Letter from the Chair

Dear Prospective Graduate Student:

Welcome to the Department of History’s graduate studies web pages!  Our program is characterized by each student's opportunity to work in a close, one-on-one relationship with his or her graduate adviser.  Our graduate students are an important part of our department's intellectual community, and I invite you to explore their research interests.

I also invite you to examine those aspects of the website devoted to our faculty and their interests.  Though we are a department of diverse geographic and temporal specializations, the faculty share certain thematic interests, including Empire, Nation, Citizenship; Historiography; Labor and Social Movements; Mediterranean World; Political Violence; Intellectual History; Crime, Law, and Deviance; Social Theory and Cultural Criticism; Religion and Society; and Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Prospective graduate students should consider the scholarship of individual faculty as well as these broader intellectual themes when making their decision to apply to our department.  Prospective students may wish to contact individual faculty to discuss mutual research interests and graduate school plans.  

The department workshop is another essential element of our intellectual community. The department workshop meets periodically throughout the academic year, allowing graduate students, faculty, and guest speakers to present works-in-progress. The department’s workshop coordinator consults faculty and graduate students when selecting outside speakers, whose work usually appeals to a broad range of research interests. The department strongly encourages graduate student participation in these workshops, which through the years has stimulated a sense of community along with intellectual growth and creativity.

If you have not done so already, be sure to visit the web page for the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.  The History Department is part of the Maxwell School, which is an internationally recognized institution for the study and advancement of citizenship and public affairs.  The Maxwell School provides an important context in which historians at Syracuse broaden their discussions to involve other social science disciplines.  It also constitutes a forum in which historians can link their interests to larger public and international policy concerns.  Our workshops frequently draw faculty and graduate students from other Maxwell departments.

For questions about our graduate program, please contact our Graduate Director, George Kallander, at glkallan@maxwell.syr.edu.  

I thank you for your interest and wish you the best of luck in furthering your studies. 

Sincerely,
Susan Branson, Professor
Department Chair