Academics
Get Engaged with History
In the Department of History, you can explore your passion through three distinct degree paths that offer comprehensive faculty mentoring and in-depth conversations with your peers.
With a history major, you'll learn how to use sources to explore connections between the past and the present. Your studies and coursework will prepare you to conduct an independent research project about a question that excites you. Our history majors frequently add a second major to further broaden their undergraduate experience.
If you're pursuing another major as your primary degree, a history minor offers you the flexibility to choose from a broad selection of courses that intrigue you and enhance your educational path.
Students inspired to teach can apply to our dual undergraduate-graduate degree with the Morgridge College of Education Teacher Education Program, which empowers you to complete a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in curriculum and instruction in five years.
Learn more about the Department of History's academic programs below.
Top photo by Greg Hobbs.
Featured Courses
HIST 1250
Food in East Asian History
About this Course
This class examines the relationship between food and health in East Asian history. We focus on how that relationship, and the way people understood it, changed over the past century and a half. In other words, we focus not only on how (and what) people in East Asia have eaten, but also on how they have thought about eating. This course asks how western dietary ideas and practices have interacted with traditional East Asian ideas and practices.
HIST 2016
Contemporary Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 2000-Today
About this Course
This course deals with the political, religious and social dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the failure of the Oslo Accords to the present. It provides students with a brief overview of the history and key issues in the conflict, turning to domestic, regional and global developments, allegiances and enmities – political, religious and economic – that have shaped the past 15+ years of conflict. At a time when even optimistic observers call the two-state solution a vain hope, this course concludes with a look at viable approaches for domestically and internationally acceptable peace plans.
HIST 2945
Slavery and Samba: Race and Ethnicity in the Making of Modern Brazil
About this Course
This is a survey history course focused on how race and ethnic relations helped shape the historical formation of the Brazilian society. The course offers students an opportunity to study the historical evolution of Brazil, from the colonial period to the present day, as a way to understand how the historical exclusionary economic, political and social structures of the country were shaped by racial elements, as well as how traditionally excluded groups have historically coped with and reacted to this reality.
Want to Know if a History Major or Minor is Right For You?
Dual Degree with the Teacher Education Program (TEP)
Through the Teacher Education Program, students can complete a bachelor's degree in history and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction in just five years. This program, a partnership with the Morgridge College of Education, prepares history students to teach elementary education or secondary social studies.
To apply, students currently enrolled in a DU undergraduate program can meet with a Morgridge admissions counselor in their sophomore year and can apply for the TEP program in the winter of their junior year.
Featured Faculty
