School of Humanities
History Graduate Course Descriptions
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Spring 2024
**This is not a complete list of course offerings. Please use the Course Catalog in SOAR for accurate advising.**
HIS 471/571
American Frontier
Dr. Patrick Hoehne
M/W 1:00-2:15PM
This cross-listed course for graduate and advanced undergraduate students explores
the history and mythology of the American West. The “Wild West” endures in American
memory as a dangerous, violent, and romantic region. Indeed, gold, guns, and gallows
continue to dominate many of our popular representations of this history. But what
was western expansion really like? Was it truly lawless? Just how violent was it?
How likely were you to die of dysentery? In this course, we will answer those questions
and more.
This course will span from the colonial period through the dawn of the twentieth century.
This is not a simple narrative of the continuous movement of settlers towards the
Pacific Ocean, but a twisting and complicated history of many peoples, movements,
exchanges, and collisions. As we move across this range, we will examine violence,
race, law, gender, and the economy. We will also trace the roots of the mythologization
of the West and appraise media representation in print as well as in both film and
video games.
HIS 473/573
U.S. Foreign Relations
Dr. Heather Stur
T/TH 11:00AM-12:15PM
In this course, we will explore the relationships that the U.S. had with other nations
from America's founding to the Global War on Terror of the 21st century. We will study
politics, war, diplomacy, culture, and ideas, and we will see how America's relationship
with the world has shaped the lives of people at home and abroad. By the end of the
semester, we will use the historical contexts of U.S. foreign relations to help us
understand America's current relationships with allies and adversaries and to think
about how the U.S. might respond to ongoing and potential conflicts around the world.
HIS 710
Philosophy of History
Dr. Courtney Luckhardt
W 2:30-5:15
This seminar is designed to introduce graduate students to the philosophical and practical
foundations of historical method. Our coverage is not comprehensive, but we will familiarize
ourselves with some of the innovative and diverse approaches that have shaped historical
work over the past several decades. As we read these works, we will consider how and
why historians investigate, interpret, and write about the past, as well as contest
one another’s findings. Together we will expose some of the underlying, unspoken assumptions
and preoccupations that we bring with us to and which persist in the discipline. Students
are required to complete several written and oral assignments to hone their critical
thinking, writing, and presentation skills.
HIS 711
Research Seminar in History
Dr. Heather Stur
W 6:00-9:00PM
This course focuses on the craft of historical research and writing at the graduate
level. It is run as a writing workshop in which students present portions of their
writing each week. By the end of the semester, MA students will have written two thesis
chapters, and PhD students will have written a complete dissertation prospectus.
HIS 725
U.S. Historiography I Seminar
Dr. Kyle F. Zelner
TH 6:00-9:00pm
Historiographic study, or the study of the study of history, is an incredibly important
part of being a historian. Historians do not begin a single project without first
learning what came before—what other historians have said on the topic, how they said
it, and what the state of the field is at the moment. As beginning professional historians,
students will be expected to talk about the historical debates surrounding their topics
and how their work intersects with those debates. Students will be expected in their
classes, and especially during their comprehensive exams, not only to know what happened
in the past and why, but who argued what and the methods they used to come up with
those arguments. This course will start you down the historiographical road. We will
examine some of the main debates in early American history as a way to “jump start”
each student’s historiographical knowledge. Once students have successfully completed
this course, they will know some of the important highlights of the field—but also
come to the realization that they have just started what will likely be a lifelong
task.
Students in the class will read deeply and widely on each debate and will come to
class prepared to debate the topic at hand. NOTE: Students should come to the first
class before purchasing any books for the various weeks, as we will choose individual
books for the course during the first class meeting.
Assignments:
Students will write numerous book reviews, write a short historiographical paper,
lead a few and participate in all class discussions, and write a comprehensive exam-type
answer for their final exam.
Some of the topics we will explore:
-Native Americans, Contact, and Ethnohistory
-The Puritans of Colonial New England
- Slavery in the Colonial Chesapeake
-Coming of the Revolution
-Women in the Early Republic
-The Market Revolution
-Antebellum Slavery
-The Civil War: Who Fought and Why?
HIS 736
Seminar in Modern Military History
Dr. Bafumiki Mocheregwa
T 6:00-9:00PM
The 20th century witnessed a momentous surge in African nationalism, a powerful movement
that fueled the decolonization of the continent and became intricately intertwined
with the global power struggle of the Cold War. This confluence of forces had a profound
impact on the trajectory of Africa, shaping its political landscape, economic development,
and social fabric in ways that continue to resonate today. This course provides a
comprehensive examination of African nationalism, decolonization movements, and their
intersections with the dynamics of the Cold War. Students will explore the historical,
political, social, and economic factors that shaped the struggles for independence
in Africa from the late 1950s until the 1990s. Similarly, the course will help students
develop a full understanding of the historiography of Africa’s pre-and post-independence
era.
HIS 796
Practicum in the Teaching of History in Colleges and Universities
Dr. Kyle F. Zelner
T 2:30-5:15pm
Required for all first-time teaching and graduate assistants and optional for others,
this class is designed to encourage graduate students to think about the major issues
of teaching at the college level, both as teaching assistants and as independent instructors.
Different faculty members will visit to lead discussions on a different topic each
class period. The course covers basic issues of teaching and learning strategies,
classroom philosophy and management, technology in the classroom, testing and other
assignments, issues of diversity, effective classroom presentation, and how to construct
one’s own course.
Required Text:
Barbara Gross Davis, "Tools for Teaching," 2nd ed. Wiley: Jossey-Bass; 2009.
Assignments:
Students will engage in weekly discussions, write several short reaction papers, and
design and execute a sample lecture for an introductory History class.
HUM 501
Introduction to Digital Humanities
Dr. Patrick Hoehne
ONLINE CHAT
M/W 11:00AM-12:15PM
This graduate-level course serves an introduction to the digital humanities. You do
not need to have any computational or technical background to succeed in or benefit
from this class. You will, however, leave the class able to engage with, evaluate,
and use a robust suite of interdisciplinary digital tools and approaches. Over the
course of the semester, you will learn to map with geospatial software, perform network
analysis, create 3D scans using your smartphone, train machine learning models using
classic American literature, and more. This class is designed to appeal to a diverse
array of scholarly interests, and students can tailor their summative projects to
align with their own research. Taking both HUM 501 and HUM 501 makes you eligible
for the Digital Humanities Badge.