#  Welcome Class of 2028! 

 



 We're excited to introduce you to Hist & Lit and to welcome you to campus soon!



 

##  Meet with a concentration adviser! 

 As part of Orientation, we'll be hosting two informal events for students interested in learning more about Hist & Lit.

- On **Tuesday, August 13**, **2-3pm** join us over Zoom for an [introduction to the concentration](https://calendar.college.harvard.edu/event/what-is-history-literature). We'll provide an overview of the program, answer questions, and TKTKTKTK.
- On **Thursday, August 29**, **2-4pm** drop by the Hist & Lit office in Barker Center 122 to chat with a concentration adviser and {MAYBE} meet peer advisers.
- You are also welcome to schedule an individual appointment any time with a concentration adviser, either over Zoom or in person. [Schedule a conversation here](https://calendly.com/hist-and-lit/concentration-advising)!



 

##  What classes can I take? 

 The best way to get to know Hist & Lit is to enroll in one of our HL90 seminars, which are capped at 15 students. We also have HL93 research seminars, part of the [Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship](https://engagedscholarship.fas.harvard.edu/). We've got a lot of exciting ones this fall, and have saved at least 3 seats in each course for first years. To enroll, submit a petition on my.harvard!



 

##  Fall 2024 Seminars 

 



### Spring, 2026

  [### HIST-LIT 90GP: Race & Ethnicity in Twentieth-Century American Thought

 ](/class/hist-lit-90gp-race-ethnicity-twentieth-century-american-thought) 

 **Semester:**   Spring 

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 **Year offered:**  2026 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/160520) 

 

**Instructor:** Nicholas Bloom  
**Meeting time:** Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 am

In his 1903 book *The Souls of Black Folk*, W.E.B. Du Bois famously wrote that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” This course is a survey of the work of...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90GB: American Education Reforms

 ](/class/hist-lit-90gb-american-education-reforms) 

 **Semester:**   Spring 

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 **Year offered:**  2026 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/160295) 

 

**Instructor:** Emily Gowen  
**Meeting time:** Monday, 12:45-2:45 pm

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...



 

  



### Fall, 2025

  [### HIST-LIT 90GT: World War II in Image, Text, and Sound

 ](/class/hist-lit-90gt-world-war-ii-image-text-and-sound) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2025 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/158150) 

 

**Instructor:** Jules Riegel  
**Meeting time:** Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 am

Almost eighty years after the end of World War II, its legacies are alive as ever. The conflict was fought across much of the globe, ravaging landscapes and ecosystems and wiping villages, towns...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90HA: The American West

 ](/class/hist-lit-90ha-american-west) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2025 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/157298) 

 

**Instructor:** Chloe Hawkey  
**Meeting time:** Monday, 9:45-11:45 am

From cowboys to “tech bros,” images of the American West are everywhere—and they have been for a long time. The data of geological surveys and census reports have never been able to outweigh...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90BR: Work and Labor Across the Americas

 ](/class/hist-lit-90br-work-and-labor-across-americas) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2025 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/157295) 

 

**Instructor:** Dennis Hogan  
**Meeting time:** Tuesday, 3:00-5:00 pm

This seminar introduces students to the history of work and workers in the Americas. We will examine work and labor and their intersections with colonialism, imperialism, and slavery from the...



 

  



### Fall, 2024

  [### HIST-LIT 90GE: Screen Cultures from Cinema to TikTok

 ](/class/hist-lit-90ge-screen-cultures-cinema-tiktok) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140031) 

 

**Instructor:** Emmet von Stackelberg  
**Meeting time:** Thursday, 12:45-2:45 pm

The way we see the world is growing inseparable from the way our screens show that world to us. It would be almost impossible to avoid screens for even a single day. This course follows...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90GQ: Popular Culture

 ](/class/hist-lit-90gq-popular-culture) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140034) 

 

**Instructor:** Angela Allan  
**Meeting time:** Wednesday, 9:45-11:45 am

Studying popular culture reveals much about the society that creates, consumes, and critiques it. How do ideas circulate in mass media? Can popular culture create social change? Who determines...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90FI: Race and Empire in the Americas

 ](/class/hist-lit-90fi-race-and-empire-americas) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140036) 

 

**Instructor:** Hannah Waits  
**Meeting time:** Thursday, 3:00-5:00 pm

This course explores the culture and politics of imperialism in the Americas from the early 19th century to the present, with particular attention to race and ethnicity. We ask how formal and...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90EJ: Espionage: A Cultural History

 ](/class/hist-lit-90ej-espionage-cultural-history) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140033) 

 

**Instructor:** Duncan White  
**Meeting time:** Thursday, 3:45-5:45 pm

Over the course of the twentieth century the spy thriller became a central part of our culture, changing the way people imagined how the state operates in secret. Why are we attracted to stories...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 90FZ: The South: Histories of a U.S. Region

 ](/class/hist-lit-90fz-south-histories-us-region) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140041) 

 

**Instructor:** Rachel Kirby  
**Meeting time:** Monday, 12:45-2:45 pm

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...



 

  



### Spring, 2027

  [### HIST-LIT 90AN: God Save the Queen! Ruling Women from Rome to the Renaissance

 ](/class/hist-lit-90an-god-save-queen-ruling-women-rome-renaissance) 

 **Semester:**   Spring 

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 **Year offered:**  2027 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140056) 

 

**Instructor:** Sean Gilsdorf  
**Meeting time:** TBD

This seminar will explore female rulership in Europe from the late Roman empire to the age of Elizabeth I. Discussion of varied texts and images (most of them primary sources in translation) will reveal the role...



 

  



 

 

 

 

 

##  Fall 2024 Seminars 

 



### Fall, 2024

  [### HIST-LIT 93AB: Oral Histories

 ](/class/hist-lit-93ab-oral-histories) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140057) 

 

**Instructor:** Lilly Havstad  
**Meeting time:** Wednesday, 12:45-2:45 pm

Oral histories engage with sources that offer perspectives, life experiences, and ways of knowing that official written records can overlook or actively seek to erase from the historical...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 93AD: Harvard and Native Lands

 ](/class/hist-lit-93ad-harvard-and-native-lands) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/135686) 

 

**Instructor:** Alan Niles   
**Meeting time:** Tuesday, 9:45-11:45 am

Harvard’s beginnings included a promise to educate both “English and Indian youth.” From its inception, however, Harvard’s endowment included Native lands expropriated through war, theft, and...



 

   [### HIST-LIT 93AE: Prison Abolition and Prison Literature

 ](/class/hist-lit-93ae-prison-abolition-and-prison-literature) 

 **Semester:**   Fall 

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 **Year offered:**  2024 

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 **Link:** [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/140824) 

 

**Instructor:** Thomas Dichter  
**Meeting time:** Thursday, 12:00-2:45 pm

This class explores the relationship between the movement to abolish incarceration and the literary production of people inside prisons. How can prison abolitionism and prison literature serve...