The History Department is launching a two-year initiative aiming to strengthen its course offerings on Environmental History across our curriculum. The EHCI intends to capture student and faculty interest in an exciting emerging methodology that places the environment and climate at the center of the stories we tell about the past. The rollout will occur over two years, but we intend for the changes to alter the curriculum in the department for many years to come. As currently envisioned, the Department is undertaking a pilot program which will run during the 2023-24 academic year and includes not only changes to syllabi but a speaker series and other departmental level programming. Then in the 2024-25 academic year we intend to roll out a slate of new courses touching on themes of the environment, climate, and sustainability while also highlighting an even more robust slate of programming and continuing to support faculty who want to incorporate those themes in courses they already offer.
As you make your academic plans, please note that there are some courses on Environmental History listed in our offerings for 2023-24, and several other courses which include content on the subject for the first time or enhanced in relation to their previous iterations. Look out for upcoming departmental seminars on the subject and be ready to get involved in our extensive preparations for the EHCI annus mirabilis in 2024-25!
The following courses include environmental content as a primary focus:
FALL 2024
- FYSEMR 72Z: Oil and Empire (Rosie Bsheer)
- HIST 1473: Environmental History
- HIST 15E: Writing Histories of Climate Change (Emma Rothschild & Arunabh Ghosh) [counts for the Certificate for Civic Engagement]
- HIST 1936: The Rights of Nature (Jill Lepore) [Jointly offered at Harvard Law School]
Spring 2025
- HIST 16F: The Amazon Forest: Histories, Peoples, Visions (Sidney Chalhoub)
- HIST 1611: The History of Energy (Ian Miller)
The following courses include at least 1-2 dedicated weeks of discussion of environmental content:
FALL 2024
- HIST 1056: The New Science of the Human Past (Michael McCormick)
- GENED 1044: Deep History (Daniel Lord Smail & Matthew Liebmann)
- HIST 76A: Japanese Imperialism and the East Asia Modern
Past Courses:
FALL 2023
- FYSEMR 72Z: Oil and Empire (Rosie Bsheer)
- HIST 15Q: Australian Environmental History: Gondwanda to Global Warming (Katie Holmes)
- HIST 1776, The American Revolution (Jane Kamesnsky)
- HIST 15S: Fiction as Archive (Sidney Chalhoub)
- HIST 83A: Markets and States: The History of Economic Thought Since 1750
- HIST 1056: The New Science of the Human Past (Michael McCormick)
- HIST 1520: Colonial Latin America (Tamar Herzog)
- HIST 1957: Healthcare and the Welfare State (George Aumoithe)
- HIST 2055: Early Medieval History, Archaeology and Archaeoscience: Seminar (Michael McCormick)
- HIST 2400: Readings in Colonial and Revolutionary America: Graduate Proseminar (Joyce Chaplin)
- HIST 2919A: International Society in Global Context (David Armitage and Erez Manela)
SPRING 2024
- HIST 15P: Environment, Markets, and Scarcity in Early Modern Europe and the World, 1450-1800 (Mallory Hope)
- HIST 15W: Warzone Earth: Environmental Histories of War (Camden Elliott)
- HIST 1973: Re-wilding Harvard (Joyce Chaplin)
- HIST 1700: The History of Sub-Saharan Africa to 1860 (Emmanuel Akyeampong)
- HIST 2056: Reading in Late Antique and Medieval History: Seminar (Michael McCormick)
- HIST 2442, Readings in the History of the U.S. in the 19th Century: Graduate Proseminar (Walter Johnson)
- HIST 2919B: International Society in Global Context (David Armitage and Erez Manela)
- HIST 2968: History and Economics: Proseminar