School of Histories and Humanities

School of Histories and Humanities
Name	School of Histories and Humanities
Established	20th century
Type	Academic unit
Location	University campus

School of Histories and Humanities The School of Histories and Humanities is an academic unit that integrates historical study and humanistic inquiry across periods and regions. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs that draw on traditions associated with Herodotus, Thucydides, Ibn Khaldun, Fernand Braudel, and Michel Foucault while engaging archival and public-facing institutions such as the British Library, Library of Congress, British Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and Bibliothèque nationale de France. Faculty research ranges from antiquity and medieval studies to modern global histories, intersecting with collections at the Vatican Library, National Archives (United Kingdom), Israel Antiquities Authority, State Historical Museum, and Museo del Prado.

Overview

The School traces intellectual lineages through engagements with figures like Herodotus, Tacitus, E. H. Carr, Marc Bloch, Annales School, Carlo Ginzburg, and Natalie Zemon Davis, aligning methods reminiscent of Leopold von Ranke, Johan Huizinga, and Edward Said. Curricula reference primary sources from repositories such as the Archives nationales (France), Archivo General de Indias, Vatican Secret Archives, National Archives and Records Administration, and fieldwork traditions exemplified by expeditions related to Howard Carter, Heinrich Schliemann, Gertrude Bell, Hiram Bingham III, and Kathleen Kenyon.

Academic Departments and Programs

Departments include units named in keeping with historical and humanistic subfields: Ancient History (engaging Herodotus, Thucydides, Sappho, Homer), Medieval and Byzantine Studies (with reference to Justinian I, Charlemagne, Alexios I Komnenos, Ibn Sina), Early Modern Studies (linked to Martin Luther, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Akbar), Modern and Contemporary History (invoking Napoleon Bonaparte, Otto von Bismarck, Vladimir Lenin, Mahatma Gandhi), Cultural History (connecting to Voltaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens), Public History (working with National Trust, UNESCO, International Council on Monuments and Sites), and Interdisciplinary Humanities (drawing on Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Immanuel Kant). The School administers degree programs modeled on pedagogies from University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, University of Chicago, and Sorbonne University.

Research and Scholarship

Research centers collaborate with institutions including the Max Planck Society, Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent, Royal Historical Society, American Historical Association, and the Wellcome Trust. Projects frequently focus on archival discoveries akin to those made by Vladimir Lossky, Gerhard von Mende, Benedict Anderson, Paul Ricœur, and Hannah Arendt, and publish in journals alongside The English Historical Review, Past & Present, American Historical Review, Journal of Modern History, and Speculum. Long-term initiatives study events such as the French Revolution, American Revolution, Russian Revolution, Meiji Restoration, Taiping Rebellion, Partition of India and Pakistan, and the Cold War, while comparative work references treaties and conferences like the Congress of Vienna, Treaty of Versailles, Yalta Conference, Treaty of Westphalia, and Potsdam Conference.

Faculty and Administration

Faculty include historians who publish on subjects related to Herodotus, Tacitus, Ibn Battuta, Zheng He, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar, Toussaint Louverture, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, and Mao Zedong. Administrative structures mirror governance models practiced at University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, Yale University, Princeton University, and Stanford University, and involve advisory boards comprising members from British Academy, National Endowment for the Humanities, European Research Council, and Guggenheim Foundation.

Student Life and Activities

Student organizations stage programs referencing historical figures and events such as Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Queen Elizabeth II, Louis XIV, Josip Broz Tito, and Simon de Beauvoir, while clubs collaborate with museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Tate Modern, Uffizi Gallery, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Activities include internships with UNESCO World Heritage Centre, International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and participation in conferences hosted by Modern Language Association and International Congress of Historical Sciences.

Facilities and Resources

Physical and digital resources connect to archives and libraries such as the Bodleian Library, Huntington Library, Morgan Library & Museum, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Royal Library of Denmark, and conservation labs akin to those at Getty Conservation Institute and Courtauld Institute of Art. The School maintains partnerships for archaeological fieldwork linked to sites like Pompeii, Mohenjo-daro, Çatalhöyük, Knossos, Tikal, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Giza Necropolis, and Stonehenge, and hosts visiting scholars from Institute for Advanced Study, Max Planck Institute for Human History, and Radcliffe Institute.

History and Development

The School developed through curricular reforms inspired by movements associated with Annales School, Renaissance Humanism, Enlightenment, Victorian historiography, Postcolonialism, and Digital Humanities. Milestones include collaborative grants modeled after programs at Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, student-led campaigns comparable to those at May 1968 events in France, Prague Spring, and 1968 Columbia protests, and institutional affiliations with consortia such as League of European Research Universities, Association of American Universities, and Russell Group.

Category:Academic institutions