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    Binghamton University
   
    Feb 12, 2025  
2024-2025 Binghamton University Academic Guide 
    
2024-2025 Binghamton University Academic Guide

History Department


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The History Department curriculum explores human societies over time and across the globe. History courses provide training in the methods of historical research and allow students to hone skills in thinking critically, interpreting evidence, conducting independent research and writing effectively. The program offers a balance between humanistic approaches to the study of the human experience and approaches based on the methods of the social and behavioral sciences. History Department courses are offered at four levels.

  • Introductory Courses: Courses on the 100-level; introductory overviews of world history or the history of a particular area or region (e.g., Europe, United States, East Asia, the Middle East).
  • Open to all students; history majors and minors taking 100-level courses do so before their junior year. May be taken in any sequence.
  • Intermediate Courses: Courses on the 200-level; more specialized analyses of eras and themes, suitable for students at all levels.
  • Advanced Courses: Courses on the 300-level; more advanced and specialized, with more difficult reading assignments. First-year students may not register for these courses.
  • Research Seminars: Courses on the 400-level (with the exception of HIST 498 and 499) are small intensive seminars in which a research paper is required. The normal prerequisite is junior standing.

Students planning to major or minor in history should consult, as early as possible, with the departmental director of undergraduate studies or the departmental undergraduate advisor. History majors and minors should visit the director’s office whenever they need advice on their programs. The History Department does not require that majors or minors specialize or concentrate in any area, period or type of history. Some students, however, may wish to create an ad hoc concentration by taking several courses in one historical subfield, such as the history of the United States-or another global region (such as Europe, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America), by focusing on the history of a particular time period, such as ancient history or modern history, or by taking several courses that are thematically linked, such as courses in social and economic history or those that examine histories of race, gender, science, or medicine. Those who do should seek advice from the director of undergraduate studies. The department accepts up to two history courses taken at other colleges in fulfillment of the requirements for the minor and up to four history courses taken at another college in fulfillment of the requirements for the major. The department does not accept advanced placement credit, CLEP credit or course credit by examination in fulfillment of the requirements for the major or the minor.

Graduate Programs

The Department of History offers a full range of courses and programs in the fields of American, British and European, East Asian, Latin American, and Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. It offers exceptionally strong training in the fields of environmental history, science, technology and medicine, as well as women’s and gender history. While concentrating on the history of one nation or geographic area, students are encouraged to develop a comparative or global perspective in their work.

The department cooperates closely with a wide variety of interdisciplinary programs and departments to offer students additional instruction in comparative and world history perspectives. These include the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender; the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; the Asian and Asian American Studies Department; the Middle East and North Africa Studies Program; the Judaic Studies Department; the Africana Studies Department; the Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies Program; the Russian and East European Program; and the Women’s Studies Program.

Honors Program

The director of undergraduate studies administers the honors program offered by the Department of History. Students seeking an additional challenge may pursue honors in history. Candidates for honors must consult with the director of undergraduate studies or the departmental undergraduate advisor.

To be eligible to earn honors, a history major must:

  • Have a GPA of 3.60 in history, not counting courses taken Pass/Fail
  • Have taken at least one 400-level seminar, earning an A- or better

These conditions must be met by a student’s penultimate semester. The student must also arrange with a faculty member in the History Department to supervise the research and writing of a thesis, and with a second member of the department to read the thesis. Students writing an honors thesis may (but are not required to) register for HIST 498 and 499. These courses may not be used to satisfy the history major requirement but may fulfill upper-level degree requirements. In order to earn honors, the thesis must be judged worthy by the faculty supervisor and one other member of the department.

For more information, the student should refer to the Rules Governing the Preparation of Undergraduate Honors Theses, available from the undergraduate director.

As an assessment, the thesis will be judged worthy (of honors, high honors or highest honors) by the faculty supervisor and one other member of the department (or a faculty member outside the department approved by the undergraduate director). In case of disagreement between the two readers, a third is designated by the undergraduate director. This work may be completed during the student’s last semester.

Programs

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