Course Descriptions

MWF 10:00-10:50

Dr. David McDaniel

The History of Rock and Roll (History 3165) is a very groovy course that traces the development of the musical genre of rock and roll from its inception in post-WW II America to its fragmentation by the mid-1970s.

The music itself will, of course, play a significant part in our studies, from the classic doo-wop tunes of the 1950s, to the folk-rock tradition of the early 1960s (featuring groups such as Peter, Paul, and Mary and the inimitable Bob Dylan), through the British Invasion involving the Beatles, and so much more, to the relevance of the 1960s anti-war music, the serendipity of the Woodstock Nation, and the dramatic advent of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal as exemplified by groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. In a final chapter, involving what I consider to be the legacy of rock and roll, we will delve into such genres as Punk Rock, New Wave, Alternative Rock, Grunge, Indie Rock, and other trends that may speak more directly to contemporary students.

Beyond the music itself, History 3165 will consider the significant cultural, social, and even political impact of rock and roll on American society in terms of youth rebellion and empowerment and challenges to the status quo in terms of manners and morals and race relations. Ultimately, we will discover the power in the music that became the soundtrack for one of the most dramatic and transformative periods in the history of the United States.

TTh 11:00-12:15

Dr. Kristen Foster

The history of sport invites students to think about many of their favorite pastimes as ways to understand broader societal issues.  The history of sport can reveal more than the ways humans have enjoyed play.  It allows us to understand the relationship between sports and the societies that support them.  For instance, we will explore the hard-scrabble beginnings of baseball, its interventions into conversations about race and gender with the Negro Leagues and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, to its claim to be America’s Game.  Football, basketball, prizefighting, the Olympics, NIL agreements and the big business of college sports, players unions, television and modern media in sports are all ready for our examination. Sports history can teach us about the complexity of social, political, and economic engagement and change; and it allows us to examine the pursuit of more just societies by exploring how issues of fairness, inclusion, and justice play out on fields and in stadiums across the globe.  This class will be lecture based with two exams, discussion and debates, and an individual project of the student’s choosing.

TTh 9:30-10:45

Dr. Rob Smith

The class will trace the evolution of race/racism/racial formations pertaining to the African American experience using readings, discussions, and assignments. The class will cover the key moments and scholarly debates regarding African American history by relying on seminal primary and secondary materials. When its most useful to do so, we will also investigate the legal cultivation of race using important court briefs and relevant state and federal legislation. By the end of the class, we will be well-versed in the seminal developments of African American history in the United States spanning nearly 400 years.

MW 5 :00-6:15

Mr. Benjamin Linzy

The purpose of this course is to examine the role and response of African Americans in American history from the colonial era to the present day. Prominent themes include the middle passage and the problems of slavery, the end of the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction, African Americans’ urbanization experiences, the development of the modern civil rights movement, and its aftermath.

MWF 12:00-12:50

Dr. Bryan Rindfleisch

In this class, we will explore the Indigenous peoples, cultures, and communities of Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee from the pre-Columbian era to the present day. In particular, we consider the collective experience of Wisconsin’s Native Peoples – “Indians” – while also appreciating the complexities that made, and continue to make, each Indigenous community and culture distinct from one another. This class also focuses on themes of colonization and decolonization, settler colonialism, cultural inclusivity, violence and intimacy, removal and survivance, assimilation and allotment, along with sovereignty and self-determination. Further, this class grapples with contemporary issues related to Native mascots, treaties, casinos, cultural representation, and more. Finally, this course is an experiential class, meaning that we will engage with the Indigenous peoples and communities of Wisconsin and Milwaukee throughout the course of the semester.

