Fall 2022

Introductory Seminar in African Histor

Instructor: James La Fleur

This seminar introduces the study of history intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history

Instructor: James La Fleur

This course studies the history of African civilizations from the iron age through the era of the slave trade, ca. 1800. Emphasizes the search for the themes of social, political, economic, and intellectual history which present African civilizations on their own terms.

Instructor: John Mason

This is a lecture course on the history of southern Africa, with an emphasis on South Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We'll begin with a look at the precolonial African societies of the region and then move on to an examination of colonial conquest, life under colonialism, and the rise and fall of apartheid (South Africa's infamous system of racial oppression). The course ends with the birth of democracy in South Africa that was marked by the election of Nelson Mandela as president. Course materials include autobiographies, photography, and music, as well as historical studies.

Instructor: James La Fleur

This course explores how Africans changed their interactions with the physical environments they inhabited and how the landscapes they helped create in turn shaped human history. Topics covered include the ancient agricultural revolution, health and disease in the era of slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, 20th-century wildlife conservation, and the emergent challenges of land ownership, disease, and climate change.

Concentrations/Pathways: Environment, Space, and Society

Introductory Seminar in East Asian History

Instructor: Joseph Seeley

This seminar introduces the study of history intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.

Introductory Seminar in East Asian History

Instructor: Robert Stolz

Using films, fiction, and historical sources, this seminar is an introduction to the history and theory of monsters, ghosts, and the fantastic in Japan. The focus will be on modern monsters and ghosts — why and how they persist beyond what is supposed to be a rational modernity that replaced the supposed age of superstition. Topics include monster theory, folklore, the uncanny, and the broad question of haunting. There will be two short, formal papers, in-class writings, a final group or individual project with class presentation, and a final take-home exam."

Introductory Seminar in East Asian History

Instructor: Ellen Zhang

Introduces the study of history intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.

Instructor: Ellen Zhang

An intro to the study of Chinese civilization. We shall begin with the earliest human remains found in China & conclude in the present. The goal of this coure is not merely to tell the story of Chinese history, rich and compelling though the story is. Rather, our aim will be to explore what makes Chinese civilization specifically Chinese, & how the set of values, practices, & institutions we associate with Chinese society came to exist.

Concentrations/Pathways: War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Bradly Reed 

Studies the transformation of Chinese politics, society, institutions, culture and foreign relations from the Opium War. through the post-Mao Reform Era. Emphasizes the fluid relationship between tradition and transformation and the ways in which this relationship continues to shape the lives of the Chinese people.

Instructor: Joseph Seeley

This course traces Korea's history from its unified rule under the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) to Japanese colonization (1910-1945) and subsequent division into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Republic of Korea (South Korea). It examines how processes of reform, empire, civil war, revolution, and industrialization shaped both Koreas' development and how ordinary people experienced this tumultuous history.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Robert Stolz

This course introduces the study of history intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.

Introductory Seminar in Post-1700 European History

Instructor: Allan Megill

Intended for first- or second-year students. Seminars involve reading, discussing, and writing about different historical topics and periods, and emphasize the enhancement of critical and communication skills. Several seminars are offered each term. Not more than two Introductory Seminars may be counted toward the major in history.

Instructor: J.E. Lendon

This course studies the political, military, and social history of Ancient Greece from the Homeric age to the death of Alexander the Great, emphasizing the development and interactions of Sparta and Athens.

Concentrations/Pathways: War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Erin Lambert

European history, from the Reformation to Napoleon, in global perspective.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History

Instructor: Jennifer Sessions

Introduction to major developments in French society, culture, and politics since 1871: struggles to establish a secular Republic; nationalism and imperialism; antisemitism and Islamophobia; changes in women's roles and gender ideals; the traumas of world war and fascism; postwar consumer culture and economic modernization; European integration, Cold War, and decolonization; post-colonial immigration and multiculturalism.

Instructor: Paul Kershaw

Surveys the history of Britain from the establishment of Roman rule to the Norman Conquest of 1066. Particular focus falls upon the social, political and cultural history of early England and its neighbors in Wales and Scotland, the Scandinavian impact of the 8th through 11th centuries, and Britain's links with the wider late antique and early medieval worlds.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: William Hitchcock

This course examines the range of human experience in Europe during the Second World War. Why did Nazi Germany invade and attempt to colonize large parts of Europe? What were the methods of Nazi rule? How did European peoples respond to the Nazi project, whether through forms of resistance or collaboration? Who were the principal victims of the war--and why is this question so difficult to address even today?

