Graduate Research Fields

The Asian History program in the History Department is a vibrant and dynamic field, with faculty members specializing in various regions across Asia, particularly East and Southeast Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines), as well as South Asia and Central Asia. Our research strengths include East Asian migrations and diasporas, modern transpacific history, law and culture, printing and history of information, economy and capitalism, labor and technology, environmental history, military history, Cold War international history, and US-Asia relations. The program also thrives through strong collaborations with faculty and students from related fields and centers such as Global Interaction and Exchange (GIE), the Center for Global Migration Studies, and the Center for East Asian Studies.

The History Department offers graduate degrees in the following areas: 

• East Asian migrations and diasporas (Ph.D., M.A.)
• Late imperial/early modern China (Ph.D., M.A.)
• Modern China (M.A.)
• Modern Japan (M.A.)
• Modern Korea (M.A.)
• Modern Philippines (Ph.D., M.A.)

Students interested in studying Central Asia primarily through Russian imperial or Soviet history should apply to our European History M.A. or Ph.D. program. 

We do not offer South Asia as a subfield of primary specialization, but students whose interests may connect South Asia with one of the areas listed above are welcome to apply.

Graduate Faculty 

Sarah Cameron, Patrick Chung, Deokhyo Choi, Madeline Hsu, Mircea Raianu, Colleen Woods, Ting Zhang

Course Offerings

General Seminar: Korea and Japan (Choi)

General Seminar: China (Zhang) 

Reading Qing Documents (Zhang)

Late Imperial China: Law, Culture, and Society (Zhang)

The Japanese Empire and East Asia (Choi)

The Cold War in East Asia (Choi)

The Unending War: From the Korean War to the Korean Wave (Chung)

Race and Migration (Hsu)

Asia and the Americas (Hsu)

Resources

The D.C. area offers excellent research resources for studying Asian history. The Library of Congress holds more than 4 million items in Asian languages. For example, the Chinese collection is one of the largest collections of Chinese books in the world outside China, including a large number of rare books produced in late imperial China. In addition to the Library of Congress, our own library’s Gordon W. Prange Collection provides an ideal setting for graduate students who study the history of early postwar Japan. The Prange Collection is the most comprehensive archive of print publications in Japan during the first four years of the Allied Occupation (1945–1949), and students can utilize all kinds of Japanese historical materials including newspapers, periodicals, news agency photographs, posters, maps, and books published during the early postwar period. Finally, the National Archives at College Park (Archives II) is less than a mile from campus. Archives II holds the majority of US federal government records related to Asia from the 20th century, including those produced by the US military, US State Department, and US Agency for International Development (and its predecessors). The facility contains a significant number of Asian language sources produced by foreign governments, militaries, diplomats, corporations, and non-government organizations. 

Language Requirement

There is no language requirement for M.A. admission. 

For Ph.D. admission, in addition to English, students must have proficiency at the advanced level in at least one of the major Asian languages (for example, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean). All Ph.D. students must pass the language exam or get a waiver before advancing to candidacy. Depending on the area of interest, the advisor may determine that the student needs to show proficiency in an additional language. 

The members of our European History faculty work together, crossing chronological, geographical and thematic boundaries, to train undergraduate and graduate students rigorously to rethink European History and Europe’s historical role in all its dimensions.

At both the undergraduate and graduate level, the faculty specialize in many fields:  Ancient Mediterranean; Medieval and Early Modern Europe; Modern Europe (from 1700); Britain and British Empire; Russia and Eurasia; Jewish History; Women and Gender; Military History; Science, Technology, and the Environment; and Europe and the World.  Eclectic in their interests, many members of the faculty are social and cultural historians; others are interested in politics and political culture, while still others focus on intellectual developments. 

For more information on many of these fields (including their graduate programs), see the specific descriptions of those fields below.

Graduate Faculty 

Janna Bianchini, Antoine Borrut, Sarah Cameron, Alejandro Cañeque, Bernard Cooperman, Mikhail Dolbilov, Zachary Dorner, Ahmet Karamustafa, Piotr Kosicki, Hayim Lapin, Caroline Ritter, Marsha Rozenblit, Stefano Villani, Peter Wien, Thomas Zeller 

Ancient Mediterranean 

In Ancient Mediterranean History the department has long enjoyed a strong reputation for graduate training and research. M.A., Ph.D., and HiLS students who have earned degrees in this field hold excellent positions in colleges and universities, and in museums and other cultural institutions in the US and abroad. The department cooperates in this field with eminent faculty in collateral disciplines: in Classical Languages and Literatures, Jewish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Art History and Archaeology, Philosophy, Architecture, and Anthropology. The Washington, D.C., area abounds in special resources for students of the Ancient Mediterranean, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, the Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Library of Congress, and we cooperate with the Center for Early Christian Studies at the nearby Catholic University of America. Students in this field are eligible for all types of departmental and University-wide financial aid, including fellowships and teaching assistantships. The Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies offers targeted financial aid for students in the history of ancient Judaism.

