HIS-40002 Approaches to Historical Research (30 credits, Semester 1)
This module introduces different approaches to the research and writing of history. It aims to broaden your understanding of debates on the status of historical knowledge and provide conceptual and other tools for your own research work. You will consider two broad questions to help you plan and prepare your dissertation: What methodological approach may best suit my project? What, if any, theories may suit my project? Throughout, you’ll be encouraged to reflect on the relevance of the material under consideration to their own research topic, examining the sources and resources available to you.

HIS-40017 Research Skills in the Humanities (15 credits, Semester 1)
You will receive training in the practical and technical skills necessary for postgraduate research in the humanities, so you will be able to plan, then find and use the necessary resources for your research and writing. This includes: relevant University regulations; procedures for managing a research degree; the differences between popular press dissemination of research and academic forms; how to identify issues of research ethic affecting your work; and how to use real-world and digital archives and be creative in looking for primary research sources, such as film archives, digitised magazines and pamphlets, first editions of out of print literature. You will also develop essential personal and professional skills in time, stress and project management.

HIS-40016 Reflective Practice in the Humanities (15 credits, Semester 2)
Reflective practice describes a systematic approach to reflection that involves creating a habit, structure and routine around reflecting on our experiences and engaging in continuous learning. Whether you choose to learn from experience as an individual or with others, there are many benefits to be gained from sharing ideas, experiences and considering how you can change or improve your creative practice. Throughout this module, you will be asked to explore the intellectual connections between your research area and wider fields of study. We look at ‘big ideas’ relevant to contemporary society, such as the concept of ‘post truth’, ‘big data’ and the pulling down of statues, and we work to understand them from the perspective of our disciplines.

HIS-40028 Dissertation (60 credits, studied throughout the course)
Guided by extensive one-to-one supervision from a world leading expert in your field, you will research, plan and write a substantial piece of independent historical research. The module builds upon generic and subject-specific research skills acquired in accompanying modules to communicate the methods, results and conclusions on the research project. The final dissertation is 15,000 words, excluding footnotes, bibliography and annexes. Previous students have, for example, researched: 'Motown and Stax in the American Black Freedom Struggle, 1960-72'; 'Reformation to Repression: German Penal System, 1928-1945'; 'Agency and "Alternative" Relationships in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries'; and 'The Role of Empire in the British Union of Fascists'.

You will study two optional modules from the following, studying one in each of the first two semesters. Please note that optional modules are based on individual staff specialisms and so change each year. This is an indicative list from recent years.

ENG-40057 Work Placement for Humanities Postgraduates (30 credits)
This module is designed to give you an opportunity to contribute to the world beyond the University, in any workplace where the research, analytical, and communication skills developed as part of a postgraduate Humanities degree can be used. The chosen workplace may be, for example, a local museum, theatre, charity, library, school or education provider, marketing company, PR firm, local newspaper, local radio, or another suitable opportunity identified by you and approved by the module leader. While on the placement, you will produce a theoretically informed portfolio critically reflecting on and giving evidence of the activities/outputs completed at your chosen workplace. These may include, for example, researching and producing materials advertising or supporting current or proposed exhibits or performances, researching and producing written or audio pieces, and/or planning small-group educational activities on Humanities-related topics. Advice will be given on identifying and contacting placements and composing a CV in semester 1, and support will be provided throughout the placement, which will usually take place in Semester 2.

HIS-40080, Subject Specialism I (30 credits, Semester 1)
HIS-40082, Subject Specialism II (30 credits, Semester 2)
If you prefer, you can use your optional module choices to dive deeper into a particular historical period, topic or theme which interests you over the course of two semesters. Modified third-year undergraduate modules provide a structured learning environment in which you will undertake detailed specific analysis.* Subject specialism modules are normally recommended if they relate to your specific dissertation topic, if you are returning to higher education after a long absence, or if your earlier degree (or equivalent) was in a different discipline. Full details of all modules available will be provided in the Course Handbook, but please see some options below:

HIS-30134 The Making of Middle Britain: A Northumbrian Nativity (30 credits)
During the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries Britain was dominated by two rival kingdoms: Northumbria and Mercia. This period witnessed the ascendency of a new aristocracy, with both secular and religious faces, which would reshape the landscape of early medieval Britain and become a dynamic part of a broader northwest-European culture. You will study Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and other contemporary works, analysing the formation of the literate culture in which they were created. The hybridity of Northumbria’s historic landscape, its suspension between Irish, British, Anglian and Frankish realms, will form an important theme.

HIS 30132: The Art of Dying: Death and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (30 Credits)

'Dying well' was a fundamental concern for all in medieval and early modern Europe, but what did that mean? This module will explore the history of death in medieval and early modern Europe from c. 1000 to c. 1750. If our society has what Geoffrey Gorer has called a 'pornography of death', whereby all practices surrounding death should be done out of public view, just like sexual pornography, it is important to understand how public death and dying were in medieval and early modern Europe. The module takes a comparative approach, comparing and contrasting ways of dying, burial, attitudes to good and bad death, especially suicide, expectations of the afterlife, and the experience of famine and plague, in medieval and early modern Europe. The ways in which a society treated death reveals a great deal about its assumptions and ideas, and so this module offers a fascinating insight into the social, religious and cultural history of a world which is very different from our own.

