History

The Department of History at Smith College endeavors to cultivate a critical understanding of past and present human societies that will help students to become informed, thoughtful and engaged participants in the world. By offering our students the opportunity to discover historical inquiry as a meaningful part of their humanistic formation, history contributes directly to the highest intellectual mission of the college.

The study of history at Smith thus aims to prepare students to:

• Locate, analyze, and craft their own understandings of the past from a wide range of primary sources.
• Place such analyses in the context of historical and interdisciplinary scholarship.

These goals are achieved through developing knowledge and skills specific to the historical profession and humanistic scholarship. Students majoring in History are expected to:

• Distinguish between primary and secondary sources and read them closely and critically.
• Be familiar with major interpretative frameworks in the discipline of history and understand theoretical and methodological issues in historical debate.
• Acquire experience in supervised and independent research.
• Develop analytical and writing skills necessary for research and for presenting findings effectively.

The history curriculum ultimately helps students understand more clearly not only their place in contemporary society but also relationships between longer-term political, social, economic, intellectual and cultural currents in our increasingly globalized world.

Students majoring in history demonstrate their skills and knowledge in the following ways:

a) Taking HST 150 and satisfying the history major’s distribution requirements (geographical, chronological and thematic).

b) Taking a research seminar and writing a major research essay (or completing a major semester-long research project that may include both writing and digital components), which engages both primary and secondary sources and demonstrates command of major interpretative frameworks in history.

c) Honors students write a thesis based on independent research in primary and secondary sources and defend it publicly.

Advisers: Jeffrey Ahlman, Marnie Anderson, Ernest Benz, Joshua Birk, Darcy Buerkle, Sergey Glebov, Jennifer Guglielmo, Richard Lim, Elizabeth Pryor.

Requirements for the Major in History

The history major comprises 11 semester courses, at least six of which shall normally be taken at Smith, distributed as follows:

• HST 150: The Historian’s Craft.
• Field of concentration: five semester courses, at least one of which is a Smith history department seminar. Two of these may be historically oriented courses at the 200-level or above in other disciplines approved by the student’s adviser.
• Fields of concentration: Antiquity; Islamic Middle East; East Asia; Europe, 300-1650; Europe since 1650 to the Present; Africa; Latin America; United States; Women’s History; Comparative Colonialism.
• Note: A student may also design a field of concentration, which should consist of courses related chronologically, geographically, methodologically or thematically and must be approved by an adviser.
• Additional courses: five courses, of which four must be in two fields distinct from the field of concentration.
• No more than three courses taken at the 100-level may count toward the major.
• Geographic breadth: among the 11 semester courses counting toward the major, there must be at least one course each in three of the following geographic regions:
• Africa
• East Asia and Central Asia
• Europe
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• Middle East and South Asia
• North America

Courses both in the field of concentration and outside the field of concentration may be used to satisfy this requirement. Courses cross-listed in the history department section of the catalogue count as history courses toward all requirements.

AP courses do not count toward the major.

The S/U grading option is not allowed for courses counting toward the major.

A reading knowledge of foreign languages is highly desirable and is especially recommended for students planning a major in history.
 

History Major Worksheet

History Major Worksheet

Advisers: Jeffrey Ahlman, Marnie Anderson, Ernest Benz, Darcy Buerkle, Sergey Glebov, Jennifer Guglielmo, Richard Lim, Elizabeth Pryor.

Requirements for the Minor in History

The minor comprises five semester courses. At least three of these courses must be related chronologically, geographically, methodologically or thematically. At least three of the courses will normally be taken at Smith. Students should consult their advisers.

The S/U grading option is not allowed for courses counting toward the minor.

Students wishing to pursue individualized study in their junior or senior years on campus may enroll in a Special Studies tutorial (HST 400). A student must secure the agreement of a faculty member to supervise a particular project prior to enrolling for a Special Studies. Examples of the kinds of work done in Special Studies tutorials include:

• In-depth reading in an area not covered in another course
• The execution of a research proposal developed in another course (either library research or empirical research); and other options, to be negotiated between the student and a particular faculty member

Director: Darcy Buerkle

History 430d Thesis
8 credits
Full-year course; offered each year

History 431 Thesis
8 credits
Offered fall semester each year

Requirements

The History honors program is a one-year program taken during the senior year. If admitted, students write a thesis in both semesters of the senior year, or they may propose to write the thesis in one semester, in each case for eight credits. Admission requires a grade-point average of 3.5 inside and outside the major.

