About History
Nobel Prize-winning American novelist William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." At Evergreen historical study comes alive in conversation with the present and in partnership with other Fields of Study.
History asks big questions. Why does change happen over time? What causes specific events to take place? Why does history matter? History also examines everyday human experience: private life and politics, gender and sexuality, immigration and citizenship, ideas and objects, family and public institutions, labor and leisure, identity and power.
Studying history promotes critical thinking about big questions — what has caused specific revolutions? What is the relationship between individual memory and history? How can artifacts help us understand people from the past? How can documents crafted by people in power reveal both the emergence of dominant cultures and be read subversively?
History challenges assumptions about how individuals and communities live and make meaning. Above all, history makes connections, interprets experience, discovers webs of meaning, and provides context for contemporary conflicts and problems.
You will study history in tandem with:
- Literature
- Philosophy
- Cultural studies
- Creative writing
- Classics
- Archaeology
- Native Pathways
- Environmental studies
Evergreen graduates with a history background have gone on to careers as lawyers, professors, teachers, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, journalists, fiction writers, and historians.
Historical studies prepares students, whatever their professions, to be thoughtful and engaged members of their communities with the ability to appreciate difference, nuance, and context.
Check out related Courses and Programs in the Academic Catalog