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Course 21H: History |
| | Introductory & Intermediate (21H.000-21H.299) | | | Seminars, Special Subjects, Graduate Subjects, & Research (21H.30-21H.999) | | |
Seminars21H.315 American Consumer Culture
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Prereq: None Units: 2-0-10 Examines the role of commerce and consumption in shaping American life. Introduces theoretical approaches to commodities and consumerism. Explores social and cultural transformations linked to the emergence of a market economy in the 19th century, the rise of a mass consumer society in the 20th century, and the development of a global digital marketplace in the 21st century. C. Horan 21H.319 Race, Crime, and Citizenship in American Law
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Provides an introduction to the law of race in the United States, focusing on the development of America's criminal justice system since Reconstruction. Examines ongoing debates over whether "mass incarceration" amounts to an instrument of racial control. Considers the relationship between American race legislation and changing definitions of citizenship at key moments in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Case studies include immigration restriction, the death penalty, criminal procedure, and national security policing before and after 9/11. M. Ghachem 21H.320J Gender and the Law in US History
() Not offered regularly; consult department (Same subject as WGS.161[J]) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Explores the legal history of the US as a gendered system. Examines how women have shaped the meanings of American citizenship through pursuit of political rights such as suffrage, jury duty, and military service, as well as how the legal system has shaped gender relations through regulation of such issues as marriage, divorce, work, reproduction, and the family. Readings draw from primary and secondary materials, focusing on the broad historical relationship between law and society. No legal knowledge is required or assumed. C. Capozzola 21H.321J Downtown
() Not offered regularly; consult department (Same subject as 11.026[J]) (Subject meets with 11.339) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-7 Seminar on downtown in US cities from the late 19th century to the late 20th. Emphasis on downtown as an idea, place, and cluster of interests, on the changing character of downtown, and on recent efforts to rebuild it. Considers subways, skyscrapers, highways, urban renewal, and retail centers. Focus on readings, discussions, and individual research projects. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Staff 21H.322 Christianity in America
() Not offered regularly; consult department Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Examines Christian encounters with Judaism, Islam, and the indigenous religions of Africa and America. Explores the intellectual and social consequences of Christian imperialism and the transformations of Christianity during its American encounters. C. Wilder 21H.330 Ancient Empires: Persians and Greeks in Antiquity
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Explores interactions between Greeks and Persians in the Mediterranean and Near East from the Archaic Period to the Hellenistic Age, and works to illuminate the interface between these two distinct yet complementary cultures. Examines the general narrative of Greco-Persian history, from the foundation of the Achaemenid Empire in the middle of the sixth century BCE to the Macedonian conquest of Persia some 250 years later. Discusses how contact between Persia and the Greeks in antiquity has influenced discourse about the opposition between East and West in the modern world. Students examine archaeological, epigraphical, numismatic, and literary materials from a variety of sources including Greek historiography, tragedy, and oratory; Persian royal inscriptions and administrative documents; and the Hebrew Bible. A. Forte 21H.331 Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Roman Republic
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: TR2.30-4 (56-162) Ancient Rome from 133 to 27 BC. Explores political, social, and economic factors commonly offered to explain the fall of the Roman Republic: growth of the territorial empire, increased intensity of aristocratic competition, transformation of the Italian economy, growth of the city of Rome and dependence of the urban plebs, changes in military recruitment and dependence of soldiers on their generals. Emphasis on the reading of ancient sources in translation, including Cicero, Sallust, Caesar, Augustus, Appian, Plutarch, and Suetonius. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided. Taught in seminar format with emphasis on class participation. Limited to 15. W. Broadhead Textbooks (Spring 2024) 21H.333 Early Christianity
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: TR2.30-4 (E51-390) Introduction to the history of early Christianity, from Jesus to Muhammad. Investigates the origins and spread of the Jesus movement within the ancient Jewish and Roman worlds, the emergence of the Church, and the diversity of early Christian thought, spirituality, literature, and art. Examines such topics as the historical Jesus and Paul, relations among Jews, Romans, and Christians, debates over orthodoxy and heresy, the conversion of the Roman empire, the rise of bishops and monasticism, the Church Fathers, and the cult of the saints. E. Goldberg Textbooks (Spring 2024) 21H.336 The Making of a Roman Emperor
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Through close examination of the emperor Augustus and his Julio-Claudian successors, this subject investigates how Roman emperors used art, architecture, coinage, and other media to create and project an image of themselves, how the surviving literary sources from the Roman period reinforced or subverted that image, and how both phenomena have contributed to post-classical perceptions of Roman emperors. Also considers works of Suetonius and Tacitus, and modern representations of the emperors such as those found in the films I, Claudius, Quo Vadis, and HBO's Rome series. Enrollment limited to 15. W. Broadhead 21H.343J Making Books in the Renaissance and Today
