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 throught 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.

HIST 4629 The Age of Revolution in Europe & the Caribbean: 1789 to 1825

HIST 4629 The Age of Revolution in Europe & the Caribbean: 1789 to 1825 (HST-AS) (HEU)

Tuesday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research

Professor Paul Friedland


A wave of revolutions swept through Europe and the Caribbean, beginning with the French Revolution (1789-1815) and the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), and eventually upending traditional laws and societies on both sides of the Atlantic. In the first part of the semester, we will read and discuss books related to these revolutions, and in the second part, students will undertake original research in preparation for writing a substantial research paper related to the theme of the class: either an in-depth study of one revolution or a comparative exploration of revolutionary movements.

HIST 4422 Oral History: Theory, Practice, and Method

HIST 4422 Oral History: Theory, Practice, and Method (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HTR)

Monday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research

Professor Rachel Sandwell

This course explores the method of oral history in theory and practice, across different topics, contexts, and geographic/national terrains. It will consider questions like: what sorts of insights do oral histories enable? How can oral history as a method supplement, destabilize, and enrich existing historical accounts? What are the challenges and risks of oral histories, and how can historians mitigate those risks? What theoretical assumptions underlie oral historical work? Are certain topics more appropriate than others to oral historical investigations, and if so, why? We will explore these questions through reading a wide range of texts, hearing from oral historians about their work, and workshopping methods in class, as well as through independent research.

HIST 4277 Modern European Cultural-Intellectual History through Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project

HIST 4277 Modern European Cultural-Intellectual History through Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HEU)  

Tuesday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research

Professor Claudia Verhoeven

The premise of this senior seminar in European cultural-intellectual history is that we can learn some of the most crucial aspects of the historian’s craft through just one book: Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. Benjamin is normally seen as a philosopher, cultural critic, literary critic, art historian, media theorist, essayist, and translator, but he was one of the most original and influential historical thinkers of the modern era, and the Arcades Project is one of the key texts of 20th-century European intellectual history. Studying this book will teach you modern European history (esp. late 18th – early 20th c.), but also how to read, research, and write history more creatively. The structure of the seminar is straightforward: we will make our way through the Arcades Project’s “convolutes,” which means we will cover topics such as architecture, photography, fashion, poetry, prostitution, capitalism, communism, conspiracy, revolution, Marx, Nietzsche, modernity, and more, like boredom for example, or theories of progress and knowledge. Your research projects will take shape as you learn to recognize and make connections between the great variety of ideas and sources united in this magisterial and magical text.

HIST 3801 War and Revolution in 20th Century Latino History

HIST 3801 War and Revolution in 20th Century Latino History (also AMST 3831, LATA 3801, LSP 3801) (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HNA)

Tuesday and Thursday: 1:25-2:40

Professor Maria Cristina Garcia

This course examines war and revolution as drivers of migration from Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean to the United States and Canada. From the War of 1898 to the wars in Central America, war and revolution have displaced millions of people, prompting internal and cross-border migration. This history underscores how migration is multicausal—that is, produced by a wide and complex range of intersecting drivers. War and revolution disrupt livelihoods, produce scarcity, and create the insecurity that makes it impossible to exercise a basic human right to stay home. The course also examines how Latinos have become actors in U.S. wars and interventions in their countries of ancestry. There are no prerequisites for the course but HIST 1802 is strongly recommended.

HIST 3602 Cultural History of North America

HIST 3602 Cultural History of North America (also AMST 3602) (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HNA)

Monday and Wednesday: 2:55-4:10

Dr. Justin Clark

This course examines the history of culture in North America from the pre-contact era to present. We will examine how Native, African, European, Asian, and Latino/a influences, along with colonization, immigration, urbanization, industrialization, and consumerization, reshaped the development of American culture, including its architecture, literature, music, visual art, and practices of religion, leisure, and consumption. We will also gain a basic familiarity with the theory and methods of cultural history. Intended for upper-division undergraduate students, the course provides practice in the analysis of historical sources, historiography, and written and oral expression.

