Loyola University Chicago

• Application Deadlines
• Application Requirements
• Contact Information
• Curriculum
• Degree Programs (Ph.D., M.A.)
• Faculty
• Overview

Overview

The Department of History offers a comprehensive program in Medieval and Renaissance, Modern European, Public and United States history. As one of the first departments in the nation to offer doctorate and master’s degrees in public history, we strive to meet the needs of today’s students. Graduates are prepared for careers in teaching and public history, but they also have transferable skills that make them excellent candidates for careers in business, government and cultural institutions. Our major strengths are:

• We offer a major field in 19th- and 20th-century American History and a concentration in Urban, Social and Cultural History. The concentration builds on the specializations of one of the largest concentrations of urbanists in a single history department in the country. Faculty strengths in this area include urban history, the built environment, economic and working class history, the history of sexuality and the history of popular culture and entertainment
• We offer a master’s and doctorate degree in Public History. The department’s Public History program is a nationally recognized program and one of the few that fully integrates public history into the doctoral program. The metropolitan Chicago area is one of the finest environments for developing public history skills in the nation. Located in one of the leading cultural, corporate and governmental administrative centers in the country, Loyola offers its students access to a wide variety of internship and practicum opportunities  
• We maintain a strong program in Medieval and Renaissance History, which covers the broad period c. 400 to c. 1550. Department resources are enhanced by courses offered by the Newberry Library Consortium’s Center for Renaissance Studies, of which Loyola is a founding member

Degree Programs (Ph.D., M.A.)

The Department of History offers several Ph.D. and M.A. degree programs:

Ph.D. Degree in History

This 60-hour degree typically begins with an M.A. that serves as the foundation for all later work. Students entering with an M.A. in history usually take an additional 33 hours beyond the M.A. Students specialize in one of three major fields:

• Medieval and Renaissance
• Modern Europe
• United States

The doctoral program is designed to prepare students in a broad major field while at the same time giving them the expertise to focus on specialized topics or research. Students must also choose a minor field. Minor fields include:

• Ancient Mediterranean
• Asia
• Britain and Ireland
• Early Modern Europe
• Gender and Women's History
• Latin America
• Medieval and Renaissance
• Middle East
• Modern Europe
• Public History
• United States

Accelerated Format for the Ph.D. Program

Available to students who have an outstanding undergraduate record in history, this accelerated format allows students to enter the Ph.D. program directly and to fulfill all of the Ph.D. course requirements in five semesters. Students prepare a major field and two minor fields.

Joint American History/Public History Ph.D. Specialization

This program provides students with the opportunity to combine training in American history and public history. Structured around two major fields rather than a major and minor field, the program is designed to prepare students for positions calling for a doctorate, such as teaching public history at the university level or curating or administering at governmental institutions, such as the Smithsonian Institution or the National Park Service.

M.A. Degree in History

Students in the 27-hour M.A. program can specialize in one of the following major fields:

• Medieval and Renaissance
• Modern Europe
• United States

They must also complete a minor field in one of the following areas:

• Ancient Mediterranean
• Asia
• Britain and Ireland
• Early Modern Europe
• Gender and Women’s History
• Latin America
• Medieval and Renaissance
• Middle East
• Modern Europe
• Public History
• United States

M.A. Degree in Public History

This degree applies the skills and methods of history to study the management, preservation and interpretation of historical records and artifacts.

Public historians work in museums, historical societies and archives, neighborhood or community history projects, historic preservation and cultural resource management programs and governmental research projects of all levels. This is a 33-hour program built around five applied courses, an internship and a minor field in history.

M.A. Degree in Public History and Library Information Science

This degree provides interested students the opportunity to develop knowledge in history with a more focused educational background in archives and library science. Students receive two separate degrees, an M.A. in history from Loyola University Chicago and an M.A.L.S. from Dominican University. Students must apply to both institutions separately. The joint degree can be achieved in a shorter time than pursuing each degree separately.

Length of Programs

Full-time students usually complete their respective M.A. program in two years. Part-time students generally complete the program in three years, depending on the number of courses they choose to take each semester.

Curriculum

Every semester, the Department of History offers classes in all major fields of interest, including United States, Medieval, Modern Europe and Public History. Students also have the opportunity to engage in internships and practicums, which enable them to experience both the intellectual and practical applications of their knowledge. For a catalog list of courses, please visit www.luc.edu/depts/history/grad

Faculty

The Department of History's 24 full-time faculty members have a national reputation for scholarship. They have published extensively with major scholarly presses and journals, as well as received prestigious awards from organizations like the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Members of our faculty have been Fulbright Senior Scholars and have been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships. Their teaching talent and award-winning expertise in their fields are apparent in the quality courses they teach. Faculty members are listed by their field of specialization.

