History and Political Studies, Master of Arts

The Master of Arts in History and Political Studies is a fully online degree program designed for graduate students who have interdisciplinary interests and for educators who want to expand their professional credentials to teach courses in both history and government.

Build Proficiency in Three Phases

Coursework for this degree is broken into three phases.

In your initial courses, you will gain an overview of the disciplines of history and political science as well as a grounding in each field’s methodological approaches.

Following your initial courses, you develop an insight into each of the History Department’s three thematic tracks (War & Violence, Rights & Identity, and Encounters & Exchanges) and the Political Science Department’s three principal subfields (American Politics, Comparative Politics, and International Relations).

Your final courses will be your choice of any two other history and political science courses as electives that best suit your professional objectives.

As you complete your degree, you will build an interdisciplinary portfolio reflecting your development. Your portfolio of work in your final semester will consist of a synthetic essay, an annotated bibliography or teaching portfolio, and a compilation of your written work from your completed courses.

Thematic Tracks for History

• War & Violence: Courses examine how different societies have experienced, conducted, and remembered military conflict, mass killing, and genocide.
• Rights & Identity: Courses explore how individuals and collectives have defined themselves at different times and places around the world.
• Encounters & Exchanges: Courses explore how the world’s diverse peoples have encountered and interacted with one another on a large scale over time.

Subfields for Political Science

• American Politics: Courses examine political institutions and political behavior in the United States.
• Comparative Politics: Courses explore the diverse political systems around the world.
• International Relations: Courses explore the cooperative and conflictual interactions of sovereign states and non-state actors on the global stage.

Program Breakdown