History

Apartheid was the policy of strict racial segregation in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, enforced by a complex web of national laws. Jim Crow was a system of state and local laws in the United States designed to codify white supremacy. Our course begins by examining the creation of Jim Crow in post-Reconstruction America.  We will then use our robust understanding of Jim Crow and its workings to analyze the similarities to and differences from the origins of the South African Apartheid state. We will study the lives of both non-white South Africans and Black Americans, who endured segregation and fought in various ways against oppressive policies and programs. While we do tackle questions about those who created and entrenched these oppressive systems, we will focus mostly on moments of protest against these racial hierarchies. From studying Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit” to studying the students in South Africa who protested during the Soweto Uprising, we will survey all the ways resistance can manifest itself. Ultimately, we can ask ourselves: what were the successes and limitations of the forms of protest that unraveled Apartheid and Jim Crow? To what extent are these systems fully unraveled today? Is it possible to prevent these systems from forming again?

How have humans used the natural world to develop their systems of civilizations? Using architecture, astronomy, and communication as lenses through which to examine ancient groups of people, this class will grapple with how the earth played an integral role in shaping civilizations into modern day society. We will frame our study through the field of biomimicry (the design of systems based off of biological entities and processes), and we will examine how topography, ecology, and biology shaped systems of human “progress”. The course is rooted in case studies of Aboriginal Australians, the Mayans, and the Ancestral Puebloans, among other ancient groups of people. We will use these ancient civilizations as metrics to understand that not only do humans have an impact on the natural world, but the natural world is rooted deeply in the construction of human society, too. Our study will bring us to the examination of the role biomimicry can play in future city and country planning and how much humans can learn from natural systems that have been in place for thousands of years. 

This course will focus on the creation and evolution of cultures in a selection of Caribbean island nations, including Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua, Trinidad, and Cuba. We’ll emphasize the humanity and resistance of enslaved and colonized people in the region by examining art, music, religion and spirituality, food, fashion, and more. We will explore the unique developments of each island while keeping in mind their connected past and present.

As scholar Joshua Jelly-Schapiro noted in his book Island People, “The Caribbean has been anything but marginal to the making of our modern world.” The goal of the course is to uncover the ways that Caribbean peoples have crafted individual and community identities, empowering themselves and changing the world—making the islands a central zone and force in modern history.

This course will investigate how ultra-nationalism and ethno-racism combined to destabilize the world leading to the Second World War. The class will begin with Japan's rise as a colonial power, noting racial antagonisms that precipitated rivalry with China and Russia and colonial encroachment in Korea. It will then turn to the growth of fascism in Europe, studying the anti-semitic, anti-communist blueprint created by Benito Mussolini, and examining the resistance of Abysinnia to Italian violations of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The course will then decipher how Adolf Hitler incorporated Mussolini's model, perpetuating a Holocaust that relied on the apathy and appeasement of traditional Western powers as well as a long-established pattern of discrimination in Eastern Europe. The class will chart the reluctance of the United States to abandon isolationism until finally coming under attack from Japan. Finally, it will end by facing up to the brutality that ethno-racist nationalism fostered and how the process of dehumanizing the other fomented a total war that killed tens of millions across the globe.

This course focuses on the histories of how gender and gender roles developed around the world with case studies from the 17th through the 21st centuries. Our central historical question shall be: how can we apply an intersectionalist lens to the development of gender, race, class and sexuality across the world?

Through a close look at the histories of gender roles in 17th and 18th century England, 18th and 19th century Caribbean, colonialism and post-colonialism in Asia and the Middle East, students will come away with a deeper understanding of the ways in which gender is not a static category and that indeed, across the spectra of gender, place, and time, people have pushed across boundaries.

The capstone project for this course will be to create your own syllabus for a Gender History course of your own. Students may write a syllabus with an emphasis on any historical period of their choice, or they can go deeper into one of the topics covered in our class.