Ancient Mediterranean

Leslie Dossey, Ph.D. (Harvard University), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Roman and Middle Eastern history, social and cultural history of late antiquity, material culture and patristic sermons and exegesis

Africa

Kim Searcy, Ph.D. (Indiana University), Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: 19th-century Islamic thought in Africa, charisma and legitimacy in Islamic polities and Islamic revivalism in 19th-century Africa

Asia

Mark A. Allee, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Early modern and modern China, Chinese social history, local history, and law and society

Ann M. Harrington, Ph.D. (Claremont), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Christianity and missionaries in Japan, Japanese women and imperialism

Early Modern Europe

Robert Bireley, Ph.D. (Harvard University), S.J. Professor
Areas of interest: Early Modern Europe, early modern Catholicism, Thirty Years’ War, early modern political thought and history of the Jesuits

Robert O. Bucholz, D.Phil. (Oxford University, England), Professor
Areas of interest: Early modern Britain, British court and royal household (1660-1901) and early modern London

Michael Khodarkovsky, Ph.D. (University of Chicago), Professor
Areas of interest: Early modern and imperial Russian history

Latin America

Dina Berger, Ph.D. (University of Arizona), Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: Latin American history, with an emphasis on modern Mexico and popular culture

Medieval and Renaissance History

Theresa Gross-Diaz, Ph.D. (Northwestern University), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Medieval England, commentaries on the Bible, schools and early universities, pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and to Rome and indulgences

John M. McManamon, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), S.J. Professor
Areas of interest: Italian Renaissance humanism, mediaeval palaeography and codicology, mediaeval seafaring and shipwreck archaeology

Barbara H. Rosenwein, Ph.D. (University of Chicago), Professor and Chair
Areas of interest: Early Medieval religion, culture, emotions and society

Middle East

Zouhair Ghazzal, Ph.D. (Université Paris-Sorbonne), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Islamic and Arab studies; Medieval, Ottoman and modern legal theory; general economic history and political economy; approaches to history and methodology; and photography

Modern Europe

Anthony L. Cardoza, Ph.D. (Princeton University), Professor
Areas of interest: History of elites, history of masculinity and modern Italian history

David B. Dennis, Ph.D. (UCLA), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Modern European intellectual and cultural history, modern German history, music and history and Beethoven studies

Suzanne Kaufman, Ph.D. (Rutgers University), Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Modern European social and cultural history, modern France, history of religion and popular culture, and gender and women's history

Prudence A. Moylan, Ph.D. (University of Illinois-Urbana) Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Modern Britain, gender and women's history and peace studies

Janet Nolan, Ph.D. (University of Connecticut), Professor
Areas of interest: Irish and Irish-American social/economic history with an emphasis on emigration/immigration, women in the 19th and 20th centuries, and Europe and the United States

United States

Lewis Erenberg, Ph.D. (University of Michigan), Professor
Areas of interest: History of music, culture, entertainment and gender

Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Ph.D. (Columbia University), Professor
Areas of interest: Urban and social history

Susan E. Hirsch, Ph.D. (University of Michigan), Professor
Areas of interest: labor, urban and gender history

Theodore Karamanski, Ph.D. (Loyola University Chicago), Professor
Areas of interest: Native American history, Civil War, frontier history and public history

Christopher E. Manning, Ph.D. (Northwestern University), Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: African-American political and civil rights activism and black Chicago

Patricia Mooney-Melvin, Ph.D. (University of Cincinnati), Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director
Areas of interest: Urban, public, local history and the built environment

Harold L. Platt, Ph.D. (Rice University), Professor
Areas of interest: Urban and environmental history, history of technology, and the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Application Requirements

Applicants to the M.A. programs generally have an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.0; applicants to the Ph.D. program generally have a GPA of at least 3.3.

• A $50 application fee
• A completed application form. To apply, go to www.luc.edu/gpem
• Official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate work (normally M.A. applicants or Ph.D. applicants without an M.A. should have 24 undergraduate hours in history; Ph.D. applicants with an M.A. should have the equivalent of a graduate major field in history)
• Scores for the GRE (general examination)
• Three letters of recommendation (usually from referees familiar with the applicant's academic work)
• A statement of purpose describing academic and research interests, as well as professional goals
• A research paper: Applicants to the M.A. program need to supply a research paper written for a history course. Applicants to the Ph.D. program need to supply a master's essay or thesis, or two seminar papers from previous graduate work
• Either a TOEFL or IELTS score report is required for international applicants whose native language is not English. For the TOEFL, a score of at least 213 on the computer-based test or 550 on the written test is required.  The minimum score for the new TOEFL iBT (Internet-based test) is 79. For the IELTS, a minimum score of 6.5 is required
• International applicants, or U.S. applicants who completed school abroad, are required to submit non-U.S. transcripts to Educational Credential Evaluators, Inc. (ECE). For more information, contact ECE at 414-289-3400 or visit www.ece.org

Please request a general evaluation report and have the official report sent to Loyola University Chicago, Graduate Enrollment Management, 820 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611. 

Application Deadlines

Fall admission: January 1 (for assistantship applicants) or May 1

Spring admission: October 1

Deadlines and application requirements are subject to change. Visit www.luc.edu/depts/history for the most up-to-date information.

Contact Information

The application and all supporting documents must be sent to Graduate Enrollment Management at the following address: 

Graduate Enrollment Management
Loyola University Chicago
820 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60611
Phone: 312.915.8950
E-mail: GradApp@luc.edu

For more information about the academic program, or to arrange a visit, contact:

Department of History
Loyola University Chicago
6525 N. Sheridan Road
Chicago, Illinois 60626
Phone: 773.508.2182
www.luc.edu/depts/history