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MA Courses

All our MA courses can be followed on a part-time basis over two years. For further information, please contact the PGT Director, Dr Claudia Stein.

Director MA in Early Modern History

Professor Peter Marshall

MA in Early Modern History P-V141

This programme explores religious, social, economic, political and cultural developments in the early modern world (c.1450-c.1800).

Early modern history is a core strength of the Warwick University History Department. Approximately one-third of the Department's academic staff are scholars of the early modern period, from Britain and Europe to the Americas and China.

The first term core module Themes in Early Modern History provides a critical perspective on key themes and introduces you to a range of expertise at Warwick. This runs alongside a module taken by all MA students exploring theories, skills and methods. In the second term, you have a choice of two taught modules - each one taking a different topic and exploring it across time and space. These will help you place your early modern interests in religion, gender, empire, consumption or medicine in a comparative framework as well as deepen your acquaintance with relevant ideas and approaches from outside early modern scholarship. These modules enable you to focus on your early modern interests (you can write all your assessed work on early modern themes) whilst situating them in a wider context that will enrich your studies. The final key element is the dissertation - here you have a large amount of freedom to develop a project of your own choice with help and guidance from your supervisor.

MA students are encouraged to engage with the lively early modern research culture at Warwick - you can find out more about the programme of lectures, seminars, workshops and conferences hosted by the department, and about the research projects being undertaken, in the right-hand column.

The programme will also help you to acquire the conceptual and practical skills needed to conduct PhD research in Early Modern History.

All our MA courses can be followed on a part-time basis over two years. For further information, please contact the PGT Director, Dr Claudia Stein or the director of the early modern course, Prof. Peter Marshall.

The Programme:

AUTUMN TERM

A compulsory course designed to help students acquire the methodological skills needed to undertake an extended piece of historical research and writing.

Outline syllabus:

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: The State, Government and Politics

Week 3: Global Trade and Empire

Week 4: Cultural Turns

Week 5:The Law

Reading week

Week 7: The Reformations and Religious Change

Week 8: The Public Sphere and Communicative Practices

Week 9: Gender and Sexuality

Week 10: Conceptualising Early Modernity: a Recapitulation

SPRING TERM
  • Two Optional Modules: to be selected from options listed below (30 CATS each)
SUMMER TERM
  • Dissertation (15,000 words) (60 CATS)

This is worth a third of your overall assessment and in many ways also represents the culmination of your studies. You will be able to write on a topic of your own choosing and work, under the guidance of a supervisor, to research and write it. You will be encouraged to think about planning this as early as possible in your year of study so that it is something you develop over as much time as possible, but after the end of the taught element of the programme, you will work on the dissertation full time to refine your ideas about the material you gather.

Optional modules:

  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Religious Cultures (HI993)
    This team-taught one-term option complements other modules by focusing on the (vast) role of religion in early modernity. Rather than following a chronological structure or dealing with individual denominations, it examines religious issues through (a) the perspectives of different academic disciplines and (b) coverage of key themes. Students will be able to engage with the multiplicity of approaches pursued in the field more generally and by members of the History department in particular.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Gender and Sexuality (HI996)
    This optional module is intended to give a critical overview of one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas of modern historical enquiry - the history of gender and sexuality. It aims to provide students with an understanding of how feminist and queer history has emerged from earlier approaches to the study of history, what makes it distinctive and what its principal strengths and weaknesses might be. It spans geographical periods and chronological periods.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Empire (HI995)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'empire.' It spans geographical area and chronological period.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Consumption (HI994)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'consumption.' It spans geographical area and chronological period.
  • Matters of Life and Death: Topics in the Medical Humanities (HI991)
    This module will address two to three topics in the history of medicine (broadly construed) selected by its students from a menu of possible options. This unusual structure gives 'Matters of Life and Death' the flexibility required to ensure that it is always focused on subjects closely related to student interests and dissertation research. Possible topics range across the expertise of teaching and research staff in the Centre for the History of Medicine, and of our Associates in the wider University context.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Science, Technology, Environment and SocietyLink opens in a new window

    How can we understand the social and natural world in which we live? Concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘environment’, ‘the body’, ‘the economy’, or ‘society’ help us to classify and order the endless phenomena in the material and natural world that we encounter every day. Yet while such concepts are vital, and seem fixed, transhistorical and objective, they emerged at particular moments in history, their meanings changed, and they were often deployed for particular purposes. This module investigates the rise, changing meanings and purposes of such ordering concepts and the practices which go with them. It also explores how such concepts and practices reflected the social, economic, and political contexts in which they emerged and flourished.

