Online Master's Degree MA in History

This course provides a deep-level exploration into the study of history and historical writing, focusing on the craft and profession of history and its relationship to society. The course contends with the changing nature of historical interpretations and arguments, and the role of historical meta-narratives in shaping one's understanding and experience of history. Students are asked to position and evaluate their own thinking in relation to various historical analyses, defending a preferred approach to a relevant area of interest.

Historians use a wide variety of methods and approaches to the study, analysis, and evaluation of historical accounts and sources. This course offers students an opportunity to investigate various methodological approaches and the relationships between method, theory, and interpretation in historical research. Students will design an initial research proposal and articulate how a chosen methodology positions them appropriately to address the central issues and problems of their research.

Comparative research is a valuable tool for historians to be able to discover possible historical and social connections across separate historical settings. This course introduces students to best practices, issues, and challenges of comparative history approaches. Central to the course is the development of effective research practices in comparative history: identifying appropriate sources, articulating the context and focus of a research project, and making an informed and supported argument. This course will use the topic of democratic revolutions to model comparative research.

What does it mean to focus on the economic issues of an historical event? What considerations of race, gender, class, or other lenses of difference can be made to illuminate the social and cultural experiences of people throughout history? The central focus of this course is to provide students with an exploration into various lenses of historical research and analysis and how these lenses can structure the types of questions an historian asks. The course uses the topic of transatlantic slavery to introduce several lenses that can be applied to future topics of interest to students. Students will integrate best practices for the production and writing of historical scholarship using a chosen lens (or lenses) of analysis.

The capstone experience integrates knowledge and skills developed in previous coursework with a focus on developing scholarship in a student's chosen area of specialization. This course focuses on helping students propose a topic for research, conduct preliminary research on primary and secondary sources, and develop a capstone research proposal. This course prepares students for the formal capstone submission in the subsequent capstone course.

The capstone experience integrates knowledge and skills developed in previous coursework with a focus on developing scholarship in a student's chosen area of specialization. This course extends students' research proposals into a formal capstone project. Students will workshop and submit their final capstone projects in this course.