MA Programmes in History
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For entry in 2012-13, the Arts & Humanities Faculty is offering a number of Fees Scholarships for Masters applicants on a competitive basis. Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Funded Studentships are available too.
If you are interested in doing a MA in History and missed our MA Meeting then you will find Karen Harvey's podcast a useful introduction. Listen to the podcast (47min 57sec) or right click 'Save / Save Link As' to download it.
The University of Sheffield's MA programmes in History offer an outstanding experience for those wishing to pursue an interest in History at an advanced level. Our courses are flexible and can be taken part-time or full-time. They are carefully designed to allow you to build a tailored programme, whether your aim is to develop a deeper understanding of History while acquiring a valuable set of transferable skills, to provide research training for those who ultimately aim to complete a research degree (MPhil or PhD) in History, or to allow professional development for those working in sectors where historical knowledge is valuable.
Regardless of your ultimate goal and chosen programme, all students on the course are provided with high-quality, research-led teaching and training of intellectual and social value.
A welcome message to all prospective students from the Head of Department, Mary Vincent (WMA, 2.8MB).
Our programmes are extremely popular:
95% of our students who would recommend the MA to other people. Many of our modules earn 100% student satisfaction (Department of History Student Evaluations, 2009-10)
Course Structure
Our MA programmes have a number of important features. All of our MA programmes begin in late September or early October and run for a full calendar year. They are modular in format, with modules running for one semester (12 weeks of teaching). You choose modules that total 180 credits (120 credits of taught modules plus the Dissertation worth 60 credits).
Course Duration: 12 months (full-time study) or 24 months (part-time study).
MA Degree Programme Structure (for both full-time and part-time students).
Core and Optional Modules
All MA students take Research Presentation (15 credits).
You will leave the MA having researched, designed and delivered a high-quality presentation at our exciting MA Day Conference in May each year. To see the interesting and original topics our students have covered in the past, see the programmes opposite.
You also take one other core module appropriate to your chosen MA (30 credits), as well as other modules (totalling 75 credits). See below for details of the individual programmes.
- MA in Historical Research
- MA in Medieval History
- MA in Early Modern History
- MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies
- MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies
- MA in American History
- MA in Modern History
- MA in International History
The Director of MA Programmes is Dr. Karen Harvey. You may also find our MA FAQs page helpful.
| Research Culture |
As an MA student here you will be taught and supervised by historians who are at the forefront of historical research. The Department of History is one of the most active centres for historical research in the country. We are committed to research-led teaching; in the last Research Assessment Exercise we were in tenth position nationally ranked by the proportion of our research judged 'world-leading´. The Department has a full-time staff complement of over 30 and over 60 postgraduate students. MA students become part of this research community.
Members of the Department are actively engaged in a wide range of research specialisms, stretching from late antiquity to the early twenty-first century. Particular areas of research-strength include period-specific specialisms such as medieval history, early modern England and Europe, eighteenth-century England and America, contemporary Britain and the United States, and fascist and totalitarian movements in twentieth-century Britain and Europe.
Other areas of research strength are thematic and span several different periods. These include urban history, gender history, imperial and international history, and the history of violence, particularly political and religious violence. In some cases this work leads to collaboration with other departments in interdisciplinary research centres, such as the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, the Centre for Peace History, and the Centre for the Study of Democratic Culture. Much research is also conducted through the Humanities Research Institute, and several history projects are currently based there. Members of our staff have played a pioneering role in making historical sources available in electronic form through a series of prestigious British Academy and Leverhulme-funded research projects; further information about these may be found on the departmental web pages here.
| Postgraduate Student Culture |
The department is proud of its large and active community of postgraduates, who make a very important contribution to the department's research culture. Postgraduate students discuss their research work with each other, regularly organizing informal discussion groups and formal semianr series of their own. There have also in recent years been postgraduate seminars organised under the White Rose scheme by students at Sheffield, York and Leeds.
The Department is a friendly place to study. Our staff make a point of ensuring that all graduate students have the opportunity to meet regularly with other postgraduate students, academics and visiting lecturers for support and the exchange of ideas. MA students are encouraged to attend the departmental seminars and the postgraduate discussion groups that have been established in different fields of History from Early Modern to Imperial and Twentieth-Century History.
Details of the Department research seminar series can be found: here.
| Facilities |
There are excellent facilities for MA in the Jessop West building. On each floor of the History Wing there are fully networked computers for post-graduate students, allowing free and unlimited access to many bibliographical services and the internet. You will also have access to microfilm readers and a scanner with text-recognition software. In the History Wing there are also kitchens and social space which staff and students use for coffee and lunch.