Dan Williams is a Current contributing editor, an Anxious Bench contributor, and a professor of history at the University of West Georgia. In recent piece at the Anxious Bench, Williams reflects on all he has learned about his faith from...
graduate school in history
*U.S. News & World Report* ranks graduate programs in history
I always tell history students that doctoral advisers are more important than doctoral programs. When I look at the U.S. News & World Report rankings I tend to focus less on which program is ranked in the top five and...
Ph.D. program in history at the University of Minnesota will not take students this year
Here is Ryan Faircloth at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: The University of Minnesota will not accept new students into many of its liberal arts doctoral degree programs this fall, pausing admissions to save money during the pandemic and to focus on...
What Do You Wish You Had Learned in the First Semester of Your History Graduate Program?
Recently, Baylor University history professor Andrea Turpin asked her Twitter followers a question about her upcoming graduate-level historiography class: Historians: I am teaching graduate historiography in the fall and would love to know: What is something you wish you had...
Gutting Academic Books
Douglas Hunter has published a really interesting piece at Slate about the practice, common among graduate students in history, of understanding the argument of a book without really reading it. This process is often described as “gutting.” Hunter explores the implications...
Digital Humanities and Your Vita
Will experience, expertise or interest in digital humanities help you land an academic job? In the Fall, my department will be conducting a search for a public historian. While the ability to do digital history will not be one of...
Should Applicants to a Ph.D Program Have a Fully-Formed Dissertation Idea in Mind When They Apply?
I often counsel undergraduates and M.A. students, both my students and others, about applying to Ph.D programs. I talked a bit about what I sometimes say to them in Episode 37 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. Every...
OAH Dispatch: Sometimes “I just need to listen”
Here is Mary R.S. Bracy‘s latest post from the Organization of American Historians meeting in Sacramento. Click here for Mary’s previous OAH post: “She Persisted: A New Assistant Professor Tells Her Story.” Enjoy! As is usually the case when I...
How to Advise Ph.D Students
Many of you recall Erin Bartram‘s viral post about her decision to leave academia. We blogged about it here and will be talking to Erin in a forthcoming episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. Her recent piece...
Ghost Dissertation Advisers
I am thankful that I had an excellent dissertation adviser who cared about my work. Katrin Schultheiss, the current chair of the Department of History at George Washington University, did not have the same experience. She described her experience (at...
Some Advice for Prospective Graduate Students in History
This is a very helpful piece at AHA Today from Christina Copland, a graduate student in history at the University of Southern California. If you are an undergraduate who is considering graduate school I think you will find Copland’s article...
Reading as a Graduate Student
Karen Wulf of the Omohundro Institute has a nice post at the Vast Early America blog on “reading” in graduate school. If you are studying for your comps and find yourself awash in a sea of monographs, this piece is...
What Might a Ph.D in History Look Like in 2022?
Jim Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, has a vision. In his recent piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education, he imagines what an orientation for new doctoral students might look like in 2022. Here is a taste:...
New Summer Online Graduate Courses Through Gilder-Lehrman
The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History has just announced their summer graduate course offerings. These courses can be applied to an M.A. in Humanities (American History concentration) at Adams State University. They are: America in an Age of World Wars:...
Nancy Tomes Wins the Bancroft Prize
I can now say that I am a student of a Bancroft Prize winner! I am very excited to learn that Nancy Tomes, one of my graduate school mentors and one of my favorite people in the profession, is one of...
In Defense of Faculty Scholarship at Small Christian Colleges
In the last six months I have had conversations with at least four different professors at four different small Christian colleges in the United States. These professors were all lamenting the fact that the administrations at their colleges had recently...
How Does and Undergraduate Course in History Differ From a Graduate Course?
Philip Jenkins, writing at The Anxious Bench, discusses the differences. A taste: So how does a graduate course differ from an undergraduate? To some extent, this is a question of degree (pun intended) or proportion. By the time you are...
#1stGradSchoolReading
What was the first book you read in graduate school? Historians are weighing in on Twitter at #1stgradschoolreading. If my memory serves me correctly, my first reading was James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America....
David Barton and Christians in Graduate School
Over at The Pietist Schoolman, Chris Gehrz, a Ph.D in European history from Yale, responds to David Barton’s “mini-tirade” against my supposedly pagan training in a secular graduate program. Here is a taste: …But in the spirit of seeing logs instead...
Applying to Graduate School in History: A Guide and Timeline
Yesterday we did a post on choosing a public history graduate program. Today I want to call your attention to Michael Hattem‘s excellent “Applying to Graduate School: A Guide and Timeline.” Hattem is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Yale...