HIAF 1501: Seeing Africa in the American Century

Introductory Seminar in African History: Seeing Africa in the American Century

Mason

Seeing Africa in the American Century is an undergraduate research seminar that blends African history, American history, and the history of photography to explore the ways in which images in popular media shaped the ways that Americans understood Africa during the Cold War era. Photography in popular magazines, such as Ebony, Look, and, especially, Life and National Geographic, played an important role in introducing Americans to African issues.

HIAF 1501: Runaways, Rebels, and Revolutionaries

Introductory Seminar in African History: Runaways, Rebels, and Revolutionaries
La Fleur

Everywhere in the Atlantic world, Africans and their descendants resisted enslavement and then fought to free themselves. This seminar focuses on those people as seen through their most overt actions: from communities of runways (“maroons”) in the 16th-century Gulf of Guinea islands to the eventual rise of free communities in Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America; and also Revolutionary-era enlistees fighting for freedoms; and liberation movements (“slave revolts”) throughout the Americas; and runaways (or “self-emancipators”) generally; and concluding with U.S. Civil War “contrabands” and troops. 

This seminar will fulfill the College’s Second Writing Requirement through the composition (including drafting and revision) of papers written to address the major epochs in the course – altogether four essays of about five pages each, and ultimately presented at the end of the course as a polished portfolio.

HIAF 2002: Modern African History

Modern African History

Mason 

Studies the history of Africa and its interaction with the western world from the mid-19th century to the present. Emphasizes continuities in African civilization from imperialism to independence that transcend the colonial interlude of the 20th century.

HIAF 3112: African Environmental History

African Environmental History
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, the “Columbian exchange” of plants and animals amid slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, the invention of 20th-century wildlife “conservation,” and the emergent challenges of land ownership, infectious disease, and climate change. These are expansive stories and ones varied and distinctive on the most local scale, so we will develop broad, interpretative themes to understand the sort of case studies we will be engaging. The course’s focus is on Africa, but the issues are global and comparative. Therefore, course learning about History as a discipline and Environmental History as a specialized subfield is applicable to other intellectual endeavors and active citizenship. Specific requirements currently planned (tentatively, as changing situations between now and the first day of class may require some modifications) include homework and participation, three low-stress map exercises, and three exams comprised of a mix of short-answer identification items and your choice among several pre-circulated essay prompts. Class meetings are opportunities to share, collaborate, negotiate, speak in public, and generally enjoy a collegial and intellectually stimulating atmosphere. 

The course uses a broad topic to provide opportunities to  and improve skills – in research, analysis, written and oral communication, as well as project management – broadly applicable to success at the University and beyond. As a course in History, it emphasizes how people (and not just scholars) interested in the past think and how historians do their work with never-straightforward sources (or “evidence”). 

HIEA 1501: Students Protest in Modern China

Introductory Seminar in East Asian History: Students Protest in Modern China
Reed

Thirty one years ago, in the spring of 1989, students from China's most prestigious universities in Beijing staged a series of public demonstrations in the public square known as Tiananmen demanding an end to governmental corruption and greater transparency in the country's political system. But although the students captured the support of Beijing residents and the imagination of audiences world wide, their movement came to a tragic conclusion in the early morning hours of June 4th, when a military crackdown resulted in the death of hundreds Beijing residents and the imprisonment of the country’s foremost advocates of political reform. But if the crackdown succeeded in silencing overt protest, it also led to a profound questioning of the Communist Party’s legitimacy and the direction in which the country is headed.

In this seminar, we will attempt to understand the meaning and significance of these dramatic events by placing them in a broader tradition of political protest by Chinese students in the twentieth century. In doing so, we will concern ourselves with two sets of related issues. The first revolves around the role played by intellectuals and students in the process of political and social transformation in China. Why have students so often been at the forefront of protest and demands for political change? Why have Chinese governments been so wary of dissent on the part of students? The second set of questions turns on the specific forms which political protest has taken. What issues have mobilized students? What symbols, methods, and tactics of protest have they drawn upon to dramatize their demands and gain support? How have governments tended to respond to such protest movements?

As a seminar designed for, and limited to first and second year students, HIEA 1501 is meant to serve as an introduction to the methods and practice of historical writing and inquiry as well as a context within which to develop the skills of critical reading, cogent discussion, and clear writing. As this implies, the stress here is on active rather than passive learning. Our exploration of the topic will unfold along two lines—eleven weekly meetings devoted to discussion of assigned readings (60% including weekly submission of discussion questions) and the completion and presentation of an independent project (40%). This course neither requires nor assumes any previous study of Chinese history.

HIEA 1501: Hiroshima in History and Memory

Introductory Seminar in East Asian History: Hiroshima in History and Memory

Stolz

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HIEA 2101: Modern Korean History

Modern Korean History: One Peninsula, Two Paths

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.

HIEA 3112: Late Imperial China

Late Imperial China
Reed

This course covers the history of China from the tenth century to the final decade of the imperial period in the early twentieth. Although the course provides a survey of social, political, and cultural history, emphasis is placed on the analysis of events and trends in an attempt to come to grips with several basic questions: 1) How can we explain the stability of Chinese political and social relations during this period despite the changes of ruling houses and two periods of foreign conquest? 2) Was late imperial China really static and unchanging, as was so often claimed by Western observers in the 19th and 20th centuries? 3) Given the longevity and apparent soundness of the late imperial political and social systems, how can we account for China’s decline and weakness in the face of foreign aggression and domestic crises in the nineteenth century? 4) Despite this decline, what can we identify as the most enduring features of Chinese civilization as it developed over this millennium?

These and other questions will be considered through a look at several inter-related issues: The philosophical foundations of state and society; the relationship between ideology and authority; the tension between the state and social elites; the interaction of elite and popular culture; the influence of nomadic conquest dynasties; the late imperial judicial system and its relation to local society; and patterns of dissent and popular of rebellion. Although HIEA 3112 is the second in a two-semester sequence on pre-twentieth century China, previous study of Chinese history is neither required nor assumed.

HIEA 3171: Meiji Japan

Meiji Japan
Stolz

This course will examine the rise of the nation-state form in Japan as a new form of historical subjectivity. It will explore in depth the political, economic, social, and cultural changes in the wake of the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868 to the start of the Tasiho period in 1912.

HIEA 3321: China and the Cold War

China and the Cold War

Liu

The class examines China’s entanglement with the Cold War.  Certain peculiar historical conditions made China a participant in as well as an arena of the so-called Cold War international confrontation.  After World War II, two superpowers, the USA and USSR, rivaled in East Asia and helped shape China’s domestic and foreign affairs.  Conversely, China inflicted tremendous impact on the two superpowers as well as its Asian neighbors.  After 1949, for a while the confrontation between the PRC in mainland China and the ROC in Taiwan seemed one of the “divided-country” stories typical of the Cold War era.  The PRC however did not remain under Moscow’s shadow for long.  In the 1960s Beijing split with its Soviet ally and took a confrontational stance against both superpowers; then in the 1970s it forged a partnership with the United States in opposing Moscow.  These developments not only undermined Moscow’s hegemony in the Communist world but also effectively redefined the Cold War in Asia and elsewhere.  In the meantime, the Maoist system within China was eroding gradually before a new era of reforms began. 

This course raises several China-centered questions: Since the Cold War was a “Western” phenomenon in origin, what business did China, a quintessential “Eastern” country, have to do with it?  Exactly at what moments did China become entangled and disentangled with the Cold War?  Why was China, unlike any other major participant of the Cold War, able to switch sides more than once in the Cold War?  For the PRC, was the Cold War an international struggle limited to those wars and crises along China’s eastern borders and the Asian-Pacific coasts (what about those conflicts along the PRC’s western inland frontiers)?  As far as the PRC was concerned, should the Cold War be understood merely as an international struggle (what about those intra-national Maoist “campaigns”)?  When the Cold War ended, was China a “winner” or a “loser”?  And, lastly, how should the Cold War period be positioned in the long historical development of China?  In exploring these questions, the course is not a conventional study of China’s involvement in the international Cold War.  Rather, it treats the Cold War as a “period” of recent Chinese history.  In this period, certain long-term threads of historical development were obscured or arrested, and reshaped or reoriented by those so-called defining conditions of the era.  Throughout the course we try to understand China’s Cold War history in a longer historical timespan and to maintain a healthy suspicion about all the opposing perspectives typical of the Cold War era.

The required weekly readings are about 100 pages.  There are two open-book exams.  In addition, undergraduate students will complete three take-home exercises, and write a one-page report in the form of “document assessment.”  Graduate students, in lieu of the three homework and “document assessment,” will write a 20- to 25-page research essay about a topic pertinent to China’s Cold War experience.  The topic should be the student’s choice with instructor’s approval.

HIEA 3559: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan

Diehl

This course studies the history of gender and sexuality in Japan from the 17th century through the present. Scholarly books and articles from a variety of fields, including Gender Studies, LGBTQ Studies, and Japanese Studies will frame our discussions of the history over four sections: Early-Modern Colors (1600-1868); Modernization and the Nation-State (1868-1925); War and Democracy (1925-1970); and The Past in the Present (1970-2021). To delve deeply into the human experience of this history, the course will incorporate a variety of primary sources, including art, legal texts, novels, short stories, and film.

HIEA 4501: North Korea

Seminar in East Asian History: North Korea

Seeley 

North Korea’s brutal resiliency on the international stage makes it increasingly important to understand its unique historical trajectory. Together we will discuss obstacles as well as opportunities related to finding primary sources on North Korean history while completing original research papers that help us better understand the inner workings and outward-facing aspirations of this authoritarian “democratic people’s republic.”

HIEA 4511: China's Borderlands

Colloquium in East Asia: China’s Borderlands
Liu

“Frontier China” is a perpetual and perplexing phenomenon.  Ethnopolitical upheavals in China’s borderlands in the 20th century were just acts of Frontier China during the “national” era.  In China’s ancient imperial age, those territorially mobile dynasties often treated their frontiers as “leaves and branches” while seeing China proper as the “trunk and root” of state affairs. In contrast, entering the national era, China’s ethnic peripheries occupied the central stage of the nation’s political life and became key factors in forming the “Chinese nation.”  Yet, standard historical narratives about 20th-century China tend to overlook such continuous frontier character of China; China’s ethnic borderlands have either been ignored or considered marginal to the “mainstream” sociopolitical developments in the eastern half of China. This seminar is designed to expose students to major works in the field and add a frontier dimension to students’ understanding of the Chinese history in the 20th century.  In this class the students read selected titles in clusters that address respectively these issues: (1) frontiers and “historical China,” (2) “centralizing nationalism” vs. “separatist nationalism”, and (3) integration, developments, and rights.  These titles are mainly but not exclusively about three regions that have been most active ethnopolitically: Mongolia (Inner and Outer), Tibet, and Xinjiang.  Aside from grasping the historical processes and issues involved, the students also practice historians’ handicraft and critique scholarly works in the field.  The student’s grade for the class is based on active participation in class discussions, bi-weekly book reviews (one single-spaced page), and a historiographical essay (15 double-spaced pages).  For graduate students taking the class, there are additional requirements about research and the essay.

HIEU 1501: The Berlin Wall

Introductory Seminar in Post-1700 European History: The Berlin Wall: Spies and Lies in a Cold War City

Kunakhovich 

The Berlin Wall is now a global symbol of division. It is invoked in policy debates about US immigration; its fall has become synonymous with the end of the Cold War; its fragments are preserved as monuments to the human spirit – including right here at UVA. But what was the Berlin Wall, exactly? Why did it go up, and how did it work? What did it divide, and what got through? Why did it fall when it did – and what legacy did it leave behind?

This course examines the rise, fall, and afterlives of the Berlin Wall, from the end of the Second World War to the present day. We will consider who built the Berlin Wall; how it divided a united city; and how ordinary people learned to live with the barrier in their midst. We will also explore the shadowy world of spies, lies, and border crossings that sprung up around the Wall, on the front lines of the Cold War. Finally, we examine who, or what, brought down the Berlin Wall in 1989, as well as the many ways in which it still lives on today.

This course will double as an introduction to historical method. We will look at a wide range of sources, including films, novels, memoirs, newspaper reports, and case files kept by the Secret Police. We will also pay particular attention to developing writing skills: over the course of the semester, students will write several types of papers, including a film review, a primary source analysis, a diary entry, and an op-ed.

