History Major Requirements – History

Major Requirements – 72 Total Credits

All majors must complete 72 credits, fulfilling the following requirements:

Primary Historical Field Courses – Required 24 credits

See the Additional Departmental Notes section for a list of the Historical fields.

Historical Subfields Courses – Required Two Fields (12 credits per field)

See the Additional Departmental Notes section for a list of the Historical fields.

300-Level Research Seminar – Required Two Courses (12 credits)

Methods Course – Required 6 credits

HIST 298 is required for the History major and should normally be taken before comps. A major who is considering off-campus study in the junior year should consult with their adviser on when to take HIST 298.

HIST 298: What is History?

Advanced History Writing Course – Required 6 credits

HIST 398: Advanced Historical Writing

Senior Integrative Exercise – Required 6 credits

HIST 400: Integrative Exercise

For the 2026-2027 academic year students can either

Register for Hist 400 for 6 credits and Hist 398 together during the Winter 2027 term
OR Register for HIST 400 for 2 credits during the Fall 2026 term and HIST 400 for 4 credits and HIST 398 during the Winter 2027 term.

Additional Departmental Notes

Eight Broad Historical Fields

The Department offers eight regional, thematic, or chronological fields; students may also develop their own thematic primary field in consultation with the department (see below). For their major field, majors will select the field that best reflects their research interests. For their secondary fields, they will choose two additional fields of interest. Please know that these are minimums; majors may pursue courses in all eight fields! The department also has regular offerings that involve experiences in public history, although it is not currently one of the fields.

The History Department permits a few predetermined courses from other departments to count toward the major. Please look for them under “Related courses” below the History courses in the catalog.

Africa & Its Diaspora

Focuses on people of African descent inside & outside the African continent.

HIST 125: Roots and Resistance: Africa to the U.S. Civil War (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 126: Black Freedom: Reconstruction to #BlackLivesMatter (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 209: Slavery in the Atlantic World (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 217: Pirates, Rebels, Voodoo Queens: Black New Orleans (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 218: Black Women’s History (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 220: From Blackface to Blaxploitation: Black History and/in Film
HIST 228: Civil Rights and Black Power (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 280: Gender and Sexuality in African History (not offered 2026-27)

Ancient/Medieval

Includes ancient Greece and Rome, the world of Late Antiquity (fourth–seventh centuries), medieval Europe (fourth–fifteenth centuries), and the medieval Mediterranean (including Byzantium, the Near East, and North Africa). History courses offered in the Classics Department count towards this field.

CLAS 227: Athens, Sparta, and Persia
CLAS 229: The Collapse of the Roman Republic (not offered 2026-27)
CLAS 230: Hellenistic Greek History (not offered 2026-27)
CLAS 240: Rome: From Village to Superpower (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 131: Saints and Society in Late Antiquity
HIST 136: The Global Middle Ages (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 137: Early Medieval Worlds in Transformation (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 201: History, Religion, and Urban Change in Medieval and Renaissance Rome Program: Building Power and Piety in Medieval Italy, C.E. 300-1150
HIST 201F: History, Religion, and Urban Change in Medieval and Renaissance Rome Program: Building Power and Piety in Medieval Italy-Latin
HIST 206: History, Religion, and Urban Change in Medieval and Renaissance Rome Program: The Eternal City in Time: Structure, Change, and Identity
HIST 231: Mapping the World Before Mercator
HIST 233: The Byzantine World and Its Neighbors 750-ca. 1453 (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 234: Constantinople, 1453: History, Experience, Narrative (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 235: Making and Breaking Institutions: Structure, Culture, Corruption, and Reform in the Middle Ages (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 236: The Worlds of Hildegard of Bingen (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 237: Religion and Identity in the Medieval Middle East
HIST 238: The Viking World
HIST 334: Voyages of Understanding
LATN 235: The Bacchanalian Affair
RELG 235: Religion and Identity in the Medieval Middle East

Asia (East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and Middle East)

Includes East, South and Central Asia (Middle East).

HIST 100.05: Confucius and His Critics (26/FA)
HIST 150: Politics of Art in Early Imperial China (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 151: History of Modern Japan
HIST 152: History of Late Imperial China (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 153: History of Modern China (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 154: Social Movements in Postwar Japan (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 159: Age of Samurai (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 161: From Mughals to Mahatma Gandhi: An Introduction to Modern Indian History
HIST 164: A History of India Through Food
HIST 165: A Cultural History of the Modern Middle East
HIST 233: The Byzantine World and Its Neighbors 750-ca. 1453 (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 237: Religion and Identity in the Medieval Middle East
HIST 251: Japan and Europe: Worlds Apart? (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 252: Social Movements in Modern China (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 253: Social Movements in Modern Korea (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 254: Migration in Asia-Pacific History (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 255: Carleton in the Archives: Carleton in China
HIST 257: Chinese Capitalism: From Local to Global
HIST 258: Korean History in Films & Testimonies
HIST 260: The Making of the Modern Middle East
HIST 261: Partition Imagined: 1947 in Literature, Art & Film
HIST 262: Borders Drawn in Blood: The Partition of Modern India
HIST 265: Central Asia in the Modern Age
HIST 266: History of Islam and Hinduism in South Asia (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 269: Religion, Race & Caste in Modern India (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 270: Nuclear Nations: India and Pakistan as Rival Siblings
HIST 355: Carleton in the Archives: Carleton in China
RELG 235: Religion and Identity in the Medieval Middle East

The Atlantic World

Focuses on the relationship between Europe, Africa, & the Americas, ca. 1500–1820, through circulation of people, goods, and ideas.

