Global History
Convenor: W. Miles Fletcher
Program Description
The graduate program in global history emphasizes the study of processes that transcend regions, nations, and even any single civilization. These processes include colonialism and imperialism, nationalism, international relations, environment, religion, ideologies, labor, migration/diaspora, industrialization, peace and war, science and technology, slavery, women/gender, commerce/trade, popular culture, and demography. Those doing global history attempt to see these and related developments from a planetary perspective, applying historical insights to diverse peoples and cultures in ways not possible from the vantage point of established regional and national history.
The Graduate Program
Students entering the field take two foundational seminars introducing major works while at the same time defining a primary thematic area of research. The choice of advisor and the focus of M.A. and Ph.D. research will reflect that thematic area. Because global history involves studying processes that have an impact beyond a single nation or region, students may take courses with faculty specializing in several different areas. Aside from the courses available in the History Department, students may find useful offerings in other departments at this university and at Duke University. Those interested in more detail regarding the course of study and regulations governing the global history field should see the Ph.D. Program in Global History.
Recently inaugurated, UNC's doctoral global history program has a strong base of faculty with wide ranging interests as well as active engagement by currently enrolled graduate students. Support is available for language training as well as for overseas research. A Global History Group, consisting of both faculty and graduate students, administers the field and sponsors speakers and discussions.
Click here for information about Comprehensive Exams in Global History
Faculty
| Daniel Botsman | Associate Professor | Prinston | Japanese social history, Comparative history of pre-modern societies, law and empire in early modern and modern periods, women and gender; Japanese society in the Tokugawa and Meiji periods |
| Christopher R. Browning | Frank Porter Graham D.P. | Wisconsin | Comparative genocide, holocaust studies, Modern German history |
| Kathryn J. Burns | Associate Professor | Harvard | Gender/women's history, Colonial Latin American |
| John C. Chasteen | Daniel W. Patterson D.T.P. | UNC-CH | Popular and political culture, 19thcentury Latin America, especially Brazil, |
| W. Miles Fletcher | Professor, Associate Chair, & Undergraduate Director | Yale | Japanese history, Industrialization, international trade, business history and the political economy of modern Japan |
| Karen Hagemann | James G. Kenan D.P. | Hamburg, Berlin | History of gender, nations and nationalisms in a comparative perspective, Modern German and European history, Modern German and European history of military and war (18-20 C.); cultural and gender history of the the nation, the military, and warwomen's and gender history, social and cultural history, military history; German and European women's and gender history (18-20 C.), history of masculinities, social and cultural history, history nation, military and war. |
| Michelle King | Assistant Professor | Chinese history, gender history, cross-cultural interactions, Comparative gender, colonialism/imperialism, late imperial China. eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China | |
| Lloyd S. Kramer | Dean Smith D.T.P. & Dept. Chair | Cornell | Nationalism, cross-cultural exchanges in the modern period, modern European intellectual history |
| Christopher Lee | Assistant Professor | Stanford | Sub-Saharan Africa, imperialism, post-colonial studies |
| Wayne E. Lee | Associate Professor | Duke | Early modern military history, Colonial and Native America, British empire |
| Lisa A. Lindsay | Associate Professor | Michigan | African history, slavery and slave trade, colonialism and imperialism, gender history. |
| Terence V. McIntosh | Associate Professor | Yale | Economic and social history; early modern Europe, Early Modern European economic and social history |
| Cynthia Radding | Gussenhoven D.P. | UC-San Diego | Colonial Latin America, early republic, environmental history, ethnohistory, comparative |
| Yasmin Saikia | Associate Professor | Wisconsin | Memory; Local narratives; Post-Colonial South Asia; Colonialism, nationalism, gender issues, gender history, Islam and Identity politics |
| Sarah D. Shields | Associate Professor | Chicago | Islamic civilization; modern Middle East, history of gender and nation. |
| Jay M. Smith | John Van Setters D.T.P. | Michigan | Comparative Revolutions, language and identity, political cultures, Early modern French history, cultural, intellectual |
| Michael Tsin | Associate Professor | Princeton | Modern Chinese history; Nationalism, coloniality and modernities, cultural studies |
Graduate Students Pursuing a Degree in Global History
Graduate Students Taking Global History as a Second Field
- Michael Allsep
- Randy Browne
- David Carlson
- Catherine Conner
- David Cline
- Jeffrey Erbig
- Brit Erslev
- Edward Geist
- Joshua Guthman
- Laurence Hare
- Pamella Lach
- John Mini
- Joshua Nadel
- Laura M. Puaca
- Donna K. Goforth
- Gregory Kaliss
- Natasha Naujoks
- Blake Slonecker
- Devyn Spence
- Philipp Stelzel
- Sarah Vierra
- Jacqueline Whitt
Resources and Related Links
- World History Association (http://www.thewha.org)