Degree Requirements
Fields of Study  
 

A.  Course Requirements
B.  Foreign Literature Requirement
C.  Plan of Concentration
D.  Student Bibliography
E.  Sophomore Examination
F.  Junior Seminar
G.  Junior Essay
H.  Senior Thesis
I.  Senior Honor Oral Examinations

A.   Course Requirements: Candidates for a degree in History and Literature in the class of 2011 are required to take a minimum of fourteen half-courses—nine half-courses in addition to five tutorials. All courses are letter graded except for History and Literature 99, the senior tutorial. (The one exception to this rule is that by petition a student may count a relevant Freshman Seminar for concentration credit.) Courses taken at other universities may count for concentration credit but are not included in the student's grade point average. Harvard Summer School courses also may count for concentration credit; these grades will be included in the student's grade point average. All other concentration courses are automatically included in determining the concentration grade point average, even if the student has taken more than the minimum number required.

B.   Foreign Literature Requirement: All students in History and Literature need to fulfill the foreign literature requirement by the end of their junior year. They must receive an honors grade (B- or above) in a course that requires them to read foreign literature in the original language. This course counts as one of their fourteen concentration courses. History and Literature requires this course in the belief that studying literature written in another language can give valuable insights not only into other literary, cultural, and historical traditions, but also, by comparison, into one’s own. We want students to gain sufficient fluency to work meaningfully with primary texts in their foreign language. Many language courses do not fulfill this requirement; students must check the list of courses that fulfill the foreign literature requirement, which is available in the office and on the web. In a course where reading in the original language is optional, students must ask for a letter from the instructor testifying to the fact that they have read the works in the original. These letters should be sent to the Assistant Director of Studies. If you have any questions about whether a course (listed or unlisted) counts--especially likely when dealing with a new course or a new professor--speak with the Assistant Director of Studies. Remember that syllabi change: as with all courses, students are responsible for insuring that the course meets the expectations for the foreign literature requirement.

Students in non-Anglophone fields must be taking literature courses in the relevant language by the end of the junior year. Students may fulfill the foreign literature requirement by receiving a foreign language citation. In that case, the highest-level language class will be the course that will officially “count” for History and Literature, and the grade for that class will be computed into the concentration GPA.

C.   Plan of Concentration: At the end of the sophomore and junior years, students, with the help of their tutors, prepare plans of concentration (plan of concentration forms are available on the web), listing the courses they intend to take. The following fall, they revise these plans with their tutors and, in the case of juniors, discuss them with a member of the Committee on Instruction in their special field. Office hours for reviewing plans of concentration will be posted during the first week of classes. Students should plan to pursue their individual interests, but they should be careful not to sacrifice coverage. Although individual courses may vanish from the catalogue, the plan of concentration represents an outline of the student's particular course of study; it is an extremely important document, requiring careful initial consideration and regular updating. The Co Chairs of the Committee on Instruction check these plans against students' transcripts over the summer, informing the Registrar which courses should be counted for concentration credit and writing a letter to each student listing unfulfilled requirements. Students in the America field fill out two-sided plans of concentration. Students in all other fields fill out single-sided plans. Students in the Postcolonial field are strongly encouraged to make use of the requirements worksheets (available under “Forms” on the website) in filling out their plans of concentration. Be sure to keep a copy of your plan.

Every year the Co-Chairs of the Committee on Instruction draw up a list of courses that count for concentration credit. This list includes courses from a variety of departments. Please consult this list (which is available in the office and on the web) in devising your plan of concentration. Be sure also to check the History and Literature offerings, HL90s, new interdisciplinary seminars offered by members of the COD and Tutorial Board. A course will ordinarily count for concentration credit if more than half of the material covered falls within the geographic and chronological boundaries of the student's chosen field (the "50% rule"); if you believe you have found such a course and it is not on the list of courses that count, you may petition the Committee on Instruction for credit. See the note on petitioning under "Frequently Asked Questions." Be sure to include an approved foreign literature course (in the original language) in your plan, to be completed by the end of the junior year. Lower-level language courses are not counted.

D.   Student Bibliography: At the end of the sophomore and junior years, each student prepares a bibliography of the chief texts he or she has studied in the field. This bibliography becomes a permanent part of the student's record and will serve as an important reference and resource for the oral examination.

E.   Sophomore Examination: The sophomore oral examination is given at the end of sophomore tutorial. The examination tests the ability to analyze and to discuss historical and literary texts. Coverage of the field is not expected. Tutors evaluate their own students’ examinations. These evaluations become a permanent part of the student’s record. All students in the spring term of sophomore tutorial must take the sophomore examination.

