At the cost of oral interviews, research in archives or manuscript cabinets, in libraries or museums, on archaeological sites or in certain privileged places where nature has fixed memories of the past, history aims to locate traces left by humans. The aim is to understand the environment in which they lived. It tracks down all possible witnesses.

History borrows questions and methods from the human sciences, making it possible to grasp correlations, detect genesis - in a word, to understand the human adventure.

Two features of history are worth highlighting. Firstly, history is a matter of investigation; indeed, it must begin by discovering the multiform material on which it will work, the "documents" of the past. Secondly, it deals with knowledge of the past over time, sometimes over the very long term, and therefore analyzes births, mutations, evolutions.

A alumni association is present within the department.

Follow the department's activities on its Facebook page.

The department has a substantial library collection, now largely integrated into the BUMP collections. The remainder of the collection comprises non-borrowable books and journals.