Admissions

The dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences admits candidates to the Graduate School for advanced study in history only upon the recommendation of the History Department . The department applications only for the PhD degree. Strong preference will be given to applicants who are adequately prepared to meet the language requirements for the doctorate. The GRE General test is required. For a complete listing of the elements of a complete admissions application, consult the GSAS Guide to Admissions and Financial Aid.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Academic Residence — The minimum academic residence requirement of graduate study in history at Harvard is two years of full-time study. For information on financial residence see the GSAS Guide to Admission and Financial Aid.

Advising – When applying, students often make quite explicit statements regarding their research interests and the faculty with whom they wish to work. Based on this information, students are assigned an advisor with whom they consult from the point of initial enrollment. The advisor must approve the student’s plans of study in the first four terms, and is often the chair of both the general examination and dissertation committees. Effecting a change of advisors typically involves conversations with both the new advisor and the original advisor. Once an agreement has been reached, the coordinator of graduate studies must be informed.

Plan of Study — A candidate upon entering the first year must, before filing his or her study card with the registrar, submit a formal Plan of Study, approved by his or her faculty advisor, to the director of graduate studies. This plan will state the candidate’s choice of courses and language examinations during the first two years.
During these years, the candidate must take at least nine half-courses, chosen in consultation with his or her faculty advisor. Of these half-courses, at least six must be in history, and of these six half courses, two must be research seminars in history with letter grades. A minimum grade of B is required in eight courses; a grade of satisfactory is required in “The Writing of History: Approaches and Practices” in the fall term of his or her first full year of residence.
It is expected that students will ordinarily complete coursework in the term of enrollment in the course. Incompletes are not permitted in any course, unless there is a certified medical excuse.

Languages — Candidates admitted to graduate study in history will be required to show a satisfactory reading knowledge, met by a performance judged proficient or satisfactory on the departmental language examination, of at least two foreign languages. All incoming first-year students must take at least one language examination in September of their first year of graduate study, and the second in January of that year. All examinations must be completed prior to taking the General Examination. The required languages, based on the candidate’s historical field of research, are listed below:
African History — One European language (preferably French) and Arabic or another African language

Ancient History — French, German, Ancient Greek, and Latin

British History — French or German and one other European language

Byzantine History — French, German, Byzantine Greek, and Latin

Early Modern European History — French, German, and one other language (if required     for research)

East Asian History — Two East Asian languages, or one East Asian language plus German, French or Russian

International History — two major international languages, e.g., French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic

Latin American History — two of the following: Spanish, Portuguese, French, or German

Medieval History — Western Medieval and Renaissance History: French, German, and Latin

Middle Eastern History — French, German, and a Middle Eastern language

Modern European History — Modern History of Western and Central Europe: French or Russian and German; Modern History of Eastern Europe: French or German, and two approved languages pertinent to the area studied

Russian History — Modern Russian History: Russian and either French or German; Medieval Russian History: Russian, Old Church Slavonic, and either French or German

South Asian History — two South Asian languages (e.g., Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil) or one South Asian and one non-South Asian language (e.g., French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic)

United States History — two of the following at a satisfactory level, or one at a proficient level: French, German, or Spanish

Economic and Social History of Europe and the United States — French and German

Intellectual History of Europe and the United States — French and German

These examinations will be graded “proficient,” “satisfactory,” or “unsatisfactory,” and the grades will be part of the candidate’s record. Candidates who receive a grade of “unsatisfactory” on an examination will be required to take that examination again, ordinarily the next time it is offered. In case of another failure at that time, the candidate will be permitted to remain registered but will be expected to follow a program giving emphasis to further language preparation, ordinarily including a course offered by the appropriate language department. Failure to meet the requirement following this term of remedial study will oblige the candidate to study the language intensively during the fourth term. The candidate may be required to spend this term full-time in the study of the language not yet satisfactorily known.

No more than two half-courses in a foreign language will count for credit toward the degree.

Certification of competence in languages in which the Department of History does not offer examinations may be made by other departments or committees of the University.

Before approving a student’s dissertation topic, the chair, in consultation with the prospective dissertation director, must be sat-isfied that the candidate commands the necessary languages for the projected research.