The central feature of the history honors program is the writing of a senior thesis with the guidance of a faculty adviser. Each honors candidate defends the thesis at an oral examination which relates the thesis topic to the historical scholarship of the chosen field. The internal honors deadline for a complete polished draft suitable for review by a second reader is the Monday after spring break. Those drafts will then be evaluated by both the first and second readers. Readers will give comments that allow students to incorporate feedback so that they can turn in the final version by the College deadline, (the first week of April). A fall semester thesis is due the first day of the spring semester, with the oral defense normally falling before spring break.

If you would like to be considered for the honors program, meet with a faculty member in the history department to discuss your ideas and develop a proposal with the assistance of the potential thesis supervisor, during the spring semester of your junior year. Your proposal should include a full description of your topic, your planned research methodology (the breadth of sources you will use and how), a brief description of how your project fits into the historical scholarship on this topic, and a preliminary bibliography (including primary and secondary sources). The college requires that the faculty supervisor for the thesis be a member of the department, although you may have a second reader in another department or program. Submit your proposal to the Director of Honors in the History Department before the end of classes in your junior year, with the thesis supervisor’s signature.

Detailed information and the official application for honors are available at the class deans website under guidelines and forms for academic procedures.

The history honors major comprises 11 semester courses, at least six of which shall normally be taken at Smith, distributed as follows.

1. HST 150 The Historian’s Craft

2. Field of concentration: three semester courses, at least one of which is a Smith history department seminar. Two of these may be historically oriented courses at the 200–level or above in other disciplines, approved by the student's adviser.

3. The thesis counting for two courses (8 credits)

4. Four History courses or seminars, of which three must be in two fields outside the field of concentration

5. No more than three courses taken at the 100–level may count toward the major

6. Geographic breadth: among the 11 semester courses counting towards the major there must be at least one course each in three of the following geographic regions

   1. Africa

   2. East Asia and Central Asia

   3. Europe

   4. Latin America and the Caribbean

   5. Middle East and South Asia

   6. North America

Courses in the field of concentration and outside the field of concentration may be used to satisfy this requirement. 

Courses cross–listed in the history department section of the catalogue count as history courses toward all requirements.

AP courses do not count toward the major or the Honors program.

The S/U grading option is not allowed for courses counting toward the history honors major.

A reading knowledge of foreign languages is highly desirable and is especially recommended for students planning an Honors major.

History Honors students choose one of two formats for their Honors projects: either a traditional thesis or an experimental thesis.

Traditional thesis: 

Historically, students wrote theses in the form of an extended essay, ranging in length from 60 to 100 pages. Theses are expected to develop a research question, locate the question in existing historiography, and utilize primary sources, demonstrating command of historical methods of inquiry and the ability to conduct independent research and analyze primary sources. The student defends the thesis before the thesis committee consisting of the thesis supervisor and at least one second faculty reader.

Experimental thesis:

The experimental thesis includes all of the above but is written in the form of a research article to be published in an undergraduate journal. The Honors student in consultation with the adviser develops a research question, analyzes existing historiography, conducts independent research and interprets primary sources. In the fall semester, the student completes the draft of a research article of 10-15 thousand words. In the spring semester, the student polishes and edits the article, and submits it to a peer-reviewed undergraduate journal. The experimental model also includes a defense of the thesis before the thesis committee consisting of the adviser and at least one second faculty reader. 

Recent honors thesis titles include:

