History

This course explores the history of medieval Europe from the 5th to 15th centuries. Topics include: the Middle Ages in European history; from disintegration of the ancient world to Germanic invasions; barbarian Europe; the Byzantine Empire and origins of Islamic civilization; the Carolingian Empire; second invasions and the Holy Roman Empire; feudal society and expansions from the 11th to 13th centuries; universalist aspirations-- papacy and empire; from feudal monarchies to sovereign states; from the crisis of medieval society to the origins of the modern world.

This course provides a broad overview of psychiatric practice in Britain from the beginning of state-regulated asylums through to the advent of current policies of pharmaceutical treatment and community care. Using a mixture of secondary sources and primary texts, students examine how the diagnosis and treatment of madness has been shaped through the rich interaction of social, scientific, political, economic, and cultural factors. Students evaluate approaches to the concept of "madness" from historical, psychiatric, psychoanalytical, sociological, and legal perspectives, and demonstrate how techniques from each disciplinary approach can be applied to a study of identity and human behavior.

This course helps students to understand the historical processes of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and based on lectures, readings, and classroom discussions, clarify the impacts of the Renaissance and Reformation on the formation of modern European civilization, especially the relationship between the Renaissance and the secularization of Europe, Protestantism and capitalism, and the Reformation and the rise of modern nation-states.

This course examines the history of imperial and colonial archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and the ways in which archaeological extraction often went hand-in-hand with the European and North American imperial or colonial ventures. It covers the artefacts that arrived in museums as a result of these ventures and what that says about our current “encyclopedic” style of museum that purports to share knowledge of the world yet is also a testament to western intervention in Indigenous societies at home and in other parts of the world. 

This course reads against the grain of those dominant narratives of colonialism as world-making by focusing on the pirate as an interruptive force, who derails the movement of peoples, goods, ideas, and laws across the maritime routes linking the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds. Important tools in the course are the reading practices of postcolonial theory, which will teach us to extract and assess this alternative history of the post/colonial pirate. The course also teaches students to nuance standard maritime historiographies through literary reading practices, as well as evaluate the metaphoric application of piracy to contemporary, interruptive, economic practices.

The course deals with the long nineteenth century in Britain and the twentieth century in the United States. It defines and explores the concept of "radicalism" in these two contexts, and illustrates this with reference to the main radical groups and political parties, their principal actions, and their political legacy.

This course locates marriage as a key historical arena where politics and economics intersect. It examines how men and women imagine their nation through marriage and understand their rights and duties in 20th-century Egypt. It demonstrates how marriage is a lens that reflects and critiques larger socioeconomic and political issues. This course provides a history of marriage and nationalism in modern Egypt, rather than just a legal, political, or women’s history. It also contributes to our historical understanding of the marriage crisis, which continues to dominate public debates.

The city and language course introduces students to French history, culture, and language through team-taught instruction. In the “City as Public Forum” sessions, students are introduced to French history and culture through a series of lectures and site visits. Students discover some of the fascinating ways the core principles of social justice were tested in theory and practice on the streets of Paris in the past and explore how they evolved into the pillars of French society today. The course focuses on just how an ideal society should be forged, where all are free individuals and members of a cohesive community at the same time. Trying to make individuals believe—as religions do—in the primacy of the collective, and in its concomitant goal of protecting human rights, is at the core of social justice in France. From 52 B.C.E to today, France has been an exemplar of how—and how not—to construct a just society. To render these values visible, and therefore legible, to all by adding a physical dimension—whether constructive or destructive—to the usual means of establishing laws or setting policies, is what distinguishes the history of France's capital city of Paris. Those who control Paris—be they monarchs, revolutionaries, or presidents, past and present—believe that erecting all kinds of physical structures will render their values concrete and immutable. The ideal French society did not always necessarily mean a democratic or inclusive one. Since the French Revolution, however, institutionalizing the concept of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” has been France's greatest universal achievement and a source of constant upheaval, eliciting a unique form of secular activism that has led to targeting buildings and monuments that no longer reflect the collective's values. Students discuss how the diverse social actors, who constitute “the French,” continue to thrust their bodies and minds into the physical spaces of the public sphere in the pursuit of social justice. In the “Unlocking French” sessions, students learn targeted language skills through situational communication, so they have the opportunity to use everything they learn as they go about their daily activities.

This course offers a broad survey of the evolution of travel and tourism, delving into its historical foundations and contemporary complexities. Students examine the history of travel and exploration and its impact on cultural exchange, empire-building, economic development, and global connectivity. Students trace the historical roots of the booming travel and tourism industry, and are introduced to contemporary issues related to travel consumerism, sustainability, and the influence of technology and social media. Students develop an understanding of the multifaceted nature of travel and tourism within the broader historical and contemporary context of societal, cultural, and environmental dynamics.