Overview of Course

This course will examine the significant forces shaping the modern world with a unique focus on the Global South. We’ll examine trans-global connections and the migrations of people, ideas, goods, institutions, disease, and institutions. We’ll ponder the advances and atrocities of the modern world. Major themes will include the global origins of modernity, the spread and reception of liberal democracy, revolution, and human rights, and the acceleration of global capitalism, industrialization, imperialism, decolonization, and independence movements. We will examine the master narratives of world history with attention to the experiences and impacts of subaltern peoples including the urban and rural poor, colonial subjects, refugees, and those denied human rights due to their gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, and racial identities. Lectures will focus on scholarly debates and historical theories. Primary sources and graphic histories will offer close readings and analysis of historical actors and events.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this class students will be able to:
● identify the major contact zones in modern global history, especially the ports visited on this voyage
● Demonstrate familiarity with major historical events and trends over the past 400 years
● Interpret and examine these trends and events as part of a historical narrative
● Analyze the ways in which local or regional events fit into a broader global context
● Identify and apply historical thinking skills to debates, theories, and field observations
● Focus on one specific Field Class project while describing its larger framework