"British and American Women in National-Socialist Propaganda"
"The Chinese Exclusion Era: Media, Politics and Community"
"The Choreography of Crucifixion" 
"La Reina, La Loca: The Medieval 'Madness' of Queen Juana I" 
"Imagining the Famiy: Neoliberalism and Welfare's End in the United States" 
"Rethinking Imperialism: Globalization, Trade, and Tea in the Qing Dynasty" 
"Sacral King to Augural Emperor: Transformations in Perspectives of Divination from Numa to Augustus"
"Between Russian and United States: Concepts and Conflicts of Jewish Citizenship and Subjecthood in the Early Twentieth Century"
 "When I Need You, I Shall Send For You: An Analysis of Aksumite and Himyarite Authority in an East Roman World"
"Are You Not Entertained? Gladiatorial Munera and the Making of Roman Imperial Careers"
"The Girl Behind the Man behind the Gun": Class Distinctions Among British Women Munitions Workers During the First World War"
"Specters from the Nursery: Issues of Legitimacy and the Impact of Rumor on the Glorious Revolution of 1688/89"
"Sixth-Century Italy: Crisis and Change, Reconciling Frankish Annals with Their Sources"
"we enjoyed Mrs. Woolf but felt her Cambridge was not ours"
"Merit-Based Admissions to Kosher Kitchens: Changing Demands of Jewish Students at Smith College, 1887 to Present Day"
"Caught with their Pants Down: Clausewitz versus Sun Tzu in Light of Hitler's Military Collapse in Normandy"
"From Active Cathar to Passive Dominican: The Evolution of Women's Spirituality in Medieval Southern France"
"The Presentation of a Queen [Elizabeth I of England]"
"The White Woman’s Burden [in India under the British Raj]"
"Mother or Devil: Interpreting the Mistress-Slave Girl Bond [in the United States]"
"From Intransigence to Consensus: A History of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland"
"The Intersection of Public Policy and Social Movements: A Study of Black Power Student Movements at Two Northern Urban Universities 1966-1972"
"The British in Ireland: The Ulster Plantation"
"Stalking a Lost Deed: The End of Democracy in Postwar Czechoslovakia"
"Horsemen of the Apocalypse: German Expressionists and the Process of Political Radicalization"
"A United Front for Peace and Freedom: Anti-Fascism, Activist Politics, and their Impact on Political Culture, 1922-1939 [in the United States]"
"Two Aspects of the Medieval Soul: Medieval Sexuality and the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus"
"Too Jewish? Ethnicity and Assimilation in American Vaudeville 1880-1930"
"The Right to Resistance: The Development of Constitutional Theory in Sixteenth-Century France"
"The Desert with No Walls: Reassessing the Historical Portrayal of Early Egyptian Monasticism"
"Avant-Garde with Mass Appeal: Potemkin and Mother as Popular Cinema"
"National Political Awareness in the Localities Before and During the English Civil Wars"
"Anne Boleyn and the Politics of Religious Reform"
"Excuse me, but did you hear a piercing scream?": British Foreign Policy 1935-38, and the Failure of Collective Security in the Political Cartoons of David Low"
"Blest Be the Tie that Binds: Mennonites, Conscientious Objectors, and the American State, 1917-1947"
"The Constitutions of Clarendon: Their Role in the Dispute between Thomas Becket and King Henry II"
"To Bear, or not to bear...: The marital and maternal choices of Mary and Elizabeth"
"The Propitious Problem of Shell Shock: World War I as a Turning Point for Psychiatry in Britain and Germany"
"Laquelle était la vraie France? Vichy France, Free France, and the International Labour Organisation during World War II"
"An Exploration of the Alta California Presidios as Agents of Colonialism With a Special Focus on the Chumash Revolt of 1824"
"Imperial Insanity: The Role of Imperial Ideology in the Understanding and Treatment of Shell-Shock in the First World War"
"Gendering Reform: Aristocratic Vice, Old Corruption, and the Mary Anne Clarke Affair in the Story of English Reform, 1763-1820"
"The Evolution of Greek Identity in the Roman World: Understanding, Accepting, and Supporting Roman Rule"
"Carriers of the Nation: Changes in Women’s Reproductive Power in the AIDS-era: A Case Study of Botswana"
"The Lobo-Cabernite Affair: A Close Look at the Case Study as History and Historical Problem"
“She’s Not There”: Beyond the Vilifications of Norma Khouri’s Honor Lost "
"Defining Rites: Parliamentary Discourse on the Kenyan Female Circumcision Crisis 1929-1931"
"Swells, Men of the World, and Gentlemen: The Construction of Masculinities in London High Society, 1850-1880"
“Our Republic”: St. Enda’s College 1908-1916"
"Warwick the Queenmaker: John Dudley and the Succession Crisis of 1553"
"The Tenishev School Experiment: Pedagogy and Poetry"
"How Personal Crisis Made the Risorgimento: Mazzini and Cavour Before and After 1836"
“A Very Threatened and Nervous Group of People”: Public Scrutiny of Sexuality at Smith College in Two Historical Moments"
"Ambiguous Selves: Madeleine Pelletier’s Interwar Autobiographical Writing"
"Revival in Uganda: Church, State, and the Mukono Crisis of 1941"
"On Our Backs With a Bad Attitude: A History of the First Lesbian Sex Magazines"
"When the 'Brown Pest' Showed up at the Party: St. Pauli under the Nazi Regime"
"Remembering and Misremembering Louis Antoine Saint-Just""
"I defy anyone to take from me this independent like which I have given myself in the centuries and in the skies': Louis Antoine Saint-Just, Between Man and Myth"
"Stalinist Orientalism: Images of Soviet Central Asians and Deterritorialized National Identities in USSR in Construction"
"Let Us Sing Our Victory Long Live Sound"
"Popular Music in the American and French Revolutions"
"Legend and Myth-making during the Duke d'Enghien Affair"
"The Interim Solution: The Nazification of Hamburg's Germanistikand the Existence of the German University under National Socialism"
"Constructions of Islamic Identity: What is the Role of Islamic Institutions in Response to the Challence of Laicite in France"

