Mar 28, 2024  
Loyola Marymount University Bulletin 2019-2020 
    
Loyola Marymount University Bulletin 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

History, B.A.


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Objectives


History is the study of the human past as it is constructed and interpreted with human artifacts, written evidence, and oral traditions. It requires empathy for historical actors, respect for interpretive debate, and the skillful use of an evolving set of practices and tools.

As an inquiry into human experience, history requires that we consider the diversity of human experience across time and place.

As a public pursuit, history requires effective communication to make the past accessible; it informs and preserves collective memory; it is essential to active citizenship.

As a discipline, history requires a deliberative stance towards the past; the sophisticated use of information, evidence, and argumentation; and the ability to identify and explain continuity and change over time. Its professional ethics and standards demand peer review, citation, and acceptance of the provisional nature of knowledge.

The LMU History Department’s core competencies and student learning outcomes are adapted from the AHA Tuning Project: History Discipline Core (see https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/tuning-the-history-discipline/2016-history-discipline-core).

History Student Learning Outcomes


  1. Build historical knowledge.
    1. Gather and contextualize information in order to convey both the particularity of past lives and the scale of human experience.
    2. Recognize how humans in the past shaped their own unique historical moments and were shaped by those moments.
    3. Develop a body of historical knowledge with breadth of time and place–as well as depth of detail–in order to discern context.
    4. Distinguish the past from our very different present.
  2. Develop historical methods.
    1. Recognize history as an interpretive account of the human past-one that historians create in the present from surviving evidence.
    2. Collect, sift, organize, question, synthesize, and interpret complex material.
    3. Practice ethical historical inquiry that makes use of and acknowledges sources from the past as well as the scholars who have interpreted that past.
    4. Develop empathy toward people in the context of their distinctive historical moments.
  3. Recognize the provisional nature of knowledge, the disciplinary preference for complexity, and the comfort with ambiguity that history requires.
    1. Welcome contradictory perspectives and data, which enable us to provide more accurate accounts and construct stronger arguments.
    2. Describe past events from multiple perspectives.
    3. Explain and justify multiple causes of complex events and phenomena using conflicting sources.
    4. Identify, summarize, appraise, and synthesize other scholars’ historical arguments.
  4. Apply the range of skills it takes to decode the historical record because of its incomplete, complex, and contradictory nature.
    1. Consider a variety of historical sources for credibility, position, perspective, and relevance.
    2. Evaluate historical arguments, explaining how they were constructed and might be improved.
    3. Revise analyses and narratives when new evidence requires it.
  5. Create historical arguments and narratives.
    1. Generate substantive, open-ended questions about the past and develop research strategies to answer them.
    2. Craft well-supported historical narratives, arguments, and reports of research findings in a variety of media for a variety of audiences.
  6. Use historical perspective as central to active citizenship.
    1. Apply historical knowledge and historical thinking to contemporary issues.
    2. Develop positions that reflect deliberation, cooperation, and diverse perspectives.

Major Requirements


10 courses total, including a minimum of 37 semester hours and distributed as follows:

Lower Division Requirements:


Maximum of 4 courses, distributed as follows and chosen in consultation with the student’s advisor:


  • One lower-division seminar: HIST 2000 , HIST 2050 , HIST 2200 , HIST 2450 , HIST 2500 , HIST 2600 , HIST 2700 , HIST 2800 , or HIST 2910  
  • Maximum of 3 lower-division courses (HIST 1xxx or HIST 2xxx)
  • Note: FFYS 1000  sections taught by History faculty may count towards the major; HIST 1xxx courses fulfill the University Core Explorations: Historical Analysis and Perspectives requirement; and HIST 2300-49 and HIST 2400-49 courses fulfill the University Core Foundations: Studies in American Diversity requirement.

