This course is a readings seminar designed to introduce students to the work of the loose association of 20th-century French historians known as the Annales school, which came to have far-reaching influence on the writing of history around the world. More broadly, this course proposes to explore how an understanding of both historical context and the social trajectories of individual historians can shed light on historical scholarship itself.

Modern European powers tend to inscribe their power onto the urban fabric of its colonies and protectorates. In the process, colonial cities often became 'laboratories of modernity.' This course analyzes how — from Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 to decolonization in the 1950s — colonial urbanism affected the modern Mediterranean world. It does so by focussing on French, British, and Italian urban designs and politics in cities of the Levant and North Africa. We will pursue comparatively the cultural and material, economic and architectural policies of three major European imperial powers and contrast them to late Ottoman urban culture.

This course is designed to introduce students to fundamental questions in the history of early modern France, as well as help prepare students for examination fields in early modern European history. Students will examine a series of key themes and important primary and secondary texts as an avenue into critical reflection on the political, religious, and social history of France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of particular interest will be the institutions of the Renaissance monarchy, the causes and consequences of the Wars of Religion, historiographical debates surrounding the development of the absolutist state, the social history of war, and the intersection of social change, political history, and religious life. All assigned course reading will be in English. Students will write one short book review and a longer essay analyzing a substantial primary text (or series of documents).

This seminar addresses the emergence and recent transformation of the early modern Mediterranean as an historical object. It will offer an overview of the historiography of the early modern Mediterranean from Braudel to his most recent critics, and situate this historiography within the broader field of contemporary scholarship and politics. In particular, it will explore the methodological and epistemological implications of post-colonial critiques of Orientalism and Occidentalism on the one hand and of the ongoing conversations between historians and anthropologists of the Mediterranean on the other. Among topics covered will be the emergence of Europe, borderlands and frontiers, varieties of colonial and territorial states, early modern ethnography and travel writing, kinship, merchant "nations" and diasporas, and cultural interaction between the Ottoman Empire and its neighbours. Students will be expected to write weekly response papers, a book review, an annotated bibliography, and a final paper.

This seminar will examine recent trends in French colonial history, covering the period from the conquest of Algeria (1830) to the wars of decolonization. Readings will span a wide geographical range, encompassing French colonies in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and ending chronologically with postcolonial legacies and the question of Francafrique.

This graduate course explores themes and episodes in French history since the Paris Commune. Students will be introduced to the historiography of the Commune, the Dreyfus Affair, French colonialism, immigration, the two world wars, the Vichy regime, decolonization, and May 1968. Memory, identity, citizenship, immigration and empire are some of the recurring themes in this course. Readings will include a range of cultural, political, gender, and social approaches. In some cases we will read classics, and in others we will consider very recent studies.

This course explores theories and histories of gender with particular attention to Europe over four-and-a-half centuries. We will consider gender and sexuality as connected and entangled with religion, violence, the state, and everyday life. The chronological and geographic boundaries of the course are porous, and we will be especially attentive to linkages between Europe and Africa, Asia, and the Americas and the ways gender shaped those interactions and intersections and how people experienced them. Assigned readings will pair older scholarship with new work to reveal continuities and changes in the discipline. Students will explore an area of particular interest in a historiographic analysis and participate in peer-review workshops.

This course will examine how Europeans and North Americans confront the memory of both Nazi mass murder and the Allied bombing of Germany through the law, literature, left wing agitation, film, memorials and museums, and political debates. How do postwar representations of German atrocities and the Allied liberation of Europe, or conversely, German suffering and Allied war crimes shift throughout the postwar period, and what do these representations mean for "overcoming the past?" We will juxtapose generational responses, national reactions (including Germany, Poland, Israel, and the U.S. and Canada), and official vs. unofficial representations of the atrocities of the Second World War. Among the focal points: the Nuremberg and postwar West German trials of Nazis, the fascination with Anne Frank, anti-fascist terror in 1970s Germany, The Berlin Memorial, and the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and films such as Shoah and Schindler's List, and the explosion of debate on the bombing of Germany between 1943-45.

