Undergraduate Courses

Group | General History Survey
Term | Summer 1, 2 & Fall 2026

This course examines the historical development of the United States from pre-contact societies through Reconstruction, ending in 1877. Students will analyze interactions among Indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Africans; evaluate the formation of colonial societies; and explore the political, social, and economic transformations leading to the United States. Topics include, but are not limited to, the American Revolution, constitutional debates, sectionalism, slavery, westward expansion, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Emphasis is placed on interpreting primary and secondary sources to understand continuity and change over time.

Group | General History Survey
Term | Summer 1, 2 & Fall 2026

This course examines U.S. history from the end of Reconstruction to the present, analyzing political, social, and economic transformations across this period. Students will evaluate industrialization, constitutional change, and the nation’s evolving role in global affairs. Topics include, but are not limited to, the impacts of the rise of Industrialization, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the implementation of racial segregation and voter suppression, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression and New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, and developments since 1989. Emphasis is placed on interpreting historical evidence and assessing patterns of continuity and change.

Group | General History Survey
Term | Summer 1 & Fall 2026

This course surveys the history of European societies from ancient times through to the early modern era. Students will examine major political, social, cultural, and religious developments that shaped Europe and the Mediterranean world. Topics may include, but are not limited to, early civilizations, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and early modern transformations. The course emphasizes chronological and thematic analysis to help students understand continuity and change over time. Instruction focuses on descriptive, evidence‑based historical inquiry, providing students with a foundation for analyzing institutions, ideas, and historical processes.

Group | General History Survey
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines major developments in human societies from the Paleolithic era to the seventeenth century. Students analyze political, social, cultural, and religious interactions that shaped world civilizations, drawing on thematic and chronological approaches. Topics may include but are not limited to early states, environmental conditions, technological change, warfare, trade networks, and long‑distance cultural exchange. Using primary and secondary sources, the course evaluates how historians interpret continuity and transformation over time. Readings, lectures, and discussions guide students in assessing evidence and comparing interpretive frameworks related to global historical processes.

Group | General History Survey
Term | Summer 2 & Fall 2026

This course examines major developments in world civilizations from the seventeenth century to the present. Students analyze political, economic, social, and cultural interactions that shaped global systems, including long‑distance commerce, the development of racial slavery and the Atlantic World, colonial expansion in the long nineteenth century, the emergence of Communist political systems, and processes associated with twentieth‑century globalization. Using primary and secondary sources, the course evaluates how historians interpret continuity and change across regions. Readings, lectures, and discussions guide students in assessing evidence and comparing analytical frameworks in modern world history.

Group | General History Survey
Term | Summer 1 & Fall 2026

This course surveys the history of Western societies from the early modern era to the present. Students will examine major political, economic, social, and cultural developments that shaped Western states and societies and their global interactions over time. The course introduces key historical events, ideas, and institutional changes, situating them within their broader historical contexts. Emphasis is placed on understanding continuity and change across the early modern and modern periods through descriptive and analytical approaches. Instruction focuses on historical interpretation grounded in evidence.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines European history during the long nineteenth century, from the Napoleonic wars to World War One. Students investigate national histories across Britain, France, and Germany, the Hapsburg Empire, Italy, and Eastern and Northern Europe, while evaluating major themes, such as industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, imperial expansion, socialist thought, and gender as a historical category. Working with a range of primary and secondary sources, students assess historical arguments, interpret evidence, and situate regional experiences within broader continental transformations.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Summer 1 & Fall 2026

This course explores key developments in English history from prehistoric communities to the conclusion of the Tudor era in 1603. Students analyze archaeological materials, chronicles, legal documents, and secondary scholarship to understand shifting political systems, religious transformations, demographic patterns, and cultural exchanges. Methodological attention is given to evaluating evidence, identifying historiographical debates, and distinguishing between narrative and interpretation. The course investigates how historians frame questions about state formation, identity, and social change. Students learn to formulate evidence based arguments and assess the strengths and limits of different analytical approaches to early English history.

Group | Group A: World History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the colonial history of Latin America from late pre‑Hispanic societies through the Iberian conquests and the independence movements of the early nineteenth century, with analytical attention to Indigenous perspectives. Students investigate political, economic, and cultural developments across diverse regions and populations, assessing how Indigenous, European, and African communities shaped and responded to colonial institutions. Using primary and secondary sources, the course evaluates methods historians use to interpret cross‑cultural encounters and reconstruct Indigenous viewpoints within colonial archives. Readings, lectures, and discussions guide students in analyzing evidence, comparing interpretations, and understanding the complexity of colonial Latin American societies.

