Letters of Reference (back to top)

If I agree to write you a letter of recommendation, I will want to have the following:

1. A copy of your statement of purpose or letter of application. It is fine if it is only a draft--I can give you feedback. But I need to know what you are applying for, and your statement of your reasons why.
2. A copy of your most recent UCSB transcript, *unofficial is fine* (print it out from GOLD). I need to be able to comment on your academic credentials all around. This will also remind me which courses of mine you took, and what your grade was.
3. Originals or copies of any work you submitted for the course(s) you took with me. (I will return them.) Going back over these will refresh my memory and enable me to be much more specific in the letter I write, thereby making it carry more weight.
4. For applications to graduate schools that require a writing sample: show me the sample when you drop off your materials. I may be able to give you advice, and it will help me to tailor my letter to your unique profile.

My colleague Prof. Hasagawa offered the following additional advice to (graduate) students asking for letters of recommendation (from an Oct. 2006 e-mail, with permission):

1. Send your advisers/mentors a list of places (jobs/funding organizations) you are applying to with descriptions of the job/grant, and most importantly, deadlines. (Is the job in modern Europe or Russian history? Do they expect you to teach Western civ or world history? Do not just give us the websites of the job you are applying, since it is extremely time-consuming for us to check each website to find out when the deadline is).
2. Send your application letters to your mentors/advisers for comment. (Often, these letters should be revised and improved before you send them. For instance, one letter this year has gone through five or six revisions. And I have spotted some glaring grammatical and spelling errors in an application that was already sent.)
3. Be sure to send your updated CV to the letter writers. (Even your mentors may not know what papers you have presented and what articles and reviews you have published or submitted for publication. Or how many years have we known you?--the year you entered our program is helpful. Remember you are dealing with academics who sometimes don't remember which year they got married.)
4. Gently remind your advisers/mentors when the deadline approaches (at least one week before). (Remember we are writing 60 to 70 letters and it is difficult to keep track of each deadline. Sometimes, we may be out of town, unable to send in the letters.)

Links for Applying to Graduate School at UCSB (& elsewhere) (back to top)

• UCSB History Department's Graduate Program Page (information and links to application forms)
  • see also the information in the 2008 UCSB general catalog (this link goes directly to History graduate program)
  • UCSB's Certificate in College and University Teaching ("CCUT")
  • Coming to visit and meet me & others? Get directions from my HSSBLocation page.
  • My current graduate students are listed at the end of the left column on my Department Faculty page. That list links to their individual departmental web pages.
  AHA's page of Links to Resources for History Graduate Students, including:
  • page about Application Process: Start to Finish
  • 1998 AHA Perspectives article "The Trials and Tribulations of Applying to Graduate School"
  • 1999 AHA Perspectives article "Guides to Graduate School and Beyond"
  Monster.com's Fastweb scholarship finder (probably the best of these; for more, see)
  • Finaid.com's annotated links to scholarship finder pages
  • Braintrack.com has a page of scholarship advice and annotated search links as well.
  • Calculator for federal Expected Family Contribution, from finaid.org.
• Should you enroll in graduate school? As the cartoon in the page header indicates, it can be a long, difficult road with no holy grail waiting at the end. This April 2010 Inside Higher Education report "An Agenda for Graduate Education" offers information from the macro perspective.

Just for fun...

• Three hilarious animations on xtranormal.com that speak from many professors' hearts, even if we don't have the guts to say it:
  • So you want a Ph.D. in the humanities?  (4:26)
    A bright motivated undergrad decides to ask her professor for a recommendation to graduate school.
  • So you want to be a historian?  (6:41)
    Uhh, maybe not? (Compare this Matt Groening cartoon on my grad students page)
  • One professor's fantasy responses to actual student questions  (3:31)
    Most students are great, but some you want to kill.

