"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."

Course Catalogue

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History

The History and Social Science curriculum is designed to help students become both effective and knowledgeable citizens of their communities – local, national, and international – and to use the discipline of historical thinking to interpret the world in which they live. The curriculum helps students to place current problems and situations in a larger context that provides fuller understanding and, thus, the basis for informed action. In addition, the curriculum reflects a commitment to Quaker values such as the worth of every individual and the quest for social justice. Through the curricular offerings, students are encouraged to value diversity and inclusivity. All History courses emphasize class discussions, analytical skills, essay writing, and close examination of a variety of source material.
 
The three years of required coursework includes a 9th grade World History focused on Beliefs and Belief Systems to introduce students to critical historical thinking and writing methods; 10th grade World History from c. 1400 to the present that introduces students to both a global and regional approach in terms of understanding the development of the modern world; and in the 11th grade a foundational view of United States History that prepares students for more in-depth study in future courses.

  • History of Beliefs and Belief Systems

    History of Beliefs and Belief Systems explores pre-modern world history through the lens of the beliefs and cultures that shaped civilizations across the globe. By examining various religious and philosophical traditions, students can reassess the details and patterns commonly emphasized in previous curricula and the feedback loops they create. In addition to historical study, the course incorporates recent academic approaches that make seemingly distant topics more personal by integrating perspectives from social sciences such as anthropology. Students will engage with historical simulations and creative writing prompts, expanding their understanding beyond traditional methods. While introducing these new experiences and activities, the course also maintains familiar scaffolds and assignments, including Jigsaws, graded discussions, quizzes, and analytical comparison essays.


    5 periods per cycle

    Full year course - 4 credits

  • World History

    This course surveys world history (1200 C.E. to present) from an antiracist and global perspective. The goals of the course are for students to: understand the process by which the modern world developed and the historical roots of today’s unequal power dynamics; to decolonize the traditional Eurocentric conception of world history; to recognize multiple forms of modernity; and to engage with history as a form of storytelling. We consider the emergence and evolution of the global economy, the transition from monarchies to nation-states, the development of and challenges to a Western world order, the expansion and effects of long-distance migration, shifts in global economic and political power, and the evolution of the relationship between humanity and the environment. While students will engage this course through seven distinct units, they do so by focusing on regional case studies from around the world. This course is writing intensive, and students will have the opportunity to develop both analytical and creative writing skills.


    5 periods per cycle

    Full year course - 4 credits

  • US History

    The primary goal of the United States History course is to get students to understand how the past informs the present, and subsequently can go on to forge a more inclusive and equitable future.  In order to grapple with the complexity and nuance of this nation’s history, the course is designed around 3 major themes: Language, Memorialization, and Agency.  Language – how do we talk about History and how do word choices inform our understanding of past events and people?  Memorialization – how do we as a society choose what to remember?  Agency – how does History get “made,” and who gets to “make” History?  This course will rely heavily on secondary sources, as students will also examine the role of historiography in shaping and promoting certain narratives.

    The exploration of the content will be conducted through the lenses of anti-racism and decolonization, and will particularly presence marginalized voices in an effort to decentralize dominant narratives around America and its past.  This course will openly challenge the ideas of American exceptionalism and rugged individualism. Ultimately, students will be provided the foundation needed to appropriately comprehend the individuals, groups, and structures which comprise United States History.  This begins with an exploration of North America and it’s Indigenous inhabitants prior to European settler-colonialism and completes with an examination of the present moment.

    At the conclusion of the course, students will work in groups to create presentations and formal papers which will address the ways in which specific moments from the American past can inform a present moment. They will be tasked with coming up with specific queries which will drive their research.  The topics and scope of this final exploration will change yearly in order to most effectively and directly connect to the present moment.