MW 3:30-4:45

Dr. Michael Donoghue

This course offers an introduction to the historiography of race and gender’s roles in US foreign relations history. As such we will examine some of the major events, key players, and the important themes in our country’s history with other peoples and nations. Our readings will focus specifically on how racial and gendered constructions reveal the ways US foreign relations operated in the last 2 centuries.   Distinctive ideas emerged in this period regarding the status and “proper role” of men and women, people of color, immigrants, and the indigenous as well as the various interpretive approaches and methodologies that explore how these concepts shaped US policy in fundamental ways.  What does race, ethnicity, identity, and gender have to do with US foreign relations? To what extent have America's wars been racialized? Why and with what consequences have minority groups engaged with, and sought to influence, US foreign policy? What impact have women had on US foreign relations and why have foreign policymakers found it useful to employ gendered and racialized language - to even “feminize” or “masculinize” entire countries? How have fears over declining American manhood influenced moves towards conflict and war throughout recent U.S. history? Using a transnational and thematic approach, this course addresses these questions and examines the connection between race, gender, and US policy in the last two centuries.  This course will be discussion and writing intensive with short 2 –page papers on the readings due every week and a final 16-page historiographical paper required as the final course project.

Th 2:00-4:30

Dr. Kristen Foster

As we embark on the 250th anniversary celebrations of American independence, this seminar will allow interested students to dig more deeply into questions of rebellion, independence, revolution, and how we remember these moments.  While the focus will be on United States history, students with interests in other places should talk with me about the viability of these projects.  As a research seminar, students will learn how to hone research topics and formulate research questions, write historiographical essays that put these questions in conversation with other scholars, pursue primary source research, and put everything together to build a compelling scholarly work.  As such, the research paper is the focus of the course.  At the end of the semester, you will engage in peer review, present your work, and submit a final polished paper.  What a great way to finish your history major!

MWF 12:00-12:50 and MWF 2:00-2:50

Mr. Taylor Youngling

This course will use Ireland and Irish history as a staging point with which to engage with the 19^th and 20th century world. While Irish history itself will be foregrounded as the primary content of the course, it will remain linked to and contextualized by global history and developments. For example: Irish ethnic and religious tensions will be presented in conversation with larger themes of racism through American thinkers like Douglass and Du Bois. Ireland's ambivalent place as both European as well as colonized will be explored through comparing and contrasting various anti-colonial thinkers and movements in Ireland and throughout the 20th century. As students traverse Irish history, emphasis will be placed on an awareness that such history existed in, influenced, and was itself influenced by global contexts in the 19th as much as the 20th. Themes will include Empire, Colonialism, Racism, Global connections, and Modernity.

TTh 3:30-4:45

Dr. David McDaniel

History 3295 will consider what was once known as the Great War, one of the most significant events in western history, and a conflict that George F. Kennan, one of America’s foremost scholars of international relations called “the seminal catastrophe” of the twentieth century.

Not only will we study the war itself, a truly horrific conflict that lasted from August of 1914 to November of 1918 and cost the lives of nearly nine million soldiers and over two million civilians from some twenty nations, (about 7,000 per day) but we will also investigate the causes of the war and review its unsettled aftermath that included a controversial peace settlement and a deadly influenza pandemic that killed from twenty to forty million worldwide.

The First World War put an end to what historians have termed la belle époque in the West, toppled the structure of dynastic Europe, caused ongoing cultural despair in the wake of unprecedented carnage, and paved the way for an even greater cataclysm a scant twenty years later due to the disastrously punitive Versailles Treaty. Ultimately, we will come to view the war as a major turning point, indeed, as the bloody gateway to the modern world.

MWF 11:00-11:50

Dr. J. Patrick Mullins

The subject of this course is the history of Britain over the long 18th century, from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, through the lens of art. We will explore the many ways in which power was exercised: high politics and street politics, war and revolution, science and industry, trade and empire, class and gender relations, and race and slavery. Focusing on cultural politics, students will study power as a force for shaping art—and art as a force for exercising power. While concentrating on high-style oil paintings, the course will consider a wide range of visual and material culture, including raunchy cartoons, architecture, landscape design, and household ceramics, while addressing key artists, art movements, and iconic works. Students will learn through lecture, discussion, field research with museum collections, and above all, object analysis as a means of cultivating “visual intelligence.” This course serves as a Public History Minor elective and MCC credit in the Humanities Area of the Discovery Tier, under the theme of “Cognition, Memory, and Intelligence.”