Upper Division Requirements:


Minimum of 6 courses, distributed as follows and chosen in consultation with the student’s advisor:


  • One upper-division seminar (HIST 5000-5899)
  • Minimum of 5 upper-division history courses (HIST 3xxx, HIST 4xxx, or HIST 5xxx)

Generalist or Specialist Track:


History majors have a choice of two tracks: the Generalist Track or the Specialist Track.

Generalist Track


The Generalist Track is an opportunity for students to develop a broad understanding of historical developments and approaches by taking a wide range of courses from different geographical regions and time periods. The Generalist Track develops students’ historical literacy as well as the critical thinking and writing skills that prepare them for a wide variety of careers. In addition to the above requirements, majors in the Generalist Track must take at least 2 courses per geographical region:

  • Europe: HIST 1000-1299, 2001-2299, 3100-3299, 4100-4299, and 5100-5299
  • US: HIST 1300-1499, 2300-2499, 3300-3499, 4300-4499, and 5300-5499
  • World Regions: HIST 1500-1899, 2500-2899, 3000-3099, 3500-3899, 4000-4099, 4500-4899, 5000-5099, and 5500-5899

Specialist Track


The Specialist Track offers students the opportunity to “specialize” their program of study on a particular set of issues and themes. The Specialist Track enables students to focus on particular areas of interest in the History major and to develop expertise in a given area, often in connection with a desired career pathway. In addition to the above requirements, majors in the Specialist Track must take:

  • At least 1 course per geographical region:
    • Europe: HIST 1000-1299, 2001-2299, 3100-3299, 4100-4299, and 5100-5299
    • US: HIST 1300-1499, 2300-2499, 3300-3499, 4300-4499, and 5300-5499
    • World Regions: HIST 1500-1899, 2500-2899, 3000-3099, 3500-3899, 4000-4099, 4500-4899, 5000-5099, and 5500-5899
  • At least 3 courses in one of the following concentrations:
    • Public and Applied History (HPAH): Students will focus on debates in public history, including questions of history, memory, commemoration, and identity in the public sphere, as well as issues related to the presentation of public narratives of history (e.g., in textbooks, museums, online). Students will also apply their skills of historical analysis on the practice of public history–e.g., by curating museum exhibits, by creating public history websites or blogs, and/or by interning in museums and archives. In doing so, students will apply historical knowledge to address issues of contemporary relevance and will demonstrate, to those outside of academia, the importance of historical thinking for understanding issues in the contemporary world, as well as the nature of history as a process of continual re-interpretation.
      Courses include: HIST 2910 , HIST 3910 , HIST 4273 , HIST 4910 , and other courses with the HPAH attribute.
    • Law, Politics, and Society (HLPS): Students will explore interrelationships of legal, social, and political issues in their historical context. Students will analyze law as a social institution; the intersections between law and categories such as religion, race, gender, and class; the role of law in social, political, economic, and cultural life; and the ways in which law reflects and informs social and cultural values and practices.
      Courses include: HIST 1300 , HIST 1500 , HIST 4132 HIST 4150 , HIST 4302 , HIST 4303 , HIST 4305 , HIST 4432 , HIST 4520 , HIST 4705 , and other courses with the HLPS attribute.
    • Global Economies, Encounters, and Exchange (HGEE): Students will investigate the history of global interconnectedness, trade, and intercultural encounters and exchange. Rather than understanding world history as a collection of histories of separate regions, students will analyze world history as a series of developments that crossed state and regional lines, including the evolution of the world economy and the integration of national and regional economies, trade, migration, cultural exchange, technology transfer, colonialism and post-colonialism, and the transnational histories of race, gender, and religion.
      Courses include: HIST 1010 , HIST 1050 , HIST 1060 , HIST 1120 , HIST 1130 , HIST 1200 , HIST 1204 , HIST 1301 , HIST 1401 , HIST 1500 , HIST 1520 , HIST 1600 , HIST 4010 HIST 4020 , HIST 4132 , HIST 4134 , HIST 4205 , HIST 4215 , HIST 4230 , HIST 4250 , HIST 4281 , HIST 4300 HIST 4402 , HIST 4423 , HIST 4520 , and other courses with the HGEE attribute.
    • Race, Gender, and Culture (HRGC): Students will take an intersectional approach to the study of identity, analyzing how race and gender have shaped personal identity, understandings of collective belonging, social difference, structures of power and inequality, belief systems, and political and social action. Students will explore how race and gender have intersected with–sometimes constituting, sometimes supporting, and sometimes undermining–other categories of identify and social organization, including class, religion, and nation.
      Courses include: HIST 1201 , HIST 1300 , HIST 1301 , HIST 1400 HIST 1401 , HIST 1510 , HIST 1700 , HIST 1750 HIST 2300 , HIST 2400 , HIST 2405 , HIST 2410 , HIST 2420 , HIST 3252 , HIST 3272 , HIST 3600 , HIST 3702 , HIST 4126 , HIST 4205 , HIST 4215 , HIST 4225 , HIST 4250 , HIST 4273 , HIST 4302 , HIST 4305 HIST 4403 HIST 4410 , HIST 4411 , HIST 4412 , HIST 4423 , HIST 4425 , HIST 4427 , HIST 4430 , HIST 4431 , HIST 4432 , HIST 4433 , HIST 4440 , HIST 4441 HIST 4453 , HIST 4540 , HIST 4700 , HIST 4830 , and other courses with the HRGC attribute.
    • Environment, Science, and Technology (HEST): Students will examine how the natural environment, as well as humans’ efforts to understand and control it (e.g., through agriculture, science, and technology) have shaped human history. Students will employ a variety of analytical lenses to explore science, the development of technology, and humans’ relationships with nature in relation to broader historical contexts, and as products and producers of those contexts.
      Courses include: HIST 1060 , HIST 1900 , HIST 3452 , HIST 3820 , HIST 4411 , HIST 4433 , and other courses with the HEST attribute.
    • Individual Program: Students may design an individual area of concentration in consultation with a faculty advisor and with the approval of the Department Chair. The Individual Program must incorporate courses offered in the department and may not be fulfilled merely through independent studies courses (including the senior thesis).

