MA History / Course details

History Beyond the Nation State is the core course for students interested in modern European and global history. Students will engage with diverse approaches towards European and global history. We will  use transnational and postcolonial approaches to examine key themes cutting across the modern period.  Interrogating core concepts such as modernity, the state, knowledge, identity and power in a variety of contextsStudents will gain a deep and critical understanding of crucial forces driving the history of the modern world, and a range of methods of studying them. 

The course consists of three thematic blocks: 

1) Approaches and Methodologies 

What are the methods to write history outside of national and state frameworks? How and why did these approaches emerge and what problems and advantages do they pose?   

2) Subjects and Scales 

How can historians recover subjective identities, such as those based around gender, sexuality, nationality, race, ethnicity and class?   How can we study the forces shaping them, and assess their role in wider historical developments?   

3) Structures 

What is the meaning ‘of ‘modernity’? How do historians interpret the development and impact of large structures, institutions and forces – such as the state, the public sphere, and technology – defining the modern world? 

To equip students to think comparatively, critically and analytically about modern history.

To allow students to grasp the historiography of modern European and/or World history.

To give students a critical understanding of key concepts and methods useable across the range of modern history.

A series of workshop combining short lectures, group-based tasks and student-led discussion and presentations. Students will be encouraged to form reading groups based on their interests and intended specialisms. 

All key readings for the course will be digitized and available on the blackboard site. Written work will be submitted online via Turnitin on BB. 

-Understand and evaluate core concepts and methods used in the writing of modern history.

- Demonstrate a detailed grasp of theoretical and conceptual debates in modern history.

- Approach specialist regional and thematic historiographies.

• Critically apply complex theoretical models and concepts to in-depth case-studies.
• Be able to understand and analyse links and connections across a variety of historical contexts.
• Formulate a research question based on scholarly literature at the forefront of the disciplines studied and adopt an appropriate method for addressing and answering that question.
• To develop analytical skills which can be applied to primary or secondary material.
• To synthesize in a meaningful and incisive manner a wealth of information gathered and analysed through independent research.
• To identify and assess the significance of historical context for contemporary debates and issues.

• Draw up a specialist bibliography on a research topic.
• Manage a sustained program of regular weekly work.
• Present ideas fluently in writing and oral presentation to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
• Gain experience in problem solving, leadership and teamwork.

• Organise own learning through self-management and work to deadlines.
• Using ICT for research and presentation purposes.
• Display fluent presentation skills orally.
• Write fluent continuous prose.
• Demonstrate the ability to work in a group and show leadership.
• Identify, analyse and apply a wide range of data to formulate and solve problems.
• Ability to bring analytical and research skills to bear on the formulation and design of proposals.

Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (2014) 
C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World: Global Connections and Comparisons (2004). 
Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (2010). 
Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (1993).        
Ato Quayson, Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? (1999). 
Edward Said, Orientalism (1978). 
Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West: Second Edition (2004)