Department ofHistory
Academic Programs
Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/history
The Haverford History Department encourages students to explore the curriculum and master skills in what we might consider three broad areas of pursuit:
- Evidence
- Experience and
- Epistemology.
Students in history approach the study of the past through an immersion in materials and evidence, analysis and interpretation, creativity and imaginative endeavor. Our classes emphasize creativity and conceptual thinking rooted in fact and historical complexity. Primary sources permeate our curriculum. They are gateways to a three dimensional world, keys to unlock the study of the past. We also focus on individual student creativity, both in the exploration of the curriculum and in student work. Students in history can pursue their own intellectual questions and concerns, ones they develop with faculty through their time at the College. Because of the roles creativity and the creative arts play in the department, history at Haverford is a strong home for students with an interest in interdisciplinary studies. Professors in the department work with literature, art, music, architecture, material objects and languages, analyzing what happens at the intersection between aesthetics and political culture
Students in history practice history. They engage in the production of historical knowledge. We send students out into the world to work on real projects of their own making. We have internal and external grants to support them in that work. Students learn how to design and execute independent research projects on their own initiative, moving between collective experiences and individual scholarly reflective work. In history, we work seriously with students over the course of the major on writing and revision. Our classes are often writing intensive. We take our craft seriously—the overlap between writing and thinking, form and meaning. That extends through the consistent training students in our major receive in writing and re-vision in its grandest sense.
The curriculum builds cumulatively to train students in skills in writing and analysis from their first year to their last, in concert with their studies abroad and interdisciplinary engagements with other departments. Students in history do rich, complexly imagined and robust work in French, Chinese, Spanish, German, Russian, Greek, and Latin, among others. They learn to critique and confront the culture of which they’re learning the language, to put it in the context of other historical forces, and to illuminate the power relationships inherent in all societies. In history, students do not just think in another language, but across languages. They animate linguistic study through critical scholarly and pragmatic application, emphasizing the foreignness of any culture and the past itself.
History in this department starts from questions. Our classes emphasize deep time, historical debates and the roots of historical problems. History students examine how philosophies, political systems, and social orders are historically contingent. Students gain a sense that there might have been and might still be other outcomes. History is also then a kind of social critique. If every moment in the present is temporary, and what today is modern, tomorrow is “unmodern,” the major encourages students to ask questions about the necessity of the present.
Students in history enter a dialogue between present and past, considering consciously where they stand in the flow of time. Rather than striving for certainty, history is thus often about estrangement. Students study the horizons of opportunity available to people at different times and places, how those horizons shift, and how individuals navigate within those constraints. Through these approaches, the major fundamentally encourages empathy with difference. History teaches humility and the art of listening. It seeks to understand the full dimensions of human actors in the past.
Learning Goals
In history courses students:
- master a foundation of knowledge about specific places and societies over time.
- think critically about the nature and production of historical knowledge.
- broaden and master research skills.
- learn disciplinary writing skills using evidence and crafting persuasive arguments.
Haverford’s Institutional Learning Goals are available on the President’s website, at http://hav.to/learninggoals.
Curriculum
History courses foster analysis and interpretation of the past and emphasize the development of cultures and ideas over the accumulation of facts. Courses offer students opportunities to pursue creative studies and develop their critical reading and writing skills.
Major Requirements
To complete the history major, students must take eleven courses distributed across the history curriculum.
All students must take one of the 100-level courses, preferably before the senior year.
Students may take any 100-level course, which introduces both historical materials and the skills we expect in the major.
Majors in History are encouraged to explore the curriculum with an open mind while thinking about how to prepare for the senior thesis. To those ends, we believe that it is important to ensure breadth and depth. The program of courses selected must include the following requirements. Only 200 or 300 level courses can count toward these requirements.
at least one course in the history of Asia, Africa, or Latin America;
at least one course in the history of Europe, North America, or Russia;
at least one course that focuses on the period before 1850;
two out of the three 300-level classes must be taken at Haverford and include a primary-source based research paper. We encourage students to take these classes with different professors and to take one in their sophomore year.
Credit for Courses outside the Major and Study Abroad:
Students may count one course outside of the major toward the 11-credit requirement. This class will count toward 200-level credit. It cannot be used to replace one of the 300-level classes. It should not be a 100-level class. Ideally, it should be relevant to the student’s thesis research either topically or methodologically. This course must be reviewed and approved by the student’s advisor.