Employment after College for Various Majors

• "What Doors Does a Ph.D. in History Open?" Oct. 30, 2012 Chronicle of Higher Education article about alternative (non-academic) career paths for History Ph.D's. UCSB was one of 4 departments surveyed and analyzed; the article contains a link to graphs of UCSB (and 3 other schools') placement data.
• In May 2012 Newsweek used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to compile lists of the 'most and least useful majors,' using some questionable assumptions and a purely economic rationale. May 9, 2012 Daily Nexus article; May 8, 2012 Daily Beast on 20 'most useful;'

Marcuse as Mentor (back to top)

Professor & Students Swiss Spiezer Chronik, 1470

  Sorry, I haven't written a narrative for this section. For now, the information about my research interests on my homepage will have to do.

My students at UCSB who are preparing for their dissertation qualifying exams have asked for examples of examination reading lists, questions, and prospectuses. For their use and at risk of embarrassing myself, I provide the following samples of my own from the University of Michigan in 1988. I think we had a 3-hour written exam in our main field, and a 2-hour oral exam covering all four fields.

• 1st field: Modern Germany reading list; actual exam questions & answers
  • see section below for links to other Modern Germany graduate reading lists on the web
• 2nd field in Latin American history (no documents available)
• 3rd field women's history: reading list and suggested questions for oral
• 4th field (sociology): reading list: "Capitalism and Structural Transformation"
• my own disseration prospectus (version submitted to the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation).

  The UCSB History Department Graduate Handbook contains the above guidelines. (screen-width version; hi-res version for printing)

  • Links to FES: foreign dissertation fellowships; materials to be submitted
  • Prospectus guidelines:
    • my own proseminar research paper prospectus handout
    • Harvard History Dept. prospectus page is concise and comprehensive
    • Legal historian Elizabeth Dale (Univ. of Florida, Gainseville) offers a detailed description of the parts of a history prospectus
    • Univ. of Maryland American Studies prospectus guidelines offers a question-based approach
    • UC Berkeley Demography Dept. prospectus page outlines 4 parts (4th is social science)
    • Carleton College has very practical advice.
    • eHow's general tips on dissertation prospectus writing; basically: write early and often

Links to Modern Germany Reading Lists for Grad Students

• H-German's reading lists from Oct. 2004 are divided into categories by time period.
• Prof. Omer Bartov's 2004 prelim reading list, 105 titles courtesy of the Brown University History Graduate Student Association. Bartov's 2005 list is more comprehensive and divided into categories, but the formatting makes it more difficult to navigate. (2/08: both now from the web archive)
• Alastair Thompson's reading lists on Wilhelmine, Weimar and Europe since 1945 (with Germany section) are excellent and comprehensive (Durham University, 2001-02).
• Eagle Glassheim's 1996 Reading list Germany 1871-1949, for Prof. Atina Grossmann, then at Columbia University.
• James Frusetta (faculty page) posted a list of Germany comp. exam questions (dated 1988-1998) in 2007 that he had compiled (now available only on the web archive). He has a similar compilation for Central Europe.

Recent Dissertations in German Studies

• Since 2009 the GSA Newsletter has been listing dissertations completed in the past year:
  • Dissertations completed in 2008 (Fall 2009, pages 12-26)
  • Dissertations completed in 2009 (Fall 2010, pages 14-41)

My Graduate Courses (back to top)

• 200E, Graduate reading seminar in modern German history
  • Note that my 200E is not the same course as the UCSB Hist 200E introductory reading course for all Modern Europeanists.
  • Fall 1996 200E-general Modern Europe syllabus (Prof. Mouré)
  • 1994 200e-Germany syllabus (Marcuse)
  • 2002 200e-Germany syllabus (Marcuse)
     
• 200wd: Readings in World History
   
• 201E, Topics in German (or Public) History (back to top)
  • Winter 2007: History in the Public Sphere: Analyzing "Collective Memory"
  • Since I haven't yet had a "critical mass" of students specializing in German history, I've offered this content in conjunction with a 200e, and as an independent reading course only.
  • Topics I plan to offer include History and Memory, Public History, and History Education

• 233AB, Research Seminar in German History
  • "A two-quarter (20 week) research seminar for graduate students interested in aspects of nineteenth and twentieth century German history. Students will learn and apply researching techniques, as well as writing, editing and presentation skills."
  • Completion of four such seminars is required of all UCSB history graduate students before they can enter candidacy
  • Spring-Fall 2003 233AB syllabus
  • note: I may someday teach Hist 233H on Habermas, which was developed by Prof. Fogel
    
