Department of History

The Modern European field offers a broad array of courses, methodologies, and thematic emphases, including social history, political and diplomatic history, state-building and modernization, comparative ethnic politics and nationalism, history of science, and religious history. Georgetown University's Center for German and European Studies—located one floor beneath the History Department—provides additional opportunities for joint-degree programs, cross-disciplinary contacts, discussion fora, speaker series, and seminars in the area of European history, politics, and culture.

In addition to Georgetown University's own rich faculty and library resources, its location in Washington, D.C. offers students the opportunity to conduct research in the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Holocaust Museum Library and Holocaust Museum archival collections, all of which house important materials relating to Modern European History.

Faculty:

HORVATH-PETERSON, Sandra (PhD, Catholic 1971; assoc. prof.)
Modern France (esp. social and religious)

MCNEILL, John (PhD, Duke 1981; prof., University Professor)
Environmental, Mediterranean, Atlantic

OLESKO, Kathryn (PhD, Cornell 1980; assoc. prof. and faculty, Science Technology and International Affairs Program, SFS; editor, Osiris)
17th-20th century European science and technology; modern European intellectual history

ROSHWALD, Aviel (PhD, Harvard 1987; prof.) on leave 2012-2013
19th- and 20th-century European diplomatic, ethnic politics and nationalism

SHEDEL, James P. (PhD, Rochester 1978; assoc. prof.)
Habsburg Austria, Germany, Central Europe

VON DER GOLTZ, Anna (D. Phil., University of Oxford, 2007)
History of Germany 

Our strengths in Modern European History are complemented by the resources of the Early Modern European Field, and by scholars of geographically adjacent and/or overlapping regions, whose faculty are listed below:

Ágoston, Gábor. Associate Professor (Ph.D., Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1994). Ottoman History, the Balkans, Military History 

Astarita, Tommaso. Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1988). Early Modern Europe, the Mediterranean

Collins, David, S. J. Associate Professor (Ph.D. Northwestern, 2004). Medieval Germany

Collins, James. Professor (Ph.D. Columbia, 1978) Early Modern France and Europe

David-Fox, Michael Associate Professor (Ph.D. Yale, 1993) modern Russian and Soviet history

Games, Alison. Professor (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1992) Colonial America, Early Modern Britain, the Atlantic World

Goldfrank, David. Professor (Ph.D., Washington University, 1970) Medieval and Early Modern Russia; Eastern Europe

Kaminski, Andrzej. Professor (Ph.D., Jagellonian, Poland, 1966) Early Modern East Central Europe; Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth

Leonard, Amy. Associate Professor (Ph.D., Berkeley, 1999) Early Modern Germany; the Reformation

Moran Cruz, Jo Ann. Associate Professor (Ph.D., Brandeis, 1975) 

For more information regarding graduate studies in Modern European History at Georgetown, please contact Professor Anna Von Der Goltz (faculty area representative to the Graduate Studies Committee). In addition, we encourage you to contact current graduate students for their perspectives on the program; they will also be glad to answer any questions you may have.  The following students have agreed to serve as contacts.

For an overview of recent faculty publications in this field please see here.

Photo Credit:

"Getting Married in Hamburg"

Image taken from the dissertation of Andy Wackerfuss, "The Stormtrooper Family: How Sexuality, Spirituality, and Community Shaped the Hamburg SA."

 Oct 2011