History

College of Arts and Humanities
2115 Francis Scott Key Hall
301-405-4265
www.history.umd.edu

As historians, we take pleasure in the difficulty of our profession.  Our gaze falls upon the entire sweep of human experience, and our subject humankind, is the most perplexing of all.  As a consequence, the history department in a large American university can often seem to outsiders like a Tower of Babel, or the proverbial Ship of Fools, a place where a variety of approaches, fields of study, and scholarly voices collide.  Certainly, this is the case at the University of Maryland.  Here in College Park in a single hallway, one can find a specialist in the history of slavery in the U.S. working alongside an environmental historian whose studies have examined the development of the German Autobahn, or a film historian who has explored the rise of modernism in the American cinema. Walking a little farther along this same corridor, one discovers specialists in sixteenth-century Venice, the American Revolution, women’s history, the Progressive Era, American legal history, Medieval Iberia, the Atlantic world, African colonialism, Habsburg Vienna, Jewish history, early and medieval Islam, Sufism, the Ottomans, the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia and Soviet Russia, ancient Rome, and more. 

Chair: P. Soergel (Prof & Chair)

Professors: R. Bell, J. Greene, J. Herf, A. Karamustafa, P. Landau, H. Lapin, R. Muncy, M. Ross, K. Rosemblatt, M. Rozenblit, P. Wien

Associate Professors: M. Baldwin, E. Barkley Brown (Assoc Prof & Associate Chair), J. Bianchini, C. Bonner, A. Borrut (Assoc Prof & Director of Undergraduate Studies), H. Brewer, S. Cameron, A. Caneque (Assoc Prof & Director of Graduate Studies), B. Cooperman, M. Dolbilov, D. Freund, J. Gao, S. Giovacchini, P. Kosicki, C. Lyons, Q. Mills, L. Rowland, D. Sartorius, D. Sicilia, S. Villani, D. Williams, C. Woods, T. Zeller, T. Zhang

Assistant Professors:  S. Hazkani, E. Mosely, M. Raianu, C. Rodriguez

Lecturers: R. Chiles, C. Ho, K. Keane (Lecturer and Executive Director of the Center for Global Migration Studies), A. Rush, E. Smead

Affiliate Associate Professor: J. Taddeo (Research Prof)

Affiliate Assistant Professor: S. Baron (Asst Research Prof)

Professors Emeriti: H. Belz (Prof Emeritus), M. Breslow (Assoc Prof Emeritus), S. Brush (Distinguished University Professor Emeritus), G. Callcott (Prof Emeritus), A. Eckstein (Distinguished University Professor Emeritus), C. Foust (Prof Emeritus), R. Friedel (Prof Emeritus), J. Gilbert (Distinguished University Professor Emeritus), D. Grimsted (Assoc Prof Emeritus), G. Gullickson (Prof Emerita), J. Harris (Prof Emeritus), J. Henretta (Prof Emeritus), J. Lampe (Prof Emeritus), G. Majeska (Assoc Prof Emeritus), M. Mayo (Assoc Prof Emerita), S. Michel (Prof Emerita), A. Moss (Assoc Prof Emeritus), A. Olson (Prof Emerita), K. Olson (Prof Emeritus), R. Price (Prof Emeritus), W. Ridgway (Assoc Prof Emeritus), J. Sumida (Prof Emeritus), D. Sutherland (Prof Emeritus), M. Vaughan (Prof Emerita), J. Warren (Prof Emeritus), W. Wright (Prof Emeritus), G. Yaney (Prof Emeritus), M. Zilfi (Prof Emerita)

Central European, Russian and Eurasian Studies

Director: M. Dolbilov

Professors: J. Herf, S. Mansbach, P. Murrell, J. Robinson, V. Tismaneanu

Associate Professors: S. Cameron, M. Dolbilov, J. Kaminski, P. Kosicki, M. Lekic, C. Martin, E. Papazian, C. Schuler

Lecturer: Z. Gerus-Vernola (Lecturer)

Majors

Minors

 Certificate

Academic advising is available daily on a walk-in basis in the History Undergraduate Advising Office, 2131C Key Hall.  Check the department website for current schedule or contact historyadvising@umd.edu for more information.

To review the academic plan for this major, go to http://www.arhu.umd.edu/undergraduate/advising/academicplans

Internships

Juniors and seniors may take up to 6 hours of credit in historically-related internships, of which three hours may be counted toward the 39 hours in history required for graduation.  All internships must have a direct relationship to the work of understanding, interpreting, presenting or preserving history and/or historical evidence.  Students must have both a site supervisor at the place of the internship and a history faculty mentor for their internship project.  Student internships must be approved by the History Department internship coordinator.  Internships are generally only open to students who have an overall GPA of 2.5 or better.

Honors Program

The purpose of the Honors Program in History is to allow promising undergraduates to develop historical and historiographical skills, in an atmosphere that guarantees personal attention and that encourages hard work and excellence. The program is a four-semester sequence, the culmination of which is a senior thesis--a major research paper written under the close supervision of a faculty mentor. There are two phases to the program: in the junior year, students are introduced to the problems of history-writing at a sophisticated level, via two seminars on problems of historiography; in the senior year they complete two supervised courses in the writing of the senior thesis.

Student Societies and Professional Organizations

History majors and other interested students are encouraged to join the History Undergraduate Association (HUA), which sponsors events such as an annual Film Festival and special seminars and activities.  History majors edit and publish a web-based journal, Janus: The University of Maryland Undergraduate History Journal, which features student writing relevant to history.  Janus also sponsors an annual conference where undergraduates present their research and are awarded prizes.  The department also hosts the Beta-Omega chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honors society.  Information on these organizations can be obtained from the History Undergraduate Office, 2131 Francis Scott Key Hall.

Scholarships and Financial Assistance

The Office of Student Financial Aid (OSFA) administers all types of federal, state and institutional financial assistance programs and, in cooperation with other university offices, participates in the awarding of scholarships to deserving students. For information, visit: www.financialaid.umd.edu.