HI: History

HI 200 — Queer Work: A Research Seminar in LGBTQ Business and Labor History

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Students use archival research and oral history to document the work and careers of LGBTQ+ people over the past 100 years.

HI 201 — Classics in African American History

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Slavery and emancipation, Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights Movement—stories of Africa’s descendants in the United States have inspired legendary works of history. Students will consider the narrative, research, and literary strategies of some great books from the past two centuries.

HI 202 — U.S. History: Civil War-Present

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course offers a brief view of American geography, economics, and government and a focused examination of social, political, and economic experience from the Civil War to the present. Students are introduced to basic historical methodology and learn to apply these techniques through critical reading, analytical writing, and verbal presentations.

HI 203 — Distant Neighbors: A History of Latin America and the U.S.

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course compares the histories of Latin America and the United States from pre-Columbian times to the 20th century. Students learn about the deep influence of the United States in Latin American economies, politics, and culture, especially after the United States' independence, when American democracy became a political model for the former Spanish American colonies.

HI 204 — Leisure in America

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course examines the emergence and changing role of leisure and its relation to work in the United States from the late 19th century to the present. Situating leisure within its specific social, economic, and political contexts, students explore the complex intersection of factors and forces that have shaped conceptions and practices of leisure in American life through primary and secondary texts, both written and visual.

HI 205 — American Business from Slavery to the Present

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

A defining experience of the last millennium, and possibly the next, is the rise of big business in the U.S. Students learn a general history of entrepreneurship in America and a series of case studies about government regulation, labor relations, and other topics.

HI 206 — Pasts in the Present: Modern Chinese History since 1800

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course introduces students to modern Chinese history as well as ways through which one can examine and understand the historical roots of current affairs in and related to China. Two major themes are: changes and continuity in modern China, and China in the world. (G9: Other World Civilizations).

HI 207 — Hollywood: A History

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Film is the most collaborative artform. Learn the history of all those people working together—immigrant backgrounds, new occupations, changing technologies, growing corporations, regulation, unionization, palace movie theaters and the challenge from television, VCRs, DVDs and streaming services. Guests from industry share their experiences.

HI 208 — American History through Fabric, Fashion, and Dress

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

The history of the United States—democracy, capitalism, social movements, mass immigration—can be told from many points of view. Students study American history, from the Civil War to the beginning of 21th Century, from the perspective of the design, manufacture, and consumption of fabric, fashion, and dress.

HI 209 — Fashion and Slavery

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course examines the politics of fashion among people of African descent during slavery and the period immediately following emancipation. Geographical breadth is crucial to examining the African Diaspora in its full complexity; therefore, course material will cover the United States, Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and even Europe.

HI 210 — Sales and Service in World History

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Sales and service shape our lives. From ancient markets to QR-coded coffeeshops, learn about customer service, labor relations, sourcing, marketing, and unionizing over the past two thousand years, especially the past two hundred. See how styles of sales and service teach us new ways to be human.

HI 211 — Modern American History Through Food

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course examines how the production, distribution, consumption and evolution of food has shaped the history of modern America. Students will explore how diverse “foodways” have shaped capitalism, economic power, social relations, cultural traditions, government, business institutions, labor organizations, and globalization from 1865 to the present.

HI 212 — America at Night

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Nights are different. Throughout American history, nighttime has been more fun, dangerous, and revealing of our unconscious. Learn about electric light and its historical consequences: 24-hour manufacturing, new leisure activities, changes in sexual and gender practices. Learn to help people suffering common afflictions of the night: depression, addiction, isolation.

HI 213 — Crime, Police, and Prisons in American History

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

What should be illegal, and who should decide? How should societies police and punish lawbreakers? Students learn the history of crime, police, punishment and rehabilitation over three centuries, focusing on theories of crime and policing, racism, civil rights, sex, drugs, and the rise and fall of violent crime.

HI 214 — Career Networking: Lessons from the Past for Your Future

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This class spans centuries and the globe to show business and career networks as circles of trust that include, discriminate, and challenge people’s civil rights as they constitute modern capitalism. Learn how those on the outside forced their way in and built their own networks. Build your own networking skills.

HI 280 — Special Topics in History Studies

0 credits

HI 280A — Special Topic: Crime, Police, and Prisons in American History

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

HI 391 — U.S. History and Culture: 1860 to Present

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Major historic events and developments in the United States history from 1860 to the present are examined in the context of their impact on the country's government, politics, and culture. Works by painters, photographers, sculptors, advertisers, dancers, musicians, novelists, filmmakers, and dramatists are used to broaden the study of U.S. history. (G10: American History).

HI 393 — New York City and the Invention of America (Honors)

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Students learn the history of America from the Civil War to the present, through the lens of its greatest metropolis. Readings stress the roles that New York has played as innovator, counterpoint, and despised exception in the culture, economics, politics, and technology of the U.S. Students develop skills in basic primary research, public speaking, reading comprehension, and writing and revising. (G10: American History).

HI 394 — Rebellion and Resistance in America (Honors)

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

This course examines the social, cultural, and political types of rebellion and resistance from their historical roots in Colonial and Revolutionary America to their modern and contemporary forms in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students analyze the tactics, strategies, and objectives of individual and collective action from across the political spectrum.

HI 395 — Big Ideas in History: Smith, Darwin, Marx, Freud (Honors)

3 credits; 3 lecture hours

Students learn Western history through the lens of the Big Four of modern thought-Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. They use their ideas to grapple with European and American history from the Age of Empire to the birth of modern business, politics, and people.