History, MA
Chairperson: Lezlie S. Knox, Ph.D.
Department of History Graduate Program website
Degree Offered
Master of Arts
Program Description
History includes politics, economics, and aesthetics, as well as social, spiritual and cultural relations—our past, our present, and our potential as human beings. The history graduate program, mindful of the discipline’s manifold importance and application, offers master of arts and doctoral degree programs in breadth and depth, allowing for diverse professional outcomes.
Graduate study in history permits students to increase their knowledge of the past and the processes that have shaped the human experience. Such study may prepare students for careers in scholarship, teaching, public service fields, cultural institutions, and many business settings.
General Information
Direction and Advising
The director of graduate studies is charged with directing the department’s graduate programs and with the general advising of all graduate students in matters of course selection, financial aid, and placement. In addition, each student chooses, in consultation with the director of graduate studies, a field adviser who directs the student’s field-specific work, including: the master’s essay, the selection of post-master’s course work, completion of the Doctoral Program Planning Form and the doctoral dissertation.
Degree Overview
Students begin with the course HIST 6100 The Art and Craft of History, which addresses methodological and epistemological approaches to the study of history at the graduate level. Master of arts candidates concentrate major/minor fields in American, European (including medieval), global histories, or public history in their 30 hours of course work. They must also submit a master’s essay to fulfill degree requirements.
History Master of Arts
Specializations: European History, United States History, Global Studies
All master’s students must complete 30 credit hours of course work and a master’s essay or public history project. Included in that total is HIST 6100 The Art and Craft of History, HIST 6961 Master of Arts Essay and Professional Discernment, and at least six of those credits must be in research seminars. With the consent of the department chairperson, six hours of graduate work outside the department may be included in the master of arts program. No foreign language is required for the master’s degree.
The three major geographic areas in the master of arts program and corresponding fields are:
- European History - Medieval, Early Modern or Modern
- United States History - Early U.S. or Modern U.S.
- Global Studies
Students in any major area may choose to complete three required courses to fulfill a focus in Public History: HIST 5100 Public History, HIST 5101 Applied History, and 3 credit hours in HIST 5986 Internship in History.
European History Specialization Courses
Code | Title | Hours |
---|---|---|
Required courses: | 12 | |
The Art and Craft of History | ||
Seminar in History (taken twice) | ||
Master of Arts Essay and Professional Discernment | ||
Additional courses selected from: | 18 | |
Medieval Europe | ||
Early Modern Europe | ||
Nineteenth-Century Europe | ||
Twentieth-Century Europe | ||
Studies in Medieval History | ||
Studies in Early Modern History | ||
Studies in European History | ||
The Black Death | ||
The Crusades | ||
Gender and Sexuality in Premodern Europe | ||
Comparative Homefronts during the Second World War | ||
Intellectual History of Modern Europe | ||
Tudor England: 1485 to 1603 | ||
Art and Power in 18th-century Britain | ||
Modern Britain | ||
The British Empire | ||
Modern Ireland: From the Rising to the Revolution | ||
Modern France | ||
Historical Justice in Modern Germany | ||
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust | ||
Russia to 1861 | ||
The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union | ||
The French Revolution and Napoleon: 1787 to 1815 | ||
The Cold War | ||
Other courses as appropriate to field. | ||
Total Credit Hours: | 30 |
United States History Specialization Courses
Code | Title | Hours |
---|---|---|
Required courses: | 12 | |
The Art and Craft of History | ||
Seminar in History (taken twice) | ||
Master of Arts Essay and Professional Discernment | ||
Additional courses selected from: | 18 | |
The British Atlantic World to the American Revolution | ||
The American Revolution and the New Nation | ||
The Sectional Conflict, Civil War Era and Gilded Age | ||
United States in the Twentieth Century | ||
Studies in United States History | ||
Public History | ||
Applied History | ||
From Colony to Empire: U.S. Foreign Relations 1776-1914 | ||
Rise to Global Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1914 | ||
The American West | ||
