History
Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/history
The Haverford History Department encourages students to explore the curriculum and master skills in what we might consider three broad areas of pursuit:
- Evidence
- Experience and
- Epistemology.
Students in history approach the study of the past through an immersion in materials and evidence, analysis and interpretation, creativity and imaginative endeavor. Our classes emphasize creativity and conceptual thinking rooted in fact and historical complexity. Primary sources permeate our curriculum. They are gateways to a three dimensional world, keys to unlock the study of the past. We also focus on individual student creativity, both in the exploration of the curriculum and in student work. Students in history can pursue their own intellectual questions and concerns, ones they develop with faculty through their time at the College. Because of the roles creativity and the creative arts play in the department, history at Haverford is a strong home for students with an interest in interdisciplinary studies. Professors in the department work with literature, art, music, architecture, material objects and languages, analyzing what happens at the intersection between aesthetics and political culture
Students in history practice history. They engage in the production of historical knowledge. We send students out into the world to work on real projects of their own making. We have internal and external grants to support them in that work. Students learn how to design and execute independent research projects on their own initiative, moving between collective experiences and individual scholarly reflective work. In history, we work seriously with students over the course of the major on writing and revision. Our classes are often writing intensive. We take our craft seriously—the overlap between writing and thinking, form and meaning. That extends through the consistent training students in our major receive in writing and re-vision in its grandest sense.
The curriculum builds cumulatively to train students in skills in writing and analysis from their first year to their last, in concert with their studies abroad and interdisciplinary engagements with other departments. Students in history do rich, complexly imagined and robust work in French, Chinese, Spanish, German, Russian, Greek, and Latin, among others. They learn to critique and confront the culture of which they’re learning the language, to put it in the context of other historical forces, and to illuminate the power relationships inherent in all societies. In history, students do not just think in another language, but across languages. They animate linguistic study through critical scholarly and pragmatic application, emphasizing the foreignness of any culture and the past itself.
History in this department starts from questions. Our classes emphasize deep time, historical debates and the roots of historical problems. History students examine how philosophies, political systems, and social orders are historically contingent. Students gain a sense that there might have been and might still be other outcomes. History is also then a kind of social critique. If every moment in the present is temporary, and what today is modern, tomorrow is “unmodern,” the major encourages students to ask questions about the necessity of the present.
Students in history enter a dialogue between present and past, considering consciously where they stand in the flow of time. Rather than striving for certainty, history is thus often about estrangement. Students study the horizons of opportunity available to people at different times and places, how those horizons shift, and how individuals navigate within those constraints. Through these approaches, the major fundamentally encourages empathy with difference. History teaches humility and the art of listening. It seeks to understand the full dimensions of human actors in the past.
Learning Goals
In history courses students:
- master a foundation of knowledge about specific places and societies over time.
- think critically about the nature and production of historical knowledge.
- broaden and master research skills.
- learn disciplinary writing skills using evidence and crafting persuasive arguments.
Haverford’s Institutional Learning Goals are available on the President’s website, at http://hav.to/learninggoals.
Curriculum
History courses foster analysis and interpretation of the past and emphasize the development of cultures and ideas over the accumulation of facts. Courses offer students opportunities to pursue creative studies and develop their critical reading and writing skills.
Major Requirements
To complete the history major, students must take eleven courses distributed across the history curriculum.
All students must take one of the 100-level courses, preferably before the senior year.
Students may take any 100-level course, which introduces both historical materials and the skills we expect in the major.
Majors in History are encouraged to explore the curriculum with an open mind while thinking about how to prepare for the senior thesis. To those ends, we believe that it is important to ensure breadth and depth. The program of courses selected must include the following requirements. Only 200 or 300 level courses can count toward these requirements.
at least one course in the history of Asia, Africa, or Latin America;
at least one course in the history of Europe, North America, or Russia;
at least one course that focuses on the period before 1850;
two out of the three 300-level classes must be taken at Haverford and include a primary-source based research paper. We encourage students to take these classes with different professors and to take one in their sophomore year.
Credit for Courses outside the Major and Study Abroad:
Students may count one course outside of the major toward the 11-credit requirement. This class will count toward 200-level credit. It cannot be used to replace one of the 300-level classes. It should not be a 100-level class. Ideally, it should be relevant to the student’s thesis research either topically or methodologically. This course must be reviewed and approved by the student’s advisor.