   
• Hist 209AB: "The Academic Profession of History"
  • (I don't teach this, but highly recommend it)
  • UCSB offers two courses to prepare advanced graduate students for the job market and future teaching: Hist 209A-B, "The Academic Profession of History."
    Catalog description:
    "This course provides students with the practical knowledge needed for obtaining an academic position, develops skills for effective teaching, and prepares students to deal with funding agencies, publishers, employers, and professional organizations."
  • Here are some relevant links:
    • job interview questions (archive copy), and advice for academic job seekers, from Mary Corbin Sies, University of Maryland
    • "The CV Doctor," Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 17, 1999 has good advice and examples of how to write a good CV
    • "The Education of Historians for the Twenty-first Century," 2004 AHA report (also as a 222 page book)[Prof. Cohen is using this in the Fall 2005 offering of 209B]
    • Reviewing books is an important skill. See this 2001 Perspectives article by Bruce Mazlish on "The Art of Reviewing."
    • For a smile I have a section below on Life after Graduate School

German History Research Resources (back to top)

• How to read German "Sutterlin" handwriting, taught in schools from ca. 1915-1940
  • 1901 Fibel teaching pupils how to write it (pdf on google docs), also on webarchive
  • sutterlinschrift.de alphabet course
  • Wikipedia Sutterlin page

German library search screens for specialized collections (back to top)

• Konstanz list of links to supraregional catalogs, including the
• Karlsruhe virtual catalog (you can search them ALL at once with this)
• Bibliotheksverbund Bayern (click "Recherche," then select a database)
  includes the BSB Munich, which specializes in German and general history (1982-pres. available online); also the DBI joint catalog, and SUBITO article delivery service.
• Bielefeld (complete holdings!) excellent search engine, [Aug. 2001: no longer available--includes JASON for ordering articles on line (register, or purchase TAN units on-line)]
• Carl-UNCOVER, merged with ingenta, a commercial document-delivery service for journal articles, in 2001.
• Goettingen (pre 1946 and 1977-present are cataloged on-line)(click on OPAC)
• Hannover Univ. page with links to library and on-line article searchers
• Tuebingen (1973-present)
• SUB Frankfurt (acquisitions since 1986; specializes in Jewish history)
  (Select the "Stadt- und" link at top to connect)
• SUBITO German journal articles search and delivery service
• Stuttgart, Bibliothek f. Zeitgeschichte (acquisitions since 1989; specializes in Zeitgeschichte, esp. non-conventional publications, including articles and dissertations--VERY good)
• WEBIS list of links to individual German libraries with historical specialties
• UC melvyl system (profile page login), UCSB ILL orders;
• Santa Barbara Public Library system database

German Newspapers (also Weekly Papers) (back to top)

• Paperball search engine of today's issues of all German newspapers available on line. (by Gruener & Jahr)
• Archives of German Newspapers (list of links, by University of Hannover)
• BBC European News
• Berliner Zeitung with searchable archive going back to April 1994!
• Berlin Morgenpost (searchable since 1996)
• Focus a more recent newsweekly
• Frankfurter Allgemeine (English edition; archive [searching and book reviews are free, articles cost)
• Frankfurter Rundschau (Genios archive; free 14-day archive). Collection of book reviews since April 1998.
• [updated to here, 9/8/04]
• GERMNEWS daily e-mail summary in German or English (translation takes a day or two).
• Junge Welt (Berlin)
• National Public Radio programs, with searchable audio archives of Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend All Things Considered (can also be searched), Weekend Sat. Morning, and Sun. Morning and Radio Expeditions.
  For historical music, check out Performance Today's Milestones of the Millenium series (scroll down to Historic Events and Intellectual Movements)
• New York Times with searchable 365-day archive
• Neue Zuricher Zeitung with searchable 30 day archive
• Neues Deutschland (Berlin, former East Germany)
• PBS (Public TV), with search engine
• Spiegel German equivalent to Time or Newsweek
• Stern racier illustrated newsweekly
• Sueddeutsche Zeitung Munich daily, with free searchable 30-day archive
• Tagesspiegel (Berlin)
• taz, die tageszeitung alternative left-wing daily. Archive use costs 5Euro/month, free same year search, read past 6 months free.
• Washington Post searchable archive since 1987 (citations free)
• Welt with searchable archive since May 1995
• Zeit intellectual weekly, with searchable archive (Sept. 2000: unavailable; use "Schnellsuche" on the homepage, instead), sends job listings per e-mail

