Department Homepage
The College of Arts & Sciences
The Department of History is committed to pursuing excellence in historical scholarship and teaching across many different time periods and research interests. Its outstanding faculty specializes in a wide array of historical issues and themes that transcend particular regions and periods. Courses connect undergraduate and graduate students with the excitement of historic discovery and provide a rigorous training in researching and analyzing the human past.
Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Migration and Citizenship, Race and Ethnicity, Social, Comparative and Transnational
Are you interested in becoming a history major? You can apply online, after securing your own major advisor. For more information: history-major-application-information. Paper Applications are available at 120 Mary Ann Wood Drive.
Important notices:
Codes for pre-1800 and World Areas courses are currently available soon on the Course List ( https://courses.cornell.edu/courses/hist/), and in archival Catalogs.
World Areas are coded as HAN, HNA, HEU, HGS, HTR
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Announcing History’s 2nd Open House/Trivia Night at 120 Mary Ann Wood Drive
Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Time: 4:30-6:00
Location: 120 Mary Ann Wood Drive, Room 125
Details: Join us for a night of fun trivia, a chance to hear history’s faculty talk about their course offerings, and to find out what CHS is. Handouts (including course flyers) will be available, faculty will be on hand to answer questions, this will be a great time to meet other majors and minors, snacks, and earn prizes for trivia questions. Highlights about our first trivia event: https://history.cornell.edu/news/history-department-hosts-lively-open-house-and-trivia-night.
*Please share the details about this event with friends who are interested in History!
Since the Cornell in Washington program launched in 1980, about 4,400 Cornellians have taken part in immersive lessons in the nation’s capital. Alumni have become U.S. representatives, federal judges, agency leaders and political journalists.
A New York Senate bill seeks to make affordable housing available for artists, but Cornell University researcher Jacob Anbinder, postdoctoral fellow in history in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences, warns against 'petty squabbles' about who deserves most to live in the city. He says expanding overall housing supply is key to curbing housing inequality.
Cornell’s College of Arts & Sciences honors the winners of its 2026 teaching and advising awards. Faculty members Nicole Giannella, Karola Mészáros and Landon Schnabel stand out this year, earning major awards for excellence; many instructors and teaching assistants received recognition, as well.
During the rebuilding of McGraw Hall, workers have made several discoveries, and faculty are reusing and studying materials from the building in the classroom. Built in 1872, McGraw Hall is one of Cornell University's oldest buildings and home to College of Arts and Sciences departments of anthropology and history and the archaeology program.
Christina MacCorkle is majoring in government and history and is a Robert S. Harrison College Scholar.
Ten Cornell doctoral candidates have been inducted into the Cornell chapter of the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. Inductees from the College of Arts and Sciences are doctoral candidates Aleesha George and Jason Wu (chemistry and chemical biology) and Chelsea McNutt (history).
Newspaper columnists instructed generations of citizens about the Fourteenth Amendment, Lawrence Glickman, a history professor in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences, writes in The Atlantic. He writes that today, the country seems to have forgotten how clear the law is.