Candidates for the master’s degree are required to complete 30 credits of graduate-level history work; or, alternatively, 24 credits and an acceptable 6-credit thesis written under the direction of a professor.

Three (3) credits must be taken in Historical Methodology.

Students electing to write a thesis will designate (in consultation with the Director) a 3-person thesis committee. Students and the Committee will have a Proposal meeting (prior to registering for thesis credits) and a defense, scheduled when the Advisor and Committee deems the student ready. All completed and defended theses will be digitized and placed online.

All graduate students will have a formal / designated advisor in the department, and the Mentor-Mentee relationship will be formalized by the start of the student’s second term in the program.

Students have up to 5 years to complete their graduate studies.

• The Early American Republic
• The American West
• Europe 1914-1933
• The Reformation
• Modern East Asia
• Historical Methodology
• The Gilded Age
• The Arab-Israeli Conflict
• The Ottoman Empire
• History of the Middle East to 1920
• La Belle Époque and WWI

HIS 500: Historical Methodology – Dr. Steven Smith, Thursdays 4:30-6:50pm
This course is an introduction to research methods and academic writing. Students will learn to think critically about, and participate in, the art of the professional historian. It will expose them to how the discipline developed professionally, to the many interpretations of the past developed by historians, as well as the many disagreements that emerge from these interpretations. Students will conduct research using primary and secondary sources that will culminate in an original research paper. The class will work with archives and may use local research libraries. In the end, students will have been afforded the opportunity to work and think like a historian.

HIS 622: The British Empire — Dr. Osama Siddiqui, Tuesdays 7:00-9:30pm
This graduate course explores the history of British overseas expansion from its origins in the sixteenth century to the era of decolonization in the twentieth century. Using both primary and secondary sources, we will think about the ways in which Britons conquered, settled, and ruled over different parts of the world, and how these places were transformed by British rule. At the same time, we will consider the ways in which British society and culture were transformed by empire. Throughout the semester, we will continue to ask the question: what can the history of the British Empire tell us about the world we live in today?

HIS 770-001: Special Topics- African American History and Biography – Dr. Alyssa Lopez, Tuesdays 4:30-6:50pm
This course will use biographies as a lens through which to trace some of the major themes in African American history, such as bondage, freedom, migration, civil rights activism, and race, sexuality & identity. Moving from slavery to the near present, our texts will allow us to consider a grand sweep of this history in the United States and how perspective no doubt shapes one’s understanding of the world. Beyond simply reading biographies, this course will also encourage students to consider just how biographies are written (or questions of form and storytelling): How do you write a history of someone who left no records? Is it still considered a biography if more than one person’s story is told? Are biographies only written for the heroic, powerful, or influential?

HIS 770-002: Special Topics- Anglo-American Revolutions – Dr. Adrian Weimer, Mondays 7:00-9:30pm
In this course we explore the tumultuous era from the English Civil War of the 1640s to the “Glorious Revolution” of the 1680s to the American Revolution of the later eighteenth century. All were transatlantic contests, and in each, participants debated the meaning of liberty, rights, constitutionalism, and the consent of the people.

HIS 770-003: Special Topics- US-China Relations — Dr. Guolin Yi, Wednesdays 4:30-6:50pm
This is a research seminar on the history of U.S.-China relations. It starts from the earliest contact between the Chinese and Americans during the American Revolution and goes through the Chinese Exclusion acts, the “Open-Door” era, Sino-American alliance during WWII, the Cold War, Tiananmen Square incident and its aftermath, all the way to the present age. As we walk through these events, we will discuss topics including immigration, trade, environment, security, and human rights among others. We will also look at the perceptions and misconceptions of the two peoples about each other at different periods. Using a global history perspective, we will put Sino-American relations in a world context.

Summer I: May 26 – June 26

HIS 534: The Gilded Age – Dr. Jeff Johnson, Tuesday/Thursday 4:30-8:00pm (online synchronous)
Periodized for this semester as 1877 to 1897, this course examines the American experience
on the eve of the “modern” 20th century. Described as the “great barbecue” the historian V. L.
Parrington, the Gilded Age revealed much dualism concerning U.S. attitudes on wealth, race,
class, gentility, immigration, gender, graft, the West, imperialism, American exceptionalism, and politics. Indeed, as Mark Twain famously wrote of the period’s stunning contradictions: “The golden gleam of the gilded surface hides the cheapness of the metal underneath.” This course, then, explores both the glitz and the grime of late 19th-century America.