HIEU 2041: Roman Republic and Empire

Roman Republic and Empire

Meyer

A survey of the political, social, and institutional growth of the Roman Republic, with close attention given to its downfall and replacement by an imperial form of government; and the subsequent history of that imperial form of government, and of social and economic life in the Roman Empire, up to its own decline and fall.  Readings of ca. 120 pages per week; midterm, final, and one seven-page paper.

Readings will be drawn from the following:
Sinnegan and Boak, A History of Rome (text)
Livy, The Early History of Rome
Plutarch, Makers of Rome
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome
Apuleius, The Golden Ass
R. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations
and a course packet

In this course, the lectures will be given in person (with a remote option) at the time listed, recorded at that time as well, and posted; students who wish to attend the in-person lectures will do so in rotating groups (if necessary). The discussion sections will be held synchronously over Zoom and not recorded.

HIEU 2721: Supernatural Europe, 1500-1800

Supernatural Europe, 1500-1800

Lambert 

Today, witchcraft and vampires are the stuff of hit movies and bestselling novels.  Five centuries ago, however, few Europeans questioned that magic was real.  This course reconstructs that enchanted world.  Throughout the semester, we will explore the reasons why early modern Europeans believed in the forces of witches, demons, comets, and more, and what caused these beliefs to change and ultimately recede over time. For example, how did beliefs about demonic activity frame the interpretation of natural disasters? What do rituals surrounding birth and death reveal about the daily lives of ordinary people? And why did Europeans begin to hunt witches in this period, and why did they stop? As we pursue these questions, we will also gain a broader understanding of European society, culture, religion, and science between 1500 and 1800. In order to understand the reasons behind the witch-hunt, for example, we will examine their judicial systems and their views on women. At the same time, this course introduces students to the skills through which historians analyze sources and draw conclusions about the past. In assignments and class discussions based on primary sources, such as first-hand accounts of possession and the records generated by witchcraft trials, we will learn how to practice those skills ourselves. 

HIEU 3021: Greek and Roman Warfare

Greek and Roman Warfare 

Lendon 

An advanced course for students familiar with the outlines of Greek and Roman History, Greek and Roman Warfare will survey the military history of the classical world from Homeric times to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.  Themes of the course include the influence of social and cultural factors on methods of warfare—and vice versa, the birth and development of tactics and strategy, the relationship of technology to warfare, and the evolution of the art of battle description.  Topics will include the nature of Homeric warfare, the Greek phalanx, Greek trireme warfare, the Macedonian phalanx, the rise and evolution of the Roman legion, the culture of the Roman army, the defense of Roman frontiers, suppression of rebellions, the Roman army and politics, and Roman military decline in late antiquity. 

 Reading of c. 140 pages a week, midterm, final, and two seven-page papers, one of which can be replaced with a construction project.

J. Warry, Warfare in the Classical World (U. Oklahoma Pr.)
J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts:  A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (Yale U.Pr.)
V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War, 2nd ed. (U. Cal. Pr.)
Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, Onasander (trans. Illinois Greek Club; Loeb Classical     Library:  Harvard U. Pr.)
D. Engels, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (U. Cal. Pr.)
Polybius, Rise of the Roman Empire (trans. Scott-Kilvert; Viking/Penguin)          
B. Campbell, The Roman Army, 31 BC - AD 227:  A Sourcebook (Routledge)
Julius Caesar, The Gallic War (trans. Hammond; Oxford U. Pr.)
Josephus, The Jewish War (trans. Williamson; Viking/Penguin)
E. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Johns Hopkins U. Pr.)
Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire (trans. Hamilton; Viking/Penguin)

In this course, the lectures will be given in person (with a remote option) at the time listed; students who wish to attend the in-person lectures will do so in rotating groups (if necessary).  Half the discussion sections will be held synchronously over Zoom; half will be held in person (with a remote option).

HIEU 3141: Age of Conquests: Britain from Romans to the Normans

Age of Conquests: Britain from the Romans to the Normans 

Kershaw 

This course surveys the history of Britain from the establishment of Roman rule to the Norman invasion of 1066, with particular focus on the social, political and cultural history of the early English kingdoms and their neighbors in what are now Wales and Scotland and the Scandinavian impact of the eighth through eleventh centuries. This is a period defined by conquests: of the late Iron Age tribes of much of Britain by the Romans; of Roman Britain by multiple invaders in the fourth and fifth centuries, of one emerging kingdom by another, by the Vikings in the ninth century, by Knútr  (Canute) of Denmark in 1016, and – more famously – by the Norman Duke William ‘the Bastard’ in 1066.

Topics to be addressed include: the post-Roman ‘Dark Ages’ of AD 400-600; the rise of multiple kingdoms in the course of the seventh and eighth centuries; Christianity and pagan beliefs; historical writing; the gradual emergence of a unified English state over the course of the tenth century; political thought and practice; the varieties of insular culture; manuscript production; social organization; law and dispute settlement; issues of trade and contacts with the wider world.

In Spring 2021 the class will be online, a mix of twice weekly asynchronous lectures and a synchronous discussion section. Students will write three essays. There will be no exams. Readings privilege primary sources in English translation.

HIEU 3312: Europe at War, 1939-45

Europe at War, 1939-45: Occupation, Genocide, Resistance 

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? 

HIEU 3471 / LAW 9286: English Legal History to 1776

English Legal History to 1776

Halliday 

This course surveys English law from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century. In class, we will consider how social and political forces transformed law. Because this is a history course, law will be understood as a variety of social experience and as a manifestation of cultural change as well as an autonomous zone of thought and practice. We will look at competition among jurisdictions and the development of the legal profession. We will examine the development of some of the modern categories of legal practice: property, trespass and contracts, and crime. We will conclude by considering what happened to English law as it moved beyond England’s shores. Assignments include two essays (approximately 2000 words each) and a final exam.

Students will read an array of court cases, treatises, and other sources from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These readings are dense and difficult but also fascinating. Most students will only grasp their meaning by paying very close attention to language, reading with a dictionary nearby, and re-reading. Assigned books may include:

J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (5th ed.)


Mary Bilder, The Transatlantic Constitution: Colonial Legal Culture and the Empire

Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England

John Langbein, Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial

For Spring 2021, we will convene on Zoom. Circumstances permitting, the instructor will also try to create some in-person sessions or other meet-and-greet opportunities. This course will be taught following the calendar of the College of Arts and Sciences rather than the Law School calendar.

HIEU 3695: The Holocaust and the Law

The Holocaust and the Law

Finder 

This course explores the pursuit of justice after the Holocaust. We will study legal responses to the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews through the lens of pivotal post-Holocaust trials, including the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trial, the 1961 Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem, and the 1963-1965 Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. We will watch films to examine the cinematic representation of Holocaust-related trials. Mindful of the postwar historical context, we will pose the question whether these trials and others served justice on the perpetrators and delivered justice not only to the victims but also to history and memory. In this vein, we will ask how the pursuit of legal justice after the Holocaust affects our understanding of the legal process.

HIEU 4501: The Judio-Claudians

Seminar in Pre-1700 European History: The Julio-Claudians 

Meyer

The history of the Roman Empire during the first dynasty of Roman emperors, the Julio-Claudians (31 BC-AD 68).  What was an emperor?  How did Roman society and government change during this time?  What difference did the personalities of the emperors make?  Reading assignments for this course will focus on primary sources, including histories, literature, letters, biographies, edicts, inscriptions, coinage, and art; the major goal of the course is to produce a 25-page research paper, to fulfill the thesis requirement for the History major (as well as the second writing requirement).  This course is intended to help teach research methods in ancient history and assist students in writing what is often their first real research paper.

This is an advanced course and assumes a general familiarity with Roman history and institutions.  Classics majors are especially welcome.  Students who have not taken HIEU 2041 ("Roman Republic and Empire"), HIEU 3041 ("Fall of the Roman Republic"), or HIEU 3021 ("Greek and Roman Warfare") should speak with Ms. Meyer.

This course will meet in person at the time listed, with a remote option for those who cannot come to Grounds.

HIEU 5011: Late Archaic Greece

Late Archaic Greece

Lendon

This course examines the history of Greece in the late archaic age down to the end of the Persian wars (c. 650-479 BC). The course will begin with consideration of Herodotus, our main source for this period, proceed through a set of topics on political, constitutional, social, cultural, and economic history, and end up with systematic reading and discussion of Herodotus’ account of the Persian Wars.  Neglected for the most part are religion, art and archaeology, and literature qua literature.

This is an advanced course; it assumes familiarity with the general outlines of Greek History and institutions. HIEU 2031 Ancient Greece or equivalent, is strongly recommended as a prerequisite for undergraduates.

Reading will average 250 pages/week. Requirements will include participation in discussion, oral reports, papers on scholarly controversies, and a final exam.

HILA 1501: The Great Encounter

Introductory Seminar in Latin American History: The Great Encounter 

Owensby

The Great Encounter is a history of Latin America from 1492. The “Encounter” refers to the coming together of Indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Africans in the context of the New World. The “Great” refers to the world-historical significance of this convergence. The course is topical and thematic, rather than strictly chronological. Among other topics, we will discuss: the crisis of “knowing” among Europeans occasioned by the Encounter; the ethics of encountering the “other”; how people conceive of their identities and belongings in contexts of uncertainty; the role of Indigenous peoples and Africans in the making of the modern world; race, racial thinking, and racial identities from a Latin American perspective. This first-and-second-year seminar will focus closely on honing the skills necessary for future reading-and-writing intensive courses. We will also practice crafting a conversation and disagreeing productively.

HILA 1501: Race and State in Mexico

Introductory Seminar in Latin American History: Race and State in Mexico 

Sweeney 

Who or what defines “race”? How does that change over time, and what does it have to do with politics? In what way have politicians, feminist movements, institutions, communities, artists and schools used popularly held concepts of race to shape efforts towards repression and exclusion of others as well for community empowerment and social reform? If in the colonial period the authorities of what was to be the Mexican Republic attempted to clearly delineate difference by “race” and use those perceived differences to impose physical, legal, and economic categories of personhood, in the national period these differences would have to be erased if the Constitution’s supposed legal equality was to be upheld. Yet movements asserting specifically Indigenous demands took place throughout the nineteenth century, and by the end of that period scientific notions of race were informing oppressive laws targeting the social and political control of predominantly dark-skinned and Indigenous peoples. The Mexican Revolution’s conflicting cultural consequences, praising the “cosmic” mestizo “race” on one hand and an institutionalized “indigenismo” on the other, melded with Mexico’s insertion into an international cultural market in which U.S. imperialism and imported fascisms reinforced anti-Black sentiment even as Afro-influenced musical and dance cultures became more popular. Linking this backdrop to the rise of tourism and academic reconceptualizations of race; to Zapatismo, Indigenous women’s fights for cultural and political rights; Black Mexicans’ struggle with cultural visibility; and race-based demands for environmental rights and sustainability, this class looks at race and politics in Mexico broadly, while highlighting particular case studies. Rather than defining race itself, students are asked to analyze the role the concept of race has played across time and place in Mexican history, with an eye to the constant global flows of ideas, cultures and peoples that shaped Mexico’s history of racial politics.

HILA 2002: Modern Latin America, 1824 to Present

Modern Latin America, 1824 to Present 

Klubock 

This course examines modern Latin American history from independence to the present. It focuses on socioeconomic, cultural, and political changes, and on how different social groups -peasants, indigenous people, workers, and women- have experienced these changes. We will consider a number of key questions about the causes of underdevelopment, the roots of authoritarianism, the nature and causes of revolutionary movements, the question of human rights, the problem of social inequality, United States imperialism, and the role of the Catholic Church in Latin America. Requirements for the course are two in-class midterm exams (20% of final grade each) and a final exam (35% of final grade). The three exams will be closed-book and students will write five paragraph-long analyses of key terms, names, or phrases for the midterms and ten for the final exam. Students will be graded on their mastery of material from the assigned readings, lectures, and discussion sections. In addition, attendance and active participation in section discussions are required and will be factored into the final grade (25% of final grade). Students will read on average 100-125 pages per week. Reading assignments must be completed before discussion sections.

