Education

As one of the two largest chair groups in the History Department in terms of seminar attendance and graduating students, the Chair Group Contemporary History teaches courses that connect themes of contemporary societal relevance with world history since 1945.

Our lecture series (in co-teaching with other chair groups) include:

• Contemporary History (formerly Globalisation II) (BA1)
• Regional Perspectives (regional and urban history in transnational and other forms of connected history) (BA1)
• Theory 1 (world history, global history, micro history, postcolonial perspectives, ethical perspectives on history) (BA2)
• Oral History and Life Stories (MA)
• Introduction to Sustainability (MA)

Core seminars (BA2):

• Genocide and Mass Murder in the 20th and 21st Centuries (A. De Baets)
• White Privilege: Systemic Racism in the United States (M. Zwiers)
• Freedom Now! The U.S. Civil Rights Movement (M. Zwiers)
• Global Environmental History (I. Pesa)
• Urbanism in Africa and Asia (I. Pesa)
• The Shoah within a Collective European Historiography (S. van der Poel)
• Media, Counter Movements and Societal Change in the 20th Century (T. Slootweg)

Research seminars (MA):

• Does this really change everything? How the climate crisis alters the way we write history (C. Six)
• The Abuse of History (A. De Baets)
• Transnational families from the 19th Century to postcolonial times (B. Henkes)
• 25 jaar na ‘Dayton’: Interventie, pacificatie en wederopbouw op de Balkan (S. de Hoop)
• “Welcome to My Page”: Early Internet and History in the Making (T. Slootweg)