History

This course provides a conceptual and historical approach of nations, states, and nationalism in Europe from the late 19th century to the present. It examines the transnational dimension of European political frameworks and considers current political issues in the light of European history. The course fosters analytical distance and questions the nation-centered view of the world, familiarizes with the academic debates on nation-building and nationalism, and examines the historical processes and steps that have led to the success of the national category.

This course focuses on the ancient history of the Middle East as a textbook case illustrating the transition from prehistory to history, via the establishment of a centralized power served by a powerful administration, an influential religion, a codified practice of writing, and subtle economic and diplomatic networks. It investigates the unifying factors behind the extension of the geographical contours of this cultural area, what memories classical antiquity retained of this distant East, and the discoveries it made. The course examines this abundant premise, at the crossroads of political, cultural, religious, and artistic sources, to shed light on a few fundamentals with parallels to our own times that should be considered with as much curiosity as caution.

This course examines contacts between and among diverse peoples in many of the places that came to be known as “the Pacific World”: Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, the South Pacific, the Northwest Coast, and elsewhere, focusing mostly on the late 17th to early 19th centuries but reaching back to the first peopling of these territories. It explores the challenges – theoretical, moral, methodological, and beyond – of cultural encounter and makes connections between these early contacts the present day, thinking critically about the legacies of events that are not really in the past at all. 

In most societies, gift-giving acts as a critical form of social currency. Gifts mark special occasions such as birthdays; they cement diplomatic relationships; they act as bribes and charitable offerings. Gifts and gift-exchange can therefore tell historians much about the social, political, and moral norms of past societies. This course examines the fascinating histories of gift-giving in a cross-period and trans-regional context.

This course offers a political history of the environment through the mobilization of the working classes around issues related to common goods, industrial risks, health, and pollution. It also takes a global, long-term approach to these mobilizations. The course is designed as an introduction to research: it first introduces scientific writing through a reading note based on an article, then analyzes primary sources to present findings at a "mini-colloquium," and finally provides an opportunity to write a collective research article.

This is the first part of basic courses "Ancient History of China" for undergraduate students of department of history, covering the history from Xia Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasty. The content is divided into four parts: the pre-Qin periad, the Qin and Han periad, Wei, Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasty periad, the Institutional history part. The aim of the lessons is to enable students to understand the basic facts of this periad, its the main problems and developing issues, to establish an Overview of political, economic, institutional, cultural, ethnic changes, learn the basic methods of historical research, understand related academic works, important researchers and the latest academic trends, cultivate professional spirit, thus lay the foundation for the further study.

This course provides a rich introduction to modern British history, from 1801 to the present day. If students have not previously studied the period, it gives them the foundation for specialist courses in subsequent years. If students have some prior knowledge, it challenges them with new interpretations from the cutting edge of historical research. The course introduces students to new critical approaches to the subject and draws extensively on primary sources such as film, pop music, and visual imagery. It has a strong global dimension, showing how crises in India, Asia, and Africa shaped the "British World." 

This course examines how images of the “Old World” were constructed in the United States to define the nation in contrast with the political and cultural traditions of Europe. The tension between the American ideal of exceptionalism and adherence to an essential “Europeanism” continues to affect transatlantic relations. Students examine how these contrasting collective images were transformed during the twentieth century as the United States became a global power that influenced Europe. The course considers the following: which images of Europe have dominated American public discourse; how the geopolitical, political, and economic changes during the American Century affected the way Americans re-positioned themselves towards the Old World. After studying the literature, students explore one case study in a small research project.

Utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach based on infrastructural history, this course introduces students to modern and contemporary East Asia. While investigating the formations and transformations of empires and nations as sites of contests and tensions between different ethnicities, polities, and cultures, it also explores major cities in China, Japan, and Korea as the infrastructure of modernity rooted in the mobility of ideas, goods, capitals, and peoples. In doing so, it aims to gain an understanding of the dynamics of changes and continuities that shaped and are shaping the East Asian empires, nation-states, and societies. The major foci of attention are the intra-relations among the three East Asian nations, and the inter-relations between East Asian civilizations and Western civilizations from the late 19th century to now.