Western Michigan University has brought together an engaged group of scholars working in the field of ethnohistory. Particular areas of expertise include culture contact, colonialism, material analysis, historiography, oral history, gender, historical archaeology, ethnography, tribalization, globalization, and modernization. These topics are not restricted to any particular geographic area nor any particular societal structure.
The core of ethnohistory lies in the realization shared by practitioners of the benefits obtained through the use of multiple lines of evidence to study history and culture. Ethnohistorians recognize that documents, archaeological findings, oral histories, and ethnographies can be profitably compared, contrasted, and integrated to elucidate the histories and cultural contexts of groups that have been ignored in conventional historical accounts. Thus, interdisciplinary study is incumbent in ethnohistory. By juxtaposing multiple lines of evidence, the ethnohistorian can at once examine the distant and the local, the general and the particular, bringing human experience into better focus.
The Ethnohistory Certificate is open to students enrolled in a graduate degree program at Western Michigan University. The Certificate requires that students take 15 credit hours of Ethnohistory courses, at least three of which are outside of their home department. Students will also take the Ethnohistory seminar that will be taught every year, alternating between the Departments of History and Anthropology. Students must take the course once in each department.
Sample Ethnohistory Courses:
- Anthropological Theory
- Anthropology and History
- Archaeology of Gender
- Biography and Material Culture
- Ethnographic Methods
- Historical Archaeology
- Historical Methodologies
- Historiography
- Material Analysis
- Material Culture
- Oral History
- Social Archaeology
To download an Adobe PDF version of the Ethnohistory Program Brochure,