About the Program

The Department of History offers a PhD program in History. The program prepares the student in three selected fields of study: two fields of history (called the first field and the second field) and one field in another discipline (called the third or outside field).  Students indicate their choice of the first field at the time of application to the program and they decide upon the second and outside fields by the end of the first year of study.

The Department represents a rich spectrum of research interests, collaborations, and approaches spanning 16 established fields of history: Africa, America Since 1607, Ancient Greece and Rome, Britain, Byzantine, Early Modern Europe, East Asia-China, East Asia-Japan, Jewish, Late Modern Europe, Latin America, Medieval, Middle East, Science, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The depth and breadth of our program and the strengths of our faculty members, students, and other professionals provide an especially stimulating and congenial setting for graduate training.

While pursuing a doctorate in history, you can also earn a concurrent PhD in Medieval Studies or a designated emphasis in areas such as Communication, Computation, and Statistics; Critical Theory; Dutch Studies; Film Studies; Folklore; Global Metropolitan Studies; New Media; Renaissance and Early Modern Studies; and Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

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Admissions

Admission to the University

Uniform minimum requirements for admission

The following minimum requirements apply to all programs and will be verified by the Graduate Division:

1. A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
2. A minimum grade-point average of B or better (3.0);
3. If the applicant comes from a country or political entity (e.g. Quebec) where English is not the official language, adequate proficiency in English to do graduate work, as evidenced by a TOEFL score of at least 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, 230 on the computer-based test, 90 on the iBT test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7 (note that individual programs may set higher levels for any of these); and
4. Enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Applicants who already hold a graduate degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees as evidence of broad research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to take up new subject matter on a serious level without undertaking a graduate program, unless the fields are completely dissimilar.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree if the additional degree is in a distinctly different field.

Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to undertake the second master’s degree, despite the overlap in field.

The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:

1. Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics PhD could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a PhD in statistics.
2. Applicants who hold the PhD degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

Applicants may only apply to one single degree program or one concurrent degree program per admission cycle.

Any applicant who was previously registered at Berkeley as a graduate student, no matter how briefly, must apply for readmission, not admission, even if the new application is to a different program.

Required documents for admissions applications

1. Transcripts:  Upload unofficial transcripts with the application for the departmental initial review. Official transcripts of all college-level work will be required if admitted. Official transcripts must be in sealed envelopes as issued by the school(s) you have attended. Request a current transcript from every post-secondary school that you have attended, including community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs.
   If you have attended Berkeley, upload unofficial transcript with the application for the departmental initial review. Official transcript with evidence of degree conferral will not be required if admitted.
2. Letters of recommendation: Applicants can request online letters of recommendation through the online application system. Hard copies of recommendation letters must be sent directly to the program, not the Graduate Division.
3. Evidence of English language proficiency: All applicants from countries in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This requirement applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and most European countries. However, applicants who, at the time of application, have already completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better at a U.S. university may submit an official transcript from the U.S. university to fulfill this requirement. The following courses will not fulfill this requirement: 1) courses in English as a Second Language, 2) courses conducted in a language other than English, 3) courses that will be completed after the application is submitted, and 4) courses of a non-academic nature. If applicants have previously been denied admission to Berkeley on the basis of their English language proficiency, they must submit new test scores that meet the current minimum from one of the standardized tests.

Doctoral Degree Requirements

Curriculum

Students complete a minimum of 34 course units, not including language, and maintain a minimum overall grade point average of 3.0 (3.5 or above in history graduate courses).  Courses that are being applied to the program must be taken for a letter grade.  Students typically take a minimum of two graduate courses per semester, plus any additional language preparation required by their field.  Students holding a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) appointment can opt to reduce their courseload by one graduate course in the term of the appointment as long as they are able to complete all coursework requirements by the prescribed time to advancement to doctoral candidacy for their field.  Separate fields may require additional coursework and may also define the nature of the outside field more precisely.  With the approval of the Graduate Advisors Committee, students may occasionally substitute History 299 courses for the required courses defined below.  The required coursework is distributed as follows.

A. 12 to 16 units in the first field: two graduate seminars in any combination of 275s and 280s (both must be completed by the end of the first year) and two 285s (one should be completed by the end of the first year if possible).

Students in the fields of East Asia – China and East Asia – Japan have one additional required 4 unit seminar.  Students in East Asia – China must take a reading seminar (280) or a survey seminar (275) in Japanese history.  Students in East Asia – Japan must take a reading or survey seminar in Chinese history.  Exceptions require approval of the Graduate Advisors Committee.

Students in the field of History of Science must take, in addition to other required coursework, the historical colloquium (290) in each semester of their first two years.  The 290 is worth 1 unit and is graded on a S/U basis.

