Instructor: Jules Riegel
Meeting time: Thursday, 9:45-11:45 am
This course takes an expansive, global approach to transgender history. Students will examine the lives of ancient and medieval people who crossed boundaries of sex and gender; consider the historical overlaps between cross-dressing, queer sexuality, and gender non-conformity; and discover the history of trans activism, both in the U.S. and globally. Students will become familiar with some of the global vocabulary of gender identities beyond the binary and will understand the historical impacts of phenomena such as racism, imperialism, and medicalization on gender identities, particularly since the nineteenth century. In the process, we will consider what it means to study trans history: where can we find trans people in the past? How do we know, and what terms should we use when we talk about them? What are our methodological and ethical obligations to historical trans people and communities?... Read more about HIST-LIT 90GH: Global Transgender Histories
How do gender and sexuality shape Indigenous life?...
In response to climate change, some experts suggest the key to our survival is curbing mass consumption and working toward a “no-growth” economic model. Yet consumption levels continue to rise globally. We can’t stop ourselves from buying more stuff. To help us better understand why, this course traces the rise of mass consumer culture in modern Europe from the 19th century industrial revolution to the late twentieth century. Over the semester we will seek to answer the following questions: How has the meaning of buying and possessing stuff changed over the last two hundred years? How were modern urban spaces shaped around the twin delights of consumption and leisure? How did consumer culture become a source of class distinction, identity formation, gendered stereotypes, and creative expression? What role did consumer culture play in promoting European imperial and colonial projects and resisting empire? In the postwar era, how did modernization and Americanization change European consumer habits? How did groups like the Situationist International, Dutch Provos, and West Berlin’s Kommune 1 levy political critiques against mass consumption as a source of alienation? How did these critiques evolve into larger anti-globalization movements in the 1990s?... 
Education is often understood as a lever for social change, but ideas about what constitutes a good education have long been hotly contested. What is more, the seeds of today’s most urgent educational controversies—such as debates about equity, educational purpose, censorship, etc.—can be found in archives related to America’s earliest schools. In this course, we will trace various American education reform movements from the early colonial period through the turn of the 20th century, and explore the philosophical, practical, and social conflicts that animated them.... 
The South is a physical place with debated boundaries, populated by a diverse set of people who navigate and enliven the region. Simultaneously, “the South” is a layered cultural category that has been imagined and evoked over time in ways that are dynamic, evolving, and contradictory. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to our study of moments, ideas, places, and events that illuminate various aspects of the region, we will question what types of social and political work are carried out by the category of “southern” as employed by people both in and outside of the region....