Chair’s Welcome: Dr. Timothy Brown
The history department at Northeastern University is a national leader in undergraduate and graduate training in world history, public history, and digital humanities. The department features a highly productive faculty who are active in the publication of innovative research in trans-national and global approaches to African, Latin American, European, Asian, and United States history.
History faculty engage with many audiences in and outside academia: they publish in top journals and presses in their fields, and also curate historical exhibits in public spaces and museums, construct digital projects for public use, write pieces for popular outlets like the Atlantic, and write textbooks that are widely used in university and secondary classrooms around the nation and world. In addition, history faculty are accomplished in winning competitive national grants and prizes in world, public, and digital history, and are frequently asked to address the public and the discipline as speakers. Finally, History faculty bring their passion for research into the classroom, and are frequently nominated for teaching awards.
The history department at Northeastern emboldens students to gain both historical knowledge and a broad range of related analytical and practical skills through engaging with global historical events over time and across regions, while also specializing in a particular area or theme of interest. Students learn to read and think critically, conduct research, and analyze conflicting information to make coherent written and oral arguments. History students are unique at Northeastern because learning extends well beyond the classroom: through the Experiential Liberal Arts, they explore history by walking the streets of Boston with interactive historical maps, by creating digital projects for the public domain, or by conducting their own research in Boston’s many archives and museums.
History department faculty are particularly strong on the following themes: comparative empires; international and transnational political activism; environmental history and the history of science; transnational media and popular culture; comparative gender relations; citizenship and welfare states; racial formations; revolution, war and genocide; legal history; intellectual history; the global Cold War; and cultures of memory. They engage these themes through a variety of media including scholarly publications, exhibitions for popular consumption, digital projects, and pedagogical tools for students. As such, they seek maximum impact for their work at the university and beyond.
The History Department is proud of the accomplishments of its graduate and undergraduate students. Current graduate students have successfully competed for the most prestigious national fellowships, including ACLS, Social Science Research Council, Mellon/CES, and Fulbright Hays Fellowships. Graduate students at Northeastern also have an impressive record of publication and of presenting their research at national and international conferences. Please visit our Graduate page to learn more about our graduate programs.
Undergraduate majors have also been highly successful in a variety of arenas, from winning co-ops in the U.S. State Department to competing successfully for NU Provost Research Grants and Fulbright Fellowships. History department majors also routinely conduct intensive original research with faculty members, study abroad in summer Dialogue or semester-long programs, and participate in active work experience related to the field through the Co-Op program. Please visit our Undergraduate page to learn more about our graduate programs.
I hope you enjoy learning more about our programs and people. I look forward to hearing from you with any communications or questions you may have, at ti.brown@northeastern.edu.
