Thanks to the multiple interests and specializations of the History Department faculty, students in the department's programs are able to pursue study of a wide range of areas from a diversity of perspectives.
The History program faculty maintains areas of specialty in a number of geographic areas, including colonial North American and United States History, Latin American History, European History, Russian and Soviet History, Middle-Eastern Studies and Islamic History, Asian History, and African History. Transcending these geographic categories, however, the faculty collectively possess areas of specialty in a number of thematic areas that cross traditional boundaries, allowing our students the opportunity to become truly global, comparative, and interdisciplinary historians. These thematic foci include:
- Gender and Sexuality, supported by the resources of Cal State L.A.’s Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities
- Labor and the History of Social Classes across traditional boundaries of time and place
- Urban History across the humanities and social sciences, supported by the resources of our programs in Urban Studies and American Studies
- Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, highlighting the comparative study of empires and imperial practices in both the modern and pre-modern era
- Religion and Spirituality, focusing on faith traditions and religious movements as topics of historical inquiry with significance at the local, regional, national, and global level
- Transnational Studies and World History, emphasizing how technologies, sciences, cultural practices, economic networks, migration flows, and political movements have frequently transcended nation-state borders, continental boundaries, and geographic barriers.
- Political History, including comparative studies of diplomacy, civil rights, citizenship and law, war, revolution, and political economy.
- Race, Ethnicity, and Migration, including African-American history, history of the U.S.-Mexico borderland, and Asian-American history.
- Histories of the Americas, fostered by partnerships with Cal State L.A.’s Latin American Studies Program, Chicano Studies Department, American Communities Program, and Pan-African Studies Program.