At The New School for Social Research, Historical Studies lays the foundation for all social inquiry and for informed debates on the politics and culture of our time. Bridging the humanities with the social sciences, our innovative program trains students in conceptual rigor, archival research, critical analysis, and historical writing. Our strong links to other NSSR departments and to centers and programs located across The New School provide our students with paralleled opportunities for engagement with critical social theory and for interdisciplinary collaboration.
Our
course offerings cover a wide range of historical periods and world regions, with particular strength in the large-scale transformations of the modern era. Areas of faculty expertise include the history of capitalism, the history of politics, history of violence, gender history, history of psychoanalysis, history of social movements, and history and theory. Our diverse approaches employ the insights of critical social theory. Committed faculty mentors work with students to cultivate students’ abilities as scholars, as educators, and as writers who can communicate to a wide audience.
Outside of the halls of our department, students pursuing a degree in Historical Studies take part in the intellectual life of the NSSR’s
many centers, including the
Janey Program in Latin American Studies,
The Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies, and the
Zolberg Center on Migration and Mobility. They contribute to our on-line publication
Public Seminar and explore digital scholarship at the
Digital Humanities Initiative. Beyond The New School, our students engage with New York City’s peerless array of scholarly and cultural institutions.
Our alumni pursue doctoral study at The New School for Social Research and other top Universities or put their training to use successfully in a wide range of non-academic careers
Founded in the mid-1980s by Charles Tilly, Louise Tilly, Aristide Zolberg, and Ira Katznelson, the Committee for Historical Studies continues to build upon its original premise: history is a field of inquiry critical to all human understanding. We remain committed to developing theoretically informed and critical approaches to historical questions.