Reading & Research Seminars
HST-400-449 CUE: "Reading Seminar in History"
A reading seminar devoted to an in depth examination of an historical topic or era. Topics of seminars will vary and will be announced prior to registration. Required of all history majors and minors. Students must register for the corresponding research seminar in the following semester to satisfy the requirements for the history major or minor.
History Majors and Minors ONLY
Prerequisite(s): Any two history courses.
HST-450-499 CUE: "Research Seminar in History"
A research and writing seminar, paired with a CUE: Reading Seminar in History, that provides students with the opportunity to engage in significant independent research on an aspect of the readings seminar topic. This seminar will also address different approaches to history, the nature and types of historical sources, bibliographic aids in research, general research skills, the authenticity and reliability of sources, and the techniques and processes of various types of historical writing. Required of all history majors and minors.
History Majors and Minors ONLY
Prerequisite(s): Successful completion of the CUE: Reading Seminar in History paired with the CUE: Research Seminar.
Current and Upcoming CUES:
Spring 2025 Reading / Fall 2025 Research:
HST-445/493 Africa and Global Protest Movements - Runcie
This course examines global protest movements of the 20th century that connected African political action with people around the world. We will consider how people built political coalitions and took organized action across vast geographies to challenge colonialism, racism, social hierarchies, and health inequities. Main topics of focus will include anti-colonial movements of the 1940s-60s, student protests of 1968, organizing against apartheid in South Africa, and activism around treatment access for HIV/AIDS. Students will have the opportunity to consider these movements through the lens of African history, but also will examine how people in Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean shaped and grew these movements beyond the continent.
Fall 2024 Reading / Spring 2025 Research:
HST-430/473 Inventing Americans - Yankaskas
This course examines the ways that Americans from the colonial era to Reconstruction defined their communities, both national and local. What did it mean to be an American, a Philadelphian, or a member of the middle class? Who defined those terms, and how? Who was considered beyond the bounds of community, and why? How did Americans use religion, law, material goods, and education to define membership in the nation and in more local communities? What did they expect of (and as) community members? We will explore the ways that Americans variously constructed and defended their communal borders, usually figuratively, sometimes literally. We will also explore the ways that early Americans expressed their ideas about community in physical spaces such as public buildings and monuments. Using the lenses of social and cultural history, we will build our understanding of the multiplicity of early American communities, and of the definition of community itself. Throughout the semester, we will be attentive to differences of gender, race, class and region.
HST-409/459 WWII in Euro Cinema - Cragin
The course analyzes the representations of World War II in films of the combatant nations, including France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and the United States. The cinematic representations of the war changed a great deal during and after the conflict. The course exposes the larger social, political, and cultural forces at work upon these films and the role these films had in altering national memory in each country. Students also study cinematic techniques and film theory and learn to apply these to the analysis of film.
Spring 2024 Reading / Fall 2024 Research:
HST-441/494 Expanding World of the Early Modern - Stein
The Early Modern era [15th-18th centuries] was one of expanded cultural and economic interaction that brought far-flung regions of the world closer together. It was a period of technological and scientific change, shifting boundaries and imperial expansion, migration and colonialism, trade and warfare. In this course we will engage with the history and historiography of this transformative period in world history.
Recent CUE Topics:
Fall 2023 Reading / Spring 2024 Research:
HST-435/477 Tudor/Stuart Britain - Tighe
Within a general chronological framework, this course will present a detailed study of the major political, constitutional, religious, intellectual, and social developments which characterized Tudor England from the advent of Tudor Dynasty in 1485 to its supersession by the Stuart Dynasty in 1603; and, at the same time, a parallel study of Scotland under the Stuart rulers of that same period. After 1603, when the Stuarts ruled both England and Scotland, the course will examine the halting and fitful process that resulted in the unification of England and Scotland in 1707 and the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Themes of the course will include convergences and divergences between England and Scotland; the effects of the contrasting Protestant Reformations in both realms; the background, causes, and results of the civil wars and revolutions in England and Scotland (and also Ireland) in the mid-seventeenth century; the failure of Stuart rule and the "Glorious Revolution," and the resettlement of the English and Scottish polities after 1690. We shall also consider the English monarchy's contested domination of Ireland all through this period. Throughout the course the role of religious strife, and the relatively neglected theme of the unpredictable interactions of events in the three realms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, will receive close attention.
HST-445/493 Africa and Global Protest Movements - Runcie
This course examines global protest movements of the 20th century that connected African political action with people around the world. We will consider how people built political coalitions and took organized action across vast geographies to challenge colonialism, racism, social hierarchies, and health inequities. Main topics of focus will include anti-colonial movements of the 1940s-60s, student protests of 1968, organizing against apartheid in South Africa, and activism around treatment access for HIV/AIDS. Students will have the opportunity to consider these movements through the lens of African history, but also will examine how people in Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean shaped and grew these movements beyond the continent.
Spring 2023 Reading / Fall 2023 Research:
HST-440/492 Gender, Race, and Sexuality in the History of American Medicine - Antonovich
This course explores the history of American medicine through the intersecting lenses of race, gender, and sexuality.
Together, we will explore three important questions:
How have medical concepts of the body informed notions of masculinity and femininity?
How did medical knowledge shape understandings of race, gender, and sexuality?
How did medical views of male and female bodies inform conceptions of health and illness?
We will also explore the extent to which various communities promoted or resisted medical theories and practice. Topics include the medicalization of sex; race and class in medical practice; gender, illness and the workplace; and debates about sex and/or race specific diseases from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
Fall 2022 Reading / Spring 2023 Research:
HST-430/473 Inventing Americans - Yankaskas
This course examines the ways that Americans from the colonial era to Reconstruction defined their communities, both national and local. What did it mean to be an American, a Philadelphian, or a member of the middle class? Who defined those terms, and how? Who was considered beyond the bounds of community, and why? How did Americans use religion, law, material goods, and education to define membership in the nation and in more local communities? What did they expect of (and as) community members? We will explore the ways that Americans variously constructed and defended their communal borders, usually figuratively, sometimes literally. We will also explore the ways that early Americans expressed their ideas about community in physical spaces such as public buildings and monuments. Using the lenses of social and cultural history, we will build our understanding of the multiplicity of early American communities, and of the definition of community itself. Throughout the semester, we will be attentive to differences of gender, race, class and region.
HST-438/452 Gender & Sexuality - Ouellette
This course critically examines gender and sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean from the pre-Columbian era through the present day, focusing mainly on the modern period. Drawing upon a variety of methodological approaches, the course explores definitions of acceptable and deviant gender roles and sexual identities, resistance to these roles, and how these debates have changed over time. We will survey how historians use issues relating to gender and sexuality - revolution, prostitution, homosexuality, power, etc. - to elucidate histories, identities, relationships, and discourses in Latin America and the Caribbean. This course prioritizes the experiences of women and minorities in Latin America and the Caribbean, with special attention paid to racial, class, and sexual differences.
