Pathways

The history department offers courses in nearly every region, period, and field of the global past. To assist students in choosing courses of particular interest, we have designed “Pathways” that focus on certain intellectual themes across a broad range of geographic areas. Students do not need to commit to a particular pathway in order to become history majors or to enroll in history courses. Rather, these pathways are designed to be helpful guides to available courses in areas of special strength within the Yale history department.

 

Each pathway offers a brief overview of its major themes and lists courses with substantial content related to those areas. Within each pathway, students will find courses that fulfill the geographical and chronological requirements for the history major: U.S. and Canadian History; European and British History; “LAAA” (Latin America, Asia, Africa) History; and Pre-Industrial History. Each pathway also contains numerous departmental seminars that will fulfill the seminar requirements for the major; departmental seminars are designated by a course number ending in “J”—i.e. HIST 136J. For a detailed discussion of the requirements of the major, see the section on “Requirements of the Major” available on the history department web site in the Undergraduate Program section. Courses marked by an asterisk (*) are being offered in 2014-2015.  Course beginning with the number 0 (i.e. HIST 022) are freshman seminars, available only to first-year students by pre-registration.

 

The courses listed in each pathway are not necessarily taught every year. However students should expect that each course will be taught at least once (and usually more often than that) during their time at Yale.

 

Many courses will be listed in multiple pathways. This is because our faculty members, like our students, have a variety of interests. Our history courses reflect that exciting intellectual variety.