Professor John Wood Sweet "uses the dramatic story of Venture Smith, an enslaved African in New England who earned his freedom, to anchor an analysis of the colonial dynamics that brought together — and kept apart — a series of disparate regions and peoples in the increasingly global early modern world."

University of Pittsburgh professor Marcus Rediker will discuss his book "The Slave Ship: A Human History," which explores life and relationships, for and between both crew and slaves, on slave ships traveling between Africa and the Americas.

"This seminar will trace Woodrow Wilson’s evolution as a world leader. A novice in foreign affairs when he entered the White House, he ardently championed U.S. neutrality for the first two years of the war, then joined it on the side of the Allies but insisted on American command of American troops. Admired throughout the world by the end of the war, Wilson figured prominently in the peacemaking and pressed for a new world order in which nationalism would be tamed by internationalism. To that end, he persuaded the world to establish the League of Nations, and although he could not persuade his own nation to join, the main tenets of his new order (collective security, national self-determination, and the spread of democracy) remain central to American foreign policy."

"This seminar views the American Declaration from three global perspectives: first, by placing 1776 into the context of contemporary international and global connections; second, by examining the legacy of the Declaration in the century or so after 1776; and third, by analyzing other declarations of independence since 1776 for their debts to -- and divergences from -- the American model. The result should be an enriched understanding of the importance of the Declaration in world history, as well as a novel account of what was truly revolutionary about the American Revolution."

"This seminar is concerned with the formative period of early American constitutionalism. It begins with the pre-Revolutionary debate over the rights that the American colonists could claim under the 'ancient' imperial constitution, and ends with the escalating controversies over the interpretation of the Federal Constitution of 1787, culminating (in a sense) with the Supreme Court’s much-heralded decision in Marbury v. Madison and its less known but arguably more important holding in Stuart v. Laird a week later. In between, the heart of the seminar focuses on the constitutional experiments of the 1770s and 1780s: the adoption of the first state constitutions (1776-1780), and the framing and ratification of the Federal Constitution (1787-1791, if we throw in the first ten amendments)."

"This seminar will use a variety of resources: lectures, books, documents, video documentaries, and the resources on the internet. There will also be ample opportunity for participants and hosts to learn from one another. It will be, in short, a week of total immersion in the lengthy, occasionally dangerous, and (almost) always intriguing history of the Cold War, filled with debate and new information."

"This seminar, led by Ira Berlin, will view the development of chattel bondage in mainland North America from the perspective of the larger Atlantic world. Topics include the nature of the slave trade, the distinction between societies with slaves and slave societies, the evolution of plantation slavery, the transforming face of the Age of Revolutions, the remaking of slavery in the nineteenth century, and the contemporary debate about the meaning of slavery for American life."

"Between ca. 1500 and ca. 1800, the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean saw the creation, destruction, and re-creation of communities as a result of the movement of peoples, commodities, institutions, social practices, and cultural values. This seminar will explore the pan-Atlantic webs of association linking people, objects, and beliefs across and within the region. The best Atlantic history is interactive and crosses borders. The hope is that participants will enlarge their horizons by placing the standard early North American story in a larger framework."

"Professor Alan Brinkley and Michael Flamm explore the period between the end of the “Great War” and the beginning of the “Good War,” during which the United States experienced dramatic political, economic, social, and cultural change. The uneven prosperity of the 1920s contributed to the crisis of the 1930s. The Great Depression in turn led to the New Deal and the reshaping of the modern state, but also to a global crisis that produced World War II. Topics of discussion include the coming of the Great Depression, the New Deal, crime and culture in the 1920s and 1930s, and the beginning of World War II."

"To many, the Great Plains are part of the Great Flyover, whose landscape and history alike are flat and featureless. But in this region in the middle of the nation, cultures have mingled and clashed for thousands of years. This seminar will focus on the 19th century, though also examining the first peoples and the continuing cultural exchanges of the 20th century. It will begin with the physical setting, plants, and animals, and consider early humans in both Native American traditions and anthropological/archeological studies. Europeans arriving in the 16th century accelerated the long history of change and evolution, initiating more than three centuries of converging peoples and cultures, new centers of power, flourishing trade, calamitous epidemics, and cultural and material intrusions from across the planet. Participants will visit Bent’s Fort to see a cultural crossroads illustrated through one family. The seminar will also examine cattle ranching, homesteading, scientific explorations, and the depiction of the plains in art."