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HIST 12U: Quad Lab: Histories of Technology, Society, and Place at Harvard

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2022
Everything has a history. The food that we eat, the heat that warms us, the gardens we pass through, the buildings that give us shelter all bring us into complex, vital relationships with the past. This course converts the Radcliffe Quad into a laboratory for the exploration of those relationships. Our purpose is to develop a set of methods suited to writing the history of the present. We will explore archives and boiler rooms, databases, and rooftops. Course meetings will be split between Cabot House and the Schlesinger Library.

HIST 12W: The History of Energy

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2021

This course is a critical introduction to the history of energy. What roles has energy played in the creation and destruction of societies, cultures, and economies? How have different forms of energy—biomass, coal, oil, electricity, nuclear, renewables—influenced historical processes? How has the concept of “energy" been understood in different eras and places, and how have those understandings defined political and philosophical horizons—the borders between science and society, choice and necessity, for example? As we explore the history of energy we will ask what it means to be...

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HIST 1951: Japanese Imperialism and the East Asian Modern

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2021
This course explores the role of Japanese imperialism in teh making of modern East Asia. By the 1940s Japan's empire stretched from the cold northern woods of Sakhalin Island to Taiwan, Korea, China, and Southeast Asia. We use the analysis of this world-historical force to examine the tensions between modernization and imperialism across the region. Readings will take us to Manchurian museums, Shanghai jazz clubs, and Burmese battlefields.

HIST 1610: East Asian Environments: China, Japan, Korea

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2021

The future is not what it used to be. Nowhere is this more evident than in the natural world, where limate change and fading biodiversity, energy anxieties, and environmental disasters have underminded the bedrock of history: the assumption of a stable continuity between past, present, and future. This class visits East Asia - China, Japan, and the Koreas, vibrant economies and agents of historical change, to explore the transformation of the natural world in modern times. We will analyze nuclear power plants and cruise rivers, explore industrial ruins and debate public policy as we...

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HIST 2019: Energy History: Seminar

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2020
This seminar is a critical introduction to the history and historiography of energy, a field entangled with the history of fossil-fueled climate change. We will work our way back into the history of energy, using theories of energy to rethink such key issues as industrialization, labor, empire, and urbanization. In the process, we will rethink stark distinctions between socialism and capitalism; bodies and environment; nature and culture. And we will pay particular attention to the edges of the field: where are the opportunities for new work? What new questions does a focus on energy allow us... Read more about HIST 2019: Energy History: Seminar

HIST 1610: East Asian Environments: China, Japan, Korea

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2020
The future is not what it used to be. Nowhere is this more evident than in the natural world, where climate change and fading biodiversity, energy anxieties, and environmental disasters have undermined the bedrock of history: the assumption of a stable continuity between past, present, and future. This class visits East Asia - China, Japan, and the Koreas, vibrant economies and agents of historical change, to explore the transformation of the natural world in modern times. We will analyze nuclear power plants and cruise rivers, explore industrial ruins and debate public policy as we define... Read more about HIST 1610: East Asian Environments: China, Japan, Korea

HIST 2951: The Environmental Turn in History: Seminar

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2019
A critical exploration of history's "environmental turn." This course tracks the movement of environmental themes to the center of the discipline and the emergence of environmental history as an important new subfield. Readings will range from classics to cutting-edge new work.

HIST 1910: The History of Energy

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2019
The history of energy is the history of modern political economy. The history of energy is the history of a scientific concept and its technological application. The history of energy is the history of climate change and environmental catastrophe. The history of energy is the history of life, the universe, and everything . All of these statements are true. This seminar is a critical introduction to the roles that energy has played in history and historiography. Using this ubiquitous and fundamental concept, we will explore questions ranging from climate change and capitalism to causality and... Read more about HIST 1910: The History of Energy

History 2615: Asian Environments (Graduate Seminar in General Education)

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2017

S. Amrith/A. Ghosh/I. Miller

This course will use the history of Asia, the world's most populous and economically dynamic region, to illuminate the most urgent environmental issues of our time. We will buid a curriculum based on crucial episodes and sites in Asia's environmental past: moments of political and moral crisis or choice; places and encounters that continue to shape our present and future. Note: The seminar will design and develop a General Education course on these themes for undergraduates. A key aim of the graduate seminar will be to identify and develop a series...

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HIST 97D: What is Environmental History?

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2017

This section gives new History concentrators an introduction to environmental history. Most historians leave the natural world out of the story, but environmental historians regard nature as the inescapable context for human history, including the human impact on nature. We will explore how the histories of the environment and of humans can (and perhaps should) be written together. Is there a "natural archive" which historians can consult in parallel with conventional libraries and archives? Do places have "biographies," just as people do? Can natural entities (mountains, dogs, rivers,...

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Societies of the World 43: Japan's Samurai Revolution

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2016

D. Howell/I. Miller

On July 8, 1853, Commodore Mathew C. Perry steamed into Japan's Edo Bay with four heavily armed U.S. Navy warships. Two were the so-called "black ships," ominously painted coal-burning steamships of the latest design. There, within view of a stunned populace, Perry issued an ultimatum: open the country to trade or face unstoppable bombardment. Thus began Japan's modern engagement with the outsdie world, a new chapter in the broader encounter between "East" and "West." Through primary resources, discussion, and lecture, this course examines Japan's rapid...

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