Outstanding faculty win 2025 teaching and advising awards
Among those being recognized for exceptional teaching and mentorship this year are faculty members Begüm Adalet, Claudia Verhoeven, and Marcelo Aguiar.
'I have a better sense of my place in the world'
Hyrum Edwards is a Robert S. Harrison College Scholar who also majored in history, Jewish studies & Near Eastern studies.
Carney’s first meeting with Trump yields ‘mixed outcomes’
Tuesday's meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the White House yielded “mixed outcomes” that fell short of a substantial reset of relations between the U.S. and Canada, says scholar Jon Parmenter.
'Cornell was the perfect place to keep asking “why” over and over again'
Aidan Black is a history major.
'It's exciting to see how my research capabilities have expanded each semester'
Kate Sullivan is a history major.
Cornell Center for Social Sciences awards grants, invites new proposals
The Cornell Center for Social Sciences has awarded spring Seed Grants and the inaugural Grant Preparation Funds to support impactful social science research. Faculty can now apply for up to $115,000 in funding, with the next deadline approaching on June 1.
‘Self-indigenizers’ using executive bully pulpit in school mascot fight
The Long Island community of Massapequa is getting support from President Donald Trump for refusing to change its school mascot from Native American imagery, despite a state mandate, a fascinating example of self-indigenization says historian Jon Parmenter
Even if a ‘peace’ deal is reached, Russia won’t give up on Ukraine
Cornell experts Bryn Rosenfeld and David Silbey comment on a 72-hour ceasefire in Ukraine starting May 8, declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II.
HIST 2325 The Athenian Empire: Athenian History, 600 to 300 BCE
HIST 2325 The Athenian Empire: Athenian History, 600 to 300 BCE (HST-AS)
Monday and Wednesday: 8:40-9:55
Professor Talia Prussin
This course focuses on the rise and fall of the Athenian empire, beginning with its roots in the late Archaic period, continuing through its height in the mid-fifth century BCE, and ending with the city’s transformation into an oligarchy under Alexander the Great’s Successors. Topics include the development of Athenian democracy, the institutions of the Athenian empire, and the experience of non-Athenians under Athenian rule. Attention will be paid to the particular strengths and weaknesses of the ancient evidence for Athenian history, introducing students to the use of Greek inscriptions, coins, and material culture in the writing of ancient history.
HIST 2369 Race, The Nation, & American Outdoor Recreation
HIST 2369 Race, the Nation, & American Outdoor Recreation (also SHUM 2369) (HST-A., SCD-AS) (HNA)
Tuesday and Thursday: 1:25-2:40
Dr. Amanda Martin
This class will explore how access to the outdoors has been impacted by social inequalities related to race, class, and gender throughout U.S. history. The idea of “the outdoors” and its synonyms (whether “wilderness” or “nature”) has sustained lasting cultural resonance in the United States. Since the nineteenth century’s development of American Romanticism, “nature”—or the idea of a landscape not manipulated by humans—has become a powerful cultural symbol and one of the nation’s most cherished attributes. However, this course will examine how this strong reverence for natural places in the United States has been overlaid by racist ideologies.
Love and the Athenian Mercury: 1600s advice column still resonates
Historian Mary Beth Norton found the perfect confluence of interests in a London periodical published from 1691-97 that answered readers’ questions about love and marriage.
Death of Pope Francis marks end of historic papacy
Cornell experts comment on the legacy of Pope Francis, who died on Monday, marking the end of a historic papacy.
Symposium launches archive of Venezuelan migrant testimonies
On April 18, this collection of migrant experiences will be presented to the public in a daylong symposium at the A. D. White House.
Requirements Worksheet
THE HISTORY MAJOR REQUIREMENTS SHEET
STUDENT’S NAME: ___________________________________________________
Student’s CUID: ____________________________________________________
1) Students must complete (or be taking) two History courses before being admitted to the major.
2) Students must choose a History Advisor, meet and discuss a plan for successful completion of the major (fill out the chart below), and gain that advisor’s signature on both the Requirements Sheet and Application before submitting these to the main office.
3) 9* History Department courses must be completed with a C or better. Courses taken for entry can be counted towards the nine required.
*Many history courses will fulfill more than one of the following requirements. However, you must still take a total of NINE COURSES to complete the history major. FWS do not count towards major requirements.
