Department of History

Advising

Thinking about majoring in History or Social Science Teacher Preparation or both? How about a History minor? Need help choosing classes or checking on your requirements? Get help from our advisors!

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Congratulations to Dr. Katherine Chilton for being a contributing author to a recently published collection on Southern Black women's struggles during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The Waterboys - Two Irishmen and the Politics of Water in California

Dr. Glen Gendzel's recent interview on Irish national radio as a guest on "The History Show," talking about his recent article on Irish water engineers in California.

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Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico

By Dr. Alberto Garcia 2023 Winner of the William M. LeoGrande Prize for the best book on U.S.-Latin American Relations, an award bestowed by the School of Public Affairs and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University. Listen to a podcast hosted by Rachel Grace Newman, Assistant Professor of History at Colgate University. Dr. Newman interviews San José State's very own Dr. Alberto García about his new book Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico.

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Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of Women's Suffrage Movement

By Dr. Wendy L. Rouse. A podcast hosted by Susan Liebell a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.  Dr. Liebell interviews San José State's very own Dr. Wendy Rouse about her new book Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement. 

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Sex, Sexuality and Suffrage

A panel of scholars (Featuring Dr. Wendy L. Rouse) talked about how suffragists, as a group, outwardly adhered to traditional ideas of marriage and heterosexuality to demonstrate the suffrage movement’s respectability, yet many privately engaged in non-traditional relationships. The California Historical Society hosted this event and provided the video.

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Auguste Comte - An Intellectual Life

The intellectual life of Auguste Comte, a radical and controversial figure who founded the discipline of Sociology, and launched Positivism, a philosophical and political movement whose influence was widespread. His life and work had been all but forgotten until Mary Pickering devoted decades to understanding this man and his contributions.

Listen to the podcast here!

Fathers vs. Slavery

Check out a podcast with Dr. Libra Hilde discussing her book, Slavery Fatherhood, and Paternal Duty in African American Communities Over the Long Nineteenth Century

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Negotiating Socialism in Rural China is the first monograph in English on how China’s agricultural collectivization began. It challenges the conventional wisdom and explores how the national policy emerged from complex bureaucratic interactions among central, regional, local governments and peasants.

The Very Queer History of the Suffrage Movement

Written by Dr. Wendy L. Rouse. When lawyer and suffragist Gail Laughlin (1868-1952) discovered that her evening gown had no pockets in it, she refused to wear it until the pockets were sewn on. Objecting to the restrictive nature of women’s clothing was just one of the ways that suffragists sought to upend the status quo in the early twentieth century. The women’s suffrage movement allowed women to re-examine, question, and begin to systematically rebel against the many restrictions they had lived under for centuries – including oppressive gender and sexual norms. There are, of course, more serious examples, besides Laughlin’s demand for pockets, of how suffragists defied the gendered conventions of their day....

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