For admission, the program recommends familiarity with fundamentals of the field acquired in several undergraduate courses in Classical Languages and Literatures, Classical Art History and Archaeology, Biblical- or New Testament Studies, Ancient and/or Medieval History, or other related fields. Especially important for prospective students seeking the Ph.D. is language preparation. The degree requires competency in at least four languages: Classical Greek, either Classical Latin or Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, modern French, and modern German. In some cases Italian, modern Hebrew, or Classical Arabic might be added. Students can acquire some of these linguistic skills while enrolled in the program, but applicants should present at a minimum two years of one of the Classical languages and one of the modern languages as well as a capacity for language learning demonstrated by excellent performance in language courses. No language skills (other than English) are required for the M.A. and HiLS programs in Ancient Mediterranean.

The department normally offers one reading seminar each semester in which all students who have not passed the M.A. or Ph.D. comprehensive exam are expected to enroll. Other coursework consists of individual studies courses or appropriate courses in Medieval Europe, the Middle East, or in collateral departments. Students in the M.A. or HiLS programs may select either the thesis or non-thesis option. Non-thesis M.A. and HiLS students will stand for a comprehensive exam based on coursework and a reading list of 30-50 titles approved by the student’s advisor, including both ancient sources (in English translation) and modern works. The Ph.D. minor requirement may be satisfied by examination or coursework in Medieval History, the Middle East, or in one of the collateral fields, for example in Greek or Latin Languages and Literatures.

For Ph.D. students the comprehensive exam consists of written exams in three historical fields covering coursework as well as a reading list for each field of 30-50 titles approved by the advisor, including both modern works and ancient sources. At least one of the three fields must cover a broad chronological spectrum of Ancient Mediterranean History from early Greece to Late Antiquity. Two of the three Ph.D. fields will be written as the four-hour departmental Ph.D. “general field” exam and one as the three-hour departmental “special field.” Usually, students write the “special field” exam in the field of their likely dissertation topic. In consultation with the advisor and other faculty in the field, each Ph.D. student will define her or his historical fields for the Ph.D. The following list, intended to be representative rather than exhaustive, includes fields of recent Ph.D. students and others suited to faculty strengths and interests:

• The Ancient Mediterranean economy
• Food supply and food culture in the Ancient Mediterranean World
• Greek and Roman military institutions and strategies
• Greek and Roman imperialism
• Greek and Roman historiography
• Greek and Roman religion
• Hellenism and the Jews
• Jews, Christians, and other religious groups in the Ancient Mediterranean World
• The Roman Near East
• The Classical Mediterranean city
• The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity

Students write their Ph.D. dissertations on topics of diverse types employing a wide variety of ancient sources and a number of theoretical approaches, depending on the interests of the student. All require research in sources in one or more ancient languages and use of modern scholarship in several modern languages. In some cases experience in archaeological, epigraphic, papyrological, and/or numismatic methodologies proves to be important.

Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact one of the faculty in Ancient Mediterranean History in advance in order to assess prospects for admission and current fields for study and research.

The Washington, D.C., area, in which the University of Maryland is located, is unusually rich in resources for graduate students of Ancient Mediterranean History. The Classics holdings of our McKeldin Library and of other Big Ten institutions are readily available. The collections of the Library of Congress include most of the relevant texts and monographs, as well as the full range of archaeological, numismatic, and epigraphic resources. More specialized libraries, accessible to students engaged in dissertation research, are the Hellenic Studies Center and the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. These two libraries, associated with Harvard University, are among the premier research centers worldwide for scholars in Classical Greece through the Roman period and in Late Antiquity and Byzantium. Also very helpful for students of Late Antiquity is the Patristics collection of Mullen Library at the neighboring Catholic University of America. The area is also home to several antiquities collections. Dumbarton Oaks houses a small but exquisite collection of Late Antique and Byzantine objects. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art specializes in the art and archaeology of the Near East and Asia. Not far away in Baltimore, the Walters Art Museum boasts one of the leading collections of Ancient, Early Christian, and Medieval art.

