MA Modules

Modules Process and Information

MA Students

You will be registered for HI9K0 History Writing and HI961 Dissertation as CORE modules.
You will need to choose a Research Culture module.
- If you do not wish to specialise in a pathway, you will choose HI9I9 Research Culture (History).
- If you wish to specialise in a pathway (Early Modern, Modern, Global and Comparative, or Medicine, Science and Technology), you must choose the relevant Research Culture module.
You will usually choose one 30 CAT PGT History Option Module in Term 1, and one 30 CAT PGT History Option Module in Term 2.
- If you wish to specialise in a pathway (Early Modern, Modern, Global and Comparative, or Medicine, Science and Technology), you must choose at least one 30 CAT option that meets that pathway requirement.
If you wish to take an Outside Option, you must seek approval from the PGT Director.
- If approval is granted to take a 20 CAT Outside Option (e.g. a module from Social Sciences), then you can register for 20 CAT versions of PGT History modules. Please note that in this instance, you will not be able to balance your studies evenly over terms 1 and 2.
You can take a maximum of 40 CATS in each term.

PG Diploma Students

You will be registered for HI9K0 History Writing and HI9I9 Research Culture (History) as CORE modules.
You will usually choose one 30 CAT PGT History Option Module in Term 1, and one 30 CAT PGT History Option Module in Term 2.
If you wish to take an Outside Option, you must seek approval from the PGT Director.
- If approval is granted to take a 20 CAT Outside Option (e.g. a module from Social Sciences), then you can register for 20 CAT versions of PGT History modules. Please note that in this instance, you will not be able to balance your studies evenly over terms 1 and 2.
You can take a maximum of 40 CATS in each term.

PG Certificate Students

You will usually choose one 30 CAT PGT History Option Module in Term 1, and one 30 CAT PGT History Option Module in Term 2.
If you wish to take an Outside Option, you must seek approval from the PGT Director.
- If approval is granted to take a 20 CAT Outside Option (e.g. a module from Social Sciences), then you can register for 20 CAT versions of PGT History modules. Please note that in this instance, you will not be able to balance your studies evenly over terms 1 and 2.
You can take a maximum of 40 CATS in each term.

PG Award Students

Course Syllabus

Please refer to our course syllabus to find out how many modules and what kind of modules you need to take to meet your course requirements.

Course Syllabus

Module Selection Form

You will be asked to nominate your preferred optional modules using a webform.

Opens 12pm Monday 7th September | Deadline: 12pm Monday 21st September

Core Modules

HI9K0 History Writing: Theory and Practice

This 60 CATS module 'Writing History: Theory and Practice' complements the teaching of the more specialised MA History modules on offer, by providing a broad theoretical and methodological framework for understanding of the past and present aims of the discipline of history. As well as covering more recent themes and approaches to historical research, it will enable students to prepare for the dissertation research and writing process.

CORE for MA and PG Diploma students
OPTIONAL for PG Certificate students

HI9K0 Module Webpage

HI961 Dissertation HI9I9 / HI9B3 / HI9B4 / HI9B5 / HI9B6 Research Culture

All postgraduate students in the history department are expected to fully engage with the department鈥檚 research culture by attending research seminars and other events. This module enables students to reflect on what history research culture entails, and their learning from attendance at these events in relation to their studies, their professional development, and their own research interests in history generally, or in their specialised pathway.

CORE for MA and PG Diploma Students
Optional for PG Certificate Students

Research Culture Module Webpage

Term 1 PGT History Optional Modules

HI991 Matters of Life and Death: Topics in the Medical Humanities

'Matters of Life and Death' will address a range of topics in the history of medicine via selected books authored by teaching and research staff in the Centre for the History of Medicine, enabling close study and reflection on the various historiographical and theoretic approaches adopted in these studies, sources and methodologies. This will enable students to consider how the field is evolving and new challenges in the medical humanities. The students are encouraged to relate these surveys to their own dissertation research and approaches.

Medicine, Science and Technology
This module is offered to PGT students only.

