The University of Virginia's Corcoran Department of History has long been one of the anchors for liberal and humane education in the College of Arts & Sciences. Members of the Department are nationally and internationally recognized for their scholarship and teaching. As scholars, the faculty specialize in a wide range of disciplines — cultural, diplomatic, economic, environmental history, history of science & technology, intellectual, legal, military, political, public history, and social history. Areas of interest span the globe from Africa, to East Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, and the United States. As teachers, our faculty seek above all to lead students to reflect more deeply on the role historical forces and processes play in the human condition. Offering over 100 courses a year, the faculty teach introductory surveys as well as seminars and colloquia to undergraduates and graduate students. The Department's intellectual breadth is enhanced by its close relationship with the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American & African Studies, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), the Classics Department, an emerging Law & History nexus between the Department and the School of Law, the Miller Center for Study of the American Presidency, and the Committee on the History of Environment, Science, and Technology (CHEST). Members of the Department are also closely involved with several interdisciplinary programs in the College of Arts & Sciences such as, American Studies, Latin American Studies, Middle-Eastern Studies, Medieval Studies Program, and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Others work at the convergence of humanities and digital technology, both in research and in novel approaches to historical pedagogy.
News
In his new "Made By History" article, Stefan Lund (UVA PhD 2022) discusses the history of mob violence in the United States and how "mob violence undermines the core principles of American governme
Professor Cynthia Nicoletti has won the George and Ann Richards Prize for the best article published in The Journal of the Civil War Era in 2021.
In her recent New York Times opinion piece, Professor Sarah Milov discusses the tobacco industry's history of promoting the illusion that smoking is a choice in light of the FDA's recent proposal t
Professor Alan Taylor recently presented as one of the keynotes for the Bavarian American Academy (BAA) Conference.
Publications
Merit
The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the Twenty-First Century
Cool Town
How Athens, Georgia Launched the Alternative Scene and Changed American Culture
Taming the Unknown
A History of Algebra from Antiquity to the Early Twentieth Century
Unfree Marks: The Slaves' Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina
Justene Hill Edwards
That Tyrant, Persuasion
How Rhetoric Shaped the Roman World
The Unsettled Plain
An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier
The Man Who Understood Democracy
The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville
Paradoxes of Nostalgia
Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder since 1989
Events
September 28, 2022