History

Programs & Courses

Undergraduate Programs

Bachelor of Arts

  • BA Major in History
    A Bachelor of Arts in History is great preparation for law school and graduate studies in a variety of disciplines, including public policy, business, development, and museum management. History majors are well-positioned to pursue careers in government, communications, and business.

Minor

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History Courses

 

HISTORY COURSES AT HOFSTRA (Fall 2025)

(WITH DESCRIPTIONS FOR Special Topics courses and seminars)

Core Distribution codes: (HP) History/Philosophy; (CC) Cross Cultural/ (WI) Writing Intensive

It is strongly recommended that students consult a professor in the Department of History prior to registration every semester.
Questions? Email: sally.charnow@hofstra.edu

  • Hist 010, sec 01 (CC/HP): Intro to Global History 3sh, MW 9:40-11:05, Professor Brenda Elsey.
    This course is an introduction to major historical processes of global scope. Themes will vary but may include: diaspora and migration; the emergence of civilizations; worlds of slavery; gender and sexuality; empire and expansion; scientific revolutions; independence movements; and world wars.
  • Hist 010, sec 02 (CC/HP): Intro to Global History 3sh, MW 9:40-11:05, Professor Yuki Terazawa.
    This course is an introduction to major historical processes of global scope. Themes will vary but may include: diaspora and migration; the emergence of civilizations; worlds of slavery; gender and sexuality; empire and expansion; scientific revolutions; independence movements; and world wars.
  • History 013C sec 01 (HP): US: Colonial to Cival War 3 sh, MWF 8:30-9:25, Professor Michael Galgano.|
    Intensive study of controversial issues from the colonial period through the Civil War. The course is not chronological but rather organized around themes of the faculty member’s choosing. Conflicting points of view are addressed in lectures, readings, and discussions.
  • History 014F sec 01 (HP): First-Year Seminar: Displaying the Past: Museums and Media (HP), 3sh, TR 1:00-2:25, Professor Sally Charnow.
    What stories are told or not told by the actors working at Colonial Williamsburg? Whose voices are heard at the living history museum Plimoth Patuxet, a 17th century English village located in Massachusetts? Which objects are chosen by curators to tell the history of ancient Greece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? How can exhibition spaces contextualize disparate histories and timelines? And how are museum practices being challenged worldwide in relationship to stolen artifacts and artwork? This class explores the role of historical memory in shaping our understanding of the past as it is put to use in public settings, especially museums and media. Students will also learn how the visual products of a culture relate to historical circumstances, societal values, and shifting personal and collective identities.
  • Hist 014F sec 02 (HP): First-Year Seminar: McCarthyism and the Perils of Political Repression.
    4sh, TR 2:40-4:35, Professor Carolyn Eisenberg. 
    Who was Joseph McCarthy and why should we care about him? For at least five years, this Senator from Wisconsin had become a household name. At the height of the Cold War, he embodied the national hysteria over possible communist subversion and the need to curtail or stifle political dissent. In this seminar, we will learn about this fascinating politician, as well as the Senate Internal Security Committe and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). What was the impact of their work on Hollywood, the unions, the press and universities? Class will use films, oral histories and biography to explore these issues.
  • Hist 020, sec 01 (HP): Why History Matters: Immigration, 3 sh, MW, 11:20 am-12:45 pm Professor Johan Ahr.
    Contemporary issues are seen in relation to their historical contexts and origins. Themes will vary, depending on faculty member and relevant global events, and have included presidential politics, the war on terror, popular culture in Latin America, the welfare state and social inequality, Islam and the West, migration, genocide, and natural disasters.