American Immigration | ||
Latinx Civil Rights Movements | ||
Midwestern Latinx Communities | ||
Religion and American Life | ||
African-American History | ||
American Urban History | ||
A History of Women in America | ||
Childhood in America | ||
A History of Native America | ||
A History of Indigenous Wisconsin and Milwaukee | ||
Cultural and Intellectual History of the United States | ||
Histories of Race and Law in the United States | ||
Other courses as appropriate to field. | ||
Total Credit Hours: | 30 |
Global Studies Specialization Courses
Code | Title | Hours |
---|---|---|
Required courses: | 12 | |
The Art and Craft of History | ||
Seminar in History (taken twice) | ||
Master of Arts Essay and Professional Discernment | ||
Additional courses selected from: | 18 | |
Global History | ||
Studies in Latin American History | ||
Studies in African History | ||
Studies in Asian History | ||
Studies in Global History | ||
Colonial Latin America | ||
United States-Latin American Relations | ||
The Caribbean | ||
History of Mexico | ||
North Africa | ||
Race and History of South Africa | ||
Modern Japan | ||
Age of the Samurai | ||
Medieval East Asia | ||
Modern China | ||
Comparative Twentieth-Century Genocides | ||
Other courses as appropriate to field. | ||
Total Credit Hours: | 30 |
ACCELERATED BACHELOR'S-MASTER'S DEGREE PROGRAM
The accelerated degree program in history allows Marquette University students to earn both a bachelor of arts degree with a major or minor in history and a master of arts degree in history in five years. This option is especially well-suited for students pursuing careers in public history and allied fields. For additional information about requirements, interested students should contact the Department of History.
ADP students complete 12 hours of approved graduate credit in history during the senior undergraduate year that count as part of the undergraduate credit hour requirement.
As seniors, the students enroll in HIST 6100 The Art and Craft of History, a required class for all entering graduate students, during the fall term. In the spring, they enroll in the graduate research seminar (HIST 6954 Seminar in History). That course may be counted as the seminar requirement for the history major. During the senior year, they also enroll in two other graduate classes at the 5000 or 6000 level that relate to their proposed field of history as advised by the director of graduate studies. These graduate courses offer students the possibility to pursue topics of interest to them in more depth than they are able to in undergraduate classes. They also couple smaller class sizes and more opportunities for participation with an emphasis on the refinement of student research skills.
All remaining master’s degree requirements may be completed during the subsequent fall and spring terms.
As a master’s candidate, ADP students enroll in a second graduate research seminar (HIST 6954 Seminar in History) during the fall term, HIST 6961 Master of Arts Essay and Professional Discernment in the spring term, and also complete four other graduate courses to earn the 30 credits required for the master of arts degree. The other degree requirement is the master’s essay or the public history project.
University Policies
- Academic Censure - Graduate School
- Academic Integrity
- Academic Misconduct
- Academic Program Definitions
- Accelerated Degree Programs
- Attendance - Graduate School
- Awarding Diplomas and Certificates
- Background Checks, Drug Testing
- Class Rank
- Commencement
- Course Levels
- Credit Hour
- Credit Load - Graduate School
- Faculty Grading
- Family Education Rights and Privacy Act-FERPA
- Grade Appeals
- Grading System - Graduate School and Graduate School of Management
- Graduation - Graduate School
- Immunization and Tuberculosis Screening Requirements
- Last Date of Attendance/Activity
- Military Call to Active Duty or Training
- Registration - Graduate School
- Repeated Courses - Graduate School
- Student Data Use and Privacy
- Transcripts-Official
- Transfer Course Credit - Graduate School
- Withdrawal - Graduate School
Graduate School Policies
- Academic Performance
- Advising
- Certificate Concurrent Enrollment
- Conduct
- Confidentiality of Proprietary Information
- Continuous Enrollment
- Courses and Prerequisites
- Cross-listed Courses
- Deadlines
- Doctoral Degree Academic Program Overview
- Graduate Credit
- Graduate School Policies
- Independent Study
- Intellectual Property
- Master's Degree Academic Program Overview
- Merit-Based Aid Registration Requirements
- Research Involving Humans, Animals, Radioisotopes or Recombinant DNA/Transgenic Organisms
- Temporary Withdrawal from Graduate Program
- Time Limitations
- Working with Minors