Department of History

Survey of the peoples, cultures, and social, economic, and political systems that have characterized the world’s major civilizations in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania from 1700 to present. Satisfies General Education Requirements: Area E: Culture and Thought, European Traditions, and Writing

Survey of the history of Europe in the Medieval and Early Modern periods, 800-1700. Discusses the major social, political, religious, and cultural characteristics and developments of the period, as well as key interactions between Europe and other parts of the world. Weekly discussion sections are an important feature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presented during the lecture hour.

Satisfies General Education Requirements: Area E: Culture and Thought, European Traditions, and Writing

Survey of the history of Modern Europe, 1650-present. Discusses the major social, political, religious, and cultural characteristics and developments of the period, as well as key interactions between Europe and other parts of the world. Weekly discussion sections are an important feature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presented during the lecture hour.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:
Area E: Culture and Thought
European Traditions
Writing

A survey of the leading issues in American life from World War I to the present. The course focuses on politics, cultural development, social conflict, economic life, foreign policy, and influential ideas. Features discussion sections.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:
Area D: Social Science
American History and Institutions
Writing

Modern Iranian history from the 1906 Constitutional Revolution to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the post- revolutionary years. Shi’i Islam, the rise of nationalism, the quest for modernization, democracy and authoritarianism, and imperialism and politics of oil.

Same course as RG ST 81

1945 to present. History 49-A- B-C is a general survey course designed to introduce students to major themes in African history. The course focuses on colonialism and decolonization, nationalism and self-liberation, development and neocolonialism, Cold War contexts, as well as African experiences of independence and the everyday in our contemporary, global world. Weekly discussion sections are an important feature of this course, enabling students to develop and expand upon material presented during lecture.

Same course as Black Studies 49C

An introduction to the basic issues and themes of Mexican history, from the pre-Hispanic era to the present.

Exploration of same-sex behavior in ancient Greek, pre-modern Oceania, medieval Europe, modern Africa, and North America. Introduction to the theoretical questions in the study of sexuality and how scholars have used these tools.

Examines history of science and technology during the Cold War, with primary focus on the United States. Topics examined include: science/state relationship, arms race, the military-industrial-academic complex, Big Science, government secrecy, McCarthyism, the space race, environmentalism.

Explores the turbulent, contested, and colorful history of human interactions with wild animals in North America from the Pleistocene to the present. Readings will explore historical changes in science, politics, law, management, and cultural ideas about nature.

Same course as ENV S 108W

Undergraduate research seminar focusing on ancient Greece and West Asia. Students select research topic in consultation with instructor, conduct individual research, write multiple paper drafts, and submit final research paper of 15-20 pages

Family structure; perceptions and ideals of intimate and familial relations; status, perceptions, and experiences of women in Western Europe c. 400-1400 A.D. Special attention on social, political, and religious contexts.

Through original texts and historical commentary, seminar explores individual lived experiences, as manifested through issues of popular and elite cultures, witchcraft, gender relations, nobility, and law.

The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation in Europe. Through a close analysis of selected primary sources, students will gain a deeper knowledge of the theological, political and cultural impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in a transnational perspective.

After examining developments during the last years of World War II, this course traces the histories of East and West Germany from 1945 to unification in 1989.

Research seminar on topics in German history from 1800 to the present, or in the history of genocide.

A history of England from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:
Writing

Research in modern British social, cultural, economic, and political history. Students will conduct historical research in a seminar context, using both primary and secondary source materials, to produce an original and substantial research paper.

A survey of Middle Eastern history from the rise of the Safavid Empire in Iran and the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluk Empire until the French occupation of Egypt and the first Ottoman attempts at modernizing reform.

A seminar on a topic in African history. A research paper is required.

Africa is the only continent with a Muslim majority. More than a quarter of the world’s Muslims live in Africa—mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Americans tend to associate Islam with Arabs, but Africans greatly outnumber Arabs in the religion. There are more Muslims in Nigeria than in Egypt, more in Ethiopia than Iraq. 1/6th of the world’s Muslims reside in sub-Saharan Africa. How did this come to be? How has the adoption of Islam by Africans shaped their history? And, conversely, how have Africans shaped Islam? We will answer these questions by exploring 14 centuries of Islamic African history. But this is not only a history course. We will also explore Islam as a system of religious meaning by studying the teachings and writings of African

All colonial projects had to face the problem of linguistic differences. The ways in which they did so varied widely and are very revealing of their different ambitions, ideological foundations, and local circumstances. Explores the history of colonialism in the Atlantic World comparatively from the perspective of language, from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, in the Americas, Africa, and Europe.

Recommended Preparation: HIST 9 or WRIT 109HU 

Explores the intersectionality of honor, gender, race, and class during the colonial period and the nineteenth century, in the Americas, with an emphasis in Iberoamerica. Looks into the ways in which these notes, ideas, or concepts served as a metaphor for policies, rights, inclusion, and discrimination. Through the reading of secondary and primary sources, we explore ways in which women and men from different backgrounds and ethnicities negotiated, internalized and resisted hegemonic, imposed assumptions about their honor or lack of it. Lastly, we consider ways in which the sequels of these assumptions linger up to the present and shape the way we perceive one another.