This seminar explores the history and especially the historiography of the Holocaust. Among the themes we will consider are the roles of religion in the Holocaust, colonial contexts, gender and sexuality, and cultures of memorialization. How has scholarship on these and other matters changed over the course of 80 years? Readings include works written during and close to the events and recent contributions to the field. Combinations and juxtapositions of works are intended to highlight innovations and persistent questions and help you revisit familiar material in new ways. We will read primary sources and secondary literature related to the Holocaust as well as consider how similar issues play out in other cases of genocide and mass atrocity and the scholarship about them. Oral presentations and the long paper (an historiographical analysis, although in consultation with the professor, students may write a paper based on original research) will give students an opportunity to explore areas of particular interest to them.

This seminar introduces students to some major developments and current issues in the modern history of medicine and healthcare. Using a combination lecture/group discussion format, the class covers such topics as the doctor-patient relationship, the impact of medical care upon health, the evolution of such medical specialties as internal medicine, neurology, and psychiatry, the relationship between culture and the presentation of illness, and the history of medical therapeutics.

Developments in medicine (not necessarily "progress") can be seen as a balance between important individuals and significant events. Students will prepare a major research assignment (8 to 12 pages) assessing an individual or event of their choice, using secondary sources.

What is globalization? What is empire? How can we think of the relationship between them? Globalization is one of the most widely used concepts today. As a concept, it means many different things. We will investigate its range of meanings, analyzing in particular its connections with different imperial projects and the types of connections (economic, political, cultural) that they fostered. The goal is to seek to understand the types of globalization active in our world today. In other words, through a historical analysis of globalization and empire we will explore the various processes of economic and political transformation that created our modern present.

This seminar immerses students into the rich world of mineral water cures. It explores the relationship between the medical sciences and society, and the connections between prescriptive and normalizing medical rituals and sites of pilgrimage, capitalism, and sociability. The seminar will also focus on shifting medical meanings, on gender dynamics at these sites, and on uses and practices surrounding hot water springs, as well as varied experiences of spa towns as sites of leisure and tourism. The course is transnational and features case studies in Mexico, Madagascar, Britain, Germany, Tunisia, Japan, France, Austria, Hungary, Greece, and Canada.

This research seminar will focus on recent controversies concerning social, cultural, and political change in the time of Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Among the topics to be considered are state- and nation-building after 1866, regional identities, gender and sexuality, religion, culture, antisemitism and murder in a small town, and British diplomatic reports on the rise and repression of the German labour movement. A combination of secondary literature and primary documents (all in translation and many online) will be discussed each week, beginning with a short student presentation. Among the required texts are James Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany 1871-1918. The Short Oxford History of Germany (2008) and Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher's Tale. The course will conclude with a discussion of the East German film adapted from Heinrich Mann's biting satire, The Loyal Subject (1918).

This course is designed to further the preparation of students for examination fields in twentieth-century German and European history. We will read major (new) works on the century's central period and events — the two world wars, the Holocaust, the rise of fascism, the Cold War and the reconstruction of Europe, colonialism and decolonisation — as well as exploring the larger processes of transformation that span the century as a whole. These include the development of the modern social welfare state and the growth of a mass consumer society, the legacies of war and violence, ethnic nationalism and its discontents, and the strength and weaknesses of democratic political culture (with an emphasis on histories of gender and sexuality). Particular attention will be paid to Germany within Europe. We will also examine works which attempt to connect the two halves of the century – the histories of war and violence with those emphasizing democracy and reconstruction. These works seek to establish an overarching paradigm for the twentieth century, whether it be territoriality and the rise and fall of the nation state or the creation and destruction of political community.