Please note that only those modules for which there is sufficient demand will actually run.
How to Apply:

To apply for the MA in Early Modern History (P-V141), please complete the University's Online Application FormLink opens in a new window

For more information on Admissions in general please see the History PG Admissions webpage.

Director MA in Modern History

Dr Laura Schwartz

MA in Modern History P-V140

This MA introduces you to the advanced study of the history of the modern world.

One core taught module in Term 1 provides a foundation in historical methods and theoretical frameworks used to study society and culture from the early modern period to the contemporary world; while a second analyses key components of ‘the modern’ as it has unfolded across the world. Optional modules explore key themes in modern history in Term 2.

You’ll be able to take advantage of the Department’s six research centres, including participating in the lively schedule of academic research seminars, lectures and conferences.

The programme will particularly appeal if you wish to acquire the conceptual and practical skills needed to conduct further research in history.

The Programme:

AUTUMN TERM

A compulsory course designed to help students acquire the methodological skills needed to undertake an extended piece of historical research and writing.

Indicative outline syllabus:

Week 1: Sovereignty

Week 2: Capitalism

Week 3: Post-Colonialism

Week 4: States and State-Building

Week 5: Urbanity

Week 6: Reading Week

Week 7: Gender

Week 8: Race

Week 9: Bodies

Week 10: Technology

SPRING TERM
  • Two Optional Modules: to be selected from options listed below (30 CATS each)
SUMMER TERM
  • Dissertation (15,000 words) (60 CATS)

Optional modules:

  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Religious Cultures (HI993)
    This team-taught one-term option complements other modules by focusing on the (vast) role of religion in early modernity. Rather than following a chronological structure or dealing with individual denominations, it examines religious issues through (a) the perspectives of different academic disciplines and (b) coverage of key themes. Students will be able to engage with the multiplicity of approaches pursued in the field more generally and by members of the History department in particular.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Gender and Sexuality (HI996)
    This optional module is intended to give a critical overview of one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas of modern historical enquiry - the history of gender and sexuality. It aims to provide students with an understanding of how feminist and queer history has emerged from earlier approaches to the study of history, what makes it distinctive and what its principal strengths and weaknesses might be. It spans geographical periods and chronological periods.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Empire (HI995)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'empire.' It spans geographical area and chronological period.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Consumption (HI994)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'consumption.' It spans geographical area and chronological period.
  • Matters of Life and Death: Topics in the Medical Humanities (HI991)
    This module will address two to three topics in the history of medicine (broadly construed) selected by its students from a menu of possible options. This unusual structure gives 'Matters of Life and Death' the flexibility required to ensure that it is always focused on subjects closely related to student interests and dissertation research. Possible topics range across the expertise of teaching and research staff in the Centre for the History of Medicine, and of our Associates in the wider University context.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Science, Technology, Environment and Society

    How can we understand the social and natural world in which we live? Concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘environment’, ‘the body’, ‘the economy’, or ‘society’ help us to classify and order the endless phenomena in the material and natural world that we encounter every day. Yet while such concepts are vital, and seem fixed, transhistorical and objective, they emerged at particular moments in history, their meanings changed, and they were often deployed for particular purposes.

    This module investigates the rise, changing meanings and purposes of such ordering concepts and the practices which go with them. It also explores how such concepts and practices reflected the social, economic, and political contexts in which they emerged and flourished.

Please note that only those modules for which there is sufficient demand will actually run.

