PhD programs in intellectual history?

[Thorongil]

Are there any PhD programs in intellectual history, that is, in the history of ideas/history of philosophy as part of history departments? I don't know history departments very well, but I was curious about this. (I have a religion/philosophy background.)

[ashiepoo72]

I used The Google, my trusty friend, and Duke, UMich, Cambridge and Johns Hopkins came up on the first page. Not sure what the geographic fields are, though. Hopefully some other people on here have more specific knowledge, although The Google rarely fails me  

[dr. t]

This is considered a methodological approach to historical questions, rather than a subfield.

[Thorongil]

This is considered a methodological approach to historical questions, rather than a subfield.

I think it's both. In any event, you have any suggestions for me?

[dr. t]

I think it's both. In any event, you have any suggestions for me?

Not in any departments I know of. Do you have a subfield of interest?

[Thorongil]

Not in any departments I know of. Do you have a subfield of interest?

Well, how about you tell me what subfields there are, according to you. I would simply answer, "the history of ideas," but you have already disputed this as a subfield. 

[mvlchicago]

The history of ideas could be a subfield; but usually there's some background to what you're doing and how you're doing it, which is what I think Telks is getting at. Your proposal sounds like saying "the history of money" or "the history of materials" or "the history of trade." That is to say, just applying to do "the history of ideas" makes little sense unless you're doing something like Chicago's Committee for Social Thought. Even then, you have ten books that you've presumably picked due to coherent thematics within the book that overlap to tell some form of story.

All in all, you appear to have the same problem most people do who ask for help on this forum; you have a broad idea of what you want to do but have offered few specifics about how you intend to do it. I would suggest either going into more detail about what your "history of ideas" looks like before even considering what programs for which you want to apply.  

[Thorongil]

The history of ideas could be a subfield; but usually there's some background to what you're doing and how you're doing it, which is what I think Telks is getting at. Your proposal sounds like saying "the history of money" or "the history of materials" or "the history of trade." That is to say, just applying to do "the history of ideas" makes little sense unless you're doing something like Chicago's Committee for Social Thought. Even then, you have ten books that you've presumably picked due to coherent thematics within the book that overlap to tell some form of story.

All in all, you appear to have the same problem most people do who ask for help on this forum; you have a broad idea of what you want to do but have offered few specifics about how you intend to do it. I would suggest either going into more detail about what your "history of ideas" looks like before even considering what programs for which you want to apply.  

I obviously don't mean I want to do something on the history of all the ideas there ever were. One would think the phrase "history of ideas" was self-explanatory. Let me try to explain it with an example. If I were interested in, say, the idea of the social contract, then to write an "intellectual history" of it would be to trace its development as an idea in the minds of various philosophers, statesmen, and even polities. Who came up with the idea? How did it change over time? Who or what was most influenced by it? Who were its critics? What impact did it have on various institutions and peoples? Etc. Does this make sense to you? 

[mvlchicago]

Are you actually interested in the idea of the social contract? Or are you interested in the role Confucianism played in 19th century Cosmpolitan circles? Maybe you want to talk about Spinoza's ethics and their broader influence in Christian conceptions of the individual? These are each separate projects with specific ideas. I completely understand how you want to do your project. However, you have offered no actual details as to what ideas you want to research and therefore makes it impossible to offer you advice. Intellectual history looks different at Chicago, Yale, and Stanford because there are different sets of professors working on different projects. 

So again, I ask: what are your interests? 

[mvlchicago]

Like, to answer your question on the most basic level: yes, of course there are departments who discuss the history of ideas both as a method and as the source of their work. But I don't think that's a particularly useful answer if your next step is to apply for admission. If you put someone like Ada Palmer next to someone like Nicolas Wey-Gomez, they're both intellectual historians. But you'd never apply to both UChicago and CalTech just because they're intellectual historians. 

[Thorongil]

Are you actually interested in the idea of the social contract? Or are you interested in the role Confucianism played in 19th century Cosmpolitan circles? Maybe you want to talk about Spinoza's ethics and their broader influence in Christian conceptions of the individual? These are each separate projects with specific ideas. I completely understand how you want to do your project. However, you have offered no actual details as to what ideas you want to research and therefore makes it impossible to offer you advice. Intellectual history looks different at Chicago, Yale, and Stanford because there are different sets of professors working on different projects. 

So again, I ask: what are your interests? 

PMed you. 

[dr. t]

I obviously don't mean I want to do something on the history of all the ideas there ever were...

It is not obvious. Reading your initial question and responses, that was precisely what it looked like you wanted to do.

