History (AB)

Program Overview

History offers all students within the university an opportunity to investigate the past, gain perspective on the present, and improve their critical faculties. There are three broad objectives for those who major in history as a discipline. First, it offers students broad exposure to the histories of our own and other societies, to the recent and the more distant past, and to the variety of approaches to the study of history. Second, it allows the in-depth study of the history of a particular time and place or a particular type of history. Breadth of knowledge is achieved through the distribution requirements for coursework across geographic areas and in pre-modern as well as modern history. Depth is achieved through the requirement that students identify a concentration. Third, it develops the skills of historical thinking necessary for better understanding our own and other human societies and teaches majors to gather and interpret evidence and how to fashion and compellingly convey arguments grounded in that evidence.

Taken as a whole our curriculum will prepare majors to:

Understand history as a discipline. This involves developing knowledge within a chosen area of concentration, realizing that historical interpretations change over time, and seeing the ways in which historians find layered, complex causes and connections in human affairs.
Build critical and analytic skills. This involves learning to define research questions and to frame them as part of ongoing scholarly conversations. You will also learn to establish what contexts matter in answering those research questions, how to find a variety of relevant evidence – from speeches to visual materials to court records and beyond – and how to analyze it effectively to help refine and answer the questions posed.
Enhance their skills in written and oral communication. This involves communicating and writing with clarity and cogency and understanding that, in History, content (what something says) cannot be separated from form (how it is said).

Our curriculum is structured around an area of thematic concentration and book-ended by two hands-on seminars: a Gateway Seminar that introduces students to the fundamentals of historical research and analysis, and a Capstone Seminar that gives students the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned in their time as a History major.

Honors Thesis and Graduation with Distinction

Students pursuing distinction normally apply for a year-long senior honors seminar (HISTORY 495S/496S) in March of the junior year. In special circumstances, students may also prepare a thesis outside this sequence. Either way, most students begin their thesis research during the summer before the senior year, and all students pursuing distinction work closely with a faculty thesis advisor, usually through an independent study each semester.

Thesis writers are expected to produce a well-written research essay substantially engaged with primary sources and engaged with ongoing historiographic conversations. Most theses run 80-120 pages.

Upon its completion, the thesis will be evaluated by a committee of at least three faculty to determine the honors level of the thesis: Distinction, High Distinction or Highest Distinction. The department also recognizes senior theses with two prizes: the William T. Laprade Prize for most outstanding thesis, and the Raymond Gavins prize, awarded to an outstanding thesis in African-American history, the history of Civil Rights movements, and/or the history of the US South. Both prizes are accompanied by a $250 cash award.

Students will also have the opportunity to archive their thesis work in the Duke University Library.

Website: history.duke.edu/undergraduate/major

U-HIST-AB - History (AB)

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