loveyourlibrary

Thanks a lot for your advice. I have been feeling a bit lost without a real history grounding, so I think what you have suggested is probably going to be a necessary first step for me. I'm currently in graduate school, so I don't know that I'll be able to keep up with that amount of extra reading, but I'm definitely going to endeavour to keep up my history reading during the term. I like the idea of picking a couple journals and trawling through them especially. I've just downloaded the Watt essay and it sounds like it will be helpful for my thinking. Yeah, I'm hoping to keep up with reading historical texts alongside my other reading, so I can get some sense of different approaches, interests, agendas etc. It feels like a daunting amount of work from this perspective, but I am looking forward to becoming more familiar with history in general. Thanks again everybody for your insight!

Henry Hudson - cheers for the perspective! I was wondering whether there would be a prejudice against such recent historical stuff, but as long as some professors have overlapping interests I guess I can sound it out with them. Poliscar - thanks so much for the reading suggestions, a couple of them were already on my list but it's really nice to have them confirmed as useful for this area. From a brief look on wikipedia world systems analysis sounds relevant too.

Yeah, I can't really see myself doing well in a History PhD program in the UK (or Australia) because of the lack of coursework etc. Something I've been thinking about over the last few days is how contemporary or current a History project can be? Several schools seem to have a few History professors who have either IR backgrounds or focuses, and from that perspective you could look at a country's diplomatic history with other countries, but it seems to be a topic that (unless you were looking at foreign policy in a specific era) that could quite easily be both historical as well as contemporary? Like doing a dissertation on the war on terror, unless you were looking specifically at historical causes, could be relatively contemporary? I'm interested in the war on terror and neo-orientalism, but I suspect this is a topic that has been looked at a lot, so I would need to narrow it down quite a lot. Hmm does anybody here have contemporary historical interests? Or is this much more a cultural studies type approach? Does anyone here do cultural studies informed history? Hope these questions aren't too inane - it feels so overwhelming to be looking at a discipline that I have no experience in and trying to narrow down interests! Thanks again everyone for all your help!

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look at their faculty. Yeah, it also seems like only some schools offer transnational/global history as an option or field, but I guess that focusing on the US or Europe would enable a transnational perspective in regards to empire.

Yes, this seems like a huge benefit for someone like me! I'm going to investigate my current university's history faculty over the holidays which should be useful. Cheers!

Thanks guys! I think the reading list plan is a good one, and I'll continue with that and see that it is still enjoyable and interesting in a couple months time. Regarding my professor, he is actually an IR professor, but his work is kind of interdisciplinary anthropology/history/IR. We are going to meet early next semester (mid Jan or so), but I just wanted to kind of make some progress myself rather than feeling reliant on only his guidance. When I speak to him I will ask him if he knows anyone who might be useful for me to speak to though. I guess my best bet is just to keep reading and narrow down interest areas! Are you guys current grad students? Are there many people in your cohorts who don't have history backgrounds? Oh, I'd be interested in doing a PhD in the states, and I am aware about the time this would take, language requirements etc.

Hi All, I would really appreciate any guidance from some history people, so this seemed like a good place to go. I did a BA with a major and honours in English at a (relatively) good university in Australia, before coming to London where I am currently doing a Masters in International Relations Theory. I have done one history unit previously, and around 4 ancient history units. One of my professors this term has been talking with me and recommending that I consider doing a history PhD. If I decide to apply I would be applying for 2015 entry, so I still have quite a while. Anyway, my issue is that with no real formal background in history I am struggling to even begin to think about potential areas of interest/research topics etc. Some books that I've read and enjoyed lately are: Provincialising Europe, Alabama in Africa, Patterns of Empire, Terrorist Assemblages. I like issues of identity/gender/sexuality, liberalism and empire, labour and empire, popular culture. I feel like if I was going to pick an 'area' I would probably be most interested in global or transnational histories. IR has also informed some of my interests in terms of foreign policy, grand strategy, third world states, war, conflict and diplomacy (very broadly speaking). I feel like my issue now is that my education thus far has felt very interdisciplinary, and I am finding it hard to tell how open History departments would be to this combination of disciplines. I have started to trawl through universities faculty pages, and have seen some academics who are interested in IR type stuff which is reassuring. I know that it would vary a lot from uni to uni, but if anybody could let me know about any history departments or academics that they think might be somewhat relevant for me, I would really appreciate that. I'm still a while away from applying, at the moment I'm mostly interested in book recommendations, potential schools that might be good fits, just general thoughts on what I should be thinking about over the next year or so if I do want to transition to history. Sorry for the length! Thanks in advance for any insight.