HILA 3559: Human Rights in Latin America

Human Rights in Latin America 

Sweeney 

For the past seventy years, the issue of human rights has defined Latin American societies and political cultures. Today, Latin American countries continue to confront the legacies of human rights violations committed during decades of civil war and military dictatorship, as well as in the cradle of neoliberalism and during our current climate crises and backlashes against immigrants.  Many social movements and social sectors have come to define their demands in human rights terms, and much of the art and literature emerging from Latin America speak to the tragic and transformative experiences of torture, disappearance and terror, or its echoes in the experiences of others.  We will also look at the major triumphs of human rights activism, especially on the part of everyday Latin American citizens. This course uses a variety of interdisciplinary sources—film, performance, art and literature, as well as legal documents, testimonies, confessions and memoirs—to explore the implications of generations of trauma and resistance on politics and culture in Latin America and its diaspora today. 

HIME 2002: The Making of the Modern Middle East

The Making of the Modern Middle East

Gratien 

What are the historical processes that have shaped the Middle East of today? This course focuses on the history of a region stretching from Morocco in the West and Afghanistan in the East over the period of roughly 1500 to the present. In doing so, we examine political, social, and cultural history through the lens of "media" in translation, such as manuscripts, memoirs, maps, travel narratives, novels, films, music, internet media, and more.

HIME 3192: The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1700

From Nomads to Sultans: The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1700

White

A survey of the history of the Ottoman Empire from its obscure origins around 1300 to 1700, this course explores the political, military, social, and cultural history of this massive, multi-confessional, multi-ethnic, inter-continental empire which, at its height, encompassed Central and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and North Africa.

HISA 2559: Gandhi and the Making of Modern Indian Democracy

Gandhi and the Making of Modern Indian Democracy

Leonard

The history of India’s struggle to elaborate modern political forms, both organizational and ideological, offers a unique perspective on the development of modern mass democracy outside of Europe and North America. Taking the figure of Mohandas K. Gandhi as a lens, this course will examine the crises and trials through which Indian democracy first emerged in the late colonial period, 1917-1947. The course will focus on both Gandhi and his most prominent critics.

HISA 3003: Twentieth-Century South Asia

Twentieth-Century South Asia 

Leonard 

Just as India was once the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire, upon independence South Asia was in many respects the exemplary postcolonial laboratories, attempting to avoid the either/or terms of the Cold War; to overcome, largely on its own resources, the debilitating legacy of colonialism; and to achieve for itself a place in the modern world commensurate with its size and social dynamism. In India, crucially, it attempted to do this on the basis of universal suffrage democracy, whereas Pakistan has had a checkered record with respect to democracy. This class will trace the history of the most populous region on earth in broad terms—economic, political, social, geopolitical, and cultural. In addition, the course will treat of distinctively South Asia regional politics, one characterized simultaneously by intense military hostility and deep cultural and historical commonality between states.

In taking up this history, we are also interrogating it in a number of ways across a range of registers; and we will do so in a way that is accessible to students uninitiated in the region’s history. To aid in this endeavor, our course will engage not only works of history per se, but also works of historical fiction and non-history nonfiction. Given that this course is intended to provide students with a broad introduction to the chief questions and debates in post-Independence Indian history from the mid-20th century to the present, it concentrates on achievement of independence, the consolidation of Indian democracy and developmental socialism under the predominance of the Indian National Congress, and the unraveling of both the developmental state and Congress Party predominance in the crisis of the 1970s leading ultimately to the neoliberalism that has characterized Indian economic policy since the 1980s. Roughly concurrent with this last transformation of Indian economic policy is the shift whereby, first, the Hindu right replaces the Communist left as the leading political force in opposition to the Congress until, finally, with the last two elections, the Congress itself seems to have entered into terminal decline.

HISA 4511: India's Partition: Politics, Culture, Memory

Colloquium in South Asia: India’s Partition: Politics, Culture, Memory

Nair

The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, and the concomitant processes of decolonization and accession of over five hundred princely states resulted in the creation of two new nation-states - India and Pakistan. Born amid unprecedented levels of violence, the longer-term effects of this Partition continue to unfold: in continuing tensions between India and Pakistan; in insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan and the North-East; on the meaning of secularism in India and the place of Islam in Pakistan, and, in ongoing debates on the citizenship of religious minorities.

As recognition of the longer-term consequences of the partition have grown, new books have filled in the gaps in our knowledge on matters such as Partition’s gender dimensions, the slower but no less consequential migration on the East, the uses of religion in the decades leading up to the Partition, domestic politics after the Partition, and on giving greater space and reflection to stories of violence and pain, thereby enabling the writing of a “people’s history” of the Partition. This course aims to provide students with a more “holistic” view of the Partition: the “high politics” of the event, its short and longer-term causes, and still unfolding consequences. We will also consider the nature of different sources, the challenges and opportunities afforded by literary representations, films, and oral histories, and the importance of being able to distinguish between facts, myths, and history.

Readings will average 200-250 pages a week. The following books will be made available for purchase at the bookstore; they are also easily available in online bookstores.  

Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan, any edition

Amitav Ghosh, Shadow Lines, any edition

Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia:

    Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007

All other required readings and films will be made available on collab.

For spring 2021, the class will meet once a week on zoom, synchronously. Active student participation based on close readings of material and focused discussion will count for half the grade; a final research paper of 20 pages forms the other half of the grade. We will also have an online library orientation so that students are in a good position to use the UVa library’s rich repository of online databases and digital resources. Weather depending, I hope to meet with small groups of students outdoors.

HISA 5559: India's Partition: Politics, Culture, Memory

New Course in South Asian History: India’s Partition: Politics, Culture, Memory

Nair

The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, and the concomitant processes of decolonization and accession of over five hundred princely states resulted in the creation of two new nation-states - India and Pakistan. Born amid unprecedented levels of violence, the longer-term effects of this Partition continue to unfold: in continuing tensions between India and Pakistan; in insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan and the North-East; on the meaning of secularism in India and the place of Islam in Pakistan, and, in ongoing debates on the citizenship of religious minorities.

As recognition of the longer-term consequences of the partition have grown, new books have filled in the gaps in our knowledge on matters such as Partition’s gender dimensions, the slower but no less consequential migration on the East, the uses of religion in the decades leading up to the Partition, domestic politics after the Partition, and on giving greater space and reflection to stories of violence and pain, thereby enabling the writing of a “people’s history” of the Partition. This course aims to provide students with a more “holistic” view of the Partition: the “high politics” of the event, its short and longer-term causes, and still unfolding consequences. We will also consider the nature of different sources, the challenges and opportunities afforded by literary representations, films, and oral histories, and the importance of being able to distinguish between facts, myths, and history.

Readings will average 200-250 pages a week. The following books will be made available for purchase at the bookstore; they are also easily available in online bookstores.  

Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan, any edition

Amitav Ghosh, Shadow Lines, any edition

Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia:

    Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007

All other required readings and films will be made available on collab.

For spring 2021, the class will meet once a week on zoom, synchronously. Active student participation based on close readings of material and focused discussion will count for half the grade; a final research paper of 25 pages forms the other half of the grade. We will also have an online library orientation so that students are in a good position to use the UVa library’s rich repository of online databases and digital resources. Weather depending, I hope to meet with small groups of students outdoors.

HIST 1501: Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations

Introductory Seminar in History: Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations 

Bishara 

The course is principally devoted to one objective: to read and understand Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). Over the course of the semester, we will read as much of Smith’s work as we can, taking in some of his Theory of Moral Sentiments and digesting as much of The Wealth of Nations as we possibly can. Alongside Smith’s own writings, we will read writings on Smith, his life, his times, and the reception and later interpretations of his work. By the semester’s end, students will have gained a deep understanding of one of history’s most-cited and least-read texts.

HIST 2152: Climate History

Climate History

Gratien 

Climate change is widely regarded as the most important environmental question of the present. This course equips students to engage with the study of climate change from multiple perspectives. Part 1 surveys how understandings of the climate developed and transformed. Part 2 explores how historical climatology lends new insights to familiar historical questions. Part 3 explores the history of environment and climate as political issues.

HIST 2213: Law and Sovereignty in World History

Law and Sovereignty in World History

Bishara 

This course explores the intertwined discourses and practices of law and sovereignty in world history. Through a series of readings and lectures, the course pushes students to think of an

interlinked world of empire, law, and sovereignty, that came to being over the course of several

hundred years. At the same time, the course introduces pivotal treatises that help us understand how actors in this world actively imagined and constructed the world of law and political economy around them. Throughout the course, we will switch focal points, at times considering questions of sovereignty from the land and at other times looking at how these matters play out at sea. By moving between land and sea, we unpack competing epistemologies of law and power, but also explore how discourses on sovereignty map out differently in aqueous spaces.

HIST 2559: Fascism: A Global History

Fascism: A Global History

Kunakhovich, Achilles 

This class investigates the nature of fascism – as a political movement, an ideology, a culture, a specter, and a way of life. Drawing on examples from Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and fascist groups around the world, it asks what fascism entails and how it relates to democracy, populism, and nationalism.

HIST 4400: Topics in Economic History

Topics in Economic History 

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: Using and Abusing the Medieval Past in the Modern World

Major Seminar: Using and Abusing the Medieval Past in the Modern World 

Kershaw

Representations of the medieval past are a pervasive – and often problematic - presence in the twenty first century. This class explores the nature of that exploitation: the ways in which the Middle Ages have been used and abused from the nineteenth century to the present day, whether placed in the service of a range of political agendas from nineteenth-century nation building, drawn upon in the spheres of entertainment from Victorian novels to films, games and music, to the right-wing extremism of today. Why do the Middle Ages continue to haunt the twenty-first century, why do they remain a focus of contention, and how has academic scholarship interacted with these other currents? 

This course has two components. We will meet for a number of weeks synchronously to discuss a number of set works and major topics. Thereafter, the focus will shift to a program of individual student research conducted in dialogue with me. The ultimate goal of this class, as for all 4500-level history seminars, will be the production of a 25-30 page research paper (approximately 7,500 – 8,000 words). Digital projects  – rather than traditional written work – of comparable substance can also be pursued in this class, should students possess the necessary skills and training. 

Among others, readings will be drawn from:   

Ian Wood, The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2017) 

Patrick Geary, The Myth of Nations. The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton, 2002)  

Nicolas Meylan and Lukas Rosli, Old Norse Myths as Political Ideologies: Critical Studies in the Appropriation of Medieval Narratives, ACTA Scandinavica, 9 (Brepols, 2020) 

HIST 4501: English Laws, Global Empire, 1600-1860

Major Seminar: English Laws, Global Empire, 1600-1860

Halliday 

Empires are made and sustained by law. Students will explore how this worked in the British Empire from its beginnings, around 1600, through the late nineteenth century, and from North America and the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

We will spend some of our time discussing writing by historians who address various aspects of law and empire to consider a host of questions and the ways they try to answer them. What kinds of jurisdictions (courts and other institutions) appeared from one place to the next? What role did corporations, especially the East India Company, play in developing an empire; how did law shape this process? How did England’s laws affect or interact with indigenous peoples all around the globe; how did those people shape English laws? How were fundamental aspects of law—for instance, the law of property or criminal law—transformed by such encounters? How were penal transportation, slavery, and other kinds of forced labor made and sustained by law? How did imperial leaders use and change law to respond to rebellious subjects?

Every student will prepare and present a research paper on some aspect of law’s empire. Some of our class meetings will focus on various elements of a research project and on the kinds of sources available for researching law and empire. Students will write short responses to our readings and prepare a number of exercises to help them develop their projects.

Preference to students who have previously studied British, imperial, and/or legal history.