Students will receive 200-level credit for History classes taken when studying abroad. Students cannot receive 300-level credit for classes taken abroad.
In their senior year, all history majors write a year-long, i.e., two-semester, senior thesis, as described below. During the fall they complete their research in the thesis seminar. In the spring they work one-on-one with their faculty advisors to write and revise their theses.
Senior Thesis
The senior thesis in the Department of History is a year-long, two-credit research project on a topic the student chooses to investigate. In completing a thesis, history students conduct original research and craft an extended argument. The senior thesis project occurs in three steps.
Preliminary Work
In the spring semester of their junior year, history majors work with faculty mentors to compose an initial thesis proposal that articulates a specific research question. In light of faculty feedback, students often spend the summer before their senior year doing initial archival research and mastering the relevant historical literature.
Research and Analysis
In the fall semester of their senior year, students enroll in HIST H400A, a weekly seminar that gives students an opportunity to identify, survey, and analyze the sources they will use in their thesis and to review the relevant scholarship. In this seminar students complete a series of assignments that help them conceptualize, research, and begin drafting their thesis. Assignments include: a revised thesis proposal, analysis of a primary source related to their thesis, critical review of the scholarly literature relevant to their topic, and a thesis prospectus that defines their thesis topic, describes their evidence, and outlines their argument.
Writing
In the spring semester students enroll in HIST H400B, a supervised research and writing seminar that builds on the work they completed in fall semester. Working under the guidance of faculty advisors, students draft and revise their theses, submitting sections throughout the semester. Once they have drafted the different sections, they revise the entire thesis and submit a polished final draft. A history thesis is typically around 60 pages. After handing in the final version, students present their theses in an oral defense to their faculty advisors.
Senior Thesis Learning Goals
As a capstone experience, the senior thesis in history hopes to achieve complementary goals:
Research
- Conceptualize a research question.
- Make a historical argument.
- Identify and master relevant scholarship.
- Locate and analyze primary source materials.
Writing
- Develop a cogent argument.
- Use evidence to support the argument
- Write clearly and compellingly.
- Adhere to professional standards for style, citations, and formatting.
Oral Defense
- Present a concise version of the thesis’s argument.
- Respond to questions about the thesis’s structure, evidence, or conclusions.
- Explain the argument’s importance or relevance.
- Speak fluidly and authoritatively about the thesis.
Senior Thesis Assessment
A student’s faculty advisors collectively assess the thesis project (written and oral components) on the following criteria:
- Conceptualization of Research Question and Historical Argument: students acknowledge and explore the full implications of an innovative thesis question.
- Familiarity with and Understanding of Primary Texts: students engage primary sources to answer their research question and display a creative approach to existing sources or bring new and illuminating sources to bear on their research question.
- Engagement with Secondary Literature: students demonstrate mastery of scholarly literature that pertains to their thesis topic by synthesis of and contribution to the scholarly conversation.
- Methodological and Theoretical Approach: students ground their theses in current knowledge about their historical period, demonstrating a thorough understanding of relevant methodological and theoretical issues.
- Quality of Argument: students construct a well reasoned, well structured, and clearly expressed argument.
- Clarity of Writing: writing is consistently engaging, clear, well organized, and enjoyable to read.
- Oral Presentation: at the end of the semester, students demonstrate comprehensive understanding of their topic in an articulate and engaging presentation and are able to provide innovative and thoughtful answers to questions. Student demonstrates capacity to connect thesis project to prior coursework in history and related disciplines.
A style guide, along with suggestions for defining a thesis topic, is available on the departmental web page.
Requirements for Honors
Honors in history will be granted to those senior majors who, in the department’s judgment, have combined excellent performance in history courses with an excellent overall record. Typically, a grade of 3.7 or higher in a history course reflects honor-quality work.
