Historians in the department who work on the medieval and early modern periods (ca. 500-1800) are dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of worlds that form a counterpoint to modernity and offer a vantage point from which to understand and interrogate it. Visual, print, and material cultures; religion; gender and sexuality; and the meeting of cultures across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Pacific are of particular interest. Faculty and graduate students participate in a variety of interdisciplinary reading and discussion groups including the Premodern Colloquium, the Eighteenth-Century Studies Group, and the Atlantic Studies Initiative. History is also one of the core disciplines of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program (MEMS), which offers an undergraduate minor and in which graduate students can earn a certificate while completing requirements for the doctorate.
