History Lab

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This class is about the varied ways that genres and disciplines beyond academic history have engaged with the past. Following an exploration of history itself as a discipline, we will study other ways of engaging with the past: historical fiction, period-piece films, historical board games and video games, as well as explorations of the past in disciplines like economics, sociology, anthropology, and more. The course will also be structured around students developing a "historical project" in a genre/discipline beyond academic history. They will research a topic and then produce a historically-minded work, whether a piece of fiction, art-work, a board game, or some other idea of their own making. To ensure rigorous engagement with the past, this final project will require a traditional research essay as a significant component.