    5 periods per cycle

    Full year course - 4 credits

  • Advanced U.S. History

    This course seeks to reframe the United States History survey toward contextualizing and illuminating the central social, cultural, and political conditions shaping American life today. Contemporary economic, racial, and gender power structures and modern struggles over resulting social inequities have historical roots. Similarly, 21st Century political conflicts over how best to secure “freedom” for Americans or over what role the United States should play in global affairs must be examined through a historical lens. In order to help students better understand the country they live in, this course prioritizes the last two hundred years of U.S. history and allots significant time to the recent past. The course draws from social and cultural history, attentive to the fact that all people who have lived in the United States had a hand in making American history. Readings are selected from scholarly work and primary sources to represent the broad range of Americans’ perspectives and experiences. Student assessments include analytical essays, smaller writing assignments, and participation. Students in this course will also spend a significant portion of the second semester working on a major research paper that will be due at the end of the year.
    Prerequisite(s): A- in World History and permission of the History department
    5 periods per cycle
    Full year course - 4 credits

  • History of the Middle East

    This course is designed to introduce students to the emergence of the Middle East as a region of study, and as such, it encourages students to question the very meaning of the “Middle East” as a category of analysis and a geopolitical reality. In order to make sense of the range of political, social, economic, and cultural realities that have set the region apart from the rest of the world since the end of WWI, we explore a variety of themes related to both global history and Middle Eastern history, including antiquity, modernity, nationalism, secularism, radicalism, class, gender, culture, and revolution. Using a variety of readings, including maps, images, and a series of primary source documents, students are encouraged to grasp the history of the Middle East in a more nuanced and integrated manner in order to better contextualize and appreciate the myriad complexities that characterize the region and its peoples to this day. This is a reading intensive course that expects students to be regularly engaged with the material and prepared for class discussions.

    5 periods per cycle

    Fall semester – 2 credits

    Open to Grades 11 and 12

  • Power, Politics & Citizenship

    In the past years, the non-partisan think-tank and advocacy group Freedom House noted, “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power to advance the particular interests of their supporters, usually at the expense of minorities and other perceived foes.” During the last half decade, America has experienced a consistent and troubling decline in democratic freedom, ranking the United States below other industrialized nations such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The fragility of democracy has come into stark relief, and this course will focus on developing students into responsible and civic-minded custodians of our socio-political systems. As such, students will pursue topics pertaining to the roles of forbearance and mutual toleration, the rise of authoritarianism, the use and abuse of media in political environments, and the role of citizenry in advocating for a more accurate and tolerant reality. This is a reading intensive course, and students are required to stay up to date with local and national news. The curriculum concludes with an examination of the right of revolution, using the 2014 Revolution of Dignity (Maidan) as the primary case study, which is then connected to the larger framework of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

    5 periods per cycle

    Fall semester – 2 credits

    Open to Grades 11 and 12

  • Case Study in Social History

    Culture has long been a tool used by people to define themselves and exercise agency. This course will explore the cultural powerhouse that is Hip-Hop. In doing so, the course will start with a survey of the political, social and economic history of New York that led to the culture’s development. This course will also consider how Hip-Hop became a mainstay tool for social commentary and the conduit for the Black perspective in public life. Lastly, students will examine and evaluate the culture’s ever-growing economic and political power. Students will also be required to critically listen to certain songs and albums, and comment accordingly in discussions and essays. Major themes include the influence of the Black Power/Arts Movement, Cultural Diffusion, and Representation. 

     This course may serve to satisfy the Senior Project requirement.
    5 periods per cycle
    Spring Semester - 2 credits
    Open to Grade 12


  • Black Thought & Action in a White World

    This class focuses on the history of black thought and action in a white world.  The course provides a narrative history covering two phenomena. First, after establishing pre-Columbian context within West and Central Africa, this class will explore white-dominated systems and thoughts which have historically oppressed African-descended peoples. This course will cover the economic practices, political policies, and written thought produced from the Early Modern Era to the modern day. Analysis will start within a global context but will gradually narrow into an American context. Secondly, this class will explore the agency and acts of resistance exercised by African Americans. Specific attention will be paid to the diverse range of African American thought and action, including developments such as Black Nationalism/Pan-Africanism, Transnational alliance building, Black Self-Defense, and the Black Left. The overriding goal of this course will be to provide an accessible structural analysis that students can apply to other contexts and identities.

