History

This course examines the history of early modern China and Japan (ca. 1600–1912) through the lens of gender and sexuality. By examining topics including Confucianism and the family, Samurai status, imperial expansion, commerce and leisure, medicine and religion, it makes a case for gender and sexuality as drivers of historical change in the early modern world. It examines not only women and women’s history, but also men and masculinity, gender-nonconforming communities, and the changing relationship between gender, sexuality and social, economic, and cultural power. It will introduce key questions and debates in the study of East Asian history and the history of gender and sexuality through a range of primary and secondary sources as well as film, fiction and multimedia.

The 19th century saw the birth of many revolutionary artistic practices that transformed the visual culture of Europe. Industrialization, urbanization, and colonialism brought about a new social order, and artists responded by developing artistic styles that addressed society's modern values. This course explores artistic innovations in Britain and France including Impressionism, Pre-Raphalitism, and the invention of photography. By examining individual art objects and wider art historical themes, students see how new artistic styles responded to issues like class, gender, and race. This course makes use of the rich art collections on offer in London, with seminars taking place at Tate Britain and the National Gallery.

This course focuses on the history of Greek and Roman Antiquity, from the palatial civilizations of the Aegean to the end of the Western Roman Empire. It presents the major chronological and cultural landmarks essential to approaching the history of the ancient Mediterranean worlds and analyzes the main institutional, socio-economic, and religious systems.

The course provides an orientation on the history of Swedish music in contemporary culture. Social and historical contexts are of central importance in this course. Emphasis is placed on popular music traditions (music production and technology) from the twentieth century, such as jazz and rock. The course considers both Sweden's historical and recent musical contributions to a wealth of national and international genres and cultural trends.

Museums have become one of the most popular ways of telling history. Many scholars argue that museums are not neutral places; rather, they are often used for a wide range of strategic purposes: regulating social behavior, building citizenship and national identity, and expanding state power. But museums also face a variety of constraints and challenges: culture, money, politics, physical space, locating and selecting appropriate artifacts, and forming narratives. This course considers these issues by looking at history museums and heritage preservation in Hong Kong. The goals of the course are to familiarize students with a range of theoretical approaches to museum studies; explore the ways in which museums and heritage preservation can be used to further certain political, cultural, and commercial agendas; and help students learn to write an analytical research essay based on readings and museum fieldwork.

This course studies the history of the 20th century global movement after World War II, which influenced global politics. Students are expected to examine a historical case of a local movement crossing over to global politics. 

This course examines major events and cycles of Western culture. It identifies the various stages (synchronic perspective) that have constituted Western material culture and, broadly speaking, some historical epochs of Western civilization through its humanistic, religious, artistic, and scientific products. The course imparts the technical, symbolic, artistic, and religious keys (diachronic perspective) that determine the values of Western culture through the interpretation of certain cultural formations. It covers cultures of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Renaissance to modernity, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The modern and contemporary history of China course is a compulsory course of ideological and political theory for undergraduates, provided by The Central Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Education .This course focus on the history of Chinese people against foreign aggression, fighting for national independence, overthrowing the reactionary rule and achieving national liberation in modern China. It will help students understand the national history, the historical process and internal rules of the modern Chinese society and the revolution. By this way, they will deeply understand why people choose the Marxism, the Communist Party of China and the road of socialism. This course was set up by Peking University since September 2006 and it was named to the quality courses of Beijing and China in 2008. Credit score: 2. schedule type: 2 hours a week, optional during two semesters. level: freshmen required. This course use the form of seminars as teachers will be separated into four teams, include presenters, a competent teacher, lectures and teaching assistants. The teachers will give you some lectures, and the traits of the course is the practical parts, such as broadcasting documentaries or films, writing exercises about the films, class discussion, visiting the exhibitions and so on. The assessment of students is flexible. Final exams accounts for 60%, which is open-book examination, the rest 40% include individual performance and essays. 

This course offers a critical introduction to United States history from the end of World War I to the present day. It is made up of four thematic sections which focus on: the state and political development; gender and sexuality; the US and the world; and race and ethnicity. The course focuses on historiographical questions that occupy scholars and interrogate change and continuity in political and social ideology during the 20th and 21st centuries. 

The course examines the peculiar nature of early modern English crime, law, and punishment through its recent historiography, testing arguments about social control, the use of evidence, levels of violence, and changing patterns of crime. From the level of state-building down to the pettiest transgressions, students will see the law in action and follow the people in court.