F.   Junior Seminar: Every junior is required to participate in a junior seminar, held on a date to be announced during the year. Each year’s seminar centers on the work of a visiting scholar to History and Literature. Juniors read a required text and gather in small groups, moderated by tutors. They are also required to write discussion questions submitted to their group in advance. They are then encouraged to raise their questions and ideas at the concentration-wide discussion with the visiting scholar. The primary objective of the junior seminar is to provide an opportunity for juniors to gather as members of an intellectual community, in order to exchange ideas about interdisciplinary scholarship across fields with other students and tutors.

G.   Junior Essay: Every junior is required to write a research paper of approximately 6,000 words (not counting notes and bibliography) during the second semester of junior tutorial. Junior essays can serve as preliminary explorations of the senior thesis topic, but in most cases they do not. The major goal of the essay is to provide experience in doing the kind of sustained research, thinking, and writing that the senior thesis demands. The student’s tutor and an outside tutor will formally evaluate the essay, grading it Honors, High Honors, or Recommended for Review. These evaluations and the essay itself will become a permanent part of the student’s record.

H.   Senior Thesis: All candidates for an honors degree in History and Literature prepare a senior thesis of approximately 10,000 15,000 words (no more than 20,000 words), not counting notes and bibliography. A tentative choice of subject for the thesis is required in the spring of the junior year (the assignment of the student to a senior tutor is based on this topic) and the final choice is submitted for formal approval from the Tutorial Board in October of the senior year. In December, students must submit a substantial work-in-progress (usually in the form of a first chapter). The completed thesis is due on March 1. Two identical copies must be presented. For assistance in the preparation of the thesis, a set of guidelines has been prepared and is available in the History and Literature office and on the web.

Students who do not complete a thesis are not eligible to graduate with honors in History and Literature. To receive credit for History and Literature 99, such students must first secure the permission of the Director of Studies to withdraw from candidacy for honors and must submit two twenty-page papers (one each semester) or one forty-page paper (in early May).

I.   Senior Honors Oral Examination: At the end of their final semester, all students must take an honors oral examination given by at least two tutors in the field. The examination tests the student's mastery of the field and ability to combine history and literature in imaginative and thoughtful ways. The examination includes questions on the student's thesis as well as on his or her field as a whole. Some of these questions are drawn from the topics list for the oral examination. Seniors submit their topics list during the last week of classes in the spring term of the senior year. They also submit brief descriptions of courses taken for concentration credit and a bibliography. Students are required to include four poets on their topics list. The list as a whole should indicate breadth as well as depth. While the lists give students the opportunity to indicate topics they particularly wish to discuss, students must be well prepared to discuss the range of their fields in a polished manner and to show their command of the pertinent facts. Examiners will use the oral examination to help make an assessment of the student's overall work in the field. Along with the student’s concentration GPA and thesis grades, the oral examination is a significant component in the determination of the student’s final degree recommendation of summa, magna, cum, or no honors. If students have mixed elements (summa/magna, magna/cum, cum/no honors) in their records they need to perform at a very high level on the exam to earn the higher degree recommendation. Even when students’ records are solidly in the summa, magna, or cum range they need to have a strong performance on the exam to earn their presumed degree recommendations. Degree recommendations will be forwarded to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and will result in the awarding of the A.B. degree, provided that the student meets the College's requirements for the various degrees of honors as set forth in the Handbook for Students. Students should be aware that concentration honors are not necessarily identical to College honors.

Concentrators in History and Literature choose a special field of study:

Fields		Tutorial Sequence
America (Revised Requirements!)		--HL97 (team-taught seminar, one term, spring)
Latin America (Revised Requirements!)		--HL98 (full year: fall term in small group; spring one-on-one)
Modern Europe (New Field!)		--HL99 (full year: one-on-one)
Postcolonial Studies
Early Modern Europe
Medieval Europe

AMERICA (1607 to the present)

Students' plans of concentration, designed in consultation with their advisors, must demonstrate coverage of the field and coherence. Plans of concentration should be reasonably balanced between history and literature and must contain the following:
• One half-course in the literature of a foreign language relevant to the student's studies, with reading assignments in the original language, to be completed by the end of the junior year. The grade received must be a B- or higher.
• Eight (8) half-courses, of which two (one history and one literature) must be in the period 1607-1800 and two (one history and one literature) must be in the period from 1800-1900. Students must also include the following:
• One half-course lecture or survey in history that substantially covers at least one century (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
• One half-course lecture or survey in literature that substantially covers at least one century (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
• At least one half-course in history that emphasizes the relationship between America and its neighbors, or current territories and former colonies, or examines multi-lingual/multi-cultural populations within America (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
• At least one half-course in literature that emphasizes the relationship between America and its neighbors, or current territories and former colonies, or examines multi-lingual/multi-cultural populations within America (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
Students who are interested in developing expertise in the comparative study of America and another national field in Europe ("transatlantic studies") or in Latin America ("hemispheric studies") may allocate two of their eight half-courses to courses in history and literature that meet these interests. However, students must demonstrate the coherence of a plan of study that includes these courses. Students with broader comparative interests may consider adding a secondary field in English (British literature), History, Romance Languages and Literature, German, or Slavic to supplement their study of America.

