Fall 2026 Courses
HST 290 satisfies Information Literacy, Writing Intensive, and Explorations Beyond the Classroom University Studies Requirements:
HST 290 – (Coggeshall)
HST 290 – The Spanish Civil War and Revolution in Comparative Perspective (Seidman)
This course is designed to expose beginning history majors to essential issues of historical reflection, research, and writing. Students are expected to engage in critical thinking about the nature of history and history writing. Most importantly, students will produce a fifteen- to twenty-page paper based upon primary sources. The paper topics will involve an aspect of the Spanish Civil War, the major European conflict of the 1930s. You will learn about this war and revolution, historians’ approaches and evaluations of its events, and its similarities and differences compared to other civil wars and revolutions.
Classes of interest
HST 107 – Warfare in World History (McFarland)
Warfare has been a global technological, social, political, and cultural transformational force throughout human history. HST 107 seeks to help students understand this force by surveying war from the ancient
world until today. Warfare will be used as a lens to encourage critical thinking, enhance global awareness, and develop a foundational knowledge of warfare in history. The course will examine how societies have waged war, how they have responded to war, and how war has influenced those societies. Its central theme will be the societal origins of and impact of warfare, both for the victors and the defeated. Additional topics will include the origins of war, the morality of war, and the revolutionary impact of war. Satisfies University Studies: Approaches and Perspectives/Historical and Philosophical Approaches, Approaches and Perspectives/Living in a Global Society.
HST 112 – History of Science II: Modern Science (Crowe)
Growth and development of modern science. Topics include Darwin’s theory of evolution, Einstein’s special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, wartime science, the discovery of DNA, and the impact of science and technology on modern society.
HST 120 – Medical Humanities (Johnson)
Introduction to the various disciplines, methods, and perspectives of medical and health humanities.
HST 242 - Religion in American (Brummitt and Delgado)
Study of religion in American history from the colonial era to the present-day United States. Examines the religious practices of Native Americans, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and others by interrogating the relationships between religion, material culture, race, gender, and politics.
HST 260 - African-American History (Harris)
Survey of the major themes and events in the history of African-Americans from the colonial period to the present.
HST 306 - Ancient Greece and Rome (Pilkington)
A study of the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome with special emphasis on the Greek classical period and the Pax Romana.
HST 323 - History Of Germany 1890-Present (Spaulding)
Germany from the end of Bismarck’s chancellorship to the present. Topics include World War I, German Expressionism, the failure of Weimar democracy, the rise of the Nazis, defeat and division, rebuilding in East and West, the collapse of communism, and reunification.
HST 332 - American Environmental History (Hart)
The significance of the environment in American history from the colonial period to the present. Emphasis on the relationship between the natural environment of North America and the development of American culture and society, as well as changing attitudes toward the natural environment.
HST 334 - Public History (Jones)
A study of the ways in which historians practice outside of the academy. Topics include historic preservation, museum interpretation, cultural resource management, media, and archives. Class may include guest speakers and field trips.
HST 353 - The American Revolution and Formation of the United States (Houpt)
Organization of the British Empire, events preceding the Revolution, the war for independence, Confederation era, drafting and ratification of the U. S. Constitution, politics of the new nation.
HST 363 - History of Modern East China (Chen)
Survey of East Asian history from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, with emphasis on China and Japan and secondary attention to Korea and Vietnam. Course may be repeated for credit under different subtitles.
HST 366 - Modern Japan through Film (Gao)
Examination of the social, cultural, economic, and political issues confronting modern China as constructed in feature films produced inside the country and the West including before and after the Communists came to power.
HST 372 - History of Modern Africa (Timbs)
Historical survey of African history from 1800 to the present with emphasis on the abolition of slavery and the slave trade; the scramble for Africa; establishment and operation of colonial rule; independence movements; and the post-colonial period.
HST 377 - International History (McFarland)
HST377 examines the United States' major conflicts from the Vietnam War through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from an international perspective. Themes will include historical backgrounds, military strategies and tactics, ideologies, asymmetrical warfare, the influence of media, geopolitical shifts, the problems of 'forever wars,' the limits of power, technology, domestic and international dissent, and how historians have treated these wars (historiography).
HST 400s satisfy Capstone Course and Writing Intensive requirements:
HST 414 – The History of Medicine in Europe, 1200-1800 (Mollenauer)
Where were the boundaries of the medical world in premodern Europe? What constituted medical treatment and who was able to access it? To address these questions, this seminar will examine the creation, transmission, and exchange of medical knowledge, practices, and goods in the early modern period. Students will investigate the ways in which European medical knowledge has been constructed, the blurred borders between medicine, magic, and marvels, and the growth and legitimation of the medical profession. In addition, we will consider the interplay between global and local medical and scientific knowledge, the experiences of patients and practitioners, and the networks of trade and exchange through which materia medica circulated throughout the early modern world.
HST 440 – Atlantic Families (Sherman)
This research seminar provides an extensive introduction to Europe, the Americas, and the Atlantic World from the Age of Discovery to the nineteenth century through the actions of families. Students will familiarize themselves with the rise of the field of Atlantic history in the second half of the twentieth century and how the framework seeks to address the interactions and relationships that developed among the societies which border the Atlantic Ocean. In this course, students will engage with a wide variety of literature on the making of an Atlantic World as well as transnational methods to the study history by examining overlapping Atlantic empires. As a research seminar, the course will focus on skill-building that results in student-led research projects based on a topic related to the course theme.
HST 456 – Nature and the Victorians (Hart)
This course examines the Victorian relationship with nature through the lens of cultural, intellectual, and environmental history. Focusing on the nineteenth century, we will explore the Victorians' obsession with studying natural history and collecting everything from shells to butterflies as well as their passion for botany, geology, paleontology, and ornithology. We will see how their ideas about nature were grounded in the transatlantic movements of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Darwinism but also shaped by the social and environmental changes transforming the United States. Finally, the course will cover how the Victorian understanding of the natural world influenced the rise of tourism, outdoor recreation, and the conservation movement.
HST 495 – The United States Encounters the Middle East, 1776-2020 (Fain)
In this course we will explore how the United States has come to define its political, strategic, economic, and moral interests in the Middle East from the founding of the American republic to the most recent U.S. embroilments in Iraq and Syria. By researching and writing a major research paper grounded in primary sources, students will have the opportunity to examine the multi-dimensional history of the diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations between the United States and the lands of the Middle East and analyze how the definitions of U.S. interests in the region and assessments about how best to secure them have been shaped by ideological and cultural constructions, domestic political factors, and the actions of transnational non-state actors, such as missionaries, oil companies, and the media. In the process, students will also have the opportunity to experience what professional historians do – researching; presenting findings in both written and verbal formats; and reading, digesting, and critiquing the arguments of other historians.
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