This course examines the construction of gender in European contexts from Late Antiquity through the medieval and early modern period, addressing historical continuity and change in understandings of femininities, masculinities, and gender nonconformity, as well as in related ideas about sexuality, marriage, family, and romantic love. Students gain an understanding of how gender intersected with social, economic, political, educational, and religious structures in premodern Europe, and consider the merits of various historical approaches to gender.

This course examines women's history and gender relations in both traditional and modern East Asia. Themes explored include the constantly evolving roles of women in the family and as workers, artists, writers, and revolutionaries.

Twentieth-century China bore witness to a political revolution, a social revolution and a 'cultural' revolution. This course will explore the causes and characteristics of those revolutions, as well as the varying patterns of protest, revolt, and rebellion that have taken place in China since 1800. Topics to be covered include peasant revolts, the role of religion in rebellion and resistance to state authority, and forms of resistance and protest in contemporary China during the age of the internet.

An international spotlight has fallen on the Chinese justice system in recent years due to a series of high-profile trials, detentions, and imprisonments. The names and images of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, "Barefoot Lawyer" Chen Guangcheng, and Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai have graced the cover pages of newspapers and magazines around the world, and their journeys have been fodder for extended discussions and debates over the current state of the Chinese legal system. This course examines the history of law, society, and justice in China from the early imperial era to the present.

This course examines the emergence of modern Japan from before the Meiji Restoration (1868), through the triumph and tragedy of imperial Japan, and beyond postwar reconstruction. The consideration of ideas, principles, and values that informed Tokugawa state and society and the study of Japan's selective absorption of European and American ideas and forms enable understanding of the role of values, both Japanese and non-Japanese, in Japan's national integration, rapid industrialization, and achievement of international recognition and power.

This course examines major themes in Chinese history from early times to the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties of the late imperial period. Topics to be covered include major political philosophies, the development of the imperial state, and encounters with foreign cultures.

Beginning with the transition from colonies to independent nations and ending with the political transitions and implementation of neo-liberal policies in the 1990s, this course considers the Latin American region from the perspective of its subordinate incorporation into the world economy, its struggles for democratic institutions and equitable development, and the formation of identities of class, gender, race, and ethnicity.

This course is a survey of the early period of Latin American history, from 1492 to 1826. It begins with an overview of the European background and the major indigenous civilizations in what Europeans came to call the New World. The central focus is on the encounter of indigenous and Iberian cultures and the process of conquest, resistance and mutual transformation that ensued over the next three centuries.

This course explores the historical experiences of African Americans in the United States from the colonial period to the present. The class studies the diversity of experiences that have constituted African American life, exploring the lives of individual African Americans, while also looking at the development and evolution of African American communities, and the interactions of African Americans with other Americans.

This course explores the experiences and values of America's diverse peoples. Students in it not only expand their knowledge of the events of American history but also deepen their understanding of the meaning of those events in people's lives.