For Spring 2021, we will convene in person, with the option to participate remotely. The course format might change if circumstances change. During the first half of the semester, readings will run approximately 200-250 pages per week. Some weeks, especially in the second half of the semester, there will be little or no reading to allow students to work on their projects. Readings may include some of the following:

Stuart Banner, Possessing the Pacific: Land, Settlers, and People from Australia to Alaska

Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford, Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800-1850

Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788-1836

Elizabeth Kolsky, Colonial Justice in British India: White Violence and the Rule of Law

Lata Mani, Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India

Hannah Weiss Muller, Subjects and Sovereign: Bonds of Belonging in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire

Bhavani Raman, Document Raj: Writing and Scribes in Early Colonial South Asia

Philip Stern, The Company State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India

HIST 4501: The Cold War, 1945-1990

Major Seminar: The Cold War, 1945-1990

Hitchcock 

[no description] 

HIST 4501: Antisemitism in Historical Perspective

Major Seminar: Antisemitism in Historical Perspective 

Loeffler 

Can hate be transhistorical? Can we speak of anti-Jewish hatred as a unique phenomenon that transcends the limits of time and space? This seminar explores the peculiar history of antisemitism and the puzzle of antisemitism as a historical problem. Through readings and research, students will examine the challenges and opportunities that the study of antisemitism presents for contemporary historical reasoning.

HIST 4991: Distinguished Majors Program - Special Seminar

Distinguished Majors Program - Special Seminar 

Milov 

Open only to fourth-year students in the Distinguished Majors Program in History. In this seminar, students will write and revise their DMP theses. 

HIST 5000: Introduction to Scholarly Digital Editing

Introduction to Scholarly Digital Editing 

Stertzer 

This course will explore all aspects of conceptualizing, planning for, and creating a scholarly digital edition. It provides a basic introduction to the various types of digital editions, the practice of editing in the digital age, and a survey of the many digital tools available to serve project goals.

HIST 8001: Master's Essay Writing

Master’s Essay Writing

Rossman 

Writing of the MA essay (for second-semester History graduate students).

HIUS 1501: Making History Public

Introductory Seminar in U.S. History: Making History Public

Balogh 

This course will examine where history comes from by looking closely at a variety of forms of U.S. history.  After an introduction that provides an overview of historical sources, different approaches to history and the variety of audiences that consume history, we will turn to historical scholarship.  Scholarship produced primarily by professors with Ph.Ds in history or related fields provides “basic research” and narratives for a variety of historical venues. 

We will then move from the scholarly realm to examine more popular non-fiction venues for history.  The blockbuster book is one such form.  Blockbuster films, (like Lincoln) is another. Two other important forms of nonfiction venues for history are the documentary film and memoirs, written by prominent figures.    In the last section of the class we will examine history that is conveyed to audiences of millions through audio on radio and podcasts, and video on the web and television. 

While traveling from the monograph to the most popular forms of history we will ask who produces history, what form it takes, what sources inform that history and who the audience is for these forms of history.  We will ask how history informs our lives and how history matters.  The overarching question that we will explore over the term is what the tradeoffs are in making history public:  what is lost and what is gained in reaching larger audiences?  We will also explore the boundaries between history and fiction, history and social science, and history and popular culture. Throughout, we will ask how to make authoritative history more accessible.

HIUS 1501: Inequality in America

Introductory Seminar in U.S. History 

Inequality in America 

Hill Edwards 

Is economic inequality inevitable? What is the relationship between inequality and capitalism? Why is economic inequality increasing in American society?  In this seminar, students will interrogate these questions, considering the historical complexities of racial, gender, and socio-economic inequality in America.  At the beginning of the semester, students will select a research topic and at the end of the semester, students will present a web-based project where they will present their research findings. Students will spend the semester cultivating a set of methodological and theoretical tools to interrogate how inequality has become one of the most pervasive and divisive issues in modern America.

HIUS 2002: American History Since 1865

American History Since 1865

Zunz 

This course is an interpretive survey of American History covering the sixteen decades since the end of the Civil War.  The main topics are the creation of a huge capitalist market economy, the ascent of the U.S. to world power and engagement in world affairs, and the many challenges of keeping a mass society democratic.  There are two lectures and a discussion section each week.  While a textbook supplies background, documents and iconography selected from primary sources emphasize the diversity of this nation’s past and highlight conflicting viewpoints.  The heart of the class is the students’ engagement with the documents and iconography, in light of the lectures, and active participation in weekly discussions. 

HIUS 2051: United States Military History, 1600-1900

United States Military History, 1600-1900

Varon

This course explores military events and developments from the period of the North American colonial wars through the end of the 19th Century. It combines lectures and discussion sections to address such topics as the debate over the role of military forces in a democracy, the interaction between the military and civilian spheres in American history, and the development of a professional army and navy. Although this is not a course on battles and generals, significant time in class will be devoted to crucial events and leaders in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the war with Mexico, the Civil War, the war with Spain, and conflicts between the United States government and its citizens and Native Americans. Students should emerge from the course with an understanding of the centrality of military affairs to the history of the American nation.

HIUS 2053: American Slavery

American Slavery 

Hill Edwards 

Over a four-hundred-year period, twelve million Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas. Enslaved Africans lived and labored, formed families and suffered through forced separations, in various regions of the Atlantic world, from Brazil to Barbados, South Carolina to St. Domingue. In this course, students will explore how slavery developed in one region of the Atlantic world, a small group of British colonies that would become the United States of America. Broadly, students will be introduced to the history of slavery and emancipation in the United States. Specifically, students will examine the ways in which slavery as an economic, legal, and social institution influenced the lives of the people involved, both directly and tangentially, in slavery’s growth and its ultimate, contentious demise.

HIUS 2559: Technologies of American Life

Technologies of American Life

Singerman 

You might have learned the legends of genius inventors, but in this course we'll explore a different history: how technologies have shaped the lives of most Americans, and how ordinary Americans shaped our common technologies. We’ll explore topics like the amazing capabilities of pre-1492 civilizations, how enslaved people created new species of plants, how photography was like 19th-century time travel, and how Silicon Valley’s innovators may have just copied kids from Minnesota.

HIUS 3011: Colonial British America

Colonial British America 

Edelson 

Before the Declaration of Independence, new beginnings, dynamic encounters, and extraordinary experiences shaped a colonial world. This course tells the story of British America--from shaky beginnings at Jamestown in 1607 through the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781--from an Atlantic perspective. The thirteen colonies that formed the United States were once part of a larger empire that spanned eastern North America and the Caribbean islands, from Newfoundland to Barbados. These colonies were embroiled in a global quest for power that pitted Britain against Spain and France, powerful rivals who fought bloody wars to secure territory in the western hemisphere. Violent and productive cross-cultural encounters among Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans shaped early America in distinctive ways. For three centuries, the movement of people, species, goods, and ideas across vast distances transformed everyone who became entangled in the networks of trade and migration that linked this Atlantic world together. We will explore the vital places that made up this world and spend time working with rare original maps at the Small Special Collections Library to visualize it. We will read works of history, rooted in particular places and moments, that model historical analysis. Discussions and papers focus on interpreting original historical texts, in which historical actors speak in their own words. Lecture topics include first colonial foundings, international piracy, plantation slavery, criminal justice, transatlantic trade, agriculture and environment, frontier war, material culture, gender and society, and the origins of the American Revolution.

Our textbook will be D. W. Meinig’s The Shaping of America: A Geographic Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 1, Atlantic America--a masterpiece of historical geography that illustrates Atlantic history with extraordinary maps.  We will also read John Demos’s The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story, Susan Kern’s The Jeffersons at Shadwell, and a Mark Smith’s Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt. Students will write two 6-8 page papers that interpret documents that we will read and discuss in common.  The midterm and final exams feature identifications and short essays. 

HIUS 3031: The Era of the American Revolution

The Era of the American Revolution 

Taylor

This course examines the transformation of North America wrought by the American Revolution against British rule and in favor of a union of republican states.  We will examine the lives of ordinary people as well as the actions of national leaders. In particular, we will focus on the interplay of freedom and slavery, of prosperity and poverty, and of power and dispossession. By learning the meaning and the limits of the revolution, you will deepen your own perspective on contemporary America. 

This course also means to challenge and develop your abilities to reason critically from diverse evidence and to argue persuasively in support of your conclusions. We will work to develop your writing and analytical skills by emphasizing papers and class participation.

There will be a mid-term and final exam, a brief early version and a longer final version of a paper of about 6-pages in length on primary sources.  Reading amounts to about 100 pages per week.

HIUS 3132: Race, Gender, and Empire: Cultures of U.S. Imperialism

Race, Gender, and Empire: Cultures of U.S. Imperialism 

Von Eschen 

Our inquiry will focus on the intersection of culture and politics as we chart U.S. imperial engagements and shifting U.S. relationship with the world from the late nineteenth century to the present.  Exploring popular culture as a critical space of meaning making, we will pay particular attention to the role of race, gender, and sexuality in constructing power relations.  We will consider cartoons, film, music, and art, and later digital media including video games, as spaces where U.S. foreign relations are imagined, enacted, and contested. 

HIUS 3161: Viewing America, 1940-1980

Viewing America, 1940-1980

Balogh 

This course will examine how Americans experienced some of the major events that shaped their lives. We will view what millions of Americans did by watching feature films, news reels, and footage from popular television shows and news broadcasts. We will also read primary and secondary texts that explore among other topics, the domestic impact of World War II, America's reaction to the atomic bomb, the rise of the military-industrial-university complex, the emergence of the Cold War, the culture of anxiety that accompanied it, suburbanization, the "New Class" of experts, the Civil Rights movement, changing gender roles in the work place and at home, the origins and implications of community action and affirmative action, the War in Vietnam, the Great Society, the counterculture, Watergate, the environmental movement, challenges to the authority of expertise, the decline of political parties, structural changes in the economy, the mobilization of interest groups from labor to religious organizations, the emergence of the New Right, challenge to big government, and the emerging role of digital media in politics.

I will lecture on Mon and Wed. and discussion sections will meet later in the week to review assigned readings, films, and other materials.  There will be a mid-term and final exam, one five to seven page paper and a group project.  You will also be quizzed on the readings at the start of each discussion section.

Readings will average about 125 pages a week.  There will also be a required film each week that can be viewed through on-line subscription services or at the Library.

HIUS 3282: Virginia History, 1900-2020

Virginia History, 1900-2020

Gilliam 

History is the study of change over time.  This course will examine change in Virginia from about 1900 to the present. The course will study the creation of the great political machines of the 20th century in Virginia, governmental regulation of race relations, progressive regulatory reform, the eugenics movement, and Virginia’s “massive resistance” to school desegregation. The course will study the making of the modern Republican and Democratic parties in Virginia. The course will consider three major themes: (a) which groups have tried to empower which Virginians, at what times and utilizing which strategies, and which groups have tried to disempower which Virginians; (b) how have Virginians used racism to weave the political, social, moral, and economic fabric of modern Virginia; (c) in which respects were the changes in the political, economic, social and racial landscapes of Virginia during the first 45 years of the 20th century similar to such changes in the years following World War II?

Readings will average approximately 120 pages per week, and will be drawn from both primary documents and secondary material.  Among the readings will be selections from Ronald L. Heinemann et al., Old Dominion/New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2005; J. Douglas Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia; Matthew D. Lassiter and Andrew B. Lewis, The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia; and J. Harvie Wilkinson, III, Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics, 1845-1966. The class meets twice per week.  Approximately 2/3 of each class will be spent in lecture and 1/3 in guided class discussion. There will be a short answer mid-term exam, two short, 2-3 page papers, one 8-10 page term paper requiring the use of primary source materials, and an essay-type final examination.

HIUS 3411: American Business

American Business

Thomas

This course examines the history of the American business enterprise from the workshop to the multi-national corporation. The trend in recent business history research has been to emphasize the genealogy of the contemporary business organization. In part, we shall follow this trend and examine legal, political, economic, and institutional factors as they have helped to shape business

enterprise. We shall also be discussing the rise of American business in a wider context, looking particularly at the relationship between government and the corporation. American business history is traditionally taught by the case study method; we will operate within tradition to an extent by focusing on the experiences of key individuals and businesses and relating them to

problems and issues inherent in the rise of managerial capitalism.

There are five books assigned for this course:

Alfred D. Chandler. Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977);

James Willard Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth Century United States (Madison, 1955);

Harold Livesay, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (New York, 1975);

Alfred P. Sloan, My Years with General Motors (New York, 1990);

Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York, 1911).

Other assigned readings are available in a course packet. Readings average 150 pages per week.

The course requirements are a midterm and a final. The first exam sequence will consist of an in-class exam (30% of the final grade) and a take-home essay (20%). The second exam sequence will also have take-home (20% of the final grade) and in-class components (30%).

