How can we learn about the past? How do we tell stories about the past? How do we judge the truth of falsity of evidence? Writing History seminars introduce students to many different ways of interpreting and writing about the past, and to the wide range of sources that historians use: from diaries to tax rolls, from scraps of textile to films and advertisements. Topics and readings vary by section.

Full details for HIST 1200 - FWS: Writing History

When Mary Toft gave birth to rabbits in 1726, only some (but not all) doctors thought she was faking. Why was her story plausible, and how were the rabbits explained? Who controlled childbirth, and who had the power to decide whether a pregnancy was real? How did Mary Toft experience the event? Monstrous births, dishonest midwives, infanticide, and the powers of pregnant women were topics of fascination and debate in early modern Europe and America.  In this course we use writings by midwives, medical treatises, letters, autobiographies, news reports, and trial records to examine practices and beliefs surrounding childbirth, and at how these in turn reflected concerns about property, sexuality, health and religion.

Full details for HIST 1230 - FWS: Monstrous Births, Scheming Midwives: Childbirth in Europe 1500-1800

This course explores how social, political, and economic movements for equality challenge entrenched power. The class will examine the long Civil Rights Movement, the Populist movement, the labor movement, women's suffrage, third wave feminism, and gay and lesbian liberation. In addition to reading articles, book chapters, and excerpts from academic history, we will analyze primary sources (such as "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Black Power by Ture and Hamilton); view documentaries (such as biographies Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria; and read memoirs (such as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Outlaw Woman). Students will engage in a range of academic and history-based writing, including review essays, comparative analyses, and a research-oriented project based on some primary source analysis.

Full details for HIST 1315 - FWS: American Insurgencies

Why are the years following World War II considered so remarkable in the landscape of American history? Several critical events and debates that rocked the nation from the 1940s onward reverberate today, such as involvement in wars, civil rights, women's rights, concerns about teenagers, and crises in American cities. Enriched by a variety of primary sources, including films and TV shows, this course analyzes the central events, people, and forces that transformed American society and culture from the years after World War II to the present. The course aims to help students learn how to write persuasively about scholarship and primary sources, while gaining a deeper appreciation for the lasting influence of the major events, crises, and interpretations of post-World War II American history.

Full details for HIST 1321 - FWS: Post-World War II America: Crisis and Continuity

What is fascism? The title of this seminar, "Fascisms," reveals the variety of definitions, interpretations, and applications of the word "fascism." One essay will discuss why fascism succeeded in some countries and not in others.  Daily life under fascist rule in Mussolini's Italy will be another theme.  After reading Rosetta Loy's recollection of her childhood in Fascist Italy, you will write your own first-person account.  Prompted by Carlo Levi's memoir, you will write a letter to your family about your experience as an antifascist in exile.  After the war, you will write a speech to the Union of Italian Women about how women can work to ensure that fascism will never return.  Writing clear and convincing prose is the goal in these and other assignments.

Full details for HIST 1335 - FWS: Fascisms

This course looks at Islam as a global phenomenon, both historically and in the contemporary world.  We spend time on the genesis of Islam in the Middle East, but then move across the Muslim would in various weeks (to Africa;Turkey; Iran; Eurasia; Southeast Asia; East Asia) and to the West to see how Islam looks across global boundaries.  The course tries to flesh out the diversity of Islam within the central message of this world religion.

Full details for HIST 1402 - FWS: Global Islam

Novels are perhaps one of the most enjoyable ways to explore the past.  Written as fiction, they nevertheless entice us to learn more.  This course will explore two West African novels written as historical fiction. We will discuss and write about the many themes in the novels, but also contrast their conceptions of the past with how historians have explored these same themes and times past. The novels we will read are Ousmane Sembene's God's Bits of Wood, which examines a railway workers strike in colonial Senegal. The other novel is Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, that discuss the Nigerian civil which occurred  between 1967-1970.

