Graduate Courses

Field | United States History

This course examines the history of sexualities and their relationship to social structures, cultural practices, and normative frameworks. Students will analyze theories and methods used by historians of sexuality, with attention to topics such as reproduction, kinship, marriage, gender roles, LGBTQ+ histories, birth control, sexology, and community formation. Geographic and chronological focus varies by instructor. Using historical evidence and theoretical approaches, students evaluate patterns of continuity and change in sexual norms and identities. Repeatable for credit.

Field | United States History

This course examines changes and continuities in politics, economics, and social relations in the United States from the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Students analyze a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including historical studies, oral histories, and artifacts of literary, musical, and visual culture. The course emphasizes methodological challenges of researching the historical relationships between the dynamics of everyday life and changes at the national and global scale. Course readings vary by semester and include selections from primary sources as well as classic and recent historical studies.

Field | Core Curriculum

This course examines foundational concepts and methods used in professional historical research and writing. Students analyze a range of sources to evaluate how historians construct interpretations and frame analytical questions. The course introduces approaches to archival inquiry, source criticism, historiographical debates, and the development of evidence-based arguments. Through guided discussions and structured research exercises, students practice evaluating scholarly works, refining research questions, and applying disciplinary conventions in historical writing. By the end of the course, students demonstrate the ability to assess historical methodologies and articulate informed, analytical interpretations.

Field | United States History

This course examines major historiographical interpretations of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, analyzing how scholars explain the conflict’s origins, trajectory, and long-term consequences. Students evaluate primary and secondary sources to investigate themes including slavery, political decision-making, military operations, social developments, and constitutional change. The course emphasizes comparative historiographical analysis, asking students to assess how historians frame questions, select evidence, and construct arguments. Through seminar discussions and written work, students practice evaluating competing interpretations and situating influential studies within broader scholarly contexts. The course also guides students in conducting original historical research using appropriate methods and source materials.

Field | Public History

This course introduces the field of Public History at the graduate level. It covers topics that range from historical methods and interpretation, historic preservation, museums, historical analysis, public relations, and controversies associated with the practice of public history. This course surveys the basic knowledge required of individuals working in the fields of museum studies, historic preservation, cultural resources management, and related fields that present history to the general public. The course also engages students in hands on public history projects.

Field | Public History

This course introduces graduate students to advanced methods in oral history research. Students examine project planning, interviewing strategies, and interpretive frameworks for analyzing oral narratives. Each student completes a series of interviews for both team-based and individual projects while applying methodological principles discussed in seminar sessions and examines theoretical debates surrounding oral history and its role in historical scholarship. Emphasis is placed on evaluating oral testimony as evidence and developing skills for organizing, analyzing, and presenting research in academic and public history settings.

Field | Core Curriculum

This course examines advanced research and writing practices in the discipline of history. Students formulate research questions grounded in relevant historiographical debates and investigate primary and secondary sources appropriate to their chosen subjects and questions. Through workshops, peer review, and iterative drafting, students analyze historical evidence to construct coherent written arguments and revise their work for clarity and rigor. The course emphasizes methodological evaluation, scholarly communication, and adherence to disciplinary citation standards. Students also assess peer drafts to strengthen analytical reasoning and evidence use.

Field | Public History

This course examines heritage in a global context, encompassing sites, monuments, museum collections, cemeteries, landscapes, statues, and digital spaces. Heritage is explored as a social, cultural, and political process shaped by power, memory, and identity, and as both discourse and practice, tracing how it has been imagined, institutionalized, contested, and resisted across societies and historical periods. The course considers formal heritage regimes from early modern and colonial contexts and twentieth-century frameworks such as UNESCO. Comparative case studies address preservation, interpretation, governance, legal frameworks, and access across local, national, and global settings, highlighting methodological and professional strategies for heritage assessment and management.

Field | European History & Public History

This course examines how social groups, institutions, and communities construct and negotiate collective memories of past events. Students analyze theories of memory, the mechanisms through which narratives are formed, and the factors that shape how interpretations change over time. The course evaluates the influence of contemporary political, cultural, and social contexts on the remembrance and representation of history. Through engagement with case studies, scholarly debates, and primary materials, students assess differing explanations of why collective memories emerge, persist, or shift. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the memorialization of fascism in Europe, the sanitization of the Civil Rights Movement, controversies over the Alamo, and the development of pilgrimage sites. Assignments emphasize analytical reasoning, evidence-based interpretation, and the ability to explain how memory functions as a historical process.

Field | Public History

This course examines how film and video function within public history and cultural programming. Students analyze strategies for using visual media to interpret historical subjects, communicate research findings, and engage diverse audiences. Through guided instruction, students evaluate documentary conventions, investigate research methods for audiovisual storytelling, and study the relationship between archival materials and narrative construction. The course may include hands-on work with filming and editing as a means of exploring methodological choices. Students develop an evidence-based assessment of how documentary formats shape public understanding of historical topics.