HST 102: America Since 1865

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This semester offers a broad look at the history of the United States in the 150 years from the end of the Civil War through the first decade of the 21st Century. Throughout the course, we will engage with the social, political, and cultural changes, ideas, and events that have profoundly shaped modern American society.

Key questions include: How have we defined being American? How has the nation’s relationship with the world changed?  How have the rights of citizens evolved over time? How have various groups in American society articulated their claims to citizenship and national belonging? What factors have affected the development of American political leadership?

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

HST 112: Napoleon to Present

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This course examines the major developments in European history since the late 18th century, including the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, the Industrial Revolution, imperialism, the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Fascist and Nazi seizures of power, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and European Unification. The thematic focus of this course is the relationship between the individual and the state. How does this relationship change over time – what makes it “modern”? To address this question, we will examine ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, socialism, nationalism, fascism), the birth of mass society, poverty, violence, women’s rights, and racism. There are two lectures and one discussion section per week. Discussions emphasize primary sources and historical debates. Grades are based on in-class exams, papers, and discussion.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern

HST 122: Global History: 1750-Present

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This course introduces students to global history beginning in 1750 by focusing on social, economic, political, intellectual and religious developments in major regions of the world: Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Beginning with the Mughal Empire in India, the Ottomans, and the empires of the New World, it will trace the growing interaction of these areas with Europe through colonialism and trade. From the age of revolutions to the age of empires and the age of nation-states, this course studies the relevance of the early modern world for understanding today’s global patterns and economic interdependency. We will explore twentieth-century developments including the spread of Marxism, secular nationalism, and decolonization. The course ends by looking at current issues in world history, including the environment, global capitalism, and religious revivalism. Topics will be covered thematically in general chronological order. Lectures will be supplemented by maps, visual materials, music, documentaries and films. All students are required to attend lectures and one discussion section a week. Students need not have taken HST 121 Global History to enroll.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

This course examines the history of the Indian Ocean World from the fifteenth century to the present. It focuses on the connections and networks that united societies around the ocean’s coasts, including those in Eastern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere. This course will show how climate, trade, religion, migration, and cultural exchange brought societies together in unique and important ways. The course will highlight the economic importance of Indian Ocean World societies to early modern and modern globalization, consider questions of identity in history, and look at the influence and limits of empire. It will also look at the broad changes and importance of the Indian Ocean World in twentieth-century global events, such as the World Wars, nationalism, decolonization, the Cold War, and Climate Change.  

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern 

Interested in the Middle East but not sure where to begin? This course is the perfect introduction to understanding a fascinating and dynamic part of the world today. It covers major aspects of Middle East history from the twentieth century to the present, including the countries from Turkey and Iran in the east, to Palestine, Israel, Syria and the Arabian Peninsula, and from Egypt across northern Africa to Morocco in the west. Lectures combine political basics with a insights on social and cultural life, and women’s rights. Readings blend specific details of political and economy change in each country while indicating broader regional trends, from as European imperialism, the impact of the two world wars, to revolutionary aspirations and radical social movement. These are supplemented by primary sources that incorporate the words, perspectives, and self-representations of individuals across the Middle East. Additional topics include intellectual life, constitutionalism and democracy, anti-colonial nationalism, feminism and women’s movements, the radical left, political Islam, and contemporary debates.

There are no prerequisites for this class.

This class meets twice a week, there is no discussion section.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern 

HST 210 (Online ONLY):The Ancient World

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This course surveys the history of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, and explores the classical roots of modern civilization. We will begin with the first civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the roots of western religion in ancient Israel; then proceed through Bronze Age, archaic and classical Greece, the Persian wars, the trial of Socrates, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic world, the rise of Rome, and end with the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity. The course will treat political, social, cultural, religious and intellectual history. We will focus on issues that the ancients themselves considered important – good and bad government, the duties of citizens and the powers of kings and tyrants – but we will also examine those who were marginalized by the Greeks and Romans: women, slaves, so-called "barbarians." The course will emphasize reading and discussion of primary sources, in order to provide a window into the thought-worlds and value systems of past societies.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

HST 211: Medieval and Renaissance Europe

*This course includes the lecture and a weekly discussion section. By enrolling in discussion, you automatically enroll in the lecture.