Full details for HIST 1421 - FWS: African Novels, African Histories

This course will explore the relationship between sports and politics over the course of American history since the 19th century.  Sports and politics have come together surprisingly frequently in the last two centuries and this course will take a "case study" method to examine particular episodes of politicized sports.  In the course of our investigations, we will the following questions: How do we define politics?  How have sports acted as a place for subversion and resistance? Conversely, how have sports reflected the power structure? No background knowledge is necessary.   Course materials will include memoirs, articles, and a variety of visual sources, including film and photography.   Course requirements will include a research paper.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 1585 - Sports and Politics in American History

Through discussion of a variety of high-profile and lesser-known trials throughout history, this course will examine a range of issues in the history of law and criminality. We will study the relationship between ideology and law in different societies, the politics of trials, the theory and practice of punishment, and the relationship of trials to terror(ism) and social marginalization. Cases to be covered include: Socrates, Jesus Christ, Joan of Arc, the French Revolutionary Terror, the Russian revolutionary terrorists, the Dreyfus Affair, the Stalinist show trials, Charles Manson, OJ Simpson, and Pussy Riot.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, ETM-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 1600 - History of Law: Great Trials

Despite the presence of women and lunatics on the throne, monarchy was for centuries considered the best form of government. Even today we are fascinated by Diana, Will and Kate. Why? Using drama, visual arts, political treaties and court ritual we will examine how monarchy was legitimated, where power really lay, how gender and sexuality affected politics and how monarchy in modern times has intersected with popular culture and with modern ideologies like nationalism.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 1650 - Myths of Monarchy in Europe, Medieval Times to the Present

This course seeks a fuller recounting of U.S. history by remapping what we understand as "America." We will examine traditional themes in the teaching of U.S. history—territorial expansion and empire, migration and nation building, industrialization and labor, war and revolution, and citizenship and transnationalism—but we will examine this "American experience" in a broader hemispheric context and include as actors americanos of Spanish, Mexican, Caribbean, and Central/South American ancestries.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS)

Full details for HIST 1802 - Introduction to Latinos in U.S. History

What is modern science? And how did it get that way? This course examines the emergence of the dominant scientific worldview inherited by the 21st century, to trace how it, and its associated institutional practices, became established in largely European settings and contexts from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. It focuses on those broad conceptions of the universe and human knowledge that shaped a wide variety of scientific disciplines, as well as considering the twin views of science as "natural philosophy" and as practical tool. 

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS, PHS-AS)

Full details for HIST 1942 - The History of Science in Europe: Newton to Darwin; Darwin to Einstein

Independent Study based supervised reading with history faculty.  Student must complete Independent Study Form with faculty supervisor for determining requirements and for permission to enroll through the online system (https://data.arts/cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm).  Student then work with their faculty supervisor throughout the semester for successful completion and grading of the agreed upon requirements.

Full details for HIST 2001 - Supervised Reading - Undergraduate

From at least the 18th century, the western world has had an almost unshakable faith in the idea of progress, that each generation improves on the accomplishments of the last, and that the pursuit of economic development, technological innovation, and scientific discovery will inevitably lead to a better life for everyone. But what if none of this is true? This seminar explores the concept of modernity through the eyes of some of its greatest critics. Among the authors that we will read and discuss are: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, Mary Shelley, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud, Frantz Fanon, and Michel Foucault.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, ETM-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2086 - Modernity and its Critics

This course examines the history and culture of food in the United States over the last hundred years. Looking closely at contemporary food culture, we will ask questions such as: What are the origins of convenience foods? Who were America's most influential cooks? What is American cuisine?  What is the cultural meaning of a "proper" diet? Thematically organized, course topics include food and technology, food art, labor and tipping practices, food activism, consumerism, taste and eating behavior, fusion cuisine, and the celebrity chef. Creative assignments include a writing a restaurant review, conducting a food observation and interview, and innovating a new food invention.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS)

