History Doctoral Programs in the United States and Canada

Pennsylvania, Univ. of

Department Web Site

Areas of Specialization:

American political/labor/legal/social, medieval/early modern/modern Europe, Latin American cultural, women, East and South Asia

Program Description

The purpose of our Ph.D. program is to train professional historians who are both scholars and teachers. During your years of study here you will acquire the scholarly tools you need for such an academic career: systematic knowledge of at least three broad historical fields, rigorous training and experience in scholarly research, easy familiarity with the most influential approaches to historical explanation, genuine awareness of what are truly significant historical problems, and deep interest in interdisciplinary approaches to history drawn from other social sciences. You will also receive in the course of your graduate study in History valuable teaching experience.
The Graduate History program at the University of Pennsylvania stresses flexibility and allows maximum choice to students in designing academic programs to fit particular interests and needs. Because of this, a close student-advisor relationship is essential. Thus, in the first year of study, considerable care should be taken in choosing, in consultation with the Graduate Chair, a primary academic advisor from the history faculty, as well as other members of your advisory committee. Ph.D. candidates should realize that they are undertaking a demanding program of graduate instruction. To make a success of graduate study such students should therefore be prepared to devote full time to their studies throughout the academic year and, during the summer.

Special Programs or Resources

The resources for historical study at Penn extend far beyond the boundaries of the history department. Historians of note can be found in most of the other eleven schools on campus, including the Law School, Graduate School of Education, Wharton School, and Annenberg School for Communication. Eminent scholars with strong historical interests can be found in other SAS departments such as anthropology, classical studies, economics, sociology, folklore, English, Germanic studies, political science, Romance languages, South Asian studies, Near Eastern cultures, East Asian studies, History and Sociology of Science and urban studies. Many faculty members from these departments take an active part in the graduate history program at Penn and regularly serve on student advisory committees. Both faculty and students can take advantage of the University's numerous libraries and special collections; moreover, the Penn history department maintains close cooperative ties with history faculty at nearby colleges and universities.

Financial Aid

The History Department at Penn offers a generous program of financial aid to the great majority of its graduate students. All History Ph.D. students (except a few with external funding) receive four or five year fellowships awarded by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences upon admission. Those fellowships include tuition, fees, health insurance, and an annual stipend ($21,630 for 2009-10 and 3 summer stipends currently $3500 each). Application for fellowship and scholarship awards (except where otherwise specified) is made simply by checking the appropriate box on the first page of the application for admission. Students in the terminal M.A. program are usually not eligible for departmental fellowships, but may fund their studies through a combination of loans, work-study, Foreign Language Area Studies grants, and outside funding.

Degree Requirements

Candidates for the Ph.D. degree complete fourteen course units over a three-year period. General examinations are taken at some point between the end of the second year to May of the third year of study in three areas of inquiry: a general regional/national concentration; a specialty carved from the regional/national concentration; and a field that has a theoretical, methodological, or comparative emphasis. Examination areas are defined by students in consultation with members of their faculty advisory committees, who serve as examiners. In addition, Ph.D. candidates must also satisfy language and technical competency requirements appropriate to their particular fields of study. Successful completion of these requirements and the general exams allows candidates to pursue dissertation research and writing, normally a two to three year process.
Students actually begin their dissertation work at the end of the second year of study through participation in a special summer workshop aimed at the writing of a dissertation proposal. The Ph.D. is awarded upon successful completion of the dissertation. Applicants with Master's degrees in history of allied disciplines may receive up to six units of credit toward the Penn Ph.D. degree, and take their exams a year earlier.

University Information:

University Type: Private, not-for-profit

Carnegie Institution Ranking: Doctoral/Research Universities—Extensive

Department Demographics:

First PhD conferred: 1891

History PhDs conferred to Date: 720

Relative Size Based on PhDs Conferred (2000–04): Large [Explain]

Faculty Mix:
	Full Professor	24
	Associate Professor	13
	Assistant Professor	9
	Instructor/Lecturer	1
	Joint Appointment	16
	Emeritus Faculty
	Part-time faculty	1

Relative Size based on Number of Full-time Faculty: Large [Explain]

Number of Graduate Students in Program (Fall 2005): 122
(Graduate student counts include those enrolled in terminal Master's degree program)

Proportion of Full-Time Graduate Students: 100%

New Graduate Students Entering Program, Fall 2004: 14

Relative Size Based on Graduate Student Enrollment (2002–04): Large [Explain]

 

Other Information

     Current Dissertations in Progress

     PhDs Conferred by Department