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PrincetonUniversity |
Department of HistoryThe study of history is, by nature, an interdisciplinary enterprise, bringing together the social sciences and the humanities. In its focus on changes and continuities occurring in the past, history helps us comprehend how the present came to be. Yet a concentration in history also teaches one to understand previous eras and other societies on their own terms, rather than from the perspective of Americans in the 2000s. By many independent measures, Princeton's history department is one of the best in the country. The department boasts nationally and internationally renowned scholars known for their excellence in teaching. The department offers courses in the histories of Europe, the United States, modern East Asia, Latin America, Africa, and India, as well as the history of science and technology. Students majoring in the history department may also take the many cross-listed courses offered by historians in the Departments and Programs of African-American Studies, American Studies, Classics, East Asian Studies, Hellenic Studies, Near Eastern Studies, and Study of Women and Gender. To encourage breadth, majors are required to take at least one course in each of the following four areas: United States, Europe, non-Western, and premodern. At the same time, students do more intensive course work in a field of concentration of their choosing. The concentration may be a geographical area or a comparative approach, such as "War, Revolution, and the State" or "Women and Gender." Sophomores who wish to enter the department will be expected to have taken two departmental courses. One of those prerequisites must be a 200-level history course chosen from the following: 207, 208, 211, 212, 213, 280, 290, 291, and 292. The core of the department's program occurs in the junior year when students explore what is distinctive about historical inquiry itself. The fall term's junior independent work takes the form of a research seminar, which is designed to initiate new majors, teaching them to frame a historical problem, what questions must be asked, and how to write about it. Because the department's offerings touch on a wide array of approaches and subjects, a concentration in history prepares one for practically any career. Students learn analytical skills and ways of thinking about the world that lead some to careers in scholarship and teaching, and many others to professions in law, public policy, and business. |