4 courses from 5 world areas (HAN, HNA, HEU, HGS, HTR)
Course # _____ Title:_______________________________ Area:______
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3 courses in history before 1800
Course # _____ Title:_____________________________________
_____ Title:_____________________________________
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At least 2 seminars, one of which MUST BE a 4000-level (taken on Cornell Campus)
Course # _____ Title:______________________________________
_____ Title_______________________________________
Other history courses
Course # _____ Title:______________________________________
_____ Title:______________________________________
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ADVISOR’S SIGNATURE: ________________________________________________________________
Date of Student and Advisor Meeting: __________________________________________________________
Ethnic cleansing explored in Annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration Lecture
Columbia University's Khatchig Mouradian will give a lecture, “Ethnic Cleansing in the Long 19th Century: The Native American, Circassian, and Armenian Cases,” on April 24.
Ask an Ambassador: Explore all of your interests
"My experiences with exploration pushed me to uncover new interests."
Chinese military drills send ominous message to Taiwan
The drills, in the waters and airspace around Taiwan, serve three military purposes, says professor David Silbey.
Historian Barry Strauss wins 2025 Bradley Prize
The award carries a stipend of $300,000; Strauss will receive the award at a ceremony on May 29 in Washington, D.C.
Canadian ‘snap’ election all about President Trump, says Cornell historian
Professor Jon Parmenter says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to call the election looks like a smart decision.
Student spotlight: Jingya Guo
Jingya Guo, a doctoral candidate in history, studies how historical actors contested and reconfigured the demarcation between pathology and health for female bodies in China.
HIST 4931 Vitality and Power in China
HIST 4931 Vitality and Power in China (also ASIAN 4429, BSOC 4911, CAPS 4931, RELST 4931, STS 4911) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HPE, HAN)
Tuesday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research
Professor TJ Hinrichs
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.
HIST 4672 Europe in Flames: World War II and its Aftermath
HIST 4672 Europe in Flames: World War II and its Aftermath (also JWST 4672) (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HEU)
Tuesday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research
Professor Cristina Florea
One of the most spectacular conflagrations in global history, World War II surpassed all previous conflicts in violence, cruelty, and sheer contempt for human life. It definitely changed the shape of Europe, arguably marking the "end of the European era." Was the Second World War a conflict of ideologies or a war of empires? What was the relationship between the theaters of war (Western and Eastern) and the home fronts? In this seminar, we will examine the war's major turning points on the European theater in order to understand not only the nature of this conflict, but also the forces that made it possible. We will look closely at the two superpowers that clashed on the continent, turning Europe into a veritable inferno for the people caught in between. What kinds of societies were Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia? How did the war affect them and their regimes? We will also survey the spaces in between to discover why these two vast empires competed so ruthlessly over them. We will find out how the populations caught between these two giants made ends meet, both by cooperating and by resisting the great powers. Although some knowledge of what was going on at the front will be helpful, this class is not a course in military history. As a result, it focuses primarily on the social and cultural dimensions of war - which it explores through a variety of sources, including fiction, memoirs, and films. Topics include the occupation and destruction of Poland; the fall of France; Hitler's Europe and the Holocaust; resistance and collaboration with Nazi occupation forces across Europe; the Soviet experience of war; as well as the effect of war on family life, politics, and societies in Europe. Finally, the course will consider the aftermath of was: attempts to reconstruct and deal with legacies of war, which continued shaping European societies for decades to come.
HIST 4204 Early American History through Film, ca. 1500-1800
HIST 4204 Early American History through Film, ca. 1500-1800 (also AMST 4205) (HST-AS) (HPE, HNA)
Thursday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research
Professor Casey Schmitt
While the purpose of Hollywood films is to entertain, when those films are set in the past, they offer a critical lens onto how and why we remember and memorialize certain historical events. This course analyzes a series of films set in colonial North America and the Atlantic world in order to ask bigger questions about the meaning of our colonial past to the ways in which we think about the present. During the course, we will read and discuss articles and books in order to learn about the time periods and contexts presented in several different films, and we will use that knowledge to understand what each filmmaker chose to include or exclude and why, paying specific attention to representations of race, gender, and class. Over the course of the semester, we will also meet virtually with various historians who have worked in the film industry to discuss their experiences making academic history relevant for Hollywood. This course will provide students with a clear understanding of specific times and places in early American history, while also encouraging them to think about when, why, and how that past remains relevant (or irrelevant) today.
