This MA is focused on European and British history since the mid 18th century, and students are encouraged to think beyond the rigid confines of country, period and discipline. We offer a huge range of options taught by world-leading experts, including modules taught in the Centre for Contemporary British History. Leads to further research or careers in education, journalism, finance, politics and cultural sectors.
KEY BENEFITS
- One of the best history departments in the world, ranked 2nd in the UK by The Sunday Times newspaper (2011).
- Excellent graduate prospects, amongst the top five in the country (Times Good University Guide, 2010).
- Innovative comparative approach to British and Continental European history since the 18th-century.
- The central London location offers students unrivalled access to world-class museums, collections, archives and libraries as well as easy access to resources in Europe.
- Vibrant research culture, including seminars and conferences at which students are encouraged to participate and give papers.
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KEY FACTS
Student destinations
Leads to further research or careers in teaching, archives, the media, finance, politics and heritage industries.
Programme leader/s
Dr Liza Filby
Awarding Institution
King's College London
Credit value (UK/ECTS equivalent)
UK 180/ECTS 90
Duration
One year FT, two years PT, September to September.
Location
Strand Campus.
Year of entry 2013
Offered by
School of Arts and Humanities
Department of History
Closing date
1 September 2013.
Please note that applicants wishing to apply for funding (e.g. AHRC) must submit their application by the relevant funding deadline, which is usually early in the year. Please
seehttp://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/pg/funding/sources/index.aspxfor information on the available funding opportunities and deadlines.
Variable.
Fees
PT Home: £3950 (2013)
PT Overseas: £8125 (2013)
FT Home: £7900 (2013)
FT Overseas: £16250 (2013)
CONTACTS
Contact information
Postgraduate Officer, Centre for Arts & Sciences Admissions (CASA)
tel: +44 (0) 20 7848 2765 / 2232 / 7232
fax: +44 (0) 20 7848 7200
Email
Website
PURPOSE
Provides a distinctive programme suitable both for those intending to proceed to a PhD and for those who wish to study modern history at an advanced level. Encourage a broad vision in study that escapes rigid divisions of country, period or discipline.
DESCRIPTION
The history of modern Europe and Britain has always been central to teaching at King’s. The popular MA programme teaches students the skills required for modern historical study and delves into key topics of the period, from European nation building to modern British politics. The MA is primarily intended for those interested in Continental European and/or British History since the mid 18th century and draws upon a wide range of approaches to create a comparative perspective. Students have the opportunity to broaden the number of sources available to them by studying a modern language.
Teaching on the MA is underpinned by the belief that an ability to make comparisons between the experience of different societies and polities is vital to understanding historical issues, and a compulsory historiography module has been designed with this in mind. Students are encouraged to think beyond the rigid confines of country, period and discipline. Opportunities to do so are enhanced by the wide choice of modules made available across the School of Arts & Humanities as well as intercollegiately.
Teaching
Modules on the MA are taught by weekly seminars; students are expected to contribute to discussion and prepare presentations. Students can also attend relevant undergraduate lecture series, such as Europe from 1793-1991 and Politics and Society in Britain, 1780-1945. Students on the 1 year full-time programme attend 4-8 hours of taught classes per week, whilst students following the 2 year part-time MA attend 2-6 hours of taught classes per week. The compulsory 15,000 word dissertation enables students to research a topic of their choice, working one-to-one with an academic supervisor.
Centre for Contemporary British History (CCBH)
The Centre for Contemporary British History (CCBH) joined King’s in September 2010 and has close links with the Department of History, enabling MA students to take CCBH modules and participate in Centre activities.
Study in London
London not only offers a vast range of resources but also has the advantage of a strong graduate community, where students can follow up a range of interests towards further research. Students are strongly encouraged to participate in the seminars at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), many of which are convened by members of the Department.
For further information
If you would like more specific information regarding the course please contact Dr Liza Filby directly via email: liza.filby@kcl.ac.uk
STRUCTURE OVERVIEW
Core programme content
100 credits of required modules (detailed list below): - Includes a 15,000 word dissertation worth 60 credits (details below).
- Part-time students take 40 credits of required modules in Year 1 and the dissertation module worth 60 credits in Year 2.
Indicative non-core content
80 credits of optional modules (detailed list below).- Counting towards the 80, students can take credits from outside the department, either at King's or intercollegiately (at one of the other Colleges of the University of London). Module availability information will be published in September. MA Modern History students often take optional modules from the MA Early Modern History, MA World History & Cultures and MA European Studies.
- Counting towards the 80 or in addition to it, students can take a 20 credit language module. Alternatively, the Modern Language Centre at King's offers language classes to students which do not count towards the degree.
- Part-time students take 40 credits of optional modules in Year 1 and 40 credits of optional modules in Year 2.
FORMAT AND ASSESSMENT
Full-time study: 4-8 hours of taught classes per week.
Part-time study: 2-6 hours of taught classes per week.
The taught compulsory and optional modules are assessed by coursework and/or take-home examination. The compulsory 15,000 word dissertation enables students to research a topic of their choice, working one-to-one with an academic supervisor.
