HIST 110: Introduction to Cultural History

An introduction to the ways of looking at the past that differ substantially from those encountered in most high school history courses. Cultural history investigates the many different ways in which diverse peoples in the past have understood themselves, their societies, and their surroundings. It concerns itself with the lives of ordinary people, asking not only what they did, but how they thought about what they did. This course invites students to delve deeply into the cultural practices and ideas of past individuals through a series of case studies from widely disparate times and places. It introduces students to the methods of cultural history and to the historical discipline more generally through readings and analyses of primary sources alongside critical and synthetic approaches to important secondary literature.