History

The following seminars, designed for first-year students, are introductory in nature. They do not assume that students have a background in the period or the area of the particular seminar topic. The seminars introduce students to the study of historical methods, the examination of particular questions of historical inquiry, and the development of analytical skills in reading and writing. The seminars are based on extensive reading, class discussion, and multiple short, critical essays. Enrollment is limited to sixteen students in each seminar.

Recent First Year Seminars

• The Sexual Life of Colonialism
• Memoirs & Memory in American History
• Science & Society
• New Worlds, New Goods: Consumerism in Early Modern Europe
• "Bad" Women Make Great History
• From Montezuma to Bin Laden: Globalization and its Critics
• Utopian Communities in America
• Living in the Sixteenth Century (Japan)
• In Sickness and in Health: Public Health in Europe and America
• Globalizing India
• Monsters, Marvels and Messiahs: Europe in the Age of Discovery
• Frontier Crossings: The Western Experience in American History
• Bad Girls of the 1950's
• The Civil War in Film
• Players and Spectators
• Living in the Sixteenth Century
• Introduction to Historical Writing