General Examination — The examination is a two-hour oral, not on the subjects of specific courses, but on the study of four specific fields selected from the department-- approved list below. An encyclopedic knowledge of detail is not expected, but the candidate should demonstrate familiarity with the important problems and substantial mastery of the basic literature in each field.

The examination will ordinarily be taken late in the fourth term. Extension to the fifth term calls for a petition to the director of graduate studies. Extension to the sixth term, which is the last possible extension, calls for a petition to the director of graduate studies, subject to the approval of the department. Arrangements for taking the General Examination should be made by the candidate with the coordinator of graduate studies.

A student who has failed the General Examination may be allowed to take the examination a second time, in the fifth or sixth term, if the examiners so recommend
to the director of graduate studies. The candidate will be informed of the grade received on the general examination one month after the examination.

In selecting the four fields for examination from the list below, the candidate’s choice will be guided by the following conditions:

(a) In the four fields offered at the General Examination, three of the following four periods will ordinarily be represented: ancient, medieval, early modern, modern. Circumstances under which coverage of two periods will suffice are specified in paragraphs (b) and (c) below.

(b) Candidates who plan to write a dissertation in European history and who take a field outside the history of Europe and the United States need to present no more than two periods in their program. For candidates who plan to write a dissertation in Asian or African history, only two periods will be required.

(c)  Candidates who plan to write a dissertation in United States history will ordinar-ily present fields in both United States history to 1815 and the history of the United States since 1815. Those who take a field outside the history of the United States and Europe need to present no more than two periods in their program.

(d)  A candidate may neither take more than two fields in a single national culture (including Renaissance and Reformation and more than one field in Italian history) nor more than two fields in either intellectual history or social and economic history. Candidates in non-western history are required to present at least one western, international, or comparative field.

(e) The Department will ordinarily permit candidates to take one field outside the department and to create one historical field with a chronological, geographical and thematic breadth comparable to existing fields.

(f) Candidates who plan to write a dissertation in international, transnational, global, or comparative history need to present no more than two periods in their program.

Specific fields for the General Examination are as follows (depending on the availability of faculty members, not all of the following fields may be available for examination in any given year):

Ancient

Archaic and Classical Greece, The Hellenistic Period, The Roman Empire, The Roman Republic

Medieval

Byzantine Empire, 284-1453; China, 300-1100; Japan to 1850*; Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, 1250-1550; Medieval Europe (300-1500), with normal options for subfields in regions, periods and topics; Middle East, 600-1300; Ottoman History*; Russia to 1613; Sub-Saharan Africa to 1800*; Vietnam to 1800*

Early Modern

China, 1100-1800; Comparative Gender History since 1600*; Early Modern Russian Empire, 1613-1861; Early Modern South Asian and Indian Ocean History, 1300-1700; Economic and Social History of Western and Central Europe, 1500-1800; England (including the Empire), 1450-1760; Expansion of Europe to 1789; France, 1461-1789; Germany, 1517-1786; History of the Book; Intellectual History of Western and Central Europe, 1500-1800; International Relations, 1648-1815; Italy, 1300-1796; Japan to 1850*; Latin America, 1500-1810; Middle East, 1300-1800; Native American History*; Ottoman History*; Renaissance and Reformation; Southeastern Europe since 1453*; Sub-Saharan Africa to 1800*; United States History to 1815; Vietnam to 1800*

Modern

Australia and New Zealand; Canada; China since 1800; Comparative Gender History since 1600*; Eastern Europe since 1700; Economic and Social History of Europe and the United States since 1750; England (including the Empire) since 1688; Expansion of Europe since 1789; France since 1715; Germany since 1786; Intellectual History of Europe and the United States since 1789; International Relations since 1815; Italy since 1713; Japan since 1850; Latin America since 1810; Middle East since 1800; Military History since 1500; Modern Russia and the Soviet Union, 1861-1991; Modern South Asian and Indian Ocean History since 1700; Native American History*; Ottoman History*; Southeastern Europe since 1453*; Sub-Saharan Africa since 1800; United States since 1815; Vietnam since 1800

*These fields cut across the usual period boundaries and may be counted in no more than one time period under which they are listed.