Concentrations/Pathways: War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Karen Parshall

This course studies the history of modern science in its formative period against the backdrop of classical Greek science and in the context of evolving scientific institutions and changing views of religion, politics, magic, alchemy, and ancient authorities.

Instructor: Allan Megill

This course introduces the social theory of Karl Marx. What Marx said, why he said it, what he meant in saying it, and the significance thereof. Situates Marx's writing in the context of 19th-century intellectual history. Focuses on the coherence and validity of the theory and its subsequent history.

Concentrations/Pathways: Capitalism and Economic Life | Global and Transnational History

Seminar in Pre-1700 European History

Instructor: J.E. Lendon

The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. The work of the seminar results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See Professor Lendon or the director of undergraduate studies.

Concentrations/Pathways: War, Violence, and Society

Pre-1700 European History Seminar

Instructor: Paul Kershaw

This seminar focuses upon the social, cultural and political history of the Viking world (c. AD 700-1050). Drawing upon archaeological, anthropological and literary studies alongside historical scholarship, we will explore the ways in which “the silver seekers from the North” travelled, traded and transformed the world around them, and were themselves transformed in turn.  Topics we’ll explore in this class include belief, social structure, runes and writing, magic, questions of gender and identity. How did the Vikings bury their dead, conduct trade and acquire wealth, think about the animal world, talk to the gods, see themselves and others?  

Instructor: Thomas Klubock

This course introduces major developments and issues in the study of Latin American history from Native American societies on the eve of the Spanish Conquest to the wars of national independence in the early 19th century.

Satisfies concentration requirement for Global and Transnational History | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire

Instructor: Lean Sweeney 

This course studies the history of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador from 19th century fragmentation, oligarchic, foreign, and military rule, to the emergence of popular nationalisms.

Satisfies concentration requirement for Capitalism and Economic Life | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire | War, Violence, and Society

Colloquium in Latin American History

Instructor: Thomas Klubock

This course examines the history of gender and sexuality in Latin America from the pre-1492 period (in indigenous societies) and the period of conquest and Iberian colonization to the modern period and present.  We will examine the massive transformations caused by the conquest and its aftermath , as well as the changes wrought by the development of modern states and the emergence of different forms of capitalism (as well as revolutionary socialist regimes) in the lives of men and women in the sphere of gender and sexuality.

Introductory Seminar in Middle East History

Instructor: Caroline Kahlenberg

In this introductory history seminar, we will approach the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of literature and film. We will study memoirs, short stories, documentaries, and feature films in order to think about several broader historical themes, including: the relationship between religion and nationalism, the role of colonialism in the Middle East, the links between history and memory, and the meaning of armed struggle.

Concentrations/Pathways: Race, Ethnicity, and Empire

Instructor: Joshua White

This survey course explores the history of the Middle East and North Africa (very broadly construed), from late antiquity to the early modern era. Beginning with an overview of the geography of the region, the peoples who inhabited it, and the two polities, Roman and Persian, that dominated it in late antiquity, this course covers the major political, social, cultural, and religious developments that followed the formation of Islam and the first Arab-Islamic conquests, including the establishment and subsequent fragmentation of the empire of the caliphate; the historical development of Islamic social, legal, and political institutions; science, philosophy, and scholarly ventures; the impact of invaders (Turks, Crusaders, Mongols); and the rise to superpower status of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Caroline Kahlenberg

In this course, we will survey the history of modern Palestine/Israel. Part I focuses on Ottoman Palestine, early Zionist settlement, British conquest, and the Holocaust in Europe. Part II focuses on the 1948 War, known as the Israeli "War of Independence" and the Palestinian "Nakba" (Catastrophe). Part III addresses the Palestinian refugee crisis, the rise of Palestinian resistance movements, continued wars between Israel and Arab states, and Israeli-Arab peace initiatives.

Concentrations/Pathways: Race, Ethnicity, and Empire

Introductory Seminar in Middle East History

Instructor: Chris Gratien

This introductory history workshop offers firsthand experience of what it means to be a historian. The course presents diverse ways in which scholars conceive of the past, interpret their sources, and write new histories. The theme of this workshop is “Migration, Displacement, and Diaspora in the Middle East.” It explores the methods of history through an examination of how the modern Middle East has been shaped by the forced and voluntary movements of people, which have forged connections between the region and other parts of the world.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire

Instructor: Chris Gratien

The Mediterranean is an interconnected space that joins three continents and numerous distinct societies and geographies. This course explores those connections, the historical experiences Mediterranean societies share, and how their experiences have diverged over the past thousand years through the lens of environmental history.

