HIST47130: Foundations of Global History

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• This module provides students with training in general historical skills, as well as in the methods and theories distinctive to global history research. As the core module for Global History MA 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 global historical enquiry, but also encourages students to situate their own interests and work with reference to them. Some seminar weeks are organized around significant aspects that shape and structure the pursuit of global 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 trans-national, trans-regional, and trans-local approaches. 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 the central topics and themes current within the practise of global history;
• Understanding of a general range of methods relevant to historical research;
• Understanding of the specific methodological challenges posed by global history research.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Ability to critically interpret the sources of global history, including, inter alia, texts, artefacts, and images;
• Facility with theories, themes, methods relevant to global history;
• Ability to make a targeted historiographical intervention in the scholarly discourse on global history.

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 basis of the student's dissertation topic.

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