Fall 2022 Course Descriptions
For the most up-to-date list of courses offered and more information including course times, locations, and enrollments, please see SIS or Lou's List. Faculty information can be viewed in the Faculty Directory.
African History
HIAF 1501: Africa and Virginia, 1619 - Now
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
HIAF 2001: Early African 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.
HIAF 3021: History of Southern Africa
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.
HIAF 3112: African Environmental History
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
East Asian History
HIEA 1501: Pollution and Society in Asia
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.
HIEA 1501: Cultural History of Japanese Monsters
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."
HIEA 1501: Culture and Society in Imperial China
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.
HIEA 2011: History of Chinese Civilization
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
HIEA 2031: Modern China
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.
HIEA 2101: Modern Korean History: One Peninsula, Two Paths
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
HIEA 3171: Meiji Japan
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.
European History
HIEU 1502: History, Knowledge, and Sensibility
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.
HIEU 2031: Ancient Greece
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
HIEU 2071: Early Modern Europe and the World
Instructor: Erin Lambert
European history, from the Reformation to Napoleon, in global perspective.
Concentrations/Pathways: Global and Transnational History
HIEU 2122: France in the Twentieth Century, 1871-Present
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.
HIEU 3141: Age of Conquests: Britain from the Romans to the Normansomans to Normans (43-1066)
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
HIEU 3312: Europe at War, 1939-1945: Occupation, Genocide, Resistance
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
HIEU 3321: The Scientific Revolution
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.
HIEU 3812: Marx
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
HIEU 4501: Late Antiquity AD 235-4109
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
HIEU 4511:Viking Worlds
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?
Latin American History
HILA 2001: Colonial Latin America
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
HILA 3051: Modern Central America
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
HILA 4511: Gender and Sexuality in Latin America
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.
Middle Eastern History
HIME 1501: Israel/Palestine Literature and Film
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
HIME 2001: History of the Middle East and North Africa, 500-1500
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
HIME 2559: Modern History of Palestine/Israel
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
HIME 3501: Migration, Displacement, and Diaspora in the Middle East
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
HIME 3559: Environmental History of the Mediterranean
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
South Asian History
HISA 3004: India's Partition
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.
General History
HIST 1501: Photography and Racial Justice
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.
HIST 1501: Global Financial Crisis of 2008
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
HIST 2002: The Modern World: The World since 1760
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
HIST 2212: Maps in World History
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
HIST 2213: The Rule of Law
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
HIST 3281: Genocide
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
HIST 3501: Into the Archives
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.
HIST 3501: Jumping Scales: Time, Space, and History
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
HIST 3352: The First World War
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
HIST 3559: Soccer Politics
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
HIST 4400: Topics in Economic 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.
HIST 4501: Research on the Cold War, 1945-1990
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
HIST 4501: 20th Century Genocides
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
HIST 4890: DMP (Distinguished Majors Program) Colloquium
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.
HIST 4990: DMP (Distinguished Majors Program) Fourth Year Seminar
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.
HIST 5559: Race and Slavery at UVA’s North Grounds
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.
HIST 7001: Approaches to Historical Study
Instructor: Jennifer Sessions and Emily Burrill
This course is designed to introduce students to a wide range of historical approaches.
United States History
HIUS 2001: American History to 1865
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.
HIUS 2061: American Economic History
Instructor: Mark Thomas
Studies American economic history from its colonial origins to the present. Cross-listed as ECON 2060.
HIUS 3071: The Coming of the Civil War
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
HIUS 3131: Emergence of Modern America
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.
HIUS 3501: Immigration, Race, and Rights in the US
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
HIUS 3652: African American History Since 1865
Instructor: Kevin Gaines
Studies the history of Black Americans from the Civil War to the present.
HIUS 4501: Gender History of the Civil War
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.
HIUS 4501: Historical Fiction
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.
HIUS 5559: Oral History Workshop: A Hands On Approach to Democratizing the Archives
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.
HIUS 7031: Colonial British America
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.