Master of Arts (AM) – The interim AM degree is ordinarily awarded, by formal application, to doctoral candidates after they have met the coursework, language, and residency requirements.

Dissertation — As soon as possible after pass-ing the General Examination, and in no case later than two terms after passing it, doc-toral candidates must identify a dissertation director, a dissertation committee, settle on a dissertation topic, and, with the director’s approval, present a proposal on the subject of their projected dissertation to their committee members. The committee is composed of the director, who should ordinarily be a permanent member of the department, and two others, one of whom may not be a permanent member

After the fifth term, candidates are required to present their dissertation propos-als in a conference of faculty and graduate -students. Beginning in their fourth year, all students will present an annual statement of progress report to the members of their dissertation committee.

A prospective sixth-year or more advanced student must have a written statement from the supervisor of the dissertation indicating that there is satisfactory progress in research and writing.

An unbound copy of the completed dissertation must be distributed to each member of the dissertation committee no later than December 1 for the degree in March, April 1 for the degree in June, or September 1 for the degree in November. The final dissertation manuscript should conform to the requirements described in The Form of the PhD Dissertation. A formal hearing of the completed dissertation is at the discretion of the candidate.

As of May 1994, an overall Graduate School of Arts and Sciences policy has been established that students will not be permitted to register beyond their tenth year in the Graduate School.

If eight years after passing the General Examination a candidate has not completed all the requirements for the degree, he or she may be dropped from candidacy. A candidate who has been dropped can be reinstated only by formal readmission to the Graduate School and to the Department of History.

More Information

Further information about graduate study in history may be obtained by writing to
the Coordinator of Graduate Studies, -Department of History, Harvard University, Robinson Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138; or by visiting www.fas.harvard.edu/~history .
Applications for admission and grants, and information regarding admissions procedures, may be obtained by writing to the Admissions Office, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke Center, 3rd floor,
1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. We encourage online submission of the application. See https://apply.embark.com/grad/Harvard/GSAS .

Current Research Interests of Members of the Department of History

Akyeampong, Emmanuel K., Professor of History. Sub-Saharan Africa, comparative slavery, social and cultural history.

Armitage, David, Professor of History. British, intellectual, and international history.
Beckert, Sven, Professor of History. 19th-century US social and economic history, comparative labor -history.

Blackbourn, David, Coolidge Professor of History. Modern European history, especially the political, social, and cultural history of
19th-century Germany.

Blair, Ann, Charles Lea Professor of History. Early modern France; intellectual and cultural history, his-tory of the book, history of science.

Bose, Sugata, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs. South Asia and comparative dimensions of modern history across the Indian Ocean.

Brown, Vincent, Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History. History of slavery and the anglophone West Indies.

Chaplin, Joyce, Professor of History. Early American history, the history of science, intellectual history, environmental history.

Cohen, Lizabeth, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies. 20th-century US history, broadly defined; history of cities, labor, consumption, and built environment.

Cott, Nancy F., Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History and Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library. 19th- and 20th-century US history, with an emphasis on gender.

Darnton, Robert, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library. 18th and 19th c. France, European social and intellectual history.

Dench, Emma, Professor of the Classics and of History. Hellenistic, Roman Republican and early Roman imperial history, especially questions of identity and historiography.

Elkins, Caroline, Hugo K. Foster Associate Professor of African Studies. East African history, modern African and -European history.

Faust, Drew, Lincoln Professor of History. 19th-century US history, Civil War.

Ferguson, Niall, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. Financial and international history; American and British imperial history.

Frank, Alison Fleig, Assistant Professor of History. Central European history, with an emphasis on the 19th and early 20th centuries-.

Gordon, Andrew, Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History. Modern Japanese history; primary interest in labor and the social and political history of modern Japan.

Gordon, Peter, Professor of History. Modern European intellectual history; Germany and France; existentialism; critical theory; theories of knowledge; modern Jewish thought.

Hankins, James, Professor of History. Medieval and early modern intellectual history; history of Italy 1050-1796; the reception of classical texts in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Harrison, Henrietta, Professor of History. Imperial and Modern China, Nationalism and Ethnicity in China.

Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies. 19th- and 20th-century American -history, African-American history, women’s and -religious history.

