About the Center

Since the early 2000s, the UCSC Center for World History has fostered a rich set of lectures, conferences, pedagogical workshops, and scholarly conversations. This programming enhances the intellectual life of faculty and students at UCSC across numerous disciplines interested in the human past. The Center for World History also fosters connections between scholars across the UC campuses interested in global, regional, and transnational histories.

The Center supports both research and teaching on world historical subjects.

On the research end, for 2017-2018, the CWH is sponsoring a lecture series organized around the theme of labor migrations—both free and coerced. In addition, two small topical conferences are in the planning stages. For details on those events, please see our events calendar.

The CWH supports the teaching of world history at all instructional levels. Consult our list of global and broadly transnational historical course at UCSC here. Faculty and graduate students affiliated with the CWH have also created numerous Resources for Teachers of world history.

History of the Center

The UCSC Center for World History was founded by Edmund (Terry) Burke III, a longtime member and now Professor Emeritus of the UCSC History Department. Under Professor Burke’s leadership the CWH played a vital role in advancing pedagogy and research on world history at numerous levels of scholarship, from secondary education to undergraduate courses, graduate training, and academic research.

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Books by CWH participants (past and present) in the California World history Library series.

book cover imageFor secondary education, the Center hosted NEH summer seminars and created teaching resources. Affiliated faculty offered numerous undergraduate courses. Graduate students participated in conferences and seminars, while playing a vital role in creating educational materials for secondary education. At the research level, the CWH was a crucial incubator of the so-called “California School” of world history, hosting events that linked scholars across many California campuses. Numerous participants in CWH events have contributed to University of California Press’s important book series: the California World History Library.

In recent years, a new generation of faculty and graduate students at UCSC has worked to revive Center for World History as a lively space for conversation, pedagogy, and research about world history, in the spirit demonstrated by Professor Burke. Support from The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz has helped make that revival possible.

A Project of The Humanities Institute

The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz is a hub for academic research, cross-discipline collaboration, and public engagement. We incubate ideas and foster innovation by funding projects, centers, and research clusters that enable faculty and students to work on some of the biggest problems of our day.