Affiliated Faculty
Ruodi DuanAssistant Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures
Andrew Friedman
The John R. Coleman Associate Professor of History
Linda Gerstein
Professor of History; Chair of Independent College Programs; Chair of Russian (BMC)
Hank Glassman
The Janet and Henry Richotte 1985 Professor of Asian Studies; Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Lisa Jane Graham
The Frank A. Kafker Professor of History
Darin Hayton
Associate Professor of History
Alexander Kitroeff
Professor of History
James Krippner
Edmund and Margiana Stinnes Professor of Global Studies; Professor and Chair of History
Emma Lapsansky-Werner
Professor Emeritus of History and Visiting Professor in the Writing Program and Quaker Studies
Kevin Quin
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
Marlen Rosas
Assistant Professor of History
Bethel Saler
Associate Professor of History
Erin Schoneveld
Associate Professor and Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Associate Professor of Visual Studies
Paul Smith
Professor Emeritus of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures
Terry Snyder
Librarian of the College
Katheryn Whitcomb
Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics
Courses
HIST H111 RUIN AND RENEWAL: EUROPE TO 1500 (1.0 Credit)
Lisa Jane Graham
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course explores European history from the height of the Roman Empire in the first century to the Renaissance and Reformation movements of the sixteenth century. The idea of ruin and the call for renewal shaped institutions in the West and guided their interactions with the rest of the world. The class introduces students to historical methods and arguments as well as content. Moving chronologically, we will consider the following topics: the Roman Imperial legacy and the rise of Christianity; monasticism and spiritual reform; feudal relations and sacred kingship; medieval towns and commerce, women and gender, chivalry and romance; religious persecution and the Crusades; print culture and popular protest, humanism and statecraft.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H114 ORIGINS OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH (1.0 Credit)
James Krippner
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course analyzes the complex histories, shifting geographies, and unequal relationships of power denoted by the term “Global South,” a designation that maps unevenly onto the formerly colonized regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia. As we shall see, the term is also at times used to describe marginalized populations and places within the “Global North,” a convenient though not entirely accurate label for today’s relatively rich and developed world regions. A basic concern of the course will be to assess how colonialism and its legacies have influenced world history, including the production of knowledge. Our collective goal will be to develop new ways of thinking about our pasts, presents and futures.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H115 POSTCARDS FROM THE ATLANTIC WORLD (1.0 Credit)
Bethel Saler
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
An exploration of the movement of peoples, goods and ideas across the four continents that border the Atlantic basin (Africa, Europe, North America and South America) over the transformative periods of exploration and empire from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H118 INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE (1.0 Credit)
Darin Hayton
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Although science is an essential characteristic of the modern world, it took nearly 4000 years to attain that status. This course surveys various sciences in the past focusing on both how and why humans have interrogated the natural world, how they have categorized the resulting knowledge, and what uses they have made of it. Topics can include science and medicine in antiquity, Islamic sciences, Byzantine and medieval sciences, early-modern science and the Scientific Revolution.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H119 ETHNIC AND TRANSNATIONAL HISTORIES OF THE UNITED STATES (1.0 Credit)
Andrew Friedman
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course surveys the intersecting ethnic and transnational histories of the United States in the 20th and 21st century. It encourages students to conceptualize U.S. history as a set of transnational encounters and systems that transcend national borders, where divergent ways of coming into America and Americanness structure U.S. national and postcolonial polities and exclusions over long arcs. Capitalism, the environment, decolonization and Third Worldism, the Black Atlantic, modernity, imperialism, diaspora and migration, world war, travel, the United Nations and "Our America" serve as organizing motifs. Students will gain a facility with the languages of hemispheric and global imagining that structure the pursuit of contemporary U.S. history, while sharpening analytical skills working with primary texts.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H125 INTRODUCTION TO LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINX HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Marlen Rosas
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course is an intensive history class designed around two goals: to give students an introduction to themes and debates in Latin American and Latinx History, and to provide hands-on practice toward doing research. We will focus on Indigenous histories of resistance and migration, gender studies, as well as intellectual and political trends across the American continents. Texts are interdisciplinary and include fiction, journalism, polemic, history, sociology, and anthropology.
HIST H126 GLOBAL ASIAN DIASPORAS (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course examines the modern histories, politics, and cultures of Asian migration and diasporas, with a focus on American contexts. Between 1840 and 1940, Asian migrants—numbering in the tens of millions—set out in search of livelihoods and fortunes, especially in Southeast Asia and the Americas. We will look at how patterns of Asian migrations were propelled by and shaped world-historical dynamics including colonialism, globalization, racial formation, and the most contentious wars of the twentieth century. Crosslisted: EALC.