HI991 Module Webpage

HI9B1 Inventing Truth: Facts, Lies and Authority in Early Modern Britain

In our contemporary world, claims about truth have become destabilised by fake news, disinformation, and political lying, whilst postmodernism has suggested that truth is relative and constructed. But these are not just modern phenomena: they can be found in pre-modern Britain too. This team-taught module explores truth, fact, lies, probabilities and certainty over a 鈥榣ong early modern period鈥� (c.1500-c.1800) through the themes of religion, politics, print media, fiction, witchcraft, social anxieties and the rise of the 鈥榥ew鈥� science. Moving from religious authority to public opinion and scientific and mathematical 鈥榝act鈥�, it examines changing umpires of truth over the course of the period.

Early Modern
This module is offered to PGT students only.

HI9B1 Module Webpage

HI9U4 Neighbouring Enemies: Entangled Histories of Cuba and the United States in Conflict, Contrast, and Connection

Politically, culturally, and ideologically, Cuba and the U.S. regard and, in many ways, define themselves as the antithesis of the other. Yet, their histories share many common themes, and these nations have become entangled inextricably. On this explicitly comparative and transnational module, students will interrogate a unique 鈥淒avid and Goliath鈥� dynamic shaped by exploitation, profit, conflict, revolution, and punitive politics.

Global and Comparative
Modern
This module is offered to both PGT students and final year undergraduate students.

HI9U4 Module Webpage

HI9I6 China Travel: Seeing the Chinese Empire through Travellers' Eyes

This module explores the history of China by means of travel accounts. These include both accounts of Chinese travellers within and beyond the Chinese empire as well as records of visitors to China, including visitors from Korea, Persia, and the West. It takes these travel accounts (all to be read in English translation) as the main body of primary sources. These texts will be read and explored in the context of both a larger theoretical framework of travel literature (and its use in the context of historical research) and thematically oriented discussions. These themes include, among others, politcs and power, diplomacy, trade, landscape and environment, gender, clothing and dress, material culture and technology.

Early Modern
Global and Comparative
This module is offered to both PGT students and final year undergraduate students.

HI9I6 Module Webpage

Term 2 PGT History Optional Modules

HI9B2 Doing Global History

鈥淒oing Global History鈥� aims to provide students with a thorough understanding of the concepts, theories, methods and approaches that have shaped the field of global history to date, with a particular focus on how to 鈥渄o鈥� global history in practice. It seeks to equip students with the means to offer a critical analysis of (aspects of) the field where it is now; to reflect on different archival and methodological approaches; and to to train students to develop an independent research project related to an aspect of global history using a set of primary sources.

Global and Comparative
This module is offered to PGT students only.

HI9B2 Module Webpage

HI9B7 Amity, Antagonism and Appeasement: Anglo-German Encounters, 1871-1945

This module will explore the development of Anglo-German relations between 1871 (the unification of Germany) and 1945 (the end of the Second World War) with the aim of showing why the relationship between Britain and Germany was so important to the histories of both nations. Students will use a wide range of primary sources to survey a variety of Anglo-German encounters and interactions in the political, social and cultural spheres and examine the ways in which personal contact and relationships shaped wider public attitudes and official policy. In this way students will examine the complexity and ambiguity of the Anglo-German relationship as it developed over a period of dramatic political, economic and social change and be encouraged to consider the ways in which it continues to inform British attitudes towards Germany and Europe.

Modern
This module is offered to PGT students only.

HI9B7 Module Webpage

HI9I7 Rebuilding the Body: The Pursuit of Perfection, 1861-2021

We live in demanding times. Humans today are bombarded with images of 鈥榩erfect鈥� bodies, and surrounded by products claiming to perfect our minds and lives. Self-help is big business, and individual success is persistently tied to levels of physical and mental wellness that hover just out of reach. Self-improvement is nothing new -- but our contemporary focus on perfectible bodies has intensified with the rise of secularism, consumerism, and 'self-optimisation'. This module will draw on cultural history, disability studies, and the histories of science, technology and medicine to ask: 鈥榃hat is a perfect body, and who is served by the pursuit of perfection?鈥� Comparisons across global cultures of 'perfection' will test Eurocentric understandings of what constitutes the physical and mental' ideal'.

Medicine, Science and Technology
Modern
This module is offered to both PGT students and final year undergraduate students.

