teaching
-
History in the Headlines
Each week a different member of the History Department situates a current event in its deeper temporal context. syllabus
-
Modern Europe
A lecture course for non-majors as well majors, Modern Europe follows the contest between conservatism, liberalism, socialism, imperialism, and nationalism since the Enlightenment. Authors and films include Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, and The Lives of Others (2006). syllabus
-
Multinational Britain
A “Cultures & Contexts” course in NYU’s College Core Curriculum, Multinational Britain examines social difference in the British Isles during the 10,000 years before Brexit. Other than mere geography, there is almost nothing that can hold this history together - apart from the continual negotiation of differences of all kinds. syllabus
-
Early Modern Britain
An introduction to British history during the Tudor (1485-1603) and Stuart (1603-1714) eras. How did a provincial Catholic monarchy become imperial, Protestant, and parliamentary? Topics include the household, pandemic disease, and the Atlantic slave trade, and readings include Shakespeare’s The Tempest. syllabus
-
Britain & the British Empire
Designed for students in any major, school, or year, this survey introduces British history since the foundation of the United Kingdom in 1707. The course includes a screening and discussion of The Madness of King George (1994), and the Book Club selection is Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day. syllabus
HIST-UA 828: Urban Modernism
This seminar examines twentieth-century urban planning projects that today are often controversial. Cities considered include Brasília, Chandigarh, London, Los Angeles, New York, Sheffield, and St. Louis. Key authors include Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier, Jane Jacobs, and J. G. Ballard; films include Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (1972), Citizen Jane (2016), and The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011). A highlight is a walking tour with a licensed architect on the theme of “NYU Modernism,” concluding with a reception inside an award-winning brutalist tower designed by I. M. Pei.
HIST-UA TBA: The Darwinian Revolution
This seminar examines the origins, content, and reverberations of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing to the present. Key authors include, in addition to Darwin, Edward Larson, C. P. Snow, and Ruth Hubbard, and the featured film is Inherit the Wind (1960). [Note: the syllabus above links to an earlier version of this course.]
HIST-UA 452: Writing British History
This Capstone Seminar is restricted to History majors who have completed the Workshop. It is designed to facilitate the design, research, writing, and revision of a substantial (20-25 page) historical paper. The course does not require prior knowledge of British history, but neither does it teach it. Rather, the early sessions introduce primary source collections available to historians of Britain at NYU, while subsequent sessions guide students through the writing process. The course culminates with a two-week writing workshop, in which students read and discuss each other’s work. Several students have subsequently published their final papers, and one student won a national essay prize.
Graduate seminars
HIST-GA 2168:
Approaches to History
The required introduction to graduate study at NYU. This course acts as a triple orientation, introducing new students to the department, to the profession, and to the discipline. Though far from comprehensive, the discussions range widely across social and cultural history, intellectual history, political history, oral history, environmental history, the history of technology, micro- and global histories, and race and gender studies.
HIST-GA 1191:
“Class” and the Historians:
A History of the Discipline
This seminar follows changing ideas about social class since the 1960s, in order to shed light on broader developments in the humanities. What was new about the “New Social History” of the 1960s? What was the linguistic turn? What is the difference between social and cultural history? How did gender history achieve canonical status? Why have historians recently expanded their spatial frames? What issues are preoccupying the discipline today? All of these questions (and more) can be answered by following historians’ shifting uses of a single category, class. Open to students from all fields.
HIST-GA 2901:
Britain, 1680-1880
One of several versions of British historiography since 1680 that I offer. My field seminars typically begin by discussing several competing grand narratives for the period. Subsequent weeks introduce a combination of key problems, historians, monographs, debates, and innovations. The goal is to help students arrive at something between field literacy and field mastery.
HIST-GA 2540:
Modern Britain and the British Empire
A graduate seminar on both classic and recent work in twentieth-century British history. The course especially considers several of the master narratives that have attempted to account for the period as a whole. It culminates in a mini-conference, in which graduate students reflect upon metanarratives in British history.