Medieval and Early Modern

Until relatively recently, the historical study of what was commonly called the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation was built upon a number of assumptions: that the history of western Europe was the history of progress; that historical study should be organized around the development of nation-states; and that the glorious culture of classical antiquity was lost during the “Dark Ages” but recovered as Europe moved into a more “modern” form of Christian piety, enlightened government, and secular morality. Many factors have forced historians to rethink these assumptions and reorganize their approach to what is now called the Medieval and Early Modern Period. Likewise, today’s more globalized world is not content with a Eurocentric approach to the study of history. Maryland’s program in Medieval and Early Modern history aims at familiarizing students with a range of cultures that flourished in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas and then teaching the comparative and transnational methods needed to evaluate core ideas and institutions.

Medieval and Early Modern history has become one of the most dynamic and stimulating fields of historical study. A great deal of innovative work in social and cultural history has taken place in this area, and has transformed the way history is conceived of and written. To a large extent, this dynamism is based on the premise that no radical separation should be established between the “Renaissance” and the “Middle Ages,” since no fundamental break with the “medieval” past had in fact occurred. Thus, it makes much more sense to study these two periods together. But what best defines Medieval and Early Modern history at the University of Maryland is that our program expands the field beyond its traditional Eurocentrism to comprise a more global perspective. Taking the study of Medieval and Early Modern history beyond the narrow and constrained borders of the modern European nation-states and the traditional European/African/Asian/American divide helps illuminate fundamental aspects and processes of the premodern past that are usually obscured by traditional national histories. In that regard, the study of Medieval and Early Modern history at Maryland is eminently comparative and transnational. The program is flexible enough to accommodate the differences in scope and method appropriate to different approaches (transnational, transregional, comparative) while providing depth of study to develop expertise both within and beyond the traditional national/geographic field.

The faculty brings a broad range of expertise to the field. Areas of research range from queenship in medieval Spain to martyrdom in the Spanish Empire, from governance and historical writing in the Early Muslim world to the transmission of knowledge and the development of communal institutions in Jewish society both East and West. The program is especially strong in cultural history and the study of the imperial polities that developed in the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds from Antiquity to the Early Modern period, in particular the Roman empire, the Islamic empires, and the Early Modern Spanish and British empires. The program is also very strong in the study of religion and gender, two of the most dynamic and innovative areas of research in the field.

The Medieval and Early Modern program also works closely with the faculty of the Ancient Mediterranean field. This collaboration is a reflection of recent historiographical developments that tend to blur the traditional separation between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Thus, historians have introduced the terms Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages to convey the sense that there was no radical divide between the two epochs. Likewise, studying Antiquity and the Early Modern period in conjunction can lead to illuminating connections. After all, the culture of Classical Antiquity was still very much alive in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The program’s particular emphasis on a global, transnational, and comparative perspective is reflected in its signature seminar on The Medieval and Early Modern World, a requirement for all students entering the field. This seminar lays the foundations for the study of medieval and early modern history in a comparative and transregional vein. The seminar is taught by various members of the History faculty, thus enabling students to get acquainted with a variety of theoretical, methodological, regional, and thematic approaches that greatly enrich their understanding of the period.

Modern Europe 

The strengths of the graduate program in Modern European history include a distinguished faculty offering a variety of approaches together with the remarkable resources of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The department offers M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Modern and Contemporary (post-1945) Europe. We are especially strong in Modern and Contemporary Germany; Modern and Contemporary France; Spanish and British Colonialism; Modern and Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, especially the Habsburg Monarchy and Poland; Jewish history; the Ottoman Empire; and the history of Roman Catholicism.

Graduate students in Modern European history have won prestigious fellowships, including the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Fellowship and the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies Dissertation Fellowship. Our graduates go on to academic jobs at such universities as George Washington University, Ohio University, and Framingham State University, and to jobs in government agencies including the National Archives, the State Department, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Graduate students in Modern European history do a “general field” in Modern Europe, which typically includes continental Europe, not including Russia. The “general field” can be modified to suit the specific interests of a given student. In addition, Ph.D. students in Modern Europe choose a “special field” which can be a particular country (Germany, France, Habsburg Monarchy, for example), a particular century, or a special theme (women and gender, technology, military history, the Catholic Church, for example).

All Ph.D. students must demonstrate proficiency in the language of the country/region in which they are interested plus another European language. 

Russia and Eurasia

Russian and Eurasian history is a dynamic and growing field within the history department at the University of Maryland.  We regularly offer courses in Russian history, culture and civilization, with particular attention to Russia in its multi-ethnic, multi-confessional context.  Geographically, faculty expertise extends across the former Soviet space—from the Baltics and Eastern Europe to Russia and to Central Asia.