Full details for HIST 2145 - Food in America

Founded by Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century, St. Petersburg was built expressly to advertise the triumph of enlightened absolutism at home and to display Russia's status as a major European power abroad. But for all of its neo-classical splendor, the image of imperial St. Petersburg has been consistently invoked as a critical touchstone for the expression of political discontent, social unease and spiritual anxiety. The most modern and "intentional" of Russian cities, Russia's northern capital has come to stand for everything that's wrong with modern life. In this seminar, we will approach St. Petersburg as a cultural text composed by an illustrious trio of Russian writers who saw the complicated history of their country through Peter's "window to the west" -- Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Andrei Bely.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2158 - St. Petersburg and the Making of Modern Russia

This seminar will explore some of the major political and cultural trends in the United States,  from the era of the Democratic New Dealer, Franklin D. Roosevelt, through the era of the conservative Republican, Ronald Reagan? This seminar will explore through primary source research and secondary readings  the key economic, political, and cultural characteristics and transformations of the period from 1930 though the turn of the century.  The course will examine the rise, persistence, and breakdown of the so-called "New Deal Order" and the crucial political shifts that we call the "Reagan Revolution." A key theme in this course will be the transformations and critiques of American liberalism and conservatism.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2220 - From the New Deal to the Age of Reagan

In August 1945, Japan was a devastated country; its cities burned, its people starving, its military and government in surrender. World War II was over. The occupation had begun. What sort of society emerged from the cooperation and conflict between occupiers and occupied? Students will examine sources ranging from declassified government documents to excerpts from diaries and bawdy fiction, alongside major scholarly studies, to find out. The first half of the course focuses on key issues in Japanese history, like the fate of the emperor, constitutional revision, and the emancipation of women. The second half zooms out for a wider perspective, for the occupation of Japan was never merely a local event. It was the collapse of Japanese empire and the rise of American empire in Asia. It was decolonization in Korea and the start of the Cold War. Students will further investigate these links in final individual research projects. 

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2315 - The Occupation of Japan

Corruption in politics and economics has become a significant issue in the modern world. This course introduces students to the study of corruption and collusion from the perspective of early America and the Caribbean from 1500 through 1800. By examining the historical evolution of corruption, the course addresses questions such as: What is corruption and, by contrast, what is good governance? Who creates law and when is it enforced? Can societies be corrupt or only institutions? And, does economic corruption help or hurt financial development? Our readings and discussion will examine the intersection of politics, culture, gender, and economics. We will reflect on how early Americans understood corruption and collusion and what that can tell us about similar modern issues. In the end, the course focuses on the concept of corruption as a complex social function through the lens of bribery, piracy, sex crimes, and other forms of social deviancy.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2381 - Corruption, Collusion, and Commerce in Early America and the Caribbean

At the beginning of the 7th century, a new religion, Islam, appeared in Arabia and by the end of the century, Muslims had defeated the Byzantines and Persians and created an empire that stretched from Spain to India. For the next millennium, Islam glittered. Its caliphs, courts, and capitals were grander, more powerful, and more sophisticated than those of any medieval king, duke or prince. In this course, we will trace the emergence and development of Islamic civilization from the birth of Muhammad ca. 570 to the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. We will read the Qur'an and listen to its recitation; examine the career of the Prophet Muhammad; follow the course of the Arab conquests; explore the nature of the conflict between Sunnis and Shi'is; learn about the five pillars of Islam, sharia law, theology, and Sufism; and assess the achievements of Muslim intellectuals in literature, art, architecture, science, and philosophy.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2530 - Introduction to Islamic Civilization

Most people learn about Africa through the media.  However, media critics note that coverage is disproportionately skewed toward negative stories - poverty, war and corruption. While these factors are a reality for too many people on the continent, media observers note that too often the coverage lacks context and breadth.  Furthermore, media outlets do not report positive developments even where they exist.  This course will provide some of the depth and context necessary to understand events in contemporary Africa.  The first two-thirds of the course will examine African social and economic history since the nineteenth century - Africa's integration in the international economy, the rise of new social classes, the creation of the colonial state and the post-colonial state.  Our primary examples will be drawn from  East, West and Southern Africa to highlight both the similarities and differences of their historical development.  The final third of the course will examine several contemporary issues in which scholars and journalists have attempted to address the weaknesses in general press coverage. 

