HIS-0110 Origins of Our Culture
A study of the origins of our culture focusing on the history, religions, philosophies, and social beliefs of the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean basin and Asia. Featured topics include the cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia including the Hebrews, the Greek and Roman experiences, and the rise of Islamic religion and culture. 3 credits. This course fulfills a Global Awareness/Culture requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-H110 Origins of Our Culture
This course explores the origins of our culture by focusing
on the history, religions, philosophies, and social beliefs of the ancient
civilizations of the Mediterranean basin and Asia. Featured topics include the
cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia including the Hebrews, the Greek and Roman
experiences, and the rise of Islamic religion and culture. To fulfill the honors component of the course, students will
learn by reading and analyzing the works of contemporary ancient historians and
biographers including Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Plutarch, Suetonius, and
others, and will be expected to make presentations and write short papers about lives and times of
each. Prerequisite: students must meet the UC
qualifications for the Honors Program. 3 credits. This course fulfills a Global Awareness/Culture requirement
in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0200 History of the United States to 1877
A survey of major themes in American history from the colonial period to the end of the Reconstruction. No prerequisite. Offered every other year, fall semester. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0201 History of the United States Since 1877
A survey of major themes in American history in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. No Prerequisite. Offered every other year, spring semester. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s general education program.
HIS-0230 Special Topics
This course covers current issues and hot topics in History. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 1, 2, or 3 credits.
HIS-0231 History of Women in America 1600 to 1865
This course will use the experiences of women through the lens which we examine the history of America from settlement by Europeans to the Civil War. Topics to be covered include changing conditions and ideas about unpaid housework and paid work; relations between different groups of women and the way relations of power have shaped these interactions; the ongoing political struggle to gain increased civil and political rights; and changing notions of “proper” roles for women, especially regarding sexuality. We will consider which ideas and assumptions within American culture have changes and which have stayed the same. No prerequisite. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Multiculturalism and Gender requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0232 History of Women in America 1865 to the Present
This course will use the experience of women as the lens through which we examine the history of America from the end of the civil war until the present. Topics to be covered will include the changing conditions and ideas about unpaid housework and paid work; relations between different groups of women and the way relations of power have shaped these interactions; the ongoing political struggle to gain increased civil and political rights; and changing notions of “proper” roles for women, especially regarding sexuality. We will consider which ideas and assumptions within American culture have changes and which have stayed the same. No prerequisite. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Multiculturalism and Gender requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-S235 Service Learning in History
This Service Learning course allows students to fulfill their experiential learning requirement by participating in a project in the community that is integrated into a History course. No prerequisite. Offered occasionally. 1 credit. This course fulfills the Enacting the Core/Experiential Learning
requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0250 Emergence of the European World
A political, cultural, and intellectual history of Europe from 1500 to 1815. Topics covered include the Reformation, scientific and technological change, the rise of international politics, and the French Revolution. No prerequisite. Offered every other year, fall semester. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0251 Europe Since Napoleon
A consideration of the political, social, economic, and intellectual development of the European world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics studied include the Industrial Revolution, the rise of liberal and socialist thought, and the world wars and their impact. No prerequisite. Offered every other year, spring semester. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Developing the Core/Humanities requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0271 Beyond Salsa: Latinas and Latinos in United States History
What is Latino? What is Latina? What historical forces in the American experience have brought together peoples and communities as diverse as, for instance, Chicanas from Los Angeles, Cuban Americans from Miami, and Dominican Americans and Puerto Ricans from New York City? Beginning in the sixteenth century and stretching to the present, this course will map the varied terrains of Latina/o history, exploring the Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and Dominican American experiences in New Mexico, California, Texas, New York, the Midwest, and Florida. No prerequisite. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Multiculturalism and Gender requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0273 Ethnicity in American History
America’s cultural identity embraces people of diverse backgrounds including many groups that we think of as having no “ethnic identity” since ethnicity has become synonymous with discourses of race in this country. This course will attempt to tease out the more complicated arguments underlying these national discussions by exploring how many “ethnic” groups, such as Irish Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, and Jewish Americans, who were identified as ethnically “distinct” in the 19th and early 20th century America, and came to be seen as “white” or having “no” ethnicity by the mid-20th century. No prerequisite. 3 credits. This course fulfills the Multiculturalism and Gender requirement in the Undergraduate College’s general education program.
HIS-0274 Skill Building for Fun and Profit
How can studying history prepare you for your future career? That is the question that is explored in this skills-based course. There are no tests or quizzes in this offering. Instead, students will receive hands-on assistance in learning valuable skills that will serve them well in the marketplace. Among the skills to be explored are how to conduct basic research, framing questions for research papers, and advanced presentation skills. In the last weeks, students will explore careers that deal with these skills and create strategies to increase their chances of finding employment in area of their choice. Although this course focuses on the History discipline, the lessons learned in it can be applied in many majors across the curriculum, and students from all majors are welcome. No prerequisite. 3 credits.
HIS 0280 19th Century Social Movements
This course presents a survey of major social movements in the United States during the 19th Century. This course examines several important social movements by women, and is intended to provide students with an understanding of the significance of social movements in the U.S. history, as well as introduce students to different theoretical approaches to studying social movements. No prerequisite. 3 credits.
HIS-0285 20th Century Social Movements in the United States
This course presents a survey of major social movements in the United States during the 20th Century. This course is intended to provide students with an understanding of the significance of social movements in U.S. history, as well introduce students to different theoretical approaches to studying social movements. No prerequisite. 3 credits.