Prof. Mikhail Dolbilov regularly offers courses on imperial Russia, as well as courses on comparative European empires and ethnic violence.  Prof. Sarah Cameron teaches courses on modern Russian and Soviet history, as well as courses on environmental history, the Soviet Union’s relationship with the world, and the history of Central Asia.  We encourage students to collaborate with faculty working in neighboring fields, such as Prof. Piotr Kosicki, who offers courses on modern Central and Eastern Europe, among other offerings. 

The study of Russian and Eurasian history at Maryland is also enriched by inter-disciplinary collaboration.  Through the Maya Brin residency program, the Russian department at the University brings a leading Russian artist or cultural figure to campus for a short-term stay each year.  The University’s Roshan Institute for Persian Studies is one of the United States’ leading centers for the study of Persian language and culture.   More broadly, the University’s location in the Washington, DC metro area offers an unparalleled array of resources for students in Russian and Eurasian history, such as the Russian History Seminar, the Kennan Institute, and the Hillwood Museum. 

Special field offerings for graduate students include: the Russian empire; imperial reforms; nationalism and religion; Soviet history; Soviet modernization and nation-building; modern Central Asian history; and Russia’s interactions with Central and Eastern Europe.

If you are interested in applying to our program, we encourage you to contact us well before the application deadline.  Successful applicants to our Ph.D. program generally have a strong command of Russian (in addition to other relevant languages), as well as a compelling statement of application and excellent academic track record.

Related Programs and Resources

Students and faculty have the opportunity to work in the unique concentration of archival and library collections in the greater Washington, D.C. area. These include some of the world’s finest research institutions in European fields, including the Library of Congress European Reading Room, Dumbarton Oaks, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine. The primary research facility of the US National Archives, which houses collections of great importance for European history, is located immediately adjacent to the College Park campus. The area also hosts a brilliant array of institutes for advanced study, including the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German Historical Institute, the Centre for the Study of Early Christianity, the Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Kennan Institute, among others. The diplomatic representations of individual nations of Europe and the European Union, as well as the permanent headquarters of major multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, host cultural programs and scholarly talks. Many faculty and graduate students participate in informal Washington area faculty and graduate student groups. Maryland’s own European Workshop takes advantage of a constant flow of visiting scholars from around the world.

The Global Interaction and Exchange field (GIE) engages topics that transcend nations, regions, and single civilizations. By disciplinary convention, most of the Department of History's graduate research fields are defined by region and geography. In 2010 the Department introduced the GIE field in order to enhance the graduate program’s curriculum and to foster a collaborative learning environment for graduate students whose research interests span beyond the traditional frameworks of nation and region. A number of our faculty conduct research, publish works, and teach courses that investigate processes that cross boundaries and seek to make connections between and across far-flung locales.  

The GIE curriculum is flexible by design. It seeks to accommodate the differences in scope and method appropriate to global, transregional, and/or comparative scholarship while providing the depth of study to demonstrate expertise both within and beyond traditional national/geographic fields. At the same time, the GIE curriculum requires specific seminars that train students in the major works, methodologies, and theories related to transnational, transregional, global, comparative, international, borderlands, and transoceanic approaches.

Faculty and graduate students at Maryland are actively engaged in this scholarship with particular expertise in the study of: empire and colonialism, cultural and intellectual flows, gender and sexuality, religion, labor and capitalism, political economy, migration, medicine, disease and public health, race, the African diaspora, Atlantic history, slavery, technology, science and the environment, and the global presence of the United States.

Students in GIE find a vibrant intellectual community not only in the department, but also through programs and seminars supported by the Center for Global Migration Studies, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center, the Graduate School Field Committee in Film Studies, and the Middle East Studies Program. Faculty and graduate students regularly attend the Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas, an annual gathering in Mexico dedicated to transnational studies.

Graduate Faculty

Holly Brewer, Sarah Cameron, Alejandro Cañeque, Deokhyo Choi, Patrick Chung, Zachary Dorner, Saverio Giovacchini, Julie Greene, Madeline Hsu, Piotr Kosicki, Paul Landau, Clare Lyons, Erin Mosely, Jayson Porter, Mircea Raianu, Caroline Ritter, Karin Rosemblatt, David Sartorius, Stefano Villani, Peter Wien, Colleen Woods, Thomas Zeller 

M.A. Program

All M.A. students who concentrate in Global Interaction and Exchange (GIE) must do at least 18 credits in that field. 

The GIE concentration can be structured in one of the following three ways:

A. Two national/regional fields (9 credits each). Examples include Middle East and Africa, US and China, Middle East and Europe.

B. One transregional geographic field (18 credits): Examples include Early Modern Atlantic World; Modern Mediterranean Lands.