Concentrations/Pathways: Environment, Space, and Society | Global and Transnational History

Instructor: Neeti Nair

India's Partition and its far-reaching consequences may be productively studied from several different perspectives. This course juxtaposes select novels, films, contemporary writings, and some secondary sources to reflect on a few of the big questions thrown up by this event. These include the place of minorities in the subcontinent and the changing nature of center-state relations in the subcontinent after 1947.

Introductory Seminar in African American History

Instructor: John Mason

This seminar course focuses on the history that African American portraits made in Charlottesville in the early twentieth century can reveal. This was an era of the New Negro, a time of racial oppression and rising resistance to it. As the Black philosopher Alaine Locke said in 1925, "a new spirit is awake in the masses." The portraits demonstrate that the spirit of the New Negro was alive and well in the Charlottesville region. They show members of African American community as they wished to be seen -- as people of dignity, beauty, respectability, and strength. The portraits are silent assertions fo equality and demands for the rights of citizenship. They challenge the crude racial stereotypes that were so common in American culture at the time. Students in this class will learn to analyze primary sources, such as the portraits and newspapers, and work with members of the local community to create web pages and pop-up exhibitions that will bring these portraits to a wider audience.

Introductory in American History

Instructor: David Singerman

In 2008, people knew they were living through a consequential historical event. In this discussion- and project-based course, you’ll discover the causes and consequences of the global crisis of that year. You’ll learn what happened during the crucial months, and broadly how those events continued a sequence of bubbles and busts back to the 1500s. And we’ll see how the responses to 2008 shaped the world’s capacities to react to COVID from 2020 to today.

Satisfies concentration requirement for Capitalism and Economic Life

Instructor: Philip Zelikow

This is a survey course in modern world history. It covers a period in which the main historical questions about what happened, and why, more and more involve global circumstances, global beliefs about those conditions, and global structures to solve problems. This course can therefore be an essential foundation for other courses dwelling on particular regions or nations.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Max Edelson

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the history of cartography that ranges across the globe from oldest surviving images of pre-history to GIS systems of the present day. It approaches map history from a number of disciplinary perspectives, including the history of science, the history of cartography, critical theory and literary studies, anthropology, historical geography, and spatial cognition and wayfinding.

Concentrations/Pathways: Environment, Space, and Society | Global and Transnational History

Instructor: Paul Halliday and Fahad Bishara

This course explores the history of law around the world through the prism of "the rule of law." By examining different legal cultures across space and time, we will explore how societies mobilized law to order relations between rulers and subjects, between people and wealth, and among different communities and nations. The “rule of law” thus emerges as a dynamic project that unfolded along multiple scales and in different arenas.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | Law and Society | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire 

Instructor: Jeffrey Rossman

History of genocide and other forms of one-sided, state-sponsored mass killing in the twentieth century. Case studies include the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the mass killings that have taken place under Communist regimes (e.g., Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia).

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | War, Violence, and Society | Race, Ethnicity, and Empire

Introductory History Workshop

Instructor: Erin Lambert

In this seminar, students will gain first-hand experience with historical research. We will explore the archive as the foundation of the historian’s work. How are archives created, and how can historians use them to recover the voices of people in the past? Readings will be drawn from a broad range of historical subfields. Through visits to Special Collections and the use of online archives, students will implement a research project.

Introductory History Workshop

Instructor: Penny Von Eschen

We will draw on primary texts and historiography from multiple regions of the globe and multiple centuries to examine how historians think across space and time and to introduce students to the great diversity of methodological and thematical approaches employed by historians to examine the past.  Students will gain experience working in archives both old (e.g. written manuscripts) and new (e.g. digital databases), as they develop skills in historical analysis. 

Concentrations/Pathways: Race, Ethnicity, and Empire

Instructor: Philip Zelikow

At the Great War's centennial, we take stock of how it shaped life in the 20th century for peoples around the globe. Movies, memoirs, government reports and other texts throw light on causes of the war, the human carnage of 1914-18, Woodrow Wilson's effort to end war forever with a League of Nations, the demise of liberalism and the rise of fascism and communism in postwar Europe, and the launch of anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Laurent Dubois

This course explores the history of soccer and of the World Cup in order to understand why it has become the most popular sport in the world. We examine the development and spread of the game, its economics, culture and institutions, and biographies of players. The course is global in scope, and we will focus particularly on the way in which soccer condenses, channels, and at times transforms political life.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History

Instructor: Mark Thomas

Comparative study of the historical development of selected advanced economies (e.g., the United States, England, Japan, continental Europe). The nations covered vary with instructor. Cross-listed with ECON 4400.

