Global Comprehensive Exams
Graduate Program: Global History Comprehensive Exam
The Graduate Regulations of the History Department govern how all students take the comprehensive examinations and defend the dissertation prospectus. Students should consult those regulations, as well as the day-of-exam rules outlined on the form which they must submit in advance of the examination. As an addition to those general departmental rules, this document outlines the specific regulations of the Global History field.
Upon application to the graduate program in global history at UNC-Chapel Hill, a student must suggest a theme as the area of concentration. On arrival, the student will have an adviser with an appropriate background. The possibilities, depending on faculty interest, include but are not limited to:
- Colonialism and Imperialism
- Commerce/Trade
- Demography
- Environment
- Ideologies
- Industrialization
- International Relations
- Labor
- Memory and History
- Migration/Diaspora
- Nationalism
- Peace and War
- Popular Culture
- Religion
- Science and Technology
- Slavery
- Women/Gender
Other areas of study. Beside the primary area, students in global History must select three additional areas. One or two may be geographical areas (for example, North America, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Europe, Russia), and one or two may be chronological areas in global history (pre-1800, post-1800). Thus, beyond the primary thematic area, a student may define two geographic areas and one chronological area, or one geographical area and two chronological areas. If a student decides to have just one chronological area, it must lie outside of the main chronological emphasis of the primary thematic area.
Comprehensive exams. In each of the four areas, there will be a written examination. Students will have eight hours to complete each examination, and the length of each examination response will be 10-15 pages (typed and double-spaced). A student may take all four examinations in one semester or over two consecutive semesters. The adviser must approve the schedule early in the semester in which the first examination is taken. As part of constructing this schedule, a student must secure the approval of each participating faculty member to the time for his/her examination. A faculty member may ask a student to synchronize an examination with those of other students.
Each student will prepare for each of the four examinations with an appropriate member of the faculty. In each case, student and faculty will decide on a reading list of 20-25 books, or their equivalent in articles, for each area. As a rule, they will also discuss the topics and issues from which the examination question is to come.
Faculty reading the comprehensive exams will assign graduate grades to each exam. In the event a student receives a grade of L or F on one exam, the student will receive a failing grade for that exam and he or she will be allowed to retake that exam within six months. A student receiving grades of L or F on two or more exams will receive a failing grade on those exams and will be allowed to retake the exams once no sooner than three months and no later than six months after having first taken the exams.
Please note that students who successfully take two geographical fields for their comprehensives will be considered to have completed the “second field” requirement for the Ph.D. in History.