Columbia University
THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY is one of the leading centers of historical scholarship in the world. Our faculty of approximately 50 faculty members -together with colleagues in the Department of History at Barnard College, and historians in other affiliated departments in the University – studies all aspects of human history, from ancient to contemporary societies, across the entire globe. Each year, our community comprises about 200 graduate students and 250 undergraduate majors and concentrators.
The Department of History is also deeply committed to undergraduate education. Many faculty members teach in the College Core, and all faculty members teach undergraduate lectures and seminars in history. Most faculty members regularly sponsor senior theses and independent studies. Our undergraduate curriculum is rich and deep, covering all areas of the world and most periods of written history. Courses explore various methodologies, a wide range of ways of writing history, and different approaches to the past. We emphasize no one approach to history and no single interpretive model. Our principal goals in the undergraduate classroom are to develop the intellectual breadth and deepen the analytical skills of our students.
Columbia has been one of the most important centers of graduate education in history since modern Ph.D. programs began in America over a century ago. Recipients of our degrees hold distinguished positions in virtually every major university in the United States and abroad. Our program offers a broad education in most areas of historical scholarship and attempts to train students for a discipline and a profession in the midst of considerable change; our program not only assists students in acquiring the knowledge and skills essential to becoming contributing scholars, but also helps them to become effective teachers and to exist comfortably within a demanding and complicated professional world.
Department Faculty Statement on Recent Events on our Campus – 05/03
We, faculty members of the History Department of Columbia University, condemn the use of police force against students, as well as the ongoing presence of the NYPD on our campus. We insist upon the rights of students and scholars to engage in nonviolent protest or public speech, and we deplore the arbitrary disciplining of students, faculty, or staff for doing so. We are also dismayed that the use of public force resulted from a decision-making process from which faculty were excluded.
We disagree about many of the issues being debated on campus this year, but we agree that history shows how deeply damaging it is for a university to meet students’ protests with violence and criminalization. Since the last time the police were called on this campus in large numbers, in 1968, Columbia has worked hard to restore community, build shared governance, deal peacefully with protest, and maintain a culture of respectful debate. We must hold on to this legacy.
Pablo Piccato, Professor of History, Chair
Adam Kosto, James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization
Mae Ngai
Casey Blake
Pamela Smith
Elizabeth Blackmar, Mary and David Boies Professor of American History
Amy Chazkel, Bernard Hirschhorn Associate Professor of Urban Studies
Caterina Pizzigoni
Marc Van de Mieroop
David Rosner
Lien Hang-Nguyen
Gregory Mann
Samuel Roberts
Mark Mazower
Charly Coleman
Kavita Sivaramakrishnan
Natasha Lightfoot
Susan Pedersen
Gregory Plugfelder
Sarah Haley
George Chauncey, DeWitt Clinton Clinton Professor of American History
Celia Naylor
Michael Witgen
Nara Milanich
Anupama Rao
Paul Thomas Chamberlin
David B. Lurie
Richard Billows
Catherine Evtuhov
Malgorzata Mazurek
Adam Tooze, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History
Karl Jacoby, Allan Nevins Professor of American Economic History
Anders Stephanson
Neslihan Senocak
Frank Guridy
Rebecca Kobrin