HIUS 3559: Race, Charlottesville, and the Making of Public Memory

Race, Charlottesville, and Making of Public Memory 

Rosenblith, McBrien 

Over the past several years, Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, and central Virginia more broadly have been at the center of national conversations around race and racism, gender and gender based violence, housing inequality, environmental justice, and more. In this course, we will explore these events and the broader contexts and histories which informed them as well as the consequences of these moments for Charlottesville and beyond. Students will conduct oral history interviews and present them in a public capacity that will be determined in part by the realities of Covid-19.

HIUS 3559: Jefferson's America: Race, Politics, Law

Jefferson’s America: Race, Politics, Law 

Dierksheide 

This course examines Early America (ca. 1776-1830) in a transatlantic and comparative context through the lens of Thomas Jefferson and his world.  As a slaveowner, revolutionary patriot, diplomat, leading politician, Enlightenment thinker, and author of nearly 20,000 letters, Jefferson was both representative of the revolutionary era as well as uniquely positioned to offer a window into the violence, racism, patriarchy, anxiety, and political upheaval that characterized this period.  During the course of the semester, we will be considering colonial, revolutionary, and early national America chronologically as well as thematically (race and slavery, democracy and aristocracy, women and gender, Native peoples, religion, and education).

HIUS 3611: Gender and Sexuality in America, 1600-1865

Gender and Sexuality in America, 1600-1865

Field 

[no description] 

HIUS 3652: Afro-American History since 1865

Afro-American History since 1865

Kahrl 

This course surveys the major themes and issues in African American history from emancipation to the present, encompassing Reconstruction, the onset of state-sanctioned Jim Crow segregation, and the modern civil rights movement.  We will examine the presence of African Americans in the American past, and the significance of that past for the present.  In addition to works of historical scholarship, readings will be interdisciplinary, including fiction, poetry, non-fiction essays, and documentary films.

HIUS 3654: Black Fire

Black Fire

Harold 

What can we learn about the politics of race in the post-Civil Rights era by studying demographic, social, and intellectual transformations at the University of Virginia?  How and to what degree have the individual and collective experiences of African American undergraduates transformed since the late 1960s and early 1970s? And how have those transformations been shaped by larger political developments in higher education, U.S. race relations, etc.?   To what extent can an engagement with the history of African Americans at UVA assist current efforts to make the University a more democratic, equal, and inclusive space for students, faculty, workers, and others?   How do we discuss “difference” within the black community and find ways to more effectively bring the many segments of that community (athletes, black Greeks, second-generation immigrants, Christians, Muslims, etc.) together?  What’s the current relationship between white and black progressive students on grounds and how has that relationship evolved over time? 

To facilitate critical thinking and exchange on these and other important questions, this course grounds contemporary debates on the state of race relations at UVA within the larger history of the “black Wahoo” experience. Though the focus of this course is local, we will explore topics that have and continue to engage college students across the nation: black enrollment trends at flagship public universities, rising tuition rates and college affordability, universities’ impact on local housing markets and wage rates, the political potential of Greek organizations, the status of the black athlete, the vibrancy of African American Studies programs and departments, and the corporatization of the modern university. 

HIUS 3753: The History of Modern American Law

The History of Modern American Law

Milov 

This course asks two interrelated questions: how has American society shaped law and how has law shaped American society since 1865. Understanding legal history means understanding the passage of laws, the lawsuits and trials that challenge the laws, the effects of the law on society, and the political history of efforts to change laws. If you study these dynamics for any major law in US History—say, for example, the 1964 Civil Rights Act or the Clean Air Act of 1970—you will soon develop a sophisticated understanding of how law shapes politics and social movements, and even the expectations and assumptions that we hold for our own lives. To understand this social life of law will require us to look at a variety of sources—statutes, legal briefs, and Supreme Court opinions, but also reports issued by the government and interest groups, journalism, narrative writing, and historical scholarship. Major themes to be addressed include the legal history of Jim Crow, economic regulation and the rise of the administrative state, labor and immigration, the regulation of speech and political dissent, the Civil Rights Movement, women’s rights, public health and the environment as subjects of regulation, criminal justice and the carceral state, and the role of lawyers in shaping political and social history. This course is intended for undergraduates at all levels: it assumes no knowledge of US history.

HIUS 4501: Slavery and the Founders

Seminar in United States History: Slavery and the Founders 

Dierksheide 

This seminar examines the attitudes of three Founders—James Madison, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson—toward the system of slavery while paying equal attention to the hundreds of enslaved people that these men owned at their respective plantations: Montpelier, Highland, and Monticello.  Class visits to these sites, as well as an interdisciplinary focus that will include oral history, archaeology, and documentary evidence will help inform students’ research and written work.  A substantial research paper based on primary and secondary sources is the expected outcome of this course.

HIUS 4501: American Democracy

Seminar in United States History: American Democracy 

Zunz

In this class, we read Tocqueville’s classic Democracy in America (1835, 1840) as starting point to write research papers on American democracy.  This is an exceptionally rich source of ideas.  The young French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville observed America with such brilliance during his American journey of the 1830s that he has helped Americans define themselves.  Tocqueville is recognized as one of the world’s great theorists of democracy and the first to explore the importance of voluntary associations in American life.  Readers of his Democracy in America confront vital issues of political moderation, racial integration, social justice, progress, equality, and the meaning of liberty in democracy.  The class consists of weekly discussions of selected texts and preparation of a substantial seminar paper.  

HIUS 7041: The Early American Republic, 1783-1830

The Early American Republic, 1783-1830

Taylor

This course examines the historiography on politics, society, and culture in the early American Republic from the 1780s to the 1830s.

HIUS 7131: The Emergence of Modern America, ca. 1870-1930

The Emergence of Modern America, ca. 1870-1930

Balogh 

The class will examine historiography in a number of subdisciplines to consider the evolution of the United States in the period from the end of reconstruction to the 1930s.  We will draw upon works of social (race, class and gender) , cultural, political, and environmental history, as well as the history of capitalism, the history of technology and the history of the U.S. and the World.   Among the themes we will explore are the interplay between national and local life, shifting ideational landscapes, from religion to the emergence of the modern professions, the United States’ impact and responsibilities as an emerging world power, the changing nature of citizenship, especially regarding race, gender and immigration, the decline of political parties and the rise of interest groups as crucial intermediaries between citizens and the state, the impact of war on society, changing attitudes towards nature and technology, and the organization of work, play and governance.

HIUS 7658: Nineteenth-Century American Social and Cultural History

Nineteenth-Century American Social and Cultural History

Varon

This readings course surveys modern classics and cutting-edge historiography on the nineteenth century in the United States (especially the period 1830 to 1877), with an emphasis on how social and cultural histories have both promoted inclusiveness and trained our attention on conflict, contingency, experience, identity and language. We will read one monograph per week, supplemented by an occasional article and book review.  The main written assignment is an historiographical essay of 20-25 pages on a topic related to your research interests.  The reading list will be expressly designed to help students with comprehensive exam preparation in US fields.

HIUS 9037: U.S. Urban History

U.S. Urban History

Kahrl 

This course will survey scholarship in US urban history. It is intended for graduate students who intend to specialize in this sub-field and/or conduct research that engages themes in urban history and historiography, broadly conceived.

HIAF 1501-001: Africa and Virginia, 1619 - Now

Instructor: James La Fleur

This course explores changes in relationships between Africa and Virginia in the very long run, from earliest arrivals of Angolans near Jamestown in 1619, through Jefferson’s view of the continent and its people, to mass emigration to Liberia after 1820, through dialogues and commerce during colonial overrule in Africa and after independence, and finally to the resurgence in trans-Atlantic families and experiences in the 21st century.

As an introductory seminar, this course uses a broad topic to provide opportunities to learn and improve skills – in research, analysis, and written and oral communication – broadly applicable towards success at the University and beyond. As a course in History, it emphasizes how people (and not just scholars) interested in the past think, how academic historians do their work with never-straightforward sources (or “evidence”), the contexts in which people have changed their views of the past (“historiography”), and the significance of those new understandings to their audiences. Participants will learn through doing, and this will surely include engagement with the kinds of “primary sources” (e.g., old books and private letters) typical of scholarly history. Depending on student interest and practicalities, it may also include some site visits to places of significance on Grounds and nearby, as well as interaction (or “fieldwork”) with fellow UVa students whose life experiences mock any notion of stark separation between “Africa” and “Virginia.”

No prior experience studying Africa is expected nor is previous college-level study of History required.

HIAF 1501-002: Seeing Africa in the American Century

Instructor: John Mason

Seeing Africa in the American Century is an undergraduate research seminar that blends African history, American history, and the history of photography to explore the ways in which images in popular media shaped the ways that Americans understood Africa during the Cold War era. Photography in popular magazines, such as Ebony, Look, and, especially, Life and National Geographic, played an important role in introducing Americans to African issues.

HIAF 2001-100: Early African History

Instructor: James La Fleur

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 3021-001: History of Southern Africa

Instructor: John Mason

Studies the history of Africa generally south of the Zambezi River. Emphasizes African institutions, creation of ethnic and racial identities, industrialization, and rural poverty, from the early formation of historical communities to recent times.

HIAF 3112-001: 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, the “Columbian exchange” of plants and animals amid slave trading, colonial-era mining and commodity farming, the invention of 20th-century wildlife “conservation,” and the emergent challenges of land ownership, infectious disease, and climate change. These are expansive stories and ones varied and distinctive on the most local scale, so we will develop broad, interpretative themes to understand the sort of case studies we will be engaging. The course’s focus is on Africa, but the issues are global and comparative. Therefore, course learning about History as a discipline and Environmental History as a specialized subfield is applicable to other intellectual endeavors and active citizenship. Specific requirements include homework and participation (15% of course grade), four low-stress map exercises (10%), and three exams (25%, 25%, 25%) comprised of a mix of short-answer identification items and your choice among several pre-circulated essay prompts.

HIEA 1501-001: Culture & Society: Imperial China

Instructor: Cong Ellen Zhang

This seminar explores one of the most dynamic periods in Chinese history: the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The course will cover philosophical and religious traditions, elite culture, gender and family relations, popular beliefs and practices, and the everyday lives of ordinary people. This course fulfills the College’s Second Writing, Historical Perspectives, and Cultures and Societies of the World requirements. No previous knowledge of Chinese history is required.

HIEA 2011-001: History of Chinese Civilization

Instructor: Cong Ellen Zhang

This course surveys China’s long history from the earliest written records to the modern day, touching on the country’s intellectual traditions, imperial institutions, and key cultural and religious beliefs and practices, as well as how China met the challenges of the 19th and 20th centuries. The class fulfills the College’s Second Writing, Historical Perspectives, and Cultures and Societies of the World requirements. No previous knowledge of Chinese history is required.

HIEA 2031-100: Modern China

Instructor: Bradly Reed

At the turn of the 20th century, China was one of the poorest nations in the world. Its 2,000 year old system of government was crumbling, large segments of its population were impoverished or starving, and the country seemed powerless to defend itself against repeated foreign intrusion. Once known as the “sick man of Asia,” China today is a global power with world-wide strategic, economic and political influence.

This course is about the people, personalities, and events that have given this remarkable transformation its dramatic and sometimes tragic tone. It is also about the social, political, and cultural currents that lay beneath these more visible manifestations of change and the profound effect these forces have had on the Chinese people. Following a brief consideration of the political and social institutions of the last imperial dynasty (the Qing, 1644-1911), we will examine the interaction of foreign aggression and domestic social crises that led first to the fall of the imperial order and the establishment of a Republic in 1911 and then to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. From here we move on to the post-'49 period under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a period that has been described as the greatest attempt at revolutionary social transformation in world history. In the final weeks of the course, we will look at the post-Mao reform era and the issues facing China today after nearly a century of revolution.

Reading assignments, drawn from a survey textbook (TBA) as well as other secondary and translated primary sources, will average about 125 pages per week. Grades for the course will be based on a mid-term exam (25%), a final exam (30%), a 5 to7-page essay (30%) and attendance and participation in discussion sections (15%).

HIEA 2072-100: Modern Japanese Culture and Politics

Instructor: Robert Stolz

An introduction to the politics, culture, and ideologies of modern Japan from roughly 1800 to the present. We will pay special attention to the interplay between Japan's simultaneous participation in global modernity and its assertion of a unique culture as a way to explore the rise of the nation-state as a historically specific form.