HIS-30130: Sites of Sexual Conflict in South Asia (30 credits)

If I was to say sex and South Asia what comes to mind? Do you think of the Kama Sutra, an ancient sex manual? Do you see a place where four countries have been led by women or do you see South Asian women as victims: of rape, honour killings and forced marriages? Did you know that India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all been led, at some time in recent history, by women? Both images are accurate to a degree and have deep roots in the colonial past before 1947 and in the recent history of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This module will study a series of sites where sexuality has been constructed, defined, changed and debated in the Indian sub-continent. We will focus specifically at the way ancient sexual images have been looked at and described and used historically, how does contemporary India deal with nudity? We will look at female spaces, the harem, the zenana, the brothel, the family home and examine power dynamics and representations of each one. And we'll look at sexuality and the law, famous obscenity trials, the colonial law against homosexuality that was just overturned only a few years ago and the attempts by the governments of South Asia to control who people choose as their sexual partners.

HIS-30086 The English Civil War, c.1640-46 (30 credits)
The English civil war was one of the most dramatic events in English history, retaining its hold today over both popular and scholarly imaginations. Many issues of the period - such as the nature of the relationship between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the character of the political process, or what to do about the monarchy - find echoes today. This special subject will seek to explore the character and events of the first civil war in England from the collapse of the king's authority in 1640 to the end of the first civil war in 1646. Topics to be covered will include the causes of the war; the development of Royalist and Parliamentarian parties; the military course of the first civil war; the impact of the war on society; the diversity of religious beliefs; and the political fragmentation of the Parliamentarian cause.

HIS-30127 Gender and Sexuality in Georgian Britain (30 credits)
Georgian Britain presents us with a fascinating paradox. Satirical prints and novels from the period present spectacles of rumbustious, drunken and lusty lives but, at the same time, the UK was developing as a serious-minded imperial and trading power. In this module, you will look at the way in which libertine and reformist traditions battled over the roles of men and women and the degree to which their identities and desires should be regulated in public and in private. Pioneering calls for women's rights and early justifications of proto-homosexual behaviour co-existed with vicious judicial enforcement of often antiquated moral legislation. It provides an opportunity to study the century during which modern constructions of gender and sexuality, with which we live today, were taking shape.

HIS-30145 Extinction: Existential Panic since 1945 (30 credits)
1945 marked a watershed moment in both human and Earth history. For the first time, a single species had the potential to destroy not just its own global population, but that of all other living things as well. Yet over the next half-century, scientists, environmentalists and industrialists managed to identify a seemingly endless list of other existential threats to life on Earth. Many of these - DDT, nuclear winter, global warming, Ozone depletion - were clearly anthropogenic. Others - asteroids, volcanoes, magnetic field reversal - were not. This module will seek to contextualise the existential crises that shaped the late-twentieth century, understand their interrelatedness, and question both their languages and the solutions offered, to better appreciate and understand the complexity of the challenges facing the world today.

HIS-30128 Crisis, Rupture, and Opportunity: German 'Modernity', 1900-1933 (30 credits)
This module provides a new perspective on German history, one before National Socialism. Moving away from a common focus on Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and imperial history, you will instead explore German reactions to the many manifestations of 'high modernity' between 1900 and 1933. Exploring sources of cultural history, you will investigate the options available to men and women of the time, when the 'old' and the 'new' were juxtaposed in many areas of life, including religion, consumption, psychology, aesthetics, the body and national belonging.

HIS-30110 The Making of Contemporary Africa I (30 credits)
Can a continent possess 'a history' or 'a people'? To what extent are ideas of Africa and Africans still tied to race and other colonial legacies? To understand the ways we imagine Africa today, this module examines the cultural, political and economic dialogues which took place regarding Africa c.1945 to the present. While the main focus will be on English-language primary sources and former British colonies, there will also be a chance to compare different colonial legacies within Africa. You will have a chance to read the works of: Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Julius Nyerere, Walter Rodney, George Padmore, and recent works by people like C N Adichie and Thabo Mbeki.

HIS-30101 From Sawbones to Social Hero? Doctors and medicine 1808-1886 (30 credits)
In 1808, the medical profession was largely unregulated and was compelled to diagnose and treat patients without anaesthetic, lacking stethoscopes, and unaware of the existence of germs. By 1886, access to the profession was closely monitored, anaesthetic was routinely administered, and Lister's work on aseptic surgery was being accepted. This was a period of scientific change and professional consolidation with enormous significance for the ways doctors related to patients and the ways the sick formed expectations of their medical practitioners. Analysing aspects of the social history of medicine in 19th century England, you will consider the development of medical relationships from the 1808 County Asylums Act up to the Medical Registration Amendment Act of 1886.

AMS-30035: 'Eyes on the Prize': The Struggle for Civil Rights in America (30 credits)

This module allows students to study one of the most dramatic processes to shape the modern United States: the struggle for African American civil rights. From a South blighted by Jim Crow segregation and lynching to today's America, where equality before the law has been achieved but racial fissures remain, we will assess the aims and achievements of black leadership, and the contribution of ordinary men and women, black and white, northern and southern, to re-shaping American society through activism. The module also addresses the relationship between mainstream civil rights activism and more radical protest that became increasingly prominent as the 1960s progressed.

* Please note, if you were an undergraduate at Keele, you may not take a module which overlaps with your third year special subject.