We live and breathe globalization. Our shirts are made in Bangladesh, our phones come from China, bananas travel 3000 miles before they arrive on our plate, and despite these distances communication across the globe is instantaneous. Our interconnections make our world seem smaller, but also make it puzzling and more complex. This course aims to make us aware of how our choices as consumers and producers shape this global world, and in turn how we are shaped by the environmental and cultural impact of global exchange. In this 10th grade elective we aim to understand what globalization is, how it came to be, and how we should live with and in it. We will examine historical turning points--in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas--that shaped global development and exchange, specifically how migrations of people, flows of goods, and exchanges of ideas help explain the growth of globalization. Understanding this history will allow us to ask ourselves hard personal questions, like: what are our responsibilities in an interconnected global world? Should I buy that and, if I do, what is the impact on other people and the earth? What does it mean to think globally? Join this journey to embrace close reading, question-asking, and personal growth and reflection.

Students will examine how the Nazis came to power in Germany, established a totalitarian state, and carried out a policy of genocide. They will study the roots of the racism, anti-Semitism, and ethnic hatred that were integral to the Nazi takeover and the Nazi state. Primary source readings, films, and videos from the Facing History curriculum focus on the moral dimension of history and guide students to see the universal themes inherent in a singular historical event. They discuss how a person’s identity is determined and what happens when prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination push people outside “the universe of obligation.” Students explore how obedience to authority and propaganda can influence human behavior. They are encouraged to see the world from more than one perspective and to put themselves into the shoes of both authority figures and ordinary people. As they analyze the testimony of perpetrators, bystanders, victims, and rescuers, students learn that history is not inevitable but rather the result of human choices.

China is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history. The Chinese had a fleet ready for global exploration before Europe was out of its dark ages. It produced important technology and social systems that shaped billions of lives. Yet, in modern history China has emerged only recently as an economic force, having emerged from colonialism, civil war, and political revolution--all in the last 160 years. This course will involve an intensive investigation of modern Chinese history from the late 19th century to the present. We will explore the rise and development of nationalism and communism, modernization, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, China’s current unique brand of socialism, and interactions between China and the West. How did this nation emerge from tremendous tumult as a major player in the world economy? A consistent theme of the course is the Chinese quest for a stable political, economic and cultural identity in the modern world. How does one balance tradition and modernization? How can we understand such a complicated country full of richness and contradiction?

This course will investigate the recent history of the peoples and nations of the Middle East. Students will learn how the modern countries of that region came to life when both the Ottoman Empire and European colonial schemes fell apart after World War I. The origins of the state of Israel will be considered in detail. Then we will track these countries’ struggles as modern nation states in the land of ancient civilizations and sacred geography. We will ask if loyalty to country is greater than loyalty to traditional clan or religious community. We will confront some big paradoxes of today’s Middle East: oil riches and grinding poverty, deep religious faith and unrelenting violence, yearning for modern freedoms and undemocratic governments. As we pursue these goals we will seek to complicate our understanding by reaching beyond the western narrative through examining translated resources from Middle Eastern media outlets.

What questions does one ask oneself in order to interpret a work of art?
How does historical context influence the progression of artistic style over time?

In this course, students will build the necessary skills that will allow them to analyze any piece of artwork to which they are exposed. As they learn to identify a core set of masterpieces from each period, and explore the evolution of styles through the ages, the main objective will be to develop an “art language” as a method of visual analysis and interpretation. Throughout the course, we will be visiting various museums and galleries around New York City. The art history course offers a chronological survey of art from the beginning of civilization to the present time, including the most modern trends and ideas in the ever-changing world of art. The course combines proper historical techniques and procedures with an emphasis on the role played by the artist and the work of art, its context, and the critic. Special attention is given to our interpretation of a work of art based upon its intended use, audience, and role in a particular society. As a survey course, the material is approached as an introduction to the discipline. The study of Art History will change the way one looks not only at paintings and statues, but also advertisements and any visual phenomenon.

This course will focus on the tumultuousness of United States foreign and domestic policy during the country's entanglement with the Soviet Union between 1945-1991. It will trace the ideological origins of the conflict, as well as the way in which post-World War II bi-polarity fomented tension. The course will pay special attention to proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam, as well as CIA-sponsored interventions–and resistance to them–in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, and Chile. Students will explore connections between international engagements and domestic life, in particular the relationship between the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. We will evaluate Martin Luther's King's contention that the "bombs of Vietnam explode at home," noting comparisons African-American leaders made between neo-colonialism and domestic white male supremacy. Finally, students will turn their eyes to the present, critiquing the role of the U.S. as a leader in international affairs and deciphering the extent to which Cold War frameworks endure. 

