American history at South African universities

Hello all,

I have been a lurker here for some years.

Now that my kids are nearly all grown and out of the house, I am thinking about pursuing a PhD in history, just for personal satisfaction.

Years ago, I wrote an honors thesis for my BA (in American history), which at the time was regarded (by both my reviewing professors and the external examiner) as breaking some new ground. I was encouraged to go to graduate school but, long story short, I pursued a different career.

I've done a little background work to know that the topic is still fresh. I believe I could, with some work, expand this into a dissertation.

I'm looking for distance options for a research-only degree. I'm not interested in taught programs. I've studied this forum and have read all the posts from people who want to study history through DL. I've done some looking around at universities in Germany, the Netherlands and--yes--South Africa. (A couple of years ago, I sent a brief proposal to a German university, but never heard anything, and I failed to follow up). I know about the British programs (and in fact already have a graduate degree from a B&M British university), but the cost of these is beyond what I want to pay.

This all raises a number of issues I'd like advice about, but for starters, does anyone know of somebody who has pursued a distance graduate research degree in history at a South African university working in the area of American history? The interests of the academic staff at UNISA, for example, seem to focus on African history.

Any insights welcome.

 

I'm wondering why this post got moderated. This seems like a fair question and the answer is that our very own Tireman is working on his PhD in History at the University of South Africa and I believe that his dissertation topic is the Federal Writers' Project in Texas (at least that was what he was working on when he was doing his PhD at the University of Houston).

 

Thanks, Ted.

I think the post was moderated because it was my first post--at least that's what I guess must have occurred.

I hope Tireman will chime in here and share his experiences. I'm particularly interested in who he's working with and how he found his way to a supervisor willing to oversee someone working on a topic in American history.