History

Field Description

To encourage flexibility, general requirements are kept to a minimum. These include: taking seven graduate-level seminars including History 7090, Introduction to the Graduate Study of History (independent study courses do not count toward seminar requirement); demonstrating foreign language proficiency (see below); demonstrating proficiency in two languages other than English (for Africanists, only one foreign language required); completing the Graduate School's residence requirement of 6 semesters of full-time study at a satisfactory level of accomplishment; teaching for at least one year (normally as a teaching assistant); passing the "Q" examination early in the second semester of study; complete one research paper by the end of the second year; the written and oral "Admission to Candidacy" examination after completion of formal study (the "A" exam); turn in an approved dissertation prospectus within three months of the "A" exam; and completing the doctoral dissertation and defending it in a final examination.

For students in African, English/British, and American history, proficiency must be demonstrated in one foreign language before a Ph.D. candidate is eligible for the Examination for Admission to Candidacy (A Exam). Students in all other fields are required to demonstrate competence in two foreign languages. Language proficiency is determined at the discretion of the special committee and in consultation with the DGS. The general minimal expectation is that students be able to pass a non-introductory placement test in the relevant foreign language(s), but depending on the student’s research, much higher levels of proficiency will be expected. Substitutions for the foreign language requirement may be petitioned.

Incoming Ph.D. students who hold a master's degree from another university must still complete the requirements listed above. No formal transfer credit is given, but the special committee normally takes previous graduate work in history into account, which may speed the student's progress toward the doctorate.

Contact Information

Website: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/history
Email: history_grad_info@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-6738

450 McGraw Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Data and Statistics

• Doctoral Program Statistics

Field Manual

• Manual

Subject and Degrees

History

• History (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Concentrations by Subject

History

• African history
• American history
• American studies (minor)
• ancient Greek history
• ancient history
• ancient Roman history
• early modern European history
• English history
• French history
• German history
• history of science
• Korean history
• Latin American history
• medieval Chinese history
• medieval history
• modern Chinese history
• modern European history
• modern Japanese history
• modern Middle Eastern history
• premodern Islamic history
• premodern Japanese history
• Renaissance history
• Russian history
• south Asian history
• Southeast Asian history

Faculty

Edward E. Baptist

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: American history; U.S. political history; 19th Century American history

Ernesto E. Bassi Arevalo

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: Latin American history
• Research Interests: Colonial Latin America; Caribbean history; Atlantic World

Richard F Bensel

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: American political development, political economy, political culture, and comparative state formation.

Judith A. Byfield

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: African history
• Research Interests: African and African diaspora history with emphasis on West Africa; gender; labor history and material culture; Caribbean History

Derek S Chang

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history; American studies
• Research Interests: Asian-American history; African-American history; ethnicity and race; American social and cultural history ; U.S. Civil War history and Reconstruction history; U.S. South

Raymond B Craib

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: Latin American history
• Research Interests: Latin American; Mexico; agrarian; postcolonial studies

Deborah Dinner

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: U.S.; employment/labor law, family law, feminist legal studies, legal history

Yue Du

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern Chinese history
• Research Interests: history of modern China (17th century to present), particularly las, gender and state-building

Ziad A. Fahmy

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: African history; modern Middle Eastern history
• Research Interests: nationalism in modern Middle East; colloquial Arabic; mass-culture and media identity in Egypt and the Arab world

Oren Falk

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: medieval history
• Research Interests: Medieval, Norse, and cultural studies

Magnus Fiskesjo

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern Chinese history
• Research Interests: general anthropology, historical & political anthropology, civilizations and barbarians, state power, citizenship, autonomy, slavery, ethno-politics & interethnic relations, archaeology, culture

Cristina Florea

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: German history; modern European history; Russian history
• Research Interests: Central and Eastern Europe, Soviet Union/Eurasia, Habsburg Monarchy and successor states, empires/imperial history, transnational, global and comparative history, cultural and intellectual history