This introductory survey traces Europe’s transformation during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, from roughly 300 CE to roughly 1500 CE. It begins as the Roman Empire slowly gave way to new societies in both East and West, and then follows the fortunes of these societies over more than 1000 years. It explores the religious, political, economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and artistic aspects of these societies and how they changed over time. Readings will include both primary sources (those written at the time) and secondary sources (by modern scholars). Students will learn to analyze these sources in order to find out what happened in this period, how people understood events, and how historians use evidence to explain the past. Requirements include reading and participation, midterm and final exams, and two papers.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

This course is a survey of pre-modern African history, presenting an overview of the main themes and chronology of the development of African culture and society. It provides an exposition of the regional and continental diversity and unity in African political, economic, social and cultural histories with special emphasis on major African civilizations, processes of state formation, encounters with the Euro-Asia world, Africa’s role in the international Trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean and Atlantic trades, ecology, and urbanization.

This course considers the history of capitalism in the United States, exploring the nation from its origins as part of the British empire to its emergence as the world’s greatest financial power.  In it, students will explore how canals, turnpikes, and railroads transformed the nation’s transportation network.  They will discuss the rise of markets in cities and towns.  Students will explore the emergence of plantation slavery, making the South the center of a global market in cotton. The course discusses how technology reshaped manufacturing.  They will consider the development of an American working class and their protests against their treatment.  Students will learn about the rise of the modern corporation, banking, and the stock market.  And the class will discuss a range of additional themes, including law, war, regulation, consumerism, de-industrialization, and white-collar work.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Pre-Modern

Is there, as some historians have claimed, a distinctive ‘American way of war’ traceable over the four centuries since the beginning of the European colonization of North America? If so, what are its characteristics, how has it changed over time, and what does it reveal about a peculiar American attitude to state violence and the relationship between military and civilian society? In this course, we will examine the ‘small’ and ‘big’ wars of the United States from the colonial period to the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Syria. Class meetings will be a mixture of lectures and discussion. Students will complete a number of primary and secondary source readings. Assessment will be based on class discussion and several reading and writing assignments." 

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

Elizabeth I: Cultural icon? Virgin queen? ‘Father/Mother’ of the nation? This course will examine the images, personality, words and actions of one of the most important monarchs in English history. How did Elizabeth manage to negotiate her rule of a patriarchal society as a ‘weak-willed woman’? Did she exploit her considerable political skills to benefit the country or simply to maintain her position on the throne? And what of those who sort to assassinate or replace her? How did she react to threats of foreign invasion, domestic rebellion and a barely concerned hostility among many in the governing classes? Using both early modern and modern iconography, we will explore the images and representations of Elizabeth to unravel her life and examine how she sought to portray herself and how others have seen her through the years. 

How different might the world we live in today be if the ‘Atlantic World’ had not come into being? This course explores the long-term cross-cultural interactions and exchanges that shaped the Americas, Europe, and Africa from approximately 1450 until 1804. Conceiving of the Atlantic Ocean as an area of economic, political, cultural, and environmental interaction, we will trace the rise and circulation of commodities such as tobacco, rum, and sugar; the evolution of ideologies surrounding governance, trade, and equality; and the free and forced movement of peoples around the Atlantic basin. Rather than focusing on a particular empire or single part of the Atlantic World, our emphasis is on the emergence of ‘things’—whether commodities, cultures, or ideas—that are now so engrained in our everyday lives that we may give little thought to their historical origins and evolution.

The course has several inter-related goals. Through readings, lectures, in-class and online discussions, students are encouraged to reflect on the birth and evolution of the modern world. Students are also taught to think like a historian, and to translate the tools of historical inquiry into practical skills such as effective writing, public speaking, and editing. Finally, students are given the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the many academic resources available at SU, and to draw on these resources in order to improve research, oral and written communication skills.

