HIST45330: Themes, Readings and Sources

• None

• None

• None

• This module provides MA students with training in historical skills, methodologies, and theories. As the core module for MA History and MA Social and Economic History students, it addresses knowledge and practices particularly relevant to the discipline, supplementing optional modules and preparation for the dissertation. It is designed to guide all students, regardless of their specialism, towards an independent approach to their learning and research. It combines attention to specific primary sources across periods with broad thematic and historiographical concerns.

• The module not only exposes students to major paradigms of historical enquiry, but also encourages students to position their own interests and work next to them. Some seminar weeks are organized around significant aspects that shape and structure the pursuit of History (including the power dynamics that legitimate or obscure certain topics of enquiry and the consequences of archival development and access). Other seminar weeks explore the commitments of particular kinds of approaches or topical subfields, which may include the history of science, postcolonial history, and historical analysis of material culture. Throughout the module, students will be invited to reflect on both existing scholarly literature and their own scholarly practice, including how they can develop research questions and how arguments can be evidenced through a variety of sources. In order to develop communication skills, the module provides guidance on presentation techniques and culminates in a MA conference.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Familiarity with common schemes for categorising sources
• Understanding of the historiography relevant to different historical periods and fields of study
• Understanding of core aspects of the discipline of History

Subject-specific Skills:

• Ability to critically interpret primary historical sources
• Facility with theories, themes, and methods of studied fields of historical inquiry
• Understanding of how to use primary sources to make a targeted intervention in a scholarly discourse

Key Skills:

• Independent research skills, using a wide range of search tools and historical sources
• Advanced ability to synthesise complex material from a wide range of sources
• Ability to formulate complex arguments in articulate and well-structured English, observing the conventions of academic writing, conforming to high academic standards
• Effective oral and written communication
• Facility drawing together disparate forms of historical evidence
• Ability to demonstrate professional conduct through observation of professional and academic standards, including correct editorial referencing of sources
• Personal organisational skills, including time management

• Assessment is primarily by means of a 4,000-word essay that requires the acquisition and application of advanced knowledge and understanding of a topic area related to the module. Essays require a sustained and coherent argument, and must be presented in a clearly written and structured form with appropriate apparatus.
• A smaller portion of assessment is by means of a presentation on the student's own research at the MA conference.

If you have a question about Durham's modular degree programmes, please visit our Help page. If you have a question about modular programmes that is not covered by the Help page, or a query about the on-line Postgraduate Module Handbook, please contact us.

Prospective Students: If you have a query about a specific module or degree programme, please Ask Us.

Current Students: Please contact your department.