Historical Research (MA) - 2013/2014 entry

This programme provides you with the advanced conceptual, theoretical and technical skills necessary for PhD research in history. It critically examines problems of historical theory and practice, with emphasis on debates around topics such as: narrative and history; objectivity and relativism in history; causation; history and other disciplines; social history; cultural history; postmodernism; Marxist historiography; the Annales School; new directions in historical research and writing.

Find out more about studying in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology.

• Specially aimed at providing intellectual and skills training for students considering future PhD/MPhil research.
• Conveniently located for the British Museum, the British Library and a range of specialist research centres.
• Work with internationally renowned historians and researchers.
• Watch our video: Professor Catharine Edwards talks about studying in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology.

Core modules:

• Mastering Historical Research: Birkbeck Approaches
• Practical Research Skills for Historians.

Choose two option modules from a comprehensive list of history courses taught at Birkbeck, including:

• Ancient Political Thought and its Medieval Legacy
• The Changing Shape of Knowledge, 1550–1750 
• China and the West – Encounters 1600–2000
• Civil Society
• Darwin, Darwinism and the Modern World
• Death, Disease and the Early Modern City
• The Decline of Magic – Magical Ideas in English Society, 1650–1750
• Early Modern London, Society and Culture
• Empires in Modern East Asia
• European Visions of Amerindian Peoples, 1492–1654
• Freud and Psychoanalysis
• Gender in History
• Globalisation – A Short Historical Introduction
• Heresy in the Middle Ages, c.1000–c.1330
• Islam and Politics
• Jews and Antisemitism in Modern Europe: Histories and Approaches
• Magic, Science and Religion in the Renaissance
• Medicine, Science and New Worlds, 1450–1750
• Migration and Minorities in Twentieth-Century Asia
• Opposition and Dissent in Early Modern France
• The Origins of the French Revolution
• Plots, Conspiracy Theory and Political Culture in Early Modern Britain and France
• Popular Politics in Early Modern Italy
• Power and Authority in Britain, 1603–1689
• Power and Communication in Europe from the Reformation to the Enlightenment
• Psychoanalysis, History, Biography, Problems of Methodology
• Race and the Victorians
• Religion in Society and Politics: Britain and Ireland, 1801–2001
• Renaissance Florence – Society, Religion and Culture
• The Rise of the Modern Consumer
• Technology, Modernity and the Nation
• Travel, Empires and Cultural Encounters, 1500–1750
• Vice and the Victorians
• The Victorian Communications Revolution.

You will also write a dissertation.

You will find the British Museum and the British Library just a few minutes' walk from Birkbeck. Other nearby specialist centres of research include the Institute of Archaeology, the Institute of Classical Studies and the Institute of Historical Research, all of which offer regular seminars on research areas covered by the department. Birkbeck graduate students also organise their own research seminar.

Birkbeck also has active history and archaeology societies.

If you are interested in further research, we offer a PhD/MPhil in History.

Graduates go on to careers as researchers, as archivists, in museums and galleries, in education and as journalists.

Choice of option modules

You may take option modules from MA programmes run by other departments, as long as they are approved by the course director as being relevant to the proposed topic of research.

• You should apply as early as possible.
• Interviews from January.