HIST H200 MAJOR SEMINAR: APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF EAST ASIAN CULTURES (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Humanities; Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course is a writing intensive course for EALC majors and minors to some foundational ideas and concepts in the study of East Asia. Beginning with close readings of primary source texts in translation, students are introduced to the philosophy and culture of China, and its subsequent transmission and adaptation across the vast geographical and cultural area that is commonly referred to as “East Asia.” Students will gain familiarity with methods in this interdisciplinary field and develop skills in the practice of close critical analysis, bibliography, and the formulation of a research topic. Required of EALC majors and minors. Majors should take this course before the senior year. This is a one-term course offered in the Fall and the Spring. The Fall term focuses more on development and transformation of Chinese thought and systems in Japan, and the Spring term on the elaboration of these key themes in a Chinese context. Prerequisite: One year of Chinese or Japanese.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H203 THE AGE OF JEFFERSON AND JACKSON, 1789- 1850 (1.0 Credit)
Bethel Saler
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course charts the transformation in American political institutions, economy, and society from the ratification of the Constitution to the eve of the Civil War. Often identified as the crucial period when the American nation cohered around a national culture and economy, this period also witnessed profound social rifts over the political legacy of the American Revolution, the national institutionalization of slavery, and the rise of a new class system. We will consider the points of conflict and cohesion in this rapidly changing American nation.
HIST H204 WOMEN, GENDER, AND AMERICAN SOCIETY TO 1870 (1.0 Credit)
Bethel Saler
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course surveys the history of American women from the colonial period through 1870. We will consider and contrast the lives and perspectives of women from a wide variety of social backgrounds and geographic areas as individuals and members of families and communities, while also examining how discourses of gender frame such topics as colonization, slavery, class identity, nationalism, religion, and political reform. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or above.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H208 DECOLONIZING COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
James Krippner
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Can we imagine a “decolonial” history of colonial Latin America and the Caribbean? This course invites you to try. “Decolonization” requires us to acknowledge, work through and overcome the structures of power and privilege originating in the colonial experience itself. To do so one must analyze history, historiography (the writing of history) and non-written historical sources across varied time frames and vast geographic expanses, while also grasping the nuances of specific local histories. In Latin America, Spanish and Portuguese rule of the region lasted more than three centuries--in most countries from 1492 until the early 1820s, and in Cuba and Puerto Rico until 1898--and the legacies of colonial rule have conditioned social relations, economic life, culture, and political conflict into our twenty first century. The Caribbean (“Iberian” and non “Iberian”) presents an even more complex tapestry, with a diverse array of colonial, as well as neo- and post-colonial political arrangements mediating at times fierce struggles for local autonomy and self-determination, from the sixteenth century up until the present. This course challenges us to think in new ways about past and present as it engages history and theory, the local and the global, and place and space.
HIST H210 TOPICS IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY: WATER (1.0 Credit)
Lisa Jane Graham
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H213 ASTROLOGY: HISTORY & PRACTICE (1.0 Credit)
Darin Hayton
Division: Social Science; Symbolic Reasoning
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course examines the scientific and socio-cultural importance of astrology in the medieval and early modern world. The course combines analysis of the historical contexts in which astrology was practiced and made authoritative with instruction in mathematical and technical practices that made astrology an expert body of knowledge. Pre-requisite(s): A previous history course. Lottery Preference: none
HIST H214 THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT (1.0 Credit)
Kevin Quin
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course examines the history, politics, and culture of the black power movement in the United States. We will explore the intellectual and political activities of major activists and organizations during the 1960s and 1970s. We will also examine the black power movement’s global dimensions in addition to its connection to other social movements and political traditions including black feminism, Marxism, Pan-Africanism, and gay liberation. By the end of this course, students will have a solid understanding of the ways black power transformed both politics and culture in the United States after World War II. Crosslisted: HIST.
HIST H218 WOMEN AND WAR IN THE ANCIENT WORLD (1.0 Credit)
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Women have traditionally been viewed as passive actors in the male-dominated field of war. They serve as catalysts for war, as in the case of Helen of Troy, or spoils of conquest. In this course, we will explore both the well-known traditional martial roles assigned to women in the Classical world, as well as the less-discussed, and perhaps more surprising, roles: warrior, spy, aggressor. Lottery Preference: None
HIST H225 EUROPE: 1870-1914 (1.0 Credit)
Linda Gerstein
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Topics included are Marxism, The Dreyfus Affair, Imperialism, Sexual Anxiety, and Art Nouveau.