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(Same subject as CC.120[J]) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: TR3-4.30 (14N-112) Explores the impact of new technology on the recording and distribution of words and images in Europe from 1400-1800. Assignments include essays and online projects. Students participate in the design and printing of an eight-page pamphlet on a hand-set printing press. Limited to 12. Fall: E. Zimmer Spring: E. Zimmer Textbooks (Spring 2024) 21H.350 Business in China Since 1800
() Not offered regularly; consult department Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Analyzes the characteristics of business in China since 1800 to provide a historical context for its contemporary economic development. Topics include China's place in the world economy; early efforts at state-led industrialization; legal and social frameworks for business; foreign investments, companies, and competition; the emergence of a Chinese business class; the influence of socialism and reform-era politics on business. Includes case studies of contemporary companies and a research project. Staff 21H.351J Shanghai and China's Modernization
() Not offered regularly; consult department (Same subject as 11.153[J]) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-10 Considers the history and function of Shanghai, from 1840 to the present, and its rise from provincial backwater to international metropolis. Examines its role as a primary point of economic, political, and social contact between China and the world, and the strong grip Shanghai holds on both the Chinese and foreign imagination. Students discuss the major events and figures of Shanghai, critique the classic historiography, and complete an independent project on Shanghai history. Staff 21H.352J Three Kingdoms: From History to Fiction, Comic, Film, and Game
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(Same subject as 21G.042[J], 21L.492[J], CMS.359[J]) (Subject meets with 21G.133) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: TR1-2.30 (14E-310) Analyzing core chapters of the great Chinese epic novel, Three Kingdoms, and its adaptations across diverse media, considers what underlies the appeal of this classic narrative over the centuries. Through focus on historical events in the period 206 BC to AD 280, examines the representation of power, diplomacy, war, and strategy, and explores the tension among competing models of political authority and legitimacy. Covers basic elements of classical Chinese political and philosophical thought, and literary and cultural history. Final group project involves digital humanities tools. Readings in translation. Films and video in Chinese with English subtitles. E. Teng No required or recommended textbooks 21H.354 World War II in Asia
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(Subject meets with 21G.556) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Examines World War II in the Asia-Pacific region, starting with the rise of the Japanese Empire after World War I and ending with the Allied occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952. Highlights the diverse and, at times, contradictory forces in politics, society, and culture that shaped the wartime experiences of the empire's inhabitants. H. Nagahara 21H.357 South Asian Migrations
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Studies how and why South Asians, who have migrated to America, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East, are considered a model minority in some countries and unwanted strangers in others. Through literature, memoirs, films, music, and historical writing, follows migrants as they discovered the world beyond their countries of origin: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Students complete final projects on different aspects of MIT's relationship with the Indian subcontinent including research on South Asian students and alumni. S. Aiyar 21H.358 Colonialism in South Asia and Africa: Race, Gender, Resistance
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(Subject meets with 21H.958) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-10 Lecture: W10-12 (E51-390) Provides a comparative perspective on the history of colonialism in India and Africa. Explores the political, social, and economic changes brought about by colonial rule. Discusses the international context for the emergence of European Imperialism in the 19th century; the nature of early colonial expansion and consolidation; the re-invention of tradition in colonial societies, especially with regard to racial and ethnic identity, gender, religion, and caste; and expressions of anti-colonial resistance. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. S. Aiyar No required or recommended textbooks 21H.365 Minorities and Majorities in the Middle East
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Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Seminar considers "difference" and "sameness" as they have been conceived, experienced, and regulated by peoples of the Middle East, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. First half discusses the Ottoman Empire. Explores how this multiethnic, polyglot empire survived for several relatively peaceful centuries and what happened when its formula for existence was challenged by politics based on mono-ethnic states. Second half focuses on post-Ottoman nation-states, such as Turkey and Egypt, and Western-mandated Arab states, such as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. Concludes with a case analysis of Israel. L. Ekmekcioglu 21H.380J People and Other Animals
