American History courses at Stanford vs Chicago

College Search & Selection
1

As a high school senior interested in history and about to step into college, I am interested in what I might learn about American history in college. I am hoping college courses will be better and more insightful than high school courses in this regard.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to check out what courses on American History may be offered at two of the universities I am considering

https://history.stanford.edu/courses

and

https://history.uchicago.edu/content/courses

I found it very interesting how different the two “American” universities are wrt to courses offered on American history!!

I will let you draw your own conclusions :slight_smile:

Students should be looking at college course catalogs more!

2

^ Could not agree more with that last sentence! If you are choosing the institution for the academic experience, it’s imperative to peruse the catalog.

My daughter is a 3rd year history major at Chicago with a concentration in American so if and when the time is right for you to ask specific questions, feel free to PM me and I’ll put you in touch with her. She has really enjoyed her history and civ courses at Chicago. The civilization sequences in particular include such a huge array of choices that there is going to be something for everyone.

3

And while you’re checking classes, check prof backgrounds. It’s interesting how some courses (esp innovative ones or hybrids) aren’t always taught by subject specialists.

4

“One could do worse than be a reader of catalogs,” as a lesser-known American poet once wrote. Close-reading of original texts has long been a Chicago emphasis. If you have a natural predilection for that practice, @surelyhuman , you have come to the right place.

One wonders why the Stanford courses included no descriptions. The extensive descriptions of the Chicago offerings were both mouthwatering and revealing of emphasis and content. I found it especially interesting that so many courses dealt with the history and culture of cities - both in the world at large but also specifically in America and of course the city of Chicago itself.

A course that would have seduced me, however, was on a perennial subject with radiations through all ages and regional histories: “The Idea of Freedom in the Ancient World”, based on readings beginning with Herodotus. That is hardcore ur-Chicago.

5

For another example of a college with animated course descriptions, visit Kenyon’s sites for its history courses as well as for its interdisciplinary IPHS offerings.

https://www.kenyon.edu/academics/departments-programs/history/academic-program-requirements/courses/

https://www.kenyon.edu/academics/departments-programs/humane-studies/academic-program-requirements/courses/

6

In addition to looking at course catalogues it can also be helpful to read up on the backgrounds of professors in a department – often one can see what their interests, areas of specializations are etc.

7

The Stanford course listing is less inviting for a couple of reasons. 1) having to click on each course to see the description is tiresome. 2) The descriptions are more factually descriptive than interpretive; the U Chicago course summaries drew me in more and the courses felt more interactive and dynamic. 3). I wonder if Stanford’s site imposes character limits because most of the descriptions are fairly brief and seem to fall within a narrow range.

This is a valuable lesson about the importance of strong writing and effective self-promotion. I doubt that Stanford faculty are more traditionalist than U Chicago faculty as a whole. However, I could see how the course descriptions might lead to that conclusion and could sway applicants to favor one university over another.

8

Course catalogues are interesting but should not be weighted too heavily. It’s not uncommon for course catalogues to include courses that haven’t been taught in years. It is often more helpful to glance over the registrar’s schedule of courses, as that indicates the types of classes that are offered regularly and how many students are enrolled in each class. OP linked to the lists of current courses, which are a good place to start.

There are general trends for each history department, but the degree of variability in approaches to history within a department should not be underestimated. The same course can be taught very differently by professors at the same university, one of the main reasons most departments prefer to have rather vague course descriptions in the catalogues.

When available, syllabi give you more detailed information about the structure and content of classes. This is especially relevant for courses with high turnover rates of instructors, such as Chicago’s Core classes, which are commonly taught by postdocs. 40% of Chicago’s classes are taught by non-tenure-track faculty, a distressingly high percentage but one not unusual for major research universities.

Pretty much any humanities department worth its salt expects this of its undergraduates. This is not always the case in other departments, of course.

9

@Marlowe1 - "mouthwatering’ is a great description. My daughter is kind of a closet classicist and has a particular interest in the ideas shaping colonial America and early United States.

If you love to submerge yourself in esoteric intellectual thought, UChicago is like the perfect place for you. However, the advantage of departments like History is that there is something fun for everyone. Personally, I would love taking History and Legend of Dracula; the course description alone gives me a new understanding of Vlad. My D took History of Myths last year and really enjoyed it. There are also history courses that touch on development of philosophical or scientific thought. One increasingly trendy major is HIPS (History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science and Medicine) - technically, the major is offered through the Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, a center that also offers a PhD program in the topic and, I believe, resides within the department of History. It’s about as multi-disciplinary as you can get; you are required to take a series of math and science courses (the latter can’t be a “non-science-major” sequence), as well as social science and philosophy (many of the latter are cross-registered with HIPS). UChicago isn’t the only university to provide the HIPs major, but - along with the Committee on Social Thought - HIPS represents the kind of broad-range “thinky” discipline to which hardcore UChicago types might be attracted. I’m surprised that more don’t major in it because it seems perfect for pre-meds. http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/scienceandmedicinehips/

10

Both listings seem to be derivations of their university-wide course catalogs. Perhaps the university-wide course catalogs have different limitations, or there is a “cultural” tendency at Stanford to give somewhat more brief catalog descriptions versus a “cultural” tendency at Chicago to give more verbose catalog descriptions.