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2542 - The Making of Contemporary Africa

An exploration of processes of change in health care practices in China. Focuses on key transitions, such as the emergence of canonical medicine, of Daoist approaches to healing and longevity, of "scholar physicians," and of "traditional Chinese medicine" in modern China. Inquries into the development of healing practices in relation to both popular and specialist views of the body and disease; health care as organized by individuals, families, communities, and states; the transmission of medical knowledge; and healer-patient relations. Course readings include primary texts in translation as well as secondary materials.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2562 - Medicine and Healing in China

An introductory history of Chinese, Japanese, Asian Indians, Filipinos, and Koreans in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1990s. Major themes include racism and resistance, labor migration, community formation, imperialism, and struggles for equality.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS)

Full details for HIST 2640 - Introduction to Asian American History

An introduction to ancient Greek history from the era of the Trojan War to the conquests of Alexander the Great. Topics include the rise and fall of the Greek city-state, the invention of politics, democracy, warfare, women and the family. Course readings are in classical texts and modern scholarship.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2650 - Ancient Greece from Helen to Alexander

This lecture traces the history of LGBTQ+ identities, relationships, and politics in the United States from the early 19th century to the present. We will consider, in particular, the shifting meanings of same-sex romantic and sexual relationships; the evolution of modern conceptions of sexual and gender identity as shaped by race and class; the emergence and policing of LGBTQ+ communities; and the history of LGBTQ+ activism and its intersections with broader movements for social and economic justice. Students will learn to read and analyze a range of historical scholarship, as well as primary texts in the history of gender and sexuality including memoirs and letters, periodicals, photographs, and political manifestos.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS)

Full details for HIST 2722 - LGBTQ History in the United States

The largest of the three great Islamic empires of the early modern era, the Mughal empire at its height ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent, and more than 100 million subjects. This course offers a survey of the Mughal empire between c. 1500 and 1800, exploring how Mughal imperial culture reflected the cultural and religious diversity of India. We will consider how the rise and fall of the Mughals was connected to broader global transformations in early modern world, and how the rise of British power in India was shaped by the legacies of Mughal rule. Primary sources include court chronicles, biographies of emperors, as well as Mughal painting and architecture.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2749 - Mughal India and the Early Modern World, c. 1500-1800

The legacies of slavery remain all too obvious in the modern Atlantic World. From demographic imbalances to pervasive social and economic inequality, much of the recent past has involved addressing that destructive early modern heritage. This course traces the roots of slavery and race in the Atlantic World from 1400 to 1800. Through lectures, readings, and class discussion, we will examine how politics, culture, gender, and the law intersected to shape the institution of slavery and the development of conceptions of race. As an Atlantic World course, we will take a comparative perspective and ask how different imperial regimes (Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English) fostered different systems of race and slavery in the Americas. We will also ask how the law as a lived experience, gender norms, and imperial politics all worked to shape the production of racial hierarchies.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2755 - Race and Slavery in the Early Atlantic World

Most people think of Christianity as the "daughter religion" of Judaism. In this course, we will see that what we now know as Judaism and Christianity both claimed ownership of the same textual tradition and emerged together from the same set of historical circumstances, shaped by political crisis, a radical transformation of the social order and the challenge of Graeco-Roman culture. Through close reading of the principal sources of Christian literature, such as Paul's letters to the first communities of gentile "believers" and the accounts of the life and death of the messiah, known collectively as the gospels, we will explore how and why the followers of Jesus first came to think of themselves as the "New Israel" and how a polemical engagement with their controversial interpretation of Hebrew prophecy shaped the development of the rabbinic movement in Roman Palestine.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2852 - Judaism and the Origins of Christianity

This course surveys the history of the world's first socialist society from its unlikely beginnings in 1917 to its unexpected demise in 1991. Traditional topics such as the origins of the revolutions of 1917, Stalin's Terror, WW II, Khrushchev's Thaw, etc., will be covered, but lectures will emphasize the interaction between the political, socio-economic, and especially the cultural spheres. A good deal of the materials we will study in this course will be drawn from the realm of literature, cinema, and art.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 2969 - The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire

Independent Study based supervised research with a history faculty member.  Student must complete an on-line Independent Study form with a faculty supervisor to determine requirements and for permission.  Students then work with their faculty supervisor throughout the semester for successful completion and grading of the agreed upon requirements.

