History MA - 2018 Entry

Course Overview

The Lancaster History MA is designed to foster the study of history at an advanced level and to develop skills which can be transferred into professions outside the university or which may form the basis of further research. You have a choice of four fascinating pathways:

• Medieval and Early Modern
• Modern
• Heritage
• Digital History 

Each of the pathways consists of five taught modules and a 20,000 word dissertation.

The programme and the wide range of associated activities within the department combine to create a lively and enjoyable student experience and a real sense of academic community.  In addition to your taught modules and supervision from our expert academics, you will be encouraged to attend research seminars, conferences, training events, reading groups and social events run by the department.

One of the key distinguishing factors about the Lancaster History MA is the option to work with heritage organisations on a work placement.  Partner organisations include a wide variety of local, regional and national organisations, such as the National Trust, the Duchy of Lancaster, the Wordsworth Trust, and primary and secondary schools. 

Click the ‘Visit Department’ tab to find out more about the four pathways, the application process, our placements and life as a History student at Lancaster. 

Course Structure

You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.

Core

• Researching and Writing History

  Alongside having a passion for the past, researching and writing a quality piece of history requires a close engagement with the historian’s craft. What does good history look like? How can we be sure we are at the cutting edge of our discipline? What does it mean to write well? Through a series of practical seminars and class discussions, you will be guided through the processes behind constructing an extended piece of historical research, taking you from your initial research ideas through to giving you the skills needed to produce a high-quality dissertation. Particular attention is paid to making the jump from undergraduate to postgraduate study. Indicative topics for discussion in this module include:

  1. What does a successful dissertation look like?
  2. How do historians formulate viable research questions and/or working hypotheses?
  3. Finding primary sources and compiling a research bibliography
  4. Managing data with the help of modern information technology
  5. How to develop a coherent argument
  6. When and how to start writing
  7. How to write effectively
  8. The use and abuse of footnotes
  9. How to present your dissertation
  10. Life after the M.A.

  The principal learning outcome of this module is to ensure the feasibility of your MA dissertation topics. Formative assessment is through the presentation of a 401 Conference Papter. Summative assessment is through a written feasibility study (5000 words) .

  Preliminary/core reading:

  Brundage, Anthony, Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and Writing (4th edn, Wheeling, IL, 2008).

  Teaching: Michaelmas Term.

  Assessment: Feasibility Study (5000 words).

• Dissertation

  This 20,000 word dissertation provides the opportunity for you to demonstrate the knowledge, understanding, research skills and techniques of presentation developed in the taught modules of the MA degree scheme. The specialist field of enquiry is chosen by the student in consultation with a supervisor and other members of the department before arrival and in the first half of Michaelmas Term. Individual one-to-one supervisions will be provided throughout the year to support taught modules, define and formulate a research hypothesis, identify relevant qualitative and quantitative sources, offer guidance on presentation and comment on the structure of the dissertation.

  Teaching: Michaelmas, Lent, Summer Terms, and Summer.

  Assessment: Dissertation (20,000 words).

Optional

• Creative Voices: History and Fiction

  What is the relationship between historical writing and creative writing, fiction and nonfiction and the entire spectrum of writing that that encompasses? What are the limits on creativity created by source materials or gaps in source materials? What are the respective responsibilities of author and reader?

  This course explores those questions in the liminal space between historical and creative writing. By examining four areas - the individual; space and time; gaps; and textual intervention and negotiation by author and reader - you will be encouraged to think about the nature of writing across disciplines, your own creative voice and choices, and your relationship to your reader.

  Through fortnightly case studies and one film-showing, you will consider extensive examples of how individual authors have chosen to meet the challenges of their subject matter, and be encouraged to explore the implications of this for your own writing.

