History

The course provides students with a study of the history and culture of the British Isles necessary to contextualize coursework in British and Irish literature. Major themes include the physical and human geography of the region as well as the political, social, and religious organization of the area.

This course  looks at a number of criminal trials, both high-profile cases and everyday proceedings, to understand how judicial proceedings have changed over a long time period while also retaining some essential structures. Through deep reading of sources from each trial as well as secondary literature, it considers how notions of "fairness," "due process," "evidence," or the "law" have evolved and how trials reflect normative expectations that are specific to and indeed highly revelatory of their respective temporal, spatial, and social contexts. The course investigates if and in what ways modern trials differ from their predecessors, how meaningful comparisons can be made, and whether or not there is a hard, systemic core to the "law" as opposed to politics, society, and culture which can be identified and studied by historians. Case studies include the trials of Jesus, Jeanne d'Arc, and the alleged witch Tempel Anneke, as well as the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s and cases from international tribunals such as those for Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. No prior legal knowledge is required.

This course assesses the manner in which Spanish newspapers present the nation's political, cultural, and social spheres. It examines how national and regional identities have been reinforced through the press, and explores the relationship between freedom of speech, press, and history. The course also studies the significance of these relationships in connection with current events as these surface in local, national, and international affairs.

This course explores the diachronic aspect of culture and the use of culture as a means of ideological and political legitimacy by those in power. Topics include: cultural production; literary production in service of the first theocracies; creation of the historical narrative; the emergence of universal empires and narrative fiction; translatio imperii; humanistic culture; court culture and absolute monarchies.

This course provides a critical analysis of contemporary Spanish history (from the Cádiz Cortes to the present) from a political perspective and with reference to the greater European context. The main themes of the course are divided into five sections: the formation of liberal Spain (1808-1874); the Restoration (1875-1931) -- economic, social and cultural outlook of Spain between 1900 and 1930, the war in Cuba and "regenerationism", and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930); the crisis of the 1930s (1931-1939) -- the reformist biennium, the Radical-CEDA biennium, causes, stages and development of the Spanish Civil War; Franco's Spain (1939-1975) -- postwar period and the repression, economic, social and political transformations during the dictatorship; democracy in Spain (1975-present) -- origins of the transition to democracy, the centrist period, the socialist period, and the government of the Popular Party (1996-2004). 

This course examines Hong Kong’s history through the narratives of women, a group often made invisible in history writing, as social actors in the fabric of (post-)colonial Hong Kong. From elites’ households to squatter huts, from brothels, textile factories to convents and schools, from public housing estates, government offices to LegCo Chamber, women of different generations and ethnicities have been caregivers, breadwinners, and pioneers, contesting the prescribed gender role and identity in a patriarchal society. By examining their private lives and public voices informed by their (marginalized) positions interweaved in different social and historical contexts, this course seeks to not only explore how they lived, or how their lives are shaped and reshaped by their own unyielding efforts, but also how their stories can make their ways into narratives and representations in the history of Hong Kong. 

This course examines the history of technology since the late 18th century. It covers both the major tenets of the development of technology during the past two centuries and major debates among historians of technology. It also covers major technologies that have influenced and changed modern society, such as the steam engine, railways or the computer, and also explores how new technologies and modern society influenced each other. The scope of the course is global, but it will particularly focus on developments in Europe, North America and East Asia. 

This course examines the history of the First World War while challenging the traditional West-centered narrative of a War that starts in 1914 and ends in 1918. Alternating micro and macro approaches, it examines the main aspects and events in the military, political, cultural, social, global history of the Great(er) War. The course will also serve as an introduction to an epistemology of history and its relationship with the social sciences. Topics to be addressed include: empires and nations; identity and nationalism; violence and social disciplining; logistics, technoscience and the sinews of warfare; gender and war; trauma and stigma; visual culture and propaganda; collective memory and oblivion.