Graduate
The Graduate Program in History at the UIC offers a broad curriculum, an outstanding faculty, and an ideal urban location for graduate study in history. The Department offers three graduate degrees:
Within the PhD program, we also offer two concentrations:
- WRGUW (pronounced, appropriately enough, "argue"): Work, Race, and Gender in the Urban World
- Encounters: Encounters, Ethnographies, and Empires
Graduate Students applying to the Ph.D. program should, for fullest consideration, check one of our concentrations on the application. Our graduate concentrations shape our course offerings, giving many courses a thematic and comparative approach that is an important complement to the traditional preparation for major and minor fields. The concentrations play an important role in the course work that prepares students for teaching, as well as preparation for preliminary examinations, in the first two and a half years at UIC. We also offer foundational courses in traditional fields (US history, European History), and encourage interdisciplinary approaches to history. Once admitted, graduate students can take courses from both concentrations. Graduate students are encouraged to take a minor field from the other concentration, and also have the option of a minor field outside of history. Dissertations can be written on any research topic that fits with the expertise of our faculty, including topics that have little direct connection with the themes of the concentrations. At the same time, many students will work on dissertations that connect directly with those themes. The research interests of our faculty are very diverse, as is the research of our graduate students, and our concentrations are not intended to limit us, but to define an approach to graduate training that encourages interaction between fields, rather than boundaries within the discipline.
In addition, we participate in UIC’s Interdepartmental Graduate Consortia in Central and Eastern European Studies (CEES), Gender and Women's Studies (GWS), and Latino and Latin American Studies (LALS).
Our strengths lie primarily in twentieth-century U.S. History, and in European colonial and imperial history as played out in many regions of the world during the early modern and modern periods, including Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Recent senior hires in Catholic Studies and Polish History have also significantly enhanced our offerings in European history. We also offer a strong minor in World History that contributes substantially to our graduates’ competitiveness on the job market. The Chicago Metropolitan Exchange Program also allows UIC graduate students to take classes at other participating area institutions, including the University of Chicago.
The UIC Library’s Department of Special Collections and University Archives houses important archival materials on the history of Chicago, including social and urban reform, race, and politics. Jane Addams' Hull House sits on our campus. Internationally, we have extensive collections on the history of Sierra Leone and on the Atlantic slave trade from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two additional major universities and many colleges are located in the area, along with the Newberry Library, the Chicago History Museum, and the Great Lakes branch of the National Archives. All of these institutions add to the possibilities for engaging in original research in Chicago. Finally, UIC students and faculty have direct access not only to the collections at the UIC library, but also to the holdings of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), one of the nation’s largest research libraries.
We hope you enjoy exploring our website. The New Student webpage provides information for those who have just arrived. The FAQ page answer frequently asked questions. Courses range in topic and specialty. And the Graduate College lists not only the programs offered by the Department of History, but for all departments and programs contained within the College. We encourage you to apply, and are happy to discuss ways to pay for your graduate education. If you have specific questions not answered here, or need more information, you are always welcome to contact either the Graduate Program Coordinator at lindavp@uic.edu or the Director of Graduate Studies at histdgs@uic.edu.