History

Return to: USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences  

The Department of History offers courses in ancient, medieval and modern European history; in both North and Latin American history; in the history of Asia and in world history. Some of the department’s courses are chronological, some national or regional and some are thematic, with special strengths in gender, race and ethnicity, popular culture, medicine, and urban history. The faculty is committed to continuous review and revision of the department’s curriculum, as student needs and professional emphases shift. Many departmental courses meet general education requirements and various programs for majors and non-majors are available. The department offers an honors program for qualified seniors. Honors programs are individually arranged through consultation with the honors director. Completion of an honors thesis is required. The Department of History offers the BA and PhD in History; the BA in Law, History, and Culture; the BA in History and Social Science Education; the BA in Contemporary Latino and Latin American Studies, the minor in History, the minor in Resistance to Genocide and the minor in the History and Culture of Business.

Social Science Building 153
(213) 740-1657
FAX: (213) 740-6999
Email: history@dornsife.usc.edu
dornsife.usc.edu/hist

Chair: Jay Rubenstein, PhD

Faculty

University Professor and Professor of Philosophy, History and Accounting: Jacob Soll, PhD (Philosophy)

Distinguished Professor, Dean’s Professor of History, Myron and Marian Casden Directorship of the Casden Institute for the Study of Jewish Role in American Life and Professor of History: Steven Ross, PhD*

Garrett and Anne Van Hunnick Chair in European History and Professor of History: Anne Goldgar, PhD

Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History: Wolf Gruner, PhD

Gordon L. MacDonald Chair in History and Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures: Joan Piggott, PhD

Barbara Streisand Professor of Contemporary Gender Studies and Professor of History, Gender & Sexuality Studies and English: Alice Echols, PhD*

Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the Early Modern Studies Institute and Professor of History, Anthropology and Economics: Peter C. Mancall, PhD

Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of Religion, Law and History: Jessica Marglin, PhD (Religion)

USC Associates Professor in Art History and Professor of Art History and History: John Pollini, PhD*

Professors: Bettine Birge, PhD (East Asian Languages and Cultures); Daniel Bleichmar, PhD (Art History); William Deverell, PhD*; Philip J. Ethington, PhD; Richard W. Fox, PhD; Joshua Goldstein, PhD; Ariela Gross, PhD (Law); Sarah Gualtieri, PhD* (American Studies and Ethnicity); Karen Halttunen, PhD; Daniel Klerman, PhD (Law); Lon Kurashige, PhD; Paul Lerner, PhD*; Carolyn Malone, PhD (Art History); John Pollini, PhD (Art History); Ramzi Rouighi, PhD (Middle East Studies); Jay Rubenstein, PhD; George J. Sanchez, PhD* (American Studies and Ethnicity); Vanessa Schwartz, PhD (Art History); Nayan Shah, PhD (American Studies and Ethnicity); Brett Sheehan, PhD*; David Sloane, PhD (Public Policy)

Associate Professors: Marjorie R. Becker, PhD; Christelle Fischer-Bovet, PhD (Classics); Jason Glenn, PhD; Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, PhD; Laura Serna, PhD; Francille Wilson, PhD (American Studies and Ethnicity)

Assistant Professors: Richard Antaramian, PhD; Alice Baumgartner, PhD; Joan Flores-Villalobos, PhD; Maya Maskarinec, PhD; Alaina Morgan, PhD; Ketaki Pant, PhD; Edgardo Perez Morales, PhD; Benjamin Uchiyama, PhD; Aro Velmet, PhD

Professor (Teaching): Deborah E. Harkness, PhD*

Associate Professor (Teaching): Lindsay O’Neill, PhD

Emeritus: Elinor A. Accampo, PhD; Lois W. Banner, PhD*; Judith Bennett, PhD*; Gordon M. Berger, PhD; Roger Dingman, PhD; Charlotte Furth, PhD; Cynthia Herrup, PhD; Paul W. Knoll, PhD; Franklin D. Mitchell, PhD; D. Brendan Nagle, PhD; Azade-Ayse Rorlich, PhD; Carole Shammas, PhD; Terry L. Seip, PhD*

*Recipient of university-wide or college teaching award.

Undergraduate Degrees

Advisement

The Department of History has one full-time staff adviser available to provide academic advisement, assist in the navigation of department and university requirements, review progress and future plans. Students interested in a major or minor in the department should contact the adviser to schedule a meeting. Faculty advisers are also available to offer guidance on pursuing the field of history both within and beyond USC. 

