History, B.A.

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

Minimum of 39 semester hours, distributed as follows and chosen in consultation with the student’s advisor: 

Course List

Code	Title	Semester Hours
Lower Division Requirements 1
HIST 1995	Introduction to History	1
Select one of the following:		4
HIST 2000	What Is History?
HIST 2050	Seminar in World History
HIST 2200	Seminar in European History
HIST 2450	Seminar in American History
HIST 2500	Seminar in Middle Eastern History
HIST 2600	Seminar in African History
HIST 2700	Seminar in Latin American History
HIST 2800	Seminar in Asian History
HIST 2910	Telling History in Public
Subtotal		5
Upper Division Requirements
One upper-division seminar 2		4
HIST 5995	Capstone ePortfolio	1
Subtotal		5
Major Electives
Select eight additional History courses (excluding 1- and 2-unit courses) 3		29
Subtotal		29
Generalist or Specialist Track
Select one of the following tracks:		24
Generalist Track
Specialist Track
Total Semester Hours		63

¹

Note: FFYS 1000 First Year Seminar sections taught by History faculty may count towards the major; HIST 1xxx courses fulfill the University Core Explorations: Historical Analysis and Perspectives requirement; FDIV courses taught by History faculty fulfill the University Core Foundations: Studies in American Diversity requirement, in addition to counting towards the major.

²

HIST 5000 Seminar in World History

³

Five (5) of the eight (8) courses must be upper-division History courses: HIST 3xxx, HIST 4xxx, or HIST 5xxx.

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. Individual courses may count for multiple concentrations. 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 Telling History in Public, HIST 3910 Museums and Society, HIST 4273 Nazi Germany, HIST 4910 Topics in Public History, 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 Becoming America, HIST 1500 State, Society, and the Citizen in the Modern Middle East, HIST 3706 Justice in Latin America, HIST 4132 The Viking World, HIST 4150 Law and Society in Medieval Europe, HIST 4302 Jacksonian America, HIST 4303 The Civil War, HIST 4305 Victorian America, HIST 4432 American Reform Movements, HIST 4450 Urban America, HIST 4520 The Ottoman Empire, HIST 4705 The Inquisition: The Holy Office in Europe, Asia, and America, 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 Premodern World History, HIST 1050 Modern World History, HIST 1060 Modern Global Environmental History, HIST 1120 Heirs of Rome: Europe, Byzantium, and Islam in the Early Middle Ages, HIST 1130 Crisis and Expansion: Europe and the World, 1200-1648, HIST 1200 European Empires, Exploration, and Exchange since 1500, HIST 1204 Revolutions in the Making of Modern Europe, HIST 1301 American and the Atlantic World 1450-1850, HIST 1401 The United States and the Pacific World, HIST 1500 State, Society, and the Citizen in the Modern Middle East, HIST 1520 The Social Lives of Commodities in the Modern Middle East, HIST 1600 African States and Societies since 1800, HIST 1800 Modern Asia: China, Korea, and Japan since 1600, HIST 3810 The Chinese Economy, HIST 4010 Pirates and Piracy, HIST 4020 Mediterranean Cities, HIST 4050 Global History of Food, HIST 4132 The Viking World, HIST 4205 Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century, HIST 4215 European Imperialism, HIST 4230 The City in European History, HIST 4250 Modern Britain and the British Empire, HIST 4281 Modern Russia, 1825-1991, HIST 4300 Colonial America, HIST 4402 Politics and Culture of the Cold War, 1917-1989, HIST 4423 Asians in America: From the "Yellow Peril" to the "Model Minority", HIST 4520 The Ottoman Empire, 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 Power, Privilege, and Agency in Modern Europe, HIST 1300 Becoming America, HIST 1301 American and the Atlantic World 1450-1850, HIST 1400 The United States and the World, HIST 1401 The United States and the Pacific World, HIST 1510 Minorities and Women in the Modern Middle East, HIST 1700 Colonial Latin America, HIST 1750 Modern Latin America, HIST 2300 Red, White, and Black: Race in Colonial America, HIST 2400 Picturing Race and Gender, HIST 2405 Civil Rights Activism, 1880-Present, HIST 2410 Race and Ethnicity in America, HIST 2420 American Indian History, HIST 3252 Crime Stories: Morality, Deviance, and Popular Culture in Modern Britain, HIST 3272 Culture and Politics of Weimar Germany, HIST 3600 Conflict and Genocide in Africa, HIST 3702 Women in Colonial Latin America, HIST 4050 Global History of Food, HIST 4126 Medieval Spain: Land of Three Faiths, HIST 4205 Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century, HIST 4215 European Imperialism, HIST 4225 Gender and Sexuality in European History, HIST 4250 Modern Britain and the British Empire, HIST 4273 Nazi Germany, HIST 4302 Jacksonian America, HIST 4305 Victorian America, HIST 4401 Recent America, HIST 4403 Consensus and Conflict: America in the 1950s and 1960s, HIST 4410 History of Los Angeles HIST 4411 The American West, HIST 4412 History of California, HIST 4423 Asians in America: From the "Yellow Peril" to the "Model Minority", HIST 4425 Chicana/o History, HIST 4427 Immigrant America, HIST 4430 Women in American History, HIST 4431 History of Childhood and the Family, HIST 4432 American Reform Movements, HIST 4433 Health and Disease in American Culture, HIST 4440 Imagining Asian Pacific America, HIST 4441 Hollywood and History, HIST 4453 The Invention of Communities, HIST 4540 The Palestine/Israel Conflict, HIST 4700 Early Mexico, HIST 4830 Women in East Asian History, 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 Modern Global Environmental History, HIST 1900 Science, Nature, and Society, HIST 3452 US Environmental History, HIST 3820 Environment and Economy in China, HIST 4411 The American West, HIST 4433 Health and Disease in American Culture, 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.