  • Hist 020, sec A (HP): Why History Matters: Immigration 3 sh, M, 4:20-5:45 pm, Professor Johan Ahr.
    Contemporary issues are seen in relation to their historical contexts and origins. Themes will vary, depending on faculty member and relevant global events, and have included presidential politics, the war on terror, popular culture in Latin America, the welfare state and social inequality, Islam and the West, migration, genocide, and natural disasters.
  • Hist 020 sec F2 (HP) First-Year Seminar, Why History Matters: "It Was All a Dream": Black and Latino Youth Experiences in the United States, 3 sh, MW 9:10 – 11:05 am, Professor  Katrina Sims. 
    The course will examine some of the Notorious B.I.G.'s lyrics, like his 1994 hit Juicy, to examine the desires of American youth for economic ascension and personal autonomy. We will delve into the criminalization of their bodies and examine the trauma of hypersurveillance on these youth people using texts like Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys and An African American and Latinx History of the United States.
  • Hist 030 sec 01(HP): Contemporary American Lives, 3sh, TR 4:20-5:45 pm, Professor John Munz.
    In a biographical approach to historical understanding, the course considers the lives of four to six American men and women, chosen by the instructor to represent important aspects of American society since 1900. Individuals will be examined with regard to their interactions with society and one another, in the light of not only biographical and autobiographical texts but also of sound recordings, films, and visits to historical sites.
  • Hist 030 (HP) RTVF 180 New Interdisciplinary Course: Contemporary American Lives: From Hurston to Horror: Black Civil Rights through Film, Art, and History, 4sh, Thursday 11:40 am - 3:40 pm, Professor Katrina Sims and Professor William Jennings.
    This course will use film, art, and history to guide students through the political, economic, and cultural philosophies of Black intellectuals like Frederick Douglass, Maggie Lena Walker, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Fannie Lou Hammer, Alain Leroy Locke, and Shirley Chisholm, to name a few. Readings will include excerpts from literaries, including Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Tera Hunter, Robin D. G. Kelley, bell hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Colson Whitehead. Screenings will include historically parallel films such as em>Birth of a Nation, Blood of Jesus, Cabin in the Sky, Imitation of Life, A Raisin in the Sun, Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadassss Song, Bamboozled, Daughters of the Dust, and Us and television series including Them, Kindred, and others.
    Prerequisite(s): RTVF 10
  • HIST 032 sec A (HP): The American Jewish Experience (Identities), 3sh, MW 11:20-12:45 pm, Professor Santiago Slabodsky.
    This course will explore the diversity of Jewish identities in the US from a historical perspective. Students will survey the creative paths that Jewish communities and individuals have taken to negotiate and reimagine memories, experiences, and traditions in conversation with each other and with other collectives in American society. Topics will include the relationship between immigration and assimilation, antisemitism and freedom, Zionism and diasporism, communal agreements and polemics, gender constructions and religious differences, ethnic crossovers and racial tensions, and political participation and popular culture.
  • HIST 036 sec 01 (HP): The Holocaust: Memory and Representation, 3 sh, MW 9:40-11:05am, Dr. Johan Ahr.
    An introduction to “Holocaust Studies”—the academic study of the mass destruction of European Jewry during World War II—including its history and aftermath, aesthetic representations and theoretical issues. The theme throughout will be the question of Holocaust “memory”—how have the terrible events of the past entered our consciousness and shaped our culture today?

