Excellent Undergraduate Education
As one of the largest providers of undergraduate general education courses, in addition to our majors, the faculty of the history department takes teaching seriously. Our professors have received recognition and awards for their teaching, and we continuously work to improve the breadth, depth, and quality of our undergraduate courses. Our graduate student teaching assistants have also won accolades for their teaching, and the department’s TA training program has become the basis for teaching instruction across the wider campus community. We truly believe that history matters.
Outstanding Graduate Education
Our graduate program ranks among the best in the nation, supported by the diversity of our faculty and the resources available both at USC and in the greater Los Angeles area. We pride ourselves on consistently producing some of the top winners of coveted and prestigious awards and fellowships nationwide. Doctoral students develop long-lasting and in-depth relationships with our esteemed faculty, whose mentorship helps them to become both better historians and future problem-solvers. Our commitment to supporting and professionalizing our graduate students helps them to become top-tier researchers, instructors, and sought-after candidates across a wide variety of career paths. We make history here.
A Community of Scholars
At its core, the history department is a community of scholars. Our award-winning faculty work in collaboration within the department, across the university, and with regional and national research institutions. The faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students of the history department are a gathering of minds inquiring into the human past in an environment of academic rigor. Whether a student is joining us for a general education requirement, an undergraduate degree, a public lecture, or graduate training, all who are interested in the method and pursuit of history are welcome. Let’s make history!
WELCOME TO THE VAN HUNNICK DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY!
Welcome to the newly christened Van Hunnick History Department! Thanks to the terrific generosity of history department alum Elizabeth Van Hunnick, we are entering into a new era. Over the next few years our faculty will be growing both in size and in the diversity of courses we are able to offer. We will be becoming a community that engages with the world on a level that we have never been able to do before, and the effects will be felt by our majors, our graduate students, and our colleagues throughout the USC-Dornsife community and beyond. If the present has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be paying a lot more attention to the past. The Van Hunnick History Department will be able to take on this mission—to understand the complex forces, personalities, and events that have shaped our world and perhaps to catch a glimpse in them of better worlds that might yet be.
– Jay Rubenstein, Department of History Chair
- Please click here to find the contact information for all staff members and student advisors.
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USC alumna’s transformative $15 million gift puts history department on a path to preeminence
Elizabeth Van Hunnick’s endowment gift, one of the largest to a university history department, is intended to support the development of more informed leaders.
Experts on contemporary Russian cinema, South African history and music join USC Dornsife
Congratulations to the two newest members of our faculty, Christina Davidson and Admire Mseba. Click to learn more about them!
