Graduate Studies In Comparative History
The graduate program in comparative history leads to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Applicants wishing to take only the degree of Master of Arts may apply for admission to the M.A. program described below. Deadline for applications to the Ph.D. program is January 15; for applications to the M.A. degree program, it is April 30.
Our program has a unique distinction: it alone in the United States trains students in comparative history. The comparative method in history is widely honored and little practiced. To study historical conditions, developments, or personalities comparatively is to explore the ways in which they differ and thus the ways in which each is unique. It also means to approach them from different angles. This is the exciting exercise that results in a fuller and firmer understanding of the past.
During their two-year residence, our students learn the main historical research methods in current use in addition to the comparative method itself. They also study the major schools of historiography since antiquity. No historical development is viewed in isolation or as self-contained, but rather in the broadest context of European and world history.
The core graduate faculty came to form the graduate program in the late 1960s and brought with them their most talented doctoral students. The late Geoffrey Barraclough, a pioneer in world history, and the late Frank Manuel, a master in the history of science and religious thought, figure among the eminent early faculty.
Then and now candidates for the Ph.D. program find it appealing because of the enormous versatility in method and diversity of conceptual approach. In close contact with a wide-ranging and distinguished faculty, they develop expertise in medieval, early modern or modern European history. Current faculty include: Silvia Arrom (Latin America, women's history); Rudolph Binion (culture and thought, psycho-history); Gregory Freeze (Russia and Germany, social history); Mark Hulliung (History of Ideas, political history); Paul Jankowski (modern European and French history); William Kapelle (medieval history); Alice A. Kelikian (Italy, social history); Antony Polonsky (Poland, East European Jewry); John E. Schrecker (East Asian history, Sino-Western relations); Govind Sreenivasan (Germany, early modern Europe); Ibrahim Sundiata (Africa, slavery, the African diaspora).
The comparative history program gives students a broad understanding of historical developments and fosters the ability to make cross-cultural comparisons. The thematic approach is central to the process. The Brandeis history faculty is exceptionally diverse in its interests and offers the student a variety of approaches to the past, such as the study of political structure, social relations and institutions, women and the family, war and diplomacy, psychohistory, culture, or thought. Each student will read widely on two topical areas, and in the process learn what developments were unique and which ones were comparable over time and space.
Finally, students will take an outside field beyond the areas of their qualifying examinations. This may be in another area of history such as Asia, Jewish history, or the history of science. It may also be in related programs such as anthropology, economics, English and American literature, literary studies, Near Eastern and Judaic studies, politics, or sociology.
The program is designed to prepare students for the competitive academic environment of the next decade. It trains them in methods of historical research and equips them to teach a broad range of subjects. On a deeper level, comparative history fosters intellectual flexibility and interdisciplinary skills that can be creatively employed inside and outside academia.
A small, select student body will work in close cooperation with the faculty. Most instruction will take place in seminars specifically designed for graduate students or in individual conferences with faculty advisors. From the beginning, the curriculum will help students prepare for their qualifying examinations and guide them toward eventual dissertation research.
During the first year, students must prepare a major research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the principal advisor. The paper may be comparative in research (involving two or more symmetrical case studies), or it may focus upon a single case (with that research informed by a reading of secondary literature on similar cases). The paper constitutes the major intellectual enterprise of the first year, and students devote one-quarter of their time to it. Students must also enroll in HIST 210a (Historical Research: Methods and New Departures). During their first two years of residence, students must also enroll in comparative history seminars that treat significant problems in a comparative perspective and introduce students to the methods and issues of comparative history. European specialists will also enroll in two introductory graduate colloquia, which cover the early modern and modern periods. Finally, before they may take the qualifying examination, all students must complete a tutorial or other work focusing on a part of the world geographically or chronologically removed from their principal area of specialization with a view to gaining a comparative perspective on their major research interest.
Students specializing in European history are expected to have a general mastery of a major and a minor field of history, either medieval, early modern (1450-1750), or modern (1750-present). Students specializing in non-European history will present a major and minor field approved by the executive committee. Two faculty members examine in the major field; one faculty member shall examine for the minor field. First- and second-year colloquia shall provide the basic groundwork for field preparation. By the beginning of the fourth semester the student must submit a working orals bibliography, which will serve as the basis for the qualifying exam, to be administered by the end of the fourth semester. The exact delimitation of the major and minor fields is to be made by the student and examiners, with the formal approval of the chair of the Comparative History Program.
Students should normally plan to complete all work for the doctorate, including the dissertation, within eight years after entering the program; prolongation of study past the eighth year takes place on a case-by-case basis.
Our placement record compares well with the best in the country, and our alumni have pursued prominent careers out of all proportion to their small numbers. Graduates from the Program in Comparative History with distinguished records of publication include: Robert Aldrich (University of Sydney); Elazar Barkan (Claremont Graduate University); Ruth Ben-Ghiat (New York University); James Cronin (Boston College); Maura Hametz (Old Dominion University); Susan Kingsley Kent (Associate Chancellor, University of Colorado at Boulder); Raffael Scheck (Colby College); and Deborah Valenze (Barnard College).