  Preliminary/Core Reading:

  Laurence Binet, HHhH (2012)

  John Clive, Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History (1947)

  Natalie Zemon-Davies, The Return of Martin Guerre (1984)

  Taught: Michaelmas Term

  Assessment: Portfolio: 5000W (100%) (consisting of variations on a theme, and reflection)

• Historical Research Project

  For MA students this module exists to accommodate a student’s particular research project which cannot be accommodated within the dissertation (HIST400) or other taught modules. Only students with a clear idea of a particular research project they wish to employ, and a clear understanding that it cannot be accommodated within the remainder of the postgraduate programme, should consider this option. Please consult the appropriate Director of Graduate Studies if you wish to pursue this option. The form of assessment and supervisor will vary depending on the project, and will be agreed in negotiation between Director of Postgraduate Studies, supervisor and student. However, it will be of equivalent weighting to 5,000 words of text.

  Taught: Michaelmas or Lent terms

  Assessment: Project, equivalent to 5000 words (100%)

• Introduction to Latin Translation for Historians

  This is a special intensive course for students who have little or no previous knowledge of Latin. The course concentrates on the basics of Latin Grammar and vocabulary as used in the Medieval period, though it will also be very useful for students of the Roman and Renaissance periods. By the end of the course students should be able to read sources such as title deeds, court rolls, government records, wills, and inscriptions. Help will be given to individual students on Latin texts relevant to their dissertation or thesis.

  Preliminary/Core Reading:

  J. Thorley, Documents in Medieval Latin.

  E. A. Gooder, Latin for Local Historians.

  R. Latham (ed.), Medieval Latin Word-List.

  Any standard Latin-English dictionary.

  Taught: Michaelmas, Lent, Summer Terms.

  Assessment: Two course work exercises (40%) and a final examination (60%).

• Belief and Unbelief: Gods and Pagans from Antiquity to Today

  This module examines the nature of Belief and Unbelief from Ancient Greece through to the present day. It is often assumed that there has been a movement down the centuries from 'Belief' to 'Unbelief', especially in the West, where the intellectual impact of the Enlightenment and the growth of industrial society have widely been seen as fostering 'the death of religion'. The reality has been more complicated. Dominant religions have always been challenged by various forms of alternative belief: pagan, superstition, etc. In the modern period, religious belief has survived the enormous social and intellectual upheavals of the last two centuries. New forms of ‘religion’ have also appeared (some scholars have for example treated environmentalism as a form of religious belief). Both modern cognitive science and the growth of 'New Age' beliefs suggests that the religious instinct is rooted deeply in the human psyche. The development of terrorist activities committed to asserting the primacy of faith shows how modernity does not necessarily lead to the triumph of unbelief over belief. This module will encourage students to think broadly about the concepts of Belief and Unbelief through time and across the world.

  Preliminary/Core Reading:

  Taught: Lent Term

  Assessment: Essay (5000 Words)

• Outreach, heritage and public history placement

  This module offers you the chance to benefit from the Department’s established and expanding network of heritage partners by completing a professional placement. Our previous placement partners have included a number of notable organisations, such as the Duchy of Lancaster, Hoghton Tower, the Museum of Lancashire, the National Trust, the North Craven Trust, and the Senhouse Museum Trust. The placement is centred on a specific project, which is agreed between the Department and the partner organisation, and completed under the supervision of that organisation. The work undertaken as part of the placement project can take a variety of different forms, ranging from cataloguing objects to assisting in arrangement for exhibitions to undertaking research work on a corpus of visual, audio or textual sources.

  Assessment

  The assessment for the module comprises a portfolio of work relating the placement and a (1,000-2,000 word) reflective essay.

• Beyond the Text: Image, Sound and Object as Historical Evidence

  In this module, you will examine historical approaches to a variety of sources, from the visual (or audio visual), to the aural, oral and artefactual. Whatever period you are studying, you will be able to investigate material relevant to your own research: in the past, the module has covered the gamut from ancient Rome to the modern day, and the sources you investigate will be tailored to suit the specialisms of your cohort. Over the course of the module you will deepen your familiarity with the range of sources available, and be able to analyse how non-traditional sources have been approached by historians. The knowledge and skills you learn will provide insights into how you can approach such sources within your own research; indeed, you will have the opportunity to pursue a coursework topic that relates to your chosen area of historical investigation.

