History Course Listings

Lower Division Courses

These courses, at the 100- and 200-level, are intended as introductory surveys for first- and second-year students, although students of any standing are welcome to enroll.

A maximum of 20 credits worth of these courses may be applied to the major. Courses in bold are offered every year.

Upper division courses, 300-level

These courses are meant to serve as introductions to specific fields. No prior experience with subject matter is expected or required.

Courses marked with a 'U' suffix correspond to clusters, and help fulfill the general education requirements for UNST. Courses in bold are offered every year.

Upper division courses, 400-level

These courses are more focused, intensive explorations of historical fields, including independent studies (reserved for students in the Honors in History program), reading and research seminars, and other advanced topics courses. Courses in bold are offered every year.

Graduate-level courses, 500-level

Courses numbered 500 and above are reserved for graduate students. Students need not be formally accepted into the MA Program in History at PSU to register for these courses.

Selected Courses from Previous Terms

HST 297: Gender and Film in U.S. History

This course uses film as a tool to learn about women and gender in U.S. History
and also to think about the ways in which Hollywood presents the narrative of women in history in gendered and often race- and class-specific ways.

Course Flier

HST 326U: Chican@ History, 1900-present

Mexican ancestry people are and have long been the second largest minority population in the United States,
and their history traces the major turning points in North American history.

Course Flier

HST 385U: Late Imperial Middle East

Topics include the structure and politics of the Ottoman and Qajar empires, their unequal confrontation with
European power and wealth, various projects for social and legal reform, and new ideas about political and cultural identity.

Course Flier

HST 390U: Topics in World History: Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The enslavement and forced migration of over 12 million people fundamentally transformed the African past
in ways that continue to reverberate in the world today.

Course Flier

HST 390U: Topics in World History: Energy Crises and Transitions

Energy is the basis of the world economic system and frames the experience of democracy. Energy is also the source of geopolitical tension and great power status, a space of contestation between the haves and have-nots.

Course Flier

HST 410: Native Women of the Pacific Northwest

This one-credit class in three sessions will provide students with a unique opportunity
to meet with historians who have written recent scholarly works on the history of Native women in the Pacific Northwest.

Course Flier

HST 422/522: Wartime and Postwar Japan

This course traces the history of Japan from wartime through to the postwar era (1945 to the present)
with considerable discussion of transwar continuities and discontinuities, in order to better understand the Japan of today.

Course Flier

HST 427/527: Topics in the History of Science: Science Fictions

This course uses several classic representations of science and scientists in literature as windows on the history of science in its social context,
such as Goethe's Faust, Shelley's Frankenstein, and Lewis' Arrowsmith.

Course Flier

HST 432/532: Recent American Political Culture

An exploration of changing American social values and cultural conflict since 1941, through historical scholarship, primary documents, and audio-visual
media.

Course Flier

HST 468/568: History of Mexico I: Mexico Before Spain

A study of Mexico's beginnings from pre-Columbian times through the colonial period. The origins of Mexican culture, society, economy, and political institutions will be examined in the context of Hispanic and indigenous contributions.

Course Flier