|
|
Oct 04, 2024
|
|
2021-2022 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
History Major
|
|
Return to: Programs of Study
|
History Overview
The History Department offers a major, a minor, and elective courses for non-majors. Curricular offerings are organized by the history of individual nations, regions, and social groups, while following the movements of people and ideas across geopolitical and metaphorical boundaries.
Courses consider a range of topics from the history of politics and diplomacy, to the history of gender, religion, culture, social movements, and everyday life. History courses, no matter the specific topic of study, educate students to read and evaluate sources, frame research questions, synthesize evidence and ideas, and write with clarity and concision. History students are well prepared for life after Clark, with recent graduates pursuing careers in museums, law, education, and medicine.
For more information, please visit the History Department’s website.
Major Requirements
All history majors must take ten history courses and two related non-history courses distributed as follows. Grades less than C- will not count towards the major. Students must also declare a track in one of the following three areas: US History, European History, or Global History.
Note: Students may choose, in consultation with their advisor, to declare a self-defined track that is comparative or transnational in its approach. This is an opportunity for students to shape the History curriculum to serve their interests, to focus their studies, and to build upon the shared interests of faculty in different geographic/national fields. Thematic specializations supported by History Department offerings include, but are not limited to: literature and history, the history of women and gender, comparative colonialism, or the history of war and violence.
- All students majoring in History must take HIST 120 - Writing History . This course should be taken, if possible, before the junior year and before enrolling in a research seminar.
- Five courses inside the student’s Track. Of these five courses, at least three must be at the 200 level and at least one must be a seminar or a proseminar.
- At least one course in each of the three geographic area tracks (U.S., European, or Global). Two of these courses must be at the 200 level and one may count toward the student’s track.
- At least one course (either inside or outside their track), devoted primarily to the period before 1800: HIST 011 HIST 040 HIST 050 HIST 070 HIST 071 HIST 085 HIST 110 HIST 112 HIST 116 HIST 118 HIST 191 HIST 201 HIST 205 HIST 206 HIST 212 HIST 226 HIST 235 HIST 254 HIST 295
- A capstone course, usually taken during the student’s senior year, is required for the major. The capstone is intended to serve as the culmination of an undergraduate History education and offers the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and skills acquired in previous coursework, including: 1) an understanding of the nature of historical evidence; 2) research skills in the use of primary and secondary sources; 3) an understanding of historiography and how it shapes a research project.
Students may satisfy the History capstone requirement by completing one of the following:
- 200-level research seminar*
- Honors Thesis (Hist 297)
- Independent Research/Public History Project (Hist 299)*
*Students should confer with their advisor and the course instructor to determine whether a particular seminar is appropriate for satisfying their capstone requirement in the context of their specialization.
6. Two courses outside history in fields related to the student’s area of specialization. These courses must be approved in advance by the student’s history advisor and must be taken after the student has declared a History major.
Majors select an advisor from the History faculty and they consult regularly, especially before registering each semester. The student and advisor design a coherent sequence of courses, and choose non-history courses that enhance the area of concentration. They also make decisions regarding advanced research courses and enrollment in the departmental honors program.
Honors
The Honors Program in History provides outstanding majors with an opportunity to pursue independent research on a larger scale. Honors can be immensely rewarding and enjoyable because of the excitement of original research and the chance to work closely with a professor on an individual basis. The History Honors Program requires the completion of an honors thesis during the senior year.
Students interested in honors should discuss the matter with their adviser during the fall semester of their junior year to ensure that they have the requisite skills, initiative, and experience to complete the program. Students who apply are required to have successfully completed a history research seminar in preparation for the Honors Program. In addition, their GPA must be at least 3.50 at the time of application (mid-April of junior year).
Students admitted to Honors register for History 290 (Honors Forum), History 297 (Honors), and History 299 (Directed Readings) during senior year (a total of 3.5 credits). Students devote two units of course work, one in the fall and one in the spring, to researching and writing the honors thesis (History 297). Students receive a preliminary grade of P (pass) for the fall semester of History 297. Following the completion of History 297 in April/May and the evaluation of the honors thesis, students will receive a letter grade that will be applied both to the spring and, retroactively, to the fall semester. Please note that each student must consult with their thesis adviser at the end of the fall semester to confirm that they have permission to continue in the Honors Program.
In order to gain command of the secondary literature surrounding their topic, a unit of directed readings (History 299) in the fall semester is devoted to readings with an appropriate member of the department, usually the thesis adviser. Honors students receive a letter grade for this directed readings course.
