Academics
Undergraduate
History Major
Students with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History cultivate a broad understanding of human history across time and space and develop deep knowledge of a particular region of the world. At the same time, they learn how to ask transformative questions, develop their ability to answer them through effective research, and convey their ideas clearly and persuasively through strong communication skills.
Undergraduate
History Minor
Students whose major area of study is not history may nonetheless find that a minor in history makes an invaluable contribution to their studies.
Graduate
Doctoral Degree
The Ph.D. program in history has a global and transnational orientation, and emphasizes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to historical studies, encouraging innovative thinking about global historical processes. In consultation with their faculty advisors, Ph.D. students complete courses of study and original research that bring together their temporal, geographical and thematic or methodological interests.
Graduate
Master’s Degree
The Department of History offers an M.A. degree in history for those individuals who are interested in postgraduate work, but who are not planning to complete a Ph.D. It is a degree program that can fulfill in-service education requirements for current teachers as well as for future teachers earning a single-subject credential in social studies.
Faculty
The History faculty at UCSC includes influential scholars, prize winners, and recipients of major grants and fellowships. We have particular strengths in histories of colonialism and empire; gender; science, technology, and medicine; transnationalism; labor; and migration. We also emphasize public history, oral history, and the digital humanities, in addition to traditional archival research and academic writing.
Affiliated Programs
The History Department faculty are a diverse group of scholars whose research and teaching interests often span the divides between traditional academic disciplines. These faculty form collaborative working relationships with their colleagues campus wide, producing new and exciting interdisciplinary fields of study:
News
Humanities students dive into Santa Cruz surfing history
This spring quarter, UC Santa Cruz Humanities students immersed themselves in the story of three Hawaiian princes who introduced surfing to the United States in the late 19th century, using Santa Cruz to launch a sport that became a cultural phenomenon.
The ten-week public history course, taught by UC Santa Cruz Humanities Dean and History Professor Jasmine Alinder, brought students face-to-face with the complexities of community storytelling, colonial legacies, and cultural continuity
Saritaan: Preserving Filipino migration stories across oceans and generations
A new UC Santa Cruz initiative called Saritaan—meaning “to talk story” in Ilokano—is preserving the untold migration stories of Filipino families.
Critical Imagination in Crisis Times: A Conference on the power of the Humanities at UC Santa Cruz
In times of growing inequality, political upheaval, and climate crisis, how do we imagine a different future, one that breaks free from the cycles of crisis and oppression? This question will be explored in depth at UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Imagination in Crisis Times conference at Merrill College on Tuesday, March 11.