This course introduces students to the theoretical and practical aspects of public history, using the city of Tacoma as its subject. The course begins by examining the underpinnings and guiding practices that define public history. We examine (and sometimes visit) museums, community archives, historical societies and other groups to gain an understanding of the breadth of public history work. The second section of the course looks at the history of Tacoma with special attention paid to the ethnic and racial groups that have defined much of its modern history.
HIST 378 | History of Latinx People in the United States
This course provides an overview of the history of peoples of Latin American descent in the United States. The course begins with an analysis of Latinx people as a historical group. From there, the course largely moves chronologically and shows the various ways in which Latinx people have shaped their own communities and the nation. Special attention will be paid to civil rights history, community history, and the social and cultural history of Latinx people.
HIST 376 | Cuba and the Cuban Diaspora
This course is centered on the common historical heritage between the island of Cuba and its diasporic populations. Dating back to the birth of the Cuban independence movement, exile, migration, and displacement have been nearly permanent conditions of Cuban history. This course argues that there is not only a history of Cuba in Cuba but also a history Cuba that has played out in Florida, New York, Spain, Mexico, and a variety of other locations as diasporic communities have worked to shape both the Cuban republic and their adopted communities.
HIST 375 | History of Sport in US Society
This course explores the history of sports in the United States and uses that history as a lens for investigating and understanding more fully the range of issues with which that history intersects. To interrogate the history of sports is to situate our current practices in their historical context.
HIST 372 | American Cultural History Since 1865
This course focuses on the rise of consumer culture and the way the media have influenced the formation of the American identity since 1865. The class explores the cultural significance of mass circulation magazines, advertising, photography, radio, film, television, and the internet. Particular attention is paid to the cultural construction of race and gender. Several films are screened outside of regular class time.
HIST 370 | Nationalism and the Fall of Empire in Central Europe
This course examines the history of multi-ethnic empire in Central Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the aftermath of World War One. It examines the rise of nationalisms in the Hapsburg Empire or Austria-Hungary, with a focus on Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish and Ukrainian national identities, as well as Bosnian, Jewish and South Slavic peoples. The course asks why national identities became hegemonic and examines the advantages and disadvantages of multi-ethnic empire in the troubled modern history of the region.
HIST 369 | History of the West and the Pacific Northwest
This course focuses on "world histories" of the Pacific North American West -- a globally connected set of Pacific Rim places including the states of Washington, Oregon and California, along with Hawai’i, Alaska, British Columbia, Mexico and many Indigenous Nations.
HIST 368 | The Course of American Empire: The United States in the West and Pacific, 1776-1919
This course explores the politics and culture of United States imperialism from the nation’s founding until the first decades of the 20th century. Focusing on westward expansion and the projection of U.S. power into Asia and the Pacific, the course considers how the ideas and policies supporting expansion and military conquest were developed, expressed, manifested, and contested. It examines how various peoples have confronted U.S. colonialism, including Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, Hawaiians and Filipinos.
HIST 367 | Immigration in the U.S.
This course provides a broad overview of the history of migration in the United States from the colonial era to the present day. The course begins by analyzing the contours and historiography of migration. The opening sections of the class consider the role of forced migration, Indigenous people, borders, and the early republic in an effort to understand the parameters of migration and citizenship.
HIST 364 | American Environmental History
The course explores the complex relationship between the natural world and human societies and cultures in what is now the United States, with an emphasis on environmental justice, race, gender, and capitalism. We consider both the power of nature in shaping human societies and cultures and in turn how those societies and cultures have constructed nature in ways that reflect their interests, values, visions, and divisions.