HIST H226 TWENTIETH CENTURY EUROPE (1.0 Credit)
Linda Gerstein
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
The emergence of the culture of Modernism; revolutionary dreams and Stalinist nightmares in Russia; Fascism; the trauma of war 1914-1945; the divisions of Cold War Europe; and the challenge of a new European attempt at re-integration in the 1990s.
HIST H228 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1.0 Credit)
Lisa Jane Graham
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Most historians identify the French revolution of 1789 with the birth of the modern world. The French captured international attention when they tore down the Old Regime and struggled to establish a democratic society based on Enlightenment principles of liberty and equality. The problems confronted by revolutionary leaders continue to haunt us around the world today. This course examines the origins, evolution, and impact of the French Revolution with special emphasis on the historiographical debates that have surrounded the revolution since its inception.
HIST H229 STATECRAFT AND SPECTACLE (1.0 Credit)
Lisa Jane Graham
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
In 1586, Queen Elizabeth I of England famously proclaimed in response to a petition from Parliament, "Princes, you know, stand upon stages so that their actions are viewed and beheld of all men." Her remark alerts us to the theatrical nature of power and the importance of spectacle to rulers of early modern states. In an era of violent religious wars and political revolts, sovereigns used ceremonies to shore up inadequate fiscal and military resources. The royal court emerged as a locus of this strategy for image-building and government. This class focuses on the courts and empires of England, France, and Spain to explore the relations between media and power in the emergence of Baroque statecraft. How did early modern rulers use print, art, ceremonies, and spaces to consolidate power and instill obedience? How and where did subjects resist these efforts? How does the concept of spectacle illuminate the role of the role of media in contemporary politics? By the end of the semester, students will have a deeper understanding of the period and the relationship between politics and culture in early modern government.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H233 SAINTS AND SINNERS: EUROPE'S RELIGIOUS WORLDS, 1500-1900 (1.0 Credit)
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course surveys European religious history from the early fifteenth century, when Martin Luther ignited debates about sin, faith, and salvation, to the end of the nineteenth, when Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God. We will trace the evolution of Christian and Jewish religious traditions, their encounters with the cultures of the “New World,” and their interactions with cultural and intellectual developments such as the rise of toleration, the Enlightenment, revolutions, Romanticism, and secularization. Crosslisted: HIST,RELG.
HIST H240 HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF QUAKERISM (1.0 Credit)
Emma Lapsansky-Werner
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
The development of Quakerism and its relationship to other religious movements and to political and social life, especially in America. The roots of the Society of Friends in 17th-century Britain, and the expansion of Quaker influences among Third World populations, particularly the Native American, Hispanic, east African, and Asian populations. Crosslisted: Religion, History
HIST H242 THE BLACK RADICAL TRADITION (1.0 Credit)
Kevin Quin
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course is a critical inquiry into what Black Marxism author Cedric Robinson called “the Black Radical Tradition.” We will examine the historical legacy of black radical thought and action, with a particular emphasis on the United States during the 20th century. We will engage texts in social, political, and intellectual history and Africana critical theory to examine how people of African descent have formulated alternative definitions of abolition, freedom, and citizenship in response to slavery, capitalism, and racism. Crosslisted: HIST.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H244 19TH C. RUSSIA: LITERATURE IN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Linda Gerstein
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Topics considered include the culture of serfdom, Westernization, reforms, modernization, national identities, and Revolution. Crosslisted: History, Russian
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H245 RUSSIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY (1.0 Credit)
Linda Gerstein
Division: Humanities
Continuity and change in Russian and Soviet society since the 1890s. Major topics: the revolutionary period, the cultural ferment of the 1920s, Stalinism, the Thaw, the culture of dissent, and the collapse of the system.