HIEA 2091-001: Korean Civilization to 1900

Instructor: Joseph Seeley

This course covers the history of Korean civilization from its archeological and mythical origins to the late nineteenth century. Together students will examine sources on premodern Korean warfare, society, sex, politics, religion, and culture to understand how this seemingly distant past continues to shape Korea's present and future. We will also explore the influence of Korean civilization on regional and global histories beyond the peninsula.

HIEA 3162-001: Historical China and the World

Instructor: Xiaoyuan Liu

The course traces the evolution of China’s external relations from antiquity to our own times. Situated in the geographic environment of the Asian Continent and being the birthplace of one of the world’s oldest living civilizations, China used to be at the center of a “world order” of East Asia and often acted as the hegemon of that region in the millennia prior to the 19th century. China’s centrality in its own world was lost in the mid-19th century when Western powers brought drastic changes to the Asia-Pacific region. In the next hundred years many Asian countries came under the Western colonial system; China also went through an arduous process of transformation from a “celestial empire” to a national state. During the first half of the 20th century, China struggled with its imperial legacies in finding a new national identity while continuously enduring setbacks from domestic divisions and foreign aggressions. After 1949, China, now under a communist system, reclaimed most of the territorial domain of the Qing Empire and began to challenge the Western world order as a revolutionary power. In the post-Cold War years a reformed China reentered the international society. In the meantime, the suspenseful “rise of China” has posed many questions to our times.

This course identifies conceptions, practices, institutions, and relationships that characterized the inter-state relations of the so-called “East Asian world order,” and considers the interactions between “Eastern” and “Western,” and the “revolutionary” and “conventional” modes of China’s international behavior. The students attend lectures and read major scholarly works on ancient and modern Chinese external affairs. The student’s grade is based on participation, midterm and final tests, and a short essay (9-12 double-spaced pages).

HIEA 3559-001: Borders, Maps, and Conflict in East Asia

Instructor: Joseph Seeley

This course examines the history of territorial disputes in East Asia by examining the demarcation, mapping, and policing of borders from the 1600s to the present. With case studies including eighteenth century Xinjiang, the Korean peninsula, and current territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas, we will interrogate the social, political, cultural, and environmental factors that defined boundaries in East Asia historically and contribute to ongoing border tensions.

HIEA 5050-001: International History of East Asia

Instructor: Xiaoyuan Liu

This seminar familiarizes graduate students with scholarships about relations among states, societies, and peoples of the Asia-Pacific region during the 20th century, and helps students refine their ongoing research projects or initiate new ones.  In applying rigorously methods of historical research to their projects, students produce scholarly works or research proposals that can meet expectations in actual scholarly fields.

HIEU 2004-100: Nationalism in Europe

Instructor: Kyrill Kunakhovich

How did Europeans become Germans or Italians? When did people start thinking of themselves in national terms? Why did national identities become so powerful, and what might happen to them next? This course examines the history of nationalism in modern Europe, from the 1700s to the present day. We will consider the emergence and consolidation of European nation states in the eighteenth century; nationalist movements and the breakup of empires in the nineteenth; ethnic cleansing and nationalist violence in twentieth-century Europe; as well as the rise of the European Union and its challenges today. To explore different forms and varieties of nationalism, we will study films, poems, paintings, and musical sources in addition to scholarly texts. Through these sources, we will try to understand both the origins and the prospects of nationalist sentiment in Europe – and beyond.

HIEU 2031-100: Ancient Greece

Instructor: J.E. Lendon

Not for CR/NC.

History of Ancient Greece from the Homeric period to the death of Alexander the Great. Development of the city-state, Athenian democracy, and the nature of Greek politics; the conflict between Greece and Persia, and between Sparta and the Athenian naval empire; consequences of the latter conflict--the Peloponnesian War--for subsequent Greek history; finally, the Macedonian conquest of Greece and Persia.

Lecture and weekly discussions; midterm, final, seven-page paper, and occasional quizzes in section. Readings will average between 100 and 125 pages a week, to be taken from the following (students are not responsible--for exam purposes--for the entirety of any of these, although they will have to read all of either Herodotus or Thucydides for the paper):

     The Landmark Herodotus (R. Strassler, ed.; Free Press)

     The Landmark Thucydides (R. Strassler, ed.; Free Press)

     Plutarch, Greek Lives (Oxford)

     Plato, The Apology of Socrates (Hackett)

     J. M. Moore, Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy (California)

     S. Pomeroy et al., Ancient Greece (textbook:  edition to be determined)

     a xerox packet (available at NK Print and Design on Elliewood Avenue

HIEU 2061-100: The Birth of Europe

Instructor: Paul Kershaw

This class covers the history of Europe from the third to the beginning of the thirteenth century. It moves from a Mediterranean world dominated by a Roman empire undergoing internal problems and external pressures to one characterized by complex interactions – military, economic, cultural, scientific – between multiple kingdoms and communities, faiths and systems of belief. As we move through these centuries of radical change and state formation we’ll explore political, social and institutional developments; literature, art, philosophy, and religion will also receive attention.

HIEU 2071-100: Early Modern Europe and the World

Instructor: Erin Lambert

What do we mean when we say that we live in the modern world? Historians have long told us that modernity arose between 1500 and 1800, during what we call the early modern period, and that the history of its development is a European one. But what if there is more to the story? How might we tell it differently if we approached this period not simply from a European perspective, but also from a global one?

This semester, we will consider these questions through an exploration of the history of Europe and its global connections from c. 1450 to c. 1800. Over the course of these tumultuous centuries, Europeans experienced changes in virtually every aspect of life, from what they ate to their modes of government, and from what they believed about God and the cosmos to the trade routes they traveled. By working closely with primary source documents and considering the contributions of scholars who are crafting new, more inclusive histories, we will ask how such traditional narratives in European history were, in fact, global stories. How, for example, was the development of Protestantism related to European encounters with indigenous religions? What did the Dutch tulip trade and the trade in human beings have to do with one another? Asking such questions about the past will help us to define new ways of thinking about our present, because in ways both large and small, as we engage in debates about human rights or put sugar in our coffee, we continue to live with the legacies of global early modernity every day.

HIEU 2111-100: England, Britain, Empire, 1500-1800

Instructor: Paul Halliday

This course surveys the political, social, and cultural history as Britain developed from a European  backwater into a global power. We will focus on four major transformations: the Reformation and changing religious life under the Tudor monarchs; new political ideas that arose during the Civil Wars of the 1640s and a revolution in the 1680s; the unification of England, Scotland, and Ireland into a single kingdom; and the beginnings of a global empire in North America and South Asia. We will thus be concerned not only with England, but with its place in the world. Students will write some out-of-class essays and a take-home final exam. Readings may include: Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village; Alison Games, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Exploration, 1560-1660; Mark Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: England, 1603-1714; and Linda Colley, Britons.

HIEU 2121-001: France in the Age of Revolutions, 1789-1871

Instructor: Jennifer Sessions

Introduction to French social, political, and cultural history from 1789 to 1871. Examines political struggles from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune, and considers how industrialization, urbanization, mass culture and imperial expansion reshaped relationships between men and women, rich and poor, city and country, artists and audiences, and metropole and colony. Traces changing ideas of nation, citizenship, and democracy.

HIEU 3321-001: The Scientific Revolution, 1450-1700

Instructor: Karen Parshall

This course examines the development of scientific thought and institutions in Western Europe during the critical period—known as the Scientific Revolution—from 1450 to 1700 .  Because those engaged in scientific pursuits during this period were very consciously reacting to the thought of their predecessors, the course opens with a survey of developments in science—then called natural philosophy—from classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages.  With the reintroduction throughout the early modern period of ancient Greek and Roman texts, natural philosophers both adapted and rejected classical thought in formulating their own interpretations of the phenomena observable in the natural world around them.  As a result of their efforts, “new” versions of “old” approaches emerged, and areas such as astronomy and astrology, chemistry and alchemy, mathematics and number mysticism, physics and natural magic, coexisted within the accepted body of knowledge of the natural world.

Open to all undergraduates, this course—primarily in the history of ideas—requires no prior training in the sciences or in European history.

Classes will be conducted in a lecture/discussion style. Readings will average 100 pages each week and will consist of a combination of primary and secondary sources.  The course satisfies both the Historical Studies and satisfies the Second Writing Requirements.

HIEU 3372-001: German Jewish Culture and History

Instructors: Jeffrey Grossman and Julia Gutterman

This course provides a wide-ranging exploration of the culture and history of German Jewry from 1750 to 1939.  It focuses  on the Jewish response to modernity in Central Europe and the lasting transformations in Jewish life in Europe and later North America. Readings of such figures as: Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Rahel Varnhagen, Franz Kafka, Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxembourg, Walter Benjamin, and Sigmund Freud.

HIEU 3390-100: Nazi Germany

Instructor: Manuela Achilles

This course examines the historical origins, political structures, social dynamics, and cultural practices of the Nazi Third Reich. Fulfills the historical studies and second writing requirements. No prerequisites.

HIEU 3452-001: Jewish Culture and History in Eastern Europe

Instructor: James Loeffler

This course is a comprehensive examination of the culture and history of East European Jewry from 1750 to 1935. Course cross-listed with YITR 3452.

HIEU 3462-001: Neighbors and Enemies in Germany

Instructor: Manuela Achilles

A biblical injunction, first articulated in Leviticus and then elaborated in the Christian teachings, stipulates that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself. This course explores the friend/enemy nexus in German history, literature and culture. Of particular interest is the figure of the neighbor as both an imagined extension of the self, and as an object of fear or even hatred. We will examine the vulnerability and anxiety generated by Germany’s unstable and shifting territorial borders, as well as the role that fantasies of foreign infiltration played in defining German national identity. We will also investigate the racial and sexual politics manifested in Germany’s real or imagined encounters with various foreign “others.” Most importantly, this course will study the tensions in German history and culture between a chauvinist belief in German racial or cultural superiority and moments of genuine openness to strangers. In the concluding part of this course, we will consider the changing meanings of friendship and hospitality in a globalizing world. Fulfills the historical studies and second writing requirements. No prerequisites.

HIEU 3501-001: Early Modern Bodies

Introductory History Workshop

Instructor: Erin Lambert

The human body might seem like a constant that unites people across the centuries, but historians recognize that the body has a complex history. This seminar explores conceptions of the body, health, and disease c. 1500-1800, a period in which understandings of the body changed drastically. We will explore the body in Europe and the wider world from the perspectives of multiple historical subspecialties, including histories of medicine, religion, gender, race, and colonialism. We will also grapple with questions about illness in the past. Should we use insights from modern medicine to explain historical illnesses, even if those explanations would not make sense to people in the past? Is it possible to write a history of an experience as personal as pain? And to what extent is the body a biological reality versus a cultural construct? Through the history of the body, students will become familiar with the types of questions historians ask in their work, as well as the challenges that historians face in reconstructing the past. This course also encourages students to think of themselves as historians. We will focus on the development of essential skills for working with primary sources, and using sources in Special Collections and online archives, students will put these skills to work in a research project.  

HIEU 3501-002: Crime, Scandal, & Politics in Fin-de-Siècle Europe

Introductory History Workshop

Instructor: Jennifer Sessions

Explores the uses of crime for understanding the past, with a focus on European society, culture, and politics in the period around 1900. We will study spectacular, scandalous, and ordinary cases that shed light on issues such as nationalism and anti-Semitism, race and empire, gender and sexuality, urbanization and mass culture at time of rapid change, and explore the methods historians have used to analyze them. Students will apply the methods they learn in collaborative research projects focused on one specific case.

HIEU 3802-001: Origins of Contemporary Thought

Instructor: Allan Megill

This class examines the work of four thinkers who have been massively important in modern thought: Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Martin Heidegger. The span is from Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) to Heidegger’s philosophically path-breaking Being and Time (1927), but issues of contemporary relevance will be kept firmly in mind, and these thinkers will all be connected to the wider intellectual and cultural contexts that they reflected and in part also created.

There is *very* heavy emphasis in the class on students’ own reading of the material. After students seriously attempt to grasp the reading (which is often difficult, but never impossible), the instructor explicates it in class. By the end of the semester, students will have a quite good idea what the central views articulated by Darwin et al. actually were. They will also be more skilled at reading complex texts. Students’ prior struggle is a prerequisite for understanding both readings and lectures.

