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Georgia State University

Dept. of History
P.O. Box 4117
Atlanta, GA 30302-4117

Phone 404.413.6385
Fax 404.413.6384
E-mail: DGSHistory@gsu.edu

Department Web Site

Areas of Specialization:

Europe, Global Studies, Heritage Preservation, Transnational and Cross-Cultural History, and U.S.

Program Description

The Department of History at Georgia State University offers programs leading to the degrees of Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Heritage Preservation (M.H.P.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). Committed to broad-based and innovative approaches to graduate study, the faculty includes historians of the United States, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The department is particularly strong in the history of the U.S. South, urban and labor history, the history of race and ethnicity, and women's and gender history. We have recently inaugurated an exciting M.A. concentration in world history.

Special Programs or Resources

The department also promotes interdisciplinary programs. It contributes to the Women's Studies Institute, the Center for Latin American and Hispanic Studies, and the Center for Middle East Studies. It helped found the Seminar in the Comparative History of Labor, Industry, Technology, and Society (SCHLITS), which brings together graduate students and faculty members from GSU, Emory University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Graduate students engaged in research are able to exploit a wide variety of research and archival collections in metro Atlanta. The Department of Special Collections at GSU's Pullen Library includes the Southern Labor Archives, the Georgia Women's Movement Archives, and the Georgia Political Documentation Project. In addition, the Atlanta History Center, the southeast regional branch of the National Archives, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, and the State Archives of Georgia are nearby. Students also have access to the libraries and collections of Emory University, the Atlanta University Center, and the University of Georgia at Athens.

Financial Aid

Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs) are available for award to Ph.D. students. The dollar amount of the stipend may vary from year to year. GTAs normally involve teaching undergraduate surveys in U.S. and world history during the academic year.

Degree Requirements

Ph.D. students are required to take 12 courses, of which 10 must be graduate history courses. The student must successfully complete a reading-knowledge examination in two languages (see Section VII). In certain circumstances an alternate research skill may be substituted for one foreign language.

Students in the doctoral program are required to be in residence for four semesters, two of which must be consecutive. In all four semesters the students must register for at least eight hours of coursework.

Upon completion of the foreign language requirements and the course work in the doctoral program, the doctoral student will be required to complete successfully a general examination (consisting of written and oral parts) which shall be administered by an examination committee.

On the successful completion of the written and oral parts of the general examination, the student will be required to submit a prospectus of the dissertation to a scheduled meeting of all members of the dissertation committee (which will normally comprise three professors of the Department of History faculty), who are nominated by the student and appointed by the chair of the department. The prospectus will include a carefully prepared and closely reasoned statement or exposition of the topic or subject that the student has chosen to research in consultation with the dissertation advisor. The acceptance or rejection of the student's prospectus and dissertation will be the responsibility of the dissertation committee.

After completing the language requirement, course work, general examination and dissertation prospectus requirements, the student will be admitted to candidacy for the degree.

The student must complete satisfactorily a dissertation and earn not less than twenty hours of credit in History 9999 (Dissertation Research), supervised by the dissertation director.

Upon completion of the dissertation, the candidate will be required to pass a final examination which shall be devoted to a defense of the dissertation. The examination will be conducted by the candidate's dissertation committee.

Four copies of the dissertation, presented in acceptable form, must be submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.



University Information:

Information from Department of Education
(Includes information on the size, location, and general characteristics of faculty and student body)

Information from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
(Includes rating of the institution's rating of the graduate instructional program and size and setting)

 

Faculty Information (Fall 2011):

Full-time Faculty: 26

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

 

Student Demographics (Fall 2011):

Number of Doctoral Students in Program: 50

New Doctoral Students Entering Program: 7

Proportion of Doctoral Students Receiving Financial Aid: -1%

Number of Graduate Students Enrolled: 106

Relative Size Based on Graduate Student Enrollment: Large [Explain]

 

Degree Information:

First PhD conferred: 1975

History PhDs conferred to Date: 62

Number of PhDs Conferred (2011–12): 4

Relative Size Based on PhDs Conferred: Medium [Explain]

Current Dissertations in Progress

PhDs Conferred by Department

 

 

Last Updated: October 19, 2012