Location: Wooten Hall 225
Phone: 940-565-2288
Email: History@unt.edu
Innovative research, professional service, and stellar teaching and mentorship define the UNT Department of History, a community of 34 full-time faculty and staff, 450 undergraduate history majors, and nearly 100 MA and PhD students. The department has been long recognized for its leadership in the fields of oral history and the histories of Texas and the American South. In recent decades, we have also emerged as a global leader for interdisciplinary research in food studies, military history, the medical humanities, and in digital scholarship. Our students and faculty conduct research around the world using a wide variety of historical methods, including archaeological fieldwork, computer modeling, and the analysis of archival manuscripts. In addition to scholarly books and articles for academic audiences, members of our department also write for broader audiences and engage the public through a variety of other multidisciplinary projects like podcasts, museum exhibits, and even the creation of historical gardens. Our common concerns are the past and its multitude of meanings and interpretations.
Our curriculum emphasizes research and writing skills and training that cultivates students as the co-creators of historical knowledge. Rather than simply teaching “historical content” in the classroom, our faculty members work to empower students as bona fide historians themselves through thematic coursework that provides them with opportunities to conduct their own scholarship and to “learn by doing.”
In addition to this emphasis on research, our MA and PhD programs are also distinguished by a focus on professional development and career readiness. We offer our graduate students pedagogical training and opportunities for teaching experience, and many move on to careers in higher education. We also provide curricular support for students heading down other professional pathways outside of academia. Alumni have applied their graduate training to careers in law, secondary education, politics, and archives and libraries, among others.
The Department offers a Bachelor of Arts in History, a Master of Arts in History, and a Doctor of Philosophy in History. We also host four interdisciplinary minors at UNT, including African American Studies, Classical Studies, and Mexican American Studies, as well as UNT's Food Studies and Medical Humanities certificate programs.