MODULES
More information on typical programme modules.
NB it cannot be guaranteed that all modules are offered in any particular academic year.
Teaching staff: Professor Richard Drayton
Module code: 7AAH0001
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 1 (autumn)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module addresses the nature of historical practice, ensuring that students can use and critically evaluate a range of theories, methods and approaches. It will raise awareness about history as a discipline and its relationships with other kindred fields. There will be visits, for example, to libraries, archives and museums, and an opportunity for students to discuss their dissertations. Skills to be considered in the module include quantitative approaches, visual and textual analysis and the oral presentation of materials.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH0001.aspx
Module code: 7AAH3001
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 60 credits
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 15,000 word dissertation
The 15,000 word dissertation lies at the heart of the MA and is based on primary sources: it is designed as a substantial research project, the equivalent of a major article for a historical journal or a chapter in a PhD thesis. It offers students the chance to research a topic of their choice, working with a supervisor from the department.
Recent topics have included:
- Parliamentary reporting and anti-slavery literature, 1786-1807
- 'No mere silent commander’. Sir Henry Horne and the fear of GHQ reprisals
- 'There is a nation that she wants to see' - Thatcher's vision of Britishness
- The Political Opponents of Conscription in Britain during the First World War (2008 winner of the Bowyers' Graduate Academic prize)
Teaching staff: Dr AbdoolKarim Vakil
Module code: 7AAH3002
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module introduces students to the theory and practice of historical research. It focuses on key historians of the modern period and on the concepts involved in their work.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH3002.aspx
Teaching staff: Dr Uta Andrea Balbier
Module code: 7YYA0003
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
Sport has been a critical cultural force in U.S. history, and is arguably as definitive for U.S. identities as film or music. However, its significance has often been overlooked. This course will discuss the development of modern sports in the United States from the mid-19th century on. It will focus on the emergence of sports clubs, the role of national sports heroes, the business of sports, and health reform movements. Sport will be discussed as a force of cultural production and social change. Through the prism of sports this course provides a new understanding of Progressivism, consumerism, and race and gender politics in 20th century U.S. history. It will also provide knowledge of a number of methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding the role of sports, the body, and spectacles in the shaping of modern societies and nations.
Teaching staff: Dr Jim Bjork
Module code: 7AAH3009
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 40 credits
Teaching pattern: 20 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
2 x 4,000 word essay
This module will explore recent debates among historians and social scientists over the roles that religion has played in European history since the early nineteenth century. Until the 1970s, most scholars operated under the assumption that the forces of modernization involved an inexorable process of secularization, in which the influence of religious institutions steadily weakened, ever greater spheres of human activity became autonomous from religious understandings, and, in time, belief in any kind of supernatural phenomena began to erode. Over the past three decades, however, almost every aspect of secularization theory has come under assault. This questioning was spurred, in part, by the evident importance of religion in animating contemporary political and social movements outside or on the periphery of Europe (Solidarity in Poland, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Moral Majority in the United States). Doubts about the nature and extent of secularization within Western Europe have also been driven by a growing body of historical research suggesting that the nineteenth and even the early twentieth centuries were actually periods of religious revival across much of Europe, especially in its Roman Catholic "core." One historian recently argued that the period from roughly 1850 to 1950 is better described as a "second confessional age" than as an age of secularization.
The module will cover developments in areas where Latin/Western Christendom has been the dominant religious tradition. Most of the historiography that we will read deals with France and Germany, though there will also be some consideration of parallel events and trends in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Italy, Iberia, East-Central Europe, and a bit on the Low Countries and Scandinavia.
Module code: 7YYH0001
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This course will examine the ways in which the Cold War affected the UK’s foreign, military and domestic policymaking in the broader European context. It will be the aim of this course to demonstrate that the Cold War was not simply a conflict between the two superpowers, with lesser powers like the UK simply acting as their agents, but that in UK’s case the response was based upon the long history of Anglo-Russian and subsequently Anglo-Soviet relations; on the challenges that Britain faced as European power with a declining global Imperial presence; on her position in Europe after the World War II; on her military strength (or weakness); and her determination to remain on the ‘top table’ of world affairs.
Module code: 7YYH0002
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
The course will examine the ways in which the Cold War affected the UK’s foreign, military and domestic policymaking in the extra-European world. It will be the aim of this course to demonstrate that the Cold War was not simply a conflict between the two superpowers, with lesser powers like the UK simply acting as their agents, but that in UK’s case the response was based upon the long history of Anglo-Russian and subsequently Anglo-Soviet relations; on the challenges that Britain faced as European power with a declining global Imperial presence; on her position in Europe after the World War II; on her military strength (or weakness); and her determination to remain on the ‘top table’ of world affairs.
