Course Catalog

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20TH CENT. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY (HI3054)

Examines the creation of the Bismarckian state, the origins of World War I and World War II, and the creation of a united Europe in the post-war period. Investigates the efforts of the European state system to adapt to the challenges of nationalism and globalization.

WAR AND PEACE (HI3060)

This course examines core ideas arounds the practice of war and the making of peace. By doing so, we will focus on actors involved both in conflict and peace processes. We will also discuss why, when, and where they fight are directly related to our social characteristics: environment, values, beliefs, political preferences, and other features. The course also investigates how wars are fought, and peace is built. It draws on theoretical approaches of international relations as well as historical and contemporary case studies. The goal is to detangle how the linkage between war, peace, and society plays out globally. Most importantly, the course calls to discuss the necessary conditions for sustained peace that enables citizens to live and flourish. Overall, students will be exposed to and required to engage in various social science methodologies, including history, political science, economics, law, sociology, and anthropology.

LONDON, PARIS, & MADRID 1500 TO PRESENT (HI3062)

The rise of the Atlantic world after 1500 generated cities of unrivaled cultural, economic and political power. Replacing the previously dominant form of the Mediterranean city-state, London, Paris and Madrid became the centers of an Atlantic world which formed the core of the first world system. This course will examine the rise of these cities from the perspective of state building, urban culture, urban revolt, the growth of the Atlantic economy and the responses to these processes through urban planning and city government.

POLITICAL TRAJECTORIES OF IRAQ, SYRIA & LEBANON (1920-2020) (HI3073)

This course explores the modern political history of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and how local as well as regional and international developments regularly connected them or had different political echoes and implications in each of them. To Explain that, the course revisits eight historical moments (between 1920 and 2020) and analyzes their events and dynamics in the three countries.

TOPICS IN HISTORY (SORBONNE) (HI3090)

A limited number of students with requisite oral and written competence in French may follow one course at the Universite de Paris IV - Sorbonne. Every semester, a different selection of courses will be proposed from the Sorbonne's History department, generally on a subject of the cultural and social history of Europe. Students who are selected for participation attend amphitheater lectures and classroom meetings (travaux diriges) at the Sorbonne, and also classroom meetings at AUP through the semester with a designated faculty member. Tests, exams, oral presentations and papers are assigned both at the Sorbonne and at AUP. The course grade and credits are given as for an AUP course. Information on this cooperative program is available from Professor Miranda Spieler.

TOPICS IN HISTORY (HI3091)

Courses on different topics in the discipline, enriching the present course offerings. These classes are taught by permanent or visiting faculty. Topics vary each semester.

INTERNSHIP (HI3098)

Internships may be taken for 1 or 4 credits. Students may do more than one internship, but internship credit cannot cumulatively total more than 4 credits.

IMPERIAL ROME: PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, SOCIETY (HI3114)

Studies the Greek and Latin literature of the Roman Empire. Readings will include: Seneca, star prose writer and poet of tragedies that impressed Shakespeare; Lucanus’ anti-Aeneid; Petronius’ Satyrica, the first Latin novel; Tacitus, the dark historian; witty epigrams and biting satire; a speech On Magic; the Stoics Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, one an ex-slave, the other an emperor; and Plutarch’s account of Antony's love for Cleopatra

KEY TEXTS: SOCRATES, SOPHISTS, AND THE STAGE (HI3116)

A grand tour of 5th cent. BCE Athens, a fascinating time of intellectual unrest and innovation. Readings include the founding fathers of drama (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), Old Comedy (Aristophanes), fragments of the Greek sophists, the historiographers Herodotus and Thucydides, Xenophon’s Recollections of Socrates and early Platonic dialogues, such as the Apology and the Phaedo.

EMPIRE AND INDIVIDUAL: FROM ALEXANDER TO CAESAR (HI3117)

A tour through 300 years of Greek and Roman history and shifting multiethnic empires, from the death of Alexander to the death of Cleopatra (30 BCE). We read a lot: overviews of the Hellenistic Age and the Roman Republic as well as original works by Menander, Epicurus, Cleanthes, Callimachus, Theocritus, Aratus, Apollonius Rhodius, Polybius, Plautus, Terence, Ennius, Sallustius, Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius, Catullus, and others.