Concentration: Global / Period: Pre-Modern  

M/W 12:45-2:05 and T/TH 12:30-1:50

What is History? How do scholars “do” history? This seminar introduces history majors to the methods and goals of historical study, and to the skills needed to conduct independent historical research. The first part of the course will be spent discussing what exactly history is and has been. We will then move on to discussing the kinds of history that have developed across the century in the American Historical profession. Finally, students will spend a large portion of the course familiarizing themselves with the analytical and practical skills needed to develop their own research projects. 

The course explores and analyzes the place of Africa and Africans as victims and players in historical events of global implications from the late nineteenth century (circa 1870) to the present. By utilizing interpretations from history of international relations, the course puts Africa and Africans at the center and periphery of these global currents as important role players and victims. Examples of  global events/processes examined include, but are not limited to: integration of Africa into global economies; nineteenth century European imperialism; Colonial Economies; Global conflicts; health and disease; environmental issues; the Cold War; decolonization; Neocolonialism; International institutions and Africa; the Development Question; global war on terror; to mention but a few. Readings combine primary documents with secondary sources.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern 

This course provides a survey of the most important political, cultural and social developments in the period between 300 and 900, or roughly between the reign of Constantine and end of the rule of the Carolingian kings, mostly focusing on Western Europe. In this period falls one of the most dramatic historical breaks: the “Fall of the Roman Empire” and the “Beginning of the Middle Ages.” But was there really a “Fall of the Roman Empire?” When, how and why did the Roman Empire come to an end? This still ferociously debated question will play a central role in the course. Other topics will be the rise of Christianity, the development of medieval institutions (such as kingship, church structures, and feudalism), and the continuity and discontinuity of intellectual traditions. A special emphasis will be laid on reading and interpreting (translated) primary sources and on methods of historical research.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

From revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, to mass protests in Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen, to the overthrow of the regime in Libya, this course offers an historical introduction to the Arab Revolutions of 2011. Was it a Facebook revolution? Who was Tweeting in Tahrir? What role did women play? And where exactly is Tunisia?

Beginning with extensive case studies of Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia since the 1950s followed by shorter case studies of Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, this course explores the social, economic, and political histories of each country to understand the contexts and reasons for the revolutions. Topics include postcolonial politics, anti-imperialism, socialism and socialist development, state feminism, neoliberalism and economic restructuring. Readings, lectures, and discussions consider the impact of broader transformations on rural communities, women, and the poor. Turning to the 2011 protests, we will discuss topics such as the demographic and social bases of these movements, their mobilization and communication through the internet, the dynamics of armed revolt, and the complexities of foreign intervention.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

This course will survey the history of China from the seventeenth century to the present. Our focus will be on revolution and reform: the primary means through which Chinese people responded to the challenges of a new world, and, most particularly, to Western encroachment and invasion. Topics to be considered in depth include:  politics and society under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911); the end of the dynastic system and the continuing quest for a viable political system; reform of Chinese culture through revolution; the challenge of changing old attitudes about gender roles; conflicting visions for the new nation; the critique of communism by dissident Chinese; the persistence and resurgence of traditional ways, and the renewed interest in Maoism during the 2000’s. Assigned readings include a slim textbook to provide chronology and a variety of historical materials including memoirs, fiction and poetry.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern

This course explores the subject of American sport as a lens through which to view race relations in U.S. History. Sports have long served as important symbolic sites of both resistance and assimilation for individuals from various racial and ethnic groups. Our readings and discussions will consider the role of individual athletes, key events, and sports as cultural and corporate institutions in an effort to understand how organized athletics have shaped racial identity and political protest in American history. Key topics will include how sport has influenced discourses of manhood/womanhood, citizenship, and power as we navigate the events, lives, and sociopolitical changes from the era of slavery to the present day.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

Grades will be based on exams, response papers, and participation in class discussions.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

Focusing on the past 150 years, this course is intended to provide an overview of women’s experiences in America from the Civil War to the present. While it is not a course on the history of feminism, it will be taught from a feminist perspective.  What does that mean?  Stated simply, in this class, women will be considered as subjects—as actors who themselves “make history”, and not simply as passive objects of the actions of others. Moreover, it assumes the full personhood of women, the reality of discrimination against women, and the intrinsic significance of women’s experience. Beyond that, it is not expected that students in the course will share the professor’s point of view on all matters (indeed, with any luck, the class will contain a healthy diversity of backgrounds and perspectives).

