General Statement of Goals

Although the History Department aspires to pursue a variety of goals, our core objectives remain the cultivation in our students of a critical understanding and awareness of the past and the development of our students' intellectual, analytical, and rhetorical abilities.  In pursuit of the first objective, through its curricular offerings the department seeks both to expose students to the richness, diversity, and complexities of human history over long periods of time and in different geographic regions and to provide students with the opportunity to explore aspects of the past in depth.  At the same time, the department endeavors to develop students' ability to think historically and to foster in them an appreciation of the contested nature and the value of historical knowledge by confronting them with the variety of ways in which historians have approached and interpreted the past, engaging them in issues that provoke historical debate, and familiarizing them with the nature and uses of historical evidence.  By engaging students in the critical study of the past, finally, the department seeks to develop their ability to formulate historically informed opinions and their analytical and rhetorical skills generally.  While members of the department attempt to accomplish these multiple objectives individually through their particular courses and their other contacts with students, the department seeks to do so collectively through the structure of the History curriculum and the requirements of the History major.

Over the past ten years or so, the History curriculum has included somewhat over 100 courses, of which between 48 and 67 actually have been offered in any given year, depending primarily on faculty leaves.  The organization, composition, and purposes of these courses reflect the objectives outlined above.  Hence the History curriculum currently is shaped by three principal categories: course level, geographic coverage, and chronological focus.  While the sequence of course levels is designed to enable students progressively to develop and refine their analytical and rhetorical skills and to expand their historical knowledge, the geographic and chronological categories provide students with the opportunity to study the historical experiences of different peoples both comparatively and over the longue durée.

While following a defined progression, the different levels of History courses are intended to serve particular constellations of purposes and the needs and interests of different groups of students.  The overall structure of the curriculum is designed to encourage students first to acquire critical analytical and interpretative skills and foundational background knowledge and then to develop both their analytical abilities and their particular historical interests through focused topical studies and independent research, although students generally may take courses at any level without prerequisites.  Hence, to introduce first and second-year students to the varieties of approaches to the past and to the contested subjects on which historians focus, and to develop other skills needed for the study of history at advanced levels, the department offers a series of writing intensive, limited-enrollment seminars (First-Year Seminars).  To provide a basic understanding of the history of peoples, countries, and geographic regions over relatively long time-spans, the department offers a broad array of survey courses covering Africa, China, Japan, Latin America, the United States, the Greco-Roman and Islamic worlds, Europe as a whole, and Britain, Germany, and Russia (200-level courses).  These courses are designed to provide students with the background not only desirable for more advanced History courses, but also necessary for the historical contextualization of subjects studied in other disciplines and for the ability to formulate historically informed opinions.  To enable students to explore historical topics and controversies in depth and to develop further their analytical skills and particular interests, the department offers a range of more specialized and topical upper-level electives, tutorials, and research seminars (300 and 400-level courses).  Finally, our research seminars, honors program, and independent study courses provide students with the opportunity both to utilize and further refine their analytical skills and to develop their particular historical interests through the pursuit of a substantial research project.

Within this overall structure, History courses are further divided on the basis of chronological and geographic categories: the "premodern" (Group D) and "modern" periods (prior to and after 1800 respectively), and Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean (all Group C), Europe and Russia (Group B), the United States (Group A), and Transnational and Comparative topics.  These categorizations are meant in part to indicate both the broad range of subjects offered by the History Department and the possibilities for both concentration and comparison.  Hence on the one hand the curricular structure enables students to concentrate on the historical experiences of a particular region or country over an extended period of time, progressing from broad survey courses to more specialized and narrowly focused topical courses and seminars and finally to independent research.  On the other hand, the curricular structure encourages comparative study, either of the historical experiences of different peoples within the same or comparable time periods or of particular themes and topics (for examples, see the list of concentrations in the description of the major).

While perhaps appearing to be loosely-constructed, the requirements for the History major have been designed to provide students with the flexibility to define and pursue their own historical interests while still obliging them to confront the diversity of human historical experience, to contemplate its long duration, to reflect on the nature of historical knowledge, and to engage in historical research.  In effect, the major requirements provide guidelines for students in shaping their study of history and seek to ensure that students acquire the skills and intellectual acumen requisite for the critical study of the past.  In the end, however, the chief responsibility for bringing substantive coherence to an individual student's path through the major lies with the student himself or herself.

Formally, a History major consists of at least nine semester courses (ten in the case of students writing Honors theses), of which one must be a junior seminar (History 301), one must be a research seminar or tutorial, and one must be chosen from each of three geographic categories (the "Non-Western World," Europe and Russia, and the United States).  Students also must take one course that concentrates on the premodern period (this course also may satisfy one of the geographic group requirements).  In addition, students must concentrate either in one of the broad areas designated by the department or in an area defined by them and approved by the departmental curriculum committee.  A concentration consists of at least three courses linked by common themes, geography, or time period, with at least one of these courses being an advanced elective, research seminar, or tutorial.

The objectives of these requirements to a large degree reflect those embodied in the structure of the History curriculum as a whole.  Hence, the requirement that majors take at least one course from each of the three designated geographic areas is intended to ensure that students acquire an appreciation and understanding of both the diversity of human historical experience and the history of peoples whose cultures, experiences, and conceptual worlds differ substantially from their own.  The requirement also serves to provide students with a foundation for making meaningful historical comparisons.  The requirement that History majors take at least one course that concentrates on the premodern period seeks to encourage students to contemplate the complex relationship between the premodern world and the present.  The concentration requirement is meant to prompt majors to consider the interconnections between their history courses and to define and develop their historical interests in a more self-conscious way.  Ideally, a concentration should culminate in an advanced course, where the knowledge and expertise acquired in previous courses would provide a foundation for more concentrated study or a research project, although this is not always possible.  onetheless, believing that the experience of doing original research is important for understanding the nature of historical knowledge and interpretation, the department requires all history majors to take a research seminar (a tutorial may be substituted for the research seminar).  Finally, History majors also are required to take -- normally in their junior year -- a junior seminar (History 301) that introduces them to various ways of thinking about and "doing" history and that focuses in depth on questions of methodology, historiography, and epistemology.  Thus, while the requirements of the History major provide students with wide latitude in choosing their courses, students must do so within a structure that promotes both breadth and depth of historical knowledge and the development of critical analytical and rhetorical abilities.

The preferred entry into the History major is through a First-Year Seminar, although students are not required to take one of these courses either to major in History or take other history courses.  First-year tutorials do the same.