Teaching staff: Professor David McLean
Module code: 7AAH3013
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
Britain dominated the global economy for most of the nineteenth century; success was built upon its agricultural prosperity, its international trading position, a technological superiority in industrial production, and the emergence of London as the world’s financial centre. While an advanced understanding of this leading position constitutes the core element of this module, the decades between c.1850 and 1914 also witnessed anxiety about the onset of depression and a questioning of British business methods. A wider understanding of economic developments elsewhere, of the workings of the gold standard, and of the patterns of growth and decline which occurred in different sectors of Britain’s economy, particularly from the 1870s onwards, will all be examined and contemporary accounts of such changes set against more recent historical research.
Teaching staff: Professor Carl Bridge
Module code: 7AAH5006
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
The colonies of settlement have been neglected in studies of British imperialism in recent decades. This module will focus attention on the shared histories of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa since the early-nineteenth century as part of a larger ‘British World’. These societies’ evolution from colonies to self-governing dominions and independent nations, as well as their common dispossession and marginalisation of Indigenous peoples, will be examined not only comparatively but also by exploring the sense of belonging that developed among them, based on shared origins, culture, experience and identity. The module will examine factors such as those which brought these various communities together – cultural, political, economic, constitutional and military – as well as the forces that eventually drove them apart from one another, and from Great Britain itself.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH5016.aspx
Module code: 7YYH0012
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module will consider the history of social policy and welfare in British society up to the end of the Second World War. It will consider this in the context of earlier social policy developments, including Poor Law reform. In particular it will look at issues around housing, employment and unemployment, women and gender, old age and pensions, children, central/local government relations and public finance. It will examine the Liberal governments of 1906-1914 and the extent to which they pioneered a new relationship between the state and the poor, the effects of the First World War on state social and welfare policy, the expansion of state social expenditure in the interwar period and the Beveridge Report of 1942.
Module code: 7YYH0013
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module will examine the history of the welfare state and social policy in British society after 1945. It will consider post-war reform, the extent to which it was a new departure and its effects on poverty. It will examine the impact of the Cold War on social policy and consider the relationship between the welfare state and the state of the economy. It will also cover such issues as ageing and welfare, demographic change and child welfare. It will consider comparative perspectives on these issues and the debates both among historians and policy-makers about social policy and welfare.
Teaching staff: Dr Stephen Lovell
Module code: 7AAH3007
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
Over the last two hundred years, Europe has become a much smaller place. Railways, newspapers, telegraphs, radios and many other forms of communication have swallowed up territory. Even the most determinedly backward inhabitants of Europe have often found it difficult to remain ignorant of events and issues of national or international significance. There are two broad ways of interpreting these developments. One is to see them as evidence of progress and modernization; as a way of spreading education and enlightenment, of involving more people in the business of democracy, of offering citizens new, and generally benign, social and cultural allegiances; as a means of turning peasants into Frenchmen, and Frenchmen and Germans into Europeans. Another is to see the increased scope of communications as a potential danger: as a force that can atomize citizens, enforce conformity, or (more subtly) hold out the illusion of membership in a political community while at the same time effectively disabling democracy. This more pessimistic view tends to be associated with theories of mass society, and especially with accounts of totalitarian regimes. As these examples might begin to suggest, the production, dissemination and reception of information and knowledge is sometimes granted quite a lot of explanatory power in the historiography of modern Europe. But questions of communication are usually mentioned in passing, as one of several factors in the rise of the nation-state, the establishment of bourgeois hegemony, the maintenance of fascist dictatorship, or whatever else suits the historian’s design.
This module offers the opportunity to reflect at greater length on the effects of the key media of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe: books, journals, newspapers, pamphlets, photography, cinema, radio, television, and so on. Topics for consideration will include: the emergence of ‘public opinion’ and the creation of a ‘public sphere’; the social and political effects of literacy; the making of revolutions and nations; state propaganda; censorship; media, modernity and post-modernity.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH3007.aspx
Teaching staff: Dr Federico Bonaddio
Module code: 7AAS/M032
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module will explore literary responses (in English translation) by Italian and Spanish writers to conflict and division in their respective societies, from the early 20th Century to the present. Common to the history of both is the experience and legacy of dictatorship and a community riven by highly polarized political ideologies and discourses. Although the markedly different trajectories of Italian Fascism and Francoism mean that over the course of the 20th Century writers in Italy and Spain come to engage with divergent political and social realities, social crisis, division and dysfunction continue to provide points of connection. This module will set the respective accounts of Italian and Spanish writers in their historical context and examine and compare their various approaches to the circumstances and events which their works depict. It will consider literary representation, device and effect, along with the ideological framework informing perspectives, encountering in the process a range of subjects and themes arising from these writers’ engagement with the political and social realities of their time; subjects and themes such as totalitarianism, civil conflict, organized crime, rural and urban deprivation, censorship, exile, social anomie and alienation, social responsibility and complicity, collective amnesia, political disillusionment, historical recuperation. In this way, the module aims to offer students an insight into the ways culture responds to conflict and division, as well as an understanding of two historically conflictual and divided societies via the unique, and often intimate, perspective which literature provides.