HIST 3345 Global 1960s: Revolution from the College Campus to the Battle Grounds

HIST 3345 Global 1960s: Revolution from the College Campus to the Battle Grounds (also ASRC 3345) (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HTR)

Tuesday and Thursday: 2:55-4;10 plus Independent Research

Professor Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik

This course explores the waves of rebellion, and reaction, that swept the globe in the 1960s. From Dakar to Havana, from Beijing to Paris, we will examine the events, social movements, actors, places and legacies of the 1960s. Each week will focus on a specific case study and a specific theme: we will be looking at the role of film in liberation, changing ideas of sex and the body, the role of drugs in global revolutionary movements, and what being a student meant in the 1960s. In many ways the 1960s set the tone for today’s political and social debates. Over the next few months, we will try to understand how. This should help us get a better grasp of what has been happening on our campus and across the world this past year.

HIST 2905 Global History of War from the 16th Century to the Present

HIST 2905 Global History of War from the 16th Century to the Present (HST-AS, SSC-AS) (HTR)

Monday and Wednesday: 10:10-11:25 plus discussion

Professor Ruth Lawlor and Professor Nicholas Mulder

What is war? How has it changed over time? How and why do states engage in war and what social, economic and political factors determine when and what kind of war breaks out? Who fights wars and why? This class answers these questions by tracing the evolution of modern warfare from the beginnings of nationalism and state-formation in 16th century Europe to the present day. Focusing on questions of total war, revolution, insurgency and counterinsurgency, colonial war and wars of resistance, grand strategy and political economy, students will learn about conventional and irregular war across a span of almost four hundred years, from Europe and the Americas to China and Japan, the Middle East, and North and Central Africa.

HIST 2765 The North American West

HIST 2765 The North American West (also AMST 2775) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HNA)

Tuesday and Thursday: 10:10-11:25 plus Independent Research

Professor Camille Suarez

In this course, we will learn about the history of the West. We will deconstruct popular myths about the West, as we engage with the major themes and significant debates that define the historical scholarship. This course will begin with Native origin stories and end with the 20th century. As a class, we will study the west from a multitude of perspectives, such as race, gender, and ethnicity, the environment, labor, politics and culture. This course is designed to increase our knowledge of the social, political and intellectual developments that have shaped our understanding of the West.

HIST 2656 Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in Historical Perspective

HIST 2656 Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in Historical Perspective (also JWST 2156, RELST 2656) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HEU)

Monday and Wednesday: 10:10-11:25

Professor Olga Litvak

Why is it that the age of emancipation which saw most of the world’s Jews gain citizenship status and achieve unprecedented levels of socio-economic modernization, also witnessed a catastrophic assault on Jewish life? How do we explain the conjunction between the spread of liberal values and the exponential rise of anti-semitism? Most historians refer to the virulence of racism in accounting for the scale and brutality of anti-Jewish rhetoric which prepared the way for the destruction of European Jewry in the twentieth century. But this explanation fails to account for the fact that progressive democratic discourse which explicitly endorses ethnic diversity and emphatically repudiates racial prejudice remains susceptible to anti-Jewish animus even now. In this class, we will examine the complex relationship between emancipation and anti-semitism from the perspective of those who benefited from the former but had to contend with the reality of the latter – Europe’s rising class of Jewish intellectuals. We will discover that their insights into the problem of modern Jew-hatred were both acute and prescient and have much to teach us about the current Jewish predicament.

