Core modules:
This Themes, Reading and Sources module is compulsory for all MA students and provides you with the bulk of the disciplinary training providing specific and direct training in disciplinary practices, theories, approaches and methodologies. It is intended to guide you regardless of your period specialism from a more tutor-led to independent learning on to your dissertation by combining a focus on primary sources across periods with thematic and historiographical approaches.
The module combines from the outset a focus on hands-on work with primary sources and discussion of related pieces of historiography (social, cultural, political, etc.) and theoretical readings concerning specific themes, concepts and theories (gender, power, class, the state, transnationalism, globalisation, etc.). The module is taught in a series of seminars and will familiarise you with the skills and problems integral to advanced historical work. It will develop your capacity for independent research, your ability to effectively present oral and written results, as well as your organisational and leadership skills in chairing discussions. Themes, Reading and Sources provides a context in which you will assess and comment critically on the findings of others, defend your conclusions in a reasoned setting, advance your knowledge and deepen your understanding of history.
Assessment is by 4,000-word essay (80% of the module mark). The remaining 20% of the module mark comes from a presentation on your dissertation topics plus Q&A at the MA Conference in the Easter term.
Examples of optional modules:
These modules focus on a specific theme or problem within various areas of History and provide subject-specific knowledge and skills. They are taught by the Department’s subject specialists in a series of seminars with an emphasis on work with primary sources providing a 'step up' from Level 3 in terms of disciplinary engagement with historiography, approaches, methodologies, concepts and theories.
Optional modules might include:
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Anglo-Saxon Societies and Cultures: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Medieval England
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The Liberal Arts – Learning, Knowledge and Power in the High Middle Ages (c.1100–c.1300)
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Feudalism: The Uses and Abuses of a Historical Model
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The Archaeology of the Book: Codicology from Antiquity to the Renaissance
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Visualizing Revolution: The Image in French Political Culture, c.1789-1914
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Intellectuals and Public Opinion in Global History
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Elections in Africa: A Cultural and Political History, c. 1950–2016
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Serious Fun: A History of Sport from the Late Middle Ages to the Present
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A Safe Democracy? Constitutionalism, Extremism, and Political Violence in Modern England, c. 1890–1939
Assessment is by 5,000-word essay.
In order to facilitate cross- and interdisciplinary engagement, you may opt to take modules from cognate MA courses such as those offered by Centre for Visual Arts and Cultures (CVAC) and the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) with the consent of all parties concerned.
You may also opt to take a language or skills module or both (Modern Languages; Latin; Greek; Old Norse, Palaeography), generally taught in seminars and assessed by an unseen examination.