History students at Smith choose from more than 50 courses taught by active scholars. The department offers classes in the ancient Mediterranean world, medieval and modern Europe, the United States, the Middle East, East Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Note: for the official list of course offerings for this semester, consult the schedule on Workday, or the online course search.

HST 150 (L) The Historian's Craft
Jeffrey S. Ahlman, Casey Bohlen

HST 200 (L) Modern East Asia
Marnie S. Anderson, Ernest Benz

HST 202 (L) Ancient Greece
Richard Lim

HST 206 (C) Topics in Ancient History: Diseases, Health and Medicine in the Ancient World
Richard Lim

HST 208 (L) Introduction to the History of the Modern Middle East
Angela Giordani

HST 223 (C) Women and Gender in Japanese History: Ancient Times to the 19th Century
Marnie S. Anderson

HST 225 (L) Making of the Medieval World, 1000-1350
Joshua Birk

HST 234 (C) Global Africa
Jeffrey S. Ahlman

HST 241 (L) Soviet Union in the Cold War
Serguei Glebov

HST 252 (L) Women and Gender in Modern Europe, 1789-1918
Darcy C. Buerkle

HST 278 (C) Decolonizing U.S. Women's History
Jennifer Mary Guglielmo

HST 280 (C) Topics in United States Social History: Im/migration and Transnational Cultures
Jennifer Mary Guglielmo

HST 355 (S) Topics in Social History: Gender and the Aftermath of War in the Twentieth Century
Darcy C. Buerkle

HST 371 (S) Topics in 19th Century United States History: Remembering Slavery: A Gendered Reading of the WPA Interviews
Elizabeth S. Pryor

HST 390 (S) Teaching History
Kate Todhunter

HST 399 (S) Historical Pedagogy
Jeffrey S. Ahlman

Cross Listed Courses

AMS 227 Trade and theft in Early America
Cristen Mucher

ENV 207 Introduction to Environmental History
Matthew Ghazarian

JUD 287 The Holocaust
Ernest Benz, Justin Daniel Cammy

LAS 201 Colloquium in Latin American Studies: Banana Republics--Crops and Capitalism
Javier Puente

MES 208 Introduction to the History of the Modern Middle East
Angela Giordani

MES 213 Sex and Power in the Middle East
Angela Giordani

Five College Courses

UMass Amherst

HIST 117 Science & Society/Modern China
Sigrid Schmalzer

HIST 180 Western Science and Technology I
Hadi Jorati

HIST 181 Western Science and Technology II
Shay Olmstead

HIST 380 SciTechWar - 20th Century U.S./Europe
Emily Hamilton

WGSS 286 History of Sexuality and Race in the U.S.
Tiarra Cooper

Hampshire College

CS 0257 Psychological Revolutions
Ethan Ludwin-Peery

Interterm 2023

Spring 2023

HST 150 (L) The Historian's Craft
Jeffrey Ahlman, Casey Bohlen

HST 201 (L) The Slik Road and Premodern Eurasia
Richard Lim

HST 203 (L) Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World
Richard Lim

