This is our department’s signature contribution to the Core Curriculum at Xavier. It introduces students to the study of history through a particular topic in global history, and we encourage you to look for the topics that most interest and excite you. Whatever class you choose, you will develop historical skills through analytical reading and writing, and you will interpret a variety of texts, images, and/or artifacts within their historical context. By analyzing the complicated process of change over time and grappling with historical questions and arguments, you will be better able to navigate the diverse, complex and interdependent modern world.
As of Spring 2021, all Historical Perspectives courses are number HIST 199. Historical Perspectives course that we have offered recently and expect to offer again soon include:
Africa’s Past, Our Future
Human history in Africa is longer than in any other part of the world. Yet, few people know much about the continent’s history. The aim of this course is to introduce you to the peoples of Africa and their history from human evolution through today. Because of the sources available to us, African history is written much differently than any other history you have been exposed to. For this reason, it is also more easily integrated with the study of environment and ecology. This course will have a heavy emphasis on the ways in which peoples have shaped and been shaped by their environment.
Africans in the Americas
From the early 1500s through the 1860s, more than 12 million Africans—almost all of them enslaved—crossed the Atlantic Ocean. In the plantation societies, port cites, and mining centers of the Americas, Africans and their descendants struggled to survive under brutal conditions, negotiated new relationships with one another and with their enslavers, and reconfigured African cultural practices. This course will examine the everyday lives, cultures, and survival strategies of these African and African-descended people, with an emphasis on plantation societies in Latin America and the Caribbean.
American Roots 1400-1700
This course examines the history of North America during the early period of colonization. We will study Native American societies on the eve of contact; the cultural encounter between peoples of the Old and New Worlds; the ecological transformation of the continent; and the creation and development of key European colonies. We will also reflect on how patterns established hundreds of years ago continue to influence life in North America today.
Britain: Sherlock to Britpop
This class will explore the social, political, and cultural history of Britain from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. Analyzing primary sources from popular culture, we will focus on three themes: class and national identities in modern Britain, the emergence of mass culture, and the relationship between citizens and the state.
Europe at War, 1914-1945
This course examines the history of Europe during and between the twin military conflicts that devastated the continent.
Francis: The Making of a Saint
St. Francis of Assisi is the most famous Catholic saint of all time. Why is St. Francis historically important? How can we know anything about him now, hundreds of years after his death? Why do historians, and others, find Francis interesting and relevant? This course examines St. Francis in the time, place, and culture that gave rise to his own piety and his reputation of sanctity: medieval Europe.
History of Native American Health
This course will examine the health-related impact of European contact and colonization on Native peoples in North America since 1600. The course will blend elements of history, anthropology, and public health in studying the effects of disease, forced acculturation, and mental and physical health issues (including those linked to poverty and substance abuse), and the effects of resource extraction on Native American communities, as well as those communities’ responses to those problems.
Immigration to America
This course examines the impact of immigration and ethnicity on American culture. It covers both the immigrant experience as well as the emergence of ethnic identities, communities, and customs. The course also analyzes the politics of immigration, nativist backlash to immigration, and the ways in which ethnicity has transformed notions of class, gender, nationalism, popular culture, and race. We will study the global economics of immigration, the politics of identity, and the impact that multiculturalism has had on American ethnicity.
Latin America: Cortes to Castro
This course will examine the development of Latin American societies over more than five hundred years of history. A primary goal of the course will be to understand continuity and change in a complex range of social, economic, and cultural structures. The course will explore topics such as the impact of religion, colonialism, and movements for social change on the long-term development of Latin American societies, and the rise of cities, from the first urban settlements to the “mega-cities” of the 21stcentury.
Law & Order in 19th-century US West
This course examines contact, conflict, and conflict resolution in the 19th-century American West. It studies encounters between/among Native Americans, Spanish/Mexicans, Americans, and other peoples in a variety of contexts, including the fur trade, settlement, mining and industrialization.
Papyrus, Parchment, and Paper
For most of history, only the tiniest proportions of human beings were capable of reading and writing. Written texts nevertheless played a central role in most pre-modern civilizations, and ancient texts passed down across thousands of years continue to shape our world today. This course focuses on the diffusion of writing before the industrial age, especially around the Mediterranean basin, with special attention to the preservation of lightweight, portable texts, and to their modern discovery.
Women in the American West
This course examines the history of women in what would become the American West from 1500 to the present. It will examine the roles of women in various societies and cultures in the West, and the ways in which women shaped (and were shaped by) the history of the region.