In addition to teaching graduate and undergraduate classes, faculty members serve in a large number of campus and community outreach capacities, and do original research and writing on topics ranging from American pop culture to Chinese Confucianism and far beyond (see Fields of Study). LSU is one of the nation’s premier sites for research in Southern history, but it also has excellent faculty members and graduate students working in a host of other fields. In addition to Southern and United States history, it has particular strengths in British history, the Middle Ages and Renaissance studies, and modern European history. It also has faculty members publishing on and teaching the history of the Ancient world, African American history, Latin America, and Africa, as well as South and East Asia.

The department also hosts and/or contributes to a continuing round of lectures, seminars, and colloquia, including the prestigious annual Fleming Lecture Series on Southern history, the Modern History Colloquium series, the periodic Works in Progress seminars (WIPS) and the Medieval and Renaissance Interdisciplinary Studies program (MARIS).