HST 213 (L) History of Modern China
Jesse Watson

HST 217 (L) World War Two in East Asia: History and Memory
Marnie Anderson

HST 226 (L) Renaissance and Reformation? Europe in the Late Middle Ages: Society, Culture, and Politics 
Joshua Birk

HST 229 (C) A World Before Race?: Ethnicity, Culture and Difference in the Middle Ages
Joshua Birk

HST 236 (L) World History 1000-2000: The European Millennium?
Ernest Benz

HST 239 (L) Imperial Russia, 1650-1917
Sergey Glebov

HST 249 (L) Early Modern Europe 1600-1815
Ernest Benz

HST 253 (L) Women and Gender in Contemporary Europe
Darcy Buerkle

HST 259fm (C) Topics in African History-Femininities, Masculinities and Sexualities in Africa
Jeffrey Ahlman

HST 266 (L) Emancipation and the Afterlife of Slavery
Elizabeth Pryor

​HST 267 (L) United States, 1877-1945: Race, Capitalism, Justice
Jennifer Guglielmo

HST 270sr (C) Topics in American History-Anatomy of a Slave Revolt
Elizabeth Pryor

HST 271 (C) Religion and US Capitalism
Casey Bohlen

HST 274 (L) US History Since 1945
Casey Bohlen

HST 286 (C) Recent Historiographic Debates in the History of Gender and Sexuality
Darcy Buerkle

HST 383dw (S) Topics-Research in U.S. Women's History-Domestic Worker Organizing
Jennifer Guglielmo

HST 399 (S) Historical Pedagogy
Jeffrey Ahlman

Cross-Listed Courses

AFR 117 (L) History of African American People to 1960
Samuel Ng

MES 225 (C) Egypt-Mother of the World
Angela Giordani

REL 223 (L) Modern Jews: A Global Diaspora
Lois Dubin

SWG 270 (C) Oral History and Lesbian Subjects
Kelly Anderson

AMS 302 (S) The Material Culture of New England, 1630–1860
Barbara Mathews

ARX 340 (S) Taking the Archives Public
Kelly Anderson

ENV 331 (S) Famine: A Global Political Ecology
Matthew Ghazarian

JUD 362yl (S) Topics in Jewish Studies-Yiddishland
Justin Cammy

LAS 301hw (S) Topics in Latin American and Latino/a Studies-Deep History of Water
Javier Puente

MES 322 (S) Arab Revolutions
Angela Giordani

Prerequisites for Candidates for Admission

• Transcript of undergraduate study giving evidence of academic achievement
• GRE examination

Distribution Requirement of Courses in History for the MAT Degree in History

The distribution requirement of courses in history can be fulfilled by courses taken at Smith College or by comparable courses taken at other colleges or universities prior to enrollment at Smith College. Equivalency will be determined in the manner currently used by the Curriculum Committee of the Department of History in evaluating and, if warranted, granting credit toward the undergraduate major for courses taken while studying away from Smith College. It is assumed that, normally, MAT candidates in history will have had a major or minor in history for their bachelor's degree and that their history courses taken at Smith College will supplement and build on their earlier courses in history at the college level.

For more information about applying to the MAT Program in History visit the Department of Education and Child Study or contact the Office of Graduate & Special Programs, 413-585-3050.

Optimal Preparation

Ten history courses at the intermediate or advanced level, comparable to undergraduate courses at the 200 or 300 level at Smith College, distributed in four fields, as follows:

• Two courses in U.S. history
• Two courses in European history (since the Fall of Rome), one of which must treat history in the main before 1789, and one of which must treat history in the main after 1789
• Two courses in ancient Greek and/or Roman history
• Four courses in non-Western history, normally chosen from the following fields:
  • Chinese or Japanese history
  • Islamic history
  • Latin-American history
  • African history is also recommended, though it is currently not offered on a regular basis in the department.
  • Courses in the history of the Indian subcontinent and of other regions of Asia may also be counted toward the "non-Western" distribution requirement, even though no courses in these fields of history are offered on a regular basis in the department

MAT candidates in history have the option of concentrating two of their four courses in non-Western history in the same field.

Minimal Requirements

Seven history courses (as stated above), distributed in four fields as follows:

• Two courses in U.S. history
• Two courses in European history (since the Fall of Rome), as specified above
• One course in ancient Greek or Roman history
• Two courses in non-Western history, as specified above