Explore our MA by Research in History.

P-V1PC

MA by Research

1 year full-time;
2 years part-time

3 October 2022

History

University of Warwick

With a reputation for national and international excellence and innovation, our History Department was ranked first in the country for the highest concentration of world-leading research activity (REF 2014). Surrounded and supported by a host of exceptional historians, you will be exposed to diverse and international views, people and research, all encouraging and challenging you to think unconventionally and creatively about the past.

The breadth of expertise and experience in the History Department (currently forty or so full-time members of staff), along with a thriving culture of research, seminars and conferences, make Warwick one of the very best universities in the UK to undertake research in history.

Students taking the MA by Research are expected to complete their degrees in one year of full-time study, or two years part-time. As a research student your closest contact will be with your supervisor, or supervisors, who will meet with you regularly to discuss your work, and agree a programme of reading, research and writing with you.

Additional support and training are provided by the Department, Arts Faculty and the Graduate School, as well as by History’s many reading groups, seminars, workshops and conferences. History researchers will benefit from the University Library’s new Research Exchange, a dedicated postgraduate conference and study area, with state-of-the-art facilities.

For postgraduate queries, please email PGHistoryOffice at warwick dot ac dot uk For further information, please visit the History Department web pages.

Teaching and learning

You will take one core module Historical Research: Theories, Skills and Methods.

This 40 CATS one-term MA module for students on the Social Science doctoral pathway is designed to equip students with the methodological skills needed to carry out an extended piece of historical research and writing.

The Department of History at Warwick has particular strengths in the history of the early modern and modern periods. Our Faculty have expertise in subjects across the world, and a number of specialist Research Centres facilitating new research by students and scholars.

You can search our academic staff by their areas of expertise.

Warwick’s History Department features a host of exceptional historians and has an outstanding national and international reputation.

Our historians highlight global and innovative perspectives on traditional themes and share an enthusiasm for history beyond the confines of academia. Their research and teaching reflects a cutting-edge take on established historical fields and ideas. They are prepared to take an unconventional view. This willingness to look beyond the traditional boundaries of the discipline makes for a distinctive learning environment at Warwick.

The Department has an outstanding reputation as pioneering practitioners of social, cultural, early modern, European, Latin American and medical history, and has more recently been at the forefront of developing the methodologies of the new global history. Inspired by an expansive and inclusive vision of historical research, our historians' work is multi-disciplinary and draws on environmental, literary, visual and material sources spanning the globe across five centuries.

The Department’s commitment to supporting research that is internationally field-leading, innovative, and engaged is underpinned by the belief that understanding the past helps to shape the present and the future.

Research within the Department is underpinned by three key guiding principles: rendering visible people, objects, themes, institutions and processes whose histories have been neglected, misunderstood or under-valued; achieving engagement and impact for our findings, within academia, museums and archives and beyond; and internationalism, in terms of the scope of research, the composition of the Department, and our approach to collaboration.

If you are intellectually curious, and prepared for your investigations to take you into unexpected territories, you will be at home in Warwick’s Department of History.

You can also read our general University research proposal guidance.

Find your potential supervisor using the link below and contact them to discuss what you would like to research.

View our History Staff Directory where you will be able to explore the areas of expertise, research centres and research networks within the department. If you need additional guidance please email us.

You can also see our general University guidance about finding a supervisor.

Class Size

2:i undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a closely related subject.

• Band B
• Overall IELTS (Academic) score of 7.0 and component scores

All of our courses are delivered in English so, if English is not your first language, you have not graduated from an English speaking university or worked in an English speaking environment for at least two years you must demonstrate a minimum overall standard in the following recognised tests of English. The certificate will be required as evidence.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

Historical Research: Theory, Skills and Methods

This is a compulsory 30 CATS one-term MA module will equip you with the methodological skills needed to carry out an extended piece of historical research and writing. As a student on one of the four MA History courses, you are required to follow it during the Autumn Term. Teaching will be delivered in weekly two-hour seminars.

Themes and Methods in Medical History

This module is designed to introduce you to both major developments in medical thought and practice, and the main methodological approaches and debates used within the field of the history of medicine. It covers the early modern period to the twenty-first century, and invites you to think comparatively about medicine across space and time and includes sessions on Britain, Europe and global medicine and health. The module focuses on the evolution of ideas, language and technologies within medicine, the reception of these new approaches and lay responses to them, the structure of medical practice, and the scientific, social, and cultural context of medical intervention.

Dissertation (60 Credits)

You are required to take two of the following:

• Matters of Life and Death: Topics in the Medical Humanities
• Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Religious Cultures
• Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Consumption
• Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Empire
• Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Gender and Sexuality
• Themes in the History of Science, Technology, Environment and Society, 1500-today

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