Teaching staff: Professor Robert Blackburn & Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Module code: 7FFLA074
Credit level: 7
Teaching pattern: 2-hour seminars
Assessment:
coursework
2 x 4,000 word essays
Study the constitutional development of Britain from the late nineteenth century down to the present day. Consider the nature of the late Victorian constitution, together with its principal components, notably the Crown, Cabinet government, Parliament, and the Judiciary. The module then proceeds by subject rather than by period, and describes the various changes that occurred, firstly in the structure and working of the constitution, and secondly in the evolution of constitutional ideas. Historic occasions of constitutional crisis, controversy or inquiry (for example, the House of Lords' veto of Lloyd George's budget in 1909, the introduction of One Man One Vote in 1918, the Royal Abdication in 1936, and accession to the European Community in 1972) will form particular points of focus. Throughout the module, you will be encouraged to consult parliamentary papers, original constitutional documents, and the works of the major constitutional writers.
Teaching staff: Dr Stephen Lovell & Dr Jim Bjork
Module code: 7AAH3011
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 1 (autumn)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
The three keywords in the module title together evoke a particular historical conjuncture. We will look at two empires – the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian – as they contended with the rise of national sentiment at a time of rapid social, economic and cultural change (otherwise known as modernity). There will be a strong emphasis on comparative analysis, both as a way of capturing the historical specificity of these empires and as a means of reflecting more broadly on the nature of empire – a normal, not aberrant form of political organization for nineteenth-century Europe – at a historical moment when it was under interrogation as never before.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH3011.aspx
Teaching staff: Dr Stephen Lovell & Dr Jim Bjork
Module code: 7AAH3012
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
In this module (which is designed to follow on from ‘Empire, Nation and Modernity in Eastern Europe, 1848-1914', but can also be free-standing) we will examine two empires – the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian – as they faced the crisis of World War I and fell apart. We then go on to consider their successor states – above all the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary – with particular reference to the ways in which they contended with national sentiment and ethnic difference at a time of rapid social, economic and cultural change. There will be a strong emphasis on comparative analysis, both as a way of capturing the historical specificity of these regions and as a means of reflecting more broadly on the interwar and postwar conjunctures.
Module code: 7YYH0004
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This course covers some of the principal types of financial crisis of the previous three centuries. It considers two thematic strands: banking crises, such as the US banking crises of the 1930s, the collapse of Austria's Credit Anstalt in 1931, the Nordic banking crisis of the 1990s, and the demise of Northern Rock; asset price crashes, for instance the South Sea Bubble of 1719, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and the Technology stock crash of 2000.
Module code: 7YYH0003
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This course covers some of the principal types of financial crisis of the previous three centuries. It begins with an introductory overview and conceptual framework. This is followed by thematic case studies drawn principally, but by no means exclusively, from British and US experience. The episodes will be examined comparatively both with each other and with recent financial experience. The course has two thematic strands: public debt crises, such as the sovereign debt crises of the 1930s, the Third World debt crisis of the 1980s and the defaults by US states in the 1840s; and exchange rate crises, for instance Britain's sterling crises of 1931 and 1967, the breakdown of the international Breton Woods System in 1971-73, and the East Asia Crisis of 1997-98.
Teaching staff: Dr David Todd
Module code: 7AAH5004
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module will offer an overview of French imperial ventures in the modern era, from France’s American empire in the early modern period to the Napoleonic empires of the nineteenth century and its African and Indochinese empire after 1870. Recent years have seen a reappraisal of both the French contribution to the development of European imperialism and the impact of imperial expansion on France and continental Europe. Comparisons between the French and other European empires, especially Britain’s, have played a significant part in the surge of interest in world and imperial history. The large time span covered by the module will encourage students to analyse the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of empire throughout the modern era. A simultaneously comparative and connective approach will familiarize students with several core concepts of world history, including the striking of the balance between change and continuity in long historical narratives and the complex relations between centres and their peripheries. Special attention will be paid to colonial revolutions in a French imperial context such as in Haiti in the eighteenth century, Germany under Napoleon, and Algeria in the twentieth century. Knowledge of French is not required.
Module code: 7YYH0006
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This course examines various aspects of the history of gender in the UK in the first half of the 20th Century, when women gained the vote and were able to take an increasing part in public life. The topics covered include the impact of the First World War on gender relations, whether the women’s movement declined in inter-war Britain, and whether there were significant changes in British women’s life experiences in the 1920s and 30s? It will consider comparative perspectives on the history of gender, particularly in other western European countries, and examine other topics such as sexuality, work, politics and consumption.
Module code: 7YYH0007
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module will examine the history of gender in the UK in the second half of the 20th century. In particular it will consider how women’s lives changed in the 1940s and 1950s, and the extent of the impact of the Second World War. It will ask what happened to the women’s movement in post-war Britain and consider ‘Second Wave’ feminism. It will examine comparative perspectives on the history of gender. Other topics will include the history of gender and work, for example the impact of equal opportunities legislation in the UK and Europe, sexuality, consumption and politics, considered at both a national and local level.
