Curriculum

The program offers a variety of study plans, which can be divided into the following major categories: national, regional, or local history (for example, American, European, Asian, Russian); period-oriented history (ancient, medieval, early modern, modern); and topical and disciplinary specializations (environmental history, diplomatic history, ethnic history, African American history, history of gender and sexuality, history of ideas, history of science and technology, urban history). An individual study plan may be further subdivided into specific areas of concentration. The program also encourages students to explore and develop individualized study plans that reflect their particular interests.

Students who major in historical studies are expected to fulfill two kinds of requirements: general requirements for the program as a whole and special requirements of individual study plans.

Requirements

General requirements include the following. In the Lower College, students are expected to take three or four history courses covering different regions and time periods and using a variety of historical research methodologies. One of these must be a global core course. For Moderation, students are required to submit the standard two short papers and a sample paper on a historical subject. By the time of their graduation students must have completed from six to eight history courses covering at least three world areas and one period prior to 1800. As part of the preparation for their Senior Project, students should take in their junior year a Major Conference in which they write a research paper.

Courses

The historical studies courses are divided into seven categories: global history; African and African diaspora studies; American history; ancient, medieval, and early modern European history; Asian history; Russian and Soviet history; and modern European history. Within each category, courses begin at the 100 level and continue up through 300-level seminars.

Tutorials and Major Conferences

Conferences and selected tutorials from the past two years give an indication of the range of individual study.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Writings
Gramsci and Cultural Marxism
Hollywood's Golden Era
Hooke's Micrographia in Context
The Age of Roosevelt
The Decision to Drop the Bomb
Women Writing Early Modern Italy

Recent Senior Projects in Historical Studies

"An Inaccessible Conflict: Critical Interpretations of the American Revolution"
"Befriending Friendship: Disentangling Concepts of Friendship in Early 18th-Century France, 1698–1761"
"Between Saints and Sinners: Henry Stimson, James Byrnes, and the Dawn of Atomic Diplomacy"
"Marion Dufresne and the Magic Flute: A History's Anthropology of Voyages"
"Medea's Multifaceted Divinity in Greek Myth and Literature"
"The Natural and the Artistic: Chinese Views of Nature and the Function of the Private Garden"
"The Star of Hope: An Exploration of Agency and Resistance among Prisoners at the Turn of the 20th Century"