Instructor: William Hitchcock

The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. The work of the seminar results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pages in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See Professor Hitchcock for more course information.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Jeffrey Rossman

The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. The work of the seminar results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pages in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.

Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Bradly Reed

Studies historical approaches, techniques, and methodologies introduced through written exercises and intensive class discussion. Normally taken during the third year. Prerequisite: Open only to students admitted to the Distinguished Majors Program.

Instructor: Bradly Reed

Analyzes problems in historical research. Preparation and discussion of fourth-year honors theses. Normally taken during the fourth year. Intended for students who will be in residence during their entire fourth year.  Prerequisite: Open only to students admitted to the Distinguished Majors Program.

Instructor: Christa Dierksheide

This research seminar will explore the historical intersections of slavery, race, and law on UVA’s North Grounds. Class readings, discussions, and field trips will investigate the history of this landscape within a broader historical context of enslavement in Virginia and at the University, land use in Virginia, and the Jim Crow South.  In consultation with the instructors, students will design and complete individual research projects on a topic of their choosing related to North Grounds history.

Instructor: Jennifer Sessions and Emily Burrill

This course is designed to introduce students to a wide range of historical approaches.

Instructor: Alan Taylor

Studies the development of the colonies and their institutions, the Revolution, the formation and organization of the Republic, and the coming of the Civil War.

Instructor: Mark Thomas

Studies American economic history from its colonial origins to the present. Cross-listed as ECON 2060.

Instructor: Elizabeth Varon 

Examines the period from roughly 1815 to 1861 focusing on the interaction between the developing sectional conflict and the evolving political system, with the view of explaining what caused the Civil War.

Concentrations/Pathways: Race, Ethnicity, and Empire | War, Violence, and Society

Instructor: Caroline Janney

This course will examine the years after the Civil War, from 1865 to 1900, a period in which Americans witnessed unprecedented economic expansion that profoundly altered political and social arrangements. It explores how the nation recovered from civil War, how it reconstructed itself, and continued to define the notion of who was an American and who was not. It examines how the nation transitioned from one divided to an emerging empire.

Instructor: Deborah Kang

This seminar will offer an historical examination of the relationships between immigration and race in the United States. The course will ask how migrations to the United States, from 1789 to the present, have shaped and reshaped our conceptions of race, fueled nativist and white supremacist movements, and inspired immigrant movements for racial redress and rights. Students will attain an overview of the major developments in US immigration history from 1789 to the present and the shifts in domestic conceptions of race in this period. It will also introduce students to some of the key turning points in the development of US immigration law and policy, the histories of various immigrant and ethnic communities, and the histories of nativism, racism, and white supremacy.

Concentrations/Pathways: Law and Society

Instructor: Kevin Gaines

Studies the history of Black Americans from the Civil War to the present.

Instructor: Elizabeth Varon

The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. The work of the seminar results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See Professor Varon or the director of undergraduate studies.

Instructor: Alan Taylor

The major seminar is a small class (not more than 15 students) intended primarily but not exclusively for history majors who have completed two or more courses relevant to the topic of the seminar. The work of the seminar results primarily in the preparation of a substantial (ca. 25 pp. in standard format) research paper. Some restrictions and prerequisites apply to enrollment. See a history advisor or the director of undergraduate studies.

Instructor: Grace Hale

In this class, graduate students and advanced undergraduates will learn best practices in oral history and associated research methods for democratizing archives.  We will put these skills to work collaborating with local historical research projects, including the Piedmont Environmental Council’s collaboration with Black community groups to document Black land ownership in southwestern Albemarle County. This work will include (if possible, given the pandemic) facilitating community conversations, recording interviews, and doing related research in newspapers, genealogical records, and other sources.

Instructor: Max Edelson

This colloquium offers an introduction to themes, regions, and debates in the history of colonial and Revolutionary America. It will focus on colonization, development, and cultural encounter in early North America, West Indies, and the Atlantic World in the early modern period, ca. 1600-1800, from a variety of historical approaches.