A continuation of History 159B to the present.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:
Area D: Social Science
American History and Institutions
Writing

The history of the U.S. Supreme Court, legal thought, legal education and the legal profession since the late nineteenth century.

Readings and assignments assist students in using historical/social science methods to develop a 20-page research paper on some aspect of their internship.

A survey of American workers from the turn of the century to the present period. Topics include workers and American socialism, the 1919 steel strike, the rise of the CIO, labor and the cold war, and deindustrialization and workers.

The history of migration to the United States by Arabs, Persians, and other peoples of the Middle East; the communities they have built; their families, social, cultural, and religious lives; relationships with other Americans; and ongoing links to the Middle East.

Traces the history of American attitudes and behavior toward nature. Focus on wilderness, the conservation movement, and modern forms of environmentalism.

Changing patterns and conceptions of inequality, seventeenth century to present. Examines influence of economic transformation, race, gender, class, attitudes towards work and welfare, social movements, social knowledge, law and public policy on opportunity, income, status, and power.Divides at Civil War and World War II.

Changing patterns and conceptions of inequality, seventeenth century to present. Examines influence of economic transformation, race, gender, class, attitudes towards work and welfare, social movements, social knowledge, law and public policy on opportunity, income, status, and power.Divides at Civil War and World War II.

A lecture course on the history of the indigenous peoples of North America from Cherokee removal to the present. The course stresses native history, relations with the U.S. Government and offers American history from a native point of view.

Sixth to seventeenth centuries.

The samuri of Japan were a hereditary military class that evolved over a millenium. Course traces this history and clarifies the range of differences that separated samuri in each era as their roles and ideologies changed.

Historical and contemporary forms of South Asian expressive and popular culture, including cinema, television, popular music, material culture, performance, and literature. Focuses on relations among popular culture, everyday life and social history in post-colonial South Asia.

A reading course in a field of the professor’s specialty. Introduces the student to the sources and literature of the field in question. Written work as prescribed by the instructor. AM. America.

This Comparative History course on South Asia and the Indian Ocean will introduce students to the scope of historical research on the Indian Ocean World between 1600 and 1960. The course covers sources, methods, and literature from South Asia in comparison with works on Eastern and Southern Africa, the Gulf of Aden, and the Bay of Bengal. Using themes such as capital, bodies, and ideas, the course will examine how the Indian Ocean serves as historical method, the scales through which the ocean is experienced and historicized, and the role of comparison and connectivity in analyzing oceanic and territorial geographies.

This graduate level readings seminar provides a survey of key works in the history of science. Introduces the student to the sources and literature of the field. Written work as prescribed by the instructor.

Readings in a field of the professor’s specialty. Introduction to the sources and literature of the field in question. Written work as prescribed by the instructor.

A reading course in a field of the professor’s specialty. Introduces the student to the sources and literature of the field in question. Written work as prescribed by the instructor. E. Europe.

A reading course in a field of the professor’s specialty. Introduces the student to the sources and literature of the field in question. Written work as prescribed by the instructor. LA. Latin America.

This course explores the complexity of the experiences of enslaved and free people of African descent as well as the processes of racialization that took place in Latin America from the early sixteenth through the second half of the nineteenth centuries.  The course considers the many ways in which enslaved and free Africans and people of African descent experienced and negotiated their lot as they attempted to make claims of dignity and circumvent the imposed conditions of enslavement, colonialism, and discrimination.  The course considers the use of religion, the law, clothing, rebellion/revolution, political, and community formation as paths towards negotiation, resistance, and upward social mobility.  While exploring mostly secondary works, the course will consider the methodological challenges of researching and writing the history of people who left almost no directly written primary sources.  Students are welcome to bring their own related research and primary sources into the course.

A two-quarter graduate research seminar in medieval social history.

A two-quarter research seminar that explores the history of modern empire from a transnational perspective. Open to graduate students in any area field.

This year long interdisciplinary colloquium brings together graduate students who study Japanese history and culture. It introduces current scholarship on Japan via readings, discussions and presentations by visiting scholars, UCSB scholars and graduate students. The colloquium meets bi- weekly. Students will prepare readings for discussion, write a seminar-length paper and present their paper to the colloquium once during the year.

A colloquium introducing the important issues, themes, and literature in the history of the United States, from 1917 to the present. Historiographical in nature, the course assumes a basic familiarity with the period.

Hosts leading scholars of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. whose work touches upon the history and character of work, employment, labor, poverty, race, ethnicity, political economy, and public policy. The colloquium meets three to four times per quarter.

A year-long workshop on methods for graduate students, focused on Latin America but open to students of other fields. Involves readings, discussions, practical exercises and occasional guest lectures. Includes training in core archival research skills, such as palaeography; the use of digital tools such as online databases, reference managers, and writing software; and digital humanities methodologies such as digital mapping, database creation, text encoding and analysis, web publishing, and the digitization of archival materials. Participants prepare readings for discussion, produce seminar-length papers or small digital humanities projects, and present their results to the group. Meets bi-weekly throughout the academic year.

Writing/reading workshop, professionalization seminar, and guest lecture series for graduate students working in area of history of science/technology. Meets monthly throughout the academic year.