C. One of the following:

1. One national/regional field (9 credits) + one transregional thematic field (9 credits). Examples include US and Global Labor, Latin America and global Environmental History; Early Modern Europe and Empire/Colonialism.
2. One national/regional field (9 credits) + one transregional geographic field (9 credits). Examples include US and Early Modern Atlantic World, Modern Europe and Modern Mediterranean Lands.
3. One transregional geographic field (9 credits) + one transregional thematic field (9 credits). Examples include Early Modern Atlantic World and Gender and Sexuality, The Americas and Labor.

Students may petition for further flexibility in their programs.

For a list of all GIE fields, see below after the description of the Ph.D. program.

Like all M.A. students, students concentrating in GIE must do 30 credits in history.  As part of those 30 credits, they must take HIST 601 (Historical Theory), a General Seminar (in their case, HIST 608, Global Interaction and Exchange), and either one or two research seminars depending on whether they pursue the thesis or non-thesis option.  The research seminars are part of the 18 credits in their GIE concentration.  Students pursuing the “Degree by Thesis Option” will take one research seminar and 6 credits of MA thesis research (HIST 799), generally over two semesters.  Students pursuing the “Degree by Examination option” will do two research seminars and then take an MA comprehensive examination in their final semester of study.

Ph.D. Program

All Ph.D. students must do 18 credits as part of a “General Field” in Global Interaction and Exchange (GIE).  The general field can be structured in one of the following three ways:

A. Two national/regional fields (9 credits each). Examples include Middle East and Africa, US and China, Middle East and Europe.

B. One transregional geographic field (18 credits): Examples include Early Modern Atlantic World; Modern Mediterranean Lands.

C. One of the following:

1. One national/regional field (9 credits) + one transregional thematic field (9 credits). Examples include US and Global Labor, Latin America and global Environmental History; Early Modern Europe and Empire/Colonialism.
2. One national/regional field (9 credits) + one transregional geographic field (9 credits). Examples include US and Early Modern Atlantic World, Modern Europe and Modern Mediterranean Lands.
3. One transregional geographic field (9 credits) + one transregional thematic field (9 credits). Examples include Early Modern Atlantic World and Gender and Sexuality, The Americas and Labor.

Students may petition in writing for further flexibility in their programs.

Like all Ph.D. students in history, GIE students must take HIST 601 (Historical Theory), a General Seminar (in their case, HIST 608, Global Interaction and Exchange), and two research seminars.  Because of the nature of the program, GIE students do not have to do a “minor field.”

List of GIE Fields 

National/regional fields: 

• Africa
• Ancient Mediterranean
• Britain
• East Asia, Modern
• Europe, Medieval
• Europe, Early Modern (1400-1700)
• Europe, Modern (1700-2000)
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Russia and Eurasia
• United States

Transregional thematic fields:

• Cultural history
• Diaspora/Migration/Immigration
• Economic history
• Empire/Colonialism
• Gender and Sexuality
• Global Environmental History
• Intellectual history
• Labor history
• Race
• Religion
• Science, Technology, and the Environment

Transregional geographic fields: 

• Americas, Early Modern
• Americas, Modern
• Atlantic World, Early Modern
• Atlantic World, Modern
• Indian Ocean World
• Mediterranean Lands, Early Modern
• Mediterranean Lands, Modern
• Trans-Pacific World, Modern

Course Offerings 

There are two required courses in this field: 

GIE General Seminar (offered every year in the Fall semester) 

GIE Research Seminar (offered every other year in the Spring semester)

In addition, we offer a wide variety of thematic and regional elective courses. Recent examples include: 

Workers of Global Capitalism (Greene) 

Sexualities in the Atlantic World and Beyond (Lyons) 

Righting Historical Wrongs: Global Struggles for Truth and Justice (Mosely) 

History and Theory of Popular Culture in the 20th Century (Giovacchini) 

Readings in Global Environmental History (Zeller) 

Readings in Race and Migration (Hsu) 

Global Revolutions in the Modern Era (Kosicki) 

Decolonization and the Long Cold War (Woods) 

Global Commodity Histories (Raianu)

Language Requirement

One language, in addition to English, appropriate to the student’s field of study.  Additional language requirements will be determined by the faculty advisor in accordance with the research field.

Comprehensive Exams

Like all Ph.D. students, students in GIE have to take both written and oral comprehensive exams.  The structure of the comprehensive exams will vary somewhat depending on how students structure their general fields. 

Students who choose two national/regional fields (choice A above) will complete a take-home examination administered in written format (students have 48 hours to complete the exam, which should be 5,000 to 6,000 words, 20-24 pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font) in one of the fields, and an examination in the form of an essay (students prepare an essay of 4,000 to 5,000 words in length, 16-20 pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font) in the other, and a two-hour oral exam in both.  A committee of four faculty members (two from each field) will determine the questions in their part of the exams. All four will read the written exams and participate in the orals.

