about immigration, and other key topics.

The course gives an overview of the most common tools used when transcribing and editing texts, primarily from manuscripts; the different forms of digital presentation of texts; and the types of projects related to corpuses, databases, and editions of premodern texts in which memory institutions (libraries and archives) interact with scholars and the general public.