Honors Program for History (BA)

The department offers a one-semester honors program, in which qualified students are required to take HIST 492 Honors Thesis  in which each completes a thesis project on a topic of his or her choosing under faculty direction. Contact the department director of Undergraduate Studies for further information. To graduate with honors, department majors must have a minimum GPA of 3.5 in their major course work and a B+ or higher in HIST 201 .

Honors Program for History and Social Science Education (BA)

The department offers a one-semester honors program, in which qualified students are required to take HIST 492 Honors Thesis  in which each completes a thesis project on a topic of his or her choosing under faculty direction. Contact the department honors director for further information. To graduate with honors, department majors must have a minimum GPA of 3.5 in their major course work. 

Honors Program for Law, History, and Culture (BA)

The department offers a one-semester honors program, in which qualified students are required to take HIST 493  in which each completes a thesis project on a topic of his or her choosing under faculty direction. Contact the director of Undergraduate Studies for further information. To graduate with honors, department majors must have a minimum GPA of 3.5 in their major course work.

Honor Society

The department sponsors its own local chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. Phi Alpha Theta provides opportunities for students to take their interest in history beyond the classroom and to cultivate their intellectual pursuits in a community setting.

Membership is open to history majors and other interested students with a 3.33 GPA in history courses and a 3.0 overall GPA. For more information contact the honors director.

Teaching Credential Requirements

Credential requirements in California and elsewhere are complex and changeable. Students interested in preparing for public school teaching should contact the Credentials Office, Rossier School of Education, and the undergraduate adviser, Department of History, for up-to-date information.

Interdisciplinary Minor in Early Modern Studies

This minor brings together the resources of the departments of English, History and Art History to study the literatures and cultures of Europe and the Americas from the late medieval period to 1800. For a complete listing of requirements, see Department of English .

Interdisciplinary Middle East Studies Minor

See the Department of Middle East Studies .

Interdisciplinary Race, Ethnicity and Politics Minor

See Department of Political Science .

Interdisciplinary Russian Area Studies Minor

See Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures .

Interdisciplinary Law and Society Minor

See Department of Political Science .

Graduate Degrees

The graduate program in History offers a rigorous course of study that balances depth in particular fields with a broad, transnational and interdisciplinary perspective. We train our students in historical methods, research, critical analysis of written and visual sources, historical writing, and historical pedagogy through intensive reading courses, seminars and tutorials. This training culminates in the PhD dissertation, a significant scholarly and historiographical contribution to the study of a field. 

Admission Requirements

Prerequisites

An applicant should have an undergraduate degree or an MA degree in history or a related discipline. Promising students trained in other fields will also be considered.

Criteria

All applicants must take the general test of the Graduate Record Examinations. The subject test in history is not required. In addition, applicants must submit at least three letters of recommendation from college-level instructors and a sample of written work from a college-level history, social science or humanities course. This material should be uploaded through the Graduate Admission application portal.

Procedure

For complete information on the doctoral program, prospective applicants should address inquiries to Graduate Admission, Department of History, SOS 153, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0034. Information on the programs is also available online at dornsife.usc.edu/hist/doctoral-program/.

Degree Requirements

These degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School. Refer to the Requirements for Graduation  section and The Graduate School  section of this catalogue for general regulations. All courses applied toward the degrees must be courses accepted by the Graduate School.

Advisement

Students should seek advice on their program of studies from the Director of Graduate Studies, a professor in their major field of study and other members of their qualifying exam committee.

Programs

• History (BA)
• History and Social Science Education (BA)
• Law, History, and Culture (BA)

• History and Culture of Business Minor
• History Minor
• Resistance to Genocide Interdisciplinary Minor

• History (MA)

• History (PhD)

