Postgraduate Prospectus

History | www.essex.ac.uk/history
Why study history
at Essex?
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Joint second in the UK for research
in the last Research Assessment
Exercise (RAE, 2008)
Particular emphasis on social and
cultural history of the early modern
and modern periods
Interdisciplinary opportunities
through collaboration with other
Essex departments
Part-time (modular), evening taught
MA Historical Studies available
A strong international community
of staff and students
Career prospects
With the skills and knowledge
you acquire from studying in
our Department, you will find
yourself in demand from a wide
range of employers. For example,
the ability to establish a brief,
analyse information, and report
on findings are key skills for
managerial and professional
activities.
We have excellent links with the
research community, both in the
UK and worldwide, so many of our
students have gone on to teach
in higher education institutions.
Others have found employment
in archives, research, managing
research funds, other forms of
educational provision, the Civil
Service, the National Health
Service, and management.
About our Department
We have developed a strong research
profile, coming joint second in the UK
in the most recent Research Assessment
Exercise (RAE, December 2008). Our
distinctiveness can be summed up under
five headings: contemporary, comparative,
interdisciplinary, international and innovative.
We have a lively postgraduate community,
with many international students, and
take pride in providing excellent research
training and careful supervision in a friendly
atmosphere, with good staff-student
relationships.
We enjoy the mix of areas and specialisms
found along our corridors. Our pattern of
appointments has deliberately brought
together scholars with a wide range of
approaches and fields in early-modern,
modern and contemporary history. We offer
programmes that reflect our strengths in
social and cultural history, and have
particular expertise in the following
geographical areas: Britain (including local
and regional history), Europe, the United
States, Russia, Brazil, Southern Africa and
Britain’s Asian Empire.
Our themes of particular research interest
include: class, race and gender formation;
nationalism; wars and revolutions; the
history of medicine; international relations
and oil diplomacy; the history of crime;
popular culture and consumption; slave
societies; the history of ideas and print
culture; the history of the Roma and
Sinti in Europe; and historical censuses
and surveys.
Recently Professor John Walter obtained
a large Leverhulme grant of £100,000 to
study popular political understanding in
the English Civil War, while Dr Matthias
Röhrig Assunção is working on an Arts
and Humanities Research Council
(AHRC)-funded project to explore cultural
exchanges, between Africa and South
America, in the development of the art of
capoeira, and Professor Edward Higgs is
engaged on an Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC)-funded project
to create a digitised version of the British
censuses of 1851 to 1911 for academic
purposes.
Our Albert Sloman Library has excellent
collections in British and European modern
history, and its holdings in the areas of
Latin America, Russia and the US are of
national importance. Its Special Collection
has a number of collections of interest to
historical research, including the libraries
of the Essex Society for Archaeology and
History and of the Royal Historical Society.
The History Data Service is based in the
UK Data Archive at Essex. This national
service provider for the acquisition,
dissemination and preservation of digital
resources for historians is particularly
strong in nineteenth and twentieth-century
economic and social history.
Taught courses
Our MA courses provide a thorough and
up-to-date training in the theory, methods
and latest advances in the historical
disciplines, while our range of modules
allows you to specialise in the fields of
your choice. Each of our taught courses
has a set of core components that can be
combined with optional modules to enable
you to gain either in-depth specialisation or
a breadth of understanding across several
topics. Your MA should involve five taught
modules and a 20,000 word dissertation
on a topic of your choice.
In addition to University of Essex
Scholarships, our postgraduates have held
Overseas Research and Commonwealth
scholarships. Under the Arts and
Humanities Research Council Block Grant
Partnership scheme, research preparation
Master’s and Doctoral studentships are
available in history.
MA History•
Our popular flagship course offers you
a rigorous, flexible and wide-ranging
education in the subject. You take a
practical module in research techniques
with Research Methods in History, gain
an introduction to historical theory and
study the latest in historical research
in specific fields.
124 | Postgraduate Prospectus 2012