Types of Graduate Courses
Reading Seminars: These seminars are structured either around specific thematic and disciplinary concerns (colonialism, environmental history) or along more traditional lines (early modern Europe). These courses provide an opportunity for first and second year students to explore, in depth, the key texts and concepts associated with some of the most exciting areas of contemporary historical practice.
Research Seminars: These seminars focus on the craft of writing and research, will allow students to present their work in progress to their peers, and have as their final product a substantial, possibly publishable, piece of original research. Students would build on interests sparked in the reading seminars, and write a research paper in one of their primary areas of interest.
Professional Development Seminars: A sequence of these courses begins in the first semester with the weekly Practice of History Workshop, taken by all incoming students. The Workshop will host a different member of the faculty each session for a discussion of their own work, published or in progress, selections from which students will have read in preparation for the visit. The Workshop will be graded on an S/NC basis. It is followed in the second semester by the Colloquium, an introduction to the methods and approaches of historical practice, and in the third semester with the Professionalization Seminar. This course explores pedagogy, best practices in the classroom and academic publishing. This series of courses concludes in the fourth semester with the Prospectus Development Seminar, which provides a shared structure for the process of identifying viable dissertation projects, selecting a dissertation committee, articulating his/her project in the form of a prospectus, and, where appropriate, developing grant proposals based on the prospectus.
Other Courses: Any student who wishes to do so may, after consultation with his or her advisors, substitute an independent reading course offered by a member of the Department (a History 2910 course) or a graduate-level course offered outside of the Department for one of the reading seminars. Students may substitute one intensive or upper level language course for a reading seminar in their first semester. After the first semester, upper level language courses will be taken in addition to the regular program requirements.