This graduate-level seminar provides an overview of innovative works in the overlapping histories of modern Japan and Korea. We will read both “classic” and recent works that will help us analyze the following: 1) trends in the historiographies of Japan and Korea; 2) analytical, conceptual, and political challenges in the writing of Japanese/imperial and Korean/colonial history; and 3) recent global, microhistorical, and transnational methodologies. Discussions will focus as much on the craft of writing history as on the content of it.

• Days/Times: M 9:30AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Kim, Yumi
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Formed against the backdrop of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Orientalism and colonialism, the field of Islamic art history continues to grapple with the overwhelmingly Eurocentric assumptions, narratives, and approaches that shaped its emergence and development. These inherited perspectives and the debates they have sparked are the focus of this seminar, which critically examines the foundational characterizations of Islamic art—as ornamental, iconophobic, and timelessly other—together with the exhibitory, commercial, and scholarly contexts in which such ideas took root. Adopting a simultaneously thematic and chronological approach, the seminar will trace the ways in which diverse constellations of actors—including those from within the Islamic world itself—have variously established, consolidated, or challenged the field’s underlying concepts. We will explore how this discursive process has intensified in our own time, in which a spate of scholarly and popular treatments have laid bare the tension between calls to reevaluate the field and an enduring impulse to reinscribe its established contours. Alois Riegl, Oleg Grabar, Gülru Necipoğlu, Yasser Tabbaa, and Wendy Shaw are among the authors whose writings will be assessed and compared. Throughout the seminar, we will ground our historiographical inquiry in discussions of specific works and categories of Islamic art—particularly those like carpets that traditional frameworks have fetishized as decorative—and consider more fruitful avenues for addressing such material, making use of local collections to the extent that we can.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Rustem, Unver
• Room: Gilman 177
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

An advanced graduate seminar devoted to the study and discussion of various early modern heretical groups and movements.

• Days/Times: W 6:00PM - 8:30PM
• Instructor: Maciejko, Pawel Tadeusz
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Reading seminar on the state of the field in Early American History – mostly covering North America with some emphasis on transnational connections. Course is open to graduate students in history and other disciplines.

• Days/Times: W 2:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Furstenberg, Francois
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Writing workshop for graduate students at all stages presenting work in progress. Discussion of theories, methods, and challenges of graduate student writing.

• Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:00PM
• Instructor: Furstenberg, Francois
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/8
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar explores the black intellectual tradition through a range of reading, both from historical intellectuals, artists, and activists and studies of those figures. The readings will draw from across the disciplines and multiple genres, and explore some of the key concepts, movements, and interventions that have helped shape a broadly understood project of Black Study. We will focus primarily on black intellectuals from the Caribbean and the United States, with particular attention, though not singular, to the twentieth century.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Makalani, Minkah
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Graduate course in foundational texts in the history of religion in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean.

• Days/Times: W 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Noor, Rao Mohsin Ali
• Room: Gilman 314
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/6
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar introduces History doctoral students to archival methods and other scholarly approaches critical to the development of History as an academic discipline over the past two centuries. More broadly, the course prepares students to analyze and to pose the kinds of far-reaching and complex questions that sit at the heart of any dissertation or monographic study. This course is for History graduate students only.

• Days/Times: Th 10:00AM - 12:30PM
• Instructor: Lim, Julian; Lurtz, Casey Marina
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/18
• PosTag(s): n/a

Summer graduate independent research under a faculty advisor. For History Graduate Students only.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Lester, Anne E.
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 28/80
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course explores the interplay between the development of the colonial and post-colonial city and the emergence of popular cultures in Africa. Because the field of popular cultures is deeply interdisciplinary, this course draws on disciplines such as history, anthropology, literary studies, linguistics and others to illuminate the power of expressive urban cultures in the ways in which African societies have used them to cope with colonial change and modernity. It is organized around reading modules that focus on music, cinema, theater, religious movements, fashion, recycled art and sports. We will read a variety of texts from noted specialists in the field of popular cultures. As we examine the criteria each scholar establishes to determine the nature, content and social significance of popular cultures within the African context, participants will be encouraged to develop their own theoretical perspectives or, at the very least, a set of criteria for developing an encompassing interpretive theory of popular cultures.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 3:30PM
• Instructor: Gondola, Didier Didier
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course explores the practice of writing and reading the history of African Americans and the wider African Diaspora. Participants will share written work and do close readings of primary and secondary texts exploring the black experience in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