    5 periods/cycle
    One semester course (Fall) – 2 credits
    Open to Grades 11 and 12

  • Case Study in Cultural History

    Clothing is among the most visible ways human beings signal to the world who they are. In getting dressed, whether we are aware of it or not, all of us engage with a multitude of social, cultural, economic, and historical relationships. Considering questions about who made our clothes and how they got to us, what is “fashionable” in a particular time or place and why, and how the style choices we make reflect and shape our identities, will be a central purpose of “Fashion, Dress, and Style.” In the course, students will explore a number of case studies in historical and present-day contexts. While the main geographical focus will be on the United States (and in fact, on New York City), global perspectives will be included. Case study topics include: dress and gender, Black style, the business and labor practices of the clothing industry, fashion and sustainability, dress and social activism. The case studies will be explored through readings, podcasts, online explorations of clothing collections, and field trips to various relevant sites around the city. Assignments will include short analytical responses to readings, reflections on field trips and other activities, and informal presentations. All students will also make fashion of their own through visible mending and upcycling projects. Those students who choose to stay in this course for their Senior Project will propose and execute a more expansive clothes-making project of their own design. Expertise in sewing is not required for participating in this part of the course.  This course may be used to satisfy the Senior Project requirement.
     
    5 periods per cycle
    Spring Semester - 2 credits
    Open to Grade 12

  • Gender in Popular Culture

    Representations of gender in popular culture both reflect, and help to shape, audiences’ ideas about masculinity and femininity, gender identity, relationships, and power dynamics. As well, because most contemporary popular culture is capitalist enterprise, it tends to bolster existing power structures including patriarchy and misogyny. However, popular culture can also provide platforms (intended or not) for critiquing and even subverting those structures. In this class we will examine advertising, film, television, music, and social media through a feminist lens. Students will read some gender analyses of popular culture, both historical and current-day, and they will spend a good deal of time, in and out of class, doing gender analysis of the popular culture they love (and love to hate). Assignments will include short analytical essays, presentations, and a final project which can consist of creating a podcast, a website, a documentary, or a paper, and which students can do individually or in small groups.
     
    5 periods per cycle
    Fall Semester - 2 credits
    Open to Grades 11 and 12


  • History of Capital Punishment

    As of the Spring of 2021, 27 American states (and the US Military) as well as 55 countries around the world maintained laws allowing the execution of citizens by the State for a variety of crimes.  This course will trace the legal, social, and cultural development and practice of capital punishment in the United States and around the globe from the ancient world to the present through the lenses of Quakerism, anti-racism, and decolonization. We will examine this deep and compelling topic through a variety of means and approaches, including but not limited to: readings, field trips, documentaries, primary source analysis, interviews, guest lectures, and research. We will engage deeply and in community with the various moral and philosophical questions surrounding the death penalty in American society, as well as the larger historical arc of the practice in human populations. Class work will be focused on discovery, examination, research, group work, and collaboration. This course is reading intensive.


    5 periods per cycle

    Spring semester – 2 credits

    Open to Grades 11 and 12

  • History of the Adirondacks

    Upon first encounters with Indigenous peoples and an unfamiliar terrain, Dutch explorers

    thought that the region known today as the Adirondack State Park was a mystical place, full of fantastical creatures. Since that time, the region has continued to draw the interest of all kinds of adventurers, opportunists, and dreamers. Boasting a varied history, diverse ecosystems, unique settlement patterns, and distinctive cultures, the area acts as a superb vehicle through which to explore one of the most basic and yet complex relationships in American history, that of people to the land.


    This course will begin with an examination of the rich history of the region through the many narratives of those Indigenous peoples who originally inhabited and used this land.  We will then focus on the historiography of Black identity in the Adirondacks, using the Timbuctoo settlement as the primary case study. This will then segue into our last point of examination, the idea of wilderness as recreation, and how such an approach can either foster sentiments of exclusion or of belonging.  At each juncture, we will stop and consider the implications of land use and ownership, and the ways in which these fluctuating relationships go on to shape the identities of both people and landscape.


    This course may serve to satisfy the Senior Project requirement.


    Students requesting this course as their Senior Project will participate in a 5 day camping/paddling excursion to Adirondack State Park. This trip will occur in late May during the Senior Project time period. There will be a $900.00 trip fee for all participants. Financial aid will be available. There is an enrollment limit of 14 students.


    5 periods per cycle

    Spring Semester - 2 credits

    This course is only available for Grade 12

Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
FRIENDS SEMINARY
222 East 16th Street
New York, NY 10003
P: 212-979-5030
F: 212.979.5034
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.