Department of Ancient and Modern History

Department of Ancient and Modern History
Name	Department of Ancient and Modern History
Established	19th century
Type	Academic department
Location	University campus
Dean	---
Website	---

Department of Ancient and Modern History The Department of Ancient and Modern History is an academic unit bridging studies of antiquity and modernity with interdisciplinary connections to Ptolemaic dynasty, Achaemenid Empire, Roman Republic, Han dynasty, Vikings, Byzantine Empire, Charlemagne, Norman Conquest, Renaissance, Reformation, Thirty Years' War, Age of Discovery, Enlightenment, Napoleonic Wars, Congress of Vienna, Industrial Revolution, American Revolution, French Revolution, Latin American wars of independence, Meiji Restoration, World War I, Russian Revolution, World War II, Cold War, Decolonization, European Union. The department integrates teaching on figures such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Augustus, Constantine the Great, Charlemagne, Erasmus, Martin Luther, Voltaire, Napoleon Bonaparte, Otto von Bismarck, Vladimir Lenin, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Simón Bolívar, Sun Yat-sen and institutions like British Museum, Library of Congress, Vatican Library, National Archives (United Kingdom), Imperial Academy of Sciences (Russia). The curriculum emphasizes primary sources, historiography, and comparative approaches across regions such as Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, China, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, Mesoamerica, Andean civilizations, Ottoman Empire, Safavid Empire, Mughal Empire, Tokugawa shogunate, Qing dynasty.

Overview

The department offers courses on periods from the Neolithic Revolution through the Digital Revolution, covering topics like the Peloponnesian War, Punic Wars, Crusades, Mongol Empire, Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta, Treaty of Westphalia, Spanish Armada, Glorious Revolution, American Civil War, Battle of Gettysburg, Treaty of Versailles, Nuremberg Trials, Suez Crisis, Vietnam War, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Rwandan genocide, Arab Spring, and comparative studies of diplomacy involving the Treaty of Tordesillas, Congress of Berlin (1878), Yalta Conference, Marshall Plan. Faculty research often engages primary sources from collections such as the British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Vatican Secret Archives, Pergamon Museum, Hermitage Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Archaeological Museum (Athens), Uffizi Gallery.

History and Development

Founded in the 19th century amid curricular reforms influenced by figures like Leopold von Ranke, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edward Gibbon, the department expanded through ties to excavations at Pompeii, Ephesus, Khorsabad, Mohenjo-daro, Çatalhöyük and collaborations with institutions such as British School at Rome, British Institute at Ankara, German Archaeological Institute, École française d'Athènes, American Academy in Rome. During the 20th century the department incorporated material culture studies inspired by scholars linked to Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, Fernand Braudel, Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, Carlo Ginzburg, Eric Hobsbawm, E.P. Thompson, Annales School. Postwar expansion saw appointments of specialists in areas from Byzantium to Modern China, and partnerships with museums like Ashmolean Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and archives including the National Archives and Records Administration, Bundesarchiv, Archivio di Stato di Venezia.

Academic Programs

Undergraduate and graduate degrees include BA, MA, MPhil, and PhD tracks covering topics in classical studies, medieval studies, early modern history, modern European history, imperialism, nationalism, global history, and area studies for South Asia, East Asia, Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania. Methodological courses address palaeography with manuscripts from Book of Kells, Dead Sea Scrolls, and diplomatic history involving Treaty of Paris (1783), Treaty of Nanking, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; social history engages case studies on Black Death, Great Depression, Irish Famine, Taiping Rebellion, Spanish Civil War. Joint programs link to departments associated with Archaeological Survey of India, Institut national d'histoire de l'art, School of Oriental and African Studies, Institute for Advanced Study.

Research and Publications

Faculty publish monographs and articles with presses and journals tied to Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Harvard University Press, University of California Press, and periodicals such as The Journal of Roman Studies, Speculum, Past & Present, American Historical Review, English Historical Review, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Journal of Asian Studies. Ongoing projects include digitization of archives related to Letters of Abelard and Heloise, cataloguing collections from Knossos, editions of chronicles like The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and collaborative grants with funders such as European Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust.

Faculty and Staff

The department’s professors and lecturers include specialists in fields tied to names such as Mary Beard, Peter Brown, Simon Schama, Niall Ferguson, Jill Lepore, Eric Hobsbawm (historical influence), Christopher Wickham, Judith Herrin, Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar, Ranajit Guha, Friedrich Engels (historical subject), and contemporary scholars affiliated with institutes like Institute of Historical Research, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Antiquity. Administrative staff coordinate archives, outreach, and partnerships with consortia including the European University Institute, International Association of Historical Societies, World Archaeological Congress.

Facilities and Collections

Onsite facilities include seminar rooms, a palaeography lab, a numismatics suite, and a manuscripts reading room housing facsimiles and originals connected to Codex Sinaiticus, Magna Carta (original) fragments, and papyri from Oxyrhynchus. The collections feature cast reconstructions from Parthenon, plaster casts of Trajan's Column, medieval charters from Canterbury Cathedral, coins from Alexander the Great and Achaemenid Empire, and photographic archives of excavations at Knossos, Uruk, Çatalhöyük, Hattusa. The department maintains computing clusters for GIS projects mapping routes such as the Silk Road, Trans-Saharan trade routes, and databases of prosopography for periods like the Late Antiquity.

Outreach and Public Engagement

Public programs include lecture series with visiting scholars from Princeton University, Harvard University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, École Normale Supérieure, and exhibitions co-curated with British Museum, National Gallery, Tate Modern, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; workshops for teachers use primary sources from Domesday Book, Treatises of Niccolò Machiavelli, Adam Smith; public seminars address contemporary resonances of past events such as Treaty of Tordesillas and Partition of India. The department runs podcasts and open-access digital projects in partnership with Europeana, Digital Public Library of America, and community history initiatives linked to UNESCO heritage sites.

Category:Academic departments in history