In History and Literature of the American West, we will use our previous knowledge from American Studies as a launching pad to engage further with the key themes of the American West. Rooted in expansion, resource management, and the intersections of American identity and the lived reality of marginalized groups in the west, we will tackle the true legacy of the American West. Using the interplay of literature and history, we will develop a clear understanding of western culture, exploring in particular the themes of rugged individualism and femininity. Manifest destiny, the American Indian Wars, and the reclamation of water in the western United States will serve as touch points throughout the course as we engage with the question of who is seen as the narrator of truth. We will critically interrogate the significance of historical narratives in contemporary society through the emergence of counter-culture in San Francisco and how the west coast played an integral role in shaping modern day dissent. Using the pliable terms that shaped the founding of our country — freedom, liberty, justice, equality — we will work together to better understand the impact of the Western United States on the country’s past and present.

How has Black American culture and politics evolved from the seventeenth century to the present? How have African Americans sought to exercise agency over their lives in the face of enslavement, Jim Crow, and other forms of institutional racism? What are the unique issues African American women face in the struggle for equality? How has the presence of Black immigrants from the diaspora helped to shape and influence African American culture and life? We will explore these questions and many more in this semester-long course, which will cover topics ranging from the earliest years of African-American history to the present through an episodic approach, focusing on key themes and moments in time, rather than aiming to present a comprehensive but all-too-brief survey of 400 years of complex history. One of the central themes of the course is taken from W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” In what ways has the “color-line” shaped Black Americans’ experience? How has the “color-line” shaped the United States? Most importantly, how have Black Americans responded to the problems and perils of racism through resistance and protest while creating a vibrant political, economic and social culture that transcends the influence of white supremacy?

 

In this course, students will use the tools of the historian to evaluate significant works of American journalism and narrative non-fiction written in the last twenty years. In examining these texts, we will aim to decipher how authors use the past to comment on weighty issues of the present. Students will analyze, for example, excerpts from Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, which comment on the burgeoning carceral state at the turn of the 21st century, in the context of scholarly sources about slavery, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. Students will also read excerpts from $2.00 A Day and Nickel and Dimed, which investigate American poverty, while studying public policies that have exacerbated income inequality. In our discussions of these and other topics, we will explore the values and limitations of crafting popular narrative. What are the benefits of writing for a broad audience as opposed to a scholarly one? Students will hear from non-fiction writers discussing research methods and then embark upon their own projects to complement or update the narratives presented in the readings. Ultimately, this course will enable students to become more skilled consumers of journalism and more effective political and social actors. 

After releasing a series of tweets and an Executive Order regarding the use of critical race theory in training programs for federal employees, Donald Trump summarized his feelings on the subject during the Presidential debate by saying:

“…they were teaching people to hate our country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen.” 

But… what actually is critical race theory teaching? Does it teach you to “hate” America? Or, is it a more complex and nuanced way to examine American culture? CRT provides insight into questions such as: 

• Why are there so many more white quarterbacks than black quarterbacks in football?
• Why is it so hard for black artists to win Album of the Year at the Grammys?
• Why does Disney World appeal to the white American middle class? 

Beginning as a method of legal inquiry to better understand the intersections between American law, legal policies, and marginalized identities, critical race theory (CRT) has evolved. CRT now operates as a framework and foundation for examining many facets of American society and culture. CRT is a tool that can be applied to help critically analyze a book, a presidential acceptance speech, a TV show, or even an awards show.

This course will begin by examining the scholarship of early critical race theorists such as Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Cheryl Harris, and Kimberlé Crenshaw. As we progress in defining critical race theory, we will work on using this framework to better understand how institutional racism manifests itself both historically and today.  

Ultimately, this course will ask: how does race embed itself in contemporary American culture? Which histories, literature, film, music, movies, laws, etc., have informed our racial understanding of America? How do race, gender, sexuality, and whiteness influence (or create) American pop culture?  Perhaps the most important question we will tackle is: how can we improve America so that all members of society feel equitably seen, heard, and cared for? 