• Yahoo's Germany area (try searching it for key words), or go to
  Yahoo's German history links page.
• German Yahoo.de (in German), with its academic history page (in German)
• Netscape/Excite's yahoo-style directory (also in German).
• Links from the University of Regensburg History Dept.
• Stanford Univ. Green Library's Germany search engines and links

• AICGS (Amer. Inst. of Contemp. Germ. Studies, Johns Hopkins).
  See also its comprehensive "GARDINET" database of fellowships. [9/08: no longer active]
• American Academy in Berlin (2 dozen scholars as 4-6 month fellows each year)
• Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (with information about branches)
• Bundestag (West German Parliament)
• BStU: Federal Agency for the Documents of the State Security of the Former GDR
• Conference Group for Central European History (CGCEH), offers 5 $6000 travel grants for ABD's and recent Ph.D.s for research travel to Europe. (2/09)
• Center for German and European Studies, Berkeley, now part of the Institute of European Studies
• Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota, with educational resources, links.
• Council for European Studies (at Columbia University; with good fellowships database)
• Concentration Camp Memorial Sites Page (by Yahoo Deutschland),
  also Holocaust, Dachau (3 links, 8/26/03)
• DAAD German Academic Exchange Service, equivalent to Fulbright.
  On the AICGS website, it has a syllabus database, 1992-96, including a very interesting "resource index" of authors used in those courses.
  See also the collection of on-line history syllabi in the UTexas/Austin World Lecture Hall collection.
• Dachau sites (my own page)
• Erziehung nach Auschwitz: Holocaust Education Research Institute in Hamburg (Bull-Bd.: forum intern); with several downloadable papers.
• Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn (SPD), offers dissertation fellowships, press service 1946-1995.
• Forschungsstelle fuer Zeitgeschichte, Hamburg
• FU Berlin: Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies. Has annual dissertation fellowships for North American graduate students
• Gedenkstättenforum - online news and discussion of memorial sites about National Socialism.
• Georg Eckart Institut for International School Book Research, Braunschweig
• German Historical Institute in Washington, with diss. and postdoc scholarships, research guides, like this one for 1968; and this 2007 Guide to Fellowships:
  • Antje Uhlig and Birgit Zischke, Research-Study-Funding: A German-American Guide for Historians and Social Scientists (GHI Reference Guide no. 19, 2007)
• German Information Center, New York
• German Studies Association (annual conf. program)
• German Studies Network (Anthropologists in H-Net, has page of dissertation grant sources)
• Germanistik.net (Internet resources for Germanists, by Univ. of Wisconsin)
• Hamburg Institut fuer Sozialforschung, which specializes in contemporary German history.
• H-German, part of H-Net.
  • Grads check its German history Graduate Reading Lists and job listings.
  • H-German's Journalwatch lists the titles of articles on German history (since 2005)
  • In the "resources" category: list of scholars currently working in Germany
  • Also has a good links page. (see also German Studies Network, above)
• H-Holocaust, which has some syllabi. (see 1994 e-mail exchange about visits to Dachau).
• H-Soz-u-Kult German social and cultural history discussion list.
• Holocaust Educational Foundation (offers research support for undergrads, grads, and profs)
• House of the History of Germany since 1945 (a museum in Bonn). (English version).
• Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte, Munich (with OPAC)
• Institut fuer Zeitungsforschung, Dortmund (with access to the ZDB--largest catalog of serials)
• Koerber Foundation in Hamburg (does high school history competitions)
• Max-Planck-Institute for History, Goettingen (see also the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin)
• Memorial Sites in Germany (Yahoo's list of links)
• Nazi Crimes on Trial (indexes of the published volumes of German trials in the 50s and 60s)
• Neuengamme KZ memorial site
• Survivors of the Shoah "Visual History Foundation" (Steven Spielberg's video testimony project)
• Shoah-Projekt in Munich
• Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles.
• Stiftung Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur; hat Dissertationsstipendien
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, with searchable archives of photographs and documents, and various fellowships; some symposia in audio format..
• Virtual Library of sources on German history (Univ. of Heidelberg).

