The History Department at Villanova offers students a dynamic liberal arts education with courses that span from antiquity to the modern world and traverse every region of the globe. The undergraduate History program focuses on the attainment of deep historical knowledge and a critical understanding of the enduring influence of the past on contemporary societies. The Faculty members of the History Department work closely with our students and prioritize individual development. Our courses provide the essential transferable skills that make our students competitive on the job market after graduation, prepare them for graduate and professional training, and stimulate the intellectual curiosity our students need to become engaged citizens of the world.
History seeks to understand and to explain the story of human experience, since the past provides the only laboratory of human experience actually lived. Historical study complements and builds on the foundational courses in the core through its appreciation of the complexity of humankind, recognizing in the people who make history the intellectual, the material, social, and spiritual diversity of the human condition. History further advances the goals of the core curriculum through an interdisciplinary methodology that seeks to reconstruct our collective past. It is the story of individuals, and the story of the political, religious, economic, and social ideologies and institutions they create in their search for identity, purpose, and value. History recognizes both the commonality of the human experience and the reality of cultural, class, racial, and gender distinctions that enrich that experience.