LATIN AMERICA (1492 to the present)

Students' plans of concentration, designed in consultation with their advisors, must demonstrate coverage of the field and coherence. Students should be in the process of acquiring a reading knowledge of Spanish during the sophomore year. Knowledge of Portuguese is not required except for those students speciailizing in Brazil. By the end of the senior year, students will be expected to demonstrate knowledge of conquest and colonization; colonial institutions; indigenous societies and their interaction with Europeans; literary documents, principally crónicas and poetry, of the contact period; independence movements of the nineteenth century; novels, expository prose and poetry of this period of national self-definition; and a general historical and literary knowledge of the twentieth century.
 
The student's program should be balanced between history and literature and must ordinarily include the following:
• One half-course in the literature of a foreign language relevant to the student's studies, with reading assignments in the original language, to be completed by the end of the junior year. The grade received must be a B- or higher
• Eight (8) half-courses, of which two (one history and one literature) must be in the period before 1800 and two (one history and one literature) must be in the period from 1800-1900. Students must also include the following:
• One half-course lecture or survey in history that substantially covers at least one century (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
• One half-course lecture or survey in literature that substantially covers at least one century (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
• At least one half-course in history that emphasizes the relationship between countries within Latin America, or between Latin America and the U.S. or Europe, or examines multi-lingual/multi-cultural populations within Latin America (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
• At least one half-course in literature that emphasizes the realtionship between countries within Latin America, or between Latin America and the U.S. or Europe, or examines multi-lingual/multi-cultural populations within Latin America (this course can also meet one of the period requirements).
Students who are interested in developing expertise in the comparative study of Latin America and the U.S. ("hemispheric studies") or Latin America and a European country ("transatlantic studies") may allocate two of their eight half-courses to courses in history and literature that meet these interests. However, students must demonstrate the coherence of a plan of study that includes these courses. Students with broader comparative interests may consider adding a secondary field in English, History, Romance Languages and Literature, German, or Slavic to supplement their study of Latin America.

MODERN EUROPE (1750 to the present)

The Modern Europe field enables students to concentrate on the interaction between modern European nation states from 1750 to the present. While the field recognizes the individuality of national cultures, it is inherently comparative. Students learn to analyze and to interpret literary and historical texts from specific regional or national provenances, but they also learn to examine the vibrant transnational exchanges of ideas, practices, and peoples that constitute modern European culture and society. The field allows students to connect nation-states to trans-European trends and events, including the French Revolution, European colonialism, the October Revolution, the two World Wars, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the creation of the European Union. It introduces them to the study of such themes and issues as the consolidation and standardization of national languages, the emergence of national and ethnic literatures, the development of certain literary genres and literary criticism, the rise of "modern" aesthetics in art and philosophy, transnational emigration and immigration, movements of labor and capital, the rights and representations of minorities, and the negotiation and representation of ethnic and cultural difference.
 
Students' plans of concentration, designed in consultation with their advisors, will identify a particular nation or geographic region as the primary focus. Possible nations include, but are not limited to: Britain, France, Germany, and Russia; possible regions within Modern Europe include, but are not limited to, Central and Eastern Europe.
 
At the end of the sophomore year, students must submit a carefully conceived statement to the Co-Chairs of the Committee on Instruction in which they declare their primary focus within the Modern Europe field and detail the purposes and goals of their plan of concentration. Plans must demonstrate coverage of the field and coherence. Plans of concentration should be reasonably balanced between history and literature and must contain the following:
• One half-course in the literature of a foreign language relevant to the student's studies, with reading assignments in the original language, to be completed by the end of the junior year. The grade received must be a B- or higher.
• One half-course in European literature that considers materials from a comparative and specifically European perspective. Students should choose a course that fits the goals of their plan of concentration.
• Seven (7) half-courses directly related to the student's primary focus within the Modern Europe field, including the following:
• One half-course lecture or survey in history that covers more than one century.
• At least one half-course in history that emphasizes the relationship between the primary focus and its neighbors, current and former colonies, or multi-lingual/multi-cultural national populations.
• At least one half-course in literature that emphasizes the relationship between the primary focus and its neighbors, current and former colonies, or multi-lingual/multi-cultural national populations
Students who are interested in developing expertise in the comparative study of their primary focus and another national field in Europe may allocate two of their seven half-courses to courses in history and literature that meet these interests. However, students must demonstrate the coherence of a plan of study that includes these courses. Students with broader comparative interests are encouraged to consider adding electives (above the 14 half-courses required) in the second national field and/or adding a secondary field in Romance Languages and Literature, German, or Slavic to supplement their study of Modern Europe.

POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

The postcolonial studies field enables regional specializations in areas of the world that have experienced colonialism. At the same time, it provides students with the conceptual tools to explore cultural intersections that go beyond national and territorial boundaries. The field draws upon the growing body of literary and historical texts that have specific regional provenances but embody visions of the transnational exchange of ideas, practices, and peoples. It allows students to connect the experiences of colonization to contemporary problems of globalization through the study of such themes and issues as the emergence of national and ethnic literatures, discourses of migration and Diaspora, movements of labor and capital, the rights and representations of minorities, and the negotiation of cultural differences.
 
Students design a plan of concentration in consultation with their advisors that focuses on a particular region of postcolonial interest. Possible regions include but are not limited to Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Latin America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. At the end of their sophomore year, students must submit a carefully conceived statement to the Co Chairs of the Committee on Instruction in which they declare their region of focus and detail the purposes and goals of their plan of concentration. Plans of concentration should be reasonably balanced between history and literature and must contain the following:
• One half course in the literature of a foreign language relevant to the student’s studies, with reading assignments in the original language, to be completed by the end of junior year. The grade received should be a B or higher.
• One half course in literature that considers materials from a comparative and specifically postcolonial perspective. Possible courses: English 166x: The Postcolonial Classic, English 167p: Postcolonial Narratives, or by petition a reasonable substitute.
• One half course on the history of the colonial and postcolonial world that considers materials from a comparative or transregional perspective. Possible courses: History 1895: The Indian Ocean in Comparative Perspective, History 1916: British Colonial Violence in the 20th Century, or by petition a reasonable substitute.
• Three half courses directly related to the students’ primary region of focus, two of which must cover different eras as determined in consultation with the students’ tutor and the COI Co Chair. These courses must be chosen from the list of courses that count for concentration credit in the Postcolonial field. Together these courses should offer a sense of temporal continuity and change in the student’s chosen region of focus.
• One half course related to a second region of focus. This course must be chosen from the list of courses that count for concentration credit in the Postcolonial field.
• Of the two required concentration half courses remaining, students may choose any combination of the following:
A) courses that count for concentration credit in the Postcolonial field; or
B) courses not necessarily related to postcolonial questions but that treat the history and/or literature of either the primary or secondary region of focus and/or its metropole.
• At least one course in the student’s plan of concentration must focus primarily on the period before 1750 and at least one other must focus on the period between 1750 and 1900.

EARLY MODERN EUROPE

In this large and rich field, attention is given chiefly, but not exclusively, to two or three general themes selected at the end of the sophomore year in consultation with the student's tutor. Possible themes might include the Italian and Northern Renaissance; the rise of vernacular literatures and the shift from manuscript culture to a culture of print; humanism and individualism; the development of urban institutions and civic identity; voyages of discovery and the colonial experience; intellectual and cultural exchanges between the Old World and the New; Reformation and Counter-Reformation; the Scientific Revolution; changing concepts of gender, family, sex, and marriage; nation formation and court society; the rise of the fine arts and aesthetics as a separate area for critical analysis; and the secular philosophical movement widely known as the Enlightenment.
 
Depending on the nature of the themes chosen, students' programs may be based either entirely in Western Europe or include a component related to the European colonies in the Americas. Since the themes chosen will vary widely from student to student, there are no specific course requirements that will apply to everyone in the field. However, all students should take care to balance their programs evenly between history and literature; and all students will be expected to acquire reading knowledge of a foreign language--Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, or German--relevant to their plans of study.

MEDIEVAL EUROPE

Europe, ca. 400 to 1500. Attention is given chiefly, but not exclusively, to two or three general themes selected at the end of the sophomore year in consultation with the student’s tutor. Possible themes might include: the papacy, the Crusades, heresy, monasticism, and millenarianism; knights and serfs; the rise of universities and the growth of towns; the transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages; the “waning of the Middle Ages” and the birth of modernity; castles and cathedrals; feudalism, government, law, and the rise of the nation state; plagues and perceptions of the body; hermits, mystics, anchorites, and the power of relics; Renaissance; the interplay of Latin and vernacular cultures; oral and written cultures; popular piety and anti-Semitism; Arthurian literature, troubadours, and courtly love; epic and romance. Concentrators in the Medieval field must attain a reading knowledge of one relevant language (for example, Old French, Old English, Latin, Arabic, or Hebrew). If that language is not Latin, they are encouraged to begin formal study of Latin as soon as possible. History 1101 and an equivalent introductory course in literature are also strongly recommended early in students’ programs.