World War II was much more destructive and traumatic in East Central Europe than in Western Europe. The difference was caused by many reasons, among which the Nazi and Soviet plans and policies were the most important. Yet, there were also numerous East Central European phenomena that contributed to the cruelty of World War II in the East. This seminar will explore the external and internal factors that defined the war in the discussed region. Students will analyze the military, political, economic, and cultural activities of Germany, the Soviet Union, and their allies and enemies. Following sessions will concentrate on the fall of the Versailles systems, diplomatic and military activities throughout the war, on occupational policies of the invaders, economic exploration of the invaded, on collaboration, accommodation, resistance, genocide, the "liberation" and sovietization of East Central Europe after 1944. All the secondary and primary sources used in class are English.

This research seminar will examine a number of texts and films produced during and after the socialist era. Writings from the former period include memoirs, diaries, fiction, and film produced during the 1960s and 1970s in the Soviet Union and other countries of the "socialist camp," including Yuri Trifonov's novel, House on the Embankment (1976); Natalya Baranskaya's novella A Week Like Any Other (1979) and the films The Joke, by Jaromil Jires (1969) and Man of Marble by Andrzej Wajda (1976). Works produced after 1991 include Andrzej Stasiuk's novel On the Road to Babadag (2004), and the films Goodbye Lenin! by Wolfgang Becker (2003) and 24 City by Jia Zhangke (2008). Additional readings are critical works dealing with the concept of "real (existing) socialism," its legacy, and issues of nostalgia.

The first all-Russian (which was really the first all-imperial) census of 1897 categorized the population of the Russian Empire by gender, by social status, by profession, by religion, and in a way, by nationality. In this course, we will examine the ways that those categories developed over the preceding centuries. We will examine how social estates developed, and how alternate forms of social stratification did or did not develop to challenge those estates. We will look at the role religion played in categorizing Russian society, and the ways that the Russian state viewed religion synonymously with nationalism. And we will investigate the ways that ethnic and national differences became more recognized as important sources of social division, too, related to, and yet separate from these other forms.

The history of the Polish Jews and of Polish-Jewish relations are among the most interesting and controversial subjects in the history of Poland. The Jewish experience in Poland can contribute to an understanding of the Holocaust and of the non-Jewish minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. The course will explore the history of Polish Jews from the Partitions of Poland to the present time, concentrating on the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries: the situation of Polish Jews in Galicia, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, and Prussian-occupied Poland before 1914; during World War I; in the first years of reborn Poland; in the 1930s; during WW II; and in post-war Poland. The course will examine the state policies of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Poland towards Jews; the rise of Jewish political movements; the life of Jewish shtetls in Christian neighbourhoods; changes in the economic position and cultural development of Jewish communities in Poland, and the impact of communism on Jewish life. Materials for the course are in English. Sessions will focus on an analysis of primary sources, translated from Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, as well as on secondary sources, representing diverse interpretations and points of views.

The collapse of the Soviet Union along national lines brought about a renewed interest in the non-Russian parts of the Imperial Russian state. This so-called "imperial turn" has altered the ways that we think about Tsarist Russian rule. In this course we address different approaches to the study of the Russian Empire as an Empire from its origins in the sixteenth century until the collapse of the Tsarist state — but not precisely of its empire — in 1917.

The course reviews the history of the Cold War in light of formerly-secret archival documents. Examples include the U.S. White House Tapes and Venona decrypts; massive declassification of records in the ex-Soviet bloc; and parallel developments in China, Cuba, and other Communist states. Archival discoveries have cast new light, not just on individual episodes (e.g., Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979) but on the origins, strategies, and driving forces of this 45-year conflict. The focus will be mainly on the superpowers and their alliance systems.

This seminar examines selected topics in the history of the Russian Empire from the early eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. Part historiographical survey, part topic-specific examination, the course introduces students to important issues in the history of imperial Russia, including serfdom and unfree labor, colonialism, autocracy and authoritarian rule, and religious and ethnic diversity.