MWF 1:00-1:50

Dr. Timothy McMahon

HIST 4255 provides an overview of the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth since the 1750s, including several significant selected themes: the complex interactions of peoples in inherently unequal power relationships; the difficulties of administering a vast multi-national empire in an age of nationalist ferment; and the often stark clash between pre-independence nationalist expectations and post-colonial realities.  To achieve these rather ambitious aims, we will examine Empire through three lenses: an imperial lens; a lens that probes the interactions between colonizer and colonized as expressed through official state actions and through popular culture; and a subaltern lens that focuses on indigenous peoples whose “pre (British)-imperial” histories and experiences of empire varied enormously and continue to shape their relationships in the present. HIST 4255 satisfies upper-division credit for the History major, and it is approved in the Discovery Tier of the University Core (under the theme of Crossing Boundaries). HIST 4255 has also been revised as an “Honors for all” course, open to any undergraduate with sophomore standing but offering Honors elective credit. We will ultimately address how historical thinking and political decision-making informed each other in the 19th and 20th centuries, enabling Britons to justify their Empire and its excesses, by asking the question “How did ‘good’ people, acutely concerned with their consciences, preside over systematic exploitation and repeated atrocities?”

TTh 9:30-10:45

Dr. Jessica Cooley

This course offers a selective survey of painting, sculpture, architecture, and material culture across global cultures from c. 1500 CE to the contemporary world, drawing particularly from the collections at Marquette’s Haggerty Museum of Art and other local institutions.  It explores how humans create and interact with various material forms as expressions of social, religious, and political values.  While aesthetics constitutes a component of artistic expression, students also will assess how humans have used physical materials and the environment to represent their relationship with the surrounding world and raise questions about the unknown.  (NB: this survey course does not count for the major in History or Military History, but it may be used for the Public History minor and it counts as an EXPL-HUM course in the MCC Discovery Tier.)

TTh 11:00-12:15

Dr. Laura Matthew

This course introduces students to the history of Latinx populations and the communities they have developed in the United States. We will examine the conditions that have led to the creation of Latinx communities and their expansion from regional minorities across the country to the present-day largest national minority. Thematically, this course emphasizes a wide assortment of topics, including: historical foundations and political concerns regarding contemporary Latinx experiences, theories of identity and belonging, imperial relationships, intersectional analysis, community and cultural formations, Latinxs in the media, gender, and sexuality. In addition, we will explore several common features of broader, transnational Latinx community formation, such as migration (legal, undocumented, and contract labor), work, unionization, and bilingualism and education, as well as the distinct characteristics of Latinx peoples such as ethno-racial and cultural identities, labor and class, documentation status, and nationality. This class meets the CRSB-HUM and WRIT requirements for the Marquette Common Core.

MWF 1:00-1:50

Dr. Michael Donoghue

This course will compare and contrast differing constructions of race and democracy in North and South America from the colonial period to the present day.   We will analyze how varying concepts of self-governance, republicanism, and democracy evolved over time and application simultaneous to changing notions of race and racial identities in these distinct regions throughout several centuries of historical development.   Weekly discussions and quizzes on the course readings will be held - and a paper and participation in a group oral presentation are also required for all students.

MWF 11:00-11:50

Dr. Peter Staudenmaier

This course is designed to introduce History majors to the basic practices of historical inquiry and argument. We will explore the diverse ways historians make sense of the past while learning the skills and habits of historical thinking. Through reading, writing, and practical experience, we will work toward an informed understanding of history in its many senses, from methods for studying sources about the past to debating its significance in the present.

TTh 2:00-3:15

Dr. Andrew Larsen

This course will trace the history of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, beginning from the Minoan and Mycenaean periods. From the earliest Greek city-states, we will study the wars, institutions, and religions that shaped Greek society, viewing their world through the rich tradition of Homer, mythology, and historiography. A special focus will be placed on Alexander the Great and his legacy in the newly imagined Hellenistic World. From there we will move to the foundation of Rome and follow its progress from a revolutionary Republican government to its expansion as a great empire, studying the characters of its imperial leaders, its transformations in conflict and diplomacy, and the beginnings of institutionalized religion. Our last focus will be the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, and its legacy to the present day. In addition to primary (in translation) and secondary sources, the course will also focus on material culture, and the students will have many opportunities to discuss and debate the effectiveness, qualities, and lessons of ancient societies.

