History
Michael P. Breen
Early modern France; Renaissance Italy; political, cultural, and legal history. On leave 2008-09.
Jacqueline Dirks
American social and cultural history, U.S. women’s history.
Ralph Drayton
Medieval and Renaissance Europe, history of science and medicine.
Douglas L. Fix
Modern China and Japan.
David T. Garrett
Latin America and early modern Spain. On sabbatical and leave 2008-09.
Benjamin Lazier
Modern Europe, intellectual history.
Sean McEnroe
Latin America.
Mary Ashburn Miller
Cultural and intellectual history of early modern Europe; Enlightenment and revolutionary France.
Margot Minardi
Colonial and revolutionary America, 19th-century United States.
David Harris Sacks
Early modern Britain and Europe, Atlantic world. On sabbatical and leave 2008-09.
Edward B. Segel
19th- and 20th-century Europe, diplomatic history, war and society, the Cold War.
Tamara Venit Shelton
United States history, American West.
At Reed, history is treated as a basic component of general education. The department attempts to include in its course offerings as many periods and areas of study as student enrollment and available faculty make possible. The priority, however, is on diversity of approach—constitutional, intellectual, economic, social, diplomatic, cultural—rather than on specific coverage of conventional fields. The aim is to arouse sufficient interest in history to stimulate a student’s independent inquiry and the necessary analytical thought and perspectives that go with historical study. The department tries to inculcate students with a sense of history—to impress them with the legacy, conscious or unconscious, that each present has inherited from its past, as well as the many perspectives one can have on that legacy. While many graduates have become prominent as professional historians and teachers of history, it is even more as a fundamental contribution to liberal, humanistic education and the development of a critical intelligence, carried through in many different professions and ways of life, that the department program is conceived and directed to majors and nonmajors alike. The junior qualifying examination in history is a critical essay dealing with a given issue or problem within a particular historical field and period. The department expects students to develop some competence in various periods and areas of history, as specified in the course requirements below. The department administers the junior qualifying examination only in November and April of each academic year. Exceptions are made only for students returning from leave away from campus, or for other circumstances beyond the student’s control. The department encourages but does not require its students to pursue the study of a foreign language. For students who wish to combine American history, literature, economics, and government, Reed offers an American studies major. Among other possible programs are interdisciplinary majors involving history, such as history–literature and international and comparative policy studies.
Requirements for the Major
a. Europe
b. United States
c. Areas outside Europe, the United States, and Canada
The same course may fill both a geographical and a chronological requirement. No more than two cross-listed courses from other departments may be included.