Note:


An average grade of C (2.0) must be obtained in the courses included in the major.

History Model Four-Year Plan


The normal course load is 16 semester hours (4 classes). By following the model below, a student will complete all lower division core requirements by the end of the sophomore year as well as HIST major prerequisites. Note that core areas are suggested to provide a distribution of various disciplines every semester. Please be flexible implementing these suggestions, given your own interests and course availability. In four years, this plan meets all common graduation requirements, provided students take an average of 16 hours each semester.

Freshman Year


Fall Semester


  • HIST 1000-level 4 semester hours
  • 3 OR 4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
Total: 13-16 semester hours

Spring Semester


  • HIST 2300-49 or 2400-49 4 semester hours
  • 3 OR 4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
Total: 13-16 semester hours

Sophomore Year


Fall Semester


Total: 13-16 semester hours

Spring Semester


  • HIST Lower or Upper Division 4 semester hours
  • HIST Upper Division 4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
  • Elective 3-4 semester hours
Total: 14-16 semester hours

Junior Year


Fall Semester


  • HIST Upper Division 4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
  • Elective 3-4 semester hours
Total: 13-16 semester hours

Spring Semester


  • HIST Upper Division 4 semester hours
  • HIST Upper Division 4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
Total: 14-16 semester hours

Senior Year


Fall Semester


  • HIST Upper Division 4 semester hours
  • University Core 3-4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
Total: 13-16 semester hours

Spring Semester


  • HIST Upper Division Seminar 5000-5899 4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
  • Upper Division Elective 3-4 semester hours
Total: 13-16 semester hours

Secondary Teacher Preparation Program in Social Science (History)


For information on this program, see the Secondary Teacher Preparation  Program section in this Bulletin.

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