History

The history program emphasizes critical reading and analysis in seminar-style courses and offers a variety of independent research opportunities. Sharpening your investigative skills, you will embark on voyages of historical discovery. Who knows what you will find and how it will shape who you become?

History asks students to think with all the parts of their personalities—with all their senses as economic, political, social and cultural actors. It asks them to understand people with experiences outside their own. The protagonists of history are actors in the past, whether in this country or others.

Gregg Bocketti, professor of history

Learning experiences outside the classroom abound. May term travel courses may take you to Washington, D.C., New York, Greece, Israel or Honduras. Other events, lectures and symposia will allow you to meet and perhaps enjoy lunch or dinner with critically acclaimed scholars, such as recent guests, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Harriet Washington and Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Annette Gordon-Reed.

In history courses, students analyze primary sources, debate historical and contemporary issues, study historiography and methodology and engage in independent research. Other opportunities include practical experience through an internship with a historical society, museum, library or archaeological firm.