Chiara Formichi

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: Southeast Asian history
• Research Interests: Islam as a lived religion and as a political ideology in 20th century Indonesia and Southeast Asia

Paul Friedland

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: early modern European history; French history

Maria Cristina Garcia

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history; American studies
• Research Interests: U.S. Latina/Latino history; immigration; folklore

Durba Ghosh

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: south Asian history
• Research Interests: modern south Asia; gender; colonialism

Lawrence B. Glickman

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history

T. J. Hinrichs

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: medieval Chinese history
• Research Interests: Chinese medical and religious history

Louis Hyman

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: history of capitalism; labor history; business history; history of consumption

Mayer Juni

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: early modern European history
• Research Interests: Jewish, Atlantic world, early modern Europe, legal, cultural, knowledge, race and slavery

Julilly Kohler-Hausmann

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: post war U.S. political and social history

Ruth Lawlor

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: Modern American & International history, military and diplomatic history, gender and sexuality, labor, empires

Olga Litvak

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern European history; Russian history
• Research Interests: modern Europe, imperial Russia, Jewish intellectual and political history, history of ideas

Tamara L Loos

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: Southeast Asian history
• Research Interests: Southeast Asian studies; gender and legal studies

Mostafa Minawi

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern Middle Eastern history
• Research Interests: Modern Middle East, Ottoman history, Mediterranean and North African Imperial history.

Nicholas Mulder

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: early modern European history; English history; French history; German history; modern European history
• Research Interests: Modern Europe, international institutions, political economy, financial and economic history, history of international law, history of war, philosophy of history.

Tejasvi Nagaraja

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: U.S. labor & African American history, foreign relations history

Tamika Y. Nunley

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: African-American women's history, history of slavery, 19th century U.S., social, legal, and intellectual history

Jon William Parmenter

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history; American studies
• Research Interests: Native American (especially Iroquois) history; early American history

Sara B. Pritchard

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: French history; modern European history
• Research Interests: history of technology, environmental history, and their intersection ("envirotech") with a focus on 20th-century France the French empire

Eric Rebillard

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: ancient history; ancient Roman history
• Research Interests: Roman history, especially late Antiquity and Early Christianity

Russell John Rickford

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: pan Africanism, black nationalism, black radicalism, transnational blackness, African-American political culture and American social movements

Kristin Anne Roebuck

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern Japanese history; premodern Japanese history
• Research Interests: Japan, US-Japan relations, war and empire, race gender and sexuality, history of science and medicine, women's history

Aaron J. Sachs

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: cultural, intellectual, and environmental history; American studies; comparative frontiers; travel and exploration; the writing of history; radicalism and dissent; landscape

Rachel Sandwell

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: African history
• Research Interests: Modern African history with a focus on southern Africa, women and gender history.

Casey Schmitt

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history; American studies
• Research Interests: Early America, Caribbean, histories of slavery and servitude, colonialism and imperialism, illicit economies

Suman Seth

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: German history; history of science
• Research Interests: history of the physical sciences in the 19th and 20th Centuries; gender and science; science, race and colonialism

Camille Suarez

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: American history
• Research Interests: 19th Century U.S., Latine history, environmental history

Peidong Sun

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern Chinese history
• Research Interests: modern Chinese history, social-cultural, everyday life

Eric Tagliacozzo

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: Southeast Asian history
• Research Interests: modern Southeast Asian history

Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: African history; modern Middle Eastern history
• Research Interests: Modern Middle East and Africa, history of pan-Africanism, cultural, intellectual, and queer history

Robert T. Travers

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: English history; south Asian history
• Research Interests: modern British and imperial history; colonial India

Enzo Traverso

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: French history; modern European history
• Research Interests: Contemporary social and cultural history; European intellectual history; political theory.

Claudia Verhoeven

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: modern European history; Russian history
• Research Interests: modern Russia and Europe; cultural history; political violence

Rachel Judith Weil

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: History: early modern European history; English history
• Research Interests: Tudor-Stuart England, especially cultural and political; gender