Historical Studies in Göttingen

History has been part of the curriculum in Göttingen since the university was founded in 1737. It gradually developed into an independent discipline with its own methodological foundations in the 19th century. For a long time, however, it retained its interdisciplinary character and remained closely linked to political science, especially political science. As a result, one can speak of a "Göttingen School of History" (Georg Waitz).
The Göttingen School of History not only combined medieval and modern history in one department (founded in 1876). It also always included the ancillary historical sciences and regional history. Since August Ludwig Schlözer, the Eastern European dimension of history has also been taken into account in Göttingen, as has ancient history.
Today, the study of history in Göttingen is characterised above all by the accelerated further development of the more recent approaches to social and cultural history. The narrow national historical framework has been broadened by European and extra-European dimensions. With a large number of research projects and various interdisciplinary facilities, such as the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) and the Centre for Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS), the Department of Medieval and Modern History is broadly positioned in this field.

The Department of History is part of the University's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, which includes other departments and institutes in addition to the History Department (SMNG):

The Department of Ancient History in Göttingen can look back on a history of more than one hundred years. Ancient History has been an independent subject at Göttingen University since 1897, the Institute was founded in 1955.
Today, the Department has two pillars in the University's teaching: together with its neighbouring subjects in the field of Ancient Studies, it offers the BA programme "Ancient Cultures" and its own Master's programme "History of the Ancient World". It participates in the BA and MA History programmes, with and without a teaching profile, together with the History Department. In its broad and interdisciplinary research, the Department of Ancient History in Göttingen focuses on the history of religion and culture as well as the reception of antiquity.

The Diplomatic Apparatus is an academic facility of the Faculty of Humanities and comprises an unparalleled collection of well over a thousand written documents from Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the early modern period, in a wide variety of languages, particularly ancient and non-European. When the University was founded, there was already a didactic 'Diplomatic Cabinet', which was used for diplomacy, teaching the indexing and research of documents, but also contained manuscripts, seals and copperplate reproductions. Papal, imperial and royal documents, as well as ecclesiastical, dynastic, municipal and private civil documents, also form the basis of the current collection, which was founded in 1802. In the 19th and 20th centuries, dedicated researchers enriched the collection with numerous additional documents, manuscripts, manuscript fragments and seals, as well as newly produced seal casts and reproductions of documents, manuscripts, files, seals and coats of arms on photographs and slides.

Department of Eastern European History

The Department of Eastern European History in Göttingen focuses its teaching and research on the modern history of Russia from the beginning of the 18th century to the present. It is one of the leading centres in Germany in this field. It also specialises in the modern history of Eastern Central Europe (Poland, Bohemia/Czech Republic). The department has one of the most extensive libraries on modern Eastern European history, especially Russian-Soviet history, in Germany.

The Institute for Historical State Research sees itself as a central research centre for the conception and implementation of research projects on the history of Lower Saxony and comparative state history. It was founded in 1958 with the aim of "bringing together all disciplines with an interest in the history of Lower Saxony in an interdisciplinary and inter-faculty working group and coordinating their research". Since 1959, the Institute has been affiliated with the Chair of Lower Saxony Regional History at the Georg-August University, the only one of its kind in Lower Saxony.

The Institute of Economic and Social History is an independent institute. It works closely with the SMNG.
The Institute offers two degree programmes: "Economic and Social History" as a major in the two-subject Bachelor's programme at the Faculty of Humanities and "Economic and Social History" as a single-subject Master's programme at the Faculty of Economics and Computer Science.

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ZMF) was opened in the winter semester 1999/2000 and is thus the oldest of the ten Interdisciplinary Centres for the Humanities in Göttingen. The ZMF is supported by the Faculty of Humanities, together with the Faculties of Theology and Law, and thus represents a broad spectrum of disciplines involved in medieval and early modern research. The Centre serves as an institutional platform for various research and teaching contexts, offers regular discussion and lecture events, and has established numerous collaborations on the Göttingen Research Campus and beyond over the years. The ZMF includes the Department of Medieval and Modern Latin Philology, which is particularly interested in interdisciplinary projects.
In addition to the Master's programme in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Centre offers regular events such as the "Göttingen Debates" and the "Göttingen Lectures", which provide a communicative framework for Göttingen scholars working in the field of medieval and early modern studies and their guests.