Group | Group A: World History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the history of Latin America from independence to the present. Students explore the struggles for independence, the formation and consolidation of new nations, and economic and political developments shaping the region, including the rise of Liberalism, Populism, reform, and revolution. The course considers the international forces that have shaped modern Latin America and the opportunities and challenges of the present. Students develop evidence-based approaches to interpreting how Latin American governing institutions, cultural expressions and society changed over time.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Summer 2 & Fall 2026

This course examines more than two centuries of Spanish history, beginning in Europe’s revolutionary era and continuing through the rise of a fascist regime, the transition to democracy, and Spain’s eventual integration into the European Union. Students analyze political, social, and cultural developments using a range of primary and secondary sources. The course evaluates how factors such as religion, race, gender, sexuality, nationalism, and class shaped historical change across different periods. Through comparative inquiry and evidence‑based discussion, students develop skills in interpreting historical arguments and assessing competing explanations for major transformations in modern Spain.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines United States history from the end of Reconstruction to the outbreak of World War I by analyzing major political, economic, and social developments during this period. Students evaluate themes that include, but are not limited to, industrialization, urbanization, migration, and reform movements that shaped national debates and regional transformations. The course investigates how historians have interpreted events such as the rise of corporate capitalism, shifting labor relations, and expanding federal authority. By engaging with a range of scholarly works, students assess competing interpretations of late nineteenth- and early twentieth‑century U.S. history through evidence‑based inquiry.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the historical developments of the region encompassing Texas, California, the Great Basin, the Southern Rockies, and northern Mexico since the beginning of Mexican Independence in 1810. Students analyze cultural, economic, political, and environmental themes that shaped change across diverse communities and different regions. The course investigates topics that may include, but are not limited to, the ways shifting borders, migration patterns, environmental constraints, resource extraction and other factors influenced economic growth, conflict, national identities and community formations. Through extensive use of primary and peer-reviewed secondary sources, students evaluate competing interpretations of regional history and assess how local developments intersected with national and transnational processes. Emphasis is placed on evidence‑based analysis and understanding methodological approaches to studying broad, multi‑state regions.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines African American history from 1619 to the present through analysis of cultural, political, social, and economic developments across multiple eras. Students investigate topics that may include, but are not limited to, interactions between people of African and European backgrounds, the evolution of hemispheric slavery, and the institutions and experiences that shaped early America. The course investigates the antislavery movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the shifting social structures that followed. Students also analyze twentieth‑century cultural expression, political activism, and legal change, including the Civil Rights movement. Using primary and secondary sources, the course emphasizes evidence‑based interpretation and the diverse historical forces that influenced African American life over four centuries.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines relations between the United States and the Caribbean from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, focusing on major political, economic, military, and cultural developments. Students will study independence movements, periods of U.S. military involvement, and patterns of economic and cultural exchange that shaped interactions across the region. The course analyzes how diplomatic priorities, strategic interests, and regional events influenced shifts in policy and relations over time. It also considers periods of heightened tension in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Emphasis is placed on evidence-based analysis of historical change.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the work of public historians who interpret the past in settings such as museums, historic sites, archives, and national parks. Students analyze methods used to preserve historic structures, manage material collections, and develop interpretive programs. The course evaluates how public historians use narrative strategies and digital tools to present historical information to diverse audiences. It also investigates how practitioners identify, negotiate, and contextualize popular memory and historically persistent narratives. Through case studies and applied exercises, students explore the methodological, ethical, and interpretive questions that shape historical work conducted outside traditional academic environments.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course surveys the history of Texas from prehistory through the twentieth century, analyzing political, economic, social, and cultural developments that shaped the region. Students investigate Indigenous societies, European exploration and colonization, the Texas Republic, incorporation into the United States, and the state of Texas's position in national and global affairs since the 19th century. The course evaluates major transformations related to migration, labor, land use, governance, and regional identity. Using primary and secondary sources, students assess differing interpretations of key events and long‑term patterns in Texas history. Emphasis is placed on evidence‑based inquiry and understanding how historical processes influenced the development of communities, institutions, and economic systems across the state.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the historical development of religious beliefs and practices in what is now the United States from pre‑European encounters to the present. Students analyze belief systems alongside the social and political contexts that shaped them, investigating how diverse communities adapted and interpreted religious traditions over time. The course explores major patterns in religious life, including institutional formation, cultural exchange, and responses to demographic and political change. Using primary and secondary sources, students evaluate differing scholarly interpretations and practice evidence‑based reasoning. Emphasis is placed on understanding how historians interpret continuity and change in religious thought, practice, and community organization.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the historical development of the blues and related African American musical traditions within the broader context of United States history. Students analyze how musical forms, performance practices, and industry structures emerged and changed over time. The course investigates connections between musical expression and social, cultural, economic, and political conditions shaping communities across regions. Attention is given to the ways blues traditions influenced later genres, including the development of rock and roll. Through engagement with recordings, historical documents, and scholarly interpretations, students evaluate competing explanations for continuity and change in African American music and its role in American cultural history.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the interactions between democratic thought and public education in the United States from the Enlightenment through the late twentieth century. Students analyze how political ideals, social change, and economic conditions shaped debates about schooling across different eras. Topics include constitutional developments, emancipation, industrialization, immigration, and demographic change, with attention to how these forces influenced competing visions of educational purpose and governance. The course evaluates local, state, and federal initiatives alongside public debates about citizenship, authority, and access. Using primary documents and scholarly interpretations, students assess differing explanations for the historical relationship between democracy and education.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the history of immigration to the United States from the colonial era to the present. Students investigate the economic, political, social, and cultural conditions that influenced migration decisions, as well as the varied experiences of immigrant communities across different regions and periods. The course evaluates how group identities developed, how immigrants navigated labor markets and community formation, and how governmental and public responses to immigration changed over time. Using primary and secondary sources, students assess competing interpretations of immigration history and develop skills in evidence‑based historical analysis.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Summer 1, 2026

