History

Courses

HI 101H: Making History
Making History introduces students to the historian’s craft with a focus on a particular era or theme. Students learn research methods, source analysis and critical theory as an introduction to the field of historical scholarship.

HI 102H: Making History:Black Hollywood
Explores the influence of African-American filmmakers on the struggle for civil rights in America: "race movies" (1900-1950), pioneers in African-American film, black exploitation films, and problems of diversity in contemporary Hollywood.

HI 121G: Big History
Engage "big ideas" in comparative global history, from the origins of civilization to the rise of Europe. Emphasis on developing skills for historians: critical reading, analytic writing, defending a thesis, debates, maps, and timelines.

HI 202H: The European Experience
A survey of European History from the Late Middle Ages to the present, emphasizing important political, economic, social, and cultural developments.

HI 214G: Music and Social Revolt
Explore relationships between sociopolitical change and cultural production. From the shantytowns of Trinidad, Haiti and Jamaica, we follow thematic chronological arcs through The Bronx to Los Angeles, attending to connections between power, marginalization and culture.

HI 218G: Modern Middle East
This course explores the history of the modern Middle East with a particular emphasis on the diverse social and cultural arrangements that have characterized daily life in the region over the last two hundred years.

HI 221H: Women in Modern America
Feminist theory, growth of women's movements, minority women, working women, changes in women's health, birth control, images of women in literature and film. Changes in women's position in America.

HI 225E: Western Myth and Environment
This course explores how environmental issues helped to shape the myths of the American West. It begins with the first European settlements in North America and culminates with a study of ecological concerns in the contemporary West.

HI 232G: World History to Columbus
History of the world from the emergence of major Eurasian, African, and American Civilizations to 1500, with emphasis on technological and social change, cultural diffusion, and cultural interactions.

HI 233G: Global History in the Modern World
History of the world since 1500, with emphasis on the interaction of Western ideas and institutions with the rest of the world. Also examines the legacies of industrialization, imperialism, and globalization for today's world.

HI 234G: The Twentieth Century World
History of one of the world's most vibrant and also bloodiest of centuries. The course focuses on social, cultural, and technological change; important political and ideological conflicts; and the legacies of hot and cold wars.

HI 240H: Class, Caste, and Color in US History
This course explores the history of African-American reform movements in the nation’s history from Abolitionism to “Black Lives Matter”.

HI 242H: Race & Racism in Modern Europe
This course will examine the social construction of race in Eurpoean societies, from slavery and abolitionism, through Nazi racial policies and the Holocaust, to the persistence of racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia in the 21st century.

HI 253E: Environmental Crisis in Russia and Eastern Europe
The role and place of nature in human life, and the interactions that societies in the past have had with the environment. Concentrates on the U.S., but provides methodological approaches to the broader field.

HI 254E: European Environmental History
Covers the environmental history of Europe between 1850 and the present. In addition to industrialization, urbanization, and globalization, the course also investigates how particular intellectuals, movements, and ideologies conceptualized and interacted with the natural world.

HI 260G: France and the Islamic World
This course examines the political, cultural and social relationships forged between France and Muslim-majority societies of the western Mediterranean basin during the modern era. Course material includes primary and secondary sources, film and music.

HI 270H: Sex and Power in European Thought
This course investigates Modern European History through the lens of sex, gender, and power. Topics include: Victorian standards of masculinity and femininity, gender and sporting culture, Marxist and Freudian views of sex, Nazi policies toward men and women, and gender in Cold War myth-making (including James Bond!).

HI 280M: Space, Place, and Race
Strategies and ideologies of mapmaking for the humanities. Introduction to spreadsheets, census data, spatial projection and analysis with ArcGIS; application to historical case studies, emphasizing African-American history of St Petersburg.

HI 302H: Sport and American Culture
This course explores the place of sport in American society; It uses sport to illuminate broader historical themes: urban and community life, economic development, social relationships, social mobility, and popular cultural processes.

HI 316E: Empire and the Environment
This course explores the development of the modern colonial economy with a focus on resource exploitation and the historical relationships that humans have maintained with their natural surroundings.