11

The comments above jive with my own kids’ experience at UChicago. For those interested in specific courses and descriptions, the My Class Search tool is really helpful. Click on quarter, then “History” (or whatever major you want) on the LHS and all the courses to be taught that quarter will pop up. Each course will, of course, have a detailed description. Oftentimes that will match what the department website or course catalog will include, but sometimes it’ll be even more detail.

https://coursesearch92.ais.uchicago.edu/psc/prd92guest/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/UC_STUDENT_RECORDS_FL.UC_CLASS_SEARCH_FL.GBL

The History Department is very good about updating their department website with current courses for the year; however, courses and instructors can change last minute. My Class Search is the actual list (but the next quarter isn’t updated till about 6th or 7th week of the current quarter).

Unlike Hum and Sosc which are strictly college Core courses taught mostly by post-docs or permanent instructors, Civ sequences will overlap with major courses so oftentimes will be taught by actual Tenured/TT faculty. You’ll also see Harper Fellows (who are considered faculty but not TT) or preceptors (nth year grad students who provide instruction and BA thesis advising). Peggy O’Donnell runs the undergraduate program and also teaches the required historiography course. A tenured faculty member seems to be in charge of the two-part BA seminar.

12

The final sentence in the course description for “Aristophanes’s Athens” requires some reading between the lines (something Chicago students like to do):

“Please note that this course is rated Mature for adult themes and language.”

Now is this a trigger warning? A parody of a trigger warning? A humorous sally? An enticement? Or all these things?

To me it seems to mimic the spirit of the object of study - sly depictions a long time ago of conduct unacceptably scabrous, sexist and in every way incorrect - socially, politically, morally. Tut, tut.

13

The OP apparently perceives differences at these schools in the scope and content of their American (likely U.S.) history courses, as distinct from differences across their history offerings in general. It would be interesting to read any replies specific to this perception.

14

Well, two things I really like about the Stanford list is the inclusion of a Military History class, because you hardly see that anymore outside the military academies, and Jack Rakove teaching Colonial and Revolutionary America. My youngest used some of his work in a history project. He’s not only a foremost authority on matters of the Constitution (including legal theory of such) but he’s a very engaging lecturer.

One potential difference I notice is that the Stanford courses have a more “traditional” feel in the format. Many of lower-numbered ones (presumably intro level) are lecture courses (or maybe lecture and discussion). UChicago’s history/civ topics certainly can include sequences in lecture or lec/dis format, but I seem to recall seeing a lot of actual seminar-style courses offered at the lower levels as well. Perhaps this is just a difference in pedagogy. I suspect with a lecture format it’s going to be more like High School than a seminar format will be, and the former might focus on knowing content and having an “exam” whereas the latter will focus more on analyzing content and writing papers.

Edit to add: when you get to the higher numbers you do see a lot of seminar-style and COL (colloquium?) courses as opposed to lecture.

15

The previous observations about the disparate amplitude of the course descriptions apply to the offerings in History.

Chicago has its “America in World Civilization” (which appears to be an option in satisfying the history component of the Core) beginning with the enticing words, “this is nothing like your high-school history class”. And its “Early America, 1492-1815” lists some interestingly eccentric topics (in addition to the meeting of indigenous, African and European peoples and topics on the American Revolution), such as “piracy and the Atlantic slave trade”, “the surprising emergence of a strong British identity”, and “the role of the trans-Appalachian West in shaping the early republic”. The equivalent Stanford course called “Colonial and Revolutionary America” contents itself with specifying more obvious categories: “the migration of Europeans and Africans and the impact on native populations”; “the emergence of racial slavery and of regional, provincial, Protestant cultures”; and “the political origins and constitutional consequences of the American Revolution”. --The courses might be quite similar in actual content, of course, but the Chicago description leads me to expect surprises of interpretation and emphasis.

Stanford has an interesting course considering the life of Martin Luther King; Chicago has one considering the writings of Lincoln called “Lincoln: Slavery, War and the Constitution.” The Lincoln course puts the emphasis on readings of Lincoln’s writings; the King course on the biography of King. That might be a telling distinction between them. It would be interesting to take both courses together, but that would be rather difficult.

The Chicago course called “Roots of the Modern American City”, would have especially appealed to me, a kid from a small town with a fascination for the big city, not least because it requires an all-day field trip. I saw nothing that granular in the Stanford catalog, though “Popular Culture and American Nature” apparently involves watching lots of Disney movies and reading some secondary texts in “environmentalism, science, popular culture, and their interrelationships.” Not so sure about that one. Other Stanford offerings sound more high-brow academic: “Modern America in Historical Perspective”, “Presidents and Foreign Policy”, “African Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century”.

I feel like I have failed your test, @surelyhuman . What were your observations?