• Days/Times: T 12:00PM - 2:00PM
• Instructor: Jones, Martha Suzanne
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

The Environment and Geography Seminar provides space for PhD students and professors to present works in progress. The goal is to bring together researchers in the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities who work on the environment. In the 1990s, Donald E. Worster outlined two basic approaches to environmental studies: studying how cultures shape environments and how environments shape cultures. Since then, environmental studies scholars have attempted to synthesize these two approaches. Their key insight is that cultural and environmental change should be studied together, not separately. In that spirit, we convene this seminar so that scholars in the physical and social sciences can think together about how economic, social, and political systems interact with the environment (and vice versa). This seminar is open to researchers and students with an interest in agriculture, food, pollution, industrial waste, sustainability, energy policy, green growth/degrowth, epidemiology, conservation, more-than-human studies, biodiversity, deep-time, planetary systems, environmental justice, and climate change.

• Days/Times: F 11:30AM - 1:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 17/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

An examination of the works of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, as examples of the Hegelian, positivist, and hermeneutic traditions of social theory.

• Days/Times: T 10:00AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Jelavich, Peter
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in 20th century history. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

We will read and discuss recent work on nineteenth-century France, the French-dominated empire, and other “French” histories.

• Days/Times: W 12:00PM - 2:00PM
• Instructor: Shepard, Todd
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Workshop for presentation of works-in-progress on the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality, including drafts of dissertation chapters, research papers, talks, and proposals. Students in disciplines other than history are welcome.

• Days/Times: T 2:00PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 13/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course features presentations from invited speakers. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 25/50
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Medieval European History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Early Modern European History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Modern European History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

A seminar series in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in African History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: F 3:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Thornberry, Elizabeth
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

A seminar series in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Asian History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: F 10:00AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The graduate workshop allows students, both the first-year cohort and all the graduate students in the department(s) as a group, to meet to discuss themes, topics, concerns, approaches, ideas, methods, and insights together and thus to build a sense of community, cohesiveness, and cooperation within the program and the department as a whole. This course is for History graduate students only.

• Days/Times: M 12:00PM - 1:30PM
• Instructor: Jones, Martha Suzanne
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 16/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

The first part of a two-semester graduate seminar discussing major works on various aspects of early modern British history.

• Days/Times: F 12:00PM - 2:30PM
• Instructor: Marshall, John W
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

This reading seminar will introduce graduate students and advanced undergraduates (by permission) to recent English-language scholarship in the field (mostly) of early modern Chinese history.

• Days/Times: Th 12:00PM - 2:50PM
• Instructor: Meyer-Fong, Tobie
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/7
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Lurtz, Casey Marina
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Writing workshop for graduate students at all stages presenting work in progress. Discussion of theories, methods, and challenges of graduate student writing.

• Days/Times: Th 11:45AM - 1:30PM
• Instructor: Furstenberg, Francois
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Maciejko, Pawel Tadeusz
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar engages graduate students with recent historiography on Gender and Sexuality in the context of Britain and the British Empire. Subthemes include labor history, the history of technology, trans studies, and urban history.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Hindmarch-Watson, Katherine Anne
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/6
• PosTag(s): n/a

Small intensive group reading: the course is primarily intended for students working on their graduate field lists. Other formats are possible with permission of the instructor.

• Days/Times: W 2:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Furstenberg, Francois
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

An interdisciplinary seminar on Latin America’s role in wider cultural, economic, and political processes, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. In Fall 2024 we will take up the themes of aesthetics, epistemic pluralism, and the question of reality.

• Days/Times: W 2:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Angelini, Alessandro; Nogueira, Marcelo
• Room: Mergenthaler 439
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Lim, Julian
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Rowe, William T
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

The Environment and Geography Seminar provides space for PhD students and professors to present works in progress. The goal is to bring together researchers in the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities who work on the environment. In the 1990s, Donald E. Worster outlined two basic approaches to environmental studies: studying how cultures shape environments and how environments shape cultures. Since then, environmental studies scholars have attempted to synthesize these two approaches. Their key insight is that cultural and environmental change should be studied together, not separately. In that spirit, we convene this seminar so that scholars in the physical and social sciences can think together about how economic, social, and political systems interact with the environment (and vice versa). This seminar is open to researchers and students with an interest in agriculture, food, pollution, industrial waste, sustainability, energy policy, green growth/degrowth, epidemiology, conservation, more-than-human studies, biodiversity, deep-time, planetary systems, environmental justice, and climate change.

