MAGIC Core Colloq

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This MAGIC introductory colloquium is designed to equip first-year MAGIC students with perspectives, skills, and tools that are essential for success in the program and beyond. We will begin with the fundamental question: what is the role of history in today's society? Then we will discuss the potentials and challenges of doing global, comparative, and international history research by examining a few key concepts, scholarly debates, and methodology. The second half of the colloquium will introduce students to a range of geographical regions and sub-fields through a thematic focus on nuclear energy and its relationship to society. Sub-fields include: histories of security, diplomacy, and international politics; of energy, modernity, and democracy; of capitalism, communism, labor, and consumption; of empire and colonialism; of race, gender, and sexuality; and histories of science, technology, medicine, and the environment. Our readings will include a mix of classic works and promising lines of emerging research, and will showcase, as far as possible, the spatial breath of these subfields, including: the Cold War West and East; the Global North and South; continents and oceans; and the subterreanian and the outer space. Although the temporal scope of the topic is necessarily limited to the twentieth century, we will systematically heed the enduring influence of empire and colonialism as well as transnational networks and Indigeneous responses, all rooted in the deeper history of the pre-nuclear age. The goal of the colloquium is to prepare students to read and think at the graduate level, and will culminate in a proposal for the research project that they will pursue in HIST 5005 in the spring semester.