How to Apply:

To apply for the MA in Modern History (P-V140), please complete the University's Online Application Form

For more information on Admissions in general please see the History PG Admissions webpage.

 

Director MA in the History of Medicine

Professor Roberta Bivins

MA in the History of Medicine P-V3P7

The Warwick History Department is recognised internationally as a centre for innovative and influential research and is consistently ranked among the best history departments in the UK. The MA in the History of Medicine aims to introduce students to the advanced study of the history of medicine and to equip them with the conceptual and practical skills to carry out independent historical research in this field. The students on the MA are encouraged to engage with a range of concepts and to place developments within medical theory and practice in a broad social and cultural framework.

The Term One core module ‘Themes and Methods in Medical History’ is designed to introduce students to some of the main historiographical approaches and debates within the history of medicine from the early modern period to the twenty-first century. The module focuses on the evolution of ideas, institutions and practices within medicine, the reception of new approaches and lay responses, the structure of medical practice and the medical professions, and the scientific, social and cultural context of medical intervention. Students are encouraged to situate illness, disease and health care in a broad context, and to frame discussions in seminars in response to a detailed and critical survey of the literature in this area.

The Term Two core module, 'Matters of Life and Death' focuses on recent contributions to the discipline, providing students with the opportunity to discuss in-depth methodologies and approaches, the research questions underpinning the work and theoretical frameworks, while also relating the seminars to student interests and dissertation research. By studying these texts, students actively engage with the wide range of sources available to the historian of medicine (e.g. medical texts, practice records, diaries, case notes, public health reports and health propaganda, and visual sources).

Prospective students may be nominated for Wellcome Awards, as well as Departmental, University and ESRC funding.

A wide range of activities, including a seminar series and regular workshops, are organised by the Centre for the History of Medicine.

All our History MA courses can be studied on a part-time basis over two years. For further information, please contact the History Department MA Director, Prof. Claudia Stein.Link opens in a new window

The Programme:

AUTUMN TERM

Indicative outline syllabus:

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Early Modern Bodies

Week 3: Early Modern Drugs Testing

Week 4: Medicine and Mobilities

Week 5: Professionalisation and Activism

Week 6: Reading Week (no seminar)

Week 7: Cultures and Practices of Childbirth and Reproduction

Week 8: Epidemics Past/Present/Future

Week 9: International and Global Health

Week 10: Public Health in the Soviet Union

A compulsory course designed to help students acquire the methodological skills required to undertake an extended piece of historical research and writing.

SPRING TERM

SUMMER TERM

Optional modules:
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Religious Cultures (HI993)
    This team-taught one-term option complements other modules by focusing on the (vast) role of religion in early modernity. Rather than following a chronological structure or dealing with individual denominations, it examines religious issues through (a) the perspectives of different academic disciplines and (b) coverage of key themes. Students will be able to engage with the multiplicity of approaches pursued in the field more generally and by members of the History department in particular.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Gender and Sexuality (HI996)
    This optional module is intended to give a critical overview of one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas of modern historical enquiry - the history of gender and sexuality. It aims to provide students with an understanding of how feminist and queer history has emerged from earlier approaches to the study of history, what makes it distinctive and what its principal strengths and weaknesses might be. It spans a wide geographical area and chronological period.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Empire (HI995)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'empire.' It spans a broad geographical area and chronological period.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Consumption (HI994)
    The history of consumption is the history of all the things that are part of our daily lives - the things we desire, buy, wear, eat, drink, discard - and about the ways in which the things we consume shape our lives. It is as much part of our daily lives today as it was part of every period in the past, and as much about the worlds we inhabit locally as about distant worlds.
  • Themes in the History of Science, Technology, Environment and Society (HI999)
    How can we understand the social and natural world in which we live? Concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘race’, ‘the body’, ‘the economy’, or ‘society’ help us to classify and order the endless phenomena in the material and natural world that we encounter every day. Yet while such concepts are vital, and seem fixed, transhistorical and objective, they emerged at particular moments in history, their meanings changed, and they were often deployed for particular purposes.

