Teaching

Reading and discussion of the origins of the Second Amendment and its course through the courts as well as in party politics and in American culture more broadly. Course material will consist of both primary documents, dating back to the seventeenth century, and of legal and...

This seminar, jointly taught by Professors Jill Lepore and Kenneth Mack, will examine the political and legal history of the U.S. Constitution with an eye toward considering how ordinary people have fought to participate in the acts of constitutional amendment and...

Allison, Christopher. “Protestant Relics: The Sacred Body in Early America.” American Studies. 2017. Bell, Richard. "Do Not Despair: The Cultural Significance of Suicide in America, 1780-1840," History. 2006. Carter, Sarah. "Object Lessons in American Culture," History of...

The United States is founded on the idea of equality but equality has always been elusive and has only ever been achieved through struggle, argument, and action. This course examines American history--especially the history of race, immigration, and constitutional justice-...

What happened when Britain’s most celebrated novelist visited the world’s most celebrated experiment in democracy? This course will reconstruct Charles Dickens’ travels through the United States in 1842. We’ll read his travel narrative, the novel he wrote about the United...

History 97 is a team-taught introduction to the discipline of history. It is required for all sophomore History concentrators. Six different seminars are offered. In each, over the course of the term, you will explore the historian’s craft by studying and practicing a...

This course, offered at the Harvard Law School and jointly in the college (open to advanced undergraduates), will examine and compare the rules and standards of evidence in law, history, science, and journalism. What counts as proof in these fields varies and has changed...

A team-taught course. Readings include works by Homer, Plato, Thucydides, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Descartes, as well as the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. All sections are led by professors.

This freshman seminar investigates the history of six modern machines—the train, the camera, the radio, the mainframe computer, the personal computer, and the Internet—to trace shifting ideas about the relationship between technology and progress. Machines like these do a...