The Department of History offers both the M.A. and the Ph.D. degrees. There are two programs of study for the master’s candidate. The thesis option requires the satisfactory completion of an extended essay based upon research in one’s area of concentration as well as 24 additional hours of course work. The non-thesis option requires the satisfactory completion of 30 hours. While students who follow the thesis option must defend their written work, non-thesis students must pass a comprehensive oral examination.

A master’s degree candidate may concentrate in American, Canadian, European, and East Asian history. The Ph.D. candidate may concentrate in either American, Canadian or International history and must become knowledgeable in two areas of history and in a related discipline. Other than these geographic areas of concentration, several faculty share expertise in borderlands, labor, Native American, environmental, and oral history. Faculty areas of specialization have also yielded much graduate work in women’s history, science and technology, military history, historical geography, intellectual history, trans-national history, cultural history, and ethnic history among others.

M.A. students, in conjunction with a major advisor, select a) an area of concentration such as American, Canadian, European, or East Asian history, or b) a topic of concentration such as Technology, Environmental, or International history.

The Ph.D. candidate may concentrate in either American, Canadian-American, or International history and must become knowledgeable in two areas of history and in a related discipline. Comprehensive written and oral examinations in these areas usually are scheduled at the end of two years of preparation. The candidate also must submit a scholarly and substantial piece of original research (dissertation) and defend it before his or her committee.
Candidates at both the master’s and doctoral levels are expected to demonstrate competence in a foreign language. The student’s advisory committee is responsible for determining specific requirements.

The Raymond Fogler Library is the historian’s research center. Among its most significant collections are journals, books, and documents in Maine, New England, Canadian, and maritime history. The Maine History journal is edited out of the Department and provides opportunities for graduate students to learn about the editing, layout, graphics, and printing of a journal. Small travel grants are available for dissertation work at research centers in other cities.

Admission to the graduate program in history is based upon the requirements of the Graduate School, including GRE scores. The History Department currently awards on a competitive basis several teaching assistantships annually which pay a stipend and include a waiver of tuition. Students also may compete for other University scholarships.

In recent years, topics of theses and dissertations have included Black reformers and the early civil rights movement in Pittsburgh 1915-1945, managing the river commons in New England 1760-1860, cookbooks and the negotiation of domesticity in Anglo-America 1830-1880, Acadian sorcerers and Mi’kmaw shamans in Acadian folklore, Jonathan Fisher and early American education 1780-1830, the Gospel of the northeastern frontier 1744-1764, Mothers’ Aid in Maine and New Brunswick in the early 20th century, the 1994-1995 public debate over proposed national history standards, and divergent visions of technology within American-Egyptian relations in the 1950s.

 

 

Graduate Faculty

Joel Anderson, Ph.D. (Cornell, 2015), Lecturer, Medieval Europe, Viking and medieval Scandinavia, cultural and religious history.

Mary Freeman, Ph.D. (Columbia, 2018), Assistant Professor, New England and Maine History

Nathan Godfried, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1980), Professor. 20th Century U.S., Labor and Economic, Mass Media and Popular Culture.

Mazie L. Hough, Ph.D. (University of Maine, 1997), Associate Professor. U.S., Women, Political, Legal.

Anne Kelly Knowles, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1993), Professor. Historical Geography, Holocaust, Antebellum US, Labor and Immigration, History of Cartography, Geovisualization, and Historical GIS.

Michael Lang, Ph.D. (University of California, Irvine, 1997), Associate Professor. Modern Europe, historiography, intellectual history, international relations.

Ngo Vinh Long, A.B., A.M., Ph.D. (Harvard University), Professor of History. China, Japan, Southeast Asia.

Elizabeth McKillen, Ph.D. (Northwestern, 1987), Professor. U.S., Foreign relations, Labor, 20th Century.

Mark J. McLaughlin, Ph.D. (University of New Brunswick, 2013), Assistant Professor of History and Canadian Studies. Environmental History, Canadian History, History of Science and Technology, Comics Studies.

Stephen M. Miller, B.A. (Tufts University); M.A. (New York University); Ph.D. (University of Connecticut), Adelaide & Alan Bird Professor and History Department Chair. Great Britain, South Africa, Military, Imperialism.

Micah Pawling Ph.D. (University of Maine, 2010), Assistant Professor, ethnohistory of Native North America, Native American, Wabanaki, environmental, United States, and Canadian history.

Liam Riordan, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania, 1996),Professor. Colonial British America, American Revolution, and Early U.S. Republic, cultural and social history.

 

 

Collaborative and Affiliated Gradute Faculty

Libby Bischof, Professor of History, University of Southern Maine

Stephen Hornsby, Professor of Geography, University of Maine

Michael J. Socolow, Professor of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine

Stefano Tijerina, Lecturer, Business School, University of Maine

 

Emeritus Gradute Faculty

William J. Baker, Professor Emeritus
John F. Battick, Associate Professor Emeritus
Richard Blanke, Professor Emeritus
Jay A. Bregman, Professor Emeritus
Alex Grab, Professor Emeritus
Richard W. Judd, Professor Emeritus
Jerome J. Nadelhaft, Professor Emeritus
Warren C. Riess, Associate Research Professor Emeritus
Scott W. See, Libra Professor Emeritus
William H. TeBrake, Professor Emeritus