Advanced History: The Sixties One Semester (Offered Second Semester) Prerequisites: Completion of advanced elective prerequisites The 1960s are often seen as a decade of stark change. This course will take a “big picture” look at the decade in order to evaluate the change that took place in American life during the turbulent age from Kennedy to Nixon. We will focus on the complex interconnectedness between the Civil Rights Movement, student radicalism, identity politics, popular culture, and the Vietnam War. We will study both the political and economic developments, along with the importance of media in shaping the culture through the music, film, and literature of the period. At the end of the course, students will be asked to make an assessment on the following question: “Were the 1960’s a decade of unprecedented progress in the United States?” You will not be expected to memorize names and dates. Instead, you will be asked to recognize trends and cause-and-effect between certain events, movements, and media while comparing them to current events to understand what long-standing impact the Sixties has had on American life. Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines. “Takin’ It to the Streets” : A Sixties Reader. Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0190250706 African American History One Semester (Offered Second Semester) Prerequisites: None This course provides an overview of African American history and culture. Topics include major events, persons, and issues spanning the period from African heritage to contemporary times. This course will look at an often overlooked, yet incredibly important, portion of American history. In the early weeks of the course, we will examine early facts and concepts that center around African tribes and the years of African Americans’ enslavement in America. The course will, however, primarily focus on the cultural strides, joy, as well as continuing struggles of African Americans. Although the history of African Americans is one of struggle and almost constant adversity, it is also one of strength and perseverance. Despite the challenges, African Americans lived, loved, formed enduring communities, and created a unique culture. Since their involuntary arrival on the shores of North America during the early seventeenth century, Africans and their descendants confronted adversity by means of individual and collective action in numerous ways. The course explores these dimensions of the African American experience, and in so doing, highlights the multifaceted ways they made their own history while simultaneously shaping and contributing to the history of the United States.
Text: Kendi, Ibram X., and Keisha N. Blain. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019. Random House, 2021. Berlin, Ira. Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves. Harvard University Press, 2004
History: 19th Century Europe One Semester (Offered Second Semester) Prerequisites: None
The “Long Nineteenth Century” in Europe presides over a major shift in politics, economics, culture, and society between the French Revolution (1789) and World War I (1914). Topics in this course will include the emergence of new forms of identity, such as national, class, or gender, and their influence upon social change, Napoleon’s impact upon Europe, the institution of Great Power politics, industrialization, the revolutions of 1848, Italian and German unification, the extension of European imperialism, and the convergence of tensions which contributed to the outbreak of World War I. These topics will be examined through primary sources and scholarly resources, both provided and acquired through student research. In addition, students in the course will participate in a semester-long simulation in which they represent a specific European state and navigate social, cultural, economic, political, and diplomatic events based upon their study of the period. Text: Simpson, William and Martin Jones. Europe: 1783-1914 , 3rd Ed. New York: Routledge, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-138-78653-0
History: Byzantine Empire One Semester (Offered First Semester) Prerequisites: None
While the last western Roman emperor was deposed in 476 AD, the Roman Empire lived on for another thousand years around the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Today referred to as the “Byzantine Empire” by historians to distinguish it from ancient Rome, this society carried on the cultural, political, and religious traditions of the Roman Empire into the medieval period. This course will explore the evolution of the Roman Empire in Europe, North Africa, and Southwestern Asia through an exploration of the collapse and reconquest of western Europe, the institutionalization of Christianity throughout the empire and beyond, and the interactions between Roman, German, and Islamic societies between the fifth and fifteenth centuries. Students will examine popular and scholarly secondary sources, analyze primary source materials, and engage in extended research projects to better understand this period in European history and practice their historical thinking skills. Text: Brownworth, Lars. Lost to the West. New York: Crown, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-307-40796-2
2025-2026 ULS Curriculum Guide
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