The Department of History thrives on its close relationship with many other departments, centers and area studies programs in the humanities and social sciences at Cornell. The faculty includes more than a dozen prize-winning authors as well as winners of Cornell’s prestigious teaching and advising awards.
HIST 4685 Early Modern Universities (also STS 4685) (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HIST-HEU, HIST-HPE) Wednesday: 11:15-1:45 plus Independent Research Dr. Eleanor Webb This course focuses on one of early modern Europe’s most influential and contentious institutions: the university. Universities were central pillars of premodern European society and played host to some of the period’s most consequential debates…
HIST 4116 The Scientific Revolution (also BSOC 4116, STS 4116) (HST-AS) (HIST-HPE, HIST-HEU) Thursday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research Professor Jeremy Schneider This seminar investigates the period of the so-called “scientific revolution.” As a foundational narrative of modernity, the scientific revolution posits a radical break from a medieval past, best exemplified through the emergence of the…
HIST 3980 The Pacific Horizon: Oceania, Asia, and the Americas (also AAS 3980, ASIAN 3980) (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HIST-HTR) Tuesday and Thursday: 2:55-4:10 plus discussion Professors Raymond Craib and Eric Tagliacozzo The Pacific Horizon is a long one; it stretches from Chile west across the world's largest ocean to places such as Australia and Japan, and…
Barry Strauss, College of Arts & Sciences professor emeritus at Cornell University, received the 2026 Hattendorf Prize from the U.S. Naval War College for lifetime achievements in military history research and writing. The biennial award was presented Sept. 9, and Strauss delivered a lecture on sea power’s modern lessons from ancient Greece and Rome.
An Arts Unplugged event on Oct. 7 in Klarman Atrium will offer a chance for Cornell community members to perform key public speeches from antiquity and modernity on enduring questions of democratic life. “2,500 Years of Democratic Speech" is organized by the College of Arts and Sciences.
HIST 2854 Kabbalah: A Historical Introduction to Jewish Mythology (also JWST 2854) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HIST-HPE, HIST-HEU) Monday and Wednesday: 10:10-11:25 Professor Olga Litvak In modern Hebrew, the word “kabbalah” is a common noun which means, simply, “receipt.” But the proper noun Kabbalah refers to the “received” tradition of Jewish myth-making, which extends from early biblical…
HIST 2691 Russian Revolutionary History (also COML 2691) (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HIST-HEU) Tuesday and Thursday: 10:10-11:25 Professor Claudia Verhoeven This lecture course principally examines the writings and visual art of the Russian intelligentsia in relation to the idea of revolution (approximately from the 1820s to the 1920s). How did the intelligentsia constitute itself as the revolutionary…
HIST 2616 The World after Alexander the Great: A History of the Hellenistic Period (also NES 2622) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HIST-HPE, HIST-HTR) Monday and Wednesday: 2:55-4:10 Professor Talia Prussin Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian empire in 330 BCE changed the ancient world forever, expanding the Greek world beyond the Mediterranean as far as India.…