B. 8 to 12 units in the second field: two graduate seminars in any combination of 275s and 280s or one 285 and either one 275 or one 280.  Students with equal first and second fields must take a minimum of two graduate seminars in any combination of 275s and 280s in each field and at least one 285 in each field.  Students choosing this option must meet the language requirement in each field.

C. 3 to 4 units in the third field: one graded course in a field and department other than history.

D. 4 units of methodology: Historical Method and Theory (283).  Students are strongly encouraged to take this course in their first or second year.

E. 2 units of pedagogy: Teaching History Pedagogy Seminar (formerly 300, now 375).  A pedagogy course is required of all first-time Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs).  Students are strongly encouraged to take the Department of History’s 375, which is offered in the fall semester only.

PhD foreign language requirements

The language requirements for the PhD vary by field between one and four.  Students whose field requires two or more languages are advised to come to the program with significant preparation in the languages most critical to the field (e.g., students in medieval history should have intermediate Latin at the time of application).  Students should attempt to complete one foreign language applicable to the selected field by the end of the first year.  Please see Appendix II for a list of language requirements by field and Appendix III for options for fulfilling the language requirements.  Students must satisfy all language requirements before taking the doctoral qualifying examination.  Faculty in the field can help students make a plan for completing the requirements.

Courses

History

Faculty

Professors

Andrew E. Barshay, Professor. Social thought, modernism, social sciences in modern Japan, marxism, Japanese history, Japanese-Russian relations.
Research Profile

Mary Elizabeth Berry, Professor. Japan, history, East Asia.
Research Profile

Margaret Chowning, Professor.

John Connelly, Professor.

Jan De Vries, Professor. Economics, demography, history.
Research Profile

John M. Efron, Professor.

Robin L. Einhorn, Professor. Taxation, United States political history, urban history, nineteenth century.
Research Profile

Susanna Elm, Professor. History of the Later Roman Empire, pagan - Christian interactions, ancient medicine, slavery and the evolution of Christianity, leadership and empire, reception of antiquity.
Research Profile

David M Henkin, Professor.

Martin E. Jay, Professor. Rhetoric, history, Marxist theory, European intellectual history, 19th 20th century, visual discourse and culture.
Research Profile

Tabitha Kanogo, Professor.

Kerwin L Klein, Professor.

Geoffrey Koziol, Professor. Medieval history.
Research Profile

Thomas W. Laqueur, Professor.

Waldo E. Martin, Professor.

Maria Mavroudi, Professor. Byzantine studies.
Research Profile

Maureen C. Miller, Professor. Medieval history.
Research Profile

Michael Nylan, Professor. Gender, history, East Asian studies, early China, the fifth century BC to the fifth century AD, with an emphasis on the sociopolitical context, aesthetic theories and material culture, belief.
Research Profile

Mark A. Peterson, Professor.

Peter Sahlins, Professor. Immigration, early modern France, boundaries and borderlands, forest and environmental history, animal-human relations, citizenship and nationality in pre-modern and revolutionary France.
Research Profile

Ethan H. Shagan, Professor.

Yuri Slezkine, Professor.

Wen-Hsin Yeh, Professor. History, East Asian studies, Qing and Modern China.
Research Profile

Peter B. Zinoman, Professor. Nationalism, communism, cultural, literature, South and Southeast Asian studies, early and modern Southeast Asian history, the Vietnam War, the comparative history of Southeast Asian colonialism, social, political history of modern Vietnam.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

Janaki Bakhle, Associate Professor.

Cathryn Carson, Associate Professor. History of science, especially modern physical science, science and government in the United States, history of universities, German history, modern intellectual history in Germany and the U.S., nuclear waste management.
Research Profile

Thomas James Dandelet, Associate Professor. Renaissance Italy and Europe, Spanish Empire, early modern Mediterranean.
Research Profile

Brian Delay, Associate Professor.

Victoria S Frede-Montemayor, Associate Professor. Enlightenment, Russian intellectual history, sentimentalism, eighteenth and nineteenth century, anti-religious thought, romanticism, history of friendship.
Research Profile

Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Associate Professor.

Emily Mackil, PhD, Associate Professor.

Massimo Mazzotti, Associate Professor.

Rebecca Mclennan, Associate Professor.

Carlos F. Norena, Associate Professor. Roman history.
Research Profile

Nicolas Tackett, PhD, Associate Professor. Ethnicity, elites, China, cities, national identity, social networks, medieval history, death ritual, Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Liao Dynasty.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Alexander C. Cook, Assistant Professor.

Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, Assistant Professor. African history, legal history, medical history, science history.
Research Profile

Caitlin C. Rosenthal, Assistant Professor.

Daniel J Sargent, Assistant Professor. American history, International History, Contemporary History.
Research Profile

Elena A. Schneider, Assistant Professor.

Adjunct Faculty

Stephan H Astourian, Adjunct Faculty. Genocide, Armenia, Caucasus, Modern Turkey, diasporas.
Research Profile

Andrea A Sinn, Adjunct Faculty.