A. Program Description. The graduate program in history at Washington University is committed to promoting innovative research and preparing students for academic careers. Although the department offers doctoral training in any historical specialization covered by a tenured faculty member, it specializes in the history of Africa, American civil rights, Britain, Central Europe, East Asia, and Empire. These core fields draw on the expertise of substantial segments of the faculty and provide significant opportunities for innovative graduate study that bridges conventional historical fields and fosters interdisciplinary research.

The graduate program admits only a small number of graduate students each year to promote a close working relationship between students and faculty. We invite applications from mature and self-directed students with well-defined research interests. Our seminars are small and flexible, and we encourage students to develop creative, self-tailored programs of doctoral study. The History department funds most doctoral candidates for six years at highly competitive levels and is committed to providing additional financial resources to support advanced research.

In view of the department's commitment to its doctoral program, the Department of History does not offer an MA degree.

B. Special Programs. See the website.

C. Financial Aid. For a list of available grants and prizes, see history.artsci.wustl.edu/node/291.

D. Degree Requirements. Most graduate students in history at Washington University proceed toward qualification in no more than three years, taking basic and specialized courses while preparing for an exam covering three scholarly fields. During this time, they also develop a dissertation topic.

A number of circumstances might alter the pace of the prequalification program. Students entering the program with a year or more of graduate study already completed at another institution are normally considered to be in the second year toward qualification. The heavy demands that language training imposes on students of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern history may throw their program out of sync with the European and American curricula. Therefore, the requirements of the first two years may, for the Africanist, Asianist, or Middle Eastern specialist, be stretched over three years, thus extending the prequalification period to a maximum of four years. The need for an extra year will be determined by the student's adviser and the Committee on Graduate Studies upon the student's arrival, and will be contingent on continuous enrollment in language courses until research proficiency is attained.

Graduate students normally enroll for 12 units of academic credit each semester, which usually includes 4 units granted for supervised teaching after their first year. Core seminars, pro-seminars, research seminars, and lecture courses count 4 units each, and independent reading may be taken for 4 to 8 units.

As part of the qualification process, students prepare two portfoliopapers fields. The theme or time period treated in the two papers may be related, as long as the papers demonstrate strong research competence in two distinct fields. Based extensively on primary sources, the portfolio paper is often the basis of a student's first academic publication. These papers may, but need not, be related to proposed dissertation work. They are often revised and polished by the student after completion of the seminars for which they were first written. Papers prepared in graduate work elsewhere, or papers written expressly for presentation to the examining committee, are also acceptable.