Students who choose one transregional geographic field (choice B above) will complete a take-home examination administered in written format (students have 48 hours to complete the exam, which should be 5,000 to 6,000 words, 20-24 pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font) in that transregional field.  They will also complete an examination in the form of an essay (students prepare an essay of 4,000 to 5,000 words in length, 16-20 pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font) on a special field within that transregional field (for example: early modern Atlantic world and gender and sexuality in the early modern Atlantic world).  They will also do a two-hour oral exam in those fields.  A committee of three faculty members will examine them on the written and oral exams. All three will read the written exams and participate in the orals.

Students who choose a combination of national/regional and transregional geographic or thematic fields (choice C above) will complete a take-home examination administered in written format (students have 48 hours to complete the exam, which should be 5,000 to 6,000 words, 20-24 pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font) in one of their fields and an examination in the form of an essay (students prepare an essay of 4,000 to 5,000 words in length, 16-20 pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font) in the other, and a two-hour oral exam in both.  A committee of four people (two from each field) will determine the questions in their part of the exams.  All four will read the written exams and participate in the orals.

The study of the social, political, cultural, and religious history of the Jewish people is one of the most dynamic areas of modern historical research and teaching.  At the University of Maryland, our courses range chronologically from biblical to rabbinic, from medieval to modern and contemporary.  Faculty specialties include the Land of Israel in late antiquity; Italy in the early modern period; the Jews of Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the Holocaust.  Both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, students can study such issues as the relationships between Jews and non-Jews; the changing nature of Jewish identity; how Jews have functioned as a minority group in diverse cultures in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas; and how Jews have transformed Jewish culture in response to the challenges posed by the societies in which they have lived. Students can draw on the rich resources of the University’s Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies (with which Jewish History faculty are affiliated) and the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, which offer courses on the Hebrew Bible; the Dead Sea Scrolls; medieval and modern Jewish philosophy; Hebrew and other Jewish literatures and film; and Israeli society, culture, and politics.  Rich library holdings at the University, as well as libraries, archives, and research centers in the Washington area, make the University of Maryland an exciting place to study and do research in Jewish history.

The History Department offers an M.A. and a Ph.D. in all periods of Jewish history from antiquity to the present.  We are fortunate to have faculty who cover ancient, medieval/early modern, and modern Jewish History. Faculty in many fields of general history are interested in the experience of the Jews, and they provide invaluable resources to students who focus on Jewish history. In addition, other Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies faculty also frequently participate in the education of graduate students in Jewish history.

Graduate students choose a period within Jewish history as their primary focus.  At the Ph.D. level, students do a “general field” either in ancient and medieval Jewish history or in late medieval/early modern and modern Jewish history.  For their “special field,” students can pick a geographic, chronological, or thematic field within their general field.  For example, a student in medieval/early modern and modern Jewish history might choose American Jewish history, East European Jewish history, or Jews in early modern Europe as a special field, while a student in ancient and medieval Jewish history might choose Jews in the Roman diaspora as a special field.  Students have much flexibility in choosing a special field.  All Ph.D. students must choose a minor field as well, generally a field within general history that corresponds to the student’s special field.  Thus a student interested in American Jewish history would choose American history as a minor field and a student interested in ancient Jewish history would study ancient Mediterranean history as a minor field.  The minor field is typically satisfied by taking three graduate courses, although students may elect to take a minor field examination.

Graduate Faculty 

Bernard Cooperman, Hayim Lapin, Marsha Rozenblit 

Language Requirements 

For M.A.: No language requirement, but students interested in the Ph.D. should work on Hebrew and other necessary languages in their fields.

For Ph.D.: For admission, advanced intermediate-level proficiency in modern Hebrew. All Ph.D. students must demonstrate proficiency in modern Hebrew and one other language necessary for their fields. The advisor may require other languages as necessary.

Students satisfy the language requirements by taking departmental language exams.  See section on language exams in the Ph.D. Program page.

The graduate program in Latin American History has emerged as one of the top programs in the United States, led by nationally ranked faculty who have attracted highly qualified students from throughout the Americas.  Our faculty is diverse in scope and areas of interest, covering the most important aspects of the history of Latin America from the conquest and establishment of the Iberian empires to the most contemporary issues and from the Southern Cone to the Caribbean. The program also benefits from close connections with faculty and students from other fields such as Global Interaction and Exchange; medieval and early modern world; women, gender and sexuality; and the history of the United States. 

