History

This course offers a structured chronological framework and a comprehensive introduction to the Victorian era in Great Britain (1837–1901). Through an exploration of political, social, intellectual, and artistic developments, the course examines how the Victorians navigated a world marked by rapid and sometimes unsettling change. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between ideological frameworks, social structures, and cultural production. In addition to lectures, the course includes seminar sessions designed to strengthen students’ analytical and written expression skills. These sessions provide training in core academic practices such as textual commentary and argumentative essay writing.

The period from the French Revolution to the end of the 19th century witnessed extraordinary transformations in just about every area of Europeans’ lives. New ideas of democracy, nationalism, socialism and women’s rights animated successive generations of radicals and produced major revolutions such as those that shook the continent in 1848. The rapid rise of industrialization and new technologies like the railway changed the face of European cities like Paris and Vienna, forced societies to confront problems like poverty and epidemic disease, and even altered basic conceptions of time and space. Artistic movements like romanticism and realism jostled with an emergent mass culture founded on widespread literacy, cheap books and daily newspapers. This course addresses these and other dimensions of the social and cultural history of Europe in order to ask both what drove the major changes of the 19th century and, just as importantly, how people responded to and made sense of them. 

This course examines the relationship between ideas and social changes in modern Europe. It also explores the impact of modern European thoughts on contemporary culture in a cross-cultural perspective.

This course introduces the history of Hong Kong by focusing on its “fields”. It examines how various field sites (such as temples, museums, historical trails, and renovated historical buildings) could be used to understand the history of different places, events, and people in Hong Kong from the ancient period to the present. After a brief introduction to the historical development of Hong Kong, the course discusses aspects of rural Hong Kong history before moving on to urban Hong Kong. The last section of the course explains the diversity of Hong Kong’s communities, cultures, and religions. The course organizes several day trips to Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories.

This course offers a study of European exploration and colonization, specifically that of Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands. It focuses on the social, cultural, political, economic, and scientific impacts that these expansions had on the peoples and nations of Europe.

The British empire decidedly controlled over a quarter of the world’s global real estate, and a fifth of the world’s population. The economic, cultural and global impact of British colonialism is still very much apparent today - from contested borders and inter-state disputes, through languages and cultures, to the inequities in wealth and trade that exist between the prosperous "North" and the underdeveloped "South."  Why, then, was imperial expansion so vehemently defended by its protagonists in the 19th century? And what made colonial conquest, colonization, and economic exploitation of non-European spaces feasible on such a global scale and for so long? These are the questions that underpin this course. 

History books are a prime source to understanding current events as a result of the past. Yet even though every historian purports to present facts in an objective manner, the argument is necessarily the outcome of the author’s own interpretation of the material available to him. This seminar develops critical thinking through engagement with different forms of historiography and teaches how to form an independent judgment of a text, with or without previous background knowledge of the subject matter. Each class session consists of reading and discussing an excerpt from a history booik or a text to understand argument, source work and intent of the author. By placing each text within the context of its time, the class will be prompted to consider objectivity or potential bias in a text and what one can learn from it.

The Medieval Universe was considered vast, but its structure of perfect spheres was ordered, limited and intelligible. Within the harmony of this system, many questions remained. How can human free will exist alongside an omnipotent God? What of the competing forces of celestial influences – whether good and bad spirits, or the "science" of astrology? Despite these tensions, a cosmological model of nested spheres with the earth at its center captivated medieval thinkers for nearly half a millennium. The first half of this course explores how medieval people engaged with the invisible and sacred forces of the heavens, and how this worldview gave meaning to human experience. Students study the pious and illicit rituals medieval people used to try to influence sacred beings and explore medieval concepts of time, imagination, and geography.

This course helps students enhance their understanding of the contemporary global economy, where Russia has been striving to reshape the formats and frameworks of its interaction with the world despite international sanctions. The course may interest students aiming to deepen their knowledge of Russian Studies. Ideally, it can be taken as a follow-up to the Introductory Course to Russian Studies, although this is not a prerequisite.

This is course provides a broad context of the history of Mexico from the Revolution to the present day, highlighting the conformation of Mexican national identity from these events.  The course analyzes and evaluates the social, economic, political, and cultural processes of Mexico since the Revolution, fostering an appreciation for the historical importance of modern and contemporary Mexico.