Graduate Students
Graduate students in the Ph.D. program in the Department of History at the University of Virginia studying any region or period may do a field in the History of Science, Technology, and Environment. It may be their major field, special field within the major field, or special field outside the major field.
Click here for a list of available graduate and undergraduate courses.
Click here for the History department graduate study guide.
Call for Applications, CHET Graduate Student Fellowships. Deadline: December 1, 2005.
Within the broader area of the history of science, technology, and environment, faculty with particular interest in the intersections of environmental and technological history have raised about $280,000 from the National Science Foundation to help fund predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships. These faculty members are Bernie Carlson (principal investigator), Jack Brown and Edmund Russell (co-principal investigators) and Brian Balogh. Beginning in 1996, as the Committee on the History of Environment and Technology, these four faculty members obtained university funding for two postdoctoral fellowships in the history of environment and technology, offered undergraduate and graduate courses in this area, and organized seminars featuring outside speakers. The National Science Foundation grant builds on this foundation. Strong support for the grant proposal came from the chairs of the departments of history (Charles McCurdy) and technology, culture, and communication (Michael Gorman) and the deans of arts and sciences and engineering. The funding is for academic years 2004-2007.
The predoctoral fellowship packages will provide graduate students with three years of funding. The National Science Foundation will fund students their first year. A mix of National Science Foundation and UVA money will fund their second year and third years. Some support will come from teaching assistantships in courses related to this field, such as Nature and Technology in America, Technology in World History, and others.
Graduate fellows will complete a major field in the history of environment and technology and two special fields. At least one of the special fields will be based in a geographic region used to define a major field in the history department.
Graduate fellows take HIST 720: History of Environment and Technology, in fall term of their first year. (The course is open to all graduate students.) This course explores several themes in the overlap between environmental and technological history, including social construction and determinism; nature and technology; agency and power; and narratives beyond progress and decline. By organizing outside speakers and welcoming broad faculty input, this course serves as a common ground where faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and more advanced graduate fellows meet regularly to exchange ideas.
Graduate fellows subsequently take three more courses - two related 700 level courses and a 990 level thesis readings course - in their first two years to prepare for field exams. Their other courses will be chosen to fulfill the requirements for their fields of choice and for the history department.
Examples of related 700-level courses already taught (others will be offered in the future):
- Environmental History of the US and Britain
- American Environmental History
- Global Environmental History
- Topics in American Technological History
- History of Environment and Technology
Sample curriculum for student with (a) a major field in history of science, technology, and environment (emphasizing environmental history), (b) a special field within the major in recent US History, and (c) special field outside the major in law and technology.
| Year |
Fall |
Spring |
| 1 |
HIST 720: History of Environment and Technology
HIST 99x: Thesis readings
|
HIUS 702: Colloquium in American History
HIUS 802: Seminar in American History
|
| 2 |
HIUS 761: Graduate Colloquium in Women’s History
HIUS 855: Seminar in American Legal History
|
HIST 7xx: Global Environmental History
HIUS 726: Colloquium in American Political Development
|
During the three years of support, students participate (with faculty and the postdoctoral fellow, who will organize the series) in monthly workshops. Workshops involve visiting speakers, presentations by students and faculty of work in progress, discussions of current publications, publishing strategies, research ethics, and grantsmanship. This monthly workshop will be a continuation of the speaker series that CHET has run since 1997.
In their second and third year, students serve as teaching assistants in an undergraduate lecture course taught by Committee members. Examples of such courses (already being taught with teaching assistants) are American Environmental History, Nature and Technology in America Technology in the Twentieth Century, and Technology in World History. These assistantships offer an opportunity for students to develop, under close faculty supervision, their teaching skills. The teaching assistantships also comprise part of the student’s package of support.
To help students become part of the larger community of technological and environmental historians, and to disseminate research findings, students receive travel allowances to attend annual meetings of SHOT and the American Society for Environmental History. In their third year, students will propose papers based on research they conducted in 800-level seminars for these conferences. Faculty conduct workshops (as part of the monthly workshop series) on writing proposals and presenting one’s work orally.