Module code: 7YYH0009
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module, taken either on its own or together with ‘History and Policy: Policymaking under Pressure’, will be of interest to anyone seeking a history MA with a unique and contemporary twist that is clearly relevant and applicable to the present. It is designed both for people who have worked in a policy or media-related field and want to pursue their historical studies in a format relevant to their career and for those looking to go on to doctoral research and be able to demonstrate the impacts of their research in the public sphere. It will consider how policy is made, how history can contribute to the policy-making process, and how it has been used to inform policy decisions.
Module code: 7YYH0008
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module, taken either on its own or together with ‘History and Policy: Long-term Policy Problems’, will be of interest to anyone seeking a history MA with a unique and contemporary twist that is clearly relevant and applicable to the present. It is designed both for people who have worked in a policy or media-related field and want to pursue their historical studies in a format relevant to their career and for those looking to go on to doctoral research and be able to demonstrate the impacts of their research in the public sphere. It will consider how policy is made, how history can contribute to the policy-making process, and how it has been used to inform policy decisions.
Teaching staff: Dr Jahnavi Phalkey
Module code: 7YYI0005
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay and class particpation
This module is aimed at surveying the history of science, technology and medicine in India from the late 18th to the 20th centuries. The module focuses on mapping the introduction of European science and its continuing practice in India. It will pose three questions through current scholarship: when and how was the cultural authority of European science established in India; how was local pursuit of knowledge of the physical world reconfigured in this process; what did the process of accepting the ontology of European science come to mean in the period under discussion?
The module will examine each of our readings to understand how these questions have been addressed in the current scholarship on history of science, technology and medicine in India, especially in relation to the state. In the process of studying these questions, students will develop: a comprehensive understanding of the structure and development of science in India since the mid C18th; the ability to analyse the relationship between western science and Indian social practice and culture; an understanding of the relationship between science and the state; an appreciation of the centrality of science to Indian politics and culture today.
Module code: 7YYH0005
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This course deals with both the theoretical issues relating to oral history and constructing and undertaking an oral history/interviewing project. Topics covered will include:
- The nature and history of oral history
- The problem of memory
- Memory and evidence
- Theories and methods of interviewing
- Ethics and law
- Advocacy and empowerment.
Teaching staff: Mr AbdoolKarim Vakil
Module code: 7AAP0113
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
The story and meaning of the twentieth century is shaped by the historical experiences, and hegemonic interpretations of those experiences, of a very few European/Western countries. When, where and what was the Portuguese twentieth century? This course aims to provide post-nationalist and postcolonial approaches to the political, social, economic and cultural history of the peoples of Portugal and its dependent territories in the period 1910-1998. Although informed by a grand narrative of nation building and politicisation, and organised in terms of the periodisation of three political regimes (I Republic; New State; Democratic Portugal), the foci chosen for each session are deliberately transruptive of lazy contextual wholes and unilinear progressive narratives.
Module code: 7YYH0010
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module will examine the political culture of the UK in the first half of the 20th century. It will consider the ways in which parties have developed and have adapted to change for example with the expansion of the popular vote and the development of mass communication. It will also consider the impact of the two World Wars on party politics.
Key topics will include: political communication, the decline of the Liberal Party, the rise of the Labour Party, the impact of mass suffrage, the General Strike, the formation of the National Government, the recovery of the Conservative Party after 1922 and its hidden dominance from the mid-1930s, and party political structures during the Second World War.
Module code: 7YYH0011
Credit level: 7
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This module will examine the political culture of the UK in the second half of the 20th century. It will consider how the political parties adapted to a mature mass electorate and major changes in mass communication. It will examine how European integration and the decline of Empire have shaped developments in British politics. It considers the patterns of political involvement in both parties and non-party organisations such as CND, and how these have shifted since the end of the Second World War.
Key topics will include: the Second World War and party organisation, the impact of the welfare state on the political parties and voters, political communication, the long periods of Conservative dominance, Labour and permissive legislation, the political crises of the 1970s, the rise of Thatcherism and that of New Labour.
Teaching staff: Dr Paul Readman
Module code: 7AAH3006
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 40 credits
Teaching pattern: 20 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
2 x 4,000 word essays
This module explores patriotism and national identities in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain. What did contemporaries mean by patriotism? Did patriotic considerations play a major part in policymaking? Or did the political significance of patriotism lie more in the realm of popular appeals? To what extent was the language of patriotism a contested one? A particular concern of this module is the relationship between patriotism, national identity and imperialism. Were British nationalisms typically synonymous or compatible with imperialism, or did patriotic loyalties alien to the imperial spirit often intrude? How powerful was ‘Little Englander’ patriotism?
The module takes a thematic approach. Topics include: the politics and culture of rural ‘Englishness’; the constitution and the English past; Edwardian militarism; Labour, Conservative and Liberal patriotism; the Monarchy; gender and nationhood; Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalisms; Race; God and nation; British national identities and world war. While the main focus of this module is political, it is more concerned with the intellectual content of political discourse than the details of partisan politicking. In addition, it pays considerable attention to the role of patriotic and nationalistic discourse in British culture. The politics of patriotism cannot be understood without consideration of the wider cultural context in which these politics were situated.
