Platform for the Promotion of Postgraduate Programs

Conceived as a response to the need for decentralization of scientific and educational activities in Mexico, El Colegio de Michoacán was founded in 1979. Since then, it has been dedicated to research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities, with an interdisciplinary approach grounded in a fruitful theoretical and methodological dialogue among those disciplines that study human beings and their behaviors, both individual and collective, past and present. The unwavering commitment to this ideal unifies and inspires not only the research projects but also the teaching programs of El Colegio de Michoacán. This unique and extensive academic project has led to the creation of four research centers: the Center for Anthropological Studies, the Center for Historical Studies, the Center for Rural Studies, and the Center for the Study of Traditions. Each of these Centers has developed, as an essential part of its academic life, Master's programs structured around social anthropology or history, in the case of the first two respectively, or around a specific field of study, in the case of the latter two. The teaching work of El Colegio has also been carried out through its tutorial-based Doctoral Program in Social Sciences, established in 1986. These five graduate programs of El Colegio de Michoacán have official recognition of validity, as recorded in the Official Gazette of the Constitutional Government of the State of Michoacán de Ocampo. Furthermore, they have been registered in the Registry of Academic Excellence of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT).
Upon reaching its twentieth anniversary (1999), as an expression of its maturity and in response to the challenges of training highly qualified scientists and humanists that the country demands today, El Colegio de Michoacán decided to extend its well-established Master's programs to the Doctoral level. Thus, in addition to the existing tutorial doctoral program, the graduate offerings at El Colegio de Michoacán now include the following doctoral programs: the Doctorate in Social Anthropology, the Doctorate in History, the Doctorate in Social Sciences with a specialization in Rural Studies, and the Doctorate in Human Sciences with a specialization in the Study of Traditions. These doctoral programs address the need to maintain the training of high-level researchers in a globalized world, highly dependent on technological innovations, increasingly less concerned with the human being, and in an academic environment where interdisciplinary dialogue among the different sciences is becoming ever more necessary, given the urgency of re-evaluating their boundaries and venturing into territories that were once considered borderless. The College has earned a well-deserved reputation for training researchers at the Master's level in the aforementioned areas. With the extension of these studies to the doctoral level, the fields of knowledge it has cultivated with such success and fruitful results are not disappearing but rather being renewed, in a mature and conscious interdisciplinary dialogue, to converge in the training of human resources with a higher level of education.
Objectives:
The core mission of the CEH is historical research. In this regard, the curriculum's main objective is to train professionals in research and university teaching using the approaches and techniques specific to history. Teaching is an essential part of research, so it is equally important that graduates of the program also become professors, possessing both theoretical and practical experience in teaching history.
The postgraduate program's curriculum is structured around three main pillars. First, a series of courses and seminars aim to deepen students' understanding of the various periods in Mexican history. These courses are not mere introductions, nor do they seek to compensate for shortcomings in undergraduate programs. The goal is for students to become familiar with the main historiographical debates surrounding diverse aspects of viceregal, 19th-century, and contemporary societies. Second, a series of theoretical and methodological courses will explore the close relationship between historical research and other social science disciplines, such as economics, sociology, philosophy of science, and political science. This group of courses has a strong theoretical component and is therefore formative in nature. Finally, three courses will be offered: one on the history of the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, another on Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a third on Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
From a thematic perspective, the doctoral program in history encompasses studies in art, political, social, economic, and institutional history. It is also worth noting the possibility of researching issues related to colonial Mexico, the 19th century, and the 20th century. The fact that there is a preference for topics from the provinces of colonial Mexico and that research focuses on New Spain, the 19th century, and the first half of the 20th century does not mean that studies from a national perspective are excluded. This emphasis stems from the preference of scholars—both professors and students—for regional issues within the aforementioned historical periods, and because the academic life of the Center for Historical Studies (CEH) is oriented toward the regional, although it does not disregard other possibilities.