Temporal Fields of Study

Look below for more information on our temporal fields of research specialities. You will also find faculty who specialize in each field.

Ancient history at the University of Minnesota has a long pedigree of excellence under leading historians. The field includes everything from the emergence of human beings into organized bands and tribes to the rise and fall of ancient civilizations across the world before 1500 CE. Faculty work closely with a number of other departments and centers on campus that study human history, including the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies.

Faculty

The field of medieval history at Minnesota has a long tradition of scholarship enlivened by new focuses in social, cultural, and gender studies in Europe and the Mediterranean and expanded to include Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Islamic world. We have one of the strongest medieval programs in the country, with numerous graduate students and a large undergraduate following for our survey and topics courses.

Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was a period of intense and unprecedented religious, social, economic, political, and cultural transformation. Although traditionally defined as an era of European development, our seminars are increasingly moving beyond a Eurocentric focus. Contemporary understanding of this era is being rapidly transformed as scholars continue to critique the still pervasive picture of the “Dark Ages” by exploring the cultural creativity, civilizational exchange and contact, and political ferment that connected groups and peoples across Afro-Eurasia, from Ireland to China to Zimbabwe.

Minnesota is home to several interdisciplinary centers that provide important resources and intellectual community for medievalists at Minnesota, including the Center for Medieval Studies, the Center for Early Modern History, and the Consortium for the Study of the Premodern World. Our graduate students also regularly work with faculty in Classical and Near Eastern Studies; Art History; English; Spanish and Portuguese; French and Italian; German, Scandinavian & Dutch (GSD); the Religious Studies Program; the School of Music; and other departments in the College of Liberal Arts as well as in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (HSTM).

Faculty

  • Howard Louthan: Early modern Europe; Central Europe; cultural, intellectual, and religious History
  • Michael Lower: Crusades, Medieval Mediterranean, Christian-Muslim relations
  • Helena Pohlandt-McCormick: Africa, South Africa, social and cultural history, comparative women's history
  • Kathryn L Reyerson: Medieval Europe, Mediterranean Europe, Medieval France, social and economic history, legal history
  • JB Shank: Early modern Europe, France, European intellectual, history of science
  • Andrea Sterk: Ancient and medieval Christianity, late antiquity, Byzantium history

Early Modern history at Minnesota draws its faculty from the diverse geographical areas and the varieties of methodological and theoretical approaches represented in the department. Many of the participants teach and write in more than one field, such as medieval and early modern, or early modern and modern. Research and collaboration for early modernists are facilitated by the Center for Early Modern History and the Consortium for the Study of the Premodern World, as well as the presence on campus of the James Ford Bell Library.

Comparative Early Modern History

The University of Minnesota has long taken a comparative approach to the Early Modern world, reflecting broad faculty strength for this period, and a common interest in relating the histories of different parts of the globe. These crucial centuries are understood to be the scene of the emergence of problems and processes that include the interaction of cultures and civilizations across the globe; the rise of scientific and technological ways of knowing; and the creation of global capitalist economic processes, to name just a handful of areas.

Early Modern European History

The study of Modern European history since the era of the French Revolution addresses concerns that reverberate throughout the modern world. Europe’s development of industrial capitalism restructured the global economy through markets and imperialism. The emergence of the nuclear family system and the reconstruction of gender relations that typified nineteenth-century middle-class ideals have also had far-reaching consequences.

Modern European political development has been marked by the construction of "public spheres" and civil societies with their concomitant notions of limitations on government, but also by the institution of the nation-state with its potential for totalitarianism and racism. Indeed, at the center of many scholarships in modern European history, including that of our own faculty, are the tensions between the impulse to question and remake human institutions that have been characteristic of European culture and politics since the Enlightenment, and the equally prevalent impulse toward domination and control.

