Global Arc

The Great Migration, the movement of millions of African Americans out of the American South, was one of the most transformative periods in the history of the United States. Likewise, the New Great Migration, the mass migration of Black people back to the South, is transforming the nation's political and cultural landscape. This course examines the histories and ongoing impacts of both movements. The course takes an intersectional approach to discussing the movements, examining how race, gender, sex, and class shaped migrants' experiences and shaped how Black migrants were able to remake the nation's politics and culture.

Junior Independent Work requires students to complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. The work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the semester. See below for details on works-in-progress submissions and due dates.

The Haitian Revolution was one of the most radical revolutions of the modern world. It abolished slavery in what had been the world's most important slave society, and it created the world's first sovereign Black state. We will strive to understand the origins, character, course, and legacies of the Revolution. We will also consider debates that use the Haitian Revolution as a way of thinking about the global history of the Enlightenment, human rights, and historical knowledge more generally. Finally, we will pay attention to the repercussions and impact of the Haitian Revolution throughout the Atlantic World.

How do we find the queer past, and what are the distinctive problematics and possibilities of queer archives? We will work together to learn this complicated landscape in order to locate the recoverable past. Over the course of the semester, students will collectively produce a guide to different kinds of sources for writing LGBT history that could be explored from Princeton or other nearby facilities. The course requires no prior knowledge or experience, and it will be taught "lab style" in Firestone Library.

What can we know about those who were enslaved? This seminar explores the history of modern slavery in the Atlantic world from their perspective. Taking a transnational approach, we will examine a broad range of black experiences, with a focus on Latin America between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Together, we will consider questions such as: what is racial slavery? What world did the transatlantic slave trade create? How can we write about the thoughts, fears and desires of subaltern peoples? The course examines how the enslaved navigated a political landscape shaped by colonialism, global capitalism, revolutions, and abolition.

How did the Civil Rights Movement reconfigure the ways freedom and justice are understood and enacted? Expanding the timeline and goals of the Civil Rights Movement, the Modern Black Freedom Movement was a dynamic movement for human rights that transformed American society and governance. This course traces its emergence during the New Deal and its development following World War II, culminating in the rise of Black political power in the 1970s. Various topics will be covered, including nonviolent protest, self-determination, economic justice, and the role of gender and sexuality in its development.

This seminar will address the political and social history of drug production, trade, prohibition, and deterrence in the Americas. After considering how countries in Latin America and the Caribbean became sites of cultivation and export for these substances, the course will trace the rise of narcotrafficking networks and their relationship to national and hemispheric security regimes, interrogating the inter-American Drug Wars' many consequences, including militarization, state violence, prison expansion, community displacement, weakened democratic institutions, and the erosion of international laws of war.

The passage of President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" dramatically expanded the size and scope of immigration enforcement and made "ICE" a household name. The policing of immigrants today does not stop at the border but reshapes life deep within the polity. How did we get here and how do we make sense of this moment? To begin to answer this question, this course examines immigration through the lens of the carceral state-a term used by scholars to refer to a wide range of punitive state actions spanning U.S. history. Readings explore race, migration, policing, the drug wars, and confinement. Assignments promote community-engaged scholarship.

This course examines the Cold War as a multidimensional historical process, rather than simply a geopolitical confrontation between two opposing blocs or ideological systems. While military rivalry and diplomacy remain important reference points, a central aim is to decenter the 'grand strategy' narrative by examining the Cold War from different global perspectives, including the Global South, socialist societies, and sites where ideology intersected with decolonization and social transformation.

This course is a collaboration between science and creative expression. Students will develop an understanding of the fundamental role that microbes (viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms) have played in environmental stability and human evolution. We will then explore the impact of microbes on climate change and discuss innovation and solutions. Concurrently, we will be exploring various forms of creative expression (writing, movement, improvisation, image making, etc.), with which to playfully observe, meditate and communicate the scientific material. Students will collaborate on final creative projects.