History modules - Final year

Optional modules 

History Dissertation

  • 40 credits 

In this 10,000-word final year research project, students will work on their individual topic in collaboration with a supervisor. Students have individual supervision meetings with their dissertation tutor, working on a topic of the student’s choice. The main focus of the student’s independent work is their analysis of appropriate primary sources to answer the historical question they are addressing.

Some examples of topics researched for a Dissertation include:

  • The Kushan military relationship with Han China: A First Analysis
  • Representations of gender and sexuality in the trial of Joan of Arc
  • The Portrayal of Richard III in historical and fictional works, plus his modern perception in popular culture
  • Urban Encounters: economic and social aspects of daily life in York and London in early medieval England
  • Disunity of Islam: the impact of the Assassins on the Crusader States, c. 1090 to c.1190
  • The impact of the First World War on the working lives of Birmingham’s female working-class munitions workers
  • Downton Abbey - Fact, Fiction or Fantasy? An investigation of servant-master relationships in the early 20th century
  • How did British business interests shape imperial maritime policy in the Middle East: 1900-1918?
  • Thoroughly Modern Witches: The Transmutations of Enchantment 1870-1930
  • A journey of division: An analysis into the changing portrayal of the Berlin Wall in the British press
  • The Black Legend of Borgia: Creation of a Myth
  • The Gin Craze and Crime in Eighteenth Century London
  • Change and Continuity: developing discourse on the plague in seventeenth century England
  • The Tudor Sisters: The Role of Religion in the Relationship between Mary and Elizabeth
  • Appropriating Camelot in nineteenth century culture

Special Subject (A) and (B)

  • 20 + 20 credits 

Students who take at least 60 credits in History may chose an Advanced Option (20 credits) from either the Autumn (A) list or the Spring (B) list (see below).  

Special Subject example modules may include:

  • Games without Thrones? North Atlantic Societies in the wake of the Vikings, c.800-c.1200
  • Global Medieval Cities: Rome, Constantinople, Cairo, and Kaifeng after 1000
  • Chronicling Conquest on the Frontiers of Medieval Europe Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
  • British Women and Internationalism since 1850
  • Empire comes Home: India in the Making of Britain
  • Modern Egypt 
  • Britain and the First World War
  • Dossers: A History of Homelessness in Modern Britain
  • Facing the Fuhrer, the Duce and the Emperor: British Foreign and Defence Policies 1931-1942
  • Gross Indecency to Gay Marriage? Gender and Sexual Minorities in the British World
  • Women and Social Movements in Brazil
  • The Revolting Right
  • Where There Is Discord: Making Thatcher’s Britain
  • Terrorising History: Terrorist Motivations, Methods, and Mayhem
  • The Third Reich

History Optional modules

  • 20 credits

History example optional modules may include:

  • Before Globalization? Afro-Eurasian World History 500-1800
  • Experts, Spies and Scholars
  • Reason and Romance: The Cultural History of Nineteenth-Century Britain
  • Indigenous and Settler Histories
  • America at War: From the Civil War to the War on Terror
  • China in Revolution: China under Mao (1949-1976)
  • Britain and her Soldiers: Society and the Army from the First World War to Afghanistan
  • ‘A holiday from reality’: A history of drugs and drug use in the Modern Era
  • The Making of England, 850-1100
  • Messiahs and Monarchs: Islam and Early Modern Iran
  • Revolution, Regicide, & Republic: The British Civil Wars, 1642-1660
  • Gross Indecency to Gay Marriage? Gender and Sexual Minorities 1885 to the Present
  • History of Technology and Culture in the United States
  • Britain’s Wars of Colonisation and Decolonisation, 1815-1960
  • Black Activisms in the US South: Power, Feminisms, and Black Lives Mattering from 1960-present
  • The Making of the British Raj: Gender, Conquest and Race in early colonial India, c.1757-1885
  • Feeling Politics in 20th Century Britain: Emotions and Politics in Britain From the Stiff Upper Lip to