Undergraduate Program | Graduate Program
European history at the University of Maryland combines bold scholarship and commitment to mentoring with the unparalleled resources of the Washington area. The 19 members of our European faculty work together, crossing chronological, geographical, and thematic boundaries, to train undergraduate and graduate students rigorously to rethink European history and Europe’s historical role in all its dimensions.
Distinguished fields of study range from the ancient Mediterranean and medieval world to the study of the twentieth century, and areas of internationally recognized strength include Central and Eastern Europe. In the modern European field, some of our most innovative research focuses on the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The European program maintains close ties to the Russian and Soviet history field as well as the British, Jewish, Women and Gender, and International and Diplomatic history programs. Notable thematic among interests faculty and students include politics and culture; economic and social history; revolutionary history; gender; and technology. We are actively pursuing the development of our interests in early modern Europe, transnational and international history, and the history of empire.
Students and faculty have the opportunity to work in the unique concentration of archival and library collections in the greater Washington area. These include of some of the world’s finest research institutions in European fields, including the Library of Congress, Dumbarton Oaks, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Agricultural Research Library, and the National Library of Medicine. The primary research facility of the U.S. National Archives, which houses collections of great importance for European history, is located immediately adjacent to the College Park campus. The metropolitan Washington, DC area hosts a brilliant array of institutes for advanced study, including the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [link: ], the German Historical Institute, the Centre for Early Christian Studies, the Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, among others. The diplomatic representations of individual nations of Europe and the European Union, as well as the permanent headquarters of major multilateral organizations such as the World Bank host cultural programs and scholarly talks, and many faculty and graduate students participate in informal Washington area faculty and graduate student groups. Maryland’s own European Workshop takes advantage of a constant flow of visiting scholars from around the world.
Our undergraduate field concentrators have won university and national awards and many have gone on to postbaccalauretae study at prestigious graduate and professional schools. Students in the master of arts and doctoral programs come to us with undergraduate and master's degrees from a wide range of institutions. In 2007, graduate students in the Modern European field held prior degrees from the American University in Bulgaria, Amherst College, the Johns Hopkins University, Ohio University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, and many others. Graduate students have been recipients of top national research and dissertation-writing fellowships, including, most recently, the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies Dissertation Fellowship, the Research Scholar Fellowship of the American Council of Teachers of Russian, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Research Fellowship, the International Research and Exchanges Board Fellowship, and the Foundation for the Research and Study of the East German Dictatorship Fellowship. Our graduate alumni have a high rate of placement into jobs as historians at research and teaching institutions as well as at such institutions as the National Archives and Records Administration, the U.S. Department of State, and the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum.
Join us! European history at Maryland has a distinguished past and an even brighter future.
European history opens the door to understanding some of the pivotal transformations of human society. The tools of analysis we convey to master it can open the door to rich and satisfying careers.
European history majors at Maryland are encouraged simultaneously to develop in-depth historical and linguistic tools for country and regional specialization and to interpret the full sweep of European history critically on the basis of a solid foundation of empirical knowledge. Our majors write a capstone seminar paper (HIST 408) under the close direction of a faculty mentor in our senior seminars. Many European history majors have written honors theses or won recognition and prizes from the College of Arts and Humanities and the University.
In addition to our fundamental curriculum of lower-level surveys, including the HIST 110-113 sequence, and upper-level courses, we have developed courses that select interesting and striking issues in the European experience in order to explore them in depth. A few recent examples include "Medieval Heresies"; "European Borderlands"; "War and Society in Eastern Europe"; "Mythologies of the City: Moscow and Petersburg in Russian Culture"; and "Intellectuals, Fascism, and Communism."
Undergraduate Program Homepage
Undergraduate Course Catalog | Current Course Offerings [Testudo]
The graduate program in European history at Maryland is known for intensive faculty involvement from the moment students enter the program through the time they finish dissertations and apply for jobs. Entering students take History 608C, the General Seminar in Modern European History, which prepares students to analyze differing approaches, methodologies, and techniques in the field. Students are also encouraged to take History 729, a course on historiography, sources, and key issues in modern Europe. Both courses contribute preparatory training for comprehensive examinations. Research papers are launched with close faculty oversight and discussion in 800-level seminars, and students work intensively with advisors in the early stages of their program in order to determine direction for dissertation research. Successive cohorts of students often learn from one another in graduate work-in-progress sessions, the European Workshop, and the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies, where they mix with faculty and graduate students in all fields.
Seminars are small, intensive, and rigorous. A few examples of recent seminar topics are "Readings in Modern European Economic and Labor History"; "Jews and German Culture: The Dilemmas of Ethnic and National Identity"; "Nations and Nationalism in East Central Europe"; "Islam in Europe: From the Ottoman Empire to the European Union"; "Readings in (European) Women’s History"; and "Russia and the West."
Graduate students in the master of arts program, including the History and Library Science dual-degree program, select a major field, based on one of three chronological options (e.g. Ancient Mediterranean, Mediaeval and Early Modern, and Modern), by region (e.g., Britain and Russia & Former USSR) or by theme. Coursework, research seminars, and the master's thesis or comprehensive examinations are grounded in this major field.
Students doctoral program are required to select a special field of study within one of the chronological, regional, or thematic general fields. Doctoral students are also required to select a minor field of study.
Graduate Course Catalog | Current Course Offerings [Testudo]
Last updated: October 6, 2007