Courses

• HIST 371 Culture in Diaspora: The Jews of Spain
• HIST 372 Modern Latin America
• HIST 373 History of the Mexican American
• HIST 374 History of Mexico
• HIST 375 North Korean History
• HIST 376 U.S.-Japan Encounters: War, Trade, and Culture
• HIST 377 Law and Society in Premodern China and Japan
• HIST 378m Introduction to Asian American History
• HIST 379 Arabs in America
• HIST 380 American Popular Culture
• HIST 381 Cinema and History
• HIST 382 The Middle East, 500–1500
• HIST 383 The Modern Middle East
• HIST 384 Popular Culture in the Middle East
• HIST 385 Law and Order in the Early Modern British World
• HIST 386 American Legal History
• HIST 387 From Alexander to Cleopatra: The Mediterranean in an Age of Expansion
• HIST 388 Women and Gender in North American History through 1920
• HIST 389 Modern Iran
• HIST 390 Special Problems
• HIST 391 Feminist Histories of South Asia
• HIST 392 The Southern California Armenian Diaspora
• HIST 393g Quantitative Historical Analysis
• HIST 394p The Great Muslim Empires of the Near East and India
• HIST 395 Sex and the City: Constructing Gender in London, 1700-1900
• HIST 396 Women of Rome, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages
• HIST 398 The History of Waste
• HIST 401 The Roman World
• HIST 402 Cultural Heritage, Religion, and Politics in the Middle East
• HIST 403 Carolingian Europe
• HIST 404 Seminar in Korean History
• HIST 405 Traveling in the Early Medieval Mediterranean
• HIST 407 Europe in the 10th Century
• HIST 408 Heretics and Prophets in the Middle Ages
• HIST 410 The Age of Humanism and Reformation
• HIST 411 Early Modern European Cultural History
• HIST 413 The Age of Revolutions
• HIST 414 Contemporary Europe
• HIST 415 Medieval and Early Modern Russia
• HIST 416 History of Imperial Russia: 1689–1917
• HIST 417 History of Soviet Russia: 1917–1991
• HIST 420 European Intellectual and Cultural History: The 19th Century, 1790–1870
• HIST 421 European Intellectual and Cultural History: The Turn of the Century 1880–1920
• HIST 422 European Intellectual and Cultural History: The 20th Century, 1920 to the Present
• HIST 424 Family, Work, and Leisure in Russian History
• HIST 425 The Era of the First World War
• HIST 426 Gender, Family and Society in Europe and the United States, 1500-Present
• HIST 427 The German Question: Nation and Identity in Modern Central Europe
• HIST 428 Life and Death in Nazi Germany
• HIST 429 Street Life: Urban Culture in Modern Europe
• HIST 430 Migration and Displacement in the Indian Ocean World
• HIST 431 Histories of the Apocalypse
• HIST 432 Britain in the 18th Century
• HIST 433 The History of Drink
• HIST 437 Seminar in Modern Chinese History
• HIST 438 War and Peace in Medieval Japan
• HIST 440 Early Modern World History
• HIST 441 Modern World History
• HIST 442 The Ethics of Financial and Political Accountability
• HIST 443 Race and Religious Riots in Modern World History
• HIST 444 Mass Violence and Comparative Genocide in Modern World History
• HIST 446 Resistance to Genocide
• HIST 447 Law and Empire: An Introduction to Global Legal History
• HIST 451 The Mexican Revolution
• HIST 453 The Age of Emancipation
• HIST 454 The World Pirates Made: Piracy and Privateering, 1500–1815
• HIST 455 Advanced Topics in African-American History
• HIST 456 Race, Slavery, and the Making of the Atlantic World
• HIST 457 The American West
• HIST 458 History of California
• HIST 459 Race and the Carceral State
• HIST 460 War, Race, and the Constitution
• HIST 461 19th Century American Thought
• HIST 462 20th Century American Thought
• HIST 463 The Constitutional History of the United States
• HIST 464 Culture, Money, and Power: Japanese-American Relations since 1853
• HIST 465 America in the Cold War World, 1945–1991
• HIST 466 New World Orders: US and the Atlantic World, 1918-2018
• HIST 470 The Spanish Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World
• HIST 473 Colonial Latin America Seminar
• HIST 478 The United States, 1789–1850
• HIST 479 History in the Museum: The Past in Objects
• HIST 480 Seminar in Middle East History
• HIST 481 Producing Film Histories
• HIST 484 The United States, 1919–1939
• HIST 487 The United States since 1939
• HIST 488 Teaching History in the Secondary Schools
• HIST 489 489 The Mongol Era in China: Genghis Khan, Khubilai, Marco Polo
• HIST 490x Directed Research
• HIST 492 Honors Thesis
• HIST 493 Law, History and Culture Honors Thesis Seminar
• HIST 494 Seminar in New Historical Writing
• HIST 496 Internship in Public History
• HIST 497 Senior Seminar in Early Modern Studies
• HIST 498 Seminar on Selected Historical Topics
• HIST 499 Special Topics
• HIST 500 Introduction to Graduate Historical Studies
• HIST 505 Studies in Early Medieval History
• HIST 506 Studies in Later Medieval History
• HIST 508 Studies in the Renaissance
• HIST 509 Studies in the Reformation