    Hist 102 WI (HP): Investigating History: Family Matters, 4sh, MW 2:40-4:35 pm, Professor Brenda Elsey. 
    Students will complete genealogies of their families and connect them to global historical events. The goal of this course is to introduce students to the process of conducting original research and strengthen their understanding of historical context.   When it comes to analyzing the mundane and making sense of the everyday, historians draw upon a wide range of sources including diaries, wills, tax records, census data, photographs, ship logs, newspapers, interviews, and so on.  Likewise, we will explore a variety of sources, from family photo albums to census records to local archives.  
  • Hist 103 WI: Debating History: The American War on Terrorism: Clashing Perspectives 4sh, 
    TR 11:20 am-1:15 pm, Professor Carolyn Eisenberg.
    In the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11, US officials were faced with an extraordinary challenge. Riding a powerful current of fear and grief, it seemed as though the American approach to international affairs would be forever changed. In this class, we will explore the most tangible results of the 9/11 experience:  the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the use of Guantanamo to imprison suspected terrorists. In exploring these matters, we will be focused on the social history of the time. What was the impact on people in the US , Iraq and Afghanistan of the choices that were made ? In exploring these issues, we will draw upon historical works, memoirs, government documents and films.
  • Hist 105 01: (HP) Ancient Egypt and Middle East, 3sh, TR 2:40-4:05 pm, Professor Mario Ruiz.
    A historical examination of Ancient Egypt, Israel and the wider Middle East from the first cities to the Persian Empire. Using evidence ranging from pyramids to the Old Testament, the course will examine topics such as religion, politics, slavery and international relations.
  • Hist 109 sec 01 (HP), Revolution in Europe, 3sh, TR 9:40-11:05 pm, Professor Sally Charnow. 
    This course examines monarchy, government, culture and a rapidly changing society shaped by overseas expansion, international trade, and globalization. Topics may include absolutism, representative democracy, imperialism, global commerce and war, agrarian society, religion, the scientific revolution, gender, the beginnings of industrialization, and the rise of nationalism.           
  • Hist 127 sec 01 (HP): Race, Sport & Americas 3sh, MW, 11:20 am-12:45 pm, Professor Brenda Elsey.
    This course introduces students to the history of sports as a way to understand racism and the experiences of racialized communities in the Americas. We will use sports history as a lens to understand social movements, the communities of players and fans, and the business of popular culture. Long before Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the U.S. national anthem, sports stars used their platforms to express their commitment to civil rights. That hasn’t only occurred in the U.S. context. The course may examine, for example, sport in the Brazilian transition to democracy, during apartheid in South Africa, and among Afro-Cubans to understand race in the global sporting landscape as well as the history of race in the U.S., for example, as reflected through the prism of baseball from the late 19th to the early 21st centuries.
  • Hist 148 sec 01 US: 1945 to Present 3 sh, TR 9:40-11:05 am, Professor Carolyn Eisenberg.
    This class will examine the changing character of American society and politics, along with the evolving role of the U.S as a world power. We will look in-depth at some controversial topics: the origins and character of the Cold War, McCarthyism, growth of the suburbs, racial discrimination North and South, the rise of the civil rights movement, liberal reform under Kennedy and Johnson, the Vietnam War, rebellions of the Sixties, roots of contemporary feminism, and the rise of the political Right.
  • Hist 170 sec 01, (HP) The Middle East and the West, 3sh, TR, 4:20-5:45 pm, Professor Mario Ruiz 
    This course examines political and socio-cultural interactions between Europe, the United States, and the Middle East from 1945 to the present. Topics include evolving historical representations of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, 9/11, the Iraq War, the Arab Spring, current attitudes toward Arab/Muslim culture, and the role American popular culture plays in the Middle East.
  • Hist 174  sec 01, (CC) Modern Japan, 3 sh, TR 1:00-2:25 pm, Professor Yuki Terazawa. 
    Political and social history since 1867, with emphasis on the selectivity of and contradictions within the Japanese response to the western challenge, culminating in the post-World War II synthesis. Independent research an option.
  • History 177A sec 01, Baseball as History and Culture, 3sh, TR, 4:20-5:45 pm. Professor John Staudt.
    Baseball has played a central role in American culture for almost two hundred years. The game's most important events and characters reflect critical issues confronted in the larger society. This course examines how people have absorbed, appreciated and participated in the game of baseball. It explores how the game paralleled the growth and development of the United States from an agrarian society through industrialization and into the postmodern age. Among the topics highlighted are the origins of baseball; the development of baseball as business; its role in national segregation and integration policies; topics of gender; regional identity, demographics and immigration; and economic issues such as the disparity between rich and poor teams, explosion of player's salaries, and labor-management issues. Finally, the course will, from time to time, touch on moments in baseball history such as Satchel Paige’s strike out of Josh Gibson, Bobby Thompson’s “shot heard ‘round the world,” and “the catch” by Willie Mays.
  • History 177G sec 01, , 3sh, From Samurai to Animé: Exploring Japanese Culture, History and Politics, 3 sh, TR, 8:00-9:25 am, Professor Yuki Terazawa.
    This course introduces Japanese culture, history, and politics from an interdisciplinary perspective, focused on topics such as, the samurai past, Japan’s transition from the pre-modern to the modern period, World War II in Asia and the Pacific, Atomic Bombing, and contemporary J-pop culture. The materials that will be used include historical documents, short stories and films. We will have extensive discussions on Japanese samurai and Godzilla movies, the latter with its connection to Atomic Bombing.
  • HIST 188A WI:, Rewriting History 3sh, TR, 11:20 am-1:15 pm, Professor Mario Ruiz.
    This seminar will give you a deeper understanding of why we choose to rewrite history and the various ways in which we reimagine the past(s). Specifically, we are interested in the following questions: How have errors, incompleteness, and forgotten dreams influenced the way that we reimagine the past? What purpose does revision and rewriting serve in the study of history? Can we rework the messy, complex relationships that we have with our own past histories? To answer these questions, we will first focus on a set of common readings that grapple with the idea of reimagination and how we shape our understandings of the past not through writing but rewriting. You will then revise a past history paper that you have written and transform it into an original research paper based on primary sources.

Undergraduate Courses

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Graduate Courses