HI 319H: The Old South: 1607-1865
This course examines political, economic, and cultural trends within antebellum south. It focuses on myths and facts about southern culture, the growth of southern distinctiveness, and the rise of slavery as an institution.

HI 320H: The New South: 1863 To Present
This course examines the social, cultural, and economic transformations in the American South since the Emancipation Proclamation. It also traces the legacy of slavery and racism through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement.

HI 324G: Native American History
History of Native Americans from the time of European contact to present. Inner workings of Native American communities, Indian-White relations, changing governmental policy, Native American spirituality, economics, gender roles, decision making.

HI 330H: Reconstruction
Study of one of the most turbulent, controversial eras in American history. In the past thirty years the traditional view of this period has come under intense scrutiny. What emerges is a much more balanced account of this crucial period.

HI 333H: History of the Vietnam War
Establishment of Vietnamese nation in 111 B.C., its struggle for autonomy despite foreign invasion. The impact of the Vietnam War on American society, antiwar movement during Johnson and Nixon administrations, analysis of the war's legacy.

HI 334H: African-American History I
The contributions of African-Americans from the Colonial period to Reconstruction. Participation in American Revolution, rise of Cotton Kingdom, development of distinct culture, Civil War and Reconstruction.

HI 335H: African-American History II
African-American history from Reconstruction to the present. Developments in education, racism, participation in military, socioeconomic development, Civil Rights movement and legislation.

HI 336H: Civil Rights Movement: 1945-75
Black participation in World War II, the effects of the Brown Decision and various Civil Rights legislation, the rise of Black nationalism.

HI 337H: The Civil War
Events that preceded the Civil War and contributed to disunion, such as the Southern Carolina Nullification Crisis, the Compromise of 1850, and John Brown's raid. Impact of the war on both North and South. PBS video on Civil War is used.

HI 340H: Women & Society: Modern France
This course explores the history of France through the lens of women's experiences from 1815 to the present. The course develops thematically as we investigate women's historical roles as subjects and objects within a series of shifting social, political, economic and cultural relationships.

HI 347H: Recent American History: Historian's View
(Directed Study Available) Current trends in interpreting U.S. history since World War II. Transformation of American society since 1945 and the new position of the U.S. in world affairs.

HI 356H: Black Voices in Abolitionism
Study the abolitionist movement and its impact on African-American literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Focus on autobiographical slave narratives, poetry, sermons, novels, and plays by African-Americans from this era.

HI 362H: European Empires from 1830
This course covers 19th and 20th-century European imperialism in Asia and Africa from the perspective of both colonizer and colonized. Important themes include race, consumption, gender, medicine, sexuality, education, and the legacy of imperialism.

HI 363H: The Renaissance
A chronological study of the development of Renaissance humanism in Italy from its origins in 14th century Florence to its artistic expressions in 16th century Venice and Rome.

HI 364H: The Reformation
An examination of Reformation theology in its political and institutional context. The course includes a look at the broad repercussions of the Reformation and the responses of the Catholic Church.

HI 366H: Inside Nazi Germany
This course is a detailed examination of the political, social, and cultural history of the Third Reich. It places Nazism in its historical context and investigates the persecution of European Jews and other minorities.

HI 368H: Modern German History
This course examines German History from its unification in 1870, through reunification in 1989, to the present. It includes the German Empire, WWI, Weimar, Nazism and the Holocaust, WWII, the Cold War and a United Europe.

HI 372G: World War II
A truly global look at the Second World War, focusing on its causes and consequences, on military conflict in various theaters, and on experiences at the "home front."

HI 380: Research Sem. Women in Mod. Am

HI 382: The EC History Project
Students will engage in a self-designed research project on the history of FPC/Eckerd College based on oral interviews and archival resources – all while developing research, writing, and presentation skills useful for a variety of professions.

HI 383: Global Commodities
Students conduct research and write on the social life of global commodities while investigating the ways in which commodity production and consumption reproduces racial, gendered and class-based power relations among groups.

HI 498: Comprehensive Exam

HI 499: Senior Thesis