  Preliminary/core reading: Sarah Barber and Corinna Peniston Bird (eds.), History beyond the Text: A Student's Guide to approaching alternative Sources (Routledge, 2009).

  Taught: Michaelmas Term

  Assessment: Essay (5,000 words).

• Using digital texts as historical sources

  Despite huge advances in digital technologies, many of the approaches historian use remain rooted in the analogue age. Perhaps the only major change that computers have led to among historians to date is the use of major digitised archives, such as Early English Books Online, Old Bailey Online or the British Newspaper Archive. Even with these, many historians simply use these to search and browse, never making use of their full potential or able to critique the digitised sources effectively.

  In the first part of this course you will look at how paper sources are digitised and encoded to create digital historical resources. This will enable you to understand how digital sources are created, and encourage you to think critically about their benefits and limitations The second part the course explores how digitised historical sources can be explored and analysed in more sophisticated ways. Corpus linguistics enables us identify and summarise themes of interest from millions or billions of words of text in ways that go far beyond simply keyword searches. It also helps the historian decide which parts of a large body of text require further research and which do not.

  You do not need any prior knowledge of computing beyond the basics all history students will have. We will draw on examples from a wide range of topics from the early modern to modern British. You will also have the opportunity to use the techniques and approaches learnt with their own sources.

  Preliminary/Core Reading:

  Adolphs S. (2006) Electronic Text Analysis. London: Routledge

  Hitchcock T. (2013) “Confronting the digital: or how academic history writing lost the plot” Cultural and Social History, 10, pp.9-23

  Pumfrey S., Rayson, P. and Mariani J. (2012) “Experiments in 17th century English: manual versus automatic conceptual history” Literary and Linguistic Computing, 27, pp. 395-408

  Nicholson B. (2012) “Counting culture; or, how to read Victorian newspapers from a distance” Journal of Victorian Culture, 17, pp. 238-246

  Weller T. 2013. History in the Digital Age. London: Routledge.

  Taught: Michaelmas Term

  Assessment: Two pieces of coursework. One essay, 1,500 or equivalent for the first piece (30%) and 2,500 for one practical exercise (70%)

• School Placement

  This module gives you the opportunity to enhance your employability by taking advantage of LUVU’s Schools Partnership programme, which supports Lancaster Students on 10-week placements in local schools. The placement will be based at a primary or secondary school in the region, and it will likely involve a combination of classroom observation and teacher assistance, as well as the preparation of lesson plans, teaching plans and learning materials. You may also have the opportunity to teach the class as a whole. Participation in this module will give you first-hand experiences of young people’s responses to historical texts and problems, and it will give you the opportunity to develop confidence in communicating your subject. It will also increase your awareness of the roles of schools and universities in educational processes. This module is likely to help with your career progression, especially (though not exclusively) if you are interested in pursuing a career in teaching

  Assessment

  The assessment for the module comprises a portfolio of work relating the placement and a (1,000-2,000 word) reflective essay.

• How Historians Understand and Explain

  This module will provide you with some understanding of the diverse approaches that historians and philosophers have taken to understanding the past. We will focus primarily on different ways of constructing the relationship between the present, the past and the future, and on the structure of the explanations given for the differences observed.

  Preliminary Reading

  Collingwood, R. G. 1993. ‘The historical imagination’ and ‘Historical evidence’, The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon.