Outside Option List:

Given the availability of History Options in Term 2, students will be allowed to take approved options offered by the Sociology and Philosophy Departments only under exceptional circumstances. Please contact the Postgraduate and Research Coordinator for more information.

How to Apply:

To apply for the MA in the History of Medicine, please complete the University's Online Application FormLink opens in a new window

For more information on admissions in general please see the History PG Admissions webpage.

 

Director MA in Global & Comparative History

Professor Rebecca Earle

MA in Global & Comparative History P-V201

This innovative MA course is one of the first in the UK to focus specifically on global history, offering you the chance to investigate one of the most dynamic areas of current historical enquiry and debate. At its centre is a core module exploring the way in which global history has emerged, the methods it adopts, the subject areas it addresses and the criticisms it has attracted.

Throughout, you are encouraged to explore how the global can be investigated in relation to the regional and the local, as part of wider debates on historical methods and interpretation. This provides a route into studying major regions of the globe, including Latin America, India and China. You’ll also benefit from the Department’s Global History and Culture Centre, with the option to participate in seminars, lectures and conferences arranged by the Centre.

The course offers an excellent route into PhD research in the emerging field of global history and culture. Recent postgraduates have also advanced into careers in the cultural sector, consultancy and teaching.

The Programme:

AUTUMN TERM

A compulsory course designed to help students acquire the methodological skills required to undertake an extended piece of historical research and writing.

Indicative outline syllabus:

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Methods and Concepts in Global History

Week 3: Area Studies vs Global History

Week 4: Environment and the Anthropocene

Week 5: Migration and (Unfree) Labour

Week 6: Reading Week

Week 7: Science

Week 8: Imperialism

Week 9: Global Political History

Week 10: Debate: is Global History inherently western?

SPRING TERM
  • Two Optional Modules: to be selected from options listed below (30 CATS each)
SUMMER TERM
  • Dissertation (15,000 words) (60 CATS)

Optional modules:

  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Religious Cultures (HI993)
    This team-taught one-term option complements other modules by focusing on the (vast) role of religion in early modernity. Rather than following a chronological structure or dealing with individual denominations, it examines religious issues through (a) the perspectives of different academic disciplines and (b) coverage of key themes. Students will be able to engage with the multiplicity of approaches pursued in the field more generally and by members of the History department in particular.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Gender and Sexuality (HI996)
    This optional module is intended to give a critical overview of one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas of modern historical enquiry - the history of gender and sexuality. It aims to provide students with an understanding of how feminist and queer history has emerged from earlier approaches to the study of history, what makes it distinctive and what its principal strengths and weaknesses might be. It spans geographical periods and chronological periods.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Empire (HI995)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'empire.' It spans geographical area and chronological period.
  • Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Consumption (HI994)
    This module draws on the considerable expertise throughout the department to consider how historians engage with the question of 'consumption.' It spans geographical area and chronological period.
  • Matters of Life and Death: Topics in the Medical Humanities (HI991)
    This module will address two to three topics in the history of medicine (broadly construed) selected by its students from a menu of possible options. This unusual structure gives 'Matters of Life and Death' the flexibility required to ensure that it is always focused on subjects closely related to student interests and dissertation research. Possible topics range across the expertise of teaching and research staff in the Centre for the History of Medicine, and of our Associates in the wider University context.
  • Themes in the History of Science, Technology, Environment and Society (HI999)
    How can we understand the social and natural world in which we live? Concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘race’, ‘the body’, ‘the economy’, or ‘society’ help us to classify and order the endless phenomena in the material and natural world that we encounter every day. Yet while such concepts are vital, and seem fixed, transhistorical and objective, they emerged at particular moments in history, their meanings changed, and they were often deployed for particular purposes.

Please note that only those modules for which there is sufficient demand will actually run.

How to Apply:

To apply for the MA in Global History (P-V201), please complete the University's Online Application FormLink opens in a new window

For more information on Admissions in general please see the History PG Admissions webpage.

 

 

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