This course is designed to engage students in conversations about particular perspectives on the history of a selected nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon as specified by the respective instructor. By taking this course, students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for, some combination of: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may also explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the complex political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors and subject will vary.

In 2011, Bill Gates and David Christian launched a project for teaching “Big History” at high schools. In their definition, “Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods.” The vocabulary, concepts, and environmental fears driving the project are distinctly twenty-first century. However, humanity has sought the exact same goals for longer than two millenia already. The course will sample how ancient Greek philosophy and science were used in order to propose practically and morally relevant “Big History” at different times and places: Graeco-Roman antiquity, the Christian and Muslim Middle Ages, and the modern period.

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Requirements class fulfills