Students will receive 200-level credit for History classes taken when studying abroad. Students cannot receive 300-level credit for classes taken abroad.
In their senior year, all history majors write a year-long, i.e., two-semester, senior thesis, as described below. During the fall they complete their research in the thesis seminar. In the spring they work one-on-one with their faculty advisors to write and revise their theses.
Senior Thesis
The senior thesis in the Department of History is a year-long, two-credit research project on a topic the student chooses to investigate. In completing a thesis, history students conduct original research and craft an extended argument. The senior thesis project occurs in three steps.
Preliminary Work
In the spring semester of their junior year, history majors work with faculty mentors to compose an initial thesis proposal that articulates a specific research question. In light of faculty feedback, students often spend the summer before their senior year doing initial archival research and mastering the relevant historical literature.
Research and Analysis
In the fall semester of their senior year, students enroll in HIST H400A, a weekly seminar that gives students an opportunity to identify, survey, and analyze the sources they will use in their thesis and to review the relevant scholarship. In this seminar students complete a series of assignments that help them conceptualize, research, and begin drafting their thesis. Assignments include: a revised thesis proposal, analysis of a primary source related to their thesis, critical review of the scholarly literature relevant to their topic, and a thesis prospectus that defines their thesis topic, describes their evidence, and outlines their argument.
Writing
In the spring semester students enroll in HIST H400B, a supervised research and writing seminar that builds on the work they completed in fall semester. Working under the guidance of faculty advisors, students draft and revise their theses, submitting sections throughout the semester. Once they have drafted the different sections, they revise the entire thesis and submit a polished final draft. A history thesis is typically around 60 pages. After handing in the final version, students present their theses in an oral defense to their faculty advisors.
Senior Thesis Learning Goals
As a capstone experience, the senior thesis in history hopes to achieve complementary goals:
Research
- Conceptualize a research question.
- Make a historical argument.
- Identify and master relevant scholarship.
- Locate and analyze primary source materials.
Writing
- Develop a cogent argument.
- Use evidence to support the argument
- Write clearly and compellingly.
- Adhere to professional standards for style, citations, and formatting.
Oral Defense
- Present a concise version of the thesis’s argument.
- Respond to questions about the thesis’s structure, evidence, or conclusions.
- Explain the argument’s importance or relevance.
- Speak fluidly and authoritatively about the thesis.
Senior Thesis Assessment
A student’s faculty advisors collectively assess the thesis project (written and oral components) on the following criteria:
- Conceptualization of Research Question and Historical Argument: students acknowledge and explore the full implications of an innovative thesis question.
- Familiarity with and Understanding of Primary Texts: students engage primary sources to answer their research question and display a creative approach to existing sources or bring new and illuminating sources to bear on their research question.
- Engagement with Secondary Literature: students demonstrate mastery of scholarly literature that pertains to their thesis topic by synthesis of and contribution to the scholarly conversation.
- Methodological and Theoretical Approach: students ground their theses in current knowledge about their historical period, demonstrating a thorough understanding of relevant methodological and theoretical issues.
- Quality of Argument: students construct a well reasoned, well structured, and clearly expressed argument.
- Clarity of Writing: writing is consistently engaging, clear, well organized, and enjoyable to read.
- Oral Presentation: at the end of the semester, students demonstrate comprehensive understanding of their topic in an articulate and engaging presentation and are able to provide innovative and thoughtful answers to questions. Student demonstrates capacity to connect thesis project to prior coursework in history and related disciplines.
A style guide, along with suggestions for defining a thesis topic, is available on the departmental web page.
Requirements for Honors
Honors in history will be granted to those senior majors who, in the department’s judgment, have combined excellent performance in history courses with an excellent overall record. Typically, a grade of 3.7 or higher in a history course reflects honor-quality work.
Concentrations and Interdisciplinary Minors
History students often combine their study of the past with various complementary subjects, such as East Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, religion, or art history. Students have also found generative links between their study of history and interdisciplinary areas, including African and Africana Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Environmental Studies, Museum Studies, and the Growth and Structure of Cities.
Study Abroad
History students are encouraged to study abroad. In addition to acquiring fluency in a foreign language, students abroad benefit from exposure to other historical approaches and the proximity to rich archival resources. The history major is designed to facilitate such study abroad.