Teaching staff: Dr Uta Andrea Balbier
Module code: 7YYA0002
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
The importance and dynamic of religion is one of the most striking features of American society. But it is also surprising in that it contradicts the assumption that modern societies are secularized. The course analyzes the role of religious rhetoric in political discourse, the role of different religious pressure groups and the important Supreme Court decisions that are related to the field of religion such as Roe v. Wade. The course will discuss the concept of civil religion, the meaning of the First Amendment in U.S. constitutional history, and contemporary secularization theories. It will provide knowledge of a number of methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding how religion has influenced images of the nation, civic values, and political campaigns in the 20th century. Examining how religion has been contested provides indispensable insights into twentieth-century U.S. culture and U.S. politics.
Teaching staff: Professor Arthur Burns
Module code: 7AAH3004
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 40 credits
Semester:
Full-year
Teaching pattern: 20 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
2 x 4,000 word essays
This module deals with a seminal period in British history which has recently come in for extensive re-examination. The seventy years under consideration were marked by a wide variety of reforming initiatives and a new prominence for ‘reformers’ in the political landscape. Perhaps most familiar is the parliamentary reform tradition which culminated in the ‘Great Reform Act’ of 1832; but there were also significant parliamentary initiatives in local government, administrative reform, social policy, church reform, and law reform. Beyond such political activity and less familiar, there were many extra-parliamentary and less overtly political movements concerned with moral reform, medical reform, artistic reform and reforms of the self. There has long been a tradition of comparing the British reform tradition with a continental revolutionary one; while continental comparisons will be one important component of the module, this module instead will emphasise the importance of bringing together the full range of reforming activities to explore the various dynamics at work, and to pay close attention to matters of linguistic practice and their implications. What initiatives, for example, qualified as ‘reforms’ or allowed their proponents to adopt the persona of ‘reformer’? How did the language of reform come to pervade political and non-political discourses in Britain, and how did its origins influence its future use? How did ‘movements’ come to play such a key role, and what determined their fortunes? How did different social groups interact, and how were these interactions affected by the shared vocabulary of ‘reform’?
Among the topics covered will be: parliamentary reform; economical reform; church reform; municipal reform; law reform; factory reform; reform of the poor laws; the abolition of slavery; the campaign for religious toleration; medical reform; the creation of national art institutions; the conflict over regulation of the theatre; the reformation of manners movement; dietary reform; the parliamentary processes of reform; the ‘movement’ and the ‘platform’; the origins of the language of ‘reform’; the gendering of reform; continental comparisons.
A key text for the module is Rethinking the Age of Reform in Britain, 1780-1850, edited by Arthur Burns & Joanna Innes (CUP, 2003).
Teaching staff: Dr Michael Rowe
Module code: 7AAH3008
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 1 (autumn)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
The French Revolution and triumph of the concept of popular sovereignty can be viewed as representing the political equivalent of splitting the atom. Positively, the immense energies released could be harnessed for a variety of purposes, from waging war to providing welfare. Negatively, they could do immense damage unless contained within the political structures. Europeans, from French revolutionaries to the nation builders of the 1860s and 1870s, struggled to find constitutions that would achieve these ends.
This module looks at the more important constitutions of the period. Teaching is organised in ten two-hour seminars. Eight of these are grouped into four pairs, arranged chronologically and illustrating developments over time and in different nations. The first seminar in each pair provides an introduction to the political context in which the constitutions – whose texts are then examined in detail the following week – came into being. Although each pair of seminars focuses on two constitutions from roughly the same period, other constitutions are also referred to for comparative purposes and in order to achieve a pan-European perspective. The remaining two seminars include an opening seminar that sets out the main themes, and a concluding seminar that returns to these themes and makes comparisons between national traditions and also assesses developments over time.
The overall aim of this module is to analyse, within a comparative international context, the interplay between political ideas, everyday politics, political structures, and political culture. Chronologically, it spans the period from when no European state possessed a constitution to when the vast majority did. The module is centred on a close-reading of European constitutional texts, which are readily available, both in printed form and on the internet, in their original languages and increasingly in English translation. These texts will be supplemented by a mass of secondary sources, including publications in French and German as well as in English.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH3008.aspx
Teaching staff: Dr Jahnavi Phalkey
Module code: 7YYI0014
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 1 (autumn)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay and class participation
What is India? How can we understand contemporary history and politics of India in the global context? And finally, how and to what extent has science been a part of the process of making India? In this course, we will work with these three questions in Indian history for the period roughly between 1930 and the present. We begin with the impossibility of the idea of India divided under imperial rule in the interwar period, and quickly move on to trace the transformation of this landscape in the post]war period - shaped by Cold War politics and the converging interests of various international processes. Cautiously drawing a distinction between science and technology, which were relevant to the historical actors in question, the course will begin with projects promoted by the Indian National Congress and the Imperial government, followed by projects under Nehru's administration in independent India and finally work through the effects and aftermath of India's more recent history of market liberalism. An important goal for this course is to understand the landscape of state-led transformation of India through scientific education and research, while simultaneously paying close attention to responses – both critical and favourable - from the citizens of India, as well as the perception of India in the world at large.
