TEACHING

At Yale, I have taught courses in energy history, environmental history, architectural history, urban studies, and the history of science and technology as a Teaching Fellow.

Below you'll find the courses I have helped to teach so far, along with brief descriptions of several syllabi I have developed.

I will serve as a Teaching Fellow for Professor Mark Peterson's undergraduate course, Climate and Environment in Early American History, in Fall 2024.

Courses taught

Global Catastrophe since 1750

A history of science course exploring how catastrophes and earthly change have been conceptualized and addressed in the Western world since the scientific revolution and the onset of industrialization.

Introduction to Urban Studies

A course offered at the Yale School of Architecture, primarily for undergraduates, examining key research methods and practices in the interdisciplinary field of urban studies.

American Energy History

An interactive undergraduate lecture course with an emphasis on writing and research, focused on how the struggle to control and deploy energy shaped American society, politics, economics, and the environment.

American Architecture and Urbanism

A lecture course designed to introduce students to the study of buildings, architects, architectural styles, and urban landscapes, viewed in their economic, political, social, and cultural contexts.

Syllabi developed

Introduction to Landscape History and Theory

A lecture course designed to introduce students to key concepts and themes in landscape history and theory through readings, site visits, films, discussions, and collaborative projects. Students keep a landscape journal throughout.

Urban Environmental History

A research, writing, and presentation-based seminar designed to introduce students to key topics and themes in urban environmental history, along with methods for studying and interpreting urban landscapes, artifacts, and archives.

Climate, Environment, and Disaster in Vast Early America

An advanced seminar course for History majors that traces geographically expansive and situated histories of colonization, conflict, settlement, adaptation, and loss in early America through the lenses of climate, environment, and disaster.

Finding Our Place in the Anthropocene

A geohumanities seminar. Students analyze expressive media (films, texts, landscapes, images); consider the status of science and the roles of technology and culture in debates about and processes of environmental degradation and amelioration; and interrogate and imagine approaches to living life on a damaged planet.

Courses taught (continued)

ARCH 280 / HSAR 219 / AMST 197 / URBN 280
American Architecture and Urbanism

Yale University, Fall 2022

Instructor: Elihu Rubin, Associate Professor of Architecture, Urbanism & American Studies

Teaching Fellows: Adi Meyerovitch, Andrew Clum, Charlotte Leib, Grant Dokken, Max Clayton, Zach Felder / Teaching Assistant: Signe Ferguson

Introduction to the study of buildings, architects, architectural styles, and urban landscapes, viewed in their economic, political, social, and cultural contexts, from precolonial times to the present. Topics include: public and private investment in the built environment; the history of housing in America; the organization of architectural practice; race, gender, ethnicity and the right to the city; the social and political nature of city building; and the transnational nature of American architecture.

HIST 199 / HSHM 207 / AMST 236 / EVST 318
American Energy History

Yale University, Spring 2022

Instructor: Paul Sabin, Professor of History, American Studies & Environmental Studies

Teaching Fellows: Kristine Ericson, Molly Harris, Delaney Heileman & Charlotte Leib

The history of energy in the United States from early hydropower and coal to present-day hydraulic fracturing, deepwater oil, wind, and solar. Topics include energy transitions and technological change; energy and democracy; environmental justice and public health; corporate power and monopoly control; electricity and popular culture; labor struggles; the global quest for oil; changing national energy policies; the climate crisis. Course site: energyhistory.yale.edu

URBN 160 / ARCH 160 / ARCH 4246
Introduction to Urban Studies

Yale University, Fall 2021

Instructor: Elihu Rubin, Associate Professor of Architecture, Urbanism & American Studies

Teaching Fellows: Lilly Agutu, Samar Halloum, Alex Klein, Charlotte Leib, Mila Sambdub, Yuyi Shen, Kevin Steffes / Teaching Assistant: Abby Reed

An introduction to key topics, research methods, and practices in urban studies, an interdisciplinary field of inquiry and action rooted in the experience of cities. As physical artifacts, the advent of large cities have reflected rapid industrialization and advanced capitalism. They are inseparable from the organization of economic life; the flourishing of cultures; and the formation of identities. They are also places where power is concentrated and inequalities are (re)produced. Debates around equity are filtered through urban environments, where struggles over jobs, housing, education, mobility, public health, and public safety are front and center. Course organized as a colloquium with numerous guests.

HIST416 / HSHM 211 / ENVST 211 / EPS 211
Global Catastrophe since 1750

Yale University, Spring 2021

Instructor: Bill Rankin, Associate Professor of the History of Science

Teaching Fellows: Barbara DiGennario, Kristine Ericson, Charlotte Leib, and Jacqueline Ly

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we taught this course virtually

with section meetings over Zoom & asynchronous recorded lectures posted to Canvas.

A history of the geological, atmospheric, and environmental sciences, with a focus on predictions of global catastrophe. Topics range from headline catastrophes such as global warming, ozone depletion, and nuclear winter to historical debates about the age of the Earth, the nature of fossils, and the management of natural resources. Tensions between science and religion; the role of science in government; environmental economics; the politics of prediction, modeling, and incomplete evidence.