MA in History

• Huge range of research possibilities
• Opportunities to discuss and debate key themes with visiting speakers
• Taught by highly respected and experienced researchers

History at Winchester concentrates on different geographical scales of history, including local and global perspectives. It gives you the opportunity to engage with a range of approaches to the study of history, examining a range of historical subjects from ancient history to the present.

Start the course by exploring historical methods and research skills, followed by in-depth topic-based modules and the opportunity to devise and develop a specialist dissertation. The Approaches to the Past module, in the first semester, provides guidance on the different approaches to the study of history, including geographical scales of study and disciplinary approaches.

There are four core modules: Approaches to the Past, Research Methods and Skills, an Independent Study Presentation, and a dissertation. You also choose three special study modules from a varied list of options. Examples include The Fall of the Ancient City; Sport and Leisure in Victorian Britain; Medieval Queenship-Gender and Power in the Global Middle Ages; The ‘fifteen-year war’ and public memory in postwar Japan; Documenting the Local Past; The Organisation and Representation of Colonial Violence; and Church, Society, and Conflict in the Medieval West, c. 1000 - c. 1150. Please note that not all the Special Study options will run every year

During the final summer of studies, you write a 20,000-word dissertation, with specialist supervision. Research training for the dissertation is provided in a specialist module through a blend of electronic learning and face-to-face contact, which helps you complete a range of research tasks associated with the development of your dissertation. This leads to a Day Conference (Independent Study Presentation), in which you showcase your dissertation plans and their development, and debate themes in the study of history with external speakers.

Year 1: Level 7

• Approaches to the Past 20
• Research Methods and Skills 20
• Independent Study Presentation 20
• Dissertation 60

Optional Modules

Three Special Study modules from a list of options (please note that not all the Special Study modules will run every year):

• Religion and Society: the Secular Church of Late Medieval Wessex - 20 Credits
• The Rulers of the Late Medieval English Provinces - 20 Credits
• Poverty in the South of England 1770-1870 - 20 Credits
• Sport and Leisure in Victorian Britain - 20 Credits
• Normandy, c.900-1204 - 20 Credits
• Reading and Writing the Holocaust: Historiography, Memory and Representation 1945 to the Present - 20 Credits
• The ‘Good War’: the United States and WWII - 20 Credits
• The ‘fifteen-year war’ and public memory in postwar Japan - 20 Credits
• Soviet History through Film - 20 Credits
• The Organisation and Representation of Colonial Violence - 20 Credits
• Late Medieval Government - 20 Credits
• Tudor Rebellions - 20 Credits
• ‘Women Worthies’: The Study of Famous Females from Boccaccio to the Present Day - 20 Credits
• Documenting the Local Past - 20 Credits
• Transnational ideologies in action: liberalism, socialism and anarchism - 20 Credits
• Genocide Memory and Representation - 20 Credits
• Church, Society, and Conflict in the Medieval West, c. 1000 - c. 1150 - 20 Credits
• Anglo-Saxon Charters - 20 Credits
• The Fall of the Ancient City - 20 Credits
• Peace in the Ancient World - 20 Credits
• Thatcher’s Britain - 20 Credits
• The Lives of Greek and Roman Poets - 20 Credits
• Medieval Queenship-Gender and Power in the Global Middle Ages - 20 Credits
• A Lust for Liberty? Popular Protest in Medieval Europe, c. 1200 to c. 1500 - 20 Credits
• Pompeii: Life & Afterlife - 20 Credits
• Europe’s Military Revolutions, 1450-1700 - 20 Credits
• Writing ‘The Anarchy,’ 1135-1154 - 20 Credits
• The Hispanic-Anglosphere (18th-20th centuries) - 20 Credits
• The Unending Frontier? Environment, Enlightenment and Expansion in the Early Modern World (c. 1600-c.1900) - 20 Credits
• Early Medieval Wessex - 20 Credits
• Playing the Past: Analysing History through Games - 20 Credits
• Communicating the Past - 20 Credits
• Work Placement - 20 Credits

Graduates of the course work in academia, teaching, archives, libraries, government and civil service, museums and conservation, as well as in a range of professions in the private sector, including financial consulting. The course provides a firm foundation for undertaking a postgraduate research degree or further training.