A historiographical survey of the political, cultural, and social history of the Soviet Union during Stalin's years in power. Major emphasis of the course is on historiography, interpretation, and an introduction to sources. Key topics covered include collectivization, the Great Terror, the gulag, WWII, the Holocaust, and postwar Stalinism. This course serves as basic preparation for a minor field in Twentieth-Century Russian History.

The field of food studies has emerged in the past few decades as a rich source of interdisciplinary research that also speaks to a broad audience beyond the academy. This class will introduce students to a wide range of approaches to the field from history and allied disciplines. Readings will cover all chronological periods from prehistory to the present and geographical areas from around the world. Because many scholars also teach classes on food, even if they research in other fields, we will also discuss teaching methods. Writing assignments will include weekly reviews and a historiographical term paper. Students should consider this class an opportunity to practice the art of writing clear, compelling prose, even if they adopt different styles in other venues. A part of each seminar will be devoted to "workshopping" student essays and practicing editing skills.

This seminar introduces students to current research debates and methodologies in early modern British social, cultural, and legal history. Topics include orality, literacy and print culture, religion, magic, medicine, drink, sex, work, and public order.

This course will consider some of the major themes in Victorian social and cultural history with emphasis on the most recent secondary literature. Examples include a feminist analysis of the victims of Jack the Ripper, a revisionist treatment of servants after Downton Abbey, and Covid-informed examinations of the influenza pandemic of 1918. Emphasis will be on trends in the scholarship, models for writing, and links with other fields.

This course examines the extent to which the Irish can be understood as a colonized and racialized people, and the degree to which they participated in the colonization and racialization of Blacks and Indigenous peoples in the British and American empires. It encompasses debates about whether the Irish were victims of genocidal policies during the Famine, and their role in what one historian calls the "casual genocide" of imperial expansion. It also discusses the character and limitations of anti-colonialism in Irish nationalist discourse, and attitudes of racialized minorities and Indigenous peoples towards the Irish.

This course is a one-semester seminar designed to introduce students to major themes and problems in the political history of the modern United States. We will examine a range of topics under the heading of politics broadly defined, including the ways ordinary Americans of various backgrounds practiced politics; reform movements such as Populism and Progressivism; American nationalism; the emergence of the federal administrative state; the rise and fall of the New Deal political order; and the resurgence of conservatism since the 1960s. The seminar seeks to provide an introduction to American political historiography that would prove useful to, among others, students preparing for comprehensive examinations.

This seminar will provide an in-depth exploration of U.S. foreign policy during the so-called "Cold War Era." Cold War historiography has exploded in recent decades: In addition to diplomacy and strategy, a history of US policy in this era requires attention to the intellectual, psychological, legal, racial, and gendered foundations of policy. Weekly discussions will consider how scholars have brought new methods to the study of the Cold War, and how consideration of the Cold War has helped propel the field of history in new directions.

This seminar explores the use of gender as a category of analysis in the study of international relations. Topics include gendered imagery and language in foreign policymaking; gendered beliefs about war and peace; sexuality and the military; gender in the global economy and global governance; sexual violence and international human rights; gender and international security; and contributions of feminist theory to IR theory.

This seminar will survey some of the important topics and readings in U.S. history after 1877. Given the extensive scope of the historiography in the U.S. field, this particular section of this course will have a thematic focus on the "history of capitalism," with an emphasis on the 20th century. This relatively recent field brings together subfields such as the history of slavery, business history, critical management studies, labour history, economic history, and the history of consumption, advertising, marketing, and logistics. In this course, we will pay careful attention to how historians have brought analytic attention to structural inequalities based on race, gender, class, and sexuality to bear on their analysis of political economy. Readings will include works by authors such as Tanisha Ford, Cedric Robinson, Nan Enstad, Bethany Moreton, Louis Hyman, Kim Phillips-Fein, N.D.B. Connolly, Peter Hudson, Dan Bouk, Lizabeth Cohen, David K. Johnson, and others. The course is designed for students preparing for comprehensive fields or others seeking a basic background in 20th century U.S. history.