16

Both departments are top notch. UChicago specifically seems to rely on primary sources and seminar format in the undergraduate program. For instance, my D took the 3-part American Civ sequence that @marlowe1 references for her major last year (she took another sequence to satisfy the Core). Just perusing her orders at Seminary Co-op, it appears that the texts were overwhelmingly primary source material; in fact, I think only one of 15 texts from the first two quarters of the sequence is clearly a secondary (ie more contemporary) source. The remaining are all from the relevant time periods being studied, whether they be autobiographies, observations, accounts of events, or ‘thinky’ works by Locke, Paine or Tocqueville.

History majors have to take at least half the required courses in a main field of study. There are several ways to define this particular aspect of the major, and perhaps that explains some of those more granular courses. From the college catalog:

“The major field is usually defined by time and space. Examples are nineteenth- or twentieth-century US history, colonial Africa, the Atlantic world in the early modern or modern period, ancient Greece, or medieval Europe. Thematic major fields are also possible: for example, African American, Jewish, or gender history. Major fields may also be methodologically defined: for example, intellectual, economic, gender, political, or urban history. Students pursuing a major field in urban history might take courses ranging from “Rome: The Eternal City” to “Cities from Scratch: The History of Urban Latin America”; a focus on economic history might include “Economic Change in China” and “The History of US Capitalism.” In the case of thematically or methodologically defined major fields, it is particularly important to consult closely with the associate director to ensure coherence.”

So a course such as “Roots of the Modern American City” can actually satisfy a whole bunch of main fields: 20th century US History, Urban History, Economic History, and so forth. As well as a history elective for those interested in the topic for its own sake.

It’d be great to get a Stanford History major to describe how it works over there, for a good compare and contrast.

17

I surmise that one of the things the OP noticed was that there were many more American/U.S. focused courses offered at Stanford vs. Chicago. I count only 7 of 49 courses with clear, significant U.S. history focus (not necessarily exclusively) in the fall quarter at Chicago. At Stanford, in its fall semester, the equivalent number was 17 out of about 50. One could argue for a few more courses at both schools – I didn’t count in the numerator the Chicago urban history course that listed New York along with 6-7 non-American cities, or any of the methodology courses in either department, which would be relevant to and adaptable by students of U.S. history.

18

@JHS - Am I looking at a different list? I only count 8 - 9 at Stanford, depending on whether undergraduates are able to take 351

HISTORY 50A (section 1)
Colonial and Revolutionary America

HISTORY 68D (section 1)
American Prophet: The Inner Life and Global Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. (AFRICAAM 68D, AMSTUD 168D, CSRE 68, HISTORY 168D)

HISTORY 73 (section 1)
Mexican Migration to the United States (AMSTUD 73, CHILATST 173, HISTORY 173)

HISTORY 201C (section 1)
The U.S., U.N. Peacekeeping, and Humanitarian War (INTNLREL 140C, INTNLREL 140X)

HISTORY 254 (section 1)
Popular Culture and American Nature

HISTORY 264D (section 1)
Modern America in Historical Perspective (SIW 185)

HISTORY 269F (section 1)
Modern American History: From Civil Rights to Human Rights (HISTORY 369F)

HISTORY 286D (section 1)
Yours in Struggle: African Americans and Jews in the 20th Century U.S. (JEWISHST 286D)

HISTORY 351A (section 1)
Core in American History, Part I

A few are the same course and section but numbered differently because majors apparently register under a different course number from non-majors. So, 150A is “Colonial and Revolutionary America” - same lecture, only you take it to fulfill your lecture requirement as a major. Same with 168D on MLK, 173 (Mexican Migration to US) and 369 which might be the graduate version of 269 (Modern American History).

And then History 351- Core in American History might also be a graduate course (Not sure whether undergraduates are invited to take as well).

What courses did I overlook?

19

“One could argue for a few more courses at both schools – I didn’t count in the numerator the Chicago urban history course that listed New York along with 6-7 non-American cities, or any of the methodology courses in either department, which would be relevant to and adaptable by students of U.S. history.”

A historical methods course will apply to any area of concentration, whether it be time-and-place, thematic, or methodological (ie related to another course of study such as economic or political history). For instance, at UChicago you are required to take a coloquium that is very research intensive, but the topic can be either your concentration or one of your history electives. UChicago also requires historiography which of course applies to all areas of study in the subject. And then at Stanford, the required seminars in methods and applications don’t seem to stipulate that you must stick to one particular area of study.

http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/history/

https://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofhumanitiesandsciences/history/#bachelorstext

20

I counted four courses you didn’t (and clearly double-counted some despite trying not to): The course on Howard Zinn (historiography, but specifically American historiography), the course on the Cold War, Diplomacy on the Ground (the description made it look like it was at least 50% American), Presidents and Foreign Policy, and the course on Prisons and Immigration (which was 100% American). With your nine (I counted 351, and I also counted one Chicago grad course), that makes 13, which is still almost double what Chicago had. I think they are both on the quarter system, so it’s apples-to-apples.

The Chicago and Stanford methodology courses looked pretty similar to me, so excluding them at both colleges was fair comparison.