Instructor: Professor Tamara Fernando
Lecture: Th 3:30pm - 6:20pm

Course Description: 

This course explores the relationship of migration to modern world history, beginning in the mid-to-late nineteenth-century and stretching into the present day. We will traverse North America, Asia and the Middle East asking how historians of migration trace the expanding industrial economy at the level of individual lives, cultures, and ideas. We will explore the intersections of migration history with histories of labor, oceanic history, and intellectual history. At its core, this class explores what it means to write trans-national history focused on people. That is, how can we write histories of migration in the modern period beyond state-level statistics and “big” economic data? The course is organized as a discussion-based seminar, with students normally reading at least one book each week and taking an active role in class discussion. No prior coursework in migration history required, and I invite you to bring your own thematic/regional/temporal interests to the course materials.

Instructor: Professor Janis Mimura
Lecture: Tu 3:30-6:20pm

Course Description: 

This theme seminar considers the problem of nations and empires from a variety of spatial perspectives. Topics include spatial imaginaries, social space, territoriality, infrastructural space, and critical geopolitics. We will read theoretical works, studies of specific countries and regions, and transnational and interdisciplinary works to explore new spatial approaches and questions by authors such as Henri Lefebvre, Immanuel Wallerstein, Benedict Anderson, James Scott, John Maier, Jane Burbank, Frederic Cooper, and Jürgen Osterhammel. Students will be evaluated on their class engagement, weekly thought pieces, book presentations, and a 12-15 page theoretical or historiographical essay.

Instructor: Professor Nancy Tomes
Lecture: Tu 6:30-9:20pm

Course Description: 
This course is a field survey of American history from Reconstruction into the late twentieth century. It is designed to prepare MA and PhD students to teach the second half of the introductory U.S. history survey, as well as prepare for orals. We will read a set of classics in common; then students will have an opportunity to build out their readings in areas of their own interest. Class writing and discussion will practice the skills of historiography, that is, placing works of history in the context of larger debates
in the field. We’ll also sample approaches used by different types of historians (cultural, diplomatic, economic, intellectual, political, social, and comparative/transnational.) Finally, we will explore current trends and challenges in the teaching of introductory U.S. history courses. Requirements will include discussion leadership, oral presentations, brief writing assignments, and a critical essay.

Instructor: Professor Robert Chase
Lecture: W 3:30-6:20pm

Course Description: Coming Soon!

Instructor: Professor Riga Shakya
Lecture: M 6:30-9:20pm

Course Description: 
This graduate field seminar introduces students to major themes and approaches in the study of Chinese history, with a focus on scholarship on the Qing dynasty through contemporary China. Through selected monographs, we will examine topics including borderlands, environmental history, empire and colonialism, governance, language and script, gender, and surveillance, while considering broader shifts in the historiography of China. The course is organized as a discussion-based seminar, with students normally reading at least one book each week and taking an active role in class discussion. The semester culminates in a historiographical essay that develops a theme or problem emerging from the course readings and places selected works in conversation with a broader body of scholarship. No prior coursework in Chinese or East Asian history is required.

Instructor: Professor Eric Beverley
Lecture: W 3:30-6:20pm

Course Description: 

This research seminar is designed to facilitate research and writing of an original, full length, pithy and polished  research paper related to students’ dissertation work. The course is open to doctoral students working on any historical topic in any world area or time period. The seminar is organized around the theme ‘space and place,’ and we will consider conceptually-driven approaches to analyzing and writing about geographical setting and environment as historical forces. This theme, loosely applied, will provide a common touchstone for discussions of shared readings and research projects. In approaching the ‘spatial turn’ in historical scholarship, we will consider a range of scholarship on topics such as landscape and environment, built form, capitalism and infrastructure, transnational and regional scales, geographic imaginaries, borderlands, urbanization, and planning, drawn from history and a variety of adjacent fields (geography, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, literature). Our coverage will not attempt to be comprehensive, but rather will endeavor to open up a broad palette of approaches to draw from in conceiving historical scholarship that takes seriously particularities of space and place. We will spend the first few weeks of the semester reading and discussing examples of such approaches (many of which students will have encountered in previous graduate seminars), then begin defining topics followed by a series of incremental writing and revision assignments. The mid-semester weeks will be dedicated to intensive research and writing alternating with individual student—instructor and seminar meetings to discuss writing and revising, and professionalization matters (navigating the dissertation process, fellowships and grants, journals and publication). The final weeks of the semester will be dedicated to presentations and feedback leading up to final revisions. 

Instructor: Professor Kathleen Wilson
Lecture: M 3:30-6:20pm

Course Description: Coming Soon!