Doctor of Philosophy in History - Latin America

Our Ph.D. program has much to offer. In addition to the attention of a distinguished and award-winning History faculty, our students benefit from Georgetown's many regional studies programs and intellectual centers, where interdisciplinary activity is prized. Opportunities for language training abound. No city has greater resources for historians than Washington, D.C.: the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the National Library of Medicine, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and many other institutions hold an unparalleled wealth of research material.

Latin American history has become a strong focus of study at Georgetown. Following the emphases of our core faculty most students in the field work on the Andes, Brazil, and Mexico from the eighteenth century to the present. Still, others have studied Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Argentina, and Chile with good success. Thematically, our interests are broad: political economy and popular movements, indigenous peoples and agrarian communities, capitalism, globalization, and urbanization, environment, commodities, and labor, gender, ethnicity, and culture, music and sports. Our aim is to integrate diverse concerns and perspectives, seeking more comprehensive understandings of Latin American communities, regions, and nations in global context.

Many students pursuing transregional studies or focusing on other world areas join in the Latin American field. Notably, those studying migration, labor, and politics in the U.S. and others exploring U.S. strategic and economic expansions include work on Latin America. Others emphasizing questions of environment, gender relations, and popular movement in regions from Europe and the Islamic World through East Asia have found key comparative perspectives in the history of Latin America. Our program aims to merge local depth with global perspectives to find new understandings of Latin America in the world.

All applicants to the PhD program should have strong analytical, language, and writing skills. An undergraduate GPA above 3.3 is expected, and above 3.5 is encouraged.
Applications for PhD admission include:
a 500-word, double spaced statement of purpose,
a substantive sample of work (research papers preferred, maximum of 50 pages, if you are excerpting a larger work, please provide a cover page explaining the selection and larger context),
unofficial transcripts from any and all college and universities attended (see note below on unofficial transcripts),
GRE General Test scores (optional),
TOEFL/IELTS where applicable (see note below on language proficiency),
and three letters of recommendation.
Resume/CV
TOEFL/IELTS (if applicable)
TOEFL = 80 minimum
IELTS = 7.0 minimum