  Lowenthal, David. 2005. ‘Wanting the past’, The Past is Another Country, Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  White, Hayden. 1978. ‘The historical text as literary artefact’, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  Taught: Lent Term

  Assessment: A critical bibliography (1500 words @30%) and one essay (3500 words @70%)

• Medieval Primary Sources: Genre, Rhetoric and Transmission

  Designed for students taking the medieval pathway, this module examines both manuscript studies and the decoding of medieval sources in their original and printed forms. Using relatively straightforward examples, the palaeographical strand provides an introduction to the principles involved in deciphering scripts while the ‘genre-focused’ strand considers a range of types of source—some that you will almost inevitably encounter in your research (e.g. charters, letters and chronicles) and some that you might not have considered, but which offer much for the medieval historian (e.g. poems and miscellanies). Indeed, one of the main aims of the course is to alert students to the significance of book history and manuscript studies—to the importance of attending to manuscript evidence and what it can tell us about the production, transmission and reception of a medieval source.

  The course is taught by means of a weekly two-hour seminar, which will include both substantive discussion of a topic or genre of source and a workshop element, for which some preparation, partly in the form of a weekly ‘palaeography exercise’, is expected.

  Preliminary/core reading:

  Clemens, R., and T. Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, NY, 2007).

  Clanchy, M. T., From Memory to Written Record, England, 1066–1307 (3rd edn, Oxford, 2013).

  Rosenthal, J. T. (ed.), Understanding Medieval Primary Sources: Using Historical Sources to Discover Medieval Europe, Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources (London, 2012).

  Taught: Lent Term

  Assessment: (1) A brief manuscript description (1000 words, worth 20%); (2) Your three best palaeography exercises (1000 words, 20%); (3) One Essay (2500-3000 words, 60%).

• Spatial Technologies for Historical Analysis

  This module covers a range of geospatial technologies which are now available to historians, and is an opportunity to gain the practical and critical skills which will allow you to apply them to your own research. In doing so, you will also be exposed to many of the ongoing trends and debates within the growing field of Digital Humanities. You will be introduced to the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities, identifying its theoretical bases and technical requirements, as well as some of their limitations and practical implications. Topics include Spatial Theory and Thinking, Geographical Text Analysis, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). You will explore the most cutting-edge research in the field in a number of case studies, and engage with them critically. In addition to this theoretical component, you will develop essential capabilities in GIS, including how to find, load, edit, visualise and analyse different kinds of data. You will learn how to combine texts and records with contemporary and historical cartography, sensor data, and satellite and aerial photography. This will allow you to visualize your own data in 2 and 3 dimensions, perform spatial statistical analyses, transform it into interactive time lines and visualisations, or produce high quality maps for presentations and publications. In doing so, you will acquire an important set of transferable digital skills and build an awareness of the opportunities, challenges and limitations of working with this medium.

  Preliminary/Core Reading:

  Gregory, I., DeBats, D., and Lafreniere, D. (eds.) (2018) The Routledge Companion to Spatial History. Oxford: Routledge.

  Murrieta-Flores, P., Donaldson, C., and Gregory, I. (2017) GIS and Literary History: Advancing Digital Humanities Research Through the spatial Analysis of Eighteen-Century Travel Writing. Digital Humanities Quarterly. 11 (1).

  Murrieta-Flores, P., and Howell, N. (2017) Advancing the Spatial Humanities through Medieval Romance: Moving into the digital analysis of vague and imaginary place in historical and literary texts. Journal of Map & Geography Libraries. 13 (2).

  Gregory, I., and Murrieta-Flores, P. (2016) ‘Geographical Information Systems as a Tool for Exploring the Spatial Humanities’ IN Crompton, C., Lane, R., and Siemens, R. (Eds.) Doing Digital Humanities: Practice, Training, Research. Oxford: Routledge.

  Drucker, J. (2012) ‘Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship’. IN Gold, M, K. & Klein, L. F. (eds.) Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

  http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/34

  Kemp, K. K., (2010) ‘Geographic Information Science and Spatial Analysis for the Humanities’. IN Bodenhamer, D. J. et al, (eds.) The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

  Knowles, A.K. (2008) ‘GIS and History’. IN Knowles, A. (ed.), Placing History: How Maps, Spatial Data, and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship. Redlands: ESRI Press

  Longley, P. A., et al. (eds.) (2005) ‘Introduction’. IN Geographical Information Systems. Principles, Techniques, Management & Applications. 2nd Edition. Hoboken: Wiley

  Teaching: Lent Term

  Assessment: Essay (2000 words, @30%); GIS project (GIS files and report of 2,500 words; 70%)

• Critical Heritage Studies

  This module offers you the opportunity to think about the objects and spaces through which history is presented to the public. You will have the chance to engage with scholarly perspectives about heritage practises and to gain insight into the workings of public institutions.