Public History Links (back to top)
[links updated Nov. 4, 2007]

• Public History Resources Page at publichistory.org, with job announcements, syllabi, web page rating system, links
• H-Public discussion network

Oral History Resources--Very Useful Articles

• An overview guide by UCSB's now-retired oral historian:
  • David Russell, "Oral History Methodology: The Art of Interviewing" (22 pages)
• Three essays from the Handbook of Interview Research, ed. by Jaber Gubrium and James Holstein (Sage, 2002) (all as searchable pdfs) :
  • Robert Atkinson, "The Life Story Interview" (121-140)
  • Catherine Kohler Riessman, "Analysis of Personal Narratives" (695-710)
  • Richard Candida Smith, "Analytic Strategies for Oral Hitory Interviews" (711-731)
• An overview of types of interviews and considerations during interviews:
  • Mary E. Brenner, "Interviewing in Educational Research," in: Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research *AERA, 2006), 357-370.

History departments with good programs in modern German history (back to top)
[links updated Nov. 8, 2008]

• History department search engine (from George Mason University)
  • H-German's listing of its subscriber webpages (self-submitted; many badly out of date)
  • College Catalogs Online
    (search engine for texts and links, from Career Guidance Foundation; 5 free for 10 days)
  • Yahoo's page of links to German universities
  • German Studies Depts. (listing by U. Wisconsin) Those with Ph.D. programs usually have good programs in German History as well; many of them are listed below.
• Alabama, University of (George S. Williamson: 19th c.)
• Arizona (Susan Crane)
• Berkeley, UC (John Connolly, Martin Jay, Anton Kaes); CGES
• Berlin, FU (Paul Nolte)
• Berlin, Humboldt Uni (Ludolf Herbst, Gerd Dietrich). The HU hosts H-Soz-u-Kult.
• Berlin, TU / Zentrum f. Antisemitismusforschung (click "Mitarbeiter" for Wolfgang Benz)
• Bielefeld, Germany (Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey)
• Bochum (Constantin Goschler); Institut für Diaspora- und Genozidforschung
• Brown (Omer Bartov) Holocaust representations, literature, perpetrators
• Chicago (Michael Geyer, Moishe Postone) military, intellectual
• Claremont-McKenna (John K. Roth-philosophy ret'd 1/07, Jonathan Petropoulos-history)
• Clark Univ. Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies (Worchester, Mass: Deborah Dwork, Simon Payaslian-Armenia, Thomas Kuehne)
• Colby (Maine): (Raffael Scheck; with lecture notes for his Germany, 1871-1945 course)
• Columbia (Volker Berghahn-wikipedia page)
• Cooper Union (Atina Grossmann-scroll to assoc. prof., Wehrmacht exhibition website)
• Cornell (Isabel Hull, Vicki Caron, Dominick LaCapra)
• CUNY (Dagmar Herzog)
• Duke (Claudia Koonz; 2008 lecture at UCSB: Hitler's Assault on the Golden Rule)
• Emory (Astrid Eckert-May 08 profile, Deborah Lipstadt-Lipstadt's blog)
• Fairfield University (Connecticut)(Gavriel Rosenfeld)
• Florida State, Tallahassee (Robert Gellately, Nathan Stolzfus)
• Freiburg/Br. (Ulrich Herbert, Cornelia Brink)
• Georgetown (Roger Chickering)
• George Washington U. (Andrew Zimmerman--19th C., Hope Harrison--Cold War)
• Goettingen, Germany (Bernd Weisbrod [retired Feb. 2011])
• Hamburg, Germany (Axel Schildt, FZH director - H-Soz-u-Kult bio; Peter Reichel)
• Harvard (David Blackbourn, Charles Maier), Center for European Studies.
• Illinois-Urbana/Champaign (Peter Fritzsche; Harry Liebersohn) identity, memory, travel
• Indiana (Julia Roos, Mark Roseman) oral history
• Iowa (Lisa Heineman) post-1945, gender
