Associated Academic Programs
Centers and institutes, which oversee academic programs - undergraduate majors and minors, select graduate courses of studies - in their interdisciplinary areas of interest. The study of history is often a foundation for such interdisciplinary inquiry.
American Studies Program
The American Studies Program at the University of Connecticut provides students with the opportunity to enhance their university experience by studying with faculty members and students from a wide variety of disciplines. Among the goals of the program is to promote an awareness of the complex cultural, political, and economic structures at the root of the social organizations that have existed throughout the history of the Western Hemisphere. Our studies range from the first immigrations across the landbridge from Siberia, to the colonization of the Americas by Europeans, to the nationalist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the present day. Other areas of concentration may include the ways in which literary, musical, and visual artists often articulate contemporary cultural concerns, and the study of our changing understandings of new world geography and ecology. Students will be encouraged to fashion a course of study that will allow them to pursue their particular interests.
Asian American Studies Institute
Founded in 1993, the Asian American Studies Institute is a leading East Coast multidisciplinary research and teaching program that reflects the heterogeneity of both Asian American Studies and Asian America. Although the primary focus of the Institute is upon experiences of people of Asian ancestry in America, attention is also given to the study of Asia, since Asia informs the Asian American experience. This transnational orientation is reflected through the institute’s research initiatives, teaching, and community outreach. The Institute encourages students to explore the ways in which race, gender, and class are shaped through immigration histories, social inequalities, changing global dynamics, and shifting border politics. The Asian American Studies Institute fosters scholarly initiatives on human rights, community identity formation, and the arts through interdisciplinary engagements and collaborations.
Asian American Studies Institute
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
With its interdisciplinary faculty research initiatives, graduate and undergraduate curriculum, collaborative programming, and community outreach projects the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at the University of Connecticut is a critical partner in fostering learning about the people and places in Latin America and primarily the Spanish Caribbean. As the oldest area studies program at the University of Connecticut, CLACS has continued to develop and expand its role in the university since the first formal studies of the region in the 1940s and as a Center starting in 1974. It currently is the only public or private university granting an undergraduate major, minor and Masters degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies in New England.
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Human Rights Institute
The Human Rights Institute has two core missions: first, to coordinate human rights initiatives at the University of Connecticut and support faculty and students who study human rights; and second to promote a unique approach to international human rights scholarship based upon contextual and multidisciplinary research in the social sciences, humanities and law.
Humanities Institute
The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI), founded in 2001, seeks to enhance research and creativity in the humanities, broadly defined. In particular, UCHI promotes the development and productivity of University of Connecticut faculty through its fellowship, seminar, and workshop programs, by bringing outside scholars and authors to Connecticut, and by its support for scholarly conferences and journals.
Institute for African American Studies
The primary mission of the Institute for African American Studies (IAAS) is to enlighten and inform the University of Connecticut community and the people of the State of Connecticut, nation and the world about the history, culture, contributions and experiences of people of African descent in the United States and abroad. To achieve this goal, the IAAS promotes the high quality research, scholarship, and teaching of the African American experience and sponsors wide variety of programs on topics and issues that are critical to Black America and pertinent to a better understanding of the Black world.
Institute for African American Studies
Institute of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies
The Institute of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies was founded in the Fall of 1994, as a multipurpose interdisciplinary research and teaching program with a comparative focus on the Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other Latin American origin populations in Connecticut, the northeast, and other regions of the continental United States, as well as in Puerto Rico.
Institute of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies
Medieval Studies Program
The Medieval Studies Program at the University of Connecticut offers coursework leading to the interdisciplinary degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Medieval Studies.
The Departments of Art and Art History, English, History, Modern and Classical Languages, Music, and Philosophy cooperate in the program. Students take courses in three cooperating departments, with a major emphasis in one department or departmental area. In recent years the program has had an enrollment of approximately fifteen students.
Literatures, Cultures, and Languages
Literatures, Cultures, and Languages (LCL) is a large and diverse department. We offer six different sections with nine different languages. We also have a program in the so-called Critical Languages, some of which are offered on a self-instructional basis. Most sections offer an exciting Study Abroad Program.
Modern and Classical Languages
Studying History for Pre-Law Students
The University of Connecticut Department of History invites students to pursue majors, minors, and electives in history as part of an effective plan of Pre-Law study. History courses fine tune students’ mastery and organization of tangible evidence in argumentative forms. Historical study also demands an appreciation for analytical objectivity that will prepare aspiring lawyers to anticipate and evaluate competing voices, viewpoints, and counterarguments. To develop student skills in logical writing and analysis, the Department of History suggests Pre-Law students enroll in some of the following courses that address considerations of law, rights, and legal institutions:
- HIST 1501: United States History to 1877
- HIST 1502: United States History since 1877
- HIST 3201: History of Human Rights
- HIST 3202: International Human Rights
- HIST 3504: The American Revolution
- HIST 3510: Civil War America
- HIST 3522: History of Connecticut
- HIST 3540: American Environmental History
- HIST 3550: Constitutional History of the United States
- HIST 3551: Topics in American Legal History
- HIST 3551: Great American Trials of the Twentieth Century
- HIST 3555: Work and Workers in American Society
- HIST/AFAM 3563: African American History to 1865
- HIST/AFAM 3564: African American History Since 1865
- HIST 3575: Latino/as and Human Rights
Women's Studies Program
The Women's Studies Program is a flexible interdisciplinary academic program devoted to the critical analysis of gender and the pursuit of knowledge about women. Combining methods and insights of traditional academic disciplines with the special insights of Women's Studies scholarship, our courses yield fresh perspectives, which illuminate the origins of and changes in diverse cultural and social arrangements.
The Women's Studies Program is committed to a vision of women and gender that is truly international and cross-cultural. Without this perspective, our view of the world is profoundly impoverished and stereotypes will continue to distort our understanding.