You want to approach a specific time period and region, which we usually call a subfield, through the methodology of intellectual history. For example, I study the long 12th century in France through the lens of intellectual exchange and social interactions. In other words, I take two primary methodological approaches to my subfield.

As mvl said, some departments have a greater number of professors who adopt a specific methodological approach to the questions they ask. Sometimes a department will have a strong interest in intellectual history in one subfield, but in gender or economic history in another. To get recommendations from this forum, you need to specify the subfield(s) that interest you.

[btpp]

Studying the history of ideas in a history department will require that you become a specialist in a particular time and place. If you are coming from a philosophy department, you are likely to be either an early modern Europeanist, a late modern Europeanist, or an Americanist.

Within these fields, you will find a variety of approaches to the study of ideas. Most but not all intellectual historians are interested to some extent in how the study of ideas can tell us something about the wider society that generated them--i.e. what can studying Hegel tell us about Germany during his day--or ideas that are directly and immediately relevant to the issues (e.g. race, class, gender, pwr, religion) that most historians studying. At least within the fields of Europe and the US, a minority of intellectual historians are purely interested in the ideas with little regard to their context or what they can can reveal about that context. It is possible, depending on your advisor, to study the history of ideas in a way more closely aligned with the practice of philosophy; however, most historians will not care about such an approach, making selling yourself on the job market difficult and subjecting you while in grad school to the non-comprehension or derision of professors and peers whose sense of what it important to study is much different than your own. In US history, for instance, there are almost never jobs in intellectual history, and when there are jobs, they are much more likely to go to someone who studies ideas that non-intellectual historians will consider relevant to understanding society--say, ideas about gender rather than the history of Anglo-American analytic philosophy.

One one hand, grad school is what you make of the options it gives you. On the other hand, disciplines discipline you. Studying ideas in the context of a history department will likely (depending on advisor, etc) give you a fundamentally different approach than studying  them in philosophy; you can take alternative approaches, but you will be disciplined by your peers, your professors, and the job market.

 

Edited October 9, 2015 by btpp

[Thorongil]

Studying the history of ideas in a history department will require that you become a specialist in a particular time and place. If you are coming from a philosophy department, you are likely to be either an early modern Europeanist, a late modern Europeanist, or an Americanist.

Within these fields, you will find a variety of approaches to the study of ideas. Most but not all intellectual historians are interested to some extent in how the study of ideas can tell us something about the wider society that generated them--i.e. what can studying Hegel tell us about Germany during his day--or ideas that are directly and immediately relevant to the issues (e.g. race, class, gender, pwr, religion) that most historians studying. At least within the fields of Europe and the US, a minority of intellectual historians are purely interested in the ideas with little regard to their context or what they can can reveal about that context. It is possible, depending on your advisor, to study the history of ideas in a way more closely aligned with the practice of philosophy; however, most historians will not care about such an approach, making selling yourself on the job market difficult and subjecting you while in grad school to the non-comprehension or derision of professors and peers whose sense of what it important to study is much different than your own. In US history, for instance, there are almost never jobs in intellectual history, and when there are jobs, they are much more likely to go to someone who studies ideas that non-intellectual historians will consider relevant to understanding society--say, ideas about gender rather than the history of Anglo-American analytic philosophy.

One one hand, grad school is what you make of the options it gives you. On the other hand, disciplines discipline you. Studying ideas in the context of a history department will likely (depending on advisor, etc) give you a fundamentally different approach than studying  them in philosophy; you can take alternative approaches, but you will be disciplined by your peers, your professors, and the job market.

 

This is a very helpful and thoughtfully written post. Thanks. 

[histrybuff]

Piggybacking on this post, does anyone know of particularly strong programs in the intellectual history of 20th c US political economy and urbanity, with emphasis on post-war era? The ideal program would also have specialists in the history of higher education and university social movements (SDS, Free Speech Movement).

[apnew]

Thorongil I understand your approach for questions coming from a philosophy background myself. The difference is the approach: the idea or the history. If your interest is more in the development and evolution as it relates to specific events then history is your gig and btpp explained the necessity of refining your interest area. On the other hand if you really just want to focus on the ideas, you may be able to move into a Comp. Lit program, though the "history of ideas" has essentially become a subfield of intellectual history as a whole. I recommend McMahon & Moyn's Rethinking Modern European Intellectual History. Its focus is Modern Europe but its themes can be applied to the field as a whole.

 

@histrybuff Harvard has a pretty stacked transatlantic dept, I would just start with a list of solid departments (search on google) and read bios. Or look at the papers that you have been reading on the topics and see if their department matches your interests.

[histrybuff]

@apnew thanks for the advice! I certainly will.