This course examines Roman history from the Republican period through the fall of the Western Empire, analyzing political, social, economic, and cultural developments across the Mediterranean world. Students evaluate primary and secondary sources to understand how Rome expanded, governed, and adapted to Mediterranean societies. The course investigates major institutions, patterns of conflict, and regional diversity within Roman influence. Through readings, lectures, and discussions, students assess scholarly interpretations and develop analytical approaches for interpreting long‑term change across the Roman Mediterranean.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course explores how ideas about health and illness have influenced American social, political, and cultural developments over two centuries. Students analyze primary and secondary sources to evaluate the impact of material conditions, epidemics, public policies, ailments, scientific trends, policy structures, and reform movements in health and illness in America. Through thematic case studies, students investigate the interplay between material conditions and intellectual frameworks shaping health discourse in the United States.

Group | Group C | U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the history of women’s health and healthcare in the United States from the colonial era to the present. Students analyze medical practices, institutional policies, and cultural debates surrounding gender and healthcare. Topics may include midwifery, abortion, reproductive health, prenatal and postpartum care, mental health, obstetrics and gynecology, birth control, cancer treatment, and changing perceptions of women’s health. Using primary and secondary sources, the course evaluates how healthcare institutions influenced access to sex-specific care, how reform movements addressed medical practices, and how patients and practitioners developed approaches to healthcare delivery.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines England’s constitutional, social, political, and religious developments during the Tudor and Stuart dynasties from 1485 to 1689. Students analyze primary and secondary sources to investigate how monarchs, institutions, and social groups shaped transformations in governance, belief, and society. Through readings, discussions, and guided inquiry into major events and debates, the course evaluates patterns of continuity and change across the Reformation, civil conflict, and evolving constitutional frameworks. Students develop skills in historical interpretation by assessing competing scholarly explanations for developments in early modern England.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the historical development of European Christianity from 300 to 1500, analyzing how traditions, ideas, and institutions evolved across different periods. Students study major phases such as Imperial Christianity, early medieval institutional formation, the consolidation of high medieval Christendom, and late medieval changes. Using primary sources and recent scholarship, the course evaluates themes including warfare, gender, race, and religion, devotional practices, intellectual traditions, and interactions between religious institutions and broader social structures. Students assess competing interpretations and develop analytical tools for understanding continuity and change in pre‑modern Christian history.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines global histories of epidemic and pandemic disease from late antiquity to the present, analyzing how outbreaks emerged, spread, and were documented across different societies. Students evaluate primary and secondary sources to investigate transmission pathways, demographic effects, and social, medical, and governmental responses. Case studies may include bubonic plague, smallpox within imperial administrative settings, cholera, 1918 influenza, polio, tuberculosis, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and COVID‑19. Through comparative and interdisciplinary methods, students assess how historians interpret disease events and explore how scientific, cultural, and political contexts shape historical understandings of health crises.