MW 2:00-3:15

Dr. Peter Staudenmaier

This course provides an introduction to the complex and expanding field of environmental history and its implications for both the past and the present. Through a variety of case studies from around the world, we will explore the role of social structures in shaping the natural environment as well as the role of environmental factors in shaping historical change. Readings and discussions will address controversial questions, including the dynamic relationship between empires and colonies; the rise of market economies and modern states; shifting attitudes toward technology, sustainability, and preservation; idealized images of a bucolic nature before the advent of industrialization; and increasing political turmoil on a rapidly heating planet. The guiding principle in our study of these topics is that critical engagement with challenging aspects of the past can enrich and deepen our understanding of environmental dilemmas in the present.

W 2:00-4:30

Dr. J. Patrick Mullins

Applied History is a project-centered course in which students apply the principles and methods of Public History toward development of a public-facing project in collaboration with a museum, historical society, or other community partner. The object of the semester project is to serve the public by preserving the traces of the past for posterity through documentation. This documentation can take forms ranging from research, writing, and online publication; archival cataloging; exhibit design and educational programming; photography and film; and oral-history recording. In accord with their own research interests and career goals, students will have a variety of assignments—applying different methods of documentation—on which they can choose to work. This course gives undergraduates and graduate students an opportunity for “real world,” experiential learning through creative thinking, practical problem solving, teamwork, and field research while collaborating with public history practitioners in service to the wider community. 

TTh 2:00-3:15

Dr. Laura Matthew

This survey focuses on the many, varied regions of Mexico, with occasional reference to its neighbors north and south. We begin with ancient Mesoamerica, home of the famous Aztecs and Maya. We then move to New Spain under Spanish colonial rule (including the Audiencia of Guatemala), the separation of Mexico from Central America after independence, and the development of the modern nation-state of Mexico in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will ask: What are the different regions of Mexico, and how have their histories been distinct from one another? How does indigenous Mesoamerica imprint itself on the modern nation-state? What difference did the arrival of Africans and Europeans make to the region? What is the historical relationship of Mexico with the United States? What major events changed the course of Mexican history? By the end of the semester, you should walk away confident that you can intelligently answer these questions. The course combines standard assessment with a group food project and fiesta in the middle of the semester.

This survey focuses on the many, varied regions of Mexico, with occasional reference to its neighbors north and south. We begin with ancient Mesoamerica, home of the famous Aztecs and Maya. We then move to New Spain under Spanish colonial rule (including the Audiencia of Guatemala), the separation of Mexico from Central America after independence, and the development of the modern nation-state of Mexico in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will ask: What are the different regions of Mexico, and how have their histories been distinct from one another? How does indigenous Mesoamerica imprint itself on the modern nation-state? What difference did the arrival of Africans and Europeans make to the region? What is the historical relationship of Mexico with the United States? What major events changed the course of Mexican history? By the end of the semester, you should walk away confident that you can intelligently answer these questions. The course combines standard assessment with a group food project and fiesta in the middle of the semester.

TTh 12:30-1:45

Dr. Chima Korieh

Humanity has witnessed unparalleled development in the modern era; yet these unparalleled developments have come at an unprecedented cost and destruction. The nineteen and twentieth centuries have witnessed mass killings and examination on a scale never witnessed in the previous centuries. Over the course of the twentieth century, in particular, millions of people have become victims of mass murder, often driven by nationalism. These historical catastrophes challenge us to question the fundamental assumptions we make about humanity and the basic values we assume to be part of “civilization,” and the morality of humanity in the face of genocide and mass murder. This seminar, therefore, is an introduction to the field of genocide studies from a historical, comparative, and thematic perspective. The course is designed to provide students with a variety of ways of understanding genocide as a phenomenon, focusing particularly on the dynamics that produce mass atrocity, so that students are equipped to think creatively about genocide as a form of mass killing and the social and political circumstances that facilitate it. We will provide a good understanding of the extreme diversity of this form of mass killing, especially in the twentieth century. We will begin with a broad examination of genocides in world history and the current state of the historiography. We will examine through the case studies: the Holocaust, Stalin's genocides, the Cambodian genocide, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina,  the Rwandan genocide, the Herero in German South West Africa (1904-08), the Rwandan genocide, and the lesser-known genocide against the Igbo people in postcolonial Nigeria. Finally, we will focus on the strategies that victims and perpetrators have used to cope at the time and afterwards with the moral issues involved, as well as the international responses to genocide, and the contemporary tension between the principle of national sovereignty and `humanitarian intervention'. 