HIST 2590 The Crusades

HIST 2590 The Crusades (also MEDVL 2590) (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HTR)

Tuesday and Thursday: 11:40-12:55 plus Independent Research

Professor Oren Falk

This course focuses on the ideas and practices of Crusading, from its birth ca. 1100 to the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1292. We explore the roots of Crusading in Christian Europe and in the Islamic Near East; the conquest, settlement, and loss of the Latin Levant; and the impacts and afterlives of Crusading. Central themes include the institutional, intellectual, and political histories of Christianity (Latin, Byzantine, and other) and Islam; military, social, and economic narratives of the period; and social, cultural, and environmental analysis, using both material and textual sources.

HIST 2392 Where Fire Meets Ice: Histories of the U.S.-Canada Border Across Four Centuries

HIST 2392 Where Fire Meets Ice: Histories of the U.S.-Canada Border Across Four Centuries (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HNA) (AMST: pre-1900)

Tuesday and Thursday: 10:10-11:25

Professor Jon Parmenter

The international boundary between Canada and the United is the longest, straightest border in the world. Although frequently cast as “boring” in juxtaposition to its southern counterpart, this viewpoint overlooks the U.S.-Canada border’s longstanding history as a site and engine of trans-national tensions and controversies. This course addresses the complex histories of the 3,500 mile boundary separating the United States from Canada from its eighteenth century colonial antecedents to contemporary challenges related to drug smuggling, border fence construction, pandemic-related travel restrictions, immigration, commerce, environmental issues, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and national identity construction. The instructor, a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, brings not only life experience of border-crossing, but also a recent background in legal testimony on border-related issues.

HIST 2158 St. Petersburg and the Making of Modern Russia

HIST 2158 St. Petersburg and the Making of Modern Russia (also RUSSL 2158, SHUM 2158) (HST-AS) (HA-AG) (HEU)

Monday and Wednesday: 2:30-4:10

Professor Olga Litvak

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.

HIST 1976 Recreating the Caribbean: Migration and Identity in Contemporary Caribbean History

HIST 1976 Recreating the Caribbean: Migration and Identity in Contemporary Caribbean History (also ASRC 1976) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HGS)

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 11:15-12:05

Professor Judith Byfield

Waves of voluntary and forced migrants and their imposition on indigenous communities led to radically new societies in the Caribbean. Though popularized as tropical paradises, the Caribbean has one of the highest rates of emigration in the world. Revolutions, wars of independence and socio-economic and political marginalization has led to the formation of Caribbean diasporic communities in Central America, North America, Europe and Africa. These diasporic communities are also transnational spaces because emigrants retain important social, economic and political connections to their countries of origin. Drawing on specific case studies this course considers three interconnecting questions – What factors led to sustained emigration? Why did migrants’ settle in specific countries? How have Caribbean diasporic communities reshaped their natal communities and their new homes?

HIST 1690 Deep Fake: A History

HIST 1690 Deep Fake: A History (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HPE, HTR)

Tuesday and Thursday: 10:10-11:25 plus discussion

Professor Casey Schmitt and Professor Claudia Verhoeven

In 2016, Oxford Dictionaries declared "post-truth" as the international word of the year. Since then, especially with the rise of generative AI, concerns about the meaning of truth have emerged as central in media, politics, and daily life. But does truth/post-truth have a longer history? And what can we learn from how philosophers, political theorists, artists, and people in the past engaged with concepts like truth and falsity? This history of Deep Fakes offers students a historical understanding of how and why humans have constructed and enacted categories of the real/fake, original/copy, and fact/fiction from the ancient world to the present day. Specific topics covered may include myth and history, conspiracy, imposters, forgeries, propaganda, realism, replicants, and hyperreality.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Jerusalem to speak Oct. 10

Nathan Thrall will talk about his most recent book, “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy.”

Celebration kicks off McGraw Hall project

More than 75 people, including university leaders, donors and members of the College of Arts & Sciences Advisory Council, celebrated the start of the $110 million McGraw Hall renovation project Sept. 19 with a “groundbreaking” ceremony.

Student spotlight: Cameron Tardif

Cameron Tardif, a doctoral candidate in history studies sport as a space of race and power in 20th-century United States and Canada.