Courses Taught
This is my current repertoire of survey and upper-division courses. I typically rotate through them every two years or so — but it depends, so be sure to check the JoeSS catalog. I am happy to answer questions and send syllabi, if available!
HISTORY 1200: Modern Western Civilization (on offer every semester)
Description: “The West” is not so much a thing on a map as a collection of cultures and concepts – many of which, over the years, have shown little patience for the imaginary limits of cartography. This course will introduce you to the history of the “West” in what were, arguably, its most dynamic and self-confident – but also least humane – centuries. We will begin with the creation of European global empires in the 16th century and end with the present. Along the way, we will encounter large-scale processes of change – imperialism, industrialization, revolution, globalization – and read primary source accounts of what they were like from a variety of perspectives. Throughout, we will ponder the meanings of the word “civilization” and the ways in which historical actors have tried to organize lives and communities according to its rules. In the process, you will develop skills fundamental to working with historical knowledge: critically reading primary and secondary texts, writing clear analytical arguments sustained by relevant evidence, and synthesizing different kinds of information to create a comprehensible, helpful narrative of past events. My goal is to give you a good grounding in some select historical highlights and lowlights, but I simply won’t be able to give everything the attention it deserves. I hope, therefore, that this course will inspire you to take additional courses or to strike out on your own and further investigate what interests you!
HISTORY 2224: Making of Modern Russia (last offered Fall 2022; scheduled for Spring 2025)
Description: Vast, diverse, and dynamic, the state called “Russia” has been many things to many people over the centuries—often in apparent opposition to one another: colonizer and bringer of “civilization”; Third Rome and infidel; enslaver and liberator; revolutionary beacon and arch-symbol of oppression; kindred spirit and nemesis. The Russian Federation’s (latest) invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has only heightened these tensions and raised the stakes for trying to understand how they came to be. This course aims to give you an introduction to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, from the rise of Muscovy to the present, that will equip you to explore it for yourself.
HISTORY 3001: Special Topics: Modern Eastern Europe (last offered Spring 2023 — not a regularly offered course; subject to future interest)
Description: Congratulations! You’ve signed up for a course about a region that both is and isn’t real; a part of Europe (whatever that might be) both on the margins and at the center of everything; a place where borders both have tremendous material importance and are fiercely subjective. The very idea of “Eastern Europe” defies easy historical narration—yet is nothing without it. My goal for our semester together is threefold: to give you a framework for thinking about this thing I’ll call Eastern Europe, fill it out with themes and episodes I find both essential and enthralling, and help train you to strike out on your own in pursuit of what interests you the most. Along the way, I’ll be trying out some new techniques and slightly unconventional material. Karl Kraus said of imperial Austria that it was the “research laboratory of the Apocalypse.” I promise to keep some of that experimental spirit… without the annihilation.
HISTORY 3235: Foundations of Contemporary Europe (last offered Fall 2024)
Description: In 1815, the steam locomotive was a cutting-edge, boutique technology, confined mostly to the middle of England. Within a century, the railways blanketing Europe poured hundreds of thousands of men into the first months of a titanic industrial war. The coal that powered those early engines unlocked power and prosperity almost beyond reckoning—but at a planetary cost that we are only now beginning to pay, two hundred years later. This course proceeds from the assumption that the years 1815-1914 laid the foundations of the Europe of today. But, as we will see, they have proven transformative for the history of the entire world. Our endeavor will be to survey this era as one of profound change across all realms of human life, in which an unprecedented Eurocentric world order imposed itself on the globe—and flung itself into the abyss by means of the same awesome forces that created it.
HISTORY 3240: Contemporary Europe (last offered [by me] Spring 2020)
Description: The last century (or so) of European history has been nothing if not dramatic. Historians have given their books about the 20th century titles like The Age of Extremes (Hobsbawm), Out of Ashes (Jarausch), or Barbarism and Civilization (Wasserstein) – naming just a few – in order to convey the immensity of the changes it brought about. This course aims to give you a broad survey of those changes, beginning with the consequences of World War One and ending with the uncertainties of our own day. Since there is no way to cover it all in depth, we will move through six thematic units: the legacies of the two World Wars; decolonization; “welfare states” and consumerism in Western Europe; “real, existing socialism” in Eastern Europe; and the creation of – and backlash against – European integration. To focus our explorations – and to broaden your analytical skills – we will be using cinema, arguably the foremost popular medium of the 20th century, as our guide. Each unit culminates in the examination of a classic European movie as a primary and secondary source; the course itself will culminate in a “film festival” of your creation!
HISTORY 3600: World History (last offered Fall 2023)
Description: World History is an ambitious and diverse subject, spanning in time from the days of the earliest hominids until the present. One thing that unites all people, in all places, at all times, however, is our need to eat. This course offers a “big picture” survey of world history by focusing on the changing ways in which humans have hunted, gathered, grown, harvested, processed, cooked, consumed, and created culture around their food. In addition to exploring the place of food within a broad, global framework for understanding major trends in world history, we will also discover how distinct cuisines and cultural perspectives on cooking and consumption took shape in specific regions of the planet. Rather than march from one civilization to the next, we will try to uncover the connections, exchanges, commonalities, and conflicts that took place among human societies. My goal is to give you a good grounding in some select historical highlights (and lowlights), but I simply won’t be able to give everything the attention it deserves. I hope, therefore, that this course will inspire you to take additional courses or to strike out on your own and further investigate what interests you!
HISTORY 4792: Historical Representation in Video Games (last offered Spring 2024)
Description: History is more than a matter of documenting and explaining the events of the past; it is also a matter of how we choose to represent them. Whether it is done in a textbook, a scholarly monograph, a work of art, or everyday conversation, historical representation is a deliberate and creative act, resting on assumptions of what the past was like and how history “happens.” Buried within every attempt to depict the past is a philosophy of history; and all of these attempts together make up the intellectual history of historical representation, which specialists call historiography. In this course, we will explore video games as a medium of historical representation and stake out the place of video games within the historiographical tradition. We will play, watch, and discuss a wide array of history-based games—which includes popular franchises such as Civilization, Assassin’s Creed, and Red Dead Redemption, as well as lesser known and vintage titles—critically examining the philosophies of history at work behind the pixels, and discovering how “playing the past” uniquely shapes our understanding of it. No previous gaming experience required.