HIST 3740 America Becomes Modern: The Gilded Age and Progressive Era
HIST 3740 America Becomes Modern: The Gilded Age and Progressive Era (also AMST 3744) (HST-AS) (HNA)
Tuesday and Thursday: 2:55-4:10
Professor Lawrence Glickman
“America Becomes Modern” offers an upper-level survey of major themes in American history between 1877 and 1917. The course will have a lecture/discussion format; student participation is highly valued and encouraged. The last two decades of the 19th century and the first two of the twentieth marked an abrupt shift in the life experiences of the American people. Daily life changed radically from 1877-1920, as the agrarian republic gave way to an urbanizing consumer society. Debates about “progress” characterized the period, as new technologies, new peoples, new forms of politics and culture, and new patterns of living transformed the United States. This course will explore the political, economic, diplomatic and cultural history of the Gilded age and Progressive eras, focusing on the ways American tried to make sense of, to order, to moralize and to shape rapid change.
HIST 2811 Science, Nature, and Knowledge: 1500-1800
HIST 2811 Science, Nature, and Knowledge: 1500-1800 (also STS 2810) (HST-AS)(HPE, HEU)
Monday and Wednesday: 10:10-11:25
Professor Jeremy Schneider
This course investigates the history of science in early modern Europe (ca. 1500 to 1800), a period in which new understandings of the natural world emerged while traditional forms of knowledge fell into crisis. Students will examine texts and images, objects and instruments from the history of science as a lens onto the intellectual, religious, and political transformations of the period. Why did our knowledge of nature witness profound changes? How was science carried out and by whom? Where did scientific authority serve the interests of colonial empires? Key themes include the study of the earth, climate, and environment; the circulation and censorship of scientific knowledge; and the relationship of ancient thought to modern experiment and observation.
HIST 2441 Truths: A History from Antiquity to the Modern
HIST 2441 Truths: A History from Antiquity to the Modern ((ETM-AS, HST-AS) (HPE, HEU)
Monday and Wednesday: 2:30-4:10
Professor Olga Litvak and Professor Jeremy Schneider
Where have humans found truth? Will the truths we uphold today remain true tomorrow? Leaning on discussion and close reading of texts, this seminar asks students to think about how truth becomes history and how historically-situated concepts, values and norms become true. Examining the ways in which thinkers and writers from a variety of different perspectives have conceived what truth is (and isn’t), the class will focus on notions of truth and falsehood in religion, science, philosophy, and literature. Specific themes for consideration and discussion will include: the role of divinity in underwriting truth claims; the place of truth-standards in the study of nature and the development of new technology; the moralization of truth and lies; the disillusionment with absolutes and the increasing “relativization” of truth in the modern age.
HIST 2064 Starting Your Own Country: From Utopia to the Network State
HIST 2064 Starting Your Own Country: From Utopia to the Network State (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HTR)
Monday and Wednesday: 2:55-4:10 plus Independent Research
Professor Raymond Craib
Ever thought about starting your own country? You’re not alone. The past is filled with examples of new worlds, both imagined and attempted: from More’s Utopia to Gregor MacGregor’s Poyais to the Bates family’s Sealand. Our present too is replete with various schemes to create kinds of state-like communities: from autonomous territories in resistance to libertarian seasteads and cloud-based Network states designed around blockchain and cryptocurrencies. This class covers some 500 years of history and literature to examine the political and social foundations out of which such efforts arose; their philosophical underpinnings; their life-spans in terms of both real life existence and long-term influence; and changing technological and social possibilities for new countries now.
Three A.D. White Professors-at-Large on campus this spring
This semester, visiting A.D. White Professors-at-Large will explore themes of democracy, reparatory justice and Latin American narratives during public talks.
Cornell Center for Social Sciences names 2025-26 Faculty Fellows
12 faculty members from seven colleges have been named 2025-26 Faculty Fellows with the Cornell Center for Social Sciences.
How Naval ROTC shaped my years on the Hill, and beyond
It wasn’t easy being in uniform during the Vietnam War era, but military service made Don Stanton '72 a better student—and a better man, he writes in a Chime In essay for Cornellians
After three years of war in Ukraine, Cornell experts assess endgame
On he third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Cornell University experts discuss sanctions and the state of US and European support for Ukraine.
U.S.-Canada relationship entering ‘sad chapter’
The U.S. president's collective actions against Canada have needlessly harmed a long-cherished and close relationship says Jon Parmenter, a professor of North American history.