HIS-0306 Kaiserreich to Third Reich – Germany Since 1871
An in-depth study of the history of Germany from the unification under Kaiser Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismarck to the reunification in 1990. Special emphasis is placed on the impact of the First World War, the cultural legacy of the Weimar Republic, and the socio-intellectual climate that gave rise to Nazism. No prerequisite. Offered every other year, fall semester. 3 credits.
HIS-0307 Nazi Germany
An intensive study of the causes and course of the German National Socialist movement. Emphasis is placed on the social and intellectual dimensions of Nazism and Hitler’s role in European and world history, World War II, and the Holocaust. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0323 History of Islam: General Survey
A survey of Islamic history with an emphasis on the development of Muslim religious and political institutions and the efforts of contemporary Muslim societies to bring those institutions into harmony with the altered conditions of modern times. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0337 History of Childbirth in America
In this seminar, we will examine childbirth in the United States from the colonial period to today. We will explore how control of childbirth has moved from women themselves to medical professionals. We will discuss the ways in which women have sought to re-assert control of childbirth in recent years. We will examine how a woman's religious, socio-economic, and ethnic status influence the experience of childbirth in various historical epochs. Students will work with both primary and secondary sources to complete an extensive term paper. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0345 Environmental History
This course explores the history of the American environment and the ways in which different cultural groups have perceived, used, managed, and conserved it from colonial times to the present. Cultures include American Indians and European and African Americans. Natural resources development includes gathering-hunting-fishing; farming, mining, ranching, forestry, and urbanization. Changes in attitudes and behaviors toward nature, past and present conservation, and environmental movements are also examined. No prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits. This course
fulfills the Sustainability requirement in the Undergraduate College’s General Education program.
HIS-0349 History for Science Majors (and others)
This course will examine the history of civilization through the lens of scientific and technological achievement. The main goal is to present scientific achievements in the context of the historical realities of the time of discovery, and not just western science but Islamic and Asian, where appropriate. Among the topics shall be: Egyptian science and technology; time keeping and calendar making; Thales and the Greeks; Roman technological achievement; Medieval alchemy, the scientific revolution (Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton); modern sanitation and medicine, including public health; penicillin and modern drug creation; the rise of modern chemistry; Einstein and Heisenberg; and Watson and Krick’s double helix. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0359 Radicals and Reactionaries
A study of how Europeans responded to the social and economic inequalities created by the industrial age. Topics to be discussed include utopian socialism of Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, Marxism and anarchism, the nature of nineteenth-century conservatism, social Darwinism, and the origins of fascism. No prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits.
HIS-0362 Who Started the Great War?
Students make decisions of war and peace in real time by role-playing as leaders of the major European nations from 1908 to 1914. Thrust into a simulation of the tense pre-war international scene, students will be forced to respond to the crises that led up to the war and in the process discover the role of diplomacy and nationalism played in the coming of Great War. Ultimately, students will come to some conclusions as to how wars are started and who is “at fault” for starting them. No prerequisite. Offered every other year. 3 credits.
HIS-0363 Europe Since 1945
A survey of the political, social, and economic trends that have shaped the present European community. Topics studied include post-war reconstruction, the rise of the common market, unity and diversity on both sides of the “Iron Curtain,” the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, and the collapse of communism. No prerequisite. Offered every other year, fall semester. 3 credits.
HIS-0365 The Middle East in World Affairs
An analysis of the historic role of the Middle East in world affairs and the changes wrought in the area by the constantly changing patterns of world politics and international ideological conflicts. The Middle East, for this purpose, will be taken to mean the world of Islam in general, including the countries of North Africa, Western Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Different specific areas, movements, or conflicts may be chosen for special attention. No prerequisite. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0375 Making America Modern: Ideas and Ideals
What historical forces have shaped the society we live in today? This course explores trends in American artistic, political, and social practices over the past century in order to understand the culture of the modern United States. No prerequisite. 3 credits.
HIS-0389 History of the Family in America
This course focuses on how Americans from diverse backgrounds have organized their sexual, reproductive, and social lives within the institution known as the family. Particular attention will be paid to the ways that experiences of the family differ along lines of class, race, ethnicity, and region. We will also consider changes over time to definitions of sexuality, expectations for reproduction, to prescriptive gender roles and gender ideologies, and to the sexual division of labor. Drawing on a variety of primary sources rooted in private life (diaries, letters, memoirs) as well as the social history, we will emphasize above all efforts by individuals to shape their lives, their communities, and American society more generally. No prerequisite. 3 credits.
HIS-0390 Special Topics in European History
Examination of the ideas or topics of interest in European History. Prerequisite: History Major or Minor Status. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0395 Special Topics in American History
Examination of selected ideas or topics of interest in American History. Prerequisite: History major or minor status. Offered as needed. 3 credits.
HIS-0451 Historians and Their Craft
An investigation of the ways historians collect, process, and disseminate information. No prerequisite. Offered spring semester. 3 credits
HIS-0480 Independent Study
Arranged on an individual basis. Prerequisite: permission of instructor. 1 to 3 credits.
HIS-0482 Internship
Supervised experience in an institution, corporation, or agency that serves the public in cultural, political and/or historical areas. Interns in the Philadelphia metropolitan area will work with an on-site supervisor in cooperation with the director of the History Internship Program. Interns placed through the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Internship Program will be supervised and evaluated according to the conditions of the particular internship. Prerequisite: Junior or Senior History major status and permission of Discipline Chair. Credits to be arranged depending on the breadth and duration of the internship as documented in the internship contract. 1 to 3 credits.