History

History is a way of understanding the whole of the human condition as it has unfolded in time. Without history, nothing makes sense, from the meaning of words to the formation of identities, to institutions, states, and societies. History straddles the boundary between the social sciences and humanities. Like the other social sciences, it has established methods of investigation and proof, but it differs from them in that it encompasses, potentially, every area of human culture from the beginning of recorded time. Like the other humanities, it uses ordinary language and established modes of telling its stories, but it is constrained by evidence left us from the past.

The History Department is home to a distinguished group of scholar-teachers whose work ranges from the medieval to the post-modern, from the Middle East to the Midwest, from gender and sexuality to science and economics, from micro-history to world history.  

UPCOMING HISTORY EVENTS

 

HISTORY MATTERS:  Perpetrator Postmemory and Populism: Controversy about Collaboration with Nazi Germany in East Central Europe, Dr. Violeta Davoliūtė, Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University, Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 4:30 pm, PAC 001.

The Theory and Practice of History:  2019-20 seminar series.

  • November 14: Stefka Eriksen, Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage, “The Archaeology and Allegory of the Settlement of Iceland: Reflections on the Theory and Method of Interdisciplinary Environmental History.”  Boger Hall 115, 4:30pm.
  • February 6:  Heather Keenleyside, University of Chicago: “The Literary History of the History of Ideas,”  Boger Hall 113, 4:30pm.
  • March 5: Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen, University of Oulu, “How to Get it Wrong: Historiography, Normativity and the Holocaust Debate,”  Boger Hall 113, 4:30pm.
  • March 26: Achim Landwehr, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Dusseldorf, “Heiner – Hamlet – Hans. Chronoferences and the Power of ghosts,”  Boger Hall 113, 4:30pm.

Event Calendar

Nov 14

History Department Thesis Presentation

04:30 pm

PAC (Harriman Hall) PAC 136 (Heller Classroom)

From Our Department

Wesleyan in the News

Grimmer-Solem Authors Learning Empire

Kleinberg to Study Anarchy in History as Visiting Professor in Germany