New Klarman Fellows to join the College of Arts and Sciences
Fellows will pursue research in the sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Explore home space in a teenage sitcom during upcoming lecture
"Sanctuary from the Storm: Making (My) Room with The Torkelsons," will explore Sheppard’s fondness for the 1990s television show and what the show’s representation of home spaces can tell us about the way television influences living practices.
Concerto Competition announces three winners
This year's Cornell Concerto competition honored three students as winners.
‘Good health, tempered courage, and sound common sense’
Those are the gifts that fate gave Ezra Cornell, per one historian. Here’s a look at his life—from humble beginnings to great wealth.
History department honors first women hired
The centerpiece is a wall-size homage to three of the first women hired and McGraw itself, drawn by Prof. Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik.
President Carter pushed the U.S. ‘to act as a force for good in the world.’
Carter's presidency ultimately set in motion many of the trends that have shaped the world we live in today, says Ruth Lawlor, assistant professor at Cornell University and historian of American foreign relations.
Syria developments and foreign involvement: Cornell experts comment
Cornell government and history scholars provide perspective on the end of 14 years of civil war and 24 years of the Assad dictatorship.
Student Spotlight: Jeremy Peschard Pórtela
Jeremy Peschard Pórtela studies the histories of Latinos, immigration and mental health under the guidance of Prof. Maria Cristina Garcia.
Ahead of Trump takeover, long-range missiles unlikely to change tide in Ukraine
The Biden White House is likely trying to give Ukraine everything it can before the administration changes, says military historian David Silbey.
Klarman Fellow presents findings on housing cost history
This fall, Jake Anbinder, a historian with an interest in cities and strong ties to public policy, presented two conference papers elaborating on his award-winning book project.
Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures holds first event
During “Beyond 2024: Envisioning Just Futures and Equitable Democracy,” faculty and students from across the university will come together to creatively showcase research and art, build community and be inspired to imagine a better future.
Conference considers medicine from historical standpoint
The Nov. 2 conference will focus on an interdisciplinary approach.
New Book by Alumni Explores Walter LaFeber’s Life and Work
A year after former students held a conference in NYC that paid tribute to a giant in the field of U.S. history, Cornell University Press has published a companion volume to the event.
North Korean troop deployment aimed at cementing alliance with Russia
Cornell military expert says North Korea sending troops to Russia for for eventual deployment in Ukraine, if true, amounts to more of a political statement, than a military one.
Belnick presidential forum focuses on election and democracy’s future
Scheduled for Oct. 30, 2024 at 5 p.m. in Ives Hall, Room 305. The event was free, open to the public, and livestream was available.
Your October 2024 reads
This month’s titles, featured in Cornellians, include "Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section" by A&S alum Rachel Somerstein ’04.
HIST 4963 China's Early Modern
HIST 4963 China's Early Modern (also ASIAN 4461, CAPS 4963, MEDVL 4963) (HAN)
Thursday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research
Professor TJ Hinrichs
Theories of modernization have inspired, informed, and plagued histories of middle and late imperial China. For the Song-Qing eras (roughly 10th-19th centuries), comparative studies have variously found and sought to explain modernization emerging earlier than in Europe, an absence of modernization, or alternative paths of modernization. Regional models have argued for pan-East Asian systems and patterns of modernization. Global models have argued that China had a vital role in European development as a provenance of modernizing institutions and ideas, as a source of exploited resources, or otherwise as an integral part of global systems. In this course we explore these historiographical debates and develop critical perspectives, including approaches to escaping Eurocentric and teleological frameworks.
HIST 4910 Approaches to Medieval Violence
HIST 4910 Approaches to Medieval Violence (Also MEDVL 4910) (HST-AS) (HPE, HEU)
Tuesday and Thursday: 1:25-2:40 plus Independent Research
Professor Oren Falk
'Violence' has become an unavoidable - and urgently troubling - buzzword in contemporary Western culture. We worry about its manifestations and representations in our own civilization, we scan foreign societies with which we interact for any sign of it, we fantasize about consummating it or construct our utopias around its absence. This course is intended as an opportunity for students working on a variety of topics, periods and areas in premodern Europe to investigate its relevance to their own studies. Through an examination of readings on violence in particular historical contexts, from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period, we will seek to elicit reflection on what is meant by the concept, to prompt consideration of distinctions among forms of violence, and to sample a variety of analytical approaches and tools.