History

Entry requirements

BA, First or Second Class Honours in a relevant subject

Applicants will be invited to an informal interview

Months of entry

September

Course content

Our History Masters degree allows you to explore a range of new themes that build on your existing historical knowledge, such as scientific change and the growth of environmentalism. You will gain practical, hands-on experience with the recovery and digital editing of historical documents.

You will undertake a special study of the relationship between history and the modern mass media, including print culture, the impact of film, radio, and television, analysing the significance of the media for historians, and researching themes such as media and identities, political propaganda, and the representation of the past.

The degree culminates in an independent Dissertation, in which you specialise in a theme of your own choosing, and work with individual guidance from an academic expert to produce a piece of ambitious historical research.

Key features

• Critically evaluate the historical impact of the mass media, and phenomena such as state censorship and propaganda
• Study exciting contemporary themes such as the influence of medical science on political and social change
• Develop your critical and research expertise, while working alongside nationally and internationally acknowledged subject experts and gain experience presenting your work at a postgraduate conference.
• Enhance your research skills to postgraduate standard, equipping you for professional research or application for doctoral study
• Work-based learning and career planning are embedded in the course and complement the transferable skills provided by historical study
• Gain a comprehensive grounding in interdisciplinary research methods
• A flexible course structure with ample opportunity to specialise and develop new interests

How will you be taught?

You will be taught through a combination of seminars, workshops, individual tuition, and online interaction.

All students take an introductory module on advanced concepts and relevant theories in the Humanities, which also provides a grounding in postgraduate research methods and skills. All students also undertake a grounding in Digital Humanities methodologies, researching from databases and recovering and editing historical documents or literary texts. You will study a module on the interdisciplinary ‘New Humanities’, including environmental, medical, and scientific themes, which are relevant to both historical and literary / cultural scholarship. You will also take a special module dedicated to your main disciplinary focus: students registered to the MA English will take Evolving Genres’, and MA History students will take ‘History and the Media'.

All students also take a module on Professional Development, in which they apply their academic skills in a practical work project, either on a university-based project, or with a relevant external organisation, such as a media company, local cultural amenity, charity, or voluntary sector body. Opportunities for work-based learning will be tailored to students’ longer-term plans and ambitions, for example, some students may choose to work on a creative industries networking event, while others may prefer to devise and run an academic conference.

The culmination of your Masters study is your specialist Dissertation. The taught modules will all help you to prepare for this by building your higher-level research skills and giving you opportunities to put them into practice. You will develop and expand your initial research plan in a workshop setting, in the light of peer and tutor feedback, and work towards the completion of your full Dissertation with the support of an individual advisor, who will be a research-active specialist in your subject. Staff in the School of Humanities are recognised experts in a wide range of fields. You make all the key decisions relating to your Dissertation, including the subject matter, the intellectual approach, the argument and structure; you own the project from start to finish. You have a totally free choice of theme: the only limitation is that we must be able to provide an expert advisor to support you.