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: Pirates of the Caribbean: A History
Popular culture and imagination portray pirates of the past as violent, marauding, and swashbuckling at their worst and alluring, rebellious, and averse to control at their best. This course takes these stereotypes as invitations to examine the lived experiences pirates, privateers (there is a difference!), and those deemed otherwise uncontrollable by early modern states to better understand the intertwined histories of topics such as navigation, slavery, the environment, and imperial warfare. We will read captives’ accounts, ship logs, and dramatic tales of bombardment and survival both on the high seas and in coastal towns. In doing so, we will better appreciate why thousands of people in the past chose or were forced into piracy and the world they forged in their wake.
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.
HIST 399O: Capitalism: A History
In 1979 the Flying Lizzards sang ‘The best things in life are free. But you can give them to the birds and the bees. I want money…’ Capitalism: A History will channel one’s inner ‘Flying Lizzards’ by exploring the evolution of capitalism from late medieval merchant capitalism to the digital age. This online course will examine the relationship between capitalism and changing economic and business theories in the context of commercial, social and cultural change. Key themes include the rise of the fiscal state, consumerism, imperialism, industrialization, globalization and the social welfare state and the impact of the digital age.
Through online lectures, ‘virtual tours’, streaming videos and written assignments, develop an understanding of the relationship between the evolution of economic and business systems in a broader historical context. The course will also develop the student’s ability to research, analyze and communicate historical knowledge in written form. History 399O is a completely online course. Course materials are available online through Brightspace, the UFV Library, and public sites. All assignments are submitted online.