Teaching staff: Dr Jahnavi Phalkey
Module code: 7YYI0015
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay and class participation
This course is aimed at thinking broadly about the experiences and meanings of science and technology for the global population during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will focus on key themes in twentieth century global history: public health, race, global trade, decolonisation, modernisation, the nuclear age, green revolution and population control. We want to understand the normative and moral aspects of the debates and arguments around the "civilizing mission" under European colonialism through "modernization" during the Cold War under the global leadership of the United States and the Soviet Union, and how this transition of world politics was played out globally with respect to science and technology. We will see that interactions between cultures have often been negotiated through practices concerning the control and regulation of territories and populations. The ideas around civilisation and progress that helped legitimate these practices under colonial rule, continued through the period after World War II, providing the foundations for efforts to develop and modernise the emerging decolonised world. Through close attention to ideas and processes (more than on details of specific cases), we will examine the diversity of the historical actors and the context of their interactions.
Teaching staff: Dr Keren Hammerschlag
Module code: 7AAH3014
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module will develop understanding of how the body was visualised in medicine and art during the second half of the nineteenth century. It explores the dominant Victorian narratives of bodily self-control and stoic reserve, and the counter-narratives in which the body was the locus of sensory exploration and dissident display. It will seek to understand how the body was defined and regulated through the bodily sciences of physiognomy and phrenology, and yet how it escaped categorisation because of an increasingly messy relationship between the mind and body with the emergence of psychology. The module will also consider the impact of Darwinian evolution on writings, drawings and paintings of the human body, and the problematic relationship it set up between humans and their animal predecessors. In sum, the body in the nineteenth century will emerge as the contested terrain in debates around health, beauty, and morality, gender, race, and class. The module will utilise the rich visual and literary material from the period, produced within a variety of disciplines, to address the Victorians’ complex engagement with the inside and outside of the body.
Teaching staff: Dr John Price
Module code: 7AAH3010
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module examines the nature of heroism. It seeks to answer questions to the following: What is a hero? What is a heroine? Why is heroism such an important historical phenomenon? Is there a distinctively 'modern' form of it? Many of the examples will be British, however students are encouraged to develop a comparative perspective on the subject. They will also be invited to reflect critically upon both the range of relevant sources (medals and monuments, for example, as well as biographies and autobiographies) and the ways in which historians have approached the subject. Those who were publicly celebrated come from a variety of fields, and indeed there is also a history of forms of achievement. Thus the module will also examine certain key zones -- the church, the military, science, medicine, literature, architecture and so on -- in order to assess their changing status. The professions, class and gender, and their representation, will be central issues in the module.
Teaching staff: Mr AbdoolKarim Vakil
Module code: 7AAH3015
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:
Semester 1 (autumn)
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module offers a historical perspective on the making of the contemporary Muslim question in Europe. Opting for a thematic approach it foregrounds and critically explores different aspects of colonial and postcolonial governance and the emergence of contemporary Muslim subjectivities through detailed discussion of diversely and historically configured spatial contexts and relations of power. Through focused reading of core texts we draw on the lives and experiences of numerous individuals and communities, from colonial subjecthood, and immigration, to postcolonial citizenship, and on the histories, policies and trajectories of a number of European countries from the late nineteenth to the twenty first century.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/modules/level7/7AAH3015.aspx
Teaching staff: Dr Ian McBride
Module code: 7AAH3003
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module will offer a comprehensive overview of the Provisional IRA’s campaign between the eruption of communal violence in Northern Ireland in August 1969 and the final decommissioning of weapons in 2005. It covers the origins of the Provisional IRA; the evolving strategy of the organisation, including the bombing of the British ‘mainland’; the impact of British counter-insurgency operations; the prison conflict that culminated in the Hunger Strikes of 1981; the rise of Sinn Féin and the peace process of the 1990s. At the centre of the subject is the relationship between the Provisionals and the communities in which they lived. The module seeks to encourage students to consider IRA violence using comparative and interdisciplinary literature, drawing upon the work of anthropologists and sociologists as well as historians and scholars working on terrorism. The approach will involve the use of primary sources where possible.
Teaching staff: Professor Carl Bridge
Module code: 7AAH5007
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This course examines twentieth century Australia through the twin prisms of war and society. Issues of identity, gender, class, race and power are investigated in relation to Australia's major wars: the Great War, the Second World War, and the Cold War, including Vietnam. Among the topics covered are the ANZAC myth, the Conscription referenda of 1916-17, the social impact of the Yanks in 1942-45, women and war, Black Diggers, Cold War culture, Vietnam: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll, war art, and war and popular memory. Though firmly based on the political and diplomatic documentary record, the course also addresses a wider range range of texts, including autobiographies, film and other appropriate visual material. Particular attention is paid to historiographical and methodological matters.
