Welcome to the Department

Breaking News!

* Professor Chris Bellitto's new book coincides with the Pope's US visit.

CONFERENCE:

* Historical Perspectives and Public Policy:

Are History Lessons Useful?

This one-day conference, scheduled for Friday, April 3, 2009, will explore major policy decisions which, for good or for ill, were informed by historical precedence, including policies influencing the course of the American revolution; U.S. reactions to genocide; the resurgence of the Pacific rim; and U.S. debates over immigration, terrorism, and Middle East geopolitics.

The conference, which will take place on the Liberty Hall campus of Kean University, will feature keynoters, breakout sessions led my university history faculty, and a student panel organized by the Kean University Historical Society.

Conference papers will be considered for publication on the university Ebook web site.

This conference is made possible in part by a university QFI award with additional support provided by the Department of History and the Jewish Studies Program.

For more information contact Drs Dennis B. Klein, dklein@kean.edu, or Mark E. Lender, mlender@kean.edu, conference directors.

Special Guest Lecture

Dr. Olof Ljunström of the Karolinska Intitutet, Stockholm, Sweden
"Aryans and Turanians: Scandinavia and the first synthesis for a racial prehistory of Europe, 1840-1870"

Wednesday June 11, 2008 Hennings 113
5:45 - 6:45

All are welcome!

New History Course Offerings, Fall 2008
Sign up Now!

HIST3235 Europe in the 18th Century

HIST3323 History of Medicine in America
http://www.kean.edu/~bregal/HIST3323.htm

HIST3341 America in the 20s

Also see the new Kean@Ocean
History degree program!

Get a Kean University history degree by attending classes at the conveniently located Ocean County College campus

Department Operations

DR. MARK EDWARD LENDER, Acting Chair
Phone: 908-737-4262
E-mail: mlender@kean.edu

DR. SUE GRONEWOLD, Department Chair (on sabbatical until July, 2008)
Phone: 908-737-4254
E-mail: sgronewo@kean.edu

DR. CHRISTOPHER BELLITTO, Assistant Chair
Phone: 908-737-4261
E-mail: cbellitt@kean.edu
Website: http://www.kean.edu/~cbellitt

MARY WOUBNEH, Department Office manager
Phone: 908-737-4250
E-mail: mwoubneh@kean.edu

The Department of History is one of Kean University's oldest programs of study and has been a part of the instructional component of the institution since its inception in 1855.

It is the belief of the faculty of the Department that every student should meet basic standards of historical literacy before they graduate. This includes insights into cultures and problems of civilizations, the whole as well as the interaction of the parts, an understanding of human groupings countries, religions, civilizations-which have generated the emotions, symbols, and values of contemporary life, and an appreciation of complex causes of the rise and fall of societies, and the underlying realities of leadership, social class and power.

History can and should encourage a sense of proportion about life and provide us all with the relative scale of our own rather brief moment here and how incredibly valuable that really is. If done properly, history can encourage and inspire tolerance and mutual understanding and help to bring about a more just place in which to live. History can show us how to behave, or at the very least, how not to behave. It can teach us what to believe in and what to stand for. At its core, the lessons of history are lessons of appreciation. Everything we have, all of our great institutions, universities, libraries, cities, our laws, music, poetry, our technology, our freedoms and opportunities, everything is because someone went before us and did the very hard work which was needed, provided the creative genius, gave us a civic belief structure. No one can afford to ignore that.

Critical thinking, communications across cultures and gender, writing and reasoning all need historical literacy to provide them with an important societal context.

The Department of History believes that the study of history is at the heart of the interactive mission of the University and is one of its most important and vital academic assets.