HIST 139: Foundations of Modern Europe (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 169: Colonial Latin America (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 209: Slavery in the Atlantic World (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 211: Revolts and Resistance in Early America
HIST 212: The American Revolution at 250 (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 217: Pirates, Rebels, Voodoo Queens: Black New Orleans (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 243: The Peasants are Revolting! Society and Politics in the Making of Modern France
HIST 244: The Enlightenment and Its Legacies (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 245: Ireland: Land, Conflict and Memory
HIST 314: Crime and Punishment: Early American Legal History (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 335: Finding Ireland’s Past (not offered 2026-27)

Early Modern/Modern Europe

Includes early modern and modern European history (including Russia).

CCST 230: Worlds of Jewish Memory (not offered 2026-27)
EUST 100.01: America Inside Out (26/FA)
HIST 139: Foundations of Modern Europe (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 141: Europe in the Twentieth Century
HIST 231: Mapping the World Before Mercator
HIST 239: Plague, Pox, Poverty: Public Health in Britain (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 240: Tsars and Serfs, Cossacks and Revolutionaries: The Empire that was Russia (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 241: Russia through Wars and Revolutions (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 242: Communism, Cold War, Collapse: Russia Since Stalin
HIST 243: The Peasants are Revolting! Society and Politics in the Making of Modern France
HIST 244: The Enlightenment and Its Legacies (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 245: Ireland: Land, Conflict and Memory
HIST 247: The First World War as Global Phenomenon (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 249: Authoritarianism and Populism in Central Europe
HIST 250: Modern Germany (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 251: Japan and Europe: Worlds Apart? (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 287: From Alchemy to the Atom Bomb: The Scientific Revolution and the Making of the Modern World
HIST 307: Arctic Environmental History (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 335: Finding Ireland’s Past (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 341: The Russian Revolution and its Global Legacies (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 347: The Global Cold War
MEST 230: Worlds of Jewish Memory (not offered 2026-27)

Environment and Health

Includes environmental history, the history of disease, and the history of medicine.

ENTS 100.01: American Wilderness (26/FA)
ENTS 307: Wilderness Field Studies: Grand Canyon (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 100.01: American Wilderness (26/FA)
HIST 111: Uncharted Waters: The History of Society and the Sea
HIST 131: Saints and Society in Late Antiquity
HIST 159: Age of Samurai (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 164: A History of India Through Food
HIST 205: American Environmental History
HIST 214: Fur, Feathers, Fins, and Fangs: Animals in History
HIST 239: Plague, Pox, Poverty: Public Health in Britain (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 245: Ireland: Land, Conflict and Memory
HIST 252: Social Movements in Modern China (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 253: Social Movements in Modern Korea (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 287: From Alchemy to the Atom Bomb: The Scientific Revolution and the Making of the Modern World
HIST 302: Fur, Feathers, Fins, and Fangs: Animals in History (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 306: American Wilderness (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 307: Arctic Environmental History (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 308: American Cities and Nature
HIST 335: Finding Ireland’s Past (not offered 2026-27)
IDSC 258: Consensus or Contentious? Controversies in Science Then and Now

Latin America

Focuses on the pre-Hispanic, colonial and post-colonial eras of the region with an emphasis on Mesoamerica, the Andes, the Southern Cone, Brazil, and Cuba.

HIST 100.04: U.S.-Latin American Relations: A Declassified View (26/FA)
HIST 169: Colonial Latin America (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 170: Modern Latin America
HIST 272: The Mexican Revolution: History, Myth and Art (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 274: The Andes Under Inca & Spanish Rule
HIST 276: In Search of Moctezuma: Reimagining Mexico’s Indigenous Past
HIST 277: The Other September 11th: History & Memory in Chile (not offered 2026-27)
HIST 278: The Aztecs and Their World (not offered 2026-27)

United States

Includes the histories of the US, including African American and Indigenous history and histories of the environment, immigration, labor, women, and gender.

Thematic Primary Historical Field

In addition to these fields, a major may also design a thematic primary field (four courses) in consultation with the major adviser. This field may use existing history courses, approved courses from other departments, independent studies, and approved courses from an off-campus studies program. Past examples include: Middle East History, Gender and History, Colonialism, Immigration History, Comparative Revolutions, and Economic History.

Courses That Can Count Toward Multiple Fields

Some courses are tagged to count in more than one History field. It is possible to change your primary field or sub-fields should your interests change, and a multi-tagged course might be moved to one of your new fields. However, no course can count for more than one field at a time.

Some courses can count toward different fields depending on the student’s research project. This will normally be noted in the course description, but you should consult with the professor to find out whether it is possible to fulfill a specific field in the course. For example, you cannot count The Global Cold War toward the Ancient/Medieval field.

Off Campus Studies Courses

History courses from Off-Campus Study Programs may also satisfy some of your History field requirements. For approval, please consult the Department Chair.

300-level Courses and Independent Studies

An Independent Study at any level may count toward your History field requirements with instructor approval. A 300-level Independent Study does not fulfill either of the two 300-level seminar requirements.
History 398 does not fulfill either of the two 300-level seminar requirements.
The History department recognizes up to 12 credits of AP or IB in select historical fields or as general credits toward history.