HIST H246 HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN THE U.S. (1.0 Credit)
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This 200-level course will explore both "classic" and recent writings on the history of sexuality, focusing on questions of politics, power, and authority in order to understand the regulation of sexual practices, the social implications of sexual activity and identity, and the experiences, ideas, and conflicts that have shaped modern gay, lesbian, and transgender identities. Lottery Preference: History majors, Gen Sex concentrators, then Sophomores
HIST H247 REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS, 1770S-1840S (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Many of the words we use to talk about politics today are the product of what historians call the Age of Revolutions. Some, like liberalism and conservatism, were first heard at the time. Some others, from liberty and equality to human rights, democracy, and revolution, were then questioned, discussed, and redefined. This seminar will look at the Age of Revolutions to investigate the birth of the vocabulary of modern politics.
HIST H252 HISTORY OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE: CONFLICT, CONSENSUS AND THE LIBERAL ARTS (1.0 Credit)
James Krippner
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course provides a chance to work in the Haverford College archives, with guidance provided on how to analyze primary source evidence. Over the course of the semester we will debate and answer questions such as: How has Haverford College's status as a school of Quaker origin been significant and does that legacy remain relevant today? What is the purpose of a values-based undergraduate liberal arts education in the hyper-competitive, debt-fueled and increasingly consumerist educational marketplace found in the contemporary United States? Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or above.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H253 THE HISTORY OF THE US BUILT ENVIRONMENT, 1870 TO THE PRESENT (1.0 Credit)
Andrew Friedman
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course looks at the history of the U.S. through its built environment, or the physical spaces & landscapes through which Americans constructed their habits, hopes, and divisions. We will investigate how struggles over the U.S. polity came to be reflected in the built world. Topics include the creation of property, the building of the metropolis, the making of the suburbs, electrification and the highways, urban crisis, and the postindustrial landscape.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H256 ZEN THOUGHT, ZEN CULTURE, ZEN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
What are we talking about when we talk about Zen? This course is an introduction to the intellectual and cultural history of the style of Buddhism known as Zen in Japanese. We will examine the development and expression of this religious movement in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, History, Religion
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H258 PLAGUES, DISEASES, AND EPIDEMICS IN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Darin Hayton
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
COVID joins a long list of epidemics that have terrified people, upended our comfortable existence, and been the source of fundamental disagreements (about cause, treatment, and reality). This course examines the theories and strategies that people developed to explain the advent and spread of individual plagues. Outbreaks of the Black Death, the French Disease (syphilis ?), various fevers, and deadly diseases provide opportunities to examine how societies understand, categorize diseases, and attempt to control.
HIST H274 HISTORY OF THE ANDES (1.0 Credit)
Marlen Rosas
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course presents a cultural and political history of the Andean region of South America. We will examine unique historical developments in this part of the world. The themes we will analyze include the influence of geography on early Andean civilizations, the cultural impact of conquest, land and labor systems, popular resistance movements, revolutions, military governments, neoliberalism, and the politicization of ethnic identities.
HIST H279 U.S. HISTORY, 1973-PRESENT (1.0 Credit)
Andrew Friedman
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Scholars across fields date a crucial set of historical and cultural changes in American and global history to the year 1973. This course offers a survey of these transformations, from 1973 to the present time. Prerequisite(s): At least one 100-level course in the Humanities or Social Sciences
HIST H291 INDIGENOUS WOMEN: GENDER, ETHNICITY AND FEMINISM IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)
Marlen Rosas
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course gives students an introduction to the themes and debates in the intersectional fields of Gender and Women’s Studies, Race, Ethnic and Indigenous Studies, Latin American History, and Feminist Theory. Pre-requisite(s): None Lottery Preference: History majors, first and second year students, LAILS, and GenSex concentrators, with first priority for History and LAILS.
HIST H295 CHINA IN THE WORLD, 1895-1921 (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
We will read the history of late imperial and Republican China in global perspective, discerning ways in which world-historical dynamics—colonialism and anticolonialism, capitalist expansion and the Russian Revolution, World War I and the Treaty of Versailles—have shaped perceptions within and outside of China as to the nation’s place on the global stage. Attention is accorded not only to connections between China and the West, but also how Chinese nationalists engaged and imagined the colonized world. Crosslisted: EALC.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H296 CHINA AND AFRICA: HISTORICAL ENCOUNTERS AND CONTEMPORARY LEGACIES (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
China's economic and cultural presence in Africa has expanded dramatically since 2000, especially after the launch of the “Belt and Road Initiative." But to understand the contemporary China-Africa relationship, it is essential to examine historical precedents. This course draws from scholarship, journalism, and culture to explore modes and implications of foreign aid, diverse experiences of travel and resettlement between China and Africa, and the role of race in past and present constructions of China-Africa relations. Crosslisted: EALC. Pre-requisite(s): N/A
HIST H297 SOCIAL PROTEST IN MODERN CHINA (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Since 1949, Chinese state policies have engendered diverse modes of resistance, and today, popular uprisings continue to challenge assumptions about passivity under authoritarianism. This course reads contemporary Chinese history through the lens of social protest. Major events we will examine include: contestations of rule in the early People’s Republic; the Cultural Revolution; the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square; labor and rural resistance; the 2019-2020 demonstrations in Hong Kong; and most recently, the "A4 Revolution. Crosslisted: EALC.