HIS 726: The Atlantic World – Dr. Ted Andrews, Monday/Wednesday 4:30-8:00pm
This course explores the development of the Atlantic World, both as a historical reality and as a historiographical concept. It highlights the economic, political, social, and cultural exchanges between Europeans, Africans, and Indigenous Americans from early contact to the Age of Revolutions. It will encourage students to think about early American history in a broader, transatlantic context by tracing how developments in Europe, Africa, and the Americas created this wider world. Students will read classic works, as well as newer, path-breaking studies that continue to shape the field of Atlantic history.

Summer II: June 29 – July 31

HIS 649: Europe, 1933-1945 – Dr. Matthew Dowling, Tuesday/ Thursday 4:30-8:00pm
This course surveys the political, economic, social, and cultural history of Europe from 1933 through 1945. Topics include the Great Depression, Italian Fascism, Nazism, the Spanish Civil War, Catholic social thought, World War II, the Holocaust, and the beginnings of the Cold War. A variety of primary and secondary sources will be examined in an effort to understand perhaps the bloodiest two decades in human history.

HIS 770: History of the Modern Middle East through Biography – Dr. Vefa Erginbas, Monday/Wednesday 4:30-8:00pm
This class will explore the history of the Modern Middle East by examining the biographies and autobiographies of its key figures. It will focus on Atatürk and Erdoğan from Turkey; Nasser and Anwar Sadat from Egypt; Reza Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini from Iran; Golda Meir from Israel; Shafiq al-Hout from Palestine; and Robert Fisk’s account of the Lebanese Civil War. Reading these works will allow students to view and understand the region’s history from an intimate and humane perspective—something not easily achieved through textbooks or specialized studies.

HIS 500: Historical Methodology – Dr. Jeff Johnson, Tuesdays 5:30-7:45pm
This course is a broad introduction to research methods and academic writing. Students will learn to think critically about, and participate in, the art of the professional historian. It will expose them to how the discipline developed professionally, to the many interpretations of the past developed by historians, as well as the many disagreements that emerge from these interpretations. Students will conduct research using primary and secondary sources that will culminate in an original research paper. In the process, students will learn new and easy-to-use research aids, such as bibliographic software. The class will work with archives and may use local research libraries. In the end, students will have been afforded the opportunity to work and think like a historian.

HIS 512: The American Revolution — Dr. Steven Smith, Wednesdays 7:00-9:45pm
This graduate course will introduce students to the complexities of the Revolutionary Era – the prospects, successes, limitations, shortcomings, and contradictions of this formative period in American history. Our course is steeped in narrative and historiography, as we’ll strike a balance between considering the major events of the era and how historians, over time, have made sense of those transformative moments. While we’ll study the political debates and military confrontations often associated with the Revolution, we’ll also confront examples of how the imperial crisis and the war that followed played out in other colonial spaces. We’ll ask whether the American Revolution was a story of profound social and political change influenced by ordinary people, known at the time as “the people out of doors”? Or was it rather one of high politics driven by a group of elite men? Toward this end, the experiences of ordinary people – women, Native Americans, African Americans enslaved and free, and the poor – in cities and the countryside are central to this course. 

HIS 652: La Belle Epoque and World War I: Western Culture in the Age of the Great War — Dr. Matthew Dowling, Mondays 5:30-7:45pm
The course will consider cultural issues (the revolutions in music and the plastic arts, the enormous changes in science and technology), social issues (the women’s movement, the condition of the working classes, the growth of varieties of socialism, the Zionist movement), religious issues (questions concerning the churches and the erosion of belief), and an examination of the arts during wartime (protest art, cinema, poetry), in addition to the diplomatic and military history of the war period.

HIS 770: History of Islam in America – Dr. Vefa Erginbas, Thursdays 5:30-7:45pm
Did the Americans develop meaningful ways of engagement with Islam and the Muslims? What did account for their special relationship with Islam? What do these questions tell us about American history? From the very early days of American history, Muslims and Islam have played a peculiar role. The American engagement with Islam began when the Muslim slaves were carried from Africa to the Atlantic shores. In the next century, the founding fathers engaged with the Muslim states of North Africa through Barbary Wars. Islam also played a significant role as a discursive tool to criticize and sometimes demonize specific practices associated with absolutist monarchy or defend certain interpretations of Christianity. Since the horrendous events of 9/11, Muslims in the US and abroad have been under constant scrutiny and suspicion. This course will survey the American engagement with Islam and the Muslims from colonial times to the present. No knowledge of Islam or Muslims is necessary to take this class.