Beginning this fall, Yale’s History Department is introducing a sequence of undergraduate lecture classes that, instead of focusing on a specific region or event, will develop global history and perspectives around a particular time period.
The offering of classes will be organized chronologically, and the first of these classes, “The World Circa 1000,” is currently being taught by history professors Valerie Hansen and Anders Winroth.
The development of this sequence reflects in part the direction of the academic study of history. As the public has shifted toward thinking in terms of global and transregional trends and themes, so has the study of history within the academy. Incorporating such a tendency is not entirely new to the department because, as history professors interviewed acknowledged, Yale has previously offered history classes that were organized thematically. However, many of those were more advanced classes whereas the new sequence is designed as a survey course for students with less exposure to history classes.
Although specialized and regional history continues to be significant, department leaders told the News that the new undergraduate series is meant to reflect global history’s growing prominence.
“It is our attempt to address one of the major innovative trends in the study of history and scholarship in the historical profession, which is to look at global trends, to be transregional in approach and to not be limited to just country histories,” said Alan Mikhail, the department’s director of undergraduate studies. “This is a very important trend in the historical profession, to think globally and transnationally.”
Professors Hansen and Winroth bring different areas of expertise to the course. Hansen’s specialization is in Chinese history, and her primary fields of interest are China until the 17th century, Chinese religious and legal history, and the history of the Silk Road. For the last five years, Hansen has also been working on her next book, titled “The World in the Year 1000: When Globalization Began.”
Winroth specializes in medieval European history in addition to legal history and the Viking Age. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003 and is the author of half a dozen books.
Mikhail said that each class in the sequence will all be team-taught by two faculty members who specialize in different regions of the world, giving students broader coverage than one could expect from a single professor.
Read the full article on Yale Daily News.