HIST H299 HISTORICAL METHODS LAB: ARCHIVE THEORY AND PRACTICE (1.0 Credit)
Marlen Rosas
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
In recent decades, the historical concept of “the archive” has served as a cornerstone for inquiry across disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. At a moment of dramatic transformation in archival practice through digital technologies, one that is fundamentally altering the nature of archives and our relationship to them, this course introduces students to the interdisciplinary theory and practice of the archive as method, material culture, power, and idea of the world. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or above
HIST H309 KNOWLEDGE, POWER, AND THE PRODUCTION OF HISTORY IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)
Marlen Rosas
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course examines the revolutionary politics, emancipatory pedagogies, and struggles for liberation espoused by grassroots intellectuals, students, and working-class, peasant and indigenous activists in modern Latin America. We will consider questions of intellectual and political agency, as well as the political power of literacy, education, memories, and archives in the face of imperial threats throughout history.
HIST H314 TOPICS IN GLOBAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY: LAND AND THE LEFT IN THE AMERICAS (1.0 Credit)
Marlen Rosas
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course traces the debates over land distribution and agrarian reform that have been at the forefront of modern political strife and Indigenous activism in the Americas. We will explore how Latin America’s rural poor have supported socialism and environmentalism as alternatives to capitalist extraction, as a strategy to break colonial vestiges, and as an anti-imperialist ideology. The course focuses on various case studies to address the meaning of socialism in largely agrarian societies, how states have implemented nationalist policies to redistribute land, and how new social movements approached land and community rights in ways that challenged the status quo. This class requires every student’s vocal participation in discussions. Students will also complete historical research papers on a topic of their choice, related to the course themes. Lottery Preference: History Majors; Latin American Studies concentrators; Seniors/Juniors
HIST H315 HISTORIES OF THE THIRD WORLD: ASIA, AFRICA, AND INTERNATIONALISM (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This seminar uncovers possibilities, solidarities, and conflicts that defined the “Third World," which was, at its core, a constellation of visions for a more just postcolonial international society. We will probe its conceptual rise and pragmatic limits, and in so doing, grapple with some of the most important political currents of modern history: Pan-Asianism, Pan-Africanism, anti-imperialism, Marxism, and the globalization of the U.S. civil rights movement. The capstone project is an original research paper. Crosslisted: AFST,EALC.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H316 EAST ASIA'S COLD WAR (1.0 Credit)
Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Far beyond a time of geopolitical tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cold War was a global phenomenon with many violent battlegrounds. This course examines East Asian histories of the “long Cold War,” from 1945 to the present, with a focus on China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. We will read East Asia’s Cold War—through scholarship, film, and literature—as a struggle for national redefinition and cultural renewal in the aftermath of empire. Crosslisted: EALC.
HIST H317 TOPICS IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY: RIO DE JANEIRO, PAST AND PRESENT (1.0 Credit)
James Krippner
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This research-oriented seminar invites you to analyze the fascinating history of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as it is transformed over the centuries by an intricate mixture of local and global histories. This geographic space has been a zone of indigenous settlement from antiquity through the formation of a hybrid colonial culture into the present; a sixteenth and seventeenth century frontier outpost blessed with a beautiful natural harbor utilized by early modern religious dissidents, pirates, smugglers, and adventurers seeking their fortunes; the home of an important whaling industry as the colony matured; a vibrant port city and increasingly massive human trafficking center during the era of mass enslavement beginning in the sixteenth and extending through most of the nineteenth century; the seat of colonial and national governments from the mid- eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries; a transregional trade center linking the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia from the sixteenth century through the present; a site of conflictive labor, ethnic, racial, gender and sexual politics for several centuries; and since the end of WWII a cosmopolitan global tourist destination renowned for its multi-faceted popular culture, especially its beaches, music, dance, carnival, soccer and religious traditions. As we shall see, Rio de Janeiro has been all these things and more since its founding on March 1, 1565.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H321 POWER AND PARANOIA: CONSPIRACY THEORIES IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Conspiracies have always existed; conspiracy theories as we know them today are a creation of the early modern era. Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries, a set of interconnected transformations reshaped European societies. In this class, we will observe how conspiracy theories emerged as a response to these transformations, and how they were used to understand, reinforce, or resist them.