Faculty

  • Giancarlo Casale: Islamic world, Ottoman Empire, pre-modern and early modern world history
  • Sarah Chambers: Colonial Latin America; gender, cultural, and legal history
  • Tracey Deutsch: the United States, women's history, business
  • Kirsten Fischer: Colonial and revolutionary America, United States, social and intellectual
  • Katharine Gerbner: Atlantic world, early America, comparative early modern, Caribbean, religion, race
  • Christopher M Isett: Post-war East Asian political economies, global and post-war capitalism, East Asia's Cold War, comparative economic history, agrarian, 18th–20th century China
  • Howard Louthan: Early modern Europe; Central Europe; cultural, intellectual, and religious History
  • Mary Jo Maynes: Modern Germany, European social, women
  • Jean O'Brien: Colonial American, Native American
  • Helena Pohlandt-McCormick: Africa, South Africa, social and cultural history, comparative women's history
  • Kathryn L Reyerson: Medieval Europe, Mediterranean Europe, Medieval France, social and economic history, legal history
  • Daniel Schroeter: Jewish, North African, Mediterranean
  • JB Shank: Early modern Europe, France, European intellectual, history of science
  • Theofanis G Stavrou: Russia, modern Greek studies, Eastern Orthodoxy
  • Ann Waltner: Traditional China

Our strong Modern History faculty adopt a diverse range of methodological and theoretical approaches as they explore developments of all regions of the globe in the last several centuries.

The study of European history since the era of the French Revolution addresses concerns that reverberate throughout the modern world, including the rise of industrial capitalism that restructured the global economy through markets and imperialism, the institution of the nation-state with its potential for totalitarianism and racism, and the reconstruction of gender relations that emerged along with the nuclear family system.

The University of Minnesota has long been at the forefront of modern US history, pioneering advances in social, cultural, and quantitative approaches. The Minnesota Population Center, under the direction of Professor Steven Ruggles, provides training and employment for many of our students, and Minnesota has become the premier training ground for quantitative methods in US history. Minnesota is also a leader in the field of migration, housing one of the preeminent archives dedicated to the field of Immigration History, the Immigration History Research Center and Archives, under the direction of Professor Erika Lee. Other faculty members bring considerable expertise in Native American and indigenous history, African American studies, gender and women’s history, and legal history.

We also have a strong program in the histories of the modern Middle East, Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and East Asia.

Faculty

Susanna Blumenthal: American cultural and intellectual history, Anglo-American legal history, history of human sciences

Sarah Chambers: Colonial Latin America; gender, cultural, and legal history

David Chang: Race and nationalism, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, 19th and 20th century the United States

Anna Clark: British, Irish, European, women, gender, sexuality

Tracey Deutsch: the United States, women's history, business

Gail Dubrow: the United States, urban, women's, Asian-American, public history

Kirsten Fischer: Colonial and revolutionary America, United States, social and intellectual

J. David Hacker: Demographic history, quantitative history, American Civil War

Allen F Isaacman: Central and Southern Africa

Christopher M Isett: Post-war East Asian political economies, global and post-war capitalism, East Asia's Cold War, comparative economic history, agrarian, 18th–20th century China

Mai Na Lee: Southeast Asia

Malinda Lindquist: African-American, United States

Michael Lower: Crusades, Medieval Mediterranean, Christian-Muslim relations

Saje Mathieu: African-American, American social and political history, comparative immigration

Mary Jo Maynes: Modern Germany, European social, women

Patrick McNamara: Latin America, Mexico

Hiromi Mizuno: Modern Japan, Science and Technology, Agriculture and Environment, Empires, Global WWII

Kevin Murphy: Urban, gender, and sexuality, political and cultural

Jean O'Brien: Colonial American, Native American

Zozan Pehlivan: Environmental History, Middle East, Modern Muslim World, and The Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Kurdistan

Helena Pohlandt-McCormick: Africa, South Africa, social and cultural history, comparative women's history

Steven Ruggles: American demographic and social history

Daniel Schroeter: Jewish, North African, Mediterranean

JB Shank: Early modern Europe, France, European intellectual, history of science

Ajay Skaria: South Asia, environmental history

Theofanis G Stavrou: Russia, modern Greek studies, Eastern Orthodoxy

Igor Tchoukarine: 20th century Europe, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, history of tourism

Barbara Y Welke: American legal and constitutional, American women's, and modern American history

Thomas Wolfe: European Union, Soviet Union, history of media and communications, pragmatism