UG Course Descriptions

Examines the history of the Westward movement through film and scholarship. Topics covered include race and culture, gender, capitalism, law and order, war, and the West in myth and legend.

Examines the portrayal and reality of major themes in crime and policing in films and literature.

Examines the evolution of the military art across time, some of the chief professional and moral issues facing commanders, and artistic representations of war.

This course uses historical cases to study the evolution of military leadership. It examines various models and styles of military leadership in the context of history utilizing contemporary concepts and principles. Students will consider how exemplary military leaders communicated, solved problems, and motivated their subordinates. A focus of this class will be on the moral dilemmas that military leaders have historically faced. The course will provide students with models and approaches that they can apply in today’s dynamic leadership environment.

This designation is for courses offered as electives in the Undergraduate Honors Program, and may include both Honors-only courses and augmented Honors versions of courses that are offered elsewhere in the catalog. Courses have limited enrollment and content reflects Honors Program course outcomes around rigorous critical engagement, interdisciplinarity, effective communication, and meaningful collaboration.

The history of American business from colonial times to the present. The course offers a variety of case studies from well-known companies and industries and a thematic emphasis on government-business relations.

An introduction to theoretical and methodological practices of public history, this class serves as a foundation for considering the implications of shared practices of history in which professionals consider and collaborate on the meaning of the past for the present. This introductory public history class looks at the history of the field, varied approaches to public history, and specific topics such as material culture studies, ‘race and place,’ and modern war memory.

A study of the American character, revolutionary America, and an analysis of America’s race relations.

An examination of modernity, reform, race, gender, and conflict in twentieth century America.

This class visits four of Philadelphia’s premiere historical sites over two days with a goal of trying to better understand how Public History is presented to heritage tourists in major museums. This course will include online work both before and after the visits in order to contextualize what we see.