Full details for HIST 3002 - Supervised Research - Undergraduate

This course examines the intertwined histories of capitalism and democracy from the 1870s to the present day. We will explore how modern capitalism became a global force at the same time as democratic ideas and practices struggled to establish themselves. In doing so we will grapple with key questions of history, political economy, and ethics. Do economic crises tend to weaken democracy? Is stability or crisis the norm? Can mass politics ever control the international monetary and financial system? Are our political systems and societies fatally dependent on ever-increasing growth? Is there any reason to think they can handle challenges such as increasing inequality and drastic climate change? We will look for answers to these questions by studying key moments in the history of global capitalism and democracy.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS, SSC-AS)

Full details for HIST 3081 - Stability and Crisis: Capitalism and Democracy, 1870 to the present

If you have ever wondered what the Vietnam War was all about, how did it begin, how was it fought, why was it so controversial, why did the American people turn against it, why was it important, why were generations of American students taught the North Vietnamese version of the war, why the South Vietnamese allies of the United States were abandoned, and what happened to the Vietnamese and the Americans as a result of the war—then this class is for you! With fresh eyes and surprising insights, it will take you beyond the fashionable fictions and clichés to look at the twenty-five years during which the United States, through six presidential administrations, was involved in Vietnamese affairs (1950-1975). For decades, Americans have been meditating on "the lessons of the Vietnam War", but it turns out that neither was any lesson ever learned nor were the so-called "lessons" even plausibly related to actual events. Today, Americans continue to be taught myths about the Vietnam War. This course shows why these myths obstruct a realistic understanding of American history during the past half-century.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 3312 - What was the Vietnam War?

American Impeachments: Four times in US History, Congress has moved to impeach the President—in fact this has happened three times in the last 46 years, after only one instance in the first 184.  The US Constitution provides impeachment as one of the most obvious checks on executive power.  This course will consider the history, politics, law, and possible future of impeachment in a divided US.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 3435 - American Impeachment

This course understands "myth" in the sense of "ideological construction."  So we'll be examining the intellectual and cultural life of Americans, over the last two centuries. The emphasis will be on identity, at both the personal and national level. We'll explore the ways in which different versions of "American Culture" have been constructed and contested. Central themes and subjects include individualism, militarism, belonging, technology, philosophy, and art, in addition to race, class, and gender. What cultural baggage are you carrying when you refer to "America" or "Americans"?  Over the years, has the idea of "America" been more unifying or more divisive?

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 3452 - The Myth of America

This seminar examines the history of the United States' involvement with Middle East beginning with evangelical efforts in the 19th century and President Wilson's engagement with the colonial powers in the early 20th century during and after WWI. The discovery of vast Middle Eastern oil reserves and the retreat of the colonial powers from the region following WWII drew successive US administrations ever deeper into Middle Eastern politics. In due course the US became entrenched in the post-colonial political imagination as heir to the British and the French especially as it challenged the Soviet Union for influence in the region during the Cold War. And that only takes the story to the mid-1950s and the Eisenhower administration. Our discussions will be based on secondary readings and primary sources as we interrogate the tension between realist and idealist policies toward the Middle East and trace how these tensions play out in subsequent developments including the origins and trajectory of the US strategic alliances with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey and conflict with Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the two Gulf Wars.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 3687 - The US and the Middle East

This seminar is an introduction to the theory, practice, and art of historical research and writing. One key purpose of this course is to prepare students to work on longer research projects—especially an Honors Thesis. We will analyze the relationship between evidence and argument in historical writing; assess the methods and possible biases in various examples of historical writing; identify debates and sources relevant to research problems; think about how to use sources creatively; and discuss the various methodological issues associated with historical inquiry, analysis, and presentation.  This course is required for all students wishing to write an Honors Thesis in their senior year.  It should be taken in either semester of the junior year, or in spring of the sophomore year if you are planning to be abroad in your junior year.  NOTE: you do NOT need to be enrolled in the Honors Program in order to sign up for this course.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 4000 - Introduction to Historical Research

This course provides structure for the student's research and introduces them to research techniques. Enrollment limited to students admitted to the History Department's Honors Program.