It should be understood from the outset that “American women’s history” is not monolithic. Therefore, we will pay considerable attention to the diversity among women and their experiences over time.  This diversity adds to the complexity of what we will be studying—but it also will add to the richness of understanding that I hope you will take away from this class. Student participation is not only welcome, but essential!

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

Survey of ancient Greek political, economic, social and cultural history based on interpretation of primary sources, both literary and archaeological, from the Bronze Age through Alexander the Great.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

This course examines the political, cultural and social history of Early Modern England. Topics covered will include the power and image of the monarchy (cases studies - Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Charles I); the role of the printing press in both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture; the impact of crime and the treatment of criminals; the importance of London as a center of commerce and culture; the myth and reality of Shakespeare and the role of the theater; witchcraft and the dominance of religion in everyday life; and the role of women in a patriarchal society. The course will emphasize reading, discussion, visual culture and the use of primary sources.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern 

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-Modern/Modern

In 1933, a radical and dictatorial regime came to power in Germany, remade the German state, and went on to orchestrate a vast program of mass murder in pursuit of a vision of biological purity and to launch a war of world conquest, ultimately killing millions. This course examines the history of German fascism, the Nazi state, and the Holocaust according to three primary lines of inquiry. In the first part of the course, we will address the question of how the Nazis came to power. What was Nazism, and why did it gain a popular following? Why did the Weimar Republic, the parliamentary democracy founded in 1918, fall (first to dictatorship and then to Nazism) in the early 1930s? In the second part of the course, we will examine the politics of Nazism in power. What was everyday life like for various Germans under the Nazi state, and why did many Germans come to support the regime? The course’s third section addresses war, genocide, and the legacies of Nazism and the Holocaust.  How did Nazi genocide policies develop, and how was it possible to implement them? What can the history of Nazi Germany teach us about other state-run mass murder programs?  How have Germans grappled with the aftermath of Nazi Germany?

Concentration: Europe / Period: Modern

Starting in 1095, Christian armies from Western Europe attacked groups they viewed as their religious enemies. These campaigns took place in what is now the Middle East, but also within Europe itself. By studying these campaigns, this course explores what the crusades were, why people fought them, and how they justified violence in the name of religion. In particular, the course investigates the ways in which crusaders dehumanized their enemies and depicted their own violent acts as holy. Students will read and analyze primary sources (those written at the time) in order to learn what happened and to explain how it happened. We will also consider the significance and legacy of these wars.

The course emphasizes critical reading and analysis, and writing. Each class will involve a combination of lecture and discussion. Careful reading and active participation in discussion are vital. Requirements include in-class debates, in-class exams, and a final paper. Fulfills the Critical Reflections requirement.

Concentration: Europe / Period: Pre-modern

American political thought from the Puritans to Lincoln. American Revolution, establishment of the Constitution, and Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian systems.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern 

This course addresses crime, deviance, and dissent in American history from the colonial period to the present, considering the ways in which the state has encouraged order and conformity among its constituents. We will examine how industrialization, immigration, urbanization, emancipation, and war transformed American society, causing the breakdown of older forms of social control such as church and community while producing significant discontented and dispossessed populations. This course also examines the expanding role of the state in controlling "deviant" behavior beginning in the late-nineteenth century and the reordering of legal priorities in the latter half of the twentieth century. Major topics include police, radicalism, alcohol, vice, sexuality, and organized crime.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern 

