
The PhD program in History is not accepting applications for the 2024-2025 academic year.
The Tufts PhD Program in History is a small, targeted program that trains historians in South Asian history and Global History (not currently accepting applications). It is a highly regarded program with an excellent track record of job placement.
Please note that we are currently accepting applications for South Asian history only.
As a student in the PhD Program in History, you will learn to read foundational texts and critically examine trends within the field. You will gain experience with major methodologies of historical writing and explore different research practices, while making valuable contributions to the field. The program culminates in the PhD dissertation.
Prospective applicants should be in contact with Professor Ayesha Jalal for the Modern South Asia program, and with Professor Elizabeth Foster for Global History. Please note, the Global History program is not accepting applications at this time.
See Tuition and Financial Aid information for GSAS Programs.
Tufts offers a PhD in history in two tracks:
Tufts offers doctoral training in Modern South Asian history from the mid-eighteenth to the twentieth century. Successful PhD candidates have gone on to obtain positions in some of the most prestigious institutions of American academe. Doctoral students in this program conduct intense and focused research into the most pressing questions of South Asian scholarship today. Students in this field also partake of the active intellectual life surrounding South Asian studies in the Boston area, including the Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies.
Please note that the Global History track is not currently accepting applications.
Global History begins with the premise that the world is an ever changing, interconnected system. Students work in comparative and connected frameworks with scholars whose areas of study include Europe, Africa, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States. This program explores formations and processes such as colonialism, empire, globalization, and diaspora, that situate places, social groups, and events beyond the limiting conceptual framework of the nation-state or the world region.