Jordanna Bailkin: Areas of Graduate Study

Division: Europe Since 1789

Students may work with Professor Bailkin in the British, French, or European Cultural History. A field in British history would include the social, political, and cultural history of Britain (including Ireland) and Empire from the eighteenth century to the present. Students will develop subfields on major historiographical questions such as the development of the welfare state, race and immigration, urban identity, gender and the family, "four nations" approaches to British history, and the impact of decolonization on the metropole. A field in French history will place particular emphasis on late-19th and 20th-century France. Students will develop subfields on topics such as the state's treatment of prostitution, natalism and the First World War, and French identity after the European Union. Students pursuing a field in European Cultural History may approach this field by examining the individuals, institutions, and ideologies that have contributed to major cultural currents in modern Europe, including the production of the categories of "high" and "mass" culture and the social and political impact of new visual and literary traditions. This subfield will also trace the development of cultural history through and beyond the linguistic turn.

Division: Comparative History (Comparative Gender & Comparative Colonialisms)*

Students may work with Professor Bailkin on fields of study encompassing Comparative Gender and/or Comparative Colonialisms. A field in Comparative gender will incorporate a comparative approach to the history of women and gender. Students will develop fields on major historiographical questions such as the development of protective family legislation in Europe and the United States and the globalization of feminism. Students pursuing a field in Comparative Colonialisms will examine England's economic, political, military, and cultural treatment of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales compared to its overseas dominions. We will consider the relationship between "white" and "non-white" colonies as part of the larger racial politics of European colonialism.

*Students may not offer a field in the Comparative History division as a first field.