History & Geography

Experience the impact you can make in our world

History and Geography at Elon

Welcome to the Department of History and Geography! We are proud to house five programs within one department: History, Art History, Geography, Geographic Information Studies (GIS), and Museum Studies & Public History.

Faculty and students in our department share a curiosity about the world, as well as a desire to help interpret and explain it for the benefit of others. Examples of this publicly facing scholarship include initiatives such as The Power and Place Collaborative, The Committee on Elon History and Memory, and the archive initiative, Living in a Time of COVID-19.

Our majors and minors not only learn research and communication skills, but they also practice intercultural competency and learn to appreciate the role of perspective in framing human experience. They are therefore exceptionally well prepared to build successful careers and to work for the common good in a complex, interconnected world.

Department Headlines

Ringelberg presents at two conferences and an exhibition symposium
Art History Professor Kirstin Ringelberg shared their research on gender, sexuality and art history at venues in New York, Chicago, and Dijon, France.
Carpenter and Morrison publish research article with Elon Teaching Fellow alum and current student
Grant Doherty '24 G'26, along with faculty members Scott Morrison and Jeff Carpenter, co-authored an article in the "Journal of Research on Technology in Education."
Michael Matthews delivers invited lecture at UT Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art
His presentation, titled "Sex, Death, and Posada’s Penny Press: A Skeletal Modernity,” examined the life and works of Mexican Artist José Guadalupe Posada.
Michael Matthews releases new book exploring working-class intimacy in Porfirian Mexico City
In his new book, out May 6, Elon University Professor of History Michael Matthews explores the romantic and sexual lives of Mexico City’s poor and working class during the rule of Porfirio Diaz.