The graduate program is structured around a comprehensive sequence of historiographical, methodological, and research and writing seminars that prepare students to choose a research focus from a range of geographic regions, nation-states and periods. The program encourages transnational, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches. Students must take the three general seminars on the history of colonial, nineteenth-century, and twentieth-century Latin America. Additionally, they may choose seminars in Atlantic history, African American history, African history, the Haitian Revolution, Race in the Americas, or Research Methods and Sources in Latin American History as well as courses on Latin America in the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese, Anthropology, Women’s Studies, Sociology, Government, Theater and Performance Studies, Art History and Music.  Students may also take advantage of courses offered in other academic institutions in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Current and past students have focused on labor, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, science and the environment, empire, the arts and culture industries, slavery and emancipation, and nation-state formation.  Students have written dissertations on themes as diverse as masculinity in post-revolutionary Mexico, gender in Pinochet’s Chile, agricultural modernization of Mexico, consumer culture in twentieth-century Brazil, the African diaspora in Panama, the political culture of the Mapuches in nineteenth-century Chile and Argentina; the political culture of the Spanish Empire; and Protestant missionaries in the colonial Caribbean.

Students have won major external fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, Fulbright, the Spencer Foundation, and Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies in support of innovative doctoral research. The program’s most recent doctoral recipients are employed in tenure-track jobs or related work of their choice.

Graduate Faculty 

Alejandro Cañeque, Jayson Porter, Karin Rosemblatt, David Sartorius 

Resources

A wide range of departmental, campus and regional resources enrich student life and learning. The vibrant Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center brings together faculty and students across campus working on topics related to Latin America and the Caribbean for conferences and lectures. The University Libraries have invested in the Latin American history collection over the past decade, targeting collection development in themes of greatest interest to graduate students in the Department of History.

The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies, housed within the Department of History, engages professors and students in dialogue with leading international scholars in seminars and conferences organized annually around a theme. In recent years, the Miller Center’s annual themes have included globalization, religion, visuality and history, empire, and the body and body politic. The Miller Center provides funding for conferences and workshops organized by the graduate students themselves, both within the history department and across departments and campuses.

In addition, students have many opportunities to interact with the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, and the Consortium on Race, Gender & Ethnicity, all of which sponsor outside speakers and conferences and offer interdisciplinary dialogue and resources for graduate students. 

The Baltimore-Washington region houses invaluable archival resources for student research in the history and cultures of the Americas. In addition to the College Park facility of the National Archives and Records Administration, located minutes away from campus, Latin Americanists have ready access to the vast multidisciplinary holdings of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution; the museum and library of the Organization of American States; specialized holdings of the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, as well as other regional institutions including Dumbarton Oaks, which specializes, among other things, in pre-Columbian art and culture, and the Inter-American Development Bank. The archives of AFL-CIO leader George Meany at the University of Maryland include voluminous documentation of US-Latin America labor relations.

The Middle Eastern field at the University of Maryland offers instruction in the history of the region stretching from Islamic Iberia in the west through North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean basin to Iran in the east from the period of late antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries) to the present day. Faculty research strengths include early Islamic history, historiography, and cultural memory; social and intellectual history of medieval and early modern Islamic piety; social and religious movements in urban contexts; law and legal practice; slavery and freedom; women’s experience; and the role of nationalism and religion in the cultural and political transformation of modern Arab societies. In line with the focus of the Department of History on trans-regional and global themes and questions, the Middle East faculty offers expertise in exchanges between various regions of Europe, the Mediterranean, Iran and South Asia.

Graduate Faculty 

Antoine Borrut, Shay Hazkani, Ahmet Karamustafa, Rachel Schine, Peter Wien 

Language Requirements

There is no language requirement for admission to the MA program, although students who already have some facility in a regional language (Arabic, Persian, or Turkish) are preferred. In any case, M.A. students are expected to acquire facility at the intermediate level or higher in at least one major Middle Eastern Language (Arabic, Persian, or Turkish) to obtain the degree. For admission to the Ph.D. program, students must have proficiency at the advanced intermediate level in at least one major Middle Eastern language (Arabic, Persian, or Turkish). All doctoral students must acquire advanced proficiency in their chosen language either by course work or exam by the time they are admitted to candidacy. In addition, students must demonstrate proficiency in at least one European language by the time of their comprehensive exams.

Comprehensive Exams

Middle East History offers graduate students a choice of two concentrations in the “General Field,” and various options in the “Special Field.”  The “General Field” is declared as either covering the pre-modern or the modern period.  The availability of special fields depends on a combination of factors including faculty expertise and student interest.  Possible special fields could be in areas such as Early Islam, History and Memory, Islamic Religious Cultures, Ottoman and Safavid Empires, Women and Gender, Reform Movements, Nationalism, Political Islam, or a geographically defined area.

