Course summary

Possible start dates are January 2023, September 2023, January 2024. Please see the programme page on our website for more information. The Department of History delivers expert postgraduate supervision by internationally recognised scholars in a wide range of subject areas. The department offers a lively research community in the setting of an exciting city and region with a rich heritage. Excellent research resources are available for postgraduate study locally (for example in the library’s Special Collections department and its print holdings), online through the library’s database subscriptions, and in close proximity to the city. Members of the department publish and supervise research in a range of areas within the broad fields of cultural, social, economic and political history. We cover the medieval, early modern and modern periods, and offer expertise on specialist topics such as public history, global and transnational history, digital humanities, environmental history, imperial and colonial history, contemporary history and the history of medicine. Prospective applicants should make contact with a potential supervisor (please see the staff profiles below) before submitting an application to discuss their proposed research questions, the state of the proposed field of study and appropriate primary source material. MPhil: a standalone, one-year (full-time) research degree. Students will undertake their own research project, concluding in the submission of a 25,000-word dissertation. Students may have the option to audit units from our taught master's courses if they are relevant to their research. PhD: a research project undertaken across four years (full-time, minimum period of study three years), culminating in an 80,000-word thesis. As well as having the option to audit taught units, there may be the potential for PhD students to teach units themselves from their second year of study onwards. The MPhil and PhD can be studied via distance learning.