Group | Group A: World History
Term | Summer 2, 2026

This course examines the historical processes shaping local, ethnic, and national identities in Central Asia from the Mongol conquest to the present. Students analyze political, social, and cultural developments across successive empires and explore how historians interpret regional diversity and identity formation. The course also investigates economic, cultural, and political connections among Central Asian societies and evaluates contemporary dynamics in the five post-Soviet republics. Using primary sources, secondary scholarship, and comparative approaches, students assess multiple interpretations of continuity and change in the region’s history.

Group | Group B: European History
Term | Summer 2 & Fall 2026

This course examines the global history of piracy from medieval seafaring to the present, analyzing how maritime raiding and seaborne violence developed across varied historical contexts. Students evaluate primary and secondary sources to investigate the relationship between piracy, commercial networks, state power, and naval regulation. Through comparative case studies that may include but are not limited to the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and East Asia, the course explores how different societies defined, responded to, and represented piracy. Students assess competing scholarly interpretations and consider how evidence shapes historical understandings of maritime activity across regions and periods.

Group | Group A: World History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the political and historical contexts in which Gandhi emerged as a central figure in India’s anticolonial movements. Students analyze the development of nonviolent noncooperation as a political strategy and evaluate how historians interpret its application within India and in later twentieth-century movements around the world. Through primary documents, scholarly debates, and comparative case studies, the course investigates how different actors and institutions responded to these strategies. Students assess multiple interpretations of political mobilization, state responses, and the broader significance of nonviolent methods in modern history.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Summer 1, 2026

This course examines U.S. military history from 1789 to the present, analyzing changes in military policy, strategy, and institutional organization. Students investigate how military developments interacted with political, economic, and social institutions within both domestic and international contexts. Through the study of primary documents, secondary scholarship, and historiographical debates, the course emphasizes methods for evaluating historical arguments about military decision‑making and national governance. Students assess multiple interpretations of how armed forces shaped—and were shaped by—broader historical processes, developing analytical tools for interpreting continuity and change in U.S. military institutions.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the origins, progression, and consequences of the American Revolution from early imperial tensions to the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Students analyze political debates, social developments, regional contexts, and intellectual traditions that shaped the era. Through engagement with primary documents and recent scholarship, the course evaluates how historians interpret the actions and experiences of various groups during the Revolution. Students develop analytical skills for assessing competing explanations of constitutional formation and understanding broader patterns of continuity and change in eighteenth-century North America.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the political, economic, social, and cultural experiences of Latinas/os in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present. Students analyze how state and federal policies, migration, labor, social movements, cultural productions, urban trajectories, community formations and other factors helped shape the experiences of Latina/os and others across different regions. Students develop analytical tools for comparing regional experiences, interpreting historical debates, understanding national processes, and assessing the varied impacts of Latina/o contributions to U.S. society. Regions usually covered may include but are not limited to Texas, California, Puerto Rico, New York, Florida, and the Midwest.

Group | Group C: U.S. History
Term | Fall 2026

This course examines the history of rural women in the United States from the nation’s founding to the present. Students study women’s roles within the agricultural economy, their participation in community and agrarian organizations, and changing relationships between rural populations and government services. The course situates these topics within regional, national, and global contexts to highlight variations over time and place. Emphasis is placed on historical description and analysis, allowing students to assess how economic structures, social institutions, and public policies shaped rural women’s experiences.

Group | Group D: Capstone and Teacher Prep
Term | Summer 1 & Fall 2026

This course introduces students to the practices historians use to interpret the past. Students examine primary and secondary sources, evaluate different methodological approaches, and practice techniques central to historical research and writing. Emphasis is placed on identifying research questions, assessing evidence, and constructing analytical arguments. Through historiographical discussions, source analysis, and a term paper, students develop proficiency in applying historical methods to specific topics. This course is required for History majors.

Prerequisite: 24 semester credit hours in History with a grade point average of at least 2.25 in those hours.