• Jena (Norbert Frei, Rainer Gries; Sybille Steinbacher; emeritus Lutz Niethammer)
• Johns Hopkins (Peter Jelavich)
• Kent State, Ohio & University of Akron Consortium (Richard Steigmann-Gall, Shelley Baranowski)
• Maryland (Jeffrey Herf)
• Michigan, Ann Arbor (Geoff Eley, Kathleen Canning, Todd Endelman, also German Dept.)
• Minnesota (Mary Jo Maynes, Eric Weitz, Karen Till-2006); Ctr. Hol.& Gen. St.
• Mississippi, University of (Kees Gispen)
• Munich (Michael Brenner [Jewish hist.] and H.G. Hockerts)
• Nebraska (Alan Steinweis) 11/08: moved to Univ. of Vermont: UVM Holo Ctr Faculty page
• North Carolina/Chapel Hill (Konrad Jarausch, Christopher Browning)
• Northern Illinois University (Heide Fehrenbach)
• Northeastern (in Boston)(Ute Poiger)
• Northwestern (Peter Hayes) Nazi business
• Notre Dame, Indiana (Doris Bergen) 2008: Doris is now at Univ. of Toronto, below
• NYU (Mary Nolan)
• Ohio University, Athens) (Norm Goda, Benita Blessing)
• Pennsylvania (Thomas Childers)
• Princeton (Anson Rabinbach) intellectual
• Rutgers (Belinda Davis-personal, Paul Hanebrink) 1960s, gender, eastern Europe
• Stanford (James Sheehan--emeritus, Norman Naimark) 19th century, Cold War
• SUNY Buffalo (G. Iggers, retired) and Stony Brook (Young Sun Hong)
• Sydney (Australia), University of (A. Dirk Moses [review, conf. blurb])(2011-2015 in Florence)
• Temple in Philadelphia (Jay Lockenour)
• Texas, Austin (David Crew); Dallas: Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies
  The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) welcomes applications from exceptionally well-qualified holders of the Bachelor's or Master's degree for appointment as Belofsky Graduate Fellows in UTD's School of Arts and Humanities. Application from students pursuing the study of the Holocaust or modern Jewish culture or comparative perspectives on the American and European Jewish experience are particularly welcomed.
• Toronto (Doris Bergen, Jennifer Jenkins, James Retellack, Rebecca Wittmann)[Marrus-em.]
• UC Berkeley (John Connolly, Martin Jay, Anton Kaes); CGES
• UC Davis (Bill Hagen)
• UC Irvine (Bob Moeller; [profile page] w/ on-line Hitler and the Germans course[password protected])
• UCLA (Baldwin, Friedlander, Sabean-course Germany 1820-1914)
• UC Riverside (Kenneth Barkin, Ann Goldberg)
• UCSD (Frank Biess, Deborah Hertz, David Luft)
• USC (Paul Lerner)
• Vermont, Center for Holocaust Studies; Faculty page (Francis Nicosia, Jonathan Huener, Alan Steinweis, Susanne Schrafstetter)
• Virginia (Alon Confino)
• Washington, Seattle (Ute Poiger--July 2011 to Northeastern, see above, no replacement as of Oct. 2012)
• Wisconsin, Madison (Rudy Koshar)
• Yale (Ute Frevert)

Life After Graduate School (back to top)

• AHA's page of Links to Resources for History Graduate Students (LOTS of good stuff!)
  • 1999 AHA Perspectives article "Guides to Graduate School and Beyond"
• 2005 Chronicle of Higher Education column "What Small Colleges Really Want," by Carol Kolmerten
• Job interview questions (archive copy), and advice for academic job seekers, from Mary Corbin Sies, University of Maryland
• 1999 Chronicle of Higher Education column "The CV Doctor" (with sample CVs)
  2010 column (links to 2009 and 2008 columns on left); 2001 (with links to 2000)
• Preparing Future Faculty organization website (interesting publications and links)
• H-Net Job Guide for historians
• Die Zeit's academic job listings in Germany (you can have them e-mail you a selection)
• see also the Hist 209 course section, above

xx (back to top)