Fall 2026 Special Topic Courses
HIST 100D: Ten Days That Changed History
This course will focus on ten days or events, across diverse time periods, cultures, and geographic places that proved transformative in their impact on human history; some of them obviously dramatic, some seemingly mundane at the time. Topics might include the rise or fall of states, empires, or religions, technological innovations, as well as economically, socially or culturally revolutionary movements. In examining these important events, students will be introduced to the practice of thinking historically and to the centrality of context, perspective and evidence in understanding the past and how it interacts with the present.
Instructor: Adrianna Bakos
HIST 299I: A Cultural History of Music in Europe since 1945
This course investigates the intersections of cultural history and music in Europe from the end of the Second World War to the present. It examines how musical developments—both established traditions and emerging trends—reflected and responded to the political, social, and economic conditions of the Cold War. This course pays particular attention to global and transatlantic exchanges, recognizing the pivotal role of the United States and the Soviet Union in shaping post-1945 European culture as well as politics. The course considers the influence of American and other popular and countercultural movements on European societies, alongside the global dissemination of European music, exemplified by phenomena such as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Through critical analysis, students will contextualize and assess the origins, evolution, and societal implications of diverse musical genres within their historical frameworks.
Instructor: Sebastian Huebel
HIST 397O: Ferocious Fears: The History of Monsters in the Western World
Monster comes from the Latin word monstrare, meaning “to make visible.” From Medusa to the Walking Dead, students will learn about how real and imaginary monsters (products of specific historical contexts and literary influences) function as mirrors reflecting a community’s deepest hopes and fears to itself and to us.”
Instructor: Adrianna Bakos
HIST 398F: Family and Gender in Traditional East Asia
Family and gender are among the universalized social categories seen across time and space, but how did they shape the lives of people outside of the modern world and the Western civilizational sphere? How does an examination of historical gender constructions and experiences affect our perspectives? This course explores the social norms and dynamics surrounding gender in traditional East Asian societies including China, Korea, and Japan, focusing on values and ideologies, social structures, and agency.
Instructor: Eiji Okawa
This course meets the upper-level Asian/Latin American breadth area requirement for the History major.
HIST 499R: A Haunting Past: Nikkei Uprooting in Canada
Migrants from Japan created vibrant communities and enclaves in coastal British Columbia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Like other settlers, they took part in local industries, rented or bought homes, raised their kids, and lived amidst rich social networks. When Canada entered war with Japan in 1941, they were classified as “enemy aliens.” They were forcibly removed from their homes in the name of national security. At first, the government promised to protect their properties, but once they were confined in internment, it sold their homes and farms without their consent or even knowledge.
This course explores the implications of this policy that made no one safer yet devastated the lives of a racialized minority. Questions addressed include, 1) why did the Canadian government adopt the dispossession as a formal policy when its American counterpart did not? 2) how did government workers carry out the dispossession in their day-to-day work? 3) how did Japanese Canadians respond? And what did it mean for them to have and lose their properties? And 4) what does this history suggest about the dynamics of race, rights, and Canada’s modern property regime? In examining these issues, the course draws on the findings of a recent collaborative project on the dispossession of Japanese Canadians, Landscapes of Injustice and utilize various types of digitized primary sources.
Instructor: Eiji Okawa
This course meets the upper-level Asian/Latin American breadth area requirement for the History major.
Winter 2027 Special Topic Courses
HIST 100I: Mining Latin American History
From the silver mines of Mexico and Bolivia to the emerald mines of Ecuador and Colombia, Latin America has a rich and complicated history with mining. From pre-contact times through to the present, this course introduces students to over 500 years of mining and extraction history. We will trace the journeys that gold, silver, pearls, and emeralds took as they moved through commodity networks to eventually adorn bodies, churches, crowns, and even furniture. Through image and document analysis, students will explore the ways that mining impacted Latin America’s history to reveal how human beings (with emphasis on Indigenous and Afro-descended peoples) experienced, understood, benefitted from, and suffered as they wrested minerals from the earth, which continues to shape Latin America’s contemporary realities.
Instructor: Katherine Godfrey
HIST 398E: Samurai: The Warriors in Japanese History
In this course, students explore the history of the warriors aka samurai in Japanese history. The focus will be placed on their representations and roles in the medieval era (roughly the 12th to 16th centuries) and how their values and practices were carried on or disrupted into the early modern era (roughly the 17th to 19th centuries). Students use primary sources such as stories and institutional documents as well as secondary sources in the form of historians’ accounts of the past to explore the historical lives and experiences of the warriors and the interpretations thereof.
Instructor: Eiji Okawa
This course meets the upper-level Asian/Latin American breadth area requirement for the History major.