This course is an exploration of Japan's imperial project from roughly 1890-1945. We will start by developing a critical theoretical vocabulary with which we will then focus on three recent and important books on Japanese imperialism in East Asia. At the end of the semester we will also look briefly at anti-imperial and decolonization movements as well as the status of the category of 'empire' for analyzing the postwar period.

Studies Christianity in the Middle East in the centuries after the rise of Islam.

Studies the history of the South from 1900 to the present focusing on class structure, race relations, cultural traditions, and the question of southern identity.

History of genocide and other forms of one-sided, state-sponsored mass killing in the twentieth century. Case studies include the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the mass killings that have taken place under Communist regimes (e.g., Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia).

This course explores societal debates about the problem of industrial pollution in China, Japan, and Korea from a historical perspective. Questions this course addresses include the costs and benefits of industrial development and growth, the relationship between environmental movements and civil society, the environmental costs of war, and the role of the non-human in historical narratives.

This course examines the range of human experience in Europe during the Second World War. Why did Nazi Germany invade and attempt to colonize large parts of Europe? What were the methods of Nazi rule? How did European peoples respond to the Nazi project, whether through forms of resistance or collaboration? Who were the principal victims of the war--and why is this question so difficult to address even today?

At the Great War's centennial, we take stock of how it shaped life in the 20th century for peoples around the globe. Movies, memoirs, government reports and other texts throw light on causes of the war, the human carnage of 1914-18, Woodrow Wilson's effort to end war forever with a League of Nations, the demise of liberalism and the rise of fascism and communism in postwar Europe, and the launch of anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa.

Detailed survey of the historical origins, political structures, cultural dynamics, and every-day practices of the Nazi Third Reich. Cross-listed in the German department, and taught in English.

Surveys the rise of the modern corporate form of American business and an analysis of the underlying factors which shaped that development.

Explores the friend/foe nexus in Germany history, literature and culture, with an emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries.