MA in History

About the course

Hull’s MA in History uniquely combines period-specific and thematic modules to give you the confidence to take part in historical debate beyond your immediate specialism. Widening your analytical lens beyond anything you will have been asked to do at undergraduate level, you will learn to ‘ask better questions’ that would matter just as much to a medievalist or a historian of the present. You join the same community as our postgraduate research students and benefit from the direct supervision of our world-leading experts in historical research.

The exceptional resources available at the University of Hull, and in our city and surrounding region, enable you to cultivate your own interests and strengths. Hull History Centre offers a treasure trove of archive material and our Maritime Historical Studies Centre is globally recognised as a centre for maritime history research. We contribute to Hull’s Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, which has a library of its own. On campus, the Brynmor Jones Library offers more than one million printed texts, and serves as a digital information hub for the University. The breadth of research interests among our academic staff means we can offer an unrivalled range of dissertation topics.

What you'll study

The full-time programme is scheduled over 45 weeks, divided into three 15-week trimesters. The part-time programme is the same but spread over two years.

In Trimester 1, you take our core module, Research Project Management for Historians, and one option matching the period or field of your research from the following: Practising Medieval and Early Modern History; Practising Modern History; Feminist and Gender Politics in History, Theory and Practice. Students who choose the latter will work alongside students in the world-leading GEMMA programme of interdisciplinary gender studies.

In Trimester 2, you choose both thematic options, Power, Authority and Freedom in History and Memory, Meaning and History. Together, these will challenge you to draw conclusions from the past which range beyond your specialist period into a wider field of historical debate.

Future prospects

Students on our MA History programme often aim to continue into doctoral research at Hull or another higher education institution. Those who use their level 7 qualification as a springboard to a career often go into commercial research, teaching, management, law or the Civil Service.

The programme develops a number of key skills for the workplace, including the ability to defend ideas confidently when challenged by others, to challenge accepted practices or ideas with reasoned arguments and to propose solutions to problems using knowledge as the foundation.

The research-planning element of the core skills module develops the ability to manage your own time under pressure. Collaboration and negotiation with other students also develops teamwork and leadership skills. Through the professional development element of the programme, you become adept at expressing your professional attributes with great assurance to potential employers.

In the Memory, Meaning and History module, you also obtain an audiovisual recording of your presentation, which you can show to employers as evidence of the presentation skills you have developed while studying at Hull.