Historical Research

Designed to support your preparation for future PhD study, this course offers a flexible approach to MA study that you can tailor to suit your own research interests.

Course description

The flexibility of our MA in Historical Research means you can carry out specialist research under expert supervision in a friendly and supportive environment. The course is carefully designed to develop your understanding of your chosen area of history at the same time as honing your research skills.

You can work with historians who are engaged in cutting-edge research across time and space: from 1000 BCE right up to the twenty-first century and encompassing the history of Britain, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Southern and Eastern Asia and America..

Your chosen approaches module will develop your understanding of key historiographical and methodological approaches and your skills in using relevant sources. The dissertation provides you the opportunity to work on a significant independent research project acting as excellent preparation for PhD study. This is supported by the Research Presentation module which develops your skills in presenting research to a non-specialist audience.

Our range of option modules allow you to focus on the particular skills and knowledge that are most important to you. You can choose from a wide range of modules focussing on particular historical themes, supporting specific history research training and public history modules.

Only available on the MA in Historical Research, you can also choose the Directed Reading module which allows you to undertake additional independent research based around your intended future PhD topic. All of this helps you build a broad range of transferable skills that will be desirable to future employers both inside and outside of academia.