Finally, Honors students are required to register for History 290, the Department’s Honors Forum. This .25-credit course is designed to support honors students as they go through the process of writing their honors thesis. Students enroll in both Fall and Spring and are graded pass/fail.
History Faculty
Program Faculty
Taner Akçam, Ph.D.
Janette T. Greenwood, Ph.D.
Elizabeth Imber, Ph.D.
Willem Klooster, Ph.D.
Thomas Kuehne, Ph.D.
Nina Kushner, Ph.D
Douglas Little, Ph.D.
Lex Jing Lu, Ph.D.
Drew McCoy, Ph.D.
Ousmane Power-Greene, Ph.D.
Amy Richter, Ph.D., Chair
Frances Tanzer, Ph.D.
Adjunct Faculty
Everett Fox, Ph.D.
Meredith Neuman, Ph.D.
Kristina Wilson, Ph.D.
Affiliate Faculty
Robert Dykstra, Ph.D.
Alden Vaughan, Ph.D. Emeriti Faculty
Daniel Borg, Ph.D.
Paul Lucas, Ph.D.
History Courses
U.S. History
seminar/proseminar courses incude: HIST 209 HIST 213 HIST 215 HIST 217 HIST 288
- HIST 011 - Survey of U.S. History to 1865
- HIST 012 - Survey of U.S. History Since 1865
- HIST 016 - American Race and Ethnicity
- HIST 037 - U.S. History Through Women’s Eyes
- HIST 039 - The American Home: Power, Place, and Gender
- HIST 044 - Picking up the Gun: A History of Violence in African American Social and Political Movements
- HIST 055 - 9/11 in Fact and Fiction
- HIST 112 - African American History to 1865
- HIST 114 - African-American History, 1865-Present
- HIST 116 - Pre-Colonial African History
- HIST 145 - U.S. History through the Novel
- HIST 201 - Era of the American Revolution
- HIST 202 - The Early American Republic
- HIST 203 - U.S. Urban History
- HIST 204 - Special Topics in US History
- HIST 207 - Exploring Public History through Old Sturbridge Village
- HIST 211 - American Consumer Culture
- HIST 213 - Gender and the American City
- HIST 214 - The American Civil War
- HIST 215 - The Age of Lincoln
- HIST 217 - Reconstruction: America after the Civil War, 1865-1877
- HIST 219 - History of American Women
- HIST 220 - The Black Radical Tradition
- HIST 222 - History of the American South
- HIST 223 - The Civil Rights Movement
- HIST 225 - Blacks & Reds: African Americans, Socialists, and Communists in the 20th Century
- HIST 231 - Origins of Modern America, 1877-1914
- HIST 238 - America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1917-1991
- HIST 243 - American Antiquarian Society Seminar in American Studies
- HIST 245 - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East since 1945
- HIST 277 - America’s Founding Fathers: Memory and Meaning
- HIST 288 - Sem: Public History
- HIST 291 - Advanced Topics
- HIST 293 - African American Social and Political Movements
- HIST 273 - From Black Power to Black Lives Matter: Contemporary African American History
Global History
seminar/proseminar courses include: HIST 226 HIST 253 HIST 254 HIST 262 HIST 276
- HIST 080 - Introduction to Modern East Asia
- HIST 090 - Twentieth-Century Global History
- HIST 116 - Pre-Colonial African History
- HIST 121 - Jewish History After 1492
- HIST 122 - Jewish History in the Ancient and Medieval World
- Hist 125 - Genocides, Ethnic Cleansings, and Forced Deportations in the Twentieth Century: The Balkans and the Middle East
- HIST 128 - History of Modern Israel
- HIST 130 - Introduction to History of Genocide
- HIST 135 - History of Armenia
- HIST 182 - Modern China
- HIST 191 - Pirates and Smugglers in the Atlantic World
- HIST 206 - Africans in the Americas, 1500-1888
- HIST 226 - Comparative Colonialism
- HIST 230 - The Topics in Genocide in Comparative Perspective
- HIST 235 - The Atlantic World
- HIST 238 - America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1917-1991
- HIST 240 - Love, Memory, and Violence: The Cultural Revolution
- HIST 244 - Jewish Masculinities
- HIST 253 - Beauty, Gender, and Power around the World, 1800 to the Present
- HIST 254 - The Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- HIST 261 - Borderlands: Violence and Coexistence
- HIST 262 - Genocide, Denial, Facing History and Reconciliation
- HIST 276 - Collective Memory and Mass Violence
- HIST 281 - China since 1949: State, Economy and Family in the People’s Republic
- HIST 286 - The Vietnam War
|
Return to: Programs of Study
|
|
|
|
|