HIST H331 SPACE, RACE, & POWER IN U.S. HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Andrew Friedman
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This seminar uses space as a frame through which to study the construction of race and power in U.S. spheres from the early part of American history through the present. The course also examines crucial moments when Black, Latine, Indigenous and Asian American subjects have deployed space and spatial techniques as a dynamic medium for redress, revolution and repair.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H333 HISTORY AND FICTION (1.0 Credit)
Bethel Saler
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
This course introduces students to some of the cultural theories that have influenced the recent work of historians as well as examples of historical monographs that take a theoretical approach. It highlights imaginative & innovative approaches to history rather than a particular geographic or chronological period. Among the cultural theorists whose work we will examine will include Michel Foucault, Clifford Geertz, Pierre Bourdieu, Edward Said, and Dipesh Chakrabarty.
HIST H336 HUMAN RIGHTS IN HISTORY: THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This class will trace the historical evolution of the concept of rights in early modern Europe. We will explore the origins of notions of rights and consider whether rights were invented, as some historians claim—and if so, when. We will analyze how ideas about rights intersected with the histories of constitutionalism, colonialism, revolution, and liberalism. Additionally, we will examine competing theories of rights to understand which rights historical actors claimed, and whose rights they were. Crosslisted: HIST, PEAC. Pre-requisite(s): One prior course in history.
HIST H341 TOPICS COMPARATIVE HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Bethel Saler
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Seminar meetings, reports and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. The Al Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11/01 and U.S. military strikes and warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria over the last seventeen years mark only the most recent American encounters with (Sunni and Shiite) Islamic nations. Indeed, since the rise of trans-Atlantic commercial economies and European “New World” colonies tying Europe, the Americas and Africa together, peoples of the Americas have encountered and learned of Islam and of Islamic societies, including from enslaved Muslim Africans forcibly captured from their homelands and sold in the Americas. This class will explore different aspects of those encounters as related in North Americans’ fictional and experience-based writings and imagery of different parts of the Islamic world. It will also examine the stories of enslaved Muslim Africans and African-Americans. From the colonial period through the early nineteenth century, Euroamericans paid the greatest attention to the Ottoman Empire and the small Islamic states of North Africa (Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli). In the case of the latter, the United States fought its first foreign wars; and their interactions with those “Barbary” states inspired a great deal of domestic fiction, plays, poetry as well as absorbing U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics. While adhering to a chronological frame, this course takes a topical approach in its exploration of early American encounters with Islam.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H350 TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE (1.0 Credit)
Darin Hayton
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
HIST H356 EUROPEAN MODERNISM 1913-1937 (1.0 Credit)
Linda Gerstein
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H358 TOPICS IN ENLIGHTENMENT HISTORY: CELEBRITY (1.0 Credit)
Lisa Jane Graham
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H400A SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR (1.0 Credit)
Andrew Friedman, Darin Hayton, Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
History 400a thesis seminar is the senior research lab for thesis work. Students enrolled in the one-semester option will submit their thesis on the last day of class, and work with their assigned faculty advisor throughout the semester. Students will continue on to History 400b in the spring where they will work with their assigned faculty advisor to complete the writing and revision of the thesis.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HIST H400B SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR (1.0 Credit)
Bethel Saler, Darin Hayton, James Krippner, Linda Gerstein, Lisa Jane Graham, Ruodi Duan
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
History 400B is devoted to individual thesis research and writing. Prerequisite(s): HIST400A
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H480 INDEPENDENT STUDY (1.0 Credit)
Linda Gerstein
Independent Study
(Offered: Fall 2025)