  Description

  This module examines the objects and spaces through which history is presented to the public. Its aim is to give you the opportunity to engage with scholarly criticisms of heritage practices and to gain insight into the workings of public institutions. Questions we will explore include: What are the processes through which history becomes heritage? By what means are objects gathered together and arranged in order to present, and preserve, ‘the past’? How are the meanings of these objects controlled and communicated to the public? In thinking through these, and other similar, questions, you will have the chance to consider the means through which ‘the historical temper’ is cultivated in both institutions and public spaces and, in particular, how and why the presentation of the past has changed over time. The module combines seminars with site visits, tours and sessions with heritage professionals.

  Basic Reading (not mandatory)

  J. R. Gillis (ed.), Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994)

  Rodney Harrison, Heritage: Critical Approaches (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013)

  Andrew McClellan (ed.), Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium (Oxford: Blackwell,2003)

  Robin Ostow (ed.), (Re)Visualizing National History Museums and National Identities in Europe in the New Millennium (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008)

  Timothy J. Dallen, Heritage Cuisines: Traditions, Identities and Tourism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016) The Association of Critical Heritage Studies <http://www.criticalheritagestudies.org/>

  Assessment

  1 x 5,000-word essay on a topic of your selection, agreed with the instructor(s)

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research.

Key Information

Undergraduate Degree: 2:1 (Hons) degree (UK or equivalent) in History

If you have studied outside of the UK, you can check your qualifications here: International Qualifications

Students who have completed a combined major or a degree in other disciplines, such as Politics, English, Cultural Studies or Linguistics, are welcome to apply

English Language: IELTS - Overall score of at least 6.5, with no individual element below 5.5 

We consider tests from other providers, which can be found here: English language requirements

If your score is below our requirements we may consider you for one of our pre-sessional English language programmes

Pre-sessional English language programmes available: 

4 Week Overall score of at least 6.0, with no individual element below 5.5

10 Week Overall score of at least 5.5, with no individual element below 5.0

Longer pre-sessional programmes are available, please contact the Admissions Office for further information

Funding: All applicants should consult our information on Fees and Funding; Faculty Scholarships and Funding; History Fees and Funding

Fees

Fees

The University will not increase the Tuition Fee you are charged during the course of an academic year.

If you are studying on a programme of more than one year's duration, the tuition fees for subsequent years of your programme are likely to increase each year. The way in which continuing students' fee rates are determined varies according to an individual's 'fee status' as set out on our fees webpages.

What are tuition fees for?

Studying at a UK University means that you need to pay an annual fee for your tuition, which covers the costs associated with teaching, examinations, assessment and graduation.

The fee that you will be charged depends on whether you are considered to be a UK, EU or overseas student. Visiting students will be charged a pro-rata fee for periods of study less than a year.

Our annual tuition fee is set for a 12 month session, which usually runs from October to September the following year.

How does Lancaster set overseas tuition fees?

Overseas fees, alongside all other sources of income, allow the University to maintain its abilities across the range of activities and services. Each year the University's Finance Committee consider recommendations for increases to fees proposed for all categories of student and this takes into account a range of factors including projected cost inflation for the University, comparisons against other high-quality institutions and external financial factors such as projected exchange rate movements.

What support is available towards tuition fees?

Lancaster University's priority is to support every student in making the most of their education. Many of our students each year will be entitled to bursaries or scholarships to help with the cost of fees and/or living expenses. You can find out more about financial support, studentships, and awards for postgraduate study on our website.

Related Courses

Related Courses

• History : MPhil/PhD