HI9I7 Module Webpage

HI9I3 Go-Betweens: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern World

This module investigates global interactions in the early modern world (c. 1400-1800) through the figure of the go-between. Each of the men and women discussed in weekly two-hour seminars 鈥� diplomats and traders, mestizos and missionaries, converts, slaves, and captives 鈥� offer a window onto a world in which societies and life trajectories were increasingly shaped by trans-regional connections and entanglements. By following individuals as they came into contact and conflict across the globe and sought to negotiate borders of various kinds, you will deepen your understanding of the role of human agency in the macro-processes of religious change, commercial expansion, imperial conquest, and economic integration that marked the early modern period.

Early Modern
Global and Comparative
This module is offered to both PGT students and final year undergraduate students.

HI9I3 Module Webpage

Glossary

Term	Definition
20 CAT module	Module with 200 learning hours
30 CAT module	Module with 300 learning hours
60 CAT module	Module with 600 learning hours
Core module	A required module for your course syllabus
Optional module	An optional module for your course syllabus
Outside Option module	A module run by another department
Research Culture module	A module designed to help you engage with departmental research activities and specialise in your chosen pathway.

FAQs

How does module allocation work?

The department strives to allocate students to their first choices of optional modules. However, for some modules, there will be greater demand than capacity, and some students may then be allocated to their other choices.

The department reviews all module selection forms received by the deadline using a random computerised generator. This allocates as many students as possible to get their first-choice modules. The process is a random selection and is NOT run on a first come first served or grade-based assessment for those students who submit their form by the closing date.

The department will ensure all History students are allocated places first before we review applications from students wishing to study History as an outside option. This only applies to students who submit their form by the closing date.

Students that fail to submit their module nominations by the relevant deadline are required to choose from the remaining module spaces after all other students have been allocated their module places.

Are all modules guaranteed to run each year? Is a 20 CAT module easier than a 30 CAT module?

CATS are allocated to modules based on their required learning hours. For example, a 20 CATS module requires 200 learning hours, and a 30 CATS module requires 300 learning hours. Learning hours are made up of teaching time, and independent study. CATS are not indicative of 鈥榙ifficulty鈥� of module.

Why do some modules have a 20 CAT and 30 CAT version?

History PGT modules run as 30 CAT modules as standard. However, some modules in other departments run as 20 CAT modules, so all History PGT modules are available as 20 CAT and 30 CAT versions to enable students to take outside option modules.

20 CAT versions are also available to students taking the PG Award.

Can I take modules outside of the department?

Students are permitted to choose an 鈥榦utside option鈥�, i.e. a module that is not taught by their home department(s), in place of one of their option modules. Please check the details of your course syllabus. All outside options are subject to approval from the PGT director. Some outside options run as 20 CAT versions, so if you choose one or more of these modules, you will need to balance your History CATS accordingly.

Why are some modules also offered to final year undergraduates?

Some modules in the department are offered to both final year undergraduates and to PGT students. This is to increase the number and range of option modules available to PGT students. As we have a small cohort of PGT students, combining classes with undergraduates helps to ensure that modules recruit enough students to run.

Where modules are offered to both PGT and undergraduate students, please note that while classes are taught together, the learning outcomes and assessments will differ. This is to ensure that you meet the learning outcomes of your PGT studies. This may also mean that you may have a different learning experience in class to undergraduate students; for example, you may be expected to take on a leadership role and/or to complete different seminar tasks and activities.

How do I find my timetable?

The day after your modules have been registered for you in eVision, you will be able to access your timetable through your Tabula profile. You will be able to see the day, time and location of your lectures and classes that you are required to attend.

The University does not finalise its central timetable until September. The department will not be able to give you information in advance when lectures or seminars for specific modules are timetabled.

Can I change my modules? Do I have to take a research culture module? What is a "specialised pathway"?

MA students can choose to graduate with an MA in History, or with an MA in one of our four specialised pathways:

MA History (Medicine, Science and Technology)
MA History (Early Modern)
MA History (Global and Comparative)
MA History (Modern)

These are degree titles that reflect that students have completed a specialised course of study. They have been chosen to reflect the department's research strengths and research centres.

In order to graduate with an MA in one of the specialised pathways, you must pass the Dissertation on a related topic, 30 credits of related PGT History Option Modules, and the relevant Research Culture Module. See the PGT Course Syllabi for further details.

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Department of History

MA Modules

Modules Process and Information

Course Syllabus

Module Selection Form

Core Modules

Term 1 PGT History Optional Modules

Term 2 PGT History Optional Modules

Glossary

FAQs