Catalog of Courses

Topics in History:

Selected topics in the study of history. Specific content and emphasis to be determined by the instructor.

1 unit — Adler, Ashley, Golightly, Lisiecki, Mehta, Murphy, Murray, Pavlenko, Ragan, Reaves, Sanchez

Previously Featured Offering

Nov. 2018
Learn about the relationship between violence and revolutionary change in twentieth-century Mexico with this history/southwest studies course. The story of Mexico is often told as a failure narrative. This course will challenge this basic assumption by situating the experiences of ordinary people, front and center.
Zacatecas Landscape with Hanged Men II by Francisco Goitia. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
This course explores the relationships between violence and revolutionary change in Mexico; how the post-revolutionary state and its adversaries mobilized memories of the revolution to meet their particular political and social ends; the Mexican dirty war of the 1970's ; and the drug war that has devastated Mexico over the past decade.
Mar. 2017
Instructor: Jamal Ratchford
'I am the Greatest': American Sport and Society explores diverse issues, personalities, events, social forces, and historical moments that have and continue to shape American athletes.
Image of Johnson vs. Burns (1908)
Image of Johnson vs. Burns (1908)
This course explores diverse issues pertinent to American athletes. The Department of History, and Race, Ethnicity and Migration Studies Program as disciplines, offer strategies to train students for a multicultural and diverse society. We will study, discuss, present, and contextualize issues, personalities, events, social forces, and historical moments that have and continue to shape American athletes. In this course chronology is circular rather than linear as we will discuss issues from a wide range of time periods. The primary focus of this course will be to examine the ways race, class, gender, politics and history concentrically impact American athletes. Although this class requires no formal prerequisite, it is recommended that students either can grasp and/or have a theoretical and historical understanding of United States and African American History.
Jan. 2016
Instructor: Jessy Randall
The History and Future of the Book explores different technologies of the written word, including clay tablets, sheepskin scrolls, modern printing, and digital text. Students will analyze how reading, writing, and preserving texts intersect with identity, memory, and history.
The History and Future of the Book
The History and Future of the Book. Examines the development of technologies of the written word, from clay tablets and sheepskin scrolls to the manuscript codex, early printed book, modern printing, and digital text. Questions the way reading, writing, and preserving texts intersect with identity, memory, and history, making extensive use of primary materials in the library’s Special Collections and incorporating a hands-on experience at The Press at Colorado College.
Apr. 2012
Instructor: Tip Ragan, Jane Murphy
What does it mean to be Jordanian at the start of the twenty-first century? What does the long mythic and historical past of this region mean for questions of personal and national identity?
The Nabatean city of Petra
The Nabatean city of Petra
Through site visits, historical, literary, and political texts, and engagement with host-families and local residents, we’ll re-examine identity and historical imagination in this desert and mountain land. We’ll visit the Nabatean capital of Petra (one of the Seven Wonders of the World), Old and New Testament sites, and Roman sites in Amman and the well-preserved Roman city of Jerash, to consider religious and ethnic pluralism in antiquity; camp with Bedouins in the desert of Wadi Rum and consider desert life and its role in Islamic reality and myth; visit crusader castles and explore military and trade in the medieval Mediterranean world; and enjoy and examine the expanding eco-tourism of the Dead Sea and mountainous Ajloun. Ultimately, we seek to understand how this long historical past inflects contemporary political relationships with the large Palestinian population and neighboring Israel, Syria and Iraq, and how Jordan has remained so safe and stable in the modern period.

Offerings

Term Block Title Instructor Location Student Limit/Available Updated
Fall 2022 Block 1 Topics in History: Community Organizing in the 20th Century Paul Adler Palmer Hall 216 25 / 4 11/25/2022
Fall 2022 Block 1 Tpcs in History: Art in Context: Paris on a Precipice: Early 20th Century Challenges in Art and Topic Details Gale Murray, Tip Ragan Taught Abroad 001 15 / 2 11/25/2022
Fall 2022 Block 2 Topics in History: Caste: Histories and Theories of Exclusion, Stigma, and Discrimination Purvi Mehta Palmer Hall EAST TENT 25 / 1 11/25/2022
Fall 2022 Block 2 Topics in History: The Great Depression and the New Deal Topic Details Paul Adler Palmer Hall 223 25 / 1 11/25/2022
Fall 2022 Block 3 Topics in History: Russian History in Russian Literature I Alexei Pavlenko Armstrong Hall 356 25 / 19 11/25/2022
Fall 2022 Block 4 Topics in History: Russian History in Russian Literature II Alexei Pavlenko Armstrong Hall 356 25 / 22 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 6 Topics in History: Martyrs & Saints Topic Details Pamela Reaves TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 7 Topics in History: Art and Power in Florence Susan Ashley TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 7 Topics in History: Islamic Cities Jane Murphy TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 7 Topics in History: Global Africa Topic Details Danielle Sanchez TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 8 Topics in History: Representing the Holocaust Topic Details Chet Lisiecki TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 8 Topics in History: Cutpurses and Courtesans: Criminal Identities in Britain during the Eighteenth Jennifer Golightly TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Spring 2023 Block 8 Topics in History: Latin America's Cold War Topic Details Paul Adler TBA 25 / 25 11/25/2022
Report an issue - Last updated: 11/25/2022