History


315-859-4404
315-859-4649 (fax)

History

The goal of Hamilton's History Department is to introduce a broad range of students to the histories of various cultures, peoples, places and times while honing their skills in writing, speaking and research.

Overview

Do you think of history as a list of names and dates, battles and treaties, inventors and emperors? Be ready for a revelation. At Hamilton, history is a living, vibrant discipline. Whether you are tracing the spread of Buddhism from India to Japan or exploring the African diaspora in the U.S. today, the study of history is about building a perspective on other cultures, times and places. History students develop sophisticated writing and speaking skills, they learn to conduct research, and they hone the ability to think critically about complex issues and events of other times, and gain a historically informed understanding of the present. More ...

Academic Program

Research Opportunities

The Department of History encourages its students to seriously consider study abroad for a semester or a year during their stay at Hamilton. Typical destinations for history majors include Spain, France, Italy, England, China, Austria and Japan. Many of these can be visited through Hamilton-affiliated programs. While study abroad is an integral part of the liberal arts curriculum, it has special resonance for students of history as they study events and issues at their source and in their larger cultural context.

All Hamilton history courses stress the development of rigorous, critical reading and research skills. A number of history majors build on these skills by receiving funding to work in collaboration with faculty mentors during the summer as Emerson Fellows. History students' knowledge of the world and habits of critical thinking are enhanced by closely working with their professors, who are themselves active in their own specialties.



The Senior Program

The senior seminar paper or honors thesis is the culminating experience for history majors at Hamilton. It is a semester-long research project in which students draw on their accumulated skills and knowledge to produce focused, high-level scholarship on a specific topic or problem. More ...


Resources

Hamilton has a fully accredited chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national honor society in history and one of the oldest and most respected honor societies in the nation. Hamilton history majors deliver papers at regional and national meetings of Phi Alpha Theta and publish papers in the society’s journal. The department also regularly invites a spectrum of distinguished historians and scholars to campus for talks, panel discussions and workshops.