• Days/Times: F 11:30AM - 2:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 16/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Shepard, Todd
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

Fall practicum for History TA enrollment only (register under the faculty member’s section for which you will serve as a fall TA).

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Harms, Victoria Elisabeth
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/5
• PosTag(s): n/a

The Black World Seminar explores historical approaches to the study of African-descended people and analyzes processes of racial formation responsible for producing “blackness,” a human invention, as a social fact. This specific iteration of Black World will consider the role of political economy in shaping the life-worlds of Africans and those living throughout the African Diaspora.

• Days/Times: T 12:00PM - 2:30PM
• Instructor: Johnson, Jessica Marie
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in 20th century history. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly

• Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A seminar series in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in African History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: F 3:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This seminar investigates US trans history through the prism of the welfare state. Readings will prioritize the analysis of class, political economy, and labor to make sense of gender’s material functions, practices of transition, and the maneuvers and aims of policy and statecraft. The course will ultimately explore why a tiny population has become a significant object of welfare state management since the New Deal.

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Gill Peterson, Jules
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 1/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Early Modern European History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

An examination of modern cultural theories, with emphasis on mass culture and consumerism. Authors include Simmel, Kracauer, Benjamin, Horkheimer, Adorno, Barthes, Debord, Bourdieu, and de Certeau.

• Days/Times: M 9:30AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Jelavich, Peter
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Backer, Samuel Ehrlich; Messner, Craig A
• Room: Maryland 114
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 7/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

Workshop for presentation of works-in-progress on the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality, including drafts of dissertation chapters, research papers, talks, and proposals. Students in disciplines other than history are welcome. Graduate students only.

• Days/Times: T 2:30PM - 5:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course features presentations from invited speakers. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 4:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 17/40
• PosTag(s): n/a

A one semester graduate seminar discussing major works of early modern British and early modern British imperial history.

• Days/Times: F 12:00PM - 3:00PM
• Instructor: Marshall, John W
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

A seminar series in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in American History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The intention of the graduate workshop is to allow students, both the first-year cohort and all the graduate students in the department(s) as a group, to meet to discuss themes, topics, concerns, approaches, ideas, methods, and insights together and thus to build a sense of community, cohesiveness, and cooperation within the program and the department as a whole. We will meet for an hour on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to engage in discussion. Occasionally there may be related readings, first-year paper drafts, or common materials that you will be asked to read, edit, or engage with in advance of the workshop meeting, but I will let you know when that is the case. You may also be asked to present comments, questions, reflections, and sometimes written feedback on shared materials or to share drafts of your cv, cover letters, proposals and the like for comment and feedback. The goal of the workshop is to provide a shared space that is informative and supportive for our graduate student community and that will enrich your experience in the department.

• Days/Times: M 12:00PM - 1:30PM
• Instructor: Jones, Martha Suzanne
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 16/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

We will read and discuss recent monographs and historiographical essays that emerge from and inform French history, with particular attention transnational, imperial, Mediterranean, international, and colonial frames and questions.

• Days/Times: T 10:00AM - 12:30PM
• Instructor: Shepard, Todd
• Room: Gilman 305
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Modern European History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A graduate workshop in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Medieval European History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:30PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 308
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

A seminar series in which graduate students, faculty, and invited speakers present their latest research results in Asian History. Q&A, with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual discussions, and written and oral presentations. Course may not meet weekly.

• Days/Times: Th 10:30AM - 12:00PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Mergenthaler 526
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

The second in a two-semester graduate sequence, this course will be for graduate students and faculty to collaboratively workshop their own research and writing on topics related to Latin American studies.

• Days/Times: Th 10:30AM - 12:30PM
• Instructor: Cotler, Angelina
• Room: Mergenthaler 266
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Lippincott, Tom; Sirin Ryan, Hale
• Room: Krieger 304
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a