Full details for HIST 4001 - Honors Guidance

What are the historical factors that have led to food insecurity? In this course, we consider examples from around the world to engage with that question. We address both food production, including the sustainability of agriculture and food processing, as well as distribution, including political dynamics and markets. While encouraging interdisciplinarity, this course draws mostly on environmental archaeology and history and examines the role that the humanities and social sciences can play in shaping and promoting solutions to food insecurity. We begin with readings from diverse fields to explore critical concepts, then address case studies in broad chronological order, starting with food and colonialism, and moving into the development of corporate agriculture, international development, and food-related social movements.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 4086 - Histories of Food Insecurity

This seminar examines the dynamics of modern collective identities which dominated the Egyptian public sphere in the long twentieth century. We will explore the underpinnings and formation of territorial Egyptian nationalism, pan-Arabism and Islamism through close readings and class discussions of important theoretical, historiographical and primary texts.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, SCD-AS)

Full details for HIST 4091 - Contesting Identities in Modern Egypt

One of the most troubling realizations of the 20th century has been the extent to which human activities have transformed the environment on a global scale. The rapid growth of human population and the acceleration of the global economy have meant that the 20th century, in environmental terms, has been unlike any other in world history. This course takes a comparative approach, examining crucial themes in the environmental history of the 20th-century world in different times, places, and ecologies.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 4131 - Comparative Environmental History

Unconventional warfare, especially special operations, is often thought of as strictly a modern phenomenon, while hybrid warfare is a term of very recent origin. Yet both loom large in the record of ancient Greece & Rome. We look at case studies from the Trojan War to the Roman Empire, including, but not limited to, the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian War, the Punic Wars, and the wars of Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian. Readings in ancient sources and modern theorists.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, GLC-AS, HST-AS)

Full details for HIST 4361 - Unconventional and Hybrid Warfare in Ancient Greece and Rome

Chinese discourses have long linked the circulation of cosmic energies, political power, and bodily vitalities. In these models political order, spiritual cultivation, and health are achieved and enhanced through harmonizing these flows across the levels of Heaven-and-Earth, state, and humankind. It is when these movements are blocked or out of synchrony that we find disordered climates, societies, and illness. In this course, we will examine the historical emergence and development of these models of politically resonant persons and bodily centered polities, reading across primary texts in translation from these otherwise often separated fields. For alternate frameworks of analysis as well as for comparative perspectives, we will also examine theories of power and embodiment from other cultures, including recent scholarship in anthropology and critical theory.

Catalog Distribution: (HA-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS)

Full details for HIST 4931 - Vitality and Power in China

Full details for HIST 6006 - History Colloquium Series

This course introduces graduate students to a broad selection of works in the field of Latinx History.  The seminar has several goals: (1) to provide a broad overview of important works in the field (2) introduce students to recent scholarly works that might help students prepare for candidacy exams and doctoral research; (3) expose students to different historical questions, methodologies, and approaches to historical writing; (4) provide an opportunity for graduate students to either write a bibliographic essay or research and write an article length essay of original scholarship; and (5) prepare students to teach Latinx history or draw on this history for courses in other disciplines.