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern  

This seminar explores the inner-workings of the relationship between the United States and Mexico today. It does so by tracing the historical and contemporary shape of the two main pillars of this relationship, immigration and trade (both licit and illicit). Though we will pay special attention to the region straddling the 2,000-mile shared border, we will also draw on cases throughout both countries to illustrate the intertwined nature of this relationship. The seminar adopts a framework that recognizes the presence of official and unofficial actors and actions at every level. For example, we study the origins, implementation, and demise of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) alongside the development, growth, and adaptation of drug trafficking networks. We also pay careful attention to how documented and undocumented pathways of immigration have changed in the past four decades. With this groundwork in place, the seminar will then attempt to understand the ways in which bilateral negotiations between the US and Mexican governments played a role, both in the past and present, in the security crisis south of the border and the anti-immigrant sentiment prevalent in the US today.

The seminar will thus explore three specific sets of cross-border policies across three periods of time: the rise of economic neoliberalism and free trade through NAFTA; attempts to circumvent the security crisis brought on by the drug trade through the Merida Initiative; and, the US government’s implementation of border policing and immigration reforms intended to regulate and curtail the flows of humans. We will study what came before each one of these sets of policies, what led to their implementation, what were their results, how did they evolve across time, and what is their status today.

Concentration: Global / Period: Modern 

In this course we will look at how a variety of individuals used faith to help them negotiate the stresses and challenges of modernity in the years since World War II. Our readings will include persons of varying traditions, gender and sexual identities, ethnicities, etc. The emphasis will be on individual agency and the varieties of cultural contexts. Students will be expected to read extensively in common sources, to keep a reading journal, and also to produce a term project focusing on a theme of particular interest to them (conversion, apostasy, kyriarchy, disease, death, etc.). And, since this is a new course, there will be flexibility and openness to new approaches, even after the semester is underway.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern 

The Second World War may have ended seventy years ago, but its virtual reenactment on cinema and TV screens remains as popular today as it was in 1945. The war is perhaps the most prolifically filmed experience in human history, and our collective memories of it have been unalterably shaped by the output of Hollywood and the world’s other motion picture capitals. In this course, each student will choose a film or television series about the war (English or foreign-language) and will write an extended research paper about it, developing an argument which places it in its full historical context as both a document about the past and also a work of creative fiction or non-fiction. As preparation for this, as a class we will read and discuss a number of important theoretical works about ‘war movies’ and documentaries as a genre; we will also watch a number of films together in order to consider how filmmakers have addressed the problem of representing ‘the good war’ on screen. 

CONCENTRATION: U.S. or EUROPE or GLOBAL depending on the nature of the chosen final paper (discuss this with the instructor).

This is an advanced research and writing seminar on selected ideas/movements/episodes in cultural history, ancient and modern, as seen in images. Through close-reading, students investigate texts, images, and other cultural artifacts. Research centers especially on representations of the self, emotion, and the art of living as reflected in a range of primary sources, including philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and film. Secondary readings help students to situate their sources in time and place and to identify original research questions. Attention to each step of the project allows students to master such skills as the choice and proposal of topics, archival research (including digital), footnoting and use of evidence, bibliographical annotation, logical argumentation, revision of rough drafts, constructive critique of others’ work, and enhancement of the literary quality of their final papers.

Students produce a 25-30 page research paper on a subject of their choosing dovetailing with the course theme. This seminar is the capstone of the History major and required for History majors, yet open to students from other programs as well.

CONCENTRATION: U.S. or EUROPE or GLOBAL depending on the nature of the chosen final paper (discuss this with the instructor).

Myth and history of the Underground in the context of African American freedom efforts. Emphasis on events, personalities, and sites in upstate New York. Student field research and exploration of archival and Internet resources. Additional work required of graduate students.

Concentration: U.S. / Period: Modern 

Instructor Consent Required

Students doing the thesis will take 3 credits of HST 495 the first semester and 3 credits of HST 496 the second semester (2 semesters for a total of 6 credits), which may begin in their junior or senior year.  Students should register for HST 495 and 496 upon approval from the faculty advisor and Undergraduate Director.