Early Modern European history is one of the department’s best known and most successful Ph.D programs. Building on the work of the late J. Russell Major, an internationally known expert on French Renaissance government and society whose doctoral students now hold a number of major positions in the profession, the current faculty members are proud of our close, collegial cooperation and our record in guiding students individually towards successful topics and careers.

Our interests encompass many aspects of social and cultural history, including transnational exchanges. Sharon Strocchia studies women and religion in Renaissance Italy, as well as the history of health and healing in the early modern period. James Melton specializes in early modern German and Habsburg history, with a special interest in the culture and civilization of Enlightenment Europe. His interests also include transatlantic migrations and settlements. Judith Miller is an expert on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French legal, cultural and gender history.  She remains interested, too, in the economic history of that period. We collaborate closely with Jonathan Strom from the Theology School, whose expertise on the Protestant Reformation and Pietism in Germany adds a vital dimension to our program. We draw additional strength from our colleagues studying the Atlantic world, colonial Latin America and early U.S. history, and benefit from new perspectives on global history offered by Tonio Andrade, who specializes in European-Asian exchanges in the seventeenth century. He is also well versed in early modern Dutch history. In addition, we maintain close relations with medievalists outside the department whose interests dovetail well with those of the early modernists.

Features of the program are a flexible system of field preparations tailored to the particular interests of the student; ties with other programs on campus such as the Medieval Studies program and the Art History and Religion departments; and seminars on early modern topics by invited distinguished scholars under the auspices of the Vann Seminar. Another resource for early modern students is the Major Fellowship to complete the dissertation.

The Woodruff Library has one of the finest collections in the country on early modern history. The Pitts Theology Library also has rich collections on the Reformation era. In addition to the regular departmental fellowships and awards, prospective students might note the Blair Rogers and J. Russell Major Dissertation Fellowship, a substantial grant which is awarded annually to a student for dissertation research on European history in any period from classical antiquity to the present day.

In recent years the Department has been quite successful at placing early modernists in tenure-track jobs despite a competitive job market.