Department of History
Located in Langdale Building, Third Floor
Does history repeat itself? Repeat itself because we don't listen? Speak in rhyme? To these and other questions, Mercer's History Department brings no simple answers, but a wide array of prespectives, specialties, and teaching approaches. As a result, Mercer's history majors learn to think and write clearly, to organize and interpret evidence, and to confront complex issues in informed, insightful, and ethically alert ways.
The Department of History's 10-course major allows either a European or American emphasis, and its two-course research sequence equips all majors to research topics of their own choosing. The student earns a bachelor of arts degree.
Minor
History's five-course minor is among the college's most flexible minors.
Concentrations
History majors concentrate largely as they choose. History courses contribute crucially to the Classical Studies and Southern Studies concentrations, and to the African American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies majors.
The Department's chapter of the national history honor society Phi Alpha Theta sponsors guest lectures.
For more than 40 years the Department of History, along with Department of English, has staged the annual Lamar Lectures on Southern History and Culture, featuring one of the nation's leading historians. (See Lamar Lectures)
Service-Learning Opportunities
History students have recently earned history credit by organizing the Fort Hawkins archives, by researching the early river traffic on the Ocmulgee River, and by assisting with Dr. Klingelhofer's archaeological projects in the Caribbean.