Our department is host to several interdisciplinary research and education initiatives involved in analysis of issues both past and present. (Click for details on Affiliated Centers and Programs)
Ancient Borderlands field trip to Ephesus (Summer 2010).
Click to view the Ancient Borderlands website.
Winslow Homer, Sunday Morning in Virginia (1877).
The lack of public education in the South--especially for African-Americans--is a part of Professor John Majewski's research into how slavery undermined economic creativity. For more on economic creativity and the coming of the Civil War, please see Prof. John Majewski's faculty page.
US-Mexico border at Nogales, AZ 1910-14 (Click for Prof. Verónica Castillo-Muñoz's faculty page.)
Prof. Patrick McCray’s research and teaching connects the histories of modern science & technology with contemporary issues.
Arthur E Grimshaw: The Strand (1899) (Click for Prof. Erika Rappaport's faculty page.)
Chinese laborers loading soybeans onto a Japanese merchant ship at the Port of Dalian (J: Dairen), c. 1909.
In the early twentieth century, Japanese imperialists used images such as this one to argue that Japanese enterprises were bringing "circulation" as well as "civilization" to East Asia. Prof. Kate McDonald studies the history of mobility in Japan and the Japanese Empire.
The West End of London is one of the largest and most famous shopping and entertainment districts in the world. Learn more by studying Modern British History and getting involved in our research cluster, Commerce, Commodities and Material Cultures. (Click for details on research cluster.)
“Pobladores” reading La Republica plebeya. (Click for Prof. Cecilia Méndez Gastelumendi's faculty page.)
The Great Wall of China
Prof. Tony Barbieri-Low's research and courses focus on Early China, East Asian civilization, and early Chinese history. He teaches graduate courses in specialized topics related to ancient China.
Haifa (Click for Prof. Sherene Seikaly's faculty page.)
Madzimbabwe Civilization: the Great Zimbabwe City State.
Prof. Mhoze Chikowero teaches African History from deep time African perspectives.
Monica is the face of a new multicultural Germany.
Prof. Paul Spickard studies race, migration, and membership in North America, the Pacific, Asia, and Europe. His current project is "Growing Up Ethnic in Germany."
Porta Nigra, Trier, Germany, home of the north-western capital of the late Roman Empire.
Prof. Elizabeth Digeser's research and courses focus on Roman imperialism and the late Roman Empire.
Prof. John W.I. Lee teaches an on-site seminar at the ancient Greek town of Priene, in modern Turkey.
The change of aesthetics in data representation of the environmental sciences in the 20th century — from the sublime aesthetics of pictorial depictions of aurorae to the mechanical aesthetics of numbers and symbols — is part of Elena Aronova’s research on the history of environmental archives during the Cold War.
The study of imperialism, labor and world history illuminates the connections between this tea plantation in Northern India and the historical nature of globalization and capitalism. Click to view more about our Empires, Borderlands and their Legacies research cluster.
Kochi castle on Shikoku island in southern Japan.
Prof. Luke Roberts’ research and courses focus on the Tokugawa era (1600-1868) and premodern Japan.

Welcome to our website!

Welcome to the UCSB History Department website! We are a diverse, dynamic, and exciting department. Browsing through our website, you will learn about the research interests of our faculty, about our undergraduate program with its two popular majors and three minors, and about our stellar graduate program. I encourage you to check out upcoming events organized by our research clusters, by our Colloquium Committee, and by our undergraduate History Club. Events include our Political Economy Colloquium, our Focal Point Dialogues in History, and our Public History series, and the activities of the Center for Cold War Studies and International History. The History Associates, our community organization, regularly hosts talks for general audiences that meet on campus and across the Santa Barbara area. Get inspired and find out how history matters!

— Salim Yaqub, History Department Chair

Information for:

Faculty and Graduate Students Current Majors and Minors Community and Alumni Prospective Graduate Students Prospective Majors and Minors