Full details for HIST 6052 - Readings in Latinx History

What are the historical factors that have led to food insecurity? In this course, we consider examples from around the world to engage with that question. We address both food production, including the sustainability of agriculture and food processing, as well as distribution, including political dynamics and markets. While encouraging interdisciplinarity, this course draws mostly on environmental archaeology and history and examines the role that the humanities and social sciences can play in shaping and promoting solutions to food insecurity. We begin with readings from diverse fields to explore critical concepts, then address case studies in broad chronological order, starting with food and colonialism, and moving into the development of corporate agriculture, international development, and food-related social movements.

Full details for HIST 6086 - Histories of Food Insecurity

Unconventional warfare, especially special operations, is often thought of as strictly a modern phenomenon, while hybrid warfare is a term of very recent origin. Yet both loom large in the record of ancient Greece & Rome. We look at case studies from the Trojan War to the Roman Empire, including, but not limited to, the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian War, the Punic Wars, and the wars of Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian. Readings in ancient sources and modern theorists.

Full details for HIST 6361 - Unconventional and Hybrid Warfare in Ancient Greece and Rome

For more than two centuries, revolutions have marked the rhythm of modernity.  In 1780, the original meaning of revolution - an astronomical rotation - was transformed in order to apprehend a social and political overthrow.  This course will investigate the multiple uses of this crucial concept of political theory, from the revolutionary canon (Blanqui, Marx, Fanon...) to the classics of conservatism (Maistre, Cortés, Schmitt...), which depict contemporary history as a conflict between revolutions and counter-revolutions, socialist and fascist revolutions.  We will explore the connections between history and theory, and stress the global dimension of revolutions, forged by a permanent transfer of ideas and people from one continent to another.

Full details for HIST 6655 - Revolution: An Intellectual History

Drawing on new scholarship and writings from the period itself, this course explores the considerable political, institutional, social, economic, and intellectual innovation that took place between 1918 and 1939. We will focus on the different forms of international collaboration and exchange that characterized this period, from the League of Nations to economic technocrats, from public health specialists to abolitionists, from religious thinkers to fascists, and from anti-colonial activists to humanitarian innovators; the interwar years saw the growth of the international civil society we take for granted today.  At the same time, we will examine internationalism critically and ask why it could ultimately not root deeply enough in national contexts to prevent another world war. As the birthplace of many tendencies and practices that in fact survived into the second half of the century, interwar internationalism was both promising and perilously perched in an era of instability and transition.

Full details for HIST 6885 - Interwar Internationalisms, 1918-1939

Chinese discourses have long linked the circulation of cosmic energies, political power, and bodily vitalities. In these models political order, spiritual cultivation, and health are achieved and enhanced through harmonizing these flows across the levels of Heaven-and-Earth, state, and humankind. It is when these movements are blocked or out of synchrony that we find disordered climates, societies, and illness. In this course, we will examine the historical emergence and development of these models of politically resonant persons and bodily centered polities, reading across primary texts in translation from these otherwise often separated fields. For alternate frameworks of analysis as well as for comparative perspectives, we will also examine theories of power and embodiment from other cultures, including recent scholarship in anthropology and critical theory.

Full details for HIST 6931 - Vitality and Power in China

This course is designed to introduce entering graduate students to crucial issues and problems in historical methodology that cut across various areas of specialization.

Full details for HIST 7090 - Introduction to the Graduate Study of History

Provides students with a foundation in the field of science and technology studies. Using classic works as well as contemporary exemplars, seminar participants chart the terrain of this new field. Topics for discussion include, but are not limited to, historiography of science and technology and their relation to social studies of science and technology, laboratory studies, intellectual property, science and the state, the role of instruments, fieldwork, politics and technical knowledge, philosophy of science, sociological studies of science and technology, and popularization.

Full details for HIST 7110 - Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

The Proseminar in Peace Studies offers a multidisciplinary review of issues related to peace and conflict at the graduate level. The course is led by the director of the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and is based on the Institute's weekly seminar series, featuring outside visitors and Cornell faculty. 

Full details for HIST 7937 - Proseminar in Peace Studies

Independent Study based supervised reading with a history faculty/field member.

Full details for HIST 8004 - Supervised Reading

Full details for HIST 8010 - Independent Study-PIRIP