The History of Technology, Science, Environment, and Medicine program at the University of Maryland is one of the strongest in the Mid-Atlantic region. Ours is a lively and flourishing community of students, distinguished faculty members, affiliated scholars within the university, visiting fellows and guest speakers. Institutional resources in the field, both on campus and in the greater Washington/Baltimore area, are outstanding.

The key strengths and interests of the College Park group are in nineteenth- and twentieth- century developments, particularly in the United States and Europe. We also encourage interests that extend beyond this range, both geographically and chronologically, although instructional offerings may be limited. 

Specialists elsewhere on campus focus on related fields such as the history of biology, medicine and public health. Graduate students may choose Technology, Science, Environment, and Medicine as their “general field,” or their “minor field,” or they may take courses in the field to enrich their study of the United States, Latin America or Europe.

Graduate Faculty

Melinda Baldwin, Sarah Cameron, Patrick Chung, Zachary Dorner, Jayson Porter, Karin Rosemblatt, Thomas Zeller 

Resources

The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area has the nation’s richest collection of resources in this field. In or near College Park, students will find the Library of American Broadcasting, the Niels Bohr Library of the American Institute of Physics, the National Agricultural Library and the National Archives. Elsewhere in suburban Maryland, students have access to the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda. The collections of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution are located within easy reach in downtown Washington.

American history at the University of Maryland is a diverse and exciting field of study.  It has an award-winning faculty with wide-ranging research interests and a commitment to both undergraduate and graduate teaching. Our curriculum serves many different communities, from students who want to take a single introductory course, to undergraduate majors seeking seminar work and a chance to do guided research and writing, to M.A. and Ph.D. students desiring advanced study and preparation for professions in historical inquiry. Many of our PhDs have gone on to careers in university teaching, government service, and business.

While students may explore any era of US History and virtually any issue, the Department of History has traditionally been strong in cultural, political, and legal history. It has established noteworthy concentrations in the study of slavery; African American History; diaspora studies; labor, women, gender, and sexuality; early America; and the history of business and technology. Scholars in our department have pioneered the emerging transnational study of the early modern Atlantic World as well as twentieth-century labor relations and cultural exchange.

Students benefit from the department’s internationally recognized Center for Global Migration Studies, founded by members of the American history faculty as a hub for understanding this country’s long immigration history and its connection to world history. The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies regularly brings to the department renowned historians working in a variety of scholarly fields with whom our students interact during luncheons and workshops. The Freedmen and Southern Society Project offers opportunities for emerging scholars to research the revolution in social relations wrought by emancipation in the US South.

Graduate students come to the US history field with diverse goals. Our doctoral graduates have pursued careers in college and university teaching, public history, government service, and non-profit organizations.  US history is also a particularly significant component of the joint history and library science MA program (HiLS), and many of our graduates now hold positions in libraries and archives across the country. Secondary school teachers hungry for greater knowledge of American history and opportunities for research have found the M.A. degree especially attractive. 

All Ph.D. students in United States History do a general field in all of US history, and also a “special field” in a particular aspect of US history. The “special fields” include the following:

• African American
• African Diaspora
• Asian American
• Constitutional/Legal
• Cultural
• Early America
• Early Modern Atlantic World
• Economic/Business
• Immigration and Ethnicity
• Labor and Working-Class
• Nineteenth Century
• Political
• Social
• Southern
• Technology, Science, and Environment
• Twentieth Century
• US and the World
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Graduate Faculty 

Elsa Barkley Brown, Richard Bell, Christopher Bonner, Holly Brewer, Patrick Chung, Zachary Dorner, David Freund, Saverio Giovacchini, Julie Greene, Madeline Hsu, Clare Lyons, Quincy Mills, Robyn Muncy, Michael Ross, Leigh Soares, Colleen Woods, Thomas Zeller 

Resources

Our location at the doorway of the nation’s capital provides graduate students with unparalleled opportunities to conduct primary research. The George Meany AFL-CIO Archives, one of the nation’s largest archival collections in US labor history, is now housed at the University of Maryland, as is the Library of American Broadcasting. The National Archives is located adjacent to the Maryland campus and in downtown Washington, D.C., while the Smithsonian Institution and Library of Congress are also a short metro ride away. The National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, various units of the National Park Service, and other government agencies offer our students additional libraries with rich artifactual and manuscript collections.  Other local institutions, both public and private, make the University of Maryland an ideal place to exercise a passion for understanding the American past.