Higonnet, Patrice, Robert Walton Goelet Professor of French History. Comparative     historiography of the French and American Revolutions. The theme of suicide in French history and literature, 17th–19th centuries.

Jasanoff, Maya, Associate Professor of History. Modern British history with a focus on Britain’s relationship with its empire, Europe, and the rest of the world, particularly South Asia and the Atlantic world.

Jewett, Andrew, Assistant Professor of History and of Social Studies. History of the natural and social sciences in the U.S.

Johnson, Walter, Professor of History. Nineteenth-century U.S., slavery, capitalism, imperialism; social and historical theory.

Jones, Christopher, George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics and Professor of History. Cultural history of Greco-Roman antiquity; Hellenistic period; Roman imperial period.

Kafadar, Cemal, Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies. Early modern and modern history of the Middle East and the Balkans.

Kirby, William C., Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of History. Modern Chinese history, with special concern for 20th-century political and economic history; Chinese for-eign cultural and economic relations.

Kishlansky, Mark A., Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of History. British history, Tudor-
Stuart period.

Kloppenberg, James, David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History. American intellectual history, American and European intellectual and political history.

Laiou, Angeliki, Dumbarton Oaks of Byzantine History. Byzantine history with special emphasis on social and economic institutions; history of the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages; history of modern Greece.

Lepore, Jill, Professor of History. Early -American history.

Lewis, Mary, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences. 20th-century French and European social, urban, labor and legal history; immigration and citizenship; French colonialism.
Lowery, Malinda, Assistant Professor of History. Native American history, with an emphasis on Native American identity and race relations.

Maier, Charles S., Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History. Comparative European political, economic, and social history in the 20th century. European-American relations; contemporary German history.

Manela, Erez, Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History. Modern international history; US in the world; evolution of international society; colonialism and nationalism.

Martin, Terry, George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies. Russian and Soviet history, including the study of Soviet nationalities policy.

Maxwell, Kenneth, Visiting Professor of History. 18th and 19th c. Latin America.

May, Ernest R., Charles Warren Professor of American History. International relations, -diplomacy, and war in modern history, with particular focus on the evolution of concepts and institutions.

McCormick, Michael, Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History. Cultures, societies, and economies of the late Roman and early medieval Mediterranean basin, early medieval kingdoms and -Byzantium, paleography, and codicology.

McGirr, Lisa, Professor of History. Modern American history, women’s studies, history of conservatism.

Miller, Ian, Assistant Professor of History. Modern Japanese history with a focus on cultural and environmental history.

Mottahedeh, Roy, Professor of Islamic History. Medieval Islamic history.

Najmabadi, Afsaneh, Professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Middle East, gender and modernity.

O’Donovan, Susan, Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and History. 19th-century African-American
history, slavery, the South.

O’Neill, Kelly, Assistant Professor of History. Social and cultural history of the Russian Empire, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries; Islam, architecture, the effect of commerce and trade on empire-building, and the history of the Black Sea region.

Owen, E. Roger, A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History. The political and economic history of the 19th- and 20th-century Middle East.

Ozment, Steven, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History. Intellectual, social, and cultural history of late medieval and -Renaissance Europe.

Plokhii, Serhii, Hrushevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian History. Social, intellectual and cultural history of Ukraine and of Central and Eastern Europe.

Rothschild, Emma. Professor of History. 18th century history, especially the history of economic thought and economic history.

St. John, Rachel, Assistant Professor of History. 19th- and 20th-century US history, with emphasis on western North America and transnational borderlands history.

Smail, Daniel, Professor of History. Late Medieval- social and cultural history; history of law and justice; natural history and historiography.

Surkis, Judith, Associate Professor of History and of History and Literature. Cultural and intellectual history and theory in modern France and Europe.

Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, Kenneth T. Young Professor of Sino-Vietnamese History. Social and intellectual history of modern Vietnam; peasants in the Chinese Revolution.

Thernstrom, Stephan, Winthrop Professor of History. Social and economic history of America; history of population and social structure in the United States; ethnic and
race relations; immigration.

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, 300th Anniversary University Professor. Early American social history; women’s his-tory, material life in America.

Womack, John Jr., Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics. Modern Latin America; Mexico.