History

Return to: Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences  

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

Faculty

University Professor: Kevin Starr, PhD

University Professor and Leo S. Bing Chair in English and American Literature and Professor of English and History: Leo Braudy, PhD (English)

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

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

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

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

Turpanjian Early Career Chair in Contemporary Armenian Studies and Assistant Professor of History: Richard Antaramian, PhD

Professors: Elinor A. Accampo, PhD; Lisa Bitel, PhD; William Deverell, PhD*; Philip J. Ethington, PhD; Richard W. Fox, PhD; Ariela Gross, PhD (Law); Karen Halttunen, PhD; Deborah Harkness, PhD*; Daniel Klerman, PhD (Law); Carolyn Malone, PhD (Art History); John Pollini, PhD (Art History); Azade-Ayse Rorlich, PhD*; Steven J. Ross, PhD*; George J. Sanchez, PhD* (American Studies and Ethnicity); Mary Sarotte, PhD (International Relations); Vanessa Schwartz, PhD; Nayan Shah (American Studies and Ethnicity); Brett Sheehan, PhD*; David Sloane, PhD (Public Policy); Jacob Soll, PhD

Associate Professors: Marjorie R. Becker, PhD; Bettine Birge, PhD (East Asian Languages and Cultures); Daniela Bleichmar, PhD (Art History); Jason Glenn, PhD; Joshua Goldstein, PhD; Sarah Gualtieri, PhD*; Kyung Moon Hwang, PhD; Lon Kurashige, PhD; Paul Lerner, PhD*; Ramzi Rouighi, PhD; Francile Wilson, PhD (American Studies and Ethnicity)

Assistant Professors: Gerard Clinton Rainier Godart, PhD; Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, PhD; Diana Williams, PhD

Assistant Professor (Research): Peter Westwick, PhD

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

Adjunct Professor: Richard Hovannisian, PhD

Professor Emerita of History and John R. Hubbard Chair in British History Emerita: Judith Bennett, PhD*

Professor Emerita of History and John R. Hubbard Chair in British History Emerita: Cynthia Herrup, PhD

Professor Emerita and John R. Hubbard Chair Emerita in History: Carole Shammas, PhD

Emeritus Professors: Lois W. Banner, PhD*; Gordon M. Berger, PhD; Roger Dingman, PhD; Charlotte Furth, PhD; Paul W. Knoll, PhD; Franklin D. Mitchell, PhD; D. Brendan Nagle, PhD; Edwin J. Perkins, PhD; John E. Wills, PhD

Associate Professor Emeritus: Terry L. Seip, PhD*

*Recipient of university-wide or college teaching award.

The Department of History offers courses in ancient, medieval and modern European history, including Russian history; in both North and Latin American history; in the history of East 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 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, and completion of an honors thesis is required.

Degree Programs

The Department of History offers the BA, a minor, the MA and PhD in History; the BA in Law, History, and Culture; the BA in History and Social Science Education; and the minor in Resistance to Genocide.

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.

Undergraduate Degrees

Advisement

All history department majors should consult with the department student adviser and with one of our faculty advisers. Students should seek an appointment early in each semester so that an advisement file may be established for each student. The file will be kept current.

Bachelor of Arts in Middle East Studies

See the Department of Middle East Studies  for a complete listing of requirements.

Honors Program

The department offers a two-semester honors program, in which qualified students spend their first semester in an honors track in an upper-division seminar or take HIST 490x Directed Research  in their concentration. During the second semester, all honors 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.

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 provides advanced training in historical research and writing leading to the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Once admitted to the PhD program, a student in exceptional cases may work for a Master of Arts degree, but the department does not accept applicants for an MA. For further information, contact the director of the graduate program for the Department of History.

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 submitted to the director of the graduate program for the Department of History.

Procedure

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

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 the graduate program, the professor in their major field of study and other members of their qualifying exam committee.