Teaching staff: Dr Uta Andrea Balbier
Module code: 7YYA0001
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 5,000 word essay
This course examines American political culture in the 20th Century. It will provide an inter-disciplinary knowledge of different methods and theories to decode American political culture and a sound understanding of the concept of political culture. In thematic sections it will explore the cultural layers of the presidency, of populist and political protest movements. It examines these in the context of the ongoing processes of nation building and identity construction in the United States, especially in their connections to race, gender, popular culture, and the media. In reading U.S. political history through cultural phenomena like scandals, moral panics, and conspiracies, the course provides original insight into the unique nature of American democracy, society, and nation.
ACADEMIC ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
General entry advice
Minimum 2:1 undergraduate honours degree (or overseas equivalent) in history or a related subject such as politics. Students without a history degree may be required to show relevant research skills in order to be accepted.
APPLYING TO KING'S
To apply for graduate study at King's you will need to complete our graduate online application form. Applying online makes applying easier and quicker for you, and means we can receive your application faster and more securely.
King's does not normally accept paper copies of the graduate application form as applications must be made online. However, if you are unable to access the online graduate application form, please contact the relevant admissions/School Office at King's for advice.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
We interview all applicants, either in person or over the phone if they are normally resident overseas. We aim to process all complete applications within four to six weeks although this may take longer in February, March and over holiday periods. You will receive notification when your application has been passed to the admissions tutor for assessment.
PERSONAL STATEMENT & SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Please list the optional modules in which you are interested as part of your personal statement.
FUNDING
Peltz Scholarships
Two scholarships will be offered to the strongest candidates applying to take one of the Masters programmes offered by the History Department on a full-time basis, and without any other scholarship funding. These awards will be available on academic achievement and promise, and are available to UK, EU and overseas students. Each scholarship is worth £5,000. No additional application is necessary: all MA applications submitted by 1 June will be considered. Successful candidates will be notified as soon as possible after 15 June.
Mark Woodhouse Bursary
One bursary will be offered to the strongest full-time applicant to our MA in Modern History who is not in receipt of any other funding. These awards will be available on academic achievement and promise, and are available to UK, EU and overseas students. Each scholarship is worth £1,000. No application is necessary: all MA applications submitted by 1 June will be considered. Successful candidates will be notified as soon as possible after 15 June.
Further details of funding opportunities can be found on our website:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/study/fund/index.aspx
Student profiles
Modern History MAI chose King’s because I’d had such a fantastic time here as an undergraduate. The History Department is one of the best in the country with some of the world’s leading experts in their fields and it has easy access to many libraries and archives, so why would I go anywhere else?
On top of this, there are a wide range of MA modules to choose from, and not only from within the Department. I am currently taking a module from the Institute of Contemporary History on British Political History; one might even do a module from the English or the War Studies Departments.
The tutors are all excellent. At MA the teaching is done in seminars; because of this, there’s a real sense of being treated as an academic equal, with the tutors there to help the discussion and add points, rather than simply lecture. Currently, my favourite seminars are Revolutions and Constitutions in Europe c.1790-1870 and Advanced Skills for Historians: the first because the history of the French Revolution and the nineteenth century in Europe created the foundations for the explosion of the First World War. Advanced Skills is fascinating because we look at how one actually goes about in-depth research in the archives, and how an historian should present those results.
Further, as an alumnus of King’s, the College awarded me an
alumni bursary, which has meant I have a little bit left to fund my dissertation research into a new collection of papers on a Rear-Admiral in Nelson’s navy.
King’s has also given me the chance to play in the King’s Big Band. I play the trombone, and to be able to play jazz with some of the Music Department’s top players has been a huge bonus. We’ve played for BBC TV, the Royal Navy Association and various King’s Societies’ balls. Plus, it has meant meeting and working with people outside of my course and the Department, which is always a good experience.
London as a whole is such a vibrant place. There is so much to see and so much to do, and some of the top attractions are free! The great location of King’s on the Strand means that it is easy to wander up to the National Gallery or have lunch around Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament. King’s is therefore ideally situated to being able to just go and explore the capital.
Staff profiles
Modern History MA
I've recently joined the History Department at King's and have rapidly become involved with a number of master's programmes. I am a cultural historian working across the early-modern and modern periods, and I use both images and objects in my research and teaching. It's thrilling to be located in a part of London where so many important collections are just a few minutes walk away. For example, I take my students to the National Portrait Gallery, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and the Royal College of Surgeons, so that we are working with pictures, sculptures, objects and buildings right in front of us.
My special interest is portraiture, and especially the ways in which groups, such as occupationally-based institutions, use images of leading figures to form their identities. I am just as fascinated by individuals and the creation of heroic reputations. King's is a marvellous base for such research and teaching. I also love doing master's level teaching here because we offer stimulating core modules in which we think about historical practice - a vital part of any graduate training. The friendly informal atmosphere makes working with graduates a real joy, and especially through the dissertation we get to know our students well, and probably learn as much from them as they do from us!