Course Guide
During the winter of 2024-2025, the UMass History Department is offering 5 online classes. Each class fulfills one or more UMass general education requirements, including Historical Studies (HS), United States Diversity (DU), and Global Diversity (DG) requirements.
All classes are open to UMass students and the general public. The winter session runs December 20 to January 29. Join us!
For questions about course content, contact the faculty member teaching the course. For general questions about the UMass History Department's online classes, contact @email. For all other questions, including registration and records, contact U+.
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History 110: World to 1500
Anna Taylor, HS DG, 4 credits
This course explores some of the most ancient cultures of the world, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, and Meso-America, through ancient primary sources and artifacts.
History 121: Modern Latin America
Maria Portilla Moya, HS DU, 4 credits
Explore the creation of modern Latin America, with a focus on the struggles over land and labor, the creation of nation-states, and the conflicts within those states over issues of citizenship and social justice. The course also addresses the contentious role the United States has played in the region. (Gen.Ed. HS, DG)
History 154: Social Change in the 1960s
Julia Sandy, HS DU, 4 credits
This course focuses on the "Long Sixties," a period stretching from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. We will look in new ways at topics you are probably already familiar with: the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, counterculture, sexual experimentation, and never trusting anyone over 30. We will also explore aspects of the Sixties you may not know about or associate with a different era, such as the Great Society, a thriving conservative movement, environmentalism, and gay rights. Students will view online lectures, participate in online discussions, and complete assignments which include reviewing music, movies, and books from the sixties.
History 264: History of Health Care and Medicine
Emily Hamilton, HS DU, 4 credits
This course investigates the social meaning of medicine, health care, and disease in the U.S. from 1600 to the present. Major topics will include: the evolution of beliefs about the body; medical and social responses to infectious and chronic disease; the rise of medical science and medical organizations; the development of medical technologies; the role of public and government institutions in promoting health practices and disease treatments; and a particular focus on the history of reproductive health and justice. To explore the human experience of medicine, readings will address the experience of being ill, the delivery of compassionate care, the nature of the relationship between practitioner and patient, and ethics. Throughout the semester, the class will link medicine to broad issues in American history by examining the effects of class, race, religion gender, age, sexual orientation, lifestyle, and geographic region on health and medical care, as well as exploring themes such as consumerism, social movements and activism, politics and health care, patient expectations, and medical ethics. Course materials will include recent scholarly literature in the history of medicine, writings by physicians and patients, historical documents, films, websites, audio interviews, and artifact studies.
History 283: American Gridiron Football
Joel Wolfe, HS, 4 credits
This class examines the history of American gridiron football from its earliest days as a game played primarily at elite colleges through its development into the most popular spectator sport in the United States. The class examines the complex and contentious history of race and ethnicity in football, and its place in American politics from Theodore Roosevelt’s intervention to keep the sport legal to present-day controversies over everything from race and sexuality to patriotism.