Over the past decade and a half, as the historical profession has moved in new directions, the Stony Brook Department of History has launched itself into the vanguard of a parallel re-visioning of graduate education. In 1997, the department reorganized its graduate program along thematic lines. Having anticipated what have become deepening trends in history scholarship and job markets, the program in history at Stony Brook now draws on over a decade of experience in re-thinking historical specialties that have long been defined by geographic region and time period. Our innovative approach, now taken by other history departments as a model, prepares students for research and teaching about the past not just for a single corner of the world, but in its relationship and interdependence with other places. At Stony Brook, many courses and much teaching now revolve around fundamental sets of ideas which are continuing to reshape historical scholarship about many times and locales. Our graduate students still receive solid grounding in the national or regional histories and periods of their choosing. But our thematic emphasis enables them also to think across and beyond these boundaries, in ways that make for cutting-edge scholarship, as well as timely and insightful teaching.
Our “thematic clusters” build on the strengths of a nationally and internationally renowned faculty. Stony Brook faculty have received awards from virtually every major public and private foundation that supports history, from the National Science Foundation to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center to the Wilson Center. Among the current faculty are four recent recipients of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, a record that even our Ivy League counterparts have to envy. As a recent review of the department by distinguished historians noted, “this record of national and international recognition confirms the widespread recognition of Stony Brook’s history faculty as in the very top tier.” This record of scholarship has not come at the cost of their teaching. The History Department has a strong culture of teaching excellence at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Whether Europeanist or Latin Americanist or Asianist or Americanist, graduate students have ample chances to study with faculty in their own geographic specialty, as well as to work with other faculty specializing in the thematic clusters of interest them. Please click on the links at right for description of current thematic clusters, as well as associated faculty and their research interests.
The Stony Brook graduate program in history currently offers two degree tracks: for a doctoral degree, and for a terminal master’s degree. Those admitted to the doctoral program must also earn a master’s degree, and then undertake research culminating in a book-length dissertation. Those admitted to the master’s program take the same or similar courses, but must meet a different set of requirements. Upon completing the terminal master’s, students in this program must reapply if they wish to enter the doctoral program. Please check out the above link to learn more about our current graduate students, their projects, and their accomplishments. For information about applying to the program, also on tuition and funding, see the above links, also the Graduate School application and financial and residential information pages.
Friday, September 26th, 2008
Please click here for this fall’s schedule of papers and speakers in this initiative. The series is a collaborative effort of the History and Sociology Departments at Stony Brook.
