History
DEPARTMENTAL REQUIREMENTS
Eighteen undergraduate credits in history, at least half of them upper division, are normally required for admission to the program. The Graduate Record Examination General Test is optional. Three letters of recommendation should be transmitted to the Office of Graduate Studies. A writing sample in history is required and can be uploaded in the online application.
The program for the Master of Arts in History emphasizes broad understanding, interpretation, and analysis. The department retains strengths in the US, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, while offering a vibrant curriculum in Public History. The program encourages students to pursue transnational developments that spanned larger regions or that bound together distant cultures. In addition to chronological and geographical concentrations, the program offers students the opportunity to investigate gender, sexuality, class and race expressed and embodied in the diverse geographies throughout Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Europe. The objective of the program is to lead the student to probe beneath the surface of events so that those who teach history may do so with a deeper understanding of their subject and the various approaches to it, and so that all, regardless of vocation or objectives, may more fully appreciate the value of studying society by means of historical investigation. The program provides opportunities for research and specialized training for students contemplating further work at the doctoral level. Faculty collaborate with local museums and cultural institutions to provide students with experience in public history and to train interested students to find work in non profits. Given the importance of interdisciplinary work, students may take, with permission, up to two non-department graduate courses in subjects related to the student’s field of study.
Thirty credits are required for the degree. In close consultation with an academic advisor, students choose a field of concentration from the following:
- Africana
- Americas
- Asia
- Atlantic World
- Europe
- United States
- Empire
- Intellectual and Cultural
- Race and Ethnicity
- Revolution
- State and Society
- Urban and Environmental History
- Women, Gender and Sexuality
- Chronological Concentration
- Public History Concentration
- Self-Designed Concentration
Students must take at least 12 credits in their concentration. In addition, all students are required to take HIS 8850 Theory and Methods, preferably in their first semester, and HIS 9002 Writing History, in their final spring semester. The remaining four courses are free electives that students may use to add to their concentration or to pursue wider interests.
Students are required to maintain a portfolio that includes a Plan of Study and a sample of their strongest piece of scholarship. The graduate committee reviews portfolios to ensure that departmental learning outcomes and students' goals are being met.