Goals (in brief): (i) to model skill at reading theoretical texts and at thinking conceptually; (ii) to impart knowledge of some theories, and the assumptions underlying them, advanced by Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger; these theories are of continuing relevance and, in some cases, use; and (iii) to impart knowledge of the place of these theories, concepts, and assumptions in modern and contemporary thought. 

Requirements (in brief): It is crucial for students to do the reading alertly and on time. Students will (i) answer ca. 7-8 short “think questions” (TQs) on time; (ii) take a 75-minute midterm exam in class on Oct. 15, 2020; (iii) take a 75-minute ending exam in the last regularly scheduled class, on Nov. 24, 2020; (iv) write a “restricted term paper” of six single-spaced pages, based on assigned class reading (not additional outside reading), due on Dec. 10, 2020; and (v) complete online evaluations of the class. Two make-up classes (potentially asynchronous) are scheduled for Dec. 1 & 3. TQs count for 10% of grade; midterm for 15%; ending exam for 30%, and term paper for 45%. However, Quality and Coverage also factor strongly into the final grade.

BOOK LIST: We read crucial parts, and sometimes all, of the following: Darwin, The Origin of Species; Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Genealogy of Morality, Portable Nietzsche; Freud,  Interpretation of Dreams and civilization and Its Discontents; and Heidegger, Being and Time. A secondary reading is Allan Megill, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida. There is also a course packet, from N. K. Print and Design (7 Elliewood Ave.), which costs around $19.50.Info on book editions should be visible on “overview” tab of the Course COLLAB site; or if you cannot find that or can’t see it, e-mail me at megill@virginia.edu. I can also make available the Detailed Course Description.

HIEU 4502-001: Europe and the World

Instructor: Kyrill Kunakhovich

Europe’s history and culture have been defined by its encounters with the wider world. This course considers some of those encounters, including migration, colonialism, war, and trade, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather than focusing on one country, we will examine how such forces have shaped the idea of Europe itself: what it means to be “European,” whether for individuals, cultures, or states. Topics include European imperialism and decolonization; cultural exchange and scientific advances; the Cold War and the Iron Curtain; and the European Union and its discontents.

This course also functions as an introduction to the emerging field of European Studies. We live in an age of heightened mobility and resurgent nationalism. In this environment, scholars, governments, and business alike are trying to unpack the role and meaning of “Europe.” Doing so requires a deep appreciation of European history and culture, as well as an awareness of the many forces that are shaping the continent’s future. European Studies trains students to think across disciplines and cultures, applying a diverse array of methodologies to the study of Europe in a global framework.

HIEU 4502-001: Stalinism

Instructor: Jeffrey Rossman

What was it like to live in Stalin's USSR?  One way to answer this question is to study how those who lived through the Stalin era -- workers, peasants, youth, women, national minorities, officials, members of the creative intelligenntsia, Gulag prisoners, etc. -- represented their experiences in letters, diaries, memoirs, and works of the imagination.  In this course, students will draw upon these and other primary sources to write a 25-page research paper on everyday life under Stalin.  During the first six weeks of the semester, readings of about 200 pages per week will provide students with background on the Stalin era (1928-53) and introduce them to the range of possible topics and available English-language sources.  Students will then carry out independent research on a topic to be chosen in consultation with the instructor.  A draft of the paper will be due in November, and the final draft will be due several days after the last class meeting, during which students will give an oral presentation of their findings.

IMPORTANT: This capstone seminar fulfills the history thesis and second writing requirements.  Enrollment is capped at twelve and restricted to History Majors who have previously taken college-level courses in Russian/Soviet history. Students who enroll in the course must choose a research topic that is directly connected to the theme of the seminar -- viz., everyday life under Stalin. All topic choices are subject to instructor approval. Possible texts for the first six weeks of common reading include:  Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution and Everyday Stalinism; Chris Ward, Stalin’s Russia; J. Bardach, Man Is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag; Maurice Hindus, Red Bread; Viktor Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom: The Personal & Political Life of a Soviet Official; N. Novak-Deker, ed., Soviet Youth:  Twelve Komsomol Histories; and William K. Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students.

HIEU 4511-001/HIEU 5021-001: Greece in the Fifth Century

Instructor: J.E. Lendon

Prerequisite:  HIEU 2031, CLAS 2010 or equivalent; or instructor permission.

This course examines the political, military, and social history of Greece from the end of the Persian Wars (479 BC) to the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC).  This is the age of the creation of Athenian democracy and Athenian Empire, as well as of the growing tensions with Sparta that eventually resulted in the Peloponnesian War.  Understanding these developments is crucial to understanding all Greek history.  This class will proceed by discussion, including discussion of four five-page papers written by each student (due variously throughout the term) distributed before the class in which they will be discussed.  There will also be two-three exercises (on working with ancient evidence) and a final exam.

Undergraduates are permitted to take this class as a graduate class or for 4511 credit.

Reading is substantial, averaging approximately 200 pages/week, and will be drawn from the following:

The Landmark Thucydides (R. Strassler, ed.; Free Press)

Plutarch, Greek Lives (Oxford World Classics)

J. M. Moore, Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy (California)

Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History vols. 4-5 (Loeb/Harvard)

Xenophon, Hellenica (Penguin)

C. Fornara, Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War (Cambridge)

and readings on the Collab course website

HIEU 4511-002: Emperor, Queen & Caliph: the Mediterranean, C7-C10

Instructor: Paul Kershaw

This course explores the diverse polities and cultures of the early medieval Mediterranean, and the forms on interaction in both war and peace between the Latin, Byzantine and Islamic world in the eighth through to the late tenth centuries. Warfare, travel, trade and belief will all be explored, as we look comparatively at the distinctive societies of the early medieval Mediterranean.

HIEU 7031-001: Proseminar in Ancient Studies

Instructor: Anthony Corbeill

The aim of this course is to acquaint students with various facets of the study of Greek and Roman antiquity; to show students a range of approaches to ancient materials; and to introduce students of antiquity to each other and to the affiliated faculty in different departments (Classics, History, Art, Religious Studies).

HILA 1501-001: Latin American Borderlands

Instructor: Lean Sweeney

Borderlands lie between seemingly rigid categories—not simply between two national borders, but between any kinds of social or political boundaries.  They also expand and contract, and ooze into space where they were previously absent, changing a “bordered” space into borderland one.  The processes and agents of Latin American spatial reorganization—the tragedies and creations that came out of European and American contact, alliance and resistance; the women who passed as men, slaves who passed as free, and criminals who passed as patriots—are central to shaping Latin American politics and culture through their contestation of social, political, economic, racial and gendered categories. Manipulation of space—of cities, houses, markets and the countryside-- and the language of spatial control—around nationhood, citizenship, class, race and gender--have also been critical to the way to boundaries have been asserted, maintained, rearranged and rejected.  This course brings to center stage the people, processes and places that have in many cases been left out of “traditional” narratives of Latin American history, and encourages students to discuss why certain stories have trumped others in providing us with particular assumptions about Latin American history.  Cases applying the theories of scholars such as James Scott, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Henri LeFebvre, Immanuel Wallerstein, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Aníbal Quijano supply strategies for understanding the historical importance and cultural dynamics of these epistemological battles around category-making, boundary-crossing, and what it means to live in a state of “in-between.”  

HILA 3051-001: Modern Central America  

Instructor: Lean Sweeney

Central America has come to the notice of many as a place of high crime and violence, and the origin of the United States' current "immigration problem."  This course aims to complicate that understanding of both Central America and its relationship with the rest of the world through analyzing Central American history, culture, and politics through a transnational lens--that is, through a lens that understands regional or isthmus-wide patterns as part of broader processes produced by various nations and forces simultaneously. Fundamental to the course is also the analysis of how and why different people identify nationally or regionally with one place or another, how that changes through experiences of war, exile, revolution, and migration, and what that tells us about nations versus other types of territorial and cultural creations. Historical actors who tend to link their identity to territorialities other than the nation, such as the Miskitu of Nicaragua and Honduras; the Garifuna of Belize and Guatemala; the Maya of Guatemala and Belize; and a variety of immigrants, exiles, filibusterers, members of the military and fugitives from law, violence and economic pressures are also central topics of study.  More than merely highlighting the way Central America has vacillated between status as a republic, as nation-states, as kingdoms or as enclaves, this course aims to look at Central America's connections with the world in a much more multidirectional way: how it has connected to the Black Lives Matter movement, what particular kind of art comes out of experiences of genocide, how environmental disaster affects identity and class, how tourism affects historical knowledge and political policies, what kinds of communities are produced by deportation and how everyone of us is implicated in all of these questions.  

HIME 2003-100: Economic History of the Islamic World

Instructor: Fahad Bishara

This course is designed to introduce students to the economic history of the Islamic World - a broad region stretching from West Africa to Indonesia - over the duration of roughly 1300 years of history. We explore the ideologies, institutions, and practices of commerce in Muslim society, paying close attention to the actors, artifacts, and encounters, that gave it shape over the course of a millennium, ending with the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. We will explore the relationship between Islamic law and commerce, Muslim engagement with an expanding world of trade, and how the forces of global capitalism shaped (and transformed) Muslim society. To do this, we will combine broad sweeps of events in Islamic and world history with fine-grained analyses of primary documents and close readings of secondary sources. No prior knowledge of Islamic history or economic history is assumed. We usually read 40 pages or so of primary/secondary sources per week, and students are asked to produce a paragraph of reflections on the reading every week. Other assignments include two 3-4 page papers over the course of the semester, five quizzes over the course of the semester, and a take-home final.

HIME 2012-001: Israel/Palestine 1948

Instructor: Caroline Kahlenberg

This course explores the dramatic Arab-Israeli War of 1948 in Palestine from the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947 to the cease-fire agreements in early 1949. We will explore the historical context leading up to the war; the political and military progression of the war; the social history and everyday experiences of those involved; the international and decolonization contexts; and the two major outcomes of the war: Jewish independence and Palestinian dispossession. Throughout the course, we'll examine a variety of historical sources including government documents, novels, photographs, oral histories, and scholarly research on the 1948 War. 

HIME 4501-001: Remembering Palestine/Israel: History, Memory, Method

Instructor: Caroline Kahlenberg

What is the relationship between history and memory? How does collective memory take shape, and who has the right to remember? In this course, we will probe these questions using the case study of twentieth-century Palestine/Israel. Through close readings of memoirs, oral histories, photograph collections, and films (with translations provided as necessary), we will explore the advantages and challenges of using memory-based sources to write the history of this contested region. 

HISA 2003-100: History of Modern India

Instructor: Neeti Nair

A survey course, major topics include conflict and accommodation in the Indo-Islamic world; change and continuity under colonial rule; competing ideas on the shape and substance of a new India; and the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. This course is the first of a two-semester sequence: in the spring we will focus on Twentieth century South Asia.

The following textbooks will be available in the bookstore: Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy and Sunil Khilnani, Incarnations: A History of India in 50 Lives.

HISA 3002-001: India From Akbar to Victoria

Instructor: Spencer Leonard

Studies the society and politics in the Mughal Empire, the Empire's decline and the rise of successor states, the English as a regional power and their expansion, and social, economic and political change under British paramountcy, including the 1857 Revolt.

HISA 3003-001: Twentieth-Century South Asia

Instructor: Spencer Leonard

Surveys 100 years of Indian history, defining the qualities of the world's first major anti-colonial movement of nationalism and the changes and cultural continuities of India's democratic policy in the decades since 1947.

HISA 4501-001: India’s Partition: Politics, Culture, Memory

Instructor: Neeti Nair

The 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent and the creation of the new nation-states of India and Pakistan have spawned a rich historiography on its causes and still-unfolding consequences. This course aims to provide students with a deep background of communal relations in British India, an overview of the negotiations and tensions that eventually necessitated the partition, and an examination of a few of the transformations that were among its lasting consequences: the wars over Kashmir and the creation of Bangladesh are cases in point. Students will spend the latter half of the semester working on 20-page research seminar papers.