() Not offered regularly; consult department (Same subject as 21A.411[J]) (Subject meets with 21A.419[J], 21H.980[J]) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-10 Historical exploration of the ways that people have interacted with their closest animal relatives, for example: hunting, domestication of livestock, exploitation of animal labor, scientific study of animals, display of exotic and performing animals, and pet-keeping. Themes include changing ideas about animal agency and intelligence, our moral obligations to animals, and the limits imposed on the use of animals. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments. Staff 21H.381J Women and War
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(Same subject as WGS.222[J]) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Examines women's experiences during and after war and genocide, covering the first half of the 20th century in Europe and the Middle East. Addresses ways in which women's wartime suffering has been used to further a variety of political and social agendas. Discussions focus on a different topic each week, such as sexual violence, women survivors, female perpetrators of genocide, nurses, children of genocidal rape, and the memory of war. L. Ekmekcioglu 21H.383 Technology and the Global Economy, 1000-2000
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(Subject meets with 21H.982) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Examines the global history of the last millennium, including technological change, commodity exchange, systems of production, and economic growth. Students engage with economic history, medieval and early modern origins of modern systems of production, consumption and global exchange. Topics include the long pre-history of modern economic development; medieval world systems; the age of discovery, the global crisis of the 17th century; demographic systems, global population movements; the industrial revolution, the rise of the modern consumer; colonialism and empire building; patterns of inequality, within and across states; resources and development; and the threat of climate change to modern economic systems. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. A. McCants 21H.385J The Ghetto: From Venice to Harlem
() Not offered regularly; consult department (Same subject as 11.152[J]) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Provides an in-depth look at a modern institution of oppression: the ghetto. Uses literature to examine ghettoization over time and across a wide geographical area, from Jews in Medieval Europe to African-Americans and Latinos in the 20th-century United States. Also explores segregation and poverty in the urban "Third World." C. Wilder 21H.388 Global Commodities, American Dreams
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(Subject meets with 21H.988) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Explores how American actors and institutions got the raw materials that built the nation. Approaches commodities as a lens through which to understand a more specific relationship between the United States and the wider world in political, economic, and environmental terms, and examines a global cartography of commodities, resources, and other "stuff" that became enmeshed in American life. Examines materials like sugar, cotton, wheat, bananas, rubber, aluminum, petroleum, uranium, drugs, and others, to trace a pattern of global resource exploitation back to sites of policymaking and consumption in the United States. Explores interconnections between human society and the non-human environment, troubling the boundary often understood to divide them. Includes themes of US empire, environment, labor, consumption, modernity, race, gender, class, and transnationalism. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. M. Black 21H.390 Theories and Methods in the Study of History
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(Subject meets with 21H.991) Prereq: Two History subjects or permission of instructor Units: 3-0-9 Examines the distinctive ways in which historians in different parts of the world have approached the task of writing history. Explores methodologies used, such as political, social, economic, cultural, and popular histories through the reading and discussion of relevant and innovative texts. Introduces a variety of sources (archival documents, statistical data, film, fiction, memoirs, artifacts, and images) and the ways they can be used to research, interpret, and present the past. Assignments include an original research paper. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. T. Padilla 21H.391 Undergraduate Independent Study
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Prereq: None Units arranged Individual supervised work for students who wish to explore an area of interest in history. Before registering, a student must plan a course of study with a member of the History Faculty and secure approval from the Head of the History Faculty. Normal maximum is 6 units; exceptional 9-unit projects occasionally approved. Fall: Staff IAP: C. Horan No textbook information available 21H.392 Undergraduate Independent Study
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Prereq: Permission of instructor Units arranged TBA. Individual supervised work for students who wish to explore an area of interest in history. Before registering, a student must plan a course of study with a member of the History Faculty and secure approval from the Head of the History Faculty. Normal maximum is 6 units; exceptional 9-unit projects occasionally approved. S. Aiyar No required or recommended textbooks 21H.C30 Encoding Culture: Computation Methods in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
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| | Introductory & Intermediate (21H.000-21H.299) | | | Seminars, Special Subjects, Graduate Subjects, & Research (21H.30-21H.999) | | |