Is the history of the U.S. a story of humans shaping the earth? Or is the earth shaping us? This course examines the physical, spiritual, and political interdependence of humans and landscapes in the United States. We will trace the evolving attitudes and conceptions of nature as well as environmental policies that have shaped our history. This course, cross listed between the English and History departments, will involve an interdisciplinary investigation of evolving attitudes toward nature--as expressed in art, poetry, American philosophy--and how those shifting attitudes shaped people’s lives and the environmental movement. We will begin with cultural and historical analysis to explore answers to questions like: How have Americans understood the “wilderness”? How have race, gender, and culture shaped our understanding of and interactions with the land? How did the American landscape change during the 19th and 20th centuries? How have those changes affected different Americans? The second half of the course will examine the history and impact of the environmentalism movement in the 20th century, including coalition building and labor movements, like that of Cesar Chavez or contemporary eco-feminism, which have aimed to combat corporate ecological devastation and environmental racism. Throughout the course we will consider how environmentalism is a civil rights issue, and consider how communities of color have borne the brunt of environmental damage, but have also paved the way for intersectional environmentalism in the 21st century.

• Why do nations go to war? And even more importantly, why do individuals serve in battle, often willingly giving their lives?
• What pushes humans to violence when spreading ideologies? 
• Is there such a thing as a “moral war”?
• What is the effect of war on those who lead it, those who serve in it, and those who stay at home waiting for news of it? 
• How are stories of social class integrated into stories of war? Who leads, who fights, who runs?
• Where are the women and children in a war story?

This course will examine these questions from a primarily historical perspective, but also a literary and philosophical one. The Roman philosopher and poet Horace wrote that “it is sweet and noble to die for one’s country,” a line so memorable and important that two thousand years later, it is engraved above Arlington National Cemetery. In our study, we will ask whether WWI poet Wilfred Owen is right when he calls Horace’s line about war, “The old Lie.” We’ll analyze the historical nature and value of a wide range of texts about war such as paintings, novels, comics, songs, short stories, documentaries and plays. Those texts will be rooted in the historical context of WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War, among others. These wars will serve as touchpoints for grappling with the essential questions of the course and the place of morality and truth in wartimes.

In the Modern Era era when people came to feel unmoored—when industry replaced craft, science surpassed religion, urbanization and population boomed, and modern warfare and genocide of the World Wars traumatized—philosophers and artists grappled with important questions: what is the meaning of our lives? What is our responsibility in a seemingly meaningless, arbitrary world? What is good and right? These historical events and questions fundamentally shaped how philosophers came to understand the self. Our class will be an exploration of (1) how historical circumstances like the industrial revolution, scientific discovery, political revolution, and world wars shaped ideas, (2) how Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and existentialists—like Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, Fanon—specifically responded to these conditions by developing new ideas about morality and the individual, and (3) how these ideas continue to influence philosophy and even our own lives today. Our study will help us understand how humans responded to a rapidly changing and modernizing world, and how changes in the world might still affect our understanding of ourselves.

The Senior Scholars Program will prepare students to be responsible researchers, inquisitive citizens, and dynamic writers for their lives ahead. This selective and demanding program is designed for rising seniors who are interested in pursuing serious scholarly work. By developing students’ independent research skills and their capacity for rigorous inquiry, the program will support Berkeley Carroll seniors in designing and pursuing a year-long independent research project of their choice. Projects may range across disciplines, from investigating the role of Artificial Intelligence in contemporary computer science, for example, to analyzing Toni Morrison’s novels, to researching gender dynamics in the history of Jazz. Students will work with mentors who are experts in their fields. The curriculum will guide students through their projects by focusing on writing, research, and philosophical inquiry skills. The program culminates in a formal written paper and an accompanying public, oral presentation. A committee of peers, teachers, administrators, parents and other community leaders will evaluate the final paper and presentation. In addition to traditional teacher assessment of student performance, the Senior Scholars program includes a major emphasis on self-assessment.

Who can apply?
Rising seniors can apply by the end of February of their Junior year. Applications will be evaluated on the quality of the written application; on past interest and achievement in the chosen field; and on evidence of capability for sustained independent work.