HIST 1501-001: The Modern Revolution: Liberalism, Socialism, Imperialism, and Marxism in the Global Nineteenth Century

Instructor: Spencer Leonard

The contemporary scene is littered with the desiccated husks of nineteenth century ideologies — liberalism, anarchism, socialism, nationalism, imperialism, and Marxism, to name only the most obvious. The right accuses the left of “Marxism,” while the left disavows the label even as it denounces socialism’s traditional antagonist, liberalism, as imperialist, racist, or insufficiently attentive to “difference.” Increasingly, what these isms actual denote has grown obscure, especially in their historical and revolutionary significance. Thus, for instance, the right now upholds the American Revolution and freedom, while the left seems to deny the historical significance of revolution. Thus, confusion plagues the present as to just how the projects of the past persist. This course addresses the central revolutionary ideas and projects of the modern era, from the American Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century to the October Revolution at the beginning of the twentieth. Focusing on the self-understanding of modern revolutionaries as would-be agents of world history, it will treat the modern revolution as an unmastered project of freedom. In that sense, it attempts to specify how the twenty-first century represents a continuation of the nineteenth. 

HIST 2214-100: The Cold War

Instructor: William Hitchcock

An exploration of the geopolitical and ideological conflict that shaped world affairs from 1945 to 1990. Topics include: the origins of the cold war; the division of Europe; the 'hot wars' in Asia; the rise of the Third World; the impact of the cold war on the home front, from McCarthyism to Civil Rights; the rise of dissident movements; the unraveling of the cold war order; and the meaning of the cold war today.

HIST 3281-100: Genocide

Instructor: Jeffrey Rossman

One of the defining features of the twentieth century was the repeated use of genocide and other forms of one-sided mass violence by states against internal and external civilian populations.  In this lecture course, we will explore these phenomena from a theoretical and historical point of view, with particular attention to the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the mass violence carried out by Communist regimes (e.g., Stalin’s USSR, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia), and the “ethnic cleansings” and genocides of the post-Cold War era (e.g., in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda).  While the experience of victims will be of central concern, we will also examine the experience and motivations of rank-and-file perpetrators, the explicit and implicit goals of perpetrator regimes, and the response -- or lack of response -- by members of the international community.  Requirements include attendance at lecture, active participation in weekly section meetings, weekly readings of about 100-150 pages, the viewing of several films, three short (2-page) writing assignments based on required readings/films, a midterm exam, and a final exam. The course is open to all undergraduate students and does not have any prerequisites.

The textbook for the course is Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (3rd ed.).  Excerpts from the following books also will likely be assigned:  Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (2005); Donald E. & Lorna Touryan Miller, Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide (1993); Donald L. Niewyk, ed., The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (4th ed.); Elie Wiesel, Night (2006); and Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (2008).  Likely films to be viewed include:  The Armenian Genocide (dir. Andrew Goldberg); The Wannsee Conference (dir. Heinz Schirk); A Century of Revolution, Part II (dir. Sue Williams); S21 - The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (dir. Rithy Pan); and The Ghosts of Rwanda (dir. Greg Barker).

HIST 4400-001: 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 4890-001: Distinguished Majors Program-Special Colloquium

Instructor: Bradly Reed

This seminar is open only to students admitted to the Distinguished Majors Program. The purpose is to introduce students to different tools, methods, and ways of knowing and writing about history. Assigned texts will vary widely in methodological approaches, interpretive frameworks, and chronological and geographical focus. By the end of the semester, students will have produced a prospectus and grant application for their DMP thesis. 

HIST 4990-001: Distinguished Majors Program-Special 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 5130-001: Global Legal History

Instructor: Paul Halliday

Examines European legal regimes as they moved around the globe and considers those regimes' interactions with one another and with non-European legal cultures from 1500 to the twentieth century. Themes include: empire formation and legal pluralism; conflicting ideas of property; interaction of settler and indigenous peoples; forced labor and migration; the law of nations; and piracy and the law of the sea.

HIST 5501-001: Working with Historic Maps

Instructor: S. Max Edelson

This workshop introduces advanced undergraduate and graduate students to digital research featuring geospatial data. With the assistance of the Scholars’ Lab’s GIS specialists, we will introduce you to the industry-standard ESRI suite of geographic information systems tools--ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and ArcGIS StoryMaps. Through a series of tutorials designed for historical research, you will learn to build geospatial layers and create interactive digital visualizations. You will apply what you have learned by creating GIS content that advances your particular research projects. We will also review compelling digital scholarship and read about the art and science of visual design as we become proficient in creating dynamic maps of the past. This course counts as an elective for the Graduate Digital Humanities Certificate program.

HIST 5559-001: Reading Marx's Capital

Instructor: Robert Stolz

This seminar will be a semester-long close reading of Marx’s Capital volume one. After the course students will have developed not only deeper reading habits and strategies, but have gained an entirely new critical vocabulary that opens the door to an immense school of theory, thought, politics, economics, and literature. Mainly discussion based with short papers during the semester and a final take-home paper for the final.

HIST 7001-001: Approaches to Historical Study

Instructors: Allan Megill and Fahad Bishara

This course is designed as an introductory seminar for graduate students in all fields and periods of history. It is required of all first-year doctoral students in the History Department. It aims to introduce students to the process of researching and writing history at a professional level.

To this end, it will proceed in part by having students read (or re-read) historical works that can be regarded as exemplars of historical research and writing. Some of these works are relatively short and can be pretty much read in toto; others are longer and will require selective reading.

These works will come from a variety of fields and genres of history. They are intended to be read, however, not for what they tell us about, say, the English working class, peasants in sixteenth-century France, the geography of the Mediterranean, trade in the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic world in the eighteenth century, or the United States in the twentieth, but for what they tell us about ways of researching and writing history.

We find it important that neophyte historians learn to read historical works not only for the facts they report but also for those things that lie hidden behind the cascade of facts. These include: the enabling assumptions, often unstated, that make such and such a work possible; the relation of the work to the extant and previous “state of play” in the discipline or the sub-field; how the author managed to say something that was original and interesting, as distinguished from simply being correct, in their work; and how the author managed to convey something of their own voice and commitments, while still producing a work that could be praised as a contribution to the science of history.

HIST 9026-001: Tutorial in 20th Century International History

Instructor: William Hitchcock

Readings in modern international history: topics will include war, peace-making, diplomacy, the role of non-governmental organizations in world politics, refugees, human rights, decolonization, and transnational ideologies.

HIUS 2001-100: American History to 1865

Instructor: Christa Dierksheide

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 2061-001: American Economic History

Instructor: Mark Thomas

This course concentrates on critical aspects of the history of American economic development.  The issues covered include the nature and consequences of the colonial relationship to Great Britain, the political economy of the Constitution, the economics of slavery, the rise of the modern bureaucratic corporation, causes of the Great Depression, and the political economy of contemporary America.  In addressing these issues, the course considers more general questions of what forces‑‑cultural, economic, legal, etc.--shape the pace and pattern of economic development in any society.

The required text for this course is:

• Gary Walton and Hugh Rockoff, Economic History of the United States.

This will be supplemented by a course packet of readings.  Readings will average c. 100 pages a week.

There will be two one-hour exams and a final.

HIUS 3071-100: The Coming of the Civil War

Instructor: Elizabeth Varon

Through a close examination of the interrelationships among economic change, cultural and political developments, and the escalating sectional conflict between 1815 and 1861, this lecture course seeks to explain what caused the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861. Students should note that this period also encompasses the Jacksonian era of American history, and most of the lectures in the first half of the course will be devoted to examining it, with a focus on party politics and debates over slavery. Grades will be based on class participation and on three written assignments: a midterm exam; an 8-10 page term paper; and a comprehensive, take-home final examination.

HIUS 3281-001: Virginia History to 1900

Instructor: George Gilliam

This three-credit course looks at Virginia's social, political, and economic history from early colonization until the end of the Gilded Age. The class will consider the following broad questions: (1) Why was the rise of an ideology of liberty and equality in Virginia accompanied by the rise of slavery? (2) How did wealthy planters and "common" people alike develop the radical political ideas that led them to revolution? (3) What roles did government play in the state economy? (4) What efforts did Virginians make to rid their state of slavery, and make the electorate as well as legislative representation more democratic, prior to the Civil War? (5) How did Virginians let themselves get drawn into the Civil War? (6) How did some Virginians work toward emancipation of enslaved African-Americans and liberal political reconstruction of the state in the 19th century while others tried to thwart such efforts? The course will devote the first three weeks of the class to the colonial period, and the balance of the semester to a deep-dive into the statehood period 1776-1900.

Readings will average fewer than 125 pages per week. The principal readings will include: excerpts from Ronald L. Heinemann, et al., Old Dominion/New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2007; portions of Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery/American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia; Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832; William A. Link, Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia; and Elizabeth R. Varon, Appomattox: Victory, Defeat and Freedom at the End of the Civil War.

There will be a short-answer mid-term exam and a single-essay final exam. There will be a short (2-3 page) writing exercise early in the semester to acclimate students to writing history based upon primary archival sources, such as those housed in the Special Collections Library. A major portion of each student's final grade will be based a 10-12 page term paper based on original research in primary source documents on a topic of the student's choice. Students will submit multiple drafts of the term paper during the final four weeks of the semester to obtain advice and guidance from the instructor.

The class will meet twice each week. At each meeting, about an hour will be devoted to lecture and 15 minutes will be devoted to guided class discussions of the readings and other material.

HIUS 3490-100: From Motown to Hip-Hop

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

This course examines the sonic, political, and commercial evolution of African American popular music from the late 1950s to the present. Some of the artists we will explore include James Brown, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Public Enemy, PFunk, Whitney Houston, Missy Elliott, Kirk Franklin, Tupac, Lauryn Hill, Kanye West, OutKast, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé.

HIUS 3611-100: Gender & Sexuality in AM, 1600-1865

Instructor: Caroline Janney

Studies the evolution of women's roles in American society with particular attention to the experiences of women of different races, classes, and ethnic groups.

HIUS 4501-001: Gender History of Civil War Era

Instructor: Elizabeth Varon

This seminar examines the construction and contestation of gender roles—definitions of womanhood and manhood—during the Civil War era (from the 1830s through the 1870s). We will explore how the gender conventions of the North and South diverged during the antebellum era, and assess how that divergence shaped sectional tensions; re-envision the Civil War as a crisis over gender roles, in which men and women in each section struggled to fulfill—and at times openly rebelled against—the prevailing definitions of women’s sacrifice and of manly heroism; and reveal the gendered dimensions of slave resistance, emancipation and the contest over citizenship during Reconstruction. The course aims to furnish you with the tools to craft an article-length (25 page) research paper, by semester’s end. Students will identify topics, pertaining to our course themes, in consultation with the instructor; in the last four weeks of the course, we will focus on the research and writing process.

HIUS 4501-002: Maps and Empire in Early America

Instructor: S. Max Edelson

In this seminar, you will learn about the maps that shaped early America, ca. 1500-1800, as well as the methods of map historians. This work will take us to the Small Special Collections Library to examine its remarkable cartography collections and consult its many key reference works. Each of you will write an essay that analyzes and interprets maps as primary sources to shed light on colonization, war, slavery, trade, science and technology, Native society, or another topic.  In addition, you will learn to create a basic digital “tour” of your maps using ArcGIS Online and Storymaps.

HIUS 4559-001: Democratizing the Past: A Hands On Approach to Oral History as a Practice and Method

Instructor: Grace Hale

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about people, important events, and everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of interviews with individuals having personal knowledge of past events. This course utilizes a hands-on, studio approach to oral history as a practice that enables us to create more democratic archives and understandings of the past. Students will use existing oral histories about the history of racial segregation at UVA and in Charlottesville and the surrounding area to create local history timelines and short podcasts. They will also work on their own oral history project by interviewing their fellow UVA students about a topic chosen by the class.

HIUS 5000-001: African-American History to 1877

Instructor: Justene Hill Edwards

This seminar will introduce graduate students to major trends in African-American history, from the colonial period to the end of Reconstruction. Important themes and debates will be highlighted, including the political, economic, social, and cultural experiences of people of African descent in the colonies that would become the United States of America. In this course, students will read major, new, and provocative work, including the scholarship on women and gender, economic history, legal history, and the history of the African diaspora. This seminar will help students define specific interests within the field and aid in preparation for examinations. Students will spend the semester writing a 15-20 page historiographical essay.