Overview

The Historical Studies Program emphasizes the importance of time and place in reconstructing the human past in its diversity and multiplicity. The program focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of history. It seeks to develop in students an understanding and appreciation of the past. As an interdisciplinary program, it encourages students to examine history through the prism of other relevant disciplines (for example, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy) and different forms of expression (art, film, literature, drama, architecture). The program also introduces students to a variety of methodological perspectives used in historical research and to philosophical assumptions about men, women, and society that underlie these perspectives.