Plan of Study Grid

First Year
Fall		Semester Hours
HIST 1995	Introduction to History	1
HIST 1XXX		4
FFYS 1000	First Year Seminar	4
University Core		3-4
University Core		3-4
	Semester Hours	15-17
Spring
HIST 2300-HIST 2449		4
RHET 1000	Rhetorical Arts	4
University Core		3-4
University Core		3-4
	Semester Hours	14-16
Sophomore Year
Fall
Select one of the following:		4
HIST 2000	What Is History?
HIST 2050	Seminar in World History
HIST 2200	Seminar in European History
HIST 2450	Seminar in American History
HIST 2500	Seminar in Middle Eastern History
HIST 2600	Seminar in African History
HIST 2700	Seminar in Latin American History
HIST 2800	Seminar in Asian History
HIST 2910	Telling History in Public
University Core		3-4
University Core		3-4
Elective		3-4
	Semester Hours	13-16
Spring
HIST Lower or Upper Division		4
HIST Upper Division		4
University Core		3-4
Elective		3-4
	Semester Hours	14-16
Junior Year
Fall
HIST Upper Division		4
University Core		3-4
Upper Division Elective		3-4
Elective		3-4
	Semester Hours	13-16
Spring
HIST Upper Division		4
HIST Upper Division		4
University Core		3-4
Upper Division Elective		3-4
	Semester Hours	14-16
Senior Year
Fall
HIST Upper Division		4
University Core		3-4
Upper Division Elective		3-4
Upper Division Elective		3-4
	Semester Hours	13-16
Spring
HIST Upper Division Seminar 5000-HIST 5899		4
HIST 5995	Capstone ePortfolio	1
Upper Division Elective		3-4
Upper Division Elective		3-4
Upper Division Elective		3-4
	Semester Hours	14-17
	Minimum Semester Hours	110-130

Secondary Teacher Preparation Program in Social Science (History)

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