T 2:00-4:30

Dr. Chima Korieh

This seminar will focus on genocide and mass killings in colonial Africa and is designed to initiate you in the techniques of scholarly historical study through concentrated work in this specialized field. You will have the opportunity to use both secondary and primary source material to investigate cases of genocide and mass killing in colonial times while demonstrating the ability to think critically and write effectively. A sequence of preliminary writing assignments will provide practice with crafting a prospectus, evaluating primary sources, and incorporating secondary scholarship. These exercises will build towards an intermediate-length research essay, which students will submit at the end of the semester.

T 4:30-7:00

Dr. Laura Matthew

This intensive readings course introduces major themes in Latin America history to graduate students with an interest in Latin America for its own sake, for comparative purposes, and/or to prepare for M.A. or Ph.D. examinations. Assignments include weekly précis of monographs and a theoretical essay at the end of the semester.

M 5:00-7:30

Dr. Peter Staudenmaier

This research seminar allows graduate students to engage in independent scholarship exploring a topic that crosses chronological and geographical boundaries. Our theme centers on the multiple histories of race in global context. Research projects on any era and any area are welcome. Though presumed to represent a permanent biological reality, the concept of race is remarkably mutable and has shifted continually over time and across societies. Careful research and critical analysis can reveal the historical impact of racial identities and racial ideologies in scientific, economic, political, legal, and cultural contexts.

W 5:00-7:30 pm

Dr. Timothy G. McMahon

HIST 6961—Master of Arts Essay and Professional Discernment

This graded 3-credit workshop serves a dual purpose.  First, it provides structure to complete the required MA essay or public history project (due to the Graduate School no later than 4 p.m. on April 16).  All students will present a version of their project as a research poster in early April.  Second, it guides professional discernment to explore opportunities for historians inside and outside academe.  In addition to shared readings and reflections, we will have guest presenters.  The class will meet in conjunction with HIST 8961 Doctoral Discernment.

NB: MA students typically enroll in this class in their final spring semester to accommodate graduation deadlines.  Any Incomplete grades (especially from HIST 6954) are expected to be cleared before the start of the semester and each student must submit a plan for revising their essay or project in the first week of classes (guidelines for this plan will be shared in mid-November for students enrolled in the class).  This class is required for all students who have updated their Bulletin year to the current catalogue (i.e. elected for the essay-only option in place of essay and MA comprehensive exam).  Students under the previous Bulletins who are still completing essays also are welcome to enroll.

HIST 8961—Doctoral Discernment and Field Preparation

This graded 3-credit workshop serves a dual purpose.  First, it provides structure to prepare for the Doctoral Qualifying Examinations, which may be taken as early as the end of semester and ideally by the end of the summer (as required by some research fellowships).  PhD students should enroll in this class following their dissertation seminar (HIST 8960, typically taken in the fall semester of their second year) which develops the major reading list and starts to frame the research question(s) for the dissertation. 8960 also should identity the two minor fields which address methodological and thematic issues connected to the dissertation research.  These fields and their examiners need to be confirmed by the start of the semester: iterative bibliographies for these fields will be due by the end of January.  Students will present a poster version of their draft dissertation proposal in early April.

Second, the workshop encourages ongoing career discernment as students prepare to undertake their dissertation research.  PhD students will participate in engaged discussions with the MA students in HIST 6961 and guest speakers, as well as prepare a reflection on their goals and strategies for exploring a range of professional opportunities. Each student will be expected to do at least one informational interview during the semester with a historian who is working in a field outside academia.

This course fulfills two of the University’s Career Skills Requirements: Career Discernment and Communication.