Courses

• HIST 100gm The American Experience
• HIST 101g State and Society in the Ancient World
• HIST 102gm Medieval People: Early Europe and Its Neighbors, 400–1500
• HIST 103g The Emergence of Modern Europe
• HIST 104g Modern Europe
• HIST 105g The Korean Past
• HIST 106g Chinese Lives: An Introduction to Chinese History
• HIST 107gp Introduction to the History of Japan
• HIST 180g The Middle East
• HIST 185 Introduction to Armenian Studies and Armenian History
• HIST 195 Selected Themes and Topics in History
• HIST 201 Approaches to History
• HIST 215g Business and Labor in America
• HIST 220 Murder on Trial in America
• HIST 225g Film, Power, and American History
• HIST 235g War and the American Experience
• HIST 240gp The History of California
• HIST 245gm Gender and Sexualities in American History
• HIST 255g The Evolution Debates
• HIST 260gp Dramatizations of Korean History
• HIST 265g Racism, Sexism, and the Law
• HIST 266gp Business and East Asian Culture, 1800-Present
• HIST 268g Kings, Courts, and Clerics: Foundations of East Asian Political Culture
• HIST 270 Queens, Witches, Courtesans: Women and Power in Renaissance Europe
• HIST 271g Telling Native American Stories
• HIST 273g Colonial Latin America
• HIST 275g The Worlds of the Silk Road
• HIST 278 gp Ottomans and Empire: Anatolia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean World
• HIST 301 Religions of Ancient Egypt and the Near East
• HIST 302 From Sappho to Stonewall: Lesbians in History
• HIST 303 Barbarians, Romans, and Christians
• HIST 304 Archaeology of Egypt and the Near East
• HIST 305 From Goddesses to Witches: Women in Premodern Europe
• HIST 306 The Early Middle Ages
• HIST 307 Women in Medieval Europe, c. 1000–1500
• HIST 308 Britain and Ireland to 1200 C.E.
• HIST 309 Britain and Ireland, 1100–1500 C.E.
• HIST 310 Shadow of God on Earth: Religion/Politics in Medieval Persia
• HIST 312 The Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon
• HIST 313 France and the French from Napoleon to Mitterand
• HIST 316 The Renaissance
• HIST 317 gm North American Indians in American Public Life
• HIST 318 Early American Indian History
• HIST 320 Russian and Soviet Rebels: The Moral Dilemma and the Continuity of Dissent
• HIST 323 The Holocaust in 20th Century Europe
• HIST 324g Islam in Russia and the Soviet Union
• HIST 325 Early Modern Britain
• HIST 326 The Victorians
• HIST 327 Twentieth Century Britain
• HIST 328 Poland and the Western Tradition
• HIST 329 Madness and Society in the Modern Age
• HIST 330 Drugs, Disease, and Medicine in History
• HIST 331 The British Empire: 1588–1834
• HIST 332 British Empire from the Mid-19th Century
• HIST 333 Korea: The Modern Transformation
• HIST 334 History of the Samurai
• HIST 335 History of Japan to 1550
• HIST 336 History of Japan, 1550–1945
• HIST 337 Japan since 1945
• HIST 338 China to 960 A.D.
• HIST 339 China, 960–1800 A.D.
• HIST 340 History of China since 1800
• HIST 341 American Social History
• HIST 342 Love and Politics in America, 1750s to 2050s
• HIST 343 Work, Leisure, and Violence in Industrializing America
• HIST 344 The Vietnam War, 1945–1975
• HIST 345 Men and Women in United States History from the 1920s to the Present
• HIST 346 American Intellectual History
• HIST 347 Urbanization in the American Experience
• HIST 348 The Dynamics of American Capitalism
• HIST 349 Colonial North America 1600–1760
• HIST 350 American Standard of Living: 1600 to the Present
• HIST 351 The American Revolution
• HIST 352gp The American Civil War
• HIST 353 m Race and Racism in the Americas
• HIST 354 Mexican Migration to the United States
• HIST 355 The African-American Experience
• HIST 356 The Old South
• HIST 357 The New South
• HIST 358 U.S. Gay and Lesbian History
• HIST 360 19th Century U.S. History
• HIST 361 20th Century U.S. History
• HIST 363 Foundations of American Foreign Policy, 1776 to the Present
• HIST 365 The Second World War
• HIST 366 The People’s Republic of China
• HIST 369 Aztecs, Mayas, and other Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
• HIST 370 Spanish America, 1492–1821
• 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 378 m 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 Anglo-American Law before the 18th Century